Tonto's Revenge Posted on Dec. 7, 2005 By Robert Scheer Call it Tonto's revenge: The outrageous rip-off of Native American tribes by a top Republican lobbyist is leading inexorably to a reckoning for the allegedly morally superior religious and political right.
"I don't think we have had something of this scope, arrogance and sheer venality in our lifetimes," Norman J. Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute wrote in Roll Call. "It is building to an explosion, one that could create immense collateral damage within Congress and in coming elections." Selling firewater to the natives-or in this case charging them $82 million for government breaks on slot machine and other gaming licenses-is not exactly what the high-minded prophets of the Republican revolution promised. And to see behind the scenes as Christian right superstar Ralph Reed, bought off by top Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, dupes his grass-roots "pro-family" followers into unwittingly supporting casino-rich Indian tribes under the guise of anti-gambling initiatives is to glimpse moral corruption of biblical proportion. Reed, now a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in Georgia, at first denied knowing the $4 million he acknowledges receiving from Abramoff and his closest associate, public-relations expert Michael Scanlon, to run the pseudo anti-gambling campaigns in the South came from tribes hoping to retain local monopolies for themselves. Once the investigation picked up steam this past summer, however, he changed his mind and said he was assured that the tribal money didn't come directly from casino proceeds-a hair-splitting attempt at face-saving ethics, indeed, since the goal of the payments was so clearly to benefit the casinos. Furthermore, the release of a treasure trove of documentation on the Abramoff investigation to the Internet by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chair of the Senate's Indian Affairs Committee, makes it clear that Abramoff and his colleagues had no interest in the finer points of morality when they were transferring huge sums of cash from the tribes to the accounts of such allegedly high-minded heavyweight pro-Republican outfits as Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform. "This town has become very corrupt, there's no doubt about it,'' McCain said recently on "Meet the Press," adding that he expects "lots" of indictments and that there is "strong evidence" of "significant wrongdoing" by some legislators. Reading the documents, in fact, is a horrifying look at democracy for sale. For example, an Abramoff e-mail to Reed about a conversation the lobbyist had with Nell Rogers, a Choctaw representative: "Spoke with Nell. They have a budget issue. They want to know if we can get through to October on $1 million. Can we? If not, let me know." In response, Reed lays out what it costs, in very precise amounts, to kill legislation on Capitol Hill to the favor of a wealthy entity: "I believe [$1 million will be enough]. If we can kill it in the House[,] definitely. If it goes to the Senate, the worst case scenario is what the pro-family groups spent to defeat video poker and the lottery-each about $1.3 million. . . . We will be doing all we can to raise money from national anti-gambling groups, Christian CEOs and national pro-family groups." Overall, both Reed, once the religious right's boy savior, and Abramoff, the former head of the College Republicans, a "Pioneer"-grade fundraiser for President Bush and a stalwart friend of Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, come off as morally degenerate political savants in the Senate committee's files. Reed seems possessed by the gods of greed as he exults, "I need to start humping in corporate accounts!" But Abramoffgate goes much higher than these two political pimps. In those e-mails between Abramoff and Scanlon, it is clear that they trafficked in their ties to DeLay and others in the Republican leadership. As the Washington Post reported, Abramoff "cultivated a reputation as the best-connected Republican lobbyist in Washington," and it was not a false claim. DeLay, who referred to Abramoff as "one of my closest and dearest friends," received no fewer than three free golf trips to Scotland from Abramoff, among other payoffs. Both DeLay and Abramoff are under indictment in other cases but not, as of yet, this one. Scanlon has already pleaded guilty to conspiring with Abramoff to defraud various Indian tribes and bribe government officials. Former White House official David Safavian has been indicted for allegedly lying about his ties to Abramoff. The bet now is that Abramoff will also cop a plea bargain instead of spending many years in jail and paying even larger fines than the $19.7 million Scanlon has accepted. If so, more depressing tales of corruption may be detailed publicly. But what is already clear is that the Republicans' reputation for moral superiority is as dead as the Lone Ranger. Comments 1.. Comment by Maurice E Hardy on 12/07 at 9:12 am There are interesting questions emerging for the right-wing and the religious-right, who helped put these people into power. The media should poll them and their constituents for reactions. And, whether they want accountability? Will they go on record and defend these people or avoid the controversy? Did they know about these practices? God forbid, they aided and abetted the activity? If not, will they assist in the investigations? 3.. Comment by Janis of Sierra Madre on 12/07 at 5:12 pm I guess that means John McCain will have an issue to run for president on. He can be the Jimmy Carter of the Republican party. Speaking of moral corruption of biblical proportions, I was just wondering when Ramsey Clark's call for the impeachment of President Bush for the high crime of starting a war of aggression will become as mainstream as it is logical. Maybe Senator McCain can lead the way on that too. Unfortunately, I doubt even the admired war hero wrapped in an American flag and kissing orphaned quintuplets can fake that much integrity. 4.. Comment by DachsieLady on 12/07 at 5:12 pm Keep on exposing this corruption and all these flim flam disgusting personages. Even more brazen was the effort of Abramoff and Scanlon to funnel millions of dollars through Reed (where did Reed put that money? How much for Cornyn's campaign for senate fund?) for a campaign to shut down the El Paso, Texas casino run by the Tigua tribe. After the casino was shut down, Abramoff and Scanlon induced the Tiguas to hire them to wage a campaign to allow the casino's reopening. Although the Tiguas paid out millions, however, this effort failed. Abramoff and Scanlon discussed their devious operations in language of unvarnished cynicism, as revealed in e-mail exchanges made public by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. In one memo to Abramoff, Scanlon wrote, referring to the Christian fundamentalists: "The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees. Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them." This could serve as a crude but nonetheless telling summary of the entire political strategy of the Bush administration: mobilize the "wackos" while keeping everyone else in the dark. This tired Texas Cherokee woman is praying that our government will totally melt down from the sheer weight of this gross pervasive corruption at all levels of government. We to start over again with a few honest men and the same unchanging, nonliving, nonevolving United States Constitution. *** http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/pau <lkrugman/index.html?inline=nyt-per> The Joyless Economy by PAUL KRUGMAN NY Times Op-Ed: December 5, 2005 Falling gasoline prices have led to some improvement in consumer confidence over the past few weeks. But the public remains deeply unhappy about the state of the economy. According to the latest Gallup poll, 63 percent of Americans rate the economy as only fair or poor, and by 58 to 36 percent people say economic conditions are getting worse, not better. Yet by some measures, the economy is doing reasonably well. In particular, gross domestic product is rising at a pretty fast clip. So why aren't people pleased with the economy's performance? Like everything these days, this is a political as well as factual question. The Bush administration seems genuinely puzzled that it isn't getting more credit for what it thinks is a booming economy. So let me be helpful here and explain what's going on. I could point out that the economic numbers, especially the job numbers, aren't as good as the Bush people imagine. President Bush made an appearance in the Rose Garden to hail the latest jobs report, yet a gain of 215,000 jobs would have been considered nothing special - in fact, a bit subpar - during the Clinton years. And because the average workweek shrank a bit, the total number of hours worked actually fell last month. But the main explanation for economic discontent is that it's hard to convince people that the economy is booming when they themselves have yet to see any benefits from the supposed boom. Over the last few years G.D.P. growth has been reasonably good, and corporate profits have soared. But that growth has failed to trickle down to most Americans. Back in August the Census bureau released family income data for 2004. The report, which was overshadowed by Hurricane Katrina, showed a remarkable disconnect between overall economic growth and the economic fortunes of most American families. It should have been a good year for American families: the economy grew 4.2 percent, its best performance since 1999. Yet most families actually lost economic ground. Real median household income - the income of households in the middle of the income distribution, adjusted for inflation - fell for the fifth year in a row. And one key source of economic insecurity got worse, as the number of Americans without health insurance continued to rise. We don't have comparable data for 2005 yet, but it's pretty clear that the results will be similar. G.D.P. growth has remained solid, but most families are probably losing ground as their earnings fail to keep up with inflation. Behind the disconnect between economic growth and family incomes lies the extremely lopsided nature of the economic recovery that officially began in late 2001. The growth in corporate profits has, as I said, been spectacular. Even after adjusting for inflation, profits have risen more than 50 percent since the last quarter of 2001. But real wage and salary income is up less than 7 percent. There are some