Legislator To Lobbyist Corporate Turnstiles: CONFLICT OF INTEREST! Fix It? Silly You - The Only Solution: END LOBBYING AS WE KNOW IT! - RI10

Legislator To

Lobbyist

Corporate Turnstiles:

CONFLICT OF

INTEREST!

Fix It? Silly You -

The Only Solution:

END LOBBYING

AS WE KNOW IT!

- RI10

If your neighbor asks you to cut his grass in one hour because he has guests coming to dinner, and your boss, the guy who signs your paycheck, asks you to cut his grass because he too has important business contacts expected within the hour, whose grass do you cut?  Your neighbor’s or your boss’s?  The answer is OBVIOUS!  The answer is equally obvious to your Congressional Representatives!  They cut the boss’s grass!

Until and unless the American Voter becomes the BOSS, our Legislators will continue to cut the grass of the one, who pays best –

The DC Triangle has 3 vertices: The Bush Administration – Lobbyist – Corporate America.  The trail among the three has been worn out by capitalist adventurers more concerned with feathering their own nests than in serving America.  It’s time we got rid of that quaint idea:  

Ambitious people, whether Rich or Wannabe-Rich, go into politics to make connections, graduate to Lobbyist, and become SUPER-RICH!

If you want proof, look at our political history and present circumstances.  One of the definitions of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different result!

And most important of all, remember that all Rich people, all Big Corporate Interests & all their Lobbyists, all politicians, elected under the current system, will fight tooth and nail to maintain the current system and its necessary and concurrent political corruption.  

I see no reason why a lobbyist should not go into politics.  I see no reason why a businessman should not go into politics.  However, I see a multitude of reasons why a politician should not go back into corporate America for a Company that benefited from his or her votes; and I see triple that amount of objections re an elected official or Administration bigwig subsequently becoming a corporate lobbyist.  The overriding objection is called:

What is wrong with that picture?  Am I the only person in America, who is not asleep at the wheel?  Am I the only one, who will stand up on his hind legs and complain LOUDLY and VOCIFEROUSLY?




 
A more weathered

John Ashcroft
enters the private sector

U.S. Attorney General

Following his Senatorial defeat, Ashcroft was nominated as U.S. Attorney General by president-elect George W. Bush in December 2000. Ashcroft was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 58-42, with most of the Democratic Senators voting against him, citing his previous opposition of desegregation and abortion rights.

Ashcroft is a member of the Assembly of God church. Whenever he was sworn in to any political office, he had himself anointed (using cooking oil when no holy oil was available [2]). He is considered a leading member of the Christian right wing of the Republican Party and was one of the highest-ranked representatives of that group in the Bush Administration. Ashcroft's religious beliefs led opponents, including Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), to question his ability to effectively enforce certain laws, especially those pertaining to abortion. Ashcroft said that he would enforce laws whether or not he agreed with them.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Ashcroft was a key supporter of passage of the USA Patriot Act.

On November 9, 2004, Ashcroft announced his resignation from his post as Attorney General, which took effect on February 3, 2005 with the Senate confirmation of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales as the next Attorney General. Some believe his health was a factor in his decision. His hand-written resignation letter, dated November 2, stated: "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."


Lobbyist

In October 2005, Ashcroft registered with the federal government as a lobbyist. In 2005 year-end filings, Ashcroft's firm, The Ashcroft Group LLC, reported collecting $269,000, including $220,000 from Oracle Corporation, which won Department of Justice approval of a multibillion-dollar acquisition less than a month after hiring Ashcroft. The totals that Ashcroft has reported so far represent in some cases only initial payments.

Oracle is one of three clients of Ashcroft's lobbying firm which want his help in selling data or software with homeland security applications, according to government filings. The fourth reported client, Israel Aircraft Industries International, is competing with Chicago's Boeing Company to sell the government of South Korea a billion-dollar airborne radar system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ashcroft





Richard Bruce Cheney

Business career

With Democrats returning the White House in January 1993, Cheney left the Department of Defense and joined the American Enterprise Institute. From 1995 until 2000, he served as Chairman and Chief

Executive Officer of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company and market leader in the energy sector. Under Cheney's tenure, the number of Halliburton subsidiaries in offshore tax havens increased from 9 to 44. Meanwhile, Halliburton went from paying $302

million in company taxes in 1998 to getting

an $85 million tax refund in 1999. As CEO of Halliburton, Dick Cheney lobbied to lift U.S. sanctions against Iran and Libya, saying they hurt business and failed to stop terrorism. He also sat on the Board of Directors of Procter & Gamble, Union Pacific, and EDS.

