Free Republic

A few years ago, I wrote a book, "Jesus Wept" an American Story. The story, in part, was about Cherokee Chief John Ross, a 1/8th Cherokee blood, white, blue eyed greedy tyrant. The more time goes on, the more he reminds me of Barak Obama. He was put in power by Major Ridge and some other realistic Cherokees, who thought the tribe, which functioned under a constitutional government, would fare better in Washington DC if represented by Ross who would be identified more with the white leaders. And for a time, that seemed to work. Until Ross got the taste...

I’m getting sick of the rewriting of 2008 presidential campaign history as K Street Republicans continue to assault Sarah Palin in the fear that a similarly conservative Republican will rise to the top of the VP sweepstakes.   It has been so fashionable in D.C. Republican circles to bash the Palin nomination as a mistake, ill-conceived or even disastrous, that even Dick Chaney has gotten into the act.   These self-serving attempts to change history are nothing more than a smear campaign designed to influence the Romney VP pick by obscuring the truth that the choice of Sarah Palin to...

Homeland Security: President Obama promised lobbyists wouldn't run his White House. They're just doing it from across the street — at a Shariah-compliant coffee chain tied to a radical jihadist group. That's right: According to the New York Times, prominent K Street lobbyists are buttonholing Obama officials at a Caribou Coffee shop on Pennsylvania Avenue, raising far more than just ethics questions. What the Times story neglects to mention is that Caribou Coffee is a Shariah-compliant firm owned by an Islamic bank based in Bahrain. One of its founders and a current adviser are leaders in the radical Muslim Brotherhood....

"If you want to get involved in business," Sen. Orrin Hatch warned technology companies at a conference in 2000, "you should get involved in politics." Hatch was referring to the shortcomings of then-software king Microsoft, which he had spent most of the previous decade harassing from his perch as Judiciary Committee chairman. The message was clear: If you become successful, you must hire lobbyists, you must start a political action committee, and you must donate to politicians. Otherwise Washington will make your life very difficult.

Big business and the Tea Party are at swords' points once again, with GOP Senate primaries for the second straight election becoming proxy battles in the war over the soul of the Republican Party. Conservative insurgents pose serious threats this year to establishment Republicans in at least three open-seat Senate races. In every case, political action committees and lobbyists have hugely favored the establishment pick with contributions. One reason: The GOP establishment rallies industry donors behind the Republican seen as stronger in November. A deeper reason: The revolving-door clique of K Street and Capitol Hill operatives needs Republicans elected to...

The lobbying industry’s favorite senator has turned Big Bank protections into a flood of campaign cash. Sen. Jon Tester (D., Mont.) received nearly $300,000 from lobbyists in 2012, making him the top recipient of K Street dollars, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Tester has denied the fact on multiple occasions, saying it is “not true.” But a Washington Free Beacon review of campaign contributions reveals that Tester leads all Senators in lobbying cash. He is also flush in contributions from Wall Street firms and big banks, ranking second in the Senate for commercial bank donations, third for credit...

Report highlights which lobbying firms back Romney in 2012 Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney is the clear front-runner in picking up support from lobbyists at some of K Street’s most profitable firms, according to a report released last week by First Street Research Group. That’s based on the number of lobbyists in those firms who are advising Romney’s campaign, collecting or “bundling” contributions for him, and contributing money to the campaign. First Street, the political intelligence unit of CQ Press, compiled data from Federal Election Commission filings and conducted independent research on individual lobbyists who Romney and Rick Santorum have...

BOSTON (Reuters) - Republican candidate Rick Santorum has won support from American conservatives for his views on social issues but a habit of hyperbole may lead to stumbles in his White House bid. In Boise, Idaho, on Tuesday, Santorum compared contraception to deodorant and soap when making a point about why he believes birth control should not be covered by health insurers. "Let's mandate that every insurance policy covers toothpaste. Deodorant. That might be a good idea, right? Have everyone cover deodorant, right? Soap. I mean, where do you stop?" Santorum also fell back on a well-worn Republican criticism that...

