{"id":66979,"date":"2005-11-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-11-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2005\/11\/03\/anatomie-impitoyable-du-systeme-rove-gw-le-capitalisme-des-copains-qui-a-parfois-des-allures-leninistes-par-sidney-blumenthal\/"},"modified":"2005-11-03T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-11-03T00:00:00","slug":"anatomie-impitoyable-du-systeme-rove-gw-le-capitalisme-des-copains-qui-a-parfois-des-allures-leninistes-par-sidney-blumenthal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2005\/11\/03\/anatomie-impitoyable-du-systeme-rove-gw-le-capitalisme-des-copains-qui-a-parfois-des-allures-leninistes-par-sidney-blumenthal\/","title":{"rendered":"Anatomie impitoyable du syst\u00e8me Rove-GW, le \u201ccapitalisme des copains\u201d qui a parfois des allures l\u00e9ninistes, \u2014 par Sidney Blumenthal<\/em><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anatomie impitoyable du syst\u00e8me Rove-GW, le capitalisme des copains qui a parfois des allures l\u00e9ninistes, par Sidney Blumenthal<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tVoici un texte extr\u00eamement complexe mais tr\u00e8s int\u00e9ressant et instructif de Sidney Blumenthal, ancien conseiller de Clinton, r\u00e9dacteur en chef de Salon.com, formidable connaisseur de la vie politique de Washington et excellent analyste des rouages du syst\u00e8me. Il constitue une critique impitoyable et extr\u00eamement acerbe de la politique \u00e9conomique de l’administration GW Bush. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tL’originalit\u00e9 de l’analyse de Blumenthal est qu’elle assimile cette politique \u00e9conomique aussi bien au syst\u00e8me capitaliste que, \u00e0 certains \u00e9gards, au l\u00e9ninisme ; pr\u00e9sentant du coup, les travers propres \u00e0 ces deux id\u00e9ologies. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSyst\u00e8me capitaliste d’une part et m\u00eame, comme certains l’appellent, \u00ab capitalisme de copinage \u00bb ( crony capitalism<\/em>, litt\u00e9ralement \u00ab capitalisme des copains \u00bb). Syst\u00e8me par cons\u00e9quent d\u00e9fini par une course effr\u00e9n\u00e9e au profit, la corruption v\u00e9nale et psychologique, les pressions en tous genres, syst\u00e8me infest\u00e9 par des agents d’influence par milliers (34 750 engeristr\u00e9s en tout d’apr\u00e8s le Washington Post<\/em>), le lobbying etc. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSyst\u00e8me l\u00e9niniste d’autre part, caract\u00e9ris\u00e9 par l’hyper-centralisation du pouvoir, des moyens et de l’argent aux mains d’un petit nombre de personnes (du parti r\u00e9publicain, cela va de soi) formant une v\u00e9ritable oligarchie, un parti unique r\u00e9gnant sur Washington. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCette oligarchie cr\u00e9e ce que l’on appelle des \u00ab oligopoles \u00bb, c’est-\u00e0-dire des rassemblements de puissances monopolistiques. L’oligarchie accorde des faveurs (contrats juteux, rel\u00e2chement des lois et des r\u00e9glementations) \u00e0 des grandes soci\u00e9t\u00e9s ou entreprises en \u00e9change de quoi ces soci\u00e9t\u00e9s ou entreprises financent l’oligarchie. Chaque ann\u00e9e, les soci\u00e9t\u00e9s de m\u00e9dia, les compagnies de t\u00e9l\u00e9phone et de cable TV satellite, l’industrie pharmaceutique d\u00e9pensent des millions de dollars en lobbying. L’argent public, au lieu d’\u00eatre utilis\u00e9 dans des services publiques comme il devrait l’\u00eatre (soins de sant\u00e9, \u00e9coles, am\u00e9lioration du niveau de vie, etc) est centralis\u00e9 par l’oligarchie puis r\u00e9inject\u00e9 dans ces firmes priv\u00e9es devenues amies pour des contrats juteux. Pour prendre un exemple concret, c’est de cette mani\u00e8re que la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Halliburton se retrouve \u00e0 la t\u00eate de la reconstruction de la Nouvelle-Orl\u00e9ans. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSidney Blumenthal nous fait bien comprendre combien ce syst\u00e8me est quelque chose de radicalement nouveau et r\u00e9volutionnaire. Ce syst\u00e8me est effectivement la cristallisation, la cons\u00e9cration d’une tendance n\u00e9e il y a une trentaine d’ann\u00e9es, sous la pr\u00e9sidence Nixon. [En r\u00e9alit\u00e9, cette tendance n’est pas le fait de Nixon lui-m\u00eame, mais c’est sous Nixon que fut r\u00e9dig\u00e9 le LIEN=http:\/\/www.dedefensa.org\/article.php?art_id=353>\u00ab Manifeste Powell \u00bb. Le \u00ab Manifeste Powell \u00bb \u00e9tablit la mani\u00e8re dont le Big Business am\u00e9ricain r\u00e9agit devant ce qu’il jugeait \u00eatre une d\u00e9gration de la situation civique (activisme politique des ann\u00e9es 60, d\u00e9gradation des murs, impopularit\u00e9 des valeurs \u00e9conomiques classiques, activisme anti-corporate<\/em>) et d\u00e9cida de reprendre en mains le pouvoir au travers d’un cadre id\u00e9ologique et \u00e9conomique r\u00e9tablissant la ligitimit\u00e9 du corporate system<\/em>. C’est sous Reagan que le corporate system<\/em> et les int\u00e9r\u00eats priv\u00e9s firent r\u00e9ellement irruption dans la sph\u00e8re du pouvoir et dans l’\u00e9volution \u00e9conomique, id\u00e9ologique et politique du pays.] Cette tendance a atteint son apoth\u00e9ose avec l’administration Bush, lequel n’est qu’un \u00e9lement parmi d’autres, une marionnette \u00e0 la solde du syst\u00e8me Blumenthal met \u00e9galement en \u00e9vidence le cot\u00e9 compl\u00e8tement in\u00e9dit de ce syst\u00e8me qui agit \u00e0 ciel ouvert, qui affiche d’une fa\u00e7on si absolument impudente mais peut-\u00eatre paradoxalement innoncente sa volont\u00e9 d’utiliser l’argent, la corruption, les pressions, etc. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tVoici un passage qui r\u00e9sume la description faite par Blumenthal.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t For 30 years, beginning with the Nixon presidency, advanced under Reagan, stalled with the elder Bush, a new political economy struggled to be born. The idea was pure and simple: centralization of power in the hands of the Republican Party would ensure that it never lost it again. Under George W. Bush, this new system reached its apotheosis. It is a radically novel social, political and economic formation that deserves study alongside capitalism and socialism. Neither Adam Smith nor Vladimir Lenin captures its essence, though it has far more elements of Leninist democratic-centralism than Smithian free markets. Some have referred to this model as crony capitalism; others compare the waste, extravagance and greed to the Gilded Age. Call it 21st century Republicanism.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t(…)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe party runs the state. Politics drives economics. Important party officials are also economic operators. They thrive off their connections and rise in the party apparatus as a result of their self-enrichment. The past three chairmen of the Republican National Committee have all been Washington lobbyists.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAn oligarchy atop the party allocates favors. Behind the ideological slogans about the \u00a0\u00bbfree market\u00a0\u00bb and \u00a0\u00bbliberty,\u00a0\u00bb the oligarchy creates oligopolies. Businesses must pay to play. They must kick back contributions to the party, hire its key people and support its program. Only if they give do they receive tax breaks, loosening of regulations and helpful treatment from government professionals.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tA noter aussi : Blumenthal \u00e9tudie \u00e9galement dans cet article le r\u00f4le de Tom Delay, ancien chef de la majorit\u00e9 r\u00e9publicaine \u00e0 la Chambre qui a d\u00e9missionn\u00e9 il y a peu sous le coup de deux inculpations pour corruption et blanchiment d’argent. Delay est un homme impitoyable et radical qui joue un r\u00f4le essentiel au coeur de la machine r\u00e9publicaine et qui utilise \u00e0 fond toutes les m\u00e9thodes du copinage<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tNotes de lectures par Fanny CORNIL<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Fall of the Rovean Empire?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tBy Sidney Blumenthal, Truthout.com (Salon.com), Thursday 06 October 2005<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tDrunk on power, the Republican oligarchs overreached. Now their entire project could be doomed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tPresident Bush departs the White House with his Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, right, on July 14, 2005.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t(Photo: Ron Edmonds \/ AP Photo) <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tFor 30 years, beginning with the Nixon presidency, advanced under Reagan, stalled with the elder Bush, a new political economy struggled to be born. The idea was pure and simple: centralization of power in the hands of the Republican Party would ensure that it never lost it again. Under George W. Bush, this new system reached its apotheosis. It is a radically novel social, political and economic formation that deserves study alongside capitalism and socialism. Neither Adam Smith nor Vladimir Lenin captures its essence, though it has far more elements of Leninist democratic-centralism than Smithian free markets. Some have referred to this model as crony capitalism; others compare the waste, extravagance and greed to the Gilded Age. Call it 21st century Republicanism.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAt its heart the system is plagued by corruption, an often unpleasant peripheral expense that greases its wheels. But now multiple scandals engulfing Republicans – from suspended House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff to White House political overlord Karl Rove – threaten to upend the system. Because it is organized by politics it can be undone by politics. Politics has been the greatest strength of Republicanism, but it has become its greatest vulnerability.