NEW Abramoff News: The Chinese/Sweatshop/GOP Connection

[shraby]

The Abramoff/GOP connection to sweatshops is old news, but worth more investigation. Now new details are emerging.

I've been following Abramoff for a long time and I've posted about the connections between Abramoff, sweatshops, China, DeLay & the GOP a number of times. The link has been the Tan family, the Chinese family behind the sweatshops on Saipan and Millions of dollars sent to the GOP through Jack Abramoff.

The Tan Family and how they connect the GOP to China has been a very underplayed part of this scandal. I've always thought that when this part of the scandal breaks, it will break big.

Well, tonight the story is starting to break.

Over in Hong Kong, Zack Coleman, a reporter for China's Business Newspaper The Weekly Standard has been writing has been writing about the Tan-GOP ties for years.

Today, he broke new details of the Abramoff/China/Sweatshop/GOP connection and how it fits into the growing scandal.

More on the jump...

<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/20/231845/839>

[medeak]

1. we should all buy levis

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x197533

[hootinholler]

16. The only jeans I wear since I've bought my own.

Like 30+ years now.

-Hoot

[bullimiami]

2. whatever they blame you for is what they are doing.

they yelled and yelled about al gore taking chinese money. they must be drowning in it.

[hang a left]

3. Read this earlier tonight

Rose Garden Holdings, they must of had a real belly laught when they came up with the name. :mad:

[skids]

4. Thanks! K&R

Was just about to post this... glad I decided to hit refresh one last time. :hi:

Still reading this fantastic compilation. As if our brains aren't stuffed to the gills with Republican Lobbyist Jack Abramoff sleaze stories already.

[woodsprite]

5. Was it the Tan family who had something to do with Feeny

in Florida?

[skids]

6. That was Yang Enterprises. n/t

[lovuian]

7. It makes you wonder if the Republicans are Americans or

Chineese... Evil deeds!!!

[Catrina]

8. Excellent Diary from Dailykos

Henry and Josie Tan each donated US$1,000 to George W Bush's 2000 campaign. In October 2002, two family companies on Saipan, the L&T Group and Global Manufacturing, each sent US$25,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. A third, Concorde Garment Manufacturing, sent US$25,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

In the run-up to last year's US federal election, Tan Siu-lin, his five sons and Josie Tan donated a total of US$13,000 to Bush. Son Jerry has also contributed US$4,000 to individual congressional campaigns. Meanwhile, former employee Ben Fitial is gearing up to run for commonwealth governor in the fall with Tan support. .

Sometimes Tan family members recorded a Hong Kong address on their donations, sometimes one in Saipan. Federal campaign regulations mandate that only US citizens or permanent residents can legally donate. Luen Thai's IPO prospectus says that Henry and brother Raymond are Chinese nationals living in Hong Kong.

Isn't this illegal? Bush receiving donations from foreigners?

Is there NO law that applies to these people? I am coming to the conclusion that the dictatorship already happened, and we just haven't grasped it yet. How else can it be explained that these people continually violate laws, but nothing at all happens?

Cheney, eg, he still holds stock options with Halliburton. He was supposed to divest himself of all such holdings when he became VP for obvious reasons. It certainly was an incentive for him to push for all war all the time. His stocks have soared since the Iraq war began. He did not disclose this to Congress until his tax returns showed that he still had them the following year. Sen. Lautenberg started hearings on this breach of the law, but I have nothing more about it.

He said, btw, that he was going to donate them to charity!! That, he claimed, meant it was legal for him to hold onto them. The law does not apply to him, it seems. His charity will some entity he creates, like his buddy, Abramoff who had dozens of 'entities' which existed in name only, but which he got tax deductions for as charities.

Hey, Freepers, don't you love the way your Republican Party has been using your hard-earned tax dollars to provide an Island paradise for rich Chinese nationals? What a bunch of dupes they are. They, freepers, are the reason why these criminals get away with their crimes.

[upi402]

11. Yes, it does seem illegal. So many things need investigating

The media will never do it, the justice dept will never do it, so we can hope for 2006 elections to turn out well.

[bryanbelt]

9. See this article?

Did anybody happen to catch this article by Joe Conason about how Republicans are saying they're reformers now?!?! I found it on PoliticalTruthWatch.Com It's probably the most accurate assessment of this sudden change of heart with the Republicans...

[newyawker99]

17. Hi bryanbelt!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[buddysmellgood]

10. But none of this is worthy of 60 Minutes or the nightly news. We are fucke

d

[Joanne98]

12. Wouldn't it be nice to get Elaine Chao into this scandal?

[Carni]

13. Saipan=crystal meth shipping center/Tan family owns shipping Co's

I posted a string the other day about the Tan's but I ddn't think anyone even read it (Waaahhh! I am invisible)

Here's the text reposted:

I was just googling around and found the below blog entry about Saipan/marianas islands being a major trans-shipment point for crystal meth.

Delay's buddies and Abramoff's clients...the Tan family of Tan Holding co
own the garment sweat shops in Saipan AS WELL AS TWO SHIPPING COMPANIES AND AN AIRLINE!(I am sure that is just a coincidence right?)

