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BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built
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Subject: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 03 Jan 06 - 05:03 PM "WASHINGTON - Embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud, agreeing to cooperate in an influence-peddling investigation that threatens powerful members of Congress. In a heavily scripted court appearance, Abramoff agreed with U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle when she said he had engaged in a conspiracy involving "corruption of public officials." The lobbyist also agreed when she said he and others had engaged in a scheme to provide campaign contributions, trips and other items "in exchange for certain official acts." According to the plea agreement, prosecutors will recommend a sentence of 9 1/2 to 11 years, providing he cooperates with federal prosecutors in a wide-ranging corruption investigation that is believed to be focusing on as many as 20 members of Congress and aides. Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher said the Justice Department will pursue the investigation "wherever it goes." "We're going to expend the resources to make sure people know that government is not for sale," she said at a news conference... Source: Abramoff Pleads Guilty -snip- "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud charges on Tuesday and agreed to help U.S. prosecutors in a corruption probe that could involve several top Republican congressmen, including former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion before a federal judge in Washington. He also will plead guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud in a separate case in Miami on Wednesday, his lawyer there said. The long-expected plea will give prosecutors valuable ammunition as they seek to prove that DeLay of Texas, Republican Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio and other top lawmakers gave Abramoff and his lobbying clients favorable treatment in return for campaign contributions and other gifts. Republican and Democratic lawmakers seeking to distance themselves from Abramoff and his clients have returned more than $200,000 in campaign contributions in recent weeks. Abramoff faces a maximum sentence of 30 years, but under the terms of the plea deal it will be reduced to between 9 1/2 and 11 years. The sentence could be reduced even further if Abramoff cooperates fully, a Justice Department official said. As part of the plea deal, Abramoff agreed to pay at least $25 million in restitution, as well as $1.7 million to the Internal Revenue Service for tax evasion... Source: Yahoo.com: Abramoff pleads guilty to fraud -snip- Does the fall of the house that Jack built mean that the US Justice system works? Are the United States federal and state governments for sale to the highest bidder? Since most-if not all-of the central figures involved in this latest scandal are Republicans, does that mean that Republicans are more corrupt than Democrats? It seems that way to me. What do you think? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Ebbie Date: 03 Jan 06 - 05:36 PM Nah. I don't think they are necessarily more corrupt than Democrats; they are in power. That said, I tend to believe that the party that prides itself on keeping what it's got would tend to corrupt more easily than would the devotees of the notion that everybody has to profit. I hope that the Justice Department means it when it says they will follow the trail wherever it leads, but I don't have any great illusions about it. For my druthers I hope this is one time when the corrupt ones - whatever their party- are cut off at the knees. Exposure and disgrace to them, I say. (One complication: in this country very often the disgraced (ha!) person goes on to make a fortune from books and public appearances.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Leadfingers Date: 03 Jan 06 - 06:14 PM Reports on Auntie Beeb seem to indicate its not just Republicans who are being implicated ! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 03 Jan 06 - 06:22 PM Since I had no idea who or what Auntie Beeb is, I decided to google that name. I found a number of pages for "Auntie Beeb", including one that includes this quote: UFOs bei Auntie Beeb "The fact that mankind has not been contacted yet shows us that there is intelligent life out there." Source: http://www.londonleben.co.uk/london_leben/2005/10/ufos_bei_auntie.html -snip- Great quote. But I'm still not sure what Auntie Beeb is... |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Ebbie Date: 03 Jan 06 - 06:25 PM I think it's the BBC, Azizi. On this side of the pond, we provincials are not necessarily privy to the UK shorthand. *G* |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bill D Date: 03 Jan 06 - 06:39 PM you mean you didn't KNOW it's not crackers to snock a rozzer with a buttie for Auntie Beeb? whatever...The house that Jack built has a lot of rooms....no telling what will be found in some of them. (I know that ALL politicians are tempted and greed is not limited to one party.....but it does seem to be a bit heavy on one side right now, hmmmm? If I had a couple hours to type, I might be able to explain certain differences in attitude and philosophy to show why...) |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Ebbie Date: 03 Jan 06 - 06:50 PM I'm chuffed, Bill. Downright chuffed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 03 Jan 06 - 06:54 PM Bill, Re: your first sentence- Sorry, I didn't get your drift. I know two definitions for "crackers", and one of them ain't very nice. And as to "snock a rozzer with a buttie for Auntie Beeb" or anyone {anything?} else...I repeat-hun? But I got the rest of what you were sayin and I say "Write On!" to that! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 03 Jan 06 - 07:14 PM Well,Leadfinger and Bill and Ebbie too, you made me do it. You made me stray from the topic of Abramoff to check out this website: The American's Guide to Speaking British So now I have a way of gettin hip to British jive {in the good sense of the word "jive"}. And I'm chuffed to bits about that. Not to mention being chuffed to the max * about the fall of the house of Abramoff. * "chuffed to the max" {hip-hop mixed with British slang} I think it's all good {to mix cultures like that}. Well at least some of it is good and some might be quite lame or should I say naff? [Did I get that one right?] |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Naemanson Date: 03 Jan 06 - 07:20 PM I think it's fair to say that, in general, Democrats are guilty of sexual scandals and Republicans are guilty of money and political power scandals. They both come across as power trips. That being said, they are all humans. I personally think we should ditch the elections and just appoint our preisdents from the ranks of barbers and bartenders, the people who hear all the possible real solutions to the country's problems. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 03 Jan 06 - 07:25 PM I hope they do go after any Democrats who are guilty, along with the Republicans. I don't see how it would serve our democracy to do it any other way. Wouldn't it be something to get all of the graft, corruption, and other criminal behaviors out of our government, and maybe even have a government that actually serves the people who pay their salaries? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 03 Jan 06 - 07:38 PM Ummmmm, I just heard the report on the televison news and waas thinking that I was just doing some research on Bush's "ragers and pioneers" last night and guess whoes name popped up??? Bingo... This one is going to find it's way into the White House... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: katlaughing Date: 03 Jan 06 - 07:40 PM I hope they go after them all, too. And, I hope it topples the house the the shrub and cheney built! Personally, I'd like to see us go to a voting system like the Irish have, IF what I have read in "Round Ireland with a fridge" by Tony Hawks is still accurate. From one of the people who gave him a ride: The system we have works on the basis of a single transferable vote. You've only got one vote, but you may vote for everybody on the ballot paper. You vote with your choice, one through six, or ten, or however many people is (sic) on the ballot paper. If the person you vote one for is eliminated then your number two vote becomes a number one vote for the second person that you chose...and thus your votes may be distributed until the fourth or fifth or sixth count until somebody is finally elected. It was devised by the British so that a plethora of small parties would be elected and it would lead to division and a lack of cohesion. However the system works very well in Ireland in that it reflects the exact wishes of the electorate. I LIKE that! kat |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Sorcha Date: 03 Jan 06 - 07:49 PM All fall down. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Rapparee Date: 03 Jan 06 - 08:08 PM A couple weeks ago it was rumored that Jacky-boy was going to plead guilty, and my wife said at that time that he was gonna sing like a bird and that a lot of folks wouldn't enjoy the song. Dang, I hate it when she's right.... Democrats, Republicans, Commies, Socialists, Nazis, Libertarians -- if they're guilty they should be tried and punished. (Not like the guys used to say around here, "We caught him, hanged him, and made sure he had a fair trial.") |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Stilly River Sage Date: 03 Jan 06 - 08:13 PM DeLay must be squirming a lot harder right now than he did when little Ronnie Earle pinched his tail in the door. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bill D Date: 03 Jan 06 - 08:34 PM (just to clear the air on the slang..*grin*...I confess to mixing 'real', if not common, slang with made up stuff and composing a I read many years ago, in Mad magazine, the phrase, "It's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide"....and thought it was just a cute little bit of nonsense Mad had made up....but then a WWW search revealed that if you are from certain parts of the UK, and are of the right age, it was clear and referred to something like 'it's ok to fool or trick a constable/policeman in certain situations' (I forget the exact formulation.) So I just invented a verb that sounded like an assult and added a noun that I think is a slang word for a sandwich and created a bit of the shorthand Ebbie refers to. I did this to show just how bewildering it can be in an international forum to use phrases like "Auntie Beeb" with no explanation or context. It was 'all in fun', but with a pointed jab at those who can't or won't avoid their local expressions..(or at least translate them) when sharing the space with others. "Auntie Beeb" is a minor transgression, but sometimes it gets really dense and confusing. So...back to our regularly scheduled political wrangling... |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bill D Date: 03 Jan 06 - 08:39 PM The news right now has pundits who are paid to KNOW these things saying that this is likely to be the biggest scandal in decades, and one said that he's been in Washington for 33 years and never seen ANYONE as sleazy as Abramoff seems to have been! Members of congress are rushing to 'give back'...or give away...money they got from Abramoff or any of his clients. Dennis Hasturt is the latest big name to try to do some fast dis-associating. Gonna be some interesing headlines this year, folks! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: pdq Date: 03 Jan 06 - 08:42 PM "I was watching this regularly scheduled fight when a music forum broke out". |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 03 Jan 06 - 09:45 PM Not to mention on the same thread mixing political talk with talk about slang like this: The word "dis-associate" made me think of all those [mostly Republican]politicians who are now trying to get as far away from Abramoff as they can. These fat cats are dissin Abramoff big time. "dis"-to insult or thwart in a social manner, short for disrespect. source: African American See The Rap Dictionary for more hip-hop terms and see this dailykos: Bring OnThe Apologists thread by kos for more political discussion about the fall of GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bill D Date: 03 Jan 06 - 10:17 PM (I have trouble with 'disrespect' and it's implications...it 'could' have real meaning, but in many areas, it has come to mean ANY sort of mouthing off or disagreement, and was/is used as an excuse for serious retaliation! We just had a count of the murders in the DC Metro area, and a few of them began as 'dissing' encounters. Sad.) (yeah...we oughta have an easier way to spin off threads, instead of drifting so much...but that's the way RT conversations often go....*shrug*) Hey..maybe someone will write "The Ballad of Big, Bad Jack"! Then we could have a verse for each congressman indicted! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 03 Jan 06 - 10:32 PM I'm just waiting 'til tomorrow night, or the next, when the media conmnects the dots and finds that Jack was one of Bush's protection money men... Hmmmmmm.... (But Bobert, why not send them an email... His name is clearly on the "rangers and pioneers" list...) Well;, I'll give them a couple days outta respect... Ouch!!! Ahhhhhh, just a philosophical question... Bill D will prolly be all over this one but what sound occurs as a house of cards falls??? Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Rapparee Date: 03 Jan 06 - 11:01 PM Probably the same sound a tree falling the forest when no one's around makes, Bobert. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: katlaughing Date: 03 Jan 06 - 11:48 PM But we're all listening... |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 04 Jan 06 - 12:26 AM Got my popco'n reddy! This is gonna be so much fun!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: dianavan Date: 04 Jan 06 - 01:49 AM I think it means that the IRS want their 1.7 million. I hope it says that the justice system is working. This seems like a good time to pray. I remember something in the constitution about the Justice Dept. having the power to rule if the shit hits the fan. True or false? Abramoff diddled and everyone dissed the song he was singing but maybe its the ballad of The Congressional 6th or Congress 2006. Lets have a verse for everyone he names. Good idea! The House That Jack Built (or the disassociation rag) In 2 thousand 6 - Abramoff sang The song rang out a rhyme All corrupted they must pay Blasphemous, treasonous, crime. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Rapparee Date: 04 Jan 06 - 09:02 AM Rule on what, Dianavan? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Rapparee Date: 04 Jan 06 - 09:13 AM Let me make something clear. I do NOT think that this is going to be "a lot of fun." I think that it's going to be another sad chapter in history, another demonstration of how greed for money and greed for power corrupt politics. Politics is supposed to be the "art of the possible" and the art of compromise so that the best laws are passed. This is going to be another demonstration to the world that in the United States greed and corruption are the rule rather than the exception and that all you need to get into and hold office is money, money, money. This is unfortunate, because there are some good people in office -- McCain, Obama, Feinstein, Snowe come to mind. Others are good people but misguided or misled. Unfortunately there is also a crowd which can't seem to think beyond the dollars and what Kissinger called "the most powerful aphrodisiac." I repeat -- this is NOT going to be "a lot of fund." It's going to be -- and is -- a tragedy, with hubris and all. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST Date: 04 Jan 06 - 10:24 AM Wishful thinking, Bobert? Or do you know something for a change? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 04 Jan 06 - 11:28 AM Turn off one spicket and the pressure of money will find a different pipe to funnel influence. In the meantime it is important to expose the large money "special interest groups" and not just shine a spotlight on their hired guns/lobbyists. The largest group of lobbiests are for drug corporations. They have more than one lobbyist per Congressmen and Senators combined. Regarding the the best Congress money can buy...it was only ten years ago that they passed a rule to disallow the passing out of envelopes of cash immediately before voting on various bills. ..... Naemanson observes that Reps have money scandals and Dems have sex. well that is not the magor difference, besides it is the other party that usually brings the accusations. Both parties are willing participents in the military Industrial Complex and corporate shadow goverment that some people call the octopus. The difference is that Republicans seek corporate totalitarian, law and order, anti labor, anti corporate regulation as well as all the inherent classism and racism that goes with it. The Democrats are nearly the same with a little less overt anti labor, classims and racism. My other thought of the day involves how during the cold war the message was communism was godless and was anti capitalistic. AAlong the way some people assumed the democracy and capitalism went hand in hand or even worse the same thing. Now that China is a purely capitalistic nation AND a totalitarian state, the US corporate captains of industry are jealous of China. So jealous of their communism/totalitariamism which makes coprporations free of any protections for workers that US business and factories go to China. When that is impractical what corporations truely desire are the same totalitarian freedoms that China enjoys - right here in the USA. If the current trend continues corporate money will continue to rely on the support of RED states (no pun intended) with the lure of the bible and patriotism to steer the nation toward CAPITALISTIC COMMUNISM. US workers have made enormous sacrifices already in the name of "competitiveness". Lets face it. Its capitialistic communism with an enphasis on religion. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 04 Jan 06 - 11:54 AM Regarding the the best Congress money can buy...it was only ten years ago that they passed a rule to disallow the passing out of envelopes of cash immediately before voting on various bills --on the floor of Congress. It is now allowed in the hall or cloak room. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: kendall Date: 04 Jan 06 - 01:54 PM It already has reached the White House to the tune of $100,000. This is a good argument for term limits. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 04 Jan 06 - 02:04 PM Gee did ya ever notice that once a business has top level political influence, their product becomes a scare or valuable and virtually unaffordable commodity - while they rake in record profits???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????G??????????????????A????????????????S?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????O????????????????I????????????????L?????????????????????????????????H??????????????E??????????????A?????????????L????????????T??????????????H??????????????C???????A????????????R??????????E????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????D???????????R????????????U??????????????G????????????????S??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: pdq Date: 04 Jan 06 - 03:41 PM Current information says that 39 of the 44 Democrat senators took money directed to them by Abramoff. Total 'donations' to Democrats, in various parts of our government, total $3.1 million. Republicans got $4.3 million. That is 38% more, but Republicans are 'in power' right now, making that difference seem normal. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Amos Date: 04 Jan 06 - 04:07 PM Mighty big scramble going on, especially by Bush's leaguers, to give away Abramoff monies quicker than greased sidewinders. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 04 Jan 06 - 05:28 PM Besides DeLay and Ney in Ohio, I think we're going to see Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed lose their political shirts. For all their moralizing, they agreed to help kill anti-gambling legislation as per the wishes of Jack Abramoff and that included preventing the passing of legislation banning online gambling. DeLay is claiming he knew nothing of any pro-gambling graft going on but didn't explain why he voted against his party on the issue and managed to kill anti-gambling legislation. And to know that Norquist and Reed assisted as well. They have to explain to their fundie constituents why they took Abramoff (i.e. Jewish) money to encourage a detrimental vice that ruins way too many lives. Ooo, sorry guys, but that's the kiss of death you hear coming your way. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 04 Jan 06 - 06:06 PM Americablog has a list of who Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to: This excerpt comes from that blog: $172,933 - Republican $88,985 - special interest total: $261,918 That's 229 donations and not a DIME to Democrats. The list of donations is long, but it makes a great visual.... Next time you hear someone say that this is a bipartisan scandal, whip out this list and laugh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 04 Jan 06 - 06:48 PM Bill D, Please forgive the drift, but I thought I would translate for you. "It's crackers (mad, or stupid) to slip (give) a rozzer (cop) the dropsy (the bribe) in snide (counterfeit money)". Welcome to the world of cockneys. Don T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 04 Jan 06 - 07:05 PM Actually, this isn't as much about Jack Abramoff but a systematic problem that contronts our nation with so much money going to influence policy... On another thread I was discsussing that way the Republicans have used good 'ol 501(c)'s as their vehicle to deliver unregulated tens yupon muillions to Repubs thru advertisments and mail outs... The donors names are not made public so industries as the the pharmaeutical industry can funnels tens of millions to attack Dems withoth the Dems actually knowing it... The largest Repub leaning 501(c) is Americans for Job Security (AJS) and it annually funnels 95 percent of the money it recieves dirctly into attack ads and grassroot oragnizing against Dems... Oh, sure the Dems have their 527's but the 527's are chump change compared to the unregulated cash going thru the various Repub 501(c)'s... Theres also the "rangers and pioneeers" that strong arm folks for cash and then bundle it to be given directly to the Repub. Party... The pioneers have to extort $100,000 and each and the rangers $200,000... Yes, John Kerry has oraginized something very similar but the co-chairs have to raise $50,000 and the chairs $100,000... Kerry has less than half the number of chairs and co-chairs as Bush has rangers and pioneers so for every $1 Kerry can raise, Bush can raise $5... I hope that all this stuff is better understood from this Abramoff scandal becuase I think if the American people had any idea about just how much cash, especially by corporate interests, that it would expect more of elected officails... So, yeah, this may not be much fun but a necessary step if this country is survive it's own very corrupt governemnt... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Alba Date: 04 Jan 06 - 07:32 PM I would love to have a detailed spreadsheet of what was actually purchased on Delay's and Abramoff's Golfing trip to Scotland! 6 days = $150,000. Now that is some short break! I think Mr. Lincoln's words from this letter are prophetic: "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." - Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Col. William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864 More shall be revealed I am sure. Jude |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: katlaughing Date: 04 Jan 06 - 07:37 PM even some of the GOP are wising up. One state Republican resigned, today, in Colorado, because she refused to bend to the conservatives of her party. She had a year left to go in her term. Another GOP state senator or rep, not sure which, has also split from the conservatives of his party. Also, ex-Dem, now GOP, Ben Nighthorse Campbell has decided not to run for governor of Colorado. This is all good news for Democrats of Colorado. Azizi, unfortunately, according to one report on google news, six Democrats plan to return money they received through channels connected to Abramoff, including Hillary Clinton. kat |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 04 Jan 06 - 07:44 PM The only part about this is that I have no trust in the Justice Department... Gonzelez is going to do what is the "political" minimum... He ain'tr no Robert Kennedy who took on the Mob... He is a life long Bush yes-man so you can bet there'sa s lot of Karl Rove startegy on what to do with Abramoff... It will be up to the press and the American people to really force all the cards to be shown... Unfortunately, I don't think that will happen but there's always hope... One thing for sure is the press is no longer afraid of Bush and that's a good sign... So, hey, maybe this will be the scandal that will bring ***real*** campaign finace reform rather that smoke and mirrors (McCain-Feingold) reform that wasn't reform at at as it left the corporation a direct pieline to the folks in power... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Rapparee Date: 04 Jan 06 - 08:20 PM Such as few years ago, Bobert, when the Attorney General of the US was indicted and I think convicted of perjury? There's far too much light right now to do dirty deeds in the dark. I just heard that "up to 60" congressfolk are scampering around. Bush has returned US $6,000 by giving it to the Heart Association, Furst is returned $70,000, and several others are returning lesser amounts, inclduing Tom De Lay. My wife heard that this could touch "up to 200" in congress (out of the 335 or so who are serving there). Obviously, some are going to be more touched than others. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 04 Jan 06 - 09:21 PM Dem or pub or whatever--doesn't matter. If they took money, clean em out. Time for some new blood. I haven't had this much fun since the House banking scandal. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 04 Jan 06 - 09:28 PM Yeah, 282... Out with the old crroks and in with the new ones... This has to 'bout more than who is elected but changing the ways we finace campaigns... A lot of this corruption has to do with the obscene money it takes to get re-elected... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 04 Jan 06 - 10:09 PM I agree with Bobert's point that this huge scandal is "'bout more than who is elected but changing the ways we finace campaigns", However, I also believe that Reublicans are attempting to lessen the damage that might result to their "party" by "playing" the everybody does it" "game". See the end of this excerpt from Reuter's for example: Abramoff Scandal Sends Waves Across Washington "Though Abramoff personally only gave money to Republicans his Indian-tribe clients contributed to Democrats as well, campaign-finance records show. Several senators who oversee Indian affairs, including Montana Republican Conrad Burns and North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan, have returned donations from Abramoff or his clients. National Republican campaign groups received $1.24 million from sources linked to Abramoff since 1999, while Democratic groups took in $844,000 during that period, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics. Republicans said that proves that Democrats are equally involved in the scandal, but Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney said that wasn't the case. "Jack Abramoff used his Republican contacts to create an extensive pay-to-play system with Republican members of Congress where political money was used for policy outcomes," she said. "I do not think the evidence has shown such on the other side." Finney said Democrats would highlight the issue in November's congressional elections. A Republican campaign official said voters won't blame their Republican representatives if a member of the same party is found guilty of corruption." |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Rapparee Date: 04 Jan 06 - 10:22 PM Here's a list of those who have returned or who plan to return money from Abramoff: This week: -President Bush, $6,000 from Abramoff, his wife and the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan for the Bush-Cheney 2004 re-election campaign is being donated to the American Heart Association. Abramoff raised at least $100,000 for the campaign. -House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. A spokesman would not say much money Hastert received or planned to donate. -House Majority Leader Roy Blunt, R-Mo., $8,500 to charity. -Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, $15,000 to local charities in suburban Houston. -Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., $2,000 will be returned to the Michigan Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe. -Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., $11,000 to the American Indian Center of Chicago and the American Indian Health Service of Chicago. Senate Republicans: -Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., $12,500 to the Salvation Army. -Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., $8,000 to the Mississippi Hurricane Recovery Fund. -Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., $1,000 to charity. -Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., $1,000 to charity. -Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., $12,000 to Marguerites Place. -Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., refunding $4,000 to three Indian tribes. -Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., $2,000 to charity. -Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., $8,500 to be refunded or for charity. -Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., $3,000 to charity. -Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., $8,000 to victims of the 2005 tornado in Wright, Wyo. -Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., $2,000 to White Buffalo Calf Woman Society. Senate Democrats: -Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., $2,000 to charity. -Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., $8,250 to Billy Mills Running Strong for American Indian Youth. -Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., $5,000, to the American Indian College Fund. House Republicans: -Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, $2,000. -Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., about $10,000 to the William Byrd Community House. -Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., $250 to charity. -Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, $2,000 to Boys and Girls Club of Greater Fort Worth. -Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Pa., $2,000 to two women's shelters. -Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., $2,250 to the Salvation Army Katrina Disaster Fund. -Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., $1,000 to charity. -Rep. Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., $2,000 to be returned to the Mississippi band of the Choctaw Indian tribe. -Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., $1,000 to Crossroads Safehouse. -Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, $9,000 to charity. -Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., at least $2,500 to the Mississippi Hurricane Recovery Fund. -Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, $8,000 to charity. -Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., $949 to USO Operation Phone Home. -Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., $1,000 to charity. -Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., $2,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. -Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., 2,000 to charity. -Rep. Jerry Weller, R-Ill., at least $500 to charity. -Rep. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., $250 to Mississippi Hurricane Recovery Fund. -Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., $1,000 to the Great Southwest Council of the Boy Scouts of America. House Democrats: -Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, $500 to be returned to the Tigua tribe of El Paso. -Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., $1,000 to be returned to the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe. -Rep. Lane Evans, D-Ill., $2,000 to Community Caring Conference. -Rep. Tim Holden, D-Pa., $1,000 to an animal shelter. -Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., $2,000 to be refunded. -Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., $6,950 to be refunded. December 2005: -Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., $18,892 to seven tribal colleges. -Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., $42,000 to charity. -Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., about $150,000 donated to Native American charities and refunded. -Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., $3,750 to North Dakota's tribal colleges. -Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., $67,000 refunded. -Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., $6,000 to the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. -Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., $19,900 refunded and given to charity. August-November 2005 -Rep. Mike Ferguson, R-N.J., $1,000 to the Children's Specialized Hospital Foundation. -Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-N.J., returned $1,000. -Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, $1,000 to the American Indian College Fund. -Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn., $1,250 to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund. -Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., $3,000. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Amos Date: 04 Jan 06 - 10:23 PM Forbes Magazine, the very voice of capitalism, reports: "President Bush and numerous lawmakers hastily jettisoned campaign donations linked to lobbyist Jack Abramoff on Wednesday as Republican Party officials pondered the impact of a spreading scandal on their 2006 election prospects. "I wish it hadn't happened because it's not going to help us keep our majority," conceded Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio. As Abramoff pleaded guilty to a second set of felony charges in as many days, this time in Florida, officials said Bush's 2004 re-election campaign intended to give up $6,000 in donations from the lobbyist, his wife and a client. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas - facing legal problems of his own - took similar steps, as did his leadership successor, Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, and Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, another member of the GOP leadership. "While we firmly believe the contributions were legal at the time of receipt, the plea indicates that such contributions may not have been given in the spirit in which they were received," said Burson Taylor, a spokeswoman for Blunt. In all, two dozen Republicans and six Democrats, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, have announced plans this week to return donations, mostly funds that came from Abramoff or Indian tribes he represented. Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who faces legal scrutiny for his links to the lobbyist, joined in the rush. And a political action committee controlled by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said it planned to return $2,000 from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe. The Republican rush to shed cash that once was eagerly sought underscored the potential political problem the party faces at the dawn of an election year. "You can't have a corrupt lobbyist unless you have a corrupt member (of Congress) or a corrupt staff," former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in a lunchtime speech. "This was a team effort." Gingrich, who battled ethics charges near the end of his tenure in Congress, also told reporters he thinks Republicans should elect a permanent replacement for DeLay. In addition to links with Abramoff, the Texan is battling campaign finance charges in his home state. Regula, who came to Congress in 1973 and survived post-Watergate elections that crippled his party, said the implications of the Abramoff plea deals could be devastating for the GOP. "I was in the minority for 22 years and the majority for 11, and having tried it both ways, I definitely prefer the majority." Frist issued a statement placing ethics issues on the Senate agenda for the year. He said he intends to "examine and act on any necessary changes to improve transparency and accountability for our body when it comes to lobbying.' For their part, House Democrats have signaled they intend to make ethics an element in their drive to gain a majority in next fall's elections. "It's more important for these Republicans to come clean with the American people about ... what (they) did for Jack Abramoff and his special interest friends in return for those campaign contributions," said Sarah Feinberg, a spokeswoman at the House Democratic campaign organization. " Bail, hell!! Take down them there rat-guards, I'm going ashore!!! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 04 Jan 06 - 10:27 PM >>>Yeah, 282... Out with the old crroks and in with the new ones... This has to 'bout more than who is elected but changing the ways we finace campaigns... A lot of this corruption has to do with the obscene money it takes to get re-elected...<<< Oh, we're about to see sweeping changes to our political landscape and I say high time too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 04 Jan 06 - 10:27 PM Sorry. That wasn't the quote I intended to use. But that Reuter's excerpt provides some interesting information, and I'm sure other examples can be found that speak to Republican's attempt to spread this scandal to Democrats to lessen the damage to their party. That said, I know that are corrupt Democrats as well as Republicans. And I would be delighted if corrupt members of both parties are forced out of office as a result of this scandal {or for any other reason}. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: dianavan Date: 05 Jan 06 - 12:44 AM You probably aren't aware of it, but the reason Canada is having a winter election is a direct result of political corruption. While the Liberals were in power, they funnelled bundles of taxpayer's dollars to their friends and got caught. The scary part is that because the Conservatives are so closely associated with the U.S. neo-cons and because a conservative win might result in Quebec separation, the Liberals have a pretty good chance of retaining Federal power. Go figure. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Our voting system is quite different, but the word on the street is, if you think an NDP or Green might get enough votes in your riding to win, vote for either of them. If you think the Conservatives might win your riding, vote Liberal. In any event, its about time that ethics came into play in both countries. The winds of change are upon us. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Hrothgar Date: 05 Jan 06 - 01:13 AM "You vote with your choice, one through six, or ten, or however many people is (sic) on the ballot paper. If the person you vote one for is eliminated then your number two vote becomes a number one vote for the second person that you chose...and thus your votes may be distributed until the fourth or fifth or sixth count until somebody is finally elected" We use this system in Australia, where we call it preferential voting, and I reckon it's an excellent system. It rarely causes the election of a minority candidate, but it makes the major parties pay attention to the minority interests in order to win their preferences. This, of course, can be good or bad, depending on your opinion of the minority concerned. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 05 Jan 06 - 01:17 AM For more on how Republicans want to frame this scandal, see this dailykos dairy:Abramoff: what's next and how you can help bring down the GOP by dengre,Wed Jan 04, 2006 Here's an excerpt from that diary: "I've been waiting for Abramoff to become a household name since 1998 when I first learned of his work to protect sweatshop on a US Territory in the Pacific. Almost all of my Diaries have been about the growing Abramoff scandal. And after more than six years of following this guy I know that the real work is just about to begin: The GOP will lie. They will cherry pick slices of data to support simple-minded myths like Everybody Does It and Abramoff gave money to Democrats. The press will have a very hard time with this story, because the corruption is so one-sided. Their Balance Bias will lead them to stupid examples of balance, like treating Harry Reid's support from Native Americans as equivalent to DeLay's $1 Million from the Russians, $500,000 from the Chinese owners of sweatshops and God (and Jack) knows what other bribes. The Public will get confused. Fortunately I think that the Netroots are up to the task. It is time to take down 60 plus elected GOP officials and a host of their fellow travelers. Here are the four things we need to do to move this forward: 1.Oppose and knock down the lies. 2.Demand a full and fair investigation. 3.Research. Research. Research. 4.Get out the truth and hold the GOP accountable in 2006. I think we have a good start on these... The first thing we need to do is rapidly respond to the main lies whenever and wherever they pop up. These lies will be repeated-over and over again. They are carefully crafted to fit into our Right-wing crafted view of Government--that it is the enemy. Of course everybody does it because all of government is corrupt. Everybody is in it for themselves. A dedication to the greater good does not exist. Blah, blah blah... These GOP Talking Points are lies--everyone of them. Let's take the main one. I've read countless posts, comments, articles, etc. from Blogs to the MSM that state that Abramoff gave to both parties and that this is the way Washington works. Oy! Here is all you need to know: There are ZERO Democrats who took Abramoff money... And please note: the real money behind this scandal came through off-the-book vehicles. The $2.5 million the WaPo reported coming to DeLay through his DeLay/Abramoff/Russian charity makes these mushed together reports of direct Abramoff donations and all donations from his clients smoke screens and red herrings. And oddly Native Americans seem to be the only clients of Jack's to be included in these data cuts. Where is Tyco? The Russians? The sweatshop owners? The Pakistan military? And Jack's many other sources of cash? Perhaps that's the only slice that includes any Democrats because of the Party's long-time support for Native American issues that go way beyond the small number of Tribes involved with Gambling.. If we are going to paint all donations separated from Abramoff by two degrees or less as corrupt, let's at least treat all of his clients the same way. Cherry picking data is how the GOP will attack this scandal. No surprise there as it is how they do everything. Including that business in Iraq. Do not buy into it. Do not get fooled again. Arm your self with facts and do not let any bizarre Balance Bias from the press or GOP Everybody Does It/Dems got Abramoff Money Too lie stand without a rapid attack..." -snip- Click the link to read the entire diary and comments. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 05 Jan 06 - 07:59 AM Well, well, well... Looks as if Bush is going to return $6000 of Unhappy Jack's dough.... Problem is that U.J., as one of the Bush "pioneers", bundled a minimum of $100,000 of "protection money" for Bush so according to the very trusty Wes Ginny Slide Rule, Bush still has another $94,000 (minimum) to cough up... But there is that part of Bush we've seen (think Co Child Left Unreceuited here) were Bush write checks like man with no arms... Oh, and whoever is was that posted, "Yeah, but the Dems...", I'm lovin' that one... But could ya at least sneak Slick Willie into yer future "Yeah, but the Dem's..." posts.... Afterall, word on the street is that Clinton told U.J. to do the crime... I know that's hard to believe but, hey???.... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: DMcG Date: 05 Jan 06 - 08:18 AM Does anyone else feel that this business of 'returning the money' is irrelevant? The corruption lies in accepting money to influence their vote. How much money was involved and where the money ends up is of far less importance. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Rapparee Date: 05 Jan 06 - 08:40 AM There are ZERO Democrats who took Abramoff money... Then why the following (which I posted earlier)??? The source for it was the Associated Press. Monies "returned" yesterday, January 4: Senate Democrats: -Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., $2,000 to charity. -Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., $8,250 to Billy Mills Running Strong for American Indian Youth. -Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., $5,000, to the American Indian College Fund. House Democrats: -Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, $500 to be returned to the Tigua tribe of El Paso. -Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., $1,000 to be returned to the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe. -Rep. Lane Evans, D-Ill., $2,000 to Community Caring Conference. -Rep. Tim Holden, D-Pa., $1,000 to an animal shelter. -Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., $2,000 to be refunded. -Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., $6,950 to be refunded. At various times in 2005, as the story was breaking: -Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., $18,892 to seven tribal colleges. -Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., $3,750 to North Dakota's tribal colleges. -Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., $67,000 refunded. Not as much money as the Republicans, true. But I don't consider any of these amounts to be "chump change." And no, I'm not picking specifically on the Democrats. I think that in the long run it's not going to matter WHICH party -- both are tarred with the same brush. As I said in another thread, "A plague on BOTH their houses." |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Rapparee Date: 05 Jan 06 - 09:33 AM This everlasting compelling of honesty, morality, justice and the law to bend the knee to policy, is the rottenest thing in a republican form of government. It is cowardly, degraded and mischievous; and in its own good time it will bring destruction upon this broad-shouldered fabric of ours. I believe the Prince of Darkness could start a branch hell in the District of Columbia (if he has not already done it), and carry it on unimpeached by the Congress of the United States, even though the Constitution were bristling with articles forbidding hells in this country. And if there were moneyed offices in it, Congress would take stock in the concern, too, and in less than three weeks Fessenden and Washburne would fill it full of their poor relations. What a rotten, rotten, and unspeakable nasty concern this nest of departments is, with its brainless battalions of Congressional poor-relation-clerks and their book-keeping, pencil-sharpening strumpets. -Samuel Clemens, Letter to Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, April 7, 1868 |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 05 Jan 06 - 09:45 AM Rapaire -re "There are ZERO Democrats who took Abramoff money", I guess it depends on the meaning of the phrase "Abramoff money" ,, where that money came from and why it was accepted. And I repeat an earlier comment I made in this thread: "That said, I know that are corrupt Democrats as well as Republicans. And I would be delighted if corrupt members of both parties are forced out of office as a result of this scandal {or for any other reason}." |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Big Mick Date: 05 Jan 06 - 09:55 AM This thread demonstrates why I hate these bastards so. What they kill, when they pull this crap, is folks belief in the system. No matter how smarmy it gets, folks, the alternative is a system where the power centralizes and others start telling us what is good for each other. I am afraid this will breed cynism in the system, instead of cynicism about stated positions by politicians. We Americans tend to oversimplify, and look for any excuse not to give up our biases. Hence you have us blowing up Bill Clinton over a sexual indiscretion while we still look to alibi Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld for their lies. The answer lies in the one person one vote principle. This is a time for housecleaning. It is time for a reassessment of what we hold valuable and are willing to pay for. It is a time for judging the current political leadership and holding them responsible for the loss of the American Dream. It is time for us to examine our values and stop allowing monied interests to destroy this planet, and taking advantage of poor people in the third world, in the search for yet another dollar in profit, or yet another convenience in our lives. Rant off, Mick (getting back on the road and wishing he had more time to scan the Cat. This one just caught my eye during a fast check) |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 05 Jan 06 - 09:59 AM Also see this article GOP Politicians Dump Abramoff Donations Here's an excerpt from that article: "So far the primary response by politicians has been to separate themselves from campaign contributions they took from Abramoff or Indian tribes he represented _ either by returning them or donating them to charity. In just the two days since Abramoff pleaded guilty Tuesday in Washington to three federal felonies, more than 40 elected federal officials have given up Abramoff donations, joining a dozen who did so last year. This week's list was headed by Republicans Bush, Frist, Hastert, House Majority Leader Roy Blunt of Missouri and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, who faces legal problems of his own. But some Democrats joined in, including Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. Republicans dominated the list _ not surprising given that Abramoff, a friend of DeLay's, gave far more to them than to Democrats. The scandal's effect on the 2006 election was on the mind of many who jettisoned the donations. "I wish it hadn't happened because it's not going to help us keep our majority," conceded Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio." -snip- Doesn't it seem from reading this and alot of other mainsteam media articles that American Indian tribes were the only source of Abramoff's donated money? What about the other sources mentioned in that dailykos diary I referenced earlier? Are politicians who received money from those sources giving it back too and why did they get it in the first place? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 05 Jan 06 - 11:42 AM Also, see this comment by Alegre on Thu Jan 05, 2006 in a dailykos open diary: "Info on Abramoff from House 30-Something Group Abramoff-Republican Congress Scandal · The Abramoff-Republican Congress scandal is the latest example of the Republican Culture of Corruption. · Abramoff contributed money only to Republicans - $204,253 - all to Republicans · Abramoff a Bush pioneer who raised at least $100,000 for Bush presidential campaign · Every person indicted so far is a Republican · Every potential indictee named in published reports is a Republican · Tom DeLay called Abramoff "one of my closest and dearest friends" on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. [Washington Post, May 5, 2005] · The American people are paying the price for giving special interests access to the Republican Congress, the most corrupt in history. · Higher prescription drug prices · Higher gas and home heating costs · Failed Republican efforts to provide relief to survivors of Hurricane Katrina · The Republican political machine has created a pay to play system where money and cronyism rule. · Bribing government officials and Republican quid pro quo politics have no place in the Halls of Congress or the White House. · The House Ethics Committee must get to work immediately to investigate ethics and corruption cases in the House, including those involving Members with ties to Jack Abramoff. · Democrats are committed to stronger ethics standards and the priorities of the American people, not the special interests. Republican Members on Abramoff-Republican Congress scandal: GOP Rep. Jim Leach: "This is arguably one of the most troubling scandals in modern times and it reflects very poorly on the Congress." [Wall Street Journal, 1/4/06] GOP Rep. Wayne Gilchrest : "I do think it will have a dramatic effect on future elections...Part of it will be disgust with Republicans, who seem to be indicted every other week." [Wall Street Journal, 1/4/06] GOP Rep. Ray LaHood: "This is going to be a huge black eye for our party." [LA Times, 1/4/06] Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/5/95753/06740 |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: M.Ted Date: 05 Jan 06 - 11:46 AM I agree with Rapaire, though with a bit less emphasis on classical tragedy, that this is going to be a big mess--we have yet to see what the extent of the real damages are-- |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 05 Jan 06 - 12:20 PM Are politicians who received money from those sources giving it back too and why did they get it in the first place? According to something I heard on the radio yesterday, the Bush people are only giving back the money they got directly from Abramoff ($6,000), but not the money ($100,000?) that they got from Abramoff's non-Indian clients/associates. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Rapparee Date: 05 Jan 06 - 12:45 PM I don't disagree, Azizi. I just want the record to reflect correctly that both Dems and Repubs were giving money back. There are the unethical in both parties -- and for all I know, in the Greens, Socialists, Libertarians and the rest as well. Power corrupts, and those who have it seem to want to hang on to it for some reason. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,G Date: 05 Jan 06 - 01:51 PM Azizi, you must have written the script for WJC that included the phrase "it depends on what the meaning of is is." You are astonishing! Did you really mean to post those comments/ Ah yes, the 'Daily kos", the fountain of factual truth. AR282 says, "This is gonna be fun". Well, that puts you in the ranks of Bobert, can you say Anarchist, and shows that you really don't give a dam'n about this country, just what you can glean from it. And go on pretending that JFK never said "Ask not what your Country can do for you, ask what you can do for your Country." One more thing, has anyone give some thought as to what Party/Administration is presently in power and is keeping this investigation ongoing? The same group that could have pulled the rug out from under it? Naw, I didn't many had that thought cross their minds. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Rapparee Date: 05 Jan 06 - 03:39 PM G, as long as there is a free (well, relatively free) press it would be hard to "pull the rug out". Also, there are too many holes in Washington DC to keep secrets secret, especially ones like these. The US is not a dictatorship, at least not yet. And as I said earlier, it's not going to be fun. It's going to be sad. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 05 Jan 06 - 04:58 PM >>AR282 says, "This is gonna be fun". Well, that puts you in the ranks of Bobert, can you say Anarchist, and shows that you really don't give a dam'n about this country, just what you can glean from it. And go on pretending that JFK never said "Ask not what your Country can do for you, ask what you can do for your Country."<< Aw, poor little greedy assholes in Congress gonna get whacked, 3/4 of them republican hypocrites who preach morality but display none, and G wants me to feel ashamed at my unrestrained glee at what is about to happen to them. FAT CHANCE!!! I love this!!! We should have one of these every few years. Oh wait, we do, don't we? As far as being an anarchist, you mean behaving lawlessly? Well, gee, G, we all know who is behaving lawlessly, don't we? Hee-hee-hee! God, I can't for this to start!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 05 Jan 06 - 07:56 PM From what I read now, Ralph Reed runs a rightwing conservative Christian anti-gambling organization. Turns out, he was financing it with gambling money taken from Abramoff's Indian casino clients!! That's so scummy that I find it hilariously funny. Reed is claiming that he knew the money came from Abramoff's Indian clients but thought they were non-gambling clients!! I mean, the Indian casinos HIRED the guy to represent them in Congress. Sit on it, Ralph! So the way it looks, Reed helped DeLay and Abramoff kill anti-gambling legislation in Congress in exchange for huge sums of money Abramoff skimmed off his Indian casino clients. Reed then took that money and gave it to his anti-gambling organization. Wow, that takes some balls!! I've always hated that boy wonder face of Reed's especially since it masked the heart of a psychopathic crook. Time for a little comeuppance. This is a great day for America! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: robomatic Date: 05 Jan 06 - 08:00 PM I think that getting to the bottom of these affairs is like pulling the loose string of a pullover and...well, pulling some more. But it's necessary to stir things up often enough to let people know that occasionally there are folks who want to go through the motions of appearing to care about fair representation, justice, and all those things mentioned in "Mr. Smith Goest To Washington" |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 05 Jan 06 - 08:07 PM Anybody up to assigning roles? The House That Jack Built [a "Mother Goose rhyme] This is the house that Jack built. This is the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. This is the rat, That ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. This is the cat, That killed the rat, That ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. This is the dog, That worried the cat, That killed the rat, That ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. This is the cow with the crumpled horn, That tossed the dog, That worried the cat, That killed the rat, That ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. This is the maiden all forlorn, That milked the cow with the crumpled horn, That tossed the dog, That worried the cat, That killed the rat, That ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. This is the man all tattered and torn, That kissed the maiden all forlorn, That milked the cow with the crumpled horn, That tossed the dog, That worried the cat, That killed the rat, That ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. This is the priest all shaven and shorn, That married the man all tattered and torn, That kissed the maiden all forlorn, That milked the cow with the crumpled horn, That tossed the dog, That worried the cat, That killed the rat, That ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. This is the cock that crowed in the morn, That waked the priest all shaven and shorn, That married the man all tattered and torn, That kissed the maiden all forlorn, That milked the cow with the crumpled horn, That tossed the dog, That worried the cat, That killed the rat, That ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. This is the farmer sowing his corn, That kept the cock that crowed in the morn, That waked the priest all shaven and shorn, That married the man all tattered and torn, That kissed the maiden all forlorn, That milked the cow with the crumpled horn, That tossed the dog, That worried the cat, That killed the rat, That ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. -snip- Two saying come to my mind: Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." -Sir Walter Scott and "and they all fall_down! -children's rhyme: "Ring Aroung The Rosey" |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 05 Jan 06 - 08:08 PM Yeah, heehee from my G... Maybe you'd like to tell the folks here just what you are doing in your community... I've put my record out there and it is as far from anacrhistic as one could possibly think up... How 'bout yer record other than firing shota a real people who are out busting butt for their fellow man... Go eat a box of Twinkies, stay the fat slob you are and continue lobbing lies at me... And, BTW, 282 don't know I'm gonna say this but I'm sure he also couldn't gibe a rats butt what your opionion of either of is... Like I said, go eat a box of Twinkies.... Yer guys are crooks... We've been trying to tell you that... You denied it... Now they're caught... So, yeah, nice to see the arrogant jerks sqirm... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,G Date: 05 Jan 06 - 10:06 PM No squirm here - well, maybe with laughter convulsions after reading the posts of AR282 and Bobert. We have to believe that the amount of people of your ilk in this Country is mimnimal. That makes it easy for the rest of us to overcome the crap that you two believe in. "A great day for America?" No, a sad day as Rapaire said earlier. It is okay - we honest citizens can easily overcome what the likes of AR282 and Bobert expound. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 05 Jan 06 - 10:17 PM No you can't... You challenge me as an anarchist and you won't lend one shread of insight into what you are doing for your community, G-zer... Until you are willing to step out from the shadows of GUESTdom and provide some evidence that you are giving anything to America, I will assume you are some 500 pound psyhopath sitting in front of yer pudder gettin' yer little "Agualung" jollies attacking folks you wish you could be like... Like I said, go eat another truck load of Twinkies... BObert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Amos Date: 06 Jan 06 - 01:11 AM Hate to see the vestments of honesty and integrity being so facilely claimed, 'deed I do. Especially in support of wing-ding with so little sense of either. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Ron Davies Date: 06 Jan 06 - 05:55 AM PDQ-- "Current information" says 39 of the 44 Democratic Senators took money donated to them by Abramoff." 1) Source please--with exact quotes 2) What about Republican Senators?--and source, with quotes there please also. "Total donations to Democrats--$3.1 million Total donations to Republicans-$4.3 million" Again, source, with exact quotes please. Nobody is saying these figures are not correct. But just to assure all that your figures are reliable, please. Otherwise you might possibly be in danger of suspicion of having copied the figures from a partisan website. And I'm sure you wouldn't want that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,G Date: 06 Jan 06 - 11:01 AM Bobert, I am not issuing a challenge - how did you come up with that? I am merely reflecting my opinion of what I see you as. You certainly get your 'boxers in a wad' very easily. I am content with what I have done and am continuing to do with regards to "giving back" Unlike you, I do not have to constantly reinforce my sense of selfworth. Under the circumstances and from what I read in these hallowed halls, your requests for information would be the absolute last to be honored by me. Rapaire, Yes, indeed, sad with regard to the latest scandal. Rather than "popcorn and sitting back to enjoy it" as one lowlife suggested, we must fervently hope that new rules and regulations come forth to diminish this type of behavior. It matters not who falls out of favor, Repub or Dem, just hope it gets the improvement needed. Maybe the first positive thing that could be done is drop the McCain-Feingold law which only encouraged this type of behavior and caused the amount of "soft money" to increase. This has helped push the average American more out of the political process. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: pdq Date: 06 Jan 06 - 01:34 PM Ron Davies, If you feel the need to quote someone, please use 'copy'n'paste' technique. That way the quote will be accurate. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Dorgan returns Abramoff money By Charles Hurt THE WASHINGTON TIMES December 14, 2005 The top Democrat on the Senate committee investigating casino lobbyist Jack Abramoff is returning $67,000 in donations after press reports showed that he collected the money from Mr. Abramoff's gambling clients around the time he took actions favorable to those clients. Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, North Dakota Democrat, said he hasn't done anything wrong but is returning the money to avoid the appearance of any conflict. "The fact is I have never met Abramoff and have never received a campaign contribution from him," Mr. Dorgan said after the Associated Press reported the contributions. The contributions to Mr. Dorgan are part of $700,000 in contributions that Republicans say have been made to Senate Democrats by Mr. Abramoff, his Indian tribe clients and his associates. Those contributions counter a Democrat charge that Republicans are fostering a culture of corruption. "It's very odd that Democrats at the national and state levels have sought to exploit the Abramoff matter for political gain, while in the process throwing countless congressional Democrats under the bus," said Brian Nick, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). The NRSC has begun circulating among fellow Republicans new reports showing that all but five of the chamber's 44 Democrats have taken Abramoff-related money. In addition, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have taken more than $1.2 million, according to records provided to The Washington Times. In total, Senate Democrats and their national committees have accepted $3.1 million, compared with $4.3 million in contributions to Republicans from Mr. Abramoff, his clients and his associates. The NRSC report is part of a new counteroffensive by Republicans to neutralize an issue that Democrats see as central to electoral gains in 2006. "This smacks of desperation," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat. "At a time when Congress' approval ratings are about as low as you can imagine, it seems like a strange strategy for Republicans." A primary focus of the NRSC report is Mr. Dorgan, the senior Democrat on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which is investigating Mr. Abramoff. Democrats, meanwhile, have been attacking Sen. Conrad Burns, Montana Republican, who received $150,000 in contributions from Mr. Abramoff, his tribal clients and his associates. Democrats have run ads citing the federal investigation into Mr. Burns' association with Mr. Abramoff and accused him of associating with a "shady character." But the NRSC says the same scrutiny should be focused on Michigan's two Democrat senators -- Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. They received about $6,000 each in Abramoff-related money. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,B Date: 06 Jan 06 - 03:17 PM January 06, 2006 10:48 AM EST By Sher Zieve – One of the contributions made to Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) by an Abramoff client is said to be $61,000. Reid spokesperson, Tessa Hafen, said that Reid has no intention of giving any of the Abramoff money back. Other reports say that Reid received in excess of $100,000 from Abramoff or Abramoff's clients. In November, the AP reported that Reid had received "tens of thousands of dollars" from the Coushatta Indian tribe—an Abramoff client. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Rapparee Date: 06 Jan 06 - 03:30 PM I would not vote for anyone of any party who took such money and did not either return it directly or to a charity. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 06 Jan 06 - 08:09 PM From what I see, this is a roughly 4:1 ratio of pubs to dems. That doesn't seem likely to change much. More will be exposed, some will be exonerated but the 4:1 ration will not likely change appreciably. From what I understand Abramoff only wrote checks to conservative pubs. His partners and associates dealt with all kinds. So that means even more dems might be exonerated since some of that lobbying might have been legit or at least no crime will be proven. No one is saying the dems are squeaky-clean in this thing but it is primarily pub-driven because they have the power. Most of the dems weren't worth giving a shit about and that's why so many got left out of this thing. So when the house-cleaning starts, it's going to be brutal for the pubs. They're the ones who most helped Jack build his house. They're the ones who held up "I'm For Sale But I'm Not Cheap" signs. The moving finger having writ and all that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 06 Jan 06 - 08:29 PM GUEST, G< Yer wrong, pal... Don't go calling me no anarchist and we won't have this little situation in the future... My rules here... You make the charge and if I'm not guilty I'm coming outta the corner with fire in my eyes... Yeah, I'll fight you but that don't make me no anarchist... Anarachy is plain-ass stupid... I very much believe in *govern*ment... Just ain't too wild about *ruler*ment.... That's what we have with the drunk frat boy... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST Date: 06 Jan 06 - 08:32 PM AR282, can't you just once play it straight? This is a bad scene no matter who took the money but to throw the blame at one party with the 4:1 odds is bad math on your part. Look up above and see Repubs; $4.3 mil, Dems; $3.1 mil Sorta' looks like a 4 to 3 ratio to me, not 4 to 1. Did you ever stop to think that people read this stuff and can arrive at their own comclusions. Obviously, you don't and if you want to continue looking like a fool, so be it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,G Date: 06 Jan 06 - 08:33 PM Preceeding was me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 06 Jan 06 - 08:33 PM I DID NOT I DID NOT IDID NOT TODAYS MUDCATOON http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/repugnation.jpg |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,G Date: 06 Jan 06 - 08:40 PM Bobert, there is no "situation" here. Just an opinion which I shall stick with. Now, was that not easy? "Boxers in a wad" seems to be your calling card. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 06 Jan 06 - 08:53 PM oh yeah? well our party gave some money back to a more worthy charity than yours so nah nana nah nah. The slim difference between the parties and the Abramoff bribe money is that democrats got it directly from Indian tribes whereas the Republicans got it from Abramoff himself. It may be a bigger difference than it seems in print as far as quid quo pro goes. hey max give me the ISP# for the boxer shorts guest, thanx. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,AR282 Date: 06 Jan 06 - 09:18 PM >>AR282, can't you just once play it straight? This is a bad scene no matter who took the money but to throw the blame at one party with the 4:1 odds is bad math on your part.<< Last I counted, 57 members of Congress had taken Abramoff-related money and 14 or so were dems. That's about 4:1. Since then, I've read of a few more dems and a few more pubs going on the list but the ratio does not appear to be changing much. >>Look up above and see Repubs; $4.3 mil, Dems; $3.1 mil<< That hardly seems likely considering the dems were overwhemingly NOT the movers and shakers in Congress. It is inconceivable that lobbyists would waste a lot time with them unless they are influential dems willing to work and vote closely with pubs. >>Sorta' looks like a 4 to 3 ratio to me, not 4 to 1.<< 4:3 is not credible as I said. My aim is not to say dems are blameless. They simply held no particular power that would give Abramoff reason to woo them (not to mention that he loaths them). When we get down to the core of Abramoff's congressional scammers, I would be surprised if there are more than one or two dem insiders. May not be any. Abramoff never dealt with them personally, as far as I know. >>Did you ever stop to think that people read this stuff and can arrive at their own comclusions.<< Really?? Wow, that's a real shocker. I could have sworn that everyone converts to my views and outlook as soon as they read my golden words. >>Obviously, you don't and if you want to continue looking like a fool, so be it.<< So, anyway, the blood spillage looming over Congress will be 4:1 pub. But I see it like a lightning-strike forest fire. Looks bad for a while but it clears away old growth and promotes new. Whether that new growth is any good or any different is largely dependent on what we do at the polls this November. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 06 Jan 06 - 09:19 PM You Guest, G... Think I saw yer mama given head to the town drunk out behind the bowling alley... Just an opinion, of course... Coulda been someones else's mama.... Get it yet??? You make accusations that, in yer opinion, I'm an anarchist, and guess what... ...yeah, your mom is gonna be in every post I post after each of yer unsubstantuated opinions... Get it now??? What's good for the goose is also good for the gander... Get the rules now??? Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 06 Jan 06 - 09:21 PM sigh I tried |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 06 Jan 06 - 09:31 PM Look if you want to read the actual Abramoff and Scalon (Tom Delay's press sec.) EMAILS...these are why they pleaded guilty! Go to John McCains website, there is a pdf with them all. The scam was couched under the name of yet another Republican family values phoney balony "interest group" which was under Tom Delay's control. God and faith was their credo as usual but in this case it was to promote Indian gambling houses and Mississippi gambling barges. The money raised was praised by the White House when they got there's. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 06 Jan 06 - 09:53 PM Progress for America Americans for Job Security American Taxpayer Alliance Americasns for Responsible Governemnt National Committee for a Responsible Senate United Seniors Association Ptogress for America These all sound real nice, don;t they... Problem is that that they are all 501(c)'s which funnel tens of millions into attack ads against Dems... Ens they are all un-regulated and un-reported.... Tens of millions of dollars to pay for attcak ads aginst Dems and big, basd John McCaain never brought them up??? John McCain is a crook!!!! Tens of millions going into attack ads on Dems and he couldn't care less... John McCain is the crookiest of the crooks!!!! No honoring him... He's a crook.... And a liar for saying he was for campaign finace reform... Crook!!! Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,TIA Date: 06 Jan 06 - 10:01 PM I love the Repub and apologist spin on this. "Yeah, well the Democrats took some Abramoff money too!" Please, explain to me how Abramoff was a Democratic operative/supporter. You wouldn't buy this crap from your kids, so why do you buy it from Bush/Limbaugh/Hannity/Ingraham/O'Reilly, etc.? You have abandoned all principles in favor of partisan loyalty. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 06 Jan 06 - 11:21 PM From Arianna Huffington: Abramoff scandal "Like a bad meal endlessly repeating, the gaseous belch of the Abramoff scandal keeps offering up odiferous reminders of the sorry state of our politics. It's now clear that this is the political equivalent of the corporate corruption I wrote about in Pigs at the Trough. Bill Frist and Tom DeLay are the Beltway incarnations of John Rigas and Dennis Kozlowski, the Adelphia and Tyco CEOs who used their companies as their personal piggy banks -- and have been sentenced to serious jail time because of it. I see the same self-dealing, the same hubris, the same mentality that says, I can do anything I want, say anything I want, give money and high-paying jobs to anyone I want. Of course, politicians like Frist and DeLay should pay an even higher price than the corporate Capones since they are betraying something even more sacred than shareholders: the public trust. The latest, from today's Washington Post, is that prosecutors have issued subpoenas seeking documents relating to money from the National Republican Congressional Committee funneled through the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit group with close ties to Abramoff and Tom DeLay, and used to fund attack ads against Democrats... The widening Abramoff affair has put the spotlight back on the dominant role Big Money continues to play in our politics -- and of how politicians and their lobbyist pals keep coming up with new and nefarious ways of selling access and influence to the highest bidder..." -snip- Read the full article. It's a sin and a shame what our country has come to. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 07 Jan 06 - 08:01 AM It's true that Dems take the dough from lobbiests... They have to take the dough.. Dough gets elections won... Lack of it get's 'um lost... But, and not that I love the Dems, but certain Repubs can raise a $100M without working up a sweat... Google "2000 South Carolina-Bush" if you don't think so... If the Dems ever want to gain control of the governemnt again campaign finace reform should be the centerpiece of their platform... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,G Date: 07 Jan 06 - 08:45 AM Donuel, your post @ 06 08:53 PM - Classic! & LOL! AR282, some good stuff too, and I apologize for my snide remarks. However, Bobert, you are a horses' Ass of a different color. And you need new glasses - that was your Momma out back of the Bowling Alley with the town drunk. Now, if that bothers you no more than it bothers me, you will have a good day. You speak of Martin Gibson and some of his stuff but I find a little intellect involved with him. Difficult to say that for you. It is fine by me for you to make your rules and go by them. I do not take that as a threat, I simply do not have to get down in the same gutter with you as I did for a brief second a few lines above. Have a nice day! Unless............... |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 07 Jan 06 - 09:21 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistence with the Left. Our job is to remove them from power permanently." - Jack A. Abramoff |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 07 Jan 06 - 10:11 AM Bobert, when you speak so plainly as to make Republican crimes obvious to all, like the way Richard Feynman did with NASA (dips O ring in ice water)... you make yourself the most dangerous target of knee jerk right wingers. keep it up paid for by American Familes for the American Way. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Amos Date: 07 Jan 06 - 10:26 AM Some people see a criminal act for what it is; others can't see it because their vision is clouded with various lies and sympathies, similar actions of their own, or just too much rationalization to see straight. Call 'em like they is, Bobert. Guest Martin G seems to have had a little too much warmongering in his breakfast cereal. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 07 Jan 06 - 10:33 AM American Familes for the American Way. corp offices: Caymen Islands, Bermuda. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,G Date: 07 Jan 06 - 12:14 PM Really has nothing to do with Boberts' political positions, his is not recognized in the US. (officially) It is his rank and rotten expressions and his threats of bodily violence that should cause reactions in both the right, the left and the middle. Some of you would want to believe he is an accomplsher of some stature. Rather, he just seems to be a bitter man, disillusioned with life or simply delusional, tries too hard to be part of a group and reminds me of a term from the old college days, 'fader'. His political stance is of no consequence. I am happy that he is where he is. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 07 Jan 06 - 12:24 PM Many of us have met him in person, Guest,G, and we know what kind of a man he is. I'm not aware of anyone around here who can say the same about you. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST Date: 07 Jan 06 - 01:08 PM "You can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all the time, ..............." |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 07 Jan 06 - 01:52 PM HERE IS THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT ;) http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/abramhouse.jpg |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: pdq Date: 07 Jan 06 - 03:01 PM Once we get past the politics, we can see that the Abramoff affair is about gambling. More specifically, about the influence of money donations on legislation controlling the gaming industry. In the Florida case, Abramoff was not convicted for bribery. He was found guilty of falsifying documents pertaining to a loan. That loan's money bought him and his business partner a fleet go gambling boats (or "floating casinos") worth $145 million dollars. Abramoff and his law firm made campaign contributions on behalf of Indian Casinos. Not all of the money came from him personally. It also was delivered through the law firm, the Indian tribes or through shills who will be hard to connect directly to the source of the money. The people to look at closely for a 'quid pro qou' are federal legislators on commiteees dealing with gaming and Indian affairs. Granting an Indian casino to tribe for pay is corruption. Cancelling an Indian casino after a competing tribe pays you to do so is also corruption. Look for politicians in states whe Indian gaming is growing, such as California. Also look into people in Nevada and New Jersey where gaming is a lucrative industry. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 07 Jan 06 - 03:31 PM It's about money and power. Abramoff played one tribe against another and raked in millions of dollars from both. And he used that money to buy power and influence in the halls of government. The people in government used that money to further their own power, and they used that power to enrich themselves and their friends and families. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,TIA Date: 07 Jan 06 - 03:34 PM "Once we get past the politics,..." Is a little bit like: "Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?" |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: pdq Date: 07 Jan 06 - 03:44 PM Then substitute "the daily political name-calling" for the word "politics" in that sentence. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,Buzz: Date: 07 Jan 06 - 04:11 PM |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,Homer Date: 07 Jan 06 - 04:17 PM Cordin to the 'Wes 'Ginny slide rule the average crooked Demoract takes 3 times more bribe money than the average crooked Republican. That's OK 'cause they need 3 times more money to get elected. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: pdq Date: 07 Jan 06 - 04:35 PM 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 |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Amos Date: 07 Jan 06 - 04:36 PM Guest G, I have met Sidwalk Bob, played the blues alongside him, watched him lust after Kendall's Taylor, and talked over a good many facets of life with him. I warrant to you that he is a hard-woprking, highly socially conscious, good-hearted man who gets a LOT done whatever he is doing. It is unfortunate for you that one of the things he is doing is expressing views you can't tolerate. You will have to decide for yourself why that might be so. But I suggest you get a regular name as a member of the community before you start slagging someone who is as fundamentally decent, and as regular a musical contributor as Bobert. As far as I see you don't have much of a track record on any of those fronts. It just makes you look, um, juvenile... A |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 07 Jan 06 - 05:00 PM pdq, how do you feel about those things you put in your 07 Jan 06 - 04:35 PM post? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,Old Guy Date: 07 Jan 06 - 05:07 PM Bobert seems like a nice person, other than being basackwards in his political orientation. You on the other had are just plain nasty and wrong. You can serve me with all the slings and arrows your nastyness can produce and see how fast you can convince me or anybody. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Amos Date: 07 Jan 06 - 05:22 PM OG: Aside from my political orientation, I'd be glad to hear about what you think I am nasty and.or wrong about -- assuming you were directing your post at me. It seems that I have upset you on a personal level, not just in political debates. What was it? A |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,G Date: 07 Jan 06 - 06:14 PM Amos, I still don't see the identity differential with regard to a Bobert or a Guest G. Really, if there is, you will have to explain it to me. As far as "slagging" goes, I do not intend be a party to that. After some of his outrageous diatribe with name calling and even threats of "butt whuppings", and not just towards me, I felt it was required to let him know where I stand. I believe all should now know how I feel and think. He DOES NOT "express views I can't tolerate. Most of his views I accept as boorish, not as confrontational. I am happy to hear you have this opinion of him. As far as my establishing a "track record" of decency here, I would ask you to go back again and compare some of the posts of the two of us. I have some difficulty believing you feel that way but it is not upsetting to me. I do plan to ignore any posts beginning with his name as I find them neither informative nor entertaining. And, I might add, neither are they of an upsetting nature. I thank you for your comments. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: pdq Date: 07 Jan 06 - 06:28 PM CarolC, I am not trying to be rude by not answering your question, but what is the point of my opinion? The facts of my post are a matter of public record. The dates and amount of compensation are all easily verifiable. Perhaps you could do some additional research and give others your opinion. I will say that a $2 thousand dollar donation from a lobbyist to a politicion does not bother me as much as selling a $3.5 billion dollar government asset to a company connected to the sitting vice president. lots to choose from |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Amos Date: 07 Jan 06 - 06:28 PM Guest, G: Fair enough. I may have been a bit quick to judgement. The difference between Guest, G and a regular handle is that you brig a known identity to the table, even if the handle is an invention. As Guest, G you could be any member of the set of lurkers, regular contributors, random hackers, guttersnipes, caterwaulersz or even registered members slumming. The difference is that it is much more inviting to communicate to an identity than it is to communicate with a mystery. As to Bobert, well, he's quite the character and he does get wound up some from time to time, but he has a wicked sense of humor and is helpful, industrious, and talented, and usually very friendly. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Ron Davies Date: 07 Jan 06 - 07:10 PM PDQ-- 1) Cut and paste is in fact not the best way to convey information. It is resulting in a lot of band width waste--check "Curly" 's contributions on the "Peace?" thread. All you need do is cite newspaper and date, or web site and date, if that's your source. Blue clicky is fine. I will not cut and paste--breaks my heart if that bothers you. 2) Somehow in your figures you neglected to tell us how many Republican Senators have taken Abramoff-related money (if 39 of 44 Democrats have done so--which is by no means established.) 3) The Washington Times, your source, it appears, for your figures, is affectionately called the "Mooney Paper" in DC--do you know what that means? To put it bluntly, it's not a reliable source--and not exactly non-partisan. Also, in this case, the figures $4.3 million and $3.1 million are given with no explanation of how they were arrived at. That don't cut it. Try again. But I think I'll wait for the Wall St. Journal to put out figures--in the reporting, not the editorials. I'm sure they will. However, thanks so much for revealing your source--a refreshing change. My source for facts and figures is virtually always the Wall St Journal---but if I neglect to give my source, I'll always be glad to remedy that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 07 Jan 06 - 07:28 PM I think it's constructive, pdq, to know how we feel about these behaviors. If we both have negative feelings about them, we might be able to come to some common ground about what to do about them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: pdq Date: 07 Jan 06 - 07:43 PM CarolC, My point exactly. If we start trading Democrat v Republican talking points we make enemies. What we need to do is look at corruption in all areas of government and accept that, at times, people on each side will be found guilty and be removed. Most of what Abramoff did is really standard operating proceedure in government right now. Taking Indian tribe donations and pocketing half of the money is theft, not corruption. If you want more questionable dealings by Al Gore, Google "Al Gore, Sudan". |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: DougR Date: 07 Jan 06 - 07:55 PM The Vultures they is a circling. :>) DougR |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: pdq Date: 07 Jan 06 - 07:59 PM Are you sure? Maybe they know something about Al Gore that we don't. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 07 Jan 06 - 08:21 PM Yo, GUEST, G-zer, First of all, hahaha.... I loved yer grossly disporportionate reaction to the little analogy I pulled off on you... Man, did I get you wound up, 'er not.... So, hahahaha... Glad I did it and you deserved it... You go 'round thinking that's it's okay to label me an anarchist as if you don't have to prove it 'cause in yer words, it's yer opinion... Right? If not, stop me... So I throw a totally hypothetical situation about your mother just to demonstrate to you that "opinions" on occasion jst shouldn't be expressed without some level of evidence... Then yopu get bent out of shape... Hey, I didn't threaten to give either you or yer mom, who I'm sure is a very nice person" a "butt-whuppin" but you try to frame me as some kinda "violent" Charlie Manson of Mudville... Like where did that come from??? Oh yeah, yer reading other folks saying that I'm some kinda Chralie Mansonm guy who goes 'round plantin' butt-whuppins on folks.... Yeah, I did say that if I had caught the guy who burned doen the Shannondale Club I would have but a butt-whupp on him before turning him over to the police... And, yeah, I prolly would... That don't make me no violent Charlie Manson... You go up to Shannondale and ask anyone of the 1400 families who live up in that mountain what they would do if they had the arsonist fir 5 minutess before the police arrived and 100% of them would say the same thing I did... Even the old ladies would poke the creep0 with their umbrellas or canes... Yeah, hey, if it makes you fell all warm and fuzzy to think I'm an anarchist then fine... Keep it to yerself unless yer willing to come out from behind yer wall and go head to head with me on what I have done in my life working "within the system"... Heck, my business partner is an elected official.... So get off that anarchist crap and we'll be fine... ...'or, if not, be prepared for more hypothetical stuff (my opinion) about yer mom... Understand the rules??? You attack, I defend... Purdy danged simple.... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 07 Jan 06 - 10:38 PM Well, pdq, I think if you take a look around, you will see that I have been calling for holding everyone who is guilty of breaking the law responsible, both Democrat as well as Republican. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,Old Guy Date: 07 Jan 06 - 11:31 PM It you were normal you would know. You need a shrink. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,Old Guy Date: 08 Jan 06 - 12:39 AM Bobert: If you think I am guest G that is another thing you are wrong about. I allready said I have some respect for you as an amiable sincere person. It is only your political beliefs that are wrong. In time you will figure it out. As Jesus said "forgive them for they know not what they do. Others here just want to be nasty and they do a good job. they just want to buck the establishment. Here is a good example of misguidedness: About thirty five years ago, Ralph Nader had a group of purportedly "idealistic" young men and women. He dubbed them "Nader's Raiders". One part of that group in the Chicago area met occasionally at my house. In my own sly way, I quizzed them. Who are these folks crusading supposedly against the "Establishment"? All of them were young law students or beginning lawyers. But crucial to my understanding of them, they were moreover, I quietly discovered, the sons and daughters of the ultra rich. Among my close pals, I called such persons "RBs", short for rich bitches. In my own way, I went down my list of what I urged them to do. INVESTIGATE BANKER-JUDGES. I got a blank look. RUNAWAY COURT CORRUPTION. Another blank. Expose the war-mongering mostly private huge Universities. "Nader's Raider's" absolutely not interested. INVESTIGATE THE CIA/FBI's AGENTS PROVOCATEURS. They dismissed the idea. I tried not to show my suspicion. Privately, I discovered directly that they simply wanted to correct some of the more blatant misdeeds of the Ruling Class, "the powers that be", the Establishment. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:56 AM people who were breathing a day two before they left the cult were found, hung, shot, drowned, poisoned, dead at the base of a tall building, or just died as Lisa McPherson did, starved to death, tied to a bed and injected with chloral hydrate. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST Date: 08 Jan 06 - 09:00 AM Did anyone else hear that nervous laughter? Can you say "insecure" or "he doesn't get it"? "G" and "Old Guy", ever hear the saying "like pouring water down a rathole"? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 08 Jan 06 - 09:05 AM Well, Old Guy, you'll appreciate this little sidebar... Up until a couple years ago I owned and rove around in a real nice old 66 Corvair Monza and when the 2000 presidential election campaign came around I proudly stuck my "Nadar for President" bumper sticker on the back bumper.... Very few folks got it but I'm sure that you will... BTW, they still ain't found out who burned the club down... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 08 Jan 06 - 10:06 AM Old Guy's specific ideas for the Nader group are excellent. But they needed a how to person to follow up. Thats the job. The only thing that fell short was someone stepping up to do the research. Giving up to authority if an idea is initially misunderstood or ignored is a problem we all share from time to time. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: katlaughing Date: 08 Jan 06 - 10:08 AM bitch: Broad in Total Control of Herself |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,Old Guy Date: 08 Jan 06 - 10:38 AM Amos the Pseudo Philosopher and false prophet says: (Notice I have not called him any names. He has an ability to string a bunch of bad adjectives together and hurl them at his perceived enemys that I do not posess.) "These fervent explanations are usually accompanied by personal testimony of raised awareness, greater inner peace, love, new grasps of truth, washes of New Energy, in evidence of the truthfulness of Truth. The Dianeticists find engrams, the Reichians find cosmic energy, the Eckanakarites find astral planes to walk on, spiritualists hear the voices of the Ascended, disciples feel their chakras and sense power vortices in remote locations on the planet, and testify to the remarkable and wonderful they have discovered thereby. In short all these teachings, disciplines, practices, seminars, worships and guidings have brought about -- mirabile dictu! experience!." (mi·ra·bi·le dic·tu interjection Definitions: expression of wonder: used to introduce the announcement of something the speaker, genuinely or ironically, considers to be amazing [< Latin, "amazing to relate"]) He is actualy preaching Dianetics: http://www.factnet.org/Scientology/dianetics.html |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 08 Jan 06 - 10:48 AM To return to the point of this thread: Repulican Lobbyist Abramoff is goin down and more crooks and liars are goin down with him. Good riddence to bad rubbish. See this excerpt from this online associated press article- Analysis: GOP Woes Don't End With DeLay By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer "President Bush, the titular head of the GOP, is waging an unpopular war in Iraq and presiding over a nation with lingering economic anxieties. He suffers from approval ratings around 40 percent _ near record lows for his presidency. Questionable stock transactions by the top Republican in the Senate, Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, are under investigation. A special prosecutor's probe continues into whether Bush administration officials outed a CIA operative in retribution for her husband's Iraq war criticism. A secret anti-terror program that Bush approved to eavesdrop on people inside the United States without warrants is raising concerns about overly broad presidential powers. Potentially most damaging is an influence-peddling scandal on Capitol Hill. Last week's guilty pleas to corruption and tax evasion charges by the central figure in the scandal, disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, are anything but the last chapter. Abramoff is cooperating in a wide-ranging investigation that could ensnare dozens of lawmakers with close ties to the generous and powerful lobbyist, including DeLay and House Administration Committee Chairman Bob Ney, R-Ohio. Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University, called it a "partywide crisis" that the GOP has problems with its leadership in all three areas of the federal government that it controls..." |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:04 PM Azzi, I figured that you wouldn't personally use the word titular. Old Guy a Scientologist? Well raise my rent, I would have never suspected. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:14 PM Old Guy, you throw out a lot of *stuff*, much of it anecdotal, without any documentation, and you expect us to swallow it hook, line, and sinker. You'll need to do better than that if you want to be taken seriously in a discussion like this one. pdq, at least, provides some background for his assertions, that we can look at, evaluate, and decide for ourselves whether or not to accept it as valid. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:17 PM In my last post, I was not talking about your assertions about Dianetics. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Donuel Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:23 PM Carol C, We all have bad days but seriously, the use of the phrase "if you want to be taken seriously" is beneath you. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:24 PM How so, Donuel? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:57 PM LOL Hahahahahahaha... That wasn't even your own bullshit, Old Guy, unless you are Sherman H. Skolnick. LOL Rense.com "[1] About thirty five years ago, Ralph Nader had a group of purportedly "idealistic" young men and women. He dubbed them "Nader's Raiders". One part of that group in the Chicago area met occasionally at my house. In my own sly way, I quizzed them. Who are these folks crusading supposedly against the "Establishment"? All of them were young law students or beginning lawyers. But crucial to my understanding of them, they were moreover, I quietly discovered, the sons and daughters of the ultra rich. Among my close pals, I called such persons "RBs", short for rich bitches. In my own way, I went down my list of what I urged them to do. INVESTIGATE BANKER-JUDGES. I got a blank look. RUNAWAY COURT CORRUPTION. Another blank. Expose the war-mongering mostly private huge Universities. "Nader's Raider's" absolutely not interested. INVESTIGATE THE CIA/FBI's AGENTS PROVOCATEURS. They dismissed the idea. I tried not to show my suspicion. Privately, I discovered directly that they simply wanted to correct some of the more blatant misdeeds of the Ruling Class, "the powers that be", the Establishment---in other words THEIR elders. That is control perpetuated by a play for time, continuing problems of the system to a generation or more hence, if ever remedied by drastic measures. [2] Ralph Nader was good at planting phantasies. Such as, that he lived in a cold-water flat, paid almost nothing per month for it, and lived on a very reduced financial level. All of it complete rubbish. Very credible sources contended he had a friend who on occasion drove him around in their Rolls Royce. Nader lived secretly in luxury houses. See: "Me and Ralph: Is Nader Unsafe for America" by David Sanford, New Republic Books, 1976." Donuel, this is why Old Guy shouldn't be taken seriously. He's playing dirty, and not very intelligently. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,Old Guy Date: 08 Jan 06 - 02:20 PM Never said it was. If you don't like the stuff I post, don't read it. I was posting someone elses stuff that apparently has close Contact with the raiders. The purpose was to point out how people like to form groups buck the establishment because it is chic. If you doubt the existence of what I post you can Google it just like you did. So what is your point? Looks to me like you point is you don't like me because of the points I bring up so you instruct others in what to believe or disbelieve. I think people can and should decide for themselves. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 08 Jan 06 - 02:23 PM If you're using other people's stuff, Old Guy, you should provide attribution. At the very least, you should used quotes for things that you are quoting. Otherwise you look like you are trying to make people think that the words you are posting are your own. It's not so different from plagiarism, and it also is a dishonest representation of yourself. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Amos Date: 08 Jan 06 - 02:38 PM Hiding sources or pretending to be the source of something when you are not is not exactly open and honest communication. You have a flair for pretending, but why do you think it is necessary? A |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST Date: 08 Jan 06 - 02:58 PM Who is Old Guy? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Amos Date: 08 Jan 06 - 04:15 PM Who are you? A |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,donuel Date: 08 Jan 06 - 04:25 PM Carol: As a self proclaimed poet I often turn history abd current events into verse. More often than not some joker alays says derisevely "if you want to be taken seriously". You normally take the high road rather than make denigrating remarks that are supposed to deny a person the ability to make any sense. Old Guy makes sense, but one can always disagree with that sense without attacking the man. Whoever decends to the insult first loses :>) Things change, people change and ideas trade places. HAVE YOU NOTICED WE DON'T SAY "RED" CHINESE ANYMORE? Long ago the democrats were grey and KKK While blue republicans freed the slaves. The blues are now red and grey has turned blue. The reds are for Red Chinese labor, law and order except US reds worship God more than you. Its all about freedom Now freedom means free from health care, unions and a livable wage. but killem all is still the rage. The only good injun is a dead injun now the only good injun is a rich one. In the house that Jack Abramoff built The House is upside down. The smiles have turned to frowns. In for a penny in for a pound its been run into the ground they had their fun Now they deny him three times until he is undone Despite this cruxifiction for each one that falls there will be two still free to fleece... shhh...and one more thing PLEASE don't mention the secret police. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST Date: 08 Jan 06 - 04:29 PM It is plagarism, Old Guy, and it is dishonest. Speak for yourself or quote others and give them the credit. Otherwise you are a thief, not to be trusted, and certainly without any credibility. Wise up. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Azizi Date: 08 Jan 06 - 04:34 PM I like that poem, Donuel. Thanks for sharing it. Actually, I hadn't noticed "we" didn't say "red Chinese" anymore. And re: "titular"-no I don't talk like that but I can if I wanna. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 08 Jan 06 - 04:48 PM Sorry, Donuel, but I don't consider pointing out the rules of reasonable debate to be an attack on the man. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: pdq Date: 08 Jan 06 - 05:58 PM More sordid tales about Indian gaming, lies, lobbyists and your government: California Gambling From the September 15, 2003 issue: Heap big casinos in residential neighborhoods. by David DeVoss 09/15/2003 Los Angeles THREE YEARS AGO, an earnest young Indian chief appeared in a multimillion dollar television campaign advocating passage of an amendment to the state constitution that would give Indian tribes a monopoly to operate Las Vegas-style casinos on their reservations. Dressed in faded jeans and a work shirt, with the desiccated Sonoran desert as a backdrop, the chief explained that passage would allow impoverished Native Americans finally to become economically self-sufficient. Prompted by guilt, knowledge that most reservations were located in rural badlands, or perhaps the prospect of no longer having to drive to Nevada in order to gamble, California voters responded to the plea and approved the Indian Gaming Initiative with 64.5 percent of the vote. Today, California is suffering from the unforeseen implications of its beneficence. Dozens of the state's Indian tribes are using profits from their desert casinos to buy new "homelands" closer to population centers. There are plans to build casinos in the Sonoma wine country, along the Ventura coast, and just outside Oakland. Three tribes have asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs to grant them federal tribal recognition so they can establish reservations inside Los Angeles. Indeed, Indian heritage has become such a bonanza that hundreds of urbanized Native Americans have suddenly discovered their roots and are petitioning the BIA to certify 54 new California tribes. Politicians caught between the political correctness of supporting Native Americans and voters outraged by the proliferation of casinos don't know which way to turn. Three years ago, Sen. Barbara Boxer pushed through Congress a bill providing federal recognition for Northern California's Coast Miwok tribe. Boxer circumvented the Bureau of Indian Affairs after receiving assurances from the Miwoks that they would not open a casino. But this past April the tribe hired a team of influential political advisers, which included Boxer's son Doug, and announced plans for a massive casino and resort operated by Nevada financiers. Miwok chief Greg Sarris, a college English professor and Hollywood screenwriter, says he's just trying to lift his people out of poverty. But Sonoma officials say they'll remember Boxer's role in this double-cross when she runs for reelection next year. Once the BIA acknowledges a tribe's existence and "federalizes" its property, the new reservation legally becomes a sovereign nation, exempt from local taxes, state labor laws, municipal ordinances, zoning restrictions, and environmental review. Some tribes have offered to pay mitigation fees for the disruption gambling creates, but the money seldom covers the amount counties spend on added police and fire protection. The resulting strain on municipal resources, plus the panhandling, drug use, and traffic that casinos attract, has galvanized neighborhoods where the quality of life is eroding. In San Bernardino, the skirmish line runs across a dry creek bed, past an elementary school, and around a maze of suburban cul-de-sacs lined with ranch homes and SUVs. Several years ago, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians added 28 acres to their reservation, promising to use the land for housing and a community recreation center. Instead, they recently announced plans to expand their casino, build an event center, and erect a six-story parking garage. The 17,000 neighbors living next to the proposed $50 million construction project are furious, but there is little they can do since the tribe is exempt from political oversight. "The San Manuel band may be a sovereign nation, but aren't we part of a sovereign nation too?" asks homeowner Rheba Hewitt. "Why can't Colin Powell come out here to represent us?" Consisting of 194 souls, only 80 of them adult, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians prospers only because of gambling. Its smoke-filled casino and bingo hall provides each tribal member a $91,000-a-month income. Its bleak reservation is stippled with demi-palazzos. Still, tribal chairman Deron Marquez claims it's his people who are under attack. "Nobody was interested in us until we began to make money," he says. "Our neighbors want us to be like 'Dances with Wolves,' but we'd rather be accountants and lawyers." Thanks to the Indian Gaming Initiative--and the fact that tribes pay no property, corporate, or sales tax--California's Indians have achieved self-sufficiency and more. Each of their 62,000 slot machines rakes in over $300 in profit a day. When added with revenue from bingo, cards, and video games, the state's 54 Indian casinos earn $5.1 billion a year, a sum that exceeds Atlantic City's and is more than half that of Nevada, a state with 401 casinos. Much of the money Indian tribes earn is spent to insure their gaming monopoly and sovereign immunity. California's attorney general has collected $500,000 in campaign donations from Indians. The San Manuel Band has been particularly generous, giving over $10 million to state and local politicians over the past three years. According to California's Fair Political Practices Commission, the Indian gaming lobby has spent $122 million on ballot measures and state elections since 1998, making it the biggest political contributor in the state. Earlier this year, the FPPC filed civil suits against the Agua Caliente and Santa Rosa tribes for failure to report a combined $9.8 million in political contributions in a timely manner. Both groups immediately appealed, insisting sovereign immunity shielded them from state law. "Nobody opposes tribes' participating in the political process, but with that right comes the responsibility of obeying the law," says FPPC chief of enforcement Steven Russo. "We can't have the state's largest political contributors refusing to comply with the political reform act." In the past, Indian consultants approached state legislators, urging them to support pro-gambling laws. Now lawmakers seek out Indian tribes, offering to do whatever is necessary to get on the payroll. This summer, one state senator, who sits on a committee that has jurisdiction over gambling legislation, emailed several tribes offering his services as a paid public relations adviser. When confronted with his incriminating emails, the senator declared his offer "completely above board and proper" since his private consulting company, not he himself, would be doing the work. Until recently, the biggest beneficiary of Indian largess has been Gov. Gray Davis, whose office helped write the constitutional amendment. Davis has accepted $1.5 million from the tribes since he took office in 1999, and gambling interests altogether account for about $2.5 million of the $78 million his fundraisers have collected. In return, Davis signed compacts with Indian tribes that allow their casinos to operate untaxed in return for a paltry fee of less than 10 percent of their slot machine revenue, as opposed to the 25 percent demanded by Connecticut and most other states. Even this amount doesn't go directly to the state treasury. Instead, the money goes into a fund that's divided between smaller gaming tribes and tribes that don't have casinos at all. Neither Davis nor his appointees to the state's Gambling Control Commission require Indian casinos to pay out a fixed percentage of their slot machine revenue, as do the states of Nevada and New Jersey. Slot machines in New Jersey, for example, return to gamblers around 92 percent of the money inserted. Indian slots in California pay back around 70 percent. Having contributed generously to the governor, tribal leaders were stunned earlier this year when Gray Davis suggested they pony up $1.5 billion to help reduce California's $38 billion budget deficit. Several chiefs called his request "ludicrous" and a violation of their sovereign immunity. "Why should we pay for Davis's incompetence?" rasps Marquez. "It's his deficit." CONFRONTED BY a recall initiative that could end his political career, Gray Davis not only has backed away from his request that Indian casinos pay a gross receipts tax, he's even apologized for making the suggestion. Davis still wants money, of course, but now he asks it be sent to one of the committees established to defeat the October 7 recall. In truth, all of the leading gubernatorial candidates save Arnold Schwarzenegger have asked for Indian contributions. But Davis's pandering has been unseemly even by the pay-to-play standards of his five years in the governor's office. Recently Davis promised the California Nations Indian Gaming Association that if he retains the governorship, they'll be allowed to name two of the five members on the state commission that regulates Indian gambling. And yet so far, little Indian money appears to be going to Gray Davis to fight off the recall. Nor has the casino industry jumped on the recall bandwagon. Encouraged by the silence, Davis keeps coming up with tantalizing offers for California's Indians. Last week he promised to sign a bill on the eve of the election that would protect sacred American Indian sites in California. A laudable goal--except for the fact that the bill allows a Native American Heritage Commission to select the sacred sites, which it can then keep secret. Anyone wanting to develop land near sacred ground ("near" carefully being left undefined) would be required to pay for the cultural distress they might cause. Whichever way the recall goes, California's Indians will still be on a roll. Indians may keep mum on the recall itself, but some of their money is riding on Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante. During the last election cycle Indian casinos gave the Fresno Democrat nearly $500,000. Last week, his gubernatorial campaign pocketed an additional $2 million courtesy of the Viejas band of Kumeyaay Indians, a tribe with 300 members that controls gambling east of San Diego. The contribution followed by a few days an $800,000 donation from two other tribes. "Cruz Bustamante is our friend," Viejas vice chairman Bobby Barrett explained. "He has sat down with our elders, learned our stories and our values." Having mastered state politics, California Indians are ready to try their luck inside the Beltway. Last March, the Viejas and three other tribes broke ground on a $43 million Washington hotel development. Tribal leaders say the structure will be a preview of coming attractions. Of course, politicians in the nation's capital may be better negotiators than those in California. But I'm betting the next casino-studded Indian reservation will be located on land once known as Rock Creek Park. David DeVoss heads the East-West News Service in Los Angeles. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: pdq Date: 08 Jan 06 - 06:09 PM Watch that little charmer Al Gore stick it to Indians and Environmentalists (author writes for Mother Jones, et al): Al Gore: The Other Oil Candidate by Bill Mesler, Special to CorpWatch August 29th, 2000 For thousands of years, the Kitanemuk Indians made their home in the Elk Hills of central California. Come February 2001, the last of the 100 burial grounds, holy places and other archaeological sites of the Kitanemuks will be obliterated by the oil drilling of Occidental Petroleum Company. Oxy's plans will "destroy forever the evidence that we once existed on this land," according to Dee Dominguez, a Kitanemuk whose great grandfather was a signatory to the 1851 treaty that surrendered the Elk Hills. Occidental's planned drilling of the Elk Hills doesn't only threaten the memory of the Kitanemuk. Environmentalists say a rare species of fox, lizard and the kangaroo rat would also be threatened by Oxy's plans. A lawsuit has been filed under the Endangered Species Act. But none of that has given pause to Occidental or the politician who helped engineer the sale of the drilling rights to the federally-owned Elk Hills. That politician is Al Gore. Gore recommended that the Elk Hills be sold as part of his 1995 "Reinventing Government" National Performance Review program. Gore-confidant (and former campaign manager) Tony Cohelo served on the board of directors of the private company hired to assess the sale's environmental consequences. The sale was a windfall for Oxy. Within weeks of the announced purchase Occidental stock rose ten percent. That was good news for Gore. Despite controversy over Dick Cheney's plans to keep stock options if elected, most Americans don't know that we already have a vice president with oil company stocks. Before the Elk Hills sale, Al Gore controlled between $250,000-$500,000 of Occidental stock (he is executor of a trust that he says goes only to his mother, but will revert to him upon her death). After the sale, Gore began disclosing between $500,000 and $1 million of his significantly more valuable stock. Nowhere is Al Gore's environmental hypocrisy more glaring than when it comes to his relationship with Occidental. While on the one hand talking tough about his "big oil" opponents and waxing poetic about indigenous peoples in his 1992 book "Earth in the Balance," the Elk Hills sale and other deals show that money has always been more important to Al Gore than ideals. From California to Colombia: Native Lands Threatened The Kitanemuk are not the only indigenous group threatened by Occidental's oil operations. The 5000-member strong U'wa of northeastern Colombia, have threatened mass suicide if Oxy proceeds with plans to begin drilling oil on their ancestral homeland. The U'wa, who retain their language and traditions, understand the introduction of oil would devastate their culture. They also understand that oil facilities would put them in the midst of Colombia's fierce civil war. "To the U'wa, oil equals violence," explains Danny Kennedy, director of the Berkeley, California-based Project Underground, which has helped wage an international campaign of support for the U'wa. Oil installations are a favorite target of leftist guerillas at war with the Colombian government. After guerillas bomb the installations, the army occupies the area. "Then comes the paramilitary, who are basically soldiers with hoods on at night. Then comes the terror campaign" says Kennedy. The U'wa, who have little contact with either the government or the guerillas, would end up becoming targets. The U'wa have attracted international sympathy, but their efforts to enlist the support of Occidental's most famous shareholder -- Al Gore -- have come to naught. Gore publicly met the outcry over the U'wa with silence. The Vice President even refused a request by a Democratic member of Congress that he meet with an U'wa representative who had traveled to Washington to see him. Meanwhile, Occidental pressed for the massive military aide package for Colombia the administration recently pushed through Congress. Occidental Vice President Lawrence Mirage testified before Congress in favor of the military aide package during the February deliberations, throwing in that those opposed to Occidental's drilling were a bunch of "extremists." Two things set the U'wa struggle and the Elk Hills sale apart from the corporate welfare so typical of the New Democrats: Al Gore's direct financial interest and his close relationship with Occidental Petroleum that dates back to his father. A Family Affair Gore senior first met long-time Occidental CEO Armand Hammer at a cattle auction in the 1940s. When zinc ore was discovered on some of Gore's land, Hammer and Oxy bought it for twice the amount of the only other bid. Hammer then sold the land back to Gore while retaining the mineral rights. The elder Gore then sold the land to his son, Al Jr., who has received $20,000 yearly in mineral royalties from Occidental ever since. Two years after Gore Sr. was defeated in a bid for re-election to the Senate, he joined Occidental as a member of its board of directors and was rewarded with a $500,000 a year job working for an Oxy subsidiary. Throughout his political life, Al Gore Jr. has received the favor the patronage of Occidental and Hammer's successor, CEO Ray Irani. And for every campaign finance violation Gore has committed, Irani seems to be lurking in the background. He was one of the contributors who slept in the Lincoln bedroom (a couple days later Irani wrote a $100,000 check to the DNC). When Al Gore made illegal fundraising calls from the White House, Irani was one of the recipients (he ponied up $50,000, according to a Harold Ickes memo unearthed during the investigation). In the Elk Hills sell-off , Irani and Oxy finally got the payoff worthy of their long patronage. It is a payoff crooked businessmen have dreamed of ever since the land was stripped from the Kitanemuks during the Gold Rush. Indeed, the history of Elk Hills and corruption is an old one. And it is a story most Americans have heard. Gore's Teapot Dome Scandal? In 1922, executives of the Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company (now known as ARCO) bribed Albert Fall, President Warren Harding's interior secretary, to give them leases to two oil fields reserved for a military emergency. One was on field in Wyoming called the "Teapot Dome," the name by which we would forever remember the biggest bribery scandal in modern American history. The other field in the scandal was the navy's 47,000-acre reserve in the Elk Hills, near Bakersfield in Central California. These were traditional lands of the Kitanemuk people, better known by the name the Spanish gave them, the Tejon. They were forced off the Elk Hills by treaties signed with the federal government in 1851 during the midst of the gold rush and have since lived on the nearby Fort Tejon reservation, now called "Tejon Ranch." While the scandal scuttled ARCO's plans, Occidental succeeded in acquiring Elk Hills seventy five years later. In 1997, after Gore's recommendation the land be sold, Oxy bought the region from the federal government for $3.7 billion. The sale represented a tripling of the company's U.S. oil reserves. Mired for years by declining reserves, Occidental's revenues for the first quarter of this year showed a dramatic 87 percent increase from the same period in 1999, before it began operations in the Elk Hills. To complete the environmental assessment, the Energy Department hired a private company to complete the environmental impact statement necessary for the sale. The company was ICF Kaiser International, and on its board of directors sat none-other than Democratic super-fundraiser Tony Cohelo. Cohelo would later become Gore's campaign manager before being dumped after the Democrat's early stumbles. He is currently the subject of investigations by former employers in the State Department and by the Census Monitoring Board, seeking to determine if he misused his positions (both were administration appointments) for personal gain. The Securities and Exchange Commission, meanwhile, is investigating Cohelo's myriad financial empire. The Elk Hills sale, not surprisingly, was quickly approved. "I can't say that I've ever seen an environmental assessment prepared so quickly," says Peter Eisner, director of the Washington-D.C. public advocacy group Center for Public Integrity. Meanwhile, as it became clear that Oxy was looking to undertake massive drilling operations in the Elk Hills, the 500 remaining Kitanemuk sought assurances from Oxy that their native sites and burial grounds would not be destroyed. Company officials said they would protect their heritage. But it soon it became apparent that the last of the 100 archaeological sites identified by the tribe would be destroyed by February 2001. Occidental agreed to first allow the State Native American Heritage Commission to retrieve what it feels is most valuable for a future display at a Museum at the California State University in Bakersfield. "They are going to take the last memories of our people, the last evidence that we once inhabited this land and put it in a box and ship it off to a museum," laments tribal member Dee Dominguez. "All the material culture of the Kitanemuk would be destroyed forever. (But) the oil they are extracting will be completely drained in twenty years." Dominguez calls Occidental executives "cold" and "insensitive," unwilling even to consider slant drilling that would save pieces of the tribe's history for future generations. "We've never denied them taking oil," she says. "We are not asking for land. We are not asking for royalties. We are just asking them to leave something to show that we were here." As for Al Gore's role in the whole affair, Dominguez says she has thought about writing him. But she doesn't think it will help. "[Clinton and Gore] sold us down the river," she says. "It turns my stomach every time I hear them talk about family." Bill Mesler is a Washington-based reporter. His work has appeared in the Nation, Mother Jones and the Progressive, among other publications. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,Old Guy Date: 08 Jan 06 - 06:33 PM In case anybody cares, I hope every crook in Washington gets caught and has a fair trial, Presidents, Congressmen, Democrats, Republicans, black, white, male female, Barneys, whatever. I don't care if Democrats take over Congress and the White house. It don't mean a shit to me. It is just the functioning of our government. I think Lobbying should be illegal and I certainly don't approve of what Abramov did. Now if we the people want to do something about it, we should fight lobbying which is the root of the Abramov evil. Lobbying is done by people thru organizationd like Indian Nations, Unions, AARP, etc, as well as big business like the drug industry, oil, auto, Etc. One thing I especially deplore is how the hell did corporations get to have the same rights as a people? Is that in the Constitution? Maybe we should demand the bill of rights be ammended with Thomas Jeffersons proposed "freedom of commerce against monopolies" |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: CarolC Date: 08 Jan 06 - 07:03 PM I agree with most of your 08 Jan 06 - 06:33 PM post, Old Guy. pdq, I have only one complaint with the article in your 08 Jan 06 - 06:09 PM post... Two things set the U'wa struggle and the Elk Hills sale apart from the corporate welfare so typical of the New Democrats I think they are specifically mentioning "New Democrats" in order to differentiate them from "old Democrats", but the way they put it seems to suggest that this sort of thing is more typical of Democrats than Republicans, and that just isn't the case. Both sides of the isle are equally culpable. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Amos Date: 08 Jan 06 - 07:42 PM Old Guy: I agree with most of your 8-Jan 06:09 post as well. The treatment of a corporation as legal individual was originally to limit the liability of the shareholders and owners of the corporation. These is necessary to make it safe to undertake the risk involved, I suppose. A corporation entity also has an on-going existence (perpetual lifetime) so that its assets aren't all re-allocated and re-taxed everytime one generation of executives dies and another takes over. This allows the accumulation of capital, for example, across the spans of people's individual lives, not interrupted by individual decease. The third major rational basis for the "legal entity" shtick is maximizing profits in the interest of shareholders. This is an incentive to investment, and not bad in itself, except that it goes way out of balance. Henry Ford, while running the Ford Motor Co. had a strategy to get more people to buy Fords, by reducing his prices AND reducing dividends. He was sued by his then brother-in-law. Mr. Dodge, who won the suit and founded a competing motor company with the proceeds of his success. People have been forming corporations to undertake risky ventures since 1350 or so. Here's an article on the fiction of corporate personhood which you may find interesting. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 08 Jan 06 - 07:53 PM Hmmmmmm? Old Guy comin' 'round... As for lobbying becoming illegeal, I think that's a tad too much... Part of the model for democracy is being able to approach yer governemnt, either personally or thru representives who will plead yer case for you... No, lobbiesy are an important part of democracy... But 40,000 registered lobbiest in the D.C. area is over the top... Not too sure how to regulate 'um but there's got to be some "Ross Perot Plan" out ther worth a looksie... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,Old Guy Date: 08 Jan 06 - 10:40 PM I never went any where. I have always deplored the dirty tricks and crookedness in Washington. Lobbyists necessary? Bullshit. One citizen, one vote. One corporation, no vote. One illegal alien, no vote. I read something like the Wickipeadia thing but you should beware of that site. People can post whatever they want there and it looks like the truth. This was exposed recently. I read the the first time a Corporation got personal rights was a railroad in 1889 and case law built up from there but recently the corporations have been loosing. Now who would like their land taken away by the local government so they can collect more taxes on it? The lefties on the supreme court done it. The champions of the people. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Bobert Date: 08 Jan 06 - 11:10 PM Okay, Old Guy... I'm convinced... NO lobbiest... I can live with that...''' Hey, if it means gettin' the money outta of policy then I'm all fir it... No major argument here... Nest, get the 501(c)'s and 527's out as well Deal??? Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Seamus Kennedy Date: 09 Jan 06 - 12:37 AM Serious question: The politicians who give the Abramoff monies to charity - can they claim it as a tax-deduction? Be interesting to see how many of them try. Seamus |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST Date: 09 Jan 06 - 01:03 AM Not unless they claim it as income first. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: Arne Date: 09 Jan 06 - 02:19 AM Leadfinger: Reports on Auntie Beeb seem to indicate its not just Republicans who are being implicated ! Well, yes, if you only listen to the RNC "talking points" being parroted. Try this out for size if you want to see Leslie Blitzer suck an egg live and on camera when he's up against someone who's done his homework and has the balls to call the b***sh** what it is. Cheers, |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,G Date: 09 Jan 06 - 08:49 AM Back to "It depends on what the meaning of is is." If I send you some bribe money thru the mail, then it really didn't come directly from me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,G Date: 09 Jan 06 - 08:50 AM ...........it was really the mail carrier. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST Date: 09 Jan 06 - 10:57 AM Somebody here must be worried about their moveon.org income |
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Subject: RE: BS: The House that Jack {Abramoff} Built From: GUEST,dianavan who just discovered she lost her co Date: 09 Jan 06 - 11:01 PM Well then, Guest, where is the evidence? |
