 |
A lobbyist with close ties to the White House is offering access to key figures in George W Bush’s administration in return for six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush’s presidency.
Stephen Payne, who claims to have raised more than $1m for the president’s Republican party in recent years, said he would arrange meetings with Dick Cheney, the vice-president, Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, and other senior officials in return for a payment of $250,000 towards the library in Texas…
During an undercover investigation by The Sunday Times, Payne was asked to arrange meetings in Washington for an exiled former central Asian president. He outlined the cost of facilitating such access.
“The exact budget I will come up with, but it will be somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000, with about a third of it going directly to the Bush library,” said Payne, who sits on the US homeland security advisory council.He said initially that the “family” of the Asian politician should make the donation. He later added that if all the money was paid to him he would make the payment to the Bush library. Publicly, it would appear to have been made in the politician’s name “unless he wants to be anonymous for some reason”.
Payne said the balance of the $750,000 would go to his own lobbying company, Worldwide Strategic Partners.
Always a delight to follow neocon ethics as practiced by those close to the seat of power.
Ain’t it fun watching the hustlers being hustled?
We have sunk so low.
Wandering around, there’s cached video where Payne claims to have been Boy George’s handler during daddy’s campaigning trips.
And what exactly are they going to put on the shelves of the Bush library? Oh yeah, I know. “See spot run, run spot run.”
http://i35.tinypic.com/2ikaxxu.jpg
“Always a delight to follow neocon ethics as practiced by those close to the seat of power.”
Interesting. I was asked to donate $10k to Obama’s campaign and in return I could have dinner with him. Is it any different? Just wondering…
Paddy said: “Interesting. I was asked to donate $10k to Obama’s campaign and in return I could have dinner with him. Is it any different? Just wondering…”
Absolutely none. It’s politics and anyone who thinks that it’s holy or virtuous is, well, a politician.
#7 Oh, it was just the comment from Eideard, “Always a delight to follow neocon ethics as practiced by those close to the seat of power.”
made it seem like he didn’t know that’s how both parties do business. Maybe he’s just blindly partisan.
Paddy-O, Obama’s a neocon. And so is Bill Clinton.
Man this president is the worst ever, charging through the nose like that. How low our politics have sunk asking for hundreds of thousands just for access. For this money, the last president would have given you a pardon!
As sick as it is, we live in a world of coin-operated politicians. 😛
#10 Meeting with Cheney used to only cost ~$10k. This was back around 2002…
#12 – Paddy-O – Meeting with Cheney used to only cost ~$10k. This was back around 2002…
How much did it cost after Cheney shot Harry Whittington?
#13 “How much did it cost after Cheney shot Harry Whittington?”
Not many takers after that! LOL
# 11 Jägermeister said,
“Meeting with Cheney used to only cost ~$10k. This was back around 2002…”
Yet another indication of the falling value of the dollar…
I guess it’s all about access. How many preachers (on TV and otherwise) tell us if we give them money we’ll get to see God? Personally, I put more trust in (and gave more money to) the dealer with the bag of Lophophoria Williamsii to get me into The Presence (lo, these many, many years ago).
Nixon, 1973: “I am not a crook!”
Bush, 2008: “I am a crook. Screw yourself!”
Looks like George found Billy’s copy of “Library Funding for Dummies”
Just in time for Bastille Day?
If everybody on the take at the whitehouse and in Congress were put in jail I’m not sure anyone would be left to run the country.
I’d bet a riyal there is going to be a framed copy of My Pet Goat next to his flight suit.
I have been to the site of the future ‘Dubya Bush’ Presidential Library.
Easy to find:
Go down the hall then turn left. It’s right behind the door with a small man on the front. Third stall on the left. If you enter and you see some fingers poking out from under the next stall, you know that you are in the correct place. The thing floating in the toilet is Bush’s greatest legacy to America. You can read the sum of George ‘Dubya’ Bush’s wisdom on the walls.
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
— U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY)
And Lincoln was a Republican !!!
Funny. At work I had to take an exam / quiz on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). I think the USA needs this here at home and it should be called US-CPA. Every politician & business must adhere to it. Oh well.
These peeps should be tried for treason.
JimD,
That Lincoln quote is a well known fraud. Snopes lists it here
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln.asp
This is nothing new. Any U.S. politician, regardless of political affiliation and position, can be seen for the right amount of money. You just have to know the right people to talk to and have the right amount of money. This has been going for centuries and will continue.
I guess our courageous American journalists don’t work weekends.
The “official” TV talking heads have discovered the story, today – some even leading the hour with it.
Hardly anyone, yesterday, noticed that a conservative English newspaper snared this dude. Though, I imagine talk radio talking point fans will still prattle about this being a left-wing plot.
#26 – “Though, I imagine talk radio talking point fans will still prattle about this being a left-wing plot.”
I don’t how anyone could consider this to be a plot. It’s known by anyone with a brain that this
is common practice across the boards in Washington.
I’ve yet to see why this is a story at all.