Tag Archives: Lobbyists

Steve Russell :
ALEC: All power to the (corporate) people

Those who serve in legislative bodies seldom read what they vote on and virtually never write the bills they drop into the legislative sausage machine. By Steve Russell | The Rag Blog | January 22, 2014 Cheap shots have been … Continue reading

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Ted McLaughlin :
Why Congress can’t understand your financial struggle

For the first time in this country’s history, more than half of the members of Congress are at least millionaires. By Ted McLaughlin | The Rag Blog | January 11, 2014 The figures above are for Congress in 2012, and … Continue reading

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Harry Targ : The REAL Scandal at the IRS

“Can’t make ’em see the light? Make ’em feel the heat” — Hugh Fike, coordinator of the Heritage Society for America’s “Sentinel” program. The IRS ‘scandal’ is notwhat opportunists claim it is If the Internal Revenue Service is to be … Continue reading

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John Aloysius Farrell : The Koch Brothers’ Web of Influence

Koch Inc., headquartered in Wichita, Kan., spends tens of millions of dollars to lobby Congress and federal agencies on issues ranging from oil and gas to the estate tax. Photo by Larry W. Smith / AP.The Koch brothers’ web of … Continue reading

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Harvey Wasserman : Putting Lipstick on a Radioactive Pig

Image from Texas Vox / Public Citizen.High dollar nuclear makeover:$645 million in lipstick for a radioactive pig By Harvey Wasserman / The Rag Blog / February 24, 2010 The mystery has been solved. Where is this “new reactor renaissance” coming … Continue reading

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Who Owns Congress? (Hint : Wall Street)

And where’s the outrage?Wall Street owns Congress By Sid Eschenbach / The Rag Blog / October 11, 2009 See ‘On the government’s owners’ by Glenn Greenwald, Below. A few years ago, Bill Bennett wrote a book entitled The Death of … Continue reading

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Capitalist Health Care : We Live the Result

This is some considerable evidence that the common folk really don’t have much to say about the kind of health care we are going to get. Until we get this kind of activity and big money out of Congress, there … Continue reading

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Doctors Want Real Health Care Reform

Cartoon from LTSaloon.orgDoctors show support for health care reform; Lobbyists, Blue Dogs and Republicans work to gut real change By Dr. Stephen R. Keister / The Rag Blog / July 28, 2009 This past Wednesday I listened to President Obama’s … Continue reading

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Where’s Waldo? Play ‘Find That Health Care Lobbyist!’

NPR has started to identify individuals and publish how much cash they have thrown at elected officials to maintain the status quo for private health care insurance companies… By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / June 26, 2009 National … Continue reading

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Roger Baker :
Transportation politics and the Austin road lobby

Part 2: The Austin road lobby: Texas transportation politics, the developers/ and those pesky populist reformers. By Roger Baker | The Rag Blog | June 22, 2009 [This is the second part of a series on transportation in Austin. In … Continue reading

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Financial Meltdown : The 12 Corrupt Deals That Caused it

Graphic from The Energy Source. $5 billion in lobbying for 12 corrupt deals caused the multi-trillion dollar financial meltdown. It got the finance industry lucrative legislative favors that paved the way for Wall Street’s devastating collapse. By Robert Weissman / … Continue reading

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Lobbyists : The Boys on McCain’s Bus

‘A gang of lobbyist-insiders — at odds with his supposed devotion to maverick change — runs McCain’s Washington-based campaign.’By Sherman De Brosse / The Rag Blog / October 28, 2008 This is the fifth in a series by Rag Blog … Continue reading

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