Jack who?

[No Exit]

The Real Scandal of Tom DeLay

by Mark Shields

...

DeLay fully approved of the working and living conditions. The Texan's salute to the owners and Abramoff's government clients was recorded by ABC-TV News: "You are a shining light for what is happening to the Republican Party, and you represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America and leading the world in the free-market system"

Later, DeLay would tell The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin that the low-wage, anti-union conditions of the Marianas constituted "a perfect petri dish of capitalism. It's like my Galapagos Island."

(snip)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/09/real.delay/

As we know, Tom DeLay, like Our President, really didn't know this Abramoff guy, except in passing.

So why does his glowing praise above remind me so much of when, in "The Godfather, Part II", the senator character stands up and spends 15 minutes talking about what great things the Corleone family has done for America?

Summary of article: It appears that the conditions of garment workers in the U.S. territory, the Mariana Islands, were so horrible that even ultra-rightwing former Alaska Senator Frank Murkowski was scandalized, and decided to introduce legislation to improve them. And Murkowski got the whole Senate to back his bill. But the Bugman, after a "golf and snorkeling" trip for his family to the Marianas, and lots of green "encouragement" from Mr. Abramoff (who considered the Marianas as his own territory), put the kibosh on the legislation. One pictures Marianas sweatshop workers glancing out the window and seeing the pudgy DeLay swinging his golf clubs, never suspecting that this pink, jowly, little man was on their island specifically to ensure that they continued to live in plumbing-less labor camps, working 7 days a week, for half the U.S. minimum wage.

And, oh, look! Here's Hot Tub Tommy extolling the wonders of capitalism... that in itself is nothing short of an argument for communism...