Did You Ever Imagine Abramoff Would Be A DC Player Again? He's Out Of Jail-- And Attacking AOC And The Green New Deal

I was shocked to learn that Jack Abramoff is still working as a DC lobbyist. I thought he was selling kosher pizza for a living. Who would be seen with him? Who would even take his call? He was involved with so many scandals that Wikipedia has a unique page called Jack Abramoff Scandals, not a topic... its own page. A couple of reminders. Abramoff was College Republican National Committee National Chairman from 1981 to 1985, a founding member of the International Freedom Foundation, whose only function was to whitewash apartheid in South Africa. As a lobbyist, he was a principle for Preston Gates & Ellis (now defunct) and then for Greenberg Traurig, two firms in DC notorious for bribing members of Congress. Abramoff was only sentenced to 6 years in prison-- and only served about 4-- even though the was involved with a Mafia-style murder in the SunCruz Casino scandal he and Tom DeLay pulled off. Two movies were made about his notoriety: Casino Jack and the United States of Money and Casino Jack, both in 2010.

People have short attention spans. Only 3 members of Congress went to prison with Abramoff-- Bob Ney (R-OH), Rick Renzi (R-AZ) and Randy Duke Cunningham (R-CA) but plenty of congressional and Bush Cabinet staffers were also found guilty of various charges and took falls for their bosses. Leaving aside the Bush administration crooks, among those found guilty on the congressional side were top staffers for Don Young (R-AK), Ney of course, John Doolittle (R-CA), Kit Bond (R-MO), Roy Blount (R-MO), Tom DeLay (R-TX), Ernest Istook (R-OK), Dick Armey (R-TX), Thad Cochran (R-MS). House majority leaderTom DeLay was forced to resign from Congress. Among the Republicans who lost their immediate reelection bids because of their part in Abramoff's scandals were Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Richard Pombo (R-CA), but other crooked Abramoff associates eased out of politics, including Duncan Hunter (R-CA)-- the crooked father, not the crooked son-- and Jerry Lewis (R-CA).

So... wasn't I surprised to learn that Abramoff is now fundraising in support of conservative candidates by attacking the Green New Deal! "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," he wrote in a right-wing fundraising letter, "wasn’t even in diapers when I started fighting the Left, and I’m about to teach her and her cronies a few things they are going to wish they never learned-- and it won’t just be a math lesson... I’m the Left’s worst nightmare. For nearly 40 years, I’ve been studying their tactics and defeating them. Like President Trump, I’ve even been abused by them and lived to share my stories of how the Deep State tried to take me down... forever. They only won once, and now I’m ready to return the favor... These socialists are so confused, and their messaging is getting worse by the minute. They seem to think that cows and airplanes are a threat to our future. Sounds to me like they have been infected by Mad Cow Disease! The radial Left counts disgusting anti-Semites and traitors in their ranks. Their efforts don’t go into making America Great Again-- they spend their days trying to impose a 70% or even 90% tax on you, force their Green New Deal down your throat, and make you pay for slave reparations-- all while forecasting to Iran and radical Muslim terrorists that, if they take control, America will abandon our most reliable ally, Israel... As anyone who has followed my career knows: I play for keeps and know every trick the Left uses to attack and defeat American patriots-- so watch out!"

Of course, the funny part is that he wants to get his hands into conservatives' pockets so he can steal their money, a fate they more than deserve. Nor should it surprise anyone to know that Abramoff has been supporting Trump and helping facilitate the illegal flow of Russian money into the Trump campaign.

Reporting for Splinter, Rafi Schwartz, wrote that Abramoff-- "the poster boy for Beltway corruption"-- is lobbying against the Green New Deal. I would like to see which members of Congress have any financial interaction with Jack Abramoff. Wouldn't you?



Would you rather hear about this stuff right from the horse's mouth rather than from Kevin Spacey playing him, or even Bob Schieffer analyzing him? OK-- fair enough! So... meet the actual, real life "Casino Jack"-- Republican Party scumbag-forever-and-ever, Jack Abramoff:

Steve Israel Has John Boehner's Back When It Comes To Those Mean Revelations From Bob Ney

When the Abramoff scandal started breaking, the Republican Party needed to shut it down as fast as possible before it took down the whole congressional leadership and the party itself. The implications were existential for the GOP-- and there were a few powerful Democrats implicated as well. But, investigated fully, it would certainly have led beyond corruption, perhaps as far as to GOP connections to the Mob and probably even to murder charges that involved House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. It was deemed to be not in the national interest to have Congress exposed so blatantly-- and for as many as 50-60 Republican senators and House Members carted off to prison. DeLay stepped aside and they needed a high ranking scapegoat to go to jail. Enter Bob Ney (R-OH), an expendable Republican committee chairman.

Ney's out of jail-- and seems a lot more fit... physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. And, as we mentioned last week, he has a new book out, Sideswiped: Lessons Learned Courtesy of the Hit Men of Capitol Hill. You can see one of the villains of the tell-all book, giving a rather shaky, defensive-- and very unconvincing-- critique of it in the video up top. Everyone in Washington knows-- and has always known-- that Boehner is a lazy, sleazy, corrupt, drunken, womanizing scumbag but he's Speaker and it's not considered proper to put that in books people not in Washington might read. Linda Smith and Steve Largent are no longer in Congress. Jeff Flake is now a senator. It would be awesome for Chris Hayes or someone with a worthwhile TV show to get Smith< Largent and Flake to review Ney's book on live TV.



Meanwhile Time's report on the book signing party down the street from Capitol Hill, helps explain why Boehner is willing to draw attention to a book that should, by all rights, end his miserable political career. [Keep in mind, Steve Israel and the DCCC do not run candidates against Boehner, and when an independent-minded Democrat decides to take him on-- the way Justin Coussoule did in 2010-- the DCCC gears up to sabotage their efforts.]

Ney spices up his depiction of Boehner with a few salacious stories of alleged misbehavior. Claims Ney: one night at the Capital Grille Boehner got drunk and took a female staffer home; Boehner regularly gave hand outs- free Barclay cigarettes from his lobbyist and campaign checks on the House floor; Boehner called one of his staffers a “fag;” Boehner broke out into “all-out wailing” after he was ousted from chairman of the House Republicans Conference in 1998.  In 2006, Ney dropped out of his reelection race after serving for 11 years, and he now says Boehner convinced him to go by promising him a well-paying private job and money to pay the lawyers defending him against the Justice Department’s Abramoff investigation. Neither the job or the money ever materialized, Ney says.

On Tuesday, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel told the Washington Post, “This is a convicted felon with a history of failing to tell the truth making a lot of baseless accusations to try and sell books.” Ney responded to Time, “If he wants to deny it, I can prove it.” “I’d be glad to sit down with him. I’d be glad to go on TV with him,” Ney says. Boehner, Ney must surely know, would only be hurt by appearing with the former Ohio Congressman in person.

Back home in Ohio, the media is figuring out what to do with the story of Ney's book and Boehner. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, far from Bohner's base in the western part of the state, has given it the kind of coverage Boehner fears could seep into his own media markets, Cincinnati and Dayton.

Ney's book dwells on his frustration with how business is conducted in Washington. He describes a speech by President Bush to persuade him to vote for the Central American Trade Agreement as so ridiculous it was like “something out of 'Saturday Night Live,' ” and speculates that McCain launched the Senate investigation that ensnared him as a way to clean up an ethics record that was tainted by McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal.

  Ney spends multiple chapters on perceived breaches by Boehner, whom he calls a lazy "good old boy," and accuses of falsely promising to get him a high-paying job and raise legal defense money in exchange for Ney's resignation from Congress.

"Many felt that his money-raising focus would make up for his lack of concern about legislation-- he was considered a man who was all about winning and money," Ney wrote in the book. "He was a chain-smoking, relentless wine drinker who was more interested in the high life-- golf, women, cigarettes, fun and alcohol."

He speculates that Boehner's political machine was involved in unsuccessful efforts by Diebold, an Ohio company that made voting machines, to shape voting rights legislation that was before a committee Ney chaired. Ney also says Boehner's lifestyle was inappropriately financed by lobbyists, who even gave him free packs of the Barclay's cigarettes he enjoyed smoking.

"If someone had held a gun to Boehner's head and told him to produce receipts proving that he paid for all those years of drinking at the Republican Club or he would be shot, he would have wound up in a body bag," Ney wrote.

Don't expect Steve Israel to let the DCCC take advantage of Boehner's problems. In fact, count on Israel to work hand-in-glove with Boehner's team to cover this up. There'll be no DCCC ads in Ohio's 8th district, not now, not ever.

Could House Republican Extremists Kick Boehner Out Of His Job?

This week Boehner had quite the jolt when former high ranking Ohio Republican Bob Ney's tell all book, Sideswiped: Lessons Learned Courtesy of the Hit Men of Capitol Hill, was published. It paints Boehner as a drunken, womanizing, bribe-taking, golfing fanatic with little interest in policy and lots of interests in how to extract cash from lobbyists-- exactly how DWT has been painting him for the last six years. Ney retells the story of Boehner handing out Tobacco Industry bribery checks on the floor of the House and suggests that if the FBI were to examine who paid for Boehner's golfing addiction, the Speaker could be headed for the same prison Ney had served time in.

Perhaps worse, Boehner broke his word to Ney, the same way he just broke his word to Illinois teabagger Joe Walsh. He promised both Ney and Walsh that if they stepped aside-- if Ney would resign and, more recently, if Walsh would give up an easy win for a much tougher race-- he would take care of them. He's taken care of neither, which makes members of the GOP caucus wonder if he'll stand behind them when their own time of need calls for it.

And that's not the only reason Boehner is hitting the bottle extra hard this week. More than a few extremists in his Caucus are out for his blood. Teabaggers, like Paul Broun, Louie Gohmert, Steve Stockman, Trey Radel, who believe they were elected to shut down the government and who embrace anarchy, chaos, race war, revolution, pain, suffering and whatever other nonsense they hear being touted on Hate Talk Radio-- and who count for their careers on human refuse like this in their safely gerrymandered blood red districts-- are hopping mad because Boehner has let legislation come to the floor that passes with votes from all the Democrats plus a few dozen mainstream (non-Confederate) Republicans. The Women Against Violence Act, which most Republicans opposed, passed with 87 GOP votes and makes the rest of them look bad in front of the lady voters back home. Last week, one of the most extreme and deranged teabaggers in Congress, Wisconsin senatorial wingnut Ron Johnson, threatened Boehner that if he keeps it up, he's be out on his ass. Most of the House teabaggers, who could actualize Johnson's ranting, have reached the boiling point.

At a closed-door conference meeting Tuesday, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia asked Boehner whether he planned to keep bringing forward bills that split the GOP conference.

Boehner told reporters after the meeting that the VAWA vote was an outlier and said he would like to abide by the Hastert rule.

“We tried everything we could to... get the differences in our conference resolved. And the fact is that we couldn’t resolve our differences. It was time to deal with this issue and we did,” the Ohio Republican said. “But it’s not a practice that I would expect to continue long term.”

...“If you start to rely on the minority to get the majority of your votes, then all of the sudden you’re not running the shop anymore. I think that’s what it comes down to,” Hastert said. “It worked for me. And I thought that was the best way to govern to make sure your people are on board on any major piece of legislation you’re trying to move through.”

Yesterday morning NPR tried tackling the issue and also uncovered problems for Boehner who is increasingly torn between what's right for America, and even what's right for his own party as a national entity, in contrast to what's "right" for a crackpot fringe that hold the whiphand over him and insist on bringing down the whole edifice of government. After the November election Boehner, unlike many Republicans in the House, acknowledged the voters had reelected President Obama.

"The American people have spoken," he said. "They've re-elected President Obama. And they've again re-elected a Republican majority in the House of Representatives."

But last Thursday, when the House of Representatives passed the Violence Against Women Act, it did it without a majority of Republicans. Only 87 voted for the bill; 138 voted against it. The rest of the yes votes came from Democrats. The speaker brought a bill to the floor knowing it didn't have the support of the majority of his caucus, which upset conservatives such as Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas.

"Many people in conference expressed their concern publicly and privately about that," he said. "So why would the Republican House pass a Democrat priority bill? I don't know. It was set up to pass that way. We weren't given advance notice it came out. And it's a real concern."

The Violence Against Women Act, a disaster-relief bill for victims of Hurricane Sandy and the "fiscal cliff" deal-- all three violated what's known as the Hastert rule: For a bill to be brought up for a vote in the House, it has to have the support of the majority of the majority.

"The 'majority of the majority rule' was more of a guideline for speakers in how to keep their jobs," says John Feehery, who was a spokesman for former Speaker Dennis Hastert, for whom the rule is named.

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, mostly followed this rule. Boehner did, too, until recently. Feehery says Boehner made a cold, hard calculation and decided that letting these bills pass was best for the party.

"You know, it's not an easy decision, because you don't want to alienate a majority of your majority," says Feehery, now the president of QGA Public Affairs. "I mean, that's just kind of common sense. But there are also times where the majority of the majority may not like pieces of legislation but they are fine letting it go because they know it is better for them to allow things to pass."

New York Republican Rep. Peter King puts it this way: "Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. It happened with the fiscal cliff. It happened with Sandy."

Why this happens isn't obvious just looking at the numbers. There are 232 Republicans in the House; 217 votes are needed to pass a bill. But a lot of Republicans don't vote the way the leadership wants them to.

Norm Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, says these members are afraid of getting hit with a primary challenge.

"The good of the Republican Party as a whole is not something that necessarily resonates with a lot of individual members whose constituents back home don't feel the same way," he says.

As a result, Ornstein says, bills that can pass the Senate and be signed by the president often don't have the support of the majority of the majority in the House. Recently, rather than stopping these bills, Boehner brought them to the floor, knowing conservatives would vote no.

"They'll come urge me to vote their way, but they've never insisted I compromise my principles," says Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, who was elected as part of the Tea Party wave. "And that's something I respect the speaker for."

But that goodwill has its limits, Ornstein says.

"There are only so many times you can do this without damaging your standing as speaker," he says. "And doing things that basically bring votes from more of the other side than your own erodes your authority after a while."

When asked whether the Violence Against Women Act vote was part of a trend, Boehner's answer seemed to be aimed at reassuring his occasionally restive conference.

"We tried everything we could to find, to get the differences in our conference resolved. And the fact is they couldn't resolve their differences," he said. "It was time to deal with this issue, and we did. But it's not a practice that I would expect to continue long term."

Maybe there's a new rule. The Boehner rule would be more pragmatic: something like only voting on bills that have the support of the majority of the majority-- when possible.

Tea? Or Something More Nutritious?

Yesterday I was reading an interesting interview with self-described "recovering Republican" Bob Ney, the Ohio freak show and designated patsy, who went to prison in the Abramoff scandal, which, in reality, should have send at least two dozen Republican congressmen to prison, if not Bush himself. What originally caught my attention was his analysis of the upcoming presidential election. He thinks Romney, the anointed Establishment pick, will be the nominee and he thinks the party's doctrinaire conservatives don't care that much if they beat Obama or not-- Miss McConnell's stated top priority for 2010-12. Ney worries that's an ass-backwards approach.

[F]rom the conservative end, under their breath, well, they think it doesn't matter if we don't beat him. They think if we don't beat him he's going to do such a bad job over the next four years there will be no Democrats standing in the House, no Democrats standing in the Senate, we'll take the whole ball of wax (in 2016). That theory's out there ... to keep the "bad guy" in for four more years and you'll really see what happens. That's not necessarily what reality becomes.

Interesting tangent to follow up on... sometime. But not where I want to go today. Today we're here to examine how the teabagger thing is working out for the Members of the House who joined the Michele Bachmann-led official teabagger caucus of 60. Ney was always a kind of cloddish and superficial establishment Republican but he indicates he has a lot of admiration for the teabaggers, even if he doesn't understand how completely controlled they are by the fascist-oriented Koch family and a tiny handful of predatory billionaires. Ney:

I think the Tea Party has been very good for this country. I really do. ... They raised an issue out there. And they were smart, they didn't get into abortion, gun control, gay marriage. They got into one element of the financial side of it, so I have to give them a lot of credit.

A congresswoman I don't even know was on the floor yelling, They're holding the Congress hostage. First of all, 62 members of the House are "Tea Party" candidates. Only 30 are active in the Tea Party caucus. So this Democrat is standing there saying they're holding us hostage, wow, she's really giving them credit for completely running the congress. The Tea Party wouldn't run my office, but I am very respectful of what they've done. ... The Tea Party has helped the Republican Party morph back into what it was supposed to be.

... I'm currently unhappy with the Republican leadership. They took a debt ceiling issue, a very serious issue, there's 535 members of the House and Senate ... and they said OK, we'll pass the debt ceiling bill with cuts ... but we'll create a committee of 12 people who will speak for all 535 people, so to heck with 97 percent of the Americans who send their members to Congress.

Here's what John Boehner said, and Harry Reid, and Barack Obama. They all three said this: You all aren't smart enough, you can't make those tough decisions, we'll take 12 people as a representative body of the House and Senate and the president and we'll tell them to make a decision by Dec. 23. If I was Standard & Poors or Moodys, I would be like "OK, that gives me a lot of confidence." They should of had a vote, ugly as it could have been, let the process work. ... They punted this down the road to 12 people. They're going to make Jack Abramoff and me look like pikers with the defense lobbyists and the campaign dollars. ...

On the biggest issue to me of importance to my grandchildren and future generations, and currently to all these unemployed people ... you had Harry Reid, John Boehner and Barack Obama and you ended up with something like the 72nd anniversary of the Wizard of Oz: no brains, no heart, no guts. It was Oz. These three tried to do this private secret deal without having votes.
They should have been voting all along. The Republican Party had the biggest opportunity ever to really nail this one.

Ney didn't quite have his numbers right. There are 60 members of the House teabagger caucus, the one led by Bachmann. More than half are from the Old Confederacy. And, of course, all of them are Republicans. This seems to be the definitive list, although there have been a couple of members who have joined and left and rejoined and left again. Freshmen are in bold type:

Sandy Adams (R-FL)
Robert Aderholt (R-AL)
Todd Akin (R-MO)
Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD)
Joe Barton (R-TX)
Gus Bilirakis (R-FL)
Rob Bishop (R-UT)
Diane Black (R-TN)
Michael C. Burgess (R-TX)
Paul Broun (John Birch Society-GA)
Dan Burton (R-IN)
John Carter (R-TX)
Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
Howard Coble (R-NC)
Mike Coffman (R-CO)
Chip Cravaack (R-MN)
Ander Crenshaw (R-FL)
John Culberson (R-TX)
Jeff Duncan (R-SC)
Blake Farenthold (R-TX)
Stephen Fincher (R-TN)
John Fleming (R-LA)
Trent Franks (R-AZ)
Phil Gingrey (R-GA)
Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
Tom Graves (R-GA)
Ralph Hall (R-TX)
Vicky Hartzler (R-MO)
Wally Herger (R-CA)
Tim Huelskamp (R-KS)
Lynn Jenkins (R-KS)
Walter Jones (R-NC)
Steve King (R-IA)
Doug Lamborn (R-CO)
Jeff Landry (R-LA)
Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
Kenny Marchant (R-TX)
Tom McClintock (R-CA)
David McKinley (R-WV)
Gary Miller (R-CA)
Mick Mulvaney (R-SC)
Sue Myrick (R-NC)
Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
Rich Nugent (R-FL)
Steven Palazzo (R-MS)
Steve Pearce (R-NM)
Mike Pence (R-IN)
Ted Poe (R-TX)
Tom Price (R-GA)
Denny Rehberg (R-MT)
Phil Roe (R-TN)
Dennis Ross (R-FL)
Ed Royce (R-CA)
Steve Scalise (R-LA)
Tim Scott (R-SC)
Pete Sessions (R-TX)
Adrian Smith (R-NE)
Lamar Smith (R-TX)
Cliff Stearns (R-FL)
Tim Walberg (R-MI)
Joe Walsh (R-IL)
Allen West (R-FL)
Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA)
Joe Wilson (R-SC)

Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), a Jew who converted to Mormonism, a Democrat who converted to Republcianism, who was campaign manager and then chief of staff for Governor John Huntsman, defeated a very conservative incumbent Republican, Chris Cannon by running as a hard-core teabagger. His #1 issue was being virulently anti-immigrant. Since being elected he's also been virulently anti-gay. He joined the Congressional Arts Caucus instead of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus, kvetching that "[s]tructure and formality are the exact opposite of what the Tea Party is, and if there is an attempt to put structure and formality around it, or to co-opt it by Washington, D.C., it’s going to take away from the free-flowing nature of the true tea party movement."

Yesterday on This Week Jim DeMint told Christiane Amanpour that "the Tea Party's being thrown around a lot today, but for everyone who calls him a Tea Party-- themselves a Tea Party member, there are hundreds of people who have the same concerns about our spending and our debt. We know over 70 percent of Americans want to balance the budget... I think it's one of the best things that's happened to our country and to politics, because there's a broad cross-section of Americans involved in citizen activism today. And some are called Tea Party; some are not. But all the candidates are going to have to appeal to this new grassroots movement. And that's really what I'm looking for... Any of these [presidential] candidates are going to have to appeal to those Americans who are unified, particularly around fiscal issues." 

DeMint, of course, didn't get into a discussion with Amanpour about the true nature-- the ugly racist nature-- of what's behind the grassroots of the Tea Party or about the billionaires financing it to achieve their own plutocratic goals and agenda. National surveys have all shown that self-described Tea Party supporters are overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly Republican, overwhelmingly old and overwhelmingly extreme right-wing. They also tend to be wealthier than the average American. Most Tea Party supporters are male (61%) and almost half are evangelicals or "born again." Surveys that have dared delve into it have all found that the teabaggers are deranged racists, which was completely apparent to me when I spent a day with them at their first big Los Angeles event two years ago. A University of Washington study found that teabaggers are "more likely to be racially resentful" than the population as a whole, although, in fairness, most extreme conservatives are racists.

So far this election cycle, only one Blue America-endorsed candidate, Nick Ruiz down in central Florida, is squaring off against an admitted teabagger and actual member of the congressional caucus. Nick's opponent, freshman Sandy Adams, is one of the less bright of an already far from glowing caucus. Yesterday Nick's battle against this lunacy went beyond the lunatic and racist fringes of Teabaggia.

There is a fragile tension that’s growing, but it’s not the tension you think it is.
 
Not the Tea Party lunacy. Not the corporate Republican debauchery. Not even the thirty years gone of abdication on the part of the Democratic Party, that ironic party of the people, to do the right things for the majority of Americans-- by fighting for the America we laud in textbooks.
 
It’s us. Progressives. For too long, we have supported people we know will do us political harm and disservice, by evidence and history and by all reasonable projections of their future actions. Why?
 
