Haplocanthosaurus, where it belongs. Cleveland Museum of Natural History

Here is an example from Wisconsin in 1905 of a law banning corporate influence on public policy:¹⁰

No corporation doing business in this state shall pay or contribute, or offer consent or agree to pay or contribute, directly or indirectly, any money, property, free service of its officers or employees or thing of value to any political party, organization, committee or individual for any political purpose whatsoever, or for the purpose of influencing legislation of any kind, or to promote or defeat the candidacy of any person for nomination, appointment or election to any political office.

Penalty: Any officer, employe, agent or attorney or other representative of any corporation, acting for and in behalf of such corporation, who shall violate [this act] shall be punished upon conviction by a fine of not less than one hundred nor more than five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in the state prison for a period of not less than one nor more than five years, or by both … and if the corporation shall be subject to a penalty then by forfeiture in double the amount of any fine so imposed … and if a domestic corporation, it may be dissolved, … and if a foreign or nonresident corporation, its right to do business in this state may be declared forfeited.

Similar Ohio Law, 1908

Section 1, That no corporation doing business in this state shall directly or indirectly pay, use or offer, consent or agree to pay or use, any of its money or property for, or in aid, of any political party, committee or organization, or for, or in aid of, any candidate for political office or for nomination for any such office, or in any manner use any of its money or property for any political purpose whatever, or for the reimbursement or indemnification of any person or persons for moneys or property so used.

Section 3. Every corporation which violates section 1 of this act shall be punished by a fine of not more than five thousand nor less than five hundred dollars… Any officer, stockholder, attorney, or agent of any corporations which violates section 1 of this act who participates in, aids, or advises any such violation, and any person who solicits or knowingly receives any money or property in violation of this act shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than one year or a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or both at the discretion of the court.¹¹

Other Wisconsin Laws

From research by Jane Anne Morris:¹

• corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.
• corporations’ licenses to do business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).
• the state legislature could revoke a corporation’s charter for a particular reason, or for no reason at all.
• the act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.
• as a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents could be held criminally liable for violating the law.
• state (not federal) courts heard cases where corporations or their agents were accused of breaking the law or harming the public.
• directors of the corporation were required to come from among stockholders.
• corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.
• corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, like 20 or 30 years (instead of being granted “in perpetuity,” as is now the practice.)
• corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations in order to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.
• corporations’ real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purpose(s).
• corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.
• corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.
• state legislatures set the rates that corporations could charge for their products or services.
• all corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.

All of these provisions were once law in the state of Wisconsin. And similar ones were on the books in most other states.

Sources

¹ ‘Fixing Corporations: The Legacy of the Founding Parents’ by Jane Anne Morris, Madison, Wisc.

² ‘Some Like It Hot’ By Chris Mooney, Mother Jones May/June 2005 Issue

In 1989, the petroleum and automotive industries and the National Association of Manufacturers forged the Global Climate Coalition to oppose mandatory actions to address global warming. …

…

[W]ith the release of the IPCC’s third assessment in 2001, a strong consensus had emerged: Notwithstanding some role for natural variability, human-created greenhouse gas emissions could, if left unchecked, ramp up global average temperatures by as much as 5.8 degrees Celsius (or 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by the year 2100. “Consensus as strong as the one that has developed around this topic is rare in science,” wrote Science Editor-in-Chief Donald Kennedy in a 2001 editorial.

Even some leading corporations that had previously supported “skepticism” were converted. Major oil companies like Shell, Texaco, and British Petroleum, as well as automobile manufacturers like Ford, General Motors, and DaimlerChrysler, abandoned the Global Climate Coalition, which itself became inactive after 2002.

Yet some forces of denial—most notably ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute, of which ExxonMobil is a leading member—remained recalcitrant. In 1998, the New York Times exposed an API memo outlining a strategy to invest millions to “maximize the impact of scientific views consistent with ours with Congress, the media and other key audiences.” The document stated: “Victory will be achieved when…recognition of uncertainty becomes part of the ‘conventional wisdom.’” …

Though ExxonMobil’s Lauren Kerr says she doesn’t know the “status of this reported plan” and an API spokesman says he could “find no evidence” that it was ever implemented, many of the players involved have continued to dispute mainstream climate science with funding from ExxonMobil. …

³ ‘Put a Tiger In Your Think Tank’ Mother Jones May/June 2005 Issue

ExxonMobil has pumped more than $8 million [from 2000 to 2003] into more than 40 think tanks; media outlets; and consumer, religious, and even civil rights groups that preach skepticism about the oncoming climate catastrophe.

⁴ ‘Medicare for All: The Only Sound Solution to Our Healthcare Crisis’ By Guy T. Saperstein, AlterNet, January 16, 2007.

The United States has the most expensive healthcare system on the planet. Even including the 47 million uninsured, the U.S. healthcare system costs almost double per capita what single-payer systems in Europe, Japan and Canada cost; in the United States, healthcare costs were $5,635 per person in 2005.

⁵ Bill Moyers Journal, July 10, 2009

The House Energy and Commerce Committee found that the major private health insurers had rescinded the policies of approximately 20,000 people in a five year period, to avoid paying out approximately $300 million in benefit claims.

⁶ ‘Familiar Players in Health Bill Lobbying Firms Are Enlisting Ex-Lawmakers, Aides’ by Dan Eggen and Kimberly Kindy, July 7, 2009, The Washington Post

The nation’s largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosures and other records.

…

The hirings are part of a record-breaking influence campaign by the health-care industry, which is spending more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying in the current fight, according to disclosure records. …

The push has reunited many who worked together in government on health-care reform, but are now employed as advocates for pharmaceutical and insurance companies.

⁷ ‘An Inside Story of Wall Street Bank Crashes’ The Paragraph, December 26th, 2008

⁸ ‘Capital City’ by Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, Jan.-Feb. 2010

let’s take a virtual stroll down K Street and see what everyone is spending on the world’s second-oldest profession. It’s all laid out for us by OpenSecrets.org. The defense lobby? Pikers. They contributed $24 million to individuals and PACs during the last election cycle. The farm lobby? $65 million. Health care? We’re getting warmer. Health care was the No. 2 industry, at $167 million.

And the finance lobby? They’re No. 1, with a very, very big bullet. They contributed an astonishing $475 million during the 2008 election cycle. That’s up from $60 million almost two decades ago.

⁹ ‘Don’t Reinflate the Old Bubbles’ By Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post, October 14, 2009

What we’re witnessing here is pretty simple: another bubble in financial assets. All that “liquidity” created by the Federal Reserve and other central banks has accomplished its task and prevented a global financial meltdown. But unless they move now to begin sopping up that liquidity, the central bankers run a serious risk of reinflating many of the same bubbles that got us into this mess in the first place.

…

The problem is that because we didn’t get into this recession in the normal way, the normal analysis and remedies are not appropriate. Slow growth and high unemployment are indeed going to be a big problem over the next several years, but they aren’t going to be solved by pumping out lots of cheap money that is used to speculate in stocks, bonds and commodities rather than be invested in the real economy. And if all this speculation has the effect of driving up the price of commodities and driving down the value of the dollars we use for imports, then it is perfectly possible to wind up with high inflation and high unemployment at the same time — as happened in the late 1970s.

