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Rove and his proteges, like our very own Dick Wadhams, have been lying to the press for so long it never occurs to them that the press will actually check something out. Well, the Post did today, and it seems when Dick Wadhams says something, you better start looking for evidence of the exact opposite:
"He was so concerned about the labor abuses that he was silent and totally uninvolved . . . until he thinks he can use it politically in a campaign," said Dick Wadhams, Schaffer's campaign manager.
Although the Mariana textile industry has been effectively gutted by recent trade pacts with China, years of reports documented the abuse of workers.
Udall had co-sponsored Miller's initial reform bill in 1999 as well as two successive bills, but his interest appears to have increased this campaign season.
All of our interests have increased thanks to Bob "Sweatshop" Schaffer, Dick Wadhams, and their tone-deaf endorsements of horrible labor practices pushed by Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff on CNMI workers. President Bush just signed the law to fix something that Bob thought was great up until a few weeks ago. Maybe Bob should've stayed silent and uninvolved.
Wendy Doromal is a human rights activist who lived on the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands between 1984 and 1995. She worked for the Department of the Interior in 1998 investigating labor abuses in the territory. Recently, Doromal received the Spirit of Service Award from the Corporation for National and Community Service, presented by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Ms. Doromal has a thing or two to say about Bob Schaffer's important role in the legislative cover-up of the situation there.
Schaffer, a true foot soldier for the A-Team, followed the lobbyist's play book as outlined in the "secret memo." [Link added] Schaffer and his wife visited the CNMI on one of the Abramoff junkets a month before the September 16, 1999 hearing. The timing was important as the memo noted:
"With the cancellation of the Young trip, it would be wise for the CNMI to host a group of Resources Committee members at some time prior to the hearings. Otherwise Miller will be the member of that committee most recently in the CNMI and this will place us at a distinct disadvantage."
Schaffer received campaign contributions from Fitial and Jerry Tan and in return he was a major public supporter of Fitial's bid for governor in 2001. He even took out a full page ad in the Saipan Tribune, the newspaper owned by Tan, boasting to be "Ben and Rita's friend." Read this post to learn about more political friends of Fitial.)
In return, Schaffer provided "bail out" money for the CNMI according to this October 5, 2001 Saipan Tribune story:
"Fitial said he learned from his friends in the US Congress that the CNMI will be receiving a substantial amount of financial assistance from certain departments in the federal government.
"I talked to my friend Cong. Bob Schaffer over the phone and he told me that this assistance will be coming very, very soon," said Fitial.
CNMI’s share of the bailout money is projected to be in the millions, he added."
Continuing to detail the inner workings of the strategy to suppress rights in the CNMI through Abramoff cronies like Tom DeLay, John Doolittle, and others prominently including Schaffer, Doromal turns to the logistics of schaffer's claim that he "inspected" 20 garment factories on Saipan in four days:
What garment factories did Schaffer tour?
Schaffer claimed to have visited 20 factories on his trip to Saipan according this Denver Post article:
"Bob Schaffer, accompanied by his wife, said he visited more than 20 textile factories during the trip to investigate claims of labor violations and found problems in only one. He also described the protectorate's guest-worker rules as a "model" for the U.S. immigration system."
Twenty factories? Really? It would be logistically impossible to visit 20 garment factories considering that he was on the island for four days, and went para-sailing, attended meetings including those with Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association and the Western Pacific Economic Council, and visited historical sites according to the Denver Post article.
And Schaffer's denial of the practice of coerced abortions in Chinese-owned Saipan garment factories?
Here's a little bit more on Bob Schaffer from across the blogosphere. I'll be on the Mario Solis-Marich show again this evening on AM760 talking about Schaffer. Mario's show is live in the Denver area from 4-7pm.
First there's
Wendy Doromal at Unheard No More who is the longtime CNMI Human Rights worker. Wendy recently received the Spirit of Service Award from the Corporation for National and Community Service Learn and Serve America from Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Then there's dengre who's been following Abramoff since 1999. His DailyKos blog post last night quotes Wendy heavily. I can't do either of these posts justice. You simply must read them in their damning entirety. Here's just a taste:
The Global Survival Network brought Nousher to Washington, D.C. to testify at the September 16, 1999 House Committee Hearing. At around 12:30am on the morning of the hearing, I was awakened by a call from Nousher. He was very concerned that Congressman Bob Schaffer had called him earlier that evening to quiz him about how he got to Washington, DC, what kind of visa he had, what he was doing in the states, who helped him write his testimony and similar questions. I thought it was very unusual that a U.S. Congressman would call a witness before a hearing. I had never heard of this before.
The September 16, 1999 hearing was a total mockery of justice. I planned on going, but canceled my flight because a hurricane was set to hit the East Coast. Nousher told me he was drilled relentlessly by Schaffer with questions about federal officials, Department of Interior officials, who paid for protests conducted by guest workers in Saipan. The transcript of the hearing reveals that House Resources Committee Chair Don Young, and members Bob Schaffer and John Doolittle turned the hearing upside down by following the memo's strategy of going after Mr. Stayman and other DOI officials, while ignoring the purpose of the hearing.
"We intend to use the hearings to impeach Stayman and his campaign against the CNMI," Abramoff wrote in a 1998 memo to Willie Tan, a garment manufacturing mogul who operated a number of plants on the islands. The Office of Insular Affairs, "led by Stayman, has been the main source of difficulty for the CNMI," the memo said.
Schaffer had enthusiastically enacted Abramoff's strategy in a 1999 hearing. Schaffer charged that Office of Internal Affairs officials had secretly paid laborers to participate in a protest against conditions on the islands when the Abramoff-organized Congressional delegation (including Schaffer) arrived.
Part 2 of my investigation should be up in another day or two. Drip, drip.....drip
Today's Denver Post contains the fourth in a series (most by Michael Riley) on former Congressman Bob Schaffer's prominent role in Jack Abramoff's strategy of defusing the US Government's interest in reforming the system of worker abuse and exploitation of women on a US protectorate, the Northern Marianas Islands.
What has so far received mostly passing mentions, and deserves thorough examination on its own, is the role played by Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition in this mess. The TVC is the most incendiary of extremist anti-gay organizations in DC, classified by the SPLC as a hate group. It's major contributions to public policy are opposing hate crimes legislation and helping Jack Abramoff kill anti-gambling legislation. Behind the curtain of snarling gay-baiting rhetoric, however, is the Sheldon family--a sophisticated huckster operation which uses its various shell organizations to make money for itself with red meat telemarketing and direct mail appeals.
There are always lots of ins-and-outs when it comes to an Abramoff scandal, and keeping all of the gory details straight is a complex task. Since a lot has unfolded over the past few days, I thought a roundup of recent coverage would be in order:
Via Steam Powered Opinions, the Denver Post examines then-Congressman Bob Schaffer's Abramoff-funded look at sweatshop conditions at the Marianas Islands in 1999:
Just before boarding a plane to the Mariana Islands in 1999, then-Congressman Bob Schaffer announced he was embarking on a fact-finding mission to get to the bottom of repeated allegations of labor abuse in the American protectorate.
"I plan to walk right into those factories and living quarters to see for myself what conditions exist," Schaffer said in a news release in August of that year.
What he didn't say was that the trip was partly arranged by the firm of now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who represented textile factory owners fighting congressional efforts to reform labor and immigration laws on the islands and who was being handsomely paid to keep the islands' cherished exemptions.
Schaffer and his wife stayed for free at a palm-studded beach resort and, besides factories, also toured historical sites and met with clients of Preston- Gates, Abramoff's firm, according to a copy of the trip's agenda archived in Schaffer's congressional papers.
Naturally, Bob Schaffer left Saipan having concluded "that allegations of widespread abuse were largely unfounded."
However, Josh Marshall pointed out late last night, Bob Schaffer's 1999 trip:
...was a year after the release of the Department of Labor report that confirmed the 15 year old sex slave's account.
Although he earned the reputation of a do-nothing congressman -- Schaffer's career intersected with the worst abuses of the Tom DeLay/Jack Abramoff era, and to enjoy the perks of the globetrotting legislator, Schaffer happily partook in the whitewashing of human rights abuses.
"Given that many Republican members, including Tom DeLay, Bob Ney and Conrad Burns, have lost their seat or gone to prison based on their association with this criminal, it's pretty remarkable that Schaffer seems to be proud of his association with these sleazy Abramoff-sponsored junkets," said Taylor West, a spokeswoman for Schaffer's Democratic opponent, Mark Udall.
In order to get a free trip to the beach, Bob Schaffer became a paid stooge for Jack Abramoff. The consequences? An elected representative to the United States Congress became an apologist for a "guest worker program ... notorious around the world for forced abortion, slavery, child prostitution, sex trafficking, beatings, female workers kept in shacks with no plumbing surrounded by barbed wire...."
[Although the Post doesn't, we should all salute Alan Franklin, whose intrepid work is the real reason this sordid story has come to light.]
Today's Denver Post contains 
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