Defense industry contributions to individual candidates and PACs reached nearly $13 million earlier this month. That number, only $11 million short of the $24 million contributed in the 2008 political cycle, suggests that the defense industry will contribute more in this political cycle than in any previous election. And the increase in funds is matched by a dramatic partisan shift in the industry’s contributions.

In 2008, 51 percent of contributions went to Democrats while 49 percent were designated for Republicans. In 2010, that trend continued with 53 percent going to Democrats and 47 percent to Republicans. But the 2012 cycle appears to mark a shift in partisan bent as a whopping 60 percent of defense industry campaign dollars went to Republican campaigns.

When contacted by Politico, General Dynamic spokesman Kendell Pease explained that the Republican majority in Congress could explain the shift in campaign dollars toward the GOP:

Those are the folks that are here. Those are the folks that are making decisions now, today, and it’s very easy to figure out where they stand on issues that we feel are most important. We continue to support those folks, both House and Senate, who support those issues that we feel are most important.

Indeed, supporting Republicans has paid off. A budget proposal put forward by Mitt Romney would add $100 billion to the Pentagon’s budget by 2016, while imposing cuts on health care for the poor and disabled and reductions in funding for food inspection, border security and education. And a House Republican budget proposal calls for $554 billion in defense spending in 2013, a $29 billion increase over the White House’s proposal.

As chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) has found himself the biggest recipient of defense industry dollars, taking in over $393,000 in the 2012 political cycle. The defense industry, apparently eager to repay McKeon for fearlessly defending the defense industry from budget cuts, has extended its largess to his wife, Patricia McKeon, who took in at least $19,200 in defense industry campaign contributions for her California State Assembly campaign (where national defense is not at issue). But McKeon denies the contributions were the result of arm twisting or repayment for his work in protecting the defense budget as budget cuts sweep across Washington. “She’s made lots of friends [in Washington],” McKeon told the Los Angeles Times. “When they found out she was running, they offered to help.”

1. It’s hilarious: “The totem of chat. The lowest, that would be Facebook, followed by Gchat, then texting, then email, then phone. Face to face would be ideal, but it’s not of this time.” “I wouldn’t take shit from my parents. They’re buffoons. But my grandma gives me $800 a month…I supplement. But it gives me the freedom to not have to be anyone’s slave. You should never have to be anyone’s fucking slave. Except mine.” “I was live-in educator to these three children, and they all sang, and their father was a brilliant pacifist thinker.” These three lines from the pilot aren’t even close to the funniest things the characters say in that half-hour alone. And it gets funnier from there.

2. It’s delightfully progressive about sex and sexual health: Girls is one of the only shows on television where people talk about sexual health and reproductive rights like actual people in real life do. “What was she going to do? Have a baby and take it to her babysitting job? That’s not realistic,” Dunham’s character Hannah says when her friend Jessa (Jemima Kirke) gets pregnant and decides to have an abortion. In a delightful parody of oversoberness about reproductive choice, Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) tells Jessa, who is smoking a joint the night before her procedure, “What you’re going through is like really, really hard for any young woman, and it totally makes sense that you would want to escape through drug use. But you have to know, you’re not just my cousin. you’re my friend. And I could not be more proud of you for getting this abortion.” When Hannah heads in for an STD test and one of her friends makes fun of her obsessive fear of AIDS, Hannah grumbles “I have obsessive fear of HIV that turns into AIDS. I’m not a fool.” And Dunham told me that she worked extremely hard to make sure a subplot in which her character is diagnosed with HPV and tries to find out how she could have gotten it medically accurate. That accuracy and frankness goes hand-in-hand with well-developed plots and very funny dialogue.

3. Lena Dunham is basically the female Louis C.K.: Emily Nussbaum made the comparison explicit in her New York Magazine cover story—and reports that Dunham once dressed up as C.K. for Halloween. The comparison is apt: whether it’s Dunham’s bodily frankness, the relentless and hilarious chronicle of failure and self-criticism, or even masturbation, Lena Dunham is a younger, more hopeful version of Louis C.K.

