Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - And now the NEXT Republican Congressional scandal: Randy Cunningham

host · 12-08-2005, 04:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by uncle phil

i don't try to foray into this forum too much but, in my humble opinion, Dwight David Eisenhower was the last republican president who upheld the ideals of his party...

On the rnc.org website, on the right lower column, under "upcoming events", displays: <a href="http://www.rnc.org/Calendar/Detail.aspx?EventID=1158">12.08.05 - Representative Duke Cunningham's Birthday</a>

Happy birthday, "Duke"! It's great to see the GOP "stand by" even their extinguished members; the ones who plead guilty to compromising pentagon procurement of goods and services, for their own massive personal gain, during a time of war.

You can view Duke's "presents" here:

Quote:

http://www.kfmb.com/stories/story.30173.html
IRS Displays Duke's Ill-Gotten Gains

Last Updated:
12-06-05 at 10:23PM

Antiques and home furnishings forfeited by former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham are on display and being taken into custody Tuesday.

It was part of Cunningham’s plea agreement that his personal property be seized. Cunningham resigned from office after pleading guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes to steer business to defense contractors..........

I know from reading your posts that a number of you want the rest of us to believe that the wave of corruption that we are observing lately from numerous officials elected to high office is a "bi-partisan" problem; "they all do it", "both parties are equally guilty"...etc....etc... The excerpt below, critiquing a recent, political corruption "scorecard", published in the WaPo, by the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, and his response when challenged about the "spin" and contradiction in the criteria he has used to compare democrats to republicans, IMO, is an eye opener. Cillizza admits that an "editor" altered his column. The end result was to make the democrats appear "more" equal in the number of individuals implicated in crimes during the comparison period:

Quote:

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/thef...k_the_fix.html
The Fix Takes Questions

New York, N.Y.: In your <a href="http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2005/11/political_scand.html">recent corruption roundup,</a> you set up some ground rules that you'll only deal with current members of Congress or governors. Yet, you broke your own rules by including Rep Frank Ballance (D) who resigned in June, 2004. You omitted Connecticut Governor John Rowland (R) who also resigned in June, 2004. Why break your own rules for one but not the other?

The only thing I can think of is that you made a list and found that there are a lot more Republicans than Democrats on the list. So in an effort to appeared unbiased, you had to find another Democrat.

Cillizza: This was an editorial mixup. In my original post, Ballance was not included since, as you rightly point out, he is not a sitting member of Congress. After an edit, Ballance was unnecessarily included for, frankly, balance. I did not read the final edit and therefore was unaware that Ballance had been added to the list. I apologize for my editor's error (he's been flogged). And let no man (or woman) say The Fix opposes full disclosure.

I invite anyone to back the claim that this wave of corruption is a bi-partisan phenomena. Please pick a recent time period and find more democrats in congress or in governor's offices who have been found to sell their political power and influence, than Cillizza of the WaPo was able to list, using the same time frame for all officials listed.

Please show us an argument that the oft demonized William Jefferson of N.O. has committed high crimes that rise to the level of Cunningham's or of this offense to our sensibilities:

Quote:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/wa...ership?mode=PF
House Republicans quietly pushing for new leadership
Voice concern about prospects for '06 elections

By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | December 7, 2005

.........House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and his top lieutenants are seeking to avoid a divisive intra-party leadership fight. They engineered a scenario whereby the majority leader's position is being filled on a temporary basis through at least the end of the year by the number-three House Republican, majority whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, with other members of leadership taking on increased responsibilities.

In addition, Hastert has scheduled the first House session of 2006 for Jan. 31 -- after a holiday break of more than a month, and two weeks after senators are due to return to Washington. The late start gives DeLay, a Texas Republican, a greater amount of time with which to dispose of the charges, as new leadership elections could not occur until the House is back in session.

''I believe Mr. DeLay's situation will be resolved by then, and I believe it will be resolved to his satisfaction," Blunt said yesterday. ''Mr. DeLay is getting the swift movement in this case that he's asked for."

A Texas judge on Monday tossed out one of the three criminal charges DeLay was facing in connection with an alleged scheme to circumvent campaign-finance laws by funneling corporate contributions to candidates. But the judge let stand the most serious charges filed against DeLay: two felony money-laundering counts. No trial date has been set.

