Tag Archives | Lobbyists

How The Top 10 Military Contractors Lobby In Tandem

By on June 16, 2011 in News 9

Irregular Times discovers the beautiful geometry of evil cronyism:

Tightly connected. Massively funded. Working for war. This is what the peace movements are up against. Together, the top ten federal contractors, all working for the military, received $138.4 Billion in taxpayer funds through federal contracts during fiscal year 2010. In the first three months of 2011 alone, these ten corporations paid for the services of no fewer than 109 different lobbying firms, deployed to Capitol Hill along with their own in-house corporate lobbyists. A line is drawn between any two military contractors if they both hired the services of at least one lobbying firm in common; the number indicates the number of lobbying firms hired in common:

LobbyistOverlapforMilitaryContractors2010

… Read the rest

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FCC Commissioner, Meredith Attwell Baker, Who Approved Comcast-NBC Universal Merger, Leaving to Join Comcast

By on May 16, 2011 in News 31

Meredith Attwell BakerEdward Wyatt writes in the NY Times Media Decoder:

Four months after the Federal Communications Commission approved a hotly contested merger of Comcast and NBC Universal, one of the commissioners who voted for the deal said on Wednesday that she would soon join Comcast’s Washington lobbying office.

Meredith Attwell Baker, a former Commerce Department official who worked on telecommunications issues in George W. Bush’s administration, announced that she would leave the F.C.C. when her term expires at the end of June. At Comcast, she will serve as senior vice president for government affairs for NBC Universal, which Comcast acquired in January.

The announcement drew immediate criticism from some groups that had opposed the Comcast-NBC merger. They said the move was indicative of an ethically questionable revolving door between regulatory agencies and the companies they oversee.

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Stephen Colbert: I Don’t Want To Be The ‘Chump’ Without Unlimited Corporate Cash (Video)

By on May 14, 2011 in News 2

StephenColbertSuperPACThis is brilliant. Looking forward to seeing how far Colbert can go with this. Ryan J. Reilly writes on Talking Points Memo:

Stephen Colbert doesn’t “want to be the one chump” without any unlimited corporate money going to his political action committee. That’s why he showed up the the Federal Election Commission building in D.C. to formally request an advisory opinion on behalf of “Colbert Super PAC,” a proposed independent expenditure only committee able to accept unlimited corporate, individual, political committee and labor contributions.

Accepting unlimited funding is “a right as described by the Citizens United case,” Colbert said in response to a question from Politico’s Ken Vogel. “I believe the Citizens United decision was the right one, there should be unlimited corporate money, and I want some of it. I don’t want to be the one chump who doesn’t have any.”

Colbert said he expected the FEC to take his request seriously.

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So You’ve Angered The Hive

By on May 3, 2011 in News 2

Stop US Chamber of CommerceKevin Zeese is an attorney and former candidate for U.S. Senate with a law degree from George Washington University. He contributes to a website attacking the agenda of the national Chamber of Commerce (StopTheChamber.com) and ran for office within the Green Party.

Zeese is concerned that malevolent business interests will have undue influence on elections, due to those interests’ expanding ability to influence elections anonymously. On the phone, he took great pains to differentiate the national hub from your local, garden variety chamber of commerce, which Zeese insists can very well represent the interests of local businesses. The local chambers, he said, had attempted to distance themselves from the national hub, the distinction for him lying in his instinct that the national was undermining decentralization of interests.

I asked him, “So I guess I’d just like to start off by asking you to describe in your own words why you think the Chamber of Commerce apparently has a problem with you or doesn’t want you to speak your mind?”

With this, Zeese laughed with glee, and, catching his breath, said, “Well, that’s a good way of putting it.”

“Well, we have a project called StopTheChamber.com, and it’s been for about a year now heavily focused on the Chamber of Commerce and their activities in both elections and lobbying.… Read the rest

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When No Experience Pays Off Big (In a Government Job)

By on April 10, 2011 in News 12
Brian Deschane's mugshot

Brian Deschane's mugshot

Daniel Bice writes in the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel:

Just in his mid-20s, Brian Deschane has no college degree, very little management experience and two drunken-driving convictions.

Yet he has landed an $81,500-per-year job in Gov. Scott Walker’s administration overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees at the Department of Commerce. Even though Walker says the state is broke and public employees are overpaid, Deschane already has earned a promotion and a 26% pay raise in just two months with the state.

How did Deschane score his plum assignment with the Walker team? It’s all in the family. His father is Jerry Deschane, executive vice president and longtime lobbyist for the Madison-based Wisconsin Builders Association, which bet big on Walker during last year’s governor’s race.

The group’s political action committee gave $29,000 to Walker and his running mate, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, last year, making it one of the top five PAC donors to the governor’s successful campaign.

… Read the rest

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The GOP Vs. Sesame Street

By on February 19, 2011 in News 6

Elmo Testifies Before CongressVia Fox News:

The Muppets are finding Capitol Hill isn’t quite as friendly as Sesame Street.

After being thrust into the political spotlight Wednesday at a Democratic-held press conference to defend funding for public broadcasting, the Muppets are now the target of Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who accuses the PBS stars of being “political animals.”

In a blog entitled “The Muppet Lobby,” the South Carolina conservative — who like the rest of his party wants to end taxpayer funding for public media — pointed to Elmo’s testimony before Congress about the need for more arts funding, his participation in other press conferences to increase spending on public broadcasting and his appearances on the lecture circuit last year with Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genochowski to promote federal broadband Internet.

“At this rate, Americas can expect Big Bird to start filming commercials to hype ObamaCare,” he wrote on his blog. “If the FCC can borrow Elmo from PBS to build support for their plans, what’s to stop the Department of Health and Human Services from feeding Big Bird some lines?”

On Wednesday, Democratic Reps.

… Read the rest

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Chamber of Commerce Betrays America Again: Opposes 9/11 Responders Healthcare Bill

By on December 19, 2010 in News 16

USCoCIt seems that the Chamber of Commerce lobbied against the bill to give specialized healthcare to 9/11 rescuers which would have been fully paid for by closing a $7.4 billion dollar tax loophole that benefited FOREIGN corporations.

The very misnomered “U.S.” Chamber of Commerce is best known for throwing gobs of money into the last election at the idiotic Supreme Court’s urging, attempting to get a flood of corporate hacks masquerading as populists elected to Congress, and also for it’s fearless “leader”, Tom Donohue, who famously claimed he’d make any candidate who even dared MENTION helping the poor, bleed and cry.

Yeah. A real prince among men. And that is the real spirit of that organization. A giant eff you to anyone who isn’t a billionaire, that claims to work for small businesses, but doesn’t. Nathan Diebenow writes in RAW Story:

The US Chamber of Commerce lobbied to kill a bill that would have helped cover medical expenses and compensation for first responders and survivors of the Sept.

… Read the rest

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Marijuana Industry Gets Lobbying Muscle

By on December 13, 2010 in News 10

POT-popupMcClatchy reports that a new trade group called the National Cannabis Industry Association will lobby in Washington on behalf of marijuana growers and sellers. Is this the arrival of a savior in the fight for legalization? Or an ominous sign of the coming corporatization of pot?

The cannabis industry has flexed its muscles in 15 states where it’s legal to smoke marijuana for medical purposes. Now the industry is ready to go to work in Washington.

A new trade group, called the National Cannabis Industry Association, is an attempt to bring together sellers, growers and manufacturers and to promote pot on Capitol Hill.

“Our intent is to be the go-to organization in Washington for this industry,” said Aaron Smith, the group’s executive director. For the past five years, Smith worked as the California director of the Marijuana Policy Project.

“Coming out of California and expanding into this national field is pretty exciting,” he said.

… Read the rest

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Obama Sets Out To Mend Relationship With Big Business

By on December 1, 2010 in News 21

obama-10-26-09An ominous sign regarding Obama’s agenda for the second half of his term: he’s seeking to counter his “anti-business image” by “reaching out to CEOs” and lobbyists. BusinessWeek reveals:

President Barack Obama is preparing new overtures to business that may start with a walk into the headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a retreat with corporate chief executive officers, according to people familiar with his plans.

The Obama administration has been at odds with the Chamber, which fought Obama’s health-care and financial regulatory overhauls and committed $75 million to political ads in the midterm congressional elections, mainly directed against Democrats. The CEO summit would be a way to address complaints from some executives that the Democratic administration is anti- business.

The Chamber had invited Obama to speak on Dec. 2 and the administration hadn’t yet replied when the Chamber canceled the event, said an administration official. The cancellation wasn’t related to the president’s potential participation, said a Chamber official who declined to be identified.

… Read the rest

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