It looks to me that because the Abramoff prosecution is not part of a larger RICO investigation, and because Abramoff is alive and not surrounded by heavy security, the intent is to make a DOJ window dressing and a republican "rackets" protection "Op", look like an exhaustive and aggressive probe against political corruption.

Remember that what I'm going to outline here is just one facet of the much larger picture of Abramoff financed, republican organized crime. Consider my earlier blog about the MSM failure to even report on Abramoff's family background; his uncle was coincidentally doing business with a Toronto mobster in the late 1970's and Abramoff's father, Frank was closely involved with his brother Bernard's business dealings in New Jersey. The coincidence is that Abramoff may have been induced to plead guilty because of his connection to the murder of another mysterious Toronto native with reported mob ties, Gus Boulis.

A legitimate prosecution of what has happened here should not be blunted by concerns of "upsetting" the political status quo. It is obvious that the current balance of power owes it's existance to a successful series of organized conspiracies and the resulting crimes that financed it into supremacy through the selling out of the peoples' trust and government to the highest and best connected bidders, or the threat of the use of the republican legislative apparatus against those who did not pay amountst Abramoff, Scanlon, or Markham suggested.[2]

We can only expect a limited, sham prosecution. The republican controlled executive branch controls the DOJ.

We must make use of what we have. Repeated emphasis on Susan Ralston's connections to Abramoff and her subsequent close proximity to Rove and Bush is an example of a tactic that make it harder for the white house to distance itself from Abramoff. [12] 

It may be helpful to maintain a steady message that the briber of Randy Cunningham, Brent Wilkes, paid large fees to Ed Markham's ASG, [7] and the common thread of ASG.... Alexander Strategy Group,[2] with Brian Darling,[1] the author of the Schiavo memo that was intially blamed on democrats, that ASG paid $115,000 to Delay's wife Christine[5], the reports that Abramoff's connection to Delay was via Edwin Markham, that Markham is Delay's pastor,[4] and that Markham's ASG was connected with Enron's strategy to corner the energy market,[3] and shared office quarters with a "dummy" money laundering, Delay controlled non-profit.[5] Of course, Delay's ties to his former staffer, and Abramoff lobbying partner, prosecution witness Michael Scanlon, is icing on the cake.

 

 .......[1]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32554-2005Apr6.htm

l
Counsel to GOP Senator Wrote Memo On Schiavo
Martinez Aide Who Cited Upside For Party Resigns

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 7, 2005; Page A01

The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night.

Brian H. Darling, 39, a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group on gun rights and other issues, offered his resignation and it was immediately accepted, Martinez said.

.......[2]
http://www.hillnews.com/news/10052004/agenda.aspx
October 5, 2004

Quietly, the right shapes its agenda

.....The Conservative Working Group (CWG), as the group calls itself, is one of several invitation-only conservative gatherings making its influence felt in the Senate, a body known more for compromise and moderation than for advancing conservative ideals.

As the conservative movement has gained strength in recent years, its champions in the Senate have sought to organize and hold regular strategy meetings, taking cues from more established gatherings on the House side and on K Street. Older groups such as the CWG, which was set up in 1974, have been rejuvenated, while a bevy of new groups has sprung up. These include the Values Action Team (VAT), which emphasizes social issues; the Fiscal Action Team (FAT), which focuses on economic and tax issues; and a gun-rights group.

Attendees claim that the behind-the-scenes strategy sessions have already swayed the Senate agenda, even though few people realize it, because, as one Senate aide put it, “We derive our power from being underground.”.....

.... The CWG is led by Ed Corrigan, executive director of the conservative Senate Republican Steering Committee. It serves as a staff-led counterpart to the weekly meeting held by senators on the Steering Committee. Corrigan also runs the Fiscal Action Team.

Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.) and his chief of staff, Rob Wasinger, lead the VAT meetings, which like the other groups, attracts staff, lobbyists and activists.

For lobbyists, the sessions are a chance to bring their message to dozens of staffers at once, while collecting valuable information to bring back to their clients.

“People make sure they get there because [the CWG] is an important group,” said Chris Myers, a lobbyist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a regular attendee.
“It’s active. They get things done. Folks want to get there and get some face time.”

He added, “We can learn about issues that are out there that Senate staff are working on. … They can find out what the business community is thinking on some of these issues.”

A lobbyist who attends the meetings agreed. “It a good place to organize conservatives. It’s an opportunity for a staffer to bend other senators’ ears,” the lobbyist said. “For lobbyists, we get an update on what’s going on. That’s good for clients.”......

 “Every group would love to sit down with these staff — outside groups, K Street, trade associations. It is definitely staff willing to listen and understand, but it also has a conservative viewpoint already,” he said. When not speaking to the group, he added, “I get to be a fly on the wall. … People come and vent about things that are going on.
If a member [of the Senate] were there, people would not be as open as they are.”

Baird credits the CWG with helping force the resignation two weeks ago of a spokeswoman for the commission conducting an inquiry into the United Nations’ oil-for-food program. The Heritage Foundation had complained that she wrote an op-ed two years ago that was critical of President Bush.

