absolute power

[theknife]

it's something less than a surprise that, less than one year after winning the trifecta of American politics (control of the White House, the Senate, and the House Of Representatives), the GOP leadership of all three are enmeshed in criminal investigations.

first we have Bill Frist, Republican Senate Majority leader, apparently engaging in the same activities that sent Martha Stewart to jail:

The federal government broadened its inquiry Friday into Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's sale of stock in the giant hospital chain that his family founded.

The company, Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA, and Frist's office said Friday that investigators from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York had requested documents related to the sale, which occurred shortly before the stock price plunged.

meanwhile, in the White House, Karl Rove, Andrew Card and the rest of senior staff have more to think about than just the Valerie Plame grand jury. the indictment of lobbyist Jack Abramoff has segued into the first arrest of a ex-White House official (ex as in "quit Friday, arrested Monday"):

WASHINGTON -- The arrest of a former White House official marks a new phase in the investigation of Jack Abramoff in which authorities are seeking to extract information about the high-powered Republican lobbyist.

David Safavian was arrested Monday and charged with making false statements and obstructing a federal investigation relating to a 2002 golf outing to Scotland with Abramoff; former Christian Coalition executive Ralph Reed; US Representative Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio; and others.

Safavian is the first person to face charges arising out of the investigation of Abramoff, a major Republican fund-raiser with close ties to GOP leaders in Congress.

the Abramoff indictment is now raising questions about his relationship with Karl Rove as well:

Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff bragged two years ago that he was in contact with White House political aide Karl Rove on behalf of a large, Bermuda-based corporation that wanted to avoid incurring some taxes and continue receiving federal contracts, according to a written statement by President Bush's nominee to be deputy attorney general.

Timothy E. Flanigan, general counsel for conglomerate Tyco International Ltd., said in a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that Abramoff's lobbying firm initially boasted that Abramoff could help Tyco fend off a special liability tax because he "had good relationships with members of Congress," including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).

but that's not Delay's only nagging legal problem:

A grand jury in Texas indicted yesterday a state political action committee organized by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for accepting $120,000 in allegedly illegal corporate campaign contributions shortly before and after the 2002 elections that helped Republicans cement their control of the House of Representatives.

it's worth noting that, unlike the Clinton years, these are not congressional investigations by the opposition party. the assorted and often overlapping probes are just good old-fashioned investigations by the SEC and state/federal prosecutors and grand juries. as always, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[albed]

Also unlike the Clinton years those don't involve foreign nations like China and Indonesia subverting the US by buying influence from the democratic party.

And no imprisoned drug kingpins buying their pardons either.

Clinton still holds the prize for absolute corruption.

Give the man a cigar.

[Drakonix]

LOL Clinton gave the cigar to Lewinsky.

The Chinese are naming a new line of condoms "in honor of" Clinton and Lewinsky.

[theknife]

David Safavian, the chief of the White House's federal procurement office official who resigned several days before his arrest has apparently had the additional distinction of being a lobbyist for clients associated with Hamas and Hezbollah - groups the US has designated as terrorist organizations and therefore, with whom the US is at war:

Arrested ex-official initially didn't tell panel about work
Susan Schmidt, R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Washington -- David Safavian, the Bush administration official arrested Monday, initially failed to disclose lobbying work he had done for several controversial foreign clients when he went before a Senate panel last year to be confirmed as chief of the White House's federal procurement office.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee held up Safavian's nomination for more than a year, in part because of lawmakers' concerns about lobbying work for two men later accused of links to suspected terror organizations, according to committee documents. The Senate panel nevertheless approved him unanimously, and the Senate followed suit on Nov. 21, 2004.

Safavian was arrested Monday on charges of lying and obstructing an investigation into former powerhouse lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the federal government. Safavian resigned his government post Friday. Tuesday, his attorney, Barbara Van Gelder, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

Senate approval of Safavian occurred two months after the Washington Post disclosed Safavian's participation in an August 2002 golf trip to Scotland with Abramoff. That trip was central to the criminal complaint against Safavian unsealed Monday.

Tuesday, a spokeswoman for committee chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the review of Safavian's background had been thorough.

The record of Safavian's confirmation shows extensive questioning by the committee staff about his alleged lobbying for local Muslim leader Abdurahman Alamoudi, who in October 2000 made widely publicized comments supporting Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, at a rally in Lafayette Park.