If new leadership elections are held, DeLay will stand little chance of reclaiming his post even if he is later vindicated, said Julian Zelizer, a congressional scholar at Boston University. DeLay will remain a political liability for Republican members, and House members will want to distance themselves more as next November's elections approach, Zelizer said.

''It's hard to imagine him or his allies being put back in office," Zelizer said.

''Once you get to the point of electing new leadership, the Republicans are going to want to separate themselves from him as much as possible.".............

Eventually, the sheeple will focus on all of this long and hard enough to change their minds about the current corruption being a "bi-partisan" problem.
The stench is coming predominently from the one party in power. The party that controls the decisions of who to investigate, and who to censure of to prosecute.

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...120601714.html
Editorial Pages
Mr. Cunningham's Lessons
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; Page A24

IF IT WEREN'T for his excessive greed -- and an enterprising Copley News Service reporter named Marcus Stern, who first revealed his sleazy housing deal -- Randy "Duke" Cunningham might have been able to commit the perfect congressional crime.

The story of the San Diego Republican, who resigned from Congress last week after pleading guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors, is in part the saga of a single, flawed individual who succumbed to temptation in the form of a yacht, a Rolls-Royce and a Louis Philippe commode. But it also exposes a pair of systemic fault lines -- the explosion in congressional "earmarking" and the growth in secret defense spending programs -- whose confluence enabled his criminal behavior...........

.........In Mr. Cunningham's case, it's fair to ask: Where was the oversight from Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), who headed the defense subcommittee until January?...........

Ohhhhhh......here's Jerry...........!!!!!!!!

Quote:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...home-headlines
Articles From Graft Case to Be Auctioned
............As the federal government prepared to sell off the furnishings that were part of his bribery scheme, Cunningham's former colleagues were trying to make sense of his fall as they returned from the Thanksgiving recess.

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said he was "just seething" at Cunningham's behavior.

"I can't remember a time I've been more angry," Lewis said. "I don't know anybody around here who wasn't just amazed."

But wait......ohhhhh noooo!!!....not Jerry, too ????

Quote:

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/expo...5/fallout.html
Co-conspirators’ largesse extended to many
By Josephine Hearn

Republican Reps. Tom DeLay (Texas), John Doolittle (Calif.) and Jerry Lewis (Calif.) all received at least $30,000 in donations — either through their campaign committee or their leadership PACs — from Wade, Wilkes, their family members and their companies’ PACs over the past four years. These totals do not include individual contributions from employees of these firms. Early this year, Lewis became the chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Before that, he headed the defense appropriations subcommittee. Because of these high-profile roles, Lewis often receives more donations than most House members. Doolittle also sits on the Appropriations Committee.

But Cunningham, who was simply a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee, received the most — at least $66,000 during the same period.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, received just over $28,000, as did Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.). Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) was the recipient of $20,000.

Wilkes is a prominent Bush fundraiser, earning a designation as a “Bush pioneer” in 2004 for raising more than $100,000. If Wilkes is indicted, he will be the third Bush pioneer, after Abramoff and Ohio fundraiser Tom Noe, to be indicted this year..............

Quote:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/st...=la-news-state
Cunningham Figure Gave to Gov., Got 2 Board Seats
By Dan Morain
Times Staff Writer

December 8, 2005

SACRAMENTO — A businessman tied to the bribery scandal involving former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham donated more than $70,000 to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign committees and received two gubernatorial appointments.

At Schwarzenegger's behest, Brent Wilkes, founder of the government contractor ADCS Inc., resigned Nov. 29 from the Del Mar Fair Board and from another panel that oversees the leasing of state land for racetracks, said Margita Thompson, the governor's press secretary.

Schwarzenegger appointed Wilkes to the Del Mar board in April 2004 and to the State Race Track Leasing Commission last April. A seat on the Del Mar board is a sought-after post given the panel's association with the Del Mar racetrack, among the most successful tracks in the nation.

Starting with the 2003 recall campaign, Wilkes, his wife and his companies have given $73,000 to Schwarzenegger's campaign committees, according to filings with Secretary of State Bruce McPherson. One of Wilkes' business associates gave $15,000 to the governor's 2003 campaign.

