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Want to know how grossly they screwed up? Here's the original from google's cache:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:KlRc795K2QYJ:w ww.capitaleye.org/inside.asp%3FID%3D210+&hl=en&gl= us&ct=clnk&cd=1

It states:

"According to Senate records analyzed using CRP's new Lobbying Database, Abramoff represented at least 41 clients from 1998 through 2004. The largest, by far, was Microsoft, which employed the firm of Preston, Gates & Ellis as a lobbyist--a law firm where Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' father is a principal. During the time that Abramoff worked for Preston, Gates as a Microsoft lobbyist, political contributions associated with the software giant totaled more than $13.3 million, accounting for 60% of contributions from all of Abramoff's clients."

$13.3 Million and 60% of Abramoff's total contributions. Here's the "corrected" version:

http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=210

"According to Senate records analyzed using CRP's new Lobbying Database, Abramoff represented at least 41 clients from 1998 through 2004. The largest, by far, was Microsoft, which employed the firm of Preston, Gates & Ellis as a lobbyist--a law firm where Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' father is a principal. During the time that Abramoff worked for Preston, Gates as a Microsoft lobbyist, political contributions associated with the software giant totaled nearly $400,000, accounting for 8% of contributions from all of Abramoff's clients."

From $13.3 Million to "nearly" $400,000. That's a big jump. And 8% rather than 60%.

They even admit, in their correction, that figuring all this out is difficulty and tricky, which would imply that even these numbers are probably suspect.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pressreleases/2006/Abra moffRevision.4.7.asp

" "This was a complicated project from the start," said Sheila Krumholz, the Center's research director and acting executive director. "In designing our methodology we tried to account for all the complexities as well as shortcomings of the disclosure system. We didn't uniformly apply our conservative methodology throughout the research, and we should have. That resulted in overstatement, something we always try to avoid and regret in this instance. After being alerted to a single error, we looked more closely and realized we had to correct the data as quickly as possible." "

It's interesting that you put so much faith in a group that can't seem to get their act together.

Also, it seems that the original report had grossly over-estimated the contributions as well.

http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=210

"Editor's Note: The Center for Responsive Politics initially issued this report on March 30 but discovered that an oversight in its research overstated the political contributions that Jack Abramoff's clients made while he was their lobbyist. This revised report incorporates the corrected data, and the supporting tables have been revised as well. For more information, see CRP's notice of the revision or contact editor@capitaleye.org."

We're talking about money spent via abramoff here. Not how much Microsoft spends on lobbying in general. They spend a ton of lobbying in general, and that's a constitutionally guaranteed right.

I AM talking about the proxies. Or proxy in this case. There is nothing listed in the lobbying database for the BSA in regards to abramoff. As far as I know, the only link between between Microsoft and Abramoff is via Preston Gates & Ellis.

http://www.capitaleye.org/abramoff_donor_full.asp

As you can see, Microsoft spent only $360,000 lobbying via Abramoff over 6 years, and only contributed about $400,000 to funds via abramoff.

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/clientsum.asp ?year=2004&txtname=Microsoft+Corp

As you can see, in 2004, Microsoft spent almost $10,000,000 in lobbying, of which $0 went to Preston Gates.

In 2003 they spent almost $9 million, and again, $0 to Preston Gates.

You have to go back to 2002 to see that they spent $160,000 on Preston Gates, but it doesn't say who that money went to. Since Preston Gates spent $100,000 on the BSA that year, it seems unlikely that much, if any went to abramoff.

So, it seems that the majority of that money was spent years ago, and Microsoft was the 13th lowest paying customer out of 40.

Further, we don't know what Abramoff was employed to do. No wrongdoing has been suggested. This seems to be mere guilt by association.

A tiny percentage of Microsoft's overall lobbying budget was spent on Abramoff , less than 1% over 6 years, of which no wrongdoing is suggested at all. There is no evidence to suggest that what Microsoft employed Abramoff to do was illegal, and you can't just assume it was without being a kook.

You seem to be blowing this out of proportion, and jumping to a great number of conclusions based on limited evidence.

Do you have anything to suggest that Microsoft did anything illegal in regard to campaign financing or lobbying? Other than an indirect fuzzy association with Abramoff?

Are you seriously claiming that money directly from Abramhoff, Scanlon (his business partner) or SunCruz casinos (their business) is the same thing as money directly from an indian tribe? Because if you look through this chart, you'll see that not one Dem got money from the guys under indictment (click on the recipient name to see a breakout of donation sources):

Jack Abramoff Lobbying and Political Contributions, 1999 - 2006

Keep in mind that any Indian tribe with a cash-cow casino is going to donate to every congressman of both parties on the relevant house comittees. They don't need a lobbyist to tell them to do that.

Look at the facts:

http://www.capitaleye.org/abramoff_recips.asp?sort =R

Count the Democrats. I lost count at 80. Notice also the fun facts such as Corazine, an ultra-rich Democrat, receiving a bribe, and Charlie Rangel (D) receiving MORE of an abramoff bribe than "ethics problem poster child" Tom Delay (R).

