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Sen. Ensign’s Affair Threatens to Ensnare Other GOP Leaders

2010-07-08T14:04:00.000-07:00

George Brown, Linda Johnson, Valerie Jones, and Barbara Smith are victims of THE BIGGEST CRIME IN AMERICAN HISTORY. Tens of BILLIONS of DOLLARS are at stake. Follow this blog and http://www.biggestcrime.com// for further development

Sen. Ensign’s Affair Threatens to Ensnare Other GOP Leaders

Sen. Ensign’s Affair Threatens to Ensnare Other GOP Leaders

by Robin Fields

ProPublica, June 19, 2009, 6:01 p.m.

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Getty Images 2008 file photo/Alex Wong

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., has landed in our No. 2 spot on Scandal Watch [1].

This post has been updated (June 19, 2009 6:40 p.m. [2])

The fallout from an extramarital affair between Ensign and Cindy Hampton, a campaign staffer, is threatening to ensnare other Republican leaders as they try to marshal opposition to the Obama administration.

A June 11 letter [3] written by Hampton’s husband, published today in the Las Vegas Sun, claims that at least one of Ensign’s colleagues, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., knew about the affair [4] more than a year before Ensign’s public confession, but did not act to remove him from party leadership.

Though unconfirmed—Coburn’s communications director said Coburn would not comment on the claims made in the letter—the allegation could turn one of Washington’s periodic sex scandals into something of larger significance.

Initially, it seemed as though the splatter would be confined to Ensign’s political ambitions. After admitting to the affair on Tuesday, Ensign—a rising star among conservatives who was thought to be considering a presidential run in 2012—resigned his post as the Senate’s fourth-leading Republican.

Then it emerged that Cindy Hampton’s salary—paid from Ensign’s political payroll—had doubled during the time of their affair, which went on from December 2007 to August 2008. Also in that period, Hampton’s son landed a $1,000-a-month internship with the National Republican Senatorial Committee—chaired by Ensign. After Hampton and her husband, Doug (also a top Ensign aide), were dismissed by Ensign, the senator allegedly helped Doug Hampton find a job with a Las Vegas airline that is among his major campaign contributors.

Now the Sun is reporting that, days before Ensign acknowledged his affair with Cindy Hampton, Doug Hampton wrote a letter to Fox News anchorwoman Megyn Kelly, begging her to help expose Ensign’s “unethical behavior” because his fellow lawmakers had not.

The letter claimed that Doug Hampton had confronted Ensign repeatedly about the affair, including once in Ensign’s Washington, D.C., home in February 2008 in front of “a group of his peers.”

“One of the attendee’s [sic] was Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma as well as several other men who are close to the Senator,” it says.

Hours after the Sun posted the letter, Ensign fired back. His spokesman released a statement saying Doug Hampton had approached Ensign for a pay-off within the last month, making “exorbitant demands for cash and other financial benefits” through an attorney.

If indeed Coburn and others were aware of Ensign’s problems for as long as Hampton says, they could face thorny questions about why his stature within the Republican Party continued to rise. Ensign was chairman of the Republican Senate Policy Committee, which sets out the party’s legislative agenda, and just weeks ago, he traveled to Iowa, fueling the presidential speculation.

The controversy is a distraction Coburn hardly needs as he attempts to spearhead Republican opposition to the Obama administration’s stimulus plan. Coburn recently issued a report criticizing 100 stimulus projects, then found himself in a dust storm when administration officials called the report misleading and error-filled.

Update (June 19, 2009 6:40): Hours after the Sun posted the letter, Ensign fired back. His spokesman released a statement saying Doug Hampton had approached Ensign for a pay-off within the last month, making “exorbitant demands for cash and other financial benefits” through an attorney.

http://www.propublica.org/scandal/ensign-scandal#20090619http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jun/19/text-husbands-letter/http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jun/19/we-havered-indescribable-pain/

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larry lynch

June 21, 2009, 7:25 p.m.

Sen John Ensign may now be called a pius fraud, hypocrite, copulating Christian, aka f#king Jesus freak, fundie fake. Ensign has admitted to having a sexual relationship for a time with the wife of 1 of Ensign’s employees. Ensign’s relationship with the lady is called adultery by some Christian’s. Ensign is a father, is married to the mother of the couples 3 children. Ensign is a member of a Penticostal church (Pentacostals are called holy rollers by those of little or no faith, members of mainline Protestant churches, Roman Catholics, Eastern Rite churches & many Christians who say that their worship of Jesus is dignified because Jesus is the Son of God & he must be given respect at all times.).