Ned Wigglesworth of the watchdog group TheRestofUs.org called on Schwarzenegger to return the donations.

"In light of Cunningham's plea agreement … it is certainly incumbent upon the governor to answer whether these appointments were related to the contributions," Wigglesworth said. "At the very least it is the appearance of quid pro quo and at the very least the governor should answer questions."

When asked whether Wilkes' appointments were linked to the donations, Thompson said: "Absolutely not…. There is no connection at all."

Marty Wilson, a Schwarzenegger political aide who oversees the governor's fundraising, said that "at the present time" the money would not be returned.

One day before Wilkes quit the state posts, Cunningham, a Republican from Rancho Santa Fe, pleaded guilty to federal charges that he took $2.4 million in bribes and evaded more than $1 million in taxes. He also resigned from the House of Representatives.

<h3>According to Cunningham's plea agreement, Wilkes gave him more than $635,000 in bribes.</h3> Wilkes is not named in the Cunningham indictment or in the written plea agreement, but he is referred to as one of four unnamed co-conspirators, one of Wilkes' attorneys has said. That lawyer, Michael Lipman, did not return phone calls Wednesday.

Wilkes' company, ADCS, which is based in Poway, has received millions in federal contracts. According to the plea agreement, Cunningham pressured the Department of Defense to award contracts to ADCS, though it is not clear from the plea bargain that his intervention was pivotal.

Though ADCS appears to focus its efforts on winning federal contracts, the company also has done a small amount of business with the state. In 2001 and 2003, before Schwarzenegger took office, California selected ADCS as one of the vendors that could be hired to transform paper documents into computer images.

Quote:

http://www.time.com/time/archive/pre...037627,00.html
Mar. 21, 2005

..........Ed Buckham's name was one you didn't hear much outside the secluded corridor where he worked on the first floor of the Capitol. But in that suite, which houses the majority whip's offices, Buckham was far more than an ordinary congressional aide in the three heady years following the Republican takeover of the House in 1994. Thanks to an unusually close and trusting relationship with his boss, Tom DeLay's chief of staff quietly became one of the most powerful people in Washington. "He was the guy DeLay turned to when he made a final decision," recalls a former aide to a member of the House Republican leadership, "and even after he made the final decision, the guy who could talk him out of it." What even fewer people outside that office knew was that the two shared a bond that transcended power and politics: Buckham, a licensed nondenominational minister, was also DeLay's pastor......

.......Buckham shared not only DeLay's religious faith but also his audacious vision for harnessing the financial and political clout of business and conservative interests to carry out the G.O.P. agenda and increase its majority in Congress. DeLay offered lobbyists the best seats they had ever had at the table, a say in legislative and political strategy, on the understanding that they in return would pour millions into DeLay's favored causes and candidates. In addition, he threatened to shut out lobbying shops that employed Democrats. In Washington that seamless coordination between his office and the lobbying corridor of K Street has become known as DeLay Inc. It developed the muscle to push or block pretty much everything DeLay asked for, from protecting tax breaks for low-wage garment manufacturers on the Northern Mariana Islands (where DeLay spent New Year's Day 1998 with his wife and Buckham) to creating a Medicare prescription-drug plan that critics say is a better deal for pharmaceutical companies than it is for seniors......

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2501423_2.html
Lawmakers Under Scrutiny in Probe of Lobbyist (page 2)
Saturday, November 26, 2005; Page A01

Investigators are also gathering information about Abramoff's hiring of several congressional wives, sources said, as well as his referral of clients to Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying and consulting firm run by former senior aides to DeLay. Financial disclosure forms show that the firm employed DeLay's wife, Christine, from 1998 to 2002.

Former Abramoff lobbying associates have said that Abramoff shared some of his high-paying clients with the group, including Malaysian interests, the Mississippi Choctaw Indian tribe and online gambling firms. Federal investigators have questioned some former Abramoff associates about whether those referrals were related to Christine DeLay's employment there, sources said.

Alexander Strategy Group is run by former DeLay senior staffers Edwin A. Buckham and Tony C. Rudy. Rudy served as DeLay's deputy chief of staff until 2001, when he took a job with Abramoff, and later moved on to join Buckham.