Best Buy

by guest blogger Gary Farber.

In an economic depression, it's especially important to invest wisely.  That's why wise American business leaders believe a dollar spent buying John Boehner is a dollar well spent. 

Remember, if you want to fight against the interests of common people, you want to Buy Boehner.

[...] He maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and former aides representing some of the nation’s biggest businesses, including Goldman Sachs, Google, Citigroup, R. J. Reynolds, MillerCoors and UPS.

A helpful graphic of some of Minority Leader Boehner's best pals.

[...] Michael Steel, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner, said the industry ties only help make Mr. Boehner a better Republican leader. “Like the American people, Boehner — a former small-business man — is most concerned right now about the issue of jobs,” he said. “So he often speaks with employers, rather than, for example, labor unions or environmentalists who support job-killing policies.”

Remember, if you kill a job, you have to eat it.

]...] “Does he have a lot of relationships in this city? Yes, absolutely,” said Mark Isakowitz, a friend whose Republican firm represents more than three dozen financial, telecommunications, energy and consumer products companies as diverse as Coca-Cola and Zurich Financial Services. “But I think all the good lawmakers do.”

And Mr. Isakowitz, with his three dozen companies, is in a position to know. 

Let's reminisce:

Mr. Boehner won some of his first national headlines in 1996 after he was caught handing out checks from tobacco lobbyists to fellow Republicans on the House floor. Then the fourth-ranking House Republican, he said he had broken no rules and was simply assisting his lobbyist friends, who were contributing to other Republicans’ campaigns.

His business-friendly reputation was enhanced through the weekly powwows he organized on Capitol Hill nicknamed the Thursday Group, a gathering of conservative leaders and business lobbyists whom he relied on to help push the party’s legislative agenda. The Thursday gathering was disbanded after a Republican power struggle that cost him his leadership position.

But he continued to routinely meet with business leaders, particularly in his role as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee, and returned to power as House G.O.P. leader in 2006. Several of the onetime Thursday regulars, along with some newcomers, are among the close-knit group that routinely call on Mr. Boehner’s office for client matters, write checks to his campaign and socialize with him.

That circle includes Mr. Isakowitz; Bruce Gates, a lobbyist for the cigarette maker Altria; Nicholas E. Calio, a Citigroup lobbyist; and two former aides, Marc Lampkin and Sam Geduldig, both now financial services lobbyists.

The tobacco industry is particularly well represented, with Mr. Gates and John Fish, a lobbyist for R. J. Reynolds, maker of Camel cigarettes, in the group. People affiliated with those companies have contributed at least $340,000 to Mr. Boehner’s political campaigns, with Mr. Gates being the top individual donor among the thousands during Mr. Boehner’s political career, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

While many lawmakers in each party have networks of donors, lobbyists and former aides who now represent corporate interests, Mr. Boehner’s ties seem especially deep. His clique of friends and current and former staff members even has a nickname on Capitol Hill, Boehner Land. The members of this inner circle said their association with Mr. Boehner translates into open access to him and his staff. 

[...]

One lobbyist in the club — after lauding each staff member in Mr. Boehner’s office that he routinely calls to ask for help — ticked off the list of recent issues for which he had sought the lawmaker’s backing: combating fee increases for the oil industry, fighting a proposed cap on debit card fees, protecting tax breaks for hedge fund executives and opposing a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Mr. Boehner’s office said these were positions he already agreed with.

Yes, that's John Boehner, fighting for you.

And rest assured he stays in touch with real Americans.

[...]  From 2000 to 2007, Mr. Boehner flew at least 45 times, often with his wife, Debbie, on corporate jets provided by companies including R. J. Reynolds. (As required, Mr. Boehner reimbursed part of the costs.)

In addition, over the last decade he has taken 41 other trips paid for by corporate sponsors or industry groups, often to popular golf spots. That makes him one of the top House beneficiaries of such travel, which has recently been curbed as a result of changes in ethics rules.

Mr. Boehner continues to travel to golf destinations on a corporate-subsidized tab, though now it is paid for through his political action committee, the Freedom Project. In the last 18 months, it has spent at least $67,000 at the Ritz-Carlton Naples in Florida, at least $20,000 at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va., and at least $29,000 at the Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, federal records show, for fund-raising events.

