Bummer Christmas in the Hummer Household

I await the impending smear campaign against the prosecutors of this case. Soon we will find out he is a bleeding heart liberal who secretly launders money for Al-Qaeda. Watch for the New York Post article next week!

 

Drop the crackpipe and slowly back away, unless you like living in your own parallel reality.

 

right...cuz you know, noone would ever launch a smear campaign against someone proseucting a politician, that would never happen.

 

To Russia, Love Tom DeLay

Russ Baker
January 04, 2006

Once in a very long time, a scandal comes along that seems to capture the essence of our times. I’d say that scandal appeared on Saturday, when most of us were too busy getting out the honkers and the booze to notice.

Here’s the crux: Was the Republican leader Tom DeLay working on behalf of Russians against the American public interest—and being compensated for it?

That’s a pretty strong accusation, but unless I read my Washington Post wrong, that is exactly what was alleged in a front page story that appeared on Saturday, the last day of 2005, and therefore may escape proper notice. The article is even easier to miss because of the mundane “more of the same” headline above it: " The DeLay-Abramoff Money Trail : Nonprofit Group Linked to Lawmaker Was Funded Mostly by Clients of Lobbyist."

First, some background. Tuesday, as the world knows by now, Jack Abramoff, the powerful Republican lobbyist and major DeLay associate, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion charges, agreeing to cooperate in a federal corruption probe in Washington. He faces up to 11 years in federal prison and must pay $26.7 million in restitution.

For many months, we’ve been hearing stories about Abramoff’s shakedowns and indiscreet e-mails mocking Indian tribal leaders and other outrages, many of them with DeLay at the periphery or more directly involved.

The problem with these stories—which range from machinations over gambling licenses and Pacific island sweatshops to golfing junkets in Scotland—is that they are complicated, seemingly obscure and center on figures like Abramoff, who, while important, is merely an enabler of a larger and more troubling reality: How lawmakers inside and outside of the Congress are subverting democracy itself, with public funds going to advance the personal interests of a small set of powerful Americans.

The figures that really matter in this story are bigger fish—among them DeLay, the architect and de facto leader of the corporate takeover of Congress under cover of a social revolution.

That’s why the Post story should be one of the biggest stories of the new year, even if it got lost on the last day of the old one. It needed to be published on another day, and it needed to be told differently. So, here’s a stab at capturing what I see as most important about it.

Cumulatively, a careful reader comes away with the following conclusion: DeLay was essentially being bribed by Russians. Specifically, a phony nonprofit set up by DeLay’s former top aide was used to transfer monies from powerful Russians to DeLay, in return for his influencing legislation that could direct U.S. taxpayer money into their pockets. The Russians, working through super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, put up most of the $2.5 million “contributions” that funneled through the outfit.

DeLay got free international trips and fancy free office space in a secret townhouse, and his wife got paid a sizable monthly salary for doing nothing. Meantime, the nonprofit presented itself to the public as devoted to promoting family values, and ran ads attacking Democrats.

Monies were passed from Russian oil and gas executives working with Abramoff through a now-defunct London law firm and an obscure Bahamian company into an outfit, set up by former DeLay Chief of Staff Ed Buckham, masquerading as a grassroots advocacy group on family values. The group, the U.S. Family Network, existed for five years, but apparently did little or nothing on family issues, though it actually had the temerity to send out fundraising letters to the public, warning that “the American family is under attack from all sides: crime, drugs, p*rnography, and… gambling.” It also paid for ads attacking vulnerable Democratic candidates.

But what it was really doing, according to the article, was influencing DeLay to support legislation favorable to wealthy Russians—with the bill paid for by American taxpayers. DeLay traveled to Moscow in 1997 and spent time with the Russians, though he claimed to the House clerk that another nonprofit paid for it and that he was in that country to “meet with religious leaders there.”

