Nonetheless, I would wager a bet that Ray crunches!!! Ray’s a middle child of all the children and the oldest of his Dad’s second
mistress/wife…Interesting birth order analysis…

And thanks on the other point. We don’t know “what” we are doing right…but are quite thankful…

O/T regarding the 2006 immunity attempt…called Kucinich’s office to get some more background and the staffers were extremely nervous to talk about it…in fact, would not…

My Dad, the former soccer coach for OSU, was once honored in the state of Ohio for his lifetime contributions to soccer. Lamar Hunt (owner of Columbus Crew until his death) honored him at a Columbus Crew game and later at one of the MLS All-Star games.

My Dad, was a guest of Lamar’s during the game and sat in his private box suite. Lamar encouraged him to bring along any of his grandkids. My son was the only grandchild not away at summer camp that year and he got to go. Lamar invited my son to sit right next to him and watch the game. (I thought, “Wow-what an experience for an 8 year old…”)

We (other family members)watched the game from the stands so we could take pictures during the dedication for my Dad at halftime.

We caught up with my son and my Dad after the game at a local restaurant. I asked him what it was like to meet Lamar Hunt? His answer:

“Mom, (heavy sigh) he crunches chips just like the rest of us and goes to the bathroom too.”

To this day my son is great at putting life into perspective.

So, EW, Ray probably crunches chips too and goes to the bathroom — meaning, he’s human and he has weaknesses. You cannot hide your tracks all of the time… no matter how much $$$$.

With that thought, I’ll echo others above…This is a thread to keep pulling on and I agree, Abramoff, Tribes, GOP and $$$ all go together…And they all crunch chips…So, we’ll find crumbs…

Interesting to read about all the H. L. Hunt kids:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Hunt

Lawmakers Move to Grant Banks Immunity Against Patent Lawsuit

Stephen Boyd, a spokesman for [Sen. Jeff] Sessions, said the provision “is designed to protect banking institutions complying with post-9/11 security requirements from the abusive practices of patent trolling trial lawyers seeking personal enrichment, which ultimately will be paid for by checking account customers across America.”

…

Even Claudio Ballard, the founder of DataTreasury, which holds the patents, said he did not hear of the amendment until days afterward. He said he had been unaware that the Judiciary Committee was considering it and engaged lobbyists to help him only after it had passed. …

“We had no notice, no opportunity to respond, to give our side of the case, nothing,” he said.

Commerce, which actually objects to the amendment, provides la pièce de résistance. Citing the deleterious effect of immunity from patent enforcement on technological innovation, Asst. Sec. Wienecke wrote to Leahy:

“The Administration does not support exceptions to patent protection based on a particular technology.”

But it’s even easier than that –

Just take big GOP donors to a little place called Choctaw Casiono and convention center just 90 minutes from Dallas on a little crossroads just south of Durant Oklahoma. Where they are free to lose all the money they’d like. Donations in kind.

No portal required, no digital footprint.

I always wondered why this place was so fucking bit and had the housing and convention capability it has. Hi 79 carries a lot of traffic, but still, not many conventions really want to come to a wide open crossroad in s.e oklahoma.

http://www.choctawcasinos.com/summary_Durant.asp

That’s a big one, but these things are everywhere. Now that you guys mention it, I’d be more suprised if you were wrong than right.

wow.

This is why the huge treasure trove of e-mails that McCain collected back when he was Chair of the Interior Committee must be opened. I’ll bet that there are several indictments worth of illegal activity lurking in those files. Why can’t they be (or haven’t they been?) accessed by the present committee?

More sunshine, please.

Bob in HI

Steps away from too much tinfoil – but admits that there an awful lot, an awful lot of coincidences here.

(Digression: One wonders whether Alabama’s Gov. Siegelman inadvertantly made the GOPers angry because somehow, unwittingly, he interfered with their access to tribal gaming funds, and/or fraudulent online gambling resources? Might that help explain why they were so frantic to slam his *ss into prison, thereby clearing access to their money laundering routes with no one the wiser…? Nothing that I’ve read about Siegelman suggests that he has any technical expertise or curiosity, so he might have inadvertantly p*ssed Rove/Mehlman off without realizing the true nature of the threat he posed to their money laundering. It’s an outtamyarse guess, but it would help explain why they were so over-the-top in their persecution of him. Because when one learns about the casinos in his region, then adds on the potential for GOP money laundering connected to the casinos with which Abramoff and Reed were involved, well THEN it makes sense that Rove/Mehlman/Cheney/Bush/Hunt sought to contol much more than a simple governorship. After all, was a simple governorship a good enough reason to risk bringing false charges, pursuing him relentlessly, and then slamming his *ss in prison straight from the courtroom? How much more IS there to the story…? )

It seems (technically) possible that the GOP could have used their servers to set up bogus eComm payment gateways as early as the late 1990s — or even bogus eComm pseudo-online gambling sites. That would be a quiet, hard-to-detect method to launder money, would it not? I’m not a server whiz, but it seems technically possible that Rove/Mehlman could have used their GOP servers to divert funds from one or more accounts, or false websites, to < — or from –> casinos (via ‘false payment gateways’ hacked into eComm software). They could then re-route money to offshore accounts.

