The bridges did not go poof. They gave them a blank check for the same amount.

They won't dare spend the blank check for anything EXCEPT the Lake Ponchertrain causeway. Don't get me wrong, they have no shame. But they do have a fear of being fired in 2006.

See? More evidence that sanity is reasserting itself, with breathtaking rapidity. Onward, the mob!*

Abramoff Tribes Donated Funds to Lawmakers

By JOHN SOLOMON and SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writers Thu Nov 17, 4:42 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Nearly three dozen members of Congress, including leaders from both parties, pressed the government to block a Louisiana Indian tribe from opening a casino while the lawmakers collected large donations from rival tribes and their lobbyist, Jack Abramoff.


Many intervened with letters to Interior Secretary Gale Norton within days of receiving money from tribes represented by Abramoff or using the lobbyist's restaurant for fundraising, an Associated Press review of campaign records, IRS records and congressional correspondence found.

Lawmakers said their intervention had nothing to do with Abramoff, and the timing of donations was a coincidence. They said they wrote letters because they opposed the expansion of tribal gaming — even though they continued to accept donations from casino-operating tribes.

Many lived far from Louisiana and had no constituent interest in the casino dispute.

House Speaker
Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, held a fundraiser at Abramoff's Signatures restaurant in Washington on June 3, 2003, that collected at least $21,500 for his Keep Our Majority political action committee from the lobbyist's firm and tribal clients.

Seven days later, Hastert wrote Norton urging her to reject the Jena tribe of Choctaw Indians' request for a new casino. Hastert's three top House deputies also signed the letter.

Approving the Jena application or others like it would "run counter to congressional intent," Hastert's June 10, 2003, letter warned Norton.

It was exactly what Abramoff's tribal clients wanted. The tribes, including the Louisiana Coushattas and Mississippi Choctaw, were trying to block the Jena's gambling hall for fear it would undercut business at their own casinos.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid sent a letter to Norton on March 5, 2002, also signed by Sen. John Ensign (news, bio, voting record), R-Nev. The next day, the Coushattas issued a $5,000 check to Reid's tax-exempt political group, the Searchlight Leadership Fund. A second Abramoff tribe sent another $5,000 to Reid's group. Reid ultimately received more than $66,000 in Abramoff-related donations between 2001 and 2004.

In the midst of the congressional letter-writing campaign, the Bush administration rejected the Jena's casino on technical grounds. The tribe persisted, eventually winning Interior approval but the casino now is tied up in a court dispute.

Congressional ethics rules require lawmakers to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest in performing their official duties and accepting political money.

That requirement was made famous a decade ago during the Keating Five scandal when five lawmakers were criticized for intervening with federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating while receiving money from the failed savings and loan operator.

The Abramoff donations dwarf those made by Keating. At least 33 lawmakers wrote letters to Norton and got more than $830,000 in Abramoff-related donations as the lobbying unfolded between 2001 and 2004, AP found.

"This is one of the largest examples we've had to date where congressional action was predicated on money being given for the action," said Kent Cooper, who reviewed lawmakers' campaign reports for two decades as the
Federal Election Commission's chief of public disclosure.

Cooper, who now runs the Political Money Line Web site that tracks fundraising, said "the speed in which this money was turned around" after the letters makes the Abramoff matter more serious than previous controversies that tarnished Congress.

Lawmakers contacted by AP said their intervention had nothing to do with Abramoff's fundraising, and instead reflected their long-held concerns about tribal gaming expansion.

"There is absolutely no connection between the letter and the fundraising," Reid spokesman Jim Manley said. "The only connection was Senator Reid has consistently opposed any effort to undermine the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act."

Hastert ultimately collected more than $100,000 in donations from Abramoff's firm and tribal clients between 2001 and 2004. His office said he never discussed the matter with Abramoff, but long opposed expanding Indian gambling off reservations and was asked to send the letter by Rep. Jim McCrery (news, bio, voting record), R-La.

