Second Term Revolving Door

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The Center for American Progress has a new report out called “The Second Term Revolving Door,” documenting new Bush administration officials who have ties to business, as well as former officials who are moving on to plush lobbying careers. In a the abstract, it’s hard to see the big deal: clearly a number of appointees in the executive branch are often going to have business experience; nor is it a big deal if civil servants want to cash out after they leave government. This administration, on the other hand, deserves very little benefit of the doubt, especially after it let industry lobbyists infiltrate the Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration (see here for a long list) and corporate cronies oversee their former companies in Iraq.

Perhaps most notably among the current batch, both Philip Perry, the General Counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, and Michael P. Jackson, Deputy Secretary for DHS, have ties to Lockheed (Perry a former lobbyist; Jackson a former COO). Tim Wiener reported in the New York Times last fall that Lockheed is “increasingly putting its stamp on the nation’s military policies” through its corporate connections. That process seems to be accelerating.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate