Still scamming Native Americans for fun and profit…
by digby
My Salon piece today covers yet another strange story out of Mississippi in which some documents recently came to light showing that a major GOP group was running the old Jack Abramoff scam:
If there’s one thing Republicans have learned over the years it’s to never let legalities stand in the way of a good fundraising scam. And one of their best cons ever was Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed’s brilliant scheme to con millions from Indian tribes to run a supposedly religious based anti-gambling campaign against the tribes rivals in order to gain exclusive gambling rights. And even better was the revelation that they were ripping off their own Christian clients as well. What’s not to like? Publicly appeasing religious conservatives at the expense of Indian tribes on behalf of other Indian tribes for whom they have nothing but contempt? It’s beautiful. Only Iran Contra comes to mind as a similarly elegant illegal scheme.
Unfortunately for them, the whole thing unraveled when other illegal behaviors involving Abramoff and his cohorts were revealed as part of an ongoing corruption probe by the Department of Justice …
Yesterday, Politico revealed that the latest GOP group of power brokers, the Republican State Leadership Committee best known for it’s hugely successful campaigns around the country to turn state houses into GOP majorities in order to redraw the congressional maps in their favor, has been running similar schemes as recently as 2010 in the state of Alabama.
Read on … They never quit …
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