McCrery sent his own letter as well, and collected more than $36,000 in Abramoff-connected donations.

"We've always opposed these things, in our backyard, in our state, someplace else," said Michael Stokke, Hastert's deputy chief of staff.

Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor, said lawmakers' denials of a connection rang hollow.

"Special interests do get more and they do get what they pay for despite the constant denial that lawmakers can't be bought," said Sloan, who now runs Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a group that monitors public officials' conduct.

Abramoff's spokesman, Andrew Blum, declined comment. The lobbyist has been indicted on fraud charges by a federal grand jury in Florida stemming from his role in the 2000 purchase of a fleet of gambling boats.

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Abramoff's fundraising influenced members of Congress or the Bush administration, and whether anyone tried to conceal their dealings with Abramoff. For instance:

_Hastert failed for two years to disclose his use of Abramoff's restaurant the week before his letter or to reimburse for it as legally required. Hastert blames a paperwork oversight and recently corrected it.

_Sen. David Vitter, R-La., received $6,000 from Abramoff tribes from 1999 to 2001 and refunded it the day before he sent one of his letters to Norton in February 2002. He also used Abramoff's restaurant for a September 2003 fund-raiser but failed to reimburse for it until this year.

_The Coushattas wrote two checks to Rep.
Tom DeLay's groups in 2001 and 2002, shortly before the GOP leader wrote Norton. But the tribe was asked by Abramoff to take back the checks and route the money to other GOP groups. In all, DeLay, R-Texas, received at least $57,000 in Abramoff and tribal donations between 2001 and 2004.

The intervention by congressional Republicans and Democrats was all but ignored in recent hearings on Capitol Hill led by Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz, that examined Abramoff's lobbying inside Interior.

In one letter obtained by AP, 27 lawmakers told Norton she should reject the Jena casino because gambling was a societal blight. But within weeks, several of the authors had accepted donations from Abramoff's casino-operating tribes. All but eight eventually got Abramoff-related donations or used his restaurant for political events.

Rep. Pete Sessions (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, received four donations totaling $5,500 from casino-operating tribes represented by Abramoff a month and a day after he signed the Feb. 27, 2002, group letter.

"If they want to give a contribution to support Republican candidates, more power to them. That doesn't mean we have to support what they are doing," said Guy Harrison, a Sessions spokesman.

Rep. John Doolittle (news, bio, voting record), R-Calif., received $1,000 from Abramoff several weeks before he signed the group letter, then got $16,000 from two of Abramoff's casino-operating tribal clients about two months later. By year's end, Doolittle also had used Abramoff's restaurant to cater a campaign event and received another $15,000 from tribes.

Some lawmakers intervened more than once.

House Majority Leader Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, signed three letters to Norton. He took $1,000 from Abramoff and $2,000 from the lobbyist's firm around the time he sent a May 2003 letter.

Blunt long has opposed the expansion of tribal gaming and his letters are "consistent with his long-held position and are in no way related to political contributions," spokeswoman Burson Taylor said.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, whose committee is investigating Abramoff, sent a letter on March 1, 2002, opposing the Jena casino. The letter said a company that operates casinos in Grassley's home state was concerned. Grassley got $1,000 from Abramoff's firm the following month and a total of $62,200 in related donation by 2004.

Others who intervened:

_Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., the former Senate GOP leader, wrote Norton on March 1, 2002, to "seriously urge" she reject the Jena casino. Lott received $10,000 in donations from Abramoff tribes just before the letter and $55,000 soon after. Lott's office said he sent the letter because his state's Choctaw tribe and a casino company were concerned about losing business.

_Then-Sen. John Breaux (news, bio, voting record), D-La., wrote Norton on March 1, 2002. Five days later the Coushattas sent $1,000 to his campaign and $10,000 to his library fund, tribal records show.

_Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., wrote Norton on June 14, 2001, one of the first such letters. Cochran's political committee got $6,000 from Abramoff tribes in the weeks before the letter, and another $71,000 in the three years after.

_Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who was engaged in a tight re-election race in 2002, sent her letter March 6, 2002. That same day, the Coushattas sent $2,000 to her campaign and she received $5,000 more by the end of that month. By year's end, the total had grown to at least $24,000.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051117/ap_on_...tters___dollars

Two 'Bridges to Nowhere' Tumble Down in Congress
New York Times - 10 hours ago
WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 - Congressional Republicans decided Wednesday to take a legislative wrecking ball to two Alaskan bridge projects that had demolished the party's reputation for fiscal austerity.
Funding for Alaskan Bridges Eliminated Washington Post
Bridge plans sunk Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

This is bullshit. They gave them a blank check. The Republicans didn't stand up for jack-shit. Stevens got all the money earmarked for the bridges. This is blatantly dishonest and another example of Republican's fine morals and values.

This is ethics but not politics. It is funny though. The guy cheated and still lost.




Coach suspended after replacing his real team with men
Instead of using boys, local 6-man program fielded a college-age squad — and still lost


By EMILY DAVIS
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle


Bigger. Faster. Better beards.

Looking back now, it should have been obvious that something was amiss about the adult football team that Texas Christian School fielded three weeks ago in Austin.

Not to mention the tattoos.

"Some of the guys had tattoos and full beards and looked like they were like 25," Not Your Ordinary School senior running back David Johnson said of his opponents that Oct. 28 afternoon. "At the time, we thought they were just sort of big.

"Now we see why they looked so old."

It turns out Johnson and his team unwittingly played a six-man team made up of college-age players, coached by Texas Christian's Herc Palmquist. The Texas Christian varsity team was told the game had been canceled and they had the night off.

Instead, Palmquist brought eight college-age players to play what he called a "pickup game," which NYOS won 28-18.

Now, Palmquist is serving a five-game suspension leveled by the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, which governs Texas Christian athletics.

The board investigated after being tipped by Granger Huntress, administrator of the sports Web site sixmanfootball.com.

"My school supports me," Palmquist said in a phone interview last Friday. "We're just ready to get this behind us."

Palmquist founded Texas Christian, a TAPPS six-man school near Katy and incorporated under the Texas Christian Education Foundation, in 1990. Also the school's head administrator, Palmquist issued a letter of apology to the Texas Christian parents, faculty and student body Nov. 4, the day after his TAPPS suspension went into effect.

"I believe those who know me and know me well know that I would never intentionally hurt my savior, my family, TCS or any team," Palmquist said.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3466940

and probably the worse of the lot.

As a player it would piss me off if somebody took my ability to play and lose on my own.

No kidding. He alledgedly told them it was called off?

hmmm...

When I shot on a pool league I'd have reather played my slot than have the captain bring in a ringer.


You are correct. And at that level it is more important to show the kids how to be a decent, fair person even if you do lose.

(I lost that pool match, maybe they SHOULD have brought in a ringer!)

Had some friends whose parents lived through them and their sports. Talk about bad. But that's a whole 'nother talk show.

I played on some really bad teams, but HATED being on the bench. Even for one play. I got yanked for three plays once for smarting off to the coach. (I was playing both ways with a 103 fever at the time) I got what I deserved, but the coach was fair.

Letting non-students play isn't cheating the other team,it's cheating your own players.

Basketball amateur league, back in the 'old Country': Our team is destroying our opponents. We're up by, like 30 points, our second-string center is attempting three-pointers, it's a proper 'laugher'. So, one of my buddies, who had been warming the end of the bench (well, rightly, he sorta sucked, and he wouldn't make up for it by playing e.g. tenacious defence -- the Kurt Rambis approach to getting some playing time, which I had, admittedly, used the previous year to finally get on the starting team) begins taking off his warm-up suit after a time out. The coach asks him why he's doing that, and then tells him to put them back on, for he's not putting him in. Exasperated, my friend exclaimed loudly:

"Well, when am I going to get to play? On Saint Cock Day?"

(I am trying to translate idiomatically. It's a Greek saying. Obviously, there's no Saint Cock (dick, pecker) and no Saint Cock day).

Do D, no play. Hustle deserves playing time, but just being ahead doesn't.

Agreed. As I mentioned. I felt for the guy, but he really had no case. It was just damn funny how he put it, and how LOUDLY he did so.

As abrasive and short-tempered as I could be in my earlier years, I only talked back to the coach during a game ONCE. As I said earlier, and given that I picked up basketball sorta late, I was the team's Kurt Rambis (not Dennis Rodman, never that colorful and, er, unique) even after I eventually managed to start scoring off something other than put-backs and fast-break opps. So, I got all the box-1 assignments on the opposing teams' shooters. So, here we are, the other team's star is having one heck of a game: for him, that night, the bucket must have looked like the Pacific Ocean; the fucker could not miss. I am busting my ass hounding him, always on his face, trying to deny, AND 'help-and-recover' on all the high-post-screen plays. On one of those he gets the ball and with my fingertips an inch away from the ball he fires off a three-pointer, off the GLASS, from about a foot right off the top of the key extended, and it goes in. As we're starting to go on offence, I glance over and I see and hear the coach, standing up, saying something negative about my defence. I was furious. So, I said loudly: "Sit down and trying watching the game, coach."

It is funny.




Good players will score, and coaches will bitch. Like I said on the other board, bad things will happen, but you still have to ask "compared to what".

I'm all for aggressive defense. Put somebody else in and see if another mode of defense works if you don't like mine.

You forgot! You can't remember! You lied! And you are lying now!

judy,

It's pathetic to see people still defending this war built on lies. To defend a corrupt and incompetent President and administration. It's good that the majority of Americans don't.

You will wake up one day and see what a fool you've been.

cocktail hour for dittoheads.

Shouldn't be any need for your people to lie about it then, Neh?

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/na...lnews-headlines

Schumer's consumer crusade tarnished by his own staffers


Email this story
Printer friendly format

BY GLENN THRUSH
WASHINGTON BUREAU

October 2, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Charles Schumer was one of the first politicians to rail against the evils of identity theft, but lately his signature issue has turned into a singular headache.

Schumer, who has led campaigns against Wheaties price-gouging and exorbitant ATM fees, recently sponsored legislation to protect corporate consumer data. He's also been pressuring legal publishers to block snoopers from accessing Social Security numbers online.









So imagine the glee of Republicans when they learned last month that two Schumer staffers at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had hacked into the credit report of Maryland Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, according to committee officials.

"It's an ironic and uncomfortable position for Chuck," said Baruch College politics professor Doug Muzzio.

In July, DSCC research director Katie Barge, 26, and researcher Lauren Weiner, 25, allegedly accessed Steele's report using his Social Security number in preparation for a possible Senate bid by Steele.

Schumer, chairman of the campaign committee, reported their actions to the U.S. attorney in Washington within hours of the alleged violation, say officials familiar with the case.

And the senator's allies have repeatedly said Schumer isn't a target of the investigation.

But the incident has provided the GOP with an opportunity to turn Schumer's consumer crusader image on its head.

"When you speak with such zeal about the importance of respecting privacy and an organization you head has violated someone's very personal credit information, that speaks for itself," said Dan Ronayne of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has led the anti-Schumer charge, along with conservative bloggers.

Last week, five members of the Republican committee, including former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), sent Schumer a letter requesting his "assurance, as a colleague" that DSCC staffers didn't access their credit histories.

DSCC spokesman Phil Singer said Steele's report was the only one accessed.

Weiner tapped into the report without consulting higher-ups and Barge informed DSCC executive director J.B. Poersch when she realized what her subordinate had done, Singer said.

Posing as an individual to obtain their credit report is punishable by up to 2 years in prison.

