Barry Ritholtz: This corruption is not an accident. It is the product of years of very patient work.

from economonitor, originally published in the big picture...

We live in an era of defective government.

This corruption is not an accident. It is the product of years of very patient work. It has been brought about through expensive lobbying, relentless propaganda, agnotology. You can see it in this election cycle, where 196 Americans — 0.000063% of the population — have given more than 80% of Super PAC dollars.

Is it democracy or plutocracy when less than 200 people drive election spending in a nation of 300 million?

Previously, we have pointed out how brazen the lobbying has been to actually cut the SEC enforcement budget. This has created an agency that is defective by design. Take a guess who loses in the battle between you, the individual taxpayer versus the corporation.

Wall Street has taken advantage of the crisis and morphed into a cartel. The tragedy is the only entity that is large and powerful enough to offset their wealth and power are national governments. Yet where ever we look, we see that government has been corrupted and rendered neutered by corporations:

-The Federal Reserve Zero Interest Rate policy is a balm to banks whose balance sheets still have so much bad real estate exposure that higher rates will cause corporate bankruptcy;

-The SEC brings minor insider trading cases while enormous financial crimes go unpunished;

-The Supreme Court has granted natural rights to corporations — rights previously reserved for living and breathing Human Beings;

-The CFTC no longer does the sort of daily audits that can prevent fraud like MF Global and PeregrineFG;-The US Attorney’s office has been captured by the Treasury department, which in turn was captured by large Banks long ago;

-Laws that used to be written by Congressional staffers and academics are now drafted by the regulated industry itself;

-The Attorneys General offices of the states are too timid to sue these same banks for obvious perjury;-Tax loopholes allow wealthy companies to pay very little taxes relative to profits;

-Copyrights that should be in the public domain are retained by companies who have changed intellectual property laws by corrupting legislators.

-The Minerals Management Service (MMS) gives away oil leases and mineral rights for pennies on the dollar.-Money has somehow been equated to speech, turning the idea of “One Person, One vote” on its head.

To function properly, all of these agencies need budgets, a career path for a motivated staff. Yet most of that has been gutted.

Take a look at Neil Barofsky’s book Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street. He describes a Federal prosecutorial system that has been systematically disassembled. There are few career lawyers with the know how, budget and balls to go after the big fish. There is little institutional memory.

We see  this throughout government, a product of even a debate that has been corrupted. The framework is not “How can me make government more effective, efficient responsive?“  Instead, the debate has degenerated into “How can we get government out of the way? How can we make taxes lower?”

Its not that I want big government, I want effective regulations. Its not that I want to pay higher taxes, I want efficient government that can accomplish things. I don’t want to live in a corporatocracy, I want to live in a nation where there is a Rule of Law.

The only way to make this happen is to change the campaign finance laws. Without that, we are a plutocracy governed by lobbyists.

Hence:  Its the bankers world, we just live in it . . .

so, what the fuck are we going to do about it...?

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Robert Reich: Wall Street can't have it both ways - too big to fail, and also able to make wild bets anywhere around the world

our criminal bankers really like their tbtf, protected status...

robert reich in truthout...

One advantage of being a huge Wall Street bank is you get bailed out by the federal government when you make dumb bets. Another is you can choose where around the world to make the dumb bets, thereby dodging U.S. regulations. It’s a win-win.

Wall Street would like to keep it that way.

For two years now, squadrons of Wall Street lawyers and lobbyists have been pressing the Treasury, Comptroller of the Currency, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, SEC, and the Fed to go easier on the Street for fear that if regulations are too tight, the big banks will be less competitive internationally.

Translated: They’ll move more of their business to London and Frankfurt, where regulations are looser.

Meanwhile, the Street has been warning Europeans that if their financial regulations are too tight, the big banks will move more of their business to the US, where regulations will (they hope) be looser.

[....]

If Wall Street banks demand a free rein overseas, the least we should demand is they be broken up here.

our super-rich elites will fight to their last breath to maintain their power over us and their ability to command the world's resources and reservoirs of capital...

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When we talk about "buying" elections, we only talk about the "buyers." Who's doing the selling?

it's abundantly clear that seats for our elected officials are being bought... this isn't news... it's been happening for a long time but never more visibly than in this week's wisconsin recall election... what often gets left out in the buying and selling discussion is where all that money is going... yes, it's easy enough to say it's being spent on political advertising... that's a no-brainer... but just as we're coming to find out just exactly who is doing the "buying," we need to know just exactly who all that money is going to... besides the source, it would be very useful to know how much media outlets and advertising firms are making and the details of the majority ownership - by name - of those outlets and firms... my hunch, which is also undoubtedly a no-brainer - is that we would see a maze of interlocking interests, back-scratching and mutual hand-washing... 

from the huffpo via the republic report...

For decades, broadcasters have kept the public in the dark about their massive election-year windfalls.

Those that own news outlets prefer silence on this issue. (See Disney, which owns eight ABC stations reaching 24 percent of the U.S. population, CBS Corp., which owns and operates 28 stations, Comcast, which provides news programming to more than 200 NBC affiliates, and News Corp., which owns and operates 27 local affiliates) Covering this story exposes their conflict of interest, in which profit-taking trumps the news media’s duty to educate viewers about the forces behind modern-day elections.

In the two years since Citizens United took effect, Super PACs and independent third-party groups have spent hundreds of millions to inundate the airwaves with political ads. That amount is projected to double before viewers become voters in November.

 The FCC’s response was an obvious solution: Require stations, which already archive this information for public view in paper files, to post ad spending data on the Internet, where anyone can see it. As viewers are being hammered by deceptive political ads we need a full accounting of the billionaires and corporate slush funds that stand behind this misinformation. 

but... 

But as with any hard-won reform in the age of big-money politics, this positive change can be undone by a generous application of corporate lawyers, lobbyists and campaign contributions.

the cardinal rule, "follow the money," is anathema to our super-rich elites and their bought-and-paid-for elected puppets... god forbid we should shine a light on their shell game...

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Top organization spending on lobbying; top recipients of lobbying money

yet more evidence of how our super-rich elites are buying our government and ruling our lives...

via influence explorer...

it's interesting to me that the home of the masters of the universe, goldman sachs, has spent more than double the amount of any other organization...

thanks to glenn greenwald... 

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Using client's money to buy influence in Congress

again, nothing we don't know but still very useful to hear it from the horse's mouth...

jack abramoff on cbs' 60 minutes...



from alternet...

Abramoff: When we would become friendly with an office and they were important to us, and the chief of staff was a competent person, I would say or my staff would say to him or her at some point, "You know, when you're done working on the Hill, we'd very much like you to consider coming to work for us." Now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to 'em, that was it. We owned them. And what does that mean? Every request from our office, every request of our clients, everything that we want, they're gonna do. And not only that, they're gonna think of things we can't think of to do.

money and power... that's what we're up against...

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Air quality: Obama gives away the store - yet AGAIN...!

why doesn't obama just make it official and switch to the republican party... at least i wouldn't have to constantly deal with such massive cognitive dissonance...

note the highlighted item in the first paragraph...

Obama Pulls Back Proposal to Tighten Clean Air Rules

The Obama administration is abandoning its plan to immediately tighten air quality rules nationwide to cut reduce emissions of smog-causing chemicals after an intense lobbying campaign by industry, which said the new rule would cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs, officials said Friday.

The Environmental Protection Agency, following the recommendation of its scientific advisers, had proposed lowering the so-called ozone standard from that set by the Bush administration to a new stricter standard that would have thrown hundreds of American counties out of compliance with the Clean Air Act. It would have required a major effort by state and local officials, as well as new emissions controls by industries and agriculture across the country.

The more lenient Bush administration standard from 2006 will remain in place until a scheduled reconsideration of acceptable pollution limits in 2013, officials indicated Friday.

ya gotta give the man credit... the balls-less wonder knows which side his bread is buttered on...

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"We keep expecting the politicians and the mainstream press to do the right thing. That is profoundly naive."

every once in a while, in the midst of the mindless democratic cheerleading, someone on a liberal/progressive blog makes sense...

from cenk uygur's diary, currently on the recommended list at daily kos...

We keep expecting the politicians and the mainstream press to do the right thing. That is profoundly naive. Why is a television anchor making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year going to look to change the system? He loves the system. The system pays the bills.

