Auld 'Lang' Syne all over again

It's fun to have House Speaker and former Governor Froilan C. Tenorio --'Lang' -- back in the headlines. Unlike most politicians, what you see really is what you get. No bland statements here, thank you.

In fact, it's hard to keep up. "This idea of suing the federal government is not good," he tells the Marianas Variety today. I don't remember hearing that during the campaign, though. Not that he really had to take a position on anything: I penciled him in as not only winning, but being in the leadership as soon as he tossed his hat in the ring.

I wouldn't interpret it as a ringing endorsement of the feds taking over immigration either, he just thinks discussions under Section 902 of the Covenant are the way to go.

Jack's jack

In the same issue, he is quoted as saying lobbyist Jack Abramoff earned his pay, because "he did the job that I hired him to do." Pretty good, as outrageous statements go. It's also true, though he is one of the few former or current politicians who will say that now.

Father knows best

All of this after we get distracted for a moment from the Governor's aching back by yet another fight over who should direct the Legislative Bureau. Tenorio wants former Rep. Daniel O. Quitugua in the post. It's pretty reasonable to argue that the previous Legislature can't appoint employees for its successor. At least he didn't use incumbent Glenna SP. Reyes' relation to the former Senate President as an argument.

Campaign Contributions 96950

Now that we've got a CNMI contest with federal election law applying, let's take a peek at OpenSecrets.org.

I've been looking forward to this, but it looks like only Pedro A. Tenorio supporters have gotten into the act with $3850. It's early in the game since none of the Washington Delegate candidates were officially certified until two weeks ago. It will be fun to watch anyway.

It's interesting to note in passing that Governor Benigno R. Fitial popped for $1,000 to the Republican National Committee a year ago; I wonder if he's having second thoughts.

More incongruous: an April $1,000 donation to House Democrat George Miller from Saipan Tribune Publisher Lynn Knight.

It seems contributions from this zip code reached their peak in the wild 'n wooly Abramoff days. In this cycle, Sen. John McCain appears to be leading Sen. Barack Obama in Presidential contributions that are over the reporting threshold-- I'm lazy today; I'll have to get back to you on what that is.

I'm supposed to give credit to the Center for Responsive Politics; here you go and I'll do it again soon.

Washington posts on immigration bill

Well, the Washington Post did a piece about PL 110-229 (S.2739), which included the CNMI immigration legislation. Okay, so it was a gossip column.

A mention's a mention and it probably has more readers than straight news:

Would Abramoff Have Ordered the Crow?

What's that line about revenge being "a dish best served cold"? There was some gloating on the menu Wednesday at D'Acqua, where about 20 human rights activists and Hill types gathered to celebrate the passage of a bill extending U.S. immigration laws -- and their protections for foreign guest workers -- to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Why D'Acqua? Well, because the Penn Ave eatery holds a spot on the D.C. scandal tour as the former home of now-defunct Signatures . . . the restaurant owned by imprisoned ex-superlobbyist Jack Abramoff. . . who spent years blocking the legislation for his island factory-owner clients. "We said, 'Let's gather and raise a glass' -- but where? Well, it was obvious," said Dennis Greenia of anti-sweatshop organization Co-op America. "We had the sense that if these walls could talk . . ."

You might know Greenia as dengre. Small blessing: please note Saipan wasn't mentioned.

The search for a McCain impersonator is worth reading about too, 'my friend'.

Abramoff's jail choir

They convicted one of Jack Abramoff's cronies and the media didn't even mention Saipan or the Marianas! What a relief, because the same paragraphs about the CNMI, obviously cut-and-pasted from story to story, keep popping up every time there's a Jack attack.

This time it was Robert E. Coughlin II, one-time Deputy Chief of Staff of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, which is handling the Abramoff probe. Or was. Justice's Office of the Inspector General has jumped in. They prosecuted him out of Baltimore because of his Washington ties.

I really expected a local connection, either the firing of U.S. Attorney Fred Black in Guam or the leak and hush-up of the Justice Department report on CNMI security. It might still come. As part of his deal he's agreed to join the growing prison choir chronicling this sad chapter in American history.

Roll your own

I'm sopping up all of the convictions, that's my old-school, Old Testament hellfire and retribution attitude toward public corruption. Throw the rascals out? It doesn't work, they just retool as lobbyists themselves or find a golden parachute. (Check out the positions of the 'no comment' fellows in this article) More and more, their crimes seem like ancient history to voters.

