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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (60382)	3/8/2006 10:57:16 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 362773

Vanity Fair: Bush Had Ties to Abramoff Wed Mar 8, Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff says President Bush knew him well enough to joke with him about weightlifting. "What are you benching, buff guy?" Abramoff said Bush asked him. The president has said he doesn't know Abramoff. Abramoff said he finds it hard to believe Bush doesn't remember the 10 or so photos he and members of his family had snapped with the president and first lady. "He (Bush) has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met," Abramoff wrote in an e-mail, according to Vanity Fair's April issue being released this week. "Perhaps he has forgotten everything. Who knows?" Abramoff pleaded guilty Jan. 4 to charges that he and a former partner, Adam Kidan, concocted a fake wire transfer to make it appear they were putting a sizable stake of their own money into a multimillion-dollar purchase of SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet in 2000. Abramoff also has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a probe into his ties with members of Congress and the Bush administration. "I had my picture taken with him, evidently," Bush said of Abramoff on Jan. 26. "I've had my picture taken with a lot of people." "I frankly don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy," Bush added. "I don't know him." A few days later, Abramoff wrote to Washingtonian magazine that he had met briefly with the president nearly a dozen times and that Bush knew him well enough to make joking references to Abramoff's family. Abramoff told Vanity Fair that he once was invited to Bush's Texas ranch where he would have joined with other big Bush fundraisers. Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew, said he didn't go because the event fell on the Sabbath. The lobbyist said that when Bush made a speech to fundraisers in 2003, he sat just a few feet from the president. Abramoff, the only lobbyist on the dais, was seated between Republican Sens. George Allen of Virginia and Orrin Hatch of Utah. Three former associates of Abramoff have told The Associated Press the lobbyist frequently told them he had strong ties to the White House through its deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove. Asked about the former Abramoff associates' accounts, the White House said Rove and Abramoff were leaders of a young Republicans group decades ago. "Mr. Rove remembers they had met at a political event in the 1990s," White House spokeswoman Erin Healy has said. "Since then, he would describe him as a casual acquaintance." According to Vanity Fair, Rove's relationship with Abramoff was deeper. After Bush took office, Susan Ralston, Abramoff's administration assistant, assumed the same post with Rove at the White House, where Abramoff met with Rove at least once, the magazine said. Rove dined several times at Abramoff's former restaurant in Washington, Signatures, and was Abramoff's guest in the owner's box of the NCAA basketball playoffs a few years ago, sitting for much of the game at Abramoff's side, Vanity Fair reported. The White House has not released any photos that Bush took with Abramoff, but acknowledged the authenticity of one that has been made public. In the 2001 photo, Bush is seen shaking hands with the leader of an Indian tribe that was an Abramoff client. The lobbyist is in the background. Abramoff said he thought about, but decided against, selling his photos with the Bushes for money. Publications were making Abramoff offers that rose to the low seven figures, Vanity Fair reports. He blames the Bush administration for the media attention. "My so-called relationship with Bush, Rove and everyone else at the White House has only become important because instead of just releasing details about the very few times I was there, they created a feeding frenzy by their deafening silence," Abramoff told the magazine. "The Democrats, on the other hand, are going overboard, virtually insisting I was there to plan the invasion of Iraq."

To: stockman_scott who wrote (60382)	3/8/2006 11:51:24 PM
From: PartyTime	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 362773

>>>Now, I bow to no one in my conviction that George W. Bush's is a malevolent presidency. The leading figures of his administration manipulated facts and fabricated fictions to justify going to war in Iraq. They ignored the intelligence reports that predicted the strife that would follow Saddam Hussein's ouster, and sent our troops in harm's way with no plausible strategy for how to handle the violence and with insufficient armor to shield themselves from it. They were missing in action when a great American city and thousands of American citizens needed rescue. This administration has authorized torture, though the United States has signed conventions that forbid it. It has authorized warrantless wiretapping and surveillance, though it is plainly against the law.<<< Signed conventions? Consider also we signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, India has not--and Bush has now negotiated trading nuclear secrets with India in exchange for some fruit. He then visited Palistan, which wanted the same kind of deal and didn't get it, only to inflame that conflict which has been decades-old. I think it's time to begin a national campaign that all future lottery winners dedicate one percent of their winnings to the creation of "Impeach Bush" signs--lol! A nifty legislator could introduce such a bill, garnish the inherent publicity that would accompany it and thus get the idea out. Hey, come to think of it--spread the word!!!