Gail Norton, Secretary of the Interior for the Bush Administration for the last five years has resigned her position and expects to vacate the office at the end of March. Now, under normal circumstances, most of American doesnt give a "fig" about the Secretary of the Interior or, the Department of the Interior and probably won't in this case unless their ears pick up the phrase "Indian Gaming Contracts". Or, maybe they might recognize the name, Jack Abramoff. Now it that starting to make sense? Just in case you're wondering, Abramoff is the person pictured on the far right here with Gale Norton. Here's the AP story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060310/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/interior_norton_7
(second edit:the photo is apparently courtesy of AP and their FOIA request)
The Raw Story has these snippets:
Rudy wrote Abramoff that same day promising he had “good news” about securing a meeting with Norton, forwarding information about the environmental group Norton had founded, according to e-mails obtained by investigators and reviewed by The Associated Press. Rudy’s message to Abramoff was sent from Congress’ official e-mail system.
"Within months, Abramoff clients donated heavily to the Norton-founded group and to DeLay’s personal charity. The Coushatta Indian tribe, for instance, wrote checks in March 2001 for $50,000 to the Norton group and $10,000 to the DeLay Foundation, tribal records show.
The name of the "charitable group was Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (If that strikes you the same way that Chickens for Colonel Sanders, then you're not alone.) and Abramoff had his clients contrbute to the Council. Of course, those clients had interests in the Indian Gaming Contracts which Abramoff represented. Nice scam huh?
According to the AP release, Norton said she's going to look for additional "challenges in the private sector". I suspect the biggest challenge will be keeping out of jail.
One edit: The Next Hurrah has a better article than I could even think of. Click on the link but here's a tempting snippet:
Republicans must go to Hallmark wilderness rhetoric training school or something. First there was Scooter Libby's remarkable Aspen Turning letter. And now there's Gale Norton's resignation letter (PDF), boasting of pillaging the wilderness in the language of a stoned nature lover (or, of a bad high school poet).
Mr. Bush, Gail Norton says. I've been to the mountaintop. And they yelled at me there. They yelled at me for raping the land. When I broke the law, they told me I broke the law. Mr. Bush, they were mean to me on that mountain. I tried to steal money and they held me in contempt. Mr. Bush, I don't like this mountaintop, I don't like this mountaintop at all.
Martin Luther King Jr. must be rolling in his grave right now.
bwahahahahahahahaha
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