I swear, the universe must have rocked off of its axis on Wednesday because the freaking Democrats stayed on message. No doubt Joe Lieberman (on FOX, CNN, and MSNBC) will come out tomorrow and tell us that Jack Abramoff is a good man who’s just been misunderstood.
Democrats Unveil Lobbying Curbs
Congressional Democrats yesterday laid out a plan to change what they called a GOP “culture of corruption” in Washington, even as Republicans pointed to ethics lapses on their antagonists’ side of the aisle.
Democrats Unveil Their Own Plan for Rules on Lobbying
“Today we as Democrats are declaring our commitment to change – change to a government as good and as honest as the people that we serve,” said Senator Harry Reid of the Nevada, the Democratic leader, who compared Republicans to organized crime figures he battled as a state gaming official.
US Democratic party targets graft
The Democrat party in the US has launched a scathing attack on what it calls a culture of corruption created by the country’s Republican Party.
None of these idiots are going to shut down the gravy train, republican or democrat. Its like recruiting in college football, they all cheat. Its just a question of who gets caught this year. This “Honest Leadership” strategey is a great piece of political propaganda, though. That first picture is just classic.
The GOP can stay on message, too. Conrad Burns is having a big lobbyist party to celebrate his 71st birthday at the Abramoff-loving firm of Cassidy and Associates. The message? We can talk the talk, and take the take.
I might also ask why, if this is such an oppressive totalitarian-like message board, you keep trolling around here listening to the sound of your own voice? Or did I answer my own question?
You’ve just proven yourself a coward, Oliver.
TOO FUNNY NAWOODS! (that first picture.)
Schumer, Durbin Reid, Pelosi and Obama?
I should think that four out of those five should let the only one who isn’t tainted do all the talking.
Farris, you are owed nothing. Or did I forget how you pay for the upkeep of this site?
Leroy, they post here because they cannot post on Con blogs. Con blogs don’t accept comments for the most part.
No Democrats took any money from Abramoff. Not a nickel. Nada. Nothing.
Wow Oliver- Deleting comments again?
And yet your comments are still here. Interesting.
Remember paranoia can be treated with the proper medication. Because we aren’t out to get you. And that’s because we couldn’t care less.
Now let’s see you try and backtrack and say it was a mistake.
Leroy; You catch on quick.
Now THAT’s funny.
You are doomed to get edited if you mention Media Matters, Soros and OW’s toady’ing up to the democrats in hopes of a comfy federal job some day….
Mine aren’t.
Oliver, I at least am owed an explanation.
According to Technorati, the top three Con blogs are Instapundit, Malkin, and Powerline. None allow comments. Neither does the Corner. LGF does allow comments, but is incredibly quick to ban. And again, Abramoff gave no money to Democrats. When you claim otherwise, you are simply lying.
Marty,
Its just too funny to see OW (and his peanut gallery) complain about republican propaganda and then post pictures like these, or the one of “Saint Obama the Honest” a few posts down.
Abramoff gave no money to Democrats. It looks like you’re the one that needs some facts.
Tomy, LGF (Little Green Fascists) allows comments, but hasn’t allowed new registrations for quite some time to my knowledge.
Red state.org is the only major con blog that I am familiar with that allows comments and new registrants. To add, if I was posting there with the same type of ad hominem insults that the trolls here use, I would be banned.
What I was referring to was the fact that if OW was the fascist dictator you seem to think he is, ALL of your comments would be gone and you would be banned.
Unless you claim to have some sort of pyschic power that lets you know why your comments are missing and that OW deleted them to spite the evil conservatives, I say let him have a chance to explain before you trash him. Or anyone else.
Back on the subject, isn’t it the conservatives who complain about moral relativity? You know, the idea that bad is not always bad? In this case, you seem to be saying that taking money is bad, but you did it too, so its less bad.
Kinda like how quotas should only work for conservative university professors but not minority university students.
All right, let the flaming commence!
The idea that ANY Washington politician – Dem or Rep – is truly “honest” is the most laughable idea I’ve ever heard of.
The fact that it’s a bunch of Dems standing up there – the party of dead people voting, Jim Wright, buddist monks, fund-raising coffees, Sandy Burglar, missile secrets sold to China, and so on and so forth – makes it even funnier.
This site really has become a theatre of the absurd. Congrats OW!
” WE ARE THE BORG, YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIMILATED. FURTHER CORTICAL FUNCTIONING HAS BEEN SHUT DOWN. STAND STILL AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE MOTHERSHIP…..”
roflmao
If don’t have any good ideas and you can’t be FOR something, then you might as well try to be AGAISNT something…
Abramoff gave no money to Democrats. There is zero proof that he “directed” any donations to Democrats, nor is there proof that the Democrats knew Abramoff or that he directed these contributions.
But of course you didn’t believe the Post anyway because they are the “liberal media” right?
Naaa OW can wipe the memory hole clean anytime he wants…I mean he is paying for the electrons.
The funny thing is, it is sort of like all these rights that we keep being told we are losing.
We haven’t rounding up one lefty democrat and shipped them off to Gitmo yet! I mean heck, if I am on the winning side and we are stomping on all these peoples rights, the least I can look forward to is teddy kennedy in leg irons sweating in the caribbean sun right?
Or maybe, we AREN’T stomping on the Constitution?
Abramoff gave no money to Democrats. Stop trying to change the subject, you’re talking apples and oranges. No proof or precedent indicates that Abramoff gave money to Democrats or directed money to Democrats.
Stop lying.
Right, and a BJ isn’t sex……the American people can, and do see right through that argument. And more importantly, are tired of the lawyer-like discussions and parsing of words.
Everybody just keep your powder dry, and lets see what the courts turn up shall we? The leftocrats would do well to follow this advice as well, cause you may end up with egg on your face like the plame episode (where IS that frog-marching Rove anyway..?)
WaPo:
Care to revise & extend your remarks?
Indian tribes were donating money to the political process, as is their right, for years before they ever were fleeced by Jack Abramoff. Their own relationships with Democratic legislators guided their contributions.
The Indian tribes are just more victims of Abramoff and Republican corruption.
Abramoff gave no money to Democrats. There is zero proof that he directed any donations to Democrats, nor is there proof that the Democrats knew Abramoff or that he directed these contributions.
So all these Dems saying they won’t give the money back… How did they get the money in the first place if Abramoff never “gave or directed” it? Did it just magically appear like a Cattle Future?!?
Paul, see my above comments regarding the constanting repeating of the deaniac talking points.
Americans are smarter than that….
A question for all the “Abramoff gave no money to Democrat” folks:
Weren’t you the same ones that were saying, months earlier, that Bush & Rove were behind the Swift Boat vets? In that case, the “connection” was much more tenuous. Given that precedent, I say it’s more than fair to say Abramoff was directing contributions to Dems.
Paul, see my above comments regarding the constanting repeating of the deaniac talking points.
You misspelled “truth”.
Leroy, et. al. Just an FYI- Oliver deleted comments made earlier in the day BEFORE Zambo or I mentioned it. Comments on the hypocracy of the Democrats little (and rulebreaking) photo-op at the Library of Congress yesterday.
Oliver can defend himself if he chooses, although I’m sure that he has a good, honest explanation for it. Or something like that.
And to answer your question, Leroy?
Comedy. That’s why I come here lately.
I used to read this site because Oliver was a fairly thoughtful writer who, while I didn’t agree with him often, I could count on to at least try to give a reasonable answer to the question of the day. At one time he would actually try to explore and research and even question his own reasoning at times.
Nowadays, he is just a parody of the ultimate demogogue from the left (although every once in a while….)
It’s a funny read and good entertainment to watch him struggle with answers to very valid questions and disagreements with what he posts. When he has not answers (as he didn’t this morning) he just deletes the arguments that make Democrats look foolish.
But he is a GENIUS with the talking points. Sometimes that alone is worth the read.
OpenSecrets.org disagrees.
DrDoper is mad that no one is buying his talking points.
Ahh, yes, the party of “honesty” (heh heh) apparently didn’t notice this:
“Library of Congress facilities are not available for:
Events of a primarily personal, political or fund-raising nature;”
Oops.
Careful, Private Pyle. Posting that information will get your comment deleted!!
You mean I can sell these things!
Damn I love america!
Where did all the trolls come from?
Frank, Peedy; are you recruiting again?
Opensecrets.org doesn’t disagree in the least. It simply lists the amounts of contributions from Indian groups to Republicans and Democrats. There is nothing on the site or anywhere for that matter that suggests that these contributions from the Native American groups were illegal. Perhaps someone here can explain WHY these campaign contributions are illegal. I don’t expect to hear an answer mind you, but with all the right wing finger pointing done here and elsewhere I would have at least expected that SOMEONE could and would be able to explain why the mere fact that an Indian tribe gave a campaign contribution automatically makes it illegal.
Of course we DO improve his stats, and he IS making taking some shekels from that ad revenue right?
