Tag Archive for ‘obama’ at JJB Blog

Senators Obama and Coburn have introduced the Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008 (S. 3077), which would modify their 2006 transparency act. That first bill created USASpending.gov, a searchable web site of government outlays.

…

The new bill would expand the scope of information available via USASpending.gov, adding information about federal contracts, leases, and audit disputes, among other areas.

At some point, “Real” conservatives (even a lot of (most?) Reagan-style conservatives) are going to wake up and realize that Obama is doing radical work to make government spending more transparent and accountable, and that’s a GOOD thing for more efficient government!

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obamasresume.org — still relevant?

Published

John

on 6/11/2008

in general

. 2 Comments

Back in March I announced a new project, obamasresume.org. The point of the project was to demonstrate that Obama’s experience was significant, relevant, and impressive. There were a lot of assertions that Clinton was far more experienced than Obama, and I wanted to help set the record straight a little.

The site didn’t get fleshed out nearly as much as I thought it would, both because I had anticipated having more time to contribute to the wiki, and because I thought I would get far more user contributions. (Strangely, more than half of the people who registered for an account made no changes to the wiki.)

Now that Obama is the Democratic nominee, the primary purpose of the site is no longer there. I don’t think many people comparing Obama to McCain will be worried about Obama’s level of experience, and if they are considering McCain in the first place, then Obama’s reformist resume will probably turn them off anyway. (oh wait, McCain used to stand for campaign finance reform… I guess that’s over with).

Anyway, I’m tempted to just take it down. I don’t have time to contribute to it, and no one else seems to either. It’s the first hit on Google for “Obama’s Resume”, which is a good and bad thing. Good because, in theory it is being found very quickly by exactly the people who would be looking for it, bad because there isn’t much useful info on there.

What do you, dear reader, think I should do with the site? Leave it? Hype it more? Take it down?

Anyone want to take it over?

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Committee for a Unified Independent Party appreciates Barack Obama

Published

John

on 4/7/2008

in general

. 0 Comments

Quick note: I was pleased to find that the Committee for a Unified Independent Party is ~~endorsing~~ (see update below) Barack Obama, and running advertisements for him in North Carolina. I got a call from them asking me to support their campaign, and I obliged. How great that a “fringe” group such as this recognizes that Obama is a different kind of candidate.

I also noted on their website that they seem to be pretty critical of Nader, that he is not doing constructive things for the independent movement — I agree.

Update: John Opdycke from CUIP got in touch with me and clarified CUIPs relationship to the effort in North Carolina:

The Committee for a Unified Independent Party did not endorse Barack Obama, but rather is providing political and financial support to a longtime independent activist in North Carolina, Tyra Cohen, who has initiated an organizing effort entitled “North Carolina Independents for Obama.” Several of CUIP’s state affiliates have endorsed Obama; others have chosen not to make presidential endorsements but to focus on crucial political reform and base building efforts.

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Olbermann nails it.

Published

John

on 3/13/2008

in general

. 0 Comments

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yeswecanhas.com in the New York Post

Published

John

on 3/7/2008

in general

. 6 Comments

yeswecanhas.com was in the New York Post a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, it was in the first edition of that day’s paper, but not in subsequent editions, so it didn’t make it onto the website. But I just found it via a newspaper archiving service, and took the below screenshots.

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Reporting live from caucus in Houston, TX

Published

John

on 3/4/2008

in general

. 4 Comments

My friend Josh and his wife went to caucus in Houston, TX. Here are his reports as they come in. He is using instant messenger from his phone.

update: audio file from when the wrong numbers were announced

In chronological order. Newest updates are at the bottom. Last updated 9:31 pm, eastern