We send them our money, our political contributions-- and they squander them on politicians that vote against almost everything we believe in-- and call it ‘pragmatic progressivism,’ the ‘third way,’ the ‘center,’ and of course, ‘compromise.’ But there is little compromise in a room full of sharks.
 
We wear their pins and buttons, we fill out their incessant requests for petitions and email addresses, as they fill their databases and their coffers with our information and our passion and currency-- only to have them commit small token efforts of advertisement and ‘advocacy’ at best, and at worst, the full-fledged endorsement and financing of candidates who will never do one socially just or legally fair thing for us and America.
 
All while the entourage ‘keeps the change’ and pockets the difference.
 
Progressives thus far have failed to produce a New Deal America. In fact, they have been failing for decades. Not even to fail better, but to fail worse-- because indeed, political circumstances are not improving-- they are disintegrating.
 
I say we can turn this around-- but not by proceeding as the status quo.
 
Progressives, there is a New Deal America waiting for you this 21st century. But you will have to do more than you have done to see it through. Don’t be suckerpunched by a silk tie and a white pearl necklace. It takes a progressive to get things done. Ask FDR. Ask MLK. Ask the scientists that proclaim the Gulf is still leaking oil, with no end in sight. Ask the real Harriet Tubman, not the self-proclaimed Harriet Tubman fake, Tea Party Caucus member Allen West (FL-22).
 
How will you support a New Deal America? By breaking the cycle of complicity-- and backing New Deal Democrats that will do what is necessary to bring about a New Deal America for the 21st century. By endorsing candidates that reject complicity and excessively narrow corporate overtures. People like Dennis Kucinich (OH-10) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). There are others. Find them.

Americans want economic security-- it starts with a federally mandated, livable minimum wage: $15 per hour, not a paltry $7 and change.
 
Americans want to protect vulnerable families-- it starts with a robust, rather than underdeveloped U.S. Social Safety Net. We need better food assistance, housing assistance, unemployment insurance, and ultimately, retirement assistance-- Social Security. For people who need it, when they need it, until they no longer need it.
 
Americans want America to promote equality of opportunity-- not cronyism, legacy and special favors. That’s for royalty-- and no American fits that description. Promoting equality of opportunity starts with freedom-- freedom of good health, with universal health insurance; freedom of religion, speech, suffrage, sexual preference, expression and equal opportunity of education-- essentially, the freedom to be who you are and accepted, rather than tolerated.
 
A New Deal America is going to take more than boldness, pink t-shirts, courage or guts. There is plenty of that to go around, in fact, perhaps too much, because those emotions often become something else entirely. And if that was working-- we’d have seen some results by now, no?
 
A New Deal America needs national coherence. And that means that there must be alliance and allegiance and that means people working together in order to elect dozens of progressives nationwide. Folks, one or two, are not going to be able to accomplish anything on the federal level. We need more than the cult of celebrity and a rock anthem.
 
We need a progressive orchestra and a New Deal symphony.
 
It’s never going to get any clearer.

In 2008 Blue America didn't waste its time-- or its contributors' money-- on supporting middle of the road corporate Democrats like Barack Obama. Nor will we waste our efforts on him this year. I hope we can find the "dozens" of progressive New Deal Democrats Nick says we need. We haven't so far. So far this is what we've got (on the House side): our candidates. After Labor Day (today) we're going to start stepping it up a bit with other progressive fighters from across the country, like Connie Pillich (D-OR) and John Waltz (D-MI). If you want real change-- not small change or backwards reactionary change-- in America, please consider helping us find good candidates and supporting good candidates. And, while you're at it... watch this:

Politics Seems To Have Always Attracted The Criminal Element Among Us, But So Few Ever Go To Prison

Served some time for war crimes in Vietnam, but not a day for the Savings and Loan fraud he helped kick off

As tyrant and kleptocrat Hosni Mubarak dithers between joining his family in luxurious exile or fighting it out against 80,000,000 Egyptians who have the sympathy of everyone in the world other than the Saudi royal family, the Israelis, some U.S. neocons and a few scattered military dictatorships and monarchies, one thing we can be fairly certain of is that he's unlikely to ever see a day in prison-- let alone the descending blade of a guillotine. Not long ago Baby Doc Duvalier had the gumption to fly back into Haiti, a seething, impoverished nation he and his family had plundered. He wasn't hacked to bits. And he's not in prison or under house arrest or anything.

Last week hustler and ex-Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, once Arnold Schwarzenegger's heir apparent, finally shuffled off to Club Fed, but outrageous political criminals from George Bush, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales and Dick Cheney to California Republicrooks Jerry Lewis, Duncan Hunter, Ken Calvert, Richard Pombo and John Doolittle are certainly not spending their days contemplating ever paying for their crimes against society. The system just doesn't work that way.

Or almost never does. Tom DeLay, has at long last been convicted and sentenced. (He was indicted October 3, 2005, for crimes committed in 2002.) Still, he's out on bail, pending appeal. A commercial blog, the Criminal Justice Degrees Guide, suggested we share a post they did about politicians who have recently been incarcerated. They picked ten:

1. Bob Ney: The Jack Abramoff scandal wound up affecting lobbyists, politicians, and staffers at all levels-- Tom DeLay is still dealing with the fallout-- but Congressman Bob Ney, R-Ohio, was the only one to quickly be sentenced to spend time behind bars. Ney was already infamous on Capitol Hill for being the brain to say that French fries be renamed "freedom fries" on the House of Representatives food menus, but he would go on to more notorious heights. He was pegged for receiving cash gifts for political favors, and he resigned in fall 2006 as the House Ethics Committee began to investigate him. He pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including conspiracy and fraud, and served 17 months of a 30-month sentence. Ney was remarkably forthcoming about his experience in the 2010 documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money.



2. Bill Janklow: The governor and attorney general of South Dakota before acting as one of the state’s representatives to Congress, Republican Bill Janklow only served that body for a year before tragedy struck. In August 2003, Janklow was involved in a car accident while drinking and speeding (investigators pegged his speed around 63 mph in a 55 zone). He struck and killed a motorcyclist. The trial revealed that he was a regular speeder, and had been stopped but not ticketed on multiple occasions because of his office. He was sentenced to 100 days in jail but released after 30 to perform community service for the duration. He resigned from Congress as a result.

3. James Traficant: Congressman James Traficant, D-Ohio, did not play well with others. He was expelled from Congress following his conviction on a variety of money-related crimes, including racketeering, submitting phony tax returns, taking bribes, and, weirdly, making his aides perform basic chores on his Ohio farm and his Washington, D.C., houseboat. (That just seems mean, you know?) Even crazier, Traficant ran as an independent while incarcerated and got 15 percent of the vote, meaning people in Ohio must have frighteningly low standards for office-holders. He was in prison from 2002 to 2009.

4. George Ryan: The Republican governor of Illinois from 1999 to 2003, Ryan started out as a crusader for human rights, enacting a moratorium on the death penalty in 2000. Before he left office, he commuted the sentences of state death row inmates to life terms, and he pardoned four more. Yet he had to leave office because of a string of scandalous investigations relating to bribes that greased the process by which unqualified truck drivers were acquiring licenses. He went to prison in 2007 and is set to be released in 2013.

5. Dan Rostenkowski: A Democrat from Illinois, Dan Rostenkowski served in the House of Representatives from 1959 to 1995, a stunning 36 years. He eventually chaired the Ways and Means Committee and was integral in President Reagan’s tax policies. However, he was hit in the 1990s by allegations of impropriety and involvement in the Congressional Post Office scandal, which dealt with politicians using the CPO to launder money (e.g., making cash bribes look like stamp purchases). He pleaded guilty in 1996 to mail fraud and spent 15 months in federal prison.

6. Pat Swindall: Pat Swindall only served four years in the House; that was all it took for the Alabama Republican to do some dirt. He was convicted of perjury in a money-laundering case and served a year in prison, and years later he found himself in trouble again.