The right policy response is for the Fed to begin withdrawing some of this extraordinary monetary stimulus even as the rest of the government steps up its effort to stimulate the real economy. That means more money for extended unemployment benefits; more aid to the states so that they can maintain the most vital public services; and more money to expand mass transit, state college and university systems, efficient energy production and basic scientific research. The economist Paul Krugman estimates that for every dollar in extra debt that will be required to finance this fiscal stimulus, about 40 cents will be repaid almost immediately in the form of tax revenues from higher short-term economic growth. And if the money is invested wisely in quality projects with high returns, the other 60 cents could wind up being a boon to future generations, rather than a burden.

¹⁰ ‘Wisconsin statutes. 1919: embracing all general statutes in force …, Volume 2, section 4479a’ edited by Lyman Junius Nash, Arthur Frederick Belitz

¹¹ ‘DEMOCRACY FOR SALE: How Ohioans Kept Corporations out of Politics; How and When They Re-entered’ — American Friends Service Committee

By Quinn Hungeski – Posted at TheParagraph.com

Now in my job I travel around the world and I occasionally play to big stadiums or crowds like this, just like Senator Obama does. And I continue to find out that wherever I go, America remains a repository for people’s hopes, their desires. It remains a house of dreams. And a thousand George Bush’s and a thousand Dick Cheney’s will never be able to tear that house down. That’s something that only we can do, and we’re not going to let that happen.

…

[O]ur house of dreams has been abused, it’s been looted, and it’s been left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power, and for influence, for a quick buck. It needs strong arms, strong hearts, strong minds. We need someone with Senator Obama’s understanding, his temperateness, his deliberativeness, his maturity, his pragmatism, his toughness, and his faith. But most of all it needs us — it needs you and it needs me. And he’s gonna need us. Cause all that a nation has that keeps it from coming apart is the social contract between us, between its citizens. And whatever grace God has decided to impart to us, it resides in our connection with one another, and in our life and the hopes and the dreams of the man or the woman up the street or across town — that’s where we make our small claim upon heaven.

Now in recent years that social contract has been shredded. We look around today and we can see it shredding before our eyes. But tonight and today we are at the crossroads. We are at the crossroads, and it’s been a long, long, long time coming.

…

So I don’t know about you, but I know I want my country back, I want my dream back, I want my America back! Now is the time to stand with Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, roll up our sleeves, and come on up for the rising.

Bruce Springsteen’s monologue — CNN

This Land is Your Land:

Sources

Bruce Springsteen’s monologue, Cleveland, 2008-11-02 [VIDEO] [TRANSCRIPT]

Set List – Point Blank

• The Promised Land
• Youngstown
• Thunder Road
• Working on a Dream (with Patti Scialfa)
• This Land is Your Land
• The Rising

‘Obama rally draws crowds to downtown Cleveland’ – The Plain Dealer Politics Blog

By Quinn Hungeski – Posted at G.N.N. & TheParagraph.com

Ohio Voter Information

• Register by Monday, October 6th: If registering by mail, the envelope must be postmarked on or before October 6th. You can also register in person at a public library, motor vehicle bureau or county board of elections. For info and an online form to fill in and print out CLICK HERE.

• Check your registration: The State of Ohio now provides a search form to check that you are registered and give your polling location — CLICK HERE. If the online search does not find your registration, you can call your county elections board to check — for a directory of elections boards CLICK HERE.

• Absentee ballot: You can vote an absentee ballot by mail or in person at the elections board, without giving a reason, from Tuesday, September 30th, till the day before the election — INFO HERE. For an online absentee ballot request form to fill in and print out CLICK HERE

• Register and Vote same day: You can register and vote an absentee ballot the same day, from Tuesday, September 30th, through Monday, October 6th, at your county elections board office — for a directory of elections boards CLICK HERE.

• Vote (and bring ID): Election day is Tuesday, November 4th, voting hours are from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Bring your driver’s license, state photo ID or an ID showing your voter registration address, such as a utility bill — INFO HERE. For an Ohio sample ballot CLICK HERE.

• No vote challenges allowed at polling places: In 2004, long lines at some polling places were further slowed by Republican vote challengers. State law now requires challenges to be issued before election day.x⁹¹x⁸⁷

• Contribute: You can contribute to state candidates and get your money back as a credit on your Ohio income tax — up to $50 filing singly, or $100 filing jointly. The credit applies to these offices: governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, auditor of state, treasurer of state, attorney general, member of the state board of education, chief justice of the supreme court, justice of the supreme court, or member of the general assembly.x⁸⁹

Sources

Ohio Secretary of State’s Office

⁸⁰ ‘Analysis: Ohio 5-Day Window Suit’ by Sarah Cherry, Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University, September 25, 2008

Every newly registered early and absentee voter in Ohio — not just those who apply to vote an in-person absentee ballot— could be affected if the court decides that the Republicans’ interpretation of the law is correct and that a voter must be registered for 30 days prior to applying for an absentee ballot. Local officials probably do not currently check all absentee voters’ records to make sure the voter has been registered for 30 days before issuing an early or absentee ballot. However, with this lawsuit, the Republicans are now seeking to make that the practice. Changing the process by which local officials process ballot applications and distribute absentee ballots this late in the election season could cause substantial confusion and disorder.

⁸¹ ‘Ohio election officials brace for early voting’ By STEPHEN MAJORS, AP, 2008-09-30

For weeks, the Ohio GOP accused the state’s Democratic elections chief of interpreting early voting law to benefit her own party in a crucial swing state.

But the Republican-dominated Ohio Supreme Court decided on Monday that Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner was following the law when she ruled there is a six-day window in which voters can register and vote at the same time.

The decision — also backed by two separate federal judges — means election officials are preparing for the rush of early voting Tuesday, the first day absentee ballots are accepted in advance of the Nov. 4 presidential election.

⁸² ‘Vote Caging and the Attorney General’ by J. Gerald Hebert and Brian Dupre, The Campaign Legal Center, July 23, 2007

The Republican National Committee has been under a federal consent decree not to engage in the practice since getting caught in the 1981 gubernatorial election in New Jersey. Despite the injunction, which remains in effect, vote caging schemes continue to be used as an integral part of an ongoing campaign to suppress minority voting rights.

To bring these schemes to an end will require vigorous prosecution by the United States Department of Justice. But the Department’s priorities have shifted over the years, with the Bush-Ashcroft-Gonzales Justice Department not only ignoring vote caging schemes, but actively working to give them a boost in the courts.

⁸³ ‘Inside the Vote Cage: Griffin, Goodling and McNulty (No, Not Another Lawfirm)’ by J. Gerald Hebert, The Campaign Legal Center, June 20, 2007

“Sometimes vote suppression is as important in this business as vote-getting.” – Carl Golden, Republican Campaign Spokesperson

…

Vote caging is an illegal voter suppression technique used to keep minorities (mostly blacks) from voting. It’s a relatively-unknown cousin in the nefarious family of vote suppression techniques. The practice has been adopted and perverted from a practice utilized by direct-mailers to clean up their mailing lists by sending out mail to specific individuals and seeing what comes back. The real problems start when political operatives start cherry picking areas likely to vote against their candidates. And it’s inextricably connected to concerns about the politicization of the Justice Department being raised on Capitol Hill.

⁸⁴ ‘Ohio secretary of state prevents vote caging’ By BEN ADLER, Politico, 9/13/08

Kevin DeWine, a Republican in the Ohio State House of Representatives who authored the 2006 law, says it is not an undue burden on people whose mail is returned to show an identification card at the voting booth or to vote provisionally. “People think provisional ballots are a bad thing,” he said. “I think they are a safeguard on the integrity of the ballots.”