I defer to Mad Dogs and other commenters here — who are far more familiar with servers than myself — about whether this would be feasible. (Although I’d wager there’s an 85% probability that my hunch about how they could have used their GOP servers to enable eComm for fraud is roughly accurate. Part of my point is that they needed to control servers — and bank accounts — to pull it off.)

I can attest that a typical (small biz) eComm application simply requires that you connect one section of the website to the business’s ‘payment gateway’ which is a unique coded setup for each site. Nothing that I’m aware of in eCommerce software requires that the payment gateway link to a bank located within the US. (Indeed, one of the buggy issues that can arise with eComm apps is that if a company is ‘international’, then one must muck about with different currencies, all of which require conversions (on an ongoing basis). Bleh! Personally, life’s to short, but obviously for larger businesses this is a critical feature, and with the kind of money the GOP was raising, hiring the technical expertise to set this kind of thing up would have been simple.! I mention this topic of eComm payment gateways simply to underscore my point that they CAN be linked to just about any bank, in any nation, or in any offshore tax haven.)

FWIW: In order to get money into a bank account in the US, one needs to purchase a certain type of US-based eComm certificate, which is used to **uniquely certify** (to prove to the US bank) that the online store is a legitimate, valid business paying US taxes, with a legit accounting system, and a legit ownership structure, selling legit items. Once the US bank has the info from that *unique* certificate, it can then allow the eComm app to send money to a specific bank account. (Involves passwords, magical incantations, staying up insanely late at night, hurled expletives, much pulling of hair, and general remonstrances at glowing LCD screens, but people actually do this sort of thing.)

My point here is that Rove, Mehlman, or their auks could have used eComm illegally – to direct money offshore, thereby avoiding the eComm certificates necessary for a legitimate, US-based bank account. Or so it seems given my level of knowledge — I heartily hope the FBI pays people to know a damn sight more than I know (!).

However, in this as in all things technical, more robust technical advice should be sought from other EW commenters, or from WIRED’s blogs.

Note part of this week’s WORD CLOUD: Cayman Islands Bank + US federal judge + WikiLeaks + website removed.
Why all the fuss and bother from a bank in the Cayman Islands to ensure their ‘privacy‘, eh? What do they not want anyone to see…? And how was that money transferred…? Do people walk into those banks hauling suitcases…? Or do they just walk in with baggies of coke to put in their safe deposit boxes…? WTF is up with shutting down Wikileaks?!

Mix the above eComm hunches about how easily money could probably be laundered, or transferred offshore, with this info from a recent IraqOilReport posting. Toss gently. Heat to a simmering boil:
http://iraqoilreport.com/ (14 Feb 2008)
The White House has proposed new rules to ensure U.S. tax dollars spent on contracts are better audited for fraud – except those contracts where work is done overseas, such as Iraq, The Associated Press reports.

The AP item is at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23134633/
updated 6:14 p.m. PT, Tues., Feb. 12, 2008
WASHINGTON – A Bush administration plan to crack down on contract fraud has a multibillion-dollar loophole: The proposal to force companies to report abuse of taxpayer money will not apply to work overseas, including projects to secure and rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan.

I’m no accountant, and don’t understand much about money laundering. But given my smidgeon of knowledge about eComm, plus learning about the GOP servers under Rove/Mehlman’s control, plus adding in the Abramoff + casino’s piece, plus EW’s suspicions about ‘money laundering’…

Motives abounded. Rove, Bush, et al wanted control.
Means abounded. eComm and eTransfers started heating up in the late 1990s, and sure enough the next election (2000) was almost certainly hacked. And online gambling was coming online at a time when Abramoff started raking money from the Tribal casinos… convergence? Perfect storm….?

EW, if I’m right… or even if I’m only half-right, I’d sure like a cut of the screen rights ;-))
Will split in even bits with all other regular commenters here ;-))

Meanwhile, one suspects that Ray Hunt and his loathsome offspring don’t call it money laundering. That’s too tawdry a term for such high-fallutin’ high rollers. Perhaps ‘private financial currency exchange services’ [PFCES] might be a more pallatible term…?
Or, we could simply cut to the chase and call them Money Pimps. Put MPs has so many prior connotations, I rather suspect that simple, pallid acronym doesn’t come close to adequately capturing the scope of the crime(s).