From WHOIS at Network Solutions:

Domain Name: TOMDELAY.COM

Registrant:
First Principles 
1606 Brookstone Lane
Sugarland, TX 77479
US

Administrative Contact , Technical Contact :
First Principles
dani@tomdelay.com 
1606 Brookstone Lane
Sugarland, TX 77479 
US
Phone: 713-446-3695 
Fax: 999 999 9999

Record expires on 10-Jan-2010
Record created on 10-Jan-2000
Database last updated on 10-Jan-2007

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.UpstreamCommunications.Com
NS2.UpstreamCommunications.Com
 

The same people who bought Karl Rove's consulting and B&B businesses are handling TomDeLay.com. The two main players are Todd T. Olsen and Kevin Shuvalov.

I wrote about Karl Rove's businesses  here and here in the TPM Cafe. Another member of the TPM Cafe posted about Rove's businesses in the Daily Kos .

Use Robtex's Swiss Army Knife Internet Tool to search for "TomDelay.com" and you will see that TomDelay.com domain shares mailservers with PraxisList.com, Olsen-Shuvalov.com and UpstreamCommunicatons.com and .org.

The PraxisList.com website provides no information about Praxis List other than Lynette is the Praxis List email contact. A casual visitor would have no idea that Praxis List is a Texas-based firm that does a lot of business with the GOP nor would the casual visitor have any idea that Praxis List is linked to Karl Rove.

The admin contact for PraxisList.com domain is:

Prendergast, Katie katiep@ONR.COM
Praxis List Company
1609 Shoal Creek Blvd. Sute 203
Austin, TX 78701
US
(512) 479-6602 fax: (512) 479-8031

ONR.COM is OnRamp Access. OnRamp Access is a private, full-service network provider in Central Texas which has been around since 1994.

TomDeLay.com, as noted above, is hosted on the Upstream Communications servers. Todd Olsen and Kevin Shuvalov are Upstream Communicatons principals.  

Take a look at the sample websites developed by Upstream Communications for an idea of where Upstream Communications' business is coming from. I did a humourous post about George W. Bush Childhood Home, Inc. last  fall after I visited the UC website.

LOL - I'd really like to test Upstream Communications claims about the level of internet security it provides to its customers but I wouldn't have a clue as to how to go about it.  

More to come.

This is too much! I read Tom DeLay's post about Rosie O'Donnell and fifteen minutes later, the beau runs in to tell me that Delay made the television news because he wants to get Rosie fired from  "The View."

Quick! Somebody, please, send a link to my comment about Celebrations For Children to Rosie!

Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin
7/26/00

"A 'Petri Dish' in the Pacific; Conservative Network Aligned With DeLay Makes Marianas a Profitable Cause"

Last year, two close associates of one of the most powerful members of the U.S. House spent part of their New Year's holiday 8,000 miles from Washington in the Northern Marianas. Although the islands are known for their balmy weather, golf courses and great snorkeling, the trip could hardly be described as a junket--the advisers to House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) were there on a political mission.

Ed Buckham and Mike Scanlon wanted to lend support to a conservative politician vying to become speaker of the U.S. territory's House of Representatives. As the two operatives toured airstrips and ports, assessing the islands' infrastructure needs, their message was subtle but clear: Elect Ben Fitial speaker, and congressional largess would follow.

Soon after the visit, several local lawmakers switched sides and threw their support to the DeLay-backed candidate, saying they were convinced the islands would have a better chance of winning federal funds if they elected someone with such close ties to congressional leaders. Fitial became speaker in January.

It was only the latest success in an extraordinary campaign by a powerful network of GOP lawmakers, conservative activists and lobbyists to apply their free-market ideology to this small outpost in the western Pacific, home to a bustling, low-wage garment industry that sends more than $ 1 billion worth of goods every year to the U.S. mainland.

For years, labor unions and human rights activists have tried to improve conditions at what they consider the sweatshops of the Northern Marianas, whose best-known island is Saipan. But they have been blocked at virtually every turn by the coalition of conservatives assembled by Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds, a firm that has used the issue to cement its reputation for lobbying congressional Republicans.