For leadership aides, the meetings can be an early-warning system, indicating what the conservative base is thinking and planning. Bill Wichterman, policy adviser to Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.), regularly attends.

Yet, in many cases, Senate leaders and conservatives find themselves on the same page. Frist is one of the most conservative members of the Senate, as are Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and GOP Conference Chairman Rick Santorum (Pa.).

Some observers argue that as the Senate leadership moves farther to the right, organized meetings such as the CWG have had more say in leadership decisions.

“When we first started [in 1974], we didn’t really have anyone in leadership favorable to our point of view,” said Paul Weyrich, who led the CWG in its early years and now heads the Free Congress Foundation. “We had to figure out ways to get around them. … Today, it’s entirely different. Today, we have the most conservative leadership group in the modern history of Senate. … The Steering Committee under these circumstances is taken very seriously.”

Myers agreed. “They aren’t outsiders anymore. It used to be that to get attention, they had to throw bombs. Now they are in the room. They are leadership,” he said.

The CWG often coordinates with House-side groups and gatherings off the Hill. The House Republican Steering Committee organizes a large group of staffers who meet on Mondays.

Weyrich runs a weekly conservative meeting, the Coalitions Lunch, at the Free Congress Foundation. It routinely attracts House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.), Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.) and Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.).

Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform also hosts a well-known conservative strategy session. Corrigan and Weyrich run the Stanton Group, which focuses on foreign policy, while Brian Darling, a lobbyist at the Alexander Strategy Group, organizes a meeting on gun rights.

Aside from the Heritage Foundation and the Chamber, the “off-campus” contingent at CWG meetings includes White House staffers Matthew Kirk and Virginia Loper, Bob Thompson from the Free Congress Foundation, Ben Dupuy from the National Rifle Association and Stacie Rumenap from the American Conservative Union.

Various contract lobbyists also attend.

.....[3]
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alexander_Strategy_Gro

up
Enron was ASG's biggest client; they received at least $411,000 from Enron between 1999 and 2001. [7] (http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/2835510.htm?1c)

"Ed Buckham and ASG were involved with a "secret 'grassroots' campaign -- spearheaded by Enron -- to deregulate energy markets... An outline for the plan was faxed to Tom DeLay's Washington office. It was printed on Alexander Strategy letterhead complete with Ed Buckham's name in print. The only problem was that Alexander Strategy's CEO was still in the employ of the federal government at the time... Alexander Strategy Group was, as Enron promised, awarded the $750,000 contract to drum up support for electric power deregulation -- a goal that Enron believed would open the $300 billion a year electric markets to Enron. The stealth campaign would operate out of an energy consortium dubbed, 'Americans for Affordable Electricity' -- a name that Californians would find bitterly ironic just three years later."

.....[4]
http://www.time.com/time/press_releases/article/0,8599,1037633,00

.html
Posted Sunday, Mar. 13, 2005
.....Buckham, DeLay’s former chief of staff, has become one of the most powerful people in Washington, report TIME’s national political correspondent Karen Tumulty,

Buckham helped DeLay build a political machine known as DeLay Inc., for the seamless coordination between his office and the lobbying corridor of K Street. Now that machinery threatens to derail DeLay, according to Tumulty. ......

.....“What even fewer people outside that office knew was that the two shared a bond that transcended power and politics: Buckham, a licensed nondenominational minister, was also DeLay’s pastor,” reports Tumulty. “For a while, in DeLay’s early days as whip, they organized daily voluntary prayer sessions for the staff—until it began making some aides uncomfortable. After that, according to two sources who worked in the office at the time, the two of them frequently prayed together privately, joining hands in DeLay’s office.”.......

....TIME reports that Buckham’s lobbying business shares the same Georgetown waterfront office suite as the registered foreign agent that gave DeLay and others paid trips to South Korea in violation of House rules. Edward Stewart, who not only manages international business for Buckham’s Alexander Strategy Group but is also Washington representative for the agent, The Korea–U.S. Exchange Council, declined to comment on the controversy. Buckham, 46, did not return telephone calls and e-mails seeking an interview......

....Buckham’s client list, according to his firm’s website, includes the American Bankers Association, Bell South, Eli Lilly, Fannie Mae, R.J. Reynolds and Time Warner (parent of this magazine).

Buckham also appears to have played a key role in the spreading scandal around lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a former producer of low-budget movies whose most marketable asset was access to DeLay, writes Tumulty. “How did Jack Abramoff get into Tom DeLay’s office?” asks a source close to the majority leader. “Ed Buckham.”........

.....[5]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/30/A

R2005123001480_pf.html
The DeLay-Abramoff Money Trail
Nonprofit Group Linked to Lawmaker Was Funded Mostly by Clients of Lobbyist

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 31, 2005; A01

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........

In addition to the million-dollar payment involving the London law firm, for example, half a million dollars was donated to the U.S. Family Network by the owners of textile companies in the Mariana Islands in the Pacific, according to the tax records. The textile owners -- with Abramoff's help -- solicited and received DeLay's public commitment to block legislation that would boost their labor costs, according to Abramoff associates, one of the owners and a DeLay speech in 1997......

