YellowLinesandArmadillos

Until the SCOTUS eliminates the money part of the right of citizens of to petition and redress greviances before their government this problem will never go away. A constitutional amendment is probably needed. Contacting elected reps is part of the problem when it is organized. I have seen the same postcard in the 10s of thousands supposedly signed by differenent folks sent by one group to a congressman, probably 100s of thousands to the entire Congress. Campaign contributions are an issue, there is supposed to be a bright line difference, between lobbying and campaigns, but we all know that it is a line in name only. Junketts are less frequent and easilier exposed, but can be a major problem in the long run, less about money, more about exclusive access and info.

Wing, quoting Michael Savage et al, doesn't make the media liberal. Those guys make Rush look liberal, so if you are that far right foget about it. The media comes in all different stripes and currently slants to the right, look at the ownership. And while schools have many problems and money is not the answer to many of them, when locals put priority on good schools they usually very good. Still your criticisms are simplistics and self-serving. Most execs at non-profits, at least the ones that do the most work don't get paid a lot. The ones that do are wasting money, but differentiating would take too much intellectual work for the kind of statements that you are making.

I thought you were looking at Costa Rica? Great surfin there and lots of young women!

Yeh, and the army paid them anyway!

Yep, but it is the Presidents prerogative to excute the passed appropriations bills and with a little intelligence and political maneuvering you can save a lot of funds. Clinton did it masterfully, delaying spending on projects, cutting staff and limiting political appointees. Ken said it doesn't do much, but if only marginal spending changes are made it creates a ripple effect and saves a lot of money. Delay taught us that! Cutting taxes is overrated especially for the rich, middle class and poor tax cuts have a greater impact on stimulating the economy. Tax cuts for the rich by and large cause more capital flight and a larger deficit and debt raising resulting interest rates and thus slowing down the economy. Tax cuts for the middle class are expensive, but I know where to get $400 billion! Eliminate that joke of p-drug medicare benefit that ended up raising drug costs eating up the fed contribution in a give-away to those needy insurance and drug companies.

You'd be surprised, this Congress is a rubberstamp and there are plenty of cost cutting measures that could be implemented including cutting the number of politicals hired. Check out the plum book and compare to previous admins, Bush has a lot more of them and is paying out a lot more. An easy budget cut, they are getting tired anyway just ask GOP operatives.

Yeh, but that isn't even funny. That just pisses me off, where is your avatar when I need it.

LOL, run away, LOL

Earth firsties will always want separation and never give to the Dems, I am thinking more the groups that fundraise and then give to Dem or Repubs candidates or run independent expenditure ads during campaign. Still not sure how you can right a bill changing this without violating SCOTUS rulings. Most likely there will be some additional reporting reqs, but that is probably all they can do. Structural changes can be worked around with good lawyers and both sides have them More just pissing in the wind really. Lobbying agent reform is about all that can be addressed. Still very cynical they will actually do anything of substance that can stand up in the SCOTUS.

I stand corrected, didn't understand your arguement...then how do you address personal abuses of power, tolerate more potential terrorism to preserve freedoms, hmm. I guess you would argue that no independent monitoring of FEDs would prevent grave personal abuses. Knowing the folks I know on both side, I guess I can't argue with that, doesn't lend itself to an easy solution unless you just surrender to the Matrix.

I would like to read Shays comments to, usually he is an independent minded reformer and less partisan than most. 527s are a problem, I am not going to deny it, religious groups use the well too. But would the consequences be?: It would be interesting to see if besides the predicted short term dems get hurt. Long run it would force interest groups to more closely ally with a party and have less independence, money would flow more directly. This usually might help Dem unity, which they seem incapable of now, not because of ideas but egos...hmm.