4. It’s one of the only shows on television where the characters have realistic wardrobes and apartments: Dunham turned down the larger sets HBO offered her to make it easier for the cameras and crew to get around in favor of making sure her characters would live in reasonably-sized apartments—she told me of New Girl, “I love that show, by the way, but every week there’s a new room I didn’t know was there! It’s like that real estate dream you have in New York, where it’s like over there! Over there! Over there! It’s really wild, that New Girl apartment.” And she fit her costumes with Spanx on, but didn’t wear them she was shooting so Hannah’s clothes would look like they didn’t fit, a symptom both of her lack of money and of the way the character hasn’t quite settled into her body.

5. The friendships are wonderful: Rebecca Traister expounds on this theme at length in Salon, reveling in the way that Girls shows that friends can be your true partners. That larger point aside, it’s just fun to see the characters go through what seem like well-worn conversational paces—”Sex from behind is degrading. point blank. You deserve someone who wants to look in your beautiful face, ladies,” Shoshanna reads from an advice book, only to have Jessa snap at her “What if I want to focus on something else?”—curl up in each other’s beds, rock out to Robyn. Speaking of which…

6. The show’s sense of pop culture is spot-on: This may seem like a little thing. But Girls does a tremendous job of actually populating the show with references, conversations, and music playing in rooms that the characters would actually watch and listen to. Whether it’s Robyn, or Kelly Clarkson, or a game show hosted by Jerry Springer called Baggage, in which people reveal their worst secrets (Hannah says of hers: “My littlest baggage is probably that I am unfit for any and all paying jobs. My medium baggage is that I bought four cupcakes and ate one in your bathroom just now. And my biggest baggage would be my HPV.”) Culture is a way we communicate with each other, and find the people we like. That Girls gets this right is just another indicator of its commitment to creating scenarios that are wonderfully emotionally true.

Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) have together raised a combined $94,000 from registered lobbyists, while their super PACs have not received any money from K Street.

Romney has also used lobbyists as “bundlers” to help raise contributions, 16 of whom had collected more than $2 million for Romney’s campaign through the end of 2011, according to an New York Times analysis from last month.

Romney’s lobbyists donors mainly represent the healthcare, finance, and energy sectors. And Romney’s agenda would likely benefit the bottom line of many of these corporations, as he’s called for cutting corporate taxes, eliminating important environmental and labor regulations, and repealing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law and post-Enron Sarbanes-Oxley corporate accounting overhaul.

“The insiders approach this from a lot of different angles than a casual voter. They’ve been in town for a long time, they’ve watched this process for a long time, they can smell a winner,” said Tom Korologos of the law and lobby firm DLA Piper on Romney.

This ad was surprising because it seemed to come out of nowhere. Who, exactly, has such a beef with the Humane Society that they would buy ad during a broadcast where a 30 second segment costs an average of $1.7 million? As it turns out, the food industry.

It is indeed true that much of the Humane Society’s money goes to programs other than animal shelters for stray cats and dogs — much of the Society’s resources go to fighting animal cruelty in the courts and in legislatures. In court, the Humane Society defends laws prohibiting horse slaughter, it fights to protect dolphins from aggressive tuna fishing techniques, and it supports regulations governing the treatment of “downed” cattle. In Congress and state legislatures, the Humane Society backs many anti-cruelty bills, including the Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments of 2012, which would prevent egg-laying hens from being packed into tiny cages that leaves them with virtually no room to move around.

Corporate PR Flack Rick Berman

• Sweet Scam: Berman is behind a campaign called “Sweet Scam” which attempts to debunk “myths” such as “sugary sweeteners are bad for your teeth” or “significantly reducing sugar intake leads to healthy weight loss.”
• Trans-Fats: Another Berman campaign, whose website has since been pulled down, claimed that trans-fats have “may possess health benefits, including fighting some cancers, enhancing immunity, and counteracting artery clogging fats—the primary cause of cardiovascular disease.”
• The Steak Diet: Another Berman website touts how one can shed unwanted pounds by eating beef.
• Soft Drinks For Athletes: Berman also claims that high-sugar soft drinks “actually improved physical performance among elite athletes.”
• Fast Food Marathon: Berman also touts a marathon runner who proclaims “I love running and I love [fast-food]–might as well combine the two.”
• Global Warming Denial: And, of course, no right-wing anti-science campaign would be complete without some kind of attempt to deny global warming. Berman’s effort is an attack on former President-elect Al Gore’s statement that a high meat diet fosters global warming because meat requires forests to be cleared and more energy consumption to produce than other foods.

So the anti-Humane Society ad appears to be the latest in a long line of Berman’s attempts to pad the food industry’s bottom line at the expense of ordinary Americans’ health. Nevertheless, this particular attack is disturbing even by Berman’s standards. It’s one thing to advance arguments — even false arguments — intended to rebut the policy arguments of your opponents. It is another thing altogether, however, to attack a charity by targeting their donors. Berman’s latest effort is nothing less than an intimidation campaign designed to send a clear message to charities that if they work against a wealthy corporation’s interests, they will find themselves on the receiving end of a hit job led by deep pocketed industries capable of throwing away more than a million dollars on a single ad.

Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN)

Citing the ThinkProgress Green report, House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote one of those lobbyists yesterday, noting that her disclosed Keystone KL lobbying “seems unusual” as Indiana lacks any “obvious interest” in seeing the pipeline completed. In the letter, addressed to lobbyist Deborah Hohlt, Waxman “would appreciate the opportunity to learn about Indiana’s interests in the proposed Keystone XL pipeline” and requested a briefing from her.

“You’re kind of catching me off-guard,” Hohlt told Politico when asked about her tar-sands lobbying:

Hohlt had no answers when POLITICO contacted her Thursday, saying she still hadn’t seen Waxman’s letter. “You’re kind of catching me off-guard,” she said.

But Jane Jankowski, the press secretary for Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, said Hohlt simply listed in her disclosure report “any topic she’s spoken about on behalf of the state.”

“Gov. Daniels has talked about the need for the Keystone pipeline and issued a statement about it, which she passed on to our delegation, so she included it on her report,” Jankowski wrote.

Hohlt’s disclosure form lists the pipeline as one of four energy-related issues on which she lobbied both Congress and the Department of Energy.

A second lobbyist, Griffin Foster, also reported lobbying Congress and the Obama administration on the Keystone XL pipeline on Daniels’ behalf, over the same period.

Proposed Keystone XL pipeline map

$644,400 went to 35 of those senators who have endorsed this measure. Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Rob Portman (R-OH) received the most, with $43,500 each. Manchin received $2,500 and the rest went to Republicans.

The most active companies and trade associations lobbying for the pipeline over the last three months were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ConocoPhillips, the Business Roundtable, Shell Oil, ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, Deere & Company, TransCanada Pipelines, and Devon Energy.

Of those, the PACs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, Deere & Company, and Devon Energy all made contributions to federal candidates over the past three years.

Here are their totals:

Methodology: January 30, 2012 search of Center for Responsive PoliticsPAC data for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ConocoPhillips, the Business Roundtable, Shell Oil, ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, Deere & Company, TransCanada Pipelines, and Devon Energy. For active PACs for those companies and trade associations, tallied all PAC to campaign committee payments over the 2010 and 2012 cycles to U.S. Senators supporting the Keystone XL legislation.

Keystone XL protesters (credit: Josh Lopez)

Last week, ThinkProgress reported that, through the third quarter of 2011, at least 31 companies or organizations reported lobbying in favor for federal approval of the application by the TransCanada Corporation to build a tar sands pipeline between Alberta, Canada, and Nederland, Texas — while seven lobbied against it. That group included a wide array of energy and construction companies, trade associations, and labor unions lobbying for and a handful of environmental groups lobbying against.

During the fourth quarter of 2011, oil money poured into Washington to push for the tar sands pipeline:

– Backers include some of the most influential players in Washington. At least 31 pipeline supporters spent over $36.7 million lobbying on this and other issues in the fourth quarter of 2011. These included huge players including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips — each of whom spend $1 million on lobbying each quarter. New supporters included the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ($251,383) and the office of Gov. Mitch Daniels ((R-IN) ($66,000).

– The few organizations lobbying against the pipeline were much smaller players. Seven organizations publicly opposed to the pipeline reported only about $1.1 million on all lobbying for that time. These included newcomers Environment America Inc., the National Farmers Union, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation. The Friends Committee is the advocacy arm of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and its $427,181 lobbying total made it the largest spender on the no side, for the quarter.