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe party runs the state. Politics drives economics. Important party officials are also economic operators. They thrive off their connections and rise in the party apparatus as a result of their self-enrichment. The past three chairmen of the Republican National Committee have all been Washington lobbyists.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAn oligarchy atop the party allocates favors. Behind the ideological slogans about the \u00a0\u00bbfree market\u00a0\u00bb and \u00a0\u00bbliberty,\u00a0\u00bb the oligarchy creates oligopolies. Businesses must pay to play. They must kick back contributions to the party, hire its key people and support its program. Only if they give do they receive tax breaks, loosening of regulations and helpful treatment from government professionals.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThose professionals in the agencies and departments who insist on adhering to standards other than those imposed by the party are fired, demoted and blackballed. The oligarchy wars against these professionals to bend government purely into an instrument of oligopolies.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCorporations pay fixed costs in the form of legal graft to the party in order to suppress the market, drastically limiting competitive pressure. Then they collude to control prices, create cartels and reduce planning primarily to the political game. The larger consequences are of no concern whatsoever to the corporate players so long as they maintain access to the political players.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe sums every industry, from financial services to computers, spends on lobbying are staggering. Broadcast media firms spent $35.88 million in 2004 alone on lobbyists in Washington, according to the Center for Public Integrity. Telephone companies spent $71.97 million; cable and satellite TV corporations, $20.22 million. The drug industry during the same period shelled out $123 million to pay 1,291 lobbyists, 52 percent of them former government officials. The results have been direct: The Food and Drug Administration has been reduced to a hollow shell, and Medicare can’t negotiate lower drug costs with pharmaceutical companies. In the 2004 election cycle, the drug industry paid out $87 million in campaign contributions for federal officials, 69 percent of them flowing to Republicans.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWhereas almost all lobbying before the Bush era was confined to Capitol Hill, now one in five lobbyists approaches the White House directly. Consider the success story of one Kirk Blalock, a former aide to Karl Rove as deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison, where he coordinated political links to the business community. Now, one year out of the White House, he’s a senior partner in the lobbying firm of Fierce, Isakowitz and Blalock, boasting 33 major clients, 22 for whom he lobbies his former colleagues in the White House. Indeed, the Bush White House boasts 12 former lobbyists in responsible positions, from chief of staff Andrew Card (American Automobile Association Manufacturers) on down.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbThe number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled since 2000 to more than 34,750,\u00a0\u00bb reports the Washington Post, \u00a0\u00bbwhile the amount that lobbyists charge their new clients has increased by as much as 100 percent.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tMacro- and microeconomic policies are subordinate to the circular alliance of oligarchy and oligopoly. Government expenditures have raced to the fastest pace of increase under Bush since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. But the spending is not intended to prime the economic pump. Nor is it invested mainly in public goods such as infrastructure or schools; nor is it used to expand the standard of living of the middle and working classes, whose incomes and real wages are rapidly shrinking. Instead it is poured into military contracts and tax cuts heavily weighted to the very wealthiest, who do not in turn invest in productive capital. As a result, the largest budget surplus in U.S. history has been transformed into the largest deficit, whose bonds are principally held by Asian banks, a shift that presages a strategic tilt of global power and long-term threat to national security. The illusion that as the post-Cold War unipolar power the U.S. faces no countervailing forces is undermined by the administration’s constantly draining deficits. Thus 21st century Republicanism reverses the policies that brought about the American century.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tUnder Ronald Reagan, the unanticipated consequences of supply-side economics – instead of tax cuts fostering increased government revenues, they blew a black hole in the budget – has under Bush been a conscious policy following the Reagan lesson. The reason is to apply fiscal pressure on government, making its regulations more pliable for manipulation in the interest of oligopoly and therefore the Republican political class. Just as macroeconomic policy is the plaything of politics, so is microeconomic policy. Environmental degradation, lowered public health and urban neglect are indifferent byproducts.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe Republican system is fundamentally unstable. Bush has no economic policy other than Republicanism. As the economic currents run toward an indefinable reckoning, the ship of state drifts downstream.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIn stable systems, individuals are replaceable parts. Republicanism as constructed under Bush is a juggernaut that cannot afford to scrape an iceberg.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe Republican scandals converge on operators who are the center of the oligarchy. Their own relationships are complicated and tangled. But the outcome of the scandals affecting these major actors will inevitably unravel the Republican project.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tOn Monday, Tom DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury for money laundering of corporate contributions through his political action committee, a crime that carries a life sentence. DeLay had resigned on Sept. 28 as House majority leader after being handed his first indictment for felony conspiracy. Even as DeLay proclaimed himself a victim of injustice – \u00a0\u00bbI am indicted just for the reason to make me step aside as majority leader\u00a0\u00bb – he proclaimed that he would rule \u00a0\u00bbwith or without the title.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAs DeLay shouts defiance, federal prosecutors close in on one of DeLay’s \u00a0\u00bbclosest and dearest friends,\u00a0\u00bb Jack Abramoff, whose largess to DeLay over the years, including lavish trips to Korea and Britain, are part of the investigation. Abramoff’s bilking of millions from Indian tribes has brought other Republican figures, including lobbyist Grover Norquist, a key DeLay advisor, and Ralph Reed, a central character in the religious right, under legal scrutiny.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAt the same time, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, investigating the exposure by senior administration officials of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, has completed his inquiry by receiving the testimony of New York Times reporter Judith Miller, and must issue any indictments before his grand jury expires on Oct. 28. Within the White House, Karl Rove, feverishly mustering wavering conservative support for Bush’s nomination of his personal lawyer and White House legal counsel, Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Court, awaits.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBush never much liked DeLay. DeLay criticized Bush’s father, for which there can be no forgiveness, and he criticized him, too. When DeLay wanted to slash the earned-income tax credit, Gov. Bush, beginning his presidential campaign in 1999 and seeking to establish his bona fides as a \u00a0\u00bbcompassionate conservative,\u00a0\u00bb said DeLay wanted to balance the budget \u00a0\u00bbon the backs of the poor.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tDeLay, the former exterminator from Sugar Land, Texas, a suburb of Houston, who had called the Environmental Protection Agency \u00a0\u00bbthe Gestapo,\u00a0\u00bb had risen from the Texas Legislature to the U.S. Congress. Once known for his boisterous reveling as \u00a0\u00bbHot Tub\u00a0\u00bb Tom, he became born again, and his right-wing politics always had a forbidding punitive undercurrent. When he became Republican whip, he hung a whip on his office wall. He relished his nickname, \u00a0\u00bbthe Hammer.\u00a0\u00bb Asked to put out his cigar in a restaurant because it violated the nonsmoking rule, he bellowed, \u00a0\u00bbI am the federal government.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tDeLay never really respected Newt Gingrich, who had led the Republicans out of their 40-year wilderness to control of Congress and become speaker of the House. Despite Gingrich’s penchant for vituperative personal attacks on Democrats, DeLay thought he was soft. There was something of the lost boy about Gingrich, who collected dinosaur bones, loved to visit zoos and speculated about outer space. DeLay also felt that Gingrich had fallen under the seductive spell of President Clinton and conceded too much to him. DeLay plotted coups against Gingrich and finally succeeded after the Republicans lost seats in the 1998 midterm elections. DeLay worried that Gingrich would weaken in the struggle to impeach and remove Clinton, and because of Gingrich’s mistress on the House payroll, which made him doubly vulnerable. DeLay coerced House Republicans to impeach Clinton, threatening moderates that he would fund primary opponents and deny them advantageous committee assignments. Without DeLay, there would have been no impeachment. After the Senate acquitted Clinton, DeLay preached at his local church that Clinton had been impeached because he had \u00a0\u00bbthe wrong worldview.