Pssst. How much to buy Washington?

[NVMojo]

Monday 12th December 2005
The US capital is swarming with lobbyists who are paid absurd sums to do shady deals with elected politicians. Now, suddenly, the courts are lifting the lid on what they get up to.

By Andrew Stephen

Please bear with me while I briefly explain why I became interested in the subject of this report. Not long after I moved to Washington 16 years ago, I started to wonder how on earth so many people I knew lived such lavish lifestyles. Like many in middle-class DC, they were often lawyers who also had political links of some kind, but I was never sure exactly what they did. And it mystified me that their lifestyles never seemed to reflect what even highly successful lawyers earn: they would move into ever-bigger mansions, fly in private jets to St Barts for weekends, and so forth.

It took years before the penny dropped. This article is an attempt to explain why limitless money sloshes around Washington - and why, as a result, we are heading for one of the biggest political and financial scandals here in history. It is about how government itself is for sale and is selling more lucratively than ever under President George W Bush. People will start to go to prison as the scandal unfolds. Two Senate committees, four congressional subcommittees and no fewer than 12 separate FBI investigations are involved. Can you actually buy access to Bush? If so, what is the going rate? Please read on.

The people who fascinated me were - and are - lobbyists, though they never use that word. The rationale for their existence is simple. America has a population of 300 million and the biggest economy in the world; it is money that makes the country go round, so there are fortunes to be made.

more...

http://www.newstatesman.com/200512120021

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. The key is to fund it through contracts with the DOD. A little

graft and funnelling through brand new pnac based companies does great things for your election campaign. Of course, starting a little war works wonders, too.

[NVMojo]

2. it's all sick, felt I need to wash after reading this ...

[napi21]

3. I bet MANY people in DC are shaking in their shoes every day!

Especially when you have some insiders in that group talking to the prosecutors!

I'm thinking 2006 is going to be an very interesting year!

The real highlight of this whole story is that it touches some very high people in the Pub Party! The one I love most is Ralph Reed. It's not that I'm trying to pick on the Christian Coalition, but I love it when the hypocracy is exposed!!!!!