Political Punch

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Sharon

Another lobbyist on Obama's transition team is Susan Crawford, of the lobbying group Public Knowledge. Public Knowledge has taken an extreme stance, lobbying for massive regulation of the Internet (in a way that suits its supporters, of course). Crawford is involved, on the transition team, in choosing a chairperson for the FCC and dictating telecommunications policy. This is blatant self-dealing and should be contrary to ANY rational code of ethics. But is the Obama administration doing anything about this? Nope.

I am sick and tired of the dam elections,sick of looking at the LOrd Obama,and his Marxist educated ideas ect,.Woe to the New Socialist republic of United States.

Melissa--

Obama often pointed out his opponents had more lobbyist connections and money than he did. Ickes and Penn were two of Clinton's top lobbyist/ advisers, and McCain's campaign was run by lobbyist/advisers Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt.

These rules sound like common sense.
For all those who would lump anyone who lobbied for anything into an unusable pool of employees for the new administration, that's just nuts. These new rules will help keep lobbyists from having too much power in Washington.
Just compare Obama's rules of lobbyists to Cheney and Bush allowing oil and energy corporations to write our energy policy during those closed door meetings. How did that work out for all of us?

"....if they return to lobbying after the transition they cannot lobby on the issue they worked on for the transition in the next year." (From Jake's story)

What is the Obama transistion team going to do? Make new employees sign a pledge not to lobby on the same issues as worked on for 12 months after leaving? A lot of weight such a pledge is not going to have. The top man on the pyramid reneged on his own pledge to accept matching federal financing and limits in the general election. So if they follow his example then...(I don't need to explain the rest.)

"....Good government types say these are the strongest ethics rules a transition team has ever had."

These good government types are either gullible saps or in the bag for Obama -- I can't figure out which. Whether you liked John McCain or not, one thing that could be said for him is he talked the talk and walked the walk (yes, I know the election is over). As for Obama, the theme already seems to be, "Do as I say, not as I do."

This comes as no surprise. The Obama campaign just finds new names or labels to justify its actions. Now its "bundlers" instead of lobbyists, take money from employees of corporations but not the "corporation itself" etc etc etc.... Change we can believe in....They change the name and you believe it..... Too funny and so so naive.

So Obama has gone back on his lobbyist pledge and he has been exposed as a liar? This is not suprising.

"Life truly is like a BOX OF CHOCOLATES..you don't know--what your going to get"..Politics is like taking canday from a baby..<<--momma says.

Lobbying Renames.

Change the name, fool the people.

A Lobbist he hires can not lobby for the same company for a year. like that will hurt a lobbyist. They change companies anyhow.

Wasted vote here.

What is the redress for this grievance?

Billions in bonuses and bailouts for the “wonder boys” on Wall Street.
Precisely what have these self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe been doing for billion dollar year-end paydays?

Yesterday we found out.

In recent years “the brightest and best” have perfected the rule-making governing the manipulation of ‘free’ markets and the institutionalization of fraudulent financial instruments and business models.

What still mystifies me is this: What have these heirs of Ozymandias done in 2008 to merit this self-enrichment? More manipulation and more fraud for more ill-gotten gains, I suppose.

What can done to put right this massive wrongdoing?

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001

Come on, folks! Obama specifically said that if a person lobbied on an issue IN THE LAST YEAR he couldn't work on THAT ISSUE on his transition team or in his white house. He also specifically said that if they work on an issue in his transition team or in his white house, they cannot work on THAT ISSUE until they've been out of the white house for ONE YEAR. All the guys listed in this article have been out of the lobbying business for at least a year, and they aren't working on the issues they were lobbying about. So what's the big deal? He's keeping his promises in spite of all the badmouthing non-supporters like to do.

