2006 Vote: Human Dignity or the GOP way

This year America has a choice.

We can meet the better angels of our desires or embrace the lesser demons of our fears. We can promote a progressive agenda or live in Republican moral twilight.

There are many places where this choice comes into stark focus, but perhaps nowhere is that more true than choice we face concerning justice for the workers of the Commonwealth on Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).

For 20 YEARS the abuse has flourished. 12 years ago there was bi-partisan agreement to end the abuse. Then Jack Abramoff entered the picture. With the backing of Tom DeLay and the GOP he managed to protect a system based on the buying, selling and abusing human beings.

Now we have a chance to bring long overdue justice to the victims of DeLay's institutionalized sex abuse. It is called the Human Dignity Act.

Justice will not exist without our help. Find out more on the Jump.

Yesterday, Rep. George Miller and his colleagues introduced the Human Dignity Act. An online only Washington Post story reported on the event and why it matters:

House Democrats led by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) introduced legislation today to extend key federal controls over a U.S. territory in the western Pacific, renewing an effort that was blocked for years by lobbyist Jack Abramoff and once-powerful Texas Republican Tom DeLay. [snip]

As a lobbyist for the Northern Marianas government and, subsequently, the garment industry on the main island of Saipan, Abramoff enlisted DeLay and other Republican leaders in a battle against the Clinton administration, human rights groups, labor unions and a bipartisan group of lawmakers to preserve local control over immigration and the minimum wage.

In a 2001 pitch letter obtained by The Washington Post, Abramoff boasted to the then-governor of the commonwealth that his lobbying team had worked with DeLay and other congressional leaders to bottle up reform legislation, stymied the efforts of Republican critics such as former Sen. Frank Murkowski of Alaska and obtained "extra CNMI appropriations" from Congress for infrastructure projects on the islands of Tinian and Rota.

That last line is important. As I mentioned in a recent Diary, Ney's Aide Cops Plea = BIG trouble for the GOP, the DOJ investigation is focusing on the bribes paid to CNMI Legislators from Rota and Tinian in exchange for their support of DeLay's candidate for Speaker of the CNMI House. And here is Abramoff bragging about the payoff!

Congressman Miller drove home the point:

"For years, DeLay and Abramoff used their power and influence and corrupt practices to defend the indefensible," said Miller. "The House of Representatives failed to stop extraordinary abuses of poor women guest workers in the textile and tourism industries in the Marianas despite overwhelming evidence documented by the federal government, Congress, the news media and other sources."

DeLay and Abramoff arranged for appropriations, organized campaign contributions, led tour groups of members of Congress and their staff, and directed money to questionable charities to solidify their power in Washington. In doing so, they ignored well-documented threats to American security, criminal activity, violations of labor law, forced abortions, and human trafficking.

"They were running a protection racket," said Miller. "DeLay and Abramoff protected the Marianas garment industry from congressional scrutiny and were rewarded handsomely for it with trips, lucrative contracts, campaign money and more. The most exploited women in the world, and the American legislative process, paid the price.

"DeLay used his office to block Congress from considering our bipartisan reforms. He told key committee chairman not to hold hearings on these abuses. The bill we are introducing is a test of whether that protection racket continues today."

The protection of the abusive industries in the Mariana Islands was part of what the Washington Post recently described as a "criminal enterprise being run out of DeLay's leadership offices." DeLay extolled the Saipan garment industry as "a perfect petri dish of capitalism" that should be replicated in the mainland U.S. as well.

"I hope that the House Resources Committee will immediately schedule hearings on this legislation," Miller said. "Not only are the reforms needed to protect workers there, but they are needed so that Congress' overall changes to federal immigration law do not overlook this gaping opening that the Justice Department tells us can and will be exploited by organized crime and terrorists."

This MUST be passed.

Of course Richard Pombo stands in the way of the Human Dignity and this bill, but as he is a topic of U.S. District Court subpoenas he might have other things on his mind. He needs to be asked about this everywhere he drags his sorry ass.

And so does every Member of Congress who is not a co-sponsor of H.R. 5550: the Human Dignity Act. So for the only supporters I am sure of are:

Rep. George Miller (D-CA)
Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI)
Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-CA)
John Spratt (D-SC)

Every Democrat needs to be on this list. We need to activate the Netroots on this issue. Support for this bill is a core value. No excuses!