– Most of the lobbying groups who lobbied for the issue in previous quarters continued to do so in this period. Just a few proponents, such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the National Taxpayers Union lobbied in previous quarters on the issue, but did not appear to in the fourth quarter. Only the Defenders of Wildlife lobbied in opposition to the bill in earlier quarters, but did not report lobbying on Keystone XL in this period.

– Self-interest continued to be a big factor. TransCanada Pipelines Inc. spent $410,000 on lobbying in quarter four of 2011.

As these groups were lobbying, the fourth quarter of 2011 saw public hearings on the bill, mass protests, industry-backed TV spots, and legislation pushed by Congressional Republicans to force an expedited permit application response by the administration.

TransCanada has vowed to reapply with a modified proposal and Republicans are threatening to hold up tax relief for working families to force federal approval. Expect 2012 to be more of the same: Washington lobbyists are gunning for Keystone XL, while the opposition is mostly grassroots and a few environmentalist organizations, largely outside of the Washington money game.

The pipeline does not go through Indiana, and few, if any, Indiana workers are expected to be employed in its construction. However, the Indiana Petroleum Council has been touting the project.

An analysis of fourth quarter 2011 lobbying forms by ThinkProgress Green finds:

The state of Indiana’s DC representatives received $66,000 from Indiana taxpayers to lobby Congress in the fourth quarter of 2011. Deborah Hohlt reported receiving $50,500 for lobbying on behalf of the state, including advocacy of the tar sands pipeline. Hohlt is a long-time Washington lobbyist who began her career at the Republican National Committee and George H.W. Bush administration. Griffin Foster reported receiving $15,500 for lobbying on behalf of the state of Indiana, including the Keystone pipeline. Foster is a former legislative assistant to Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL).

During the rebuttal, Daniels attacked President Obama for “extremism” that “cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands.” Daniels did not mention how many of those jobs seem to be going to DC lobbyists.

Proposed Keystone XL pipeline map

This decision, a major victory for grassroots activists, comes after lobbying by TransCanada and its big oil allies significantly dwarfed that of environmental groups. TransCanada alone nearly matched the combined lobbying expenditures of all Keystone XL opponents on all issues, over the periods in which they lobbied for and against the pipeline in 2011, a ThinkProgress Green analysis shows.

An analysis of lobbying disclosure records for the first, second, and third quarters of 2011 suggests that the lobbying expenses of the 20 or more business and labor interests who backed the project were much greater than those for the seven organizations that actively opposed the measure:

– Thirty-eight different companies or organizations reported lobbying the federal government on the Keystone XL pipeline in general or on H.R.1938 (the North American-Made Energy Security Act, a bill which aimed to speed up the Obama administration’s consideration of the application). Thirty-one groups supported the pipeline, and seven groups opposed it.

– TransCanada’s lobbying efforts alone over the first three quarters of 2011 totaled at least $920,000.

– The seven groups in opposition to Keystone XL spent just over $1 million on all lobbying efforts. Corporate Ethics International, Defenders of Wildlife, EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund, the League of Conservation Voters, the National Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club, and the Western Organization of Resource Councils reported spending just over $1 million on lobbying efforts for the periods when they were lobbying on Keystone XL — little more than TransCanada’s spending. Lobbying disclosure forms do not specify how much is spent on individual issues.

– The 31 groups supporting Keystone XL spent $59.8 million on all lobbying. Combined with the massive lobbying prowess of supporters like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ConocoPhillips, Shell Oil, Exxon Mobil Corporation, the American Petroleum Institute, and the National Association of Manufacturers, as well as less expected players like the National Taxpayers Union and Deere & Company, supporters of the pipeline had lobbying operations over the periods in which they lobbied on application totaling at least $59.8 million.

– Oil and energy companies alone spent more than $37 million on total lobbying.

TransCanada has vowed to reapply. If these numbers are any indication, they will likely do so with some well-funded allies.

See the organizations who reported lobbying on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in the first three quarters of 2011:

Note: this chart does not include entities whose official position on the bill could not be determined

1. Primary Colors (1998): Unlike most political movies, which set up a dichotomy between often-unnamed but clearly defined members of opposite parties, the vast majority of Primary Colors takes place during the Democratic primary. That means you get tough debates, hilariously incompetent campaign volunteers who get whipped into a professional fighting force, the entrance of a late-breaking messiah candidate who turns out to be not-so-messianic, and best of all, a deeply cranky conversation about a meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. This is politics as informed and presented by people who have actually been there.

