In honor of global phenomenon and resident fly-in-the-ointment DougJ, here’s your link to one of the best Abramoff wrap-ups yet written, by Susan Schmidt and James Grimaldi at the Washington Post.
A reconstruction of the lobbyist’s rise and fall shows that he was an ingenious dealmaker who hatched interlocking schemes that exploited the machinery of government and trampled the norms of doing business in Washington — sometimes for clients but more often to serve his desire for wealth and influence. This inside account of Abramoff’s career is drawn from interviews with government officials and former associates in the lobbying shops of Preston Gates & Ellis LLP and Greenberg Traurig LLP; thousands of court and government records; and hundreds of e-mails obtained by The Washington Post, as well as those released by Senate investigators.
…Abramoff’s lobbying team was made up of Republicans and a few Democrats, most of whom he had wined and dined when they were aides to powerful members of Congress. They signed on for the camaraderie, the paycheck, the excitement.
“Everybody lost their minds,” recalled a former congressional staffer who lobbied with Abramoff at Preston Gates. “Jack was cutting deals all over town. Staffers lost their loyalty to members — they were loyal to money.”
A senior Preston Gates partner warned him to slow down or he would be “dead, disgraced or in jail.” Those within Abramoff’s circle also saw the danger signs. Their boss had become increasingly frenzied about money and flouted the rules. “I’m sensing shadiness. I’ll stop asking,” one associate, Todd Boulanger, e-mailed a colleague.
The first act, of course, introduces a seemingly unstoppable hero and his seemingly-minor tragic flaw.
…Even in those early days, there were hints of the troubles to come. “If anyone is not surprised at the rise and fall of Jack Abramoff, it is me,” said Rich Bond, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Abramoff and his crew busted the College Republicans’ budget with a 1982 national direct-mail fundraising campaign that ended up “a colossal flop,” said Bond, then deputy director of the party’s national committee. He said he banished the three from GOP headquarters, telling Abramoff: “You can’t be trusted.”
You can just imagine an eleven-year-old Abramoff borrowing against dad’s car to swing the sixth-grade class elections. Ah, the memories.
Abramoff wallowed in his access, real and imagined. When his crack administrative assistant Susan Ralston bolted for a position with White House political adviser Karl Rove, Abramoff told colleagues he had gotten her the job even though it was Ralston’s old boss, Reed, who made it happen, her former colleagues said.
Even glowing profiles in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal noting Abramoff’s extensive influence and impressive income were not enough. Abramoff quietly paid op-ed columnists thousands of dollars to write favorably about his clients, including one writer for Copley News Service who disclosed this month that he had been paid for as many as two dozen columns since the mid-1990s.
When you tally up the respective efforts of the various corners of the Executive branch, Abramoff and the Pentagon you get a picture of some awfully busy little media whores.
And of course, the inevitable closing of the third act.
Alan K. Simpson (R), the former Wyoming senator who was in Washington during the last big congressional scandal — the Abscam FBI sting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in which six House members and one senator were convicted — said the Abramoff case looks bigger. Simpson said he recently rode in a plane with one of Abramoff’s attorneys, who told him: “There are going to be guys in your former line of work who are going to be taken down.”
I’ve barely quoted a tenth of the juicy stuff. Read, weep, discuss.
More Abramoff coverage here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
***Update***
Via a commenter, is Steno Sue up to her usual tricks? Atrios argues that the point of this whole exercise may be to undercut Abramoff’s credibility if he flips. I have to admit that the part about DeLay barely even knowing Abramoff’s first name (or whatever she’s implying) sounded pretty strange. The suggestion that DeLay is some backwoods fundie who can’t shake hands with a Jew insults the intelligence a bit more every time I think about it.
Paddy O'Shea
2006 could be a very bad year for the Grand Old Pork Party. Can’t wait to watch all those sanctimonious lying SOBs go down. First the scandal, then the deserved beating at the polls. All those Iraqi vets the Dems are running are going to look real good against the party of lies, corruption and chickenhawk war mongering.
Here’s another article that sheds some very unfavorable light on just what a depraved bunch the fearless and oh so Godly Republican leadership wiggled their big pink fannies for. Abramoff’s boy Michael Scanlon calling Christian fundies “wackos” is particularly telling.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/11/03/abramoff/index_np.html
Speaking of which, it looks like Bush’s happy war talk bubble is bursting. New NYT/CBS poll pegs him ata dismal 40% approval.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/28/opinion/polls/main1168408
Paddy O'Shea
Bush drunk video. Apparently got some telly play over in Britain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=KmIcYwBkfdM
Geek, Esq.
Uh, what the hell is Abramoff’s attorney saying stuff like that for? I can’t imagine him saying that unless a plea deal and cooperative testimony are pretty much a done deal.
Ouch!
Al Maviva
Geek, coulda been a warning shot across the Senate’s bow. The Senate Judiciary Committee has had a major investigation ongoing for over a year, if I understand it correctly. The chief investigator, a Republican staffer, was beaten in her driveway a couple months ago by a big guy wearing a ski mask and carrying a baseball bat – no money was taken. Given that there is at least one dead body associated with this corruption probe – the cruise line president who sold out to Abramoff then turned up dead (a sale resulting in fraud charges against Abramoff) – it wouldn’t be shocking if the comment was a deliberate ploy to rattle the Senate’s cage a bit. Don’t forget, if there is no actual crime, only the senate can take down other senators for ethical violations. Might have just been an unprofessional martini-fueled leak, but most attorneys of the caliber of those employed by Abramoff (e.g. Abbie Lowell) don’t say things like that inadvertantly.
demimondian
Al — either way, it’s disbarrable. You *just don’t do that*. I’m with Geek — WTF did the guy think he was doing? He’d better hope that the judge rejects that as hearsay — and if Simpson kept a record, there goes any strategy which maintains that Abramov is innocent!
capelza
I’m interested in what Simpson’s motive was for speaking about the conversation. Not forming any judgement, just curious…
I kinda always liked Simpson.
Geek, Esq.
Simpson’s a straight-shooter. Wish he was still in D.C.
What the attorney said isn’t sanctionable if authorized by the client . . .
And there most definitely are crimes involved here–Bob Ney is already a dead man walking–they have Scanlon confessing to bribing him. Abramoff is mostly worried about keeping himself out of jail at this point.
demimondian
Unless Abramov has flipped already, he didn’t authorize anything as damning as that, Geek.
Sojourner
I suspect that Simpson has had his fill of the trash who have damaged his party, his Senate, and his country.
We need more Repubs like him who actually have principles. Only the Repubs can rein in the trash who are doing so much damage.
Steve
Saying there is a scandal which will take some senators down is not necessarily inconsistent with claiming your client is not legally culpable in connection with the scandal.
Perry Como
This is just another example of the criminalization of politics. Whatever happened to the idea of free market legislating?
Another Jeff
I’m glad to see this newfound love of Alan Simpson from the moonbats.
You’re right, he does have principles. but, I highly doubt you were praising his principles when he was rightfully pointing out that Anita Hill lied through her teeth, or when he was in Florida helping Bush with the 2000 recount, or when he pointed out that then-Senator Al Gore sold his vote on the first Gulf War to whichever side could guarantee him more TV time.
capelza
Truthfully, Another Jeff, I still liked Simpson, IN SPITE of those things…is that so hard to understand? Just like I really liked Bill Clinton but wanted to kick his ass for a number of other things. But then I’m old school…before the “either your for us or against us” wingnuts arrived and took over..
Doug
Reading that article, Abramoff worked with some pretty unsavory people such as the Pakistani military and an Angolan rebel leader. With the amount of money involved, the nature of some of the people, the cheating and double dealing, and the political stakes involved, I would not be at all surprised to see folks connected to this investigation turning up dead.
Another Jeff
Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, you’re old-school. Just a nice, harmonius, non-partisan kind of guy who did everything he could to get along with the other side until that big, mean divisive Bush came along and poisoned the political well. Sell it down the street, tool.
Geek, Esq.
I would concur.
capelza
First off, Jeff..I’m a woman, and yeah, hard to believe, but I was. Voted Republican, Libertarian, as well as Democratic into the ’90’s (I’m 49 and remember how different it was)..so spare me the “tool” comment. Insulting someone and calling them a liar without even knowing who they are only shows you to be the tool.
ats
“when he [Alan Simpson] was rightfully pointing out that Anita Hill lied through her teeth”
I had three friends who went to Yale Law School with Clarence Thomas. All three said Thomas was a sleazy guy. They were inclined to believe Hill.
