Thursday, October 06, 2005

And this Associated Press article on the Tom Delay in indicting the bastard is too long and boring and complicated to know the full story...

...so we won't finish reading it: we'll find it long, we'll find it boring, and we'll find it complicated.

Then we'll be convinced that we don't know the whole story.

Then we'll listen to our favorite "people" who've read stuff for us and comment on it in ways that we "like" - or simply find familiar. I don't think the Battered-Wife Bushites are "enjoying" their insane political position and the loyalty oaths that corrupt their critical thinking skills, and they always seem paranoid or pissed-off.

The only people who are comfortable with the world today are those who seek the truth above all else - and cut the shit when it comes to partisan pledges of allegiance to anything but sincerity. In fact, this has always been the case, but it's been especially important historically when we know people in power are deliberately trying hard to fuck with us - as they historically have.



(...)


If you had 10 roommates in your college dorm and money begin going missing, you'd want to find the culprit.

If you have 10,000 enemies in the world and money, sanity, health, reality, progress, peace, and love begin going missing, you should want to find the culprits.

And that's it really:

Why the hell is the world like this?

Why the hell is the world getting worse?



(...)


Go on, finish this piece of crap, I dare ya...


(...)


Yahoo! News

DeLay, Successor Blunt Swapped Donations

By JOHN SOLOMON and SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writers 1 hour, 6 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Reps. Tom DeLay and Roy Blunt, the deputy who succeeded him as House majority leader, orchestrated a political money carousel in 2000 that diverted donations secretly collected for presidential convention parties to some of their own pet causes.

When it all ended, DeLay's private charity, along with the consulting firm that employed DeLay's wife and the Missouri campaign of Blunt's son, Matt, who now is the state's governor, all ended up with a piece of the pie, according to campaign documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist recently charged in an ongoing federal corruption and fraud investigation, and Jim Ellis, the DeLay fundraiser indicted with his boss last week in Texas, also appeared in the picture.

The complicated transactions are drawing scrutiny in legal and political circles after a grand jury indicted DeLay on charges of violating Texas law with a scheme to launder illegal corporate donations to state political candidates.

The government's former chief election enforcement lawyer said the Blunt and DeLay transactions are similar to the Texas case and raise questions that should be investigated regarding whether donors were deceived or the true destination of their money was concealed.

"These people clearly like using middlemen for their transactions," said Lawrence Noble. "It seems to be a pattern with DeLay funneling money to different groups, at least to obscure, if not cover, the original source," said Noble, who was the Federal Election Commission's chief lawyer for 13 years, including 2000, when the transactions occurred.

None of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations DeLay collected for the 2000 convention were ever disclosed to federal regulators because the type of group DeLay used wasn't governed by federal law at the time.

DeLay has temporarily stepped aside as House majority leader after being indicted by a Texas prosecutor. Blunt, who had been majority whip, the No. 3 Republican in the House, has taken over much of that role in DeLay's absence.

Spokesmen for the two Republican leaders say they disclosed what was required by law at the time and believe all their transactions were legal, though donors might not always have known where their money was headed.

"It illustrates what others have said, that money gets transferred all the time. This was disclosed to the extent required to be disclosed by applicable law," said Don McGahn, a lawyer for DeLay. "It just shows that donors don't control funds once they're given."

Blunt and DeLay planned all along to raise more money than was needed for the convention parties and then direct some of that to other causes, such as supporting state candidates, according to longtime Blunt aide Gregg Hartley.

"We put together a budget for what we thought we would raise and spend on the convention and whatever was left over we were going to use to support candidates," said Hartley, Blunt's former chief of staff, who answered AP's questions on behalf of the Missouri Republican.

Hartley said he saw no similarity to the Texas case. The fact that DeLay's charity, Christine DeLay's consulting firm and Blunt's son were beneficiaries was a coincidence, Hartley said.

Much of the money, including one donation to Blunt from an Abramoff client accused of running a "sweatshop" garment factory in the Northern Mariana Islands, changed hands in spring 2000, a period of keen interest to federal prosecutors.

During that same time, Abramoff arranged for DeLay to use a concert skybox for donors and to take a golfing trip to Scotland and England that was partly underwritten by some of the lobbyist's clients. Prosecutors are investigating whether the source of some of the money was disguised, and whether some of DeLay's expenses were originally put on the lobbyist's credit card in violation of House rules.

Both DeLay and Blunt and their aides also met with Abramoff's lobbying team several times in 2000 and 2001 on Marianas issues, according to law firm billing records obtained by the AP under an open records request. DeLay was instrumental in blocking legislation opposed by some of Abramoff's clients.

Noble said investigators should examine whether the pattern of disguising the original source of money might have been an effort to hide the leaders' simultaneous financial and legislative dealings with Abramoff and his clients.

"You see Abramoff involved and see the meetings that were held and one gets the sense Abramoff is helping this along in order to get access and push his clients' interest," he said. "And at the same time, you see Delay and Blunt trying to hide the root of their funding.