2. Definitely, Maybe (2008): This movie may be disguised as a romantic comedy, but it’s a savvy look at the disappointment of the Clinton years that draws its small dramas from an actual understanding of political pressure points. Fundraising gets you places. Both candidates and journalists have a dangerous desire to be liked. Not putting union bugs on Democratic paper goods during a campaign is disastrous. The president probably will not remember his early volunteers years down the road.

3. The American President (1995) and Thank You For Smoking (2005): It’s sort of amazing how naive Aaron Sorkin is about lobbying in The American President, a movie that makes the profession look so sexy and principled it’s sort of shocking it wasn’t a product of the influence industry itself. Thank You For Smoking is a loopy tonic to that misconception. Watch this double-header as we gear up for a Super PAC-filled election year, and vow not to get fooled again.

4. Contagion (2011): In the hysteria of an election year, it can be easy to forget that there’s life beyond politics and elected officials. But a lot of what’s important about presidential candidates is the people they’d appoint to serve under them, and any administration is limited in the changes it can make by layers of existing bureaucracy, regulations, and the time it takes to turn a ship much bigger than the Titanic around. Contagion‘s a critically important reminder that in crisis, it’s not always a matter of whose finger is on the button.

5. All the President’s Men (1976) and Dick (1999): These two very different retellings of the same essential story make two different but critically important points. First, journalism is hard, and it’s difficult to do it even when you have all the right breaks and time in which to do it: so how hard must it be to nail down true stories on the campaign trail, where everyone is sleep-deprived and exhausted, and events are moving extraordinarily rapidly. Second, politicians are people, often eccentric, obnoxious people. They want power, but they want other things too, including pot brownies and to kick their dogs.

He’s done this all independently without any input from me. I respect Josh Block but I 100 percent disagree with much of his language. People can disagree about Israel’s policies without being anti-Semites. In fact I think it’s a terrible mistake to blur the two. We should be able to debate Israel’s policies. I am very pro-Israel. I believe the onus for negotiations is on the Palestinians but both Israelis and Palestinians share responsibility. However, that’s all fair debate. Israelis debate the subject. We debate the subject. Impugning motives of people at the Center [for American Progress] and impugning [that] those motives are driven by anti-Semitism is, in my opinion, wrong. I respect John Podesta and the Center greatly.

In our post yesterday on Block, we explained that Davis “represented business interests backing the 2009 coup in Honduras.” In an interview today, Davis responded, “I am on the record as having opposed the illegal and indefensible deportation of Mr. Zelaya. Suggestions that I supported a military coup are simply false.”

Davis also defended his lobbying work for the Ivory Coast, telling ThinkProgress, “The Ivory Coast Embassy in DC retained me, not Mr. Gbagbo. My mission, among other things, working behind the scenes for ten days before I quit, was to facilitate a phone call from the President of the United States to Mr. Gbagbo to bring about a face saving effort to avoid bloodshed.”

General Electric spent more lobbying the government than it did in federal income taxes between 2008 and 2010.

Today, thousands of 99 Percenters will march on K Street in Washington, D.C. as a part of an action called “Take Back The Capitol,” taking aim at the lobbying firms that corporate interests use to influence the federal government.

A report released this month by Public Campaign demonstrates just how important it is for Americans to battle corporate special interests and reclaim our democracy. The group’s research finds that thirty big corporations actually spent more money lobbying the federal government between 2008 and 2010 than they spent in taxes. For example, General Electric — one of the top 10 most profitable companies in the world — got a net tax rebate of $4.7 billion during this period. Meanwhile, it spent $84 million lobbying the federal government.

Here’s the full list of the 30 corporations identified and what they paid in federal taxes as opposed to lobbying:

To follow today’s actions, check out Take Back The Capitol’s website, and find instant updates about the protest through the hashtag #99indc. ThinkProgress will be covering today’s events at our 99 Percent Movement special topics page.