Lobby disclosure forms originally filed by Safavian's firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies, show that it represented Alamoudi, a prominent Muslim activist, until 2001. Alamoudi has since been convicted and imprisoned for accepting money from the Libyan government as part of an alleged plot to assassinate the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Janus-Merritt Strategies changed its lobby disclosure forms in 2001 to indicate that its client was not Alamoudi but Jamal Barzinji. In March 2002, Barzinji was named in a search warrant affidavit filed by a Customs Service official as "the officer or director" of a group of entities in Northern Virginia "controlled by individuals who have shown support for terrorists or terrorist fronts." No charges have been filed against Barzinji, and he has denied any wrongdoing.

Safavian told the committee in an April 16, 2004, letter that he and his firm had never done any work for Alamoudi. He said the firm had lobbied at Barzinji's request to gain U.S. support to free the former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, who was imprisoned for six years.

Safavian also told the committee that he had "overlooked" two other clients while preparing his initial submissions for the OMB position. He did not initially mention work as a registered foreign agent for Gabon, a country persistently rated by the United States as having a "poor" human rights record, or his work as a registered foreign agent for Pascal Lissouba, the former president of the Republic of Congo who has been tried in absentia for treason and embezzlement.

Safavian, former chief of staff at the General Services Administration, is charged with three counts of making false statements and obstructing a GSA investigation into his ties with Abramoff. Before joining the government, Safavian worked as a lobbyist with Abramoff, then founded Janus-Merritt Strategies with antitax crusader Grover Norquist.

edit:

Originally Posted by albed

unlike the Clinton years those don't involve foreign nations...

no, just terrorist groups.

[Mazer]

Don't you see that the fact that people are being investigated and possibly indicted is evidence to the fact that they don't have absolute power?

I await your witty, sidelong response followed up with an other opinion editorial. I know you won't disapoint.

[JackSpratts]

Originally Posted by Mazer

Don't you see that the fact that people are being investigated and possibly indicted is evidence to the fact that they don't have absolute power?

I await your witty, sidelong response followed up with an other opinion editorial. I know you won't disapoint.

well if you'd been rotting away in some orwellian patriot act prison somewhere tied naked to chairs with no access to lawyers, or phones, or any way to contact loved ones, with armed, arrogant keepers poking you, and baiting you, screaming obsenities at you and dogs barking and scaring the hell out of you, lights on lights off, no chair to sit in nor bed to lay in, sprayed with ice water, told when to eat, when to sleep, when to piss, made to crap in your pants, and had this been going on for years without you having been so much as charged with jaywalking, you might begin to feel these guys had absolute power over you.

guess what? i'd forgive you for thinking so.

- js.

[albed]

And away goes Jack into paranoid persecution fantasy land.

[Mazer]

Originally Posted by JackSpratts

well if you'd been rotting away in some orwellian patriot act prison somewhere tied naked to chairs with no access to lawyers, or phones, or any way to contact loved ones, with armed, arrogant keepers poking you, and baiting you, screaming obsenities at you and dogs barking and scaring the hell out of you, lights on lights off, no chair to sit in nor bed to lay in, sprayed with ice water, told when to eat, when to sleep, when to piss, made to crap in your pants, and had this been going on for years without you having been so much as charged with jaywalking, you might begin to feel these guys had absolute power over you.

guess what? i'd forgive you for thinking so.

- js.

Yep, that's why I'm proud to live in America where people get in real trouble for doing those sort of things to each other.

[theknife]

the indictment of Jack Abramoff, which has already produced the arrest one top administration official, is rippling through the GOP establishment in slow motion like a crude oil spill - less of a tangled web than a spreading stain.

Abramoff, under indictment on wire fraud and conspiracy charges, remains the focus of a lengthy investigation by a task force led by prosecutors at the Justice Department that also includes investigators at the Internal Revenue Service, the Interior Department and General Services Administration.

The probe initially focused on whether Abramoff bilked Native American tribes that paid him tens of millions of dollars in lobbying and other fees, but it has since widened to include other matters.

Abramoff is starting to look less like a lobbyist and more like some kind of a bagman for the GOP, siphoning huge amounts of cash from clients and funneling funds to GOP-controlled groups and commitees. case in point:

A top aide to Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has for the past year been cooperating with federal investigators who are examining the activities of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a spokesman for the governor said yesterday.

