Medical Interests Spent $876 Million on Reform

By GottaLaff

What an experience it must have been, being bought and sold by lobbyists. Check out The Health Care Reform Shopping Spree of '09:

Medical interests alone shelled out more than $876 million in lobbying expenses during the 15 months beginning in January 2009 and ending in March, when Congress passed the sweeping overhaul.

Those stakeholders, including the drug industry, doctors, hospitals and manufacturers of medical products, were responsible for one out of every five dollars doled out on lobbying during that period, according to a CQ MoneyLine analysis of lobbying disclosure reports filed with Congress.

This was the mother of all lobbying efforts. This was the Godzilla of special interest check writing. This was... kind of nauseating.

If only there were a breakdown of who spent what.

Within the health care industry, drug companies racked up the biggest lobbying tab, spending $253 million. They were followed by hospitals, which spent $108 million, and doctors and surgeons, who spent $59 million.

However, according to one Brookings Institution political scholar, much of the lobbying budget was spent on behalf of reform.

The health care industry’s lobbying easily outpaced other sectors with interests on Capitol Hill, including energy and natural resources, finance and insurance, and communications and technology, the CQ MoneyLine analysis found.

Even as other sectors scaled back during the recent economic downturn, health companies continued to pump big bucks into influencing Congress.

Imagine what we could have done with all that money, the lives that could have been saved, the number of movable health clinics that could have staged events.

Wait just a minute... Does all this mean that lobbyists were... spreading their wealth? Don't look now, but they may have joined Club Socialist!

“The real winners in the health care debate were the lobbyists who were laughing all the way to the bank, even in a tough economy,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

And if they were the winners, guess who the losers were....

Lobbyists spent nearly $1 billion in first quarter of 2010

By GottaLaff

We the people can barely afford lunch:

The first quarter of 2010 marked another frenzy for Washington lobbyists as corporations, unions and other interest groups spent nearly $1 billion in their attempts to sway Congress and the Obama administration.

I wish I could see it put another way.

To look at it another way: Interest groups spent $19 million for every day that the House or Senate was in session.

Be careful what you wish for.

Guess who took the lead... The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other Big Biz. They spent $139 million. I'm sure they were looking out for interests. They're such softies.

Big Health, Big Energy, and Big Finance were the other Big Spenders.

For more details, go here.

U.S. attorney, IRS, FBI investigating Florida GOP, including Marco Rubio

By GottaLaff

Mmm, I love the smell of corruption in the morning.

Back in March, I posted about Marco Rubio's Code Red status. Let's reminisce:

Code Red:

Marco Rubio was barely solvent as a young lawmaker climbing his way to the top post in the Florida House, but special interest donations and political perks allowed him to spend big money with little scrutiny.

About $600,000 in contributions was stowed in two inconspicuous political committees controlled by Rubio, now the Republican front-runner for the U.S. Senate, and his wife.

St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald did a blow-by-blow analysis of Rubio's expenses and wow. A must-read. Here's a teaser:

• Rubio failed to disclose $34,000 in expenses — including $7,000 he paid himself — for one of the committees in 2003 and 2004, as required by state law.

• One committee paid relatives nearly $14,000 for what was incorrectly described to the IRS as "courier fees" and listed a nonexistent address for one of them. Another committee paid $5,700 to his wife, who was listed as the treasurer, much of it for "gas and meals."

• He billed more than $51,000 in unidentified "travel expenses'' to three different credit cards — nearly one-quarter of the committee's entire haul.

Now it seems it's Code Scarlet. The U.S. Attorney's office, the FBI, and the IRS are involved:

Federal law enforcement agencies have launched a criminal investigation into the use of American Express cards issued by the Republican Party of Florida to elected officials and staff, according to sources familiar with the inquiry.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Tallahassee, the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service are all involved in the inquiry, which grew out of the state investigation into former House Speaker Ray Sansom.

Oh, but it gets more interesting. Let's play a game. I shout, "Marco!", you answer, "Rubio!" every time you smell a scandal. Ready? Marco!

The IRS opened the so-called "primary'' investigation into Rubio, the leading Republican candidate for Florida's open U.S. Senate seat, and the two former state GOP officials to see if there's enough evidence to support a full-fledged criminal inquiry, according to a source familiar with the IRS examination.

Rubio!

One more time... Marco!

At this stage of the IRS investigation, agents are looking at federal tax records, state financial disclosure forms and other documents to see whether Rubio, Greer and Johnson may have personally benefited from using their GOP American Express cards without reporting or paying taxes on additional income.

Rubio!

Between Crist and Rubio, Florida's getting all kinds of free publicity.

H/t: Markos

Millions being spent on TV to influence health care debate

I was just reading about our crumbling water and sewage systems. Imagine what good this money could do...

Washington (CNN) - Upwards of $1 million a day is expected to be spent on health care television ads this week, as interest groups work overtime to try to influence Congress before the House votes on President Obama's top domestic priority.

Health care commercials all but vanished from the airwaves in late January after Republicans scored an upset victory in the Massachusetts special election to replace the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. Republican Scott Brown's win gave the GOP the crucial 41st vote needed to sustain a filibuster to block passage of the Democratic health care reform bill.

(snip)

Last year, special interest groups spent a combined $200 million just on TV ads as Congress struggled to agree on how to overhaul the nation's health care system, said Evan Tracey, a CNN consultant and president of Campaign Media Analysis Group.

Ad spending hit a high in 2009 following last August's raucous town hall meetings. "At its peak, advertising levels were exceeding $1 million a day," Tracey said.

Rubio's "special interest donations & political perks allowed him to spend big money with little scrutiny"

By GottaLaff

Why what have we here? Marco! Polo! Keep waving that flag!

Ahem, calling all Marco Rubio opponents: Code Red:

Marco Rubio was barely solvent as a young lawmaker climbing his way to the top post in the Florida House, but special interest donations and political perks allowed him to spend big money with little scrutiny.

About $600,000 in contributions was stowed in two inconspicuous political committees controlled by Rubio, now the Republican front-runner for the U.S. Senate, and his wife.

St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald did a blow-by-blow analysis of Rubio's expenses and wow. A must-read. Here's a teaser:

• Rubio failed to disclose $34,000 in expenses — including $7,000 he paid himself — for one of the committees in 2003 and 2004, as required by state law.

• One committee paid relatives nearly $14,000 for what was incorrectly described to the IRS as "courier fees" and listed a nonexistent address for one of them. Another committee paid $5,700 to his wife, who was listed as the treasurer, much of it for "gas and meals."

• He billed more than $51,000 in unidentified "travel expenses'' to three different credit cards — nearly one-quarter of the committee's entire haul.

Ouch, this is painful. But in a good way.

Rubio's high-roller political spending belies his image as an outsider riding a wave of antiestablishment fervor and gunning to knock off Gov. Charlie Crist for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination. A Times/Herald review of other legislators' committees shows they typically contributed far more to other candidates and reported vastly fewer credit card payments.

This can't end well, I just know it.

Campaign adviser Todd Harris:

"Marco put his on a credit card and the other guys put theirs on a debit card. So sue us."

Don't tempt us.

Um, not so sure he can. Not any more.

Poll-itics: Americans think standing for principle more important than bipartisan compromise

By GottaLaff

Dear President Obama,

Please pay attention to this poll. You did your best. You reached out numerous times, only to be kicked in the teeth. It's time for change.

Love, Laffy:

(click on image to enlarge)

More poll numbers here.

Transparency, standing up for principles, standing up to special interests... check.

John Conyers: Obama Is Sucking Up To The Wrong People

By GottaLaff

Via Nicole at Crooks and Liars, we hear "I've had enough!" words about suckage from a frustrated John Conyers:

President Barack Obama is “getting bad advice from… clowns” on Afghanistan and “sucking up to the wrong people” on health care, U.S. Rep. John Conyers told a Detroit radio audience this morning, according to show host Rev. Horace Sheffield. [...]

“He wasn’t angry. He was just deeply concerned that some of the issues being focused on don’t address the human reality,” said Sheffield, who hosts the program “On The Line” on WGPR-FM radio.

Conyers voiced what many of us have been screaming about here, and that is, Big Insurance and Big Pharma are benefiting from health care reform legislation more than we are... by a long shot.