Sorry Leo, I know you hate to have your echo chamber silence broken by facts and alternative opinions, life’s a bitch…….
But Ollie can ban us at anytime, we are spending his electrons you know…
No Peedy.
I actually relish the presence of you mental giants.
An echo chanber is really quite boring. That must be why
neocornhole sites so jealously guard their groupthink. That
gene pool makes a virtue of their lack of verve and originality.
Stewing in their own juices is haute cuisine to their tastebuds.
DaveM;
It is not complicated to explain, just difficult to prove in court.
Basically any donation, perk or contribution is illegal if it is tied
to specific acts on the part of the donee. There has to be a
Quid Pro Quo, or tit-for-tat.
Semantic – I understand why a contribution might be illegal and the vageries of burden of proof in court (I was a practising criminal defense attorney for 25 years) I was wondering if any of the right wing types who troll here could explain why the contributions they trumpet as showing democrat complicity in the Abramoff scandal were in fact, illegal.
DaveM.
If you were a defense atty for 25 yrs I don’t have to tell you about
evasion. You will need the patience of Job.
Like I said in my original post – I don’t expect to hear an answer.
I think Mr Ed allows comments, but there are not many other con blogs that have them. Free Republic will purge comments that are not in keeping with their echo chamber circle jerk sessions. I have been through 3 different screen names as a Freeper, each time keeping it polite and middle of the road, but sooner or later they wind up shutting me down for having opposing views. When they purge you they will root out your every comment, going back several months to do so. It’s a different approach from the more progressive blogs.
Noone knows whether the money given to Democrats is illegal. All the more reason to have an investigation! (as libs would say)
Anyway, the point of bringing up OpenSecrets.org was to specifically refute Factcheck, who keeps trying to sell Dean’s line that “Democrats took no money.” The data says that is 100% false.
Hey dave, when you were a defense attorney did you demand that people were treated as innocent until proven guilty?
Good, just do the same thing with this Abramoff thing and we will all be in agreement. So far no republican legislatures convicted, no democrats convicted. The score is even…….
We can start counting when the convictions come in, eh?
Free Republic actually goes back and deletes all your comments from months ago when you’re removed? Wow, that’s Orwellian. Aren’t you now an unperson?
“What happened to Buma?”
“Who is Buma?”
“I don’t know, he used to post here”
“No Buma ever posted here”
“I could swear—–”
“It must have been your imagination”
Democrats are going to regret putting all their eggs in the corruption basket.
Oliver, isn’t this what you would call a photo op?
A point that I believe was mentioned elsewhere (TPM) was to compare the Tribes contributions before and after Abramoff.
The examples cited showed that, at best, the D’s contributions remained level while contributions to the r’s went up dramatically.
This would speak against this being a “bipartisan” scandal.
http://www.capitaleye.org/abramoff_donor.asp
And your link proves it! No money from Abramoff. Zilch. Nada.
Let me clarify- Indian tribe money is under investigation, but only in connection with Abramoff. Indian tribe money is not inherently dirty, as is Abramoff money.
Democrats took no money from Abramoff. They did take money from Indian Tribes, which is not illegal or under investigation. Learn how to read, save chickenhawk.
dr.p. I for one haven’t taken a position as to who will be indicted or found guilty in the Abramoff scandal (except Abramoff himself who has copped a plea and will be naming names in return. If I were a betting man I would say on the basis of all the evidence presented thus far and the reasonable inferences that can be made therefrom, that the vast majority will be republicans). My real point is to date there has been nothing presented, especially by you or other conservatives here to suggest that any democrat has been involved in taking any illegal bribe or illegal contribution. Merely “taking money”, i.e., a campaign contribution is not illegal. The assertions being made to the contrary that also single out and name individual democrats are simply dishonest. As I said earlier I don’t expect an answer to my query. I still haven’t received one.
Looks like factcheck & Dean are going to need new talking points.
The Washington Post has copies of lists sent to tribes by Abramoff with specific directions on what members of Congress were to receive specific amounts.
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/washpostblog/2006/01/deborah_howell_.html
That still doesn’t answer the question if those donations were illegal. For instance, I note a contribution of $2,000 to then Senator Max Cleland because “he was receptive to tribal issues”. That’s perfectly legal and is the reason most people and organizations give money to candidates (I doubt that anyone gives money to candidates who are unreceptive to the issues the donator feels are important). Again, all this shows is that the tribes were directed to give money to people who might be receptive to their concerns. To say that this without something more shows that anyone (republican or democrat) on that list did anything illegal is idiotic. Please explain why this in and of itself shows illegal activity.