Abramoff's extensive laundry list.

[fossten]

I like your thinking. How do you proposed we get the government out of every aspect of our lives?

I say the biggest intrusion in our lives is the IRS. Eliminate it by having a national sales tax. It wouldn't matter where your money comes from. Everybody pays if they consume. If you choose to save there is no penalty, as there is now. Let's start there.

Wow barry, I love ya man!!

You should check out Neal Boortz' book, The Fair Tax. It is a perfect plan. Unfortunately, the HR bill containing it was rejected.

We've had a thread on this before. Here's their site:

http://www.fairtax.org/

 

[RB3]

I am also in favor of a GST, VAT, or some type of consumption tax to replace the Income Tax. The greatest danger I see in it though, is that about 15 minutes after it was enacted, the Democrats would attempt to reinstitute the Income Tax. They'd sell it with their usual demagoguery...that it would just be imposed on "the rich."

 

[RB3]

Meanwhile, William F. Buckley Jr. offers wisdom on Abramoff, as a symptom of a far greater problem with how Congress works. Demonstrating once again, at age 80, he is still smarter than the rest of us.

Here's his column from yesterday:

There was creeping dismay about Congress before the Abramoff indictment. Government spending was out of hand, the president's refusal to exercise the veto began to seem almost as if he were bound by a secret oath, supplementary spending bills began to sound as though written for Saturday Night Live. There is national disgust, but it is never quite clear whether this can be transformed into effective action for reform. There are many ideas floating about on measures that might be taken.

It was not very long ago that national attention was given to reforms focusing on money in the area of campaign financing. Efforts were made to reason in terms of gross dollars spent. If the spending of money by individual legislators was an invitation to corruption, why — regulate the amounts spent!

The money-quantity approach to reducing campaign spending ran into two problems, one of them constitutional. The Supreme Court ruled that federal election expense limits could be set, inasmuch as the government had a legitimate interest in protecting an appearance of integrity in electoral proceedings. But to limit what an individual could spend in promoting himself as a candidate, or in promoting his cause, would be an incursion on First Amendment rights and, as such, unconstitutional.

During the disputes of that period (1970-76) two voices sounded weightily. Milton Friedman argued mostly on the question of personal rights. If individuals wished to make contributions to political candidates reflecting intense enthusiasm for them or for their causes, what to do? Answer: Follow the first rule of a libertarian society, and let them do what they want to do. The columnist George Will argued with devastating effect that there was no purpose in electoral reform that sought to reduce moneys spent for the simple reason that contributors will find ways to contribute, and politicians will find ways to spend. All that can be done, argued Mr. Will, is to insist that money traffic be disclosed, so that the broader constituency can decide for itself whether the courtship of a candidate or a cause has become smelly.

Many pundits bowed before the pressure of these arguments. But what has now happened in the area of government spending is on the order of a structural breakdown, a flight from responsibility that doesn't get punished because everyone apparently is guilty. The Executive has not been punished for failing to exercise a veto against inordinate spending. And legislators get de facto immunity on the grounds that problems are systemic, not individual.

Consider the device by which pork is engineered. The so-called "earmark," appended to a huge bill providing, say, for the common defense, brings on arrested motion if the earmarker's request for money for the famous bridge from nowhere to nowhere is not authorized.

One practical suggestion has been made, but would of course require filibuster-proof action. Namely, that all the earmarks attached to a particular bill may not constitute more than one percent of the money being authorized by that bill.

A second suggestion is made by former Speaker Newt Gingrich. It is that incumbents be prohibited from fundraising in Washington D.C. This would greatly reduce the influence of lobbyists on congressional action.

And so on. I remember as a student in Mexico City hearing the derisory suggestion on how to limit graft in the executive. President Manuel Avila Camacho stressed his personal incorruptibility in the matter of profiteering from the sale of beef — he pointed out that he owned no cattle. Ah. But his brother Maximino, petitioned by starving American meat buyers for 100,000 head of cattle, famously replied, "what color?" A so-called reformer in the national assembly amused his colleagues by suggesting an amendment to the Mexican constitution forbidding a president to have a brother.

Well, we cannot change human nature. Accordingly, we can assume that corruption will continue, but the graver problem is the apparent indifference to corruption. Perhaps a nation that seems to have been persuaded by its legislature that medical care can be free suffers from permanently dulled senses, and has to learn from some dire future jolt that self-government cannot hope to work without effective public concern.

The greatest enemy to reform at this point will be the Democrat's continued attempt to portray this as a Republican scandal, and thus distract from the real issues at hand. The Abramoff affair is a window to how things are done in Washington, by both parties, and why it needs to be fixed.

