NEWS - Doing Business With Despots

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Subject: NEWS - Doing Business With Despots  - Who are you going to call? The Wexler Group. 

http://www.mojones.com/news_wire/silverstein.html

Doing Business With Despots 

Who are you going to call? The Wexler Group. 

by Ken Silverstein 
April 28, 1998 

                    First, we provided a step-by-step guide on how
USA*Engage, a
                    coalition of the nation's biggest exporters, has
secretly managed
                    to promote trade with countries such as China, Iran,
Burma,
                    Nigeria, and other human rights abusers by
apparently drafting
                    legislation, and devising a strategy?with the help
of State
                    Department officials?to recruit religious leaders. 

                    Meanwhile, "liberal" superlobbyist Anne Wexler,
                    who runs the USA*Engage campaign, tried to
                    spin our story in the Washington Post, claiming,
                    absurdly, that we just downloaded memos from
                    the USA*Engage Web site, and also suggested
                    that someone must have hacked into her
                    computer (we didn't). 

                    Now, we've discovered more internal memos
                    from USA*Engage. The first exposes its most
                    detailed plan to kill the pro-human rights Religious
Persecution
                    Act. The second shows the group's plan to match
corporate
                    lobbyists with members of Congress to recruit
co-sponsors for
                    its own bill, which would restrict the use of human
rights
                    sanctions. 

                    We've also obtained memos that give keen insight
into how The
                    Wexler Group, one of the Beltway's top lobbying
groups,
                    operates, including a breakdown of the firm's total
billings for the
                    month of September 1997, and a bizarre transcript of
a
                    vaudeville-like "skit" on being successful in
Washington that The
                    Wexler Group prepared for the National Franchise
Association,
                    which represents Burger King franchise owners. A
sample song
                    (to the tune of "Officer Krupke," from West Side
Story): 

                    Dear Senator Max Baucus
                    I wanted you to know
                    This minimum wage ruckus
                    Is just a lot of blow
                    My workers earn a living wage, it ain't sub-standard
pay
                    Why's Ted Kennedy ruining my day?

                       

                    Ken Silverstein is a Mother Jones contributing
writer and
                    co-editor of CounterPunch, a Washington, D.C.,
investigative
                    newsletter. He is most recently the author of
Washington on $10
                    Million a Day: How Lobbyists Plunder the Nation.