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t The center of DeLay’s operation was the K Street Project, the pay-for-play system by which businesses and lobbyists kicked back to the Republican Party in exchange for legislation. He kept a little black book noting which lobbyists were good and which were bad, who deserved favors and who punishment. One reporter, believing that the story about the black book was apocryphal, asked DeLay, who proudly showed it to him.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tOf all the lobbyists on the good list, Jack Abramoff ranked at the top. Abramoff’s provenance as a scion of Beverly Hills, Calif., could not have been more fortuitous for a career in the Republican Party. His father was president of the Diners Club franchises, owned by Alfred Bloomingdale, a member of Ronald Reagan’s kitchen cabinet. Abramoff parlayed his connections and money into a campaign that gained him the chairmanship of the College Republicans in 1981, Year 1 of the Reagan era.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAbramoff’s campaign manager was a radical right-winger named Grover Norquist, and the two of them recruited a zealous younger activist to carry out their orders, Ralph Reed. Reed required College Republicans to recite a speech from the movie \u00a0\u00bbPatton,\u00a0\u00bb replacing the word \u00a0\u00bbNazis\u00a0\u00bb with \u00a0\u00bbDemocrats\u00a0\u00bb: \u00a0\u00bbThe Democrats are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood! Shoot them in the belly!\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tNorquist was the first to point out the political potential of evangelical churches to Reed, imagining that they could be turned into Republican clubhouses. During the week of George H.W. Bush’s inauguration, Reed encountered Pat Robertson, the right-wing televangelist, who recruited him on the spot to run the Christian Coalition. \u00a0\u00bbI want to be invisible,\u00a0\u00bb Reed explained. \u00a0\u00bbI do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don’t know it’s over until you’re in a body bag. You don’t know until election night.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tNorquist himself underwent a metamorphosis from gadfly to player with the Republican takeover of Congress. His Wednesday meeting became a place where conservative groups from the National Rifle Association to the Christian Coalition plotted strategy. Norquist opened it up to lobbyists, who paid exorbitant fees to be part of the action. They, too, were then coordinated. Norquist was especially close to Gingrich, a relationship he used to build up his own lobbying business behind front groups such as Americans for Tax Reform. Once Gingrich was toppled, Norquist used Abramoff to link him tightly to DeLay.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tKarl Rove, whose political career began as chairman of the College Republicans in 1971, was well acquainted with the Abramoff circle for years by the time he began planning George W. Bush’s presidential campaign. He was not enamored of anti-tax crusader Norquist, who had made a grandstand gesture of assailing Gov. Bush in the mid-1990s for suggesting raising taxes to support schools. But, for the campaign, Rove made peace with him.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIn 1997, Reed left the Christian Coalition to found his own lobbying firm, Century Strategies. He sent Abramoff an e-mail: \u00a0\u00bbHey, now that I’m done with the electoral politics, I need to start humping in corporate accounts! I’m counting on you to help me with some contacts.\u00a0\u00bb Rove soon recruited Reed for the upcoming Bush campaign, setting him up as a consultant for Enron.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWhen Sen. John McCain defeated Bush in the Republican primary in New Hampshire, Reed came into play. South Carolina was Armageddon. Suddenly, McCain was beset by a series of vicious accusations, including racial slurs about an adopted daughter and dirty tricks.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tMarshall Wittman, who had worked as director of the Christian Coalition under Reed, had joined McCain’s staff, though Reed had attempted to bring him along to the Bush campaign. \u00a0\u00bbRalph was very, very, very close to Rove,\u00a0\u00bb Wittman told me. \u00a0\u00bbRalph asked me in 1997 if I wanted to work on the Bush campaign. Rove was operating everything. Rove parked Ralph at Enron. Ralph told me before the New Hampshire primary that he would do what it took to eliminate McCain as an opponent if he posed a challenge to Bush. He would do whatever it took, that means below the radar, paint his face. Ralph has a dual personality, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, charming in public and then ruthless and vicious.