Watch How Fast Lobbyists Will Get Busy Lobbying Against Frank Wolf's Provision

According to an item in Al Kamen's "In the Loop" column from Thursday's Washington Post it looks like ole Frank Wolf (R-VA) may be spoiling the whole premise of Ken Silverstein's delightful book about Beltway lobbying. Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship, a book we've covered here with great affection in the past. According to Kamen, there'll be no more working for the bad guys... at least not if Wolf's provision that got approved by the House Appropriations Committee makes it all the way into law, something I'll believe when I see-- and after I examine the loopholes. Kamen points out that the provision "trims a lucrative client base for former presidents, members of Congress, top spies and senior political appointees. Those officials, as well as retired generals and admirals, would be barred from lobbying for certain unpleasant governments-- and any companies they own or control -- for 10 years after leaving federal office."

Which countries, exactly? It would apply to "any countries the State Department designates as a 'Country of Particular Concern' for severe human rights violations and religious persecution... so, as of now, Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan. Did you catch Saudi Arabia on that list? And China?

In 2007 Harper's published a piece by John MacArthur, The Vast Power of the Saudi Lobby. MacArthur notes that "The long and corrupt history of American-Saudi relations centers around the kingdom's vast reserves of easily extractable oil, of course. Ever since President Franklin D. Roosevelt met aboard ship in 1945 with King Ibn Saud, the special relationship with the desert kingdom has only grown stronger. The House of Saud is usually happy to sell us oil at a consistent and reasonable price and then increase production if unseemly market forces drive the world price of a barrel too high for U.S. consumers. In exchange we arm the Saudis to the teeth and turn a blind eye to their medieval approach to crime and punishment."

Although the Saudi ambassadors have had enough influence in Washington on their own-- especially when they have business partners like the Bushs in the White House-- to not even need lobbyists, it's estimated that they've spent something like $100 million to DC lobbyists since 2000. Hill & Knowlton, a heavy duty pack of corrupt mostly Republican lobbyists, has been working for them since 1982 (as well as for Kuwait, the BCCI, the Church of Scientology, the fracking industry and the tobacco industry). Principles include former Bush factotum and Rove partner Dan Bartlett, Bush and McCain aide Mark McKinnon, and former congressman and Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta. Another recipient of Saudi largesse is another of Washington's sleaziest and least trustworthy lobbyist firms, Qorvis (whose offices were raided by the FBI in 2004) and which specializes in representing rogue governments and brutal international pariah states and ruthless criminal billionaires from all over the world. Aside from the Saudis they also represent Koch Industries, Halliburton, the Bahrain "royal" family, Massey Energy, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the Sugar Association and Amazon.com. Considered among the worst of the worst, even inside the Beltway sewer system, Qorvis doesn't care if their employees are Democrats (like Matt Lauer and Rich Masters) or Republicans (like John Reid), just as long as they don't let ethics or patriotism get in the way of their efforts. The Saudis have rewarded them with over $60 million so far. Other particularly slimy K Street firms peddling influence for the Saudi "royal" family include the Gray Loeffler Group ($10.5 million), headed by ex-congressmen Ted Loeffler (R-TX) and William Gray III (D-PA); Patton Boggs (over $3 million), a ConservaDem firm best known for backing the worst of the international "free trade" assaults on American workers and staffed with half the right-wing Democrats you ever heard of from former Louisiana Senator John Breaux to a bunch of ex-congressmen named Boggs from the Louisiana bogs-- and they hire Republicans too, of course, like Benjamin Ginsberg, the architect of Bush's theft of the 2000 election in Florida; Burson-Marsteller (over $3 million) with household names like Mark Penn and Karen Hughes; Dutton & Dutton (over $3 million) once headed by Democratic power broker Fred Dutton, also known as "Fred of Arabia" and "Dutton of Arabia"; and Fleishman-Hillard (over $6 million).

Saturday Zaid Jilani published a piece in Republic Reports discussing how some of the most vile and contemptible former Democratic members of Congress-- lowlife scum like Blanche Lincoln (Blue Dog-AR) and Bud Cramer (Blue Dog-AL)-- had a conference to bitch about how there just aren't enough conservative Democrats anymore and how hard it is to find people easily bribed on their side of the aisle.

As Kamen noted, an earlier version of Wolf's bill had "a worldwide ban on such lobbying, but that seemed a bit too much for some members. The financial services bill, a must-pass measure, is headed for conference with a Senate version. We’ll see whether the Senate goes along. (Before panic sets in, it should be noted the bill is not retroactive.)"

Good Luck With Pakistan

No one noticed-- right next to a military base, 35 miles north of the capital?