Tabacco: Do you think Dick Cheney has

you, the Public, as his Primary Concern? 

In 1997, he, along with Donald Rumsfeld and others, founded the "Project for the New American Century", a think tank whose self-stated goal is to "promote American global leadership". He was also part of the board of advisers of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) before becoming Vice President.


Vice-Presidency

In the spring of 2000, while serving as Halliburton's CEO, he headed George W. Bush's Vice-Presidential search committee. After reviewing Cheney's findings, Bush surprised pundits by asking Cheney himself to join the Republican ticket.

In the 2000 presidential election, a question was raised by the Democrats as to Cheney's state of residency since he had been living in Texas. A lawsuit was brought in Jones v. Bush attempting to invalidate electoral votes from Texas under the provisions of the Twelfth amendment, but was rejected by a Federal district court in Texas.

Cheney quickly earned a reputation as a very "hands-on" Vice President, taking an active role in cabinet meetings and policy formation. He is often described as the most active and powerful Vice President in recent years, moving the office out of its traditional figurehead role, and even occupies an office in the House of Representatives. Some, like Reagan's last Chief of Staff, Ken Duberstein, have likened him to a prime minister because of his powerful position inside the Bush Administration. In his status as President of the Senate he has cast 6 (so far) tie-breaking votes, including deciding votes on concurring in the conference reports of the 2004 congressional budget and the Jobs and Growth Tax Reconciliation Act of 2003.

Cheney directed the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG) commonly known as the Energy task force. Comprised by people in the energy industry, this group included several Enron executives. Because of the subsequent Enron scandal, critics accused the Bush Administration of improper political and business ties. In July 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Commerce must make the NEPDG's documents public. The documents included information on companies that had made agreements with Saddam Hussein to develop Iraq's oil. The documents also included maps of oil deposits in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates. The NEPDG's report contains several chapters, covering topics such as environmental protection, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and energy security. Critics focus on the eighth chapter, "Strengthening Global Alliances," claiming that this chapter urges military actions to remove strategic, political, and economic obstacles to increased U.S. consumption of oil, while others argue that the report contains no such recommendation.

Following the uncertainty immediately after the events of September 11, 2001, Cheney and President Bush were kept in physically distant locations for security reasons. For a period Cheney was not seen in public, remaining in an undisclosed location and communicating with the White House via secure videophones.

On the morning of June 29, 2002, Cheney became only the second man in history to serve as Acting President of the United States under the terms of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, while President Bush was undergoing a colonoscopy. Cheney acted as President from 10:09 UTC that day until Bush resumed control at 13:24 UTC.

Both supporters and opponents of Cheney point to his reputation as a very shrewd and knowledgeable businessman and politician who knows the functions and runnings of the federal government.

Opponents however accuse him of following policies

that indirectly subsidize the oil industry and major

government contractors, and hold that Cheney strongly 

influenced the decision to use military force in Iraq.

He is the leading proponent within

the Bush administration of the right of the

United States to use torture as part of the War on Terror,

and has been lobbying Congress to exempt the CIA from

Senator John McCain's proposed anti-torture bill.


Relationship to Halliburton as Vice President

Cheney resigned as CEO of Halliburton on July 25, 2000, and put all of his corporate shares into a blind trust, except 433,333 stock options worth about $8 million which are referenced in a Gift Trust Agreement pursuant to which an Administrative Agent has the right to exercise those options and distribute the proceeds from the sale of the resulting stock to certain charitable organizations. As part of his deferred compensation agreements with Halliburton contractually arranged prior to Cheney becoming Vice President, Cheney's public financial disclosure sheets filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics showed he received $162,392 in 2002 and $205,298 in 2001. Upon his nomination as a Vice Presidential candidate, Cheney purchased an insurance policy that would guarantee his deferred payments regardless of the company's performance, removing any conflict of interest. Cheney's net worth, estimated to be between $30 million and $100 million, is largely derived from his post at Halliburton. In the rebuilding of Iraq, Halliburton was granted a $7 billion no-bid contract, the execution of which received much scrutiny by U.S. Government auditors along with the media and various political opponents who also scrutinized the awarding of the contract, claiming that it represented a conflict of interest for Mr. Cheney. In June 2004, the General Accounting Office reviewed the contracting procedures [13] and found Halliburton's no-bid contracts were legal and likely justified by the Pentagon's wartime needs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney




(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Across the country a revolving door from state house to lobbying. A new report found some 1,300 former state legislators registered in 2005 as lobbyists.

LEAH RUSH, CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY: Politics is politics no matter where you are.

ROMANS: The Center for Public Integrity uncovered a state gambling committee leader who left to represent casinos. Another lawmaker spearheaded a move to cap medical liability and then left to represent the medical industry.

The center asked hundreds of former lawmakers why.

RUSH: The allure of, I've done my public time, now I need to put my kid through college, is a response that we heard often from lawmakers.

ROMANS: The payoff is incredible. In Texas, for example, the report found a lawmaker earning $7,200 can earn almost half a million dollars a year as a lobbyist. Texas leads the nation in this revolving door, 70 former state lawmakers on the lobby rolls last year. Sixty in Florida. These states round out the top 10.

It is now a billion dollar business, special interests working hard for a say in the 40,000 state laws passed last year.

PAUL MILLER, AMERICAN LEAGUE OF LOBBYISTS: If you're a corporation or a private company or an association what you are going to do is probably look to hire the best lobbyist out there and that may be a former lawmaker whether it be on the federal or state level.

ROMANS: Some call it government for sale. Another blow in the war on the middle class. But the lobbyist for lobbyists says it makes government better.

MILLER: Without lobbyists I'd be scared to see the rules and regulations that would be placed on citizens all across this country.

ROMANS: Still, he supports a cooling off period between elected office and lobbying.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: About half the states now have some sort of waiting period to slow the revolving door, but term limits may be accelerating this trend. Ineligible to run again, lawmakers who would have been career politicians, Kitty, they can stay in politics but by becoming lobbyists.

PILGRIM: Very interesting stuff. Thanks very much, Christine Romans.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/12/ldt.01.html





Why Congressmen Want To Be Lobbyists

http://www.slate.com/id/2085165/

CHATTERBOX

When John Monagan, a Democrat who represented Waterbury, Conn., in the House of Representatives, lost his seat in 1972, he became a lobbyist. It wasn't really what he wanted. He'd looked into becoming a lecturer at Dartmouth or Yale, but they wouldn't have him. Reviving his law practice lacked appeal because, he writes in his memoir, A Pleasant Institution, "I would have had to start at the beginning … writing contracts and drawing warranty deeds and mortgages and developing business." His wife and children, having lived in and around Washington for 13 years, weren't keen to move. So, he opened a Washington office for a New York law firm.

Monagan didn't much like the work. Clients, he felt, had "an unreal picture of how the Congress worked and were prey to some who made outlandish claims to power and influence which were without foundation." Although he had plenty of House connections himself, "it was not easy for me to dramatize them." Overall,

Monagan's sensibility was more rarified than that of his peers—he went on to write a biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes and carried on a lengthy correspondence with the novelist Anthony Powell—but his melancholy about settling into a lobbying job is nonetheless representative of a mindset that prevailed on Capitol Hill through most of the last century. Public service as a sitting member of Congress was ennobling. Trading influence as a lobbyist for moneyed interests, on the other hand, was a little bit demeaning.

How old-fashioned it all sounds today! As Chatterbox noted Monday, Reps. Billy Tauzin, R-La., and Mary Bono, R-Calif., brazenly serenaded recording-industry lobbyist Hilary Rosen last week with a plea for her job. The "hire-us" rap song that Tauzin and Bono recorded for Rosen's going-away party ("You still don't think we're the ones for the job?/ Yo, we're politicians. We were born to hobnob") was very clearly a joke. But, as Monagan pointed out to Chatterbox, it's not the sort of joke that House members from his era would likely have made.

