The 9 Most Loathsome Lobbyists in Washington

http://www.alternet.org/news/156279/the_9_most_loathsome_lobbyists_in_washington/

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9) Chris Dodd

The former Connecticut Senator, and internationally renowned eyebrow-haver, isn’t the most prodigious scum in the Beltway swamp, but he may be the most hypocritical. When asked in 2010 what would follow his thirty-year legislative career, which ended amid financial scandal, Dodd bluntly said, “No lobbying, no lobbying.” He then promptly became, as The Hill put it, “Hollywood’s leading man in Washington, taking the most prestigious job on K Street,” as chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. The gig comes with a $1.2 million annual salary, and complimentary tickets to the Academy Awards.

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8) Billy Tauzin

The former Louisiana Congressman’s lobbying career functionally began before he left Capitol Hill. In 2003, as one of his final acts as chair of the committee that oversees the pharmaceutical industry, he brazenly extended a fifteen-minute vote on the Medicare Modernization Act so the industry-authored bill, which prohibited the federal government from negotiating drug prices, could pass quietly in the night.

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7) Richard Berman

In the Venn diagram representing lobbying, public relations, and shameless evil, Berman occupies the balding overlap. An anti-labor-lawyer-cum-anti-labor evangelist, the sole proprietor of the PR firm Berman and Associates has earned the nickname “Astroturf Kingpin” for repeatedly forming phony, industry-funded nonprofits to spread his clients’ falsehoods. Dubbed “the booze and food industries’ weapon of mass destruction” by 60 Minutes, Berman’s clients include the usual restaurant, alcohol, tobacco, and living-wage-averse service industry suspects, with the front groups bearing creepy Orwellian names like the Minimum Wage Coalition to Save Jobs.

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6) Tony Podesta

Inflate former Clinton chief of staff and current Center for American Progress head honcho with—more?—hot air and—definitely more!—lard, and you get his bloated brother Tony.