Talking Points Mirror Public Opinion Research Paid for through
Indian Tribe Contributions arranged by Jack Abramoff

During her Senate career, Kay Bailey Hutchinson has been little more than paid shill to the oil and gas industry, and last weekend’s performance was no different. She appeared on Fox News to blame Democrats for high gas prices and call for the expansion of oil drilling. I would not have expected anything else from Hutchinson, But in the interest of being "Fair and Balanced," Fox news anchor Chris Wallace might have pointed out to his viewers that during the 2006 election cycle Hutchinson was the leading recipient of Oil and Gas Industry largess, pulling in $323,186, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.   During her career in the Senate, she has received more than $2 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, making her the top congressional recipient since 1990.

No one should be surprised by what Hutchinson said, but it is worth noting that her talking points sound a lot like the work of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA), the now defunct Republican green-scam group connected to Jack Abramoff and ill-gotten Indian tribe donations.

I’ll try to keep this one short and on point.

I have been researching Jack Abramoff and the Republican Culture of Corruption since 1998 and writing about it on Daily Kos since 2004.

I’ve written about a lot of bad guys and their dirty deeds

One of the very worst of them is Dana Rohrabacher.

At the start of the 2006 cycle he was at the top of my list—just after Tom DeLay—of Abramoff-connected weasels that I wanted to see defeated. Unfortunately, in 2006, Dana was in a safe seat with a little known and underfunded Democratic challenger. I kept him high on the list of the Abramoff 65, but I set my sights on others.

This time out, Rohrabacher is back at the top of my list. And I am very happy to see that he has a serious challenge: Debbie Cook.

This is great news. Please help defeat Rohrabacher and donate to Debbie Cook!

Let’s jump...

In the circles of Hell reserved for politicians there is a special place for those pols who were specifically charged with fighting corruption and chose instead, to enable it.

John McCain is one of those politicians and so is Doc Hastings.

The ethically challenged Doc Hastings has been in Congress since 1994 and his career is highlighted by his extreme dedication to Tom DeLay and the Leaders of his Party. As for the people of his District, they are just the chumps who keep sending him back to Washington no matter how little he does for them. This year, his luck may be about to run out.

The WA-04 is shaping up to be a very interesting race. Right now it is rated as being Safe Republican, but I have a hunch that this is one of the long-shot races that could suddenly become very competitive.

A fired-up Democratic base, a very corrupt Republican, a great Democratic Candidate and the unique "Top Two" Primary on August 19 create an opportunity for real change.

To the jump...

Note: I'm the author of a new book, Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest, but I'm not part of the Obama campaign.

I’ve just listened to James Dobson's Focus on the Family radio program denouncing Barack Obama. Dobson is a right-wing crackpot, advocating all sorts of bizarre ideas about child-raising and the Bible that I detail below. But Dobson is also a powerful political figure in the Republican Party, someone whose incredible influence has been used on behalf of corrupt figures like Jack Abramoff.

Back in 2005-2006, I put a lot of effort into blogging against Richard Pombo (R, CA-11).  Kossacks who came on board after the midterms might not be familiar with his name.  Suffice it to say that his vanquishment (thanks to Pete McCloskey & Jerry McNerney and thousands upon thousands of donors and volunteers) was one of the sweetest victories in the Democratic wave that retook the House.

Pombo's a lobbyist now, and is busy trying to promote new oil development.  He's turned up again, now associated with some misleading astroturf.  That's not new for him: what's new is the fresh chorus for new oil development on all fronts.  This time, oil shale in Colorado.  As if there weren't tons of new drilling and despoilment going on already under Cheney's energy plan.

John McCain has an undeserved reputation as a maverick. The hype is overwhelming. For many, the great gap between his actual record and the myth he’s carefully crafted is too much to take in. They would rather embrace the myth than confront the truth. Reality hurts their brains. And yet, I am afraid that I have to hurt the brains of McCain’s media sycophants—like the equally ancient David Broder—just a bit more.

Inside the beltway McCain gets a lot of praise and credit for the exposure and investigation of the Abramoff Scandal. It is undeserved.

When it comes to the Abramoff Scandal, the real work has been done by some fine investigative reporters and the Department of Justice. I’ll also give props to the various Congressional Committees that have revealed very narrow slices of information and several thousand pages of documents, but none of these Congressional-based inquirers could be called a full investigation of the scandal. That has not happened and it may never happen.

The reason is John McCain.

He morphed a nascent investigation into a cover-up and went on to embrace Abramoff’s most corrupt cronies.

To the jump...

In November 2000 I was driving back to Maryland from Michigan where I had worked to GOTV for Al Gore and Debbie Stabenow. I helped elect a Senator, but as I listened to NPR on the way home I could not believe what was happening.

I was angry, frustrated and very, very concerned for the fate of the Country I loved. I knew things were going to get very, very bad if Bush stole the election. By that time I had already been researching Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and their web of corruption for a little over a year. It was clear to me what these guys would do if they had the run of our Government.