With the aid of powerful GOP allies such as DeLay and House Resources Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska), Preston Gates has turned the Marianas into a cause celebre for conservative activists and a profitable business for itself and its allies. The firm has collected more than $ 6 million in fees from the government and businesses in the islands, and Buckham--DeLay's former chief of staff--has leveraged his ties to both the whip and Marianas officials to secure a multimillion-dollar power plant contract for a major energy company in DeLay's district.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), a strong critic of the lax wage and immigration laws on the islands, said the conservative campaign on the Marianas is a cautionary tale in which the very people at the center of the controversy are the only ones who lose out. "It's a story of a very narrow special interest triumphing over the rights and dignity of the workers," he said.

But Jack Abramoff, who has directed the Preston Gates lobbying campaign, compares the laws Miller and others are seeking to impose with the Nuremberg Laws restricting Jews' activities under the Nazis.

"These are immoral laws designed to destroy the economic lives of a people," Abramoff said. Conservatives "see in this battle a microcosm of an overall battle. . . . What these guys in the CNMI are trying to do is build a life without being wards of the state."

Composed of 14 islands in the Pacific just north of Guam, the area now known as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or CNMI, was seized by the United States from the Japanese during World War II. But it wasn't until 1986 that a covenant went into effect granting Northern Marianas residents U.S. citizenship and all the benefits that flow from that, except the right to vote in federal elections.

For House Republicans, the territory embodies many of the ideals they promoted when they seized the majority in 1994. It is exempt from federal labor and immigration laws, setting its minimum wage at $ 3.05 an hour; of the roughly 79,000 residents, many are low-wage workers from China or the Philippines. The factories churn out clothes bearing the label "Made in the USA," which can be sent without tariffs or quotas to the mainland. "It is a perfect petri dish of capitalism," DeLay said in an interview. "It's like my Galapagos island."

But Democrats and labor activists say the dearth of regulations has fostered abhorrent conditions for workers. They accuse the garment manufacturers of forcing people to work long hours without overtime, failing at times to pay them at all, and requiring them to live in crowded "barracks." In 1995, when the U.S. Senate adopted a bill to impose U.S. immigration standards on the Northern Marianas, then-Gov. Froilan Tenorio hired Preston Gates to block the measure in the House.

The man Tenorio turned to, Abramoff, had impeccable GOP credentials. A former chair of the nation's College Republicans, Abramoff become so close with his executive director, Ralph Reed, that he let the future Christian Coalition leader sleep on his couch for a time. These days, Abramoff is a top fundraiser for DeLay and other House Republicans and a major fixture on the city's power lunch circuit.

Abramoff and his team, which includes DeLay's former deputy chief of staff, Bill Jarrell, and ex-representative David Funderburk (R-N.C.), launched a full-scale push to elevate the Marianas into a major issue for House Republicans, coordinating a series of free visits for lawmakers and their aides. More than 85 people took part in these visits: DeLay celebrated New Year's Day 1998 on the Northern Marianas with his wife, daughter and Buckham, his top aide at the time.

At the suggestion of Preston Gates, the territory also cultivated conservatives outside Congress. Among those who visited the Marianas at the government's expense were officials from conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, the Institute for Justice and the Traditional Values Coalition, a major conservative lobbying force.

Andrea Sheldon Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, had heard from a Senate Democratic staff member that forced abortions were performed on the islands. One Sunday at church she confronted a Preston Gates employee, who offered to pay her way to the Northern Marianas.

"I was loaded for bear," recalled Lafferty, who made the journey in August 1997 and became convinced the allegations were false. She has now become a fierce proponent of the territory, starting a chapter there and even arranging for lawmakers to visit.

Other groups that have traveled to the Marianas at the territory's expense, such as Citizens Against Government Waste and Americans for Tax Reform, have launched blistering attacks on legislation that would strip the garment manufacturers of some of their special privileges, such as being able to use the "Made in the USA" label.

Indeed, Preston Gates has managed to scuttle just about every legislative thrust aimed at the Marianas. Early this year, when Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) tried to revive his bill to apply U.S. immigration laws to the islands, the lobbyists persuaded Sen. Robert C. Smith (R-N.H.)--two of whose former aides work at Preston Gates--to put a hold on the measure and delay its consideration for weeks. Though the measure ultimately passed in the Senate, giving the firm its sole legislative defeat of the year, it stalled in the House after Resources Committee Chairman Young declared his opposition.

Young, who will be honored at a Preston Gates reception during the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, has been helpful to the cause in several other ways. He helped force the resignation of an Interior Department critic of the islands' garment industry after his committee uncovered evidence that the official engaged in partisan activity on government time. He also killed an effort this March by Democrats to impose the federal minimum wage on the islands, saying it would place an "undue burden" on the people there.

But for Preston Gates, there has been no better congressional friend than DeLay, who has repeatedly cranked the legislative gears on the territory's behalf. He and his allies have taken a particular interest in the political fortunes of Fitial, who before he became speaker this year served as second-in-command to Willie Tan, the Marianas' most powerful garment factory owner.

DeLay and his aides made local lawmakers aware of the whip's close ties to Fitial, putting an airport runway wanted by some Marianas lawmakers on a list of projects in this year's transportation spending bill.

Now his aides are hoping to add $ 350,000 to an energy and water bill to promote projects on the islands.

"I just see a very clear interference," Diego T. Benavente, a local politician and supporter of Fitial's rival, said of DeLay's efforts.

Buckham said in an interview that he went to the Marianas as a favor to Fitial. "They always say, 'We hope you can help us,' and we say, 'We hope we can help you too,' " he said. "I'm sure it did show he had powerful friends in Washington. I'm not going to deny that."

Fitial, who boasts that he is the defending putting champion at DeLay's annual charity golf tournament, said he was forced to call upon House Republicans to fend off attacks from liberal Democrats. "He's a friend. Of course I look to my friends for help," he said, adding that the islands' policies have come under fire "because there are stupid people in Washington who do not understand, or pretend not to understand, our issues."

Another beneficiary of DeLay's assistance has been Buckham, who has represented the energy giant Enron Corp. in a power plant permit dispute in the Marianas, making $ 50,000 in fees last year. When Enron felt it was unfairly cut out of the territory's bidding process, Buckham asked DeLay to write local officials.

DeLay sent the letter last summer, emphasizing that the territory "desperately needs a fair hearing in far-off Washington D.C., which at least some of us here have been able to provide," and that the same courtesy should be extended to Enron. The bidding was reopened, and Fitial subsequently pushed through a measure helping ensure that Enron would obtain the $ 120 million contract for an 80-megawatt power plant, prompting outcries from other bidders.

Fitial and his allies plan to keep up the pace regarding Washington. Although Fitial's legislation to provide $ 700,000 for new federal lobbying fees, which the speaker said would go to Preston Gates, was vetoed as part of a larger spending bill, Abramoff and Preston Gates have reason to be optimistic. On Friday the House held a special session to approve a resolution calling on the governor to hire D.C. lobbyists.

Despite the criticism, Abramoff says the Preston Gates lobbying campaign has been a success. "They were one step away from being taken over," Abramoff said. "We had a limited amount of time, so we went and educated the Republicans. It saved them." 

Hmm...I was under the impression that although the Delays first registered the DeLay Foundation For Kids, Inc. in Texas in 1987, the foundation had been relatively inactive until 2000 or 2001 when the idea for the Oaks at Rio Bend project was conceived.

But, according to Peter Stone in his 5/7/05 National Journal story,"Getting in Good With Tom and Christine," the DeLay Foundation For Kids was cooking with gas in 1998. I wonder what the DeLays did with the money they raised for the foundation before 2001.

National Journal
By Peter Stone
5/7/05

"Getting in Good With Tom and Christine"

In 1998, as the DeLay Foundation for Kids was gaining name recognition in Washington and accelerating its fundraising efforts, lobbyists began lining up for the chance to play in the charity's annual golf tournament.

That spring, an eclectic group of golfers waited to tee off at the posh Woodlands Resort and Conference Center just outside of Houston. Among the group were some 10 politicians and businessmen from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a representative from the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, and a wealthy businessman from Puerto Rico named Hernan Franco.

The Marianas, the Chitimacha tribe, and a group of Puerto Rican businessmen had one thing in common: All were clients then, or shortly afterward, of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was a star rainmaker at Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds and a good buddy of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who was then majority whip. As DeLay's friend, Abramoff wanted to help boost the foundation, which DeLay and his wife, Christine, created in 1986 to assist abused and neglected children. Some of Abramoff's clients gave as much as $25,000 to attend the event at Woodlands seven years ago.

Moreover, as a lobbyist with multiple interests in Washington, Abramoff wanted to do more. His effort on the charity's behalf was part of a full-court press that over the years resulted in the raising of hundreds of thousands of dollars for DeLay's pet projects, both political and personal. "Jack was trying to stay close and supportive of DeLay," said a former House leadership aide. For Abramoff, getting clients to donate money to the foundation was "a no-brainer," the former aide said.

Another lobbyist close to DeLay said that anyone who wanted to impress Christine would take a strong interest in the foundation. "If you want to have a good relationship with Tom, you need a good relationship with Christine," the lobbyist said.

To be sure, Abramoff's clients in 1998 had every reason to stay on DeLay's good side, because the majority whip had already shown himself to be a key supporter of some of their interests in Washington.

Just a few months before the 1998 Woodlands event, for example, the DeLays and Ed Buckham, who was DeLay's chief of staff, took a junket to the Marianas, a U.S. protectorate in the western Pacific Ocean. After returning to Washington, DeLay indicated he would continue to fight any legislation aimed at ending the Marianas' exemption from U.S. minimum-wage laws. Keeping the exemption was a top priority for the island government -- an Abramoff client -- and its domestic garment industry, which depends on low-wage immigrant workers from Asia.

In March 1998, DeLay had also voted to give Puerto Rico the right to hold a referendum on whether it should seek to become the 51st state, a key goal of Franco, who was one of the Puerto Rican businessmen represented by Abramoff.

Another Abramoff client, the Mississippi Choctaws, who sources say gave the foundation $25,000 a year for several years, benefited greatly in 1995 and 1997 when DeLay helped to block bills that would have taxed Indian gambling revenues.

Two other Abramoff-represented Indian tribes with casinos -- the Louisiana Coushattas and the Agua Caliente of California -- later also helped the DeLay foundation by donating a total of $22,500 in 2001 and '02. Abramoff is the subject of a federal fraud and tax investigation related to tens of millions of dollars in fees that several Indian tribes with casinos paid him over several years.

Critics say that the donations by Abramoff's clients to the DeLay foundation show how special interests can use politician-sponsored charities to make large donations to advance their causes.

Rick Cohen, the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, said that the practice "underscores the potential, if not actual, abuse of a nonprofit form. In this circumstance, the DeLay foundation becomes a venue for circumventing campaign finance and political lobbying regulations and disclosures." Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, said, "DeLay was taking care of Abramoff's lobbying clients, and Abramoff was taking care of DeLay's interests."

DeLay spokesman Dan Allen rejected any suggestion that DeLay's votes were tied to donations from Abramoff's clients. "Everyone knows that Congressman DeLay makes voting decisions based on the merits of each piece of legislation as it comes forward," Allen said.

Criticism aside, the foundation's goals are consistent with values that have long been espoused by Tom and Christine DeLay. The DeLays helped to raise three foster children.

The foundation's current major project is the construction of eight homes, a gymnasium, a chapel, and other facilities on a planned 50-acre community of permanent homes for foster children and their foster parents in the Rio Bend area of Richmond, Texas. The project is being built by construction mogul Bob Perry of Houston, who was a key financier of Swift Boat Veterans or Truth, the group that played a high-profile role last year in attacking Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., during the presidential campaign. Perry has also contributed to DeLay's political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority.