⁸⁵ ‘GOP Plans and Denials to Challenge Foreclosed Voters Examined’ By J. Gerald Hebert , Campaign Legal Center Blog, September 29, 2008.

As for Ohio, the initial story there suggested that an Ohio GOP official would not rule out the possibility that the party would challenge voters at the polls stating. Quoting the Franklin County GOP chairman, the Columbus Dispatch reported that Priesse “didn’t rule out challenges before Nov. 4.”

The latest story this week on possible efforts to challenge foreclosed voters came from the NY Times, and contained this passage: “Asked whether his party planned to use foreclosure information to compile challenge lists, Robert Bennett, a spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party, said the party did not discuss its election strategies in public.” While this is not an admission that a plan exists to use foreclosure lists to challenge voters, it sure isn’t a denial either.

⁸⁶ ‘Secretary Brunner Clarifies Challenge Laws to Protect Voters’ – Ohio Secretary of State’s office, 9/5/2008

Providing guidance to local election officials, Secretary Brunner directed that 60-day notices sent by boards of election to voters that are returned as undeliverable cannot be used as the sole reason for cancelling an Ohioan’s voter registration. These notices are required by law to be sent to voters by boards of elections.

Secretary Brunner also called on the General Assembly to amend this voter registration challenge law passed in 2006, urging that the law conflicts with federal law and violates the U.S. Constitution.

…

In Friday’s directive, Secretary Brunner also advised boards of elections that providing due process on challenges to voter registrations will diminish the likelihood of election lawsuits that can disrupt election planning and administration. The directive requires: providing every challenged voter with notice and an opportunity to be heard; holding a public hearing on all challenges; and holding all hearings prior to Election Day.

⁸⁷ ‘Foreclosed-on voters using old addresses could snag election’ By Robert Vitale, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH, July 6, 2008

Although pre-election challenges still are possible, state law now bars party challengers at polling places.

⁸⁸ ‘Ohio elections chief challenges registration law’ The Associated Press, September 07, 2008

A review conducted by her lawyers found that the state law violates federal voting rights laws and the U.S. Constitution, making Ohio counties vulnerable to lawsuits should they use the returned mail as the sole reason for canceling a registration, Brunner said.

Undelivered election notices become public records when they are returned to county boards of elections. A political party could then file a public records request and challenge those voters’ eligibility, especially in precincts where the opposite party has a majority. The process is known as “vote caging.”

The 2006 law enables local election officials to side with the challengers before giving the voters a chance to respond, Brunner said.

⁸⁹ League of Women Voters of Ohio

Any Ohioan who pays state income tax is entitled to claim a 100 % tax credit for contributions to Ohio candidates, up to a limit of $50 per individual or $100 for two persons filing jointly. The tax credit applies only to statewide (including the Ohio Supreme Court but not including U.S. Senate) and to state legislative candidates.

⁹⁰ ‘Was the 2004 Election Stolen?’ by ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., Rolling Stone, Jun 01, 2006

To stem the tide of new registrations, the Republican National Committee and the Ohio Republican Party attempted to knock tens of thousands of predominantly minority and urban voters off the rolls through illegal mailings known in electioneering jargon as ‘‘caging.’‘ During the Eighties, after the GOP used such mailings to disenfranchise nearly 76,000 black voters in New Jersey and Louisiana, it was forced to sign two separate court orders agreeing to abstain from caging.(63) But during the summer of 2004, the GOP targeted minority voters in Ohio by zip code, sending registered letters to more than 200,000 newly registered voters(64) in sixty-five counties.(65) On October 22nd, a mere eleven days before the election, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett — who also chairs the board of elections in Cuyahoga County — sought to invalidate the registrations of 35,427 voters who had refused to sign for the letters or whose mail came back as undeliverable.(66) Almost half of the challenged voters were from Democratic strongholds in and around Cleveland.(67)

There were plenty of valid reasons that voters had failed to respond to the mailings: The list included people who couldn’t sign for the letters because they were serving in the U.S. military, college students whose school and home addresses differed,(68) and more than 1,000 homeless people who had no permanent mailing address.(69) But the undeliverable mail, Bennett claimed, proved the new registrations were fraudulent.

By law, each voter was supposed to receive a hearing before being stricken from the rolls.(70) Instead, in the week before the election, kangaroo courts were rapidly set up across the state at Blackwell’s direction that would inevitably disenfranchise thousands of voters at a time(71) — a process that one Democratic election official in Toledo likened to an ‘‘inquisition.’‘(72) Not that anyone was given a chance to actually show up and defend their right to vote: Notices to challenged voters were not only sent out impossibly late in the process, they were mailed to the very addresses that the Republicans contended were faulty.(73) Adding to the atmosphere of intimidation, sheriff’s detectives in Sandusky County were dispatched to the homes of challenged voters to investigate the GOP’s claims of fraud.(74) — LaRaye Brown, ‘‘Elections Board Plans Hearing For Challenges,’‘ The News Messenger, October 26, 2004.

⁹¹ ‘Was the 2004 Election Stolen?’ by ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., Rolling Stone, Jun 01, 2006

In another move certain to add to the traffic jam at the polls, the GOP deployed 3,600 operatives on Election Day to challenge voters in thirty-one counties — most of them in predominantly black and urban areas.(157) Although it was billed as a means to ‘‘ensure that voters are not disenfranchised by fraud,’‘(158) Republicans knew that the challengers would inevitably create delays for eligible voters. Even Mark Weaver, the GOP’s attorney in Ohio, predicted in late October that the move would ‘‘create chaos, longer lines and frustration.’‘(159)

…

In fact, Blackwell gave Republican challengers unprecedented access to polling stations, where they intimidated voters, worsening delays in Democratic precincts. By the end of the day, thanks to a whirlwind of legal wrangling, the GOP had even gotten permission to use the discredited list of 35,000 names from its illegal caging effort to challenge would-be voters.(162) According to the survey by the DNC, nearly 5,000 voters across the state were turned away at the polls because of registration challenges — even though federal law required that they be provided with provisional ballots.(163)

By Quinn Hungeski – Posted at G.N.N. & TheParagraph.com

27-mile-long boat trail (Google Map)

The Vermilion River cuts into the shale at Mill Hollow. (Lorain County Metro Parks)

Vermilion River at Mill Hollow (Back Roads and Beaches) Photo by Mark Teleha

Marina on the Vermilion River in the city of Vermilion (myphotoalbum.com)

Lorain Harbor lighthouse (ckpiros @ webshots.com)

Black River in Lorain, Ohio (Back Roads and Beaches Blog)

The boat trail passes under a hiking trail in the Black River Resservation. (Lorain County Metro Parks)

A Great Blue Heron takes off from the Black River (Back Roads and Beaches Blog)

See more Lorain County photos at Lorain County Photographer’s Blog.

Sources

¹ ‘Metro Parks to dedicate boat trail’ by Alison Dietz, The (Elyria) Chronicle-Telegram, 2008-07-18

² ‘Ohio Navigability Report’ – American Whitewater

Summary: Ohio is kind to recreational boaters. Ohio allows the public to use streams capable of floating recreational boats (e.g., kayaking and canoeing). Factors for determining whether the public has a right to use a stream (besides physical characteristics of the stream) include the stream’s history of public use for recreational boating and the existence of public access. There is some evidence that Ohio boaters may have the right to portage, although no definitive law on the subject exists.

