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Island and the Republicans, here you go: "The Isles that Bind Ah, the tropical Northern Marianas Islands. About three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to the Philippines, with a population of just over 80,000, these U.S. territories acquired after World War II are the central locale of a "dirty drama of bondage" that enmeshes disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, House leader Tom Delay, President Bush, and scores of conservative lawmakers, journalists, and activists. That's because the Marianas (and particularly the main island, Saipan) are also the site of America's most shoddy labor practices. Human "brokers" bring thousands there to work as sex slaves and in cramped sweatshop garment factories where clothes (complete with "Made in the U.S.A." tag) have been produced for all the major brands: Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, Calvin Klein, Liz Claiborne, The Limited, J.C. Penney, and – surprise, surprise – Wal-Mart. The workers are "paid barely half the U.S. minimum hourly wage," and are "forced to live behind barbed wire in squalid shacks minus plumbing, work 12 hours a day, often seven days a week, without any of the legal protections U.S. workers are guaranteed." And if DeLay, Abramoff, and President Bush get to decide, that's how things will stay.THE 'BIGGEST SUPPORTER' OF SWEATSHOPS ON CAPITOL HILL: That award goes to Tom DeLay, according to Abramoff. And for good reason. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration, with bipartisan support, "tried to crack down" on the worker abuse in the Marianas. DeLay wouldn't stand for it. According to the Los Angeles Times, "DeLay helped lead the fight beginning in 1997 to keep Congress from enacting reforms opposed by Abramoff and his clients that would have required garment manufacturers to pay their workers the higher federal minimum wage." In June of '97, DeLay, then majority whip, and Majority Leader Dick Armey also "promised to block any legislation to increase federal regulation on garment manufacturers." In 1998, DeLay helped kill a "congressional fact-finding trip that was being planned as part of an investigation of sweatshop conditions" at the islands. And three years later, DeLay refused to allow a vote on a bill that "would have barred the use of 'Made in USA' by the island's apparel industry," even though it was co-sponsored by 234 representatives, more than a majority.'PERFECT PETRI DISH OF CAPITALISM': In Newsweek, Marie Cocco writes that of all the "qualified candidates" for the "worst thing has ever done," one "stands out for its squalor." Likewise, CNN's Mark Shields notes that while many of DeLay's scandals "represent only degrees of avarice," his efforts in Saipan allow one to truly "grasp the moral bankruptcy" of the House leader. Maybe this is because DeLay didn't keep his lobbying for sweatshops secret, but wore it right on his sleeve. DeLay told the Washington Post the islands were a "perfect Petri dish of capitalism. It's like my Galapagos island." And with ABC cameras rolling, DeLay toasted the sweatshop owners and their supportive Saipan officials as "a shining light" who represented "everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America and leading the world in the free-market system." Responding to DeLay's offensive remarks, then-Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK) told Shields, "The last time we heard a justification that economic advances would be jeopardized if workers were treated properly was shortly before Appomattox."
ABRAMOFF'S TREASURE CHEST: As if the Marianas didn't have it bad enough. Though they proved "to be a veritable treasure chest for Abramoff," an adviser to the islands' governor told the New York Times that Abramoff's policy was "to play both sides against the middle and take the Marianas for millions of dollars in fees." For instance, Abramoff would say the island government "needed his services because it was the only American territory without a nonvoting delegate to Congress." Except, as documents revealed by the Times show, "he worked hard to kill a bill in Congress that would have given the islands a delegate."
THE BUSH CONNECTION: Ties between Abramoff, President Bush, and Saipan go back as far as 1997, when Abramoff "charged the Marianas for getting then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush to write a letter expressing support for the Pacific territory's school choice proposal." It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. "Our standing with the new administration promises to be solid as several friends of the will soon be taking high-ranking positions in the Administration," Abramoff wrote island officials in January 2001. He was right. Two members of Abramoff's lobbying team subsequently received positions in the Bush White House, as assistant secretary of labor and head of federal procurement policy in the Office of Management and Budget. In the president's first 10 months, Abramoff and his lobbying team "logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration." They pressed for "friendly hires" and lax labor laws with officials as high up as Attorney General John Ashcroft and policy advisers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, and it apparently worked: the islands "fended off proposals in 2001 to extend the U.S. minimum wage to island workers and gained at least $2 million more in federal aid from the administration." By mid-2003, Abramoff "had raised at least $100,000 for Mr. Bush's re-election campaign, becoming one of Bush's famed 'pioneers.'"
BASKING IN THE GLOW OF CORRUPTION: The Marianas soon became a kind of petting zoo for right-wing cognoscenti, who were curious to gaze upon the creations of DeLay's "perfect Petri dish." Abramoff's team "arranged many trips to the Marianas for conservative editorial writers and members of research groups" like the Heritage Foundation, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, and the Institute for Justice. "This all-out public relations and lobbying blitz brought the back from the brink of legislative disaster," Abramoff wrote in 2001. Abramoff also flew dozens of lawmakers and their aides for luxurious vacations to the balmy islands, including one 1997-98 New Year's trip for DeLay and his wife. It was then that DeLay offered Abramoff this now infamous toast: "When one of my closest and dearest friends, Jack Abramoff, your most able representative in Washington, D.C., invited me to the islands, I wanted to see firsthand the free-market success and the progress and reform you have made."
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=678501
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