And how much of a joke was it, anyway? Bono has been less than Shermanesque in denying that she wants to succeed Rosen. "I am not actively seeking the job," Bono assured Variety after her spokeswoman described the music-lobbying gig as Bono's "ideal job." (Bono is the widow of pop-star-turned-congressman Sonny Bono, and she recently co-founded the House Intellectual Property Promotion and Piracy Prevention Caucus. For Bono, "intellectual property" is no abstraction since she gets paid every time a disc jockey spins "I Got You, Babe.") Tauzin, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce committee, is more firm in denying his rumored desire, which is to succeed Jack Valenti as president of the Motion Picture Association of America. But Variety reported yesterday that Tauzin remains Hollywood's top choice. If Tauzin really didn't want the job, wouldn't he make Valenti take his name out of the running?

That two relatively young members of Congress facing no serious threat of electoral defeat would envy the life of a lobbyist represents a massive paradigm shift in Washington's status hierarchy. Having long ago reconciled themselves to being lobbyists' financial inferiors, House members now find themselves lobbyists' social inferiors. How could this perversion of the natural order come to pass? Blame it on three people: Richard Nixon, Newt Gingrich, and Ralph Nader.

Nixon was at the center of the Watergate scandal, one of whose ramifications was 1974's Federal Election Campaign Act. This placed limits on political contributions and established the Federal Election Commission, which collects and maintains data on campaign receipts and outlays. The 1974 law clearly made national elections, which until then had often operated on a cash basis, less corrupt, and it minimized the amount of individual influence a fat cat could buy. But it also made the lives of House members more unpleasant by complicating the way they collect political contributions.

Previously, a representative could rely on a few wealthy patrons to bankroll his campaigns. Lyndon Johnson, for instance, entered Congress as the protégé of George and Herman Brown, who directed Johnson to secure federal contracts for their construction firm, Brown and Root. Once limits were imposed on contributions by individuals and political action committees, it became harder for one donor to "own" a representative the way the Browns had owned Johnson. But because each contribution was now smaller, House members had to devote more and more of their time to raising money. Today, fund-raising is a grind for all elected officials in Washington, but it's an especially dreary treadmill for representatives because they must run every two years.

At the same time that campaign reform made being a congressman less enjoyable on a daily basis, it expanded vastly the power of Washington's lobbyists. No longer mere messenger boys for individual wealthy patrons, they became powers unto themselves as House members (and other Washington politicians) subcontracted to them the business of raising money. Increasingly, lobbyists came to represent entire industries rather than individual companies. The most successful lobbyists extended their fund-raising reach beyond those they represented and solicited contributions from the larger community of prominent wealthy people. In addition to rendering themselves more valuable financially, this mingling with the nation's elites raised the lobbyists' social status. By banning previously unrestricted "soft money" contributions to the national parties, last year's McCain-Feingold campaign finance law will further accelerate this trend.

Hilary Rosen is perhaps the best example of how far lobbying can carry you in the 21st century. With her life partner, Elizabeth Birch, who runs the Human Rights Campaign (an organization that battles discrimination against gays), Rosen hosts political fund-raisers at their house in Chevy Chase, Washington's toniest suburb. Rosen gets quoted in The New Yorker. She was invited to debate at the Oxford Union. She'll soon start a gig as a commentator on CNBC. Such baubles are rarely dangled before mere House members.

Newt Gingrich led House Republicans to numerical supremacy, for the first time in 40 years, in 1994. The tool Gingrich used to bring about this "Republican revolution" was a document called the Contract With America. The contract included many empty promises, but one that Gingrich and the newly Republican House made good on was a pledge to "limit the terms of all committee chairs." The House rules were changed to restrict, in most cases to six years, the length of time any member may be chairman of any given committee or subcommittee.

A committee chairmanship is the real source of influence in the House, and it can take years to acquire one. House Speaker Dennis Hastert has interpreted the rule change to allow the most senior members to shift laterally from one chairmanship to another, but even so, the time restriction dilutes a chairman's ability to master his role. The most fearsome House chairmen—in recent times, think of Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., who prior to Tauzin headed the Energy and Commerce committee for two decades—accumulated their power gradually. Dingell's obvious delight, toward the end, in bossing people around was not appreciated by many of those he tormented (sometimes unfairly) in oversight hearings. But it's impossible to imagine that Chairman Dingell would ever have become the subject of a rumor that he was about to jump ship to lobby for Hollywood studios.

Power abhors a vacuum. If House committee chairmen no longer rule with an iron fist, then who is left to define the terms of debate? The veteran lobbyist. Rosen lobbied for the recording industry for 17 years. Her face, not Tauzin's, became the one associated with the controversies surrounding Napster.

Ralph Nader counts, among his many bêtes noirs, the extravagant pay that taxpayers supposedly lavish on Congress. Opposing congressional pay raises is a popular cause in this anti-government era, and Nader and the (usually laudable) Congressional Accountability Project have flogged it for all it's worth.

At the moment, senators and House members get paid $154,700 (you get more if you're in the top House or Senate leadership). That's hardly peanuts, but it's less (in real dollars) than House members earned a decade ago. In 1993, congressional pay was $133,600. In today's dollars, that's $164,562, or nearly $10,000 more than what congressmen actually get. Surely the political pressure brought to bear by Nader, CAP, and others represents at least part of the reason congressional paychecks have lost ground to inflation.

At the same time that members of Congress have seen their paychecks dwindle, they've enjoyed the benefits of a pretty generous retirement plan. If you've served five years, you can start collecting your pension at age 62. If you've served 20 years, you can start collecting it at age 50. Since you probably aren't going to stop working—indeed, you'll likely earn more than you made in government—departing Congress makes more financial sense than staying there. That's always been true, of course. But a pay structure in which retirement benefits are more generous than salary makes it even truer.

This last factor applies to senators just as much as it does to House members. But senators are more insulated from its demoralizing effects because membership in the Senate confers greater fame and influence*. And the Senate's six-year election cycle reduces substantially the pressure for raising campaign funds. These differences explain why senators continue to trump lobbyists in Washington's status competition, while lobbyists increasingly trump House members.

In the last and final segment of our discussion, Chatterbox will explain how this all relates to House majority leader Tom DeLay's fearsome campaign to get lobby firms to hire Republicans.

Correction, July 8: An earlier version of this piece incorrectly stated that there is no term limit on committee chairmanships in the Senate. In fact, the Senate Republican Conference does impose on Republicans a six-year term limit similar to that imposed by the House. Senate Democrats, however, may hold chairmanships as long as their party controls the Senate, provided the arrangement meets with the approval of committee members and the Senate leadership.

Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.

To read SLATE’S “Why Congressmen Want To Be Lobbyists”, Part I
http://www.slate.com/id/2085071/

Lobbyists prosper and public loses;

‘earmarks’ rule change is fake reform.

Congressional aide Letitia White whirled through the revolving door one day in 2003 and came out a partner in a well-connected lobbying firm the next. Within two years, her lobbying fees had topped $3.5 million.

                                       

The secret to success for the one-time congressional receptionist?

White's last job on Capitol Hill was as a top aide to Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., now chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, which disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff used to call the "favor factory." As a lobbyist, White became adept at getting her clients "earmarks" — government funds directed by lawmakers to specific projects or specific contractors. (Read the Opposing view)

In a Congress better known for corruption than legislating, earmarks are one of the seamiest parts of a broken process. Lobbyists channel campaign funds from their clients to lawmakers. And lawmakers earmark money to projects that benefit those clients.

The losers are companies that refuse to "pay to play" and the public, which gets stuck with the bills.

Earmarks themselves are nothing new. But they used to involve mostly pork-barrel public-works projects that lawmakers steered to their home districts. These days, they have become expensive favors for well-connected industries and companies. Earmarks topped $60 billion in this fiscal year's 11 regular spending bills, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, triple the total when Republicans took control of Congress in 1994.

At the beginning of this year, GOP congressional leaders vowed to curb influence-peddling, including the use of earmarks. Their zeal was fueled by the Abramoff scandal and a bribery case involving Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif. The latest chapter of the Abramoff scandal played out Friday, when Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, agreed to plead guilty to federal corruption charges. Ney accepted luxury trips and other benefits in return for helping Abramoff's clients.

While this latest criminal case underscores the need for wholesale lobbying reform, Congress has opted for minimalism.

Last week, the House took the tiniest step imaginable to deal with earmarks. One of the worst aspects of earmarking is that lawmakers often do it secretly. Under a new rule, hailed by Rep. Brian Bilbray and other sponsors as a big deal, members will have to own up to earmarks they sponsor.

Wow. It took nearly nine months for the House to make members do what they should have been doing all along. And even this rule is riddled with loopholes: It doesn't apply to 10 spending bills already passed by the House this year. Nor does it do anything to lock the revolving door that allows people like White to get rich selling access to the people they used to work for.

A spokesman for White says there is no reason to single her out from among the many Appropriations Committee staffers who become lobbyists, lobby their former committee and find financial rewards.

That is precisely the problem.

Posted at 12:22 AM/ET, September 18, 2006 in Ethics - Editorial, Politics, Government - Editorial, Reforming Washington - Editorial, USA TODAY editorial | Permalink
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2006/09/post_13.html





Opposing view: We're changing the culture

New House rule will ‘blow away the fog of

anonymity’ on earmarks.

By Brian Bilbray

The American people believe that the accountability and transparency they expect from their leaders have been replaced by backroom deals. The practice known as "earmarking" has fostered a system that places a premium on waste and abuse.

For far too long, earmarks were added anonymously without any debate. Special interests have too much influence in the appropriations process. Decisions were made behind closed doors and out of public view. (Read USA TODAY's view)

Last week, the House of Representatives took the first step in changing the culture that has left so many Americans disillusioned with their government. With the public demanding reform, the House adopted rule changes to the practice of earmarking that will bring more transparency to the legislative and appropriations process. For the first time, earmarks will be put in the public light where everybody will be able to see how their tax dollars are being spent.

This is the first step of many in what must be an ongoing commitment from this Congress to blow away the fog of anonymity that surrounds our governing process. If we are to make a profound and lasting change in how this institution handles the taxpayers' dollars, then we must be willing to adopt changes that will enable us to be better stewards and more responsible to the taxpayers.

That is why I am calling on Congress to adopt a two-year budget cycle, so that election-year politics wouldn't influence budget and appropriations decisions. I believe that decisions about the budget process should be made after elections, not before them. The American people believe their government is broken. It is up to us to repair it.

A two-year budget process would help create more oversight, accountability and transparency. The path to reform has only begun. We must have the will and commitment to restore the public's confidence.

Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., co-sponsored the House resolution on earmarks that passed last week. (House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis declined to provide an opposing view.)

Posted at 12:21 AM/ET, September 18, 2006 in Ethics - Editorial, Politics, Government - Editorial, Reforming Washington - Editorial, USA TODAY editorial | Permalink
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2006/09/post_14.html

Tabacco: I published the “Opposing View” because, unlike Right-Wingers at Fox News, who say it but NEVER DO IT, I try to be “fair and balanced” and show both sides as long as the other side is not too disingenuous.  This “Opposing View” makes me want to puke; but if I had to read it, you may as well read it too.  

Tabacco’s “Opposing View” is that you do not modify CORRUPTION.  You could not use “Separate But Equal” to “modify Segregation; it had to be totally eradicated!  The same applies to Lobbying: you cannot “modify CORRUPTION”; you either continue to live with it (why would any fair voter want to?) or you ERADICATE IT just like “Separate But Equal”!

Inserting a “Time Out” before allowing politicos to become lobbyists is a wrong solution – end lobbying contact with congressmen concurrent with both punitive $-fines and mandatory jail time for violations re both congresspersons & lobbyists: that will effectively end “for profit” lobbying. Non-Profits may continue to lobby Congress. Even they may not make donations, contributions, or gifts of any kind; and all meetings must be videotaped by an outside, non-political government agency. The same penalties would apply as with “For Profit” lobbyists.  The only pressure any lobbyist should ever be able to apply is the Vote, not the Dollar!