Don’t state as fact what is mere opinion.
Another Jeff
Be offended all you want, you still spout the usual moonbat talking points when you’re here. i highly doubt, especially someone as old as you, changed all of a sudden.
Another Jeff
Oh, well I guess that settles it then. ats friends said so.
OK, i had three friends who were at Oklahoma when Hill was there and they said she asked Barry Switzer and Brian Bosworth to go Eiffel Tower on her.
capelza
That’s your problem Jeff, sorry…you’re still acting like a dick..though you haven’t called me a tw*t like one of your fellow wingnuts did here awhile back, so you might have a chance at any relevance with me…mmmm, no, on second thought, you just a dick…
Back to Abramoff…
Blue Neponset
Hey Another Jeff your a wingnut, poopy face farter!
Sorry for the stong language everyone, but I had to stoop down to Jeff’s level to teach him a lesson.
P.S. Your dead at reccess Jeff.
Another Jeff
Get over it. Some lefty called Stormy the C-word about a month ago. That’s way worse than tw*t, although whoever did call you that should be punched in the mouth.
Another Jeff
Good one, you got me. Anything else? No, didn’t think so. thanks for proving my point.
OCSteve
I hope every corrupt pol (R or D) involved goes down. You wonder why they don’t listen to their constituents. We just sent them there. Once they get there they are bought and paid for by these groups.
I hope the bastard flips and takes them all down.
What can be done about getting rid of lobbyists and PACs? The amount of influence they have makes me ill.
Bulldoze K Street.
I want to see a law (with teeth) that says no politician or staffer can take a job with these scum until at least 10 years after leaving their current position.
capelza
Sorry, have to come back to Another Jeff’s comments about my “moonbat” posts he has supposedly read. If he had read my posts he would have known I was a woman, so I am puzzled as to how he could arrive at the “fact” I was a moonbat, and yet miss the salient detail of my gender. Was it the “free Mumia” posts?
And I apologise for calling him a dick..like with all children , when they been bad, one doesn’t tell them THEY are bad, but what they did was…dickish.
John Cole
That WaPo piece reads like the plot to a Grisham novel. I read it last night, and it took everything in my power not to post it, because I knew Tim was going to be ecstatic when he saw it.
capelza
OCSteve I agree completely…bulldoze K Street. Actually I agree with your entire post.
OCSteve
That just infuriates me. I work in high tech. I have had to sign some pretty strict non-compete agreements saying I could not go to work for competitors or customers for up to 5 years after I left that position. There was always a question about whether they were enforceable, but there was a time I could not leave a job I hated. The company I worked for had reputation for trying to enforce them, and other potential employers within commuting distance didn’t want to deal with the potential headache.
Yet here we have this situation, that is clearly a conflict of interest, and just ripe for corruption – and it’s OK.
It doesn’t even have to be a law. Congress Critters, as employers, could make staff sign similar agreements. You want to work for me you can’t work for any lobbyist for 10 years after that.
You are absolutely right John – it does read like a friggin Grisham novel. It should be a work of fiction – but it’s our government in action.
Sojourner
You’re sucking Bush’s dick and you’re calling us tools?
That’s too funny for words!
Thanks for the much needed laugh.
By the way, if you stopped sucking, stood up, and looked around, you might learn something about what’s really going on with your beloved but corrupt administration.
Sojourner
Suck, suck.
Paddy O'Shea
Talking Points Memo (12/29):
Ahh the shame! The humanity! The pure unadulterated humor value!
Signatures, Jack Abramoff’s pricey DC eatery where the rightwingers ate well and the congressmen ate for free, is looking for a new name.
And they’ve set up a special page at the restaurant’s website where you can sign up and suggest one.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
I submitted “The Trough.”
ghost of p.lukasiak
Wow! You guys actually let Steno Sue Schmitt sucker you into this Abramoff piece.
Here’s a clue. Abramoff is negotiating a plea deal. That means that all the people who were keeping their mouth shut about Abramoff before he started talking (in the hope that he wouldn’t talk) now have to hurry-up and desperately try to tarnish Abramoff’s image before the indictments start being handed down.
And just to make this as obvious as possible, here is something that Atrios dug up…
Here is what Steno Sue, and her partner Grimaldi, wrote today…
But oddly enough, ten weeks ago the same team of Schmidt and Grimaldi wrote:
That’s the nice thing about these internets — they expose corrupt reporters who are merely spinning for the GOP establishment for the scumbags they are…
searp
The thing that really changed was the formation of a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican party called the K street project. Instead of being a lobbyist first and a politico second, you weren’t effective until you proved your undying loyalty to Tom Delay and the Republican party. That is, loyalty first, then you get rewarded by whatever policy you need to satisfy your lobbying function.
Public policy, sold for political correctness and cash, that is the Abramoff/Delay model.
searp
Makes me wish for good old-fashioned apolitical corruption.
Paddy O'Shea
http://atrios.blogspot.com/
He’s Stupid, He’s Ugly and Nobody Likes Him
Just on CNN. Bush’s favorability (not job rating) hits all time low in CNN/Gallup Poll. 46% favorable, 53% unfavorable.
Does this mean that President Bush is no longer the kind of guy folks’d want to have a beer with?
OCSteve
First of all, I like you better as a ghost. Now to get out the yellow pages for an exorcist…
Next – I read that article as pretty damning of Republicans. Search it for party name:
Republican – 16 times, several negative.
Democrat – 8 times, all neutral.
MSM spinning for the GOP. Have another drink.
BTW – I voted Republican but I want to see any dirty pol go down here. This crap infuriates me.
Doug
These people are politicizing corruption!
OCSteve
LOL. Thanks for lightening my mood.
searp
There is no doubt that it a Republican scandal. Abramoff was a lifelong, very partisan Republican who was plugged into the Republican political establishment. Nobody is accusing him of taking Democrats on golfing trips. He may have sucked in some Democrats, time will tell, but it is Republicans that were his buddies.
searp
Paddy: Harriet likes him
Pooh
It’s not the criminalization of politics, it’s the end result of decades of politicizing criminals.
Pooh
And that goes for the lot(t) of them – to channel ppGaz, give me term limits or give me death…
Doug
You would think so. But, then again, you would’ve thought that Enron pretty clearly favored Republicans or that Max Cleland was immune from charges that he was weak on defense. You would have thought that John Kerry’s military service was an asset and that George Bush’s lack of service was a liability.
In a partisan mudfight, often times, up becomes down. So, we’ll see.
OCSteve
Yup. Agreed. One quibble – he went repub when they gained the majority. I want to see them go down. Every last corrupt SOB on the hill. Don’t just kick them out – serious jail time.
searp
I think the scorecard will be the indictments and pleas. So far everyone – Abramoff and his partners and associates – that is in legal trouble is a Republican.
I’d say Republicans (Abramoff, Kidan, Scalon) 3, Dems 0 at this point…
The Other Steve
Another Jeff writes:
Honestly, I’m with the other guys. I liked Alan Simpson back in the day as well. Could care less about 2000 or Al Gore, considering I didn’t much like Al Gore.
But this Anita Hill thing. I’m a bit confused by you saying “rightfully pointing out”. Do you mean rightfully pointing out because he was a Republican partisan and it was his job? Or are you implying that Hill’s accusations had no substantiation.
I hope you mean the former and not the latter, because otherwise you’ll be sorely disappointed as the allegations Hill made were truthful. This was revealed in David Brock’s book “Blinded by the Right”. The man who wrote the book on that escapade, quite literally titled “The Real Anita Hill”, admited in his more recent book that it was he in fact who had been caught lying. As it turned out, Brock found out that Thomas had quite a substantial interest in renting pornography.
I’ve never understood that one. Because I believe there is a credible argument to be made that what Thomas did was not necessarily bad. Viewing porno’s isn’t a bad thing, it’s something ever red blooded American should do. Even asking her to date him isn’t a bad thing. It was never clear that he tried to pressure her. Making a few jokes or references to his porno watching wasn’t necessarily harassment.
So why do the wingnuts have such a obsession with this? Why do they insist that Anita Hill lied, when it’s clear she didn’t… when the real issue is simply whether her statements were substantial enough to disqualify Thomas?
I propose that it is insecurity. As we’ve found out over the years, Thomas has turned out to be quite a terrible Supreme Court Justice. He was unqualified at the time, and the only real argument that Republicans made for him was that he was black, and if Democrats didn’t vote for him then that was because they were racist.