And the punishments have been New Testament: white collar crime terms. Six months here, a year or two there. Fines. Even Abramoff –so far-- has only gotten seventy months. I don't think he's in a cell with The Brute. I mean, it's not like they smoked pot or anything.

Commentators have groused about the investigations' glacial pace—Coughlin's work? It's surprising more wasn't made of this in the stories I've read about him.

But the wheels of Justice keep turning, and these guys are turning on each other like rabid dogs.

Oh, that's okay then

On the campaign trail: "TITUSVILLE, Fla. -- In an April 26 story about the re-election campaign of U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla., The Associated Press erroneously reported that Feeney and former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, were on the same golf trip to Scotland with lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Ney traveled to Scotland with Abramoff in 2002 and Feeney's trip with Abramoff was in 2003."

Postscript: Some of these guys sold out for a pittance. Crooks have a long history in our system, but cheap crooks even disgust their pals.

PPS: Coughlin's payoffs included tickets to U2 and Dave Matthews Band concerts. So much for Rock The Vote.

PPPS: Alex Gibney's Casino Jack, soon to be a major motion picture.

Fed up

Let's blame the feds. “Federalization” is the Marianas' new code word for everybody's dreams and fears. A bastardized modifier that is usually made meaningless by being used as a subject.

Everything will get better if we federalize. Or worse. Federalize what? The Commonwealth Utilities Corporation? Some people are so confused by the constant demagoguery that they actually expect that to happen. Okay, the real subject, when opportunists and obfuscators aren't trying to score points, is U.S. control of local labor and immigration laws.

Sure, I expect this to work about as well as the pacification of Iraq. But who's to blame?

The feds didn't chase Japan Airlines away, they didn't let Continental Airlines abandon us for Guam. They didn't mortgage Saipan's (and the CNMI's) future for the notoriously fly-by-night garment industry.

Look a little closer to home. It's popular to blame the factories, and I wouldn't even attempt to explain their well-documented abuses away. But they're businesses. They buy cheap (including malleable politicians) and sell dear (the bag we're left holding). They use loopholes like Headnote 3(a) and they push laws and regulations to the limit—some beyond the limit if there's no enforcement. They lobby to keep wages low.

The federal government noticed. So we trundled off to Washington and said, look we know the wage is low, but we fixed it ourselves. No need for “federalization”. The law was unpassed as soon as the immediate crisis was over. We lied to the U.S. Congress.

Plan B was a doozy too. Let's abandon our bipartisan support in Washington and hook up with the sleaziest lobbyist we can find. As a reward, we can read about Saipan sweatshops every time we Google Jack Abramoff. Trips, cash and skyboxes for a few well-connected now-discredited panderers thwarted the will of Congress.

A dangerous game, and they play hardball in the big leagues. Like my beloved San Francisco Giants, our steroidal superstar is gone, with nothing left but swelled heads and shrunken gonads. Oh, and Grand Juries.

So there was an election, the roadblocks disappeared and the legislators who were played and blocked re-introduced their bills. They don't believe our promises and they don't trust our lobbyists. They certainly don't expect our politicians to do anything.

Who can blame them?

Just another talking point

I was amazed to see something from Talking Points Memo in the Marianas Variety. Okay, it's about the Marianas and Jack Abramoff. For good measure it takes a shot at the Saipan Tribune, but I thought they got their news from Townhall. TPM is at the other end of the spectrum.

This is just more unraveling of the Abramoff web. Now it's former Representative and Senate candidate Bob Schaffer with his hand in the cookie jar.

I've followed TPM for quite awhile now. They're very good at digging and bulldog tenacious. And they're very irritating.

I can feel their glee as they kick rocks so I can watch the millipedes and bloodworms scurry for cover. Juiceee information.

Then they editorialize.

Don't believe me? Check out the following video. I can't argue with the facts. It's the spin, the hyperbole, that makes me cringe and want to shout 'you were doing so well, why do you have to go overboard?'

That's just me. What do you think?

Who's listening anyway (Immigrate Expectations Part II)

S.2739 is in the news bigtime. Locally. I challenge you to find a story in the national media that mentions Saipan or the CNMI and the bill.

The U.S. economy is melting down, Iraq is a mess, and the presidential campaign is in full swings(sic).