Probably the most incendiary material in the Post story was buried, beginning in paragraph 32. The former president of the U.S. Family Network, a pastor no less, actually says that Buckham explained to him in 1999 that a $1 million payment passed through to the organization was intended specifically to influence DeLay's 1998 vote on a bill that enabled the International Monetary Fund to use U.S. taxpayer monies, in part, to bail out the Russian economy and specific wealthy Russian investors involved with the scheme.

"Ed told me, 'This is the way things work in Washington,' " [Pastor Christopher] Geeslin said. "He said the Russians wanted to give the money first in cash." Buckham, he said, orchestrated all the group's fundraising and spending and rarely informed the board about the details.

Tom DeLay and his cronies appear to have been accepting what amounted to bribes from Russians with connections to the Yeltsin-Putin regimes who wanted U.S. taxpayer monies to keep flowing to benefit them. They laundered the money, and, worse, did it through a nonprofit organization, which, in turn, claimed to be established to fight the decline in moral standards in America. Even more appalling, while this phony charity was doing this mercenary work, it was hitting up naïve members of DeLay’s political base for contributions.

The fine print is equally tawdry. Mrs. DeLay’s salary of “at least $3,200 each month for three of the years the group existed” (that’s a total of at least $115,200) was supposedly in compensation for supplying Buckham with a list of "lawmakers’ favorite charities." The Post mentions this only briefly, and with a straight face. But the transparent ridiculousness of this on so many levels offers a bounty for journalists who pursue it.

The Russian angle is especially important, as recent developments show a growing clampdown by Putin on democracy in Russia—from arrests of political opponents to curtailment of the press—along with blatant attempts to intimidate former Soviet republics like Ukraine. This puts the so-called freedom-loving GOP leadership in bed with the least savory of the holdover Communists.

There will be many developments in the weeks ahead, now that Abramoff has cut a deal with the feds. When he begins his promised cooperation with the prosecution, he may have things to say about many other matters, including the U.S. Family Network.

But it’s important in these overwhelming times to stay focused. Ultimately, these cases are not about Jack Abramoff, a fellow most of us never even heard of until fairly recently. They are about what has happened to this country. Put simply, the American people were taken to the cleaners by a group of charlatans in the guise of faith healers who didn’t even believe in their own product.

I doubt The Washington Post would give front page play to such a story—or have assigned a reporter with experience covering national security—if this was not the big one.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to RussiaGate?

 

Delay is done! Stick a fork in him.

Now all that needs to happen is for the Supreme Court to overturn the illegal redistricting in Texas. Karma is a b****!

-------------------
Delay’s bid to return to US leadership in jeopardy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rep. Tom DeLay's bid to return as majority leader of the House of Representatives was in mounting jeopardy on Thursday as fellow Republicans feared his ties with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff have made the Texan too much of an election-year liability.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060105...bg1dWGs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-

 

a mc josh post ---

One of the great questions of the last decade is how congressional Republicans managed to maintain such unprecedented party discipline. The standard answer is that that's how Tom DeLay earned his nickname 'The Hammer', by squashing anyone who threatened to get out of line. Only that's not really quite how the House GOP Caucus functioned. Notwithstanding the reputation DeLay liked to cultivate, he worked a lot more with Carots than Sticks. And that means money. Lots and lots and lots of money. A lot of it unaccountable money; a lot of it 'don't ask where it came from' money; but lots and lots of money, and as long as you were there with the caucus on the important votes, a lot of it would be yours.

You can't understand the K Street Project or the sort of slush fund Jack Abramoff was running without understanding that Tom DeLay had built a very effective patronage machine -- one that organized a great deal of the money in the city in the hands of the political leadership.

Most people now think that the Abramoff indictments effectively end any realistic hope for DeLay to reclaim the leadership. So the question is whether you end up with DeLayism without DeLay -- the same money and machine, just under a new boss.

On the one hand, you have acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt, who ants to push DeLay aside and claim the post for himself. But Blunt is a DeLay Man through and through, part of the machine in every way. On the other hand, you've got rebels who just don't think the GOP can get out from under these scandals without a real change in leadership and direction.