But the records show that the tiny U.S. Family Network, which never had more than one full-time staff member, spent comparatively little money on public advocacy or education projects. Although established as a nonprofit organization, it paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to Buckham and his lobbying firm, Alexander Strategy Group.

There is no evidence DeLay received a direct financial benefit, but Buckham's firm employed DeLay's wife, Christine, and paid her a salary of at least $3,200 each month for three of the years the group existed. Richard Cullen, DeLay's attorney, has said that the pay was compensation for lists Christine DeLay supplied to Buckham of lawmakers' favorite charities, and that it was appropriate under House rules and election law.

Some of the U.S. Family Network's revenue was used to pay for radio ads attacking vulnerable Democratic lawmakers in 1999; other funds were used to finance the cash purchase of a townhouse three blocks from DeLay's congressional office. DeLay's associates at the time called it "the Safe House."

DeLay made his own fundraising telephone pitches from the townhouse's second-floor master suite every few weeks, according to two former associates. Other rooms in the townhouse were used by Alexander Strategy Group, Buckham's newly formed lobbying firm, and Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), DeLay's leadership committee.

They paid modest rent to the U.S. Family Network, which occupied a single small room in the back.

.....[6]
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20051214-9999-1n14del

ay.html
......Even before PerfectWave's patent disputes were resolved, it was donating money to key politicians in Washington.

On Sept. 20, 2002, three months after the company was founded, it donated $15,000 to Delay's Texas PAC. By the end of 2003, Max and Ellen Gelwix made more than $50,000 in political contributions, mostly to key Republican officials in the House leadership or the House Appropriations Committee.

Among other contributions, the Gelwixes donated $10,000 to DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority PAC; $11,000 to Future Leaders PAC, headed by Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee; $10,000 to Rely on Your Beliefs PAC, headed by acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt of Missouri; and $10,000 to Superior California Federal Leadership Fund, headed by Rep. John Doolittle, R-Granite Bay, who is on the Appropriations Committee.

The same month that Wilkes launched PerfectWave, he hired Alexander Strategy Group – composed of DeLay insiders – as his lobbying group on Capitol Hill.

The group, which is headed by DeLay's former chief of staff Ed Buckham, staffed with former DeLay employees and included DeLay's wife as a consultant, has a reputation in Washington as a conduit to DeLay's office.

Over the next three years, Wilkes paid about $630,000 in lobbying fees to the group. Although Wilkes' own two-man lobbying group – Group W Advisors – officially represented PerfectWave in Washington, Group W Advisors was represented by the Alexander Strategy Group.

During 2003 and 2004, as Wilkes pushed for contracts for PerfectWave and his other companies, DeLay was a frequent flier on a corporate jet partly owned by Wilkes and was often seen in his company at Southern California golf courses.

.....[7]
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051204/news_1n4adcs.htm

l
THE CUNNINGHAM SCANDAL
Contractor 'knew how to grease the wheels'

ADCS founder spent years cultivating political contacts

By Dean Calbreath
and Jerry Kammer
STAFF WRITER / COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

December 4, 2005

Born in San Diego County in 1954, Wilkes graduated from Hilltop High School in 1972, along with his football teammate and best friend Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo, currently third-in-command at the Central Intelligence Agency. Wilkes and Foggo were roommates at San Diego State University, were best men at each other's weddings and named their sons after each other.

Wilkes' career in political relations dates to the early 1980s, shortly after Foggo joined the CIA. Foggo was sent to Honduras to work with the Contra rebels who were trying to topple the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, according to sources within the CIA.

.....[12]

Bush won't want you to know this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/09/20/BL20

05092000753_pf.html
.......Abramoff's White House Connections

In addition to Safavian, Abramoff is known to have close ties to at least one other key White House official: Susan B.

Ralston, Karl Rove's omnipresent assistant and gatekeeper.

Here's Peter H. Stone writing in the National Journal last year: "As presidential adviser Karl Rove set up shop in the West

Wing in 2001, he was looking for an assistant to serve as the trusted gatekeeper of his new fiefdom. Superlobbyist and

Republican fundraiser Jack Abramoff was happy to lend a hand. <b>Abramoff knew just the right person for the job: his own

assistant, Susan Ralston. She interviewed with Rove and got the position."</b>

Ralston told Filipinas magazine last year: "Working for Karl Rove is like being at the center of the Bush universe -- I am

fortunate to be where I am, and be involved in much of what goes on at the White House.".....

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Susan_B._Ralston
Susan Bonzon Ralston, Special Assistant to the President & Assistant to the Senior Advisor Karl Rove, was Jack Abramoff's

executive assistant at Preston Gates and Ellis and later at the Greenberg Traurig law and lobbying firm, where "she served as

the assistant director of governmental affairs.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/27/politics/27aide.html
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102705A.shtml
Ms. Ralston's portfolio expanded at the White House this year, accompanied by an elevated job title and a significant raise.

