Today's Cartoon and Reading: The Republican Grift Grows

(click to enlarge)

(Jen Sorensen, via gocomics.com;  www.jensorensen.com)

As we continue to pay the price for the Citizens United and Hobby Lobby decisions (among the most egregious), and as we watch the grifts of penny-ante con artists like Sarah "Word Salad Shooter" Palin, Charles P. Pierce musters two recent examples of Republican wingnut fraud and corruption on a somewhat larger scale.  First, there's a tea party-linked scheme con group named "Move Forward America" that runs its grift at the expense of American soldiers:

In a fundraising email sent earlier this year, the charity included a photograph of a smiling soldier holding up a care package, his uniform nametag smudged out. But Move America Forward had taken the picture, which originally featured four other soldiers alongside the one in the email, from the website of the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs. The soldiers were in Iraq, and not, as Move America's email suggested, in Afghanistan. And the package the soldier held was not from Move America Forward. (our emphasis)

Then there's this fraud (reported by Politico and picked up by Mr. Pierce, Digby and others) perpetrated by a scheme con group called the Republican State Leadership  Committee:

Never disclosed until now, the document detailed an investigation into alleged misconduct by multiple RSLC officials during the crucial 2010 election cycle: It charged that national RSLC leaders conspired improperly with the leader of the Alabama Republican Party to use the RSLC as a pass-through for controversial Indian tribe donations, essentially laundering “toxic” money from the gaming industry by routing it out of state and then back into Alabama.  (our emphasis)

If you don't recognize in this the clear outlines of the Jack Abramoff/ Ralph Reed money laundering scandals from about a decade ago, you may have been born yesterday, or you're a die-hard Republican (same diff).

As Mr. Pierce points out, none of this should surprise us, because

(A) "... a substantial portion of the unofficial Republican party -- and of the movement conservatism that is its primary fuel -- exists primarily as a means for people to make comfortable careers out of fleecing the rubes, the country and their party be damned;" and

(B) "This is yet another example of what happens to democracy when Anthony Kennedy has a bad day on the bench. It opens up the whole system not only to the defrauding of the people through the corruption of their elections, but also opens it up to the kind of basic fraud customary to those who run telemarketing scams and real-estate schemes."  (our emphasis)

And More from the Rethug Crime Blotter

A sobbing J. Steven Griles, former Bush Assministration Deputy Secretary of the Interior, was sentenced yesterday to 10 months in prison for obstructing an investigation into the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling, Rethug pocket-lining scandal. Griles is the highest ranking Assministration official (so far) to be convicted in the l'affaire Abramoff. After Griles read his less-than-contrite statement to Judge Ellen Huvelle, she chastised him, saying, "Even now, you continue to minimize and try to excuse your conduct." She then gave him twice as much time in the slammer as prosecutors had recommended. Heh-heh.

Slammer Time

Two items hot off the police blotter this afternoon:

Well, Heiress Paris is going back to jail to serve the remainder of her sentence for probation violation. This follows a tsunami of outrage that washed across the nation after yesterday's decision by the LA County Sheriff to release Heiress Paris after serving only 5 (though we only counted 3) days of confinement. (Does this mean they have to give her another cavity search? Ouch!) At the hearing today, she cried and screamed "It's not right! Mom!" as the sentence was reimposed on her clueless, privileged heinie.

Also, Italia Federici, the head of a Rethug "environmental advocacy group" (an oxymoron if there ever was one), pleaded guilty to tax evasion and obstructing a Senate inquiry on her role as a bag lady between Jack Abramoff and J. Steven Griles, former Deputy Interior Secretary in the Bush Assministration. It is fondly hoped that Ms. Federici, who was also Mr. Griles' paramour, will sing long and loud in the period between now and her expected sentencing date in the fall, and we'll see more Rethugs doing slammer time.