Singer says the GOP criticism is an attempt to divert attention from bigger scandals involving Tom DeLay and Bill Frist.

"The idea that one can equate a single incident involving two 20-somethings that the DSCC reported immediately to the authorities with the pattern of ethical problems experienced by the House majority leader is laughable," Singer said.

Muzzio thinks that the long-term consequences to Schumer are likely to be negligible.

The two women at the center of the FBI probe have been keeping a low profile. Both have resigned from the committee.

Barge and Weiner declined to comment through their lawyer, William Lawler III, the ex-president of the Washington, D.C., bar association who represented former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey during his 2004 sex scandal.

The DSCC is picking up the tab for Lawler, who charges as much as $400 an hour.

Barge quit a job overseeing a research staff of six at David Brock's liberal watchdog organization Media Matters to take the DSCC job. She is highly regarded in the tight-knit community of Democratic researchers, friends and associates say.

Barge cut her teeth as a researcher on the campaign of failed North Carolina Senate candidate Erskine Bowles and other contests, friends said.

Weiner, a Scarsdale, N.Y., native who graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, raised no red flags working for the Democratic National Committee last year, an associate said.

In April 2000, as an undergraduate at Northwestern University, Weiner published an article about Web access to personal records. In it, she wrote that "the Internet is threatening because it is all-empowering."

The Democrats go dumpster diving

By Michelle Malkin


http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin092805.php3

Have you heard about what New York Sen. Charles Schumer's meddling minions tried to do here in my home state of Maryland to embarrass a Republican opponent?

Don't bother with The New York Times if you want details. Since revelations of the scandal first broke a week ago on the national wires and in the rest of the New York media, the Times has failed to print a single word about the Dems' invasive — and obviously illegal — dumpster diving.

Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, a rising star in the party, is considering a Senate bid for the Maryland seat being vacated by Democrat Paul Sarbanes next year. Apparently threatened by the prospect of a strong, popular, black Republican candidate, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee got down and dirty. Two of Schumer's staffers on the committee, including a former top researcher for David Brock's left-wing "think tank," obtained Steele's confidential credit report by using his Social Security number, which they had reportedly culled from court records.

Under federal law, it is illegal to knowingly and willfully obtain a credit report under false pretenses. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act imposes a maximum two-year prison sentence for the crime.

Democrat spinners would have you believe that the two staffers involved in the apparent fraud, Katie Barge and Lauren Weiner, were young and inexperienced workers. They're soft-pedaling the incident as an "isolated" occurrence on par with a high school prank. But Barge has been around the block, including stints as a researcher for Sen. John Edwards' failed presidential bid and as research director for Brock's Media Matters for America.

The two henchladies reportedly owned up to the act in July, were suspended with pay until Aug. 31, as the New York Post's Deborah Orin reported, and resigned earlier this month. Their dealings are being investigated by the fraud and public corruption section of the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, D.C., with help from the FBI — which, according to Steele's staff, told the lieutenant governor that he was an obvious "victim of a crime."

Law enforcement officials are taking this criminal intrusion into private records deadly seriously. But left-wing partisans are nowhere to be found. Steele's staff tells me that longtime crusader against identity theft Sen. Schumer, who denies having any knowledge of the scheme, has still issued no apology for the abuse of Steele's personal data. And there has been no outcry from the ACLU, the champions of clean campaigns, or any major national newspaper editorial board.

(Protecting privacy only seems to matter to liberals when it comes to 14-year-old girls seeking abortions behind their parents' backs, illegal aliens seeking sanctuary from the police, and registered sex offenders objecting to community registration requirements.)

Needless to say, if it had been Republicans involved in this outrageous breach of privacy and the target had been a liberal minority politician, it would be front-page news. When asked by readers why the Times had not covered the story, ombudsman Byron Calame's office sent this obnoxious reply:

Dear Reader,

Thanks for writing and raising this issue. This office has no control over what is printed in the paper. It seems your message would be better directed to news-tips@nytimes.com.