 

[fossten]

How can anybody take this guy seriously?


Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Monday, Jan. 9, 2006 9:03 a.m. EST
Howard Dean in Abramoff Cash Fib


Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean denied on Sunday that any Democrats had taken money from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, even though several top Dems - including Sen. Hillary Clinton - have already announced they were giving their tainted Abramoff cash to charity.

That little detail didn't faze Dean, however - who insisted with a straight face to CNN's Wolf Blitzer:

"There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, not one, not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican.

Dean continued: "This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money. And we've looked through all of those FEC reports to make sure that's true."

Last week, Sen. Clinton's office announced that she would be donating $2,000 of her Abramoff jackpot to charity. The Republican National Committee says she took a total of $12,900 in Abramoff-linked cash.

Other Democrats who have pledged to return tainted donations include Sens. Tim Johnson and Barbara Mikulski - as well as leading House Democrat Charles Rangel.



Looks like Dean is drinking his own Kool-Aid.

 

[fossten]

The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abramoff-linked probe focuses on 5 lawmakers
By Jerry Seper and Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published January 11, 2006

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


A Justice Department investigation into influence-peddling on Capitol Hill is focusing on a "first tier" of lawmakers and staffers, both Republicans and Democrats, say sources close to the probe that has netted guilty pleas from lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Law-enforcement authorities and others said the investigation's opening phase is scrutinizing Sens. Conrad Burns, Montana Republican; Byron L. Dorgan, North Dakota Democrat; and Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, along with Reps. J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Republican, and Bob Ney, Ohio Republican.
A source working with the Justice Department on the investigation told The Washington Times that Abramoff was questioned during several interviews about the lawmakers and their purported ties to the lobbyist and his former clients.
The source said prosecutors asked Abramoff whether the lawmakers had performed "official acts" in exchange for campaign cash or other favors. Although it is unknown whether any of the five will be charged in the case, the source said Abramoff was being "prepped" by five Justice Department attorneys in that event.
Others familiar with the investigation confirmed the names of the three Republican and two Democratic legislators.
All five lawmakers said that they have not done anything illegal and that all their dealings with Abramoff and his clients were legitimate.
The sources also said that at least two legislative directors and other lobbyists are under investigation in the preliminary round of inquiry. The probe is expected to widen and could ensnare "a minimum" of 20 members of Congress, they said.
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has not been directly implicated by Abramoff in the probe, but the Texas Republican's former deputy chief of staff, Tony Rudy, has emerged as a person of interest in the preliminary probe, the sources said.
Mr. DeLay's former communications director, Michael Scanlon, also worked as an Abramoff business partner and pleaded guilty in November to corruption charges. Scanlon also is cooperating in the government probe.
Abramoff pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington on Jan. 3 to conspiracy, tax evasion and fraud in a scheme involving what he described as the "corruption of public officials," saying he raised campaign cash, funded trips and gave other items to lawmakers "in exchange for certain official acts."
Seeking to reduce a 30-year prison sentence to 91/2 years, Abramoff has agreed with prosecutors to cooperate fully in the government's influence-peddling investigation. Prosecutors have seized his computer hard drive and are reviewing 500,000 e-mails.
Jim Manley, Mr. Reid's spokesman, said that no official acts were performed for Abramoff and that the senator has always opposed the expansion of off-reservation gambling, a stance favorable to Abramoff's clients.
"These kinds of wild and baseless rumors smack of desperation and is simply a desperate attempt by Republicans to drag Democrats into a scandal they own lock, stock and barrel," Mr. Manley said.
He said Mr. Reid also has asked the Senate Select Committee on Ethics to review his decisions on Indian gaming matters involving Abramoff.
Mr. Reid has acknowledged receiving contributions from Abramoff's clients, but has said he does not intend to return the money because it represented legal donations. The sources said Mr. Reid is thought to have collected as much as $61,000 in donations from Abramoff clients, including Indian tribes.
"Senator Reid has done nothing wrong, and he doesn't see any reason why he would need to return the money," spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said last week.
Mr. Burns, who chairs a subcommittee with influence over funding for American Indian programs, has returned or given to charity $150,000 he received from Abramoff, his partners or his tribal clients. He sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales on Nov. 28 asking for an investigation in the matter to clear his name, his spokesman, Matt Mackowiak, said.
"Mr. Burns has a long record of supporting Indian tribe education programs, and it goes way back before Abramoff was a lobbyist," Mr. Mackowiak said. "Senator Burns took the lead and was one of the first members to return all contributions, and as a result, more than 100 members will give back money that is linked to Abramoff.
"He believes he will be cleared of any wrongdoing," he said, adding that Mr. Burns told the Justice Department that he would cooperate fully and has directed his staff to do the same.
The Tigua Indian Tribe in El Paso, Texas, said it donated $22,000 to Mr. Burns in 2002 at Abramoff's request, thinking the Montana Republican was part of "Abramoff's group." The tribe hired Abramoff to lobby on its behalf to reopen a casino. FBI agents have interviewed tribal leaders about the donations, the sources said.
Mr. Burns has said the money had no bearing on any of his congressional actions.
Barry Piatt, a spokesman for Mr. Dorgan, ranking Democrat on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said neither the senator nor his campaign office has been contacted by the Justice Department, adding that the senator never received a direct contribution from Abramoff.
"I don't believe we have been informed of that," Mr. Piatt said of the investigation. "I have my doubts, the process is that they would have contacted us and they have not."
Mr. Dorgan returned $67,000 donated to him by Indian tribes tied to Abramoff. He has said he did nothing wrong but was returning the money to avoid the appearance of a conflict.
Mr. Hayworth said in a written response that the Justice Department would be accused of dereliction "if it did not examine everyone who ever accepted a contribution from Abramoff or any of his tribal clients, so I'm not surprised." He said he welcomed the chance to clear up the matter.
Mr. Hayworth said he had performed many official acts benefiting Indian tribes, but had never performed any act specifically for an Abramoff client. He said Abramoff's tribal clients had contributed to both his campaign and his political action committee, "which is not surprising since as chairman of the Native American Caucus, I have been in the forefront of issues affecting Indian Country and receive contributions from tribes across America."
He said he did not expect "this preliminary round of the inquiry to produce anything that would make any further examination necessary."
The Arizona Republican has said he received $100,000 in campaign cash from Indian tribes, including $2,250 from those affiliated with Abramoff -- which he will return. He told reporters in Arizona that the donations he received were being used to unfairly link him with Abramoff, adding that he did nothing wrong in accepting the $2,250 in 1998 and 1999 from three tribes once represented by Abramoff.
Mr. Ney, who has denied any wrongdoing, has said he gave to the American Indian College Fund the $6,500 in campaign donations he received from Abramoff.
"At the time I dealt with Jack Abramoff, I obviously did not know, and had no way of knowing, the self-serving and fraudulent nature of Abramoff's activities," Mr. Ney said in the statement.
Identified only as "Representative No. 1" in the Abramoff indictment, Mr. Ney received a "lavish trip to Scotland to play golf on world-famous courses" and other benefits in exchange for support on various issues. The indictment said Abramoff arranged for a $50,000 check to be sent from Texas to pay for the Scotland trip.
The indictment also said Abramoff and Scanlon "sought and received Representative No. 1's agreement to perform a series of official acts" that benefited the lobbyists or their clients. In return, the indictment said, the lobbyists "provided a stream of things of value to Representative No. 1 and members of his staff."
Abramoff also has pleaded guilty in federal court in Miami to conspiracy and fraud charges in a separate scheme to purchase 200 casino boats, saying in court he and a partner faked a $23 million wire transfer in a $147.5 million deal to purchase the boats.

 

[barry2952]

Every one of those dirty bastards should rot in jail. Anybody that takes money or favors to affect legislation should lose their freedom. It shouldn't be how the game is played.

 

[fossten]

Every one of those dirty bastards should rot in jail. Anybody that takes money or favors to affect legislation should lose their freedom. It shouldn't be how the game is played.

Gee, barry, what happened to Due Process and Innocent until Proven Guilty?

 

[JohnnyBz00LS]

Clarence Page

Post-scandal cleanup
The stink of scandal in Washington is so fierce that charities are reaping a surprise financial windfall

Published January 11, 2006


WASHINGTON -- It is not healthy to blow your favorite evening beverage through your nostrils. But that's how surprised I was to hear Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean deny that any Democrats had taken money from Jack Abramoff, a formerly well-connected Republican who has pleaded guilty to federal charges tied to his lobbying operations. Right-wing bloggers and others pounced on Dean and flailed away, since a number of Democratic senators and representatives had already handed over their Abramoff-associated money to charity. How, then, could Dean say otherwise?

But I checked it out and, guess what? Dean was right. Although Democrats and Republicans did, in fact, receive money from Abramoff's clients, only Republicans received personal donations from Abramoff.

Yet some journalists, particularly in the shorthand of TV news, have given a different impression. Trying excruciatingly hard to sound fair and balanced, they have framed Abramoff's donations as bipartisan.

