NewsTrust - Lobbying - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Fair Game: W.T.O. and Barriers to Financial Change

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Gretchen Morgenson - Mar. 17 (Opinion) - The battle to remake the financial markets faces new obstacles in — of all places — the World Trade Organization. Even now, after all we’ve been through, something is still wrong with Wall Street. That’s the takeaway from the extraordinary — and extraordinarily public — resignation of Greg Smith from Goldman Sachs last week. His criticism of Goldman, made in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times, suggested that some of the business practices and inherent conflicts in the financial industry are as troubling today as they were before all of those taxpayer bailouts.

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Stop Keystone pipeline before it's too late

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

CNN - By Ted Turner - Feb. 22 (Opinion) - The purpose of Keystone XL is to bring tar sands crude oil through the United States to Gulf Coast refineries. The route through the United States is actually the oil industry's second choice: Transporting the oil west from Alberta to the Pacific Coast would be shorter and much cheaper, but Canadians concerned about environmental impacts and threats to native people's lands are challenging that route, and with good reason. The existing and potential environmental impacts along the 2,000-mile pipeline route are profound.

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KO Computer

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Jan. 19 (Comedy News) - Wikipedia goes dark for 24 hours in protest of SOPA, raising the question: do they expect us to go to the library like a common masturbator? ... If SOPA passes, people who stream copyrighted content could go to jail for five years.

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Of Dystopias and Alphas

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Maureen Dowd - Aug. 21 (Opinion) - Why can’t the president who promised revolution set the Washington schedule rather than bow to it?

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When Food Kills

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Nicholas D. Kristof - Jun. 12 (Opinion) - As we keep feeding our livestock antibiotics, we are creating a breeding ground for bacteria that can lead to untreatable ailments.

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How the journalist prom got out of control

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Dana Milbank - Apr. 29 (Opinion) - The correspondents’ association dinner was a minor annoyance for years, when it was a “nerd prom” for journalists and a few minor celebrities. But, as with so much else in this town, the event has spun out of control. Now, awash in lobbyist and corporate money, it is another display of Washington’s excesses.

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Clean Air Under Siege

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - Feb. 06 (Editorial) - Congress’s failure to enact a climate bill means that the E.P.A.’s authority to regulate these gases — an authority conferred by a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2007 — is, for now, the only tool available to the federal government to combat global warming.

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Big business is back in business

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Dana Milbank - Jan. 12 (Opinion) - Fifteen million Americans are out of work, thanks in part to reckless Wall Street activities. Yet corporate profits are at record highs, companies are sitting on vast amounts of cash, and, after a tough two years, business interests are again atop the Washington power structure.

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The Crying Shame of John Boehner

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Jan. 06 (Opinion) - John Boehner is the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades in Washington, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich. The biographer who somewhere down the line tackles the question of Boehner's legacy will do well to simply throw out any references to party affiliation, because the thing that has made Boehner who he is — the thing that has finally lifted him to the apex of legislative power in America — has almost nothing to do with his being a Republican.

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A Tea Party of populist posers

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Dana Milbank - Oct. 20 (Opinion) - Angry voters have been exploited by people of the same elite class they deplore.

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The new tea party bible

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Politico - By Kenneth P. Vogel - Jul. 31 (Review) - “Rules for Radicals,” the iconic liberal organizing manifesto by Saul Alinsky, was an unlikely bible for tea party activists as they tried to mobilize their movement last year. Now, as they struggle to demonstrate their impact and staying power, they have another unlikely book to live by — a kind of management guide written by a couple of Stanford MBAs that extols the virtues of decentralization.

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The Pro-Israel Lobby And The New Israel

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Atlantic Monthly - By Andrew Sullivan - Mar. 09 (Opinion) - ... notice that it is Obama's fault for asking an alleged ally merely to freeze - not reverse - construction settlement as a good faith gesture to the peace process and as a favor to the US in trying to recapture the role of an honest broker in the region. It is not Israel's fault - even though Maureen thinks Israel should have done it.

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Laws for Sale

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Matt Bai - Mar. 05 (Opinion) - ... if our senators and congressmen really wanted to be ideal public servants, they wouldn’t need us to protect them from their corporate patrons. Rather, they would simply do what’s right and face the consequences. That is, after all, what most Americans do when our work requires us to choose between our principles and our personal gain. Most of us would sooner leave our jobs than follow orders to defraud clients or falsify records. The guy at the deli counter probably isn’t going to sell you contaminated meat just because his boss orders him to, any more than your electrician is going to risk burning down your house by installing faulty alarms.

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Obama's Big Sellout

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Dec. 12 (Opinion) - Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside.

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The real reason Obama is not making much progress

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Nov. 20 (Opinion) - So far, Obama has tried to co-opt the corporations into his agenda by ensuring they will profit from any changes, but this inevitably waters down the proposals, often to the point of uselessness. The Cap and Trade legislation before Congress, for example, will barely limit carbon emissions at all because it has been gutted to please the polluters.

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High noon in Washington, D.C.

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:05:22 -0800

Minneapolis Star Tribune - Nov. 18 -

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Citizens left out in cold

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Indianapolis Star - Nov. 18 (Editorial) - State Rep. David Wolkins isn't shy about what he likes: golf, basketball and football. As ranking Republican member and former chairman of the Indiana House Environmental Affairs Committee, he's in a position to indulge his interests thanks to the very companies he's supposed to help regulate.

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Climate Rage

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Naomi Klein - Nov. 11 (Opinion) - With Copenhagen now likely to begin before Congress has passed even a weak-ass climate bill co-authored by the coal lobby, U.S. politicians have dropped the superhero metaphors and are scrambling to lower expectations for achieving a serious deal at the climate summit. It's just one meeting, says U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, not "the be-all and end-all." As faith in government action dwindles, however, climate activists are treating Copenhagen as an opportunity of a different kind. On track to be the largest environmental gathering in history, the summit represents a chance to seize the political terrain back from business-friendly half-measures, such as carbon offsets and emissions trading, and introduce some effective, common-sense proposals — ideas that have less to do with creating complex new markets for pollution and more to do with keeping coal and oil in the ground.

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Send your medical bills to Max Baucus

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Comedy Central - By Stephen Colbert - Oct. 09 (Comedy News) - Senator Max Baucus will pay for your medical bills from the $3.2 million he's received from the health care industry.

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Health Care and the 'Predator State'

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Thomas Frank - Oct. 07 (Opinion) - In June 2008, I used this space to call on then-Sen. Barack Obama to add economist James K. Galbraith's book, "The Predator State," to his reading list. As an account of the capture of government by private interests, I thought it would make a far more useful guide to contemporary political economy than the market-glorifying texts that were still in fashion in those days.

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What's wrong with Obama's order barring lobbyists from his administration?

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Jacob Weisberg - Apr. 21 (Opinion) - Obama knows it's going to take some strong garlic to ward off the vampires on his side of the aisle and restore a sense of integrity in government. Unfortunately, his intended reform is driving stakes through the hearts of innocent bystanders only. The problem isn't that his rules are too strict. It's that they miss the crucial distinction between the kind of lobbying that's good for democracy and the kind that perverts it.

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Why Obama and Gates need Ike to trim the military

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - Apr. 10 (Editorial) - The secretary is actually up against a vast industrial-congressional complex, with intertwined and entrenched interests. Over the decades, the defense industry has spread into so many congressional districts that it's virtually impossible to shut anything down without a Hooah! battle cry from key lawmakers. The targeted F-22 fighter jet, for instance, is assembled with components built in 44 states.

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No Lunch Left Behind

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Alice Waters, Katrina Heron - Feb. 20 (Opinion) - THIS new era of government bailouts and widespread concern over wasteful spending offers an opportunity to take a hard look at the National School Lunch Program. Launched in 1946 as a public safety net, it has turned out to be a poor investment. It should be redesigned to make our children healthier.

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The Generals’ Second Careers

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Clark Hoyt - Jan. 25 (Opinion) - Last April, The Times published an investigation of a Pentagon public relations program intended to win favorable coverage of the Bush administration’s war on terror through retired officers working as military analysts on television. The report, “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand,” revealed a program that gave the analysts talking points and unusual access to top officials — contacts, the article said, that some of the officers hoped would benefit military contractors with whom they had ties.

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Bailout to Nowhere

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By David Brooks - Nov. 16 (Opinion) - Democrats from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi want to grant immortality to General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. They have decided to follow an earlier $25 billion loan with a $50 billion bailout, which would inevitably be followed by more billions later, because if these companies are not permitted to go bankrupt now, they never will be. This is a different sort of endeavor than the $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. That money was used to save the financial system itself. It was used to save the capital markets on which the process of creative destruction depends. Granting immortality to Detroit’s Big Three does not enhance creative destruction. It retards it. It crosses a line, a bright line. It is not about saving a system; there will still be cars made and sold in America. It is about saving politically powerful corporations. A Detroit bailout would set a precedent for every single politically connected corporation in America. There already is a long line of lobbyists bidding for federal money. If Detroit gets money, then everyone would have a case. After all, are the employees of Circuit City or the newspaper industry inferior to the employees of Chrysler? But this, apparently, is about to change. Democrats from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi want to grant immortality to General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. They have decided to follow an earlier $25 billion loan with a $50 billion bailout, which would inevitably be followed by more billions later, because if these companies are not permitted to go bankrupt now, they never will be. This is a different sort of endeavor than the $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. That money was used to save the financial system itself. It was used to save the capital markets on which the process of creative destruction depends.

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