That Mysterious K Street Project....
Care to peek inside the K Street Project? That sensitive Republican project designed to rid lobbying firms and trade associations of Democrats and populate them with staunch conservative allies of lawmakers?
It's there, in plain view: at its website, www.kstreetproject.com.
The project's mission statement engages in a bit of misdirection.
The "K Street Project," it says, "is non-partisan research of political affiliation, employment background, and political donations of members in Washington DC's premier lobbying firms, trade associations, and industries."
In other words -- anyone who adheres to free market principles is a team player. Well, no. The process of researching the info may be non-partisan -- in the sense that Google searching is non-partisan -- but
the project has, in reality, made it harder for Dems of any ideological stripe to join K Street firms and lobbyists. And it's given senior Republicans on the Hill an unprecedented degree of input in the process.
The "research" component of the K Street Project website tracks lobbyist hires and uses FEC databases to discover what parties and candidates the potential recruits and hires have given to.
For example:
"The American Gas Association is seeking to hire a lobbyist, preferably a Democrat. Interested job candidates should contact Rick Shelby."
Or:
"Jack Thomas Tomarchio is now Director of Intelligence for the Department of Homeland Security. Prior, Tomarchio lobbied for Buchanan Ingersoll. Tomarchio has given political contributions to Representative Joe Hoeffel (D-PA), Representative Jim Gerlach (R-PA), Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania, and Senator Joe Biden (D-DE)."
The site asks for tips on potential firm and association hires. It does not mention Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), who worked with Norquist in the 1990s to exploit the database in Congress and nominate pedigreed staffers to to fill open K Street jobs.
Senate GOP input for the K Street Project has been coordinated by several lawmakers, including Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA); until recently, maj. whip Roy Blunt's helped to guide the program in the House.
The irony of Democrats protesting their inability to join white shoe lobbying entities is beyond the scope of this post, and it's true that labor unions often possess a quiet veto of Dems appointed to government posts. Liberal interest groups certainly exercise their influence when Dems control the executive branch.
Still, Dems familiar with the history of what Brooks Jackson has called "Honest Graft" insist that they've never directed legislative favors to liberal interests in exchange for hiring -- or not hiring -- certain candidates. (Grover Norquist, not surprisingly, claims to have reams of evidence suggesting otherwise."
While it's true that Dems in power must negotiate between labor and corporate interests, and correct that Republicans, as Nick Confessore wrote in a partisan but smart Washington Monthly piece, ,demand total unity of purpose, of message, and in job-placement -- The Dems doesn't really need to worry that conservatives will suddenly rush to lobby for labor unions -- or that labor unions would hire them if they did. [MARC AMBINDER]
Also today, a memo defending the project was distributed to attendees at Grover Norquist's Wednesday meeting of conservatives, libertarians and GOP staffers.
The memo pegs the origin of the project to the "late 1980s" in response to "an advertisement" in Roll Call "placed by a Fortune 500 company" seeking a DC lobbyist. The ad said the firm "was looking for a Democrat. Only a Democrat." That "was the straw that broke the camel's back." The men and women that companies hired to lobby for them "had spend their lives regulating, taxing and expanding government." The "goal of the K Street Project was and is quite simple."
The project "advises companies and trade associates to hire men and women who understand free-market economics, who support their principled positions for free trade, against tort law abuse and for lower and more transparent taxation." From the memo: "The old model of Jim Wright and Tony Coehlo of hiring for access must be rejected."
Interesting thing about that website, too -- the domain was first registered (i.e. created) on April 18, 2005. Less than a year ago.
The K Street Project has been around for about a decade. Liberals/progressives have been talking about the wide web of corruption surrounding Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, and the K Street Project for at least a few years.
It's my suspicion that this web site was only recently created to provide the initial appearance of a non-partisan group once the buzz surrounding it started getting wider attention in the media (and in the Department of Justice).
