Scandals engulf the Republican Party

The US ruling party is currently facing a “perfect storm” of scandals, the reach of which continues to expand.
There are at least three major scandals now exploding all over the party’s leadership. Sometimes it almost feels hard to tell them apart. (Oh, maybe that’s because they are indeed all linked, in multiple, very nefarious ways.)
The latest one to come to some sort of amazing fruition is the Jack Abramoff scandal. Abramoff, a powerful “lobbyist” who’s very well connected to the Republican leadership (and also, as Juan Cole has duly reminded us, to some of the sleaziest, most violent elements in the Israeli settler movement) yesterday pled guilty on three counts of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials. As a part of these “guilty pleas”, Abramoff had to promise to pay at least $25 million in restitution to clients whom he has bilked, and was told he’d get a prison sentence of around 9.5-11 years (instead of the 30-plus years he could, apparently, face if convicted after a contested case.)
Abramoff also, even more significantly, promised to tell prosecutors all he knew about possibly illegal actions taken by others– and these are widely predicted to include a number of influential members of Congress including the man who is still formally the #2 Republican in the House of Representatives (though he is currently ‘resting” from that position): Tom DeLay.
So far, only one member of Congress, a medium-important Ohio Republican called Robert Ney, has been referred to in Abramoff-related court papers. But Alice Fisher, the head of the Justice department’s ciriminal division yesterday told the media:

    “The corruption scheme with Mr. Abramoff is very extensive… We’re going to follow this wherever it goes.”
    Fisher declined to identify the officials under scrutiny. “We name people in indictments,” she said, adding: “We are moving very quickly.”

The second scandal brewing close to the surface of national politics is the indictment that a grand jury in the court system in Texas issued last September— separately– against Tom DeLay, on charges of conspiring with two political associates to violate state campaign finance law. That case proceeds.
And the third scandal still brewing is the continuing possibility of further indictments– including, quite possibly, one against Karl Rove– in the whole “Valerie Plame” leak episode, regarding which Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is continuing his work. (In my judgment, Rove and DeLay are the joint lynchpins of the still-continuing Republican conspiracy against democracy and accountable government in America.)
All three of these scandals are expected to come to a head between now and August. Did I mention that this year is a year for key congressional elections? No wonder that President Bush’s advisors (who still include Rove) have told him he needs to cut and run from his disastrous and unpopular project in Iraq, oops sorry, I mean “undertake a wise and measured strategic redeployment in Iraq” if the Republican Party is to have any chance at all of hanging onto power in the elections this November.
… Usual caveat here: namely, this very bad news for the GOP would be very much better news for the US citizenry and the world if our country had anything like a normal opposition party ready and eager to take advantage of it. We don’t. Indeed, in the prosecutions of members of Congress and their staff-people that are expected to follow from Abramoff’s tip-offs, there is no indication at all that they won’t also include some officials from the Democratic Party.
This interesting article in today’s WaPo gives some helpful background about the whole phenomenon of the work of “lobbyists” in Washington — i.e., basically, buying and suborning the votes of our elected representatives. It notes,

    So far, the public has not identified corruption as solely a Republican problem. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in November asked Americans whether they thought Democrats or Republicans were better on ethical matters; 16 percent said Democrats, 12 percent said Republicans, and 71 percent said there was not much difference between the parties.

If I were asked that question, I think I’d say the Democrats were “better”– but only by the thinnest of all possible margins, and only very unevenly better, at all.

11 thoughts on “Scandals engulf the Republican Party”

  1. ‎Abramoff had to promise to pay at least $25 million in restitution to clients whom ‎he has bilked‎
    US$25Mil for what? Can some one tell us what for these tax payer money paid?‎
    ‎most violent elements in the Israeli settler movement‎
    Till now did any one linked to Israel support charged in US because of the support, ‎spy and conspire there? Are those millions for doing the job for Israel? And why? ‎Where is the loyalty for the country “US”‎

  2. Even if what those West Bankers did was wrong, and the information is sketchy, it doesn’t rise to the level of terrorism. Their are various treaties that permit Jews to live in the West Bank. There are no treaties or laws that forbid it. People have a right to self-defense. The Intifada was a real war. Like I said, the information is sketchy, and I am not prepared to paint those West Bank Jews as saints. I am saying it is preposterous and deliberately dishonest to proclaim them terrorists.

  4. You have to look at all the Abramoff, DeLay, Cunningham, and Bush scandals together. This is a stealth Fourth Reich, slapped together by hucksters and religious fanatics. It’s tied to Christian Dominionism and the vengeful desire of white male Christian property owners to regain their monopoly of power in the US. That monopoly, in turn, was based on the Old Testament’s myth of God’s contract with the Hebrew patriarchs, a pack of illiterate goat herders & thieves whom He gifted with absolute power over their unfortunate wives, children & slaves. That was the ultimate power fantasy that inspired the Pilgrims, the Southern slaveocracy, the KKK, the Injun-killing settlers, the robber barons, Charlie Manson, Jim Jones, the Patriot Movement, David Koresh, the Arab-killing settlers (and helpers), and all the leaders of the current Christian Right. Every GOP scandal, like every GOP policy, is designed to widen inequality between bosses and workers, Good Americans and liberals, those who lie for the cause and those who don’t.
    Bush’s recent claims to be above the law are the words of a true Patriarch. Someone who believes that will not hesitate to steal tax dollars, spy on citizens, torture, distort economic stats, or fake evidence to start a war, even a nuclear war, until God’s will is manifest on Earth as total power in the hands of a few rich whites, who send their brainwashed redneck stooges as slave overseers and night riders to crush resistance everywhere. Few Americans will refuse to accept their henchman roles in this Hell, because it’s the only way to keep making 100 times as much money as a Pakistani for less work.

  5. Warren W, your fact base is so pathetic. Their are various treaties that permit Jews to live in the West Bank. There are no treaties or laws that forbid it….
    First of all, there is the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 that (in light of the behavior of the Nazis in the preceding 15 years) explicitly forbid an occupying power from settling its own citizens in occupied territories. It is not “Jews” as such who are thereby forbidden from being settled there, but Israeli citizens.
    Can you name just one of these “various treaties” that you mention?
    Additionally, neither Salah nor I had proclaimed any of the settlers to be “terrorists”. Why do you bother to come here and make these ill-informed and specious arguments? Please check your facts before posting here again.

  6. ‎I am not prepared to paint those West Bank Jews as saints‎
    I don think this right by call them Jews! They are Israelis, don’t generalise/mix things ‎when you talking about Israelis/settlers and Jews…‎
    Helena, Thanks

  8. “Even if what those West Bankers did was wrong…”
    More predictably pathetic apologetics! “Even if” it was wrong?
    “it doesn’t rise to the level of terrorism.”
    As far as I can see no one has suggested that it did.
    “Their are various treaties that permit Jews to live in the West Bank.”
    Cite one.
    “There are no treaties or laws that forbid it.”
    You are right. There are no treaties or laws that forbid Jews from living in the West Bank, and in fact a number of them do live there legally and peacefully alongside their neighbors in towns like Ramallah and Nablus. But that is not what we are talking about here, is it? And there ARE treaties and laws that forbid what we are talking about. You might want to do a bit of research next time before shooting off your mouth.

  9. I think it’s hilarious that everybody including Bush is giving “Abramoff’s money” to charity now. Can anyone explain how that makes any difference whatsoever?
    It’s like they are saying, “OK, I took this bribe, but I have given up my profit after the scheme was revealed, so I am now clean.”

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