Pentacostals are emotional in their worship of Jesus. They shout, writhe in spasms because they love Jesus intensly & also fear Jesus as their Lord, Savior & Master, tremble in fear of ever offending Jesus, if they sin & die unforgiven by Jesus-they are condemned to spend eternity in Hell, Pentascostals who obtain forgivness from Jesus & faithfully do God’s will go to heaven for eternity; this makes Pentacostal filled so full of joy that they shout & sing gladly & loudly as they writhe & dance in joy.

Wags say that Ensign & his so called hussy rolled in the bed they used for clandestine sex. That kind of rolling, copulation & other erotic acts isn’t called holy; is it?

Ensign violently criticized former POTUS for engaging in carnal acts with a White House, female intern, in Clinton’s private office, aka the Oval Office, demanded that Clinton resign from being POTUS, when Clinton refused to resign Ensign campaigned to have Clinton impeached, tried for high crimes & misdomenors, be found guilty & be removed from office. There were long & very dramatic hearing conducted by the US Congress to determine if Clinton was to impeached & tried by the US Senate for his impeachable offences. Clinton & others were relentlessly questione at those hearings. Clinton wasn’t impeached, tried or removed from office despite the great efforts of Ensign & others.

These hearing left hatred between the Republicans & Democrats which still exists. A climate of acramony still exists too.

Ensign’s public confession of adultry has led to demands that Ensign resign from the US Senate & 111th Congress. Sen Ensign has resigned from his leadership positions in the US Senate but Ensign hasn’t resigned from his seat in the US Senate yet.

Sen Ensign belongs to a Chrisian mens group that fiercely advocates fundie values. Adultry is condemned by Christians. Some vindictive people, including this writer, would be happy if Ensign resigned from the senate & was expelled from all fundie groups which he has joined. Our attitude is that it would serve Ensign, the pius fraud, right if he left public life in disgrace & would never again be allowed to be involved in politics at any level.

Ensign’s church can deal with Ensign, the sinner who confessed to adultry. If Ensign spent the rest of his life in sack cloth & ashes to express sorrow for his sins, to be re-admitted to his church & beg forgivness of Jesus, that would be a suitable gesture on Ensign’s part. Ensign must be considered to be hoplessly tainted by all of his acts. He now bears a foul, putrid, odor that would sicken & drive a horse fly from a wagon load of well rotted guts on a 100 degree, f, day if John Ensign were allowed to ride on the wagons bed in or on the load of putrid, well rotted guts.

Ensign must bear the full consequences of his thoroughly disgusting acts.

I truly want Ensign to go to heaven for I don’t want him near me in hell. My sinful associates & I loathe John Ensign. Jesus is more than welcome to Ensign & those of Ensign’s ilk. Sweet Jesus, we sinners beg you to grant our wish. Take John Ensign to your throne & mansion so we in hell don’t have to smell John Ensign, the pius fraud & be forced to be close to him to get the foul smell Ensign excretes when you are with-in a mile of the foul hipocrite, Ensign.

Jesus, you bungled thing badly when you created John Ensign. WTF did you send him to earth? You must loate human kind.

Ruth A King

June 22, 2009, 10:01 p.m.

The more judgmental and “cocky”/know it all a person is, the more vulnerable he is to failure. I really believe it’s a spiritual principle. May God give us leaders who can figure out how to stay humble and seek guidance from good people and from prayer. I’m a Southern, Bible-belt woman and I guess it shows

$7 MILLION PRESIDIO-JOURNALISM FRAUD CONTEST---UPDATE!!!

2010-07-08T13:06:00.000-07:00

George Brown, Linda Johnson, Valerie Jones, and Barbara Smith are victims of THE BIGGEST CRIME IN AMERICAN HISTORY. Tens of BILLIONS of DOLLARS are at stake. Follow this blog and http://www.biggestcrime.com/ for further development

$7 MILLION PRESIDIO-JOURNALISM FRAUD CONTEST

What Is The $7 Million Presidio-Journalism Contest?