In 2003, she held the position of executive assistant to the senior adviser and <b>earned $64,700, which was bumped to

$67,600 in 2004. This year, as Mr. Rove took on new duties as the deputy chief of staff, Ms. Ralston was promoted to special

assistant to the president and assistant to the senior adviser, earning $92,100.</b>

Now, people familiar with Ms. Ralston's work said, she functions as Mr. Rove's own chief of staff, coordinating the five

groups within the West Wing that he oversees.

or this:
http://www.philippinenews.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=5

45c047910d8be922c67368a1a27ee84
Ralston still 'at her desk working:' White House
Cristina DC Pastor, Dec 07, 2005
SUSAN RALSTON, according to the White House, remains a deputy assistant to President George W. Bush and a deputy of top presidential adviser Karl Rove..........

 

Jack also held a note on parking lots used by the Atlantis Hotel Casino, which went bankrupt in Atlantic City in 1989. Another 1979 article reports on an Atlantic City police dept. investigation of Det. Edward Rush, who admitted that he had "introduced Angelo Pucci to a local realtor."

According to this Miami Herald Oct. 2, 2005 report, titled "Kidan's tale `stranger than fiction',  After Abramoff's indicted co-conspirator Suncruz partner, Adam Kadin's "mother, Judith Shemtov, was murdered in her Staten Island, N.Y., home in 1993 during a botched robbery by a Bonanno crime crew with an infamous South Florida connection.

Former South Beach club impresario Chris Paciello -- legal name Christian Ludwigsen -- eventually pleaded guilty to driving the getaway car for the crew, who raided the home after getting a tip that Kidan's stepfather had $200,000 stashed in a safe.

The following year, Kidan's stepfather sued Kidan and his law partners.

Sami Shemtov accused his stepson of stealing $250,000 of his money from the sale of an electrical company. He also contended that Kidan ripped off another $15,000 Shemtov put up as a reward for information leading to the arrest of his wife's murderer.

Kidan lost the case -- then his New York law license."

This is signifigant, because Kadin is suspected of recruiting and paying the three mob connected men accused of murdering Bouris.

On Jan. 2, 2004, the man who pleaded guilty in connection with Kadim's mother's 1993 murder, was reported by Knight Ridder news service, to be in witness protection: 

"......Gus Boulis, the flamboyant, combative self-made Greek multimillionaire, was murdered in February 2001 in an orchestrated shooting with all the trappings of a messy mob-style hit. Boulis was driving from his Fort Lauderdale office when one car stopped short, cutting him off. Another car pulled alongside, and the driver emptied a semiautomatic into the founder of Miami Subs and SunCruz Casinos.

Boulis supporters immediately started pointing fingers at Adam Kidan, the disbarred New York lawyer who had bought the floating casinos four months earlier for $147.5 million. Kidan's financing was shaky, and the deal had quickly imploded into lawsuits and fisticuffs.

After the murder, Boulis estate lawyers discovered that Kidan had paid $145,000 to Anthony Moscatiello, a childhood friend of the John Gotti family, as a food and beverage consultant to SunCruz. In an odd footnote, Kidan's mother, Judith Shemtov, had been murdered in 1993 in Staten Island in a mob-connected home invasion gone awry. The getaway driver: former South Beach club impresario-turned-informant Chris Paciello......

......The highest-ranking mobster to set up permanent residence in South Florida in recent years is Alphonse "Allie Boy" Persico, son of legendary Colombo family boss Carmine "The Snake" Persico. "The Snake," now 70, was sent to prison for 130 years in 1991.

Mob turncoats have testified that "The Snake" handpicked his son to succeed him, sparking a war that left 12 dead in the Colombo ranks. Allie Boy lived in Lighthouse Point, Fla., in the late 1990s after his 1994 acquittal on charges that he ordered some of the murders.

His South Florida freedom was short-lived.

In September 1998, he was arrested in the Florida Keys after a routine Coast Guard inspection on his 50-foot yacht, "Lookin' Good," found a 12-gauge shotgun, 20 shells, a .380-caliber pistol and 14 rounds of ammunition.

Persico, who had been convicted in 1986 on a heroin-trafficking-related racketeering charge, was not allowed to carry weapons. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

On the eve of his release, the feds unsealed a new indictment calling him the acting boss of the Colombos. One of the key witnesses: Chris Paciello, now in witness protection." 

More background on Chris Paciello:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/9950,owen,11025,1.html
Chris Paciello’s Double Life
Dr. Jekyll in Miami, Mr. Hyde in Manhattan
by Frank Owen
December 15 - 21, 1999

"The innocent Staten Island housewife whom friend-to-the-stars Chris Paciello was charged two weeks ago with slaying in 1993 is not the only dead body floating around in the Miami club owner's murky and violent past, according to a former business partner and government snitch.....

.........Paciello's powerful lawyer, Roy Black, believes the government is picking on his client because of his high-profile lifestyle. "He really helped put South Beach on the map," says Black, who has defended the likes of Marv Albert and William Kennedy Smith. "Unfortunately, anybody who becomes a success in this country is an easy target."

"That's ridiculous," scoffs federal prosecutor Jim Walden. "This case is not about celebrity. It's about serious violent crime." 

http://www.newtimesbpb.com/Issues/1999-12-23/news/feature_print.h

tml
From newtimesbpb.com
Originally published by Broward-Palm Beach New Times 1999-12-23

Fight Club
Chris Paciello, the dangerous darling of the South Florida nightlife set, has a reputation for fisticuffs. And Mob ties.
By Tristram Korten.....