While it is encouraging that there is more progress on this issue than we've seen in decades, it is also cringeworthy to see Medicare for all/single payer and a strong public option go by the wayside, at least for now.

As for Afghanistan, Americans have had it with war, especially inherited, going-nowhere-fast ones that have dragged on for 8 years.

H/t: Pigboy

PACs Collected $30 Million from Employees

By GottaLaff

Oh, where does the money go?

Special interests have deducted nearly $30 million from their employees' salaries over the past two years for donations to political action committees, according to a CQ MoneyLine study.

More from CQ:

Among companies leading the way in PAC contributions from employees was Compass Bancshares, which deducted more than $1.3 million in political contributions from its workforce during the 2008 cycle.

Following closely behind were the lobbying firms of K&L Gates, whose PAC took in $694,000 from employees, and Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, whose employees gave up $678,000 in PAC contributions during the 2008 cycle.

Some employer PACs were almost completely dependent on payroll deductions for the bulk of contributions they passed on to candidates. [...]

Others company PACs that were almost totally dependent on employee salary deductions included Midamerican Energy Company, Barnes & Thornburg and Chevy Chase Bank. All three company PACs took in $100,000 or more from employee salary deductions.

The ugly Bush stain: Fishing industry edition

By GottaLaff

Bush's latest New Rule smells worse than dead fish:

Sen. Ted Stevens may be leaving a final holiday gift behind for one of his most loyal constituencies: the Alaska commercial fishing industry. Using loopholes in the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the outgoing Bush administration is looking to allow fishery management councils, dominated by fishing interests, to determine whether new policies would harm the environment.

I'd have used the "something's fishy" line, but this isn't funny.

A bipartisan alliance of more than 75 lawmakers and dozens of interest groups are protesting the proposed rule change, saying it lessens protections that keep U.S. fisheries from harming the environment. [...]

The Joint Ocean Commission, Greenpeace and other environmental groups say that up until now, the environmental law has helped protect endangered sea turtles and rebuild shrinking fish populations.

But Bush’s proposed changes would significantly weaken those protections, they say, by allowing the interest-group-heavy councils to be in charge of the environmental compliance.

Currently, the commerce secretary has the final say on proposed fishery management activities. But the National Marine Fisheries Service is responsible for ensuring the environmental reviews are done properly and the councils provide recommendations.

This proposed rule would instead allow the councils to ensure the review is done fairly.

“It doesn’t take much to decide how the fishing industry is going to review their own fishing activities and decide whether they’re environmentally friendly,” said Lee Crockett, fisheries policy director for the Pew Environment Group. “They’ll do a full NEPA analysis and then promote alternatives that they want to do.”

Environmentalists argue that this could weaken the environmental regulatory process in the Interior Department and other agencies.

For instance, greens say it would allow special interests to decide whether fishing-related activity would threaten wildlife protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The only thing Bush wants to keep alive is profit.

John Sidney McCain and the Aircraft Lobby

By GottaLaff

So you're a little weary of posts that reveal Sarah Louise Palin for who she is? How about a post that reveals John Sidney McCain for who he is:

In other words, Boeing’s labor dispute is just the latest twist in a tangled seven-year defense contracting fiasco to procure “gas stations in the sky.” But it’s also something more. It raises questions about whether Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Republican presidential nominee, is the crusader against Washington corruption that he claims to be.

In 2001, the Air Force handed the tanker contract to Boeing, the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world. But in 2005, the Air Force terminated the deal after McCain led a three-year investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee that unearthed potentially illegal conduct by Air Force and Boeing officials. At the time, the media hailed McCain as a heroic, lonely crusader who had saved taxpayers millions of dollars.

But there may have been another side to McCain’s investigation — one that may undercut a central premise of his presidential campaign: that he will be a reformer as president.

So what's the issue here?

Here’s the issue. The Associated Press revealed in March that five registered lobbyists for EADS were working for McCain’s presidential campaign, including Tom Loeffler, who served as the campaign’s co-chairman. Also, in 2006, McCain wrote two strongly worded, and likely influential, letters to the Pentagon, arguing that EADS acceptance of European Union subsidies should not be factored into who gets the tanker contract. [...]

