Bob Schaffer's Handler is a Bald-Faced Liar and Should Be Ashamed of Himself

Dick Wadhams in regards to Jerry Tan, brother of Willie Tan and co-owner of Tan Holdings Corporation, et.al., and big donor to Bob Schaffer's congressional and 2004 Senate campaigns (watch the video):

There is no record of that...of I'm aware of...of that gentlemen being convicted or investigated for anything like that that I'm aware of.

The Weekly Standard:

Tan, the recipient of the largest labor fine in U.S. history, is a Chinese tycoon who owns clothing factories throughout the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory exempt from U.S. immigration, wage, and labor laws. Tan paid Abramoff millions of dollars to ensure that the exemption continued. And Abramoff was successful in doing just that. [emphasis supplied]

Jerry Tan's company, Tan Holdings, was fined 9 million Dollars for labor violations. Eric Singer, either you were lied to or you allowed Dick Wadhams to use truly Clinton-esque word gymnastics to wiggle out of the truth. You should follow up and set the record straight.

Sad

It's really disturbing how much the Republican Party has lost its way in Colorado. It's a party so bereft of ideas and talent that the best they can do is to call Mark Udall and those who support him names. Dick Wadhams thinks that if he says "Boulder liberal" enough, Mark Udall will turn to stone. And Ben DeGrow and his crew of College Republican chums call the Sierra Club "environmental extremists."

Note to Ben: ELF is an environmental extremist group.

The Sierra Club is to environmentalism as Lutherans are to Christianity. The Traditional Values Coalition, on the other hand, is to Christianity what ELF is to environmentalism.

Bob Schaffer has been chummy with Lou "Lucky Louie" Sheldon and the TVC since way back before their Saipan sweatshop and parasailing tour together. Bob Schaffer and his supporters are so extreme that they think anyone to their left is an extremist.

Blame the Victim, Kill the Messenger

That was Jack Abramoff's strategy on behalf of his sweatshop owner clients in the Northern Mariana Islands. After taking his $13,000 Jack Abramoff-financed parasailing junket to Saipan, the capital, Bob Schaffer gleefully implemented that strategy in Congress, going so far as to engage in witness intimidation the night before he was to testify at a Sept. 16, 1999 hearing, held in Washington even as most of the city had evacuated as a result of Hurricane Floyd. The witness was an indentured servant who had been rescued from his servitude by a human-rights organization and flown to Washington to share the plight of his fellow guest workers before Congress in hopes that people like Bob Schaffer would have a heart and actually do something. How naive he was, because Shaffer opened fire on him with both barrels.

Today, Schaffer is continuing to read from Jack Abramoff's playbook, attacking human rights champion Wendy Doromal. Today's story, an improvement over past articles in the Rocky Mountain News in that they actually spoke with people other than Dick Wadhams of the Schaffer campaign and Taylor west of the Udall campaign, fails to break much new ground in terms of information, but shines a bright light on Schaffer's strategy and intentions.

Schaffer's orders as a Congressman were to discredit the human rights workers, destroy the credibility of the victims of human rights abuse, and blame the whole thing on Bill Clinton. Today, the strategy is the same--discredit Wendy Doromal, cast aspersion on the victims of forced abortion, and blame the "left wing." Even today, Bob Schaffer continues to carry water for his sweatshop-baron benefactors--the ones who have given Schaffer over $30,000 either directly or via an Abramoff conduit such as the Traditional Values Coalition or disgraced former Rep. Tom DeLay.

Another Day, Another Sweatshop Schaffer Shocker

Last night, Talking Points Memo posted a story documenting Schaffer's long ties to Jack Abramoff's sweatshop industry clients that began with a Jack Abromoff-sponsored trip paid for by money funneled through supposedly Christian front-group Traditional Values Coalition.

This morning, the Denver Post piles on:

The two instances, in which Schaffer endorsed Fitial in ads in island newspapers, show that Schaffer has had close and enduring ties with key politicians on the American protectorate, extending relationships he developed while on a fact-finding mission there in August 1999. They also show that Schaffer was part of a concerted and public campaign by Republicans on the House Committee on Natural Resources to boost Fitial's public career when he became key to extending a multimillion-dollar lobbying contract for Abramoff from the island's government.

It strains credulity for anyone to claim Schaffer didn't know who Abramoff was, had never met him, or that Preston Gates was "just another lawfirm." Schaffer has still not denied any of the charges. In fact, Schaffer has yet to say one word about the controversy.

Dick Wadhams, on the other hand, is beside himself and can't seem to cough up a lucid quote. To the Post, his only response was that the Post was performing a "character assassination." We have news for Wadhams: you can't assassinate a character that is already dead. Schaffer committed character suicide by getting in bed with the sweatshop industry 10 years ago.

Not a Good Day for U.S. Senate Candidate Bob Schaffer

Last evening, smelling blood in the water, Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall picked up on the Denver Post's earlier reporting of Bob Schaffer holding the immigration system in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands out as a model for how he thinks the U.S. immigration system should work, and provided some background on how that really worked--women "getting beaten, raped or coerced into having abortions."

This morning, the Denver Post reported in a front page story about Bob Schaffer's Jack Abramoff ties and his so-called "fact-finding mission." Among the facts that Bob apparently found were that he looks really bad in shorts, parasailing is fun, and "palm-studded beach resort[s]" are more fun when his stay in one is free thanks to Jack Abramoff. The wife thought so too.

The Post can't drop a bombshell like that without the whole universe picking it up. It is literally a blogswarm of epic proportion. Later in the morning, TPM came out with this video as a brush-up on some of the history of the Abramoff scandal:



Then, outdoing themselves, TPM revealed further background on the implicit Abramoff-Schaffer connection via the explicit and very public connection between Schaffer and sweatshop executive and Abramoff crony Ben Fitial.

The story comes out more and more by the hour, and Schaffer has yet to say one word in his own defense. Things are not looking good for Bob Schaffer. Not good at all--nor should they; he's created a big mess for himself. Schaffer once commented that he was the Dr. Phil of the Republican Party.

Heal thyself, Dr. Phil.

Update: We almost missed the AP coverage with this gem from Dick Wadhams who (literally) sounds like a broken record:

"We do look forward to when Boulder liberal Udall has Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to Colorado for Boulder liberal Udall to defend Sen. Reid's involvement with Abramoff," he said.

Poor Dick sounds like he's just about over the edge.

Schaffer Shocker: New Revelations in Bob Schaffer/Jack Abramoff Scandal Story

And we thought investigative journalism was dead.

Intrepid Denver Post reporter Mike Riley has apparently been a busy bee. He snagged this picture of Schaffer parasailingfact-finding in Saipan. He's managed to blow open Bob Schaffer's ties to Jack Abramoff, and Schaffer has essentially no defense other than to claim what will very likely be disproven, and may have been already:

Opponents "are trying to leave the impression that Bob went gallivanting off to the Mariana Islands with Jack Abramoff, who Bob has never met, never talked to and wasn't even aware was around back then," [Schaffer Campaign Manager] Wadhams said.

But just below that in the article:

At the time, Schaffer's staff also flagged the role of Abramoff's firm in the Marianas trip. In an August 1999 memo, Schaffer was told that travel arrangements to the Mariana Islands had been made by Preston-Gates. Handwritten notes on the agenda point out that a lunch meeting was with several current or former clients of the firm, including the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association and the Western Pacific Economic Council.

How long do you suppose it is before Riley or another intrepid reporter or blogger turns up evidence to refute Wadhams' claims?

But let's keep our eyes on the meaning of this story. As commenter JohnSmith noted on the story:

Schaffer was there, the abuses were well-documented before he went and in the ten years since, and he still thinks it's a "model" system. Either he's still on the take from sweatshop owners in Saipan or he's completely in denial.

This is not a "Big Labor" dispute, this is an ongoing investigation by the federal government under both the Clinton and Bush administrations spanning over ten years, with mountains of documentary evidence. Ignorance is no excuse, so Schaffer's position must either be genuine or paid for. Either way, this story deserves further scrutiny.