Seattle times: rabbi daniel lapin abramoff connections

Replete with Daniel Lapin's (KTTH Sundays, 7-10p) multi-syllabic blithering, he and his non-profit's entanglement with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff is well exposed in an excellent piece by Seattle Times reporters David Postman and Hal Bernton in this morning's paper. 

Lapin has deep ties to the sleazy Republican Washington operator, and actually introduced him to Tom Delay, who permanently resigned his House leadership position over the weekend because of this and other scandals.

Abramoff was board chair and longtime member of Lapin's non-profit Toward Tradition, along with syndicated neocon talk-host Michael Medved (KTTH m-f, 12-3p).

According to the Times piece, Toward Tradition paid Lisa Rudy, wife of Tony Rudy, at the time a senior aide to DeLay. Tony Rudy later went to work as a lobbyist for Abramoff.

She was to organize a conference for Toward Tradition in the fall of 2000. (Whether there was actually work done or this was more Abramoff money-laundering is a question yet unanswered.)

A total of $50,000 was paid to Rudy. Abramoff's plea agreement says the money was obtained from clients that benefited from the aide's "official actions regarding the legislation on Internet gambling or opposing postal rate increases."

At the time he approached Lapin about hiring Lisa Rudy, Abramoff was working in the D.C. office of Seattle's Preston Gates.

Toward Tradition's board approved hiring Lisa Rudy in 2000 and soon after Abramoff sent a $25,000 check from a firm called eLottery. It came with instructions that Rudy was to be paid $5,000 a month.

eLottery is a Connecticut company that provides states with online lotteries. The company hired Abramoff to help stop the federal Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.

Lapin said other checks came from another Abramoff client, the Magazine Publishers of America. Those checks, too, came with directions to keep paying Rudy.

Here is one of the foremost conservative values-mongers in the country. Newt Gingrich has called him "my spiritual guide."

Frank Rich of the NYTimes  has called him the "show rabbi of the religious right."

He's clergy who regularly preaches against sin and in particular- against gambling- yet here's the pathetic proof of his astounding hypocrisy-  accepting checks from a professional lottery operation for what may be dubious or non-existence services.

We've been harping on Lapin for years. He's always been controverial and has weathered dark clouds over his actions many times before. Read our Rabbi Daniel Lapin, A Long Look Backward

From our June post, Rabbi Daniel Lapin: More National Embarrassment

Lapin is a leader in the national Values Community; friend of such faith-based charlatans as Rev. Ken Hutcherson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Watergate felon turned preacher, and Charles Colson He's a "spiritual advisor" to Newt Gingrich and a hard-ass, pompous, self-aggrandizing, social conservative.

He helped Hutcherson organize and spoke at last year's anti-gay "Mayday for Marriage " rallies in Seattle and Washington DC, that proved so influential in the November election of George W. Bush.

The haughty silver-tongued former South African buys his own radio time Sunday evenings (7-10p) from Entercom’s local KTTH. His talk show is a folksy, “(Everybody needs a rabbi,” he always says) kulturkampf, interlaced with schmaltz, advice to the lovelorn and diatribing political monologues.

He's a champion of marriage between people of the same faith, same species, but different genders, of course.

Lapin's tedious yet dangerous talk show on Sunday nights is vanity radio- bought and paid for by Toward Tradition.

Entercom has no stomach for scandal as we've seen in the Mike Webb firing--as this messy scandal unfolds, how much longer can they keep Lapin's name on their programming list?

Read the blatherWatch files on Lapin:

Rabbi Daniel Lapin's Name Resurfaces in Investigation
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: "The Man Who Stands By His Scandal-Ridden Friends"
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: More National Embarrassment
Rabbi Daniel Lapin, A Long Look Backward
The Rabbi With the Tinfoil Yarmulke (and we thought he was just boring...)

Comments

[sparky]

ahem......I scooped ya on this one :-)

[Fremont]

Good job, Sparks! (Did the lakelady drown?)

[sparky]

no..just taking a vacation :-)