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Another Abramoff Type Scandal?

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Anonymous

Guest
I heard something about this on the news the other day- about all the politicians scrambling to donate their tainted funds to charity- but didn't really catch what they were talking about...

Looks like Stevens PAC (Northern Lights PAC) was being stuffed by VECO- and that VECO oilmen were also stuffing the pockets of a bunch of other politicians....

If I count right 30 new breed Republicans and 2 Democrats...

I see we got a Montanan again-- thats $10,000 from the anti Cuban folks and $1000 from the Alaska oil men...

And- not to anyones surprise- King George was doling it in from the oil boys too :roll: :wink: :(

Looks like the retirement fund for Corrupt Crooked Congressman Charity will do good :wink: :lol: :lol: :p

Wednesday, July 30, 2008


Republicans giving money they got from Stevens to charity
By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Republican senators facing reelection challenges sought to insulate themselves from indicted Sen. Ted Stevens Wednesday by promising to donate to charity tens of thousands of dollars they received from the veteran Alaska lawmaker's political action committee.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the Republican Conference, led the way, with each disclosing that he'd relinquish $10,000 in campaign donations from Stevens' Northern Lights PAC.

Minnesota freshman Sen. Norm Coleman, who's fighting to win reelection against comedian-turned-politician Al Franken, decided to give away $20,000 that his campaign and his own leadership PAC got from Stevens' PAC.

The GOP senators acted a day after Stevens was indicted on charges of lying to conceal more than $250,000 in gifts from VECO Corp., a former Alaska oil services company at the center of a public corruption scandal that already has netted seven criminal convictions.

North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole acted quickly on Tuesday, announcing that she'd give $10,000 from Stevens' PAC to a campaign to fight hunger, as did Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts.

Freshman Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire made a similar decision on Wednesday as his Democratic rival, former governor Jeanne Shaheen, issued a press release charging that his reelection campaign was funded by $45,000 in "tainted" cash from Stevens and another $65,000 that the Alaska senator raised on his behalf.

Meantime, the Republican Party of Alaska Wednesday disclosed that it's donated $34,500 it received from VECO executives to a half dozen Alaska-based charities. The party received more than $56,000 in donations from the company between 1997 and 2004, but spokesman McHugh Pierre said that more than $20,000 of those funds had been spent when the corruption scandal became public in 2006.

The state party donated the money, Pierre told McClatchy, because, "We wanted to make sure that people understand that we were not part of this corruption scandal."

Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, one of Stevens' closest friends, however, said he wouldn't give away any of the $13,000 he received from VECO executives. He said he didn't solicit the contributions, and "to my knowledge they were not made illegally."

VECO executives gave at least $35,000 to Stevens' PAC in recent years, Federal Election Commission records show. Most of it came from former VECO CEO Bill Allen, who pled guilty last year to making illicit payments to Alaska politicians and allegedly arranged for free renovation work on Stevens' house in Girdwood, Alaska. In all, VECO employees made more than $600,000 in political contributions between 1993 and 2007, virtually all of it to Republicans.

In their effort to distance themselves from Stevens and VECO, the Republican senators are giving away more money than the company's employees gave to Stevens' Northern Lights PAC.

Republican senators, however, rejected calls to surrender money they received in previous election cycles from Stevens' PAC, which the GOP elder statesman routinely used to support his colleagues' campaigns.

Numerous Republican legislators last year donated to charities campaign money they received from Allen and other VECO executives. But legislators Wednesday continued to try to draw an array of ethical lines while trying to avoid any taint from the charges against Stevens.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Stevens' Alaska Republican colleague, received $41,250 from VECO executives for her victorious 2003-2004 campaign. Last year, she donated to charity $8,000 in donations from Allen and former VECO vice president Richard Smith, who pleaded guilty to corruption charges last year, but kept donations from other VECO executives.

Her spokesman, Mike Brumas, said Wednesday that to give away donations from other VECO employees would "impugn the integrity of a lot of good Alaskans."

Coleman spokesman Mark Drake said the Minnesota senator is rejecting Democrats' calls that he donate to charity an amount equal to the $6,000 that his campaign got from Allen, Smith and two other VECO executives on July 9, 2002, because that money "has been spent and is not an issue."

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, who also won election in 2002, got $6,000 from the same VECO execs three days before Coleman received his checks. Thune isn't returning those funds because he "has not received any contributions from these individuals since being elected to the Senate," spokesman Kyle Downey said.

Spokespersons for Louisiana Sen. David Vitter and North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr acknowledged that each got $6,000 from VECO executives in the 2002 and 2004 campaigns, but both said they couldn't donate the money to charity because it's already been spent.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, took a more cautious tone toward the $4,000 he received from VECO executives in 2004 and the $5,000 he got from Stevens' PAC in 2006. His office said that that Specter "is looking at the specifics of the criminal charges against the VECO executives before deciding what action is appropriate."

