The pro-corruption caucus never rests and it rewards their foot soldiers with work through the many brushes with the law that they have.
A good case in point is Susan Ralston. She was Jack Abramoff’s secretary/confidant and gate-keeper for years. Then she went to work in the same role for Karl Rove (and serve as an important member of Team Abramoff in the White House. Here you can see a photo of Susan with Jack and many members of the gang (she is the one sitting in front of Jack). Most folks in that photo have either had charges filed against them or are still under investigation. Susan falls into the latter category. It was only last August when the Department of Justice named her as a co-conspirator in the Abramoff Scandal.
To say that she is under a cloud of suspicion would be an understatement. And yet, Republicans are more than willing to hire her to raise money for them and organize their affairs. The St. Petersburg Times reported yesterday that Ralston is the point of contact for a major GOP fundraiser for seven Republican Candidates for Senate this year. Here is the invite:
It looks like the corruptionist wing of the Republican Party is getting the band back together. This kind of fundraising work was always a big part of what Jack did for the GOP so it is not a surprise that Ralston has started a DC-based firm to do the same.
I guess it is something to do while you’re being investigated by the Feds and waiting for your plea deal/indictment to drop.
Cheers
dengre
ps: feel free to treat this as an open thread.
rob!
The GOP, The Party of Chutzpah.
handy
Of course. It’s not like she supported raising taxes or something awful like that.
Fehh. Liberals.
jenniebee
Since this is an Open Thread, anybody else notice that the punditry is now talking about Republicans retaking Congress in the same way they talked in late summer of ’08 about a McCain win? It was non-stop talk about the path to a McCain win without the disclaimer that the chances of that scenario playing out were something between nil and zilch. Same story now – the number of Republican retirements is mentioned as an afterthought, if at all.
Jason Bylinowski
Love this stuff! I like to know more about the history of these people, as I was fairly disaffected back in 2005.
moar pleez thx
General Winfield Stuck
This might have been covered in earlier threads, but Senator Shelby has jumped the shark putting a hold on every single Obama nominee for judges, 70 in total, demanding a 60 vote vote to approve them, all of them. It is called a “pocket filibuster’. The reason why
Good old fashioned extortion. These people have no shame. They have no real patriotism, nor conscience. I wouldn’t be at all against dems nuking the filibuster at least for executive appointments if this keeps up, like the wingnuts were going to do over a handful of dem holds on Bush judge nominations.
arguingwithsignposts
Dude, you gotta come out with this stuff waaaayyy earlier in the day. How can we treat GOP corruption as an open thread? It’s like we’ll have to wade through the mud and wipe our feet before posting our kitteh pics. And that’s just wrong.
Smudge gives the back leg salute to all the corruptocrats.
p.s. ;) (keep up the good work)
ETA: Shelby’s right in the line of fire of that back leg salute, too. F**ker doesn’t deserve to be dogcatcher of Montgomery County, much less a Senator.
Morbo
Can I interest you in some nightmare fuel?
danimal
@General Winfield Stuck: General, I just saw this one and posted in another thread. This is the PERFECT issue to highlight Republican obstruction. It is absolutely obvious that the holds are extreme and they are for utterly selfish (as opposed to ideology or the national interest) purposes. I wish we had smart, disciplined Dems that couldn’t finish a sentence without saying that “Shelby is holding up every Obama nominee to extort money for his state.”
handy
@Morbo:
Quite possibly the most bizarre political ad of all time. Whoever made that was high.
Dennis G.
@General Winfield Stuck:
One can only hope that this story will get some legs.
Perhaps we should demand that Senators loose their right to place holds in “secret”. If a Senator isn’t willing to publicly stand by their hold, I see no reason for them to be able to place one and they should not be able to get away with it.
Killing this should be a bit easier than taking out the filibuster and I thank the weasel from Alabama for his assistance is exposing the corruption of the Senate.
