Listening to a panel of reporters from Time, Washington Post and Politico and reading GG's piece, it is easy to see why Americans may not know what exactly lobbyists are doing.

Greenwald laid out a case for how some of them are using their influence--$$$!--to game the system regarding the telecom issue. Talking Points Memo has made an issue of McCain aide Charlie Blacks' lobbying for dictators. Yet none of the journalists on that show raised these examples as issues, reasons as to why Americans should be considered about the number one method of influence peddling.

-- normankelley Saturday, May 24, 2008 09:44 AM"

Talking heads know that a minimum level of diplomacy is essential in politics. So, with Bushit engaging in no diplomacy whatsoever, the lobbyists are taking up the slack.

So what's to comment about?

Has this already been mentioned? It's absolutely bone-chilling.

-- Cindy Ross Saturday, May 24, 2008 03:22 PM

And you actually believe a nuclear bomb could fit in a suitcase?

On one hand, we have gov't controlled by terrorists. On the other, wingnuts who hate gov't in any degree engage in their counter-terrorizing by spewing conspirabunk that is full of holes.

Both have one element in common as to agenda: terrorizing We the people.

A few of the sane are still reading the comments.

Physical injuries can (often) be rehabbed to a greater degree than most laypeople know. Much traumatic brain injury can be rehabbed as well, but it takes years. Remove the pins from his guns. Ammo is more easily obtained.

none the less it's a rhetorical flaw -

Glenn assumes that every dollar is spent on this single issue which of course is not only nonsense it's precisely the sloppiness that Glenn typically tells us is gospel.

-- Electro Robot Saturday, May 24, 2008 04:21 PM

I knew you couldn't, cheap-shot loud mouth.

I'm wondering if the day will ever come when I can read Glenn's column and not get pissed the hell off. You spur me to action, Glenn. I've donated and written letters to the media and representatives, and I'll vote as many times as they'll let me. I just wish there was something else I could do on this issue-- for instance, change my carrier to Qwest and let AT&T and Verizon know why. Unfortunately, Qwest doesn't seem to be in California yet.

No. I've never been an LP member, and especially distrust Barr given his total commitment to the drug "war." However, and that said, I think my libertarian co-blogger Jim Henley (who votes Dems these days, not LP) says it for me:

http://www.theartofthepossible.net/2008/05/24/pooper-party/

Teddy Roosevelt was never elected as a Progressive (Bull Moose) Party candidate. Roosevelt succeeded to the presidency on the assassination of McKinley in 1901. He won the election of 1904 as a Republican. In 1908 the Republican nomination and the election went to William Howard Taft. Roosevelt's split with Taft did not come until 1910. Roosevelt walked out of the Republican Party when he did not get the nomination at the Republican convention that year and ran on the Progressive Party ticket. While he outpolled Taft in the election, the overall result of the Republican Party split was to hand the 1912 election to Wilson.

Please try to be more careful with your facts.

-- Frankly, my dear, ... Sunday, May 25, 2008 04:18 AM

The trash heap of history has its own acreage allocated for third parties and third party candidates for president.

.........some real transparency in Government!! So we can see all this crap and they really don't care if we can see it, it's just business as usual. Net neutrality and Trent Lott....there's another scary thought.

Straight and simple question; do we need a federal Post Office?

-- bucky1 Sunday, May 25, 2008 09:25 AM

. . . but he wasn't as smart as you.

For me, the US postal service is excellent, and the rates are reasonable. -- cabdriver.

The USPS is tehe best on the planet, UK's #2. And the least expensive.

I've exlored the world via the postal service. Never a lost piece of mail. Got mail to and from the Falkland Islands during the Falkland Islands-Argentine War -- even though the mail had to go through Argentina in both directions.

I pretty much gave up after a half-year wait for return mail from Tristan da Cunha. But even that came through.

Only one piece of mail was lost in all that time -- except that it turned out not to have been mailed in the first place.

There's a lot of blaming, bashing, and beefing about the USPS -- most of it from ignorant asses.

Lobbying is not a victimless crime.

They are not "lobbyists" they are "bribists". And lobbying is not a victimless crime.

-- GeorgeO Sunday, May 25, 2008 07:59 AM

If a butterfly in Washington, DC bribes a congressman, does it adversely affect the life and wallet of L. W. M. in Alaska?

Retired Military Patriot - Monday, May 28, 2007 09:08 Am

Why I'm Angry

Thanks Gary for voicing my feelings and anger so well for me. I was a member of U.S. Central Command when it was formed and knew before the war what an Invasion of Iraq would mean for my comrades and the tribal “eye for an eye” thinkers in Iraq and Islam. I felt incredulous that our President and his Attention Deficit Administration of Spoiled Brats would be so foolish and cavalier. I didn’t believe that Saddam was tied to Bin Laden or that he couldn’t be controlled with sanctions and inspections. I was retired from the Air Force so I had no way of knowing what his WMD capability was, but I thought the inspections could work to keep the threat low and that military force should only be used as an absolute last resort.

When George H. W. Bush decided not to go to Baghdad in the first Iraq conflict, I had just retired and was pretty much an alone voice among those still on active duty in saying what a wise decision that was because I was convinced that what has happened the second time would have happened the first. What made me so angry in 2002 was not that I was a genius who saw the future when others couldn’t. I was so angry because I couldn’t understand why our government, including our congress, couldn’t see what was so obvious and how many of my comrades would die and be maimed and how many innocent Iraqis would suffer and die.

My fellow military are wonderful people who love our country and because they must remain out of politics, they only want to do the most professional job they can. In their eagerness to do that, many of them often don’t consider non-military methods for solving problems. That is why at Squadron Officer’s School when the Pueblo was captured by North Korea, and I strongly opposed all my colleagues cries of “nuke em,” my in box was filled with bars of Dove soap. It’s why during the Vietnam War, that when I admired the war protestors who poured blood on my files, twice, once in Arkansas and another in Hawaii, my comrades couldn’t understand how that could be supporting our troops by believing that the war should be ended.

The angry retired military voices that Killed John Kerry’s presidential campaign through wanting to believe political nonsense and false war stories could only have happened because these military patriots can still not get over the emotional trauma of having to face the fact that their cause was unwise. They get angry at anyone who dares to burst the balloon that is blinding their eyes to the truth that American political leaders with weak character or venal purposes can cause far too many brave Americans to die in a misguided or unjust cause. That is why it is so hard to have the political will to withdraw our forces from Iraq.

I fervently hope that my frank comments on this Memorial Day are not conceived in any way as critical of those heroes who have to struggle with this psychological challenge. But, we can’t prevent another disastrous war in the future if we, the military, don’t learn from the past. We need brave military leaders like Gen. Shinseki to stand up and be counted when political leadership is not considering all the consequences of their military decisions. We can’t keep saying “yes sir,” when receiving orders that are politically and militarily ill conceived. We have to stop being foolish to believe that our technology and military prowess can overcome any challenge, when military might will not ever be able to make things politically right. Above all, we better understand the thinking, religion, culture and politics of the “enemy” far better than we did in Iraq before we enter the battle field again.

Each hour of each day I think about my comrades in Iraq. I then inevitably get angry at my fellow Americans who used parochial or personal morality reasons to elect a president who was clearly not qualified to be President. Voters who let political mantras deceive them into electing a drinking buddy instead of a thoughtful leader who seeks out dissenting opinion and takes responsibility for past mistakes. George W.’s clearly inadequate performance in the last six years and the deaths of so many that we have to memorialize on this day has to show us the importance of carefully considering who we elect in 2008. We owe that to all who have died to protect our great nation.

_______________

RMP --

I'm from a military family. My pacifism crystallized while still in high school from reading Twain on war and imperialism.

"There's no such thing as a civil war."

"'My country -- right, or wrong!' Why, not even a burglar could have said that better."

Upon being graduated from high school I was immediately confronted by draft eligibility. I managed to get around that, which freed me up to actively oppose US involvement in Vietnam, full-time for at least a year. I was also opposed to the destruction of property by others who were also opposed to that involvement.

But I too understood it as you did.

I am opposed to the existence of militaries.

And we are on the same page.

Your service is greater than the norm for being at least initially opposed to military action in order to first think it through. And I would take the Dove soap as compliment, even though inadvertent.