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Document Shows No Lobbying By Former Speaker ATLANTA - The Gingrich Group, LLC today announced it is releasing a contract written by Freddie Mac for consulting services it contracted with the organization. “Subject to a conversation between our counsel and Freddie Mac, we have received permission to release the attached contract,” said Nancy Desmond, Chairman and CEO of the Gingrich Group. “As noted under the scope of work section on Page 14, the contract was solely for consulting purposes and not lobbying. “Freddie Mac and The Gingrich Group have agreed that this release is limited to the contract alone and...

Duluth made history last week when it became the first city in the state to pass a resolution in support of a constitutional amendment that would essentially overturn a U.S. Supreme Court decision, namely Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission. The court ruled in 2010 that corporations are entitled to the same constitutional rights as individual U.S. citizens. A majority of justices also concluded that political spending was a form of free speech and that corporations should be able to spend an unlimited sum of money to influence voters, without disclosing financial details of their activities. Although Duluth is...

Link only due to posting restrictions The LINKED article describes Newt Gingrich and a meeting in 2003 with members of Congress urging their support on the Medicare Expansion Bill after he'd left Congress. (It passed -- barely) The people interviewed are U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake (AZ- 6th) and former congressman Butch Otter (both have endorsed Romney). Otter is now the governor of Idaho. They feel Newt Gingrich was lobbying. Newt and others dispute this. You can decide.

By employing a plethora of tax-dodging techniques, 30 multi-million dollar American corporations expended more money lobbying Congress than they paid in federal income taxes between 2008 and 2010, ultimately spending approximately $400,000 every day -- including weekends -- during that three-year period to lobby lawmakers and influence political elections, according to a new report from the non-partisan Public Campaign....

FRIEND$ AT THE TOP: Former President Bill Clinton and British ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair both sit on the advisory board of Teneo Holdings, which was paid at least $625,000 to do public-relations and financial-consulting work for Jon Corzine’s failed brokerage, MF Global. ....Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna said “President Clinton does not advise clients on the firm’s behalf.” Clinton does make money from Teneo, but has declined to disclose the sum. Corzine and the former president have been close for years. Clinton campaigned for Corzine repeatedly and Corzine, in turn, became the first sitting governor to endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) denounced efforts by the Catholic Church to persuade the Department of Health and Human Services to rescind new regulations that will force Catholics to engage in activities that violate their faith. The regulations would require all Americans to purchase coverage for services—like abortion—that are banned by Catholic tenets. The regulations also require all health service providers to offer these services regardless of any personal, religious, or ethical objections. “The Church’s attempt to meddle with affairs of state is offensive to our system of government,” Pelosi contended. “We don’t live in a theocracy. In America,...

Newt Gingrich said on Wednesday night that his advocacy with state and federal legislators for policies that would help his paying clients was in keeping with his role as a citizen, and was not evidence that he ever acted as a lobbyist. Speaking in an interview with the Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity, Mr. Gingrich appeared to be referring to an article in The New York Times on Wednesday detailing how he has made millions of dollars while helping his corporate clients promote themselves to — and gain access to — state and federal officials. He referred to a...

If Newt Gingrich is the Republican presidential candidate, will Joe Scarborough abstain on election day? The question arises because on Morning Joe today, Scarborough flatly declared that Gingrich "is not fit to be the President of the United States." It was Newt's acceptance of $1 million-plus in fees from Freddie Mac, while subsequently suggesting that "politicians who profited" from the environment surrounding Fannie and Freddie should go to jail, that set Scarborough off. View the video here.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former lobbyist who was a rising star under Jack Abramoff's tutelage was sentenced Wednesday to nearly two years in prison for giving public officials meals and event tickets. Kevin Ring argued up until his emotional sentencing hearing that he was operating in a corrupt Washington environment controlled by people with money and that he did not break the law. "I found a ridiculous system full of gray areas and I manipulated it," a sobbing Ring told the judge in asking her not to lock him up. It was the first time he spoke about the charges...