– 9:10 pm –

it’s pretty nuts - lost sign in sheets, ad hoc procedural decisions, etd.
in the beginning, everyone was told they could sign in (indicating the candidate) and then leave
if they didn’t want to be a delegate
[my wife] did, so we stayed
then, when the initial count of hillary voters for one of the precincts was off by an obvious order of magnitude… [update: see audio file above]
now we’re doing resolutions
1 - impeach bush/cheney
(didn’t see that coming)
anyway - a bunch of signup sheets were missing
and the chair suggested that we allocate the delegates based on who was still here (!)
(a bunch of folks had left - I would have if not for [my wife])
but then someone came out of the back with a bunch of sheets
and they’re still counting
there was zero control over the sheets
so I don’t think we can be too confident
- next resolution has to do with inaccurate vote counts in the past - hehe

– 9:20 –

rats - hillary took both precincts
but by a narrow margin
the total vote counts sounded sane
hundred twenty something total for one precint, hundred two for the other - but i’m going to count
about 100 still in the room - makes sense to think about that many left
back into 4 groups - one O & one H for each precinct
now voting on delegates, after hearing resolutions
there’s usually no competition for delegates.
right now a green party convert is stumping to become an obama delegate
our precinct gets 5 delegates for obama, and 12 people signed up for it ([my wife] among them)
we also get 5 alternates (makes sense), and so the delegates are expressing which they want to be
looks like we pared down to 10 and agreed to split off the alternates
no vote needed, and [my wife]’s a delegate - we’re taking off (baby’s cranky)

Josh had this to say after he got home:

John: well… from what you told me it seems like some pile of sheets came from nowhere
John: magically
yeah — someone had stashed them in the back
John: or at least– they could have been pre-processed by some party before they made their reappearance
there were enough signers present, and the sheets were in plain sight…
that it would have been foolish to try large fraud, I imagine
but the control really wasn’t there — one or more sheets could have been lost
all the addresses and voter reg (or drivers license) numbers will be verified
so from that perspective, it’s probably better than those damn machines we used for the primary :)

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Why I like Obama better than Clinton

Published

John

on 3/3/2008

in general

. 7 Comments

I rarely feel strong support for one Democratic candidate over another in the primaries. Heck, I can usually barely get myself to vote for the Democrat in the general election. So what makes me feel so strongly about Obama? Well, there are 3 main reasons:

His stance against the war

Obama was against the war before it began, has criticized the war since then, and is now running a campaign centered around ending the war. All the way through he has spoken the plain truth about it: (a) there was no compelling evidence that there were any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (b) we should have been focusing our military efforts on quelling terrorist networks (c) we need to work on improving our reputation and relationships with other countries and cultures in order to not incite terrorism in the first place.

His meta-policies

Reading Obama and Clinton’s policies side-by-side, one will discover that they are pretty similar. I happen to think that Obama’s are presented much more clearly and intelligently on his website, and smack of greater sophistication and detail, but it is arguable that this has more to do with audience targeting than with the quality of the goals and final details of the policies themselves.

What really impresses me about Obama, and sets him apart from Clinton, are his “meta-policies”, if you will; his policies and goals about government.

Obama wants to make our government more transparent, more accessible, and more accountable. To this end he has done the following work while in the US Senate:

Introduced the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which requires the full disclosure of all entities or organizations receiving federal funds beginning in fiscal year (FY) 2007 on a website maintained by the Office of Management and Budget (http://www.usaspending.gov/).
Put together, with Russ Feingold, the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which amends parts of the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995. It strengthens public disclosure requirements concerning lobbying activity and funding, places more restrictions on gifts for members of Congress and their staff, and provides for mandatory disclosure of earmarks in expenditure bills.
Introduced the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections, including fraudulent flyers and automated phone calls, as witnessed in the 2006 midterm elections

(Not all have passed. Click through to see current status of each piece of legislation. Descriptions lifted from Wikipedia and slightly modified.)
Now, during his campaign, he has an incredibly impressive set of policies on using technology to improve government transparency and accessibility. I could give you an overview, or I could just direct you to Lawrence Lessig’s fantastic piece on why he supports Obama, which mostly addresses technology and transparency. In a nutshell: Obama wants to make government information and information as easy to access as your favorite blog. On top of that, he has the most sophisticated position on Net Neutrality. (quick definition of Net Neutrality: not allowing the phone/cable company to charge you more to access some websites vs. others, which is what they want to start doing.)

Previously mentioned here: this fantastic lecture Obama gave on government accountability, transparency, and ethics.

His style of politics

Obama has run an extremely long and beautiful grassroots campaign. He has established an extremely impressive network of paid staffers in most (all?) states. He has engaged his supporters using accessible and innovative online tools. He has the best website, by far.

He has not accepted any lobbyist contributions. (see extensive discussion of this topic here).

He has been able to spool up and sustain an enormous, million-dollar-a-day, grassroots fundraising machine.

Only 10 percent of Clinton contributors did not donate the legal maximum $2,300 for her primary campaign. In contrast, only three percent of Obama donors gave the maximum. The rest of the cash came from small sums from many more people. (source)

He has completely refrained from what, to my understanding, most people would call “negative” campaigning / mud slinging. As of a couple weeks ago, the Clinton campaign can’t say the same…

That’s why Obama is such a different candidate to me. I’d love to hear what folks out there think about the differences (or lack thereof) between the two candidates, if I am buying into hype, or if I am missing some important points.

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What does it means for a campaign to accept money from lobbyists?

Published

John

on 3/3/2008

in general

. 0 Comments

Obama’s campaign says they don’t accept money from lobbyists, and Clinton’s campaign does. Everyone seems to accept this assertion. Indeed, everyone seems to accept that it is significant and bold for the Obama campaign to have such a policy.

But I don’t understand what it means to accept money from a lobbyist. A conversation I just had with my friend Ryan:

John: so the obama campaign says they do not accept lobbyist contributions
John: it is my understanding that organizations/companies cannot contribute to a campaign anyway
John: how is it that lobbyist can contribute to a campaign?
John: from the human’s own pocket, in a grey-market way of getting a commercial money to a campaign?
John: or is there a separate system.
Ryan: hmm… I don’t know much about that
Ryan: I remember the whole “swift boat veterans for truth” thing from the last presidential election, where advertisements for bush were paid for by a third-party organization not affiliated with his campaign, so that is definitely one way to do it.
John: ah yes.
John: that is completely different though
John: those people were “independent”
John: lobbyist contributions go directly to a campaign, in a legal way
Ryan: Often companies will “encourage” employees to contribute to the company’s selected candidate
John: right
John: still not lobbyists.
John: (i think)

Then Ryan found this, which states:

PACs get their money not from the sponsoring group’s treasury, but from its members or employees. That arrangement neatly bypasses federal laws that prohibit direct contributions.

Which seems to suggest Ryan was right about the companies encouraging their employees. Is this the whole picture?

All money-offering lobbyists represent PACs
PAC members are easily identifiable
Obama rejects money from PAC members
Clinton accepts money from PAC members

According to this article, the answer is no:

While refusing money directly from federal lobbyists, who get their income from clients, Obama takes money from those clients.

[snip]

“If you cannot be completely pure, is it worth it to be partially pure? That seems to be debatable,” said political scientist Bruce Cain, director of the University of California Washington Center, based in the nation’s capital.

“We cannot say his policy is completely meaningless,” Cain said. “But it doesn’t insulate him from interests.”

I don’t know anything about the lobbying system — it seems that this article is saying “the lobbying system has many layers, and Obama is only opting out of contributions from the very first layer”.

The article mentions: “Obama still received 68% of his money from donations of $1,000 or more, compared with 86% for Clinton.” (this goes along with the NY Times quote I mentioned a few paragraps ago). I wish the article gave Obama more credit for running a very different campaign from Clinton, but I can see how one could say that the Obama campaign is being less than cut and dry with its “accepting money from lobbyists” language.

On the other hand– maybe the Obama campaign is doing something that no major campaign has done for decades? Is this the case? Does anyone out there know the answer?

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Obama on Al Qaeda in Iraq

Published

John

on 3/3/2008

in general

. 0 Comments

Good stuff. I myself am not aware of how cut and dry that is though (no Al Qaeda in Iraq until after the war began). Anyone know of a report/study/article that demonstrates this?

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