Obama "IP czar" wants felony charges for illegal Web streaming

Most congresspeople spend more time raising money (banging the phones, attending fundraisers, etc) than they do on policy. You need a few million in the bank to be a "credible candidate", and lobbyists can get you a chunk of the way there.

The fact that politicians go to great efforts to raise campaign funds proves that they think its worthwhile.

This post is dedicated to mathematics.

A felony conviction for campaign finance law violations. :-)

I don't think we would have an assassination... but I must admit I am so cynical that one would not terribly surprise me.

However, by no means would just the president be enough. You have to keep in mind both the house and the senate are just as much in the pocket of lobbyist as the white house, in fact probably more so. And the president alone can declare war, grant pardons, and not much else.

Also, we have to remember that a lot of Obama's funding, especially early on, came from true grass roots, and was in small units which added up big time. So he's as close to a people's candidate as we've had in a LOOONG time. And yet, even he black, constitutional scholar, the most charismatic public speaker in ~ 40 years, even he is succumbing to our cynical political realities.

If he is not a transformative president who could ever be? Oh I know he passed health care, but how is more spending radically different from the Medicare drug benefit, or any of the other ways both Republicans and Democrats have grown the size of government over the years?

I wonder what would happen if some super-wealthy retired philanthropic billionaire with a sense of noblesse oblige decided to donate a vast sum to one extra-special Presidential candidate and if only that billionaire had no ulterior motive.

No way.

#1) Your first link makes absolutely no reference to the Bush administration. It supports my point, though, Obama created stricter guidelines instructing the agencies to fulfill more FOIA requests. And the agencies are falling short for whatever bureaucratic reason, seemingly that they can't work through the pile fast enough. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that. Thanks for the link though, I didn't know Obama had done that. I approve.

#2) Some aides met with lobbyists off of white house ground to avoid logging the meetings? You mean to avoid the policy that Obama put in place and that had never existed before he was elected? Seems like he's working in the right direction, to me. Now we just need Congress to implement a similar rule.

#3) Yeah, again, not perfect just yet. Want to compare/contrast with the number of former lobbyists who worked in the Bush white house, on the McCain campaign, or on John Boehner's staff?

If you're reasoning backwards from "I've decided I don't like Obama", you can believe whatever you want.

But the guy's history and all of his public pronouncements since taking office have been on the side of openness, and consistently against the influence of lobbyists. He's actually created a bunch of initiatives for more openness, the lobbyist visit thing and the data.gov thing being two of them.

It's just plain disingenuous to claim that Obama is less in favor of openness than Dick Cheney.

EDIT: Wow. Not usually one to whine about the voting but the guy's links actually say the opposite of what he's claiming. And he's upvoted. Just goes to show, you can believe whatever you want and vote that way too.

You just jumped on the OP's use of everyone, baited them with your realtors comment and somehow conclude that "he only wanted to punish a few high profile scapegoats" which is exactly what happens all the time anyways (remember Bernie Madoff?)

Please watch "Inside Job" it shows how no one responsible for the financial disaster has been punished or even pursued. It's ridiculous. We just had the biggest financial crisis and everyone responsible got away with it. What is truly annoying is you're more concerned with the OP's use of "everyone" instead of focusing on the more important issues.