LightSquared doubles size of its lobbying team in 2011By Rachel Leven and Kevin Bogardus 09/27/11 06:00 AM ET LightSquared, the wireless telecom firm facing Republican complaints that it has benefited from political ties to the White House, has significantly boosted its lobbying this year. The company has more than doubled the number of lobbying firms on its payroll, from four to nine K Street shops, in the first half of 2011. LightSquared has already spent $830,000 on lobbying in the first six months of year, and is on pace to more than double its K Street expenditures of $695,000 in...

Madison - The top four spenders on lobbying the Legislature during the first half of 2011 were labor unions fighting against Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to curb collective bargaining, a report released Thursday showed. The four unions spent $6.3 million in the first six months of the year, the Government Accountability Board reported. Walker introduced his plan in February and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed it in March. The unions helped organize rallies at the Capitol in protest over the bill that grew as large as 100,000 people. The debate, which captured the nation's attention, also spurred Democratic senators to leave...

When congressional leaders earlier this month named six lawmakers from each party to a debt reduction “supercommittee,” investing unprecedented power in a tiny cadre to slash funding, they set off a wild scramble among special interest groups to gain access and protect their interests. Yet many groups with the most at stake didn’t have to change their plans. Some members of the supercommittee received more campaign contributions in July from political action committees controlled by corporations, unions and other lawmakers than anyone else in Congress, disclosures filed this weekend show. Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican who chairs the tax-writing House...

Rep. Xavier Becerra — or, to be more precise, lobbyists working on his behalf — wasted no time Thursday capitalizing on the California congressman’s appointment to the congressional super committee. A little over two hours after Becerra was named to the powerful panel, Investment Company Institute’s Jim Hart sent out an email encouraging attendance for the trade group’s upcoming $1,500 per person fundraiser based on Becerra’s new found status as one of the elite 12. “We will host an event for Congressman Xavier Becerra, not only Vice Chairman of the Democratic Caucus but also who has just been named to...

Full headline: American Traffic Solutions -- red-light camera vendor for Houston, Fort Worth, Arlington, Irving and Amarillo --- suspends exec for posting pro-camera comments under fake identity -- As far as anyone can tell, American Traffic Solutions Inc. has resorted only to the conventional lobbying method of throwing money around to grow its red-light camera business in Texas. Until last week, at least one business development executive was making inroads in Washington state by cheerleading for the company and personally attacking opponents under an assumed name in dozens of comments left on the website of a local newspaper, according to...

The Hill reported on Sunday that the U.S.-designated terrorist group the Mujahedin e Khalq (aka the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, aka the National Council of Resistance) has acquired lobbying help from Democratic powerhouse Akin Gump to support its removal from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list. To be fair to Akin Gump, plenty of GOPers have taken up cudgels for the MEK, though the direct cash payoff to them is less clear. The MEK has for years lobbied aggressively via a myriad of front groups to be taken off the terrorism list. Shrewd lobbyists, they have moved well beyond...

The silence is deafening. While the rest of the nation is heading back toward a double dip, Washington continues to obsess about future budget deficits. Why? Republicans don’t want to do anything about jobs and wages. They’re so intent on unseating Obama they’d like the economy to remain in the dumps through Election Day. They also see the lousy economy as an opportunity to sell Americans their big lie that government spending is the culprit — and jobs will return if spending is cut and government shrinks. Democrats, meanwhile, don’t want to admit the recovery has stalled. They worry such...

At the same time Tiffany & Co. was extending Callista (Bisek) Gingrich a virtual interest-free loan of tens of thousands of dollars, the diamond and silverware firm was spending big bucks to influence mining policy in Congress and in agencies over which the House Agriculture Committee–where she worked–had jurisdiction, official records show…

I love teachers. I really do. And I'm sure that most are overworked and underpaid. Certainly, no one is getting rich from teaching kids. I applaud the hardworking teachers across this land. But, as has happened in Wisconsin, when teachers unions muscle legislators like the Mafia and Democrats abandon their voting posts because they don't like projected outcomes, haven't we abandoned the very foundational principles of our republic? Where were the "be civil" mainstream media police last Friday morning, when union demonstrators screamed at legislators on the floor of the Wisconsin Assembly while they voted? More proof of union dominance...

Numerous times this year, members of Congress have held fundraisers and collected big checks while they are taking critical steps to write new laws, despite warnings that such actions could create ethics problems. The campaign donations often came from contributors with major stakes riding on the lawmakers' actions. ....Earlier this month, the chairman of the Senate committee overseeing tax policy, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), gave himself a birthday-party fundraiser - on the same day that the chamber took its first vote on an $858 billion tax package that would provide breaks to wealthy citizens and business interests. ....Over the course...

December 14, 2010 12:00 A.M. The Ethanol Idiocy that Will Not Die Bipartisan common sense is no match for the inertia of a government subsidy. When Al Gore drops an environmental fad, it has truly reached its expiration date. In his wisdom, the Goracle recently acknowledged what almost all disinterested observers concluded long ago: Ethanol is a fraud. It has no environmental benefits, and harmful side effects. The subsidies that support its use are an object lesson in the incorrigibility of Washington’s gross special-interest politics. It is the monster that ate America’s corn crop.

TSA’s other body-scanner contractor is Rapiscan Systems Inc. In 2009, the company was awarded an agreement that could be worth up to $173 million. And like L-3, Rapiscan has a notable K Street presence. Holland & Knight, Rapiscan’s outside lobbying firm, has earned $480,000 in fees from the company since May 2008, according to lobbying disclosure records. David Whitestone, a former aide to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), and John Buscher, once the chief lobbyist for United Airlines, are lobbying for the company. Overall, Rapiscan has spent close to $3.6 million on lobbying since 2007, according to records.

You might think that a prominent veterans organization like the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) would actually reserve its political endorsements for, you know, veterans, or at least those politicians that actually demonstrate some level of respect for the military. But you would be wrong. And the problem is not just the VFW; rather, the VFW’s current lobbyist-driven fiasco simply serves to illustrate how out-of-touch the Washington in-crowd is with the feelings of us benighted souls dwelling outside the beltway. In the Florida 22nd Congressional District race, incumbent Democrat Ron Klien is running against Republican challenger Allen West. Actually, he’s...

Illustrating that a promise made is not necessarily a promise kept, this administration is again under fire for violating its own ethics pledges. On the campaign trail, candidate Obama initially pledged not to hire former lobbyists. But once in office, that directive was “clarified” to mean that any lobbyists hired would not be given the opportunity to influence any decisions involving their former employers. Now, that promise, too, has gone by the wayside with the disclosure that White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin has directly participated in formulating policies that would impact Google, where McLaughlin had formerly served...

Sen. Orrin Hatch's decision to oppose Elena Kagan for a seat on the Supreme Court probably wasn't made in fear of the National Rifle Association's threat to senators that the group will take their votes on the nominee into consideration during endorsement time this election season. Hatch already has an A+ rating from the gun group. But the moves by both parties -- Hatch's Friday announcement that he will vote "no" on Kagan and the NRA's Thursday announcement that it opposes Kagan and senators who vote for her risk their wrath -- are aimed at least in part at...

PHOENIX (AP) - John McCain's re-election campaign is releasing its second set of television and radio ads attacking the Arizona's senator's primary opponent for his ties to Washington. The ads point out that former U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth registered as a lobbyist in 2008, a year after he lost his re-election bid. Hayworth is challenging McCain in the Republican primary and casting himself as a conservative Washington outsider. But the ads challenge that image, with a narrator saying: "Outsider? A lobbyist is as inside Washington as it gets."