The Tans gave several thousand dollars directly to the RNC and I don't know how much to Abramoff to lobby for them.


October 5, 2005


A New Battle for Saipan


Saipan, capital of the tiny Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, has a huge problem: As the local Saipan Tribune reports, it has become a major transshipment point for crystal methamphetamine, or "ice," produced in China, the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Drug syndicates out of Hong Kong and Manila are also favoring Guam, a nearby U.S. territory, as an "ice"-packing station. Whether or not Saipan and Guam are at the center of a trans-Pacific crystal meth trading network, as the 2005 State Department Narcotics Control Strategy Report and this DEA Intelligence Brief suggest, the islands' involvement with the trade has brought home serious problems in the past few years.

Transportation improvements have allowed this small Asian island chain to integrate itself, however modestly, into the regional Asian economy in the half-century it has been a U.S. Territory. Planes and boats to the Marianas bring in Japanese tourists, whose vacations in Saipan and Tinian contribute a good chunk to the territory's prosperity. The other cargo that the ships bring in, however, is redirecting American attention to this island that the U.S. once won through war, and may have a hard time winning again.

Below are the shipping companies owned by tan Holdings

CTSI logistics
Marianas express lines
asia pacific airline

Gee--let's see? Shipping? Drugs being moved through Saipan? Hmmmm---I am sure this is just a coincidence since our fine Congressman Delay would never dirty his hands with the likes of drug kingpins right? Nah--couldn't happen!

Ooops! Here's the link to the blog
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:jwyY32ZzChEJ:www.f...

[leveymg]

14. Add the Norquist-Abramoff connection to Islamic terrorists & Saudi banks

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/1/3/10145/56290

Hard to believe the Republican Right isn't exploding over this. Wonder if they even know?

[chat_noir]

15. Tom DeLay Denies His Corruption Regarding Mariana Islands

excerpts

Tom DeLay Denies His Corruption Regarding Mariana Islands Forced Prostitution e

In the late 1990s, the Clinton adminstration wanted to apply US labor laws to the Marianas Islands, to prevent sweatshop labor and forced prostitution.

The businessmen on the islands wanted Tom DeLay to make sure no changes passed Congress. DeLay did.



In March 1998 Rep. George Miller put out "Beneath the American Flag: Labor and Human Rights Abuses in the CNMI", a report detailing labor abuse on Saipan. In today's article DeLay says he went to Saipan to investigate for himself the accusations in Miller's report

Trouble was that DeLay took his Saipan trip more than three months before Miller released his report. Today's article detailed some of Miller's findings:



In response to these constraints, GSN adopted unconventional research procedures to document the existence or non-existence of human trafficking in the CNMI. Leading this research team, I posed as an apparel company representative interested in placing an order with Saipan-based factories. Employers felt comfortable talking to me because they saw me as a potential buyer... it is worth pointing out that the very top garment executives, as well as some CNMI legislators I met, felt completely immune from any potential Congressional reform efforts in CNMI. They claimed that House Majority Whip, Tom DeLay would manipulate congressional processes to prevent CNMI labor reform. The exact words of one executive, which summed up this feeling of immunity, were these: "You know what Tom told me? He said, , if they elect me as majority whip, I make the schedule of the Congress. And I'm not going to put in on the schedule. They got to go through all the committees before they come to me. Even if it comes to me, I'm not going to schedule it. What, are they going to have a motion to get it from my committee, they will not do that --who are you? So Tom told me, forget it...not a chance."

This same executive, who holds more sway with the CNMI government than any one person, added: " called up the guy who is charge of the committee, his name is Don Young from Alaska...And he said Don, nothing wrong with CNMI. He say, you gotta go there. If this is slave labor, mistreatment, those kind of thing, go after them. It's all not true...You guys are trying to do something right into wrong. Tom explained to them. So, Don Young backed off."

http://www.moveleft.com/moveleft_essay_2005_05_16_conservative_con_tom_delay_denies_his_corruption.asp

[KoKo]

18. Excellent links and Post...one could spend all day on this!

Tan Family + Abramoff..and the rest. It took most of my Sunday afternoon reading all of this and it was like reading a "Spy Novel" and so VERY entertaining inspite of the sleaze...

I hope this stays kicked along with the links to the Kos Diary which really puts it all into perspective without having to run around with disparate links!

Thanks and :toast:

[phoebe]

19. more from today's Mariana's Variety newspaper re: keeping sweatshop labor

http://www.mvariety.com/frontpage/front01.htm
January 23, 2006

snip

THE government’s financial condition is not getting better, but the new governor says he will still hire a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. to “save” the garment industry from “federal takeover” legislation.

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial, in a press conference on Friday, said his administration will hire a lobbyist so that the CNMI can retain control over its labor and immigration policies.


snip

Fitial is a former executive of garment magnate and Saipan Tribune owner Willie Tan.
The previous administration earlier hired a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. (Abramoff) to push for federal legislation that would allow local garment factories to use more imported raw materials for their “Made in the USA” apparel products.

Wonder who this "new" lobbyist in DC will be???