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Monday, April 26, 2010

As Wall Street reform debate shows, there is indeed a link between legislation and campaign contributions


       
 
 Alex Gibney has directed a film about Jack Abramoff titled "Casino Jack and the United States of Money." In a post at the Atlantic, Gibney explains how Abramoff's tactics were a precursor to the massive lobbying underway to defeat financial reform. He included an short video, which includes CREW's Melanie Sloan, talking about the way money influences legislation. The video focuses on the lobbying effort to block Wall Street reform debate in Congress:
Goldman, CitiCorp, Bank of America, JP Morgan and John Mack's Morgan Stanley -- along with the Chamber of Commerce -- have all doubled down on their their bets, er, contributions to Congress and Congressional PACs in anticipation of possible legislation regarding derivatives and - gasp - consumer protections.  Texas Senator John Cornyn has been camped out in New York trying to fill the coffers of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.
 
All of this bears an eerie similarity to events described in my film, "Casino Jack and the United States of Money," about Jack Abramoff, lobbying and the influence of money in Washington, D.C. With this blog, we are releasing the first in a series of "flash forward" videos on the enduring value of the Abramoff story.  Though he was a piker in comparison to the lobbyists from PharMa or Wall Street, Jack's tale lives on through the growing role of money in our democracy.
ttp://www.citizensforethics.org/node/44860




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