I am fondly recalling those hoary days on the campaign trail when Mr. Obama was all about "transparency," and when he promised to have the "strictest ethics rules" of any president evah! Seemingly hours later the president's office began to waive hose "strictest" rules to allow his favorite lobbyists and lawyers to take up residence in his administration. By Feb. 2, for instance, a dozen high profile lobbyists had already had those "strict" rules waived for them to join the administration. And by May of 2009, Obama had already lifted his so-called ban on lobbyists joining his administration. And this...

Lawsuit Seeks to Protect Americans’ Right To Most-Basic Political Speech: Talking to Their Neighbors WEB RELEASE: April 15, 2010 Seattle, Wash.—Washingtonians from both sides of the political spectrum filed a lawsuit today to stop their state from monitoring, collecting and publicly disseminating information about the political activities of private citizens who do nothing more than urge their fellow citizens to take political action. They seek to vindicate the belief that if the First Amendment protects anything, it protects the right of all Americans to speak to one another about the issues affecting their lives without having to first register with...

On March 31, 2010, the SEIU filed their LM-2 forms required by Federal law. In the quest to provide transparency of what the SEIU is doing, some startling revelations have been made since the documents have come to light. Specifically, recent information disclosed in the LM-2 forms filed begs to question about the President of that organization's status as a lobbyist. Is Andy Stern a lobbyist, and if not, what is he then? According to the dictionary of Merriam-Webster, a lobbyist is a person that conducts "activities aimed at influencing public officials and especially members of a legislative body on...

K Street appears to have cashed in on the lengthy battle over healthcare reform. About 1,750 businesses and organizations spent at least $1.2 billion in 2009 to lobby on health reform and other issues, according to a study from the Center for Public Integrity released Friday. A precise figure isn’t available because lobbying disclosure forms don’t require companies or other groups to itemize how much they spend to lobby on a particular issue. The largest lobbying firm in terms of revenue, Patton Boggs, set the pace in healthcare lobbying too, according to the Center. Fifty-three clients paid Patton Boggs $7.68...

The Energy Department worked closely with the wind industry lobby to discredit a Spanish report that criticized wind power as a job killer, internal DOE e-mails reveal. The e-mails obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request show how, starting last April, lobbyists at the American Wind Energy Association became alarmed that lawmakers were citing a study by Spain's King Juan Carlos University. The study found that Spain's massive investments in wind power cost 2.2 jobs for every "green" job created.

March 10, 2010 Teachers' union leads list of biggest political spenders The California Teachers Association has spent more than $200 million on campaign contributions and lobbying efforts in the last decade, leading what the Fair Political Practices Commission calls a "billion-dollar club" of moneyed political interests. The FPPC's report, entitled "Big Money Talks," delves into the 25 biggest - at least in financial terms - political players in the state, which have collectively spent $1.3 billion on political action in the last 10 years. "This tsunami of special interest spending drowns out the voices of average voters," FPPC chairman Ross...

March 4, 2010 Everyone hates each other — it’s Hollywood Kathryn Bigelow, director of The Hurt Locker, during filming. A producer has been banned from the Oscars Chris Ayres, Los Angeles It is a night of glittering statues, pristine red carpets and gracious speeches. But behind the air-kisses, smiles and displays of magnanimity at the annual Oscars ceremony, dirty, though often expensive, battles go on, with competitors more than willing to knife each other if it means taking home a trophy. After all, winning means more business at the box office and higher fees in the future. Not to mention...

The American Petroleum Institute announced today that Deryck Spooner will join API as “senior director for external mobilization,” i.e., the guy who does the grass-roots organizing. That’s news because Spooner’s previous job was doing the same thing for the Nature Conservancy. As of this writing, he is still listed as a member of the conservancy’s “climate change team.” Before that, Spooner did grass-roots organizing for the AFL-CIO and NARAL Pro-Choice America. API is clearly pleased with its coup, offering effusive praise of Spooner

Calpers names firms not responding on placement agents Thu Feb 18, 1:15 am ET OAKLAND, California (Reuters) – Calpers, the biggest U.S. public pension fund, released late on Wednesday a list of 11 firms with which it has invested that did not reply to its request for information on their use of placement agents, who are at the center of a probe of New York's pension fund. Calpers, the $200 billion California Public Employees' Retirement System, has been under fire since disclosing last year that a placement agent firm, led by one of its former board members, had made more...