Cheers
Jason Bylinowski
@jenniebee: Well we’ve since accrued a number of pending retirements ourselves, haven’t we? It’s not just Dodd. I do see your point and agree fully, but you see, that right there is why I’m not complaining a bit. The way I see it, and knowing the way the press works, anything less than a total rout is going to play out as a WIN for Team D. They could use a win, and these days a thimble-full of blood can be construed as as positive as long as the other side was expecting a barrel.
Granted it’s all still flat-out scumbaggery, this talk of controlling the narrative, of always considering the optics, & the cynicism required to be able to take a loss and then dress it up as a win. But, you know, they don’t let me pick the press roster, and even if they did, I’m sure the imperfections of human nature would still ensure that nobody was happy then, either.
Dennis G.
@Morbo:
They told her to stay away from the Flakey Foont blotter, but did she listen? Nope. First HP and now this…
Sad, so sad.
Jason Bylinowski
…Though I do have to say, if I were ever voted in as Philosopher-King, I could probably do as good a job as anybody else.
The Republic of Stupidity
@danimal:
Seems about on par w/ the very, very special deal Ben Nelson managed to finagle for Nebraska around the health care bill, which quite frankly, also stank to high heavens.
At this point, I hate both sides, but Republicans just a little more…
Comrade Luke
With all the Democrat bashing on this site (myself included), having someone reminding us of the corruption on the side side is much appreciated.
Thank you.
Morbo
Curb Your Enthusiasm S1-6 on Amazon Gold Box for $90. Get John some pennies for Amazon references.
arguingwithsignposts
Here is the bullshit:
First of all, why is this spokesperson unnamed? Does the TPM not *know* this spokesperson’s name? Why not reveal it on grounds that this is a bullshit game the government plays?
Second, where is the journalist who will stand outside Shelby’s door and not allow the mf’er to leave his f**king office until he explains WTF he is doing. Why is there not a cadre of cameras waiting for him in the lobby of the Senate to ask him *repeatedly* about this b.s. maneuver. Where are the journalists with balls? Where’s Keith Olbermann?
I have nothing against Olbermann, or Maddow, or Ed Shultz, or Chris Matthews (well, that’s fudging a little on the last two), but if these “journalists” were *doing their jobs* they’d be down there in the bowels of the Senate offices *themselves* with camera crews in tow, waiting for Sen. Shelby to show his little weasle face out of his office, and they would *not. let. up* until they got him to say something.
*That* would be journalism. The day that happens, our republic might be saved. Until then, not so much.
/rant
General Winfield Stuck
@danimal:
It is not only their hypocrisy, but the sheer scale of it nowadays. And this one is off the charts. It approaches, if not equals seditious behavior by a southern wingnut. IMHO
Martin
@General Winfield Stuck: Not only is it the usual earmark graft, but it’s a program that has already sent people to prison, and accused McCain of influencing the bid.
That bidding arrangement was scuttled due to the conflict of interest problem and they’re back up and running with Shelby this time influencing the bid, which is active right now. Basically they’re pushing against Gates on this one.
Nothing like letting the free market do its work.
SiubhanDuinne
Any reason Obama can’t just do a blanket recess appointment? It’d be ugly but it’d also send a message to Shelby (and the Senate, writ large) to Just. Quit. Fucking. Around. There’s actual grownup work to be done.
Martin
@The Republic of Stupidity: Well, at least in Nelson’s case, everyone else in the Senate was pissed about that as well. And besides, the Dems yanked the deal away.
handy
@SiubhanDuinne:
At this point I’m not sure he would even consider it. But I’m suffering from a little ODS (Obama Disillusionment Syndrome) right now.
MikeJ
Any time the Senate goes into recess he can do all the appointments he wants. And at the same time he’ll be shitting on the constitution that says the Senate has to advise and consent on some appointments.
Better to just appoint a better CIA head and let them take care of it. I keed, I keed. Sorta.