The $7 Million Presidio-Journalism Contest is a contest that will pay $1 million to the contestant or team of contestants that is the first to provide the best and most useful information, evidence, and/or explaination, that help to prove that the December, 2001, San Francisco magazine article, "Trouble In The Presidio," by Kerry Tremain, was commissioned, written, and/or published, primarily to cause, justify, and/or support, the removal and replacement of one or more top contract proposal decision-makers at the Presidio Trust, such as the then Executive Director, James Meadows, the then Director of Operations, Bruce Anderson, etc., so that the conspirators could better empower one or more other person(s) to make the types of contract-proposal award decisions that would better faciliate the conspirators efforts to ulitize fraud in their misappropriation of the extremely valuable confidential information belonging to Robert Evans, the owner of BiggestCrime.com.

The $7 Million Presidio-Journalism Contest will also pay $1 million to the contestant or team of contestants that is the first to provide the second, best and most useful information, evidence, and/or explaination, that help to prove that the December, 2001, San Francisco magazine article, "Trouble In The Presidio," by Kerry Tremain, was commissioned, written, and/or published, primarily to cause, justify, and/or support, the removal and replacement of one or more top contract proposal decision-makers at the Presidio Trust, such as the then Executive Director, James Meadows, the then Director of Operations, Bruce Anderson, etc., so that the conspirators could better empower one or more other person(s) to make the types of contract-proposal award decisions that would better faciliate the conspirators efforts to ulitize fraud in their misappropriation of the extremely valuable confidential information belonging to Robert Evans, owner of BiggestCrime.com.

The $7 Million Presidio-Journalism Contest will also pay $1 million to the contestant or team of contestants that is the first to provide the third, best and most useful information, evidence, and/or explaination, that help to prove that the December, 2001, San Francisco magazine article, "Trouble In The Presidio," by Kerry Tremain, was commissioned, written, and/or published, primarily to cause, justify, and/or support, the removal and replacement of one or more top contract proposal decision-makers at the Presidio Trust, such as the then Executive Director, James Meadows, the then Director of Operations, Bruce Anderson, etc., so that the conspirators could better empower one or more other person(s) to make the types of contract-proposal award decisions that would better faciliate the conspirators efforts to ulitize fraud in their misappropriation of the extremely valuable confidential information belonging to Robert Evans, owner of BiggestCrime.com.

The $7 Million Presidio-Journalism Contest will also pay $1 million to the contestant or team of contestants that is the first to provide the fourth, best and most useful information, evidence, and/or explaination, that help to prove that the December, 2001, San Francisco magazine article, "Trouble In The Presidio," by Kerry Tremain, was commissioned, written, and/or published, primarily to cause, justify, and/or support, the removal and replacement of one or more top contract proposal decision-makers at the Presidio Trust, such as the then Executive Director, James Meadows, the then Director of Operations, Bruce Anderson, etc., so that the conspirators could better empower one or more other person(s) to make the types of contract-proposal award decisions that would better faciliate the conspirators efforts to ulitize fraud in their misappropriation of the extremely valuable confidential information belonging to Robert Evans, owner of BiggestCrime.com.

The $7 Million Presidio-Journalism Contest will pay $500,000 to the contestant or team of contestants that is the first to provide the fifth, best and most useful information, evidence, and/or explaination, that help to prove that the December, 2001, San Francisco magazine article, "Trouble In The Presidio," by Kerry Tremain, was commissioned, written, and/or published, primarily to cause, justify, and/or support, the removal and replacement of one or more top contract proposal decision-makers at the Presidio Trust, such as the then Executive Director, James Meadows, the then Director of Operations, Bruce Anderson, etc., so that the conspirators could better empower one or more other person(s) to make the types of contract-proposal award decisions that would better faciliate the conspirators efforts to ulitize fraud in their misappropriation of the extremely valuable confidential information belonging to Robert Evans, owner of BiggestCrime.com.

The $7 Million Presidio-Journalism Contest will also pay $500,000 to the contestant or team of contestants that is the first to provide the sixth, best and most useful information, evidence, and/or explaination, that help to prove that the December, 2001, San Francisco magazine article, "Trouble In The Presidio," by Kerry Tremain, was commissioned, written, and/or published, primarily to cause, justify, and/or support, the removal and replacement of one or more top contract proposal decision-makers at the Presidio Trust, such as the then Executive Director, James Meadows, the then Director of Operations, Bruce Anderson, etc., so that the conspirators could better empower one or more other person(s) to make the types of contract-proposal award decisions that would better faciliate the conspirators efforts to ulitize fraud in their misappropriation of the extremely valuable confidential information belonging to Robert Evans, owner of BiggestCrime.com.

