The leader of Barack Obama's transition team has delivered some bad news to the hordes of lobbyists plying their trade in the fancy restaurants and faceless offices along Pennsylvania Avenue: they are not welcome.
This one is a classic of why a site like CommonDreams needs an open comment policy. The headline is very misleading. Between it and the lead to the article, a reader would be very, very misled as to what's going on. And these days, when you go to CommonDreams, typical is the first comment that is pure Dem suck-up of saying this is a good first step.
More as a comment ....
10 comments:
When you read the article in detail, they only say they are keeping 'lobbyists' from paying for office space and salaries of the transition team. It does not say they are 'driving lobbyist out'. Not even close.
The fine print says that while they don't take this from 'lobbyists', they will go to 'contributors' to pay for this. That's fine print on which account the check is written on. They'll take money from the Wall Street execs who financed his campaign, but not from the 'lobbyists' who represent Wall Street. Is there a difference?
This is very reminiscent of the Obama campaign. Early on, Obama made a big point of not taking money from 'lobbyists'. But, he took in lots of corporate money, especially Wall Street money. He just wouldn't take it from a 'lobbyist'. He'd even take money from the execs of law firms that were 'lobbying' firms. Just not from the people who work for the firms who are registered 'lobbyists'.
The Democrats these days don't want any light shown on this. They want to prance around and try to fool people that they are driving out the 'lobbyists'. They try to mislead people into thinking this makes them responsive to the people. But, that's clearly not true.
If you pick people from say Goldman Sachs to run the Treasury, does it matter if the lobbyist for Goldman Sachs can't help pay for transistion office space. Especially when the 'contributors' to the campaign from Goldman Sachs, which was the largest group of contributors from the campiang, are still being contacted to pay for that same office space. Is it really a big deal if the check doesn't come from the person registered as Goldman Sachs 'lobbyist'?
Sites like CommonDreams are trying to hide this. This is where the commments section used to be very nice. Because people could point this out under the article. This tends to diffuse the propaganda, as the real situation could be explained to someone who read the article.
Of course, defusing Democrat propaganda is exactly what they don't want. That's why sites like CommonDreams and OpEdNews are blocking and restricting comments. They want to give the very misleading impression that something is different, when the only thing that's really different is the account number on the checks.
How depressing. But, it is part of the -pattern. It makes it very difficult to "disagree".
It is very clever and I am not..so people will just have to see--if they are even willing to accept it when it is right in front of them.
Is there a place I can read the original article, besides CD? I cant even open the site, but they keep sending me newsletters.
Maybe that's why CD won't even let others read their articles let alone comment on them.
And CD has even disabled google cache of their articles.
Kdelphi, I take it that you asked CD not to send their spam letters, correct? If so, you probably could report to site's ISP or something. I'll see if I can find a way to nail them.
Update: You can view the articles and even the comments by going through anonymouse.org and then typing in http://www.commondreams.org to browse. I don't think you'll be able to post since they are even more tight and strict on cookies.
Frederock=--Thanks. No, I was saving ALL of them (they send them to two mailboxes), in case I "had occasion"...
Plus, about a week before the election, they briefly "let me back in" (probably their error) or maybe it was the copy of their tax forms that said that took $540,000 in taxpayer funds in 2007 for "educatounal purposes"!!
They are a 501 (c) (3), you know...
I tried anonymous and my pc says "file too large"--it is old and small..maybe I wil try it again..
Is this not ridiculous??
Frederick--I tried the way you said, and it worked! Thanks!
Now, at least, I can read the articles...
In this case, the original article is on the Independent from the UK.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-acts-to-drive-the-lobbyists-out-of-washington-1015851.html
Hi Samson,
Sioux Rose referred to you in a post and after someone posted a link to your website, that comment got removed. I don't know if they banned her or Sioux Rose. CD really is on a hate monger spree these days.
Kdelphi,
I'm glad it worked out. I think that after a while when the comments section dimishes over time and people stop donating to the site, CD will find itself forced to lift the bans, maybe?
As for Obama driving the lobbyists out of Washington, PFFT !!! LOL !! That's about as good a chance as getting hit by a lightening rod !
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