The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #87744   Message #1643591
Posted By: pdq
07-Jan-06 - 04:35 PM
Thread Name: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built
Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built
If anyone wants to look into corruption, try studying this one:


"In 1995, on Vice President Gore's recommendation, the Clinton Administration sold the federally administered Elk Hills oil reserves to Occidental Petroleum for $3.65 billion. This constituted, according to Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity, "the largest privatization of federal property in US history". At issue is not the sale of federal land to the private sector, where it belongs in most cases, but the appropriateness of selling oil that is kept in reserve for military purposes. Occidental had contributed more than $470,000 to the Democratic Party. This included a check for $100,000 written two days after Occidental chairman, Ray Irani, was a guest in the Lincoln Bedroom. Gore received $35,550 directly. It is worth noting that the left has traditionally accused the Republican Party of being under the influence of big corporations and big oil. Obviously not so in this case.

Gore's relationship with the oil behemoth goes back to his father, Al Gore Sr., who, after a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Occidental, was given a $500,000 per year there after leaving the US Senate. Occidental Chairman, Armand Hammer, was quoted as saying that he had Al Sr."In my back pocket". Occidental purchased mineral rich land near the Gore farm in Tennessee, sold the land to Al Sr, and paid the Gore family $20,000 per year for the mineral rights. The Vice President still collects on this contract although another company now owns it. Gore owns shares in Occidental worth up to $500,000.

Author Edward Jay Epstein, in Dossier-The Secret History of Armand Hammer, documents the longstanding relationship between the Occidental Chairman and every Soviet leader from Lenin to Gorbachev. Hammer's father, Julius Hammer, was one of the founders of the American Communist Party. The book further reveals the fact that Hammer lived in the Soviet Union in the 1920's, financed Soviet espionage in the US, and sold confiscated art for the Soviets at his New York gallery. Make no mistake, Hammer was a Soviet spy and a traitor, no different than Alger Hiss. Hammer's handling of confiscated Soviet art was no different than the way Nazi Field Marshall Goring handled French art confiscated from the Lourve in occupied Paris. Gore's family became rich from their association with Armand Hammer and Occidental Petroleum."


                                        read on