That's the fight the Post article talks about. But a big part of what's happening now isn't just which leadership slate takes over the House GOP Caucus. At a deeper level, the Abramoff scandal may do so much damage to the machine DeLay built -- by knocking out key leaders, exposing illegality and 'legal' corruption -- that whomever comes out on top may not be able to run the place with anything like the party discipline DeLay managed during his years in power.

-- Josh Marshall

 

Of course he needs to be put in prison, too.

 

Should be interesting to see if the Christians or so called moral issue voters hang with the corrupt GOP. Let's see if honesty is a
"moral value".

We saw many of them support impeachment over the Clinton lie.

 

I will try to do somewhat a summary of the important article posted above by tigermission. I will also try to provide a link since we can anticipate at least two lines of defense by the usual suspects. A demand that the absence of a link be reported to the moderators and a "yawn" that it was too long to be read by business students.

The story also provides another example of the hoodwinking of humble Christians by the conservative movement. +
The link http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0104-34.htm
######
To Russia, Love Tom DeLay

Russ Baker
January 04, 2006

...
Here’s the crux: Was the Republican leader Tom DeLay working on behalf of Russians against the American public interest—and being compensated for it?

...
For many months, we’ve been hearing stories about Abramoff’s shakedowns and indiscreet e-mails mocking Indian tribal leaders and other outrages, many of them with DeLay at the periphery or more directly involved.

... figures like Abramoff, who, while important, is merely an enabler of a larger and more troubling reality: How lawmakers inside and outside of the Congress are subverting democracy itself, with public funds going to advance the personal interests of a small set of powerful Americans.

The figures that really matter in this story are bigger fish—among them DeLay, the architect and de facto leader of the corporate takeover of Congress under cover of a social revolution.
...
Monies were passed from Russian oil and gas executives working with Abramoff through a now-defunct London law firm and an obscure Bahamian company into an outfit, set up by former DeLay Chief of Staff Ed Buckham, masquerading as a grassroots advocacy group on family values. The group, the U.S. Family Network, existed for five years, but apparently did little or nothing on family issues, though it actually had the temerity to send out fundraising letters to the public, warning that “the American family is under attack from all sides: crime, drugs, p*rnography, and… gambling.” It also paid for ads attacking vulnerable Democratic candidates.

But what it was really doing, according to the article, was influencing DeLay to support legislation favorable to wealthy Russians—with the bill paid for by American taxpayers. DeLay traveled to Moscow in 1997 and spent time with the Russians, though he claimed to the House clerk that another nonprofit paid for it and that he was in that country to “meet with religious leaders there.”

Probably the most incendiary material in the Post story was buried, beginning in paragraph 32. The former president of the U.S. Family Network, a pastor no less, actually says that Buckham explained to him in 1999 that a $1 million payment passed through to the organization was intended specifically to influence DeLay's 1998 vote on a bill that enabled the International Monetary Fund to use U.S. taxpayer monies, in part, to bail out the Russian economy and specific wealthy Russian investors involved with the scheme.
...

Tom DeLay and his cronies appear to have been accepting what amounted to bribes from Russians with connections to the Yeltsin-Putin regimes who wanted U.S. taxpayer monies to keep flowing to benefit them.

They laundered the money, and, worse, did it through a nonprofit organization, which, in turn, claimed to be established to fight the decline in moral standards in America. Even more appalling, while this phony charity was doing this mercenary work, it was hitting up naïve members of DeLay’s political base for contributions.

The fine print is equally tawdry. Mrs. DeLay’s salary of “at least $3,200 each month for three of the years the group existed” (that’s a total of at least $115,200) was supposedly in compensation for supplying Buckham with a list of "lawmakers’ favorite charities." ...
...

...

 

Does anyone have that e-mail from Delay's staff member talking about the strategy of hoping most voters stay home, while the religious whackos or something to that effect go out and vote?

That ties in with Delay's operation here, pretending to be a family values group.

The man that the 'religious right', 'family values', crowd counted on to represent them against the evil Democrats, seems to have really taken advantage of them and used them.