Abramoff Coverage Omits Key Facts

12 Comments

1. 

   BooMan on January 4, 2006 at 12:10 pm

   it was his racist comments about Native Americans that first got my notice.  Before that, I had never heard of him.  

   People like Rohrabacher should explain why they said Abramoff was “a very honest man” and DeLay should explain why he said he was such a close friend, and they should do it in the context of these racist comments, and this rapacious double-dealing with the tribes.

   • 

     Dean Pajevic on January 4, 2006 at 12:22 pm

     It was staggering last night to listen to the testimony of the tribes’ reprseentatives before John McCain and the Indian Affairs committee hearing …

     There was the truly GOOFY guy who had been a lifeguard (!) and was an old college buddy of Scanlon’s — and all of a sudden he headed a corporation.  The Senators were aghast.  (He looked just like someone who’d done too much coke or meth or something in his life … he wasn’t okay, although he seemed harmless enough.)

     Then there was the woman who headed an (I think it was) educational foundation for NA kids, and she kept saying … but Abramoff had been on our Board of Directors for five years, he checked out, etc., etc….

     CSpan did an incredible job of editing segments for us to view.  

     I hope they replay it once more tonight.  Tomorrow night, CSpan is airing a new 3-hour show.

     I should call a couple of the tribes around here and see if they were wooed by Abramoff.

     One tribe — the Jamestown — are doing incredibly well.  They have a casino and have used it to build all kinds of programs for their people, and have built exquisite architecturally fine buildings along the highway for conferences, their other businesses, an art gallery, and on and on…

     • 

       rba on January 4, 2006 at 12:35 pm

       The entire record of the hearings is on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee website.  Huge files.

     • 

       BooMan on January 4, 2006 at 12:35 pm

       I remember that kid’s testimony.  It was hilarious.  

       • 

         rumi on January 4, 2006 at 1:03 pm

           On your first comment, theat was the same time I ran across him and had the same reaction.

           McCain’s reaction to the lady who didn’t question the sniper school donations was fun to watch. He kept asking her, didn’t it seem unusual…..no alarm bells…..?

           The other good one was the reaction to Abramoff forming a seperate corporation that owned his house.

     • 

       Arcturus on January 4, 2006 at 2:19 pm

       Racist? Kind of brings a whole new meaning to ‘divide & conquer,’ doesn’t it? Use the funds of a prospering oppressed people to further oppress another.

       I’d forgotten about the Isikoff article.

       Juan Cole has an excellent post about this. He reminds, for the benefit of the terminally clueless, that the settlements in the West Bank are illegal under Int’l law, and goes to note that “Iran has reacted more properly in the aftermath to the 8-year-long Iraq-Iran War (which Iraq launched) than Israel reacted to the 1967 war (which the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza did not launch).”

       He also criticizes Isikoff’s piece:

       Isikoff is careful to avoid trouble by depicting the weaponry sent by Abramoff as essentially for self-defense. But the colonists are often aggressive, and anyway would not need to defend themselves if they weren’t squatting on other people’s land. And, Israel does have an army. Private militias are always an ugly thing, and have been used by Israeli colonists ethnically to cleanse nearby Palestinian villages.

       The Hill reported on June 23, 2005 that some of the money Abramoff embezzled from the charity contributions of the Indian tribes “paid a monthly stipend and Jeep payments to a high-school friend of Abramoff who conducted sniper workshops . . .” The Hill suggested that the workshops were for Israeli army personnel, but the Israeli army does not need shooting lessons from Yitzhak Pindrus. The sniper lessons were for the colonists, practice for shooting Palestinians. (snip)

       Illegal outposts, i.e. establishing foreign colonies on stolen land, is a way of terrorizing the indigenous inhabitants, and it requires a local militia to defend the colonists, along with sniper lessons and night-vision binoculars.

       Now here’s the thing. If a Palestinian-American had diverted $140,000 from a Muslim charity to “security equipment” and “sniper lessons” for Palestinians on the West Bank, that individual would be in Gitmo so fast that the sonic boom would rattle your windows.

       In fact, it seems to me that Sami al-Arian is the mirror image of Abramoff.

       But here’s a prediction. None of the Jewish extremists, some of them violent, who are invading the West Bank and making the lives of the local Palestinians miserable will ever be branded “terrorists” by the US Government, and Abramoff’s foray into providing sniper lessons will be quietly buried.

       Terror isn’t terror and aggression is not aggression when it has lobbyists in Congress who can provide luxury vacations and illegal campaign funding.

       Thanks for the DN heads-up; I slept through it this morning.

       • 

         DuctapeFatwa on January 4, 2006 at 2:38 pm

         of Abramoff’s activities will redeem him in the opinion of most of those of the US public who are aware of the story, not to mention judicial leniency.

       • 

         Dean Pajevic on January 4, 2006 at 2:55 pm

         Fascinating, Arcturus.  Thanks for posting that.

         Btw, did you ever catch Frontline’s “Israel’s Next War?“

         It’s one thing to read about the rabid settlers.  It’s quite another to SEE them on camera, and follow their insane, militant attempts to kill Palestinians.

         You can watch the full show online.

         • 

           Arcturus on January 4, 2006 at 4:52 pm

           NO, I haven’t seen that. Will have to look for it to re-air, as I’m afraid I’d crash this old clunker of a computer.

           There’s a great documentary I saw last fall on soldiers of the occupation. Don’t remember either the name or the filmamker, but could search for it if there’s interest.

           The original footage was shot for the IDF when the filmmaker, at the time an Israeli soldier, was stationed in the occuied territories. The army abandoned the project, & he was able to salvage some footage & later shot more, re-visiting his army buddies years later both in their homes, & again in the occupied territories w/ another army buddy who remained in service.

           It’s chilling, showing not only the horrific toll Israeli policies exact on the Palestinians, but also the severe emotional scarring it leaves on the young soldiers, several of whom are later disguted by the things they had done. Something we’re likely to see as well in our returning Iraq war vets.

2. 

   liberalelite on January 4, 2006 at 2:43 pm

   It’s Bushco.  Racist, militant, criminal.  I think your brush stroke, instead of being overbroad, renders a very accurate perspective on the scope of this criminal activity.  The details, including ties to lawmakers and the Bush Crime Family (BCF) remain to be depicted.

3. 

   Arthur Gilroy on January 4, 2006 at 3:04 pm

   Wait.

   There’s more coming. I can hear it  when I put my inner ear to the ground.

   Abramoff is the key.

   He connects 9/11, Israel, organized crime and BushCo. If the total rot that appears to have set in at the Enron/Halliburton/Bechtel level of big money/Intel/PermaGov has not already totally spread throughout the entire corporate structure of America…and it is not a good bet that it hasn’t…then he is going to bust things wide open.

   If it has, then they will cauterize this little opening; a couple of hustlers and functionares will do some time…because that is all that these Abramoffs andf DeLays really are, mid-level bagmen and errand boys… and AmeriCorp will keep right on pounding out its mistakes on the asses of the rest of the world until it is militarily and economically defeated.

   Physician…heal thyself.

   Or the rest of the world will eventually do it for you.

   Bet on it.

   AG

4. 

   rumi on January 4, 2006 at 3:13 pm

     The backstories into possible motives are always fascinating. Abramoff, Norquist, Rove and several others find their roots in the College Republicans group that advocates supremacy over compromise.

   As I settled in my seat for an afternoon of speeches at the College Republican National Convention, I felt something crunch. It was an empty can of Busch Light, one of many strewn across the paisley-carpeted floor of the banquet hall in northern Virginia’s Crystal City Gateway Marriott. All around me sat the Republican Party’s future leaders: fresh-faced, nondescript white guys in blue suits, and slender blond girls in miniskirts and snug-fitting blazers, some with halter tops underneath. Later, these conservative cadres would vote for the next chairman of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC). It was the closest race since 1973, when a bespectacled boy genius named Karl Rove was elected.

   On June 24 conventiongoers were treated to speeches from conservative stars like House majority leader Tom DeLay; antitax zealot Grover Norquist, who called Senator John McCain a “nut job” for compromising on Bush’s judge picks; and black right-winger Jesse Lee Peterson, who announced that “most black people–not all, but most–can’t think for themselves.” The high point of the day, however, belonged to the movement’s favorite red-diaper baby, David Horowitz. Horowitz reminded his fawning audience that he could “be sitting at home in the coastal mountains of California, watching horses and rabbits run across my neighbor’s yard.” Instead he chose to appear for free before a bunch of College Republicans because, as he told them, “The future of the free peoples of the world depends on the Republican Party–and ultimately it depends on you.”
   ————
   To prove his point, Horowitz singled out Sami Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor on trial for allegedly funneling money to Palestinian terror groups through his now-defunct think tank. Horowitz neglected to mention that Norquist, the College Republicans’ former executive director and a speaker earlier that morning, funded Al-Arian’s think tank through his own Islamic Institute, which he founded with seed money from Qatar, Kuwait and other Middle Eastern sources, including a self-described supporter of Hezbollah, Abdurahman Almoudi. Horowitz was also mum about Al-Arian’s private June 2001 briefing with Karl Rove, who last week accused liberals of wanting “to offer therapy and understanding” for the 9/11 attackers. Nor did Horowitz mention the photo-op that candidate George W. Bush posed for with Al-Arian during the 2000 campaign. Nor did he note that Al-Arian boasted that he helped win the state of Florida for Bush by pulling its 90,000 Muslim votes into the Republican column.
   —————
   Davidson became the stuff of legend for his activity in the liberal hotbed of Berkeley. As secretary of the California College Republicans, he built dozens of chapters in schools throughout California, helped deliver a record turnout for Bush in the state and organized a now-famous “pro-America” rally in People’s Park. His candidacy has been endorsed by Representative David Dreier and Ann Coulter, who hailed him as a pioneer of “the new McCarthyism.” And with good reason. Last February, in a Horowitz-inspired redbaiting operation, College Republicans at Santa Rosa Junior College in Northern California posted fliers on the doors of ten professors’ offices bearing a red star and a warning quoting a 1950s-era state education code forbidding “the advocacy and teaching of communism.” One professor’s crime was displaying a poster for the film Fahrenheit 9/11 in his office window. Soon after, a press release appeared on the California College Republicans’ website identifying the stunt as “Operation Red Scare.”
   ————–
   Generation Chickenhawk