Subject: Rove: The Election Was About the Hostile Takeover
Date: Saturday, November 11, 2006 10:34 AM
From: David J. Sirota <lists@davidsirota.com>
To: <Tabacco>

http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2006/11/11/rove-the-election-was-about-the-hostile-takeover/ <http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2006/11/11/rove-the-election-was-about-the-hostile-takeover/>

 <http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2006/11/11/rove-the-election-was-about-the-hostile-takeover/>
Rove: The Election Was About the Hostile Takeover

By David Sirota

I’ve been saying for months to anyone who will listen that along with Iraq, the corruption issue is the defining issue in politics right now. It‚s why I wrote an entire book about it called Hostile Takeover: How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government - And How We Take It Back. During my 40-city book tour, I heard from a number of political pontificators that no, no one cares about corruption and that it wouldn’t swing the election, as my book predicted. Well, days after the election, none other than Karl Rove is admitting that the hostile takeover was the number one critical issue in the election.

Here’s the excerpt from Time Magazine:

"The profile of corruption in the exit polls was bigger than I'd expected," Rove tells TIME. “Abramoff, lobbying, Foley and Haggard [the disgraced evangelical leader] added to the general distaste that people have for all things Washington, and it just reached critical mass."

The centrality of the hostile takeover in the election played out on a number of issues, beyond just lobbying/ethics reform. For instance as a new Public Citizen report shows, candidates talked a lot about how corporate lobbyists have manipulated our trade policy to crush workers. Candidates also talked a lot about how the Bush Energy Bill was written by the oil industry and thus gave away massive wasteful tax breaks to oil companies. The list goes on.

This post isn't an "I told you so" - it's a reminder to everyone that when the new Congress opens, the very first order of business must be major lobbying/ethics reform, as Nancy Pelosi has proposed. She might get serious opposition from people like Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer, both of whom have spent the last year shaking down Big Money interests for cash and bragging about that to reporters. But even Rove admits there is a mandate by voters for Congress to really change things and stop the hostile takeover of our government by big money interests.
 

--------------------
David Sirota is the author of the book Hostile Takeover, released in May of 2006. To order the book, go to Amazon

Barnes  Noble <http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?bfmid=2181&sourceid=41568185&bfpid=0307237346&bfmtype=book>  or Powell's Bookstore <http://www.powells.com/partner/30567/biblio/0307237346> .

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 <http://www.phplist.com>

While walking down the street one day a US senator is tragically hit by a truck and dies. His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.

"Welcome to heaven," says St. Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you."

"No problem, just let me in," says the man.

"Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity."

"Really, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven," says the senator.

"I'm sorry, but we have our rules."

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.

The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him. Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people. They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne. Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go. Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises.

The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him. "Now it's time to visit heaven."

So, 24 hours pass with the senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.

"Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity."

The senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: "Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell."

So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.

Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above. The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder.

"I don't understand," stammers the senator. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?"

The devil looks at him, smiles and says, "Yesterday we were campaigning...... Today you voted."
Source: Courtesy of a friend, Frank Edwards



Has anyone noticed that most of the Public Figures, who are assassinated, are Humanitarians, who attempt to aid the “Common Man”: Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, & Medgar Evers.  When an attempt is made on the lives of Ronald Reagan or Harry Truman, those attempts invariably fail.  Why the disparity?  Because Rich people hire cool professionals or Racists operate in groups to assassinate the former, and angry amateurs, working alone, unsuccessfully attempt to assassinate the latter.

Neither the Kennedys, Lincoln, King nor X assassinations were absent conspiracies.  Making political assassinations appear to be the work of an individual “maniac” is the method of choice to protect the wealthy and politically powerful from disclosure and retribution.

Next time a humanitarian is assassinated, ask yourself this question,

From that group, you will find the brains and money behind that Event!  The concept, which common sense seems to ignore in the aftermath of assassination, is called

The motive of the actual captured assassin is invariably MONEY!

Sometimes the captured “alleged” assassin is merely a DUPE or planted Scapegoat, whose only crime was GULLIBILITY!


In 1981's 'Body Heat', Kathleen Turner said, "Knowledge is power".

 

T.A.B.A.C.C.O.  (Truth About Business And Congressional Crimes Organization)

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