A simple whois lookup shows us that the person responsible for creating kstreetproject.com is one Matthew Braynard:
---
Domain name: kstreetproject.com
Registrant Contact:
Matthew Braynard (matt@braynard.com)
+1.2024235333
Fax: na
1226 N. Vernon Street
na
VA, na
US
Administrative Contact:
Matthew Braynard (matt@braynard.com)
+1.2024235333
Fax: na
1226 N. Vernon Street
na
VA, na
US
Technical Contact:
Matthew Braynard (matt@braynard.com)
+1.2024235333
Fax: na
1226 N. Vernon Street
na
VA, na
US
Status: Locked
Name Servers:
ns1.s402.sureserver.com
ns2.s402.sureserver.com
Creation date: 18 Apr 2005 20:42:18
Expiration date: 18 Apr 2006 20:42:18
---
Who is Matt Braynard? A simple google search reveals some interesting links:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Matt+Braynard
The first interesting link is to a comment he posted on Pat Buchanan's site:
http://www.buchanan.org/mb-012.html
"Dear Pat,
I agree with you on nearly all issues and wish to see our ideas prevail. Please stay and help me fight within the Republican party. It is where you can make the biggest difference, and that is the only thing that counts.
-- Matt Braynard - Washington, DC
"
He was quoted in an article in the Washington Times saying that protesters in DC at an antiwar rally were deliberately blocking ambulances from getting to injured people. Where did I find this gem? Why, Little Green Footballs! Where else??
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=5993#c0038
He might also be a member of Washington DC's largest computer gaming society!
http://www.havoclan.com/?action=players
And is the contact person for a 527 PAC called "Doctors for Affordable Healthcare". Apparently the PAC had no contributions or expenditures:
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/527/doctors_for_affordable_healthcare.asp
Another comment he made is only available in Google's cache:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:OxV2IVfQVUkJ:www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/01/harding+Matt+Braynard&hl=en
"
Bow before her!
Ann Coulter is the most brilliant columnist to ever walk the earth. She is the smartest woman alive. But I know the real reason why the left hates her - and it's not because of her politics:
It's because she is stunningly beautiful. That is what they hate most about her. In their world, all of the pretty women are suppose to be on their side, not on the right - they are suppose to dedicate their lives to the destruction and hatred - economically, socially, religiously - of life and freedom.
It's the female version of why the left hates Rush Limbaugh - because he is so rich - and self made rich - the worse kind.
Even though Harding is an alleged 'Christian' school, the kind of clowns who wind up working in administrative positions at such a university are still leftists - who else would be drawn to such a job that requires no real work or skill other than schmoozing. They just used the excuse of a lot of complaints to get rid of Ann.
But I wager she will still be on campus - the College Republicans/Conservatives will invite her to speak and mark my words - it will be the _best attended_ lecture in the history of the university.
Face it haters - Ann is God, her words are divine, and her 'fifteen minutes of fame' are going on a steady 10 years since People named her one of the most Beautiful People in America.
Matt Braynard, Ann Coulter is God, at 4:45 am EDT on September 2, 2005
"
And he might also be a project analyst for an outfit called "Election Data Services":
http://www.electiondataservices.com/content/mbraynard.htm
http://www.electiondataservices.com/who.htm
It's also worth noting that the vast majority of hits are web-related, either administration (running a mailing list, etc) or web programming related.
My best guess? Matt Braynard is a lonely right-wing computer geek, probably a higher-level officer serving in the 101st Fighting Keyboardists, who's social life consists mostly of playing commando-style computer games online for hours and hours. When he's not providing some choice stories about some bastard peace protesters, that is.
I suspect that he either took it upon himself to register kstreetproject.com and hope that someone higher up on the right-wing foodchain would notice it (and therefore him). He'd undoubtedly get off if a staffer of a GOP congressperson or think tank contacted him.
Since he's the contact for a do-nothing PAC, perhaps registering kstreetproject.com was an attempt to make some cash -- perhaps someone would be willing to pay him to either buy the domain or pay him to be the webmaster for it. That was my suspicion about the PAC -- trying to build up some steam for a PAC that hit some rich MDs up to lobby against a national healthcare program.
Or, less likely in my opinion, someone already new that he was a right-wing kool-aid drinker with web experience, and asked/paid him to buy, build, and maintain that site.
Anyway, I also found a link to a post at Washington Monthly, where another reader posted a similar "Who is Matt Braynard?" comment, though no one could offer any follow up:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_01/007992.php
Anyone else know who this jackass is?
brilliant research! btw, i found this link as part of a google news search for 'k street project' and this is one of the top hits, which does go far in favor of the argument that there is barely any coverage of this entity in the mainstream media. that website is a trip... how about those cartoon illustrations?!? creepy children as stand-ins for creepy lobbyists? i wonder what else we might find after a nice thorough scan of mr. braynard's computer hard drive.
i also did a search for abramoff on the site and there were no hits. guess he didn't quite make their 'street cleaning' list.
ps. ann coulter IS a goddess.
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