The $7 Million Presidio-Journalism Contest will pay $100,000 EACH to the contestants or teams of contestants that are the first to provide the next ten, best and most useful information, evidence, and/or explaination, that help to prove that the December, 2001, San Francisco magazine article, "Trouble In The Presidio," by Kerry Tremain, was commissioned, written, and/or published, primarily to cause, justify, and/or support, the removal and replacement of one or more top contract proposal decision-makers at the Presidio Trust, such as the then Executive Director, James Meadows, the then Director of Operations, Bruce Anderson, etc., so that the conspirators could better empower one or more other person(s) to make the types of contract-proposal award decisions that would better faciliate the conspirators efforts to ulitize fraud in their misappropriation of the extremely valuable confidential information belonging to Robert Evans, owner of BiggestCrime.com.

The $7 Million Presidio-Journalism Contest will pay $50,000 EACH to the twenty contestants or teams of contestants that are the first to provide the next twenty, best and most useful information, evidence, and/or explaination, that help to prove that the December, 2001, San Francisco magazine article, "Trouble In The Presidio," by Kerry Tremain, was commissioned, written, and/or published, primarily to cause, justify, and/or support, the removal and replacement of one or more top contract proposal decision-makers at the Presidio Trust, such as the then Executive Director, James Meadows, the then Director of Operations, Bruce Anderson, etc., so that the conspirators could better empower one or more other person(s) to make the types of contract-proposal award decisions that would better faciliate the conspirators efforts to ulitize fraud in their misappropriation of the extremely valuable confidential information belonging to Robert Evans, owner of BiggestCrime.com.

The first prize winner or winning team shall receive the $1 Million payment whenever Robert Evans receives $5 Million in net profits from any film produced to show the corruption and conspiracy involved in the misappropriation of confidential information belonging to Robert Evans.

The second prize winner or winning team shall receive the $1 Million payment whenever Robert Evans receives $10 Million in net profits from any film produced to show the corruption and conspiracy involved in the misappropriation of confidential information belonging to Robert Evans.

The third prize winner or winning team shall receive the $1 Million payment whenever Robert Evans receives $15 Million in net profits from any film produced to show the corruption and conspiracy involved in the misappropriation of confidential information belonging to Robert Evans.

The fourth prize winner or winning team shall receive the $1 Million payment whenever Robert Evans receives $20 Million in net profits from any film produced to show the corruption and conspiracy involved in the misappropriation of confidential information belonging to Robert Evans.

The fifth prize winner or winning team shall receive the $500,000 payment whenever Robert Evans receives $25 Million in net profits from any film produced to show the corruption and conspiracy involved in the misappropriation of confidential information belonging to Robert Evans.

The sixth prize winner or winning team shall receive the $500,000 payment whenever Robert Evans receives $25 Million in net profits from any film produced to show the corruption and conspiracy involved in the misappropriation of confidential information belonging to Robert Evans.

The ten $100,000 prize winners or winning teams shall EACH receive the payment whenever Robert Evans receives $30 Million in net profits from any film produced to show the corruption and conspiracy involved in the misappropriation of confidential information belonging to Robert Evans.

The twenty $50,000 prize winners or winning teams shall EACH receive the payment whenever Robert Evans receives $35 Million in net profits from any film produced to show the corruption and conspiracy involved in the misappropriation of confidential information belonging to Robert Evans.

Method Of Submission

1. All types of submissions are accepted ONLY after the payment of the $250 entry fee is received, and the delivery address is provided to the contestant or team of contestants.

2. Submissions received after the awarding of a particular cash prize, are disqualified for that particular cash prize. Submissions received after all cash prizes are awarded, are disqualified for all cash prizes.

3. All submissions shall become the property of Robert Evans

4. No refunds will be provided of the entry fee.

Method Of Payment

1. There is no guarantee that any, or enough, net profits will be received by Robert Evans to pay the cash prizes.

Method Of Judging

1. Any submissions of evidence, information, and explainations that are substantially similar to evidence, information, or explaination, that have been otherwise and independently obtained by Robert Evans, at a prior date, do not qualify.

2. Submissions of evidence, information, or explainations, submitted before payment of entry fee, do not qualify.

3. Bonus Judging Points will be awarded for the following types of submissions:official documents, sworn affidavits, video recordings, audio recordings, etc.

