What a scandal! When one finds bribery in Africa, they call it “Corruption”, and tell us it is terrible. However, here in Washington, it is an every day common thing. They just call it by another name: Lobby. It is the same damn shit!

Clean your own house here in USA before you can go around the world to teach about democracy!

http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/printer_23380.shtml

Dark Side
Rohrbacher and Abramoff
By D.C. News 23/3/06
Mar 23, 2006, 09:28

U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who has sponsored legislation aimed at damaging Ethiopia, has strong ties to the scandal-plagued lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was recently convicted of defrauding several of his clients of millions of dollars. Earlier this year, he pled guilty to numerous federal conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud charges. He has agreed to tell the FBI about alleged bribes to as many as 20 members of Congress and aides.

In March 2005, Rohrabacher introduced a bill, HR 1061, the American Property Claims Against Ethiopia Act, which would 損rohibit United States assistance to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia until the Ethiopian Government returns all property of United States citizens and entities that has been nationalized, expropriated, or otherwise seized by the Ethiopian Government in contravention of international law, and for other purposes.?/span>

This bill was introduced by Rohrabacher at the behest of Gebremedhin Berhane, a former Eritrean national whose son, Petros, was described by the Daily Pilot newspaper of Newport Beach (California) as 搊ne of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s surfing buddies.?nbsp; The Berhane family has contributed at least USD1,250 to Rohrabacher抯 political campaigns in recent years. Gebremedhin Berhane has a property claim against the Ethiopian government that dates to when the Mengistu regime expropriated his business. The current Ethiopian government has offered to settle the claim, but the Berhane family has refused to accept a settlement; instead, it has enlisted the help of a U.S. Congressman to write a law for that family抯 particular benefit.

When asked about the Berhane legislation by the Orange County Register, a newspaper based in Rohrabacher抯 congressional district, the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, David Shinn, said: 揑 don’t think that this is the best way to go about foreign policy.?/span>

More recently, on March 7, 2006, Rohrabacher introduced HR 4895, an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 搕o limit the provision of United States military assistance and the sale, transfer, or licensing of United States military equipment or technology to Ethiopia.?/span>

On that same day, Rohrabacher joined as a cosponsor of HR 4423, the Ethiopian Consolidation Act of 2006, which has the benign-sounding purpose to 揺ncourage and facilitate the consolidation of security, human rights, democracy, and economic freedom in Ethiopia.?/span>

In all these cases, it is easy to see the hidden hand of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In an article entitled 揜ohrabacher And Abramoff: A Beautiful Friendship,?the American Progress Action Fund抯 online publication, ThinkProgress, writes:

揜ep. Dana Rohrabacher has sprung to the defense of his college buddy, disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, calling him 揳 good person.?In fact, Rohrbacher admitted he thought 揳 lot of other things that have been characterized as corruption on the part of Abramoff are actually standard operating procedures for lobbying in Washington, D.C. ?arranging trips and things like that.?/span>

揕et抯 take a look at the beautiful friendship between the two men:

??Rohrabacher enjoyed free dinners at Signatures, Abramoff抯 high-end restaurant, once or twice a month.

??Rohrabacher took one of Abramoff抯 揝tandard Operating Procedure?style trips, visiting the Northern Mariana Islands while Abramoff was working to convince Congress keep factories in a U.S. territory free from complying with fair labor laws. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 28, 2005]

??Rohrabacher helped Abramoff score a $60 million loan to buy the SunCruz fleet of casino boats in Florida by allowing the lobbyist to list him as a personal reference. (Abramoff added a faked $23 million wire transfer to Rohrabacher抯 reference to close the sale.)?/span>

Well-known journalist Arianna Huffington ?who, as a one-time candidate for governor of California, is intimately familiar with the inner workings of American (and California) politics ?wrote of Rohrabacher and Abramoff that the 搕wo pals are also members of the Brotherhood of the Would-Be Hollywood Players.?/span>

The Abramoff connection goes a long way in explaining Rohrabacher抯 favoritism toward Eritrea and antipathy toward Ethiopia. For several years, when Abramoff was a paid lobbyist for the Eritrean government, he cultivated Rohrabacher as a friend of Eritrea.

According to a story in the Washington Post on November 2, 2002:

揟o help make sure its message gets heard — and accepted — Eritrea has hired Greenberg Traurig, the law firm that includes a lobbying team headed by Jack Abramoff, who has close ties to the new House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).