WASHINGTON – What recession? Health care and business interests led the way as clients spent a record $3.5 billion on lobbying last year, prompted by Obama administration drives to reshape federal policy for the medical, financial and energy industries. Amid a stagnant national economy and the worst unemployment in nearly three decades, lobbying expenditures grew by 5 percent from the $3.3 billion spent in 2008, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The growth also came despite efforts by President Barack Obama to curb lobbyists' influence. The figures underline the vast and growing sums that industries, unions and ideological...

Over the past year, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been acting as the Presidents goons, attacking anti-Obamacare Protesters across the country. It was the SEIU who HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, reached out to when the administration needed "back up" for the town halls (H/T Michelle Malkin): From the SEIU Website: Conference Call with HHS Secretary Friday, August 7th, at 2:30pm EDT, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is hosting a call with health care activists and SEIU members to discuss what needs to happen in order to win health care reform, and to directly respond to accusations and distortions from...

WASHINGTON -- The drug industry is threatening to end its support for President Barack Obama's health overhaul effort because of a rift with the administration over protecting brand-name biotech drugs from low-cost generic competitors. In an e-mail obtained Friday by The Associated Press, the president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America told the trade group's board members that "we could not support the bill" if the industry is given less than 12 years of competitive protection for the expensive products. Obama and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., are leading the drive to shorten that...

China's lobbying efforts yield new influence, openness on Capitol Hill By John Pomfret Saturday, January 9, 2010; A01 Ten years ago, U.S. lawmakers publicly accused the China Ocean Shipping Co. of being a front for espionage and blocked plans to expand its Long Beach, Calif., port terminal over fears that Chinese spies would use it to snoop on the United States. By last year, Congress was seeing the state-owned Chinese behemoth in a far kinder light. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) authored a resolution applauding the company for employing thousands of Americans and helping keep the waters of Alaska clean....

Did Hedgies lose out on their investment — or help dump — Dodd? January 6, 2010 at 7:02 pm by Teri Buhl When U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) announced Wednesday he wouldn’t run for a 6th term, folks in the financial world behind the Dump Dodd campaign were rejoicing, but some big name hedgies likely realized they’d just taken a huge loss on their political investment. Greenwich resident Bruce Rose, founder of Carrington Capital, appears to be the biggest loser. This summer Maurna Desmond of Forbes.com broke the news that the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee was acting as...

U.S. taxpayers are spending more than $40,000 per month on office space, staff, cell phones and a leased SUV for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, even as he works as a lobbyist for private corporations and foreign governments. The payments are perfectly legal under a federal law that provides five years of benefits for former speakers — but only if Hastert never makes use of his government-funded perks in the course of his lobbying work. Ethics experts say that sort of separation is hard to maintain. Hastert “has to be meticulous in his schedule to make sure there is no...

Dems cleared in PMA lobbying scandal By Susan Crabtree - 12/18/09 04:49 PM ET At least three Democratic lawmakers have been cleared of any wrongdoing after an initial investigation into their ties to PMA Group, a now-defunct lobbying firm. Reps. John Murtha (Pa.), Jim Moran (Va.) and Norm Dicks (Wash.) recently received a letter from the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) informing them that it found no need for further inquiry into the PMA-related allegations. The board of the OCE on Nov. 30 voted unanimously to recommend that the full ethics committee dismiss the charges, according to a letter to...

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) and the Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF) formally requested an investigation by the acting United States Attorney Channing D. Phillips, Esq., into the potentially illegal lobbying activities of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern. In a letter hand delivered to the U.S. Attorney’s office, the Senate Secretary and the House Clerk, ATR President Grover Norquist and AWF Executive Director Brian Johnson wrote: By this letter, we urge you to investigate the activities of Mr. Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), regarding meetings and other lobbying contacts with...