There’s a huge difference between the half dozen or so filibusters (requiring 40 votes) the Dems used (and eventually dropped) and one man holds to pay off the French at the expense of Boeing workers.
danimal
@The Republic of Stupidity: Totally agreed. This is the GOP’s Cornhusker Kickback. There just isn’t a way to defend these slimy Washington ways once the spotlight is turned on. Both sides do it, yadda yadda. Now, I just hope that the Dems maintain discipline and mention that Shelby is “holding all Obama nominees hostage in order to extort money for his state.” Rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat.
Martin
@SiubhanDuinne: He could, but then they’ll just accuse him of bypassing Congress and taking over America with his blackety-soshulist-terrorist agenda.
Honestly, I’m getting close to the point of letting the Dems allow the GOP to just shut everything down and have Obama sell the message.
MikeJ
@danimal:
Except there’s a difference between holding one piece of legislation hostage and every agency in the US government.
SiubhanDuinne
@MikeJ: Well, I can’t see Obama shitting on the Constitution in quite that way. But let’s face it, between Nelson and Shelby there’s enough shit on the Constitution to keep Lily happily rolling around in it for the remainder of the 111th Congress.
Wile E. Quixote
I think President Obama should call Tim Geithner and say “Tim, freeze all payments to the members of the US Senate and their staffs” and then call the rest of the Senators and say “You’ll get paid when my nominees get an up or down vote.”. I’m willing to bet that he could do this, quite legally because I’m willing to bet that there is no law that says that Senators and their staffs have to be paid regularly, only that they draw a certain salary per annum.
MikeJ
The exec isn’t in charge of payments to the lege. If he attempted it he’d be impeached and lose 100-0.
You would be wrong.
BDeevDad
Waiting for a reporter to ask, Senator Shelby, didn’t you write,
Martin
The President can convene Congress (either or both houses) at his discretion, though. If they insist on blocking his appointments, he can keep them in session indefinitely. I don’t think it’s ever been done, but he can do it. Article II, Section 3.
Martin
@BDeevDad: Ah, but those were good, conservative, patriotic judges, not communist executive appointments.
Wile E. Quixote
@MikeJ:
Treasury is part of the executive branch, Congress can allocate money, but they don’t write the checks. And how is Congress going to impeach the president? Motions for impeachment have to start in the House, which is majority Democratic, more liberal than the Senate and seriously pissed off at the shit the Senate forced them to eat on HCR. Plus you have to make the case that paying Senators and their staffs once a year instead of on a regular basis comes under the heading of “high crimes and misdemeanors”. It certainly doesn’t come under the heading of treason or bribery and as long as we’re talking about the Constitution I hardly think that the practice of allowing a shit golem like Shelby, or any other Senator, to freeze all of a president’s nominees comes under the heading of “advise and consent”.
2th&nayle
I’m sure you’re right about that but I gotta give Wyle E. credit! I like the way he thinks!
The Republic of Stupidity
@Martin:
Good… they should have known better in the first place.
My only possible reaction to it, when I heard about was a good, old-fashioned, face palm.
***slapping sound, followed by voice thru clenched teeth…***
“What could they have been THINKING?”
The Republic of Stupidity
@MikeJ:
And THAT’S why I hate Republicans a bit more…
Mice vs rats… they’re both vermin…
I dislike mice in the house, but LOATHE rats…
Martin
@The Republic of Stupidity:
They were thinking it was easier to fix after the fact, not to mention possibly being illegal. In other words, if you have to promise Snowe a unicorn in order to vote on the jobs bill, do it! Let her figure it out *after* the vote.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Martin:
Funny… it just occurred to me in the last few minutes that Nelson might have been engaging in some clever theatrics for the folks back home too… full well knowing that it AIN’T gonna pass muster w/ the rest of the Senate, but now he can go back home and tell his paisanos, “Hey I ALMOST had it for you…”
***Nelson holds hands up and part, to show how big the one that got a away was…***
And what’s the downside to Big Ben?
Nothing.
Sure, he looks like a shyster to conservatives, and gave ’em some easy shots at Dems, but to the folks that really, really matter – his constituetents back home?
freelancer
OT – Netcentric meta weirdness.
The NY based band Coheed and Cambria have announced the release date of their newest album “The Year of the Black Rainbow” to be in April of this year.
In the past two days, a “sneak peak” track was supposedly leaked onto the web, that of a cover of the Internet meme song “Chocolate Rain”, albeit with lyrics revolving around the band’s Amory Wars concept.
Since then, rumors have spread that it is a fan-based video, produced by the administrator of the bands unofficial fansite Cobald and Calcium. If so, he is a dead-ringer for the voice and stylings of C&C’s frontman Claudio Sanchez.
Chocolate Rain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdx6eKprUZc
Gravenstone
As I understand it, holds are more tradition than institutional. Reid need not honor Shelby’s holds, and in fact he specifically did not honor one put forth by Dodd last year.
If Reid had a pair (I know, big fucking IF), he should simply state that due the Shelby’s egregious abuse of the Hold, the chair will no longer honor any holds put forth by the esteeemed Senator from Alabama for the remainder of this legislative session. If he really wanted to spice things up, he could point to this as an example of a hopelessly broken system and refuse to honor any holds from any Senator for the remainder of the session.
/pipe dream off
de stijl
Shelby’s omnihold for graft is a solid gold opportunity to whack Republicans with the obstructionism stick.
Rahm should be slavering over this opportunity like a rat does cheese.
If the Democrats aren’t gleefully queuing up attacks for the next few weeks or months on this, they’re idiots.
This is Bridge to Nowhere x 10.
But who am I kidding?
Doug M.
Okay, reality check here.
1) Being under investigation != being indicted, which in turn != guilty.
Susan Ralston was Jack’s secretary for years. Obviously that makes her very interesting to investigators. But it doesn’t mean she’s guilty of anything more than… being Jack Abramoff’s secretary.
2) Secretary: her skillset is administration. She’s not really an operative, nor either a player. She’s a gatekeeper, time-manager, appointment-handler. She runs calendars and juggles logistics.
So, it’s deeply unsurprising to see her pop up in something like this. A fundraiser for multiple Senators is like getting seven elephants to dance. You have to deal with seven massive egos and seven sets of harassed, overworked, jittery staff — and that’s before the invitations start going out.
The list of people who can handle something like this is quite small. You’d have to be
— an excellent administrator
— politically savvy
— very familiar with high-level Washington political culture — also very familiar with the fundraising world, and
— patient, thick-skinned and psychologically stable
And also a Republican, of course.
So there are probably less than a dozen people in DC who you’d want to do something like this. And of that maybe-dozen, Susan Ralston is almost certainly the only one who is both female and nonwhite. Which, given the typical demographics of GOP fundraisers, makes her that much more attractive.
On the minus side, she’s… under investigation. Oh, the horror.
Doug M.
Linda Featheringill
To Wile E. Quixote:
Lovely idea, messing with the Senate’s pay schedule. Might not work, but the very idea certainly brightened my morning.
Thank you.
valdivia
The Shelby thing is so outrageous, I am hoping journalists do their work and start pushing for answers on this. I know, slim chance eh?
I also think Toomey and Rubio and all the new Senate hopefuls should be asked point blank about this fundraiser. I am assuming that won’t happen either. Sigh.
In the meantime I am now experiencing the full-DC freakout over the coming storm. Weird.
rootless_e
@MikeJ: “Shitting on the constitution”?
Where in the constitution does it say that all Presidential appointments require unanimous consent by the Senate? If the Senate does not want to exercise its right to advise and consent, then it is the duty of the President to keep the executive branch functioning via recess appointments.
Shitting on the constitution is exactly what the GOP abuse of process and the Dems wimp response involves.
El Cid
Senator Shelby hates that the United States would fail to use the auto company crisis to destroy labor unions so that Alabama could use more massive state subsidies to attract non-union plants to Alabama, but, god-damn, as a proud Southerner he’s sho nuff gonna use them McCain-hated earmarks to bring that evil soshulist ty-rannical fedrul gubmit money to the super-patriot Confederate state of Alabammy!
STOP DA SPENDIN’! GIMME MAH MUNEE! FEDRUL GUBMIT IS ON A DRUNK SPENDIN’ BINGE! GIMME MO MUNEE!
Ladies and gentlemen, Senator Richard Porkwall Shelby.
El Cid
And, by the way, I guess we should expect a massive turnout of Teatard protesters and screaming “SHELBY = OBAMAHITLERSTALIN” because of the Senator’s earmarks forcing Alabama to take them tainted fedrul dollars — all while ramming a particular spending program down the military’s throat?
Amirite?
Fox News will cover these massive anti-spending protests live, right?
arguingwithsignposts
I’ll just leave this here:
I wouldn’t call that “shitting all over the Constitution.”
gnomedad
@BDeevDad:
Nice work!
PTirebiter
@El Cid: My thoughts exactly after I read the TPM story last night. Keep your govt. hands off my Medicare and outta our dee-fence jobs. Obama was right, everyday is an election day for these pukes.
jeffreyw
I’ll just leave this here (h/t AWS)
PTirebiter
@ Denny Gee
I’m enjoying your work. Keep ’em flying.
MR Bill
I had dreams about the insane Carly Fiorna ad (with the “not Fiscal Conservative in Sheep’s Clothing), see “https://balloon-juice.com/?p=34056”
Perhaps, for the Balloon Juice Lexicon, (if not already proposed)
“Carlyfiornacation”: where an epic failure is seen as a victory, empowering the loser to generate bad policy, bad advertising.
Ok it needs work..
rootless_e
Shelby is exhibit one of the massive and self-serving ignorance of all the chucklehead “progressives” who want Obama to make an example of some Dem waffler to terrify the others. Clinton tried to do this with Shelby who was a Dem at the time and ended up being shown up.
You must be able to back up a threat or there is no point in making it. This elementary fact of human interaction was something that W never figured out and it appears equally unknown to many “progressives”. In fact the similarities …
geg6
@arguingwithsignposts:
Yup, recess appointments are in no way “shitting on the Constitution.” It isn’t the preferred method of getting appointments into place, but government and the courts MUST function and the idea that one senator can hold up the functioning of the federal courts or critical agencies is simply outrageous and contrary to any reasonable reading of the Constitution. I didn’t even bitch about this when Bush did it because it is simply a way the Constitution provides for the executive to carry out its functions in the face of congressional delay and/or intransigence. They are limited appointments, so the advise and consent function still exists if asshole senators would ever allow the damn thing to get to the floor and should the executive want to make the appointment permanent.
R-Jud
@El Cid: @PTirebiter:
“Stop giving money to welfare queens, and make sure I get my social security check on time.”
They don’t get it.
OT: This is UK-centric, but some of you will have seen In The Loop or The Thick of It. And you need to go here and click the “Tuckeri[z]e” button. Shiny shiny button.
El Cid
@rootless_e: Shelby is rather an example of the overwhelming political tendency of Southern white conservatives who had remained Democrats due to the South’s historic one-party rule of Democrats until the advantages of joining the Solid South block of Republicans outweighed any party structure advantage.
It’s ridiculous to analogize this as some foolishness by Clinton or ‘progressives’, any more than when Phil Gramm was kicked off his committees for literally spying on Democratic budget negotiations for the Reagan team and then became a Republican, and then on to enjoy Republican and Democratic support to destroy much of our economy through deregulation and anti-regulation.
rootless_e
@El Cid: The point is that Presidents have very limited leverage over Senators, unless the Obama team comes up with something. The incessant demands to punish Lieberman or Nelson or so on, are made in utter disregard of the ability of especially Democratic Senators to simply give the executive the finger.
PTirebiter
@R-Jud:
“[email protected]#k the i’s and fist the t’s”?
The guy looks like Dr. House and sounds like Bricktop from Snatch. I’m not really conversant in UK slang but I think I caught the overall drift. Funny stuff, thanks
Bender
Two words: Bill Ayers.
Still feel so smug about who organizes and raises funds for the Democratic Party?
Didn’t think so, you self-righteous moron. Seriously, you idiots don’t have the brains God gave a paper napkin, to bring up something like this and think you’ll score points with it anywhere outside your delusional echo-chamber of ignorance.
Seriously? Abramoff’s secretary?
Who’d she kill?
R-Jud
@PTirebiter:
It’s, like, a million times better when you hear the actor speak. He’s Scottish. It’s the best English-speaking accent for really foul language, IMHO.
El Cid
@Bender: Bill Ayers what? I know that he was appointed by Richard Daley to a commission on education and backed by the conservative Annenberg foundation (you know, Reagan’s close friend Walter Annenberg). What does this have to do with Democratic fundraising?
Gravenstone
@El Cid: Shhh, Bender ain’t that bright. Poor dear tends to fixate on a few simple images and repeats them ad nauseum. You’ll just confuse the poor lad if you try logic and stuff. Just back away slowly, then once you can safely break eye contact, make a run for it!
xian
the thing is, it’s stupid to have rules that are unworkable and that have only worked in the past due to a tradition of comity.
it’s one or the other. if these are the rules, then these are the rules, but voluntarily softening them no longer works.
if the rules are unworkable, let’s change them. otherwise we’re just believing our husband when he says he’ll never hit us again.
Dennis G.
@Bender:
You really are clueless. “Bill Ayers”? Hell, I could do much better pointing out iffy folks connected to Democrats and their fundraising than that, but then again I do research. If Ayers is the best you can do then it is clear that you have no idea what you are talking about.
The point is that Ralston was much more than a “secretary” for Jack and then Karl. She was also a first class grifter deeply involved in scams to rip off taxpayers and Abramoff’s clients of millions of dollars. She helped Jack protect a system of human trafficking on the Marianas Islands were young girls and boys were sold into the global sex trade. I could give the names of some of the people killed and rape as a by-product of her work to protect this abuse for over a decade, but I expect by now you fingers are in your ears and you’re repeating “acorn, acorn, ayers, acorn…” as a way to avoid thinking about details you do not like.
I’ve read the released court docs, billing records and emails. Ralston is a corruptionist who should be in jail with Abramoff. Jack and Susan have done far more damage to America than Bill Ayers ever did. It is a bit more than “being under investigation”. She has been officially named as a co-conspirator in the Abramoff Scandal.
Thanks for sharing Mr. Dim Bulb, your musings are amusing.
Doug M.
“She was also a first class grifter deeply involved in scams to rip off taxpayers and Abramoff’s clients of millions of dollars. She helped Jack protect a system of human trafficking on the Marianas Islands were young girls and boys were sold into the global sex trade.”
Cites for this? Specifically, for Ralston’s involvement in this?
“It is a bit more than “being under investigation”. She has been officially named as a co-conspirator in the Abramoff Scandal.”
When prosecutors claim conspiracy, they (quite understandably) spread their net as wide as possible; this allows them to collect evidence as widely as possible. Naming people as co-conspirators is a great way to get a judge to sign warrants. And the standard for naming a co-conspirator is very low — basically, you can plausibly stick anyone with a close relationship to the prime suspect in there.
It would be amazing if Jack Abramoff’s secretary were /not/ named. If she wasn’t, I’d think the prosecutors were slacking.
But that’s as far as it goes. The Abramoff investigation is now in its fifth year. Jack’s been in jail since, what, 2007? I think we can reasonably assume that if there were enough evidence to indict Ralston, someone would have tried it by now.
“I’ve read the released court docs, billing records and emails.”
Presumably, so have the prosecutors — the trained professionals in charge of bringing criminals to justice.
Yet Ralston remains unindicted. Go figure.
Doug M.