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(6,002 posts)WASHINGTON -- Former Sen. Blanche Lincoln's new lobbying group got a boost on Wednesday with the announcement that three prominent corporations, including Monsanto, have hired her shop.
Politico Influence reported Wednesday afternoon that the agricultural giant Monsanto, the telecom titan Comcast and oil refiner Valero have all signed on as clients of the Lincoln Policy Group. Lincoln, a Democrat from Arkansas who left the Senate in 2011 after losing her reelection bid, announced in July that she was launching her own lobbying group.
Scoring Lincoln as a lobbyist is a boon for Monsanto, the world's largest seed company. Lincoln served as the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry from September 2009 to January 2011. Her former staff director on the Ag Committee, Robert Holifield, is also a partner in the new group.
Scott Kuschmider, the director of government affairs at Monsanto, confirmed to The Huffington Post on Wednesday that the company had hired the Lincoln Policy Group to lobby on agribusiness issues. A lobbying disclosure form filed with the clerk of the House of Representatives also confirms that both Lincoln and Holifield registered as lobbyists for Monsanto on Oct. 1.
The seed giant's influence on Capitol Hill has been in the news quite a bit in the past year, thanks to the so-called Monsanto Protection Act, a provision slipped into a spending bill last March that protects companies that sell genetically modified seeds from lawsuits. While the company says it supports the measure, Monsanto has objected to the nickname opponents have given the bill, arguing that plenty of other agribusiness companies support it, too. Despite efforts to revive the act as part of a later spending bill, it was pulled from recent budget negotiations.
Last month, the Lincoln Policy Group announced that it had taken on credit bureau Experian and the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. Prior to forming the new group, Lincoln was a lobbyist for Alston & Bird, drawing big-name clients like Walmart, which she brought along with her to the new firm.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)For more information on the effectiveness of millions spent on lobbying by Comcast and the FCC's revolving door into the corporate money swim:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2014/04/the-comcast-fcc-revolving-door/
leftyohiolib
(5,917 posts)mother earth
(6,002 posts)JoeyT
(6,785 posts)Plenty of our team are too busy waiting for their turn at the trough to consider doing anything about it, too.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)of government of, by and for the people ended with the anointing of GW Bush. All that remains is laughable pretense as the government slithers to the right. With few exceptions, even populist rhetoric is reserved for campaign speeches and policy doublespeak.
panfluteman
(2,075 posts)That really spells the end of our nation, and maybe our species, and ultimately most of the life forms on the planet as the earth is pickled in Glyphosate! And the natural gas company Blanche represents is doubtlessly into fracking big time - don't frack around with Mother Earth - and the oil refiner is probably tied to BP and the Gulf Oil Spill, and the whole world is swimming in a toxic cesspool of money... The bit of sardonic Native American wisdom for the conquering white man is turning out to be much more eerily prophetic than anyone ever imagined: Only after all the rivers have been poisoned, only after every last tree has been cut down, only then will you discover... that money cannot be eaten. We have sacrificed everything to the graven, printed idol of money, and in the end, we will be left with whole s#@tloads of cash, but nothing of any value or life sustaining power to buy with it. We will truly be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
supercats
(429 posts)Exactly whats wrong with politics....and this is a so-called Democrat? Cenk is right, again, Great Piece!!!
DhhD
(4,695 posts)toward the Corporatism of America. What was apparent in Arkansas, needs further profession, as in lack of faith. And for the Platform Promise, it looks like a cover-story when I think about the Portfolio of the two future heirs, has been reported again and most recently, that they were the most important thing in his life. In other news recently, it seemed to be something along the lines of a minimum wage comparison.
On a school yard recess, in my youth, piers were asking each other, is your family on the Left or the Right? Part of Education is value clarification in the Affective Domain.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/28/us-usa-campaign-obama-promises-idUSTRE79R3M920111028
Check out Revolving Door at the bottom of the lists of promises.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)And now these same FOLs -- Friends of Lobbyists in the Democratic Party are hawking Hillary Clinton for 2016.
This is why I will not vote for Hillary. The only way to stop the corruption and the corporate candidacies is to vote for those Democrats who truly stand for the people, for unions, not corporations, for fair labor laws, for social support systems, for the environment and for economic fairness.
Democrats should run candidates who represent the American people, the voters, and not the corporations.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)and be represented.
Enough of the Bushes & Clintons, enough of the status quo and stagnation.