It depends on what your definition of aided is

[Cknolls]

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/09/D8FLPHO80.html

[Balta1701]

This continues to be the biggest distortion in the Abramoff case...there are a lot of Indian Tribes in this country, and a lot of them are in different states. Many of them wind up having business before the government. Before Abramoff started working with any indian tribes, they gave the majority of their money to Democrats. When a tribe started working with Abramoff, that tribe always saw its contributions to Republicans go through the roof, while it's contributions to Demcrats on average declined roughly 9%.

 

The crime overall is not taking money from people associated with Abramoff (and you can't find a single Dem who actually received money directly from Abramoff). The crime is in the quid pro quo. The crimes are in the lavish gifts which barely border on the edges of the law. If every single person who received money from one of the indian tribes Abramoff dealt with was actually linked to the Crimes, well, let's put it this way, I'd be happy to sacrifice Harry Reid in exchange for knocking out that many Republicans. Hastert got a lot more money from those tribes than Reid, for example, and he hasnt' been seriously implicated.

 

There may well be evidence that Reid has done something inappropriate. I haven't seen it yet. The evidence that is out there thus far is about things done by guys like Rep. Ney, Delay, etc., where they're getting gifts from Abramoff that they don't report, where abramoff is demanding extra money from people to meet with those Congresspeople, etc. Here remains the best summary I've seen to date about who got what in the Abramoff case, including donations just from the indian tribes not necessarily tied exactly to Abramoff. As far as I can tell, it already mentions basically the same facts presented in the AP article ($5000 from 1 tribe, writing a letter to help it, etc.), yet it was made a month ago, and somehow the AP just decided to run that story today. Very odd indeed.

Edited February 9, 2006 by Balta1701

[Balta1701]

Link

 

So this doesn't show up at all in the AP piece. They spend a long time talking about how Abramoff's partners had arranged for repeated contacts between Reid's folks and Abramoff's clients, in particular on the Marianas minimum wage/slave labor issue, in an attempt to make Reid look bad.

 

The kicker? Reid never actually supported Abramoff's position that the minimum wage bill was bad. He supported the bill, while Abramoff's clients, the people supposedly doing nasty things by Lobbying Reid...wanted the minimum wage opposed (so they coud keep paying workers $2 an hour or so on U.S. territory). The AP casually leaves that detail out. Oops. Damn liberal media.

[southsider2k5]

Link

 

So this doesn't show up at all in the AP piece.  They spend a long time talking about how Abramoff's partners had arranged for repeated contacts between Reid's folks and Abramoff's clients, in particular on the Marianas minimum wage/slave labor issue, in an attempt to make Reid look bad.

 

The kicker?  Reid never actually supported Abramoff's position that the minimum wage bill was bad.  He supported the bill, while Abramoff's clients, the people supposedly doing nasty things by Lobbying Reid...wanted the minimum wage opposed (so they coud keep paying workers $2 an hour or so on U.S. territory).  The AP casually leaves that detail out.  Oops.  Damn liberal media.

 

So wait a minute. You are trying to tell us that in 2001 the Republicians knew that Abramoff would somehow become a politicial liablity so while keeping in business contact with him themselves, and exposing themselves to further political liability, they set up Reid? Put away the tin foil hat dude.

[Balta1701]

So wait a minute.  You are trying to tell us that in 2001 the Republicians knew that Abramoff would somehow become a politicial liablity so while keeping in business contact with him themselves, and exposing themselves to further political liability, they set up Reid?  Put away the tin foil hat dude.

No, that means that they tried to get his support on the Marianas bill in the method they were using to get the support of the Republicans...$$$. Reid...refused. HE never supported their position despite the $$$ which worked so well on the Republicans. And the AP is kind enough to hide that fact, because otherwise they wouldn't have had anything to print here.

[Cknolls]

No, that means that they tried to get his support on the Marianas bill in the method they were using to get the support of the Republicans...$$$.  Reid...refused.  HE never supported their position despite the $$$ which worked so well on the Republicans.  And the AP is kind enough to hide that fact, because otherwise they wouldn't have had anything to print here.

 

Do they talk about Reid's aide, who became a lobbyist, holding fundraisers for his former boss in his lobbying firms offices?

 

 

Damn Liberal Media.

Edited February 10, 2006 by Cknolls

[Balta1701]

Do they talk about Reid's aide, who became a lobbyist, holding fundraisers for his former boss in his lobbying firms offices?

Again, I'd be more than happy to throw every single person out of Congress who did that with any lobbyist remotely associated with Abramoff...because we'd have one massive Democratic majority afterwards.