Sure..they can de-register as a lobbyist..and give up their livelihood and income...for a non-paying position on an advisory committee.

This is a "good government" program by any measure.

Will it prevent influence peddling? Certainly not.

Does it provide more transparency and less influence peddling. Absolutely...by a wide margin over previous administrations, D or R.

They have only given up their name and registration. Nothing else seems to have changed.

:lol2:

Isn't that like saying all a doctor has to do to get around FDA regulations is give up his medical license, and then he can practice all he wants? If you give up your registration, you may not work as a lobbyist to begin with.

It is done through other ways of contact.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/us...s/18lobby.html

Or from my personal experience as a lobbyist at one time, maybe its one of the those programs that is not perfect, but good.
(remember Voltaire :))

But I suspect nothing will satisfy some.

DeRegistered Lobbyists Start New Firm

Warning Redux! Partisan Source!

[quote]Citing what its founders call a "volatile climate for lobbyists," K Street Research opened shop today in hopes of helping clients with policy and research needs while lowering their lobbying disclosure numbers.

According Brien Bonneville,(pictured at right) the new firm's vice president, lobbying disclosure totals are often inflated because it's hard for lobbying firms to distinguish how much of their fees go to lobbying and how much go to other consulting services, such as policy advice and research. Bonneville and Larry Mitchell, (pictured below) the firm's president and chief operating officer, decided to depart their lobbying posts at KSCW to create a non-lobby shop just for those functions.

"We don't have to wear the 'Scarlet L' anymore," Bonneville said. "A number of corporations have needs outside of lobbying and we wanted to exploit that."

Bonneville said his main gripe with last year's new lobbying rules is that lobbyists cannot serve in the administration. After arriving in Washington two and a half years ago hoping to make a career out of lobbying, "now I can't say it's a career path I want to go down," he said. "It just sparked my mind into thinking of new avenues for my skill set and how to serve companies that don't want to be deemed evil."

continues:
http://undertheinfluence.nationaljou...ts-start-n.php

*shrug*

As I said, nothing will satisfy you.

Thats ok!

Have a great day. :)

Obama lobbying rules having unintended effects

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58C1MK20090913

Facts are facts, no matter how much you want to prevent the transparent observation of them.

I am actually quite satisfied that the Demoncrats no longer hold a majority in the Senate. I would have been more satisfied if the winner was an Independent or Libertarian and not a Republickin.

:lol:

Might as well tell him to Remember the Alamo or Remember the Titans...dude doesn't listen anyway!

Listen to Redux?!? :lol2:

I could just read the latest White House or Demoncratic talking points and get the same information. ;)

Damn GIF fail. Why is manage attachments converting it to jpg?

ok, fine...fucking HERE.

People always have, and always will, try to influence policy and legislation. Sometimes because it's for what they believe is the better good, most often for their own (or clients) gain.

At least Obama is trying to do something about the most blatant of these scumbags. If he kills 90% of the rats, try to come up with something more constructive than carping about the 10% that got away.

I could support killing off 100% of them.

The five decisions that defined President Obama’s first year
 

Well, lobbyists have been out full force since he was elected. They may not have a lot of acces to the WH, but they have major access to Congress, not to mention how much access Wall Street has to Geitner. Lobbyists pretty much WROTE the Senate health care 'reform' bill. And now, with the SC decision about corporations, we can expect things to get much, much worse. (because corporate America pretty much runs everything anyway)

What do you mean they no longer have a majority? They still have 59 or something.

My problem with dems is that they are so stupid they really messed up a good chance for major reform - of health care, of banking, of wall street... But noooo.

I hope like hell more independents and 3rd party candidates get elected. The time is ripe, and I am FED UP with republicans just saying NO to almost everything, and democrats caving in to corporate interests, especially in the Senate. I think almost ALL incumbets should be kicked to the curb.

Only when we let them. Not all corporate America is a problem. That would be like saying "Japanese cars verses American cars". An argument that completely ignores the problem. A subjective summary that will only decieve.

Many parts of corporate America are operating in America's interest. Did you see the long list of American companies that resigned or openly subverted their support for the Chamber of Commerce when that organization sided with the corrupt rather than for the long term objectives of America? The list included Nike, Coke, some computer manufacturers, etc.

A biggest problem in America is companies who believe their purpose is profits. Same reasoning justifies the mafia. Therefore GM cars have been so anti-American for 25 years. AIG so perverted the American economy that we had no choice but to bail them out. Goldman Sachs pays so many bonuses to finance people that could easily buy three Eisenhower, Carl Vincent, et al sized aircraft carriers. But then Goldman Sachs is not about what made America great - its products and innovations.

Goldman Sachs, et al is about leeching blood from the American public because finance people are more important than those who made America great. And so, for the first time in almost 100 years, America has seen no growth in ten years. Only some parts (too many) of the American economy work to subvert America for their own benefit.

If those employees are so good, then why are they wasting time and money on Wall Street? Why are they not out doing things that make America great? They forget to mention that when they claim they deserve seven, eight, nine, and ten digit incomes. This problem is not from all of corporate America.

And yes, by protecting so many corrupt companies, some bought and paid for politicians even hope that Obama fails. They just stopped saying it publically.

This health care dilemma has become a big nothing more than a big fiasco. Face the facts... no matter what happens - no one is going to be a winner no matter what happens.

I lost faith when the Democrats decided to cut a break for unions. Why? Because, historically, unions have always supported the Democrats (and I'm union). However, I cannot be bribed.

There should be Healthcare for everyone. How can we do this without affecting profit or high salaries (which is what it all really boils down to)? We can't. It's impossible. Someone or some group is going to be affected.

I'm glad they tried though.

What if only the Uber-rich have to pay, madman? Wasn't that where this whole thing started?

I remember hearing about that. Never considered my self a gullible person - especially with a background with the collection industry.

I'm not against Universal Health Care - I would love for every man, woman and child in this country to be covered by decent health care. I would also love it if our Democratic Leaders would be a little more open about what they are doing.

I lost a lot of faith in Obama when he address the nation a few months ago and he side-stepped his own transitional opening... In his speech he stated... "How are we going to pay for this?" Referring to the Health Care Plan. He never answered his own transition. I listened ever so intently for that answer. It was never answered.

The answer, of course, is obvious. Everyone is going to pay for it. What do the do in England? I believe everyone is taxed something like 12% of their income. Not sure about Canada (I should ask a couple of my relatives who live there).

Honestly, I'm so tired of the government fucking with our taxes - it just makes me sick anymore. I'm damn near ready to move to Mexico.

Just make sure you bring some guns with you if you go south :rolleyes:

Look, the goddamm demoncrats have proven that they are not one bit different from the republickans. All this bullshit that Redux and his party line propagandists have been feeding you have come to a head. The Dems lost big in Mass and November will be the real watershed. People are tired of the lies and promises that the Dems have been selling as snake oil to the American public. There are no jobs and the promises made to make jobs is more of the lies sold to you as a "stimulus package' and "millions of shovel ready jobs". It was all a lie to pass pork barrel spending for special interests and payback to those whores who supported the spending. As I have stated repeatedly, they are all about spend, spend, spend, and the taxes are yet to come. Keep your eye on Nov. Redux and others have marginalized Tea Party members as a tiny minority of the electorate and they were fucked by that attitude in Mass and they will be double fucked in Nov 10.

IMHO this country will be inept until we have a viable third party and neither of them have a D or R in front of their name.

That sounds good merc, but you've got one major flaw in your thinking. The letter in front of the name doesn't matter a damn bit so long as they are still career/professional politicians.

Just one? :rolleyes:

The stimulus package worked. Be sure to check the multimedia link on the article.

Her point is that other things the government did helped, too? I don't see the "not so fast" connection.

Her main complaint seems to be that the "multiplier" for money spent compared to GDP growth is too high. But the NYT article brings up the factor of money promised. When the states anticipated getting stimulus money, they began spending their money again. As the stimulus money is still being allocated, that effect will continue. So the multiplier should take into account some portion of the amount allocated, not just the amount spent.

