Biden Plans Swamp Draining with EO on lobbying, political appointees, ethics

Not even 24 hours hence the Republicans will suddenly and without comment on the last four years reacquire their desire to see the power of the executive checked.

trump had 4 years to "drain the swamp" . Are you saying he didn't do it??????? It must be back there with all that healthcare that would cover everyone.

Sparagmos said:

Do you support or oppose the measures mentioned in the OP?

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Oh I suppose if he does that it is a step in the right direction.

essentialsaltes said:

President Trump had removed that restriction when he came into office.

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Trump's admin was just a money grab. Trump created the biggest, deepest swamp ever.

I'm really against this use of "swamp".

Its a holdover from when we regarded wetlands as fetid and poisonous and in the way of 'progress' rather than beautiful ecosystems that nourish life, clean water, and moderate floods.

(steps off soapbox)

Pavel Mosko said:

Oh I suppose if he does that it is a step in the right direction.

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Not to put you on the spot or anything, this isn't a gotcha question. I don't expect that any president will ever do everything right all the time.

But what do you think of
"President Trump had removed that restriction when he came into office."

I think this is in the context of
"Biden will reimpose a ban on lobbyists going to work for agencies they had recently lobbied"


Personally I felt it seemed corrupt (swampy) to put a Coal lobbyist as head of EPA, or to put Betsy Devos as Secretary of Education when she never went through the public school system and never had her kids go through the public school system and she is promoting charter schools rather than public schools.


I think putting certain rules on Congress and government can help ethics and help combat having a swampy administration.

stevil said:

Not to put you on the spot or anything, this isn't a gotcha question. I don't expect that any president will ever do everything right all the time.

But what do you think of
"President Trump had removed that restriction when he came into office."

I think this is in the context of
"Biden will reimpose a ban on lobbyists going to work for agencies they had recently lobbied"


Personally I felt it seemed corrupt (swampy) to put a Coal lobbyist as head of EPA, or to put Betsy Devos as Secretary of Education when she never went through the public school system and never had her kids go through the public school system and she is promoting charter schools rather than public schools.


I think putting certain rules on Congress and government can help ethics and help combat having a swampy administration.

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Trump was more ambitious on clearing out lobbyists and other crony people early on. At some point though he had win over the rest of the old establishment GOP that pretty much wanted all that stuff and more or less became like your average politician.

Pavel Mosko said:

Trump was more ambitious on clearing out lobbyists and other crony people early on.

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How so?

Pavel Mosko said:

Well a lot of it is that Washington doesn't really change even if the two parties switch sides as far who is in power as President etc.. This is in contrast to if someone like Rand Paul or Bernie Sanders were to get in etc. In terms of Bernie Sanders I'm probably relieved that is the case....

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I've kinda heard this but never understood it and I don't know how it relates to the term "swamp"

The Democratic Party is kinda centre left, the Republican Party is kinda centre right in the context of USA
Personally I would consider the D Party to be centre right and the R party to be far right in context of my country.

The differentiating factors (if we ignore Trump's uniqueness) is that the D party is more sympathetic to poorer people e.g. affordable healthcare, support for minimum wage, unemployment benefits, unions and are more sympathetic to immigrants and refugees, where as the R party is more about privatising things, having a user pays system and not concerning itself with people that can't afford to pay. Then apart from some wedge items (abortion, guns, LGQBT) the parties policies are somewhat similar. Both like and support capitalism, both like and support international trade, both like and support USA economic and military dominance and use that as leverage to squeeze further benefits for USA in terms of international negotiations.
That is what USA flip flops between.

So, what change is it that some people want?
You mentioned Bernie who is seen as a Sociocapitalist.
I don't know anything about Rand Paul.

Are you saying that you want USA to move away from Capitalism?

Pavel Mosko said:

Trump was more ambitious on clearing out lobbyists and other crony people early on.

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Here is a link I have just found

Lobbyists in (and out of) the Trump Administration
"President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order within his first days of office forbidding Executive Branch appointees from lobbying for five years after employment in the Administration. The Order also forbids former registered lobbyists now working in the White House from participating in areas they had previously lobbied on for a period of two years."

This sounds like a good step
It then goes on to list many, many lobbyist appointments

Good.

Lobbying is easily one of the most ridiculous aspects of American politics.

Pavel Mosko said:

Oh I suppose if he does that it is a step in the right direction.

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Cool! We found a little thing to agree on. I’d like to see more and bigger steps taken and we shall see if the Dems use any of their power to truly reduce the ability of oligarchs and industries to buy power in Washington.

stevil said:

Here is a link I have just found

Lobbyists in (and out of) the Trump Administration
"President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order within his first days of office forbidding Executive Branch appointees from lobbying for five years after employment in the Administration. The Order also forbids former registered lobbyists now working in the White House from participating in areas they had previously lobbied on for a period of two years."

