"Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to RussiaGate?"

Thanks Txindy

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20060104/to_russia_love_tom_delay.php

<snip>
The figures that really matter in this story are bigger fish—among them DeLay, the architect and de facto leader of the corporate takeover of Congress under cover of a social revolution.

That’s why the Post story should be one of the biggest stories of the new year, even if it got lost on the last day of the old one. It needed to be published on another day, and it needed to be told differently. So, here’s a stab at capturing what I see as most important about it.Once in a very long time, a scandal comes along that seems to capture the essence of our times. I’d say that scandal appeared on Saturday, when most of us were too busy getting out the honkers and the booze to notice.

Here’s the crux: Was the Republican leader Tom DeLay working on behalf of Russians against the American public interest—and being compensated for it?
<snip>
That’s a pretty strong accusation, but unless I read my Washington Post wrong, that is exactly what was alleged in a front page story that appeared on Saturday, the last day of 2005, and therefore may escape proper notice. The article is even easier to miss because of the mundane “more of the same” headline above it: " The DeLay-Abramoff Money Trail : Nonprofit Group Linked to Lawmaker Was Funded Mostly by Clients of Lobbyist."

Now that would be something to perk up the knuckle-draggers' ears .... DeLay working for the Russkies ?

:wow:

Wow. Wow. Wow. and Wow. :wow: This is a must read.

scream at the Lugar connection

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/newmemberbio.cgi?member=INSR&site=ctc

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/12/31delay.html

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/12/31delay.html

Whatever the source of the $1 million — a sum not prohibited by law but extraordinary for a small nonprofit group — the steady stream of corporate payments on the group's donor list makes it clear that Abramoff's long-standing alliance with DeLay was sealed by a more extensive web of financial ties than was previously known.

Two former associates of Edwin Buckham, DeLay's former chief of staff and the organizer of the U.S. Family Network, said Buckham told them that the $1 million came from Russian oil and gas executives. Abramoff had been working closely with two such Russian energy executives on their Washington agenda, and the lobbyist and Buckham had helped organize a 1997 Moscow visit by DeLay

****I'd like to know who those Russian oil interests were considering the following article. I have no idea if this is connected, but it is interesting that the US said not a word about this. Hmmmm...

http://www.slate.com/id/2090745/
Putin's Next Power Play
Jailing billionaires is just the beginning; he wants to be Russia's president-for-life.
By Kim Iskyan
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2003, at 6:42 PM ET

Putin's latest show of strength started back in July, when the top associate of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the CEO and principal shareholder of Yukos Oil Co., now the fourth-largest oil producer in the world, was thrown in jail on charges of fraud relating to a 1994 privatization. A little later, Yukos and some of its employees were charged with bribery, murder, and corruption. On Oct. 25, Khodorkovsky himself was arrested and charged with stealing from the state, tax fraud, and several other transgressions. (See the Oct. 28 "International Papers" column for press reactions to the arrest.) Five days later, the Russian government took the extraordinary step of seizing a 44-percent stake in Yukos, and soon thereafter Khodorkovsky resigned as chief executive of the company.

Khodorkovsky is part of a small group of well-connected Russian businessmen who became absurdly wealthy in the country's privatization process in the mid-'90s, through shenanigans that make events at Enron and WorldCom look like playtime in the park. Any of these oligarchs could have been singled out by Putin for punishment, but Khodorkovsky pasted a "Kick Me" sign on his back earlier this year when he began to support opposition parties and didn't dispute rumors that he might someday run for president. Political aspirations aren't usually an imprisonable offense, but Khodorkovsky was violating a deal that Putin made with the oligarchs early in his term, under which the president said he would ignore the methods by which the oligarchs amassed their wealth—as long as they stayed out of politics.

snip
The international community—with the United States as ostrich-in-chief—has responded to Putin's excesses of the past few years with deafening silence, punctuated only by an occasional petite peep of protest. Russia's cooperation with the American war on terror ensured that Putin would enjoy carte blanche to do pretty much whatever he pleased on his home turf. So it's not surprising that the U.S. State Department did little more than wonder aloud whether the arrest was politically motivated. Russia's response had a swatting-flies-with-a-sledgehammer ring to it, decrying American criticism as "tactless and disrespectful."

"There's really no doubt at all that the attack on Khodorkovsky is motivated by politics," said Alexander Bim, a political analyst at IMAGE-Contact Consulting Group in Moscow—a claim strengthened by the resignation of Putin's chief of staff, apparently in protest of the jailing of Khodorkovsky. Meanwhile, Putin's attempts to reassure investors in Russia that a broader nationalization of assets controlled by the oligarchs is not in the cards have a ring of desperation to them, since his government has lost much of its economic policy credibility at this point.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=4199

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=3679

This link was also posted before
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=183076

I can't believe that I missed this whole thing. I have a lot of homework to do now. :hi:

This really could be the big one.

