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MPAA-Dodd Investigation Petition Reaches Goal
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."
my money is on ignore
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Cue up the bullshit, meaningless response! Boy it's great having a voice in government, even if it's constantly ignored!
Don't be silly.
There is no "HAS TO" when the government is involved.
And a one word response of "DENIED" is all you are likely to get, or the Washington equivalent, of a vague promise of having it looked into, followed by a chuckle-fest in the back room over brandy on the rocks.
The whole thing sort of reminds me of one of the typical flame fests here on Slashdot or Usenet. Lots of smelly wet wool. But nobody notices that you "won the internet".
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
We the People: This is bribery! We demand you investigate yourselves!
Gov'ment: We've investigated ourselves thoroughly, and we're guilty (sad-face)
The petition titled "Actually take these petitions seriously instead of just using them as an excuse to pretend you are listening" reached 25,000 by the required date and currently has 33,000 signatures. It has received no response despite being almost 3 months old.
(Link: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/actually-take-these-petitions-seriously-instead-just-using-them-excuse-pretend-you-are-listening/grQ9mNkN)
"We the people" is a propaganda tool to be exploited when convenient, and nothing more.
I await the generic response pulled from the filing cabinet soon
...the White House quietly removes the We the People petition system.
My expectations are very, very low as to the outcome of this petition. Anyone who expects anything more than a cursory "We understand your concerns but feel statements made on a news channel do not merit an investigation" has their head in the sand.. ..but still, I can't help but tap at the sand regardless.
Now I think a petition should be made about the RIAA/MPAA suing dead grandmas and 10 year old children.
Keep on signing that puppy. I think they need to realize that there's a few more than "just" 25K people interested.
Here's another poll that folks might like to John Henry.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
-H. L. Mencken
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.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
It's cute that you talk as if the Republicans are any better.
The two parties are very similar on this point, since politics these days is dominated by sound bites and trying to get special interests to rally voters to specific causes rather then broad based support for anything. Oh, and campaigns where you promise people things that can't possibly be delivered, because voters are dumb enough to demand that, complain about it between elections, then demand more promises next election. Democrat/Republican? Doesn't matter on this subject. It's just business.
Honesty is pretty rare. Saw a bout of it recently in New Brunswick, Canada. The Finance Minister got up and said that dumb campaign promises were bankrupting the province, like the ones his own party made in the election. That was a rare bit of truth.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
This is the first I'm reading the link fro the last Slashdot story ...
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.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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 disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
I wouldn't be surprised if the White House has Dodd himself write a response. When the "End the TSA" petition got a response, it was written by the head of the TSA. Why not?
Former US House candidate, TN-5
Their response will be similar to all the other responses to petitions they don't like-- completely dodge any of the points and cut/paste a wikipedia like entry. See their response to eliminating the TSA for violating people's civil rights and being useless-- nothing more than Pistole cut/pasting the TSA's official mission statement.
This one will probably be more of a campaign like statement that they care about the people and protect their rights completely dodging the statements in the petition.
I looked at his comments and I don't feel the outrage we're getting bombarded with on Slashdot. Especially over a 25K online petition. Believe me, I have a lot of problems with Dodd's cozy relationship with the financial industry (probably what's driving him out of the Senate), but this is hardly one of them.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Why would anyone expect fromer Senator Dodd to be investigated for this? This is the man who, along with a few others, stood in the way of anyone doing anything about the problems with the financial systems in this country until it all blew up. Then he was asked to write the law that would "fix" the problem that led to the meltdown.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
For I have spotted what appears to be a disk, a black flap, and a scorpion while scrutinizing this first post.
"Oh... the government will do nothing!"
"The crooks won't investigate their handlers!"
"The petition will be ignored!"
Are you the **AA 'turfing or just fashionably rebellious with your doubt of the value of the US Judicial system? If you've given up already, why are you bothering to comment?
Remember when Nixon was investigated? What about when Clinton got some booty on the side? Big investigations DO happen and they have to start somewhere. If you don't like the idea of an investigation, then say so. I'd genuinely like to hear those comments. But if all you got are "Whaaa! They've done nothing in the past, they'll do nothing again!", then you're the worst kind. You remove value from the entire discussion and give nothing in return..
If you give in to your butt-hurt and so easily declare "They so rarely do what I want... why bother?", then WE can never get anything done. You are WORSE than those who do nothing because you KNOW something is bad and take the time to discourage others from acting on the injustice.
The history of the big media content cartel insinuating itself into the workings of the U.S. government over the past dozen or two years is depressing and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This is the undermining of American democracy. From the orchestration of the extension of copyright protection to life plus 75 years, to the DMCA and its disregard for due process and freedom. To the secretive smoke-filed backroom history of ACTA, culminating in the arrogance of how SOPA and PIPA were show trialed through the judiciary committees of both houses of Congress. Now it appears that the money men of the MPAA, RIAA and others have been orchestrating this with concealed bribery and mock support of liberal principal. And that the leaders I secretly hoped were men and women of principal are, instead, pathetic opportunists, who have sold the American birthright out for a mess of pottage.
This history has taken a wrecking ball to the idea that my country, the once proud United States, is a democracy, is governed by the love of liberty or has any legitimacy left whatsoever. Rather it has become a disgusting perversion of what it once was. I cry for my country, my children and grandchildren.
because the Libertarians are incorruptible, right?
Nope. They are as corruptible as anyone.
But first, they will shrink government, so the corruption matters less and is on a smaller scale.
The greater the power the greater the temptation to corrupt or abuse it. That is why the ONLY successful way to fight corruption is to reduce the scale of temptation. When more power is in states hands it is easier to monitor for corruption, after all how easily can the voters in a state really keep an eye on what someone is doing all the way over in DC?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Libertarian is no better, it just gives power to a different small group of people.
Libertarianism is not about shifting which group gets power, as in the left/right swing.
It is about fundamental reduction of the size of government, so the group is smaller to begin with. And with the focus on moving power back to states, you are not just changing the group that gets the power but distributing said power over many smaller groups - smaller local groups are easier to monitor and less prone to corruption, in part because they simply do not wield as much power.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Speaking of you can post your own petition. Here goes! https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/congressional-reform-act-2011-congress-must-equally-abide-all-laws-they-impose-american-people/s3DTkzrl sopa had senators back of because enough people took notice. If more then just 25K sign it shows we are looking and paying attention.
love the taste, hate the texture
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.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petition-tool/petition/actually-take-these-petitions-seriously-instead-just-using-them-excuse-pretend-you-are-listening/grQ9mNkN
Of course it is. Due to Citizens United, and money being free speech, all Dodd was doing was exercising his right to speak his mind. He did not offer money specifically to pass PIPA/SOPA, he said he would not make a campaign contribution if the White House opposed it.
Which, in all honesty, is the same kind of thing I say all the time. I'm not voting for someone if they do this, I'm not supporting them if that... it will likely come down to a big nothing.
So indeed, fear not. All is well, citizen.
You are as Anonymous as anyone else. If you think Anonymous should do something, then do it.
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.
So exactly the libertarian stance.
Now tell us who made you believe the libertarians are not for exactly this.. was it the Republicans you love, or the Democrats you love? Either way, we know it was someone you love because you accepted a lie without question.
"His name was James Damore."
So that instead of bribing politicians to get our way, we bribe the corporations directly...
Why are we signing petitions? It's primary election season. Let's make an example of one of the congressmen-for-hire.
the Tea Party came to power when Scott Brown defeated an incumbent in a primary contest. Let's get an incumbent SOPA supporter out of office because he supported SOPA.
Primary congressional elections are where the real electoral power is... and we have a tendency to ignore them. I believe that nothing less than a primary loss from a SOPA or PIPA supporter would get their attention.
The problem is they get $50,000 for their campaign fund for supporting it. The solution, obviously, is to make it cost them more than $50,000 worth of publicity for supporting it.
Lamar Smith, who introduced SOPA, is currently running uncontested for the Republican Primary in his district.
The requested URL