A couple of interesting, albeit perhaps unrelated, stories.

I read a couple of interesting stories this morning, and while they may not bear any relationship to one another it's interesting to me that they both appear on the same day.

First, Taegan Goddard noted this morning that a a time-honored money maker in DC seems to be drying up.

Lobbyists this year began terminating their formal registrations with the federal government at significantly higher levels than usual, a joint study by OMB Watch and the Center for Responsive Politics has found.

The OMB Watch-CRP study found 1,418 "deregistrations" of federally registered lobbyists during the second quarter of 2009, a marked increase for any reporting period during all of 2008 and 2009. This occurred shortly after President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13490, which created new restrictions on former lobbyists appointed to the executive branch. Guidance was then issued in March, which marks the start of the 2nd quarter reporting, that enacted a gift ban and further restricted the kind of communications lobbyists could have about stimulus and TARP funds. Via a recent blog post, the White House also announced, “it is our aspiration that federally registered lobbyists not be appointed to agency advisory boards and commissions,” a practice that is common today.

And over at Newshoggers, Dave Anderson pointed out that a former Bush US Attorney resigned from her gig with no private sector job to fall back on.

The Pittsburgh Comet is passing along reasonably solid rumors that the Pittsburgh Republican establishment and more particularly, its Republican leaning law firms made it clear that there would be no work available for Ms. Buchanan.

Is the Conservative Gravy Train coming off the rails? It may be a little early to say for sure, but if lobbyists are jumping ship and a Loyal Bushie can't get a private law gig, we can at least say the gravy train's slowing down a bit. Good news.