Snoopers Out of Jobs

Helen Jones-Kelley, the head of the Ohio agency that snooped in Ohio computer records searching for dirt on Joe the Plumber has resigned after going on unpaid leave for a month. Two other managers were fired.

Two senior managers suspended for their roles in the scandal that spiced this year's presidential campaign also are leaving, The Dispatch has learned. The administration fired Doug Thompson, deputy director of child support. Fred Williams, assistant agency director, resigned effective Jan. 31.

The action came soon after the Republican-controlled General Assembly approved a measure cracking down on state workers who improperly conduct checks involving Ohioans' personal information.

Republicans complained that Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, who promised to set a high ethical standard as governor, was letting Jones-Kelley off too lightly. Now, Strickland must decide whether to sign the bill, which Republicans say is a step toward restoring Ohioans' trust in government.

"The institution of state government and the trust is paramount and stands above any of us, and I think she made the right decision," House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, said.

Both Strickland and Jones-Kelley rejected calls for her dismissal last month after a report by Inspector General Thomas P. Charles found that the database checks that Jones-Kelley approved on Toledo-area resident Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were for no legitimate government purpose.

I'd call that a good start. She and the other people who used the computer records to search for dirt broke Ohio law and violated the public trust.

There are still other Ohio officials who used the computer systems to check Joe's records, and their status is still up in the air. I'd like to see criminal prosecutions go forward against these people because they not only violated the public trust, but actively engaged in a chilling of dissent and free speech by their conduct. The mere act of asking questions was sufficient to get these people to abuse their positions and run computer searches to try and dig up dirt on Wurzelbacher.

In fact, the media did much of the same - finding out more details about Wurzelbacher than they have done on Obama's relationships with Tony Rezko and Ron Blagojevich.

Yet, Jones-Kelley thinks that this now eliminates a political distraction from pressing state business. Maybe she should have thought of that before using her political position to further the partisan political agenda of her chosen candidate when he was outed as nothing more than a redistributionist tax and spend Democrat by a guy on the street who merely asked questions that the media steadfastly refused to do throughout Obama's coronation.

You Don't Say: Joe the Plumbers Records Searched Improperly

Well, this should surprise absolutely no one, even the most partisan Obama supporters. What the Ohio politicians did to Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, was nothing short of criminal.

Even Governor Ted Strickland, a Democrat, has been forced to take action in the matter, suspending Helen Jones-Kelley for her running searches on Joe and claiming that they were part of some official government policy, although what she did is not only a firing offense, but criminal:

Strickland announced today that Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Department of Job and Family Services, will be placed on unpaid leave for one month in response to an inspector general's investigation.

The investigation found Jones-Kelley had no legitimate reasons to check on Toledo-area resident Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, who was popularized as "Joe the Plumber" by Republican presidential candidate John McCain. It also confirmed she improperly used her state e-mail account to raise campaign money for President-elect Barack Obama.

Some Republican leaders, who cited the report's findings to call on Democrat Strickland to fire Jones-Kelley, were stunned that she will remain on the job.

"The actions described in this report cross the line of what you can do and lead a state agency. She violated the public trust," said House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering.

"The governor's lack of firm action here sends a message he is going to be tolerant of a state government that acts in inappropriate ways. He promised a higher standard and this is a lower standard."

Jones-Kelley was far from alone in running computer searches on Joe, as several other agencies were involved, but no one did so from as high a position as Jones-Kelley.

The inspector general's report found that the e-mails violated Strickland's policy on political activity and constituted a "wrongful act" as an inappropriate use of state resources.

The report also faulted other agency employees for their role in the computer checks on Wurzelbacher.

The report found that assistant agency director Fred Williams and Doug Thompson, a deputy child-support director, bore some responsibility for the checks run the day after the Oct. 15 presidential debate.

"Thompson's conduct is further called into question" by his directing a Job and Family Services employee to send a "deceptive" e-mail to another agency official explaining that the check she ran on Wurzelbacher was for child-support purposes.

Ohio Suspends Helen Jones-Kelley For Her Actions

Well, this is actually a belated surprise. Helen Jones-Kelley, who authorized searches into Joe Wurzelbacher's records in Ohio databases, has been suspended from her job as investigators continue looking into her actions. Ohio Governor Ted Strickland finally got around to suspending her.

Ohio Job & Family Services director Helen Jones-Kelley, a supporter of President-elect Barack Obama, was suspended after a check of state computers and state e-mail found connections to political fundraising, which is not allowed on state property.

The fundraising activity related to Obama's campaign, to which Jones-Kelley contributed $2,500.

"Today, I have decided to place Ohio Department of Job and Family Services Director Helen Jones-Kelley on paid administrative leave due to the possibility, as yet unconfirmed, that a state computer or state e-mail account was used to assist in political fundraising," Gov. Ted Strickland said in a statement.