揂ccording to Greenberg Traurig’s contract with Eritrea, included in the firm’s Foreign Agents Registration Act filing at the Justice Department, the country is paying Greenberg Traurig $50,000 a month for helping “in implementing its public policy goals in Washington.” That’s $600,000 for the yearlong engagement from April 15, 2002, to April 14, 2003.

揃y the way, the CIA World Factbook 2002 pegs Eritrea’s per-capita gross domestic product at about $740 for last year. Eritrea, which gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, went through a punishing war from 1998 to 2000 with its neighbor. Eighty thousand people were killed, and hundreds of thousands were displaced.

搼Their biggest issue is they want to reach out to America and have better relations,?says Padgett Wilson, director of governmental affairs at Greenberg Traurig.?/span>

In an article in the November/December 2002 edition of Washington Business Forward, reporter John Bresnehan wrote:

揗ost people in this town, even many who work in politics, have never heard of the tiny African nation of Eritrea. But if lobbyist Jack Abramoff has his way, they抮e about to.

揂bramoff, a partner with Miami-based law firm Greenberg Traurig, says he believes in the free-market principles espoused by the Eritrean government and wants to help open the door to U.S. investment in this Red Sea country, which fought a bloody two-and-a-half-year border war with its larger neighbor, Ethiopia, that ended in 2000. Eritrea was part of Ethiopia until 1993.

揂bramoff is scaling back his standard $150,000-per-month fee, one of the highest in Washington, in order to represent the impoverished Eritrea for the bargain-basement rate of $50,000 per month. Why? 慣hat抯 a very exciting client,?Abramoff says. 慣hey want to be the Singapore of Africa ?that抯 their goal. They want to set up policies that encourage investment, encourage free markets. They want to be a U.S. base.挃

As recently as February 11, 2006, the prestigious publication, National Journal, reported that 揜ep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., who famously provided a personal reference for Jack Abramoff in 2000 when the lobbyist was seeking financing to buy SunCruz Casinos, took a six-day trip to Malaysia in January 2002, accompanied by his wife and two of Abramoff’s then-partners at the firm Greenberg Traurig. One of the lobbyists was Rohrabacher’s former aide Tony Rudy.?/span>

When Abramoff let go of the Eritrea account ?to move on to defrauding Indian tribes and buying a gambling casino boat ?his friends at Alexander Strategy Group took it on. (Alexander Strategies, which also has strong ties to indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, recently closed its doors as a result of the Abramoff scandals.)

Alexander Strategy partner Paul Behrends contributed USD1,800 to Rohrabacher抯 congressional re-election campaigns between 2001 and 2005. Tony Rudy, also of Alexander Strategy, donated USD1,000 to Rohrabacher in 2004. Jack Abramoff himself donated USD1,000 in 1997, according to Federal Election Commission records, but Abramoff抯 modus operandi has been to arrange for contributions from clients so that they do not all look like they came from the same source.

Dana Rohrabacher recently appeared at an anti-Ethiopia rally in Washington, D.C. According to the Eritrean web site, Alenalki.com, Rohrabacher said: 揟he American People are not fully aware of what is going on in Ethiopia and what we have now is a great opportunity to discard the corruption and discard the repression of the regime (Minority Regime in Addis) that should be ending.?/span>

Source: Ocnus.net 2006

or to put it another way: in september there wasn’t a republican in sight who wanted to play the ‘blame game’, but now doing exactly that is going to save your asses?

your comments illustrate that you have no clue whatsoever how the legislative process works. the “party in power” sets the agenda. that means the “minority party” doesn’t get to introduce legislation, investigate wrongdoing, ANYTHING (except shut down the gov’t completely), unless the republicans want to do it. your admission that the bush administration is being allowed to guide investigations into it’s own purported shenanigans underscores one great sin of the so-called “republican leadership”: congress is supposed to conduct oversight of the executive branch, and for the last five years, there’s been no oversight.

now i’ll agree with you that the dems need to grow a pair, and quick. but aside from being a more vocal opposition or completely obstructionist (which i don’t entirely disagree with at this point), they don’t have much recourse.

i sure hope the republicans hire you as a political consultant… dems will have the house, senate, and white house by 2007.

oh, and another thing: if plame wasn’t a leak, libby wouldn’t be indicted. that stupid logic you wingnuts are still beholden to ignores one fact: a criminal investigation requires a crime to have been committed. there’s no way it would’ve gotten this far if the *distinctly non-partisan* investigators thought there wasn’t a leak.

