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Shameless! Meet 7 Congressmen Who Joined Lobbying Firms Less Than A Month After Leaving Office
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Less than a month after leaving office, at least five former House members and one U.S. senator are already on the payroll at firms that make millions lobbying their congressional colleagues. The findings, provided to Vocativ by the Center for Responsive Politics, a government watchdog group, also show that a second senator who left office at the beginning of January, Alaska’s Mark Begich, took the extra step of starting his own public affairs consulting firm, which has already secured clients in health care and aviation.
– From Vocativ’s article: These Are The Ex-Lawmakers Who Could Barely Wait To Sell Out
If there was a walk of shame for so-called Congressional “representatives,” this list would serve as an excellent starting point. Their actions serve as definitive proof that the vast majority of politicians are only in it for money and power. They could care less about “public service” or being statesmen. If that was truly their calling in life, they wouldn’t immediately turn around and join lobbying firms the moment they leave office.
Yet all they do is cash in. That’s all they ever do.
The most amazing part about this article is that “by law, ex-House members are required to wait one year before they can officially lobby lawmakers on the Hill.” Naturally, professional liars and thieves won’t let something as pedestrian as ethics or rules get in the way. If there’s one thing politicians are good at, it’s finding loopholes.
From Vocativ:
It didn’t take long for these lawmakers to cash in on their careers as public servants.
Less than a month after leaving office, at least five former House members and one U.S. senator are already on the payroll at firms that make millions lobbying their congressional colleagues. The findings, provided to Vocativ by the Center for Responsive Politics, a government watchdog group, also show that a second senator who left office at the beginning of January, Alaska’s Mark Begich, took the extra step of starting his own public affairs consulting firm, which has already secured clients in health care and aviation.
While Washington’s contentious revolving door spins in perpetuum—allowing a stream of money, influence and access to flow seamlessly between the private and public sectors—the speed with which these public servants have offered themselves up to big business may raise a few eyebrows.
“It’s not like they were calling up their new employers on the morning of Jan. 5 and asking for a job,” says Russ Choma, a CRP spokesman. “It would seem very likely that as these lawmakers were still voting on bills and debating policies, they were simultaneously negotiating with lobbying firms whose clients may have a direct interest in these issues.”
By law, ex-House members are required to wait one year before they can officially lobby lawmakers on the Hill, while former senators must wait twice as long. Many, however, are able to work around those requirements at firms by signing on as consultants, counsel and strategic advisors, as a recent analysis by CRP and the Sunlight Foundation shows. That study’s conclusion: “The many loopholes limiting who can lobby whom in Washington and whether that lobbying must be disclosed to the public make a hunk of Swiss cheese look like the Berlin Wall.”
Here’s the graduating class of 2015. Congratulations guys, you finally made it!
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.)
Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.)
Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-Penn.)
Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah)
Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.)
Rep. Bill Owens (D-N.Y.)
Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK)
Four Democrats and three Republicans. Unsurprisingly, selling out is a bi-partisan affair.
For more information on the firms these former Congressmen went to, read the full article.
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They have been sticking a fat hog in the ass for years, so why would this surprise anyone?
whores..............
The Republic has so depreciated over the years that our "representatives" have become simply hired thieves we elect to send to Washington to effectively steal our tax money back. They vote for bridges and projects that divert federal revenues back into their respective states and districts. As such we should never be surprised to learn they are actual thieves, with the same moral compass as any other. This is what our system has become.
please democrats and republican are both feeding at the trought. The name Chris Dodd mean anything?
I'm still confused why anyone actually gives a shit about what these people do. You're just enabling them and emboldening them by being outraged.
I get a laugh hen people mention the word SERVICE and public in the same sentence. What a fucking joke and it has been for ages. The only service public employees do is unto themselves. They fuck you over and say theyre serving you.. Fuck them bastards.
As a staunch liberal, I strongly condemn those three corrupt Rethuglicants!
On the other hand, I want to strongly applaud and congratulate those four liberal ex-lawmakers for finding good jobs after leaving office!