Other than Fox News and the Bush and Cheney families, no one has benefited as lucratively from 9/11 as Pakistan and it's parasitic ruling class. God only knows how much taxpayer money has been flushed down the Pakistani rat-hole and wasted on that country's corrupt-beyond-reason ruling elites since 9/11. We do have some idea that between 2002-'10, Pakistan received at least $18 billion in military and economic aid from the U.S. In February 2010, Obama requested an additional $3 billion in aid, for a total of at least $21 billion.

It's fairly well-known that right-wing American plutocrats directly funded the rise of European fascism in the 1920s and '30s. Henry Ford may have been the most conspicuous, but countless scumbags from among America's ruling elites-- Averell Harriman, Irénée du Pont and Prescott Walker Bush most notoriously-- were helping to fund Hitler and Mussolini before either had achieved any power. Less well-known that their obsession with "anti-communism" also inspired the Harding, Coolidge, Hoover Administrations' brain trusts to help finance Mussolini's takeover of Italy. That worked out badly for America-- and everyone else concerned. So it was with great trepidation that I watched first crazy right-wing billionaires and then U.S. governments funding al-Qaeda and Osama bin-Laden as, like Mussolini and Hitler, "bulwarks against godless communism." I would be a lot more careful about how we use "foreign aid" if it was up to me.

Let a thousand conspiracy theories bloom

I've driven all through that area of Pakistan and I never visited Abbottabad. It's kind of like a garrison town where retired military officers go to live out their lives. Pakistan's West Point is there. Or like Simi Valley in California. What was bin-Laden doing in that town, living in the biggest, fanciest villa in the town? Glad you asked.

The Abbottabad location is important for two reasons. Bin Laden could not have lived in a compound in Abbottabad without official Pakistani government sustenance. Abbottabad is an upscale area and a garrison town, but not so large as to be impersonal. Bin Laden was living in protected luxury. Many people had to know that and probably will come forward in a little time.

On 7 December 2001, Bin Laden escaped from the tunnels in Tora Bora, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, with the help of a local warlord named Hazrat Ali, who betrayed US forces who had hired him to help capture bin Laden and is now a member of the Afghan Parliament for Nangarhar. Bin Laden and his gang crossed the Tora Bora mountains to Parachinar, Pakistan, where a Pakistan Army brigade was deployed to ensure his capture if he crossed the border. They failed, of course. He headed east to Kohat, another Army garrison town and disappeared.

The distance from Kohat to Abbottabad is several hundred kilometers by road, but the two towns are part of the Pakistan Army network of garrison towns in the northwest. Bin laden reportedly moved around in the northwest, but one inference is that bin Laden has been in the safe keeping of the Pakistan Army for a decade. The news reports suggest the compound was specially built for him and his enterprise, which had to have been subsidized by Pakistan and, through Pakistan, by US aid to Pakistan.

Secondly, his compound could not have been attacked from Afghanistan, him killed and his body taken by US Navy SEALs flying US helicopters so close to Islamabad without official Pakistani government cooperation. The US insisted Pakistan played no part in the operation and that the team flew from Afghanistan. That clearly is a cover story for Pakistani public consumption to try to avert overwhelming anti-Pakistan and anti-US demonstrations, which are probably inevitable in any event.

Abottabad is not some remote village on the border. It is a large town in eastern Pakistan, on the main road to Kargil and the north as well as to Muzaffarabad and Pakistani Kashmir to the east. It is northeast - towards India - of Islamabad and within the Pakistan air defense intercept zone for the national capital which is protected by the Pakistani integrated air defense system. Nothing can fly in that region without detection and without permission from the Pakistan Air Force, even from Afghanistan.

The conclusion is inescapable that the Pakistan Army protected bin Laden and recently decided to give him up, rather than sacrifice the Army's relationship with the US. The terms are not known as yet, but there certainly is a trade in which bin Laden was sacrificed. The trade might involve an end to US drone attacks across the border, which humiliate the Pakistan Army, or a new coordination regime for drone attacks into Pakistan.

Bin Laden was a hero in Pakistan. He stood up to the United States and lived …for ten years. Readers should expect an enormous backlash against Americans.

If the Pakistan civilian government survives, it will be because of the cover story that the US acted unilaterally. If the cover story works, on the surface, the US and Pakistani relationship will appear in the international media to take a nose dive. That will not be the truth, though few Pakistanis will know the truth. If the cover story is not believed, the government will not likely survive. There will be investigations by the National Assembly.

One person who foreign aid disbursements have been, at least partially up to is Michigan's senior senator, Carl Levin, who presides over the Senate Armed Service Committee and is in on every decision in this area. Yesterday, like many of us, he came to the conclusion that bin-Laden was probably living under the protect of Pakistan's multi-faced version of the CIA (the ISI). Diplomatically, he says questions have been raised by how and where bin-Laden was caught.

"I think that the Pakistani army and intelligence have a lot of questions to answer, given the location, the length of time, and the apparent fact that this facility was built for bin Laden, and its closeness to the central location to the Pakistani army," said Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), who chairs the Senate Armed Services committee, in a Capitol briefing with reporters Monday morning.

"I think the Pakistani president's statement today was a very reassuring statement-- when he very specifically said that he thinks that it's a great victory and a success, and to congratulate us on the success of the operation," Levin added. "So reassured by his statement, not necessarily suspicious that he knew, or the civilian leadership knew. But I must tell you I hope that he will follow through-- that the President of Pakistan Hardari will follow through and ask some very tough questions with his own military and his own intelligence. They've got a lot of explaining to do."

And now even the White House is acknowledging "probable" ISI complicity. Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan, Obama's top counterterrorism adviser said it's "inconceivable" that Pakistan wasn't helping bin-Laden.

Despite a sense of relief inside the Obama administration and around the country, Brennan said many questions still remain about the incident, specifically about bin Laden's connections in Pakistan.

Brennan confirmed that the Pakistanis were kept out of the loop on the attack until U.S. forces were out of their airspace. Pakistani forces did not engage with Americans involved in the mission, he said.

UPDATE: Who Read Turkmeniscam?

With their treachery exposed, what will Pakistani leaders do to keep our taxes flowing into their pockets? Lobbyists, of course! It sounds an awful lot like Turkmeniscam, Ken Silverman's hilariously chilling book about shady DC lobbyists working for shady foreign powers.

Pakistan will likely call upon Washington lobbyists to help repair its fraught U.S. relations after Osama bin Laden was found and killed in the country Sunday.

Locke Lord Strategies has been lobbying for the Pakistani embassy since May 2008, earning more than $1.9 million in fees, according to Justice Department records. 

The firm’s lobbying team for Pakistan has been led by Mark Siegel, a veteran Democratic Party operative, Carter White House aide and close friend to Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister who was assassinated in 2007 as she campaigned for her old seat.

Siegel told The Hill that he is planning to talk to lawmakers to combat what he terms “speculation” from some in the media that Pakistan’s government must have known of bin Laden’s hiding place.

“It’s these consultants that all these networks have hired to talk about terrorism who are making all these speculations,” said Siegel, a partner at Locke Lord. “We have some education to do on the Hill. We don’t want this speculation to end up being considered as fact.”

And, no doubt, some palms to grease. In other words, the U.S. gives Pakistan billions to help catch bin-Laden and Pakistan hires the crooks at Locke Lord to use some of it to placate corrupt congressmen who are making a fuss that Pakistan was hiding bin-Laden and keeping him safe for years-- part of what kept the cash flowing in their direction.

DeMint And Sleazy K Street Whores Fail To Legitimize Honduran Junta

Rightists Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Peter Roskam (R-IL), Jim DeMint (R-SC), coup frontman Roberto Micheletti, & closet case Aaron Schock (R-IL)

One of my favorite reads of this year was Ken Silverstein's startling and entertaining book Turkmeniscam, a compelling exposé of how Big Money interests are able to buy their way into the heart of American power. "Washington lobbyists," he explains, "are not generally deemed to be a group with high ethical standards, and foreign lobbyists, with their track record of working for Nazis, drug-running despots and death squad dictators, are widely thought to be the lowest type of Beltway pond scum."

Widely, yes, but not widely enough to include extreme right wing politicians of a militaristic/anti-democratic bent like Jim DeMint of South Carolina, the fascist Cuban-American gangster brothers Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Connie Mack and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen also of Florida, each of whom has been working with Honduran militarists, plutocrats and sleazy K Street whores lobbyists to try to get the U.S. to recognize the overthrow of Honduras' legally elected working class-oriented government.

Extremist Republicans with their own foreign policy and trade agendas, primarily led by DeMint, have been cheering and encouraging the coup against President Zelaya. Am I saying DeMint should be put up against a wall with the other traitors and shot (after a trial, of course)? Would it matter what I say? In any case, despite all their plotting and connivance it looks like the K Street whores lobbyists have failed and a diplomatic solution is emerging for Honduras.

Lawmakers will wait until Tuesday to consider a U.S.-brokered agreement that could return deposed President Manuel Zelaya to power, despite diplomats' pleas to not delay an end to the country's four-month-old political crisis.

Monday is a holiday in Honduras, and many legislators are busy campaigning for Nov. 29 elections that will also elect a successor to Zelaya. If Congress approves the pact, it would win international recognition for the vote. Many countries have warned they would not accept it if the June coup is not undone.

Worst of the serial obstructionists-- across all issues-- in the Senate, DeMint has put a hold on Thomas Shannon's nomination as ambassador to Brazil and Arturo Valenzuela nomination for Shannon's current job as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. Even mainstream conservatives are aghast at DeMint's attempts to run his own foreign policy agenda at odds with the State Department. He has facilitated the brutal Honduran elite working with some of K Street's sleaziest and least reputable lobbyists, including even Lanny Davis, in an attempt to bribe and influence members of Congress to turn on the Obama's Administration's policies.

Overall, the effort by Honduran business groups and the interim government to earn U.S. backing for Zelaya’s ouster, saying the interim government leaders were in their constitutional rights to overturn the president, could end up costing more than $500,000, according to public records kept by the Justice Department and the Senate Office of Public Records.

Heavy hitters like Lanny Davis, former special counsel to President Bill Clinton, and PR firm Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates were hired by those in opposition to Zelaya. Others in employ included lobbying firms Cormac Group and Vision Americas, where two former State Department officials from the Bush administration lobbied for a Honduran business association.

In turn, liberal think tanks that focus on U.S. policy toward Latin America kept pressure on the Obama administration to cut off aid and suspend visas for leaders of the de facto government. They celebrated the news Friday that Zelaya might return to power.

So let me ask you, is DeMint a traitor? In your opinion should be tried and executed as such?

Improving Armenian-Turkish Relations Won't Put A Crimp In The Profits Of DC's Culture Of Corruption

Listening to the most extreme and radical Israeli voices on the radio, especially when it comes to settlements on Arab land in the West Bank, there is almost always an American accent. When I visited Israel, I met a lot of just regular people with different opinions. But the worst right-wing lunatics were always American voices. I remember the chilling videography of Max Blumenthal when he interviewed ignorant and drunken American Jewish rightists in Israel screaming curses about Obama and racism towards Arabs. (Both YouTube and Vimeo removed Max's video.)

This past week Turkey and Armenia took a giant step towards ameliorating the decades-old enmity between their two nations by normalization of relations. Largely brokered by the Obama Administration the pact has evinced howls of protest-- generally from Azerbaijan... and Glendale.

Armenia and Turkey signed a landmark agreement Saturday to establish diplomatic ties, after a dramatic last-minute intervention by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to keep the event from falling apart.

The accord, aimed at ending a century of hostility stemming from Ottoman Era massacres, was brokered by the Swiss over the past two years, with the help of French, Russian and U.S. officials. Clinton had been in frequent contact with the two sides in recent months to help seal the deal... Muslim Turkey and Christian Armenia have had bitter relations since a wave of bloodshed starting in 1915 left hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians dead.

Many historians call the killings genocide, but Turkey strongly rejects that label, saying people died in forced relocations and fighting.

If ratified, the accord could have implications well beyond Turkey and Armenia. It may ease tensions in other parts of southeastern Europe and provide new opportunities for oil pipelines to the West, U.S. officials said. Muslim Turkey and Christian Armenia have had bitter relations since a wave of bloodshed starting in 1915 left hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians dead.

Many historians call the killings genocide, but Turkey strongly rejects that label, saying people died in forced relocations and fighting.

If ratified, the accord could have implications well beyond Turkey and Armenia. It may ease tensions in other parts of southeastern Europe and provide new opportunities for oil pipelines to the West, U.S. officials said.

The Armenian Diaspora, which is far bigger than the population of Armenia, is primarily in France, Lebanon, Russia, Australia, Iran, Argentina, Syria and the U.S., although I've run into Armenian ex-pats all over the world and even realized, when I was there, that Dakar in Senegal was filled with Armenian families. Here in California, Armenian-Americans are a powerful political bloc that has gradually shifted its allegiance from the GOP to Democrats. So it must be enervating to politicians dependent on Armenian support to hear from the Armenian National Committee of America that "the Obama administration's attempts to force Armenia into one-sided concessions is short-sighted and will, in the long term, create more problems than it serves."

Few members of Congress could be more sensitive to a statement like that than Blue Dog Adam Schiff in the Glendale/Pasadena district that is home to so many Armenian-Americans. Though Jewish, he's the lead sponsor for the genocide resolution in Congress, which he intends to keep pushing until it's politically safe to stop.

