MPAA-Dodd Investigation Petition Reaches Goal 270
An anonymous reader writes "The petition on 'We the People' website petitioning the administration to investigate Chris Dodd for corruption has reached the required 25,000 votes in two days: now the government has to officially respond to the petition. The petition ... stemmed from Chris Dodd's statement that tried to portray campaign donations as quid-pro-quos for SOPA/PIPA votes."
Re:respond? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What's funny is (Score:5, Interesting)
That most /.'s actually believed Obama would run an open and honest administration. Democrats are great on the talk, worse on the walk but liberals will never see it.
But the radical reactionaries who call themselves "conservatives" are so good with walking the walk, are they? Please.
The whole bunch of them are so beholden to the monied interests that it's amazing we still bother to have farcical "elections" instead of auctions.
Wow ... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the first I'm reading the link [techdirt.com] fro the last Slashdot story [slashdot.org] ...
Seriously
I didn't think any of these guys went so far as to acknowledge that they've been bought and paid for. Usually they try to couch it in nicer terms, but this pretty much says if you're gonna take the bribe, you gotta do what they tell you.
Holy crap, does that sound illegal. Not that they'd over pass laws that actually limit the money from the lobbyists ... that's too big of a chunk of their income.
And people wonder why everyone thinks politicians are corrupt.
Re:respond? (Score:5, Interesting)
See, this is where Anonymous could actually make itself useful. Maybe dig up some incriminating emails and leak them.
Re:What's funny is (Score:4, Interesting)
The whole bunch of them are so beholden to the monied interests that it's amazing we still bother to have farcical "elections" instead of auctions.
Have to keep the rubes thinking they still have a voice in this country, otherwise they might put down the Doritos, turn off American Idol, peel themselves off the couch and actually start to give a shit.
I'd have no problem with lobbyists if... (Score:5, Interesting)
1) They were never allowed to physically meet lawmakers, ever.
2) All requests were limited to about 1000 words per week, in email.
3) All such requests were publically viewable via the internet as unformatted text files.
4) All lawmakers submitted their finances to lifelong review after serving with an eye to spotting cash sources from foreign bank accounts. Better still, make having foreign accounts or receiving money from foreign accounts a felony for ex-lawmakers.
5) No ex-lawmaker was ever allowed to act as a lobbyist, ever.
Re:I'd have no problem with lobbyists if... (Score:5, Interesting)
Or use the British system. Have a "Register of Members' Interests" in which they must publicly list any payment, donation or gift received, and which bars them for the remainder of their term from voting on any related issue, to avoid claims of bias.
Re:respond? (Score:5, Interesting)
The WH petition system isn't even based on any law. For all intents and purposes, WH could say, "Yeah...get 5 signatures and we'll 'respond'."
BHO said it best when "petitioners" wanted a response to legalizing marijuana and he pretty much said STFU and GTFO.
I would actually vote for him if he had set up the website such that once there was enough votes, he would call a lackey in congress to actually draft a bill. That would have shown he had balls. But doing so would give power back to the people and that's just bad politics.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Irrelevant, reduce government, reduce corruptio (Score:4, Interesting)
Corruption comes from two sources; power and being unaccountable.
If you have to few people in government you have corrupt folks because they are able to act with impunity and nobody can do anything about even when everyone does they guilty as sin itself.
You also get corruption when government gets to big; nobody is ever accountable, no not even in our world where everything is recorded and logged. Once you get a government as big as ours its almost always the case that crimes even consistent and repeated ones go unnoticed lost in the noise, crimes can't be addressed because there is always a bigger fish to investigate, and nothing can be made to stick because there is so many others for the perp to point the finger at and say oh "well...I...but for...."
The solution is not no government (Somalia is staw man) nor is the solution more government, solution is SMALL TIERED government. You want to have a handful of people closely accountable to electorate so we all no their names, each fairly direct, clear, and knowable responsibilities.