This sounds like a good step
It then goes on to list many, many lobbyist appointments

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Yes, Pres. Trump signed Executive Orders to limit lobbying by those that had worked for the government. He then promptly signed a waiver which allowed those that worked in his administration to be exempt from the lobbying restrictions.

Joe Biden Hires 14 Execs From Big Tech Firms That Banned Trump and Pro-Life Conservatives
Welcome to the new swamp

hislegacy said:

Joe Biden Hires 14 Execs From Big Tech Firms That Banned Trump and Pro-Life Conservatives

At least 14 people who President-elect Joe Biden has picked to serve either in his administration or to advise his transition have worked for the Big Tech firms that cracked down earlier this week on President Donald Trump and a social media site popular with conservatives.

Apple’s top lobbyist was a chief adviser to the Biden transition team. A former Facebook executive will serve as staff director in the Biden White House, and a former Twitter executive will serve as chief spokesperson for the National Security Council under Biden.
​

Welcome to the new swamp

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No, a continuation of the grievance swamp. btw, I didn't realize the January 6th protest was a "Pro-Life" event....somehow, I didn't get that impression (referring to the deceptive headline from "Life News")

SimplyMe said:

Yes, Pres. Trump signed Executive Orders to limit lobbying by those that had worked for the government. He then promptly signed a waiver which allowed those that worked in his administration to be exempt from the lobbying restrictions.

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OK, tumbling further down the rabbit hole now.

Lobbyists get ethics waivers to work for Trump despite executive order
"Mr. Trump's executive order on ethics supplanted a more stringent set of rules put in place by President Barack Obama in 2008. Nearly 70 waivers were issued to executive branch officials during Obama's eight years, though those were generally more narrowly focused and offered a fuller legal explanation for why the waiver was granted."

So, if Trump's executive order "supplanted a more stringent set of rules" does this mean that instead of improving the restrictions around lobbyists, that Trump's executive order then relaxed lobbyist restrictions?

70 waivers from Obama doesn't sound good either.

"I was very surprised and at the same time very hopeful that he was going to take his pledge to 'drain the swamp' seriously," Holman said Wednesday. "It is now quite evident that the pledge was little more than campaign rhetoric. Not only are key provisions simply ignored and not enforced, when in cases where obvious conflicts of interest are brought into the limelight, the administration readily issues waivers from the ethics rules."

"An analysis by the AP shows that nearly half of the political appointees hired at the Environmental Protection Agency under Mr. Mr. Trump have strong industry ties. Of 59 EPA hires tracked by the AP over the last year, about a third worked as registered lobbyists or lawyers for chemical manufacturers, fossil fuel producers and other corporate clients that raise the very type of revolving-door conflicts of interests that Mr. Trump promised voters he would eliminate."

Trump has granted more lobbyist waivers in 4 months than Obama did in 8 years
"immediately after taking office, he signed a flashy executive order tightening restrictions on lobbyists’ work in the executive branch.

But he immediately began to staff the administration with people whose work seemed, on its face, to clearly violate the terms of the order. Rather than publicly grant waivers of ethics rules with a clearly stated rationale, the White House was simply routinely waiving ethics rules in secret so nobody knew how many waivers were issued or for what purpose."

"He’s granted five times as many waivers in his first four months in office as Obama did"

Elliewaves said:

trump had 4 years to "drain the swamp" . Are you saying he didn't do it??????? It must be back there with all that healthcare that would cover everyone.

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And that ‘big beautiful wall’.

Drain the custom 'infinity' lap pool!

essentialsaltes said:

Biden to ban special bonuses for appointees, expand lobbying prohibitions in new ethics rules

President-elect Joe Biden will ban his senior presidential appointees from accepting special bonuses akin to “golden parachutes” from former employers for joining the government, while putting in place other expanded revolving-door restrictions in his first days in office.

The new ethics rules, which were described by transition officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the draft executive order is not public, will in some ways go beyond the guidelines for senior appointees that were put in place by the Trump and Obama administrations.

For people coming to the government from the private sector, Biden will reimpose a ban on lobbyists going to work for agencies they had recently lobbied, unless they get a waiver from the White House counsel.

President Trump had removed that restriction when he came into office.

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That's not the problem. The problem is those who work for the government going to work as lobbyists in industries that they, as government employees, did business with. That is where the influence peddling begins......but it does not seem Uncle Joe is concerned about that......