Believe It: a Truly Republican Scandal
On the likelihood you have encountered a corporate media dismissal of the Abramoff scandal as "bipartisan" or "business as usual," I have real news for you (not the muck of corporate media, this is a genuine first-class web resource!). The reality seems to be that despite the party line being aggressively infiltrated into and then pushed by virtually all of the familiar media (of course that is why we call them "corporate"), Abramoff's personal donations went exclusively to republicans. You heard me right. Harry Reid received donations from several Native American Tribes. Ditto Patty Murray. Ditto a number of other dems. Abramoff is the one facing hard time here, and his money apparently was too dear to make it past the repubs. There is no evidence that any of the Tribal donations are illegal in any way.
Yes, it seems a little improbable to me too that the criminals would be so selective. This is Darwin Awards stuff. Presumably that's the rationale the networks and other media owned pretty exclusively these days by mega-corporations hope will convince you to believe their stories that always seem to have a "they all do it" spin to them. Of course these mega-corps have been the primary beneficiaries of the tax cuts and other outrageous measures that have savaged the Federal budget on Bush's watch, turning a large surplus into the largest deficit in history. Obviously they're going to sing sweetly for their sugar-bear and the party that controls all of the federal gummint and pork now.
The Capital Eyes website features remarkably comprehensive documentation on the donations made by Abramoff to legislators and their organizations over the past few years. Also included in the database are the separate donations made by numerous Native American tribes, most if not all Abramoff clients, presumably representing actual "business as usual" in terms of lobbying and otherwise seeking access and favoritism from lawmakers under the current gone-amuck system. Which is to say, this whole business of corporations and other organizations being free to contribute to lawmakers is totally loathesome. It is critical that we face the reality that this will always be a slippery slope with influence-buying and worse at the bottom and insist on public funding of political campaigns. In the meantime, there is no evidence the Tribal donations are illegal in any sense and what matters are the donations by Abramoff, who is facing criminal charges for his personal donations.
So take a look at this site. I will gently caveat up front that I have not conducted anything resembling due diligence. However, given the wealth of information here and presumably the ease with which an attempt at fraud or serious mischieviousness could be detected and fed to the always-willing routinely sycophantic corporate media, until proven otherwise I believe we can trust this information.
The bottom line appears to be that every single democrat recorded on the site received all of their donations directly from Native Tribes. If you scroll down the website you will find several options for displaying the data. The home screen merely shows summary stats. But choose to display by donor and pick old Mr. and Mrs. Jack. I found not a single "D" for dem in that list.
I imagine a list by any of the other donor choices - Native Tribes exclusively I think - will provide a more mixed picture. But try displaying all recipients, either by name or by total amount. There are many, a discouraging slog through the reality of the government-influencing industry for a naif like me. A click on any individual name will bring up the donor list for that donee. I did not do a completely exhaustive search, but I can save you some trouble - I checked all "D" entries on the recipient list down to a total amount of about $5,000. I found Tribal donations only. I don't know that we can take this as an absolute proof of no possibility of any sort of wrongdoing or skullduggery, or possible future exposure, but it certainly appears to support that surprisingly strong assertion by Howard Dean to Wolf Blitzer under predictably hostile pro-repub questioning the other day that there were NO democrats who received Abramoff donations. This is truly mind-boggling stuff. As best I can tell these folks must have been mixing up hubris-koolaid by the keg on a regular basis to leave such an obvious trail. We're all expected to be just too stupid to notice.
Your action items include not believing a word of the nonsense you will be continuing to hear from corporate media and of course virtually anyone with the slightest connection to the party in power as Abramoff waltzes ("sleazes" is probably closer) through the legal proceedings. Preferably, take that next step, and call out anyone, Op-Ed writer, LTTE author, whoever, who attempts to foment ridiculous cover for the reality; this is a simple sordid case of the republican K-street project folks (DeLay, Abramoff, et al) getting way too full of themselves in the course of their well-documented project of eviscerating the democratic party and hence turning the country into a one-party oligarchy.
Yes, it seems a little improbable to me too that the criminals would be so selective. This is Darwin Awards stuff. Presumably that's the rationale the networks and other media owned pretty exclusively these days by mega-corporations hope will convince you to believe their stories that always seem to have a "they all do it" spin to them. Of course these mega-corps have been the primary beneficiaries of the tax cuts and other outrageous measures that have savaged the Federal budget on Bush's watch, turning a large surplus into the largest deficit in history. Obviously they're going to sing sweetly for their sugar-bear and the party that controls all of the federal gummint and pork now.
The Capital Eyes website features remarkably comprehensive documentation on the donations made by Abramoff to legislators and their organizations over the past few years. Also included in the database are the separate donations made by numerous Native American tribes, most if not all Abramoff clients, presumably representing actual "business as usual" in terms of lobbying and otherwise seeking access and favoritism from lawmakers under the current gone-amuck system. Which is to say, this whole business of corporations and other organizations being free to contribute to lawmakers is totally loathesome. It is critical that we face the reality that this will always be a slippery slope with influence-buying and worse at the bottom and insist on public funding of political campaigns. In the meantime, there is no evidence the Tribal donations are illegal in any sense and what matters are the donations by Abramoff, who is facing criminal charges for his personal donations.
So take a look at this site. I will gently caveat up front that I have not conducted anything resembling due diligence. However, given the wealth of information here and presumably the ease with which an attempt at fraud or serious mischieviousness could be detected and fed to the always-willing routinely sycophantic corporate media, until proven otherwise I believe we can trust this information.
The bottom line appears to be that every single democrat recorded on the site received all of their donations directly from Native Tribes. If you scroll down the website you will find several options for displaying the data. The home screen merely shows summary stats. But choose to display by donor and pick old Mr. and Mrs. Jack. I found not a single "D" for dem in that list.
I imagine a list by any of the other donor choices - Native Tribes exclusively I think - will provide a more mixed picture. But try displaying all recipients, either by name or by total amount. There are many, a discouraging slog through the reality of the government-influencing industry for a naif like me. A click on any individual name will bring up the donor list for that donee. I did not do a completely exhaustive search, but I can save you some trouble - I checked all "D" entries on the recipient list down to a total amount of about $5,000. I found Tribal donations only. I don't know that we can take this as an absolute proof of no possibility of any sort of wrongdoing or skullduggery, or possible future exposure, but it certainly appears to support that surprisingly strong assertion by Howard Dean to Wolf Blitzer under predictably hostile pro-repub questioning the other day that there were NO democrats who received Abramoff donations. This is truly mind-boggling stuff. As best I can tell these folks must have been mixing up hubris-koolaid by the keg on a regular basis to leave such an obvious trail. We're all expected to be just too stupid to notice.
Your action items include not believing a word of the nonsense you will be continuing to hear from corporate media and of course virtually anyone with the slightest connection to the party in power as Abramoff waltzes ("sleazes" is probably closer) through the legal proceedings. Preferably, take that next step, and call out anyone, Op-Ed writer, LTTE author, whoever, who attempts to foment ridiculous cover for the reality; this is a simple sordid case of the republican K-street project folks (DeLay, Abramoff, et al) getting way too full of themselves in the course of their well-documented project of eviscerating the democratic party and hence turning the country into a one-party oligarchy.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 10:43 PM
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