That's even truer of our politicians. The status quo got them elected. The status quo will get them - and their staffers - great salaries when they retire and become lobbyists. They'd have to be crazy to change the system that put them up on top.

That's why change must come from outside the system. We keep waiting for the Obama administration to bring us the change they promised. What are we, children? The current system got Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner, etc. where they are. They have gotten to the pinnacle of power by playing within that system. They've made millions in that system. That's why they have no intention of actually upending it. They just want to tweak it and do exactly what Obama said he wouldn't do if he got elected - play the Washington game just a little better.

This doesn't mean you give up all hope. There are some good guys in DC. I recently talked to a House staffer who said that Senator Franken's staff is excellent. The staff is so important because they are the ones who actually write the bills. I asked him why Franken's staff was better than the others. And he had a simple answer - they don't plan to work as lobbyists in DC when they're done serving in his office.

It's not just the honest senators that should give you hope. What should give you the most hope is that the motivations of people are actually quite simple. So, we can change the results by changing the incentives.

For example, if we pay the campaign expenses of politicians instead of letting the lobbyists pay them, then the politicians might actually work for us. If we ban the politicians and their staff from working as lobbyists, they might not have as much incentive to sell us out.

I know the people inside DC think that last proposal is absolute heresy. How would they get rich if they can't work as lobbyists? And that's precisely what the problem is. They're getting rich at our expense. We're crazy to allow this system to continue.

The nobles will never change it. This is how they got to where they are. This is how they maintain their power and salaries. We have to make them change it.

what cenk doesn't touch on is one of those topics that continues to remain "undiscussable," particularly on sites like daily kos where electing "more and better democrats" is a rigidly enforced mantra... i am now at the point where i no longer believe that it's possible to elect a "better" politician of any party... the system, as it's presently constructed, means that, to get someone pure and holy enough to weather the constant blandishments designed to buy unconditional support for the well-heeled donors, we'd have to elect a canonized saint and, in case you haven't noticed, saints are in remarkably short supply these days...

so, how do we "make them change it?"... take to the streets...? try to out the bastards by sitting in our pajamas and putting up posts on our blogs...? electing "more and better democrats"...? i think we're way beyond that... those things haven't worked in the past and they won't work now... so, what then...? personally, i don't have a friggin' clue... do you...?

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And we would find this abominable state of affairs in the least bit suprising because...?

is the u.s. a great country or what...?

America's healthcare industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to block the introduction of public medical insurance and stall other reforms promised by Barack Obama. The campaign against the president has been waged in part through substantial donations to key politicians.

Supporters of radical reform of healthcare say legislation emerging from the US Senate reflects the financial power of vested interests ‑ principally insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and hospitals ‑ that have worked to stop far-reaching changes threatening their profits.

The industry and interest groups have spent $380m (£238m) in recent months influencing healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress. The largest contribution, totalling close to $1.5m, has gone to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the new law.

ya gotta love it... the super-rich elites sure do know how to get their needs met and screw the rest of us...

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Now, let's all feel sorry for the poor lobbyists and defense contractors

how 'bout it...? do ya think you can muster some sympathy...?

In a year when Washington's influence industry should be thriving, with epic battles over health-care and energy legislation, lobbying in many sectors is in marked decline as defense contractors, real estate firms and other companies pull back in a down economy.

Overall spending on lobbying has leveled off for the first time in a decade, according to disclosure data filed with Congress. Lobbying revenue for many of the city's most powerful advocacy firms, including bellwethers such as Patton Boggs and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, plunged 10 percent or more in the first half of the year.

Washington also has 2,200 fewer registered lobbyists than it did a year ago, the lowest tally since shortly after George W. Bush took office in January 2001.

[...]

The formidable defense industry, reeling from tens of thousands of layoffs, has cut back expenditures by 17 percent this year. That was true even with the lobbying effort triggered by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's cancellation of the F-22 fighter jet and other major weapons projects, which had long survived thanks to the lobbying prowess of major contractors. Northrop Grumman has slashed its spending for lobbying in half, and Boeing and Lockheed Martin each have reduced spending by more than $1 million.

boo-freakin'-hoo...

p.s. ya gotta love that term, "influence industry"...

