posted on June 7, 2005 12:05:32 AM
The real scandal of Tom DeLay
Monday, May 9, 2005 Posted: 12:14 PM EDT (1614 GMT)
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. (Creators Syndicate) -- Forget the freebie trips across the Atlantic and the Pacific. Forget the casinos and the allegedly illicit contributions -- they represent only degrees of avarice.
To grasp the moral bankruptcy of the public Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, you only have to know about Frank Murkowski and Saipan.
Today, Frank Murkowki is the governor of Alaska, but from 1980 to 2002, he was a conservative Republican senator from Alaska.
How conservative? His voting record earned him zero ratings from organized labor's AFL-CIO and the liberal Americans for Democratic Action, and perfect 100s from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Conservative Union.
But as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Frank Murkowski became furious at the abusive sweatshop conditions endured by workers, overwhelmingly immigrants, in the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, of which Saipan is the capital.
Because they were produced in a territory of the United States, garments traveled tariff-free and quota-free to the profitable U.S. market and were entitled to display the coveted "Made in the USA" label.
Among the manufacturers that had profited from the un-free labor market on the island were Tommy Hilfiger USA, Gap, Calvin Klein and Liz Claiborne.
Moved by the sworn testimony of U.S. officials and human-rights advocates that the 91 percent of the workforce who were immigrants -- from China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh -- were being paid barely half the U.S. minimum hourly wage and were forced to live behind barbed wire in squalid shacks minus plumbing, work 12 hours a day, often seven days a week, without any of the legal protections U.S. workers are guaranteed, Murkowski wrote a bill to extend the protection of U.S. labor and minimum-wage laws to the workers in the U.S. territory of the Northern Marianas.
So compelling was the case for change the Alaska Republican marshaled that in early 2000, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Murkowski worker reform bill.
But one man primarily stopped the U.S. House from even considering that worker-reform bill: then-House Republican Whip Tom DeLay.
According to law firm records recently made public, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, paid millions to stop reform and keep the status quo, met personally at least two dozen times with DeLay on the subject in one two-year period. The DeLay staff was often in daily contact with Abramoff.
DeLay traveled with his family and staff over New Year's of 1997 on an Abramoff scholarship endowed by his client, the government of the territory, to the Marianas, where golf and snorkeling were enjoyed.
DeLay fully approved of the working and living conditions. The Texan's salute to the owners and Abramoff's government clients was recorded by ABC-TV News: "You are a shining light for what is happening to the Republican Party, and you represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America and leading the world in the free-market system"
Later, DeLay would tell The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin that the low-wage, anti-union conditions of the Marianas constituted "a perfect petri dish of capitalism. It's like my Galapagos Island."
Contrast that with what then-Sen. Murkowski told me in a 1998 interview: "The last time we heard a justification that economic advances would be jeopardized if workers were treated properly was shortly before Appomattox."
The "Made in the USA" label means standards of quality and standards of conduct.
But more important than how a product is made is how the people who make that product are treated -- as human beings with innate dignity -- who are free to organize and entitled to a living wage.
Did somebody say something about moral values?""""
posted on June 7, 2005 09:15:46 AM
Your riding a dead horse craw.
Lawmakers dash to correct records of trips
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
More than 200 lawmakers have rushed to correct travel-disclosure statements in recent months as reporters on Capitol Hill discover more discrepancies in the wake of questions about travel by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
?You're dealing with hundreds,? said Kent Cooper, co-founder of PoliticalMoneyLine, a Web site that compiles the forms after they're filed with the clerk's office and makes it available at www.fecinfo.com. ?There's a ton more for staffers.?
Mr. Cooper said his figure covered parts of April and May, a period during which the scrutiny of gift travel — which is funded by corporations and outside interest groups — heightened on the heels of accusations that Mr. DeLay accepted travel from a registered lobbyist, which is barred under House ethics rules.
The widespread scrutiny — aided by opposition researchers from both parties — has prompted amended reports from top leaders in both parties and even from members of the ethics panel. The most intense scrutiny has focused on the most frequent travelers.
Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr., a Tennessee Democrat who is running for the Senate, holds first place as Congress' most prolific traveler since 2000. While his travel reports have been trouble-free in recent years, that has not always been the case.
From 1998 to 2003, he took 61 privately funded trips. During that period, he failed to file a single travel-disclosure form with the House clerk, as required by the chamber's ethics rules.
While he listed the trips on his financial-disclosure forms at the end of each year, Mr. Ford did not make public the purpose or value of the trips paid for by companies and outside groups, since the financial-disclosure form — unlike the travel form — does not require such information.
When Mr. Ford learned he had failed to file the required travel forms, spokesman Zac Wright said, Mr. Ford rushed to fill out and file dozens of travel-disclosure forms — some as many as five years late — on Aug. 19, 2003.
"It was a simple oversight," Mr. Wright said. "It was cleared up [almost] two years ago proactively by the congressman. It was a minor thing."
The lapse by Mr. Ford highlights the pitfalls members of Congress say are associated with gift travel and the rules that govern it.
In recent months, dozens of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been snared in controversies over improperly funded trips, insufficiently disclosed details and simple clerical oversights. House ethics rules permit travel by members to be paid for by companies and outside special-interest groups, as long as the travel is reported to the clerk.
Scrutiny has focused mostly on Mr. DeLay, who has accepted 14 trips during the past five years totaling $94,568, according to PoliticalMoneyLine.
In terms of travel at the expense of others, Mr. DeLay is far from top of the heap, ranking 30th in value of trips taken, according to PoliticalMoneyLine. In first place is Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican, who has racked up $176,718 in travel paid for by corporations or outside groups during the past five years. Mr. Ford ranks 78th in terms of travel costs, having racked up $60,545 in gift travel.
Mr. DeLay is among 11 representatives tied at 120th place with 14 trips each since 2000. At the top of that list is Mr. Ford, with 62 trips since 2000.
Mr. DeLay has invited the House ethics committee to investigate his travel and said the rules governing gift travel are confusing and should be cleared up by the House ethics committee.
One of the late filers was Rep. Melissa A. Hart, Pennsylvania Republican and member of the ethics committee. She recently discovered that she had failed to report a trip she made in November to Hungary and Germany, a problem she corrected.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Ohio Democrat and member of the ethics panel, took a 2001 trip to Puerto Rico but filed slightly different travel-disclosure forms. Mrs. Pelosi reported that an outside advocacy group paid for the trip, while Mrs. Jones reported that a Washington lobbying firm had paid for the trip.
When the discrepancy was raised, Mrs. Jones said it was a clerical error and that the firm was listed only because the lobbyist had arranged the trip, but did not pay for it.
According to the Associated Press, the recent late filers have included House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, who recently disclosed 12 trips dating back to 1997. Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, California Democrat, filed late for 21 trips, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat, reported 20 past trips, and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Democrat, reported 13.
Rep. John Linder, Georgia Republican, belatedly filed for nine trips, as did Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat.
A word to the wise ain't necessary, it's the stupid ones that need the advice."
- Bill Cosby
posted on June 7, 2005 09:19:56 AM
Well, bear, ya missed the whole point which is the horrible treatment of workers in the U.S.A. and the Republicans support of it.
Also the support of Tommy Hilfiger, Liz Claiborne, J.C. Penney and other companies who profit off slave labor.
posted on June 7, 2005 06:12:54 PM
"""Bear1949
posted on June 7, 2005 02:16:55 PM
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Well if you don't like it, move, say to China, them you can speak first hand of slave labor. """
Could someone, ANYONE, find some logic in that statement ??
I know it's a variation of the brain dead "America, love it or leave it" theme but think it over.
Leave a country that permits slave labor and go to another country ???
Leave this country because it has sweat shops ??? Then move to China ..?.?.?.. because he thinks they have slave labor??
So all you patriotic Americans prefer to ignore what's going on ???
OK, I admit I'm really stumped on this one.
[ edited by crowfarm on Jun 7, 2005 06:14 PM ]
posted on June 8, 2005 07:54:09 AM
well if ya dont like being a slave laborer...get another job
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Baseball season has started,but they have it all wrong.3 strikes and you're out,4 balls you walk.I can tell you right now a man with 4 balls could not possibly walk
