Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff and a plan for "mortgaging old black people"

[CatWoman]

Ralph Reed, the lobbyist and former Christian Coalition leader, will be on the ballot in Georgia next week as Republicans choose their candidate to become the state's next lieutenant governor.

Someone else is on the ballot, too: Jack Abramoff.

Abramoff isn't running for anything; he's working with federal investigators while waiting for his prison term to begin. But Reed's opponent in Georgia, state Sen. Casey Cagle, is making Reed's close relationship with Abramoff an issue in the race, and news events are certainly helping his cause. On Wednesday, a Texas Indian tribe filed a lawsuit alleging that Abramoff, Reed and others engaged in acts of fraud and racketeering in trying to shut down their casino. And earlier today, GQ began distributing an advance look at a new report on the Reed-Abramoff relationship -- one that says that Reed expressed interest in an Abramoff scheme to profit from the deaths of members of African-American churches.

Abramoff had tried to pull off a similar scheme with one of the Indian tribes he represented. As Sean Flynn explains it in GQ, Abramoff once suggested to the leaders of the Tigua tribe that he take out a life insurance policy on each of the tribe's elders, with the proceeds set to go to a Washington-area private school Abramoff had founded. Under Abramoff's plan, the school would then pass the money along to him as payment for lobbying on the tribe's behalf. The tribe didn't go for it, Flynn says; a tribe member says it "felt uncomfortable."

But Abramoff didn't give up hope. Four months after pitching the plan to the Tiguas, Flynn says, Abramoff sent an e-mail to Reed in which he proposed something called the "Black Churches Insurance Program." The details of the program have been lost -- the document attached to Abramoff's e-mail to Reed has disappeared -- but Flynn figures it was pretty much the same deal as Abramoff had concocted for his tribal client. "Yeah," a former associate of Reed's tells Flynn, "it sounds like Jack approached Reed about mortgaging old black people."

Whatever the plan was, Reed seemed enthusiastic at the time. "Yes, it looks interesting," he wrote in a follow-up e-mail message to Abramoff. "I assume you'll set up a meeting in DC as a next step, or whatever we should do next, let me know."

Asked to comment on the plan, a Reed spokeswoman initially told Flynn that his sources were "wrong." A day later, she seemed to acknowledge -- at least implicitly -- that Abramoff had proposed such a project. She said that "no meeting took place to discuss the proposed project" and that Reed had "no involvement whatsoever in marketing such policies to African-American churches."

Will any of it matter to Georgia Republicans? Maybe so. As NBC News reports, the Reed-Cagle race is a dead heat just now, having tightened considerably after Cagle began running a TV spot highlighting Reed's connections to Abramoff.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/

[Cyrano]

1. No matter how despicable we find these people to be, they always

outdo our expectations. It's virtually impossible to imagine the depth of the sewer from which they crawled.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Jesus H. Christ.

This is the worst thing they've done since they foreclosed on a Catholic orphanage, after successfully intercepting a pair of career criminals en route to Chicago with the mortgage money.


Ralph Reed, visiting on campaign tour.

[CatWoman]

3. "I have always loved you"

:rofl:

[AndyTiedye]

4. Why Is It Even Close? Why Would ANYONE Vote For Reed?

Surely even the Fundies know he's been buying and selling their votes.

Why isn't he in prison?

[rhymeinreason]

5. As someone who grew up a white Southern Baptist and occasionally went

to black churches (they were much more fun!) this makes me no end of angry. After the giant red cloud over my head cleared, I emailed the few Georgia cousins I have (some red, some blue), and then I emailed Countdown with Keith Olbermann. The subject of the post was "If this doesn't qualify for "Worst person in the World', I don't know what does".

I summarized, then linked to Salon and concluded with:

"If these allegations are true, then Dante should return so he can describe a new addition to the eighth circle of hell ( It's for those who commit deliberate fraud). I have no way of independently checking any of the facts, but NBC News has resources I that I do not."

I don't post much, and I don't email much except to family, but this really got me going.

[CatWoman]

6. thanks for the thoughtful post, rhymeinreason

:hi:

[KamaAina]

7. Sounds like Wal-Mart's "peasant insurance"

in which the giant, inherently evil retailer would take out life insurance policies on their employees (you remember, the ones largely without adequate health coverage) without their knowledge, with Wal-Mart itself as the beneficiary!

[David Zephyr]

8. Kick.

n/t

[rhymeinreason]

9. I emailed Countdown re: Worst Person in the World

I got back the standard reply. Feh!
I emailed them back.

Hello:
Thank you for YOUR email.

I've never emailed a news organization before but I felt Georgia voters might want to know how tawdry and corrupt their possible choice for Lt Governor might be before they go to the polls. I am not a Georgian; nor am I black , but I was raised in a Southern church and I know the strong influence the church exerts on people.

It is wrong to profit from the death of another for one's own gain.

Please pay attention to this story.


Now, if anyone cares, I might relate the story of my life in relation to the Southern Baptist Church at another time, but for now, I'll just let you know if Countdown sends me anything other than a pro forma post.