A federal grand jury issued a subpoena last summer to Edward Miller, Ehrlich's deputy chief of staff, because of Miller's role in establishing a Silver Spring company called Grassroots Interactive.

The company, now defunct, was in the news yesterday because of reports that it collected hefty fees from one of Abramoff's lobbying clients, Tyco International Ltd. -- money that was allegedly diverted to other entities controlled by Abramoff and misspent.

the Tyco connection is interesting because of Timothy Flanigan, currently Bush's nominee for Deputy Attorney General of US:

Mr. Flanigan, who is a senior lawyer at Tyco, oversaw lobbying work that Mr. Abramoff did for Tyco in 2003. Mr. Abramoff successfully lobbied Congress to allow offshore companies like Tyco, which is based in Bermuda, to retain their tax-exempt status, and Mr. Flanigan acknowledged to the Judiciary Committee that he made the final decision to hire Mr. Abramoff and the firm where he worked at the time, Greenberg Traurig.

the Abramoff story branches out into other directions, including allegations that the Justice Department under John Ashcroft squelched an earlier investigation of his activities:

WASHINGTON The U.S. Justice Department's inspector general and the FBI are looking into the demotion of a veteran federal prosecutor whose reassignment nearly three years ago shut down a criminal investigation of a Washington lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, current and former department officials report.

They said investigators questioned whether the demotion of the prosecutor, Frederick Black, in November 2002 was related to his alert to department officials days earlier that he was investigating Abramoff, a major Republican Party fund-raiser and a close friend of several congressional leaders.

so it's interesting to keep Abramoff's links to House Majority Leader Tom Delay,various congressmen, his claims of influence with Karl Rove, and his connections to the GOP establishment in context when considering today's news:

Fort Lauderdale police have arrested three men on murder and conspiracy charges in the 2001 gangland-style killing of a South Florida businessman who sold a casino cruise line to Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, authorities said today.

Police picked up Anthony Moscatiello, 67, Anthony Ferrari, 48, and James Fiorillo, 28, last night and this morning in connection with the ambush slaying of Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, who was killed in Fort Lauderdale on Feb. 6, 2001.

Anthony Moscatiello (top), Anthony Ferrari (lower left), 48, and James Fiorillo (lower right), 28, were arrested in connection with the ambush slaying of Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis.

Boulis had sold SunCruz Casinos to Abramoff and a partner, Adam Kidan, in 2000 at a time when Abramoff was one of Washington's most powerful lobbyists. Abramoff and Kidan were indicted last month on charges of wire fraud in connection with the purchase of the company. Moscatiello, known to police as a bookkeeper to New York's Gambino crime family, was brought in as consultant by Kidan when he and Abramoff took control of SunCruz. Ferrari is a business associate of Moscatiello.

so let's see: Abramoff's former partner got whacked by the Gambino crime family, who were working for Abramoff, who had been arranging improper gifts for congressmen, while bragging of influence in the White House, while simultaneously raising money for the GOP by bilking clients, one of which had him working under the supervision of the man currently being considered for the second highest law enforcement position in the country. if this isn't a Law & Order episode, it should be.

[theknife]

A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post.

DeLay, 58, was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee.

DeLay is the first House leader to be indicted while in office in at least a century, according to congressional historians.

the bell finally tolls for the GOP's posterboy for political corruption. god bless america.

so, do we get to see Delay do the full perp walk, in handcuffs?

ok, the GOP meme on the Delay indictment is gonna sound like this:

Kevin Madden, DeLay's spokesman, dismissed the charge as politically motivated.

"This indictment is nothing more than prosecutorial retribution by a partisan Democrat," Madden said, citing prosecutor Ronnie Earle, a Democrat.

let's put that one to bed right now: Democratic Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle has a history of high-profile political corruption cases - mostly against fellow Democrats. among his highest profile prosecutions are cases against a Democratic state supreme court justice, a Democratic attorney general, a Democratic state treasurer, and a Democratic speaker of the Texas House. not such a good Democrat is our Mr. Earl - apparently he just goes after anyone he thinks committed a crime. like Delay, f'rinstance.

[Mazer]

You'd love to think that all Republicans are as corrupt as Tom Delay, wouldn't you? Are Democrats any better? Do you actually feel better about your country knowing that your elected leaders are criminals?

I hope for America's sake that nobody considers these events to be good things just because they're happening to the party in power. Your gloating turns my stomach, knife, you should be mourning.