State Test of Navigability: Navigation for pleasure and recreation is regarded as just as important as navigation for a commercial purpose by the Ohio courts.1) A watercourse in Ohio is navigable if it is capable of being used for recreational boating.2) If it is a naturally navigable watercourse, it is public. …

By Quinn Hungeski – Posted at G.N.N. & TheParagraph.com

The Boston Tea Party was a direct action against a corporate monopoly that led to the birth of the United States. The raiders of the Tea Party pledged silence for 50 years. One of them, George R. T. Hewes, lived that long and got his story published. He tells how the British government tried to give the East India Company, the biggest corporation of the day, a monopoly on tea, the biggest drug of the day:x⁷⁰

The [East India] Company … received permission to transport tea, free of all duty, from Great Britain to America … Hence it was no longer the small vessels of private merchants, who went to vend tea for their own account in the ports of the colonies, but, on the contrary, ships of an enormous burthen, that transported immense quantities of this commodity, which by the aid of the public authority, might, as they supposed, easily be landed, and amassed in suitable magazines.

The East India Company sent big loads of tea to American cities:

Accordingly the Company sent its agents at Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, six hundred chests of tea, and a proportionate number to Charleston, and other maritime cities of the American continent. The colonies were now arrived at the decisive moment when they must cast the dye, and determine their course …

Philadelphia and New York sent the tea back:

At Philadelphia, those to whom the teas of the [East India] Company were intended to be consigned, were induced by persuasion, or constrained by menaces, to promise, on no terms, to accept the proffered consignment.

At New-York, Captain Sears and McDougal, daring and enterprising men, effected a concert of will between the smugglers, the merchants, and the sons of liberty. Pamphlets suited to the conjecture, were daily distributed, and nothing was left unattempted by popular leaders, to obtain their purpose.

Among the pamphlets circulating was The Alarm by Rusticus, which warned that the American colonies could meet a fate like that of Bengal, which underwent famine while the East India Company had a monopoly on grain trade:x⁷¹

Are we in like Manner to be given up to the Disposal of the East India Company, who have now the Assurance, to step forth in Aid of the Minister, to execute his Plan, of enslaving America? Their Conduct in Asia, for some Years past, has given simple Proof, how little they regard the Laws of Nations, the Rights, Liberties, or Lives of Men. … Fifteen hundred Thousands, it is said, perished by Famine in one Year, not because the Earth denied its Fruits; but [because] this Company and their Servants engulfed all the Necessaries of Life, and set them at so high a Rate that the poor could not purchase them.

The public felt the moment of truth was near:

In Boston the general voice declared the time was come to face the storm. Why do we wait? they exclaimed; soon or late we must engage in conflict with England. Hundreds of years may roll away before the ministers can have perpetrated as many violations of our rights, as they have committed within a few years. The opposition is formed; it is general; it remains for us to seize the occasion. The more we delay the more strength is acquired by the ministers. Now is the time to prove our courage, or be disgraced with our brethren of the other colonies, who have their eyes fixed upon us, and will be prompt in their succor if we show ourselves faithful and firm.

On November 28th, 1773, the first of the tea-bearing ships docked in Boston Harbor, and the morning after, as Hewes recounts, a notice was published:

Friends, Brethren, Countrymen! That worst of plagues, the detested TEA, has arrived in this harbour. The hour of destruction, a manly opposition to the machinations of tyranny, stares you in the face. Every friend to his country, to himself, and to posterity, is now called upon to meet in Faneuil Hall, at nine o’clock, this day, at which time the bells will ring, to make a united and successful resistance to this last, worst, and most destructive measure of administration.”

Unlike in Philadelphia and New York, the governor and receiving agents in Boston would not send the tea back. So the Bostonians placed guards to watch the ships, and send an alarm should they start to unload.

The factors who were to be the consignees of the tea, were urged to renounce their agency, but they refused and took refuge in the fortress. A guard was placed on Griffin’s wharf, near where the tea ships were moored. It was agreed that a strict watch should be kept; that if any insult should be offered, the bell should be immediately rung; and some persons always ready to bear intelligence of what might happen, to the neighbouring towns, and to call in the assistance of the country people.”

After some days, the ship commanders declared that on December 17th they would unload the tea by force if needed:x⁷²

The tea … was contained in three ships, lying near each other at what was called at that time Griffin’s wharf, and were surrounded by armed ships of war, the commanders of which had publicly declared that if the rebels, as they were pleased to style the Bostonians, should not withdraw their opposition to the landing of the tea before a certain day, the 17th day of December, 1773, they should on that day force it on shore, under the cover of their cannon’s mouth.

On the day before the threatened day, a throng gathered — riled and ready to dump tea:

Things thus appeared to be hastening to a disastrous issue. The people of the country arrived in great numbers, the inhabitants of the town assembled. This assembly … was the most numerous ever known, there being more than 2000 from the country present.

… the public mind [was] already wrought up to a degree of desperation, and ready to break out into acts of violence, on every trivial occasion of offence….

Finding no measures were likely to be taken, either by the governor, or the commanders, or owners of the ships, to return their cargoes or prevent the landing of them, at 5 o’clock a vote was called for the dissolution of the meeting and obtained.

But cooler members got the crowd to stay and further consider the gravity of such action. One of them, Josiah Quiney, gave this warning:

… Greatly will he deceive himself, who shall think, that with cries, with exclamations, with popular resolutions, we can hope to triumph in the conflict, and vanquish our inveterate foes. Their malignity is implacable, their thirst for vengeance insatiable. They have their allies, their accomplices, even in the midst of us – even in the bosom of this innocent country; and who is ignorant of the power of those who have conspired our ruin? Who knows not their artifices? Imagine not therefore, that you can bring this controversy to a happy conclusion without the most strenuous, the most arduous, the most terrible conflict; consider attentively the difficulty of the enterprise, and the uncertainty of the issue. Reflict [sic] and ponder, even ponder well, before you embrace the measures, which are to involve this country in the most perilous enterprise the world has witnessed.

The crowd gave the governor one more chance, then ended the meeting and headed for the docks:

The question was then immediately put whether the landing of the tea should be opposed and carried in the affirmative unanimously. Rotch [a local tea seller], to whom the cargo of tea had been consigned, was then requested to demand of the governor to permit to pass the castle [return the ships to England]. The latter answered haughtily, that for the honor of the laws, and from duty towards the king, he could not grant the permit, until the vessel was regularly cleared. A violent commotion immediately ensued; and … a person disguised after the manner of the Indians, who was in the gallery, shouted at this juncture, the cry of war; and … the meeting dissolved in the twinkling of an eye, and the multitude rushed in a mass to Griffin’s wharf.

The raiders went in disguise:

It was now evening, and I immediately dressed myself in the costume of an Indian, equipped with a small hatchet, which I and my associates denominated the tomahawk, with which, and a club, after having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired to Griffin’s wharf, where the ships lay that contained the tea. When I first appeared in the street after being thus disguised, I fell in with many who were dressed, equipped and painted as I was, and who fell in with me and marched in order to the place of our destination.

The boarding parties acted deliberately, and did no damage except to the cargo:

We were immediately ordered by the respective commanders to board all the ships at the same time, which we promptly obeyed. The commander of the division to which I belonged, as soon as we were on board the ship appointed me boatswain, and ordered me to go to the captain and demand of him the keys to the hatches and a dozen candles. I made the demand accordingly, and the captain promptly replied, and delivered the articles; but requested me at the same time to do no damage to the ship or rigging.

We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard, and we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water.

In about three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus broken and thrown overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship, while those in the other ships were disposing of the tea in the same way, at the same time. We were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us.

