Casino Lobbying and the pro-anti-casino-coalition

[richlevy]

I've placed a link to this article.

Summary - high-placed lobbyist for two Indian casinos donates money to conversative environment group and to Christian Coalition to target new Indian casinos while steering them away from his clients in an effort to derail a potential rival, the Jena indians.

Christian Coalition
Meanwhile, Abramoff opened a second front to bring outside pressure on Interior against the Jenas.

He looked to Reed, the former Christian Coalition leader who operated several consulting companies. Reed has acknowledged receiving as much as $4 million from Abramoff and his associate, Scanlon, to organize grass-roots anti-gambling campaigns in Louisiana and Texas. The money came from casino-rich Indian tribes, including the Coushattas, but Reed said that although he knew of Abramoff's connection to the tribes, he did not know until media accounts surfaced last summer that his fees came from gambling proceeds.

Reed then turned to Dobson to marshal his vast network of evangelicals, Abramoff's e-mails show.

Abramoff wrote to Scanlon in a Feb. 20, 2002, e-mail that Dobson would make radio ads against gambling. Reed "may finally have scored for us! Dobson goes up on the radio on this next week!" He suggested giving Reed $60,000 for the ads to run in Louisiana and Texas. "We'll then play it in the WH [White House] and Interior," he told Scanlon.

And they wonder why we are cynical. I want to wash my eyes after reading the article.

The fun thing about this is that someone leaked all of these e-mails to the Washington Post.

Can anyone say "Casinogate"?

Oh, and the FBI is investigating.

It also appears the Jena indians hired their own high-powered lobbyists and got support from their own Republican senators to match forces with Abramoffs hired guns.

Wow, this is like a modern-day episode of "Deadwood". Of course, in "Deadwood", at least one crooked politician got his throat cut.