10/08/2008 03:01:15 AM EST
The John McCain Story on Gambling and Lobbyist Connections
posted by Cenk
This is the link to the story I promised you on the show today on John MCCain's gambling. Much more importantly, it shows you how connected McCain is to lobbyists and why that makes a difference.
Even more important that -- and why I am posting it here -- is because it pretty much explains how all of DC works. It's one big racket. This is how the merry-go-round goes around and around. This story is the perfect microcosm of it.
Below, Gawker has a quick summary of it, too (I know the article itself is long, but it's worth reading so that you can skip other articles on the pernicious nature of lobbying because you'll know how the system works from this one):
* John McCain used the Abramoff investigation to personally attack Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, two conservative activists who helped destroy McCain's 2000 campaign. "Inside the investigation, the sense of schadenfreude was palpable, according to several people close to the senator."
* McCain helped invent the Indian Casino industry with a 1988 law he drafted with Mo Udall. In 2005 or so, after Abramoff and before his current run for the presidency, McCain declared Indian gambling "out of control" and began declaring the need to restrain the industry.
* McCain does lots of favors for lobbyists, all the time, like every other Senator.
* "In Connecticut that year, when a tribe was looking to open the state's third casino, staff members on the Indian Affairs Committee provided guidance to lobbyists representing those fighting the casino, e-mail messages and interviews show. The proposed casino, which would have cut into the Pequots' market share, was opposed by Mr. McCain's colleagues in Connecticut."