As for the PAC money from Stevens, Specter's office said he'd keep it "as long as there is a constitutional presumption of innocence."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/46016.html

This year alone some of the beneficiaries of Stevens' shady Northern Lights PAC have included:

Lamar Alexander (R-TN- $10,000)
John Barrasso (R-WY- $10,000)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA- $10,000)
Norm Coleman (R-MN- $10,000)
Susan Collins (R-ME- $10,000)
John Cornyn (R-TX- $5,000)
Elizabeth Dole (R-NC- $10,000)
James Inhofe (R-OK- $9,000)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY- $20,000)
Pat Roberts (R-KS- $10,000) + $5,000 more to Roberts' Preserving America's Tradition's PAC
Gordon Smith (R-OR- $10,000)
John Sununu (R-NH- $10,000)
Roger Wicker (R-MS- $5,000)
Don Young (R-AK- $10,000)

Here's the whole list of who took what from VECO (of donations of at least $1,000):

Don Young (R-AK- $190,530)
Ted Stevens (R-AK- $102,500)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK- $42,250)
George W. Bush (R- $20,050)
Daniel Inouye (D-HI- $13,000)
Norm Coleman (D-MN- $7,000)
Richard Burr (R-NC- $6,000)
Tom Coburn (R-OK- $6,000)
Jim DeMint (R-SC- $6,000)
John Sununu (R-NH- $6,000)
John Thune (R-SD- $6,000)
David Diapers Vitter (R-LA- $6,000)
Kit Bond (R-MO- $4,516)
Arlen Specter (R-PA- $4,000)
George Voinovich (R-OH- $3,750)
John Ensign (R-NV- $2,000)
Steve Pearce (R-NM- $1,000)
Jon Porter (R-NV- $1,000)
Dennis Rehberg (R-MT- $1,000)

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2008/07/ted-stevens-was-sharing-his-bribes-with.html
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Tony Soprano had nothing on Ted Stevens as for being a shakedown artist!!!! :( :mad:

Citizens Against Government Waste calculated that just between 1995 and 2008, Stevens pushed through $3.4 billion in pork-barrel projects for Alaska.

Citizens Against Government Waste's statistics back Foer up. Since 1999, Alaska has been the nation's top recipient of pork spending per capita. This year, it raked in $555.54 per person. For comparison, New Hampshire is way down the list at 38, getting a measly $32.04 per capita. In 2005, Alaska topped the list with a whopping $984.85 per person, nearly 30 times the national average.

The state is studded with federally funded monuments to Stevens, including the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, the Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute, the Ted and Catherine (nice domestic touch, that) Stevens Center for Space Science Technology.

Examples of our tax dollars at work in Alaska included $176,000 for the Alaska Reindeer Herders' Association and $750,000 for grasshopper research as well as $25 million for a supercomputer at the University of Alaska to study how to trap energy from the aurora borealis.

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080803/OPINION/808030345
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
While Dems have always been known as the Tax and Spend Party- the Repubs are now seen as the Spend and Charge it to my Kids Party :(

I watched an interview of 7 young (20 ish) folks this morning- 4 were Repubs- and 3 were brought up Dems-- all but 1 were voting for Obama mainly because of that reason...The huge debt that the Repubs had already put on the rest of their earning life- and the fact they had no plan for paying it off.....

A GOP Choice:
Tom Coburn or Ted Stevens

By JOHN FUND
August 2, 2008; Page A11

The Republican Party is facing what Ronald Reagan called "a time for choosing." A real argument is raging over how much it should turn its back on the bad habits that cost it control of Congress in 2006.

Just after that debacle, Alaska's Sen. Ted Stevens, the father of the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere," encountered Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, the antipork crusader who had held up many of the projects so many members believe are the key to their re-election. Mr. Stevens said, "Well, Tom, I hope you're satisfied for helping us lose the election." Mr. Coburn replied, "No, Ted, you lost us this election."[/b]

The data favored Mr. Coburn: 2006 exit polls revealed that corruption in government was second only to the Iraq war as the driving force behind the Democratic takeover. A major part of that corruption was earmarks -- pork projects members often secure in secret. Earmarks were at the heart of the scandals that sent Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Calif. Rep. Duke Cunningham to jail.


Mr. Stevens was a big reason the earmark culture had such a grip on Senate Republicans: Few dared risk his wrath. When he became chairman of the Appropriations Committee in 1997, he proudly proclaimed, "I'm a mean, miserable SOB." When Mr. Coburn dared challenge his $228 million "Bridge to Nowhere" in 2005, Mr. Stevens warned fellow senators "if we start cutting funding for individual projects, your project may be next."

In the House, GOP Rep. Don Young of Alaska -- the former Transportation Committee chair who stuffed the last highway bill with over 6,000 earmarks -- played a similar intimidation game. "Those who bite me will be bitten back," Mr. Young warned Rep. Scott Garrett last year. Mr. Garrett, a New Jersey Republican, had tried to kill a $34 million earmark sponsored by Mr. Young.

Now Mr. Stevens is almost certain to lose his Senate seat -- either through defeat or conviction on felony charges. And Mr. Young is trailing in Alaska's August 26 primary to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, a protégé of Alaska's reform Republican Gov. Sarah Pallin. Here's hoping the removal of both men from Capitol Hill stiffens the spine of more Republicans to forswear the earmark culture.

They may not like it, but Mr. Coburn is showing Republicans how the GOP can return to its small government roots. Consider Ronald Reagan, who in 1987 vetoed a highway bill because it had a mere 121 earmarks in it.

Reagan quoted a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison in 1796, warning that allowing Congress to spend federal money for local projects would set off "a scene of scramble among the members (for) who can get the most money wasted in their State, and they will always get most who are meanest." Reagan didn't think that represented good government or good politics. Republicans today should heed his warning.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121763231581006155.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
 
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