Method Of Paying $250 Entry Fee

1. CLICK "CONTEST ENTRY FEE" at the top of this website: http://www.biggestcrime.com/

2009-10-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

Leadership PACs: Let the Good Times Roll

by Marcus Stern and Jennifer LaFleur,

ProPublica - September 26, 2009 10:32 am EDT

The 7th green at the Pebble Beach Gold Links in Pebble Beach, Calif. Sen. Saxby Chambliss' leadership PAC, the Republican Majority Fund, spent $19,341 there during the 2008 election cycle, according to a ProPublica analysis of data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics. (Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)
When it comes to golf, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., has champagne taste.
In California, he's putted with his back to the thundering surf near the seventh hole at Pebble Beach, where a round of golf costs $495. In Florida, he's driven the ball down the fairways of the Boca Raton Resort, with its signature island green on the 18th hole and its Waldorf Astoria interior.
These are among the dozen premier resorts where Chambliss played golf in 2007 and 2008 at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars. Yet Chambliss is hardly rich. His net worth is between $181,006 and $415,000, according to his 2007 financial disclosure report, ranking him 89th in the Senate in terms of wealth.
Fortunately for Chambliss, a political fund covers the costs of his golf hobby. The fund received $692,618 during the 2008 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Almost all of it came from lobbyists, political action committees (PACs) and corporate leaders.
The public might be forgiven for thinking the days are gone when lobbyists and special interests could pay for a lawmaker's cross-country golf outings. After all, both the House and Senate in 2007 responded to a spate of scandals by banning members of Congress from accepting gifts of any value from lobbyists or the companies that hire them.
But those reforms preserved a major loophole: leadership PACs like Chambliss' Republican Majority Fund [1], which have far looser rules and get far less scrutiny than campaign committees. At first, only a few rising stars in Congress had them. Now, 70 percent of the members do. So do a dozen former members.
In the past three election cycles, lobbyists and special interests poured $355 million into these funds, making them the second-largest source of political money for sitting members of Congress.
Legally, lawmakers are free to spend the leadership PAC money pretty much as they wish.

