Revolving Door Between The MPAA And The Federal Government
from the how-you-get-laws-passed dept
Via Parker Higgins we learn of a graphical representation of the revolving door between the MPAA and the federal government from geke.us, purveyor of useful visuals to explain economic truths:
Not all of these are current, of course. Dan Glickman left well before Chris Dodd showed up, for example Still, it does give you an idea of why the MPAA always seemed to get its way with the government.
Filed Under: chris dodd, dan glickman, graphic, revolving door
Companies: mpaa
Comments on “Revolving Door Between The MPAA And The Federal Government”
Why isn't this illegal?
It seems like this should be illegal. Like career politicians.
Re: Why isn't this illegal?
it was going to be illegal, but instead of passing laws that banned it, we passed laws that made it effectively mandatory.
Re: Why isn't this illegal?
And we will continue to spiral downwards as a Nation because of Big Money & the Corruption.Legal Corruption is what “Corporations are People” & Money Lobbying Mean.
At this point I am waiting for the Revolution.Two big Parties and both are Corrupt.
You can’t even Vote these Fuckers out.
What a shocker! A lobbying organization hires former politicians and staffers? There’s got to be an evil conspiracy here somewhere. Your paranoid ravings get crazier every day
Re: ___
Yes, nothing says “honest, legit, and above board” like a six figure salary for doing nothing after having helped slip in “one little law”
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Here’s a good meme visualization for your kind of AC troll, sir!
http://i41.tinypic.com/efrms1.png
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“Your paranoid ravings get crazier every day”
Aren’t you the one who raves daily about a conspiracy between Mike and Google? At least one assertion has *some* proof, and it ain’t yours…
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“What a shocker! A lobbying organization hires former politicians and staffers?”
No, this isn’t shocking, but it should be. That’s the problem. There’s nothing at all surprising about the openness of this form of corruption.
“There’s got to be an evil conspiracy here somewhere.”
There is no conspiracy. It’s right out in the open. Parts of the government and large corporations are actively involved in influence peddling.
Naturally...
One of the government positions in the chart is “Dep Chieff of Staff”. I find this sort of thing perpetually disappointing.
But this, however is just fine:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46501576/Susan_Molinari_Named_Google_s_Lobbyist_in_Washington
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How do you figure? Lobbying sucks, regardless of who’s doing it. It’s institutionalized bribery.
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Or extortion?
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Google is a little outnumbered, it seems.
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No, it isn’t.
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Well … It makes absolute sense for anyone attempting to influence politicians to hire a politician to do so. They know the in and outs of DC, they understand the politics behind the scene, and they will almost certainly do a better job than I would. However what the above graphic doesn’t tell is the apparent reasons that these people went to work in the MPAA. The members of congress fight hard for unpopular legislation that helps the MPAA and then gets a cushy job with them. Congressional staffers sneak language into legislation with the same results. (I didn’t read your article, so perhaps Google and Susan Molinari aren’t clean either)
Hiring former politicians isn’t necessarily a problem, hiring a former politician as a reward for behavior that is detrimental to their constituents or the nation at large is.
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It might well be. What’s her history? Did she participate in suspiciously one-sided deals to benefit Google’s interests at the expense of others or take bribes or other deals to help kill competition and/or tilt the market in their favour? Did she recently fight tooth and nail to protect the organisation’s interests in Washington, only to land in a cushy lobbying position mere months later?
If so, then this is also bad and we thank you for bringing it to our attention. If not, then it’s yet another strawman attempt at misdirection. In that case, please try to understand the actual objection, I know it’s difficult for you. It might also help to address objections with something other that “but Google!”.
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Lobbying, sending a spokesperson to deliver a message to elected officials, is one thing. Having the corporation write the laws is another. I don’t think Google is doing the latter yet. I’ve heard more about Google fighting bad laws than I have about Google helping write them. Of course, it may just be a matter of time…
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So after 15 years she shouldn’t be allowed to lobby? What time limit do you propose? The examples from the graphic are much quicker turnaround. I suspect Dodd was still receiving his paycheck from the Senate when he accepted his position with the MPAA.
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You dope. She’s been a DC lobbyist with her own firm for years.
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Of course it’s okay!
She’ a Republican.
(Note, I am as disgusted with both sides of the isle, I just poke fun at Democrats more.)
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Agreed. At least the Republicans admit they love big business, if not in so many words.
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Molinari has been out of congress for more than 14 years, unlike Dodd who went to the mpaa right after retiring from the senate, also dodd said he would not become a lobbyist.