Also, yes, there were other economic efforts going on at the same time.

And how many jobs have actually been created? This Congress is about to get a wake up call....

Great. Provide your reference. I would be glad to shoot holes in it for you.

Great list Radar. Other than the 2fers already mentioned, let's not forget these awesome accomplishments left off of the list.

1. Offended the Queen of England. Offended the prime minister of the U.K..
2. Bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia .
3. Praised the Marxist Daniel Ortega.
4. Kissed Socialist Hugo Chavez on the cheek.
5. Endorsed the Socialist Evo Morales of Bolivia .
6. Sided with Hugo Chavez and Communist Fidel Castro against Honduras .
7. Announced we would meet with Iranians with no pre-conditions while they’re building their nuclear weapons.
8. Gave away billions to AIG also without pre-conditions.
9. Expanded the bailouts.
10. Insulted everyone who has ever loved a Special Olympian.
11. Doubled our national debt.
12. Announced the termination of our new missile defense system the day after North Korea launched an ICBM.
13. Released information on U.S. intelligence gathering despite urgings of his own CIA director and the prior four CIA directors.
14. Accepted without comment that five of his cabinet members cheated on their taxes and two other nominees withdrew after they
couldn’t take the heat.
15. Appointed a Homeland Security Chief who identified military veterans and abortion opponents as “dangers to the nation.”
16. Ordered that the word “terrorism” no longer be used and instead refers to such acts as “man made disasters.”
17. Circled the globe to publicly apologize for America ’s world leadership.
18. Told the Mexican president that the violence in their country was because of us.
19. Politicized the census by moving it into the White House from the Department of Commerce.
20. Appointed as Attorney General the man who orchestrated the forced removal and expulsion to Cuba of a 9-year-old whose mother died trying to bring him to freedom in the United States .
21. Salutes as heroes three Navy SEALS who took down three terrorists who threatened one American life and the next day announces members of the Bush administration may stand trial for “torturing” three 9/11 terrorists by pouring water up their noses.
22. Low altitude photo shoot of Air Force One over New York City that frightened thousands of New Yorkers.
23. Sent his National Defense Advisor to Europe to assure them that the US will no longer treat Israel in a special manner and they
might be on their own with the Muslims.
24. Praised Jimmy Carter’s trip to Gaza where he sided with terrorist Hamas against Israel .
25. Nationalized General Motors and Chrysler while turning shareholder control over to the unions and freezing out retired
investors who owned their bonds. Committed unlimited taxpayer billions in the process.
26. Passed a huge energy tax in the House that will make American industry even less competitive while costing homeowners
thousands per year.
27. Announced nationalized health care “reform” that will strip seniors of their Medicare, cut pay of physicians, increase taxes yet
another $1 trillion, and put everyone on rationed care with government bureaucrats deciding who gets care and who doesn’t.
28. First Non-US citizen elected as US President.

Oh no you din't!
:corn:

I did. It's from my link.

Because that's all you do.

You're giving him too much credit. He doesn't even do that.

No holes in that one. :D

Good. Because it supports the numbers I posted, which are right in the middle of the CBO estimate, and on the low side of the WHCEA, which itself is well within the CBO.

Or were you under the impression that classicman's post was a refutation of mine in some way?

Dude, you can't take a range like that and really place any sort of validity on it. None.

What is invalid about the range? It's not precise, but do you have anything (anything at all) that disputes its accuracy (the words have different meanings)?

The CBO is a good sanity check. Any numbers outside that range can be discounted, and numbers inside that range can be inspected.

Keep in mind the CBO only deals with the numbers given to them. BS in BS out. They are certainly no crystal ball on what will really happen. The numbers have been invalidated by numerous organizations who are not associated with the government. Even if you took the low end of most estimates at 600k that is pissing in the wind compared to the number of jobs lost and the actual money expended and allocated per job created. Certainly you are not going to believe the numbers released by the White House.

You just simply cant accept any study that disputes your position....just admit it!