Danny What contrasts are we talking about? Clinton was actually pretty unapologetic about corporate money and lobbyists and attempted to point out
(as did Edwards) in the debates and throughout the primaries that Obama's rhetoric was just that- rhetoric. Both Edwards and Clinton pointed out in a debate that there is a way to take lobbyist money without taking it directly from lobbyists. In PA Obama had ads against Clinton saying that Clinton took money from the oil industry and yet no candidate can take money directly from British Petroleum
or Exxon Mobil but they can, and both did, take bundled money from people at BP and Exxon. Obama had rhetoric and McCain had action in regards to his actual work on campaign reform which he did with one of the most liberal Senators, Feingold, and his standing by his committment to taking public financing. I agree with you that Obama has not done 1 second as President yet and time will tell what he will do and he will rise or fall by his handling of domestic and foreign policy. I am behind Obama 100% and want him to succeed because he all have a vested interest in his doing so. Where I separate with some Obama supporters is that while I recognize the historical significance of his Presidency and his many gifts I also see him pretty realistically and do not see his win
as a movement nor do I see him as someone who will bring major change or reform to this Country. Will he bring change from 8 years of the failed Bush administration? Absolutely, but so would have McCain.

Melissa. You make some great points. I am not even sure if you are a Obama supporter or not but, regardless of that, you came well equipped with facts, and not all of them were complimentary to Obama. I'm suprised, at this point, the biasrator has allowed your post to still be up on this page.

I think this type of analysis is a bit premature.

Obama is not in the White House yet. He's not President. So we don't know much about whether any lobbyists will be working in his White House.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think much of his lobbying rhetoric during his campaign was to draw contrasts with the campaigns of Clinton and McCain.

It might be fair to compare his campaign to Clinton's and McCain's on the presence of lobbyists in high ranking positions.

We need to be realistic here. While many of us may be happy to see the Democrats back in the White House after 8 years of the Bush administration as one journalist recently pointed out the only one's who believe Obama will bring about some radical change are his die-hard supporters and Joe the Plumber.
The first clue should have been Obama's reneging on public financing. While I
think most of us understand his reasons for doing so- he wanted to win- we can't lose sight of the fact that one of the intent's of public financing is to limit the influence of special interests on politicians. The Obama campaign has been somewhat deceptive to the public in regards to their campaign funds. During the primaries Obama attacked Clinton saying that she had taken contributions from many of the financial institutions implicated in the sub-prime housing mess and yet he failed to mention he'd taken even more money. In fact he received equal to Clinton and more then McCain. Obama has broken records in regards to small donors (contributions under $200) and one is led to believe that almost all his funds are from small donors and yet the reality is only about 20% are from donors under $200. He doesn't take money directly from lobbyists and yet does take money from advisors/consultants to lobbyists and corporations who fund lobbyists. Most of Obama's record breaking small donors didn't come on board until early 2007 and where were the funds coming from before then? The Obama team are already going to be looking towards 2012
and the likelihood that they would consider public financing would be zip after raking in the money they did this election- they've set a disheartening precedent for those serious about campaign reform. For any major change we need to take the influence of corporate money out of politics and give voice back to the people of this Country. Obama will throw us bones during his first term but nothing more.
Any serious change from Obama, and that's a big IF, would not likely happen until his second term if indeed he has one.

"It's Obama's turn to get paid!"

And Repubs' turn to wander in the wilderness following their Messiahdonna Sarah Palin.

LOL.

moderate: "when #1, they were FORMER lobbyists"

He had a number of people caught on the payroll of various interested during the campaign. They were active lobbyists.

This is the face of change. Get used to it. It's Obama's turn to get paid!

I do not know of any replacement for the current system that would work. Strauss and Howe (1997) say that this period of Crisis is set to define cultural rights; and resolve around 2025 CE. I did a paper that defined Metric Linear Cost and Profit as a fair way to allocate resourse, and profits for goods, services, and raw ,materials. Of course, one must want to be fair, just and equatible for such a plan to work. The privatization of National resources only works against being just; and having concern -- so this allocation will most likely be ignored. I think that Clinton being called bush's other brother, the reassimulation of the Clinton group, and Clinton having suspect dealings to gain 100 million does not bode well for any hopes that Mutt's old man's story may have. In my opinion, only a war, famine, plague, or natural disaster will bring about the true change Obama pledged. It will be a harsh price to pay.