"All of these transactions may have strings attached to them. ... I think you would want to look, if you aren't already looking, at the question of a quid pro quo," Noble said.

Blunt and DeLay long have been political allies. The 2000 transactions occurred as President Bush was marching toward his first election to the White House, DeLay was positioning himself to be House majority leader and Blunt was lining up to succeed DeLay as majority whip, the third-ranking position in the House.

The entities Blunt and DeLay formed allowed them to collect donations of any size and any U.S. source with little chance of federal scrutiny.

DeLay's convention fundraising arm, part of his Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee (ARMPAC), collected large corporate donations to help wine and dine Republican VIPs during the presidential nominating convention in Philadelphia in late summer 2000. DeLay's group has declined to identify any of the donors.

Blunt's group, a nonfederal wing of his Rely on Your Beliefs Fund, eventually registered its activities in Missouri but paid a $3,000 fine for improperly concealing its fundraising in 1999 and spring 2000, according to Missouri Ethics Commission records.

Both groups — DeLay's and Blunt's — were simultaneously paying Ellis, the longtime DeLay fundraiser.

The DeLay group began transferring money to Blunt's group in two checks totaling $150,000 in spring 2000, well before Republicans met in Philadelphia for the convention. The transfers accounted for most of money Blunt's group received during that period.

DeLay's convention arm sent $50,000 on March 31, 2000. Eight days later, the Blunt group made a $10,000 donation to DeLay's private charity for children and began the first of several payments totaling $40,000 to a Northern Virginia-based political consulting firm formed by DeLay's former chief of staff, Ed Buckham.

That consulting firm at the time also employed DeLay's wife, Christine, according to DeLay's ethics disclosure report to Congress.

Hartley said Blunt was unaware that Mrs. DeLay worked at the firm when he made the payments, and that she had nothing to do with Blunt's group.

On April 14, 2000, Concorde Garment Manufacturing, based in the Northern Mariana Islands, part of Abramoff's lobbying coalition, contributed $3,000 to Blunt's group.

Hartley said the donation was delivered during a weekend of fundraising activities by Blunt and DeLay but his boss did not know who solicited it.

Concorde, derided for years in lawsuits as a Pacific island sweatshop, paid a $9 million penalty to the U.S. government in the 1990s for failing to pay workers' overtime. The company was visited by DeLay.

The company was a key member of the Marianas garment industry that the islands' government was trying to protect when it hired Abramoff to lobby DeLay, Blunt and others to keep Congress from imposing tougher wage and tax standards on the islands.

After the November 2000 election, Abramoff's firm billed its Mariana Islands clients for at least one meeting with Blunt and three meetings with Blunt's staff, billing records show. Abramoff's team also reported several meetings with DeLay and his staff on the issue, including one during the presidential convention.

On May 24, 2000, just before DeLay left with Abramoff for the Scottish golfing trip, DeLay's convention fundraising group transferred $100,000 more to Blunt's group. Within three weeks, Blunt turned around and donated the same amount to the Missouri Republican Party.

The next month, the state GOP began spending large amounts of money to help Blunt's son, Matt, in his successful campaign to become Missouri secretary of state. On July 25, 2000, the state GOP made its first expenditure for the younger Blunt, totaling just over $11,000. By election day, that figure had grown to more than $160,000.

Hartley said Blunt always liked to help the state party and the fact that his son got party help after his donation was a coincidence. "They are unrelated activities," he said.

Exchanges of donations occurred again in the fall. Just a few days before the November election, DeLay's ARMPAC gave $50,000 to the Missouri GOP. A month later, the Missouri GOP sent $50,000 to DeLay's group.

___

Associated Press writer David Lieb in Missouri contributed to this story.

___

On the Net:

Documents for this story are available at: http://wid.ap.org/documents/delay/index.html

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SOURCE - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051006/ap_on_go_co/delay_money_carousel


3 Comments:

Blogger Black Krishna said...

I tend to absorb "the world" both on the internet and in real-life, but in natural ways that don't subscribe to pre-conceived conclusions. Once that happens I make plenty of what I consider "unique" observations, using the pure essence of my personality to interpret something as opposed to following any rules on what I'm supposed to say about it based on existing dogma-doo-doo.

Being on the "Save The World" vibe helps too, and adds a sense of satisfaction to what I'm doing that I've never felt before - and hardly see in others. I've been told by friends that I sound "coked up" when I discuss what I'm up to, and have only met a few other people who sound "coked up" without doing coke. They are really happy and confident in what they are doing, and blogs as I see them are avenues of expression that are uncorruptable unless ** you allow yourself ** to be corrupted by falsely perceived external pressures.

So: do and say whatever the hell you want.

If it's "you" and not some other crap you're recycling then it will be unique, and if it's unique then you'll find an audience appreciative of the "new" flavor you're bringing to the table.

And thanks for the RSS feeds, any folks out there who want 'em enjoy...


Cheers,
BK

5:39 AM  
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