Almost Classical

This is fairly revealing of how things work: Barack Obama’s new ‘grass-roots’ group isn't quite - Kenneth P. Vogel and Tarini Parti and Byron Tau - POLITICO.com In its first days, Organizing for Action has closely affiliated itself with insider liberal organizations funded by mega-donors like George Soros and corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Citi and Duke Energy. … Dubbed the “Road Ahead” meeting, the conference was sponsored by a White House-allied trade association called Business Forward, which is funded by major corporations including Microsoft, Walmart and PG&E – each of which sent senior executives to participate in a panel on how to boost American economic competitiveness. Yep, change you can believe in, right?

One of the many aspects of our government that I dislike is the "pay to play" nature of influencing elected leaders. If you were idealistic enough to imagine President Obama would somehow be different, I could have proven you were wrong before election day. He received more donations from the top 1% of Americans than any other president. He also received more money from Wall Street than his opponent. By June of 2008, the Obama advantage on Wall Street was clear. (AP - June 2008) For both candidates, Wall Street's investment and banking sectors have become among their portliest cash cows, contributing $9.5 million to Obama and $5.3 million to McCain so far. There is a commenter on DailyKos using the ID "Goldman Owned Party" as a dig at the Republicans. But, that's also far from accurate. Goldman Sachs has a history of connections to the Democrats in congress, especially the Senate. This makes sense, because the financial industry is in New York City, not a GO...

The media conversation last week on HR 847 demonstrated the problem with current politics: right-leaning talking heads ("commentators") without any knowledge at all of the bill, which makes it seem like the bill in current form is okay. However, the media reports of the Republican "poison pill" on illegal immigrants presented a part of the truth, but not the depth of HR 847's problems. The bill and its evolution are available at: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h847/show The history of this bill demonstrates why the public is cynical about the two parties: The bill was introduced at 70 pages, 18,737 words. Actually, there was a 50-page version that was strong enough to survive unanimous consent and a quick voice vote, but that bill did not leave committee. The bill voted on was 222-pages, 37,500 words, and had been expanded to fit the needs of several major NYC donors to campaigns. So, while there was no pork in the bill, there certainly were changes made ...