Search for your congressmember's leadership PAC using ProPublica's database.[2]Lobbyists and lawmakers can -- and do -- use it to travel together to play golf at Pebble Beach, ride snowmobiles in Montana's Big Sky Country and go deep-sea fishing in the Florida Keys. The lobbyists don't pay the costs directly. They contribute to the leadership PAC, which then pays the lawmaker's resort and travel bills.
Leadership PACs have grown steadily since they began cropping up in the 1970s. What separates them from campaign committees is that lawmakers are supposed to pass along the bulk of the money to other members of their party for their campaigns. That way, lawmakers with leadership PACs can earn their beneficiaries' support when it comes time to divvy up committee chairmanships and other party leadership posts.
This system helps party leaders spread money to candidates with less money or tighter races. On the other hand, it also fuels the Washington money chase, allocates power in Congress based on fundraising prowess, and encourages lawmakers and lobbyists to mingle socially and recreationally as political money changes hands.
Of the $112 million that leadership PACs spent during the two-year campaign cycle that led up to the 2008 elections, less than half was passed on to candidates or party committees, according to a ProPublica analysis of Federal Election Commission data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. The rest paid for entertainment, administrative costs, fundraising and other categories that are so vague that it's impossible to know for sure how the money was spent.
"Some of the expenditures don't seem related to elections and politics," said Michael Malbin [3], executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute [4], a research center associated with George Washington University.
Indeed, funds have been used for visits to Churchill Downs, Disney World and the Country Music Hall of Fame. They've paid for funerals, flowers and farewell parties. Rep. Charles Rangel [5], D-N.Y., used $64,500 from his PAC to commission a portrait of himself.
All this is legal, even if it appears to make a mockery of the 2007 ethics reforms and the contribution limits at the very heart of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 [6].
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) [7], which enforces federal campaign finance laws, has no rule against politicians using the money for personal purposes. Senate ethics rules don't even mention leadership PACs. The Senate interprets that silence to mean its ethics committee has no jurisdiction over leadership PACs whatsoever. The House, on the other hand, extends the same personal spending rules it applies to campaign committees to leadership PACs -- but there are no known instances when the policy has been enforced.
Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, used money from his leadership PAC to commission a portrait of himself. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center [8], says leadership PACs should be abolished.
"But that's going to be very difficult because so many members of Congress have them now," McGehee said. "Because they're such useful political slush funds, money that a politician controls totally with very few rules governing how they're used, it's very difficult to find members who want to take that on."
Former FEC Commissioner Brad Smith, who generally opposes tighter campaign finance rules, nonetheless favors getting rid of leadership PACs. He says they give incumbents an unfair advantage because challengers typically can't raise the maximum amount of money allowed for their campaign committees, much less for a leadership PAC.
"For the most part, it's really kind of an incumbent racket," said Smith, who's now a professor at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio.
In March, the FEC's six commissioners, three Democrats and three Republicans, sent Congress a list of legislative recommendations, including one to prohibit personal use of leadership PAC funds. Their letter went to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden, in his capacity as president of the Senate. It also was sent to members of the House and Senate committees that oversee the FEC.
So far, the FEC has gotten no response. ProPublica left messages at the offices of the speaker, the majority leader and the chairmen of the two committees seeking comment, but got no replies.
"I am not hearing anything being done on the legislative front on leadership PACs," said Craig Holman, the legislative representative of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen [9].
Party Building or Fun and Games?
Democrats and Republicans alike use leadership PAC funds for play.
Among Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [10] of Nevada used his leadership PAC to entertain at Las Vegas casinos, including $32,985 at the Bellagio and $24,284 at Caesars. Sen. Charles Schumer [11] of New York paid $32,760 to the New York Yankees and $14,490 to the New York Giants.
Among Republicans, former Sen. Gordon Smith [12] of Oregon, who was defeated last fall for re-election, spent $91,004 at the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort. Former Rep. Thomas Reynolds [13] of New York spent $66,378 at Pebble Beach.
The FEC disclosure forms that leadership PACs file are so cursory that lawmakers don't have to disclose who participated or contributed at a PAC fundraiser, the day the event was held or how much money was raised.
Chambliss' leadership PAC ran up a $50,394 bill at the Ritz-Carlton Naples on Jan. 25, 2008. The only note of explanation was the stated purpose, "PAC EVENT/LODGING/BANQUET/GOLF."
"The problem is that sometimes it's hard to tell the personal from the political," said FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub.
Sen. John Ensign's leadership PAC, Battle Born PAC, paid Cynthia Hampton, the woman Sen. Ensign admitted to having an affair with, $23,138. (Harry Hamburg/AP Photo)"If a political committee spends money on food, flowers and tickets to sporting events, it depends on what they're using them for. Those might be legitimate political expenditures in connection with a fundraising event. Or, if they used them to take their family members out to the ball game and bought flowers for their spouses then that would be personal use. But you can't tell from looking at the expenditure reports."
