The Founders Warned Us About Some One Some Time...Could Be Right About Now.

"The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.
It serves always to distract the public councils and feeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration to confine themselves with in their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all departments in one and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.
If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed."

George Washington’s Farewell Address

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FLAHR in, the name of a gold coin first made in Florence in the 1200's. The name comes from the Latin word for flower. The florin bore the imprint of a lily on one side, and the figure of Saint John the Baptist on the other side. The first English florin was issued as a six-shilling gold coin in the reign of Edward III (1327-1377). A Silver English florin worth two shillings was first coined in 1849.
[The World Book Encyclopedia]
A USA Silver ten cent coin, bore the imprint of a lily on one side, and the figure of Franklin D. Roosevelt (USA Pres. 1933-1945) on the other side (Dime).

May 14, 2011

Meredith Attwell Baker Is The Lastest Thorn In The New York Times Calling For Expanding The Lobbying Disclosure Act Definitions

Lisa Rosenberg  > Sunlight Foundation
In the most recent, and possibly most repugnant, turn of the revolving door, FCC commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker will join Comcast just months after approving the Comcast/NBC Universal merger. The move spurred the New York Times to call for expanding the definition of lobbying. We agree. While Baker’s hiring may be a done deal, the lobby laws need to be changed so that we know who she is lobbying, about what, and when.
The current laws do next to nothing to inform the public about the ways Baker will wield her power on Capitol Hill. Sunlight is calling for changes in the current Lobbying Disclosure Act that would require her and others like her to report the names of the offices she lobbies—whether in person, on the phone, in writing or email—and link the names with the specific issues on which she sought government action. We would require that reporting to happen in real time and online.
We may not be able to close the revolving door, but we can find out what happens whenever people pass through it.
Rules put in place by the Obama administration mean that Baker will not be allowed to lobby anyone at the FCC for two years. That’s a sliver of an exclusion that leaves her plenty of opportunities to spread the Comcast/NBC message inside the beltway. The day after she starts, this well-connected, high-ranking administration official can start lobbying Congress on any issue, including the Comcast/NBC merger.


Will this ever find it's way to the Halls of Congress?

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