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t Abramoff grew ever closer to DeLay, helping DeLay’s former aides who had become lobbyists, who also assisted his business. Abramoff took millions from various Indian tribes and then lobbied against them so they would pay him more. Norquist complained to Abramoff about a \u00a0\u00bb$75K hole in my budget from last year,\u00a0\u00bb and his pal put him in the deal. Reed was hired to use the religious right to campaign against the casino that the Tigua tribe had contracted Abramoff to help them open. Meanwhile, Abramoff forced the Choctaw tribe, another client, to kick back $1.5 million to the Alabama Christian Coalition. Norquist acted as the go-between for the money, funneling it ultimately to Reed’s efforts.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t Eventually, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee exposed the various scams; it does not seem ironic that the committee’s chairman is McCain. Soon, the Justice Department was investigating. Norquist and Reed have both appeared in front of the grand jury. Reed is running for lieutenant governor of Georgia. \u00a0\u00bbRalph has notions he’ll be president of the United States,\u00a0\u00bb said Wittman.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t Abramoff is under investigation by a grand jury in Guam for illegal contracts and money laundering and another grand jury in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. In that case, a former business partner in the SunCruz casino boat company with whom Abramoff had had a dispute was allegedly murdered by three hit men, who have been indicted for the crime. Abramoff’s business partner Adam Kidan made payments from company funds of $30,000 to one of the killers’ daughters, who performed no services for the company, and $115,000 to a firm the hit man owned. Reportedly, Abramoff is not under suspicion for the murder, but he was indicted in August for bank fraud in the case.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t Last month, another player in the ring was arrested – David Safavian, a Bush White House official, director of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, in charge of overseeing $300 billion in federal contracts. Safavian had been Abramoff’s lobbying partner in the mid-1990s before he became Norquist’s lobbying partner. Before he was elevated to his sensitive post in the White House, he had been chief of staff at the General Services Administration, where he tried to help Abramoff grab two federal properties in Washington. On Wednesday, Safavian was indicted on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. (Safavian’s wife, Jennifer, is chief counsel on the House Government Operations Committee, overseeing the investigation into the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t Meanwhile, the grand jury in the Valerie Plame case prepares to conclude its work. In August, it called Rove’s assistant Susan Ralston to testify. As it happens, she had formerly been Abramoff’s assistant. And it was revealed that before she allowed people to meet with Rove, she cleared them with Norquist. Rove, for his part, often used Abramoff and Norquist as his conduits to DeLay.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t Now all the investigations are coming to a climax. Will it mean the decline and fall of the Rovean empire? \u00a0\u00bbRove is the ultimate center of everything,\u00a0\u00bb said Wittman. \u00a0\u00bbAll roads lead to Rove. If it’s Rove, everything collapses. People say there is no indispensable man. That’s not true.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t But more than the fate of one man or even a ring around him is at stake. For decades, conservatives created a movement to capture the Republican Party and remake it in their image. Under Bush, Republicanism as a system dominates.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t With astonishing arrogance and bravado, the Republican oligarchy wired politics and business so that they would always win. But in believing that they actually possessed absolute power they have overreached. Now their project teeters on the brink. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit \u00eatre lu avec la mention classique \u00e0 l’esprit, Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only..]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anatomie impitoyable du syst\u00e8me Rove-GW, le capitalisme des copains qui a parfois des allures l\u00e9ninistes, par Sidney Blumenthal Voici un texte extr\u00eamement complexe mais tr\u00e8s int\u00e9ressant et instructif de Sidney Blumenthal, ancien conseiller de Clinton, r\u00e9dacteur en chef de Salon.com, formidable connaisseur de la vie politique de Washington et excellent analyste des rouages du syst\u00e8me.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes-de-lectures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}