Career Politicians Rely on Lobbying For Reelection: Founding Fathers Foresaw This Problem Op-Ed by John Cox John Cox is a highly successful businessman. Cox ran in the Illinois GOP U.S. Senate Primary in 2004 and was a presidential candidate in 2008. Marty Russo was my Congressman many years ago. He is correct; the Constitution does give us the right to address our grievances and lobbying on issues does serve a good purpose. The problem is not with the lobbyists; it is with the career politicians we elect who agree to be bought. Why? Because they want to get re-elected and...

Lobbyists are quitting the business at a record pace, according to a study released Monday. Over 1,400 lobbyists "deregistered" with Congress in the second quarter of 2009, according to a study conducted jointly by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) and OMB Watch. Typically, only a few hundred lobbyists quit each quarter. The giant spike in resignations came just after the Obama administration instituted strict new rules on lobbyist activity. The White House banned employees from receiving gifts from lobbyists and announced that any lobbyist hired by the executive branch could not work on the same issues on which he...

AT&T's top lobbyist, Jim Cicconi, sent a letter to all of the telecom giant's 300,000 employees on Sunday, urging them to express their concerns over a net neutrality proposal under consideration by the Federal Communications Commission. Check out his letter and comments on the Actuarian Outpost Web site. The letter was the latest move in a lobbying frenzy days before the FCC votes on a proposal to create new net neutrality regulations. High-tech giants wrote to the agency to support the rules, while dozens of lawmakers from both parties have protested the rules as potentially dangerout to economic growth. "We...

Commentary: Ethics Reform Under Scrutiny Brittany Fortier, October 16, 2009 During his campaign last year, President Obama said that he was “running to tell the lobbyists in Washington that their days of setting the agenda are over.” With numerous questionable Cabinet appointees, 32 czars (and counting) who do not have to answer to Congress, and scandals involving organizations affiliated with the President (e.g., Acorn), how effective has Obama been at keeping his promise? Norm Eisen, Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform at the White House, spoke about President Obama’s sweeping ethics reform plan at the Center for American Progress...

Hobby Lobby Brittany Fortier, October 15, 2009 Are lobbyists discouraging some of the best and brightest in the private sector from working for the government? The Center for American Progress (CAP) hosted a conference on September 14, 2009 to discuss the role that special interests have in shaping American policy and whether current laws are effective in restraining excessive abuses of the system. Bob Kaiser, Associate Editor and Senior Correspondent for the Washington Post and author of So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government, argued that the main purpose of today’s lobbyist is...

In the wake of the sensational ACORN video sting operation by two young investigators, an even more daring, dangerous and devastating undercover investigation – this one infiltrating the nation's most aggressive Muslim "civil rights" organization for six months – has resulted in stunning revelations about the supposedly "moderate" group, backed up by 12,000 pages of documents and 300 hours of covert video obtained during the secret op. As revealed in a new book detailing the operation and its findings, the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, is not the beneficent Muslim civil-rights group it claims to be. Rather,...

House Republicans accuse Muslim group of trying to plant spies By Jordy Yager - 10/14/09 11:01 AM ET Four House Republicans are accusing a Muslim advocacy group of trying to plant spies. Republican members of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus say the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), tried to plant “spies” within key national security committees to shape legislative policy in its favor. Reps. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) and Paul Broun (R-Ga.), and Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) - citing the recently released book, “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that's Conspiring to Islamize America” – called for the House...

Democrat's $1.65 million take from the financial services industry is nearly twice that of any other senator's Wall Street has showered nearly $11 million on the Senate since the beginning of the year, and more than 15 percent of it has gone to a single senator: Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York. Schumer’s $1.65 million take from the financial services industry is nearly twice that of any other senator's — and more than five times what the industry gave to any single Republican senator. While the industry has scaled back its political spending in the wake of last year’s economic...