Former North Carolina senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards [14] used his leadership PAC to pay videographer Rielle Hunter's firm $114,000 in 2006 and 2007 to make a campaign video. Last year, he admitted he had an extramarital affair with Hunter during that period.
More recently, Sen. John Ensign [15], R-Nev., admitted to having an extramarital affair with a woman who was on his leadership PAC payroll. Cynthia Hampton received $23,138 from the PAC during the 2008 election cycle.
Chambliss' Golf PAC
Only a quarter of the more than $750,000 that Chambliss' PAC spent during the 2008 cycle -- about $200,000 -- went to help GOP candidates. The rest went for golf, including payments to resorts and transportation -- a private jet on one occasion and limos on another. In July, ABC News cameras captured shots of Chambliss and other lawmakers golfing at the five-star Greenbrier resort in West Virginia.
Chambliss declined to be interviewed for this story, but his communications director, Bronwyn Lance-Chester, said the golf outings were to raise money for his Republican Majority Fund.
"Leadership PACs are appropriate vehicles through which members support deserving candidates in their campaigns," Lance-Chester wrote in an e-mail. "Different leadership PACs have different ways of raising funds. Every fundraising event Sen. Chambliss has held has been appropriately conducted, all expenses have been closely scrutinized and all reporting has been accurate."
It is hard to determine whether some of the golf outings generated any donations. For instance, the leadership PAC made four payments totaling $10,372 to three luxury West Coast golf courses and links -- Pebble Beach Resorts, the Inn at Spanish Bay and Pasatiempo Golf Club. Lance-Chester said the payments were for a single fundraising event held Feb. 20, 2008. But no contributions were made to the leadership PAC that day. During the two-week period straddling the date, $15,000 came in, about average for a PAC that collected almost $700,000 during the election cycle but a low haul given that the period included a major fundraising event.
Lance-Chester declined to disclose who participated or made contributions in connection with any of the golf events.
"There is not a direct correlation between contributions and specific events," she explained. "Contributors can make a contribution at any time of the year, either prior to events starting in January or months afterward and still attend events. ... Some contributors give that amount and don't go to any events. Some go to every event. Some go to two or three."
Lance-Chester did not explain how or why Chambliss hosted events at three different California golf resorts on the same day. Nor did she explain why he made two deposits for the event, one to Pebble Beach Resorts 10 months before the event and another to Pasatiempo Golf Resort two weeks after the event. She also declined to elaborate on $7,087 paid to the Belle Haven Golf Shop in Alexandria, Va., on Jan. 24, 2007. The PAC's report to the FEC said only that it was for “PAC EVENT/GOLF SUPPLIES.”
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, far right, golfs with lobbyists at The Greenbrier in West Virginia in July 2009. (Photo courtesy of ABC News; Graphic by Dan Nguyen/ProPublica)"All disbursements from the RMF account are reviewed and approved, and are made solely for RMF-related purposes," Lance-Chester said in another e-mail.
Fred Wertheimer [16], who has pushed to reduce the role of money in politics for more than three decades, said Chambliss could be running afoul of tax laws.
"If this comes down to using campaign money for personal use, then he is required to pay taxes on it," said Wertheimer, who now heads the campaign reform group Democracy 21 [17]. "If there's a conversion and if he isn't paying taxes, he's also potentially violating the tax laws."
Chambliss' love of golf is so legendary in Washington political circles that he has been teased for letting golf interfere with his political and legislative business.
In 2003, then-President Bush told a crowd at a golf fundraiser for Chambliss that the senator had intercepted him on his way to the dais and said, "If you keep it short, we might be able to get a round of golf in."
Chambliss also took heat for skipping a sensitive closed-door Iraq war intelligence briefing in 2005 to golf with Tiger Woods.
Defense lobbyist James Ervin, one of Chambliss' longtime friends and contributors, defended the senator's golf outings. Ervin's wife, Teresa, is Chambliss' deputy chief of staff.
"I think that it's more than appropriate for Sen. Chambliss to do whatever he wants with the leadership PAC money," Ervin said. "Certainly I think golf is completely acceptable."
Ervin and two of his clients -- defense contractors Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics -- put $30,000 into Chambliss' leadership PAC in the last election cycle. Ervin's clients also made generous contributions to Chambliss' campaign committee: Lockheed Martin, $51,800 and General Dynamics, $15,000.
As the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, Chambliss is well-positioned to help defense firms. He has been a leading proponent of the F-22 jet fighter, which is important to Lockheed Martin and the state of Georgia.
When lawmakers leave Congress, they sometimes keep their leadership PACs or they hand them down like valuable heirlooms to their successors, with the same tight circle of lobbyists and lawmakers playing revolving roles.
Former Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma controlled the Republican Majority Fund from 1985 until he retired in 2005. He then passed it along to Chambliss.
Nickles now has a successful lobbying practice, Nickles Group, which along with its clients contributed $52,500 to the PAC during the 2008 campaign cycle.
ProPublica contacted Nickles and more than a dozen other contributors to the fund. Ervin was the only one to return a call. In his case, he left a brief phone message but failed to return a subsequent call.
ProPublica Director of Research Lisa Schwartz and the Brian Ross Investigative Unit at ABC News [18] contributed to this report.
Tags: Campaign Finance, Charles Rangel, Charles Schumer, Don Nickles, Federal Election Commission, Gordon Smith, Harry Reid, James Ervin, John Edwards, John Ensign, Leadership PACs, Pebble Beach, Republican Majority Fund, Saxby Chambliss, Thomas Reynolds