[albed]

Yes knife, and you should be mourning for poor Valerie Plame too. You just turned your back on her didn't you?


And poor Cindy Sheehan as well. You just use them for your partisian political lambasts and then forget them like cheap whores while their suffering continues.


Do you actually care for anyone or anything except as a tool for attacking conservatives?

[theknife]

Originally Posted by Mazer

You'd love to think that all Republicans are as corrupt as Tom Delay, wouldn't you? Are Democrats any better? Do you actually feel better about your country knowing that your elected leaders are criminals?

I hope for America's sake that nobody considers these events to be good things just because they're happening to the party in power. Your gloating turns my stomach, knife, you should be mourning.

understandable you'd be bitter - you voted for this crew, so they're your elected leaders. but this event is, in fact, a very positive sign for the country. Delay's brand of pay-to-play politics was particularly egregious - and it required the cooperation of many of his fellow GOP congressman to be effective. if this indictment restores even a shred of ethical conciousness to the House, it's a good thing.

are the Dems any better? probably not - but they haven't been calling the shots for the last five years, so they really aren't the issue. google the "K Street project" and learn what your elected leaders have created in Washington in the last 5 years.

[Sinner]

Originally Posted by theknife

are the Dems any better? probably not -

Obliviously they are not any better, 11 of the 15 people Ronnie Earle has prosecuted have been Democrats..........

[Mazer]

You live in this country don't you, knife? They're everyone's leaders even if everyone didn't vote for them. You're right that it's a positive thing that they're not getting away with breaking the law, but it's a bad thing that they broke the law in the first place. I'm not bitter because they're Republicans, I'm bitter because they're Americans elected to a position of trust and they've broken that trust. I get just as upset when Democrats do these things too.

[theknife]

coincidentally, CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) just released Beyond Delay, a report documenting the 13 most corrupt members of Congress - after Tom Delay :

The 13 members are:

-- Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO)

-- Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-CA)

-- Rep. Tom Feeney(R-FL)

-- Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)

-- Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO)

-- Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH)

-- Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA)

-- Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)

-- Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC)

-- Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)

-- Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)

-- Senator Bill Frist (R-TN)

-- Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT)

Roy Blunt, R-Mo., next on the list, is already being discussed as Delay's replacement.

[tambourine-man]

Originally Posted by theknife

Roy Blunt, R-Mo., next on the list, is already being discussed as Delay's replacement.

I heard that David Dreier could be DeLay's probable replacement.

Dreier is allegedly a closeted homosexual who hired his reputed live-in lover as his chief of staff at the highest possible salary allowed by law for a committee staff member.

Nepotistic, self-dealing and classic Republican loathing of sexuality....he'll fill DeLay's shoes just fine.

[theknife]

Originally Posted by tambourine-man

I heard that David Dreier could be DeLay's probable replacement.

Dreier is allegedly a closeted homosexual who hired his reputed live-in lover as his chief of staff at the highest possible salary allowed by law for a committee staff member.

Nepotistic, self-dealing and classic Republican loathing of sexuality....he'll fill DeLay's shoes just fine.

yup, now they are discussing some kind of power-sharing arrangement between Blunt and Drier. more than somewhat ironic for the party that played the homophobe card again and again throughout the 2004 elections to have a gay majority leader; methinks this would be why Drier won't get the position outright.

[theknife]

Jack Abramoff will be an albatross around the neck of the Republican establishment for the foreseeable future. the latest, but certainly not last, to fall is Timothy Flanigan, as the GOP culture of corruption continues to disintegrate:

Bush Drops Justice Department Nomination of Flanigan (Update1)
Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush withdrew the nomination of Timothy Flanigan as deputy attorney general, the White House said. Flanigan, a Tyco International Ltd. general counsel, has been questioned by Senate Democrats over his links to lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Flanigan's confirmation was delayed and he was scheduled to testify for a second time before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer more questions regarding Abramoff, a former lobbyist for Tyco. As Tyco general counsel, Flanigan supervised Abramoff's lobbying. Tyco paid the lobbyist's firm at the time, Miami-based Greenberg Traurig LLP, $2.1 million from 2002 to 2004.

Abramoff is connected to everyone in the GOP establishment, from the President right on down. watch for the casualties of a plea bargain.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...top_world_news

[Nicobie]

I think the real power is in the unelected bureaucrats.

How could anyone think different?