Silverfiddle Rant!
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"The capital is awash in foreign cash – the world hub of lobbying and influence peddling, where former senior U.S. officials, or those between jobs, stand to profit from their prestige and connections. Since 1938, anyone representing a foreign government has been required to register under FARA. But the law was often ignored until 2016 when questions about Russian influence came to dominate the presidential campaign."
Here's what I think:
Former members of the following categories should be banned by US federal law from any foreign lobbying or from representing foreign governments soliciting anything from the US government:
- Department and agency heads, deputies and anyone with an agency-wide policy-making role
- US Presidents, immediate family members and White House staff
- Cabinet members
- Congresspersons and senators
- US military flag officers
Basically, if someone has served in a high position of trust in our government, it should be illegal for them to act as an agent for a foreign government or act as an agent that solicits anything from a foreign government or provides aid, goods or services to a foreign government. If you have served this nation in the inner sanctums of government, you should not be able to peddle your insider knowledge to foreign entities. Period.
If foreigners want to petition our government, let them come with their funny accents and do it themselves.
Office of Foreign Petitions
The Federal government should stand up a government clearing house for foreign entities lobbying the US government. All lobbying not registering and going through that bureau is illegal. Federal workers in that bureau would be charged with facilitating and documenting meetings between the foreigners and the US government office they wish to solicit.
What say you?
Your topic is complex because its foundation is firmly rooted in the Constitution: the right of free speech, right of association, right of assembly, the right to petition. Nothing you’ve written is disagreeable to me—not at all, and yet asking for commonsense restrictions from members of Congress is much akin to asking the fox to guard the henhouse. Lobbyists (foreign and domestic) contribute mightily to the congressional machines. Why should any member of Congress vote to end the horn of plenty? Beyond this, for every rule to restrict corruption, there must be at least ten loopholes around it. One should probably ask, who is most guilty? Is it the lobbyists, who make no bones about their efforts to purchase influence, or is it members of our political structure who accept “pay for play” arrangements? The history of our country is one of political corruption, beginning with William Hull in 1792 ... not because Hull was hired to lobby for increased compensation for members of the Continental Army, but because members of Congress were ready to set aside their integrity in exchange for remuneration.
ReplyDeleteVery astute observatiins as usual, Sm. Tha you. Thank you!
DeleteIn haste,
FT
More of the insanity destroying our republic!
ReplyDeleteHave you like Me and lost all respect for the government with the ridiculous arrest of Roger Stone?
ReplyDeleteYes,they should really reserve all that nonsense for genuinely dangerous criminals, there's no need to burst out all the military hardware for a guy who has no record of violence who is being arrested for non-violent process crimes.
DeleteThe FBI will never recover it's reputation.
Check this out about Weissmann and why Stone and Manafort were SWAT'd.
Deletehttps://youtu.be/r1AeCxnaMCE
Slept her way to the top.
ReplyDeleteWoman Power!
Feminine toxicity.
When the devil fell from congressional heaven he landed on K Street.
ReplyDeleteWe respond to people we regard more like us. (Remember how was all reacted to the horrid English in early Japanese instruction manuals?) Hard to stop that.
This is why when Israel's back was to the wall in an acute existential crisis ('73) they sent Abba Eban to work on his high connections in Washington. He was a gifted speaker and possessed the diplomatic graces packaged in excellent English. The Israeli government sent him with deep reservations. His English and western graces far outstripped what any other Israeli could muster, but they were terrified he would freelance negotiations outside of their strict instructions. ("He never has the right solution, just the right speech." Always thought that prescient when I read it while Obama was in office.)
I see all this influx of untoward influence by Foreign Cash as a direct outgrowth of the move toward One World Government that began under Democrat-Progressive WOODROW WILSON, who was elected president in 1913, and reamained in office tlll 1921.
ReplyDeleteWilsn's tenure in office was the beginnung of the End of the USA as founded.
Wilsn was elected the year after the proud Titanic crashed into an iceberg on her maiden voyage, and sank killing al the men aboard along with all the passengers in steerage who were LOCKED in the hOLD by the CREW. The Titani=c Disaster may be seen in retrospect as a Bad Omen –– the beginni[ng of a New Era in which unprecedented horrors would soon befall Western Civilization.
Under Wilson the Income Tax , the Federal Reserve, the League of Nations were founded, and we were euchred by Wilson into our tragic, entirely unnecessary involvement in World War One.
So much for George Washngrin's sage advice to "avoid foreign entanglements!"
The "Progressives" always thought they knew better than our Founding Fathers –– and the bastards still do. Damn their souls!