2 posts tagged “lobbyist”

In 2003 Rep. Stephen Buyer (Rep., Indiana) founded the Frontier Foundation that reportedly existed to attract donor dollars for education scholarships that were never offered to any student. Congressman Buyer also claimed that he doesn't recall where he got the original capital of $25.000 that he used to establish this group, according to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS news (Can A Donation Buy Legislation?).  The supposed non-profit organization shared office space with Buyer's political campaign office.  Apparently, his campaign manager handled operation of the Frontier Foundation.  The dirt discovered about Buyer, the Frontier Foundation, and top donors got a lot more interesting. The televised report is more detailed about the controversial favors that Buyer was doing as a lawmaker to the lobbyists that donated to the Frontier Foundation.

Apparently, the Frontier Foundation was created to attract lobbyists and donor dollars to Stephen Buyer in exchange for political favors on Capital Hill.

This reminds me of a report that I read years ago in a late 1990's issue of Mother Jones Magazine, titled Co-op Congress.  Members of both political parties were exposed for introducing, endorsing and voting on bills from which they profited in various ways.

Some things never change...

Rome's patron senators used to sit outside with giant pots to encourage the public to drop coins in them. The object was for people to rent a Roman senator's ears where they could tell the patron senator what they needed, or wanted.  If they paid enough money then they had a better chance of their cause being introduced to the senate.

Plutocracy lives on in modern-day governments.  Today, we Americans stand a much better chance of our issues being introduced to the House and Senate and supported by either, or both parties if we pay the politicians and each party enough money to buy their support.

Dennis Kucinich blasted the voting congressional majority that voted for a bill that they did not bother to read.  That bill was intended to officially declare that when war crimes are committed, they didn't really happen.  The purpose of the bill was intended to protect certain war criminals. 

Any one that attempts to protect one group of war criminals may as well protect them all.

"Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt. Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist.

Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian." - Dennis Kucinich:

Video and transcript of Kucinich's response are on the same page here.