And....

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/9814,bastone,11037,1.html
Thug Life
Wild Man Chris Paciello Has the Juice at Liquid
by William Bastone
April 1 - 7, 1998.........

Finally, this Feb. 22, 2001 New Times Broward-Palm Beach background article on the new Suncruz Casino Ship partnership seems remarkably prescient with it's examination of Abramoff's and Ben Waldman's ties to the christian right. Waldman's relationship with Pat Robertson is another ring in what may turn out to be a circus that fills the "big tent" of republican politics to overflowing.

Ralph Reed, a chrisitan right political leader whose ties to Abramoff and to Indian casino lobbying have been extensively covered by Atlanta's AJC, is also mentioned:

"SunCruz executives Jack Abramoff and Ben Waldman are walking examples of the strange and sometimes uneasy alliance between the family-values party and the gambling industry. Both men have strong ties to the Christian Coalition, which is adamantly opposed to gambling. And both were affiliated with the Reagan administration before leaving government service for careers with conservative causes.

Abramoff, SunCruz's vice president, has been connected to the Christian right since he was a student at Brandeis University, where he served as the head of a conservative group called the College Republicans. In that position he enlisted a young Ralph Reed as his top deputy; the two have remained close friends ever since. After graduating from Georgetown University law school in 1986, Abramoff later went to work in the Reagan White House and played an integral role in starting the Christian Coalition with Reed.

Waldman, the company president, served as associate director of Reagan's White House Office of Public Liaison and in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 1988 he began work as press secretary and top aide to Pat Robertson during the televangelist's run for the presidency. (Robertson now directs the Christian Coalition.) Waldman then staged two failed bids for a West Virginia congressional seat in the 1990s.

There's an easy answer to the question of how the pair reconciles affiliation with both the Christian Coalition and the gambling industry, says company spokesman Mike Scanlon, also a GOP lobbyist. (Abramoff and Waldman declined to comment.) Both Abramoff and Waldman are Jewish, and the basic tenets of that faith don't preclude gambling, he says. "Jack is a deeply religious man himself; he's a conservative, Orthodox Jew," Scanlon says. "But there is no conflict in his religion with representing or owning gaming interests. Gambling is permissible by their religion."

That explanation doesn't wash with the Rev. Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. "Bullshit," says Grey, who belongs to the United Methodist Church. He accuses the Republican Party of selling out to the big money of the gambling industry, a view shared by Christian Right stalwarts like former presidential candidate Gary Bauer and Focus on the Family president James Dobson. "It's hypocritical for the Republican Party to talk about family values when it's promoting a business that destroys families," Grey adds. "What politicians want to do is say the right things about gambling and then take the money it gives them."

There is no question that Abramoff and Waldman, who are both in their early forties, give SunCruz considerable governmental clout in an industry that relies heavily on the kindness of politicians.

Abramoff is a lobbying powerhouse who has been paid millions of dollars by the Choctaw Indians of Mississippi to keep Congress from taxing revenues made at their casinos. He also represents E-lottery.com, which provides Internet services to state lotteries. In December he joined the Miami-based law firm of Greenberg Traurig, bringing $8 million worth of annual lobbying business with him, according to Scanlon. Last July he was featured in a Wall Street Journal article that called him a "GOP strongman" in Washington because of his pull with Republican leaders such as Tom DeLay, the majority whip in the House of Representatives, and Texas Rep. Dick Armey. Gaming interests have filled the campaign chests of some Republicans, including DeLay and Armey, say antigambling activists. "Tom DeLay blocks all antigambling legislation," says Mark Harrison, a Capitol Hill lobbyist who works for antigambling forces. "The industry runs all the money through him, so he blocks the bills." (DeLay's office in Texas didn't return messages from New Times.)

At present SunCruz faces little threat on the national level; a bill that would have banned gambling cruises to international waters was killed last year. But the industry has voiced concern about new attorney general John Ashcroft, another Abramoff friend, who has professed his opposition to gambling in all forms. And President George W. Bush, while he has made no promise, has said he doesn't support the gambling business. "Jack has a relationship with the President," Scanlon says. "He doesn't have a bat phone or anything, but if he wanted an appointment, he would have one."

On the state level, Attorney General Bob Butterworth, a Democrat, has been trying (and failing) to shut down SunCruz for years, but Scanlon says he doesn't expect that kind of combative relationship to continue. "Bob Butterworth had issues not only with the day-cruise industry but also with Gus as an individual," Scanlon says. "We've reached out to the [Florida] attorney general's office, and we intend to follow not only the letter but also the spirit of the law. We are far different people than Gus Boulis and prior management."

The most powerful man in the state, Gov. Jeb Bush, hasn't embraced the gambling industry. But he has taken little action to curtail it. "As far as I can tell, he's not in favor of gambling expansion, but we have no reason to believe he is antigaming," Scanlon says.

SunCruz has high hopes. The company, which owns 11 cruise ships and employs about 1000 people, plans to double the size of its business in three years. And Abramoff is currently touring countries where SunCruz wants to introduce cruise-ship gambling, including Israel and Hong Kong. At the time Boulis was murdered, company chairman Adam Kidan, also an active Republican and campaign contributor, was in Israel trying to drum up business, Scanlon says.