Jones-Kelley was already under investigation by the state inspector general's office for authorizing a personal records search on Joseph Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber.

"I have asked Inspector General Tom Charles to include this matter in his current, ongoing investigation," Strickland said. "Also, I have asked Cabinet Secretary Jan Allen to serve as acting director of the agency."

She gave the asinine answer that such searches of famous people were routinely conducted when Wurzelbacher became a household name as Joe the Plumber after he asked Barack Obama about his economic policy and Obama replied with the now infamous comments on redistribution of wealth.

There was no legitimate reason for her, or anyone else, to conduct those searches. There are specific guidelines to carry out database searches, and they're specifically designed to prevent partisan abuse, which is precisely what Jones-Kelley engaged in. She had her subordinates carry out searches, despite the fact there is no policy to do so.

Suspension is only a good start. Criminal sanctions should be forthcoming as well.

The Ohio Obama Plumbers; The Plot Thickens

As bad as the crime was, the coverup is invariably always worse. Ohio's Director of Job and Family Services, Helen Jones-Kelley, is making a bad situation worse. It's turning into a full blown criminal coverup of epic proportions.

Someone lied to the state employee who ran the search on Joe Wurzelbacher, and then was told to keep the matter quiet and the reasoning changed for the search after the fact.

Vanessa Niekamp said that when she was asked to run a child-support check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16, she thought it routine. A supervisor told her the man had contacted the state agency about his case.

Niekamp didn't know she just had checked on "Joe the Plumber," who was elevated the night before to presidential politics prominence as Republican John McCain's example in a debate of an average American.

The senior manager would not learn about "Joe" for another week, when she said her boss informed her and directed her to write an e-mail stating her computer check was a legitimate inquiry.

The reason Niekamp said she was given for checking if there was a child-support case on Wurzelbacher does not match the reason given by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Director Helen Jones-Kelley said her agency checks people who are "thrust into the public spotlight," amid suggestions they may have come into money, to see if they owe support or are receiving undeserved public assistance.

The Director is lying to cover her ass. She knows that employees are fired for illegally accessing the computer records. So does Niekamp, and Niekamp has fired employees who have engaged in illegally accessing computer records. There's absolutely no reason that anyone should have checked Joe's computerized records in this instance, and most certainly he did not inquire about his own status to generate searches of a multitude of state records.

Kelley abused her position to have her subordinates engage in a fishing expedition to dig up dirt on Joe the Plumber, whose sole transgression was having the audacity to ask Sen. Barack Obama a question about his economic policy. It was an innocuous question, but Obama's response was most illuminating as to Obama's true intent - the redistribution of wealth.

Niekamp was tricked into running the searches, and those who told her to run the searches must be held accountable. They must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. They abused their power, and used the computerized searches to engage in a partisan attack on someone who they believed was a threat to someone who they sought to elevate to the Office of the President.

Hot Air also notices the coverup in Ohio and the partisan politicians at the state's highest level are attempting to bury the story even as the criminality of those involved becomes all too clear.

UPDATE:
The media is ignoring the story. Other than the Columbus Dispatch, the media isn't looking into the story in any way, shape or form. The NYT doesn't even have anything on it. MSNBC? Nada.

They simply aren't interested in a scandal of what's growing into epic proportions - because of the coverup no less. It's sad. You have government officials abusing their power and obstructing justice with lying about their intentions to run database searches for purely partisan reasons. Where is the accountability?

UPDATE:
Wurzelbacher says that he doesn't have a child support case. Jones-Kelley's excuses keep changing, and it doesn't make it any better. There was nothing routine about running his name through the databases, and there most certainly wasn't a "public spotlight search protocol" in place.

Obama's Ohio Plumbers Far More Insidious Than Previously Acknowledged

Big Brother is watching if you get out of line and question the absolute moral authority associated with the Obama campaign. This shouldn't be surprising at all.

A state agency has revealed that its checks of computer systems for potential information on "Joe the Plumber" were more extensive than it first acknowledged.

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed today that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system.

The agency also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes, she wrote.

Jones-Kelley made the revelations in a letter to Ohio Senate President Bill M. Harris, R-Ashland, who demanded answers on why state officials checked out Wurzelbacher.

Harris called the multiple records checks "questionable" and said he awaits more answers. "It's kind of like Big Brother is looking in your pocket," he said.

If state employees run checks on every person listed in newspaper stories as buying a business, "it must take a lot of people a lot of time to run these checks," he said. "Where do you draw the line?"

The situation at the state level in Ohio is an absolute partisan nightmare, and that state officials sanctioned the unauthorized access of computer databases to drum up any kind of dirt on Joe Wurzelbacher is absolutely criminal.

That no one in the state's Attorney General's office is going to prosecute these people to the fullest extent of the law is itself a dereliction of duty and a responsibility to the people of Ohio.