7. Don Siegelman: Alabama Democrat Don Siegelman was a lifelong politician, serving as secretary of state, attorney general, lieutenant governor, and governor for the state during his career. His string of luck came to an end in the ’00s, though, as he was indicted on bribery and fraud charges for accepting campaign donations in exchange for favors. However, his conviction drew controversy because of potential connections to Bush-appointed prosecutors who had intentionally taken a tough stand on Democrats. He served time but was released to pursue his appeal.

8. Fred Richmond: New York Democrat first faced criminal charges in 1978 for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old boy. That wasn’t the one that undid him, though; the charges were dropped when Richmond consented to counseling. In 1982, he pleaded guilty to marijuana possession and tax evasion, and he consequently resigned his office in the House of Representatives. He was sentenced to a year but served nine months in prison.

9. Duke Cunningham: Duke Cunningham, R-California, was in the House of Representatives from 1991 to 2005. In his final year, it came to light that he’d underreported his 2004 income (which is something the federal government doesn’t, you know, let you do) and had taken more than $2 million in bribes. Yikes. He was hit with charges including conspiracy, fraud (wire and mail), and tax evasion. He pleaded guilty and resigned his office. In 2006, he was sentenced to eight years and change, and he should see free sunlight in 2013.

10. Edwin Edwards: After serving in the House of Representatives, Republican Edwin Edwards went on to earn four terms as governor of Louisiana. He dealt with allegations of financial impropriety almost from the start, and was indicted in the mid-1980s on bribery charges that he managed to beat. His shady ways caught up with him in the late 1990s, though. A 1998 indictment led to conviction on counts of fraud, racketeering, money laundering, and extortion, among others. He entered prison in 2002 and was released on January 13, 2011, with the provision that he finish his sentence in a halfway house.

Needless to say, Boehner put an anti-ethics corporate tool, Jo Bonner (R-AL), in charge of the House Ethics Committee as soon as the GOP took over. And ever faster than they were to try to repeal healthcare, they began clamoring to get rid of serious ethics regulations. Bonner told the Mobile Press Register yesterday that, privately, the vast majority of congressmembers want to get rid of the teeth on the one pathetic watchdog that even makes an attempt to keep these crooks on the straight and narrow.

Bonner, now the chairman of Congress’ internal House Ethics Committee, a separate group, said political realities prevented new Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, from making that wish come true when he took power.

“If he had disbanded OCE, he would have instantly become the target of criticism, from both the far left and the far right, that he was not serious when he said that we were going to have zero tolerance on ethical violations,” Bonner said.

Bonner’s House Ethics Committee can only start an investigation of a member of Congress when a complaint is lodged against that person by another member of Congress, or when the committee’s two top members agree to such action.

In contrast, the OCE has less stringent requirements for starting an inquiry -- they can begin an investigation “out of the National Enquirer,” Bonner said -- and the group has raised the ire of factions in Congress across the political spectrum.

House Republicans staunchly opposed the group’s conception a little more than two years ago. And though Democrats created the office in a largely party-line vote, it has aggressively investigated Democrats.

Among the freshman congressmen most likely to see the inside of a prison cell in the future are David Rivera (R-FL) and Tim Griffin (R-AR). We'll watch closely. Meanwhile, Rahm Emanuel is likely to be elected mayor of Chicago this month and John Ensign's ethics case is back on the front burner.

Bob Ney Turns On The Bush Regime-- Spills The Beans About Iran!

Bob Ney: "They've taken bloodsport to a whole new level in this administration"

A couple weeks ago Ken wondered why a liberal-leaning talk radio network had hired early-release Republicrook Bob Ney. I wondered the same thing. Looks like Air America's Thom Hartmann got to the bottom of it. And I'm still shocked-- although, frankly, by now none of us should be shocked by anything the Bush Crime Family pulls. Hartmann is comparing the Bush Regime's treatment of Ney, a right wing Republican hack with their jihad against Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman!

According to Hartmann's interview with Ney, the Bush Regime was up to their old tricks, this time in regard to Iran-- and Ney got in the way. Transcript:

Thom Hartman: You were prosecuted by the Bush Administration for what Ellen has characterized to me as mostly ... a political prosecution because you were pushing back on Iran. Can you speak to that? Please?
Ney: At the end of the day, I brought a lot of things on myself and I did some things that were wrong; but I also believe that part of this was fueled in the sense of the Iran issue.

It's been no secret that when I went to prison I gave permission for a secret meeting I'd had with Mr. Gorman who came from Switzerland. He presented a document that was absolutely incredible, where Iran would have recognized Israel and a whole host of other things, would have let our inspectors on their ground; and I said that to the White House; I'll stand by that today; the white house denies it, but Colin Powell's former assistant admits that that [document] came over to the State Department and the White House wanted no part of it.

I believe that every step of the way, and I think it came more from Cheney's people, but every step of the way that I attempted to deal with Iran, it got pretty harsh back. So I think part of this, I gave them the bullets, but I think some of the force was also involved with Iran and people that would rather see those countries not communicate, no matter who is head of Iran.

Hartmann: So Iran came to you, because you speak Farsi and you are the Iran expert in the House of Representatives...

Ney: Ambassador Goolaban, who was ambassador from Switzerland to Iran, he came to me.

Hartmann: Their representative, in other words they approached you through their legal representative...

Ney: And I had participated in the meeting in Stockholm...

Hartmann: And they said that they would recognize Israel and that they would allow UN inspectors into their nuclear sites, and you passed that information along to the White House, it fell down the rabbit hole and immediately you were being prosecuted.

Ney: It, it fell down the rabbit hole, there was a lot of kickback; I know that Gorman had terrible problems after that, I think through mainly Rumsfeld's people and Cheney's people. That's what happened after that agreement.

Hartmann: It so sounds like the Don Siegelman story and the Paul Minor story, and if you're not familiar with those two stories, I encourage you to do a little Googling. I think that we have political prisoners in the United States now.

Ney: Well, I know that the harshness of the administration, and again, I take culpability, I did some wrong things, but when you get in their path, I think they've taken bloodsport to a new level in this administration.

Hartmann: "They've taken blood sport to a new level; what a quote! Congressman Bob Ney, thank you for coming on our program and sharing candidly with us."

Warning to DWT readers: if you notice Bob Ney getting onto a plane you're on, switch your flight... immediately.

DWT "founding felon" Bob Ney busts out of the Big House (but his "hair" may have to serve the full 30-month sentence)

by Ken

It was only in February 2007 that Howie was wishing former Ohio Rep. Bob Ney -- one of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's tightest House cronies (and the patriot who gave the world "freedom fries") -- well in his next venture, prison:

"Although I think a 30 month sentence for his bribery conviction is a tiny fraction of what he should get, I'm glad to see that he will get at least some prison time before Bush pardons him and the rest of the gang of congressional corruption on his way out the door."

Well, our Bob didn't have to serve those 30 months. Howie called my attention to the news that he was in fact set to be released today.

It's hard for us at DownWithTyranny not to mist up at the news that our Bob is back on the outside. He was one of the people who played a big role in making DWT what it is, back in the days when Howie was making the biggest stink he could about the pervasive corruption being practiced -- with a casualness bordering on brazenness -- by congressional Republicrooks in positions of power on committees that controlled major streams of funding, and he took a special interest in the Ohio state Republican Party, which had turned into a virtual crime syndicate (leading eventually to the resignation of the governor and the election of a Democratic governor, the reelection defeat of one of its U.S. senators, and a widespread housecleaning of Ohio GOP officeholders).

As the insatiably greedy chairman of the House Administration Committee and a product of that Ohio Republican crime machine, our Bob frolicked at the intersection of these axes of Republicrookery. Luckily for our Bob, opportunities for influence peddling seem to have been far more limited in the Big House, and he's getting off early for "good behavior," as Kate Klonick reported earlier this week for Talking Points Memo:

Former Rep. Ney to Be Released from Halfway House,
Take Job As Radio Commentator

After serving 17-months of a 30-month federal sentence for accepting bribes from disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, former Ohio Rep. Bob Ney (R), is set to be released on Saturday.

Time was taken off Ney's sentence upon completion of an alcohol rehabilitation program while at a minimum security prison, where he was first assigned before being sent to a half-way house in February of this year.

So what is a disgraced former U.S. represenative to do after nearly a year and half in the federal pen.?

Radio commentary of course!

From The Wheeling News-Register:

As a condition of his stay in the halfway house, Ney was required to work at a job. He was hired by his friend, Ellen Ratner, bureau chief for the Talk Radio News Service, who confirmed in March to a Capitol Hill newspaper that Ney was doing research for the news network.

But Ney was prohibited by federal regulations from being on-air until his release. Ratner indicated she planned to use him as a political contributor after he was placed on probation.

Interestingly, Talk Radio News is a media company with a liberal bent, quite the change for the former Republican congressman.

There's no word as to whether our Bob's "hair" -- or whatever that stuff is he's got on top of his head -- is being released at the same time or will have to serve the full sentence.

#

THIS IS ONE HALFWAY HOUSE I WOULDN'T WANT IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD-- LOCK UP THE SILVERWARE; BOB NEY IS OUT OF PRISON

Ney's out of the hoosegaw

I doubt it was to make room for just incarcerated Brent Wilkes, but convicted Republican congressional crook Bob Ney, one of the several dozen who was taking bribes from Jack Abramoff (but the only one lame enough to go to prison for it so far), was let loose today. He'll be serving out the rest of his already far too short 30-month sentence in a halfway house. They refuse to divulge where the halfway house is.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons said Ney will be released from the bureau’s custody on Aug. 16, and he could be transferred to home confinement in Ohio before then. That release date depends on Ney continuing to compile “good time credit.”

Ney reported to the Morgantown prison to begin his sentence March 1, 2007. While there, he has participated in an alcoholism rehabilitation program.

Ney represented the sprawling 18th District in eastern and southern Ohio for six terms. Democrat Zack Space won the seat in the 2006 elections.

Space has voted more frequently with the Republicans on substantive matters than all but the most reactionary Democratic freshmen. The only new Democratic members as bad as Space were, from bad to worse, Chris Carney (PA), Emanuel's boy Heath Shuler (NC), Jason Altmire (PA), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Nick Lampson (TX), Joe Donnelly (IN).

IS THERE SOMETHING FUNNY IN THE WATER AT THE CAPITOL YACHT CLUB?

Larry Craig likes sailor drag too

What do Bob Ney (R-OH), Larry Craig (R-ID), Randy Cunningham (R-CA), and Ted Stevens (R-AK) all have in common? Well, yes, they have all been either convicted or, in Senator Stevens' case, about to be convicted of a career-ending crime. But that isn't news. The news is they all lived on yachts berthed at the Capitol Yacht Clubbefore being exposed as criminals. Craig and Stevens still live there, though probably not for long.

The travails of Mr. Craig, Republican of Idaho, who is seeking to withdraw his guilty plea to charges related to what the authorities say was a sex-solicitation incident at a Minneapolis airport restroom, are only the latest to rock this eclectic Washington neighborhood. Photographers gathered at D Dock on Wednesday to watch him leave for the Senate, carrying a boater’s bag.

One resident describes the strip of Potomac River waterfront as a “floating trailer park” where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Protected by locked gates and security, members of Congress rub elbows with lawyers and lobbyists, judges and bureaucrats, established government contractors and aspiring ones, and others lucky enough to own expensive boats and secure a coveted slip.

A story in this month's New Yorker claims Craig is "a fastidious man who was known to pick up trash around the club." Not just around the club, but in public toilets all over Washington and, apparently, all over America.

BOB NEY FINALLY MOVING INTO HIS NEW HOME-- A DORM ROOM IN THE FEDERAL PEN IN WEST VIRGINIA. SAVE A BUNK FOR JERRY LEWIS AND JOHN DOOLITTLE

Call me bloodthirsty but in 5 days I'd be poppin' a champagne bottle if I was a drinking man. That's because far right Republican and ex-congressman Bob Ney gets deposited in his prison cell on Thursday. Although I think a 30 month sentence for his bribery conviction is a tiny fraction of what he should get, I'm glad to see that he will get at least some prison time before Bush pardons him and the rest of the gang of congressional corruption on his way out the door.

Ney will be surrendering himself to the federal penitentiary in Morgantown, West Virginia on March 1, where he'll be sharing dorm style accommodations with bunk beds for 12 fellow inmates. He gets a personal locker for his possessions and I guess he can keep his wig in it. I haven't been able to find out if the wig is considered "drag" and that makes him eligible for the gay wing of the prison. In any case, his accommodations at the pen will be considerably different from what Jack Abramoff and other bribers and lobbyists have helped him become accustomed to. This will be nothing like that nice St Andrews Golf Resort he became so fond of.

And those nice Inside-the-Beltway restaurants lobbyists were always taking Ney too... Fellow inmates will serve meals, which Ney gets to eat while seated at a four-person table in the prison cafeteria. He'll be required to work 7-1/2 hours each day, something he's never done in his entire miserable life. His assignments won't include breaking rocks but he'll be doing food service, custodial work, landscaping, and "education services." Because he blames drugs and booze for his criminality Ney gets to spend half of his designated work hours in the prison's substance-abuse program.


UPDATE: TRAITORS ONLY GET 30 MONTHS IN PRISON IF THEY'RE REPUBLICANS?

Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker just went thru the documents relating to the charges against ex-Ney and Hastert staffer Will Heaton. He's sharing the details of life with the crooked Republican heavyweight. Heaton admits accepting bribes from Abramoff and others seeking to enrich themselves at the public trough via the corrupt GOP congressional leadership. There's plenty worth reading but my favorite part goes to what I was saying about Ney getting off too easy. He should have been tried as a traitor, for one starters.

Ney and Heaton both pled guilty to accepting thousands of dollars in gambling chips from a man only identified as the "Foreign Businessman" in the documents. That's the Syrian-born businessman Fouad al-Zayat (known as "The Fat Man" in the London casinos), who flew Ney and two of his staffers over to London for a high-flying night at a casino. Why? al-Zayat had a company that was seeking to sell U.S.-made airplanes and airplane parts to Iran, and he wanted Ney to get an exemption to U.S. laws that ban the sale of such parts to Iran.

NEWSWEEK REPORTING MORE BRIBERS GOT TO NEY-- WHO EVEN TRIED TO GET U.S. TO ALLOW ONE OF HIS "CONTRIBUTORS" TO SELL AIRPLANE PARTS TO IRAN!

Anyone who might have been laboring under the childish delusion that lowlife Republicrooks like Ohio's Bob Ney were simply corrupted by a "rotten apple," as Montana's uber-corrupt bribe-taking Senator Conrad Burns calls his old pal Jack Abramoff, is in for a little surprise if they read the new issue of NEWSWEEK. Although only the terminally naive could have possibly thought otherwise, NEWSWEEK makes it clear that the Republican Culture of Corruption runs a lot deeper than just bad influences like Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon and Tom DeLay leading the nation's otherwise righteous salons astray. Oh, no. One of the more exposed congressloons, of whom DWT has been warning readers since last spring, Bob Ney, tried to get then Secretary of State Colin Powell to relax U.S. sanctions against Iran on behalf of a serial felon, Nigel Winfield, who was bribing Ney and who wanted to sell U.S.-made spare parts to the Iranians. Think about it for a moment. Think about the depths to which a man like Ney will go to sell out his country if he's drunk on the arrogance of power.