OK sure, immigration is part of the national debate and a lot of businesses want a guest worker program. Some states don't want to wait, but we're not the poster child for how to do it.

Has a single Senator or Congressman spoken up opposing U.S. control of CNMI immigration ('federalization')? I don't think so, but correct me if I've missed one. That's understandable, we're the Typhoid Marianas because of Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay, Mark Zachares, et al. The petri dish has been contaminated. I'll let you be the judge of whether the ten-year, er, delay was worth it, but who's going to stick their head up now?

I don't even think they're paying attention to our local media. A few congressional staffers, maybe. We hear from them occasionally, but it always sounds like they've been asked for comment. They defend what's already proposed.

So why all of these stories from local politicians, businesses and business organizations? Who are they trying to influence? Each other?

Oh, and contract workers? I've heard for more than twenty years that there might be a path to naturalization 'someday'. I always thought it was wishful thinking. I still do. It's not about the numbers, that's a drop in the bucket nationally. It's the precedent--which makes it a controversial provision that was dropped from the legislation. It's not about fairness either. Sorry. For most national politicians it's about politics.

Realistically, a retreat on the minimum wage law is much more likely. Again, I'm not talking about fairness, but politics. Republican administrations are always against minimum wages*. I'm amazed any one was surprised when OIA came out for a freeze.

Democrats hold the majority in both houses of Congress, of course, and they are the minimum wage party. Only, I still wonder about that six-month Oldaker Biden & Belair contract. They did some "minimum wage" work back in the Abramoff days, too.

*Case in point: Kansas Republicans blocked raising their state minimum above $2.65 per hour. Surprised? I was (Lawrence Journal World & News)

**I also wondered about David Cohen's resignation from the Office of Insular Affairs. The timing is awfully close. Pulas' line about not wanting the job because it's political gets a new twist. While I still think he was just trying to beat the rush of lame duck Bushketeers waddling to the unemployment line, it's at least a possibility.

Two immediate thoughts: 1) He might have disagreed but not wanted to be disagreeable or, 2) He might have agreed, but not wanted to spoil his image as the godfather of the poor and dispossessed. We'll probably never know unless somebody like TPM Muckrakers gets hold of some emails.

Jack's back

The (elected) Guam Attorney General has indicted Jack Abramoff, court administrator Anthony Sanchez and the Greenberg Traurig law firm for some backdoor lobbying payments.

The story popped up in the Pacific Daily News, U.S. News and World Report, and The Miami Herald. Sorry, no PDN link; they want to charge you to look after a few days. I don't work for Gannett no more.

A Guam Grand Jury indicted them on allegations of a series of $9,000 payoffs totalling $324,000 to lobby the U.S. Congress. Sanchez and attorney Howard Hills were indicted previously.

There have also been allegations that Abramoff influence led to the firing of U.S. Attorney Fred Black The Nation.

If you're interested, here's the amended indictment.

Here it comes

Just a short follow-up to George Bush attacks Washington insiders.

The Democratic National Committee claims Gov. Bob Riley's endorsement of John McCain payback for withholding link to discredited lobbyist, according to The Birmingham News in Alabama. Here it comes. The market for glass houses is tanking too.

Jack Abramoff: the gift that keeps on giving, a saying supposedly first used in re phonograph records(those are antique machines that were once used to play music recorded on vinyl). It's been said that Abramoff loved to squirrel his emails away, so it's a nice twenty-first century update. (Have I said this? Gift means poison in German)

If you were thinking diamonds, here's one for you. There's a proposed settlement in the class action suit filed against some companies in the DeBeers Group. Here's your page if you bought diamonds between January 1, 1994 and March 31, 2006.

Deja View

Somebody was asking about Saipan's new lobbyist. Before you flagellate me in your comments, I know I said 'Saipan' instead of 'The CNMI'.

So the winner was William Oldaker. Who? Well, we only stalled the feds with all of those Republican lobbyists. In fact it just made the Democrats mad. So the obvious fix is to find a Democrat.

Not just any Democrat either. How about a former Treasurer for Edward Kennedy, Joseph Biden Jr. and Harry Reid, to name a few. Partner R. Hunter Biden, Senator Joe's son, doesn't hurt either.

Obviously plan b is the flip side of Jack Abramoff, et al ( Actually, he kind of knew Jack.) Who knows? It might work; those Senate staffers were sure waffling as they jetted out of town. More studies? Why not?