For the DeLay Foundation for Kids, the annual golf tournament has been its top source of income. Since fiscal 1999, the foundation has earned about $7 million from the annual event.

(In fiscal 2004, the foundation raised $2.2 million and spent $2.4 million, the lion's share going to the Rio Bend project, and it ended the year with assets of $3.7 million, according to its most recent filing with the Internal Revenue Service.)

Some longtime donors say they give to the foundation for its charitable works. "We thought it was a good cause, and it is a good cause," said Tommy Payne, executive vice president for external affairs for Reynolds American, the parent company of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, which has been close to DeLay for many years because of his anti-tax, anti-regulation stances.

Yet for lobbyists, the foundation offers a way to build ties with DeLay. Buckham's experience is one example. When he attended the golf outing in 1998, Buckham had just left DeLay's office as chief of staff to launch his own lobbying practice, the Alexander Strategy Group. Abramoff, who was already a rising star on K Street, was throwing some work Buckham's way in the form of grassroots and communications contracts for the Marianas and the Choctaws. During the 1998 tournament, according to one attendee, Buckham shepherded Marianas representatives to events, including an evening reception with the DeLays.

Since that time, the Alexander Strategy Group has built an impressive lobbying clientele that includes R.J. Reynolds, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and United Parcel Service. All of these companies have supported the DeLay foundation. According to the foundation's 2004 filing to the IRS, lobbyists Duane Duncan of Fannie Mae and Marcel Dubois of UPS are members of the foundation's board. A lobbyist familiar with the board when it was established said that generally people were put on the board to "lock them in as donors," typically at $25,000 a year.

One DeLay ally said that Abramoff and Buckham seemed to view the foundation as a vehicle partly to boost their personal ties with the Texan. "Buckham and Abramoff knew that if they kept Christine happy, and, by extension, Tom happy, they could continue to have unfettered access to DeLay's office," said this source. "The charity was a key avenue for their clients to put financial resources into DeLay Inc."

Under federal law, the DeLay foundation is not required to disclose the names of its donors, and it does not do so voluntarily. But according to news reports, ExxonMobil and AT&T have each donated $50,000, and the Corrections Corporation of America, which manages federal prisons, gave $100,000 last year.

Some fundraisers for DeLay's political operations have also raised money for the foundation. For instance, Craig Richardson, a longtime fundraiser for DeLay's campaigns, has helped run the charity golf tournaments for a number of years. "Each entity pays me separately for the specific work I perform on their behalf," Richardson said. Similarly, the online publication Salon reported earlier this month that Warren Robold, a top fundraiser for DeLay's political action committee Texans for a Republican Majority, was also paid $50,000 a few years ago to raise money for the charity. Robold has been indicted in Texas on charges of violating state campaign finance laws.

Moreover, such foundation donors as R.J. Reynolds have poured tens of thousands of dollars into ARMPAC, as well as into a DeLay legal defense fund to support the politically embattled majority leader. "DeLay is anti-tax and anti-regulation, and we support that point of view," said Payne.

Larry Noble, the former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission who runs the Center for Responsive Politics, says that the entire setup troubles him. "When you have campaign people fundraising for the charity, it further reinforces the idea in the minds of donors that this is all about Tom," Noble said. "I think what DeLay has put together is a fundraising machine that involves his political campaign, his PAC, and his charity. As far as contributors are concerned, they're just giving to DeLay."

Indeed, some of Abramoff's clients, who received special attention during the charity golfing events and in Washington, seemed to get this impression.

A top executive in the Marianas garment industry, Ben Fitial, thanked Buckham and DeLay in an April 1997 e-mail to Buckham for the hospitality they extended at the Woodlands tournament and during a visit to DeLay's office in Washington a few days later to talk about legislative issues that Abramoff was pressing for the islands. Fitial wrote to Buckham, who was still DeLay's chief of staff, that DeLay had been generous enough to "allow our group to virtually take over his office," and concluded that the majority whip also "was happy after the golf tournament because he beat me by one stroke."