Abramoff tribes donated funds to lawmakers (Hastert rec'd 100K+)

[UpInArms]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TRIBES_LETTERS__DOLLARS?SITE=ININS&SECTION=HOME

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nearly three dozen members of Congress, including leaders from both parties, pressed the government to block a Louisiana Indian tribe from opening a casino while the lawmakers collected large donations from rival tribes and their lobbyist, Jack Abramoff.

Many intervened with letters to Interior Secretary Gale Norton within days of receiving money from tribes represented by Abramoff or using the lobbyist's restaurant for fundraising, an Associated Press review of campaign records, IRS records and congressional correspondence found.

<snip>

The Abramoff donations dwarf those made by Keating. At least 33 lawmakers wrote letters to Norton and got more than $830,000 in Abramoff-related donations as the lobbying unfolded between 2001 and 2004, AP found.

<snip>

Hastert ultimately collected more than $100,000 in donations from Abramoff's firm and tribal clients between 2001 and 2004. His office said he never discussed the matter with Abramoff, but long opposed expanding Indian gambling off reservations and was asked to send the letter by Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La.

...more...

[rodeodance]

1. oh--how I hope Hasturd's name gets out there!!--along with Frist, Delay,

etc etc

[cantstandbush]

23. Rita should be reporting this instead of 24/7 Natalee Holloway!

It's really disgusting how the media dumbs down the American public for political expediency.

[SpiralHawk]

2. Casinos and Republican corruption. Hopi elder Thomas Banyacya

now in Spirit, once told me that the final straw that brought on the Great Flood to cleanse the Third World was gambling. He told me the Great Flood was the same one spoken of by Plato and the Bible and in dozens of other cultural tales around the world, including the stories of Atlantis. In the Hopi understanding of the Great Flood, he told me, the turn to gambling was the final insult that upset the balance of life on our Mother Earth. Then came the Purification by the element Water.

Some people survived the Great Flood by taking off in boats, as in the story of Noah, others by retreating to mountain summits. The Hopi say some of their ancestors survived the flood by going underground and living for a time in sealed caves. Right now, Grandfather Thomas told me, we are in the Fourth World and facing the Fifth World close on.

I mention all this because I see the rot around gambling today. I especially see it in the Abramoff case, and its occult money dealings with the Indian casinos. Clearly the BushCo Republican NeoCon cabal is enmeshed and entwined within the unholy casino cash cow. As I see it, nothing good comes from this web of relationships. It brings only Greed Medicine to the people. This is not the way forward.

All people involved in this web of gambling money and Republican political funding should step back from it, breath the Great Breath, and consider the color of the path they are walking. It's always possible to respond to truth. That's not something I believe; it's something I know.

Miigwich, SH

[KittyWampus]

5. The Shinnecock Are Set To Begin Road To A Casino On Long Island

easy money I guess and lots of it. For the tribe and the politicos.

Why tribes can't use their imaginations and come up with different business models is beyond me.

[sofa king]

26. I'll tell you why.

Because everywhere that tribes attempt to exercise their sovereignty, they are vilified in the press and hated by ignorant people.

Any time a tribal community tries to use its advantages of sovereignty, state and local governments put pressure on others to prevent them from dealing with tribes. Want to set up a gas station on you reservation? The State will lobby Congress for state-equivalent taxes to make the business venture "competitive" with off-reservation businesses. Local hate-and-Jesus-driven grassroots operations will scare business partners and nearby landowners off with horror stories of sovereign immunity gone awry and Indians successfully reacquiring their stolen land.

In nine out of ten of the local communities bordering tribes that I've personally dealt with, the relationship is openly hostile. The locals want the tribes to be poor, because they don't have to pay help poor Indians survive--the federal government does that.

There is one exception to that, and that's casino gambling. That's also a direct result of hate-and-Jesus-driven lobbyists, who tried hard to kill Indian gaming entirely until the Supreme Court backed up the practice and warned locals they were criminally liable for preventing it. Congress codified those decisions in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

That's why tribes can't "use their imaginiations." Every time they do, they face a decades-long fight in the courts, against small-minded, ignorant and prejudiced Americans, of which there are many.

You could help change that by giving a damn, and by learning about how tribes fit into the Constitution, and learning about the tribes in your region.

For example, if you took just ten minutes to read up on the Shinnecock Tribe, you would learn that they are not even federally recognized, and that the state of New York is expending vast sums of money to make sure that they are never federally recognized, not because they are not a political entity which preexisted the arrival of Europeans in America--they did--but because they are an inconvenience which might jeopardize the isolated splendor of rich Long Islanders.

Without federal recognition, the Shinnecock are not permitted to open a casino, and as long as you buy the bullshit fed to you by your local press and uninformed gossipers, they'll stay that way.

[Jackpine Radical]

19. Hello SpiralHawk.

Boujou, boujou niiji. With few exceptions, I have seen gambling bring nothing but trouble to the Anishinabe, but the people don't like to hear this and think I somehow begrudge their "good fortune." Among the St. Croix band, each kid gets $40,000 or so when they turn 18, so they buy fast cars & lots of coke & in 6 months they are dead, in prison, or in Minneapolis living under a bridge. Even at Lac Court Orielles, where a somewhat more far-sighted leadership built a community college, there are gangs and killings where, before gambling, there were none. Go into the casino & you will see a lot of the seats at the slots & at the tables filled by Ojibway who are partaking of their own poison.

[drm604]

3. This part is not good

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid sent a letter to Norton on March 5, 2002, also signed by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. The next day, the Coushattas issued a $5,000 check to Reid's tax-exempt political group, the Searchlight Leadership Fund. A second Abramoff tribe sent another $5,000 to Reid's group. Reid ultimately received more than $66,000 in Abramoff-related donations between 2001 and 2004.

[nickyt]

4. No, it isn't. What does this mean? Has Harry been "bad"? Are they all

"bad"? Is Abramoff running this country, is everybody working for him?

[drm604]

6. If this crosses the aisle

in substantial numbers, the whole thing may just "go away". Neither party will want to pursue it.

[drm604]

7. K & R

We need to be discussing this.

[shanti]

22. oh, this stinks....

sounds like they crossed the aisle to make sure that EVERYONE was corrupted so that nobody talks. :(

[wordpix]

14. oh shit, I was thinking Harry was presidential material. I guess not

[drm604]

17. I know,

I was very dissapointed by this. :(

[0007]

20. The only thing on the square these days is professional wrestling

[Kralizec]

8. When it rains it pours.

[donkeyotay]

9. Pay to play government, legalized bribery... whatever you call it

it stinks. If there is any hope for the American people to have retirement, health care, education and a future, we need change. It's a whole lot more than just the "appearance," and the current crimewave is going to be a lot more serious than the S&L scandal:

Congressional ethics rules require lawmakers to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest in performing their official duties and accepting political money.

That requirement was made famous a decade ago during the Keating Five scandal when five lawmakers were criticized for intervening with federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating while receiving money from the failed savings and loan operator.

The Abramoff donations dwarf those made by Keating. At least 33 lawmakers wrote letters to Norton and got more than $830,000 in Abramoff-related donations as the lobbying unfolded between 2001 and 2004, AP found.

[madrchsod]

10. after searching high and low

i can say for a fact that there are no indian tribes in his/my district. he received 65-70% of the vote in the last election but there maybe an outside chance of defeating him in 2006 but i`m not holding my breath..

[sofa king]

18. Are you talking about Dennis Hastert's district?

You'd better look again.

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/archives/107cong/fullcomm/2002may08/mitchell.htm

[Synnical]

11. "timing of donations was a coincidence"

Yeah, sure.

[ewagner]

12. Slippery argument

I was embarrassed during a campaign once when I noted that my opponent had been financially supported (heavily) by a certain interest group. I "ambushed" the opponent in a debate by making the accusation that, if elected, my opponent would be "beholden" to that interest group.

He was ready for me and made the counter argument that they supported him BECAUSE of his beliefs in their cause and not because he SOLD HIS BELIEFS to their cause. He said that their contributions to him were just an extension of their 1St Amendment Rights. (Wrapped himself in the flag, sang one chorus of "God Bless America" and boogied off)

IOW...If I start a campaign supporting (say) 2nd Amendment Rights and the NRA contributes to my campaign BECAUSE OF MY BELIEFS, it's different than if I first, took money and THEN supported 2nd Amendment Rights.....

It's a slippery argument. You have to be careful with it..

Reid may have received the money because Abramoff's tribes supported his beliefs as opposed to Reid supporting the tribes because they gave him money.

[Peter Frank]

13. Kick & Recommended... nt

[wordpix]

15. fat Hasturd is next to be scrutinized---3rd in line after Bush/Cheney

IMPEACHMENT

[quaoar]

16. Every official who received any money from Abramoff

Democrat or Republican, should return it immediately or donate it to some worthy charity.

[Patsy Stone]

21. Abramoff is the mealy cherry

on top of the rotten pile of goo that is this administration and the NeoCon fascists.

[Peter Frank]

24. I think this part really stands out...

The Abramoff donations dwarf those made by Keating. At least 33 lawmakers wrote letters to Norton and got more than $830,000 in Abramoff-related donations...

[williesgirl]

25. Most (pukes & Dems) are for sale. We need to change our campaign

laws in this country to totally outlaw ALL LOBBYING and LIMITING FUNDRAISING FOR ANYONE - COMPANY/PAC OR INDIVIDUAL - TO A MAX OF $250.00

Take the profit out of criminal or unethical acts now!

[lovuian]

27. Oh WOW 33 of them WOW and Hastert WOW!!!

this congress is sooo corrupt!!!