More on Mr. Jack.

*update below*

The current issue of Rolling Stone has a great article on Abramoff.

It's "one sided", of course, but it crystalizes both the shenanigans with him and what is going on in congress very well.

For those of us that have been reading things OTHER than the corporate media about his follies, most of this is not news, but it's good to see it all in one place.

One thing left out that is close to my heart as a bleeding heart Union supporter and as someone that believes in fair wages and working conditions, is the role he played in keeping fat and happy the sweatshops in the Marianas.

His clients there in the Northern Marianas (US Territories) used him to lobby congress so they could continue their terrible working conditions and wages, keeping them exempt from minimum wage and other laws. Note, you could very well have bought something that was supposed to be "Made in the USA", thus expecting not only that your money was staying in the US, but that people were not treated like slaves. I don't have a problem doing business with other countries, but I don't want to support slave labor, either.

See here and here and then do some googling of your own.

Imagine doing that. Imagine that you take money in an attempt to make it so working people have less.
What the fuck kind of sick fucking world is this where someone would do that??

On a side note, here is a place right in the good old USA that makes ALL it's clothes here in CA (downtown LA, as a matter of fact) and pays LIVING wages and sells things to you for the same price as similar items at places like the Gap or Old Navy and what-have-you.

In the Rolling Stone article, the author kind of sums up a lot of the shams this way:

If you follow the loop all the way around, the quid pro quo probably involved DeLay's 1998 decision to support an IMF loan to Russia, whose economy collapsed that year and would rely on an IMF bailout to survive. A Maryland pastor named Christopher Geeslin, who briefly served as the U.S. Family Network's president, would later say that Buckham told him that the $1 million from the Russians was intended to influence DeLay's decision regarding funding for the IMF. DeLay ended up voting to replenish IMF funds in September of that year, right at the time of the bailout.

Is this smart? Sure, if you're fucking ten years old. If your idea of smart is turning an IMF loan into Redskins tickets, then, yeah, this is smart. But another way to look at it is that these assholes got themselves Redskins tickets by giving $18 billion to one of the most corrupt governments on Earth. I'd call that buying at a premium.

No shit.
And in a way, that's what a lot of this shit is about.
Laundering money from one group to another so they can whoop it up on someone else's dime, no MATTER the level of slease involved.

One more outtake, this one funny:

That whole adolescent vibe permeates the confiscated Abramoff e-mails, the best example of which being this exchange between Jack and his "evil elf" aide Michael Scanlon regarding their lobbying fees for the Coushatta Indian tribe:

Scanlon: Coushatta is an absolute cake walk. Your cut on the project as proposed is at least 800k.

Abramoff: How can I say this strongly enough: YOU IZ DA MAN

What a couple of assholes.

Jesus.

*Update of more Jack news.*

Former Delay Aide Pleads Guilty (who's now a "lobbyist", of course)

Gee, who would imagine.

What, oh what kind of shenanigans was THIS guy up to in taking money from Abramoff?
Let's see:

_Working to get federal money for the Northern Mariana Islands, which both Abramoff and Buckham wanted.

_Getting DeLay to oppose a postal rate increase that was opposed by magazine publishers who were represented by Abramoff.

_Persuading DeLay and other leading Republicans to defeat legislation that would have restricted Internet gambling.

Later, while working as a lobbyist, Rudy also was involved in arranging a golf trip to Scotland for Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record), an Ohio Republican described as Representative 1, and congressional staffers, the court papers said. He also helped attract $50,000 from two Abramoff clients to Abramoff's Capital Athletic Foundation that eventually was used to pay for the Scotland trip.

And just what is the "Capital Athletic Foundation"? A "charity". Sure.
Whoops, maybe not, says the Washington Post a while back.

Christ, could these assholes GET more dirty??