One of my favorite Christmas presents has been a pound of the best coffee beans I've ever had. Man, that's good coffee! It's mellow, sharp, acidic, smooth, deep, tickly, fresh, and sexy! All the best tied together.
Which is how I read the Washington Post's newest news about yet another huge and dubious contribution to Tom DeLay. Now here's a story which brings together all the elements of Republican corruption: fundamentalists, big oil, the 'murrican family, foreign donors, and -- yes, there he is -- Jack Abramoff who's about ready to plead.
Maybe we're seeing a kind of rapture -- a rapture for the left, anyway -- in which the devil arises out of the ground like a black fog (see "Ghost") and seizes hypocritical religionists, oily corporate execs, supporters of the patriarchal family, dirty money men, and (pray, infidel, pray!) the entire Republican corruption machine.
The U.S. Family Network, a public advocacy group that operated in the 1990s with close ties to Rep. Tom DeLay and claimed to be a nationwide grass-roots organization, was funded almost entirely by corporations linked to embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to tax records and former associates of the group.
During its five-year existence, the U.S. Family Network raised $2.5 million but kept its donor list secret. The list, obtained by The Washington Post, shows that $1 million of its revenue came in a single 1998 check from a now-defunct London law firm whose former partners would not identify the money's origins.
Two former associates of Edwin A. Buckham, the congressman's former chief of staff and the organizer of the U.S. Family Network, said Buckham told them the funds came from Russian oil and gas executives. Abramoff had been working closely with two such Russian energy executives on their Washington agenda, and the lobbyist and Buckham had helped organize a 1997 Moscow visit by DeLay (R-Tex.).
The former president of the U.S. Family Network said Buckham told him that Russians contributed $1 million to the group in 1998 specifically to influence DeLay's vote on legislation the International Monetary Fund needed to finance a bailout of the collapsing Russian economy.
A spokesman for DeLay, who is fighting in a Texas state court unrelated charges of illegal fundraising, denied that the contributions influenced the former House majority leader's political activities. The Russian energy executives who worked with Abramoff denied yesterday knowing anything about the million-dollar London transaction described in tax documents.
Whatever the real motive for the contribution of $1 million -- a sum not prohibited by law but extraordinary for a small, nonprofit group -- the steady stream of corporate payments detailed on the donor list makes it clear that Abramoff's long-standing alliance with DeLay was sealed by a much more extensive web of financial ties than previously known...