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So much for the advocates of free-markets, capitalism and small government as we watch them rush madly to Washington, tin cup in hand

pathetic...

otoh, with the printing presses cranking out trillions of dollars 'round the clock that are seemingly up for grabs, you don't want to be the last one in line...

A Lobbying Frenzy For Federal Funds

With Congress poised to vote on a rescue for the nation's auto industry and President-elect Barack Obama promising to launch a massive public spending program, Capitol Hill has once again become the scene of a lobbying free-for-all, with industry and local governments alike seeking some of the billions in taxpayer dollars that Congress is likely to spend in the not-too-distant future.

While some of the lobbying has been conducted by the usual hands on K Street, a parade of trade groups, unions and business owners have chosen to voice their pleas in person.

do ya suppose if i could afford my own lobbyist or even to pay my own way to d.c., i'd be up there elbowing at the trough with the rest of 'em...? i guess the reality is that, if i could afford my own lobbyist, i'd had to have been a different kind of person to begin with, dontcha think...?

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YEAH...!

as atrios says, more like this...

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Bushco advised telcos on how to lobby for retroactive immunity

just more gag-me-with-a-spoon-but-why-ain't-i-surprised news from the criminals occupying the white house...

Newly disclosed court papers confirm for the first time that the representatives of the nation's largest telecommunications companies reached out to the White House for advice on how to lobby Congress over a Bush administration proposal to give them retroactive immunity.

The Bush administration is refusing to disclose the contents of those communications, which include e-mails, letters and notes showing lobbying strategy.

and what do you suppose they're claiming as the basis for their refusal...?

aw, c'mon now...

you CAN'T be serious...!

ah, THAT'S better... i KNEW it would come to you...

Administration officials claim

their refusal is based on national security concerns,

but if they were to comply with the Freedom of Information Act request seeking those internal records, it would almost certainly show a deep and unseemly level of coordination between President Bush's advisers and the telecommunications companies they contracted to carry out his warrantless wiretapping program, critics say.

[emphasis added, in case you didn't figure that out already]

the united states doesn't have any more national security... bush and his criminal compadres have pissed it all away...

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Oferchrissake...MORE tax breaks for big business...? Pardon me, but SCREW big business...!

when joe and julia, jose and juanita, and hamid and fatima take a financial dive, who the hell jumps in to bail them out...? there's an easy, one-word answer to that question... nobody... but you can be goddam sure that if a business controlled by the powerful, already super-rich elites loses even the slightest bit of altitude, there will be dozens of congressmen and senators lining up to give 'em a hand...

The Senate proclaimed a fierce bipartisan resolve two weeks ago to help American homeowners in danger of foreclosure. But while a bill that senators approved last week would take modest steps toward that goal, it would also provide billions of dollars in tax breaks — for automakers, airlines, alternative energy producers and other struggling industries, as well as home builders.

The tax provisions of the Foreclosure Prevention Act, which consumer groups and labor leaders say amount to government handouts to big business, show how the credit crisis, while rattling the housing and financial markets, has created beneficiaries in the power corridors of Washington.

It also shows how legislation with a populist imperative offers a chance for lobbyists to press their clients’ interests.

i don't often lapse into unbridled crudity, but i say fuck 'em... it's about time that the poor, hard-working slobs who do the REAL grunt work of our country - and, for that matter, of every goddam country around the globe - get their share, and that our so-called public servants remember just who the hell it is that they're supposed to be there to serve...

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John Edwards is on the right track - the system is broken and it's up to us to fix it

from his "corporate democrats" speech, via alternet...

Real change starts with being honest -- the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It's rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. It's rigged by the very wealthy to ensure they become even wealthier. At the end of the day, it's rigged by all those who benefit from the established order of things. For them, more of the same means more money and more power. They'll do anything they can to keep things just the way they are -- not for the country, but for themselves.

[...]

You cannot deal with them on their terms. You cannot play by their rules, sit at their table, or give them a seat at yours. They will not give up their power -- you have to take it from them.

and there needs to be one HELL of a lot more emphasis on the following...

