Chris Shays has an Abramoff Connection!

[BurtWorm]

:wow:


http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061106&s=franke-ruta110606


But, while Shays may want his constituents to know about his first--and most daring--trip to Iraq, he apparently doesn't want them to know how he got there. Shays's moment of triumph in Iraq came about because he happened to already be in the Middle East--attending the third Qatar-American Conference on Free Markets and Democracy in the tiny oil-rich nation of Qatar. Shays's visit was paid for by The Islamic Free Market Institute, a nonprofit group founded by GOP ally Grover Norquist and run by a protégé of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to help bring Muslims into the Republican fold. Days before he snuck across the border to cheer on Operation Iraqi Freedom, Shays was at the Doha Ritz Carlton, comparing Connecticut, a centuries-old, economically diverse democracy, to Qatar, a monarchy ruled by a single family since its independence in 1971. "This nation, like my small state, has always played a large role in advancing participatory democracy, civil discourse, and stable commerce," Shays told a well-heeled audience of Qatari politicians and businessmen over lunch.

Shays has been a strong advocate for public-disclosure rules over the years. "As public servants, we have a responsibility to uphold the ethics process, not weaken it," he told The Houston Chronicle in 2005, objecting to an effort to defang House ethics rules in the wake of revelations about Tom DeLay's overseas travels and ties to Abramoff. Those travel rules require members of Congress to file forms revealing all travel expenses paid by outside sources. But, despite his record of pushing for meticulous record-keeping, Shays's privately sponsored trip to Qatar was notably absent from his own annual federal financial disclosure form, filed in May 2004, in violation of House rules. Nor did he submit an amendment disclosing the sponsor of his Qatar trip until confronted in mid-October 2006 by The New Republic with internal Islamic Institute receipts for his plane tickets, which were provided by an Arab American source upset with Shays's foreign policy positions. Given his reputation and perennially contested district, it was a particularly foolhardy move.

[izzie]

1. What Mr. Goody Two Shoes is a crook? That is hard to believe.

--

[napi21]

2. I have to say I'm surprised at this. As I was reading through this post,

I was preparing to write something about how this wasn't a quid pro quo like the other guys, but then I read that he didn't disclose it! Shame on you Chris! There aren't very many Pubs I think anything of at all, but you happened to be one on my list or fairly good guys. I'm very sad to hear this about Chris.

[brook]

6. Disappointment here, too.

I always considered him a reasonable and pretty principled guy. Oh well...another reality check.

[keepCAblue]

3. Kick and recommend!! eom

[Buttercup McToots]

4. Fancy That...

:D

[keepCAblue]

7. Yes. Fancy that.

While some DUers might sing the praises of Shays for being a *liberal* Republican (isn't that an oxymoron?), I'm not at all impressed, especially with his past stalwart support of Bush and the Iraq war, or with some of the reviling comments he's made in the press recently:

(from wikipedia):

Controversies

A week after Ted Kennedy had campaigned in Connecticut for Farrell, Shays was questioned about the Mark Foley scandal. Shays said, "Dennis Hastert didn't kill anybody," referring to the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident involving Senator Ted Kennedy (D). Farrell criticized Shays for making this claim noting, "This is symptomatic of Chris losing his composure in a tight race." A spokeswoman for Kennedy said, "This just makes clear the real need for change in November. Beyond that, I'm not going to dignify such a desperate attack with a response."

Abu Ghraib

Regarding Abu Ghraib, Shays stated, "It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops....who were involved in a sex ring and they took pictures of soldiers who were naked, and they did other things that were just outrageous. But it wasn't torture." Later, Shays clarified his remarks, saying: "It was torture because sex abuse is torture. It was gross and despicable ... This is more about pornography than torture."

[Hubert Flottz]

5. "Jack Abramoff to help bring Muslims into the Republican fold"

Now that is funny!

Edit...They got Bandar and his family and the bin Ladens!

[Sperk]

8. I'm not suprised at all. He's one of the worst repugs because he's

got he PR "moderate" thing going. To me he is just a MEAN SOB. I remember when he was questioning a Katrina victim. She stated that the levees were blown up (a very common belief in New Orleans). He looked at her like he wanted to shoot her on sight. I'm not saying that he should have pretended to entertain the thought that she could be right (although i wouldn't put it past these evildoers in the Repug party) BUT he should have shown her a little bit of respect and compassion seeing as she was someone who watched her life float away. Where was Sen. Shay's that week they were all begging for help?

Although I can't think of the specific comments he's made, there has been more than one time I've seen him say something on the t.v. that got a "shut the f*ck up you lying SOB!" response from me.

[mom cat]

9. Another hypocrite going down!

[starroute]

10. The Islamic Free Market Institute

This isn't just about Norquist. It's also about Abramoff and about the equally-disgraced David Safavian. It seems that Chris Shays has been keeping very bad company. The quote below gives only a hint of the entanglements -- there's more at the link.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/148kcyrb.asp?pg=2

... in 1997, when Abramoff's longtime comrade Grover Norquist opened a lobbying firm of his own, he made Safavian a partner. The new company was called the Merritt Group, then renamed Janus-Merritt Strategies...

Lassoing American Muslims into the Republican coalition has been a longstanding goal of Norquist's. To that end, he established the Islamic Institute in 1998. Officially titled the Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation, the group, according to its website, seeks to "create a better understanding between the American Muslim community and the political leadership" and "provide a platform to promote an Islamic perspective on domestic issues." The Institute also produces numerous pamphlets explaining how Islam is compatible with the free market. Norquist is chairman of the board. Safavian registered as a lobbyist for the institute shortly after it was born.

A prominent American Muslim attorney, Khaled Saffuri, is the executive director of the Islamic Institute. Saffuri is also a friend of Abramoff's. His previous job was at the American Muslim Council, or AMC, an Islamic interest group with a controversial past. That past caught up with Safavian sometime in October 2000, when Janus-Merritt submitted forms to the Senate registering Omar Nashashibi--one of the firm's partners--and several others to lobby for Abdurahman Alamoudi, the then-head of the AMC. Safavian's name is also mentioned in the document.

A naturalized U.S. citizen born in Eritrea, Alamoudi is now serving a 23-year term in federal prison for conspiring to assassinate then-Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Put simply, Alamoudi is a radical Islamist and terrorist sympathizer who openly supported Hamas and Hezbollah while a client of Janus-Merritt's. There's no way around it: The guy is a bad dude.

See also http://www.dccc.org/stakeholder/archives/003580.html for further connections.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

11. Shays's recent desperately partisan outbursts now make more sense.

He may really fear a Democratic takeover because that would mean subpoena power and control of a much more powerful Ethics Committee.