A good word with which to begin using the repeat, repeat, repeat method.

I knew he was corrupt but good lord.

I swear, this part of our US History is getting more unbelievable and outrageous by the moment....What was it again that was done to the Rosenbergs who were found guilty of spying for the Soviet Union on the US?

Frankly, I think this is worse....The Rosenbergs atleast did it for ideology....Tom Delay and these sons of bitches did it for MONEY!!!!

:grr:

Wow, what a article. I still can't wrap my head around it.

TomPaine sends me stuff every day. Thanks anyway although we did touch on this over the weekend particularly re Geeslin and Lugar.

getting oil out of Russia to help them so they can help us. Very interesting indeed.

Everyone needs to see this.

This is so important.

Recommend it at the bottom of the original post.

home page. Nominated! :hi:

Our collapse as a superpower is nearly complete.

Now all we have to do is invade Iran. And the right wing is frothing at the mouth about this?

Of course they are! How do you think those Russians got all that money when the Soviet Union collapsed?

According to this article Rep Taylor (friend of Delay and recipient of Abramoff donation) travels back and forth to Russia at taxpayer expense. He has extensive dealings with Russia and even bought a bank there. He has been criticized in the past for nonpayment of back property taxes in N.C. and having knowledge of bad loans to cronies in his N.C. bank, but so far he has managed to avoid investigation over his questionable activities.

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:W7arYeXdhsAJ:www.ncdp.org/node/832++Charles+Taylor+Russia&hl=en&client=firefox-a

step permanently.

I remember Randi telling about them two.

...the arrogance of this bunch of crooks is stunning.

front-page!

at this particular time doesn't it??

Just to remind everyone..

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31488

snip

In September, Bush visited Latvia with Boris Berezovsky, described by The Washington Post as "a fugitive Russian tycoon who made millions in the violent scramble for control of Russian government assets after the fall of communism".

Bush and Berezovsky, who currently lives in London where he has received political asylum, were toodling around the former Soviet republics to promote Ignite! Learning, the Texas-based interactive education software company Bush founded in 1999.

Berezovsky took Bush "on a tour of countries from the former Soviet Union that have spun out of Moscow's sphere of influence", the St. Petersburg Times reported. In June, it was Ukraine, then Georgia, "where Berezovsky's longtime partner and Tbilisi power broker Badri Patarkatsishvili was on hand to wine and dine the U.S. president's brother".

The Russian newspaper also pointed out that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow had disavowed any knowledge of Bush's activities, while the State Department denied any "involvement in, or any role in arranging, the activities of these two private individuals in Riga".

Down memory lane
http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=142
<snip>
Alongside the R.M.I.C., DeLay is also channeling soft money from the N.R.C.C. to other shadow organizations. Last fall, according to Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, the N.R.C.C. gave $500,000 to an obscure group called the U.S. Family Network--a donation engineered by Ed Buckham, who has close ties to the Network, and by Daniel Mattoon, the BellSouth lobbyist who quit his job to work for the N.R.C.C.. The purpose of the $500,000, Mattoon told Roll Call, is to help the Network turn out conservative Christian voters on election day. Buckham, a Washington political consultant, also helped DeLay establish the R.M.I.C. So close are the links within this network that Buckham's offices, the Family Network, and DeLay's ARMPAC are all headquartered in the same Capitol Hill building. And Jim Ellis, who runs ARMPAC, also works for another group called Americans for Economic Growth, which last year began running commercials against House Democrats, using money from undisclosed sources.

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to know this -- it should be front page news across the nation.

The Republican culture of corruption sells out to the highest bidder -- even foriegn nations.

Treason, I tell you. Treason.

They represent a new sovereignty - a global elite that does bidness with each other and see nations as assets to be exploited. Free market my ass. The Contract on America sold the ignorant, Joe Sixpack Republicans out big time. They exploited their churches. Will they ever figure it out?

snip>
Tom DeLay and his cronies appear to have been accepting what amounted to bribes from Russians with connections to the Yeltsin-Putin regimes who wanted U.S. taxpayer monies to keep flowing to benefit them. They laundered the money, and, worse, did it through a nonprofit organization, which, in turn, claimed to be established to fight the decline in moral standards in America. Even more appalling, while this phony charity was doing this mercenary work, it was hitting up naïve members of DeLay’s political base for contributions.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Shawn_Vasell

Looks like they all were connected to Florida 2000
http://rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/abramoff_florida_recount_bush_505.htm

Of course, I knew these guys were scum, but they've SO exceeded my expectations.

Thanks for posting!

:kick: