The Right of the People to Petition the Government for a Redress of Grievances (a.k.a. Lobbying)

Instead of playing a media “gotcha” game, the questions are… can you find anyone in Washington with the relevant knowledge of issues who HASN’T lobbied at some point? Is lobbying necessarily “evil”? Is it enough to put strict guidelines in place to make sure that any previous lobbying is not influencing current job performance? If not, what else could be done?
The media likes to reduce things to their simplest form but I’d like to see a more intelligent discussion of these issues.

Lobbyist are here to stay and though it sounded good as a campaign slogan everyone knew that it was just a slogan…except those who vote for their presidents after looking in people magazine. There are of course good lobbyist that businesses have to get new ideas in front of the power brokers in dc but there are bad ones too, the kind that have politicians looking the other way while cooking the books and tossing in a few bucks of campaign money for being a good sport.
If Obama were serious about change he would stop the nonsense of going after honest, well ran companies that do something good by returning their shareholders good returns and creating jobs and instead focus his attention on his fellow “greediecats” who along with wallstreet has fleeced America with Freddie and Fannie and other similar schemes.

Still like him but there seem to be a lot of Clinton staff going into support of his White House. I know you can’t pluck qualified people randomly out of the line at the grocery store but there’s not a lot of change going to come out of that . . .

A president is not Jesus my “friends”. President is someone who should be able to travel between worlds. I gave Mr. O’ more credits than others who refuse to be pragmatic in diplomacy and issue related with war in peace.
For all of you who are saying he lied and so forth, who among you who does not lie?

A politician, even the great BO, uses muddy language and euphemisms to get people to believe one thing and then does another? AKA: lies out his teeth to get elected? OMG! Say it aint so. And for those of you desperately trying to defend your candidate: the issue isn’t about lobbyists; it’s about what Obama told us during his campaign and what he’s doing now. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Who were the moran’s that believed even one word of this guys rhetoric? Have they been living under a rock? Been hit severly over the head with a blunt instrument?

justice for the American taxpayer ???????
I can not remember the last time’ we the people got a real break’.
Is lobbying necessarily “evil”?
Absolutely !!
Not much will change with this new President, it never has, why should it be any different with this guy..

what a Fraud

Obama said he could name that tune in a 16th note… so, yeah name it

Hanging out with Rezko, Wright, Pfleger and Ayers should have proven without a doubt what kind of person BHO is.
I don’t believe anything he says.

The Right of the People to Petition the Government for a Redress of Grievances is not the same as lobbying. Lobbyists are paid and represent the interests of corporations or other large organizations, not the people. Lobbyists are those who will do or say anything for money. Lobbying doesn’t need to be eliminated but PAID lobbying does.

Great start to a new attitude toward the Washington who-knows-who game perverted so badly by the current admin.! BHO rules! (Well, not just yet, I suppose, but I’m excited!)

Get used to it. This is what change looks like.

Remember how during the campaign reporters kept talking about Obama reneging on his pledge to take public funds? The voters never cared. Just like we don’t care how many ex-Clintonites are involved in the transition or how many ex-lobbyist are working on it. Out here in the real world, we are in trouble and we just want the best and brightest. That’s all we care about. I know news is slow right now, but find another narrative. Or take a vacation–you guys have earned it. You must be exhausted!

Oh the good ‘ol times…Clinton, Lewinski…Now Obama, Ayers…At least I’m getting a $1000.00 check (tax break) soon. My vote was worth that $1K

Yep 4/15. That’s when the redistribution of wealth begins.
75% retirement tax, 39% tax hike (one of several installments with the goal of 60% near term) & the increase in capital gains tax (to smother out innovation and small business).
If you think it’s bad now, wait 4 yaers. It will look like Jimmy Carters economy. We’ll all be driving Chrysler K-Cars, pintos, vegas, etc.. It’s going to look like pictures you see from Cuba. At least we’ll have socialized medicine.

Having no real experience, but unlimited personal ambition, Obama strode onto the national stage, decrying the past, including the incredible accomplishments of Bill Clinton vis a vie lumping him with “30 years of neglect and the politics of the usual”. It was easy, the republicans had already done everything to detract from the Clinton years that they could, including entrapment of the ‘shame’ of the Lewinski BJ. Obama did it all of course in an effort to take down Bill’s wife who inconvienetly stood in his way of grabbing power. Now that he has power, he turns to the Clinton cabinet and Hillary herself in an effort to make himself look good.
How could so many people be so stupid? But then I asked myself the same question when Bush II got elected.

Cronic:
Bush and the Republicans have already bankrupted the country! You don’t have any personal wealth left unless you are filthy rich and one of the favored under the Republican regime of the past 8 years.
Have you not being paying attention to the Economic news? The wealth of the middle class is gone, many, many people have already lost their homes, many, many people have already lost their jobs.
The Republicans have already taken and destroyed the wealth. It’s now in the hands of the oil, banking and military/industrial pals of Bush, Cheney, etc.
They have looted and largely destroyed the country.

Come on! Polticians NEVER LIE!!! Oh wait, maybe it was God’s that never lie. Looks like this make Obama just another politician and NOT A GOD!!! HAHAHAHA!!!!

Jake T./realistically–don’t you think that they are about to first form a EXIT-stage Left..or a retreat from that FIRST BLUSH–think for a moment that KILROY-was-HERE~~~~and there’s a drift offering CHANGE–!!

The funny part about Obama::he’s seems like the Ghandi in the movie–where he’s laying on his back–exclaiming too a really mean citizen of INDIA–that this man(Hindu I think)being a purported subject for Ghandi has the starving man exclain–”and then they will have my body”..Ghandi seems to lose track of the man’s mind and reveals that “he’s in control”..I thought that today–why–??..should a new President be so much of a control agent–or just allow them that simple starting point–”and then they will have my body”..seems like a implosian of intellectualism(to me)..where here in America I think the statement is called being–above(the)board–there’s a difference–in the time it takes to be effective to work at one or the other..Obama should be “above the board”..Time Will Tell.[end]

Perfros -
So your OK with loosing what we have already lost AND a 60% tax rate (that is coming my friend) AND 75% retirement tax (which will include SS) AND an icrease in capital gains tax for small business? Appaers so. Guess the republicans haven’t screwed things up enough, so we now want the socialists to finish the job…
Don’t you get it? It’s the “system” that needs change, which will not be accomplished through the current two party system nor the system we have in place. You are a FOOL if you thing that the socialists are any different than the republicans in the end. Just a FOOL…

Maybe pulling the people from the grocery check out line to work in the Obeyme administration isn’t such a bad idea after all.

: )
One sunny day near the end of January 2009, an old man approached the White House from the park across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he’d been sitting on a bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”
The Marine looked at the man and said, “Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.”
The old man said, “Okay”, and walked away.
The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”
The Marine again told the man, “Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here.”
The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.
The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying “I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.”
The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, “Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I’ve told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don’t you understand?”
The old man looked at the Marine and said, “Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it.”
The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, “See you tomorrow, Sir.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

“….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.”

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.

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.