The raiders resolved that all of the tea be destroyed, and none be used:

… there were several attempts made by some of the citizens of Boston and its vicinity to carry off small quantities of [tea] for their family use. …

One … came on board for that purpose, and when he supposed he was not noticed, filled his pockets, and also the lining of his coat. But I had detected him and gave information to the captain of what he was doing. We were ordered to take him into custody, and just as he was stepping from the vessel, I seized him by the skirt of his coat, and in attempting to pull him back, I tore it off; but, springing forward, by a rapid effort he made his escape. He had, however, to run a gauntlet through the crowd upon the wharf nine each one, as he passed, giving him a kick or a stroke.

The raiders kept their identities secret, even among themselves:

We then quietly retired to our several places of residence, without having any conversation with each other, or taking any measures to discover who were our associates; nor do I recollect of our having had the knowledge of the name of a single individual concerned in that affair, except … the commander of my division … There appeared to be an understanding that each individual should volunteer his services, keep his own secret, and risk the consequence for himself. No disorder took place during that transaction, and it was observed at that time that the stillest night ensued that Boston had enjoyed for many months.

The Boston Tea Party led to the British blockade of Boston Harbor, the battles of Lexington & Concord, the American Revolutionary War, and the U.S. Constitution.x⁷³ Shortly after the Constitution was adopted in 1787, Thomas Jefferson tried to amend it to add a declaration of rights:x⁷⁴

By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies.

Jefferson got all but two of those into the Bill of Rights. One of the missing rights was the “freedom of commerce against monopolies” — the one that could today dampen the need for further “tea parties”.

(Boston Tea Party Historical Society)

Sources

⁷⁰ ‘America’s First Anti-Globalization Protest – The Boston Tea Party’ excerpt from Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann

⁷¹ ‘Bengal famine of 1770’ – Wikipedia

About 10 million people, approximately one third of the population of the affected area, are estimated to have died in the famine. …

Fault for the famine is now often ascribed to the British East India Company policies in Bengal. According to others, however, the famine was not a direct fault of the British regime, but was only exacerbated by its policies. …

As lands came under company control, the land tax was typically raised by 5 times what it had been – from 10% to up to 50% of the value of the agricultural produce. … As the famine approached its height, in April of 1770, the Company announced that land tax for the following year was to be increased by a further 10%.

The company is also criticised for forbidding the “hoarding” of rice. This prevented traders and dealers from laying in reserves that in other times would have tided the population over lean periods, as well as ordering the farmers to plant indigo instead of rice.

By the time of the famine, monopolies in grain trading had been established by the Company and its agents. The Company had no plan for dealing with the grain shortage, and actions were only taken insofar as they affected the mercantile and trading classes. …

⁷² ‘Eyewitness Account by George Hewes’ – Boston Tea Party Historical Society

⁷³ ‘Timeline of Events Preceeding the Boston Tea Party’ – Boston Tea Party Historical Society

⁷⁴ ‘Jefferson’s Dream: The Bill of Rights’ – excerpt from Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann

By Quinn Hungeski – Posted at G.N.N. & TheParagraph.com

On Saturday the 8th the ore boat Charles S. Price shoved off at Ashtabula, Ohio, into Lake Erie with a load of coal and without its first assistant engineer. Milton Smith had chosen to skip the last voyage of the 1913 season — and any early November gale that might arise — and had taken the train home to his wife and children in Port Huron, Michigan. After midnight on Sunday morning, as the Price steamed up the St. Clair River and past Smith’s house into Lake Huron, a gale was blowing in from the northwest. That afternoon sailors on the downbound (south-going) H.A. Hawgood saw the Price fighting its way upbound as it passed. The Hawgood had been heading into the storm north of Saginaw Bay, when it turned around to seek safety at the St. Clair River and let the gale blow itself out. But, instead of blowing out, the gale became the White Hurricane. By dark the snow “got so thick we couldn’t see the smokestack”, reported the Hawgood‘s captain. “The seas went right over the pilothouse.” Later, the Hawgood ran up on a beach at the southern end of the lake, and its crew survived. Likely the Price also turned and headed back toward the foot of Lake Huron, where it would have had to turn again to avoid running aground. On that final turn, the Price may have gotten caught sideways in a deep trough between the waves, and rolled. Its upturned hull floated for several days, and the papers speculated on the identity of “the mystery ship”, until a diver went down to read its name. On Tuesday the 11th, after the storm had quieted, seven bodies of sailors from the Price washed ashore in Ontario near Port Franks. On Thursday, a week and a day after leaving the Price, Milton Smith boarded the train in Sarnia, and headed for the makeshift morgue to identify the bodies of his shipmates.

Another ore boat upbound on Lake Huron that Sunday, when the White Hurricane raged, was the George C. Crawford. The boat fought the waves to north of Point Aux Barques with winds “blowing great guns”, according to Captain Walter C Iler. Waves rushed over the deck and boilerhouse through a broken skylight into the engine room, smashed the ship’s galley and drenched the crew’s sleeping rooms. So, like the captains of the Hawgood and the Price, Captain Iler decided to turn his boat around to seek calmer waters. While heading back down, Iler could make out the passing upbound ore boat Argus through the snow and waves. He later recalled what he saw just after the boat passed by. “The Argus seemed to crumple like an eggshell,” he said. “Then, she was gone.” Bearing that horrible image, the crew of the Crawford had to tend their boat as it ran fast with the wind and the mountainous waves towards the foot of Lake Huron. “It snowed for a solid twenty-six hours,” Iler later recalled. “We hadn’t seen a thing, but were guided by the sounding machine. It gave us excellent service.” Not being able to see to find the St. Clair River, Iler decided to turn around before running out of lake and ripping into the shoals. But the boat got stuck in a trough and could not climb out, so the captain ordered the anchors thrown. The anchors grabbed and the ship came around, but soon the anchor chains snapped, and once again the storm pushed the Crawford towards the shore. Around 2 A.M. Monday a lull in the wind allowed the boat to turn, and it once again battled upbound on its original course towards the Soo Locks. On Tuesday the battered boat reached the St. Marys River that leads to the Soo. In the calm, the crew wielded steam hoses to melt the thick ice off the deck, and found something stunning. Hundreds of rivets were missing, and cracks ran across several of the inch-thick steel deck plates. The crew might have pictured then how their own boat could have crumpled like the Argus. Records show that the Crawford did not finish its last voyage of 1913, but turned back to Toledo for repair. And in the spring of 1914 it set out again.

The Detroit News, November 13, 1913

the upturned bow of the 504 ft (154 m) Charles S. Price

Source: ‘White Hurricane: A Great Lakes November Gale and America’s Deadliest Maritime Disaster’ by David G. Brown, 2002, International Marine / McGraw-Hill

After the press of westward settlement, and the U.S. Army, drove out the Indians, the government fashioned a road through the Great Black Swamp to the land of milk and honey beyond. “A bank of muck and mud twenty feet wide and about three feet high was build mostly by Ox Power,” wrote a dweller, C. H. Opperman, of the Maumee and Western Reserve Road (now US 20)x⁵⁷. “Nearly all … who took the swamp route regretted their unwise decision, for many of them had ox teams to draw their high-wheeled covered wagons. Often the Oxen would sink to their bellys and the wheels to the hubbs and in many cases made only a mile or two of progress in a day.” So 31 inns rose to stand along the 31 miles of road and aid the slow moving pioneers⁵⁸. Some men would claim a mud hole and charge money to pull wagons out of it. One traveling pioneer spent his life savings of $100 on getting pulled out of mud holes. So he stopped and staked out his own mud hole, and made his money back before he carried on.