If you earn more than $250,000 a year, than you can count on John Boehner to represent your interests.  

John Boehner: when you buy him, he stays bought.  

In the department of more imaginative and desperate former House Republican Leaders, Newt Gingrich continues to spew gibberish, including:

Citing a recent Forbes article by Dinesh D’Souza, former House speaker Newt Gingrich tells National Review Online that President Obama may follow a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview.

Gingrich says that D’Souza has made a “stunning insight” into Obama’s behavior — the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama.”

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

“This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president,” Gingrich tells us.

“I think he worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating — none of which was true,” Gingrich continues. “In the Alinksy tradition, he was being the person he needed to be in order to achieve the position he needed to achieve . . . He was authentically dishonest.”

As Roy Edroso observes: 

[...] Unquestionably Gingrich has upped the ante for all the squares at the top. Now Mitt Romney must appear at some state fair on a makeshift stage, holding two cylinders, one marked FASCISM and one marked COMMUNISM, and ram them suddenly together, whereupon in a puff of smoke an effigy of Obama will appear and be set upon by local yahoos bearing sticks who will break him open to get at the candy and prizes inside.

Back in the world of sane centrist-conservatives, Doug Mataconis: 

[...] If anything, the Dinesh D’Souza article is even more inflammatory. Using incredibly tortured logic, D’Souza claims that Obama is being governed by the political philosophy of a father who abandoned him when he was two, and a country he didn’t visit until he was an adult [....]

Your call: do you prefer a straight-out bought-and-paid-for Republican Speaker of the House, or one who so easily thinks out of the box because of the holes in his head? 

ADDENDUM, 10:29 p.m.: Peter Daou wonders:

[...] Republicans are willing to accept the burst of outrage associated with outrageous comments in order to advance their agenda and control the terms of the public debate. Democrats are not.

Gingrich is a major Republican figure and he is flatly stating that the President of the United States is neither normal nor reasonable, that he may follow a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview. Let’s see whether there are consequences beyond this news cycle. [....]

Let's.  Daou also draws the comparison:

[...] Sherrod was a Georgia State Director of Rural Development; Gingrich a former Speaker and potential presidential candidate. At the hint of rightwing anger, she was fired unceremoniously for making what turned out to be a beautiful speech on tolerance. Gingrich will most likely get away unscathed with his offensive and intemperate comments.

At worst, Gingrich has his contemporary lifestyle to be left unscathed: his movies, books, speaking engagements, his entire shop.

Whatever happens to Newt's presidential ambitions -- and I wouldn't make book on him, myself -- his supporters will only adore him the more for this latest, and at worst, Newt will laff like a drain as he journeys to the bank, and be on to his next wife before we know it.

Enjoy a fine pin of this outstanding American, for only $11.25.

Yes, that's right: the initialism for Newt's slogan is WTF. 

Just remember to add the "? yourself.

But a true Newt fan will want to hold out for, at $99, a Speaker's Gavel (Simulation):

These are exciting times at newt.org's store.  Your best value is probably in the Rediscovering God in America II: Our Heritage, Ronald Reagan DVD, Rediscovering God in America DVD plus We Have The Power DVD Buy 3 Get 1 free package.

If all this fails for Newt, he can always turn back to his cancelled project of a sequel to 1945.  That should be enough of a threat to make people pay him to do something else.

Mike Schilling, in comments, also points out this excellent Daniel Larison post.

by guest blogger Gary Farber, not Eric Martin.

Comments

[Mike Schilling]

Daniel Larison was quite good on the D'Souza article too:

Dinesh D’Souza has authored what may possibly be the most ridiculous piece of Obama analysis yet written.

Gingrich's real problem with Obama is that, still being on his first wife, he can't yet appreciate the sacredness of marriage.

[Gary Farber]

Alinsky! Alinksky! Alinsky!

[liberal japonicus]

In addition, over the last decade he has taken 41 other trips paid for by corporate sponsors or industry groups, often to popular golf spots.

Well, that explains the bizarre tanning. I guess.

And I think that Larison probably would have treated the D'Souza argument as one does with dog crap on a walk, just give it a wide berth, except that Newt flagged it.

What took me by surprise was that this ode to Lamarckism is not in the National Review but Forbes, which gives an added layer of strangeness given what happened with the elder Forbes after his death. Am I the only one who remembers this?