At a stop for gas I was so distracted by these thoughts that I drove away with the pump nozzle still in my tank—as I paid $125 in repairs, I knew that this was only the first of the many payments and indignities that Republican rule under George W. Bush would cost me and my Nation.

The reality quickly settled in: the core issue was (and still is) Taking this Country Back!.

Then came 9-11 and Bush used it to win the 2002 midterms. Next came Iraq and it seemed everybody had surrender to Republican rule.

Then a voice said NO...

Something stinks in Congress, and if you want to find something that stinks just follow the flies.

Flies are attracted to fresh feces, corpses, and anything that is rotten. Money is unto flies, as corrupt politicians are to feces. The flies in this case would be money, or campaign donations to be precise. Money, in the form of contributions from corrupt PAC lobbies, was filtered through lackeys to the congressional campaign of Trent Franks. Contributions ranging from $500 to $20,000 were linked to dirty money and Abramoff's shifty lobbyist groups.

Cindy McCain's beer company owns a private jet.

Cindy McCain used her beer company's private jet to fly around the country doing fundraisers for John McCain's presidential campaign.

John McCain's presidential campaign never paid for the use of that jet, as required by law.

The Wall Street Journal article revealing this information does its best to give McCain the benefit of the doubt, but it's an uphill road:

Sen. John McCain's wife flew in her company's private jet last year from Phoenix to New York City, where she spent three hours of the two-day trip at a fund-raiser for her husband's presidential campaign. The rest of her visit was devoted to personal matters, according to the campaign.

The campaign didn't reimburse Cindy McCain for the March 7-9, 2007, trip, which included the event near Times Square that brought in an estimated $100,000. Should it have done so?

According to federal campaign finance rules, the answer is yes -- and no, depending on which portion of the code is applied.

Mrs. McCain's trip offers a good example of the complex and sometimes contradictory ways that post-Watergate regulations have evolved to dictate what is considered proper use of campaign funds. Sen. McCain is one of the leading champions of such rules, but critics charge his campaign has applied them liberally in a number of instances.

She used the jet on several trips last year that included campaign-related activity but never got campaign reimbursement, according to flight-tracking records and campaign-finance reports verified by the McCain campaign. At the New York fund-raiser, she spoke on stage, warming up the audience for her husband.

If the campaign had paid for Mrs. McCain's trip to New York and three others that appear to have included some campaign work, it would likely have cost a total of about $15,000, the equivalent of first-class fare for the trips combined.

Jan Baran, a Republican campaign lawyer, said the campaign should have paid. "I don't know why they want to fight it," he said. "The chutzpah is not that they're not paying for this trip, it's that they're using a corporate airplane at a highly discounted rate."

Cleta Mitchell, another Republican lawyer, said she would have advised her clients to pay for such a trip, but that the McCain campaign had a solid legal basis for not doing so. "That advisory opinion is something of an outlier," she said, "but I think it is probably appropriate that they are relying on that to say that, under the circumstances, it would have been inappropriate to pay for her air travel."

Here's the problem:

Jack Abramoff used to own luxury skyboxes at FedEx Field (where the Washington Redskins play), Camden Yards (where the Baltimore Orioles play) and at what's now the Verizon Center, but used to be the MCI Center (where the Washington Capitals, the Washington Wizards, and most concert tours play). He also used to own Signatures restaurant and Stackers Deli, and their attendant catering businesses.

Abramoff used to rent these out to Republican campaigns for use as fundraising venues, and then magically "forget" to bill the campaigns for their use, as required by law. These same campaigns, of course, magically "forgot" to pay, and usually "forgot" to report the transaction altogether.

Jack Abramoff is in jail for this.

Bob Ney went to jail for this.

Former Rep. Ernie Istook's chief of staff is going to jail for this.

John McCain... is running for president.

And what a thing to "forget" to pay for, Mr. McCain!

During Mr. McCain’s four years in the House, Mr. Keating, his family and his business associates contributed heavily to his political campaigns. The banker gave Mr. McCain free rides on his private jet, a violation of Congressional ethics rules (he later said it was an oversight and paid for the trips).

Boy, he sure forgets a lot of stuff. Or a lot of instances of the exact same unethical and illegal stuff, anyway.

Not that there's anything wrong with that! Don't wanna be "ageist" here.

It's just... weird. You know? Everybody goes to jail for this except Mr. Hero, who instead runs for president on the platform of his personal integrity.

That's not change you can mumble, grumble, mrrrraaaaah....

An appeals court has reversed the convictions of David Safavian on obstruction of justice charges related to the Abramoff scandal.

Here's the WaPo story.

Here's a trade mag's coverage.

And the text of the decision.

More after the jump.

Bob Schaffer is a former Congressman from Colorado's 4th, now running for the Senate.  To read our local coverage of Bob Schaffer's various scandals see here.

What opportune timing.  Between the Bill Orr trial, trying to learn which Congressman gave him the earmark he used to line his pocketbook, and so many other political scandals, I wasn't sure when was the right time to reveal what else we dug out of Bob Schaffer's Congressional archive.  But, now that Ross Kaminsky has started his belated by two months defense of Bob Schaffer on the Denver Post's new website, he's given me the right opportunity to bring this up again.  I'm going to show how his attempt to get to the "truth" is the furthest thing from reality.

If you’re like me, sometimes your mind wanders to the year 2000 and what might have been if only the votes had been counted.

It is at those times that it becomes hard to untangle the rush of emotions as I think about the legacy of George Bush, his appointment by the Supreme Court and what might have been if we had Al Gore in the White House.

At these moments, I think about Florida and I get mad.

Now, anger has fueled me over the last decade as I’ve researched and exposed the culture of corruption. Truth be told, it still does.

It was Jack Abramoff’s role in the Florida recount that had my hair on fire back in late 2000 and 2001. He sent his team. He raised money, lots of money—on and off the books. He funded the infrastructure of the coup d’état we suffer under to this day.

Without Abramoff and his fellow lobbyist—the shadow army of the GOP—George W. Bush would be a village resident of diminished mental capacity somewhere in Texas.

Instead, every day, he gets to insult and diminish the Nation I love.

It is time for payback.

And a great revenge will be to defeat John Mica.

To the Jump...

Just read a long recced diary about Jack Abramoff's sentencing this coming September. Here's the link.

http://www.dailykos.com/...

That diary left me with several questions, so I thought I would post my own diary of questions and see if my fellow kossacks will provide some answers.

As they say, "The wheels of Justice grind slowly..."

In the Bush years, Justice hardly moves at all.

The absence of justice has become expected (and I’m sure that you could cite at least twenty examples of failed justice in the Bush years—or more).

The list of unfinished investigations is staggering as is the ever expanding list of scandal.

Cleaning up after the Bush era will take a generation. It will take a revitalized Department of Justice. A DOJ that is willing to pursue crime (instead of covering it up). The same will go for the House and the Senate.

All of these institutions have failed us in the Bush Years.

A better day is coming. Barack Obama long had the best record and the best proposals for cleaning up Washington. And now he is our Nominee. He is a real reformer.

John McCain pretends to be a reformer when a teevee camera is near. In reality has lived to protect the status quo with cover-ups and misdirection—and that is the extent of his record.

Like 2006, corruption is a big issue in 2008. It is impacting the Main Event and many Senate and House races.

And in September a corruption bomb will drop on the GOP.

Let’s jump...

On Tuesday, Jon Stewart welcomed former Christian Coalition wunderkind and Jack Abramoff scandal figure Ralph Reed to the Daily Show to pitch his new book, Dark Horse.  But while the two discussed Reed's joining Scooter Libby, Bill O'Reilly and Lynne Cheney among the ranks of racy right-wing novelists, Stewart gave the disgraced lobbyist and failed Georgia Republican pol a free ride when it came to Reed's own close association with Abramoff.

Scandals are breaking out everyday.

Monday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released a new draft Report and hundreds of documents detailing the extensive contacts and close working relationship between Jack Abramoff, his Team and the Bush White House.

It is rich in scandal details and I could write 20 Diaries about it if I had the time.

This was on the heels of the latest guilty plea in the Abramoff scandal that I wrote about the other day.

I find myself spending time talking to researchers, reporters and sources from Alaska to Florida (and many States in between) and helping them connect the dots.

Time is running short and I need some help.

I need a Research Posse:

To the Jump...

It strikes me as rather amusing in how the Associated Press is continuing to  try and equate Democratic actions with Republican ones.  This becomes even more amusing when one actually looks at the facts they give you in these articles.  It's like trying to equate a nuclear bomb with an artillery round from the Civil War.  It just doesn't work.

Yet, still, they try.

By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer Tue Jun 10, 3:39 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama and John McCain are billing themselves as distant from special interests. It doesn't take a very deep look into their White House bids to see that's false advertising.

Presidential races tap into the same political circles that keep lobbyists employed and the revolving door spinning. Obama and McCain have a long way to go to free themselves of insiders and special interests.

Wow.  What a powerful introduction.  Sounds like they're both a couple of big fat hypocrites, right?

Wrong.  Very, very wrong.  Follow the jump for a breakdown.

Here's what the White House today is calling warmed up leftovers and "a joke":

President Met Disgraced Lobbyist At Least Six Times

The White House Had Previously Acknowledged Only Two Meetings

By JUSTIN ROOD

June 9, 2008 —

The White House had stronger ties to disgraced superlobbyist Jack Abramoff than it has publicly admitted, according to a draft congressional report released Monday.

President Bush met Abramoff on at least four occasions the White House has yet to acknowledge, according to the draft report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

And White House officials appeared as comfortable going to Abramoff and his lobbyists seeking tickets to sporting and entertainment events, as they did seeking input on personnel picks for plum jobs, the report found.

President Bush himself met Abramoff on at least six occasions, the report said, citing White House documents; the White House had previously acknowledged only two.

Yep. The president lying about contacts with a criminal is just a freakin' hilarious "joke," isn't it?

And it would be irresponsible not to begin speculation about the following tidbit, wouldn't it?

At least three former officials declined to answer some or all of the investigators' questions, citing their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the draft report said.