G-Unit and 50 Cents

2006-12-10T01:49:00.000-08:00

G-Unit is a rap group lead by Curtis Jackson, better known as 50 Cents. There have been many fallouts among the group's members. After leaving Columbus Records, 50 Cents teamed up with fellow Queens, New York rappers LLoyd Banks, Tony Yayo, Bang 'Em Smurf, ann Domination to create G-Unit. The group helped to establish the careers of Nashville, Tennessee rapper Young Buck, and Compton, California rapper The Game.

G-Unit members have been associated with numerous feuds involving Ja Rule, Irv Gotti, Fat Joe, Shyne, Nas, and others. Some of them have also been charged with weapons violations, and have been involved with violence.

As far as mainstream success is concerned, for G-Unit it began with two divisions of Interscope Records: Dr Dre's Aftermath Entertainment, and Eminem's Shady Records. After the release of his albun, Get Rich or Die Tryin', 50 Cent and Sha Money XL founded G-Unit Records.

George Brown, Linda Johnson, Valerie Jones, and Barbara Smith are victims of THE BIGGEST CRIME IN AMERICAN HISTORY. Tens of BILLIONS of DOLLARS are at stake. Follow this blog and http://www.biggestcrime.com// for further development

Entrepreneur or Engineer?

2006-11-30T11:12:00.000-08:00

Which do you prefer for a profession and career? This is hard for me to decide, I would be happy with either. As an engineer, I would be employed at a company like Hewitt-Packard, or National Instruments. Both regularly voted as among the most favorite places to work.

But as an entrepreneur, I would have the chance of becoming the next William Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, and the co-founder of Microsoft. Or like those two former students of Stanford, who co-founded Google; or the two who co-founded Yahoo, or the two who...well you get the point. They are all billionaires. Stanford University Research Park probably deserves some credit also.

Whether working as an entrepreneur or engineer in sunny Austin, Texas (Silicon Hills; University of Texas), the delightful Silicon Valley, between San Jose and San Francisco, California (University of California at Berkeley deserves some credit); Research Triangle, North Carolina; Redmond, Washington; Route 128 and Interstate 495 near Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, "America's Technology Highway", (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University), or elsewhere, they both, entrepreneurs and engineers, have it good.

Hey, I've got an idea! Why not be both? "Gee, good idea". Thanks! "With ideas like that, from a mind like yours, you can go far in your career pursuits.

Fisherman's Wharf and Dungeness Crab

2006-11-19T21:21:00.000-08:00

Hello

I would like to introduce my blog. KickthelobbyistsDOTcom is all about my other website: www.kickthelobbyists.com

The main components of www.kickthelobbyists.com are (1) its dedication to fighting against corrupt lobbyists and corrupt politicians, (2) its campaign to raise funds to finance filmmakers and screenwriters who pledge to make documentaries, docu-dramas, short-form, or long-form feature films, about corrupt lobbyists and corrupt politicians, and (3) $15,000 reports about current concerns regarding corrupt lobbyists and corrupt politicians, which is being offered for sale to individuals only, to help fund the mission of www.kickthelobbyists.com.

Other components on the site, which would be discussed later are the "Honor Roll" and "Hall of Shame" sections.

In order to insure that some sort of variety is contained in this blog, kickthelobbyistsDOTcom will regularly spotlight the websites that link to www.kickthelobbyists.com

SO if you would like to have your website receive numberous paragraphs spotlighting and focusing on it, on a rotating basis, then place a link to www.kickthelobbyists.com on your website. Then let me know that you have done that, by using the "Comments" section of this blog.

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Golden Gate Bridge and Fort Point in San Francisco

2006-11-19T21:12:00.000-08:00

What Were The Best College or Vocational Courses You Have Ever Taken

2006-11-10T22:35:00.000-08:00

Mine are english comp for teaching (ladies love proper grammer), trigonometry. (i love sharp edges), woodworking-shop (was a good way to get away from my girlfriend at times), business forecasting (showed that i could find the answer to almost anything), quamtum mechanics (made it okay to take refresher courses), digital film prodution ( can now call myself a producer), calculus (made me feel smart), public speaking (enabled me to show confidence), swimming (the most practical thing i can think of), software ventures (helped me to raise money, karate (good way to exercise mine and body), nutrition (everybody need to know what they are eating), art and design (insight on how the Star Wars and Matrix type movies were made), MORE LATER!

Hello

I would like to introduce my blog. KickthelobbyistsDOTcom is all about my other website: www.kickthelobbyists.com

The main components of www.kickthelobbyists.com are (1) its dedication to fighting against corrupt lobbyists and corrupt politicians, (2) its campaign to raise funds to finance filmmakers and screenwriters who pledge to make documentaries, docu-dramas, short-form, or long-form feature films, about corrupt lobbyists and corrupt politicians, and (3) $15,000 reports about current concerns regarding corrupt lobbyists and corrupt politicians, which is being offered for sale to individuals only, to help fund the mission of www.kickthelobbyists.com.

Other components on the site, which would be discussed later are the "Honor Roll" and "Hall of Shame" sections.

In order to insure that some sort of variety is contained in this blog, kickthelobbyistsDOTcom will regularly spotlight the websites that link to www.kickthelobbyists.com

SO if you would like to have your website receive numberous paragraphs spotlighting and focusing on it, on a rotating basis, then place a link to www.kickthelobbyists.com on your website. Then let me know that you have done that, by using the "Comments" section of this blog.