You are wrong about the recovery act not creating a significant number of jobs and stimuilating the economy and you are wrong about the recovery act being responsible for the growing budget deficit

It is not that, but I understand how the CBO works and how much propaganda this Administration has put out to try to cook the numbers and validate the boonedoggle of false Stimulus package.

You do? Is that from personal experience?

Like you understand how the federal budget works and what was included in the health reform legislation?

And yet you continue to misinform others, by wilfull choice or simple ignorance...and are completed blocked from any facts, opinions or findings that contradict your "understanding".

:lol2:

So that's a no then? You have nothing (nothing at all) to dispute their accuracy?

It's an estimate of past perfomance, based on what did happen, not a prediction.No they haven't (prove me wrong).Don't you mean "especially if"? If you take the low end, of 800K, it looks worse than than if you take the middle or high end? Amazing how that works.

One thing that I found of note, was that this was sold on "jobs created" and then morphed in "jobs saved or created"
What is the difference between the two?
Does it matter?

How are they actually determining the number of jobs? That formula actually changed midstream as well. According to the way I read it. The calculation is based upon man hours. If that is the case, then 2 part timers working 20 hours a week is the same as one full time job at 40 hrs.
Again - does it matter? Whats the difference?

You can probably save more jobs with the same money than you could create, given spinup and training costs. Otherwise, there's no important difference I can see.
Well, the reporting number ends up lower in that instance. They could claim that two people got jobs, but then be open to argument that they are part-time jobs. Reporting them as hours is probably more useful as a measurement of recovery.

Lets go back to Nov 09 and start here. From the NYT:

Reports Show Conflicting Number of Jobs Attributed to Stimulus Money

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/us/05stimulus.html

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/282301

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...obs.html?cat=9

Now fast forward to Feb 2010:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...id=FVXnfhW30kg

I agree completely. Thats the reason why I think the change took place from "created" to "saved or created" I'm not sure how to figure out what the real difference is between the two. It still seemed a little disingenuous to change it to include the saved jobs.
However, the optimist will say that the program was designed to do both ...
I think its REALLY difficult to put any accurate number on the saved part of the equation and gives the gov't a lot of wiggle room on their numbers. Perhaps they should report each of therm separately.

I agree, but the public is probably not savvy enough to deal with hours vs jobs.

None of the jobs data is based on federal government figures...but figures provided by the grant recipients.

And what is still comical is that you guys will fight it and fight it and never admit even the possibility that the stimulus program has created (at least) hundreds of thousands of jobs to date and helped slow the recession.

Do you even sense how rigidly ideological that is? Not to mention intellectually dishonest. Like most of your arguments.

And lately, you're great at find amusing columns or vids for a distraction so you can continue to avoid the facts.

The only part of any of those articles that referred to the CBO's numbers was the CNN factcheck that explained why their range was so wide. The CNN factcheck was using the CBO numbers to do their factcheck.

Which the Government has hung it's hat on as being factual and to date many non-governmental groups have shown them to be false or misleading, including the GAO.

No, what is comical is that you modify your position after pages and pages of defending the lies and propaganda of this Administration and Demoncratically controlled Congress. So, now you go to "hundreds of thousands of jobs" when this country has lost millions. The numbers don't add up and your party is pissing in the wind.

You are intellectually dishonest defending this deficit and pork barrel spending while you bankrupt our grandchildrens future with no plan to pay it off.

As you avoid the facts that counter your propaganda...

Yea, that is what the defenders of this administration is using as their range, including yourself. In fact the CBO numbers are even narrower and they have said it it basically bogus.

No, I said 600k. Re-read my post.

Please cite those many non-governmental groups.. GAO? Cite the section of the report, please.

I am aware of the groups that raised awareness and concern over the very small number of job reports in non-existing zip codes and attributed those clerical errors.

All links have been posted. Do your own homework mate.

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, for using the November numbers. That's why I highlighted the 8 in my correction.
What are you trying to say here? The CBO numbers are narrower than what, and what are the CBO numbers you're talking about? Who have said what are basically bogus?

I missed the links to the many non-governmental groups.

Just point me to the links.

Let Google be your friend. Of course you could just look at the posts above.