Jesse Ventura Quotes

The special interests are protected in Washington and the public interest is submerged.

There are no generalizations in American politics that vested selfishness cannot cut through.

Washington's a cesspool of money.

Farmers who are legislators are the easiest to buy and seduce.

The worst enemy of good government is not our ignorant foreign voter [immigrants], but our educated domestic railroad president, our prominent business man, our leading lawyer.

On streets where statesmen once strolled, a never-ending stream of money now changes hands—tying the hands of those elected to lead.

Washington is rigged to favor people who have an army of lobbyists.

American democracy is spoiled by people buying everything in sight and then selling and buying everything in sight, including our politicians.

Great wealth took possession of the government. It was reflected in Mr. Harding's selection of a cabinet.

Law has become a business. Health care has become a business. Unfortunately, politics has also become a business. That really undermines society.

Sadly we have government of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists, and for the lobbyists. That is no way to run the Senate.

He [Donald Trump] buys and sells politicians of all stripes.

The theory is that election to Congress is tantamount to being dispatched to Washington on a looting raid for the enrichment of your state or district, and no other ethic need inhibit the feeding frenzy.

A liberal doesn’t sell out to the special interests.

Money distorts the democratic process in a fundamental way.

Government isn't a religion. It shouldn't be treated as such. It's not God; it's humans, fallible people, feathering their nests most of the time.

The host of contractors, speculators, stockjobbers, and lobby members which haunt the halls of Congress, all desirous ... to get their arm into the public treasury, are sufficient to alarm every friend of this country. Their progress must be arrested.

[Referring to the Senate:] ... a bunch of fat cats up there raking in the bucks.

There's the stench of money around this building [the Capitol].

Congressmen are not bribed anymore. They simply have a lot of friends who are willing to help them out whenever they find it necessary.

There's an impression in the public that Congress takes care of its own.

vested interest

It's obscene how money is driving politics.

One thing about a pig. He thinks he's warm if his nose is warm. I saw a bunch of pigs one time that had frozen together in a rosette, each one's nose tucked under the rump of the one in front. We have a lot of pigs in politics.

On Capitol Hill money doesn't talk. It bellows.