Abramoff-Reed Indian Gambling Scandal
The Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal was a United States political scandal exposed in 2005; it related to fraud perpetrated by political lobbyists Jack Abramoff, Ralph E. Reed Jr., Grover Norquist and Michael Scanlon on Native American tribes who were seeking to develop casino gambling on their reservations. The lobbyists charged the tribes an estimated $85 million in fees. Abramoff and Scanlon grossly overbilled their clients, secretly splitting the multi-million dollar profits. In one case, they secretly orchestrated lobbying against their own clients in order to force them to pay for lobbying services. In the course of the scheme, the lobbyists were accused of illegally giving gifts and making campaign donations to legislators in return for votes or support of legislation. Representative Bob Ney (R-OH) and two aides to Tom DeLay (R-TX) were directly implicated; other politicians had various ties. Guilty pleas Scanlon and Abramoff both pleaded guilty to a variety of crimin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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List Of Federal Political Scandals In The United States
This article provides a list of political scandals that involve officials from the government of the United States, sorted from oldest to most recent. Scope and organization of political scandals This article is organized by presidential terms in order, older to recent, and then divided into scandals of the federal Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government. Members of both parties are listed under the term of the president in office at the time the scandal took place, even though they may not be connected with the presiding president. In this article, the term "politician" (a person who is professionally involved in politics) includes not only those elected, but also party officials, candidates for office, their staffs and appointees. Please note that every president directly selects, appoints or hires several thousand people. Each of them selects thousands more. Private citizens should only be mentioned when they are closely linked to the scandal or politician ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Conrad Burns
Conrad Ray Burns (January 25, 1935 – April 28, 2016) was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Montana and later was a lobbyist. He was only the second Republican popularly elected to represent Montana in the Senate and was the longest-serving Republican senator in Montana history. While in the Senate, Burns sat on the Senate Appropriations Committee and was the chairman of its Subcommittee on the Interior. He was also chairman of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee's Communications subcommittee. Early life Burns was born on a farm near Gallatin, Missouri, to Russell and Mary Frances (Knight) Burns. He graduated from Gallatin High School in 1952 and then enrolled in the College of Agriculture at the University of Missouri. He was also a member of the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity. Two years later Burns left without graduating and enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1955. He served in Japan and Korea as a small-arms instructor. After his ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Preston Gates & Ellis
Preston Gates & Ellis, LLP, also known as Preston Gates, was a law firm with offices in the United States, China and Taiwan. Its main office was in the IDX Tower in Seattle, Washington. In 2007 the firm ceased to exist, merging with Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham to form K&L Gates. The "Gates" in the firm's name refers to William H. Gates Sr., father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Gates retired from the firm in 1998. History Formation In 1883, Harold Preston, born 1858 in Illinois, the son of Brig. Gen. Simon Manly Preston, arrived in Seattle and established his own law practice.''A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of The City of Seattle and County of King, Washington'' (New York: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1903), pages 118-120. Together with O.B. Thorgrimson, an attorney originally from Chicago, Preston expanded the practice throughout the early 1900s. In 1949 Jim Ellis joined the firm, and was integral in involving the firm in public se ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Harry Reid
Harry Mason Reid Jr. (; December 2, 1939 – December 28, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2005 to 2017 and was the Senate Majority Leader from 2007 to 2015. After earning an undergraduate degree from Utah State University and a law degree from George Washington University, Reid began his public career as the city attorney for Henderson, Nevada, before being elected to the Nevada Assembly in 1968. Gubernatorial candidate Mike O'Callaghan, Reid's former boxing coach, chose Reid as his running mate in 1970; following their victory Reid served as the 25th lieutenant governor of Nevada from 1971 to 1975. After being defeated in races for the United States Senate and mayor of Las Vegas, Reid served as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1977 to 1981. From 1983 to 1987, Reid represented Nevada's 1st district in the United States House of Representa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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ABC News
ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning news-talk show ''Good Morning America'', ''Nightline'', ''Primetime (American TV program), Primetime'', and ''20/20 (American TV program), 20/20'', and Sunday morning talk shows, Sunday morning political affairs program ''This Week (ABC TV series), This Week with George Stephanopoulos''. In addition to the division's television programs, ABC News has radio and digital outlets, including ABC News Radio and ABC News Live, plus various podcasts hosted by ABC News personalities. History Early years ABC began in 1943 as the Blue Network, NBC Blue Network, a radio network that was Corporate spin-off, spun off from NBC, as ordered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1942. The reason for the order was to expand competition in radi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Americans For Tax Reform