Schiff’s non-binding resolution would recognize the massacre as genocide and has earned the passionate backing of Armenian-American groups. The Turkish government has disputed the measure and spent millions of dollars on public relations and lobbying firms to successfully battle it back every congressional session the bill has been introduced so far.
 
“We intend to push forward with the recognition of the genocide,” Schiff told The Hill, hoping Turkey will “come to grips with the past.”
 
Despite Armenia and Turkey officially reconciling, lawmakers are still signing onto Schiff’s bill. Seven House members have added their names to its co-sponsor list since the two countries announced on Aug. 31 the protocols they intended to sign. Two lawmakers-- Reps. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)-- joined others in supporting the resolution this past week, bringing a total of 134 co-sponsors for the legislation.

 Hysterical Turkish opposition to the resolution has turned a regular cottage industry for corrupt politicians. Denny Hastert dragged suitcases stuffed with hundred dollar bills out of his office to stop the resolution from passing and now he-- like Dick Gephardt and Bob Livingston-- are well-paid lobbyists for Turkey (ala Turkmeniscam. No one has covered the scandal of Turkish operations against the resolution as thoroughly as Brad Friedman at Brad Blog, where he was the first to disclose allegations about bribes being paid not just to Speaker Hastert but to other congressional crooks like Dan Burton (R-IN) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) as well.

Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan Declares War-- Against The Image Borat Cursed It With... Bonanza For Far Right Beltway Lobbying Firm

Is it time for Ken Silverstein to update his incredibly thought-provoking book Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship-- with a little humor? Or maybe just an honest warning to the government of glorious nation of Kazakhstan: save your money; there's not a lobbyist alive, not even among the den of notorious scam artists who populate the crooked right-wing firm founded by Haley Barbour, who's going to be able to compete with Borat. Just go with the flow. Maybe even open a Borat-themed cultural park, if not in Astana, the capital, or Almaty, the biggest city, then perhaps in the Semipalatinsk Polygon (now called Semey), the old Soviet nuclear weapon testing site.

“People look at Borat and think this country is a backwater, that it’s unsophisticated,” said William Nixon, a former Reagan speech writer, now chairman and CEO of Policy Impact Communications, the lobbying firm that snagged the $1.5 million deal straight out of the pages of Silverstein's book.

A team of a dozen lobbyists registered for the account and is working on the country’s ascension to the World Trade Organization, removing a number of trade restrictions put in place by the United States and improving its image.

Nixon said that the impression of Kazakhstan created by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who exploited ignorance of the little-known nation, was false. “Part of our job will be to change that perception,” he said.

“It has a rich history, a deep culture and is a key economic ally of the United States,” Nixon said.

Nixon's firm seems to be taking its game plan straight from Turkmeniscam and I can't help but think they're pissing in their pants when they talk with the sophisticated non-backwater Kazakhs. This is one of the silliest things I've ever read-- Nixon's plans, not Silverstein's fantastic book:

According to the contract, Policy Impact lobbyists hope to achieve several objectives for Kazakhstan in Washington over the next year.


For example, they will advocate for legislation that will repeal trade restrictions and will extend normal trade relations treatment to Kazakh products. In addition, lobbyists will work to form a Central Asia Caucus on Capitol Hill. And they will “build a positive image of Kazakhstan” through “an aggressive earned media campaign,” according to the contract.



That last objective will include placing at least four op-eds in “prestige media,” reaching out to think tanks and arranging trips to Kazakhstan for high-level U.S. government officials.

The firm also plans to monitor coverage by a list of “writers known to be critical of the nation,” which includes Fred Hiatt, the Washington Post’s editorial page editor, and David Stern of the New York Times, according to the contract.



Kazakhstan will have a tough image to correct in Washington. The most recent State Department human rights report says the country has had incidents of prisoner abuse, restrictions on freedom of speech and the press as well as evidence of government corruption.



Nixon is well aware of the nation’s struggles and plans to emphasize the changes the former Soviet republic has made, including its initiative to extend religious freedoms to all of its citizens.
 
“There is a lot of good going on. It is part of our objective to make sure people understand it is a work in progress,” Nixon said.

Maybe the Kazakhs are following the outline of Silverstein's book too. In June of 2007 their sham parliament named the brutal dictator-- and former Soviet era Communist Party boss-- Nursultan Nazarbayev, president-for-life. It has been reported that he maintains "strict control" over the country's politics, while creating a right-wing think tank-inspired predator economy for his people family and cronies. That "strict control" is maintained through strict censorship, rigging electoral farces, and killing political opponents and journalists. Let's see what these Central Asian fascists and the Inside-the-Beltway crooks they hired can do to combat this: