(THE MORNING SUN) — I’d like to now take back an insult I made seven or eight years ago.
In the middle of the aughts, you’ll remember, Republicans had run basically every branch of elected federal government, and George W. Bush had just won re-election over a John Kerry. At the time, a lobbying scandal was just starting to unfold that would paint a picture of government for sale, with a cheap crook named Jack Abramoff at its center.
The scandal would reach right into the heart of Isabella County. Abramoff took money from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe to construct a voter database that ultimately helped pass a constitutional amendment limiting gaming in Michigan. He took, if memory serves, more than a million, which according to one expert in the field of voter databases could be had for around $10,000. While doing so, Abramoff cast the Tribe’s then-chief as a Neanderthal in e-mails he swapped with his Beltway buddies. He ripped off the Tribe, and did so while holdings its members in thinly veiled, bigoted scorn.
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