You have large numbers of BOTH Democrats and Republicans receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from Abramoff.

If you add it up, you will see that the Republicans received more. However, the large amounts of cash received by both negate any point of saying "yeah, but they are worse!" and it proves that the biggest lie is to deny that this is a completely bipartisan scandal.

Harry Reid (D) has been caught up in his own lie, and it makes him look very bad when he has declared that he will pocket his $30,500 Abramoff bribe (one of the highest on the list) because it is a "Republican scandal".

It's pretty bad to be caught with your hand in the cookie jar (like all these Republicans and Democrats on the list). It is even worse to be so craven as to actually leave your hand in the cookie jar when caught, as Reid is doing.

Why is Congress and the FCC even bothering with what is obviously not within their powers as delegated to them by the Constitution? The 9th and 10th Amendments apply here.

Because we let them. They do not have any power that we as a people don't grant to them. Luckily for them, that granting of power can be passive, since voter apathy about issues that truly matter to our freedoms (not the abortion and gay-marriage shoutfests) is at an all time high.

First, setting a regulatory standard for television broadcasts and forcing the industry to adhere to them is no longer necessary -- when TV was new, I can understand government enforcing a standard. With technology changing monthly, letting the market figure out what is needed is the best solution.

The government only has a right to regulate those areas where there is a finite amount of space for competition, such as the radio spectrum. There are only so many radio bands, and companies have to share. Regulating ensures that the sharing is done fairly (at least in a perfect world, which this isn't). The FCC has no business regulating cable television, since there is no scarcity of bandwidth. Most cable television broadcasters self-censor in order to avoid public backlash. But there is no legal reason why Spike TV can't start broadcasting porn.

To me, this seems to be simple cronyism by the State. By creating these standards, they're creating a high cost to entry in the video broadcast market.

Politicians always try to protect those who give them money. Media companies contributed $26 million in the 2000 and 2002 election cycles.

The quicker we see broadband hit the homes, the more I realize that broadcast television is a complete waste of space. Deregulating ALL broadcast television and letting the frequencies be used by wireless broadcasters would make much more sense to me. Can you imagine how cheap and how fast wireless would be if we gave up all those megahertz?

Fast? Certainly. Cheap? Not on your life. Keep in mind it would be sold by the same companies that charge $50 a month for basic cable that is completely ad supported.

Broadcasting isn't even important: people want video on demand (whether by cable, satellite, ThePirateBay, or PVR).

Hear, hear. The days of the "push medium" are coming to a middle.

Broadcasting isn't even efficient anymore: advertisers prefer knowing exact numbers rather than "we think we hit 700,000 with this show."

Absolutely. Unfortunately, if the advertisers knew exactly which ads were working and which were not, they would purchase less advertising, since they would be able to stop "wasting" money on advertising that is ineffectual. This worries the sellers of advertising space.

In the long run, Congress and the FCC are applying ideas from 1970 to technology that could change 20 times in the next 20 years.

Legislation is always years behind technology. Nothing new to see here.

Why restrict it?

Because their campaign financers are asking them to.

I say it is time to just ignore these guys -- if big TV broadcasters want to continue to make a mess and force the little guy out of the business, let them. We'll counter it with rebroadcaster [sic] their garbage over BitTorrent and through the sharing of information as it was meant to be: free. Take the infinite supply of data versus the finite demand and you end up with a cost of zero.

Ok, I was with you up until here.

Information may want to be free, but entertainment sure doesn't. It costs a lot of money to create that entertainment, and the people who made it naturally want that money back. The problem is that within the current system, the market forces are skewed, because people have to pay for bundled sets of entertainment or allow the advertisers to choose what they watch. Unfortunately for the consumers, a pull medium is simply not viable as an

Here's some.

Bills become a lot cheaper when you wear the face of Uncle Sam.

What? How does Flamebait like this get marked positive?

It's funny that the Democratic party is historically more pro-Slavery compared to the Republican party... but I guess that if you don't like history, you get the schools and mass media to revise it until "history" is in your party's favor...

And I agree, I'd love to ban soft money. Let's all bitch about the party of "big business"... So what if Democrats are more dependant on (unregulated) Soft Money contributions than Republicans (Democrats: 61% of their overall funds in soft money, up from 47 percent two years ago. Republicans: 43% of their funds in soft money, increase of 8%).

Since the start of our american congress in 1789, congress has always been paid for participating. You will also find that even the Ancient Democracies had salaries ... the example you are thinking of is the Carthaginian model, which was an oligarchy... the rich became senators, because only they could afford to serve for no pay, which shut out the poor from serving in government. Even Aristotle recognized the flaw in this method of governing. I would say then that paying our congressment is definitely the correct method in equalizing who can participate in government.

I would argue that it is not the money that is the problem in our governments, instead the problem is with (1) the philosophies and (2) the beaurocracies of those involved. I have a problem with people who have no regard for other people's money, and do not have the personal restraint when it comes to spending it. This philosophy of socialism has morphed our government into asset reallocation, something the creators of the system never approved of. On top of that, there is so much redundancy, waste, and unaccountability... but we know that already.