The second domino . . .

The second domino in the Abramoff investigation has fallen. The first was David Safavian, a senior procurement official for the military and a Bush appointee. Safavian was frog marched from his home on charges of bribery and conspiracy to defraud the government in awarding military contracts.

Today Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R CA) plead guilty to bribery and other charges and will face 10 years and $350,000 in fines. Cunningham sold his home in CA to a defense contractor who re-sold it at a $700,000 loss. He was also provided exclusive use of a million dollar yacht and received various gifts such as a Rolls Royce automobile and educations for his children. Cunningham sat on the House Defense Appropriations committee and was influential in awarding contracts without oversight.

Others under scrutiny include Rob Ney (R OH), House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R IL) and Tom Delay (R TX). Rumors are that between six and fifteen other high ranking Republicans may be implicated in the illegal activities by the Abramoff lobby.

Michael Scanlon, one of Abramoff's top associates, has been indicted on charges of bribes and illegal gifts to Republican congress people and is co-operating with the prosecutor. It is that co-operation which brought down both Safavian and Cunningham.

What most people don't know is that Abramoff was under a grand jury investigation more than two years ago in Guam, an American Protectorate. Fredrick Black, the prosecutor, was appointed by Bush Sr in 1991 and is a career prosecutor. President Bush Jr. demoted Black and replaced him early in the investigation.

His replacement, Leonardo Rapadas, was confirmed in May 2003 without any debate. Rapadas had been recommended for the job by the Guam Republican Party. Fred Radewagen, a lobbyist, said he carried that recommendation to top Bush aide Karl Rove in early 2003. The investigation ended days after Black's replacement.

Add this to the Plame investigation which has resulted in the indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libbey and has Karl Rove under a cloud of suspicion and Bill Frist's (R TN) SEC investigation into possible insider trading and the Republican hierarchy may be decimated before the 2006 elections.

All this from the party that was going to return integrity and honesty to Washington . . .

is that these bozos can't run for office any more.

Stealing and cheating the public are fine, because the damned public should be self relient and not dependent on the government. Frankly these people are doing a heroic thing by stealing money the government doesn't need anyway!

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

rest of us . . .

:puke:

down. Sadly, it will unravel more slowly and even touch some Dems, but I believe it will eventually hit the administration (via the Dept. of Interior) like a torpedo.

Without subpoena power in the Congress the only tool for truth we have is the grand jury and as my post points out even that can be subverted if caught early enough.

2 years ago by another investigator and then the investigation was stopped in a round about way by the Bush/shrub WH - interesting - very interesting. Just how far deep does the Abramoff scandal reach into the WH? How much power did/does Texas man Delay really have/had?

Popcorn ready and reporting for duty:popcorn:

can you say "culture of corruption"?

11years- the Republicans have done way more than the Democrats 40 year rule in Congress to give public service a black eye

Thinking back wasn't it just Rostenkowski- and a few others that wrote overdrafts at the House bank?

I believe we are entering a true reform age; if only we could trust the vote counting process

Have you read the reports about the GAO study of Ohio voting irregularities? The GAO looked into the black box voting and found that many of the machines were easily hacked, had no back up of votes, lost votes and in some cases the software was so bad it could randomly switch votes while showing a different result to the voter.

No mention in the MSM. I've got the 107 page .pdf report down loaded from the GAO.gov site if anyone wants it.

This morning, just heard this news on NPR with a sound byte of Bev Harris of all people. Is NPR considered mainstream media? I think it may be a foothold for a real airing of this fundamental issue. Actually, I'm encouraged by it.

... the GOP presidential nominee in 2008 will be narrowed down to the Last Republican Standing.

Watch out, folks - the GOP may start making noise about changing the rules, so that a Republican can run for office AS LONG AS HE'S BEEN INDICTED LESS THAN FIVE TIMES.

It may be the only way they can get anyone on a ticket, anywhere.

BETCHA he is workin his deal hard.