Molinari was not a direct lobbyist, instead running a consulting firm that showed you how to lobby congress.
There are many such firms on K street, just walk down it and see all the different firms, lobbyist and consulting.
Dodd is the larger of the two whores here.
It's time!
For a real revolution. Any legislation that is passed is a lie effectively, it is always vague therefore it can’t be forceable against the government. We are not going to fix jackshit by telling politicians and lobbyists what to do.
Re: It's time!
I wonder what would happen if we killed all the lawyers….would straightforward laws be passed?
Re: Re: It's time!
Now, now…
We don’t kill ALL the lawyers… We need prosecutors to go after real criminals, like murderers, rapists, Chris Dodd, Cary Sherman, Bank of America, Wells Fargo…
We need lawyers to defend innocent people who get accused, like a falsely accused rapist or murderer, those elderly grandmothers, the dead, the puppy, that fax machine, and the girl that could barely walk from the MPAA and RIAA
The other lawyers, however, are fair game.
Re: Re: Re: It's time!
By other lawyers, you mean the ones who get paid tens of thousands of dollars to get a rich rapist/murderer off despite overwhelming evidence while the innocent guy who can’t afford a lawyer gets sent to prison on almost no evidence?
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Well, if the laws werre clear and concise, we wouldn’t need legal experts now, would we?
“This is what you can do”
“This is what you can’t do”
IOt allows for some rather unorthodox rulesd-lawyering, but at least you’d know where the line was.
The Mightly Glickman
My thought was what ever happened to that dolt.
http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/about/dan-glickman
lol… that is just rich..
N.
The Fix
2 things that should be done to fix this (apparent) problem of corruption in Congress:
First: Outlaw campaign donations to incumbent candidates. Fund the campaigns with federal tax dollars. Pay for that by eliminating subsidies for industries that only have them because of their fantastic lobbying efforts and raising taxes on individuals and organizations that have unusually low tax rates.
Second: Have an automatic ethics review of any politician that gets hired by a private company for a salary greater than what they were making in congress. Create criminal punishments for violations of the ethics rules (I won’t define those here), and have charges brought by the ethics review group and a jury trial to determine guilt.
Re: The Fix
Also that jury should be people the politician was supposed to be representing.
if you can't beat 'em, join 'em
Why don’t we hire 10-20 former congressmen / women and former senators to fight for our cause?
Re: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em
Got $10-20 million?
Re: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em
What, you reckon a kick-starter project to raise, ooo say around 30 or 40 million to “hire” some on behalf of the public would work? Who knows… but last time I looked the public supposedly already hired them once!
Instaclone?
Is it that former politicians, a mutation that really doesn’t exist in the wild, and MPAA execs get together and breed. Then in a remarkably short gestation and maturation process give birth to, all intents and purposes, an identical copy of the former politician though lacking, perhaps, the morals and ethics which the former politician occasionally displayed.
corporations are the next fascists
Let's not forget...
…our old pal Jack Valenti, who went straight from the Johnson White House to the MPAA. He’s the guy with the famous “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.” quote.
They forgot Don Verrilli
They forgot Don Verrilli, who filed the original complaint for Viacom against YouTube, and who is now U.S. Solicitor General.
Re: They forgot Don Verrilli
They forgot Don Verrilli, who filed the original complaint for Viacom against YouTube, and who is now U.S. Solicitor General.
I don’t think he ever technically was employed by the MPAA. He merely represented them as a lawyer…
The MPAA and others..
know full well how to use bribery to get what they want. They simply promise employment to key people to make sure things happen, then when the key people leave the government they get cushy jobs at huge salaries. This might not fit some people’s definition of bribery, but the intent is bribery plain and simple. We have a government that is owned by businesses and the rich and money talks and gets results in Congress, the White House, the federal courts and the SCOTUS as well. It’s part of the culture that we have come to accept and expect and people aren’t willing to do anything about it.
Yes, I think that congress and the movie industry should be damned to hire people with no experience. Why hire people who know the system and understand how to get things done, when you can hire perfectly ignorant people who are going to spend time twiddling their thumbs and going in circles?
/sarc
Mike, you need to join the real world!
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Yeah, we need more people who already know how to bribe the system. What’s the use of power if you don’t give it to people who know the best way to abuse it?
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There is always a moron, drunk on the techdirt koolaid, willing to pop this piece of stupidity up.
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Yeah, that being this one.
You could make this link between almost any other industry, however.
Law firms, Sports celebrities, Vietnam vets, Military, etc etc etc.
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Exactly.