Here’s a tip… In the future, stop trying to play games and just be honest. Find someone who is extremely well qualified to be a justice, and don’t just go looking for someone you hope will vote your way on certain issues. You’ll be much more satisfied with the results long term, and you won’t feel so insecure about your blind support.
capelza
I have to ask…who is Steno Sue?
The Other Steve
According to the article, Abramhoff is a lifelong Republican. He didn’t just go back and forth depending on who was in charge… he’s obsessed with the party.
But I agree that everybody whose in on this racket needs to go down. I am so fucking sick of this shit going on in Washington.
And K-Street needs to be bulldozed.
Frankly, I think the Mayor of DC should change all the lightbulbs along that street to the color red, because it is clearly now a red-light district, since Norquist and Delay took over.
Tim F.
It’s a nickname that Sue Schmidt picked up after years of embarrassingly GOP-friendly reporting.
OCSteve
Sorry dude – the guy flew F-102’s. You can argue about TANG and Vietnam – but every time he strapped one of those suckers on he risked his life, for the country. Intercept missions don’t count? Ask the many pilots of the cold war…
I served in the cold war – mostly running around Fort Hungry Lizard in CA and guarding Pershing Missiles in Germany. Does that mean I have a “lack of service”? Never fired a shot. We did win the cold war though no?
Another Jeff
Shorter Other Steve: I believe a pathological liar because he was only a pathological liar when he was on the other side. He’s telling the truth now. i hate to break this to you but liars are liars. They don’t all of a sudden change their ways once they stop getting invited to American Spectator cocktail parties.
Newsflash: Brock wasn’t the only person who caught Hill in lies. Arlen Specter (you know him, he’s the guy that was a hero to you guys when he nailed bork, but then lost his heroic status four years later when he nailed Hill) caught her in at least four lies before anybody ever heard of David Brock.
Oh, and sojourner, come out of your mommies basement, go out in the real world, and try and find yourself a significant other. You have a real junior high fascination with the words “suck” and “dick”.
The Other Steve
I don’t believe that’s really the issue. My father was a Air Force radio operator in Taiwan from ’60-62 which was just a few years after Chiang Kai-Shek had fled China to that island. Nobody ever shot at him, but it was still service.
The question is why is serving a tour in Vietnam considered such a joke by Republicans?
Behind the curtain of the beligerant posturing, there’s a pretty filthy attitude most Republicans have towards military service. The little purple heart bandaids at the GOP convention was just the tip of their disgusting attitude.
OCSteve
You’ll have to give me some links for that. As I recall it, every Republican who spoke to it went out of their way to say “I honor Senator Kerry’s service…”
Whereas on the Dem’s side, flying interceptor missions, in a fairly dangerous fighter, does not count as service, it counts as skating out of the war… Vietnam was one front in the cold war. We should have done without interceptor pilots at that time?
p.lukasiak
Arlen Specter (you know him, he’s the guy that was a hero to you guys when he nailed bork, but then lost his heroic status four years later when he nailed Hill) caught her in at least four lies before anybody ever heard of David Brock.
uh, no he didn’t. He did twist her words, impute meaning to them that was obviously never intended, and tried to make her look like she was lying — its the kind of trick that prosecutors like to play, but unlike in a courtroom where there is a judge who would admonish him for such tactics, Specter got away with it because there was no judge in the room.
demimondian
By that argument, you could argue that I deserved credit for military service because in the course of my period of working for the military as a civilian contractor, I also wound up working in “fairly dangerous” situations. If you think I deserve credit for active duty under fire, please tell me — and then tell me where to send someone to protect you from the infuriated *real* soldiers who’ll want your hide.
Jeebus. Anyone who’s worked a step removed from combat knows that there’s a difference — dangerous situations arise all the time, but even if something might have hurt me, it wasn’t consciously trying to do so.
Far North
I have one for Abramoff’s restaraunt: the “Corruption Kitchen”.
Hey OCSSteve, Bush left the TANG under a cloud of suspicion. For many of us, that is the issue, not that he flew a fighter before he mysteriously dissappeared. Dan Rather’s sloppy work did not change this.
p.lukasiak
The issue isn’t whether or not flying F-102s was sufficiently dangerous — the issue is that Bush stopped flying them when he was obligated under US law and Air Force policy to continue to do so.
(as to that particular jet being dangerous, it was, when it was first introduced. But by the time Bush got around to flying it, its safety record was vastly improved. )
Another Jeff
Oh God, more stupidity from Captain Kinkos. Yesterday it was that the Philly Democratic machine doesn’t engage in election fraud, today it’s Anita Hill didn’t lie, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Specter didn’t have to twist her words. She did a good enough job herself. Read the damn transcript.
christ, i don’t even like Thomas but you people are unbelievable.
Far North
Damn, they’ll do or say almost anything to prop Bush up. What is it about that man that has so many of his followers willing to annihilate reason and credibility to prop him up?
demimondian
OK: please point me to the lines that are relevant. Otherwise, I’ll think you’re quoting “authorities” — and, unlike you, I watched the hearings live.
p.lukasiak
Oh God, more stupidity from Captain Kinkos. Yesterday it was that the Philly Democratic machine doesn’t engage in election fraud, today it’s Anita Hill didn’t lie, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Nice try, but why do you provide some evidence to back up your accusations. I watched the hearings — I don’t have to read the transcripts — and as a Pennsylvanian I felt embarrassed and humiliated by Specter’s performance.
OCSteve
Listen – I don’t want to rehash the last election… Can we agree that that someone who served their country, combat or not, deserves respect? If not, I have nothing more to say.
This thread is about corruption, what seems to be more R than D. I am on board with you all – run the bastards out of town on a rail!
But please – don’t slight someone because their service did not live up to what you think it should. You want to know first hand how DOD handles assignments – sign up.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
So, everyone at the GOP convention wearing those Purple Heart band-aids to mock Kerry were fake Republicans?
(John, IIRC, didn’t the sight of that set your blood boiling?)
demimondian
Fair enough.
So, OC — do you think that the R’s will really be hurt by Abramov? I’m thinking that the party will shrug it off as a bunch of bad actors.
OCSteve
That was stupid. The party I voted for often does stupid things. Shall I list the Dems screw-ups? When they do stupid things I say so.
Sign up. As you get out of basic and into AIT they ask you to name your top 3 duty stations (well, back in the early 80’s anyway). Then some sicko in personnel looks at that and tries to come up with whatever is 180 degrees from whatever you said. You do not have control over where you go or do not go.
Perry Como
This Abramoff thing is just how DC works. I’m surprised that so many people are surprised by it. Everyone does it, but now some people are trying to turn it into a partisan issue. Even if Abramoff did cross the line, I’m sure that the people he duped had no knowledge he was doing something illegal.
OCSteve
I hope so. Screw the bastards. I have a foul taste in my mouth defending these bastards.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
I wasn’t asking if that was stupid – although it was. I was pointing out that your blanket statement that Republicans honored Kerry’s service was butt-naked wrong.
Go nuts – I’m not a Democrat.
demimondian
Damn right, dude. I mean, how could there be anything illegal about sending out an email on behalf of the widow of the recently deceased dictator of some small African nation, asking for help in liberating the late dictator’s fortune from durance vile in some obscure bank?
OCSteve
Links dude… I don’t remember any prominent repbub doing otherwise.
capelza
Didn’t Bob Dole put his foot in his mouth about Kerry not ever bleeding? He did take it back though…
What I really want is for this whole Abramoff to bust open NOW. I know the wheels of justice can grind slowly (see the Fitzgerald and Starr investigation), but lordy…
OCSteve
I’m with you there. Smoke ‘em out, string ‘em up, or run them out of town.
PissAnts.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Are you saying the convention-goers – and the Swift Boaters – don’t count as far as “prominent” Republicans’ feelings toward Kerry’s military service? As in, they were totally off the reservation but the GOP establishment could do little but wring its hands in anguish over the slamming of the gentleman from Massachusetts?
ARE. YOU. KIDDING?
Just as Malkin, I believe, was slapped around for floating the balloon Kerry’s wounds were self-inflicted.
Sojourner
Sure beats your mindless loyalty to the corrupt and incompetent Bush administration. Talk about needing to join the real world. How many people have to die in order for you to grow a brain?
Bob In Pacifica
Alan Simpson was connected to the old World Anti-Communist League, which itself was an outgrowth of Hitler’s old Anti-Kommintern. If you go read INSIDE THE LEAGUE in the appendix you’ll find a list of the most horrid fascists of the 1980s still besmirching the face of the earth. That’s not to say that with all the shit he did I don’t miss him when compared to the current group of Republicans. Better a reactionary who consorted with tinhorn dictators and Nazi residua from around the world than the current bunch.
