Who Would You Rather Have Represent You, An Ideological Fanatic... Or A Crook?

This week Amanda Terkel reported about the disturbing tendency of the GOP towards endorsing anti-choice fanatics who insist on forcing rape and incest victims to give birth to children they were violently forced to conceive, the ultimate Big Government interference into the life of a woman. Aside from the long-standing crackpot incumbents like Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH) and Duncan Hunter's alcoholic son, DH, Junior (R-CA), there are 60 more who favor forcing rape victims to bear the child of their rapist including dangerous sociopaths and religious fanatics like GOP House challengers Bill Flores (TX-17), Stephen Broden (TX-30), Rocky Raczkowski (MI-9) and Sandy Adams (FL-24), crazy gubernatorial picks like Carl Paladino (R-NY), Bill Brady (R-IL) and Nathan Deal (R-GA), the last two of whom are probably winners, and some of the Tea Party fringe candidates running for Senate-- Sharron Angle (R-NV), Ken Buck (R-CO), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Joe Miller (R-AK), Christine O'Donnell (R-DE) and, of course, non-board certified eye doctor Rand Paul (R-KY). Marco Rubio is like a greased pig on this issue and depending who he's talking to he's either pro-rapist or anti-rapist and pro-incest or anti-incest. No one really knows where he stands because he's constantly flip-flopping and going out of his way to be hazy and sneaky in his approach. He's anti-choice for sure but doesn't want to be seen as being as extreme as O'Donnell, Angle, Rand Paul and the "new generation" of Republican extremists.

Angle received significant national attention in July when she advised young rape victims to make "a lemon situation into lemonade"-- the "lemon situation" being the rape and the "lemonade" being giving birth to, and raising, the child. Buck has said, "I don't believe in the exceptions of rape or incest" and backs a constitutional ban on abortion. The progressive group Campaign for a Strong Colorado held a press conference on Tuesday with rape and incest survivors who oppose Buck's stance. "Ken Buck is in a luxurious position of not seeming to care of the permanent impact of rape can have on a woman's life," said one rape survivor at the event.

There are very few pro-Choice Republicans left-- and they're being squeezed out of the party. Many Republican office seekers, though, don't care one way or the other about abortion rights and just want to get on with Business... literally. The GOP is, after all, the conservative party that serves the interest of the wealthy. It's the party's raison d'être and, for them, the social issues is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Conservative politics for someone like Boehner or Ryan is about money and power; period. One of Boehner's handpicked shills in his homestate of Ohio, for example, is a spectacularly successful used car salesman, Tom Ganley, who's become rich by ripping off car buyers for decades-- and now wants to move his skill set to Capitol Hill.

In the DCCC’s latest round of TV ads, the campaign committee tells voters Ganley “made millions taking advantage of average folks.”

“Millionaire used-car salesman Tom Ganley is trying to ride his reputation into Congress — he should be trying to hide it,” a narrator says in the new DCCC ad. “Sued by customers for fraudulent and deceptive practices, two ‘F’s’ from the Better Business Bureau, over 160 complaints in just three years. Tom Ganley will try to sell you on his reputation, but with this used-car salesman, it’s buyer beware.”

With accusations about Ganley’s business practices blanketing the northeastern Ohio airwaves, the DCCC may turn next to numerous court documents claiming his businesses not only ripped-off their customers, but also mistreated their employees.

According to court records obtained by Roll Call, Ganley’s dealerships-- like many companies-- are currently being sued for racial, gender and age discrimination.

The Ganley campaign did not respond to requests for comment for this story. In an interview, National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Tory Mazzola said Democratic harping on the wealthy candidate’s alleged business practices are a distraction...

In one pending case against Ganley-owned dealerships, a former female employee alleges that management discriminated against her because of her gender. In court papers, the ex-employee alleges that she was “routinely given less opportunities for commissions that were given to the male employees” and that the mistreatment “made working conditions so intolerable that any reasonable person under the circumstances would have felt compelled to resign.”

In another pending case, one current and one former black employee are suing a Ganley Jeep dealership for not paying them fair wages and for giving white co-workers preferential treatment, as well as for their boss’s “disparaging remarks about [their] intelligence.”

Accusations of age discrimination have also been lodged at a Ganley Jeep dealership. In February 2009, two employees-- one 55 years old and the other 61 years old-- alleged that they were fired and replaced with younger salesmen who were in their 20s and 30s, an act that “had a great probability of causing substantial damage” to their predecessors, according to allegations in the court documents.

In May 2006, a former employee, who was white, accused two of Ganley’s dealerships of firing her because her boyfriend was black. Court papers also show the former office manager was erroneously accused of stealing $4,000 from a petty-cash drawer.

The false accusation resulted in the employee’s arrest and four nights in jail, where she “was forced to undergo degrading, humiliating and emotionally distressing experiences, including but not limited to, being strip-searched and forced to use and watch others use open bathroom facilities,” according to allegations in the court documents.

Ganley’s lawyers and the former employee settled the case in June 2007. Details of the agreement are unavailable.

Although cheating consumers and abusing workers could get Ganley far inside Boehner's GOP House caucus, lately he's probably getting even more famous for another Boehner trait-- blatant dishonesty and ye olde art of the flip-flop. PolitiFact's has just given him their Full Flop rating in regard to Betty Sutton's popular and successful Cash For Clunkers program.

The program devised by Sutton provided government rebates of up to $4,500 to buyers who traded in gas guzzlers for more fuel efficient models. The U.S. Department of Transportation says that over the weeks that program lasted in 2009, nearly 680,000 older vehicles were replaced. It says the nation's economy benefited immediately from this stimulus program, which caused a distinct upward movement in GDP and created or saved tens of thousands of jobs at a crucial time in the recovery process.

But the Republican candidate seeking Sutton’s congressional seat-- Brecksville auto dealer Tom Ganley-- says the program was a clunker even though government records show it helped his dealerships sell 934 cars worth $20.6 million. In recent interviews, he has insisted the program sparked a temporary sales spike that was followed by a slowdown, and had negative long-term effects on the industry and used-car consumers who could have bought trade-ins that were destroyed under the program.

Ganley’s views on the "Cash for Clunkers" program have evolved dramatically since he decided to run for Congress against Sutton. Ganley had nothing but praise for the program an August 2009 Time Warner Cable interview conducted while he was pursuing the GOP U.S. Senate nomination in Ohio that was ultimately won by Cincinnati’s Rob Portman.

Ganley told In the Spotlight host Bob Conklin that he generally opposed government bailouts for business, but believed the "Cash for Clunkers" program "really worked."

"I don’t think it is a double standard," he said. "Once again, the government was searching for ways to stimulate our economy and create jobs. And I’m sure your read the headlines just recently. General Motors is going to a second shift in Lordstown because of this. That creates jobs it also creates taxpayers. They are bringing back something close to 1,300 employees at Lordstown.. Those 1,300 people are going to begin to pay taxes. That’s 1,300 jobs we’ve stimulated through the Cash for Clunkers. Plus, I have created jobs out of necessity in my stores now because of the large volume of folks coming in. We are bringing back people that we had laid off."

Nearly a year later, on August 18, 2010, he told the Plain Dealer that the government stimulus and "Cash for Clunkers" program "created work, not jobs." He said he would have voted against the program if he were in Congress, even though he’s a car dealer.