Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Ex Illinois Gov Ryan Convicted & Liberal Press Hides His Party Affiliation

host · 04-19-2006, 12:30 AM

in the U.S. in 2006, the press is aware that the public has been conditioned to pay attention mainly to brief "sound bites", USA Today, style "McNews" print snippets, and the "zippers" that crawl across the CNN and Foxnews telecast formats.

The Abramoff/Delay story does not lend itself to that style of reporting. It's too complicated, too many subplots, too many schemes by guys who were too clever and too ambitious.

A mega corporate owned press, with a liberal bias, would not leave it to me to display the following for you, though. Please post a link to where you've already seen this "news" on a major, U.S. media website. The only major news coverage for some of this, to my knowledge, is at the Wahington Post site, and they haven't covered the following:

From the 1999 Congressional Record, you can read that Rep. Curt Weldon, a republican, entered information about a questionable individual, tied to Abramoff and Tom Delay, into that Record....exhibiting a tactic of cooperation with Abramoff, very similar to what is described in a DOJ press release, displayed in the second quote box....

Quote:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-...2&position=all
TRIBUTE TO ALEXANDER KOULAKOVSKY
HON. CURT WELDON
OF PENNSYLVANIA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, February 4, 1999
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker,
I rise today to pay tribute to Mr. Alexander
Koulakovsky and his company ‘‘Nafta Sib’’
which has undertaken an exciting new project
in Russia. In September of 1998 at the beginning
of the new school year, a traditional
Christian School opened in Moscow. This
school, which was built in one year, was funded
by the company ‘‘Nafta Sib,’’ which also
engages in several charities and projects
aimed at restoring old churches, and preserving
icons and religious artifacts. Mr.
Koulakovsky is currently in the process of putting
together a Board of Trustees for the
Christian School which will provide financial
support and assist in maintaining high standards
of education.

There has been press reported <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/03/AR2006010301609.html">admission by a spokesperson</a> for Ohio Rep. Bob Ney, a republican under investigation by the DOJ, that Ney is "Representative #1", described in the following DOJ release:

Quote:

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2006/Jan...6_crm_002.html
......For example, Abramoff and Scanlon provided things of value to a public official (described as Representative #1) and members of his staff, including, but not limited to, a lavish trip to Scotland to play golf on world-famous courses, tickets to sporting events and other entertainment, regular meals at Abramoff?s upscale restaurant, and campaign contributions for the Representative, his political action committee, his campaign committee, and other political committees on behalf of the Representative. At the same time, and in exchange for these things of value, Scanlon and Abramoff sought and received the Representative?s agreement to perform directly and through others a series of official acts, including but not limited to agreements to support and pass legislation, and agreements to place statements in the Congressional Record........

Here is the background on this story. I've highlighted the name of the Russian who Curt Weldon praised in the Congressional Record. Consider that Ed Buckham was Tom Delay's chief of staff, and that he is represented as Delay's Pastpr and his spiritual advisor. Buckham founded a lobbying firm, Alexander Strategies Group (ASG), that paid Delay's wife $3200 per month, to "work" a "no show" job. ASG received $500000 in lobbying fees from Randy Cunningham briber, Brett Wilkes.

Quote:

http://www.factcheck.org/article371.html
Defaming DeLay?

Houston TV stations refuse to run a liberal TV ad accusing DeLay of "corruption" after his lawyer threatens to sue. We look at the facts.

January 13, 2006 Modified: January 23, 2006

....DeLay's primary complaint is that the ad refers to "one million dollars from Russian tycoons to allegedly influence his vote." In fact, The Washington Post has reported just such an allegation. It quoted the former president of an advocacy group as saying DeLay's former chief of staff told him that Russians contributed $1 million to the group in 1998 specifically to influence DeLay's vote on legislation.....

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeLay
===Contributions from Russian oil executives===
In December 2005, the ''Washington Post'' reported that a group of [[Russia]]n oil executives gave money to a non-profit advocacy group linked to DeLay and to lobbyist [[Jack Abramoff]] in an attempt to influence his vote on a 1998 [[International Monetary Fund]] bailout of the Russian economy.<ref>{{cite news | <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/30/AR2005123001480_pf.html"> | title=The DeLay-Abramoff Money Trail | publisher=The Washington Post | date=31 December 2005 | author=R. Jeffrey Smith | page=A01</a> Associates of DeLay advisor [[Ed Buckham]], the founder of the [[U.S. Family Network]], said that executives from the oil firm Naftasib offered a donation of $1,000,000 cash to be delivered to a [[Washington, D.C.]]-area airport in order to secure DeLay's support. On [[June 25]] [[1998]], the U.S. Family Network received a $1 million check via money transferred through the London law firm James & Sarch Co. This payment was the largest single entry on U.S. Family Network's donor list. The original source of the donation is not recorded. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/08/wus08.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/08/ixnewstop.html"> British lawyers linked to $1m payment for favours at US Congress |publisher=[[The Daily Telegraph]] | date=8 January 2006}}</a> DeLay denied that the payment had influenced his vote. Naftasib denied that it had made the payment and that it had ever been represented by James & Sarch Co. The now-dissolved law firm's former partners declined to comment due to confidentiality requirements.

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000182.php
The DeLay-Abramoff Money Trail, Part 2
By Paul Kiel - March 24, 2006, 5:53 PM

.........First, here's what we knew from the Post's story from December.

Ed Buckham founded the U.S. Family Network in 1996 while still serving as DeLay's chief of staff. By 1997, Abramoff's clients, the Northern Marianas and the Mississippi Choctaw Indians, were dumping buckets of money into it. The biggest payoff was the $1 million from two executives of Naftasib, a Russian energy giant. Buckham actually <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/30/AR2005123001480_pf.html">admitted</a> to the U.S. Family Network's director that the money was paid to influence DeLay's vote on an IMF loan for Russia.

Peter Stone's new piece in the National Journal reveals another bundle of money from the Russians and what they got for it. Stone reports that the Russian energy execs invested $299,975 in DeLay back in 1997, before they really took the plunge later with the $1 million. $250,000 of that came (as a reward or a bribe, I'll let you decide) just two weeks before DeLay flew to Moscow with Abramoff to see the sights with Abramoff's Russian clients.

I'll let Stone tell it from there:

In June 1997, Ed Buckham traveled to Moscow, in part to prepare for DeLay and Abramoff's August visit. "Jack was proving to the Russians that he could delegate high-ranking officials to do what he wanted," a former associate of Abramoff's said in describing Buckham's trip.

The following month, <h3>[Alexander] Koulakovsky, Naftasib's general manager [and Abramoff's client],</h3> briefly visited the United States, attending a July 18 luncheon in Houston with about 10 oil and gas executives. DeLay was unable to attend because of obligations in Washington, so he asked his wife, Christine DeLay, to go in his place. DeLay's then-Deputy Chief of Staff Susan Hirschmann also attended. DeLay attorney Richard Cullen said in an interview that the congressman "viewed [the luncheon meeting] as a routine way to showcase Houston to businessmen interested in expanding trade." Cullen said he did not know who requested the meeting. The meeting has attracted the attention of federal investigators, according to a source familiar with the Abramoff probe. On July 24, a week after the Houston lunch, the network received its single largest contribution that year, $250,000 from Nationscorp/James & Sarch [the Russians' front company], according to a source familiar with the group's donations.

About two weeks later, DeLay and a few top staffers, including Hirschmann and Buckham, left for a six-day trip to Moscow that was sponsored by another small conservative group, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28319-2005Apr5.html">the National Center for Public Policy Research</a>, on whose board Abramoff later served. Abramoff joined the others in Moscow.

So put it together: DeLay's chief aide gets $250,000 paid into his front operation by Abramoff clients. Two weeks later, DeLay is having dinner in Russia with those Abramoff clients.

Not convinced? Let's remember who we're dealing with. This is a choice vignette describing the folks in question, from the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/30/AR2005123001480_pf.html">Post:</a>

A former Abramoff associate said the two [Naftasib] executives "wanted to contribute to DeLay" and clearly had the resources to do it. At one point, Koulakovsky asked during a dinner in Moscow "what would happen if the DeLays woke up one morning" and found a luxury car in their front driveway, the former associate said. They were told the DeLays "would go to jail and you would go to jail."......

Here's another report that has been ignored by the "liberal" media.......have you ever read this "news" about Curt Weldon's daughter before?

Quote:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...ck=1&cset=true
Lucrative Deals for a Daughter of Politics
Karen Weldon, whose dad is a Pennsylvania congressman, is a lobbyist for three foreign clients who need his help, and get it.
By Ken Silverstein, Chuck Neubauer and Richard T. Cooper, Times Staff Writers
February 20, 2004

WASHINGTON — Karen Weldon, an inexperienced 29-year-old lobbyist from suburban Philadelphia, seemed an unlikely choice for clients seeking global public relations services.

Yet her tiny firm was selected last year for a plum $240,000 contract to promote the good works of a wealthy Serbian family that had been linked to accused war criminal Slobodan Milosevic........

Republican Rep. Randy Cunningham pled guilty to corruption charges five months ago. Would a liberal press take this long to report the following, <a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=Thomas+Kontogiannis&btnG=Search+News">sparse coverage</a> about two of the four conspirators who Cunningham admitted accepting bribes from? (New York businessman Thomas Kontogiannis; and John T. Michael, Kontogiannis' nephew)

Again....if you've read similar reports of Weldon's 1999 Congressional Record entry, or about Karen Weldon suddenly starting a lobbying firm with no prior experience or international connections, or a followup report about Thomas Kontogiannis, before today, from a MSM press source, please post a link. The Curt Weldon/Able Danger reports, and the Cunningham corruption scandal were widely reported. A liberal press would dispatch armies of reporters to dig deeper, in order to report more "dirt", ASAP, but that is not what has happened

Consider what is new "news" to you, in this post. After Bob Ney was accused by the DOJ of placing statements in the Congressional Record in exchange for trips and other "perks" from Jack Abramoff, wouldn't a "liberal" press, provide more followup coverage than reports from a sole outlet, the Washington Post? Wouldn't "the Post", and other liberal major media outlets comb the Congressional Record, looking for similar, odd entries, by other congressmen, linked to Abramoff or Delay associates? Why would a liberal press, leave it to me, to share Curt Weldon's apparent complicity with Abramoff, Delay, and Buckham, with you?