If your Congressman is not on the list let them know. Bug them. Demand they sign on to this effort. Everybody should have to go on the record to end a system based on the buying and selling of human beings. No excuses!

Let's return to the Washington Post article, for a moment, because Tom and Jack did more than act as pimps for the selling of women and children as sex toys. They also compromised the security of the USA:

DeLay is scheduled to step down Friday. He was among a number of lawmakers who traveled to the Northern Marianas on trips arranged by Abramoff. On one trip with his family and staffers over the 1997 New Year's holidays, he told his local hosts, "You are a shining light for what is happening to the Republican Party, and you represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America and leading the world in the free-market system." He later called the Northern Marianas "a perfect petri dish of capitalism," adding, "It's like my Galapagos Island."
At a news conference to publicize his bill, Miller also announced that he is releasing a May 2002 Justice Department report on the Marianas that he accused Abramoff of helping to suppress. The report found that continued local control over immigration would "seriously jeopardize the national security" of the United States. The two federal officials who wrote it were subsequently reassigned to lesser posts; one of them, who had initiated a criminal investigation into Abramoff's lobbying activities on Guam, was demoted from acting U.S. attorney for Guam and the CNMI to an assistant U.S. attorney under an appointee reportedly recommended by the Guam Republican Party and approved by top White House political strategist Karl Rove.

The release of the May 2002 Justice Department report on CNMI and Guam is BIG. As Sherlock Google's Diaries have detailed, Abramoff suppressed this report and had the authors re-assigned for doing their best to protect America.

The good folks over a TPMmuckraker have posted the 34 page report. It is a damning document, not only of DeLay and Abramoff, but also of George W. Bush and the entire Republican Party. They sold our security to protect DeLay's Petri-dish of Capitalism from oversight and justice.  I'll have more on this report in a few days.

I will miss the Yearly Kos, but I hope that those of you who are able to attend can bring up this issue. It is a wedge that can divide the GOP (this NPR report is very powerful!)

And it will energize our base. This is injustice on a massive scale. And we are initiating a solution.

We need to support the Human Dignity Act. Call, write, and release the Netroots-- everybody needs to take a stand.

We need to shame the GOP into action.

This should be a National campaign issue. The Republican Party has some explaining to do. They put the interests of their Hong Kong patrons ahead of justice and America.

They used their offices and positions to protect abuse and promote injustice. They put the Government of the United States of America in the business of supporting sweatshops, human trafficking, force prostitution and forced abortion. And they did it for money and power.

We need to talk about this. It needs to be a topic at Yearly Kos. We need to make this an issue for 2006. The more we talk about it the less likely it is that the Bush political appointees will be able to sweep the Abramoff/DeLay abuse investigation under the rug (once again).

Every member of the GOP Caucus who worked to block legislation extending US labor, immigration and custom laws to CNMI should be put on the defensive. The crimes were real and the evidence has been presented to Congress since before 1994. And the abuse continues to this very day. It is time to hold these folks accountable: both as co-conspirators and at the ballot box.

2006 is now. Let's take our Country back!

•  Shame on WAPO for printing Delay's garbage

  A spokeswoman for DeLay, Shannon Flaherty, responded in a statement, "It's clearly good news to Democrats that Tom DeLay is leaving the House because they hate free-market values and everyone who defends them. Bad news is, socialists like George Miller still won't win."

  WAPO should have made Delay respond to the documented disgraceful CNMI working conditions rather than printing his vile spew.

  At least the reporter contacted Ms. Magazine:

  "The situation has gotten even worse in some ways" since the 1990s, when attempts to impose federal controls were defeated by Abramoff and his allies, said Katherine Spillar, executive editor of Ms. Magazine, which recently investigated the conditions of foreign guest workers on Saipan.

  Spillar said the magazine, which is published by the Feminist Majority Foundation, found that unemployed garment workers on Saipan "increasingly are finding themselves trafficked into the sex industry there," along with women from Russia and other countries who were promised jobs in restaurants at U.S. wages only to end up forced into prostitution. She said the vast majority of sex workers on Saipan now are former garment workers.

  I agree that this legislation is long overdue and that all Dems should be proud to support it. It will also force the Republicans to put up or shut up on their faux "values".