Mitt Romney, whose campaign is preparing a multi-million dollar wave of negative advertising to persuade voters that Rick Santorum should not be president, says he is open to the possibility of choosing Santorum to be his running mate should Romney win the Republican nomination. Romney appeared on Fox News Wednesday morning and was asked, "You and Rick Santorum, we haven't seen you go head-to-head yet…In the big picture, could you see a scenario where you two team up?" "Oh, I think it's always possible to have people come together in our party, whether it's Rick and I, or others in...

The latest Republican to surge in polls, Rick Santorum is trying to turn his newfound strength into something lasting. Curious Republicans now pack his rallies. Supporters have funneled nearly $4 million to his formerly empty campaign account over the past seven days. And his staff is plotting an aggressive strategy to challenge Mitt Romney in Romney's native Michigan and beyond. But things don't look so strong just beneath the surface. Santorum is underfunded and outmanned. He's still lacking in organization, a month and a half into the primary season. And, after he won three contests in a single day last...

Newt Gingrich criticized Republican rival Rick Santorum on Tuesday afternoon for his “complete misunderstanding of modern warfare” over the former Pennsylvania senator’s remarks on women in combat. Santorum on Thursday said he had “concerns about women in frontline combat.” “I think that could be a very compromising situation … where people naturally, you know, may do things that may not be in the interests of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved,” Santorum told CNN’s John King. Gingrich fired back at Santorum, calling his credentials to be commander in chief into question during a press availability...

Mitt Romney has been quick to justify his record of laying-off workers and closing plants as CEO of Bain Capital by wrapping himself in the “creative destruction” of free market capitalism But Romney’s idea of capitalism is that you can fire workers and strip companies on the way up, and then if you are big and influential enough, demand taxpaying workers bail you out on the way down. While Romney’s supporters are putting up a heavy smoke screen, Tea partiers should understand that, as a supporter of the TARP Wall Street bailout, Romney’s “creative destruction” only applies to Main Street,...

....Perry started slashing away at Romney’s record as chief executive at Bain Capital on Monday, but was more caustic Tuesday in condemning the firm’s practice of making money in corporate takeover deals that sometimes triggered job losses. "They’re vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb, waiting for the company to get sick, and then they sweep in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that, and they leave the skeleton,” Perry told about 100 seniors here at the Sun City retirement complex. ......Perry went on to castigate the Obama administration for allegedly failing to stop “self-dealing” on...

George W. Bush-era energy policy wonks are finding a new home with Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor can count on support from a who’s who of former Bush officials willing to raise money, brainstorm policy ideas and generally help spread the word among the ranks of like-minded GOP energy experts. Already on board the Romney train are Jim Connaughton, who ran Bush’s White House Council on Environmental Quality for all eight years; former Assistant Energy Secretary Andy Karsner; former EPA air chief Jeff Holmstead; and former EPA congressional affairs liaison Edward Krenik. The former Bush officials all told POLITICO...

On October 29th, when I sat on a panel during the first ever Grizzly Fest Summit, I spoke about being “disillusioned” with the state of politics and Washington DC prior to learning about Governor Palin in 2007. Disgraced former high-power DC lobbyist Jack Abramoff had a lot to do with that because as the Washington Post described back in 2006 (emphasis): Former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison on March 29, after pleading guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials in a deal that requires him to cooperate...

[...]Take AT&T, for example. The telecommunications giant is pushing for the supercommittee to increase wireless spectrum, reform corporate tax and minimize government regulation. The company, which is also in the midst of fighting for its merger with T-Mobile, bundled $71,000 for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee through the first six months of this year and $20,750 last year for Washington Sen. Patty Murray, who co-chairs the supercommittee and runs the campaign arm that is charged with maintaining a Senate majority next November. In fact, Murray received the most bundled contributions of any individual supercommittee lawmaker since last year, also taking...

