Someone else posted a few scant details on the “gentleman’s agreement” among Senators that is keeping these documents covered up, but unfortunately I’ve lost the reference.

Bob in HI

Bob, I think you have two investigations mixed up. Yes, it is true that the McCain Indian Sub-committee did not put its evidence in the public domain. I am not even sure they wrote a report or sent official transmittals to DoJ. None the less, DoJ did its own investigation, and nabbed Abramoff and a number of his associates and the congressmen he bribed. This was all during the first term of Bush II. 2001+

My intent here is to call attention to a totally different investigation that was conducted by Tom Lantos as chair of a sub-committee with oversight authority over HUD, with the investigation conducted in 1991. Lantos’s objective was to provide strong sunlight on a multi-million dollar fraud that took place in the last years of the Reagan Administration, that involved a grant/contract program for repairing/restoring a significant number of older public housing units. Under Samuel Pierce’s leadership (Reagan couldn’t remember his name, called him “Mr. Mayor”) HUD gave these contracts to Republican Operatives who clearly were, as the evidence showed, expected to kick back funds to Republican Parties, committees, candidates, and various operations such as think-tanks and all. The hearings were on C-Span for several weeks during the summer of 1981, and were quite interesting. Eventually Lantos’s committee wrote a report, and made criminal referrals to the Justice Department. Pierce took a plea bargin (the testimony revealed that he spent about two hours every day in his office watching soap operas — not a good administrator), and one of his executive assistants, who was the step daughter of John Mitchell, went to trial and did jail time. A number of other HUD political appointees likewise either went to trial or took a plea.

My point is that a side show of this kick-back scheme was one run by Charlie Black and Jack Abramoff that involved pushing those who had received contracts to rebuild public housing, to buy tables and tickets to a very expensive dinner for charity, the money going to an outfit that worked under the sponsorship of Jesse Helms, and gave money to Zulu operatives in South Africa, who wanted to destroy the political fortunes of the ANC and Nelson Mandela. Lantos put the whole story on the record, but given the scope of the fraud against HUD — this Black-Abramoff effort was a small side-show getting a small share of the kick-back funds on the margins of the major scheme. Lantos used it as an illustration as to how operatives in the Republican Orbit were using the fruit of fraud against what was US public policy, because by that time congress had voted against a foreign policy that supported Apartheid.

Right now our political interest is in connecting Black to Abramoff — and taking it back in history sufficiently so as to underscore the story as a pattern — one that identifies Black as partner in fraud with Convict Abramoff. In fact, as Fraudsters they were total failures. Today Nelson Mandela has a Nobel Prize and is an honored Senior World Statesman. That is hardly what they intended. In terms of questioning why McCain has Black on his staff, a story about how fraud against HUD (and public housing and thus the US poor) also involved a small scheme by Black and Abramoff to support Apartheid in South Africa — well it is a nice illustrative story suggesting why McCain should divest himself of Black. It is the combination of racism and fraud/corruption that underscores this argument. The value of this story is increased by the fact that all the elements of it were brought to the fore under oath.

As Mr. O’Donald says it’s pathetic that McCain has to use a joint appearance with someone with an 18-20% approval rating and who has put this country in the toilet with Iraq spending and killing even if the Constitution had not been decimated.

A good way of dealing with the absolute need to raise taxes is to tie it to rebuilding infrastructure. Among the many advantages, building for the future (and trying to overcome the challenges we aging baby boomers are leaving for our kids (I’m feeling a bit old today)), the economic benefits of the employment from construction and manufacturing jobs (we can force a lot of them to stay here), there is one I really like.

Another good framing for this is called “investing” in the future. Most people “get” that.

Bob in HI

The Libertarians will have to face the fact that we are going to tax the crap out of them and build all kinds of things and they won’t get the benefits. Megan McArdle and her gang of Randians will explode.

“There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources tell Radar that the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.

All for the sake of “Continuity of Government (COG)” in times of an emergency. Um, how about October? Would that be a good time for an “emergency”?

Bob in HI

Someone else posted a few scant details on the “gentleman’s agreement” among Senators that is keeping these documents covered up, but unfortunately I’ve lost the reference.

And these agreements make all the difference in the world between a facade Senate and Congress and a real one. There are many of them.

I haven’t found the context/reference yet but here’s one for you Bob.

Bush Just Coined the Acronym CUI “Controlled Unclassified Information.

In response to bobschacht @ 94 (show text)

I wonder if those records might be in the great pile of documents from the Senate Indian Affairs Committee’s investigation of Jack Abramoff.

No, a transcript of a public hearing which was broadcast on C-Span would not be closed. The Committee did a full transcript, wrote a report, and made referrals to DoJ based on testimony, and DoJ took it up, appointed a prosecutor, took it to a grand jury, and got indictments. Aside from the Grand Jury, all this would long be on the public record. Before the Internet full copies of Congressional Hearings were sent to Federal Repository Libraries. (For instance the University of Minnesota is such a Repository). Sometimes if you contact a congressional office they can get a copy of old commmittee records. I don’t know to what extent the Library of Congress has posted such stuff in digital form.

But the transcript of the hearing only reveals a very small slice (8,000) of what is in the 750,000 pages of documents collected by the committee. See Dengre’s work on this in the links.

Someone else posted a few scant details on the “gentleman’s agreement” among Senators that is keeping these documents covered up, but unfortunately I’ve lost the reference.

Bob in HI

HRC’s supporters are going to vote for McCain they say to the tune of 25% if she is not the nominee, and if she is not the nominee (there is a reasonable chance that will be the case) then the other candidate and the downticket candidates will need hefty voter turnout.