One example is in the question veteran CNN newsman Wolf Blitzer addressed to Dean: "Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff ... give that money to charity or give it back?"

"There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff," Dean answered. "Not one. Not one single Democrat. ...There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money, and we've looked through all those [Federal Election Commission] reports to make sure that's true."

He's right, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, which keeps track of such things. The center's analysis of FEC records shows that Democrats received about a third of the $4.2 million donated between 1998 and 2005 by Indian tribes that had hired Abramoff to represent them in Washington.

The problem with such analyses is that they tell you how much money someone gave to a political candidate without telling you why the money was given. By all indications, donations from the Indian tribes were no less legitimate than the political donations any individual, organization or industry with an interest in legislation frequently gives to candidates. If anything, the tribes are the true victims in the Abramoff saga. Federal investigators claim Abramoff used racist slurs when he referred to his Indian clients in his e-mails and represented rival tribes competing for the same casino turf, the mother of all conflicts of interest.

Nevertheless, the stink of scandal is so fierce in Washington these days that numerous Democratic as well as Republican senators and representatives have been giving money to charity equal to the amount they received from tribes linked to Abramoff in order to avoid even the appearance of wrongdoing.

As a result, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), for example, gave up a measly $2,000 donation she received from a tribe and the Bush-Cheney campaign gave up a $6,000 donation. But as Democrats are quick to point out, the Bush campaign kept the $100,000 that Abramoff directly raised, which earned Abramoff the coveted "Pioneer" status among Bush campaign donors.

The Abramoff scandal, like some of the other high-profile dustups in Congress, is fundamentally a Republican scandal, if only because Republicans are so unquestionably in charge of Congress. To the victors go the spoils and the spoilage.

Worse, Republicans came to power in 1994, taking over both houses with a promise to clean out the foul odor of earlier scandals caused by Democrats. Now, as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other thinking conservatives have pointed out, the stench of scandal is made even more foul for the GOP by the whiff of hypocrisy.

Now this scandal is moving through the same phases as other major scandals that have come before it. First comes the finger-pointing, then the contrition and the investigations and proposed legislation to finally--Finally!--clean up the mess in Washington. Yet the reforms that followed the scandals of Watergate or Abscam or former House Speaker Jim Wright and various others have inevitably led to new loopholes that open the way to new scandals.

The good news is that these days, Congress is more trustworthy, contrary to the public's impressions in the polls, precisely because new regulations have made the process of raising and spending money on political candidates and lobbying more transparent. Reform-minded senators like John McCain, (R-Ariz.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) and representatives like Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) are introducing legislation that would require even more reporting requirements and restrictions on relations between lobbyists and members of Congress.

That's the right way to go. We'll never eliminate the love of money from politics, but like the love between teenagers who try to sneak around behind their parents' backs, we can try to shine brighter lights on it.

----------

 

[fossten]

Today Show: Dean Dinged on Dem Dollars from Abramoff Associates

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on January 27, 2006 - 08:22.

On yesterday's Today show, Howard Dean did his best angry imitation of Bill Clinton's "I did not have sex" and/or Rafael Palmeiro's "I have never used steroids" performances. His voice rising, Dean insisted over Katie Couric's attempts to claim otherwise that:


"Katie, not one dime of Jack Abramoff money ever went to any Democrat. Not one dime."

Confronted by such intransigence, Katie politely observed that "we'll have to look into that and clarify that for our viewers." That's apparently just what the Today researchers did overnight, and Matt Lauer, with Tim Russert in tow, informed viewers this morning of their findings.

Said Lauer: "We went to the Center for Responsive Politics and technically Howard Dean may be correct but while 66% of the money in this situation went to Republicans, 34% of the money not from Abramoff but from associates and clients went to Democrats."

Lauer asked Russert whether Dems can turn this into strictly a Republican scandal and "wash their hands of this?"

Russert's response was unequivocal, and not good news for the DNC: "No. The issue is broad and wide."

The old adage says not to pick a fight with people who buy their ink by the barrel. The same might be said, Howard, of top-rated TV shows who count their viewers in the 5+ millions.

 

[TheDude]

Said Lauer: "We went to the Center for Responsive Politics and technically Howard Dean may be correct but while 66% of the money in this situation went to Republicans, 34% of the money not from Abramoff but from associates and clients went to Democrats.".

Are Democrats completely innocent? Most likely not, but Bush also received money (indirectly) from Abramoff and the Repubs have exonerated him of it, so why can't the same reasonong be applied to the Democrats?

The Dem's may have a stinky finger when it comes to Jack Abramoff, but the Repub's are up to their neck in s@#$.