+++
Arlen Specter was the main proponent of the single-bullet theory in the government coverup of the JFK murder. It’s totally unforgiveable. When he’s buried maybe I’ll visit his grave and piss on it.
+++
OCSteve, Bush went AWOL from his unit, put in for a phony transfer to a unit out of state. When he went to grad school in Boston in the fall of 1973 and failed to find a reserve unit for his last year of duty I was finishing up my tour of active duty at Fort Devens forty miles to the west.
I agree with you that flying an F-102 requires bravery. There is strong evidence that that may very well have been the reason why Bush stopped flying. He was afraid. He’d lost his nerve. After all, as much as he didn’t mind others going over to fight in Vietnam, he personally didn’t want to put his ass on the line. The alternative theory is that he stopped flying in order to avoid the drug tests that would reveal his cocaine use. The third theory is that he knew that his position as the son of GHW Bush would protect his ass if he didn’t complete he service. My opinion is that it was probably a combination of all three.
Don’t confuse your honorable service with Bush’s bullshit.
Bob In Pacifica
Oh, for all the references to “suck” and “dick,” remember that George W. Bush’s frat house nickname was “Lips Bush.” If Republicans were a little more honest it would have part of their platform.
Paddy O'Shea
Do the math.
http://www.cafepress.com/tomsworld/1071436
Krista
C’mon guys, I enjoy ribald humour as much as the next girl, but I know you can be more subtle and witty than this. :)
Anyhoo, I think that 9/10 career politicians are corrupt as hell. The little bubble of entitlement that is government quickly makes most people lose any sense of reality. They’re like a bunch of Marie Antoinettes in suits and ties. No grasp on how normal people struggle to make ends meet every day. No grasp on the concept that just because you WANT something, it doesn’t mean that you can, or should have it. And no grasp on the concept of being held personally accountable for your actions.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Do the math.
Mr. Pibb + Red Vines = Crazy Delicious?
Al Maviva
>>>>The thing that really changed was the formation of a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican party called the K street project
Searp, that doesn’t work at all. God help me for agreeing with him, but I think Perry Como has a better read on this. Abramoff’s capers are how Washington works. Abramoff had the bad taste to be more openly partisan, grasping and crass than most people who play in his league, but basically the same thing goes on with a lot of lobbying shops. There were in fact partisan lobby shops long before the K Street Project, just as there are non-partisan lobby shops and the 5 or 10,000 trade and other special interest groups that look out for particular industries or citizen interests, most of which will dance with any partner who is willing. There are many lobby shops in D.C. where you can’t work, never would have been able to work, if you weren’t in the right party, and for that matter, in the right branch of it, worked for the right Member, etc. The only really unique thing about the K Street Project is it openly aimed to punk the non-partisan and Dem lobby shops on a consistent and organized basis, whereas most other efforts to coordinate lobbying along partisn lines that I’m aware of don’t have the bad taste to talk about it openly. I’ve come to believe that if you want real reform, the secret is to get away from the McCain-Feingold approach of sticking fingers in various holes in the dike, but rather to force full disclosure of lobbyist contacts and donations and funding, along with a prohibition on the use of front corporations. In other words really exercising the First Amendment is a good solution to First Amendment related problems. The idea is not to limit the money but to limit the shady backroom deals, force the information out into the open where reporters & profs & analysts & the rest of us can pick through it.
The Other Steve
Another Jeff Says:
In other words, you only believed him when he was on your side, whether or not other facts corroborated what he was saying.
Thanks for the projection of your weakness, but I was looking for a real discussion not just more partisan sniping from you.
The Other Steve
OCSteve Says:
Please, let’s not be willfully obtuse. These things didn’t just show up on the convention floor by accident.
The Other Steve
Al Maviva says:
First, back to the K-Street Project. The number of people involved in lobbying has gone up by a factor of 10 since the Republicans took control of Congress. To say it used to happen in the past, and that makes what is going on today ok is dishonest.
That being said, I do not necessarily disagree with you on full disclosure.