[I]t's time for the American people to take responsibility for our government -- for in our democracy it is truly ours. If we have come to mistrust and question it, it is because we were not vigilant against the forces that have taken it from us.

i had an online chat yesterday with an old friend... she's a reasonably intelligent person but, for reasons of small kids, a husband that loves football and hates the news, and no strong attraction to news on her part either, she only recently stumbled on all of the doubts and questions floating around out there about 9/11... she was asking me a lot of questions and i pointed her to some of the resources i've perused, and she was asking me whether or not i thought it was a conspiracy or even an inside job... i told her the same thing i say to everybody who asks that kind of question, "i believe everything and i believe nothing..." do i believe a 9/11 inside job is a possibility...? absolutely... do i believe it was...? i simply don't know...

the reason i cite the chat with my friend was my amazement that, in august 2007, someone would not have already been aware of the 9/11 conspiracy theories... but, as i thought about it, i had to admit that there are probably lots of people in her position... they get what information they have from tv news and probably don't pay all that much attention to it even then... mostly, they just go about their daily lives and, as long as their own immediate world isn't disturbed, they don't bestir themselves to become any better informed...

so, what does this have to do with john edwards...? he says that american people need to take more responsibility for our own government, that we have not been vigilant... and, imho, that is a serious understatement... it's easy to play the part of victim... indeed, there's a strong victim mentality that underlies much of our society... but we must also remember, an outlaw presidency like bushco has managed to accrue the power it has because we, the people of the united states, have given it away... it's way past time to take it back...

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Turkmenistan deja vu AND it has ENORMOUS GAS FIELDS!

there i was, innocently skimming through my nyt emailed headlines, when suddenly, a familiar name¹ ... hark² , i said to myself, what is THIS...? turkmenistan...?

Seeking the Persona of New Turkmen Leader

the article's headline triggered the association... i hurriedly went to my blogpost archives, and, sure enough, there it was...

How do journalists get to the REAL truth?

why, yes, indeed, i HAD posted on turkmenistan, and only a week and a half ago too... (no smart remarks about short-term memory loss, please...) it was all about ken silverstein's undercover exposé of washington lobbyists in harper's magazine where he posed as the representative for a group of turkmenistan investors.. (while a journalistic coup, it nonetheless ignited a small brushfire of ethical criticism, see here)... under his assumed persona, silverstein met with two p.r. agencies, seeking to contract their services for improving the image of turkmenistan, a country silverstein and many others characterize as "slightly less Stalinist" than north korea... part of what each agency proposed in response was to conduct an intensive p.r. campaign to improve turkmenistan's image with both congress and the public, in part by strategically placing favorable news items in major media outlets... well, stick me in a dress and call me shirley if the nyt article doesn't come across as just that kind of placement...

Since a rigged election in February, the new president [Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov] (whose name is pronounced gur-BAHN-goo-lee bair-dee-mukh-ha-MAY-doff) has assumed a job extraordinary in both its oddness and its possibilities. He has succeeded the megalomaniac who called himself Turkmenbashi, the Leader of All Turkmens.

With this post, Mr. Berdymukhammedov sits atop a personality cult so pervasive that even in death the identity of the president is inseparable from that of the country.

But he has inherited more than golden statues and unchecked dominion over a frightened population. He holds the keys to enormous gas fields and state coffers, and has lines of eager suitors from China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Israel, the European Union and the United States.

He has promised reform, and there are signs of change, including a slight easing of the government’s iron grip over the populace.

question... is this news or is it a p.r. placement...? i lean toward news mainly because the article does go on to state the following...

• Turkmenistan is governed in part by fear, a place where uttering the president’s name in public can cause people to flinch, whisper and hush.

• Diplomats describe [Saparmurat Niyazov, the dictator who had ruled since the Soviet Union’s collapse, and Berdymukhammedov's predecessor] with words diplomats do not typically use: madman, sadist, freak, thief.

• [Niyazov] assembled a government that was opaque and impenetrable. Six months after his death, no one pretends to be able to peer in.

• [O]ne European diplomat, describing interactions with Turkmen officials ... “They are afraid to talk in all meetings, because everything is bugged as far as they know.”

it's up to us to decide - truth or spin, real or memorex... but, don't forget, TURKMENISTAN HAS ENORMOUS GAS FIELDS...!

1. hark
Pronunciation: 'härk
Function: intransitive verb
Etymology: Middle English herkien; akin to Old High German hOrechen to listen, Old English hIeran to hear
: to pay close attention

2. dé·jà vu
Pronunciation: "dA-"zhä-'vü, -'v[ue]
Function: noun
Etymology: French, adjective, literally, already seen
1 a : the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time b : a feeling that one has seen or heard something before
2 : something overly or unpleasantly familiar

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"The smug, high-end Washington press corps" are just another sub-group of the elites

i posted a while back on the ethics of ken silverstein's undercover gig to gather information about washington lobbying and public relations firms that appeared in the recent harper's... i opined at the time that it would be completely impossible for silverstein to have gotten the information he was able to obtain by any other means... here silverstein addresses the ethics issue, shares an identical opinion, and offers a few observations on the current state of our esteemed media...

Today ... it's almost impossible to imagine a mainstream media outlet undertaking a major undercover investigation.

[...]

The decline of undercover reporting — and of investigative reporting in general — also reflects, in part, the increasing conservatism and cautiousness of the media, especially the smug, high-end Washington press corps. As reporters have grown more socially prominent during the last several decades, they've become part of the very power structure that they're supposed to be tracking and scrutinizing.

[...]

Yes, undercover reporting should be used sparingly, and there are legitimate arguments to be had about when it is fair or appropriate. But I'm confident my use of it in this case was legitimate. There was a significant public interest involved, particularly given Congress' as-yet-unfulfilled promise to crack down on lobbyists in the aftermath of the Jack Abramoff scandal.

Could I have extracted the same information and insight with more conventional journalistic methods? Impossible.

Based on the number of interview requests I've had, and the steady stream of positive e-mails I've received, I'd wager that the general public is decidedly more supportive of undercover reporting than the Washington media establishment. One person who heard me talking about the story in a TV interview wrote to urge that I never apologize for "misrepresenting yourself to a pack of thugs … especially when misrepresentation is their own stock in trade!"

i, for one, am grateful that someone like silverstein is on the job...

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Moyers on Murdoch: "...the predator of the hour"

bill moyers is turning shrill, not that that's a bad thing...

When it comes to money and power he’s carnivorous: all appetite and no taste. He’ll eat anything in his path. Politicians become little clay pigeons to be picked off with flattering headlines, generous air time, a book contract or the old-fashioned black jack that never misses: campaign cash. He hires lobbyists the way Imelda Marcos bought shoes, and stacks them in his cavernous closet, along with his conscience...

[...]

You will not be surprised to learn that Murdoch’s company paid little or no federal income tax over the past four years. His powerful portfolio positions him to claim a big stake in Yahoo and his takeover of The Wall Street Journal, now owned by the Bancroft family, which, like Adam and Eve, the parents of us all, are tempted to sell their birthright for a wormy apple.

Murdoch and THE JOURNAL’s editorial page are made for each other. They’ve both pursued the right's corporate and political agenda of the past quarter century. Both venerate what THE JOURNAL editorials call the “animal spirits” of business. But THE JOURNAL’s newsroom is another matter – there facts are sacred and independence revered. Rupert Murdoch has told the Bancrofts he’ll not meddle with the reporting. But he’s accustomed to using journalism as a personal spittoon.

[...]

His worst offense with FOX News is not even its baldly partisan agenda. Far worse is the travesty he’s made of its journalism. FOX News huffs and puffs, pontificates and proclaims, but does little serious original reporting. His tabloids sell babes and breasts, gossip and celebrities.

[...]

His pursuit of The Wall Street Journal is the latest in a cascading series of mergers, buy-outs, and other financial legerdemain that are making a shipwreck of journalism. Public minded newspapers are being dumped by their owners for wads of cash or crippled by cost cutting while their broadcasting cousins race to the bottom. Murdoch is just the predator of the hour. [...] Instead of checking the excesses of private and public power, these 21st century barons of the First Amendment revel in them; the public be damned.

the only truth moyers neglects to mention is that people like murdoch would sell their own grandmothers for a mess of pottage...

The phrase mess of pottage means something of little value. It is associated with the exchange by Esau of his birthright for a meal of lentil stew, as described in Genesis 25:29-34 in the Bible. (A pottage is a type of soup.)