But Gingrich also worked with state lawmakers, particularly on behalf of his Center for Health Transformation (CHT). The New York Times last week highlighted meetings conducted with Georgia lawmakers in 2004, wherein Gingrich promoted the activities of VitalSprings — a paying member of CHT. According to Politico’s Emily Schultheis, those meetings likely constituted lobbying under state law. If so, Gingrich’s failure to register as a lobbyist may amount to a violation of a Georgia law that was in place at the time:

The state’s lobbying laws have recently changed, adding a 10 percent threshold for amount of time spent on lobbying activities — but in 2004, the two main requirements for lobbyist registration were compensation for promoting products or companies to lawmakers, or spending over $250 on those promotion activities.

William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, says Gingrich should have been a registered lobbyist in the state.

“If he was receiving compensation — and it doesn’t have to be compensation for lobbying [specifically] — and you have a meeting with legislators to try to get either something passed or you’re representing a vendor, you’d have to register,” he said.

As ThinkProgress has reported, Gingrich has a lengthy history of peddling the interests of companies that pay him, even if he has never met the threshold to register as a federal lobbyist. Now, however, it appears that Gingrich may not only have acted as a lobbyist on the state level, but that he may have also broken Georgia law in trying to avoid disclosure.

Yates, whose biography on the Newt Gingrich campaign website only lists him as president of DC International Advisors, “a consultancy,” since 2006, had an extremely active lobbying career in the two years following his job as Deputy Assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney for National Security Affairs from 2001 to 2005. The Gingrich campaign’s decision to leave Yates’ career as vice president of the “global affairs practice” at Barbour Griffith & Rogers off his official bio, might have something to do with the two years of active lobbying he conducted on behalf of foreign clients.

In 2005 and 2006, while he was based at Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Yates was listed on lobbying disclosures as having represented the interests of:

Yates also serves as a director at the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council.

The campaign’s decision to present Yates’ biography without any reference to his career at Barbour Griffith & Rogers or his representation of Taiwanese, Indonesian, Lebanese, Indian and British interests in Washington, raises questions. Indeed, Yates’ two-year career as a lobbyist focusing almost exclusively on foreign clients seeking influence in Washington is an interesting omission from a biography that portrays Gingrich’s national security adviser as a career civil servant.

Yates’ background in public service would indicate that he has a strong interest in U.S. foreign policy and national security. But his two years as a professional lobbyist might also suggest that annual contracts of $740,000 with the Indonesian National Shipowners Association, $720,000 with the Republic of India, and $1.5 million with the Republic of China (Taiwan), held a certain appeal in more recent years.

Palin has given the thumbs-up to major lobbying reforms. Will conservatives join her?

Today, former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin blasts this insider trading and other practices related to the link between Big Money and Congress in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Complaining that Congress has “occupied Wall Street” and is profiting off of its inside connections, Palin calls for a series of lobbying reforms:

What are the solutions? We need reform that provides real transparency. Congress should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act like everyone else. We need more detailed financial disclosure reports, and members should submit reports much more often than once a year. All stock transactions above $5,000 should be disclosed within five days.

We need equality under the law. From now on, laws that apply to the private sector must apply to Congress, including whistleblower, conflict-of-interest and insider-trading laws. Trading on nonpublic government information should be illegal both for those who pass on the information and those who trade on it. (This should close the loophole of the blind trusts that aren’t really blind because they’re managed by family members or friends.)

No more sweetheart land deals with campaign contributors. No gifts of IPO shares. No trading of stocks related to committee assignments. No earmarks where the congressman receives a direct benefit. No accepting campaign contributions while Congress is in session. No lobbyists as family members, and no transitioning into a lobbying career after leaving office. No more revolving door, ever.

Whether Palin is truly sincere about calling for these reforms or is simply riding a wave of political anger is unclear. But she concludes her piece by saying that the “The grass-roots movements of the right and the left should embrace” these reforms. Yet the institutional right-wing in American politics has always resisted reforms to the lobbying system. The bill before the House of Representatives to ban the form of insider trading 60 Minutes highlighted had only five co-sponsors before the report aired — all Democrats. Afterward, it has 40 Democratic Party co-sponsors and a paltry six Republican co-sponsors. If Palin is really serious about pushing for these reforms, she should publicly call on these fellow conservatives in Congress by name to join her in enacting them.

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) erupts at a constituent who asked about the bank lobby

Freshman Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) is known for his anti-Obama rhetoric on cable television and his inability to pay his child support payments. But during a recent meeting with constituents in his Chicago-area suburban district, Walsh lost his cool when several attendees asked about why banks have so much power in government. At one point, Walsh even threatened to eject a man who asked Walsh about the revolving door of bank lobbyists infiltrating Congress and financial regulatory agencies.

Walsh at one point screamed, “don’t blame the banks … this pisses me off!” After several constituents accurately pointed out that bank lobbyists occupy key positions within Congress, the SEC, and other oversight bodies that are supposed to supervise bank practices, Walsh began sticking his finger close to his constituent’s faces, yelling, “quiet for a minute or I’ll have to ask you to leave.” The constituent, who had calmly asked his question before being cut-off midway through his sentence, obliged:

WALSH: Thats not the problem! The problem is you’ve got to be consistent. And I dont want government meddling in the marketplace. Yeah, they move from Goldman Sachs to the White House, I understand all of that. But you gotta’ be consistent. And it’s not the private marketplace that created this mess. What created mess was your government, which has demanded for years that everybody be in a home. And we’ve made it easy as possible for people to be in homes. [...] Don’t blame banks, and don’t blame the marketplace for the mess we’re in right now! I am tired of hearing that crap! This pisses me off! Too many people don’t listen. [...]

WALSH: Quiet for a minute! Quiet for a minute!

CONSTITUENT: Joe, what did I say–

WALSH: Quiet for a minute or I’m going to ask you to leave. You need to listen, or I’m going to ask you to leave.

Watch it:

The conversation moved from talking about influence of the bank lobby to larger structural problems in government. Walsh absurdly claimed that worker unions have more power and money than corporations in America. But he was quickly rebutted by his constituent, who said that in any case, unions serve worker interests while corporate lobbies push for private, selfish interests. The video of the exchange, which occurred during Walsh’s “Cup of Joe with Joe Walsh” event on Sunday in the town of Gurnee, Illinois, was posted on YouTube last night by Gene Taylor’s District116.org blog.

Occupy the Securities and Exchange Commission?

In August, Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi detailed a jaw-dropping scandal at the SEC. For nearly 20 years, a whistleblower complaint alleges that regulators systematically deleted files related to investigations of fraudulent activity at major financial institutions as well as cases of insider trading. The document-destroying regulators, who trashed investigations related to Bernie Madoff and Goldman Sachs, then took jobs at the same banks they protected from prosecution. Investigator Paul Thacker reported for Forbes.com that current SEC enforcement head Robert Khuzami was recommended for his position by Richard Walker, a regulator who spun through the revolving door to work at Deutsche Bank after allegedly squashing an SEC inquiry into a case of suspected insider trading at Deutsche Bank.

Since the Occupy Wall Street movement protests bank-domination of government and the Tea Party protests incompetent government, perhaps the SEC is the place for common cause. The Project on Government Oversight and ThinkProgress have detailed many cases of bank lobbyists infiltrating government at the highest levels and currying favor for the big banks.

We asked Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), a far right lawmaker who has made a habit of leading Tea Party protests, about the prospect for synergy. Even Price, who typically promotes big bank interests as a member of Congress, conceded that current protest movements are “frustrated by a lack of regulation” on “certain sectors of society,” like the banking industry:

Watch it here:

For an extended transcript, click more.

FANG: Rolling Stone and New York Times reported that one of the reasons why maybe there weren’t prosecutions for the firms involved in creating the financial crisis was because of the revolving door at the SEC. A lot of the banks got too close with the SEC, got their people in there—

PRICE: Sure.

FANG: –corrupted a lot of the bureaucrats. Do you think there’s a synergy between the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement, that they should be protesting the corruption at the SEC?

PRICE: Well I think that both of them recognize that the regulatory regime in our country is broken and now it’s being used solely for political purposes and not for a regulatory oversight of whatever entity you have in this country. We didn’t have the challenge that we have because of too much regulation, er, too little regulation. We have the challenge that we have because the regulators didn’t doo their job. And so, as far as these current protests are frustrated by the lack of regulation, or regulatory oversight on certain sectors of society, in some ways, that’s correct because they didn’t do their job. That doesn’t mean you need more regulation, that means you need regulators who do their job.