[Countme?]

lj: no, you're not.

The fact that Daniel Larison feels compelled to call out Dinesh D'Souza, the toffey-nosed, elitist, Dartmouth-graduated, Laura Ingraham-sharer of the single fascist Obama-hating FOX braincell, or even pay attention to this Brahman motherfu#cker who spits on American untouchables and adores al Qaeda for its murder of the American values that Brahman cracker Confederate haetef#ck hates, is sorry testimony to the state of American discourse.

The next time I see D'Souza at a conservative fete double dipping with the wrong Indian conservative wiping hand in the crab dip, I'm going to drown the pompous Colonial capo in the Koch-spiked punchbowl.

Larison, if he had the guts, would do the same.

Has the INS looked into D'Souza bonafides.

I say he's a terrorist vermin plant.

[Bernard Yomtov]

which gives an added layer of strangeness given what happened with the elder Forbes after his death. Am I the only one who remembers this?

I thought it was widely known, during his lifetime, that Malcolm Forbes was gay. Not so?

[liberal japonicus]

I didn't think much (in both senses) of Malcolm Forbes when he was alive, so it came as news to me. It was just the irony of an editorial hanging all of Obama's sins on a father who was only in Obama's life until he was 4 and then made only one visit, when Obama was 10 in Forbes. If it were common knowledge, it would be even more ironic. I realize that the conservative media wouldn't recognize irony if it were gift wrapped and labeled, but my very cursory impression of Forbes was that it at least trafficked in some relation to reality. If they chose to publish the D'Souza musings ('I heard the NRO Cruise didn't do as well as planned, let's give the folks over there a hand!'), I'm not sure I can trust anything that they write.

However, Countme?, you might want to turn the dials down from 11, a 7 or 8 would probably get the point across without so much distortion in the signal. Thanks.

[bobbyp]

"I thought it was widely known, during his lifetime, that Malcolm Forbes was gay. Not so?"

True. Not so.

Most casual observers were fascinated by his wealth from?, his hot air balloons, and his weird thing with gold and diamond encrusted eggs. Other than that, he was just an another guy you'd like to go out and have a beer with, as long as he was buying.

As for the Boner: He is an embarrassment to working class golfers everywhere.

[cleek]

when someone gets around to shooting "Born Orange: The John Boehner Story", Will Arnet will play the titular character.

[Countme?]

"And I am flabbergasted."

So says Kevin Drum in response to the Gingrich/D'Souza/Forbes slander against Barack Obama.

lj, things are O.K. Pretty much.

It's just that Jon Stewart satire, Daniel Larison reasonableness, which sounds distressingly like the pointless liberal over-explaining to rabid right-wingers over the past 25 years, and Kevin Drum's polite flabberaghastedness seem a pale, ineffectual
7 or an 8 which has done nothing to blunt the fascist Republican tsunami in America, which is at a Force 14 at this point.

I'm still at 11.

It may be necessary to double 14, given how armed the other side is, or brags about being.

Lots of people have been flabbergasted throughout history just before filth murdered them.

[Gary Farber]

Remember Newt's slogan: Newt: WTF?

[Slartibartfast]

I miss John Thullen. Anyone seen him around da webs?

[efgoldman]

@ Slartibartfast

I was thinking maybe Countme? was Thullen with a ramped-up rant.

[hairshirthedonist]

I've been meaning to ask if anyone else thought Countme? was John Thullen, for weeks. I figured that had already been sorted out, that they were one and the same, and that I would look like a dork for asking. I guess not on the first and the last. I think so on the second.

[Slartibartfast]

You can be thankful that I looked like a dork for you, hsh.

[Gary Farber]

Lobbyists largely only preserve the status quo for the entrenched powers.

[...] Based on a comprehensive examination of ninety-eight issues, this volume demonstrates that sixty percent of recent lobbying campaigns failed to change policy despite millions of dollars spent trying. Why? The authors find that resources explain less than five percent of the difference between successful and unsuccessful efforts. Moreover, they show, these attempts must overcome an entrenched Washington system with a tremendous bias in favor of the status quo.