It has begun. Republican Senate aides who desperately want the majority back so they can add an extra zero to their eventual K-Street salary package once they stop prostituting themselves to lobbyists and instead become lobbyists prostituting themselves to squishy Republicans are attacking Jim DeMint. In addition to their own self-interest, you can be sure they are expressing their bosses’ frustrations.Now, you and I both know that Jim DeMint swooping in at the last minute to endorse Christine O’Donnell had as much to do with her victory as a butterfly flapping its wings in China 340 years ago last Monday....

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a government watchdog group, says the White House is committing “willful violations” of federal and presidential records acts, along with violating disclosure laws, and is calling for a congressional oversight hearing into administration officials meetings with lobbyists. The problem arises from White House officials having met with K- Street lobbyists hundreds of times over the past 18 months at “off-campus” coffee shops. Some lobbyists claimed they frequently receive e-mails from White House staff members’ personal accounts, rather than from their official White House accounts. CREW says this is “an apparent attempt...

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...

J Street has launched a campaign in support of Washington's firm stance on Israel's latest approved building plan in East Jerusalem, the dovish U.S. pro-Israel lobby announced on Tuesday. Israel's announcement of plans to build 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem strained ties with the U.S., which has said it regarded last week's decision - made public while Vice President Joe Biden was in Israel - as an insult. Recent U.S.-Israel tensions were used by "hawkish pro-Israel activists," according to the announcement posted on J Street's website, "to attack the Obama Administration over Israel, urging the Administration to slow down...

K Street prospered in 2009 despite the lingering recession, as many firms reported sharp revenue increases thanks to a busy Democratic agenda. On Wednesday, at least 19 firms reported growth in their lobbying revenue from 2008 to 2009, according to new records released under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. Lobbyists credited the surge in revenue to Washington actively looking to turn around the downturn as well as an aggressive legislative agenda by the incoming Obama administration and substantial Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. “It was an amazing year in terms of the number of things that came up and...

A wide ranging congressional investigation into Countrywide Financial will dig into how the mortgage giant went about picking government officials to offer its VIP program, according to aides involved with the inquiry. Thanks to an agreement between Republicans and Democrats reached late Friday night, any name of a member of Congress involved in the VIP program will head straight to the ethics committee, while redacted copies of those documents will be given to the House Oversight and Government Reform. But the committee has cast a much wider net, looking into whether lobbyists or others in Washington helped identify mid-level Hill...

Lobbyists and government watchdogs are applauding revisions made by the White House on Friday to lobbying restrictions on stimulus funds. After completing a 60-day review last week, the administration modified the rules to extend a speaking ban not just to lobbyists but to others who contact government officials about specific stimulus projects. But that ban only occurs now after a grant application has been filed for the project. Those interested in the project have to file their views in writing with administration officials, which will then be disclosed on the Internet. All contacts with lobbyists will still have to be...

Washington’s influence industry is humming steadily while the national economy is declining in what several economists predict will be the worst recession in 50 years. More than half a million Americans lost jobs last month, and the value of most 401(k) plans plunged, yet government and public-relations pros in town expect to make a lot of money over the next two years. Fueling the industry along K Street is an anticipation of sweeping changes that President-elect Obama and the newly emboldened Democratic Congress will pursue together — from ending Bush-administration tax cuts to enacting the broad health reforms proposed during...

Three major trade associations announced a changeover in leadership Friday as Washington prepares for a new administration and a Congress with extended Democratic majorities in both houses. Frank Bowman resigned as president and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute. Bowman was selected as the leader of NEI in August 2004. “After much deliberation about the right course of leadership for our industry and the Nuclear Energy Institute during this period of dramatic change in Congress and the White House, I am resigning as president and chief executive officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute,” Bowman wrote in his resignation...

Hillary's Mystery Money MenRuss Baker & Adam Federman Thu Oct 18, 2:04 PM ET The Nation -- In the Clintons' pursuit of power, there is no such thing as a strange bedfellow. One recently exposed inamorata was Norman Hsu, the mysterious businessman from Hong Kong who brought in $850,000 to Hillary Clinton's campaign before being unmasked as a fugitive. Her campaign dismissed Hsu as someone who'd slipped through the cracks of an otherwise unimpeachable system for vetting donors, and perhaps he was. The same cannot be said for the notorious financier Alan Quasha, whose involvement with Clinton is at least...

Lost amid all of the jubilation of the Obama victory was the announcement by the Obama transition team that it had set up a separate transition program beyond the one that is paid for by the American taxpayer. Called the "Obama/Biden Transition Project," it is a 501(c)4 tax-exempt organization, with no limits on the contributions it can receive and no requirements to divulge the names of individuals or organizations that give it money. Traditionally, the victorious campaign has set up inaugural funds, as well as funds to deal with legal costs and other expenses to close down the campaign. Others...

A Barack Obama presidency and stronger Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill signal a power shift beyond the White House and Congress. Expect new faces in corporate offices and trade association suites downtown, even if Democrats don’t imitate the K Street Project, the campaign by Republicans to fill lobbying slots with their own. The shift was already under way before Tuesday, prompted by the Democratic takeover of Congress two years ago, though the impact of that victory has been mostly limited to a move away from the all-GOP business model and toward shops that offered well-connected Democrats. Corporate offices and trade...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose corruption scandal shook up Washington's power elite and contributed to the Republican loss of control in Congress, was sentenced on Thursday to four years in federal prison. Judge Ellen Huvelle issued the sentence on conspiracy and other charges after federal prosecutors recommended leniency due to Abramoff's cooperation in pursuing corruption cases against lawmakers and former administration officials. He faced a maximum of 11 years under a plea deal reached in 2006.

As most of Washington met last week to fret over the economy, Harry Reid was attending a less-noticed summit. The Senate majority leader had summoned the titans of more than a dozen industry trade groups to a Capitol Hill meeting, where he delivered a crisp message: Get with our program, or get demolished. Anyone remember the "K Street Project"? Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and conservative activist Grover Norquist designed it to pressure the business community into hiring GOP lobbyists, supporting GOP causes, and giving money to GOP candidates. The press was shocked, shocked, to discover such behavior, and...

Disturbed by troubling connections and unflattering publicity, John McCain has just purged several prominent Washington lobbyists from his presidential campaign. Surely his intentions are laudable, but if Sen. McCain is consistent in ridding his campaign of such compromised people, he will find himself riding lonesome on the Straight Talk Express. That's because nearly all of his advisers, fundraisers and top staffers have worked on K Street, starting with his campaign manager, Rick Davis, and his senior adviser and spokesman, Charles Black. From the beginning, the McCain team has been thoroughly infested with representatives of corporate special interests, from the campaign's...

Around noon today, the powers-that-be at NEWSWEEK posted "A Convention Quandary" on our website. In the story, investigative ace Michael Isikoff reported that the man chosen by John McCain's presidential campaign to run this summer's GOP convention--Arizonan Doug Goodyear--was causing some headaches within the ranks. The problem? Goodyear is CEO of DCI Group, a consulting firm that earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients--not the most convenient association for a candidate who's already struggling to reconcile his reputation as an anti-special interests crusader with the sizable number of lobbyists on his senior staff. Further...

PR executive Doug Goodyear voluntarily steps down after past ties to Burma are revealed.

The number of people who make their livings trying to influence the federal government runs into the hundreds of thousands, an enormous figure given the fact that most lobbying is aimed at 535 members of Congress. The exact size of this lobbying army is hard to define, however, because the 30,000 or so people who register to lobby each year do so voluntarily (there is essentially no enforcement of lobbying registration laws), and only those who meet with lawmakers and their staffs directly are required to register at all. The majority of people who lobby do so indirectly, through tele-marketing,...

Democrats tell business to pay up or else. The late Milton Friedman used to rail against what he called corporate America's "suicidal impulse." By that he meant that the business community continually financed the very politicians who were intent on robbing their profits and slitting their throats. It's happening again. The latest quarterly Federal Election Commission Report on political giving, released this week, shows the majority of corporate money flowing to the Democrats. Firms like Comcast, General Electric, Federal Express and UPS have shifted campaign giving away from the GOP. Employees of five major defense contractors including Lockheed Martin, Boeing...

One weekday morning in mid-July, perhaps two dozen liberal organizers gathered around a conference table in an office building on Washington’s K Street. Their mission: American withdrawal from Iraq. In one sense, the location was unlikely; K Street is a symbolic address, like Madison Avenue or Fleet Street, in this case representing the capital’s thriving industry of trade associations and corporate lobbyists. Yet this was a group of mostly young progressives drawing meager salaries who had no ties to corporate America. Still, the venue was not inappropriate. Those arranged around the table represented the new face of the antiwar movement...

Washington lobbying firms, trade associations and corporate offices are moving to hire more well-connected Democrats in response to rising prospects that the opposition party will wrest control of at least one chamber of Congress from Republicans in the November elections. In what lobbyists are calling a harbinger of possible upheaval on Capitol Hill, many who make a living influencing government have gone from mostly shunning Democrats to aggressively recruiting them as lobbyists over the past six months or so.

WASHINGTON - In a burst of activity that ended 16 months of inaction, the House ethics committee on Wednesday opened investigations of a Republican and a Democrat who are subjects of federal bribery inquiries. One lawmaker is connected to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, who had strong ties to Abramoff and accepted favors from him, will be investigated along with Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record), D-La. A former aide to Ney pleaded guilty last week, admitting he tried to corrupt the congressman. Two businessmen have pleaded guilty to bribing Jefferson. The...

WASHINGTON - A batch of 278 e-mails between lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a Bush administration official show a highly inappropriate relationship where gifts and business interests mixed freely and frequently, federal prosecutors said Friday. The prosecutors hope to use the e-mails in the criminal case against David Safavian, who is accused of lying and obstruction of justice in connection with investigations of an Abramoff-sponsored golf outing to Scotland in August 2002. The e-mails show that Abramoff and Safavian, then chief of staff at the General Services Administration, were in frequent contact, played golf often and traded workplace gossip. Abramoff showered...

Rep. Tom DeLay says he made the decision to leave Congress after taking a poll in his Texas district which showed he had no better than a 50-50 chance of winning reelection this November. In a long discussion with conservative journalists Tuesday afternoon, DeLay discussed the Republican primary he faced last month, which he won with 62 percent of the vote. While some observers called that an impressive win, given the controversy that surrounds DeLay, the congressman himself said that was when he knew he had a problem. "After the primary — you get a sixth sense about this stuff,"...

Lobbyists had a banner 2005, the year before simmering controversies involving Jack Abramoff and former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) boiled over outside the Beltway and brought new pressures on Capitol Hill to keep lobbyists at arm’s length. Early returns on end-of-year revenues show strong growth all along Washington’s lobbying corridor. Several well-known firms reported a revenue jump greater than 20 percent, including Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Quinn Gillespie & Associates, the Federalist Group and the Livingston Group, as a series of policy and legislative efforts brought new business to K Street, from Social Security reform to a national energy...

Whence Abramoff? The Spend and Collect Beltway Party really knows Jack. BY DANIEL HENNINGER Friday, January 27, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST Jack Abramoff. Jack Abramoff. Jack Abramoff. Once the hunt's on, some names sound to the scandal born. Tongsun Park, Charles Keating, Elizabeth Ray, Fannie Fox, Susan McDougal. Now comes Jack, the central figure in what Beltway Democrats are trying to build into a bonfire that will burn down Republican control of Congress. Every time someone tells Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid that he, too, took money from Jack's clients, he starts jumping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin yelling, "This...

From The Hotline: January 18, 2006 That Mysterious K Street Project.... Care to peek inside the K Street Project? That sensitive Republican project designed to rid lobbying firms and trade associations of Democrats and populate them with staunch conservative allies of lawmakers? It's there, in plain view: at its website, www.kstreetproject.com. The project's mission statement engages in a bit of misdirection. The "K Street Project," it says, "is non-partisan research of political affiliation, employment background, and political donations of members in Washington DC's premier lobbying firms, trade associations, and industries." In other words -- anyone who adheres to free market...

When John Shadegg announced from his hometown of Phoenix on Friday that he is running for House majority leader, it appeared that the two leading candidates to succeed Tom DeLay had peaked. The reason is that Roy Blunt and John Boehner both are regarded as K Street candidates, whose selection might not be prudent for a Republican Party enmeshed in scandal. Neither Blunt nor Boehner is burdened with DeLay's connection to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Like DeLay, each is closely associated with K Street (the capital's big and brassy lobbyist community). Unlike DeLay, neither is viewed by ardent ideological conservatives...

'K Street Project,' now mired in scandal, aimed to ensure GOP control... In 1995, they named it the "K Street Project," a kind of affirmative action for Republican lobbyists, a program to expand GOP influence in the influence business. -snip- DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden said the K Street Project has been valuable on its own terms. -snip- Though little known outside Washington, the project has become an issue, even among Republicans. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, one of the candidates to replace Mr. DeLay as majority leader, has vowed that if elected, "There will be no longer be a K Street...

Republican leaders in the Senate have had a plan in place for the last two months to "get ahead of" the Jack Abramoff scandal by coming up with a new proposal for lobbying reform. The leadership "decided in November that lobby reform for the Senate was a priority for this session," and Majority Leader Bill Frist placed Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum in charge of it, Senate sources tell National Review Online.Santorum's efforts will be apart from the work of Senator John McCain, who has already introduced a proposal for lobbying reform. That proposal, McCain said in mid-December, "provides for...

The FBI searched offices of a prominent public relations firm Tuesday, looking for information about its client Saudi Arabia, law enforcement sources said. The firm, Qorvis Communications LLC, which was founded in 2000, bills itself as providing "communications for Wall Street, Main Street and K Street." Qorvis has offices in the District and Tysons Corner, and its clients also include Time Warner Inc. and the Urban League. The FBI searched three of the firm's offices Tuesday afternoon, sources said. Michael Mason, head of the FBI's Washington field office, declined yesterday to characterize the nature of the investigation or identify the...

Scores of soon-to-be-unemployed Democrats fear that their party’s electoral defeat could hinder their ability to find work on K Street, a traditional safe haven and source of employment for Capitol Hill staff. At a time when many Democrats are anxious about their ability to earn a living, some even fear that a conspiracy to blacklist aides to certain Democrats, such as Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), could be afoot. Daschle, who is reviled by many congressional Republicans for his efforts to stop GOP initiatives and judicial nominees in the Senate, was defeated in this month’s election by former Rep....

Retiring House Democrats are feeling a cold draft from K Street as they seek post-congressional employment at lobbying firms, trade groups and corporations. By contrast, K Street is aggressively courting GOP lawmakers who have announced their retirements, suggesting that the business community is confident the GOP will retain the Speaker’s gavel in January and that business wants to fortify its Republican Rolodexes. The business community’s apparent preference for retiring House Republicans is stoking talk on Capitol Hill that the “K Street Project” is alive and well, even after the year’s plum lobbying job, the top slot at the Motion Picture...

<p>One way you can tell that Republicans have become the dominant political party in Washington is to watch them cash in.</p> <p>Rep. Billy Tauzin of Louisiana has announced that next Monday he will step down as chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. Observers expect he will soon leave Congress to become the chief lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry at an annual salary that's rumored to approach $2.5 million, a record for a trade association head. Mr. Tauzin isn't doing anything illegal, but what's good for him isn't good for the country or for the Republican Party. Their voters are already showing signs of concern that congressional Republicans are taking on the bad habits of the Democrats they ousted from power in 1994.</p>