No, Erotica Is Not All I Read But You Might Wish I Did. Okay, so I am a little behind in my commentary, but I am good at putting stuff into the round to-it pile.

Actually I bring the following point up now to show that we need to pay closer attention to what really happens in Washington. I am not sure if we can put a link to the original article, but it appeared in the National Edition, April 29, 2003. Yeah, it really did sit in the round to-it pile a while.

But hey, here is my question. The article is entitled, "Former Domestic Security Aides Make Quick Switch to Lobbying." The article points out how several of the aides to Tom Ridge that worked with him when he was first brought to Washington. But when Tom Ridge became the Secretary of Homeland Security, at least four of his senior deputies switched over to the private sector and became lobbyists!

Here it is eighteen months later and there have been hardly any follow-up articles written about the amount of tax dollars the various lobbying companies have steered to the various companies that have now become leading suppliers of homeland security. The closing quote by John J. Pavlick of Venable LLP sums it up perfectly:

"We're trying to help our clients avoid the land mines and find the gold mines in homeland security. The major defense contractors want to move into homeland in a big way. I'm very bullish on this."

His company represents Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and other government contractors.

Okay, so if we have all these lobbyists to grab those homeland defense dollars and Mr. Bush has tripled the budget for Homeland Security, why do we have an employment "problem" in the manufacturing sector? Who is building all this very expensive Homeland Security infrastructure anyhow? Sounds like Mr. Bush would be the first one to jump up and show how many jobs were created for Homeland Security and how much they pay.

Has anybody out there ever heard of the Carlyle Group? I do not have time to go into my thoughts on this company now, Recall is about to occur and I want to get this in the mail tonight, but here is a pop quiz to see if any of the readers of this blog care anything about the running, or is that ruining, of our country by the politicians in Washington DC.

Comment if you have info on them.
  ¶ 5:50 PM