By David Dayen
Late last month, two former policymakers and lobbyists teamed up for an op-ed in the Washington Post.
It was, as the genre goes, fairly mundane: a description of a problem
or a threat, and a prescription that just happens to benefit a
particular corporate sector that the lobbyists just might have an
interest in benefiting.
In a piece titled “Why America needs low-yield nuclear warheads now,”
Michael Morell and Jon Kyl argued that Russian and Chinese nuclear
modernization programs demanded a response. “Russia is intent on
exploiting what it perceives as a U.S. nuclear capability gap,” they
write. “We must change that calculation” by adding submarine and
sea-launched missiles with nuclear warheads. This would increase
deterrence and prevent nuclear war, they claim; otherwise Russia will
strike first.
The only difference here is that while Morell is a lobbyist — technically speaking a “senior counsel” at advisory firm Beacon Global Strategies — Kyl no longer is. As of this writing, Jon Kyl is a sitting U.S. senator.
Kyl, who served in the House and the Senate for decades but retired in 2012, was chosen to replace the late John McCain on an interim basis, as a placeholder before a special election for the seat in 2020. But Kyl, who was sworn in September 5,
never committed to filling out the vacancy for the next two years; from
the beginning, he only committed to serve through the lame-duck
session, and he is widely expected to leave after that. That means that
the final senator for the next Congress has yet to be determined.
Few have paid much attention to Kyl, who is wrapping up one of the
strangest and — to his critics — one of the most corrupt tenures in the
modern history of the Senate. Kyl was a registered lobbyist at a
powerhouse D.C. law firm, who lived and worked in Washington for five
and a half years before taking a four-month gig as a senator. His only
floor speeches have involved matters at least glancingly tied to his
lobbying. His entire term of office seems like a calculated attempt to
refresh his contacts and gain clout from the inside, only to spin back
out to influence the institution. He’s supposed to represent Arizona,
but increasingly it appears that he only represents K Street.
Click here for the full article.
Source: The Intercept_
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