Welcome to the new year and a contrast in lives, values and value. I met Frank in 1975 when he joined the New American Movement, a non-sectarian, socialist organization coming out of some of the best of the 1960s. Initially concerned about the trio of Ben Dobbs, Dorothy Healy and Frank Wilkinson - experienced, indeed famous organizers who just quit the Communist Party - I maintained the jaundiced eye but found myself admiring, working comfortably with and genuinely liking all of them. Ben died years ago and Dorothy moved to Washington DC, but Frank remained here and continued his important work, as described in the fine NY Times obit, attached. I ran into his wife, Donna, a couple of weeks ago, learned that Frank, literally a lion of a man, had been ill. I hope you click on the picture of Frank, taken two years ago. It displays his character and offers a palliative to the putrid subject below. Incredibly, today's now-idiot, denuded LA Times carried no obit.
Ed http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/010406_abramoff_file/ Jack Abramoff's "Cesspool of Corruption" By Robert Scheer Top Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff is set to sing, and his long list of former buddies in Congress and the Bush Administration are quaking in anticipation of possible indictments stemming from the consummate Beltway hustler's crass reign as the king of K Street. "Casino Jack," a former head of the College Republicans and a "Pioneer"-grade fundraiser for the Bush 2000 campaign, pleaded guilty to three felony counts of conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion in D.C. yesterday and is set to appear in Florida today to plead guilty to fraud and conspiracy on separate charges. Abramoff and other defendants also must repay over $25 million to defrauded clients and $1.7 million to the IRS. But most important for the nation is that Abramoff is now detailing the massive web of corruption he spun inside the Beltway which has already snared a top Bush official, procurement chief David H. Safavian, on charges of lying and obstructing a criminal investigation, and reportedly threatens dozens of other D.C. players. "When this is all over, this will be bigger than any [government scandal] in the last 50 years, both in the amount of people involved and the breadth to it," Stan Brand, a former U.S. House counsel who specializes in representing public officials accused of wrongdoing, told Bloomberg News. "It will include high-ranking members of Congress and executive branch officials." Some of the Wild West feel of this Beltway corruption was captured in Saturday's Washington Post expose, "The DeLay-Abramoff Money Trail." It documents in chilling detail how, among other scams, Abramoff funneled a portion of the millions he had been skimming from Indian casino operators with a cool million from two Russian energy moguls through a shell organization called the U.S. Family Network-and from there into the coffers of politicians in a position to help his clients. Ironically touting its commitment to "moral fitness" for the nation, the front group with the multi-million dollar budget had a single staff member housed in the backroom of a capital townhouse it owned and rented out to other organizations linked to Abramoff and Tom DeLay--the latter's staffers called it, ominously, DeLay's "safe house." This is apparently why DeLay felt the need to tout the U.S. Family Network in a 1999 fundraising letter as "a powerful nationwide organization dedicated to restoring our government to citizen control." It was run by Edwin A. Buckham, DeLay's former chief of staff, whose lobbying firm, the Alexander Strategy Group, carried Delay's wife Christine on its payroll. But the moral "fitness" of such cronyism pales in comparison to the scandal of how Abramoff drummed up support for his varied clients under the cover of conservative morality. For example, in order to block the ambitions of a rival tribe to the Choctaw Indians who had paid Abramoff millions, the U.S. Family Network sent a mailing to Alabama residents warning shrilly that, "The American family is under attack from all sides: crime, drugs, pornography, and one of the least talked about but equally as destructive - gambling. We need your help today to prevent the Poarch Creek Indians from building casinos in Alabama." The letter conveniently failed to mention, however, that the U.S. Family Network had received at least $250,000 from the gambling proceeds of the Choctaws. In another scam detailed in the Post story (which could be quickly optioned by Hollywood for a thriller), players in the mafia-dominated Russian energy industry slid a cool $1 million payment through a now-defunct London law firm into the U.S. Family Network's account - which was, de facto, a slush fund for the Abramoff-DeLay network. Citing the Rev. Christopher Geeslin, who served as a titular leader of the U.S. Family Network, the Post reported that Buckham told the reverend the payment was intended to secure Delay's support on legislation forcing the International Monetary Fund to bail out the faltering Russian economy without demanding the country raise taxes on its energy and other profitable industries. Right on cue, DeLay found his way onto Fox News Sunday to take up the Russian's viewpoint: "They are trying to force Russia to raise taxes at a time when they ought to be cutting taxes in order to get a loan from the IMF," he said. "That's just outrageous." The IMF backed down. This is just an initial peek into the sordid world being revealed by Abramoff and two of his key cronies now spilling the beans to federal investigators. But in the bigger picture, what we are witnessing is the death throes of the GOP "revolution" which once promised to restore morality to Washington but instead sank far deeper into the cesspool of corruption. "It's the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, not Iraq, that will unravel the Bush empire." Mr. Abramoff Goes to Washington The White House has tried hard to distance itself from Mr. Abramoff in the wake of the allegations against him. White House spokeswoman Erin Healy told the Associated Press in May that Bush did not consider Abramoff a friend. "They may have met on occasion, but the president does not know him," she said. That may be, but, as the AP reported, Mr. Abramoff's cultivation of Mr. Bush dates as far back as 1997, when the lobbyist secured the then Texas Governor's support for an issue related to the Marianas islands. Mr. Abramoff was also a $100,000-plus fundraiser (a so-called "Pioneer) for Mr. Bush, and the AP noted that Mr. Abramoff and his lobbying team logged "nearly 200 contacts with the new administration." According to the AP, those contacts included: a.. Cheney policy advisers Ron Christie and Stephen Ruhlen b.. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft c.. White House intergovernmental affairs chief Ruben Barrales d.. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick e.. Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles In addition, at least two people who worked for Abramoff "wound up with Bush administration jobs: Patrick Pizzella, named an assistant secretary of labor by Bush; and David Safavian, chosen by Bush to oversee federal procurement policy in the Office of Management and Budget." *** http://select.nytimes.com/2006/01/04/opinion/04dowd.html?th&emc=th By MAUREEN DOWD NY Times Op-Ed: January 4, 2006 The sight of Jack Abramoff striding out of federal court here yesterday, looking like a stocky gangster from a 40's movie in black fedora and trench coat, may seem like the strongest evidence so far of how graft and hubris have overwhelmed the capital. It could have been a scene from "The Godfather," a favorite film of the felonious lobbyist. The Washington Post reported that he "did business with people linked to the underworld," bilked Indian tribes of tens of millions and then lavished a bundle in tribal gambling profits on greedy members of Congress. The Post said Mr. Abramoff loved to amuse colleagues by imitating Michael Corleone as he rejected a corrupt politician's demand for a share of Mafia gambling money: "Senator, you can have my answer now if you like. My offer is this: nothing." But just because this is a scale of amorality and blatant sale of government that astonishes even Washington cynics, why look on the dark side? The Abramoff plea bargain may have left his former business partners and political pals panicking, wondering if the rat will rat them out. The Republican congressmen Tom DeLay and Bob Ney are among the sleazy solons caught up in the scandal, and the House speaker, Dennis Hastert, scrambled yesterday to launder $69,000 in dirty Abramoff contributions, donating the wad to charity. And then there's Ralph Reed, the choirboy Bible thumper who used his links to Christian groups to immorally play Indian tribes off against each other. But looking at the big picture, in some ways the imperial presidency is working out quite well for everyone. Think about it: all those congressmen don't really need to do their jobs anymore. With the president able to make war more or less as he chooses, treat the enemy as he sees fit and snoop on Americans at will, our representatives have more time for the duty many are clearly best suited to: playing golf gratis in Scotland. (Remember how the White House press used to give poor Bill Clinton such a hard time about mere mulligans?) Now that Dick Cheney has freed Congress from the bother of advising and/or consenting, lawmakers can work on new ways to game the system and wallow in the G.O.P.'s culture of corruption - while tut-tutting about the decline in American moral values. Since the Republican-run Capitol doesn't have to worry about holding the Bush White House accountable for excesses in torture and spying and the other myriad ways it has placed itself above the law, congressmen have more leisure hours for Abramoff successors to treat them to some Redskins games and steak dinners. Checks and balances are now as quaint as the Geneva Conventions. Congress is complicit in putting its thumb on the scale for the executive branch. The Post reported that W. had taken advantage of an innovation started years ago by Samuel Alito Jr. to shore up executive privilege. As a young Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, Mr. Alito created a strategy that has the president declare what laws mean when he signs them. Mr. Alito wanted the courts to focus as much on the president's interpretation of a law as on what he called "legislative intent." W. has issued at least 108 such statements, The Post said, rejecting "provisions in bills that the White House regarded as interfering with its powers in national security, intelligence policy and law enforcement." And since the imperial presidency is run by the vice president, W. has a lot of free time to do the things he likes to do. Confined with his wife and mother-in-law at the Crawford ranch, he spent his Christmas vacation mountain-biking and clearing brush. He left the ranch for a brief visit at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where he kidded in a way that again showed his jarring lack of empathy with the amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan: "As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself - not here at the hospital, but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won. The cedar gave me a little scratch. As a matter of fact, the colonel asked if I needed first aid when she first saw me. I was able to avoid any major surgical operations here, but thanks for your compassion, colonel." W. also used the occasion to defend the Nixonian eavesdropping program that even made John Ashcroft and his deputy, James Comey, skittish. As The Times reported, Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales had to make an emergency trip to see the reluctant Mr. Ashcroft in the hospital in March 2004 to get the program recertified because Mr. Comey had balked. You know you're in trouble when John Ashcroft is worried about overreaching. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Clean water saves lives. 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