The Times, it should be noted, is the same paper that happily received and printed a front-page story about an illegally obtained tape recording of a conference call with Republican leaders in 1996 that was leaked by Democrat Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington. McDermott's leak was condemned by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan last year as "willful and knowing misconduct [that] rises to the level of malice in this case." McDermott is busy raising money from lobbyists for his defense fund — a violation of House rules that the Times' ethics mavens have blithely ignored.

Jaded journalists will shrug off what conservative author and talk show host Hugh Hewitt has dubbed "Chuckaquiddick" by arguing that "everybody does it." If that is so, they should be leading the charge to find out who else at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has been doing it. And to whom they have been doing it.

quoting malkin is dumpster diving

Soon we'll be quoting the FBI.

This is HUGE.

Scandal of the century.

Maybe if Chuckie did it to a white Democrat.

Sounds like they did a "work up", on the cheap.

Should have used an agency.

Cheap? Chuck is Jewish. It all fits.

That damn slope head Milkin is at it again.

Them Philapina nigras is uppity.

Nice lookin' though.

I'd hit it.

Anybody would.

Maybe after a six pack.

To get your beer goggles on.

So arrest them. Schumer didn't hide them did he? Miguel Miranda stole 4,000 memoes from a Democrat computer file and now he is a Republican hero/lobbyist who is walking around free as a bird. Republican ethics are a total joke.

Malkin is ugly.

Pretty hard to fault Schumer, I'd say. More RW hysteria?

RW bedwetters.

I hate Schumer. Smarmy little punk.


Having said that, he did the right thing. He didn't pull a Nixon, Bush or Cheney, that is he didn't cover it up. He turned them in.

Better to wait and get their boss. You really think they got the idea on their own? You guys always say it starts at the top. Or did before.

I could go on about the Clintons and those FBI files, the recording cell calls, the IRS audits, using the FBI to ruin people get their friends jobs, subborning perjury, threatening the Secret Service, etc. But it would be as redundant as the three or four stories you rotate here on a regular basis.

excuse me?

Now this is ethics.


L.A. cabbie finds $350,000 in diamonds, returns them to owner

By The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES – Haider Sediqi didn't give much thought to the small, zippered pouch that a passenger forgot in his taxicab when he got out at Los Angeles International Airport.

Sediqi stashed the brown bag in the front, where it remained as he took his Checker cab to the car wash, drove a passenger to Long Beach and met a fellow cabbie for lunch Wednesday.

As he walked off to the restroom, Sediqi asked his friend to check the bag for identification.

"Oh, God," Sediqi, 40, recalled his friend saying as he stared into the bag. "Look at those things."

Inside, packed in clear plastic cases were diamonds — about 100 of them, cut and polished and worth, it turned out, $350,000. Also inside was a cell phone bill.

Sediqi, a father of two with a pregnant wife, called the number, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Um, did you leave anything?" the Afghan immigrant asked the man who answered, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"Oh, my God," the voice on the phone responded, according to a story in Friday's newspaper.

Sediqi arranged to meet the man, identified as Eric Austein, who had not yet departed LAX for New York, at the airport police station.

Police inventoried the diamonds and confirmed Austein's identity. Austein calmly took possession of the gems, hugged Sediqi and promised him a reward.

Sediqi said keeping the loot never entered his mind, even though his wife loves diamonds and he dreams of opening a restaurant.

"God is up there," he said Thursday as he waited outside an auto shop, where his cab was having its brakes fixed. "He always watches."


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nati...ebcabbie18.html

Some one ought to tell that (in re-sized red above) to the Godless bastards now mismanaging this country. They could use an injection of such honesty as displayed by a humble cab driver. They would see this man as a fool...unless, of course, they owned the restored diamonds.

we hand out sacks of cash and bill the kids

The scandal, the think unthinkable in Washington is, I presume, that Schumer turned them in instead of making excuses for them?