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How do journalists get to the REAL truth?

there's an interesting journalistic ethics kerfuffle percolating... a number of news outlets, including alternet, picked up on ken silverstein's exposé of washington lobbyists in this month's harper's magazine... silverstein went undercover to gather information for the lengthy article, assuming the alias, "kenneth case," and, according to bill moyers' blog, posed...

...as the representative of a fictitious investment group with business interests in Turkmenistan, and approached several prominent Washington lobbying firms to see how they might bolster the image of Turkmenistan as a viable international economic and diplomatic partner.

from the harper's article...

The U.S. General Accounting Office estimated in 1990 that less than half of foreign lobbyists who should register under FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938] actually do so, and there is no evidence that matters have improved. In theory, violators can be heavily fined and even sent to prison, but almost no one has been prosecuted for ignoring the act, so there are few risks for non-compliance. Those firms that do register generally reveal little information beyond the names of their clients, the fees they pay, and limited information about whom they contact. Because disclosure requirements are so lax, it is nearly impossible to monitor the activities of foreign lobbyists. What little knowledge we do have of lobbyist-orchestrated diplomacy—including most of the projects discussed above—has been gleaned not from FARA filings but from serendipitous revelations or investigative reporting.

Which leaves Americans to wonder: Exactly what sorts of promises do these firms make to foreign governments? What kind of scrutiny, if any, do they apply to potential clients? How do they orchestrate support for their clients? And how much of their work is visible to Congress and the public, and hence subject to oversight? To shed light on these questions, I decided to approach some top Washington lobbying firms myself, as a potential client, to see whether they would be willing to burnish the public image of a particularly reprehensible regime.

why turkmenistan...?

Given that my first pick, North Korea, seemed too reviled to be credible, I settled on the only slightly less Stalinist regime of Turkmenistan. Until his sudden death last December, President-for-Life Saparmurat Niyazov built a personality cult that outdid that of any modern leader except possibly Kim Jong Il. High school students were required to study The Ruhnama, Niyazov’s book of personal and spiritual wisdom, described on its official website as being “on par with the Bible and the Koran.” The self-declared “Turkmenbashi,” or “Leader of all Ethnic Turkmens,” Niyazov had his image plastered on billboards and buildings across the country, as well as on the national currency, salt packets, and vodka bottles. He named after himself not only a town but an entire month of the year (the one we unenlightened non-Turkmen still call January). Any opposition to the Turkmen government is considered to be treason, and thousands of political dissidents have been imprisoned. In 2004 a man seeking permission to hold a peaceful demonstration was sent to a psychiatric hospital for two years.

Following Niyazov’s demise, Minister of Health Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the Turkmenbashi’s personal dentist, became acting president. Berdymukhamedov was relatively unknown when he was declared acting president. Some have speculated that he is the Turkmenbashi’s illegitimate son, which would explain his unexpected ascendancy. He had been responsible, according to the BBC, for implementing Niyazov’s 2004 reform of the health service, “which many observers have blamed for its near collapse.” Berdymukhamedov was confirmed as president in an election held in February—he ran against five other candidates, all from the ruling party, and won 89 percent of the vote—in a balloting that he described as being held “on a democratic basis that has been laid by the great [late] leader,” but which just about everyone else deemed to be a sham.

one of the firms approached by silverstein, posing as kenneth case, was apco, the 2006 pr agency of the year according to pr week magazine... from apco's website...

APCO Worldwide is a global communication consultancy specializing in building relationships with an organization's key stakeholders. These relationships are critical to the full range of challenges our clients face.

We believe an organization's reputation is the culmination of how such challenges are managed. In the end, this work builds and protects an organization's value and the value of its products and services.

It is our goal to be your trusted partner of choice and help you create this value – by pushing the boundaries of communication and providing global service, culture by culture.

"case" met with several "key professionals" of apco this past february who presented him and a colleague with what i would characterize as a high-powered dog-and-pony show touting apco's capabilities, its connections in congress, and its proposed strategy for turkmenistan... according to Barry Schumacher, a senior vice president at APCO Associates...

"This really is an opportunity to define the new government of Turkmenistan."

the subsequent article in harper's, a powerful inside look at how lobbying firms operate in d.c., even generated an interview with bill moyers... the issue that has subsequently emerged centers on the ethics of undercover journalism, and, in fact, there is even a poll up on moyers blog asking readers to register their opinion of undercover journalism... needless to say, silverstein's article provoked a response from apco... here is a portion of apco's response, taken from their website...

In violation of recognized journalistic principles, Silverstein neither asked us for comment nor gave us an opportunity to respond to his “facts”. In addition, Silverstein appeared on Bill Moyers Journal on PBS and neither he, nor representatives of the program, contacted APCO for comment. Had they asked, we would have told them these facts:

* In advance of the meeting, and to help us determine if a meeting should take place, we began our standard due diligence by contacting people in the policy community who are expert in the region to determine their view of the new government. Our due diligence gave us reason to hold a preliminary meeting to determine the legitimacy of the client.
* We then held a preliminary meeting where we told Silverstein, “Case”, we would need more information before we would be comfortable moving forward, and that if we decided to proceed, we would need to register the representation with the U.S. Department of Justice in a manner fully consistent with U.S. law and regulation. This regulation requires full disclosure, whether working directly for the government or on behalf of business interests which benefit the government indirectly, contrary to Silverstein’s representations.
* We ended the meeting politely and without any commitment or contractual relationship. There was never a further meeting, therefore no way for Silverstein to determine whether we would have taken the assignment.

as a refugee from many years in the corporate world, i can tell you flat out that there is no way in hell silverstein would have been able to see what he saw and hear what he heard had he approached apco as a journalist... no way would they have allowed him to see their presentation on turkmenistan... rather than being shown what apco presented to someone they believed was a good faith representative of the interests of turkmenistan, they would have given silverstein the journalist version of their dog-and-pony show, a presentation that would have been qualitatively and substantially different from the one he was shown... yes, i have qualms about undercover journalism, particularly the "under false pretenses" part... however, in these days of undiluted spin and outright lies that are passed off as truth, i don't know of another way to get a clear picture of what's REALLY going on...

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How our Democratic leadership is selling us down the river

none of what david sirota says should be surprising to anyone who has paid any attention whatsoever to how liberal and progressive ideals have been systematically betrayed in this country by the leadership of the very party that purports to support them... and, even if you haven't been paying attention, you've probably experienced the effects, and wondered why everything in our economy seems to work against the wage slaves that are toiling away year after year keeping all the machinery of the system running...

there was a very strong message sent in the 2006 elections, a message from the grassroots, from folks like us that nobody in congress or the white house seems to pay any attention to unless they're trying to baffle us with bullshit... watching developments since the new congressional session began in january, i can only conclude that, if the message registered, it certainly hasn't been taken to heart...

sirota highlights what's going on and, more importantly, what ISN'T going on, in three important areas - trade, lobbying and iraq - all three of which were part of the message sent by the 2006 elections...

trade...

[T]he Democratic congressional leadership and less than half of all Democratic lawmakers (as during NAFTA) join with all Republicans to ram a free trade package through Congress over the objections of the progressive movement and rank-and-file Democrats who ran against lobbyist-written trade policies in 2006.

lobbying...

[T]he Democratic congressional leadership would join with all Republicans to ram a sham lobbying "reform" bill through Congress potentially over the objections of many of rank-and-file Democrats and the progressive movement.

iraq...

[T]he Democratic congressional leadership would join with all Republicans to ram a blank check Iraq spending bill through Congress potentially over the objections of many of rank-and-file Democrats and the progressive movement.

and the result...?

Thus, we get Democratic leaders who just months after election to the majority are attempting to triangulate against their own party and the progressive movement. That this strategy helped destroy the progressive agenda, the Democratic Party, and Democrats' electoral prospects for the better part of a decade seems of no concern to the people trying to perform these acrobatics - all they seem to be focused on is bringing a smile to David Broder's face and a truckload of Wall Street cash to their campaign coffers. Whether their triangulation defies political history and brings them electoral success in 2008 is less important than what the actual real-world consequences of such behavior is for the country - and if the current trend continues, those consequences could be severe.

we have no business sitting still for THIS shit any more than we can sit still for bushco's unrelenting assault on our constitution and everything else that serves as the foundation for our republic...

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