Holder calls for people to be brainwashed about guns

This is scary. The entire video is disgusting, but at the 3:10 mark the alarms and red flags should be set off en masse.

Interesting photo on the TSA

While browsing TexAgs.com, I came across this graphic about the TSA. And to think, these goons may/will be headed to our highways soon.

 

Lobbyists irked by Obama’s hypocritical rhetoric

I found this linked on a messageboard that I frequent:

Lobbyists to Obama: Tone down the rhetoric!

By BYRON TAU |

3/13/12 4:33 PM EDT

The American League of Lobbyists (ALL), a trade group representing the industry, is calling on President Obama to tone down the anti-lobbyist rhetoric — blaming him for a rise in unregistered ‘consultants’ and ‘advisers’ doing de facto lobbying work.

“You have attacked lobbyists as being a primary source of political dysfunction, yet you have embraced those lobbyists who choose to call themselves consultants, advisers, or any other name besides a lobbyist,” Howard Marlowe, president of the organization, wrote in a letter to the president.

Marlowe blames the rise in unregistered lobbyists taking titles like “consultant” on Obama’s heated rhetoric about the role lobbyists in the political process. Consultants and advisers do not face the same legal restrictions or disclosure requirements as registered lobbyists — despite sometimes doing much of the same work.

“We are especially troubled that the positions you have taken have encouraged many lobbyists to deregister and have thus limited free speech of those of us who remain registered,” Marlowe wrote. “Our primary concern with incentivizing deregistration is that the public loses knowledge of who these people are lobbying, who is paying for their advocacy work, how much their are being paid and what issues are they being paid to work on.”

The trend that ALL identifies is actually a serious problem for politicians of both parties who face attacks from opponents for having ‘lobbyists’ fundraising or staffing their campaigns or administrations. It creates a disincentive for political staffers to officially register as lobbyists and it draws an often-artificial distinction between consultants and lobbyists.

Newt Gingrich, in particular, faced a withering storm of criticism from some of his Republican rivals that a consulting contract for the mortgage giant Freddie Mac was in essence a lobbying contract — a charge that Gingrich denies.

And it’s a problem that even the anti-lobbyist Obama administration has grappled with. The administration has hired more than 50 lobbyists into policy positions, but they have noted that many came from a nonprofit (read: not corporate) background and are simply registered as lobbyists to avoid running afoul of the laws.

“For example, a doctor who ran Tobacco-Free Kids technically is a registered lobbyist, on the other hand, has more expertise than anybody in figuring out how kids don’t get hooked on cigarettes. So there have been a couple of instances like that,” Obama said in 2010 to questions about lobbyists in his administration.

What an interesting conundrum Obama is in. I’ll file this away for when a conservative politician is given the middle finger by the media and liberals.