But McCain’s presidential campaign rarely details the Boeing investigation as evidence of his reformer bona fides. Instead, it has been mostly Democrats, with Boeing employees as constituents, who bring up the case. They highlight a different side of McCain — his campaign’s continued ties to current and former lobbyists. [...]

Chief among the EADS lobbyists was former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler. “Loeffler has been at the intersection of special-interest money and politics for decades,” said Andrew Wheat, research director at Texans for Public Justice, a non-partisan, nonprofit policy and research organization.

Loeffler, who was finance co-chairman for George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, joined McCain’s campaign in February 2006, before McCain officially announced his candidacy. “If needed,” Loeffler said at the time, “I’ll wash bottles and change tires on the Straight Talk America van.”

McCain’s cash-strapped campaign become dependent on Loeffler, who assumed a central role as fund-raiser. In 2007, the Loeffler Group earned $220,000 lobbying for EADS. Loeffler resigned in May, when McCain purged his staff of registered lobbyists to signal that his campaign does not have conflicts of interests

While Loeffler has formally left McCain’s presidential campaign, Loeffler Group lobbyist William Ball, a former Navy secretary, remains an unpaid McCain adviser.

Meanwhile, Susan Loeffler has stayed as the campaign’s co-finance chairman and recently left her position at the Loeffler Group. The Loeffler Group said it was their policy not to talk with the press.

The other two EADS lobbyists formerly associated with McCain’s presidential campaign are Kirk Blalock, a lobbyist at Fierce, Iskowitz and Blalock and the president of Young Professionals for John McCain, and Wayne Berman, who works for Oglivy Government Relations.

Blalock, who has bundled more than $250,000 for MCain’s presidential bid, did not return calls for comment. [...]

“It’s tough to read McCain,” said Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog organization seeking greater government transparency. “He’s makes a lot of moves toward reform, and the next moment does something that’s questionable.”

Just thought you'd find that interesting.

Change you can drink to: John Sidney and Cindy Lou Hensley McCain's beer problem

By GottaLaff

Cindy Lou Hensley McMealticket, it seems you're not helping Husband Sidney's cause. But, judging from your past escapades, it's clear that you never have. Aw, who cares, as long as the big bucks are rolling in, right?

Hensley & Co., one of the nation's major beer wholesalers, has brought the family of Cindy McCain wealth, prestige and influence in Phoenix, but it could also create conflicts for her husband, Sen. John McCain, if he is elected president in November.

Hensley, founded by Cindy McCain's late father, holds federal and state licenses to distribute beer and lobbies regulatory agencies on alcohol issues that involve public health and safety. The company has opposed such groups as Mothers Against Drunk Driving in fighting proposed federal rules requiring alcohol content information on every package of beer, wine and liquor.

Its executives, including John McCain's son Andrew, have written at least 10 letters in recent years to the Treasury Department, have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to a beer industry political action committee, and hold a seat on the board of the politically powerful National Beer Wholesalers Assn.

Good p.r., Cindy Lou. It's always a plus to face off with the mothers of children killed by beer-drinkers. Speaking of children and beer, how's your son?

[...]Andrew McCain is chief financial officer at Hensley and owns 6.8% of the stock, according to Arizona records. [...]

Hensley has run afoul of health advocacy groups that have tried to rein in appeals to young drinkers.

What a good boy! Mom and Dad must be proud. In fact, the whole family is one big bag of Special Interests R Us:

The involvement of McCain's family in federal regulatory issues could create a conflict of interest for a future McCain administration, according to advocacy groups and political analysts. McCain has recused himself for many years on alcohol issues in the Senate. As president, however, McCain would face far more difficulty distancing himself from an issue with such broad scope.

But that won't stop Cindy Lou Hensley McCorporate. Why should she give up all that foamy Big Beer Biz fun just because of some silly little First Lady conflict? This is now, and, gosh darn it my friends, Cindy Lou's not one to look toward the future. That would indicate, gulp! change! Hmmm, change you can drink to! The beer you deserve?

If her husband is elected president and she retains her role at Hensley, she will set a precedent for outside corporate activity by a first lady.

