Homeless Get Paid To Wait In Lines For Lobbyists On Capitol Hill

[snake in the grass]

Run time: 01:46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYJrFYFGd_E   Posted on YouTube: July 19, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: July 20, 2009 By DU Member: snake in the grass Views on DU: 1103

 
For lobbyist scum nothing is too despicable, if it helps them to push their agenda. In this clip it is revealed that they pay homeless people to stand in line for hearings so as to prevent opposing groups from being present. Sometimes I think violence is the only way we are going to be able to shake ourselves free from these lobbying parasites.

[radiclib]

1. They've been doing this forever

It's a perfect microcosm of The Way Things Work. :puke:

[Captain Hilts]

2. Also students, and residents of the Virgin Vault across the street. Been going on for decades. nt

[niceypoo]

3. High Class bums in DC

Good to know that the future of health care sits on the patient shoulders of the homeless

[lindisfarne]

4. Are they paying payroll taxes for their workers? n/t

[defendandprotect]

5. We should bar lobbyists from the halls of Congress . .. .

PLEASE let's end campaign finance BRIBERY --

but until then, there should be a limit on how many lobbyists can eat up the time
of elected officials. How many citizens visit their elected officials?

[Apollo11]

6. What exactly is going on here?

It looks to me like this guy is being paid to wait in line. The line is waiting to get seats in the public gallery at a hearing in Congress. The guy doesn't take the seat himself, but he is is keeping place in line for a lobbyist. The lobbyist can show up 5 minutes before the doors open and be sure of getting a seat. Is this what is happening?

If so then it's not the case that they are preventing opposing groups from being present.

Do we know for sure that progressive organizations are prevented from attending hearings because all the seats have been taken up by people (homeless, or students, or whatever) paid by lobbyists to fill-up all the seats? If not then the OP is misleading.

[BlueMTexpat]

9. While I realize that this practice has been going on "forever" ...

and I remember it being commonly known as a good way for students to earn money back when I myself was a student in DC, even then I was "shocked" and thought that it was at the very least a subversion of the political process. I refused to participate in such myself, but many didn't have the same options that I did.
The salient fact that your comment omits is that lobbyists have a lot of money to pay people for whatever. So long as they pay more people to stand in line for them and thus effectively deny places to others, whether those "others" are "opposing groups" or whether they are simply ordinary citizens hoping to see how Congressional hearings work who are standing in line for themselves, then they are preventing those groups from being present.
So I don't see how the OP is misleading.

[Aum123]

7. You've got to be kidding

[florida08]

8. and this poor guy

promotes their fascist agenda that they're worthy of treating us like ca-ca. :scared: