Search Results
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A Bargain Bayh For Corporate Interests
In case you thought Evan Bayh (D-IN) had no controversial parts of his career that might complicate his Mr. Clean vice-presidential image, make sure to check out this story from the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette: WASHINGTON - Since leaving Indiana as...
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The Democratic Culture of Corruption
A little more than a year ago, Ari Berman penned an article for The Nation about the culture of corruption seething inside the Democratic Party. He focused in on Montana Sen. Max Baucus (D), who he labeled "K Street's favorite...
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Bob Schaffer Has an Abramoff and Kerry-ish Problem
ProgressNow has the scoop on how Colorado Senate candidate Bob Schaffer has a pretty serious Abramoff problem from his time gallivanting across the world helping Abramoff clients try to exploit workers. Thanks to photos, I think Schaffer also has a...
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The $23 Million Letter
$23.6 million - that's the total that the donors attacking Nancy Pelosi have given to the Democratic Party, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Remember - all Pelosi said was that superdelegates should not overturn the will of voters....
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McCain Drills for Oil Cash In Denver
He's here today drilling for Big Oil's money....
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More Lobbyists for McCain
From corrupt player in the Keating 5 scandal, to supposed "reformer," back to corrupt player, the John McCain story is far from a "straight-talk express." Politico has the details....
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The Hill: Dem Majority Good for K Street
The sickening details here....
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Big Win for Public Financing
Big win in Washington State....
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Washington State Moves Toward Public Financing
The Washington State legislature just made a potentially huge move. Details here....
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Today's Face of Corruption
Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA): "The hedge-fund industry, under siege in Congress, snagged a high-profile advocate: Rep. Richard Baker, a top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee...While in Congress, Mr. Baker, 59 years old, has worked on financial-services regulation. From...
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What Corruption Looks Like
Matt Stoller delivers the physical manifestation of the abstract word "corruption."...
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Democratic Culture of Corruption Is Spinning Out of Control
Michael here at Credo Action sums up how the raging culture of corruption inside Democratic circles is spinning wildly out of control - and threatens to undermine the entire progressive agenda....
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Watchdog Chastises Clinton On Lobbyist Connections
Remember when Sen. Hillary Clinton (D) said that lobbyists represent "real" people and they therefore do not wield disproportionate influence in Washington? Here's the Center for Responsive Politics' new report: According to data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics,...
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"Conservatism" & Dems' Culture of Corruption
As the housing/mortgage crisis intensifies, some courageous Democrats like Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) are trying to let judges help people stay in their home and stop foreclosures. Unfortunately, as my new nationally syndicated newspaper column out today shows, Miller is...
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CNN Selects K Street Project Architect to Ask Questions at GOP Debate
During CNN's YouTube debate, which is supposed to let regular people ask presidential candidates question, the network selected K Street Project architect Grover Norquist to ask a question. What a sick commentary on our political system, really....
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How Can You Identify Real Corruption?
This is a harder question than it sounds, but we have a very good example to work off of from Matt Stoller of OpenLeft. As he shows, a group of "Blue Dog" Members of Congress are trying to block a...
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Edwards On the Invisible Culture of Corruption
John Edwards becomes the first presidential candidate to talk openly about the invisible culture of corruption that is plaguing Washington when it comes to trade policy. Here is his statement from today: "The fact that the Peru trade deal is...
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Why Is Al Wynn Being Primaried?
Why is Maryland Rep. Al Wynn (D) facing a strong primary challenge from Donna Edwards? Well, lots of reasons. For one thing, he voted for the Iraq War. But that's really only part of the story. Wynn represents part of...
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Just Another Spin Through D.C.'s Revolving Door
From Roll Call: "Memo to lobbying groups from Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.): Hands off my staffers! Or, more to the point, if you want to hire away my staff, at least give me a courtesy call. Baucus was peeved to...
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The Not-So-Invisible Culture of Corruption
Last week, I wrote about the invisible culture of corruption plaguing Washington. This week, Congressional Quarterly has a piece on the not-so-invisible culture of corruption feeding off the congressional Democratic majority. Check it out....
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"Rural Americans for Hillary"
According to ABC News, Hillary Clinton is holding a "Rural Americans for Hillary" lunch and campaign briefing at the Washington, D.C. offices of the lawfirm that represents Monsanto....
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"Not With a Bang, But a Whimper"
That's how revolutions end - not with a bang, but with a whimper. And that goes for the Republicans' 30-year anti-tax revolution. As my new nationally syndicated column today shows, the public is finally turning away from the me-first economic...
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INTERVIEW: Big Money Equals Bad Politics
I did an interview about the political culture of corruption with Common Sense Magazine. Check it out here....
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Clinton Officials-Turned-Lobbyists Push NAFTA Expansion
The Hill Newspaper has details here. Try not to projectile vomit....
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GAO Says FCC Leaking Inside Info to Lobbyists
Check this out from the Los Angeles Times today: "From giant phone companies to small consumer advocates, the Federal Communications Commission is supposed to treat every group equally. But congressional investigators have found some companies and trade groups have received...
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Bipartisanship vs. Buypartisanship
Glancing at the Wall Street Journal and then at the Hill Newspaper, it's hard to believe some people in Congress are professional career politicians...or maybe it isn't. Maybe it's just the difference between bipartisanship and buypartisanship. Here's the front page...
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Anyone Want to See What the Hostile Takeover of the Democratic Party Looks Like?
I wrote a whole book on the hostile takeover of our government by Big Money interests - but if anyone wants to see a good example of what that means with respect specifically to the Democratic Party, please take a...
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The Unfairness of America's Bankruptcy Laws
Remember how a few years ago Congress passed a bill trying to turn people who go bankrupt into indentured servants to the credit card industry? Big surprise - that same harsh bankruptcy treatment is not applicable to big corporations. Apparently...
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Fox News Lobbyist Doubles as GOP's Face on CNN
There is something, well, telling about the Republican Party putting a corporate lobbyist up as its official television spokesperson. I'm talking about John Feehery, who appears as the regular "Republican strategist" on CNN's Situation Room. Feehery is the head of...
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Can You Blame America For Thinking They All Represent The Same Problem?
Reading two stories back to back, can you really blame Americans for thinking presidential candidates represent the same appendages of a corporate monster? Check out this story and then just look at this link to see what I mean....
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K Street Wants Justice Up for Sale
Just when you thought another branch of government couldn't be sold off to Corporate America, here comes a story from Stateline about how state attorneys general are now the targets of big-time corporate lobbying campaigns....
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The "Normal Rules" of Washington
Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill mostly agree that corporations have been using more and more loopholes in tax treaties to avoid paying what they owe. This is called the "tax gap." The two parties don't necessarily agree that the...
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Ohio Complains That Colorado's Schaffer Is Deflating the Cost of Bribery
Cleveland's city paper, the Cleveland Scene, is complaining that Colorado Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer is deflating the prices of bribery in the wake of allegations that he sold his vote on the Colorado school board for $4,000 from the...
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Sorry, Dick - Looks Like the Schaffer Scandal Ain't Going Away
Despite Colorado GOP chief Dick Wadhams' hilarious temper tantrum last week, ColoradoPols has a post up showing why the scandal surrounding Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer just ain't gonna go away too soon. Sorry, Dick - I know you...
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Another Republican Caught In the Culture of Corruption
Republicans here in Colorado have resorted to their typical - and typically boring - formula of slash and burn when faced with factual questions about their corruption. As the Rocky Mountain News reports this morning, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob...
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Corporate Lobbyists Thank Clinton for Defending Them
Hillary Clinton's aggressive defense of K Street lobbyists at the YearlyKos convention may be disgusting to many Americans who are sick and tired of watching career politicians sell them out, but the Washington Post reports that one group is cheering...
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AP: Edwards Connects Corruption to NAFTA, Drawing Distinction With Clinton
Every campaign season, there are moments that get remembered far beyond their news cycle, and sometimes beyond even their particular election. It looks like Hillary Clinton's gaffe at YearlyKos defending lobbyists may go down as one of those moments. Here's...
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Following YearlyKos Debate, Edwards Uses K Street Corruption to Frame Race as Him vs. Clinton
I'm just back from the YearlyKos Convention in Chicago, and wanted to point folks to two YouTube clips of what were the best and most telling moments - by far - of the conference's presidential campaign interchanges. As you will...
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Should We Also Believe That Bill Gates Is Destitute?
Attention: This piece in Roll Call newspaper today is not a story from The Onion, even though you may think it is. The story informs us that an army of former Senate staffers who have now become high-paid K Street...
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Lobbyist Fred Thompson Says S&L Schemers & Foreign Human Rights Violators "Deserve Representation"
Via reader Steve Josselson, the Associated Press is the latest media outlet to finally (and belatedly) report on Fred Thomspon's career as a corporate and foreign lobbyist. Responding to the article, Thompson defiantly said, "Nobody yet has pointed out any...
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K Street to Rangel: "Keep the Party Going!"
As House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) continues to push a secret package of trade deals, K Street lobbyists are throwing him a big party for his birthday. Matt Stoller at MyDD has the email that went...
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What Else Should We Expect From a Lifelong K Street Lobbyist?
USA Today finally breaks the national media silence about the one-third of Fred Thompson's life that he spent as a high-paid corporate lobbyist in Washington, D.C. Thompson's campaign, which is being run by his fellow K Street lobbyists, responded by...
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More Signs Edwards Is Doing Something Right
Bob Novak resorts to using his entire column to attack John Edwards for having the nerve to alienate the Washington Democratic Establishment by - gasp! - being a "populist": "Mark Siegel, a 35-year party insider, told me: 'He came to...
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SF CHRON: Dems Drafting Bill to Steamroll State Global Warming Laws
You have to read this to believe it. In other state-related news, the National Conference of State Legislatures just sent out this email bragging that: "A record-breaking 3,400 people have already registered for this year's Legislative Summit in Boston, August...
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Dem Lawmaker Horrified That He Has To Actually Interact With His Constituents
The New York Times story on why Democrats are refusing to crackdown on lobbyists who bundle campaign contributions has this nugget: “We have dues that we are supposed to raise of several hundred thousand dollars, and in the same breath...
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When Cancer Is Billed As Merely An Innocuous Nuisance, You Know Corruption Has Become A Deadly Disease
The Washington Post today reports on what has become a near-total Democratic abandonment of the party's 2006 election pledge to clean up Washington. Democrats have joined hands with Republicans to gut a proposed lobbying reform bill, removing provisions that prevent...
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"Capitol Hill Is the New Business School"
The Politico reports that Democrats on the House Judiciary committee yesterday "scrapped a beefed-up provision of the Lobbying Reform Bill that would have prohibited former lawmakers and senior staff from lobbying their former colleagues during their first two years out...
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AP: Dems Suddenly Refusing To Pass Promised Lobbying Reforms
From the Associated Press: "House Democrats are suddenly balking at the tough lobbying reforms they touted to voters last fall as a reason for putting them in charge of Congress. Now that they are running things, many Democrats want to...
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GOP Front Group Exposes It's Own Corruption & the Right's Fraying Coalition
The National Association of Manufacturers purports to represent America's domestic industrial manufacturers - you know, the factories that Washington's economic policies are trying to destroy. Thus, you may expect such an organization to be constantly railing on the Establishment. In...
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Eleven Words For Thompson’s Entire 20 Years on K Street
Honestly - this is getting really embarrassing for the Beltway press corps. Yesterday, I noted that in its fawning coverage of Republican Fred Thompson, the New York Times made a very clear effort to smooth over Thompson's time as a...
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Disturbing Questions On a Monday Morning
I am headed down to Butte today for the big "economic development" conference here in Montana, and a question has been bothering me. Why is Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) bringing Bob Rubin in as the keynoter on job development, at...
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About David Sirota
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hostile Takeover. He lives in Denver, Colorado. His daily blog can be found at CREDO Action. He contributes regularly to the Denver Post's Web site, is a senior editor at In These Times magazine and is working on his second book. He has been profiled in Newsweek and the Rocky Mountain News and is widely known for his reporting on political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties. Sirota serves as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, a 501(c)3 organization that supports state legislators and that is a partner of CREDO.
You can subscribe to Sirota's e-mail newsletter by going to davidsirota.com and signing up in the lefthand corner. To find out more about Sirota, download his official biography or see his recent media appearances. You can e-mail him at sirota@credoaction.com.
The views expressed on this blog are his own, and do not necessarily represent the views of Working Assets (publisher of CREDO Action) or the institutions Sirota works for.
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