Will Slavery Become An Issue In The Colorado Senate Race?

Chip off the ole block

Some Republicans have gone all the way back to before the Republican Party was founded. That Republican Party was all about abolition of slavery. That was Abe Lincoln's Republican Party. But if I were to tell you that today there are Republicans who would like to bring back slavery you would probably think I was just crazy. But then you probably don't know anything about the GOP candidate for Senate in Colorado, Bob Schaffer.

Schaffer may be trying to identify himself with Bush, McCain and the whole GOP catastrophe that has been the American government for the past seven and a half years by loudly proclaiming that he isn't going to the St. Paul Hate Fest next month. But that doesn't unglue him from his dogmatic adherence to their hate-filled and failed ideology-- nor from his own dubious "service" in Congress from 1998 to 2003. The highlight of that episode was his fabulous para-sailing excursion-- compliments of his pal Jack Abramoff-- to the Mariannas. Schaffer and his wife went on an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Marianas Islands to, he claimed, get a first hand look at the near slave labor conditions of factories in those American colonies. Abramoff, who represented the factory owners, paid for it all and Schaffer and the Mrs. had a grand old time and then declared everything at the slave labor factories was kosher. Isn't that, after all, the way it's supposed to work under a Republican regime?

Just before boarding a plane to the Mariana Islands in 1999, then-Congressman Bob Schaffer announced he was embarking on a fact-finding mission to get to the bottom of repeated allegations of labor abuse in the American protectorate.

"I plan to walk right into those factories and living quarters to see for myself what conditions exist," Schaffer said in a news release in August of that year.

What he didn't say was that the trip was partly arranged by the firm of now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who represented textile factory owners fighting congressional efforts to reform labor and immigration laws on the islands and who was being handsomely paid to keep the islands' cherished exemptions.

Schaffer and his wife stayed for free at a palm-studded beach resort and, besides factories, also toured historical sites and met with clients of Preston-Gates, Abramoff's firm, according to a copy of the trip's agenda archived in Schaffer's congressional papers.

He left believing that allegations of widespread abuse were largely unfounded-- blaming them on Big Labor's efforts to shut down a booming textile industry allowed to use the "Made in USA" label but dependent on tens of thousands of imported workers.

Ahhhh... the free market and it's champions! To this day Schaffer describes the Marianas as a "model" system that he would like to see imported into mainland U.S.A. although "it links him to what Abramoff later boasted was an incredibly successful lobbying effort to quash reform by cashing in on ties to key House Republicans, including those on the House Resources Committee, on which Schaffer sat." Instead of sharing a prison cell with Abramoff-- for every briber, after all, there is a bribee-- Schaffer is going to the voters of Colorado and asking them to send him to the U.S. Senate to represent them.

I don't know when this will be pulled down but sooner or later computer whiz John McCain is going to surf over to Justin Schaffer's Facebook page and call his daddy-- Colorado Republican Senate candidate on McCain's ticket-- and make him take it down. Sure, Republican ideology aspires to the re-introduction of slavery, just like Schaffer said when he got back from the Mariannas. But you're not supposed to tell the voters/perspective slaves that you're for this! And young Schaffer... well take a look at some of the images on what he calls the SchafferFamilyValues page (http://schafferfamilyvalues.com/). Like this:



These are the kinds of family values Bob Schaffer has instilled in his son? He links to his son's website from his own campaign site. He even uses this kid in his campaign commercials. Young Schaffer's family values is all about anti-Semitism, racism, sexism and homophobia. Apparently, young Schaffer gets all worked up over gays: