{"id":109,"date":"2006-03-01T23:21:35","date_gmt":"2006-03-02T06:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=109"},"modified":"2006-03-01T23:25:04","modified_gmt":"2006-03-02T06:25:04","slug":"fight-for-your-right-to-lobby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=109","title":{"rendered":"Fight For Your Right To Lobby"},"content":{"rendered":"

The poor, disenfranchised lobbyists<\/a> of Washington have found an advocate. The past few months, the denizens of K Street have had to suffer the embarrassment of multiple scandals. Their poster boy, Jack Abramoff, fell from his perch and pleaded guilty to multiple felonies. So did Rep. Duke Cunningham of California. Tom DeLay continues to fight for his political life along with an indictment for money laundering. And DeLay’s gerrymandered redistricting scheme is also coming under legal scrutiny. Lobbying is coming to be seen as dishonorable and corrupt.<\/p>\n

Reformers in and out of Congress are calling for members to refrain from accepting gifts, travel, and even money, from now unwelcome lobbyists. Committees hold hearings; legislation is drafted; Sunday morning talk shows are swamped by ravenous demagogues jonesing for air time. And just when things look bleakest, a champion appears.<\/p>\n

Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah has courageously taken up the battle on behalf of this oppressed minority. In a lonely battle for liberty, Bennett expressed concern that strong regulation of lobbyists would violate their First Amendment rights<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“Lobbying is a right, not a privilege,” Bennett said. “It’s there in the Constitution – the right to petition your government.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank goodness there are brave men governing us that will sacrifice themselves to defend the constitution and the weak, downtrodden corporate shills that that document was conceived to protect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The poor, disenfranchised lobbyists of Washington have found an advocate. The past few months, the denizens of K Street have had to suffer the embarrassment of multiple scandals. Their poster boy, Jack Abramoff, fell from his perch and pleaded guilty to multiple felonies. So did Rep. Duke Cunningham of California. Tom DeLay continues to fight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-1L","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":113,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=113","url_meta":{"origin":109,"position":0},"title":"Lobbyists Scoff At Lobby Reform","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/20\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"In the wake of numerous Washington influence scandals (DeLay, Cunningham, Abramoff, etc.), Congress has busied itself debating, drafting, and ultimately neutering, legislative proposals to restore fairness and ethics to the troubled institution. However, the targets of these measures have had a rather benign reaction to them. In fact, they don't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":812,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=812","url_meta":{"origin":109,"position":1},"title":"The Myth Of Maverick McCain","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/27\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"John McCain's image, as propounded by his spinners (aka: the Media) is that of a maverick who shuns political opportunists and slaps the hands of greedy, special interest self-promoters. It's an image that gets projected repeatedly by pundits and lazy journalists whose writing seems to be on auto-pilot. They reason\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":916,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=916","url_meta":{"origin":109,"position":2},"title":"John McCain’s All-Lobbyist Express","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/19\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The past few weeks has brought repeated announcements from the campaign of pseudo-maverick John McCain regarding the dismissal of staff members due to their lobbying activities. It's not enough that McCain raises more money with the help of lobbyists than any other presidential candidate... Nope, McCain also employs so many\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1560,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1560","url_meta":{"origin":109,"position":3},"title":"When Will The Media Fight Back?","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/15\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Almost two years ago the New York Times published an article that revealed how intermingled the media had become with Pentagon efforts to advance the pro-war agenda of the Bush administration. The author, David Barstow, identified the networks and their \"analysts,\" many of whom were also lobbyists for defense contractors.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8687,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=8687","url_meta":{"origin":109,"position":4},"title":"How Fox News Uses Labels To Distort Reality: NRA Edition","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/18\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"It is going on five days now that the NRA has maintained a media silence with regard to the Newtown massacre. Their Facebook and Twitter accounts went dark on Friday and have remained so ever since. Today, however, Fox News reported that the organization is planning to make a statement\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5818,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=5818","url_meta":{"origin":109,"position":5},"title":"Banksters Plotting A Propaganda Offensive Against Occupy Wall Street","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/19\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Chris Hayes has acquired a memo from a well-connected group of Washington lobbyists to the American Bankers Association. The memo proposes launching a comprehensive campaign against the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement with an $850,000 budget and an intent to \"undermine their credibility.\" Hayes begins his expose saying that... \"Speaker\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}