The Bobcat Nation

OK a Burns / Abramoff poll for those of us who can vote, sorry Swilly .

The poll question is relatively easy, if Burns actually is indicted in this Abramoff deal would you vote for him this small. Before anyone jumps on my case I will acknowledge that even an indictment does mean Burns is guilty of anything, under the presumed innocence theory.

mslacat wrote:OK a Burns / Abramoff poll for those of us who can vote, sorry Swilly .

The poll question is relatively easy, if Burns actually is indicted in this Abramoff deal would you vote for him this small. Before anyone jumps on my case I will acknowledge that even an indictment does mean Burns is guilty of anything, under the presumed innocence theory.

??

Hell's
Can I help you with something

mslacat wrote:Hell's
Can I help you with something

typo i belive...

I think he wants you to add "not" to the sentence he highlighted.

Also, given that, as you've acknowledged, an indictment alone does not establish guilt, might it not make sense to add "Would not vote for him if convicted of a crime" as an option?

Grizlaw wrote:I think he wants you to add "not" to the sentence he highlighted.

Also, given that, as you've acknowledged, an indictment alone does not establish guilt, might it not make sense to add "Would not vote for him if convicted of a crime" as an option?

My thoughts were that if Burns was indicted, by the time it reached court and verdict reached, we would be well past the November election. By the same token though, is the arguement that "well he has not actually been convicted" as setting the bar a little low in my opinion. Plus Burn's folks keep reminding the media outlets Conrad has not been indicted.

mslacat wrote:

Grizlaw wrote:I think he wants you to add "not" to the sentence he highlighted.

Also, given that, as you've acknowledged, an indictment alone does not establish guilt, might it not make sense to add "Would not vote for him if convicted of a crime" as an option?

My thoughts were that if Burns was indicted, by the time it reached court and verdict reached, we would be well past the November election. By the same token though, is the arguement that "well he has not actually been convicted" as setting the bar a little low in my opinion. Plus Burn's folks keep reminding the media outlets Conrad has not been indicted.

actually it sets the bar just about right for now. what if he is not indited? although i will be surprised if he isnt.

What's not to like? Our Federal gubmint is run by crony-ism. We'll vote out our cronies, when all the other States agree to do the same.

I'd rather have a good crony as opposed to a stupid crony....not sure which definition applies to Burns and Baucus...kinda scary, really.

Bleedinbluengold wrote:What's not to like? Our Federal gubmint is run by crony-ism. We'll vote out our cronies, when all the other States agree to do the same.

I'd rather have a good crony as opposed to a stupid crony....not sure which definition applies to Burns and Baucus...kinda scary, really.

as long as they need massive amounts of money to run a campaign we will see this type of paying off of officials...

On Air America this morning there was a Montana State senator from Browing talking about her frustrations with Burns, she (and others) have been lobbying him for 8 years to get a new High School (I believe) in Browing with no luck. Abarmoff hits Burns up, dumps some cash on him, and Conrad champions getting a new school built in Michigan on tribal land. Frustrating stuff, he can be bought to give Michigan kids a new school but has let Browing's requests fall on deaf ears for 8 years now, ugh...

Re/Max Griz wrote:On Air America this morning there was a Montana State senator from Browing talking about her frustrations with Burns, she (and others) have been lobbying him for 8 years to get a new High School (I believe) in Browing with no luck. Abarmoff hits Burns up, dumps some cash on him, and Conrad champions getting a new school built in Michigan on tribal land. Frustrating stuff, he can be bought to give Michigan kids a new school but has let Browing's requests fall on deaf ears for 8 years now, ugh...

Air America Re/Max!!! You better watch it I believe they can take away your Realtor status for listening to that Liberal schtuff.

BTW What good is having a well seated crony-ism Senator when he is more interested in helping Michigan voters than Montana Voters

Oh man I am going to get audited this year for that comment!!

How come everyone is talking about Conrad Burns with this issue? Everyone needs to know that Max Baucus also took money from Abramoff. I think he needs to be in question with this issue as well.

longhorn_22 wrote:How come everyone is talking about Conrad Burns with this issue? Everyone needs to know that Max Baucus also took money from Abramoff. I think he needs to be in question with this issue as well.

One of the things that helps Burns is that almost every politition in Washington has recieved a donation from Abramoff. What they say is the difference between those that are getting in trouble and the rest is whether is the amounts of the donations (Burns over all is very high), is there an appearance that after recieveing a donation did the senator seem to change their vote to favor an Abramoff client (again their is the appearance of such in the Burns case). There is also a paid speaking engagements and Junkets for member of congress with the lobbiests that have come under scrutiny. Additionally there is an amazing amount of former staffers of congressmen that are offered and take high paying jobs with the lobbiest or there clients.
The difference seems to be, just recieving $20,000 as a campain donation does not put you under suspision. It is if donations can be linked to voting and are some of the other "perks" skirting legal issues.

Baucus took $18,892 from Abramoff.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20051220/D8EJLGF03.html

Burns took $150,000.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01732.html

Both are donating it all to charity.

Looks like Burns could be in trouble, however, because he did change his position on a bill after receiving some money from an Abramoff cleint.
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.ph ... nation.inc

This is slightly OT, but as I read the Gazette article that Stevicat posted the link to, there is one thing that jumped out at me that I've noticed in a few other articles since this issue has arisen. The article mentions the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post articles that cited Burns as one of four members that is under investigation, while pointing out that those articles relied on anonymous sources for their information. The Burns camp, on the other hand, takes the position that they have not been contacted by Justice, and that to their knowledge, there is no investigation. Reading between the lines slightly, it seems to me that they are trying to paint this as another witch hunt by the evil "liberal media."

That is well and good, except for one thing: The Wall Street Journal is, by and large, a very conservative publication. Don't get me wrong; when I say it's "conservative," I don't mean "conservative" like it's a dirty word. The WSJ is the newspaper that I personally subscribe to; I read most of it every day, and I have a great deal of respect for it as a news source. However, its editorial board is definitely conservative; nobody could possibly read its editorial page on a daily basis and disagree with me on that.

I guess what it comes down to for me is that I don't know what happened with Burns; I don't know what can or can't be proven or how any of this will shake out in the end. But when the Wall Street Journal is the first publication to run a story that calls into question the ethics of Republicans on Capitol Hill, I certainly wouldn't dismiss it as a media witch hunt.

--GL