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) is a politically conservative U.S. advocacy group whose stated goal is "a system in which taxes are simpler, flatter, more visible, and lower than they are today." According to ATR, "The government's power to control one's life derives from its power to tax. We believe that power should be minimized." The organization is known for its "Taxpayer Protection Pledge", which asks candidates for federal and state office to commit themselves in writing to oppose all tax increases. The founder and president of ATR is Grover Norquist, a conservative tax activist. Structure Americans for Tax Reform is a 501(c)(4) organization with 14 employees, finances of $3,912,958, and a membership of 60,000 (as of 2004). It was founded by Grover Norquist in 1985. The associated educational wing is the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation, which is classified as a 501(c)(3) research and educational organization. The purpose of both entities is to educate and/or lobby against ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Money Laundering
Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions with varying definitions. It is usually a key operation of organized crime. In US law, money laundering is the practice of engaging in financial transactions to conceal the identity, source, or destination of illegally gained money. In UK law the common law definition is wider. The act is defined as "taking any action with property of any form which is either wholly or in part the proceeds of a crime that will disguise the fact that that property is the proceeds of a crime or obscure the beneficial ownership of said property". In the past, the term "money laundering" was applied only to financial transactions related to organized crime. Today its definition is often expanded by government and international regulators such as the US Offic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Choctaw
The Choctaw (in the Choctaw language, Chahta) are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Their Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw people are enrolled in three federally recognized tribes: the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and Jena Band of Choctaw Indians in Louisiana. The Choctaw were first noted by Europeans in French written records of 1675. Their mother mound is Nanih Waiya, a great earthwork platform mound located in central-east Mississippi. Early Spanish explorers of the mid-16th century in the Southeast encountered ancestral Mississippian culture villages and chiefs. The Choctaw coalesced as a people in the 17th century and developed at least three distinct political and geographical divisions: eastern, western, and southern. These different groups sometimes created distinct, independent alliances with nearby European powers. These i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Mississippi's western boundary is largely defined by the Mississippi River. Mississippi is the 32nd largest and 35th-most populous of the 50 U.S. states and has the lowest per-capita income in the United States. Jackson is both the state's capital and largest city. Greater Jackson is the state's most populous metropolitan area, with a population of 591,978 in 2020. On December 10, 1817, Mississippi became the 20th state admitted to the Union. By 1860, Mississippi was the nation's top cotton-producing state and slaves accounted for 55% of the state population. Mississippi declared its secession from the Union on January 9, 1861, and was one of the seven original Confederate States, which constituted the largest slaveholding states in t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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PhRMA
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA, pronounced ), formerly known as the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, is a trade group representing companies in the pharmaceutical industry in the United States. Founded in 1958, PhRMA lobbies on behalf of pharmaceutical companies. PhRMA is headquartered in Washington, DC. The organization has lobbied fiercely against allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices for Medicare recipients. At the state level, the organization has lobbied to prevent price limits and greater price transparency for drugs. PhRMA has given substantial dark money donations to right-wing advocacy groups such as the American Action Network (which lobbied heavily against the Affordable Care Act), the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity and Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, while rarely providing some donations to centrist or moderately right-leaning groups such as Center Forward. Membership Leadership George A. Scangos, C ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washington, United States. Its best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft ranked No. 21 in the 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue; it was the world's largest software maker by revenue as of 2019. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Meta. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to do ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alexander Strategy Group
Alexander Strategy Group was an American lobbying firm involved in the K Street Project, founded by Ed Buckham and his wife Wendy. Buckham is a former chief of staff of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and the firm openly promoted its access to DeLay. Its chief lobbyist was Paul Behrends, who became Dana Rohrabacher's aide. In January 2006 the firm was shut down. Buckham said that it was fatally damaged by publicity about the ongoing federal investigation into the actions of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Clients In 2004 the firm had US$8.8 million in revenues, with prominent clients such as Amgen, BellSouth, Eli Lilly and Company, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, R.J. Reynolds, Koch Industries, Microsoft, Time Warner, Enron, and the United Parcel Service. Other notable clients included Blackwater Security Services, the employer of the contractors killed in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004, and PerfectWave, the defense contracting firm owned by Brent R. Wilkes, under investigation for bribin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |