Transparency in Government

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Some of you may have been following (in another thread) Winbig's question regarding the Safe Port's Act. Specifically he wanted a question posed to Barack Obama and John McCain: is this a fair way to pass new legislation, i.e., adding last minute unrelated law on the backside of a popular bill to insure it all gets passed into law?

I thought it was an excellent topic and decided to see if I could get an answer from the candidates. Coincidentally, both candidates had planned to participate in a live webcast hosted on AARP where AARP members could pose questions that the candidates would answer.

Cool, huh?

So the webcast was today, 8:30 a.m. EST for Barack Obana and 12:30 p.m. EST for John McCain. I just finished watching a taped replay of the Obama webcast............ haven't seen the McCain one, but will do so after this post and get back to you.

So FWIW, my question was not posed (no surprise) but the unasked questions are being hand delivered to the candidates so all hope is not lost. It just might get answered sometime in the pre-election future..........

The closest remarks made had to do with transparency in government. That is no more closed doors in Washington and using CSPAN to show Americans what is going on with government. Cool..............I thought we already did that.............

One encouraging thing is that the next big AARP convention (October 2008) is beiing held in Las Vegas! And gaming is on the list of fantastic things to do while there...............well, duh! Maybe gambling seniors are our ticket???????????

Anyway, I'm off to watch John McCain............

 

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Watched John McCains replay webcast. Before I say anything, I will give you links so you can view them for yourself if you are so inclined:

Watch Senator Barack Obama replay
www.aarp.org/obamawebcast

Watch Senator John McCain replay
www.aarp.org/mccainwebcast

So, no surprise.........my question was not asked.

What I mostly got from that video was McCain's urgency to stop pork barrel politics and bipartisanship bickering. He added that members of Congress' behavior should demonstrate their understanding that it is a privilege to serve us (the American people) instead of behaving like we work for them.

There was other stuff about Social Security and health care reform that you might find topical and interesting.

Please watch the videos ................. you may see something completely different than I did.