  I really appreciate your excellent work on this issue. Thanks for another of your excellent diaries.

  by peraspera on Thu Jun 08, 2006 at 09:41:05 PM PDT

  •  The WP should report DeLay's

    pathetic spin. It was a great article on the subject and DeLay comes across as the evil bastard he is.

    The reporter, Bill Branigan, has been doing excellent work on this issue for more than a dozen years.

    by dengre on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 01:16:53 AM PDT

    •  Delays's cheap, nasty shot is completely

      . . . irrelevant to the story. If Delay could not address the charges made in the story that fact should have been stated rather than WAPO giving his vile invective print space in a paper of record. This results in normalizing such spew as being acceptable political discourse rather than marginalizing it.

      My beef is not with Branigan. It is with WAPO's and similar corporate media's editorial decisions that assume moral equivalence to to both sides of an argument no matter how revoltingly insane one side might be.

      by peraspera on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 12:06:43 PM PDT

•  Excellent Diary

  filled to the brim with content content and more content.

  by waitingforvizzini on Thu Jun 08, 2006 at 09:45:40 PM PDT

•  Seen the spin on the CA-11 primary?

  San Francisco Chronicle has me downright confused:

  Rather than proof of weakness, Rep. Richard Pombo's 62 percent- to-32 percent primary victory over former Rep. Pete McCloskey just as likely signaled how strong the seven-term Tracy Republican will run in November.
  ...
  "People can dream all they want but it was a pretty convincing win," said Wayne Johnson, Pombo's chief political consultant. "We stopped our advertising two weeks out because we didn't see what the point was."

  I coulda sworn that prognosticators never thought it was about McCloskey knocking Pombo off.  Instead they said that if McCloskey got 30%, Pombo was in trouble.  He did, and Pombo is - getting less than 2/3 of the Republican primary vote.

  Who is Bob Giroux anyhow?  Former may be the operative word in the following characterization (still the Chronicle):

  "Pombo won the primary by more 30 points. And for anyone who thinks that's a blow to him you have to look at Pete McCloskey," said Bob Giroux, a former Democratic campaign consultant, now lobbyist. "McCloskey was known in the district but he's also a legend. You could put him in San Bernardino and he'd still get 32 percent."

  How come The Economist, conservative publication from another continent, got it better?

  Similarly, the Republicans cannot feel entirely comfortable in California's 11th district. There Richard Pombo, an amply-financed seven-term incumbent with past ties to Mr Abramoff, handily defeated in the Republican primary Pete McCloskey, a 78-year-old former congressman who came out of retirement to attack Mr Pombo as a corrupt despoiler of the environment. But Mr Pombo, who was unopposed in the 2004 primary, appears to have won less than 63% of the vote, so he too will be vulnerable in November.

  by Land of Enchantment on Thu Jun 08, 2006 at 10:15:12 PM PDT

  •  Pombo has many things to worry about.

    There were more votes for somebody who is not Richard Pombo than votes for Pombo.

    And Dick Pombo has not had his moment in the scandal sun. It is coming. I know a few reporters who are looking into why The Marianas Variety reported in January that Pombo was tied to Abramoff's work for CNMI. Here is the little bombshell in the article that I have not seen reported on the mainland (emphasis added):

    The e-mails that have been subpoenaed by the U.S. District Court of the District of Colombia through Abramoff’s former employer, Greenberg Traurig, included that of garment magnate Willie Tan, former Gov. Froilan C. Tenorio, Gov.-elect Benigno R. Fitial, former Vice Speaker Alejo Mendiola, Rep. Norman Palacios, U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-California, the CNMI, Travel Subgroup, the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association, the Western Pacific Economic Council and Enron.

    Now there are literally dozens of GOP Congressmen involved with the Abramoff scandal and yet it was Pombo who made the cut. That oddity has made every journalist who reads the article curious about what Pombo did for the sweatshops and sexshops of Saipan.

    I am certain that the reasons why will break in the coming months.

    The CA-11 will be a GOP money pit for the midterms. And there is a very good chance that come January the District will be represented by Jerry McNerney.

    by dengre on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 01:13:36 AM PDT

    •  Must say...

      ...that the idea of having a professional wind power expert in Congress does have its appeal.  (Moreso than does, say, having a bunch of oil experts meeting secretly in a bunker private hunting estate somewhere with Dick Cheney.)

      by Land of Enchantment on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 06:14:41 AM PDT