Talk:Monetary influence of Jack Abramoff

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[edit] Distinction Between Abramoff Contributions and Client Contributions

I think it might be wise to inlude an explanation of Abramoff client contributions to emphasize the difference between client contributions and direct contributions. Abramoff clients were donating to lawmakers long before they hired Abramoff so the fact that those clients continued to donate to those same lawmakers after they hired Abramoff says nothing about his monetary influence. I suggest some comment to that effect prefacing the client contribution section. Even better would be to replace the section with an analysis of the funding changed made after Abramoff was hired (that is who did Abramoff direct tribe money away from and who did he direct it torward). That sort of analysis would provide readers with a better understanding of Abramoff's monetary influence. How do people feel about this before I edit?


[edit] Insertion of Disputed tag

This article has more than seriously bad writing. It is an article on a subject which has no business being in an encyclopedia at all. Much of what is passed as information here is actually speculation by myriad newspaper editors.

An encyclopedic article should not just contain "facts", let alone unproven allegations. It should also have a context for those facts, and the facts should be checked and balanced. For instance, it is also a fact that the Ohio 18th Congressional district is steel, coal, union country and considered a trade-union, Democrat seat by the DNC; they rank it very, very high on their target list of seats to win back at any cost. That the current occupant of that seat also holds a house leadership position makes the target all the more compelling. Where are these concepts in the article series?

Adding to the confusion is the extreme reliance on very recent press reports - many of those reports originally generated from speculation on sealed court documents.

Further, statements like "Bob Ney (R-OH) lied when he said he was "duped" by Abramoff and lied again on financial disclosure forms when he said that a nonprofit had paid for the trip." show the extraordinary bias and excitment of the article authors. Even the opening sentence shows not even a faint pass at fairness: "The monetary influence of Jack Abramoff ran deep in Washington, as Jack Abramoff spent millions of dollars to influence and entertain Republican politicians."

I can't clean this up because I have neither the time nor the detailed info. More importantly, I don't believe anyone but the prosecutor and the defense teams have the detailed info, and none of that will be revealed for quite some time.

As to the press articles as sources, History is already showing how badly the press handled many of the controveries of the past year. The facts of the Katrina response now show that CNN, et al were wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong on way to many of their charges and reports.

I use Wikipedia a lot, and want to see it thive. Articles like this add nothing, mislead the impressionable, and can only harm the reputation of Wiki's in general and Wikipedia specifically. --Ej0c 02:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome.

KWH 03:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that a lot of what this article is saying comes from Newspaper editorials and not from the US Dept of Justice. But when you see what Abramoff pled quilty to, and how he is on record in trying to help the investigation, "No. 1 lobbying is Bob Ney", well where their is smoke their is fire.

Maybe the specifics can be disputed item by item, but what these articles do not say is that overall this is the worst SCANDAL in the history of the United States. There are reported to be over 30 congressmen being investigated on this lobbying scandal. Add the Chief Procurement officer, the Deputy Secretery of the Interior, and a host of other staffers, well you certainly have the makings for a much bigger scandal than this article portrays.

If you don't like the article, why do you attack it on bad writing? Is everything that you don't like just bad writing. Just say you think that it is totally biased. Of course, there are some fairly high level Democrats that are being investigated also. So this is a somewhat bipartisan scandal. The Democrats have been reported on as well. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thewho77 (talk • contribs) .

1) Someone else wrote the bad writing bit, but didn't sign it. I think it is totally biased. :-)
2) Go read some history. I think you will find, if your mind be open, some rather nasty past events.
3) Please remember that the press has a very,very bad track record the past couple years. They got almost nothing right in the days and weeks after Katrina.
4) While a lot of people are currently tied into this, it is not at all clear that much of it is not circumstantial, coincidental, etc. (The facts that I am Catholic and that Pope Urban tried Galileo on heresy do not prove that I am among those who believe the sun orbits the earth).
5) Also, remember that Abramof gets something for his story. He gets a huge reduction in jail time. This makes him very anxious to find things to say!
And you are right. The overall tone of things makes this story look very, very bad. The problem is that we are hearing only one side. We will hear that other side - and we should wait until we do before documenting the event in an encyclopedia. --Ej0c 03:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Blaming the press for getting things wrong in this scandal is like saying the cop sohuldn't have given you a speeding ticket because he was sleepy and had a fight with his wife the night before. Sure, there are extenuating facts, but this is such a huge scandal how can you blame the press for this?