wealthy Americans who derive a large share of their income from dividends and capital gains on stocks, and therefore benefit more or less directly from soaring profits. But these people constitute a small minority. For everyone else the sluggish growth in wages is the real story. And much of the wage and salary growth that did take place happened at the high end, in the form of rising payments to executives and other elite employees. Average hourly earnings of nonsupervisory workers, adjusted for inflation, are lower now than when the recovery began. So there you have it. Americans don't feel good about the economy because it hasn't been good for them. Never mind the G.D.P. numbers: most people are falling behind. It's much harder to explain why. The disconnect between G.D.P. growth and the economic fortunes of most American families can't be dismissed as a normal occurrence. Wages and median family income often lag behind profits in the early stages of an economic expansion, but not this far behind, and not for so long. Nor, I should say, is there any easy way to place more than a small fraction of the blame on Bush administration policies. At this point the joylessness of the economic expansion for most Americans is a mystery. What's clear, however, is that advisers who believe that Mr. Bush can repair his political standing by making speeches telling the public how well the economy is doing have misunderstood the situation. The problem isn't that people don't understand how good things are. It's that they know, from personal experience, that things really aren't that good. *** * Re: The Joyless Economy Krugman, like most economics writers, puts too much stock in GDP figures as a measurement of economic growth. Today's GDP is a bloated aggregate of mostly speculative paper transactions. That is why it is a poor measurement to use in explaining the average citizen's day-to-day perception of the economy. If you look back at the composition of GDP inputs from say the 1960's going forward, you will see that productive activity (i.e. the part of our economy that maintains and recreates the basic necessities of modern society like infrastructure, energy, mining and manufacturing) has been in steady decline as a percentage of GDP versus speculative activity. Productive activity is now less than five percent of GDP and still declining. The other ninety-five percent of GDP is comprised of stock and bond transactions, commodity futures, derivatives, corporate income from non-manufacturing sources such as real estate, credit cards and bank loans. None of these speculative activities contributes to putting a roof over our heads or bread on the table. Yes, bank loans facilitate the building of the roof and the operation of the bakery, but are useless without the wood and flour. Those physical items and the means to process and transport them are increasingly produced in other countries, transforming the U.S. into a nation of consumers and paper pushers. Some time ago there was an uproar over the comments of a prominent Japanese government official that were mistranslated by the news media as 'Americans are lazy.' What he really said was 'Americans no longer make money by the sweat of their brow.' He was merely pointing out that income streams from speculation and investment yields, i.e. putting money to work, had overtaken our traditional means of generating wealth through innovation and manufacturing. This emphasis of speculation over investment in the means of physical output has turned the economy into a giant casino. Like any casino, there are a few big winners and mostly losers. While some have gotten rich, the rest of us are coping with crumbling infrastructure and rising costs for the basic necessities of life while wages for the average worker are stagnant or falling relative to inflation. The speculative orgy is sucking dollars away from technology and infrastructure investments that would normally contribute to a constant improvement in the overall efficiency of our economy. That has made us less competitive in the global markets. Corporations, take GM for example, are increasingly dependent on income derived from financial activities. Those corporations still manufacturing things here have to rob the wages and benefits of their workforce to compete. The speculative boom is literally devouring the means of reproducing our society by denying us cheaper energy, transportation and other infrastructure that directly impacts the cost of producing goods. The way to fix this is by creating a two-tier credit system. Financial resources for energy, transportation, water and other infrastructure investments that contribute to lowering costs through improved efficiency must be made available for long terms and at low interest rates. Financial resources for speculative activity should be made available at market rates. Unless this occurs in the near future, we may be sitting on piles of cash in a country that has Third World levels of infrastructure, education and health care. Art Hoffmann Member, California Democratic Party State Central Committee To subscribe: http://lists.portside.org/mailman/listinfo/portside ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Help save the life of a child. 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