After settlers claimed the land around the Great Black Swamp, later settlers turned their sights inside it. “No night was too dark or precinct too sacred for [the mosquitoes] to get in their work,” wrote J. R. Tracy of living on the 80 acres his father bought on a sand ridge in the heart of the Great Black Swamp (where Bowling Green now stands)x⁵⁹. “Many a meal was eaten with a smudge under the table and many a would be sleeper owed what rest he secured to the smoke that overspread his bed and compelled his bloodthirsty assailants to retire.” The mosquitoes also brought malaria to swamp dwellers. Tracy described his bout with it: “If there is anything in this world that will stay by a fellow when it has found him it is the ague. My! How it will snuggle up to him, and hug him, and squeeze him, and shake him, and freeze him, and then bake him and fry him, until it would seem every drop of moisture is out of him …” After receding, the fever would sometimes return with double strength in a day or two: “And so the round went on, week by week, month by month, sometimes year by year (Brother Isaac was held two years, didn’t go to school or do a day’s work in that time).” Another swamp settler, Robert Fenton, also lived the hardship of malaria, as well as slow travel, dangerous animals, and the lack of a local mill to grind the grain⁶⁰. But he looked back on it like this: “We were happy, since we all were on about a common level and the exigencies of the situation made us alert, active and energetic. We had to be up and doing and we rather seemed to enjoy it.”

In 1840 the Great Black Swamp stood at its last years of full glory. From then on more settlers came in and cut down trees, and some dug ditches to drain water off their land – often on to their neighbor’s⁶¹. After a big outbreak of the waterborne disease cholera, the Ohio government in 1859 gave counties the power to seize land for more effective ditching. When farmers found that surface ditching left their land still too soggy, some tried underground drains of loose stone, or of pairs of planks nailed into a “V” and laid open end down. These underground drains did not work nearly as well as clay tile, but it was too costly to bring clay tile in. Then in the 1860’s, after someone discovered the bed of clay under the topsoil, many drainage tile factories arose. The factories’ kilns were fed by the swamp’s clay and fired by the swamp’s trees. And by 1900 the kilns’ product had drained and dried the Great Black Swamp. In its place lay fine farmland, with crops growing on a 10,000 year-old compost heap.

The Great Black Swamp (Maumee Valley Historical Society)

The Everglades (USGS)
The Everglades historic boundary is marked here by the yellow line. It includes the area of sheet water flow from Lake Okeechobee to the sea, and excludes some adjacent wetlands.

Black Swamp Conservation and Restoration Area
A 110 acre tract in Wood County, Ohio

Sources

⁵⁰ ‘Lost Ohio’ by Randy McNutt, 2006, Kent State University Press, P.114

⁵¹ ‘Wetlands – Did you know?’ – Ohio EPA

The Great Black Swamp was Ohio’s largest wetland. The swamp was once 120 miles long and about 40 miles wide. In 1859, the “ditch law” was passed to allow the installation of pipes to drain the swamp for agriculture and development. Today, only five percent remains in scattered areas throughout northwestern Ohio.

⁵² ‘Background of the Entire Everglades/Florida Bay Ecosystem’ – South Florida Water Management District

The present Everglades has been subdivided by the construction of canals, levees, roads and other facilities and has resulted in the loss of connections between the central Everglades and adjacent transitional wetlands. …

… the historical Everglades that once extended over an area approximately 40 miles wide by 100 miles long, from the south shore of Lake Okeechobee to the mangrove estuaries of Florida Bay.

⁵³ ‘The Great Black Swamp’ by Jim Mollenkopf

For thousands of years much of northwest Ohio lay covered by a vast, luxuriant swamp. According to early observers parts of it were watery meadows, veritable seas of living, moving green that would undulate beautifully in a summer breeze. Other parts of it were majestic and untouched forests, cathedralesque stands of oak, sycamore and hickory trees that soared skyward and blocked out the sun. Still other parts of it were thick, impenetrable brush and wild growth. Its thousands of square miles spread over all or parts of 12 counties stretching east to west from Sandusky, Ohio to near Fort Wayne, Indiana and north to south from the Maumee River valley to near Findlay, Ohio.

⁵⁴ ‘THE HISTORY OF LAKE ERIE’ by Michael C. Hansen

Fertile clays deposited on the lake bottom during high-water stages and the wetland areas that remained when lake levels dropped form one of the richest agricultural regions of the state. The beaches which formed along the shorelines of these higher lake stages are preserved as ridges elevated above the nearly flat former lake beds. …

…

The sandy beach deposits rising above the nearly flat lake plains, especially in the region called the Black Swamp, in northwestern Ohio, captured the attention of Native Americans and European explorers and settlers because the ridges provided dry passage through the swamps formed on the former lake beds.

⁵⁵ ‘Frontier Fauna – Ohio’s Wild Heritage’ – OHIO STATE PARKS MAGAZINE, FALL/WINTER 2005/2006

As Ohio’s frontier days came to a close, the impenetrable woods of the Great Black Swamp of northwest Ohio became a last refuge for elk, wolves and lynx. …

⁵⁶ ‘The Great Black Swamp II’ by Jim Mollenkopf, © 2000 Lake of the Cat Publishing, Toledo, Ohio, P.37

… For the Indian, “the Maumee River was a delightful homne and a secure retreat,” one unknown early writer recorded. “Its banks were studded with their villages, its rich bottomlands covered with their corn, while their light canoes glided over a beautiful current which was at once a convenient highway and an exhaustless reservoir of food. Forest, stream and prarie produced, spontaneously, and in superabundance, game fish, fruits, nuts, – all things necessary to supply their simple wants.”

⁵⁷ Ibid, P.114

⁵⁸ ‘The Great Black Swamp’ by Jim Mollenkopf, © 1999 Lake of the Cat Publishing, Toledo, Ohio, P.41

⁵⁹ ‘The Great Black Swamp II’ by Jim Mollenkopf, © 2000 Lake of the Cat Publishing, Toledo, Ohio, pp.49-52

⁶⁰ ‘The Great Black Swamp’ by Jim Mollenkopf, © 1999 Lake of the Cat Publishing, Toledo, Ohio, pp.24-25

⁶¹ ‘The Great Black Swamp II’ by Jim Mollenkopf, © 2000 Lake of the Cat Publishing, Toledo, Ohio, pp.59-62

Four years ago Congress was told we have no alternative but to go to war. That was wrong. Now Congress is telling the American people we have no alternative but to continue the war and that by continuing the war for just another year or two, we will then be able to end the war. War equals peace? I don’t think so.

This war has achieved a momentum that has swept up into its tragic hold people of otherwise good will who would vote to continue a war when they really want peace and when the American people want peace.

I believe you cannot say that you are for peace and vote to keep this war going. … You cannot say you are for peace and give the President enough money not just to keep this war going, but to attack Iran if he so chooses.

Kucinich’s words carry weight, because he has been right about the Iraq war all along. In the fall of 2002, when Congress was considering the act that gave President Bush war powers in Iraq, Kucinich handed out to his fellow congressmen an analysis of the bill that time has largely proved correct⁵³x⁵⁴:

• “This language is so broad that it would allow the President to order an attack against Iraq even when there is no material threat to the United States.”

• “A unilateral attack on Iraq by the United States will cause instability and chaos in the region and sow the seeds of future conflicts all over the world.”

• “Unilateral action against Iraq will cost the United States the support of the world community, adversely affecting the war on terrorism.”

• “There is no credible evidence that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.”

• “There is no connection between Iraq and the events of 9/11.”