If I may, this is a very wide political scandal involving quasi-ethical fundraising techniques which are really just common bribery. Both sides used these techniques, but a certain party used them to extremis.

There are so many people involved in the scandal that it is hard to write this article in a concise way. However, to quote Dylan, I don't need a weatherman to tell me which way the wind blown. I belive there were over 30 politicians who benefited from the tainted lobbyist money, and many others who received small donations from the Indian tribes. But they weren't really involved in the scandal, were they?

Certainly, this article should be re-written and include any and ALL Democrats who were involved. However, this huge amount of money, raised mostly by Republicans with the assistance of Abramoff, changed the balance of power in the congress. This certainly is not being reported. The guestion is, would the Republicans have a majority in congress without these fundraising scandals? Maybe.

WHY ISN'T any mainstream media reporting on this. It's only our republic at stake. And if you like this fundraising fiasco, wait til the Democrats get back in power in 2006 or 2008. They will show the GOP how it is really done. This cuts both ways, and should be stopped.

I worked at a Savings & Loan in the 1980's. I know some of the land developers from Dallas. I wasn't involved in the faud. But I came to understand how they did it. They used daisy-chain groups to flip land, get higher appraisals, and cash out. This was Quad Pro Quo. They called them pocket agreements, meaning unwritten or verbal agreements. They used Straw Men, called Nominees by the FBI. This scandal is starting to sound like these daily chains. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thewho77 (talk • contribs) .

The point here is to make available to the public some credible and fair summary. An article which does not mislead the little children and do its own harm to the people involved. I personally think there is enough other work on wikipedia that we could leave this topic out for a year. But,... --Ej0c 19:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit me please

There is some seriously bad writing in this article. I'll try and clean it up a bit tomorrow. I am not sure what the phrase "$61,000 from donors with whom after the fact had hired Abramoff later on" even means.

[edit] Educate me please

Why is there a section on "direct Abramoff contributions?" I have not heard that any of his direct contributions were controversial or illegal or unethical. All that I have heard is that his clients steared money to politicians that wrote favorable legislation. Is there something about the direct contributions that I am missing? Tbeatty 06:43, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

This article is about the monetary influence of Jack Abramoff. It's a catch-all for the numerous money-related factoids which were originally in Jack Abramoff. You are right that most of them are no more illegal than checking the box on your 1040EZ tax return to contribute to the Presidential Election Fund, but I don't think the text implies that they are illegal, just that they are part of the monetary influence of Jack Abramoff. KWH 07:03, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree that is should be a catch-all. But it's a talking point for Democrats. Does the money Harry Reid receved from Abramoff count in this section? Shouldn't the section be changed to reflect all monetary influence, not just direct contributions? Tbeatty 16:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it's a talking point. It is what it is; there are some contributions that were made by Abramoff, and some that were made by his clients, which may or may not have been at his direction. Those made by his clients are under the section "Politicians with connections to Indian affairs and Greenberg Traurig", including Harry Reid. There's been some debate on this already at Talk:Jack Abramoff which might be found in the talk archive, the donations are all notable (owing to the fact that many people are making much hay about donations kept and returned) but there is a clear distinction between those which were definitely from Abramoff and others. I sort of think the title "Politicians with connections to Indian affairs and Greenberg Traurig" is a bit vague, but I don't think it's untrue. I'll think about a different wording for it. KWH 22:09, 10 February 2006 (UTC)