At a minimum, the Ohio governor should be demanding Helen Jones-Kelley's resignation or fire her for her actions immediately. There is no excuse for her actions, except that she thought it in the best interests of her chosen presidential preference, Sen. Barack Obama to see if there was any dirt on Wurzelbacher to attack him after he simply asked Obama a question on Obama's economic policy.

Obama's answers should be so thoroughly examined; instead, the media and the Obama partisans decided that the real issue was the guy who simply asked the candidate a question. This is an absolute chilling of free speech as Kelley's abusing her position of power for purely partisan purposes. There was absolutely no legitimate reason for her, or anyone else, to conduct state computer database searches on Wurzelbacher. None. She's admitted that her agency's searches were far more invasive than previously acknowledged, which was bad enough.

If only the media did as much work on the Obama campaign as they've done with Wurzelbacher.

Obama's Plumbers

Forget Joe the Plumber, for this is far more chilling. The moment that the Joe the Plumber video exposed Sen. Barack Obama to the world for his socialist views and redistributive change, his supporters began digging for the dirt.

Ohio's Helen Jones-Kelley, Director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, confirmed that she approved a database search on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher following the Oct. 15 presidential debate.

Kelley said there were no political reasons for the check on the sudden presidential campaign fixture though the Support Enforcement Tracking System.

There was absolutely no reason to check on Wurzelbacher other than the fact that he asked Sen. Obama questions that resulted in highly uncomfortable answers. Ohio's Inspector General is now investigating this and several other unauthorized database searches into Wurzelbacher's Ohio records.

Should it surprise anyone that Kelley is a maximum Obama donor, having given $2,300?

This is what happens when people use their positions of power to chill dissent. Kelley abused her position of power to run a search hoping to dig up uncomfortable facts that might undermine the credibility of someone who simply asked a question of Sen. Obama as he was campaigning in the neighborhood going door to door. I hope that the book gets thrown at Kelley and others who abused their power to investigate Wurzelbacher.

Computer databases at other state agencies were also accessed, including apparently by a contractor for the Ohio Department of Insurance. Investigators are also looking at why driver's license and vehicle registration information on "Joe" was pulled from Bureau of Motor Vehicles computers. That information was pulled from accounts assigned to the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

The Obama campaign, of course, claims ignorance and says that they support an investigation. Why get your hands dirty when you have locals who are more than willing to do that dirty work for them.

UPDATE:
Hot Air is also covering the Ohio mess, and how the state officials are busy covering for each other, even as they admit that there was repeated unauthorized access of databases to find information on Wurzelbacher.

Don't expect the champions of privacy, the ACLU to come to Joe's aid. Michelle Malkin has more on that aspect (and more here).

The Left: Joe Must Go

It began not long after the video surfaced showing Joe Wurzelbacher question Sen. Barack Obama on his tax and spend schemes to which Obama responded that he wanted to share and spread the wealth - clear indications of his socialist intentions.



The media and the leftists online began a concerted attempt to try and destroy the man who outed Obama on the most important issue of the day - economics.

Now, the story isn't about Obama's socialism, but whether Joe is a licensed plumber, whether he's paid his taxes, say that it's not his real name (he's going by his middle name), question whether he's registered to vote (he is), and it all points to how anyone can dare question Obama's intentions or expose that he's a socialist in word and deed.

Joe is now being vetted by the media in ways that they haven't done to Obama or his staffers.

After all, how is it that one of Obama's staffers has tax liens in multiple states? The media isn't nearly as curious as to Obama's ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, despite calling on Raines and Johnson - and Johnson was on his VP search selection committee.

As I noted immediately after the video surfaced, a plumber shall lead the charge against Obama's socialism, and now Obama's friends in the media and online are doing all they can to destroy the person who revealed Obama's intentions.

Leftist loons are publishing Joe's address online - all in the name of what? They want to destroy this man's life. It's an explicit display of the left's intolerance and thuggish behavior, which has been present all along, but has found new life because of the manner and timing in which Joe exposed Obama for who he is and what he stands for.

This strategy will absolutely backfire on Obama and the left. The stifling of dissent, of mere questioning Obama on his policies, is not going to resonate with most Americans. They will see it as bullying and intimidation to get people to avoid asking tough questions of their elected leaders and prospective politicians. Most Americans actually relate to Joe, which makes the attacks on him appear as attacks on all hard-working Americans.

To riff on a theme that Instapundit is often fond of saying: they said that when Bush was elected, those who question politician's motives would be crushed - and they were right - only that it is the media and left that is trying to crush those who have the audacity to ask pointed questions of elected leaders and those who wish to be President of the US.