The House passed the Iraq war powers act with near unanimous Republican support, but Kucinich’s fellow Democrats voted heavily against it (126-80)x⁵⁵.

Kucinich went on in his speech to boost the Iraq bill that he proposed – H.R. 1234⁵⁶:

… what Congress has the power to do is to stop the war now, use the money in the pipeline to bring the troops home, set in motion a diplomatic process that would involve the world community in moving into Iraq as our troops move out.

H.R. 1234 would put into effect Kucinich’s twelve-point Iraq plan that he drew up working with military experts and U.N. peacekeeping and security experts⁵⁷. The bill is based on several findings, among which are that the U.S. occupation fuels the insurgency in Iraq, and that a U.S. declaration of intent to withdraw would give an opening to start negotiations for a peaceful settlement. The bill makes several policy statements, among which are that the U.S. should end the occupation now while a U.N.-led peacekeeping force comes in, that the Defense Department should use readily available existing funds to bring the troops home, and that the Defense Department should order a return of all U.S. contractors and turn over all contracting work to the Iraqi government. The bill would require troops to be withdrawn within three months and prohibit use of funds for continued deployment, except for a safe and orderly withdrawal, the negotiations, and the peacekeeping force. H.R. 1234 now waits in committee.

Like the Iraq funding bill the House passed, the one the Senate is considering has a troop withdrawal clause⁵⁸. But Bush said he would veto any bill with such a requirement. If Bush vetoes the war funding, and if Kucinich is right about enough money being in the pipeline for withdrawal, then the only responsible course that I see would be to end the occupation as laid out in H.R. 1234. But what if Bush, hell-bent for Iraq from his first day in office, holds out to cause a funding crisis with the two-billion-dollar-a-week occupation (while blaming Democrats for it)x⁵⁹x⁶⁰? How could we break this impasse? Something Kucinich said on the House floor two weeks ago points to one way⁶¹:

Since war with Iran is an option of this Administration, and since such war is patently illegal, then impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran.”

Sources

⁵⁰ ‘Supplemental budget with Iraq War timeline passes House by razor-thin margin’ by Michael Roston, Raw Story, March 23, 2007

⁵¹ H.R. 1591: U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health, and Iraq Accountability Act, 2007

⁵² ‘H.R. 1234 IS THE VEHICLE FOR PEACE’ – Rep. Kucinich (D-OH), U.S. House of Representatives, 2007-03-23

⁵³ ‘Pre-Iraq-war documents reveal Kucinich 2002 analysis accurately predicted subsequent events’ – Kucinich news release, 2007-03-08

⁵⁴ ‘Analysis of Joint Resolution on Iraq’ by Dennis J. Kucinich – pdf

⁵⁵ H. J. Res. 114 [107th]: Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002

⁵⁶ H.R. 1234 – full text

⁵⁷ `HR 1234 The Plan to End the Iraq War’ – kucinich.us, 2007-01-12

⁵⁸ ‘Senate panel passes war-funding bill – with Iraq deadline’ – Associated Press, 2007-03-22

⁵⁹ ‘America Puts Brakes on Drive for More War’ – The Paragraph, 2006-11-30

⁶⁰ ‘Cost of Iraq war nearly $2b a week’ By Bryan Bender, The Boston Globe, September 28, 2006

⁶¹ ‘IRAN’ – Rep. Kucinich (D-OH), U.S. House of Representatives, 2007-03-15

During the ramp-up for President George W. Bush’s Iraq war, there came rushing towards the clicking machinery of Greenhouse’s office a runaway train – the Halliburton War Profits Express. Vice President Dick Cheney, after serving as Secretary of Defense in the Bush I administration, had gone through the government-corporate revolving door to lead Halliburton to become a major recipient of military contracts²¹. Halliburton wanted the $7 billion, cost-plus Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) contract. “[O]nce the OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) delegated responsibility for the RIO contract to the Department of the Army, control … by the OSD should have ceased,” Greenhouse testified at a Democratic Senate hearing²². “However, the OSD remained in control … In reality, the OSD ultimately controlled the award of the RIO contract to KBR (a Halliburton subsidiary) and .. the terms … even over my objection to specific terms …” Two specific terms Greenhouse objected to were the lack of competitive bidding and the five-year duration. In December 2003, a Defense Department audit showed that, under the RIO contract, KBR had over-charged the government for fuel by $61 million. One day when Greenhouse was sick and working from home, the Commander of the USACE, Lt. Gen. Flowers, gave KBR a blanket waiver for the overcharge²³x²². “They wanted to get this one through without a lot of scrutiny from Bunny Greenhouse,” she said. “I would not have allowed my boss to sign such a document.” Over the course of this and KBR’s other, larger Iraq contract (LOGCAP), it has gotten $16 billion in taxpayer money and its CEO, David Lesar, has gotten $100 million in pay²⁴x²⁵.

In October 2004 the Corps’ deputy commander, Maj. Gen. Robert Griffin, informed Greenhouse that she would be removed as PARC, and offered her early retirement. “At that point I knew that my ability to resolve the issues within the USACE had terminated,” she said. “I had no other alterative … but to file a formal request for investigation with the then-Acting Secretary of the Army and to appropriate members of Congress.” “What Bunny is caught up in is politics of the highest damn order,” said (retired) Gen. Ballard³⁵. “This is real hardball they’re playing here. Bunny is a procurement officer, she’s not a politician. She’s not trained to do this.” On August 27th, 2005, Greenhouse was finally demoted³⁶. “[I was] taken totally out of contracting,” she said. “Placed as a program manager with no programs and no taskings, you know, to actually do²³.” That same day, President Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana because of Hurricane Katrina, and another round of rush, no-bid contracts were set to be handed to KBR²⁶.

With Republicans time-after-time voting against Democratic calls for investigation of and new laws against war profiteering²⁴x²⁷x²⁸x²⁹x³⁰, and with news of KBR abuses of their LOGCAP contract – ghost charges, waste, over-charges, delivering bad food and water to the soldiers – in July, 2006, the Army announced an end to that KBR contract³¹x²⁴x³². The Army said it would break the work into three parts – but KBR could still bid. “Well, it’s time,” Greenhouse said³³. “And I hope that it’s absolutely not a window dressing. … When you don’t see the … ultimate of competition that you know is gonna bring best value for those war fighters out there who are sacrificing, we need to make sure that the behavior of those contractors are changed. … It’s a great day.” “Bunny has a lot of faith,” said her husband Aloysius, a career Army man³⁵. “She really believes that someone will stand up and say, ‘This is wrong.’ But I don’t think a person exists like that in the Department of Defense.”

Greenhouse recalled: “When I was going to the first hearing, the acting general counsel [of the USACE] … let me know in no uncertain terms that it was not in my best interest … to have testified. And remember, contracting – the lineage of that authority comes from Congress³³. So, what right do I have if Congress is calling me to explain some of the improprieties or some of the concerns that I may have had. … You know, we are in a democracy … [and] I am a civil servant.”

Bunnatine (Bunny) Greenhouse – Time Magazine

Notes

Ohio: How U.S. Senate candidates stood on amendments to curb war profiteering:

• Sherrod Brown (D) voted for a House amendment to ban contracts to “any contractor if the Defense Contract Audit Agency has determined that more than $100,000,000 of the contractor’s costs for contracts involving work in Iraq under one or more Army contracts were unreasonable²⁷.” Ohio Democrats voted 4-2 for the amendment, and Republicans voted 11-1 against it. (Counting not voting as a No vote).
• Mike DeWine ( R ) voted against a Senate amendment to create new penalties — including up to 20 years in jail — for government contractors convicted of inflating the cost of goods or services. It was defeated 52-46, with all Republicans voting against it, and all Democrats, but Zell Miller, voting for it³⁰.”

Impeachment: In a June 2006 report, the Democratic minority of the House Judiciary Committee listed as one of Bush’s and Cheney’s violations of law: “Federal laws concerning retaliating against witnesses and other individuals, for example, demoting Bunnatine Greenhouse, the chief contracting officer at the Army Corps of Engineers, because she exposed contracting abuses involving Halliburton³⁴.”

Sources

²⁰ ‘A Web of Truth’ – By Neely Tucker, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, October 19, 2005; Page C01

²¹ ‘Halliburton, Dick Cheney, and Wartime Spoils’ by Lee Drutman and Charlie Cray, Common Dreams

²² ‘Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing – An Oversight Hearing on Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in U.S. Government Contracting in Iraq – Bunnatine Greenhouse, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ June 27, 2005 – pdf

²³ ‘NOW Transcript’ – PBS, 10/14/05

²⁴ ‘War Profiteers Profits Over Patriotism in Iraq’ by Robert L. Borosage, Eric Lotke and Robert Gerson; Campaign fo America’s Future; September 2006 – pdf file

²⁵ ‘What if ‘Daddy Warbucks’ Came Clean?’ – By Charlie Cray, Guerrilla News Network, 22 Sep 2006

²⁶ ‘Big, Easy Iraqi-Style Contracts Flood New Orleans’ By Pratap Chatterjee, Corpwatch.org “Chief among these contractors are companies such as Halliburton and Bechtel, which have been awarded pre-bid, limited bid, and sometimes no-bid contracts to assess the damage, provide emergency shelters and fix the infrastructure.”

²⁷ ‘Profiteer* Votes and Campaign Contributions since September 11: U.S. House of Representatives (109th Congress)’ – Campaign for America’s Future

²⁸ ‘Profiteer* Votes and Campaign Contributions since September 11:  U.S. Senate (109th Congress)’ – Campaign for America’s Future

²⁹ ‘Rage erupts over profiteering clause’ By Klaus Marre, The Hill, Nov 5, 2003

³⁰ ‘GOP blocks war-profiteering amendment’ By John Stanton, CongressDaily, June 17, 2004

³¹ ‘Halliburton Hearing Unearths New Abuse’ By Pratap Chatterjee, Corpwatch.org

³² ‘Cheney’s Halliburton Loses Its Iraq Cash Cow’ – By Charlie Cray, TomPaine.com, July 31, 2006

³³ ‘NOW Transcript – Show 228’ – PBS, 7/14/06

³⁴ ‘The Constitution in Crisis ‘ – Democratic Minority of the House Judiciary Committee, June 2006

³⁵ ‘Army Whistleblower Draws Fire’ By DEBORAH HASTINGS, The Associated Press, Sunday, August 7, 2005

³⁶ ‘Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing – An Oversight Hearing on Whether the Army Corps of Engineers Retaliated Against Whistleblowers Who Objected to Iraq Contracting Abuses – Bunnatine Greenhouse, Former Top-Ranking Civilian Contracting Officer United States Army Corps of Engineers September 16, 2005 – pdf

Ohio Voter Information

• Register by October 10th: If registering by mail, the envelope must be postmarked on or before October 10th. Here is a link to the registration form. You can register in person at a public library, motor vehicle bureau or county board of elections – info here.

• Check your registration: Call your county board of elections or the state-wide elections hotline (866-687-8683) – info here

• Absentee ballot: You can vote an absentee ballot by mail or in person at the elections board, without giving a reason, from now till the day before the election – info here

• Vote (and bring ID): Election day is Tuesday, November 7th, from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Bring your driver’s license, state photo ID or an ID showing your voter registration address, such as a utility bill – info here

• Contribute: You can contribute to state candidates and get your money back as a credit on your Ohio income tax – up to $50 filing singly, or $100 filing jointly. The credit applies to these offices: governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, auditor of state, treasurer of state, attorney general, member of the state board of education, chief justice of the supreme court, justice of the supreme court, or member of the general assembly. See info here

Sources

¹ ‘Was the 2004 Election Stolen?’ by ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., Rolling Stone

² ‘Testimony of Jennifer Brunner before Ohio Senate Rules Committee’ Wednesday, December 7, 2005 – pdf file

Since 2002, according to the League of Women Voters, there have been only four
individual instances of vote fraud in the entire State of Ohio. Mandating a technical and
cumbersome identification process is a “solution” that creates a problem.

This provision disproportionately affects the elderly, the impoverished and minority
communities in Ohio. It also affects many young and first-time voters who may not have
yet obtained a proper form of ID. A recent Wisconsin study finds that 30% of youth from
18 to 24 years do not have official state identification, with 98% of college students
having only non-local IDs. The League of Women Voters in Ohio found that 4% of
adults 18 and over do not have a driver’s license or state issued ID, more than 300,000
Ohioans. Many elderly Ohioans no longer have driver’s licenses.

…

At the same time, because you are eliminating the ability for the board of elections or
Secretary of State to utilize split shifts of poll workers, you have a retiree working the
13-plus-hour day at the polling place who must use discretion to determine if the ID
presented is valid. All the while, lines keep getting longer, people are getting tired,
pollworkers are getting tired, and people are upset and uncertain about being told they
can only vote a provisional ballot, when many times, they have known their pollworkers
for years, and their pollworkers know them. …

³ ‘Am. Sub. H.B. 3 126th General Assembly (As Passed by the General Assembly)’ Effective date: May 2, 2006; certain provisions effective June 1, 2006, and January 1, 2009

Requires all voters to provide to election officials at the polling place on the day of an election proof of the voter’s identity in the form of a current and valid “photo identification” (see below), a military identification that shows the voter’s name and current address, or a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document, other than a previously mentioned notice of an election or a notice of voter registration mailed by a board of elections, that shows the voter’s name and current address. If the voter provides a driver’s license or a state identification card that does not contain the voter’s current residence address, the voter must provide the last four digits of the voter’s driver’s license number or state identification card number; the precinct election official must then mark the poll list or signature pollbook to indicate that the voter has provided a driver’s license or state identification card with a former address and record the last four digits of the voter’s driver’s license number or state identification card number. (R.C. 3503.16(B)(1)(a) and 3505.18(A)(1).)⁵

⁴ ‘Why Common Cause-Ohio had to go to court on HB 3’ by Samuel Gresham, Common Cause – .doc file

We always believed that this legislation as structured would have the net effect of deterring and disenfranchising several classes of voters in the state of Ohio. Older Ohioans that do not have the proper identification, as outlined in the bill, such as a driver’s license or a utility bill that identifies them by name and address, will have more difficulties executing their right to vote. Students who live in university housing that may not have an address that identifies their residence will find their ability to register and execute their right to vote more difficult. Individuals who move frequently or persons with no evidence of permanent residency will find it difficult both to register and to exercise their right to vote.

It is the opinion of the leadership of Common Cause Ohio that HB 3 could be a devastating piece of legislation that could reverse all the voter registration and voter turnout gains of our organizations and sister organizations over the last eight years.

⁵ ‘Ohio: HB 3 Would Make It Harder to Vote, Harder to Ensure Accuracy, Harder to Recount’ By John Burik, Phil Fry, Susan Truitt, and Pete Johnson, CASE Ohio, January 30, 2006