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In and Out Burglars

By Craig Aaron

Washington didn’t invent the revolving door. Theophilus von Kannel of Philadelphia patented the first one in 1888. But the Washington version—traveling between the public and private sectors—was soon in full swing. As a D.C. tradition, the revolving door dates to at least 1897, when William McKinley named the head of the First National Bank of Chicago as treasury secretary. Under… return to article

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    You’ve done a lot of groundwork Craig Aaron. I don’t know when I will be able to read the rest of the article---might need to see some comments that will stop this INNER SCREAM!!! first:

    RAT BASTARDS!!!

    GRAVY SUCKING PIGS!!!

    GRAVY SUCKING RAT BASTARD PIGS!!!

    I’ll calm down when I feel like it. Way to nail it, Mr. Aaron.

    United States Posted by wileywitch on Dec 3, 2005 at 2:27 PM

    Quoting your article:

    “Seizing on the stench of corruption, more than a dozen groups formed the Revolving Door Working Group (http://www.revolvingdoor.info) to push a series of sensible reform proposals: doubling the one-year “cooling-off” period in which ex-officials cannot lobby their former colleagues; requiring officials to disclose job negotiations taking place while they’re still in office; revoking the special privileges enjoyed by former congressmen if they’re registered lobbyists; and improving the frequency and availability of lobbying disclosures, ethics forms and other documents”.

    Well, there is a little blue sky, isn’t there?  Will check out the RDWG on their website. Doing it by degrees may look feinthearted at first, but I think it might be more effective in “taking the edge off their jones” (if I might quote Mayor Nagin).

    It would be nice if Congress could be inspired to form a bipartisan committee to work together with the actual goal of ending this rampant graft and corrruption. They could, like, declare war on a little part of evil. It could be a humble campaign.

    Anybody here read from the Hart/Rudmann report? There is a bipartisan masterpiece being left to the dust. 

    A bi-partisan Congressional committee to deal with issue would be decent.  Would be nicer still if it were multi-partisan. They could throw an Independent in there and whatever else they can dig up, just for practice working with someone who is neither demoblican nor republocrat. 

    I don’t know when “there can be only one” became a national dogma, but I think we Americans would be wise to have at least five parties in the not-too-distant-future---by 2008, at the very latest.

    United States Posted by wileywitch on Dec 4, 2005 at 11:09 AM
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