The McCain campaign issued a statement Friday about the issue, saying that "any decisions going forward will be made when John McCain wins the election and takes office, and not before." Hensley executives declined to comment.

I'm astounded that McWealthyWife hasn't already addressed the issue!

Political analysts said they were astounded that the presumptive Republican nominee had not already addressed the issue.

Like I said. What, he thinks he can run a beer company out of the White House?

"You can't run a beer company out of the White House," said Samuel L. Popkin, a political science professor at UC San Diego. "You can't run any company from the White House. McCain is leaving a live hand grenade on the table, a major embarrassment."

Stop repeating everything I say! Anyway, I've covered moments of his humiliation previously...like embarrassment ever stopped J Sid before. Psh! As if! But wait! What will the abstinence-only set say?

Indeed, apart from its potential to create a conflict of interest, the mere ownership of the beer distributor could turn off some social conservatives and those who object to alcohol use. [...] For some, abstinence -- and a disdain for the industry -- is religion-based.

That's Trouble. With a capital T, that rhymes with B, and that stands for BEER! Bruce Lee Livingston, executive director of the Marin Institute, a nonprofit alcohol industry watchdog group in San Rafael:

"The big question is how much access the beer industry is going to have to the White House. You would expect the president and first lady to be concerned about alcohol abuse and alcoholism. The first lady and the president need to have a bright line between the White House and the alcohol industry."

Not if the McBeer family can help it. Here's an idea: Start looking out for the American People... with a capital P which rhymes with V, and that stands for Votes.

John Sidney McPoopyPants

By GottaLaff

John Sidney McPoopyPants is not getting his own way, so he's going to throw a tantrum and call names:

Aggravated over persistent questions surrounding their new policy on lobbyists working for the campaign, Team McCain sought to change the topic tonight by raising Barack Obama's ties to a 60s-era radical.

I can see little Sidney now, pacing back and forth, throwing epithets at anyone who's standing within 20 feet of him. "I hate my lobbyists! I hate them for causing me all these problems! I hate that Barack Obama is getting bigger crowds than anyone in the entire world me! I wanna have big crowds! I wanna be young and popular! I wanna be the one who thought of Yes We Can and Change! #@&!*@!! Waaahhh!!!"

"I know! I'll connect him with a guy who did bad things when Obama was 8!! And... and... I'll lie about it! I'll tell everyone he was bestest friends with him, and... and... I'll have my lackey do it for me so I don't look like a brat... and... and... and then... I'll pretend he was the one who started it!"

“Just a few years ago when Barack Obama was beginning his career in politics he was launching it at the home of William Ayers, an unrepentant domestic terrorist who his chief strategist said Senator Obama was certainly friendly with," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds in a statement. "If Barack Obama is going to make associations the issue, we look forward to the debate about Senator Obama's associations and what they say about his judgment and readiness to be commander in chief."

Oooo, he was irked because Obama said:

"It appears that John McCain is very much a creature of Washington and one of the things that we have said at the outset of this campaign is that if we are going to change policies...we were going to have to change how Washington works," Obama said on the campaign trail in Oregon after being asked about the resignations of McCain campaign aides and advisers due to lobbyist ties. "We can’t have special interests dictating what’s happening there."

Neener, nanner, Tucker CrankyFace!

"Many fine people may have a conflict that is not reconcilable. Barak [sic] Obama’s dragging the names of good people through the mud publicly is the worst type of character assassination, especially when he has not made the names of his policy advisors public," Bounds wrote. "Isn't that exactly the old politics he claims to reject but he is so clearly embracing?"

He just made a boo-boo. He just said that lobbyists and special interests can't be called "lobbyists and special interests" 'cause that's character assassination. Gee whiz! Obama can't call them what they actually are! That's no fair! What a weenie.

While seeking to shift the focus to Obama, McCain's campaign still faces questions about the status of some of their aides and outsider advisers. But after five individuals were forced to cut ties in the past week, the campaign has implemented a policy of not commenting further on the status of individual employees. Staffers affected by the new rules, said spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker, must either resign or come into compliance.

Sidney's a sore loser. Obama wins. So there.