Pooh
Al,
Very well said. Not sure I agree in toto, but well said. I wonder how much mere disclosure would help in certain instances – the names of various orgs can be and often are misleading…
demimondian
Problem is, _McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission_ and _Buckley v. Valeo_ put the kibosh on mandated disclosure of financial support. On the one hand, _McIntyre_ says that the right to canvass anonymously is guaranteed as First Amendment speech, and _Buckley_ says that campaign contributions are speech for the purposes of the First Amendment — put together, anonymous contributions sure sound like protected speech to me.
demimondian
In fact, on consideration, I doubt that I need to use Buckley directly. I think I can make do with just McIntrye if I want to support anonymous political advertising, and then argue that the same reasoning applies to lobbying, except under the Petitions clause instead of the Free Speech clause. So I doubt that any law which demands public disclosure of lobbyist funding would make Constitutional muster.
(BTW: how many people here know the origin of the word “lobbyist”?)
Perry Como
Well, we really shouldn’t have campaign contribution limitations. Money = speech, so if someone tries to limit my ability to donate, they are trampling on my 1st Amendment rights. If I want a pesky regulation lifted because it’s cutting into my bottom line, I should be able to have lunch with a senator and toss him a few hundred grand so he can pass some legislation for me. This isn’t “bribery”, we were just “talking” and my arguments were persuasive (all 300,000 of them).
In fact, I don’t think either party really understands how much this issue hurts our Consitutional right to free speech. A new party is needed that can address this issue head on: Vote Plutocratic in ’08!
demimondian
For heaven’s sake, Perry, why would you give a congressman money? Ot’s illegal bribe a representative, and, more importantly, you can’t trust one to stay bought. Some kind of plutocrat you are, to ignore the ROI and risk premium issues.
It’s generally better to pursue a legal strategy, all things considered. Provision of money to important charities that the representative wishes supported is always popular. It’s not only good PR for the business, but it allows you to get a picture of yourself alongside the public servant. Such pictures are often useful in reminding the servants of your past work together while warming them up for productive negotiations. These warm-ups are more useful when coupled with expressions of your distaste for the misdirection of the funds with which you had entrusted him or her through your generous charitable contributions.
Pooh
Given the givens, it’s possible that the “Money = speech” doctrine will be revisited (probably in the context of a challenge to McCain-Feingold.) [WILDASS SPECULATION TO FOLLOW] I could conjecture a retreat into money = speech-like substance, due some 1st amendment protection, but not complete deference. [/WAG]
searp
Al: I disagree. The significant comment is this:
The only really unique thing about the K Street Project is it openly aimed to punk the non-partisan and Dem lobby shops on a consistent and organized basis, whereas most other efforts to coordinate lobbying along partisn lines that I’m aware of don’t have the bad taste to talk about it openly.
Think about that sort of activity. It has nothing to do with getting your industry preferences, and everything to do with creating an organization that is political first and lobbies second.
The quid pro quo is simple: act as rabid political supporters, sucking up and spitting money to help us politically, and then we will give you whatever policy you want.
We will see the results – Republicans indicted for bribing Republicans, when to them, it is all fungible. In, out of government, who cares when what matters is whether you are in or out of the Party?
p.lukasiak
Update: Via a commenter, is Steno Sue up to her usual tricks? Atrios argues that the point of this whole exercise may be to undercut Abramoff’s credibility if he flips.
geez, you just couldn’t give me credit … instead you had to claim that Atrios was making the argument I made, when the link shows only that Atrios caught Steno Sue contradicting her own earlier reporting (others had earlier caught the contradiction between Steno Sue’s reporting and reality–Duncan was apparently the first to catch that Steno Sue was fully aware of that contradiction_, and commenting on the implied anti-semitism of her recent characterization of Abramoff.
demimondian
Pooh — I think that an argument based on _McIntyre_ only might resist an attack on “money is speech”. (What do I know, though? I never liked _Buckley_ to begin with.)
demimondian
Why would he give you credit? Aren’t you dead?
The Other Steve
Good to know that.
I kind of figured it was because they stood around in the lobby annoying the hell out of people.
Sojourner
There’s a weird logic to this. In effect, the SC agrees that money = speech so by their logic…
Which is why I disagreed with their initial ruling.
Darrell
Translation: “I want everyone to think that I’m sooo much more principled than those (ick!) conservatives, so I’ll show you how fair minded I am by taking a cheap shot without having a clue as to Darrell’s or Jeff’s opinion on this matter. It’s the kind of person I am”
Happy New Year you arrogant prick