It is hard to respond to this when I generally agree with both of you. My problem with your argument and I don't think Mickey extracted it enough in his post, is that if I have to give up freedoms even perceived to my own government, I want two things, one a grievance process and the ability of a check against the the arbitrary imposition of a police state. I know that you will argue that this is not happening, but I beg to differ, more cameras have been set up in intersections to monitor comings and goings, the internet is one big bug and to certain extent we have to tolerate that crap, but I want an independent monitor that looks into abuses and a process that are followed. Yes, I want terrorists caught, but I don't trust this Administration or any other to not have some power hungry mini Hoover types to use that power for his/her personal vandettas. I worked in the Clinton Admin and have plenty of friends in the security business that can tell you B.S. about some schmuck getting power hungry. I worked with a few and don't trust some especially the political people further than I can throw them. Recent news posted on the board worries me further, so who is worse? The Libertarian values you often espouse are becoming smoke and mirrors if you can't agree with this.

Yeh, I was LOL on that one....including: Numerous remaining regional challenges demand the world’s attention: These are the ones we will ignore them anyway:

BiB was that you? I like this list of problems and their descriptions, especially the Cesar Chavez shot: # In Venezuela, a demagogue awash in oil money is undermining democracy and seeking to destabilize the region. Hmm, one finger pointed out and four back at yourself. Who wrote this puff piece. The words sound like they came out of one of those reality shows or Enron's pre-crash prospetus.

Shoot, I'll bet some Islamic fundalmentalist has hid out there for a while fundraising at ski parties unwittingly supporting terrorism, with the knowledge of the gov't. Probably rules them out.

GG you didn't go far enough with the logic...our government supported terrorists when it supported the Taliban in Afganistan against Russia and again when we propped up Sadam in Iraq prior to his falling out. I am sure we are covertly doing it elsewhere in the world, which wouldn't take too much to figure out. So can we do business with ourselves under this law? Guess not, leave the ports unmanaged then...

On FP sometimes, same as GOP internationalists v. isolationists...Dems have the same folks and with the exception of DPW, they grumble, but don't usually take any action. I don't think on FP there is any less diversity, but we have more loose canons, always have. But the argument that we don't have a direction is a talking points from a GOP playbook. Think you just accused some else of the same thing on another subject. Where is the wet noodle when I need one. We have many different directions, the analogy is more like hearding cats v. dogs. Dogs lower their heads but go along with you or if you speak with the right enthusiam they will jump off a cliff for you. A cat if it even decides to look over the edge of the cliff, will still tell you to F-off if it thinks it knows better.

So he is human after all. Seriously, I have a friend with an autistic kid and it was a really nice gesture. Not sure who got the bigger kick out of who in the meeting, but it was nice, even it was a photo op.

I am doing my part, one out, one on the way! Go liberal babies!

Shhhsh, that is a secret.

I couldn't agree with you more, the problem is that party loyalty has Republicans in the Senate and House abdicating their oversite role of this President. Dems historically have not been that disciplined, and probably never will be. We tolerate a lot more disenssion, there is no Tom Delay or Carl Rove in our ranks, But Lieberman crosses over that line of tolerance on foreign policy issues and specific domestic because he has shown differences with basic strategy, becoming a symbol of Dems not having a backbone against Bush. I don't always believe that, but he seems to step up and support the President every time Dems call him on his FP b.s. If he wants to switch parties, he should have the guts to do so. Playing the middle causes a lot of dead armadillos and smudged yellow lines.

Yep, this is the bill they voted on in Committee 62-2. You didn't know.

Now there is a blanket statement if I ever heard, all the branches step on each others power all the time, that I guess is part of the struggle, Congress even has had a nasty habit of just flat giving it away, i.e., there oversite role to the Admin, and their advise and consent role to. If nothing else this President should be censured for not complying with and not providing required info to the Congress, as in this case. We can go on here, but you are right the argument does get circular, just not in quite the same position you described, I think both hands are being used.

Point well taken, but the world could do with a few more Barney Fife's and a few less Dick Cheney's. P.S. Sounds like Dick Santorum is in trouble with a lobbyist, had one rent space from his campaign's office building, not sure but sounded like a sublet and also run a Santorum charity! Talk about conflicts of interests....told you he is stupid.

Normally, not in their right mind, but I really am not sure...the power hungry nature of these folks...just not sure...although don't think they needed that much info to figure Kerrey out, just worry about other areas. Still not sure that I understand why applying FISA was such a problem and until I understand that better, I don't trust this crowd.