Such expansion may engender controversy, but Abramoff and Waldman are no strangers to that. Abramoff spent the late 1980s and early 1990s in Hollywood as a movie producer. The United Nations placed one of his films, Red Scorpion, about a Soviet spy who ultimately joins U.S.-backed forces, on a boycott list in 1993 when it was discovered that South Africa, still under apartheid at the time, supplied the set with military equipment. And in 1994, the year Republicans took over Congress, Abramoff joined a Seattle law firm and began his lobbying career with the help of close ties to Newt Gingrich and DeLay. A year later he represented Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who was widely considered a corrupt despot and was labeled an "obstacle to democracy" by the U.S. State Department. Abramoff also made a bundle lobbying for the Northern Marianas Islands, an American commonwealth that human-rights advocates say is little more than a legal sweatshop. The islands are exempt from immigration and minimum-wage laws; for the past several years, Abramoff has been successful in persuading Congress to keep them that way.

Waldman, for his part, worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Reagan-era scandals, and then left for a job with Joseph A. Strauss, who had started a company designed to garner federal funds for developers and landlords. Another of Strauss' employees was then­Interior Secretary James Watt. Allegations of kickbacks surfaced, and in the early 1990s both Strauss and Watt were investigated and convicted of various felonies. Waldman was never charged.

Kidan, Abramoff, and Waldman formed an ownership group that bought SunCruz for $147 million from Boulis this past summer. After the murder, the media turned to the company in part because Boulis and Kidan had been carrying on a public feud. Newspapers quoted Kidan complaining Boulis had attacked him during a business meeting and was out to kill him. Kidan and Boulis accused each other of cheating on the deal, and Boulis filed a lawsuit claiming SunCruz had bounced millions of dollars in checks for the sale and was delinquent in paying him millions more.

At press time Fort Lauderdale police hadn't yet interviewed SunCruz executives, but they are researching the company, says police spokesman Mike Reed. No one at SunCruz, though, seems particularly concerned. The company wants only to show Boulis' family respect and get on with business, says Scanlon. The marriage between Republican leaders and the gambling industry is perfectly natural, he adds. "I don't think gambling is antifamily at all," Scanlon says. "Gambling doesn't destroy people -- people destroy people. The gentleman or gentlewoman who decides to gamble makes that decision of his own free will.... It's a free-market industry, and that appeals to conservatives."

At Abramoff and Waldman's urging, politicians are likely to help the company succeed, says Grey, the antigambling crusader. "They could stop this industry, but they won't," he explains. "Florida seems to be against gambling, but they let it continue. Both parties -- it's not just Republicans -- have used gambling as a feeding trough. Used to be the Mob went to Las Vegas to fill its pockets, now it's [to] Congress."

" 

 

Excerpts from June 19, 2004 NY Times Editorial:

"When the commission studying the 9/11 terrorist attacks refuted the Bush administration's claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, we suggested that President Bush apologize for using these claims to help win Americans' support for the invasion of Iraq. We did not really expect that to happen. But we were surprised by the depth and ferocity of the administration's capacity for denial. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have not only brushed aside the panel's findings and questioned its expertise, but they are also trying to rewrite history.

Mr. Bush said the 9/11 panel had actually confirmed his contention that there were "ties" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He said his administration had never connected Saddam Hussein to 9/11. Both statements are wrong......

........Mr. Bush has also used a terrorist named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Mr. Bush used to refer to Mr. Zarqawi as a "senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner" who was in Baghdad working with the Iraqi government. But the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, told the Senate earlier this year that Mr. Zarqawi did not work with the Hussein regime, nor under the direction of Al Qaeda........"

 

The first published Zarqawi reference that I can find from the NY Times in that site's archive search was dated March 24, 2002,
presumably about the Oct., 2001 murder
of US diplomat Laurence Foley in Jordan.
Zarqawi was supposedly implicated in Foley's
murder, according to the Jordanians, by
two captured "assasins"........

A Feb. 2, 2003 report in the Guardian is the next oldest Zarqawi reference:

"But the question that remains unresolved is whether there is any evidence that Saddam is in bed with al-Qaeda. The answer is likely to devolve to two lines of investigation - both of which, Bush administration officials will say, lead directly from Saddam to al-Qaeda.

The first connection, Powell is certain to allege, is a one-legged Jordanian wounded in the allied bombing of Afghanistan, who the Bush administration will argue is that missing link. He is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Stories about al-Zarqawi have been carefully fed to the media, suggesting his key role as the connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam. Most of them have been unsourced. And all have been dismissed by those who have followed the career of this veteran of the global jihad, who was fighting for Islam long before the world had heard of Osama bin Laden and whose al-Qaeda credentials have, in part, been created to fulfil the agendas of those who want him for other reasons.

So it is al-Zarqawi who is credited with being al-Qaeda's chemist-in-chief - an expert in weapons of mass destruction. It is al-Zarqawi, too, who is credited with being the mastermind behind a plot to use ricin to poison food at a British military base and other Allied military sites across Europe.

What is known about the career of this master terrorist? According to Jordanian intelligence, al-Zarqawi fled Afghanistan in late 2001, first to Iran, from where he was expelled, and then to Baghdad, where he received treatment for his wounds and had his leg amputated. It was while he was in Baghdad that the old campaigner's phone calls home were intercepted by the Jordanians and passed to colleagues in US.

Jordan's interest in al-Zarqawi is twofold. The country has named him as being behind the killing of US aid official Lawrence Foley, 60, in Jordan last October, on the basis of the confessions of two involved in the killing who say al-Zarqawi supplied them with weapons and money for attacks.

There is a second version of the al-Zarqawi story, supplied by German intelligence. Here his real name is Ahmed al-Kalaylah. They say he is al-Qaeda's combat commander, appointed to orchestrate attacks on Europe, and place him among the top 25 in the al-Qaeda hierarchy.

Each version could have elements of truth but both are are at odds with the facts known about his career in terrorism. According to jihadists who knew him in Afghanistan, al-Zarqawi's CV - though vicious - is less interesting than some make out.

They say that, despite fighting in the CIA-backed war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, he does not adhere to the ideology of al-Qaeda, a view shared by the CIA. Indeed, his name does not figure on its list of the 22 most wanted Islamic terrorists and he has never been mentioned in the list of senior al-Qaeda men in bin Laden's entourage in Afghanistan.

So why has al-Zarqawi suddenly been elevated to the position of a senior bin Laden lieutenant? The answer, say some, is that the Jordanians need a figure like al-Zarqawi to clamp down on their own Islamist extremists. One London-based Islamist said: 'If you want the key to the al-Zarqawi story, then look at the source of the information. The Jordanians have wanted their own bin Laden figure for some time and he fits the profile.'

'He's just an ordinary man,' said a former Arab mujahid who fought in the Afghan war against the Russians. 'He arrived in Afghanistan in 1990 and fought against Russia in Khosht in 1991.' He said that when the Taliban stormed to power, he chose to stay and in 1999 formed a close-knit group of Jordanians linked to the traditional Islamic-resistance group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

There, al-Zarqawi ran a guesthouse in Logo, a one-hour drive west of Kabul in an area ruled by the anti-Taliban warlord Gulbedin Hekmatyar. 'He lived with a group of 30-40 Jordanians of the Muslim Brotherhood,' said the source. 'There wasn't even a training camp.'

If the link to al-Zarqawi is at best circumstantial, the second connection that the Bush administration apparently plans to develop is equally tendentious. That connection is to the al-Ansar group, which, like al-Zarqawi, is also sheltering in Kurdish northern Iraq. The leader of this group, also expected to be name checked by Powell this week, is Mullah Krekar.

His group certainly is nasty, but what baffles many is that, despite the allegations about his group, he remains at large, living unmolested by the authorities in Norway.

Unlike al-Zarqawi, Krekar can speak for himself. 'I can say to you that this is not true that I am a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda,' Krekar, 47, said in an interview in yesterday's Los Angeles Times. 'I will wait until Wednesday, and if Powell says anything against me, I can use documents to prove it is not true. Everything: that we have chemical bombs, [ties to] Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, all of those things.'

Despite claims by US officials that he is a terrorist specifically linked to al-Qaeda, they also admit they do not have the evidence to charge him, despite two interviews with the FBI.

'I told the FBI, "I can come to America and prove it's not true in your court",' said Krekar, who studied Islamic theology with a founder of al-Qaeda and has praised bin Laden. 'I am not an enemy of America.' " 

And....

HAMBURG, Germany -- A former Al Qaeda recruit told German authorities last year that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, portrayed by the Bush administration as the critical link between Osama bin Laden's group and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, was actually opposed to Al Qaeda.

In voluminous statements given to German federal police after his April arrest, Shadi Abdallah, a 26-year-old Jordanian who claims to have served briefly as a bin Laden bodyguard, maintained that Zarqawi was allied instead with Iraq's enemy, the fundamentalist Islamic government of Iran.

Abdallah, arrested after he was overheard by police discussing weapons and munitions in a phone call with Zarqawi, later painted a picture of Zarqawi that appears to be in stark contrast to the image unveiled last week by Secretary of State Colin Powell.

It is possible that Zarqawi, who Powell said visited Baghdad for medical treatment last spring, has forged new bonds with bin Laden and Iraq since Abdallah's arrest. But in some of his 22 separate police interrogation sessions spanning seven months last year, copies of which were obtained by the Chicago Tribune, Abdallah declared that Zarqawi, a one-legged Jordanian who is now at large, had "links with all [terrorist] groups with the exception of Al Qaeda."

"He is against Al Qaeda," Abdallah said."   A year later, an NBC Reporter had Zarqawi's number:   
By Jim Miklaszewski
Correspondent
NBC News  March 2, 2004

With Tuesday’s attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.

But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.

In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.....

And despite the Bush administration’s tough talk about hitting the terrorists before they strike, Zarqawi’s killing streak continues today."

Days later, MSNBC is not so sure....
By Rod Nordland
Newsweek
Updated: 3:01 a.m. ET March 7, 2004

March 6 - "The stark fact is that we don’t even know for sure how many legs Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi has, let alone whether the Jordanian terrorist, purportedly tied to al Qaeda, is really behind the latest outrages in Iraq."  

BBC News Article

Confessions 6 April, 2004 - The shooting of Mr Foley outside his home was the first killing of a Western diplomat in the city.

He was shot several times in the chest and head as he walked towards his car.

Among those sentenced to death by the military court were Libyan Salem Saad bin Suweid and Jordanian Yasser Freihat, who were arrested in December 2002 and accused of carrying out the actual shooting.

They had told the court they were innocent and had been forced to confess to the crime.

The other six were sentenced to death in absentia, including Zarqawi.

Two other defendants, Mohammed Damas and Mohammed Amin, who had also pleaded not guilty, were sentenced to 15 years and six years in jail respectively. ....... "

 This June 16, 2004 ABC News report places Zarqawi on the FBI's Most Wanted List, but I cannot find him there. ABC also reported:

 "Attention on al-Zarqawi has increased in recent months as he became a more vocal terror figure, due in part to three recordings released on the Internet, including that of the beheading of American businessman Nicholas Berg.

Even this winter, such a profile was uncharacteristic of the 36-year-old al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian previously not known for claiming responsibility for the numerous attacks in which he's believed to have had a hand."

And..

"Intelligence officials believe al-Zarqawi has cells or links to Muslim extremists around the world, including countries he has been known to have spent time in: Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Spain, Saudi Arabia , Sudan, Syria, Pakistan and Kuwait.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has also said that al-Zarqawi and his network have plotted against countries including France, Britain, Italy, Germany and Russia.

Al-Zarqawi, whose real name is Ahmad Fadhil al-Khalayleh, joined the jihadist cause in his teens, traveling to Afghanistan to fight alongside the mujahadeen, or holy warriors, trying to prevent a Soviet occupation. The street-smart plotter is thought to have become a student of Islamic literature.

He was known as the "one-legged terrorist" because U.S. intelligence indicated he received medical treatment and was fitted with an artificial leg in Baghdad in 2002, after fleeing Afghanistan.

However, the view now is that al-Zarqawi has both legs, even though he is still believed to have traveled to Iraq for treatment for his leg or another injury, a U.S. intelligence official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Associated Press Writer Curt Anderson contributed to this report " 

Bush Administration Claims That Zarqawi Sought Safe Haven in Iraq Put in Doubt - ABC News page (1) (2)
NEW YORK, Oct. 5, 2004

..."This is a murky story," said Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser. "I'm sure we'll find out more but what we do know about Zarqawi is that he knew Iraq well."

Since then, the president has subtly altered his language when discussing Zarqawi's presence in Baghdad before the war. Bush no longer maintains Zarqawi was harbored by Saddam, just that he was there."

 So.... one leg or two? Terrorist killer of more than 700, or.....just a shady character in a "murky story".

The folks that carefully fed us the "Al-Zarqawi is a bogeyman" story, have not been very credible about much else that they have officially stated about Iraq. They can't seem to keep the Zarqawi story straight.

in 2002 at his "chemical weapons and terrorist training camp" in Kurdish controlled Kirmal (Khurmal).

The story had already been reported on Feb. 7, 2003. If it is true, it is another indication that Zarqawi is more of a terrorist "prop" than an actual threat: 

By GREG MILLER Los Angeles Times

Friday, February 7, 2003

Washington -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spent a significant part of his presentation to the United Nations this week describing a terrorist camp in northern Iraq where al-Qaida affiliates are said to be training to carry out attacks with explosives and poisons.

But neither Powell nor other administration officials answered the question: What is the United States doing about it?

Lawmakers who have attended classified briefings on the camp say that they have been stymied for months in their efforts to get an explanation for why the U.S. has not launched a military strike on the compound near the village of Khurmal. Powell cited its ongoing operation as one of the key reasons for suspecting ties between Baghdad and the al-Qaida terror network.

The lawmakers put new pressure on the Bush administration on Thursday to explain its decision to leave the facility unharmed.

"Why have we not taken it out?" Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) asked Powell during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "Why have we let it sit there if it's such a dangerous plant producing these toxins?"

Powell declined to answer, saying he could not discuss the matter in open session.....

......Absent an explanation from the White House, some officials suggested the administration had refrained from striking the compound in part to preserve a key piece of its case against Iraq.

"This is it, this is their compelling evidence for use of force," said one intelligence official, who asked not to be identified. "If you take it out, you can't use it as justification for war."..................

......A White House spokesman said Thursday he had no immediate comment on the matter.

The administration's handling of the issue has emerged as one of the more curious recent elements of the war on terrorism. Failing to intervene appears to be at odds with President Bush's stated policy of pre-empting terrorist threats, and the facility is in an area where the U.S. already has a considerable presence.

U.S. intelligence agents are said to be operating among the Kurdish population nearby, and U.S. and British warplanes already patrol much of northern Iraq as part of their enforcement of a "no- fly" zone. "

The record of "news" reports indicates that there is no way to confirm that Al-Zarqawi is the terrorist nemesis that the Bush administration some of the time.....purports him to be.