Today
Jeffrey Smith of the Washington Post laid out the details of just one of the scandal threads in the rat's nest of corruption also known as the Republican Party.
EZ writer posted on the story last night. There were many things about the story that were new, but I want to focus (again) on Willie Tan and his family's business empire. We should know about them as our tax dollars have helped them thrive and survive even as they use a business model heavy with sweatshops, corruption and sex trade tourism.
The protector of their empire has been Tom DeLay and the GOP. Their pimp was Jack Abramoff (and yes it is hard out there for a Jack). Here is a great quote from DeLay at the end of the dinner (where he called Jack "one of my closest and dearest friends"):
"Stand firm," DeLay said in his closing. "Resist evil. Remember that all truth and blessings emanate from our Creator." He then departed with Tan to see a cockfight
Cockfight? Yep! To the jump...
God bless you and let's go see birds fight each other to the death.. Tom DeLay practices an odd form of Christianity. I guess it is the same bizarre sect that supports sweatshop, forced abortions and sexual slavery if it helps you to amass power.
The GOP Culture of Corruption is expansive. There are hundreds of players, threads and links. It is very BIG and very hard to wrap your mind around the story.
It is best to pick one thread and try to run it to ground. Pick one aspect of the scandal and find the pay-for-play, the bribe, the quid pro quo, the illegal act, the crime.
That is how Duke Cunningham was brought low. And that is what the Washington Post did with Abramoff's Tribal scam, SunCruz, e-lottery, Bob Ney and other Abramoff scandal threads to get the indictment party started.
Now it is a very competitive scandal environment. Some news organizations (AP, NYTs, Cable TV, Networks, etc.) repeat the reporting of others or get lost in the bigness of the scandal. Others follow the lead of the WP and pick a thread to follow to ground.
Take the Boston Globe which has been following Jack's Russian connection and how they poured almost $4 million into the DeLay/GOP money machine. They followed the money trail to an Abramoff scheme to work with his Russian connections to explore for oil in Israel.
Progressive bloggers are also leading the way to untangles GOP scandal threads. Here I'll give mad props to Josh Marshall and TPMmuckkraker.com and a big salute to the many folks here at Daily Kos working to expose the corruption. As we untangle a thread we can get it to surface in the Old School Media. We can keep the GOP on the defensive about this scandal. And we should.
The thread Jeffrey Smith of the Washington Post has been tracking is the U.S. Family Network. He had an excellent story last December that revealed how DeLay's team worked with Abramoff to set a "charity" that would serve as a cash cow. Today he reported more details:
A top adviser to former House Whip Tom DeLay received more than a third of all the money collected by the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit organization the adviser created to promote a pro-family political agenda in Congress, according to the group's accounting records.
DeLay's former chief of staff, Edwin A. Buckham, who helped create the group while still in DeLay's employ, and his wife, Wendy, were the principal beneficiaries of the group's $3.02 million in revenue, collecting payments totaling $1,022,729 during a five-year period ending in 2001, public and private records show.
The group's revenue was drawn mostly from clients of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to its records. From an FBI subpoena for the records, it can be inferred that the bureau is exploring whether there were links between the payments and favorable legislative treatment of Abramoff's clients by DeLay's office.
The Russians were one Abramoff client who washed money through the U.S. Family Network. The Tan Family was another.
I have written about the Tan family a number of times. This scandal thread has been mentioned time and again in the press, but to date nobody has run it to ground. When they do, it may make ALL the scandal details to date seem innocent.
So in today's WP, Smith provided more details about the Tan family and how it supported this one DeLay money laundry mat:
One of the first policy issues to be discussed by the group's board, according to its March 1997 minutes, was a "free-market research project" in the Northern Marianas Islands, a U.S. protectorate in the Pacific Ocean.
At the time, Abramoff was under contract with the Marianas government to lobby against congressional legislation to impede the free flow of immigrant labor to the islands from China and elsewhere in Asia, and impose a minimum hourly wage exceeding the island's standard rate of $3.05.
To U.S. immigration officials and other critics, maintaining the Marianas' exemptions from these rules amounted to providing legal protection for sweatshops. [snip]
Abramoff focused on DeLay's office in his lobbying effort, billing the Marianas for 187 contacts in 1996 and 1997, including 104 conversations with Buckham and 16 direct meetings with DeLay, according to Abramoff's billing records. [snip]
So it was perhaps understandable that in the spring of 1997, USFN's board was eager to demonstrate that the economic policies that were good for the Marianas (pop. 53,552) could be good for America. To do so, it dispatched its first director, a former manager of DeLay's 1996 Texas reelection campaign named Robert G. Mills.
During the trip, Mills -- accompanied by Buckham, who was still on DeLay's staff -- met with Willie Tan, the islands' largest private employer. Tan's textile companies had settled a lawsuit filed five years earlier by the U.S. Labor Department charging workplace abuses, and he had long cultivated contacts in Washington to stop the immigration and wage legislation.
In April 1997, for example, a longtime Tan aide and island politician named Benigno Fitial went to Washington, where he sang "Happy Birthday" to DeLay in the whip's office. He sent Buckham an e-mail after the trip expressing appreciation for his support and recalling Buckham's explanation that one of his roles was to "stop legislation from getting on the floor of the House." Fitial signed the e-mail, "YOUR 'ADOPTED' BROTHER BEN."
Three months earlier, Tan's network of companies had written five checks of $10,000 each to USFN, and Buckham's wife had claimed $10,000 in "commissions" on these checks, according to the group's ledger.
These were just the first of 23 payments by Tan's companies to the group, which eventually totaled $650,000. [snip]
DeLay saw Tan when he took his wife and daughter to the Marianas in a December 1997 trip arranged with the help of Abramoff and his lobby firm. After brunching with Tan on his first full day, followed by a round of golf with Tan and others, DeLay attended a dinner in his honor sponsored by Tan's holding company at the local Pacific Islands Club.
It was at this dinner that DeLay gave the speech in which he called Abramoff "one of my closest and dearest friends," according to a copy. DeLay also reminded Tan and his colleagues of his earlier promise that no wage and immigration legislation would be passed.
"Stand firm," DeLay said in his closing. "Resist evil. Remember that all truth and blessings emanate from our Creator." He then departed with Tan to see a cockfight, according to a written account by one of the trip participants.
I emphasized the name Benigno Fitial. In 1999, this was the Tan company employee that Ed Buckham and Mike Scanlon travel to Saipan to ensure he was elected to the CNMI House and that votes were bought to elect him Speaker. The payoff was more US tax dollars for airport construction and other capital projects earmarked by Tom and the gang. (Yet another thread waiting to be untangled. Hint: it wraps around Doolittle).
As for Saipan, Delay and the GOP worked to create the impression that it was a free-market success story. It was always bullshit.
Sweatshops, forced abortions, sexual slavery and wide spread abuse of US labor, immigration and custom laws was the reality back when Tom and Jack met Willie. Last year a story in the Galveston Daily News put a sharp point on DeLay's lies about sex:
"Incredible lies" was the way House Majority Leader Tom DeLay described charges that some foreign workers on Saipan labored in sweatshops in the 1990s while others were forced into sex slavery.
Reporter Marty Schladen gave DeLay space to deny everything, but then presents facts to refute DeLay. And in the same article! It was a rare example of real journalism:
One woman told Miller that when she became pregnant, her employer gave her a choice: return to China or be fired. The woman said she was afraid that if she went back to China, she'd be forced to have a late-term abortion.
Other Chinese women told [Congressman George] Miller that the "restaurant" jobs they'd taken consisted of hanging out in karaoke bars, being forced to have sex with the patrons and then being shut out of the proceeds from their prostitution, his report said.
There are many other reports that back-up George Miller and refute DeLay. It is worth reposting some of that information. We need to be reminded about the human costs of the GOP Culture of Corruption. We need to give these victims a voice and justice.
The prepared statement of Wendy L. Doromal before the Senate's Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on March 31, 1998 goes into great detail about the abuse on CNMI at the time of DeLay's visit. I couldn't find it online, but here are some excerpts:
Last month my husband, Boboy Doromal and I returned to the CNMI to access the situation and status of the estimated 42,000 foreign contract workers who make up a majority of the islands' population. We were struck by the overall severity of their suffering and shocked by the rapid deterioration in the workers' welfare and quality of life that has plunged them to the lowest levels we have witnessed to date. [snip]
An increase in the trafficking of minor girls and young women from the Philippines and the People's Republic of China who have been hired as waitresses or garment factory workers but forced to work as prostitutes and strippers in the ever-increasing number of karaoke bars, discos, beauty parlors, massage parlors and clubs; - The continuing problems with the garment industry including Chinese law being enforced on U.S. soil behind the barbed wire fences surrounding garment 'factories and barracks; the existence of shadow contracts that restrict religious freedom and other rights contrary to U.S. law, the flow of Chinese workers from the CNMI into Guam to seek asylum; pregnant Chinese women being forced by their employers to return to China to have an abortion or to have an abortion performed in the CNMI [snip]
To gather facts that would reflect the present situation in the CNMI, we conducted face-to-face interviews with private attorneys, government officials, private citizens, advocates, religious !eaSters, and about 250 Bangladeshi, 120 Filipinos, 30 Nepalese, 14 Chinese, and a representation of Indian, Sri Lankan, Pakistani and Thai foreign contract workers. We also visited work sites, abortion clinics, massage parlors, clubs and 32 different barracks and houses where workers live. We documented our findings with notes, workers' statements, copies of legal documents, current newspaper articles, video tapes, and photographs. [snip]
The girls at the club appeared as young as fifteen years old. The youngest said she works 7 days a week and receives pay only for "ladies drinks" which customers buy for $12.00 each in order to talk to and proposition the women. The workers get $6.00 for each ladies drink that is sold. The young girl said that she doesn't like her job, yet she has no choice but to work there. Another woman working at the club said that most of the nine women working there were originally hired to come to Saipan as factory workers. Instead they were forced to work in a club. The woman said she would give a massage for $70 and upon further questioning stated she would "make love" for $70.
The growing practice of recruiting young Chinese women for legitimate employment and forcing them into prostitution was further verified by a recent newspaper article in the Marianas Variety. It stated that a police complaint had recently been filed by two Chinese women who were forced by their employers to become prostitutes. The police report classified the case as "prostitution' and stated, "Appeared at DPS Central and reported two Chinese women were hired as waitresses instead they were told to work as prostitutes." [snip]
The face of Saipan has changed since we left two years ago. There has been a tremendous increase in the number of Karaoke bars, clubs and massage parlors in recent years. The major increase appears to be in Korean and Chinese owned clubs massage parlors, and beauty parlors that offer massage in back rooms. The majority of these establishments are fronts for prostitution. A U.S. Labor Investigator went to a beauty parlor for a haircut and was approached by the owner's wife who asked him if he wanted sex. The woman told him that all the clubs, bars and Karaoke clubs in Saipan would provide sex if the customer wants it and pays the woman up front. [snip]
The trafficking of minor girls from the Philippines and China to be used as prostitutes and to perform sex acts on stage is a widespread problem that local immigration appears to be ignoring entirely. Hundreds of girls have been brought into the CNMI with falsified papers and passports. [snip]
We spoke to garment factory workers who confirmed that Chinese women who became pregnant were forced to return to China to have an abortion or have one in one of the unlicensed clinics that operates in the Saipan. In the CNMI abortion is unconstitutional so there are no licensed hospitals, clinics or physicians who can legally perform the procedure. [snip]
Most of the Chinese women have abortions at one of the Saipan clinics which are disguised as acupuncture clinics, and clinics that offer massage and Chinese medicine. Two have been positively identified as abortion clinics. [snip]
It was a disappointment to learn that the new governor is going to retain the lobbying firm of' Preston, Gates. To me this action demonstrates that he also is not committed to reform. The very fact that this lobbying firm also represents the garment industry of the CNMI should send up red flags. As reported by the media, Willy Tan, James Lin and the garment industry are the true rulers of the CNMI. Press articles suggest that CNMI garment tycoons financially back candidates to gain political favors such as special deals on land leases, taxes, wage rollbacks for the garment industry, and other demonstrations of favoritism. It is no secret that CNMI and Federal officials in the CNMI who are not elected also have links to these individuals.
There are more details in Ms. Doromal's statement and it is important to point out that her research was going on while Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and the GOP were working to protect Willie Tan and those who were profiting from labor and sexual abuse.
For more than a decade, the GOP has protected the abuse on CNMI and as Pacific Magazine pointed out last October, it continues to this day:
The recent closure of four garment factories on Saipan, leaving thousands of alien workers unemployed, has resulted in a "significant increase" in the number of prostitution cases in the Northern Marianas, according to commonwealth officials. Nearly all the prostitution-related arrests involved women from China. Other non-resident Chinese women are forced into prostitution after arriving on legitimate business visas for certain jobs only to find those jobs are non-existent. [snip]
On Aug. 19, Ming Yang Zheng was charged with one count of interstate travel for purposes of prostitution at the federal District Court. Zheng and her boyfriend, Liu Chang Da, own six legitimate businesses.
It's alleged she recruited six people from China and promised them legitimate jobs but that on arrival in Saipan, they were told to work as prostitutes. All six initially resisted, but were eventually forced into prostitution to pay back their recruitment fees in China and living expenses on Saipan, according to a lawsuit at the court. Zheng's trial was scheduled for Oct. 24th.
Today the economy on CNMI is in ruins. The Chinese owners of the sweatshops are moving the work to mainland China. Now the Tan Family is getting into the tourism business, flying Chinese and Japanese tourist to newly refurbished airports paid for by GOP earmarks and corruption. Their former sweatshop workers who can't pay for the return trip to China are getting new jobs in Saipan's growing sexual tourism (search for "Mariana" for the details) sector of DeLay's "free-market success".
And what is the cause of the crimes being visited on so many women and girls on Saipan?
That's right, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff and a GOP Culture of Corruption that was all to eager to ignore sexual slavery if it help them win elections back in the USA.
As another recent Pacific Magazine article made clear the problems are due to the GOP:
The Marianas Variety Online reports that former Office of Insular Affairs Director Allen Stayman attributes many of the CNMI's economic problems to its immigration and labor policies.
Stayman, who is now on the staff of U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M, said the CNMI's declining visitor arrival rate, environmental and labor problems are all related to its poor immigration control. Bingaman is the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over the insular areas.
"I am one who believes that many of the CNMI's economic problems are a result of local immigration control and that an appropriately designed federal law is part of the solution," Stayman said. "More specifically, I believe the CNMI's poor performance in immigration control has degraded its desirability as a tourist destination." [snip]
He added, "Poorly controlled immigration has resulted in the overextension of the electrical, water and waste systems so that the once pristine beaches and waters of Saipan are now contaminated."
Stayman, who visited Saipan recently, said labor abuses in the CNMI still exist, especially involving migrant Asian women forced into prostitution.
He said local immigration policies are to blame.
"Unemployed and/or underpaid guest workers have contributed to an increase in crime and to an unseemly sex trade that is offensive to most tourists," Stayman said.
At the same time, he urged the CNMI government to "fully investigate its contracts" with disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. [snip]
The new governor, Benigno R. Fitial, credited Abramoff with "protecting" the CNMI's control over local labor and immigration policies.
Stayman is one of the heroes of the long and tragic story of the GOP protection of crimes on CNMI. Now he is involved in Senate hearings on CNMI and Abramoff. Oddly, the newly elected Governor of CNMI couldn't make it to the National Governors Association meeting a few weeks ago:
CNMI Governor Benigno Fitial says he cannot attend two official events in the U.S. because the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands government cannot afford to pay for the trip.
Governor Fitial, who earlier traveled to Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines after he was sworn in on January 9, said he also has no spare personal funds to finance his trip to Washington, D.C.
Of course it might not have been the money. It might have been the request for Fitial to testify before the Senate:
Governor Fitial said he has asked Washington Rep. Pedro Tenorio to represent the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands at the National Governors Association meeting and at the March public hearing to be conducted by the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources regarding the economies and fiscal affairs of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. [snip]
"In particular, the committee asks that you provide testimony regarding the state of the economy and fiscal affairs in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. In order to allow time for members to ask questions, please limit the oral summation of your written testimony to 5 minutes. Written testimony will be included in full in the committee's printed hearing record," Domenici said in a letter to Fitial.
Last month, Domenici's senior staff member, Josh Johnson, along with Sen. Jeff Bingaman's senior aide, Allen Stayman, were on Saipan
So I know DeLay is a liar. But it makes my blood boil that he feels that everything he did with Jack Abramoff was clean and legal. I think the scandal threads connect to DeLay, Abramoff and the GOP through the Tan family are a mini-rat's nest of multiple scandals.
Some are just now coming out, but this needs more attention. According to The Standard of Hong Kong the Tan Family has poured money into the GOP:
Over the last decade, the Tan family and their companies have spent at least US$200,000 (HK$1.6 million) on lobbying and contributions to Washington political campaigns.
More significantly, the commonwealth government and Saipan business associations invested more than US$11.5 million between 1995 and 2002 to lobby in Washington against changes to the islands' status.
This lobbying effort, directed by conservative Republican Jack Abramoff, is now the focus of intense scrutiny in the United States. [snip]
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. [He won and is now the CNMI Governor].
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.
That's right, the Tan Family are Chinese Nationals protected by the GOP and they worked with Abramoff to flow money into the GOP.
An earlier Standard article, highlighted the closeness between Henry Tan and George W. Bush (emphasis added):
The US Labour Department sued six Tan companies in 1991 for forcing Chinese labourers to work up to 84 hours a week without overtime (US law requires companies to pay 1.5 times the regular hourly rate for work in excess of 40 hours a week) and paying less than Saipan's minimum wage.
The Tans settled by agreeing to pay the workers US$9 million but negative publicity led clothing giant Levi Strauss & Co to stop buying from the Tans.
Following numerous smaller cases brought by the Labour Department and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) against other plants, officials in president Bill Clinton's administration proposed curtailing Saipan's legal exemptions. The drive foundered on opposition by congressional Republicans, who were extensively wined and dined by the Tans. A picture of family members with President George W Bush hangs above Tan's desk in Hong Kong.
I am outrage. I think it is time for the GOP to explain their support of sexual slavery. Sure it is only one of their many crimes, but I think an ad running in the fall featuring the victims of the GOP Saipan Sex Scandal might get some attention.
In fact it could be an honorable response to their Swiftboating.
And this is just one scandal thread. As I said there are hundreds more. The important thing is to grab one and run it to ground.
It is way past time to take this country back. 2006 is now. Let's do it!