NewsTrust - Lobbying - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

The real reason Obama is not making much progress

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Nov. 20 (Opinion) - So far, Obama has tried to co-opt the corporations into his agenda by ensuring they will profit from any changes, but this inevitably waters down the proposals, often to the point of uselessness. The Cap and Trade legislation before Congress, for example, will barely limit carbon emissions at all because it has been gutted to please the polluters.

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High noon in Washington, D.C.

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:05:22 -0800

Minneapolis Star Tribune - Nov. 18 -

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Citizens left out in cold

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Indianapolis Star - Nov. 18 (Editorial) - State Rep. David Wolkins isn't shy about what he likes: golf, basketball and football. As ranking Republican member and former chairman of the Indiana House Environmental Affairs Committee, he's in a position to indulge his interests thanks to the very companies he's supposed to help regulate.

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Climate Rage

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Naomi Klein - Nov. 11 (Opinion) - With Copenhagen now likely to begin before Congress has passed even a weak-ass climate bill co-authored by the coal lobby, U.S. politicians have dropped the superhero metaphors and are scrambling to lower expectations for achieving a serious deal at the climate summit. It's just one meeting, says U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, not "the be-all and end-all." As faith in government action dwindles, however, climate activists are treating Copenhagen as an opportunity of a different kind. On track to be the largest environmental gathering in history, the summit represents a chance to seize the political terrain back from business-friendly half-measures, such as carbon offsets and emissions trading, and introduce some effective, common-sense proposals — ideas that have less to do with creating complex new markets for pollution and more to do with keeping coal and oil in the ground.

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Send your medical bills to Max Baucus

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Comedy Central - By Stephen Colbert - Oct. 09 (Comedy News) - Senator Max Baucus will pay for your medical bills from the $3.2 million he's received from the health care industry.

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Health Care and the 'Predator State'

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Thomas Frank - Oct. 07 (Opinion) - In June 2008, I used this space to call on then-Sen. Barack Obama to add economist James K. Galbraith's book, "The Predator State," to his reading list. As an account of the capture of government by private interests, I thought it would make a far more useful guide to contemporary political economy than the market-glorifying texts that were still in fashion in those days.

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What's wrong with Obama's order barring lobbyists from his administration?

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Jacob Weisberg - Apr. 21 (Opinion) - Obama knows it's going to take some strong garlic to ward off the vampires on his side of the aisle and restore a sense of integrity in government. Unfortunately, his intended reform is driving stakes through the hearts of innocent bystanders only. The problem isn't that his rules are too strict. It's that they miss the crucial distinction between the kind of lobbying that's good for democracy and the kind that perverts it.

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Why Obama and Gates need Ike to trim the military

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - Apr. 10 (Editorial) - The secretary is actually up against a vast industrial-congressional complex, with intertwined and entrenched interests. Over the decades, the defense industry has spread into so many congressional districts that it's virtually impossible to shut anything down without a Hooah! battle cry from key lawmakers. The targeted F-22 fighter jet, for instance, is assembled with components built in 44 states.

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No Lunch Left Behind

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Alice Waters, Katrina Heron - Feb. 20 (Opinion) - THIS new era of government bailouts and widespread concern over wasteful spending offers an opportunity to take a hard look at the National School Lunch Program. Launched in 1946 as a public safety net, it has turned out to be a poor investment. It should be redesigned to make our children healthier.

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The Generals’ Second Careers

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Clark Hoyt - Jan. 25 (Opinion) - Last April, The Times published an investigation of a Pentagon public relations program intended to win favorable coverage of the Bush administration’s war on terror through retired officers working as military analysts on television. The report, “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand,” revealed a program that gave the analysts talking points and unusual access to top officials — contacts, the article said, that some of the officers hoped would benefit military contractors with whom they had ties.

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Bailout to Nowhere

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By David Brooks - Nov. 16 (Opinion) - Democrats from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi want to grant immortality to General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. They have decided to follow an earlier $25 billion loan with a $50 billion bailout, which would inevitably be followed by more billions later, because if these companies are not permitted to go bankrupt now, they never will be. This is a different sort of endeavor than the $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. That money was used to save the financial system itself. It was used to save the capital markets on which the process of creative destruction depends. Granting immortality to Detroit’s Big Three does not enhance creative destruction. It retards it. It crosses a line, a bright line. It is not about saving a system; there will still be cars made and sold in America. It is about saving politically powerful corporations. A Detroit bailout would set a precedent for every single politically connected corporation in America. There already is a long line of lobbyists bidding for federal money. If Detroit gets money, then everyone would have a case. After all, are the employees of Circuit City or the newspaper industry inferior to the employees of Chrysler? But this, apparently, is about to change. Democrats from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi want to grant immortality to General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. They have decided to follow an earlier $25 billion loan with a $50 billion bailout, which would inevitably be followed by more billions later, because if these companies are not permitted to go bankrupt now, they never will be. This is a different sort of endeavor than the $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. That money was used to save the financial system itself. It was used to save the capital markets on which the process of creative destruction depends.

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5 Myths About Being 'Pro-Israel'

Sat, 10 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Jeremy Ben-Ami - May. 10 (Opinion) - Criticize or question Israeli behavior and you're labeled "anti-Israel," or worse. But unquestioning encouragement for short-sighted Israeli policies such as expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank isn't real friendship. (Would a true friend not only let you drive home drunk but offer you their Porsche and a shot of tequila for the road?) Israel needs real friends, not enablers. And forging a healthy friendship with Israel requires bursting some myths about what it means to be pro-Israel.

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The Ties That Blind?

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Karen Tumulty - Apr. 17 (Opinion) - When investment outfits hire these politicians who are not known to have anything that resembles financial expertise, they are making an investment in their contacts and their starpower--and, possibly, favors that this politician might be in a position to do for them in the future. Other examples include Bill Clinton's relationship with Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Companies. Rudy Giuliani cut out the middleman and started his own investment banking firm, which he is now selling to another one.

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In Defense of Lobbying

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Charles Krauthammer - Feb. 28 (Opinion) - To hear the candidates in this presidential campaign, you'd think lobbying is just one notch below waterboarding, a black art practiced by the great malefactors of wealth to keep the middle class in a vise and loose upon the nation every manner of scourge: oil dependency, greenhouse gases, unpayable mortgages and those tiny entrees you get at French restaurants.

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Why Lott Cashed It In

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:30:01 -0800

Washington Post - By Robert D. Novak - Nov. 29 (Opinion) - By getting out now, he can collect big lobbying money in one year instead of having to wait two years, as he would under new congressional ethics regulations. Rep. Chip Pickering would have been Gov. Haley Barbour's certain choice to replace Lott had Pickering not announced three months ago that he would not seek a seventh term. Though 22 years younger than Lott, Pickering is also leaving for financial reasons. That makes it hard for Barbour to select Pickering.

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'Expected to Sign'

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:30:00 -0700

Examiner.com - Aug. 16 (Editorial) - PRESIDENT Bush considers the lobbying and ethics reform bill that Congress just passed "far from perfect," but he is "expected to sign" the measure, the White House tells us. That is welcome news -- and the right decision, after rumblings that some aides were encouraging a veto and ominous statements about the president's "serious concerns." We agree with Mr. Bush that the measure isn't perfect -- few pieces of legislation are, and probably even fewer that touch on matters so close to lawmakers' interests. But it would represent a significant step toward a cleaner and more transparent system. Lawmakers would be prohibited from accepting meals, travel and entertainment from lobbyists and those who employ them. They would have to report the contributions that lobbyists "bundle" for their campaigns. And there would be far more disclosure of the earmarked pet projects that lawmakers tuck into bills.

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Following the Money Trail Online

Thu, 24 May 2007 09:58:51 -0700

New York Times - By David Pogue - May. 24 (Opinion) - The first step to solving a problem is recognizing that you have one. That's what I keep telling myself, anyway, to avoid becoming depressed by Maplight.org. It's a new Web site with a very simple mission: to correlate lawmakers' voting records with the money they've accepted from special-interest groups. All of this is public information. All of it has been available for decades. Other sites, including OpenSecrets.org, expose who's giving how much to whom. But nobody has ever revealed the relationship between money given and votes cast to quite such a startling effect.

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First They Came for the Jews

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 14:07:25 -0700

Opinion Journal (WSJ) - By Dorothy Rabinowitz - Apr. 02 (Opinion) - Early in June 2004, an employee of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC--better known by its media tag, "the powerful Israeli lobby"--received an urgent phone call. Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin, a specialist on Iran, informed AIPAC lobbyist Keith Weissman that they had better meet because he had news of the most important kind to disclose. Mr. Weissman not surprisingly agreed to the rendezvous, held in Pentagon City, Va., where he was told about an imminent, Iran-directed assault on American troops and Israeli agents in Iraq. First, though, Mr. Franklin delivered a warning whose purpose would be clear only later. What he was about to tell him was highly classified, "Agency stuff," and having it could get him into trouble, he informed Mr. Weissman.

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Crushing Competition

Mon, 01 May 2006 03:02:45 -0700

Wired - By Lawrence Lessig - May. 01 (Opinion) - Soon after ReadyReturn was launched, lobbyists from the tax-preparation industry began to pressure California lawmakers to abandon the innovation. Their opposition was not surprising: If figuring out your taxes were easy, why would anyone bother to hire H&R Block? If the government sends you a completed form, why buy TurboTax?

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