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October 17, 2005
WB: Traditional Values
Comments
Wittman a while ago via Laura Rozen:
When I was at the Christian Coalition, I witnessed first-hand the alliance of the deregulation, no-tax crowd with the religious conservatives. Ironically, the rank and file of the religious right are hardly the country club set. They are largely middle-class Americans who don’t rely on trust funds or dividend checks for their livelihoods. But the leaders of the religious right have betrayed their constituents by failing to champion such economic issues as family leave or access to health insurance, which would relieve the stresses on many working families. The only things the religious conservatives get are largely symbolic votes on proposals guaranteed to fail, such as the gay marriage constitutional amendment. The religious right has consistently provided the ground troops, while the big-money men have gotten the goodies.
Just an observation as I watched Norquist on C-SPAN six weeks, er so, ago. As a call-in questioner directed Norquist to his relationship with Abramoff he (Norquist) visibly lost color in his face and stumbled, stuttered, etc. It was a definate indicator! I loved it!
Posted by: Soandso | Oct 17 2005 21:34 utc | 2
My body-clock may be all screwed up! Its probable that it was more than 6-weeks ago: I’m supposing mid/later summer when Abramhoff was getting all the bad press for his relationships on K Street/Hill. Anyway, C-SPAN would have the archive and I’m sorry I mentioned it! Well… not really!
Posted by: Soandso | Oct 17 2005 21:56 utc | 3
So where did this Vanderwall break with traditional values?
Oh yea, trolling that newfangled internet instead of keeping it out back by the pond with sis or a first cousin.
Posted by: rapier | Oct 18 2005 0:03 utc | 4
Check out my weblog where I pose the question of whether Grover Norquist committed tax fraud.
Posted by: Stuart Levine | Oct 18 2005 4:06 utc | 5
I think I’ve mentioned this at MoA before but the BBC did a panorama documentary on this faith based social work garbage early on in the BushCo 1st term.
It was about a movement called ‘the silver ring thing’ set up to make kids just say No instead of playing hide the sausage.
Apart from the minor details like it being targetted at groups of kids at quite low risk of teenage pregnancy, the bloke running the operation had moved from living off the tithes of a handful of local families (hey you only need 10 families of sheeple and you’ve got one fulltime wage. More if wifies work) to managing a multi million dollar enterprise in a very short space of time.
He was stuck cause there were no seats in business left on some flight to a big meeting but he didn’t let that deter him. No he chartered an executive jet.
Now many of us on the left side of the road have seen foundations, charities and NGOs get pretty loose with the grant money but that normally takes years. people start off trying to do the right thing and end up using various obstacles from bureaucrats to justify their malfeasence, but these guys started as they mean to finish. With the bulk of the bucks going their way.
Now I have no idea how federal programs are administered in the US but the good vicar was acting as though they weren’t going to have to do any acquittal of their program funding whatsoever.
If that is true these programs have been set up to give money away with as little hassle for all concerned as possible.
No surely not!
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 18 2005 6:16 utc | 6
@DoD – yep allways follow the money – it is just enrichment not morals.
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In a bit of selfserving the Washington Post editorial board is lauding the Sunday Washington Post story on Abramov.
Well it is a great long story, well written and with juicy details. The editorial is helpful as it gives a shorter read:
We’d encourage you to read all 4,245 delicious words to get the full flavor, but in case you missed it, the juicier details include: a forged letter purportedly from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; an official of a religious advocacy group who ends up in prison for soliciting sex with minors over the Internet; and “Lucky Louie,” the nickname bestowed on the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, head of the Traditional Values Coalition, who was enlisted to fight the anti-gambling bill on the grounds that it would actually promote gambling — and who, despite receiving a $25,000 check from eLottery, somehow didn’t realize that Mr. Abramoff or the company was involved.
“There was lucky Louie out front hi-fiving with some lobbyists,” Mr. Abramoff’s lobbying colleague, Patrick Pizzella, now an assistant secretary of labor, recounted in one e-mail after a House victory. Even David H. Safavian, the indicted former White House procurement official and former Abramoff lobbyist, makes a guest appearance, proclaiming — gotta love this one — the triumph of policy over politics.
…
The eLottery tale also illustrates how corporate money can be disguised — laundered might be a more appropriate word — to obscure its questionable origins. Enlisting former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed to help defeat the Internet gambling ban, Mr. Abramoff used two passthroughs to get Mr. Reed the money. The first stop, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, which got a $160,000 check from eLottery, took $10,000 off the top, and passed it on to the second passthrough, the Faith and Family Alliance, which then sent on $150,000 to Mr. Reed. “I was operating as a shell,” the group’s former director, now in prison on sex charges, told The Post.
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Posted by: Matthew Johnson | Dec 4 2005 23:20 utc | 9