Sometimes the biggest story is the one that never appears in the press, eh? Prodded by Jane, we finally bestirred ourselves to read Wampum's amazing coverage of the biggest Republican scandal ever and biggest story of 2006. Since the story is unbelievably convoluted--crooks and liars are like that--Wampum's had to summarize it. Here is a summary of their summary. Follow me closely:

1. Interior, now run by Bush appointee Gale Norton, controls a humongous money flow from Indian Trust Indian lands leased out to oil and gas companies for drilling.

2. The courts have ordered Interior to give the tribes an audit of the money owed to them under the leasing agreements.

3. Forensic accountants for the tribes estimate the audit would show that $150 billion--that's one hundred and fifty billion dollars, or, numerically, $150,000,000,000,000 ($15 * 10¹²) are missing due to fraud, underpayment, and accumulated interest.

4. Interior has lost or destroyed many records needed for the audit.

5. The oil companies are an alternative source for the records. (If you can't get the rent receipt from the landlord, try the tenant).

6. In Cobell v. Norton, the largest class action in history, the Indians are suing the oil companies to open their books for the audit.

7. The administration keeps appealing Cobell v. Norton and keeps losing. This makes the oil companies, and their allies in Congress, very nervous.

8. The administration's fallback is to get Congress to order a settlement for some fraction of the $150 billion.

9. Jack "I won't use the word bagman' but feel free to think it" Abramoff is running a slush fund to get the administration's fallback position through Congress using the Republican playbook of cushy jobs for insiders, disinformation in the press, campaign contributions, and money laundering front organizations (specifically, CREA, the Council for Republican Environmental Advocacy).

10. And this is the chutzpah part: Arbramoff is using the Indian's own money to finance the slush fund--the payments they made to him to lobby for their gambling interests.

All of this takes ratfucking into some transcendant zone, doesn't it? The rot is total.

NOTE The Republicans are looking first to blame the Indians. They'll look second to blame the Dems, of course. In Cobell v. Nortonn, the plaintiffs charge the Dems with footdragging and incompetence; malign neglect, as opposed to the active malevolence of the Republicans.