Yesterday, CBS News’ 60 Minutes aired a segment with infamous lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Abramoff, released from prison and promoting a new book, expressed remorse for his role in buying and selling public policy. During his interview with Lesley Stahl, Abramoff talked about how he used gifts, campaign contributions, and other legal and illegal bribes to influence members of Congress.
In a simple explanation of how the revolving door works, Abramoff said he would use promises of jobs on K Street to lure Capitol Hill staffers into his pocket. He would let a chief of staff know that he was interested in hiring him or her. The promise of a high paying job — Abramoff made $20 million a year at one point — would entice the staffer to give Abramoff control over the congressional office. In Abramoff’s words, at that point he “owned them”:
GO HERE to watch video and more.ABRAMOFF: When we would become friendly with an office and they were important to us, and the chief of staff was a competent person, I would say or my staff would say to him or her at some point, “You know, when you’re done working on the Hill, we’d very much like you to consider coming to work for us.” Now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to ‘em, that was it. We owned them. And what does that mean? Every request from our office, every request of our clients, everything that we want, they’re gonna do. And not only that, they’re gonna think of things we can’t think of to do.
4 comments:
Maybe voting will help, that is, if by "voting" you mean, wasting your time on a November day thinking you somehow have a say in what is being done TO you by these slimy, bribe taking, self-inflated egotists, self-important slugs who dare to call themselves "representatives of the people", that is, if by " the people', you mean the criminals who keep them in their back pocket. Anyone who claims "the system" is working, ain't paying attention. Or, they work in Congress. Want to know how powerful they are? They don't even FLINCH (Senators and Reps) when 60 Minutes makes this their lead story. This interview SHOULD have been all over the airwaves and newspapers. But it wasn't. THAT'S how powerful they are. But some kids protesting corporate greed and corruption get labeled as dirty socialist scum hell bent on ruining our country. LOL!! The "ruining" has been going on for years. And NOT by Occupy Wall Street people.
1:31 PM
Well you can't really blame the 'people'. After all, they are told what to think and say. That can be seen by some of the comments on this blog. It's nationwide.
This is old news all Politicians are owned by somebody Politicians are scum of the earth and will sell out to anybody with enough money.
Then you have Salisbury, where most of the pols are owned and those who aren't are smeared by the media that's beholden to scum.
I have never been more pessimistic in my life about government, saying something for 68 years.
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