Ed Morrissey notes that there is a stench of desperation to all this. He is right; the left knows that people in this country have a serious distrust of socialism and redistribution of their hard earned wealth. Obama has tried to hide his intentions and a compliant media that does not question his policies aids and abets Obama in seeking the office of the Presidency. How is it that no one in the media could ask the question that Joe did, along with the follow up that resulted when Obama revealed that he was intent upon spreading the wealth - code for socialism?

Others weighing in on the media's actions and the left's insistence that Joe must be destroyed: The Anchoress, Jammie, and Sister Toldjah.

Media Already Going After Joe The Plumber

Opposition researchers were already on the case yesterday when Joe the Plumber, Joe Wurzelbacher, called Sen. Barack Obama out on his socialist dream of massive redistribution of wealth.

So, what have the opposition researchers (and the media) found? Well, Politico claims that Joe isn't registered to vote.

I'm sorry to hear that.

How does that detract from Joe's cogent observation that Obama's policies are repackaged socialism? It doesn't. You don't have to be a voter to know what socialism will do to your business, your paychecks, and life in general. It will destroy businesses, put a serious crimp in your paycheck, and reduce the quality of life all around you as other businesses suffer similar fates to your own.

While it would be nice for Joe to be a registered voter (and it's possible that he is [update = via Jim Treacher, he is registered but there was a typo involved]), and that he'll vote (and still could with a provisional ballot), it doesn't take a rocket scientist (or a plumber) to see that Obama's policies are wrong for America - we don't need socialist answers to our problems. We don't need redistribution of wealth. Socialism isn't the answer, and that's all that Obama is peddling. His taxing scheme is nothing more than taking money from the middle class and above and giving it to the poor - calling refundable tax credits a tax cut is a blatant lie and misrepresentation of what he's doing. That's redistribution of wealth on a massive scale and will not help the middle class.

It will not help Joe, nor will it help anyone else, even the 40% who already pay no taxes and would see federal payments increase as a result of the tax credits Obama proposes - because the economy will continue to sag under the weight of ever higher taxes.

Further, I don't seem to recall that the media had nearly the same reaction when learning that Obama girl didn't even bother to vote in the primary elections for her man.

UPDATE:
Joe Wurzelbacher better take Ace's advice. Ace also notes that the media is more curious about Wurzelbacher's tax situation than it was about Al Franken, who failed to pay tens of thousands owed to New York, California, and 17 other states (see here for my coverage of Franken's tax mess).

It's already getting ugly, as the Left will do what it must to protect Obama. It must try and destroy Wurzelbacher for exposing Obama as the socialist he is.

And a Plumber Shall Lead The Charge Against Obama

Plumbers are a vital part of our infrastructure and if you've ever had a busted water heater, a leaking heating pipe or two, or any number of typical plumbing issues you know what a lifesaver they can be. Sure, many of them charge as much as a lawyer can pull in, but unlike a lawyer, they make house calls. Many of these plumbers are self employed or work for small firms that, if successful, can grow into chains.

Sen. Barack Obama's socialist economic policies would hit these hard working folks quite hard. And Obama's socialist tax and spend redistribution of wealth politics came into full view yesterday during an exchange with a plumber, Joe Wurzelbacher. Here's the exchange:

The New York Post puts a bow on this.

An unscripted moment with an Ohio plumber produced a startling confession from Barack Obama Sunday: The Democrat's "middle-class tax cut" is in fact a scheme to "spread the wealth around."

Obama dropped the mask long enough to tell the truth to Toledo plumber Joe Wurzelbacher - who had asked the Democratic nominee why he wanted to jack up his taxes just for "fulfilling the American dream."

"I'm getting ready to buy a company that makes $250,000 to $280,000 a year," Wurzelbacher had told Obama. "Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?"

"It's not that I want to punish your success," Obama replied. "I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too . . . When you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

At last! The truth outs!

This is socialism. Pure and simple.

It isn't about tax cuts for the middle class. It's about taking money from those who make it to give to those who don't have money. It is class warfare in disguise and Obama shows utter disdain for the entrepreneurial spirit that this nation is founded on.

Obama's idea of tax cuts aren't actually cuts at all, but refundable tax credits that would be paid to people who paid no income tax at all. Consider the laundry list of tax credits involved: $1,000 "make work pay" credit; a $4,000 college-tuition credit; a $6,000 child-care credit; and a $1,100 bump in the earned-income tax credit.

If these were in the form of income tax deductions, it wouldn't apply to those who paid no taxes - the poor who already don't pay any tax (which is part of the chicanery to claim that 95% of the people under Obama's tax plan would see tax cuts - you can't cut taxes for people who already aren't paying any tax). These are little more than handouts to try and guarantee a win in the election and doesn't encourage economic growth.

If Sen. McCain and his advisers are paying attention and smart (and on both counts I have had to wonder if that were the case), they would hammer away on this point at tonight's debate.