Though elected officials and existing policies carry more weight, lobbies have an impact too, and when advocates for a given issue finally succeed, policy tends to change significantly. The authors argue, however, that the lobbying community so strongly reflects elite interests that it will not fundamentally alter the balance of power unless its makeup shifts dramatically in favor of average Americans’ concerns.

Discuss.

[wj]

I suspect that the lobbyists' biggest impact is neither on pushing new policies nor even on maintaining that status quo. Rather, that it occurs when something is going to change. Then they may be able to get the proposed changes modified to better suit their clients. In other words, not driving a big change, but tweeks around the edges of changes driven from elsewhere.

[AndYnot?]

I'm still at 11.

It may be necessary to double 14, given how armed the other side is, or brags about being.

One should always double down on an 11. It's how the game is played.

Has D'Souza explained how having a single Kenyan parent one did not know imparts an automatic anti-colonialist attitude through the blood but having, say, two Indian parents one did know presumably does not?

Does he view India's independence from Britain to have been a bad idea?

What about the Irish? At least half of white Americans have at least one Irish ancestor (and on March 17, suddenly we all do) who came here specifically to escape colonization by the English, who also colonized Kenya. And India. And North America.

Seeing as how the US was the first anti-colonial state, how exactly is anti-colonialism supposed to be a bad thing, anyway?

I really don't get these people.

[AndYnot?]

Oh, and Mike Schilling for the win, right out of the gate.

Gary, what's to discuss? Elected officials pay little attention to constituents, even organized groups of them, and the best organized and funded groups are the financial elites. While it's nice to see evidence of what everyone already knew, everyone already knew it.

Bah. I'm going back to bed.

[Gary Farber]

So, McKinneyTexas, how do you feel about John Boehner, and Newt Gingrich? :-)

[Marty]

I suppose in some alternate reality this would be something other than an attempt to put a face on another round of class warfare, but not in this one.

In reviewing the contributions by industry in Gary's link I noted that it was pretty complete. Also, the highest contributor has given a million dollars over twnty years. Everyone from manufacturers to the insurance industry have committed money to reelecting a pro-business Republican.

I can't describe how much that surprises me.

I must admit that it surprises me more that Jaime Dimon supported the Obama campaign.

As another view, how many jobs does that list of industries represent? How many of those jobs have been lost in the last two years? Isn't it great that the people trying to recreate those jobs have a voice in Congress?

[hairshirthedonist]

Isn't it great that the people trying to recreate those jobs have a voice in Congress?

So it's job creation that these people are after, and not profits. Got it. Alternate realities, indeed.

[Gary Farber]

The top two industries that contribute to Boehner: "Insurance $1,035,496
Securities & Investment $790,336"

How many jobs have these industries created in America in the last decade, and to what degree has that been a good thing?

Number four is "retired people": not a lot of job creation there.

Number five is "Commercial Banks."

Who doesn't applaud the fine job they've done for the U.S. economy, and job creation, with John Boehner to advocate for them?

Imagine where we'd be without him.

[Slartibartfast]

It's an eye-opener, seeing who is getting what from whom.

Chuck Schumer, for instance, has gotten $8.7 million career dollars from the Securities and Investment industry; they're his top donors. Goldman Sachs is his top single donor, followed by Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, and a lot of other things that sound like banks.

In comparison, though, Nancy Pelosi's donor list looks pretty decent. She gets her money in much smaller chunks.

[russell]

There's nothing particularly unique about Boehner. And it's not, remotely, unique to the Republican party.

House reps run every two years. Senators run every six. It costs a lot of money to win and hold those seats, so they take the money from whoever is offering.

If you give the money, your phone calls get answered. Simple as that.

If it bugs you that corporations and/or their lobbyiest proxies contribute large amounts of money to Congresspeople's campaigns, there is a solution.

Corporations should not be allowed to contribute to political campaigns.

Restrict political contributions to natural human persons. Put a generous but reasonable upper limit on the amount that can be contributed by any individual in a year. Do not allow Congresspeople or their immediate family members from taking employment in any industry they are responsible for regulating, either while they are in office or for some reasonable number of years afterwards.

And a significant amount of the problem goes away.

It is not rocket science.

[Mike Schilling]

I remember about Malcolm Forbes being gay only because the spectacle of his son Steve crapping on his father by attacking gays in pursuit of the Christian Right vote was perhaps the most posting-rules-violation despicable thing I've ever seen.