REMEMBER "FOLLOW THE MONEY?" DON'T TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THE DELAY-ABRAMOFF BALL

It's pretty shocking that the mainstream media isn't covering the Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearings (chaired by John McCain) into the systematic theft of millions of dollars from several Indian tribes by the DeLay crime syndicate. If you haven't been following this, the short story is that indicted DeLay consigliere Jack Abramoff bilked tribes out of between 70 and 100 million dollars and used that to enrich (and win elections for) Republican allies of DeLay (and Bush).

When the DeLay/Abramoff scam started unraveling early in 2004, McCain made a promise to the half dozen Indian tribes who were the principal victims: ""To the aggrieved tribes and Native Americans generally, I say rest assured that this committee's investigation is far from over. Together we will get to the bottom of this." It's an awkward situation for McCain, who has presidential aspirations, Republican Party presidential aspirations, because the heart of the scandal involves moving tens of millions of dollars out of the hands of the Indian tribes and into the campaigns (and pockets) of Republican politicians and their allies (people who will very much determine who the 2008 GOP nominee is). Example: Abramoff's partner, a Republican bottom-fisher who will probably soon face charges involving his complicity in the gangland-style murder of an Abramoff/DeLay soured business associate, Gus Boulis, wrote a personal check for $500,000 to the Republican National Governors Association in 2002, entirely derived from illicit billings of their Indian victims. And McCain has requested financial and membership files from Grover Norquist's front organization, ATR, which was also involved in the bilking-- and Norquist has flat-out refused to deliver them and dared McCain to try to do something about it. Other GOP heavyweights sure to be badly burned in a serious investigation-- because of their involvement in the conspiracy to defraud the Indians McCain's committee is supposed to be looking out for-- are Bush's very crooked Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Ohio DeLay clone Bob Ney, Ralph Reed, ultra-corrupt and very electorally-endangered Montana Senator Conrad Burns, not to mention the already indicted ex-House Majority Leader DeLay. Abramoff also contributed $300,000 to Bush/Cheney as he and Norquist were selling meetings with Bush for $25,000 a head to Indian tribes. After a meeting with Bush at the White House, McCain assured his Republican colleagues that he has no intention of pursuing members of Congress and would limit his investigation to the lobbyists and their money.

OK, back to Wednesday. In a really thorough report by Michael Scherer, "Abramoff-Scanlon School of Sleaze on today's Salon, it looks like more is coming out about Abramoff's GOP buddies than McCain is comfortable with. One of the memos sent by Scanlon, Abramoff's press secretary and a former DeLay aide, to one of the Indian tribes they were bilking pretty much describes the whole strategy and, in effect, is a damning confession by Scanlon of how the conspiracy has been able to influence elections to assure Republican victories: play religious conservatives and Indian tribes against each other in such a way that opened the floodgates of money from Indians and votes from the Religious Right to the DeLay Machine.

Showing what these hypocritical stalwarts of the Republican Party really think of their religious conservative allies, Scanlon wrote a memo read into the public record yesterday (and somehow not mentioned by Limbaugh or O'Liely or Hannity or any of the Bush propaganda team today): "The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees. Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

The strategy is Machiavellian: average voters wouldn't event know about an initiative to protect Indian gambling revenues, but religious "wackos" could be tricked into supporting gambling at the casino (thanks to their trusted leaders like Reed and other fake religionists on the Abramoff-DeLay payroll) even as they thought they were opposing it.

Among the witnesses testifying was Kevin Sickey, chairman of one of the defrauded Louisiana Indian tribes who described Abramoff as greedy and corrupt. ""He is the golden boy gone bad of the American political system," Sickey said. William Worfel, another leader from the same tribe, offered a no less damaging assessment about Team Abramoff : "In my mind, they are educated thieves who must be brought to justice."

There is so much filthy oozing out of the DeLay/Abramoff scam machine that it will take a dozen prosecutors with the tenacity and earnestness of a Pat Fitzgerald to ever get to the bottom of it.
Daniel Hopsicker over at the Mad Cow Morning News has compiled a great cheat-sheet for anyone who is interested in catching up on DeLay's and Abramoff's vile little cabal and all the criminality. Check out The Top Ten Things You Never Knew About Jack Abramoff (but first promise not to flee to Canada after reading it).