And how did Ney meet a character as sleazy and treacherous as Winfield? (I mean this man was not one of Ney's constituents for whom he was trying to do a harmless little favor. Oh no, Winfield has a long, criminal past going all the way back to a 1982 conviction for trying to swindle Elvis Presley in an airplane deal!) So what kind of treasonous monstrosity would introduce someone as low down as Winfield to Ney? According to NEWSWEEK "Ney was introduced to Winfield by lobbyists Roy Coffee, a former legislative aide to the then Gov. George W. Bush..."

Corrupt, greedy self-entitled congressmen like Tom ("I AM the government") DeLay, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Duncan Hunter, Dennis Hastert, Jerry Lewis, John Doolittle, Dick Pombo, Bob Ney, J.D. Hayworth... dozens more have George W Bush as a role model for his above the law style of government. The depth of the scandals that have infected the Republican Party have barely begun to surface.


SUNDAY NIGHT UPDATE: NEY TOPPLED FROM HIS CHAIRMANSHIP BUT STILL DELUSIONAL, CLAIMING IT IS "ONLY TEMPORARY"

Pretty soon the entire Republican leadership of the U.S. Congress will have temporarily stepped down. Presumably their temporary resignations will become permanent either when they are sentenced or when they take up residence in their new penal facilities. Sources close to crooked Ohio Congressman Bob Ney, who wish to remain anonymous, say that Ney needs "a few days to grasp what has happened to him. The words that have been coming out of his mouth don't seem to be English now. He needs to get some rest and after that everything will be fine." No doubt.

KEY TO REPUBLICROOK SCANDALS: BOB NEY TEACHES ETHICS TO INCOMING GOP CONGRESSLOONS

Who can say which Republicrook-- not counting ex-Majority Leader/GOP Crime Boss Tom DeLay-- is the most corrupt? I mean where do you start? Charles Taylor? Richard Pombo, Duncan Hunter, John Doolittle, Roy Blunt? Bill Frist? Conrad Burns? Jerry Lewis? Denny Hastert? Doc Hastings? Mike Ferguson? Katherine Harris? Well... Ohio might be a good place to start, seeing how the entire political structure is so rotten and corrupt and how every single Republican office holder is mired in the grossest forms of scandal known to man.

And when one thinks "Ohio" and "scandal" and "corruption," one name rises to the top before all others: Bob Ney, a key henchman of DeLay's and the only other congressman implicated in the Abramoff-ordered Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis gangland slaying-- as well as dozens and dozens of bribery scandals. So when House Speaker/DeLay sock-puppet Denny Hastert talks about ethics seminars for GOP congressmen who better to turn to-- I mean who could possibly know more about it?-- than Bob Ney?

I mean if the ethicless Senate GOP Leader can appoint Rick Santorum, a notorious crook, to head up the effort in the Senate, Hastert might have felt he had to do him one better by finding someone even more dripping in filth and sleaze. To make it short, Ney's job is to teach incoming Republican freshmen all about ethics. Could someone make this stuff up? Bob Ney is one of the most notorious scumbags in the history of American politics. He will take money from anyone and he is known as the guy who will do anything for a couple of bucks. Or maybe that is exactly what the Party of Greed and Selfishness means when they talk about ethics! Forget, for a moment about his free-lance work and his involvement with Thomas Noe, and just focus on his impending indictment, trial and prison term for his arrogant and dim-witted involvement with ALL of Jack Abramoff's shenanigans!

NOE INDICTED FOR HELPING STEAL 2004 ELECTION FOR BUSH (AMONG OTHER REPUBLICAN CRIMES)

When I started Down With Tyranny, people kept asking me if I lived in Ohio. I don't. But I was writing all the time about the Republican scandal epidemic there. And at the center-- surrounded by Governor Bob Taft, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, arch crook and DeLay/Abramoff henchman Congressman Bob Ney, Attorney General Jim Petro, both U.S. Senators, half a dozen other Ohio congressmen, half the state legislature, and a gaggle of other GOP offcials, is Republican kingpin Thomas Noe. Today's Toledo Blade, the crusading newspaper that uncovered this scandal while the one party state of Ohio fought furiously and viciously to cover it up, has announced that Noe has been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury for laundering money into Bush's re-election campaign, allowing Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell to steal the state's electoral votes for Bush (and hence handing him "re-election").

A few months ago a local California magazine asked me to write a summary of the Ohio scandal-- with an L.A. point of view-- but the editor resigned and the article never got published-- until now:

Outside of Ohio not too many people have heard about "Coingate," although it could turn out to be the biggest political/financial scandal since Teapot Dome! Even though it's been headlines for weeks in Ohio, the national mass media doesn't seem to want to talk about it. Maybe it's a little too complicated. Financial shenanigans involving political figures are always FAR MORE complicated than celebrities accused of molesting young boys or a runaway bride or a man who kills his wife. But since Arnold Schwarzenegger has now been implicated in the whole mess, maybe it's time for Californians to start paying some serious attention. Briefly, here's the story so far:

An Ohio Republican Party kingmaker (and former GOP Lucas County Chairman), Thomas Noe, is at the center because he was able to convince the state of Ohio to make a couple of extraordinarily risky, highly unorthodox-- some would say "bizarre"-- investments with the State Workmen's Compensation Fund. Noe, a Bush-Cheney Pioneer (which means he was able to raise at least $100,000 for the presidential campaign), has been very-- make that very, very-- active in financing Republican candidates in his home state, at least a couple of governors, a couple U.S. senators, the state auditor, state attorney general, the secretary of state, a gaggle of congressmen and state legislators... 5 of the 7 Supreme Court judges. What a generous guy! Civic minded? Well, turns out that Ohio state government is pretty much an experiment in one-party rule-- no checks, no balances. Every non-judicial statewide official is a Republican. So it wasn't all that difficult for Noe to get his hands on millions of dollars of Workmen's Compensation Money and put it into (what was termed "invest in") his highly speculative rare coin (and collectible baseball cards!!) fund.

Aside from making hefty commissions on the "investments," the Republican Party high-roller seems to have lost (literally) MILLIONS of dollars in coins. This isn't just a case of coins decreasing in value, but a case of tangible, physical items... just gone. And "strangely"-- according to an anonymous law enforcement source quoted in the Toledo Blade, records show, for example, Noe bought one coin for $100,000 but then claimed to have sold it for $1. (What happened to the other $99,999.00 from that "sale?") Meanwhile the generous contributions continued to flow unabated into GOP coffers. In fact, Noe was illegally reimbursing anyone he could coral into donating to the 2004 Bush Cheney campaign. Noe (currently extremely incommunicado) is under investigation-- in fact almost half a dozen of them. Many of his Republican-best-buddies-in-high-places have been returning some, though by no means all, of the money they got from him, including President Bush (a paltry $4,000 of the over $100,000 Noe gave BushCheney), Governor Taft, and the man many Democrats claim corrupted the Ohio presidential election results in 2004, Secretary of State/current GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell. Did what looks very much like stolen money wind up unduly influencing the presidential election? Perhaps a nonpartisan Special Prosecutor will be appointed? Not likely; like Zimbabwe, Ohio is functioning as a one-party state. Meanwhile, the first non-Ohio politician other than Bush, to have been a known recipient of Mr. Noe's largesse has been identified: the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Ohio coin dealer gave the money last year to a Schwarzenegger fund that supports the California governor’s legislative priorities. In other words, the tainted $10,000 Noe gave him, very likely stolen from Ohio State Workmen's Compensation funds, and which Ohio newspapers are reporting Schwarzenegger won't return, is being used along with other contributions from multinational corporations to push Arnold's highly dubious agenda in the "special election" he's foisting on California in November. The irony of using working people's money to push viciously anti-working people laws is seen as the height of irony by many Democrats.

