The State of The Disorganization Nation

So This Is How The System Disintegrates?
Greed is good, not...
The Jack Abramoff Scandal "The Greatest Scandal in the History of Congress". At least the folks over at Think Progress think so.
http://www.thinkprogress.org/abramoff

It is pretty wild.

Yikes, if you want an even scarier take on the Abramoff scandal visit http://www.madcowprod.com/06202005.html Warning, not for the faint of heart. It was too scary for me so I wimped out and stopped reading. Hey, there is only so much a mind can take. Skip to sections below for cheery news.

On a side note it sure is interesting to to see how Abramoff and his minions talked to each other in private especially his take on his Indian tribal clients and the republican evangelical Christian base. Below are excerpts from the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/magazine/01ABRAMOFF.html?ex=1136437200&en=1f620d4522ccc5b0&ei=5070

Speaking of a contract Scalon ask Abramoff, ''Did we win it?''''The [expletive] troglodytes didn't vote on you today,'' Abramoff responded. ''What's a troglodyte?'' Scanlon asked. (In his early 30's, he had much to learn from his master.) ''What am I, a dictionary? :) It's a lower form of existence, basically,'' Abramoff wrote. ''I like these guys,'' he hastened to add, yet then continued: ''They are plain stupid. . . . Morons.'' Ultimately, the lower life forms would pay Abramoff and Scanlon $14 million -- just a fraction of the $66 million the two men's businesses would take in from six different Indian tribes over the next three years. (Abramoff would offer his lobbying services to tribes at relatively modest rates, but then tell them that they couldn't afford not to hire Scanlon, who charged astronomical amounts for his P.R. services and then subcontracted much of the work at budget rates; he also supposedly kicked back millions to Abramoff.) By last September, however, the ride was over. That's when dozens of Abramoff's ''Sopranos''-like e-mail messages were released at a hearing before the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. The e-mail messages, seized from Abramoff's computer, told a story of front groups, secret kickbacks, manipulated tribal elections and political payoffs. ''What sets this tale apart, what makes it truly extraordinary, is the extent and degree of the apparent exploitation and deceit,'' an outraged John McCain said at the hearing. ''Even in this town, where huge sums are routinely paid as the price of political access, the figures are astonishing.'' Nearly as shocking as the sums was the coarseness of the e-mail messages, especially given that Abramoff was a devout Orthodox Jew who presented himself publicly as a man of conservative values. About one tribal client Abramoff had written to Scanlon, ''These mofos are the stupidest idiots in the land for sure.'' In another e-mail message he wrote, ''we need to get some $ from those monkeys!!!!'' Money was always the imperative, the language of his desire strong enough to make the 46-year-old father of five sound like a frat dude in a beer ad: ''Da man! You iz da man! Do you hear me?! You da man!! How much $$ coming tomorrow? Did we get some more $$ in?''

Look at how they describe the evangelicals who support the GOP. "Consider one memo highlighted in a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday that Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Tx., sent the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana to describe his strategy for protecting the tribe's gambling business. In plain terms, Scanlon confessed the source code of recent Republican electoral victories: target religious conservatives, distract everyone else, and then railroad through complex initiatives. "The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them." http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/11/03/abramoff/index_np.html