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

civilwarbuff said:

Actually it is not.....if that were so we would know how all the cultures of the world think.....and that just ain't so......

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All of the cultures of the world don’t produce media like we do. No one does.

civilwarbuff said:

Your posts reveal that.....

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More detail please. Anyone can make a throwaway insult and not back it up.

civilwarbuff said:

Actually it is not.....if that were so we would know how all the cultures of the world think.....and that just ain't so......

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Please don’t measure others by your own level of knowledge/ignorance.

stevil said:

but I suspect many USA folk also do not understand...

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Yeah, that's kind of one of our big problems.

-CryptoLutheran

stevil said:

Last time I looked the Democratic Party was happy with Capitalism.

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Time to look again.....

Sparagmos said:

One measurement would be the extent of privatization as opposed to commonly held/publicly owned resources or industries. Which overlaps with the extent of the safety net.

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This was your statement: Whether policies are more right or left of other countries is not dependent on understanding the culture. It’s a measurable thing.
Your response has nothing to do with my question.

The Ant said:

More detail please. Anyone can make a throwaway insult and not back it up.

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It is not an insult. Go back and follow the conversation.

Trumps EO against lobbying by appointees that was mentioned earlier.... well it looks like Trump rescinded that just before leaving the White House.

civilwarbuff said:

This was your statement: Whether policies are more right or left of other countries is not dependent on understanding the culture. It’s a measurable thing.
Your response has nothing to do with my question.

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I believe your question was about how it could be measured? The degree of privatization vs commonly held resources and assets is a measurable thing, and by comparing those measurements for different countries we can see which are more to the right or left on each other.

essentialsaltes said:

You must be hopping mad that Trump ripped up his EO that forbade that, which now frees all of his political appointees to start influence peddling immediately.

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I think a person should be able to work for whomever they want....
But the government should decline to work with those people; that's how to prevent influence peddling.

Sparagmos said:

I believe your question was about how it could be measured? The degree of privatization vs commonly held resources and assets is a measurable thing, and by comparing those measurements for different countries we can see which are more to the right or left on each other.

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OK, if you say so. What statistics back up your claim?.....since it is measurable that is......

civilwarbuff said:

But the government should decline to work with those people; that's how to prevent influence peddling.

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Politics is harder than it looks:
While your suggestion is fine on its face, it’d be challenged (probably successfully) on First Amendment grounds.

essentialsaltes said:

Ha, you literally said:

And now as soon as Trump doesn't care about that, you don't care either. Your ethics are a sham.

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Oh, come on now. He said that in the past*. Quit living in the past, today is a new day. Obviously, the rules have changed.


* past = yesterday

whatbogsends said:

Oh, come on now. He said that in the past*. Quit living in the past, today is a new day. Obviously, the rules have changed.


* past = yesterday

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"Now there's revolution, but they don't know
What they're fighting..."

My personal opinion: Lobbying, at least as we know it today, should be illegal. Granted, I'm not quite sure how you'd get rid of it -- but at a minimum get rid of members of Congress being able to get a free meal or trips, or other gifts, from individuals/groups who are trying to influence federal policy. I also approved of Trump signing that EO, to ban lobbying, and am frustrated that he removed it on his way out of office.

What is worse, since many of Trump's administration have likely already accepted new lobbyist jobs, while I would hope Biden would create an EO similar to Trump, to ban lobbying, unfortunately it is unlikely to prevent those that served in previous administrations from "keeping" lobbyist jobs.

Better yet, though this becomes very unlikely, I'd love to see Congress pass new laws limiting lobbyists and their access, as well as the gifts, and preventing former members of government from becoming lobbyists.

civilwarbuff said:

OK, if you say so. What statistics back up your claim?.....since it is measurable that is......

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Statistics? Maybe you don’t understand the claim if you think that it is something represented by statistics. Do you dispute that the U.S. has less of a safety net and fewer publicly administered and financed programs than all of Europe, Canada, and most of developed Asia? They all have some form of socialized medicine.

Pommer said:

Politics is harder than it looks:
While your suggestion is fine on its face, it’d be challenged (probably successfully) on First Amendment grounds.

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Don't know why it would; the gov has every right to decide what people they will deal with just as you and I do. If they find someone objectionable the company can change that or do without a contract.