So, you’re implying that Pres. Bush would admit that he’s not being honest and that he’s being dishonest?

Oh. My. God! A Republican admiting that the current administration and President are doing nothing but lying to the American people! I am shocked that you would admit such a thing!

As for the Repug’s attempts to cast this as a problem for the Dems, they will get away with it. The “liberal” MSM and the sheeple that vote will just get blurry eyed and overwhelmed by the truth. It is much easier to hide your head in the sand. Besides, everyone wants to be a patriot. In this day and time, that means that you have to agree with everything that Hannity, Limbaugh, and the Pres. say, right?

But this is a great day for the Repugs. They are fulfilling the desire to “shrink the government so that they can drown it in a bathtub.” Paraphrasing of course. The sheeple will see this as bipartisan, and that government sucks. That will deepen the “Joe Sixpacks” desire for less government event though the government is the only protection they have from becoming a sub minimum wage slave to the oligarchy of corporate control of the masses.

Comment by William G. Henders #55

Billygoat,

Do you know what the word “whistleblower” means?

How about “press leak”?

See it’s easy to prove that the criminal bushite junta opened investigations ONLY because the damaging information was “LEAKED BY WHISTLEBLOWERS”…dumb sh*t…

The Bushites had no choice, just think of how it would look had the Bushites said “we’re not going to investigate rumors and innuendo”…

Corporate lobbying is not only a political problem, but the unique source of economic trouble in the US. Follow the money.

The Dems bleat daily that they are the “minority” party. That they are the “loyal opposition.” Yet who actually does something when a scandal arises? Who opened the investigation into the Plame non-leak? Who is pursuing the leak of an NSA program that threatens national security and possibly civil liberties? Who addressed possible torture at Abu Ghraib? Who is set to clean house over the Abramoff tempest in a teapot that threatens to implicate some of the biggest names in the Republican Party, perhaps the very culture of Republican politics?

Not the “loyal opposition” … but rather the Bush Administration.

Teh public knows this. Or is growing to know this with each passing day. They, the voting public, will be left to wonder, if the “loyal opposition” cannot even muster the courage to bring such scandals to the light of day, then for what are they good for?

Americans are already starting to realize that if a “loyal opposition” cannot even do its job of defeating the party in powers’ corruption and misgovernance (examples of which are legion, apparently), then how can we possibly entrust them with the real job of governing the nation?

Rather, American voters will know they would be wiser to turn to the REpublican Party, which has made some partisan, ideological and hubristic missteps, yes – even engaged in a pattern of criminal behavior it would seem. All those sins, yes, but still the GOP is not so grossly incompetent or lacking in power that it would allow what it has done over the past few years to pass, if it had been the Democrats who had done it.

Truly, the Dems attack the Abramoff scandal at their peril.

Bush has simply to give a speech to the American peoople in which he asks of the Democrats, “Where were you, the party that was supposed to keep us in check, during the troubling 12 months that have recently passed? Keeping politicians honest has been your only job this past few years, but you have failed at that job. America has found you wanting. America needs better from you.”

I would not be surprised if some variation of the above were to be included in the upcoming SOTU.

I await your responses, feeble as they may be.

I misunderstood your point -didn’t mean to sound condescending in any way.

As for the labour laws in the Mariana Islands, since they are a territory of the US (or commonwealth), they are exempt of certain federal laws. Like those that regulate children labour in the rest of the US.

Puerto Rico is in a similar situation. In spite of being US citizens, they do not pay federal taxes nor do they cast vote in the presidential elections. As a matter of fact, Puerto Ricans are not even counted in any US population census.

Exploitation is wonderful indeed….

Isn’t exploitation wonderful.

Just to add to John’s comment, here is more background on Rabbi Daniel Lapin, from Joe Conason at Salon.com:

This particular man of God, vaunted for his scholarly understanding of the Bible and his apologetics for Christian fundamentalism, turns out to have served as a money launderer and fraudster for Abramoff. He was paid by Abramoff’s bogus Washington charity, the Capital Athletic Foundation, which passed money along to the wife of California Rep. John Doolittle, among other dubious “charitable” payments. Lapin’s own peculiar “religious charity,” Toward Tradition, took in thousands of dollars from an online gambling firm, which it then passed along to the wife of DeLay staffer Tony Rudy.
Let us prey