Schwarzenegger, who campaigned in the state of Ohio for Bush-Cheney in the closing days of the 2004 election, has business interests including the Arnold Classic bodybuilding competition in Columbus. "Allegations about Mr. Noe became public a year after we accepted his contribution," Marty Wilson, executive director of Schwarzenegger’s fund, said Friday. "As he was an active Ohio Republican party fund-raiser and donor, we had no reason at the time to question his contribution."
Under California law, the California Recovery Team organization (the front for Schwarzzenegger's special interest/corporate money collection operation he plans to use to blanket the state of California with TV and radio advertising to push his reactionary agenda before the Special Election) can accept unlimited corporate or individual contributions. Schwarzenegger and his team have gone back and forth on whether or not they plan to return the $10,000 to the Ohio Workmen's Compensation Fund, saying yes one day and no the next day.

It sounds pretty bad-- around $55 million in Workmen's Comp money "invested" and something like $12 million missing. But it gets worse! As the investigation-- driven almost entirely by pressure from readers of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Toledo Blade-- expanded it suddenly turns out that the poor Workmen's Compensation Fund was being looked on by Republican office holders charged with the fiduciary responsibility for protecting it as a honeypot for political donors even beyond Noe. Last week it was publicly announced, although the Governor Taft and Attorney General Petro have been aware of this-- and denying it-- since just before the election, that another $225 million have been lost. This time it was a different firm, one in Pennsylvania which runs hedge funds, and which is also a major donor to Ohio Republican politics.

Meanwhile Ohio officials responded to the unfolding scandal by attacking the newspapers pressing the investigations, claiming, at first, the whole thing was a vendetta and that the so-called "investments" were profitable. The Governor (of Ohio) who has not been indicted yet, was quoted on April 8 as screaming at a reporter from the Blade that "[Noe] was making money for the state; what's the problem?" Noe and his wife Bernadette (who was GOP chairman of Lucas County during the presidental election) have personally donated over $200,000 to Ohio Republican candidates and PACs in the last 15 years-- and those are just the above-board contributions, not the illegal ones like the reimbursements to Bush-Cheney donors. The Pittsburgh hedge fund managers have shovelled hundreds of thousands more into the Ohio state GOP-- but it turns out to have been money well-spent for them-- and for the Ohio GOP, if not for the state tax-payers. Youngstown Democratic State Senator Marc Dann is calling the mess "a culture of corruption... It's more than a guess that some of the money could have made its way to the campaign committees of Republican officeholders, starting at Toledo city council and going up to Arnold Schwarzenegger and the president. I can now go into any bowling alley or barber shop and mention Tom Noe's name and have everyone understand what corruption in our state means," continued Dann. "People understand when money is stolen, and they understand the connections to the Republican Party. The GOP might try to give back the money, but they're still tainted."

WHAT'S KEEPING OHIO'S BOB NEY OUT OF PRISON?

A congressman walks into a posh, private London gambling casino. He's been worried lately because he's run up $34,000 on his credit card. He's not worried about the cost of this particular trip though. It's all being paid for by a lobbyist, Jack Abramoff. But that $34,000 is gnawing at him. Turns out, though, this guy is LUCKY, very, very lucky! He walks out of the posh, private London gambling casino an hour later-- with $30,000 in winnings and no more worries about the credit card. Not that Bob Ney was worried about bankruptcy (even if that was allowed for individuals anymore). No, Bob Ney, Congressman Bob Ney, represents Ohio's 18th Congressional District. If you go to his official website, the first line of his bio starts out like this: "First sworn into the US Congress in 1995, Congressman Bob Ney is currently ranked the 11th Most Powerful Member of Congress..." Maybe that 11th ranking is why the nebbish-looking 50 year old congressman from ruralish Ohio is being wined and dined by a power-player like Abramoff and his "associate," public-relations consultant Michael Scanlon. Abramoff and Scanlon, an integral part of GOP House Leader Tom DeLay's powerful-but-lately-fraying political machine, were busy sharing the largesse of their ill-gotten gains from half a dozen Indian tribes looking for the right to open up some casinos in Texas. Abramoff and Scanlon scammed $82 million out of the Indians, who they called "morons," with the promise of using their influence with DeLay and other GOP heavy weights in Congress. The cat bragging he's the "11th Most Powerful Member of Congress," made out well. Aside from his "luck" at the posh and private London establishment, Ney got campaign donations and a lavish (6-figure) trip to Scotland's legendary St. Andrew's golf course.

The scam itself was drastic-- even by cut-throat GOP standards. For example, let's look at the poor Tigua tribe in far-off-- especially far off from Ney's 18th Congressional District in Ohio-- El Paso, Texas. First Abramoff and Scanlon hook up with religious-right kingpin/GOP leader Ralph Reed to shut the tribe's casino down (in the name of Jesus). A rival tribe in Louisiana has paid Abramoff for this work. Then Abramoff writes to Scanlon about the Tigua tribe's hopes to get it re-opened (direct, undoctored quote here): "I'd love us to get our mitts on that moolah!!" And they do. With Ohio's Ney, as chairman of the House Administration Committee, championing legislation to re-open the El Paso casino, the Tiguas "donated" $32,000 to Ney's campaign (and paid for the nice trip to Scotland-- in a private jet). Although the Tigua paid for all this, Ney seems to have slipped up and reported the trip as a donation from a right-wing think tank, the National Center for Public Policy Research, unlike the Indian donation legal.

And now the connection between Ney and Thomas Noe is being investigated. Noe is the GOP Ohio kingmaker who seems to have been financing the GOP-- from Bush, Governor Taft, nearly the whole Ohio Supreme Court, Ken Blackwell (the Secretary of State who helped Bush steal Ohio in the 2004 election) right down to the bottom of the barrel: Bob Ney. Two GOP poster boys; NEY AND NOE! What a party!

MORE ON THE GOP OHIO COIN SCAM-- AND BUSH

I love this story-- ignored by the mass media-- because it ties together one-party (in this case, the Republican Party) corruption, the GOP's successful attempt to thwart Democracy in Ohio in the 2004 presidential election, and the GOP's plans to get their hands-- and the hands of their corporate unindicted co-conspirators-- on the Social Security fund (honey-pot). I wrote something about the Great Ohio Coin Heist here on May 28 (GOP COIN THIEVES IN OHIO... AND SOCIAL SECURITY) and about the stealing of the election in Ohio and Florida on May 23 (VOTING IN THE U.S.A.). Yesterday I suggested everyone rush out and buy WHAT WENT WRONG IN OHIO: THE CONYERS REPORT ON THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, which goes into so many ways that the Ohio Republican Party rigged the election. Today The Cleveland Plain Dealer has another story linking GOP County Chairman/kingmaker/Bush Pioneer Tom Noe to the theft of the presidential election. (You can read the whole story at http://www.cleveland.com/budgetscandal/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1117791231263120.xml&coll=2.

The new revelation centers on the federal grand jury and Douglas Talbott, the former top aide to both the current corrupt Republican governor, Bob Taft and former Governor/now U.S. Senator George Voinovich. Talbott has admitted that the powerful Republican kingpin Noe, who had already ensnared him in a web of financial corruption, persuaded him to donate $2,000 to the Bush/Cheney campaign for which he was illegally reimbursed (probably with the money stolen from the Ohio Workers Compensation Fund which Taft allowed Noe to get his hands on through his bogus coin fund).
Even Taft, who should be marched directly from the State House to the Big House, is now admitting that Ohio investment funds "might" have landed in Republican campaign coffers. This story gets more outrageous by the day and the mass media continues to studiously, aggressively ignore it.