Go Team!
Matheson (UT) is obviously a turncoat, given his pledges and his record. I have watched him closely, as he is in my home state. Not to be trusted, as he has long been identified as the controlled opposition in a very conservative place. Well, and he's been good at it, so why not enter the lobbying arena?
But then again, should I expect anything different from the Election Commmision LLC?
I'm begininning to feel the same way about my current Congressman, Randy Forbes, who used to be fairly decent.
The past few years, he has turned into nothing more than a complete shill for the Military Indusrial Complex. With Norfolk Naval and Fort Lee Army quartermaster center (as well as many smaller installations in our district), what was in the past with him a strong military support has turned into full on slobbering for any and all military spending possible. More, more, more!!!! I have no doubt when he retires that he will be lobbying immediately for several of the defence contractors.
Go tell that long tongue liar......what's done in the dark will brought to the light.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht7mxF9XZiA
ironic in that Begich's brother is the guy that exposed HAARP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l7gk3PCm7o
Lots of young army poon at Fort Lee.
USMC jump school 1996
Our representatives are moral degenerates, criminals, thugs, blackmailable puppets, megalomaniacs, pathological scumbuckets and losers.
One of them is worried about Guam tipping over ????
So they aren't too fucking bright either.
The people are getting what they deserve.
"I'm still confused why anyone actually gives a shit about what these people do."
Maybe because they are supposed be your fucking "leaders".
Nothing matters anymore dude. Modern relativism makes anything that makes sense to a thinking person irrelevant. The only thing that matters to folk now is who is feeding and entertaining them.
We should be concerned because it's our wealth and liberty with which they're doing it.
And that's whether you vote or not. If everyone who chooses not to vote would, just once, get organized and vote for someone different from Frick (R) and Frack (D), things might improve. Or not (sigh).
I don't need to be 'led' by any 'leader'....my conscience and work ethic are what lead me....my motivation is providing for my family and being around people I choose to be around
Sheep need to be 'led'
The "republic" not republicans, are depreciating. Republicans AND democrats are already FULLY depreciated.
Documentary Banned By Congress <--- both sideshttps://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=Avkef8q4NGnCNMGVi78_7pKbvZx4?fr=yfp-t-591-s&toggle=1&fp=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&p=documentary%20banned%20by%20congress%20
Jon Corzine
please democrats and republican are both feeding at the trought.
Forget distinguishing by party affiliation. Parties ore so the sheeple can say "Look my side won, your's lost".
It's like the communist party was in Russia. All of em are neo liberals.
When Dubby was pretending as the prez, both houses had a enough similarly minded republislutz to overturn Roe V Wade. Why didn't they do it? Cause it took a false issue out of the game and the useless questions by limp dicked press-sissies and the false arguments on the talking points sheet responses.
They want to divide us - thats the job they do to pay their pimps on the Wall!
I had a dream. There was a blank white wall behind them and our progressive leaders standing there sayin, whatIdo, whatIdo.
They vote for endless foreign "aid" that ends up in the pockets of foreign billionaires, and for wars that send our tax money to foreign countries, and for spy-wars, cold-wars, bank-wars, and propaganda-wars that give our money to globally-owned Military Industrial Banking Complex corporations which have built plants or spy centers in their districts. All we get from our tax money is hidden 6% to 8% inflation, SWAT teams with tanks, commie preverts at NSA listening in on our private telephone calls, and false-flag "terrorist" "incidents of the day".
<< They vote for endless foreign "aid" >>>
... which finds its way into 'secret' accounts ... and the Swiss bankers love it!
"The Republic has so depreciated over the years that our "representatives" have become simply hired thieves we elect to send to Washington to effectively steal our tax money back."
Exactly! And the tax money is taken unconstitutionally because these low life fuckers are too damn complacent to lift a finger to protect the property and rights of the people for whom they 'serve'.
Did you mistake "the Republic" for "the Republicans"? There was nothing partisan in Oldwood's comment. Most here have come to understand the parties are just 2 cheeks of the same ass.
not really - they did what was good for them - the system allows - the american people are stupid mothfuckas - they should be eliminated
I down-voted you just for being vague.
Many times worse. We pay them to watch our backs, yet it's obvious the only back they are watching is theirs.
I hate them.
Technically a whore sells herself to you.
A politician (who technically works for you) sells you to the special interests in exchange for cash. That's even worse than being a pimp.
Actually they take money to screw us. Same thing, because in the end we pay.
and most likely you or i exchanged hours(freedom) for the taxation taken from our earnings. sumting wong here. hear, have sum of my hard earned money so you can fuck me twice, once while representing my interests, and then as a facisitst corp whore training the next batch of elected liars.
Calling them "whores" gives whores a bad name.
you're being unkind to hard working whores. Think maggots.
Precisely.
Or tapeworms, ticks, leeches, bedbugs, fleas...any parasite you can think of!
Right on....they are not whores, they are thieves. Whores provide an honest, qid pro quo service. If there is any harm done, it is only to the people who elected to be involved. Politicians harm everybody alive, and future generations as well.
Usurious said: "whores............."
They don't call 'em CONgress for nothin'! +1 with gusto.
I'm not surprised at all. To do it up real good they should be banned form DC for a period of at least 5 years after they've been 'retired.' Or alternatively they should be required to return and live in the districts they represented for five years after retirement. I like the second one better...puts them in close proximity to some fists that might like a punching bag.
It wouldn't do any good. Most citizens don't even know the name of their Congressman.
Remind me to respond to the good doctor #9, who uses italics so that people can't vote his comments up or down. He's extra Smart, so you need to respond under him with a voting post so that ZH members can judge his comment. Not that he cares what people think.
Do you disagree with his point - that most Americans are clueless when it comes to their Congressional reps?
Vote here up or down for 9th Dr
Since he uses italic and can not be voted on.
Nor am I surprised, any of y'all remember Sen. Blanche Meyers Lambert Lincoln, D-AR?
She sold her vote on the ACA, for the Chair of the Agricultural Committee.
I sent her an email that day, telling her how sick we were of hearing about "what an historic moment it was".
I told her that the French Revolution and the Night of the Long Knives were also very historic, and that come election time, she could ruturn to her roots, as a lobbiest in DC.
It's exactly what she did, representing Monsanto, and most of the big players. Check her Biz. out sometime.
I still refer to her as "Cunt Lincoln" only. She started her life as a lobbiest whore, became a Senate whore, and is back as a lobby whore.
There should be a new policy, that upon leaving congress, they must take the eternal dirt-nap.
and there are no laws forbidding this. what a surprise.
You insult prostitues.
They had better hope that society holds itself together and doesn't disintegrate into a second civil war.
Their names are now on the public record.
Bunch of incestuous, vampiric fucks siphoning our lifeblood away.
"Outback Capitol"... No Rules. Just Right!
And I should know I worked with them! Retired General Tommy Franks
Taxby Shameless of Georgia was ranking member of the Ag Committee charged with reforming derivatives.
Taxby on C-Span " What is a derivative? Well, it can be a phone call...."
Dumb forker fixed it so a derivative can still be a phone call.........in increments of $10 million......subject to somebody's memory?
That's not entirely true Mr. Durden.
Last night retired Congressman No. Eight stepped out of a bar in Honolulu and got rolled by a posse of hookers before he fell face first into a pile of broken coconuts as he was trying to jog away.
He's a jogger too! He's even got a machine in his jogging pavillion in Bermuda!
There is a strong linkage relationship between 17'th ammendment and lobbyist activity. Essentially corporations buy Senators, who then use the money to get elected. States have been reduced to lobbyists.
"The 17th Amendment should be repealed. This would reinstate the states’ linkage to the federal political process and would, thereby, have the effect of elevating the present status of the state legislatures from that of lobbyists, to that of a partner in the federal political process."
http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2008/10/24/repeal-the-17th-amendment/
Also, the seventeenth was not fully ratified, so it is illegal:
A quote from Devvy Kidd,
The income tax amendment was critical. It was needed to feed the privately owned consortium of banks called the FED. The Seventeenth Amendment was critical to remove the right of the states of the Union to equal representation in the U.S. Senate. Henceforth, those seats were up for the highest bidder.
The states are stomped on. The American people are bled to death via heavy progressive taxation and those fruits of our labor go into the coffers of an international and domestic banking cartel draining the lifeblood of this country and our people.
http://www.devvy.com/new_site/17th_amendment_docs_march_2010.html
Lots of verbiage for this:
The Constipatution does not work.
Typical American childishly short attention span. Yet likely you were able to concentrate enough to waste time watching the Stupor Bowl.
The passing of the 16th is irrellevant. Let's take a look:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
If you read Brushaber v union P, you will see that congress always had the power to tax incomes, however, direct taxes (taxes directly on entities within the several states still must be apportioned). The 16th created no new taxing power, and "without apportionment among the states" therefore means NOT AMONG THE SEVERAL STATES. The "from whatever source derived" is also a major key here. You and I name a source, our employer. The tax is collected from that source, and not directly from you. This makes it an indirect tax. This is why you can go on youtube and see Harry Reid state that 'the income tax is voluntary'.
A large part of this trick is the use of KY or KENTUCKY instead of Kentucky. The former is NOT the later. They are similar, but not the same (by definition of similar). Prima facie evidence is a bitch if left unrebutted.
Vote for change: www.lp.org
Hey piglet, if they are pols then they are like you, PIGS, whether R, D, I, or L
Fuck them...we don't need politicians as H. H. Hoppes correctly theorizes.
The fish rots from the head down.
The fish rots when you remove it from life-giving oxygenated water...otherwise known as LIBERTY.
Fish removed from the liberty of water rots everything around it.
Water of Liberty kills squids.
It's always been like this. Now technology, and the elevated pace society generally moves at allows them to do more damage faster.
I like what Gary Johnson said at one of the untelevised third party presidential debates in 2012. He said (I'm paraphrasing) that the candidates should wear jackets like nascar drivers that show all their major sponsors. It would show that the two parties are no different. Goldman Sacks would have had primetime spot front and center on Romney and Obama. This is why nothing will ever change politically. They are bought and paid for.
The politicians have sold out the American public. The crash from them selling out to the banks is just around the corner. Prepare while you still have time. Buy gold and silver. It has been money for thousands of years. These candles with silver coins are great to raise awareness of sound money https://www.etsy.com/shop/ScentSavers?ref=hdr_shop_menu
People who burn one will discover that their coin is worth more than 12 times its face value.
I'd say that my CAAPL list (Crimes Against the American People List) just got longer, but they're already on it.
The banksters need to repay us.
I'm paneling my guillotine with Mahogany so the pols, crats, and banksters will feel right at home on it.
Where's Eric Cantor? Technically his job may not be with a lobbying firm, but everyone knows where his market value is and he started a seven-figure bank job 15 days after his resignation.
He was removed from office by the Tea Party. Remember?
Still chuckling about that actually...a rare win.
It was wonderful, like watching a replay of the Frank Gifford hit.
Were any of said CONgressmen members of the political [bowel] movement known as the Tea Party?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Elizabeth Warren and climate change experts like Kucinich. What else did you expect.
Since the TP is about the only opposition to the complete overthrow of the puppet democrats/neo-communists and the puppet republicans/ neo-fascists your comment does not speak well for your level of understanding...
Winmag - have you been watching the television? How much time do you spend in front of the mind control device?
Winmag is an independent thinker. /sarc
btw- remove "the complete overthrow of" from the 1st sentence and your point makes sense.
It can read either way.
Yes, perhaps I was being too critical. We're driven by love Brother, that's why we care, it's not for personal gain. I'm not even Merikan dude, but I will fight the good fight with you till the end. BTW- The ending is beautiful.
The TP was originally a front group for Big Tobacco and the Cock Bros.
The most effective slaves are those that think they are free.
Well let's not forget... a majority of Tea Party "members" (it's not an actual political party so how can it have members?) tend to vote yes for whatever war funding package Obama draws up.
It's true they are by and large Islamophobic and don't understand the false flag synthetic government terror... still there really isn't anything much else openly standing up against the criminals... and BTW the Tea Party originated with Ron Paul and InfoWar people... and that's a fact!
These people have never been "public servants", they are career politicians.
One of my favorite george carlin jokes. When a cop pulls you over and starts to interrogate you, you say to the cop, hey you're a public servant. Get me a glass of water.
The Chinese execute corrupt politicians/govt officials. Is that a useful model for the US?
I read in a History of Taxes book that Chinese tax collectors sometimes were used as fertilizer in rice paddies
There are many useful models employed by the Chinese
If a Chinese tax collector doesn't have access to their abacus (modern day PC), how long could they operate?
Not instigating or anything but, you know, just askin
I hope the internets stay up long enough that a "comprehensive" list is available to the sheeple for pay back
Keep on compiling The List
We're going to need more paper.
And add that idiot Irish tool Noonan to it.
Gee! I don't see Eric Cantor on the list.
"could care less" :(
The USG is the world's Uber Ponzi
Two Party System. Them (Congress) Vs. us. This country needs an Enema (Revolution).
I am shocked...SHOCKED...to find cronyism and corruption in government.
"your cut of the graft sir"
err...thank you.
Eric Cantor . don't forget the juden swine
Eric Cantor, Israeli tour guide for Congress.
Jack Kingston of GA joined one yesterday
It took them almost a month? Obviously they weren't well connected or they rode the short bus to CONgress each day... Either way, they're still low-life scum....
I would have thought Saxby Chambliss would have been the one who earned the most from that list (didn't meet a banking or insurance firm he didn't like) or maybe Gerlach who was the rep in the District I live & was on the House Ways and Means Comittee.
The sordid story of Chicago's parking meters has to be a top entry in any "worst privatization stories" competition. Rick Perlstein laid out the ugly details in The Nation a couple months back:
On the State House level, same thing.. Some convicted come back as lobbyists. It's the path of fallen stars.
Gerlach could NEVER cut the mustard in the private sector. He is a parasite, through and through.
Not only did Daley's nephew work on the deal for Morgan Stanley but soon after the Mayor left office he got a consultants job with the law firm that nogotiated the deal with the city. Its not only the "public" servants in Washington.
it would be interesting to see the complete list, or % of current lobbyists that were former congressmen
is less than a month really that shocking? most of these people have no soul
note to Rand Paul - audit the Fed, and the lobbyists!
In related news, some ex ball players became broadcasters.
How about stopping insider trading by members of congress being legal, as the first step.
If the us citizens cannot stop that, they are hopeless!
To all of the repetitious zombies who keep posting the "They're all the same, there's no difference" meme:
GIVE IT A REST!
If there is NO difference, saying it over and over again isn't going to change anything. The definition of insanity is: doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
Your problem is: you are hung up on NAMES: REPUBLICAN! DEMOCRAT!
Yes. Some Democrats try to fake being Republicans. Some Republicans try to fake being Democrats. WE GET IT!
But the reality is: there are two opposing "visions" for human existence and survival with two very different prescriptions for humanity. We just can't agree on the names for the visions. The challenge is to support the good vision and oppose the bad vision.
Different observers assign different names to the opposing visions, and emphasize different aspects of their prescription. But the difference is real and has consequences for humanity.
Call it YANG and YIN. Call it CIVILIZATION and BARBARISM. Call it MATTER and ANTI-MATTER. Call it ME and ALL THOSE OTHER MORONS.
Just stop telling us it doesn't exist and doesn't matter.