Howard Dean Lies To Wolf Blitzer
Howard Dean had the gall to tell Wolf Blitzer that NO Democrats took money from Jack Abramoff. Watch the video HERE. That's a bald faced lie! Here's the proof...
Jack Abramoff, Indian tribes he represented and people connected to his SunCruz casino boat company gave a total of $4.4 million to more than 240 members of Congress and political committees from 1999 through 2005, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign contributions. Some tribes may have given money at their own initiative, separate from Abramoff's advice.
Democrats
Rep. Patrick Kennedy, R.I., $42,500
Sen. Patty Murray, Wash., $40,980
Rep. Charles Rangel, N.Y., $36,000
Sen. Harry Reid, Nev., $30,500
Sen. Byron Dorgan, N.D., $28,000*
Tom Daschle, former senator, S.D., $26,500
Brad Carson, former congressman, Okla., $20,600
Rep. Dale Kildee, Mich., $19,000
Rep. Steny Hoyer, Md., $17,500
Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa, $15,500
* - Returned at least some of the contributions or donated them to charity
posted by Pat Campbell @ 9:05 AM
13 comments
13 Comments:
That money does not come from Abramoff's pocket. Some of it is from Indian tribes that did deal with Abramoff. But there's no proof that Abramoff directed it to any democrat.
Just like Dean said!!
Abramoff Gave Only to the GOP
Though Republicans are desperately trying to link Democrats to Jack Abramoff, Hotline On Call says their claims are false. "Abramoff has never personally given money to a single Dem. All his personal and family contributions went to Republicans."
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/01/04/abramoff_gave_only_to_the_gop.html
This Statement Is False
"Forty of forty five members of the Democrat Senate Caucus took money from Jack Abramoff. Below is a breakdown of how much each Democrat Senator received."
That's courtesy of the NRSC.
But it's not true.
Abramoff has never personally given money to a single Dem. All his personal and family contributions went to Republicans.
Yes -- many of his clients contributed regularly to Dems and GOpers. And maybe some of those donations influenced the actions of elected officials. But if the question is: was Jack Abramoff a Republican? was he committed to furthering the GOP agenda? The answer, clearly, is: yes. [MARC AMBINDER]
http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/01/this_statement.html
You idiot that's the whole charge that Abramoff laundered cash through Indian tribes to politicians. Why do you think Dems are giving the money back? MORON!
YEAR YOU BIG FREAKIN M-O-R-O-N!
I MEANT YEAH, NOT YEAR. WHOS THE MORON NOW?
Let's watch Rick Keller sleaze his way out of this.
3:27,
Simple answer for you my insult slinging friend...
1) "People connected" is a very, very vague phrase. I'm sure you understand that. Keep in mind Casino Jack was running his own secret lobbying effort seperate and secret from his day job at Greenberg Traurig.
2) If #1 is true then you should realize that tribes give for reasons other than (Republican) jack abramoff defrauding them on his lobbying sales. I'm not saying its not for something else that might theoretically be dirty, but it's the obligation of the GOP to prove that before making the accusation that Dems are involved too.
2b) giving back donations is just a way of saying that the politician doesn't want that money from that source anymore. it could also mean they now disrespect that source. it could also mean that the money was dirty. it could also mean that they don't want it to be an election issue for them, regarless of their involvement. With all of these possible explanations how can you jump immediately to one idea as the only viable explanation? that's closed minded thinking.
3) Ney admitted that he was congressman #1 in the plea agreement. DeLay of course was involved too (writing letters, setting up meetings, etc.) So there are some Republicans involved.
4) There are no Democratic politicians specific actions being implicated in helping Casino Jack.
5)If you look at the list of Dem's supposedly involved, other more rational explanations are easy to come by.
EXAMPLE 1: Rep. Pat Kennedy helped restart the modern day Indian Affairs Committee. So the tribes of course like him. He has created a venue for their lobbbying and complaints.
EX 2: Sens. Reid, Murray, Dorgan, Daschle are all in states with substainstial Indian populations. Daschle was the most prominent political leader to visit the tribes in his state regularlly. Those tribes provided the margin of victory for his senate colleage Tim Johnson back in 2002.
Reid as Dem leader presumably recieves more out of state contributions than most of politicians.
And who's the other Dem on the list... Gephardt! I assume the same goes for him.
Conclusion: Again there is no DIRECT proof against any Dem, as Dean claimed. There is direct proof against Ney and DeLay. There are also many plausible reasons why the Dems got tribal money wholly unrelated to Abramoff (I didn't even mention that Greenberg Traurig, a bipartisan lobbying firm Abramoff worked for skews Dem involvement too, not just the tribes.)
Case closed: Dean was accurate.
wayTOtheRIGHT,
The Democrats are making this an issue because it's good politics and needs to be addressed politically. Just as the Republicans did with the Rostenkowski scandal.
BTW, I'd like to see yr spawn use Rostenkowski in a sentence!
This just in about yr probable new Majority Leader Roy Blunt. Y'all don't learn yer lesson, then y'all get spanked in 2006, hear?
http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/blunt_tribal_timeline1.pdf
This from the NRO! From their top editor!
The Abramoff Scandal (R., Beltway):
It’s the Republicans, stupid.
by Rich Lowry
Republicans are looking for "their" John McCain. The popular Arizona maverick is already a Republican, of course. But the GOP needs a McCain in the "Keating Five" sense. Back in 1990, Senate Democrats roped McCain into the scandal over savings and loan kingpin Charles Keating on tenuous grounds, just so not all the senators involved would be Democrats.
The GOP now craves such bipartisan cover in the Jack Abramoff scandal. Republicans trumpet every Democratic connection to Abramoff in the hope that something resonates. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), took more than $60,000 from Abramoff clients! North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan used Abramoff's skybox! It is true that any Washington influence peddler is going to spread cash and favors as widely as possible, and 210 members of Congress have received Abramoff-connected dollars. But this is, in its essence, a Republican scandal, and any attempt to portray it otherwise is a misdirection.
Abramoff is a Republican who worked closely with two of the country's most prominent conservative activists, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed. Top aides to the most important Republican in Congress, Tom DeLay (R., Tex.) were party to his sleazy schemes. The only people referred to directly in Abramoff's recent plea agreement are a Republican congressmen and two former Republican congressional aides. The GOP members can make a case that the scandal reflects more the way Washington works than the unique perfidy of their party, but even this is self-defeating, since Republicans run Washington.
Republicans must take the scandal seriously and work to clean up in its wake. The first step was the permanent ouster of Tom DeLay as House Republican majority leader, a recognition that he is unfit to lead as long as he is underneath the Abramoff cloud. The behavior of the right in this matter contrasts sharply with the left's lickspittle loyalty to Bill Clinton, whose maintenance in power many liberals put above any of their principles. Next, Republicans will have to show they can again embrace the spirit of reform that swept them to power in 1994.
To this end, GOP lawmakers are rushing to introduce lobbying reform. Anything that increases transparency is welcome. But lobbying reform's animating pretense is that lawmakers are all upstanding — until they come under the corruptive spell of lobbyists. In every transaction, however, there has to be a willing buyer and seller.
There are two deeply rooted sources of corruption in Washington. One is that many members of Congress believe that they would be making much more than their $160,000-a-year salaries if they were in some other line of work. This sense is compounded when they watch their former 30-year-old aides go to work on K Street for $300,000 a year. This is how someone like Tom DeLay — otherwise a conviction politician — justifies playing the best golf courses in the world on someone else's dime and getting special interests to funnel easy money to his wife.
It will be a sign that Congress has learned something if it bans all privately funded travel. If a trip is truly educational and necessary, the public should fund it; if, on the other hand, a member of Congress wants to enjoy fine resorts, he should quit, practice law (or whatever), and earn the income to support his desired lifestyle.
The other problem is that Washington makes obscure decisions that enrich small groups of people. Most everyone in Washington supports making these decisions because it increases his or her power. But if Congress really wants to lessen the malign influence of lobbyists, it should reform the inherently corruptible process whereby the Interior Department recognizes new Native American tribes so they can mint money by opening casinos, and end the practice of "earmarking" federal dollars for local and special-interest projects. It's no accident that Abramoff saw the business potential in both of these processes.
Of course, making these sort of changes would be painful. That's why it is tempting for Republicans to look for a John McCain instead.
— Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.
Sickboy,
Was Lowry bought off too? :)
What does one really expect from Howard Dean? The man would not know the truth if it slapped him in the face.
Taken together, Abramoff’s tribal clients gave $868,890 to Dems before hiring him; afterwards, they gave $794,483 -- a decrease of nine percent.
By contrast, the tribes’ donations to Republicans went from $786,560 pre-Abramoff to $1,845,975 after he became their lobbyist -- an increase of 135 percent.
In other words, when Abramoff entered the picture, contributions to Dems dropped, while donations to Republicans more than doubled.
http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=10924
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