Coffeegate! Latte To Stay, Lobbyist Rules To Go

Eric Lichtblau of the NY Times tells us how the most transparent Administration in history sidesteps some of those pesky new rules about disclosing contacts with lobbyists.

One gambit is simply to meet outside the White House:

Across From White House, Coffee With Lobbyists
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON — There are no Secret Service agents posted next to the barista and no presidential seal on the ceiling, but the Caribou Coffee across the street from the White House has become a favorite meeting spot to conduct Obama administration business.

Here at the Caribou on Pennsylvania Avenue, and a few other nearby coffee shops, White House officials have met hundreds of times over the last 18 months with prominent K Street lobbyists — members of the same industry that President Obama has derided for what he calls its “outsized influence” in the capital.

On the agenda over espressos and lattes, according to more than a dozen lobbyists and political operatives who have taken part in the sessions, have been front-burner issues like Wall Street regulation, health care rules, federal stimulus money, energy policy and climate control — and their impact on the lobbyists’ corporate clients.

But because the discussions are not taking place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they are not subject to disclosure on the visitors’ log that the White House releases as part of its pledge to be the “most transparent presidential administration in history.”

...

Lobbyists say some White House officials will agree to an initial meeting with a lobbyist and his client at the White House, but then plan follow-up sessions at a site not subject to the visitors’ log.

One lobbyist recounted meeting with White House officials on a side lawn outside the building to introduce them to the chief executive of a major foreign corporation.

“I’ll call and say, ‘I want to talk to you about X,’ and they’ll say, ‘Sure, let’s talk at Starbucks,’ ” said another lobbyist who counted six or seven off-site meetings with White House officials on financial issues.

Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, has shown up several times at a closed gathering of liberal political activists and lobbyists that is held weekly at the Capital Hilton. Other Obama aides — like Jim Messina, the deputy chief of staff, and Norm Eisen, the special assistant for ethics — and senior aides in the Office of Management and Budget, the energy czar’s office and elsewhere have also taken part in off-campus meetings, lobbyists said.

Employees at Caribou Coffee — which many lobbyists said appeared to be the favorite spot for off-site meetings, in part because of its proximity to the White House — welcome the increased traffic.

“They’re here all the time — all day,” Andre Williams, a manager at Caribou Coffee, said of his White House customers. (He can spot White House officials by the security badges around their necks, or the Secret Service agents lurking nearby.)

“A lot of them like lattes — that or a ‘depth charge,’ a coffee with a shot of espresso,” Mr. Williams said. “The caffeine rush — they need it.”

A second gambit - game the visitors log:

Many lobbyists still get in the front door at the White House — nearly 1,000 times, according to a New York Times examination of public White House visitors’ logs and lobbying registration records.

Those logs, though, present an incomplete picture. For instance, many of the entries do not reflect who actually took part in a meeting. The “visitee” often shows up not as the White House official who was the host, but as the administrative assistant who arranged the meeting.

Just ignore those pesky email requirements (like Team Bush!):

Attempts to put distance between the White House and lobbyists are not limited to meetings. Some lobbyists say that they routinely get e-mail messages from White House staff members’ personal accounts rather than from their official White House accounts, which can become subject to public review. Administration officials said there were some permissible exceptions to a federal law requiring staff members to use their official accounts and retain the correspondence.

And if the rules are really a problem, just waive them:

And while Mr. Obama has imposed restrictions on hiring lobbyists for government posts, the administration has used waivers and recusals more than two dozen times to appoint lobbyists to political positions. Two lobbyists also cited instances in which the White House had suggested that a job candidate be “deregistered” as a lobbyist in Senate records to avoid violating the administration’s hiring restrictions.

A senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that in “a small number of cases,” people might have been “wrongly” registered as lobbyists, based on federal standards. The official said that while the White House might have discussed such instances of possible “over-registration,” he was “quite confident that no lobbying shop has been instructed to deregister anyone.” 

They told me if I voted for McCain that lobbyists would overrun Washington...

Comments

[peter]

Interestingly enough, the parent corporation of Caribou Coffee is a Saudi investment company, Arcapita, which has has one of its stated goals the implementation of Sharia.
From Wikipedia
"The First Islamic Investment Bank of Bahrain has a large financial stake in Arcapita, Caribou Coffee's majority shareholder. In 2002 Yusuf al-Qaradawi's involvement[6] with the bank led to a protest of Caribou Coffee. That same year al-Qaradawi stepped down as chairman of the bank's Sharia board.[7] In 2005, Caribou Coffee's majority stakeholder Arcapita completed an IPO of Caribou. On September 28, 2005, Caribou Coffee became a publicly traded company."

[Neo]

Those aren't "lobbyist" but rather "StarBuckians"

[If not, forget pikes, let's do mikes and transmitters.]

Whaddya bet the Caribou is mined with eavesdropping equipment.
====================

[Clarice]

I was thinking we should train hit in espresso making and get him an undercover job there.

[Pofarmer]

Sigh.

It's hard to even get worked up about this shit any more.

[Captain Hate]

I'm listening to Mark Levin's show from last night melting down over a bill passed in the House in direct opposition to the Supreme Court's ruling on not limiting campaign contributions except for groups Congress approves. Giving out free speech permits; I'm sure the Founding Fathers would be *really* pleased with that concept. Btw, I can't find any coverage of this even in the WSJ

[peter]

CH, my loser of a congressman, Gary Ackerman voted for it. It's the keep incumbents in office act.

[Neo]

Twiki: Beedeebeedeebeedee ... Way to Go Buck

[hit and run]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/21/obama.trans.taxfairness/>Obama told me...

...when big business doesn't like something in the tax code, they can hire a lobbyist to get it changed...

...and he was right!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251292,00.html>Obama told me...

...lobbyists and special interests think they own this government...

...and they were right!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/19/AR2008021903257.html>Obama told me...

...if you are ready for change, then we can go ahead and tell the lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda are over...

And he was right full of shit!

[Janet]

The picture up on Drudge of Dodd & Barney Frank is just sickening. That those 2 men are elected leaders shows how bad of shape our country is in.

[Ranger]

Interesting that this is in the NYT. You would think they were still in administration protection mode. Perhapse they see no where but down for Obama at this point and want to get ahead of the curve so they can shape the narative of how Obama failed not because he was a big time Lib, but because he was just another pol.

[Captain Hate]

LUN for a nice tribute to Manute Bol

[bgates]

Some lobbyists say that they routinely get e-mail messages from White House staff members’ personal accounts rather than from their official White House accounts

As Gawker said just six months ago,
As we argued back in 2008 (so long ago!), the fact that [a different person in a situation that's not analogous at all] routinely flouted public records laws by conducting state business on a personal Yahoo account made the contents of that Yahoo account newsworthy. And the Alaska Dispatch's selection of [the other person who has nothing to do with the administration so why even bring it up] emails shows a lot of state business getting conducted, as well as proof that [whoever it is, and you're a racist] understood why it was in her interest to conduct said business on a personal account: so that it would not be subject to FOIA requests or disclosure laws....the point of public records laws, is that actual state business, like "discussing political appointments and administration policy," is supposed to be done with the official state email address.

[PD]

Regulations for thee, not for me.

[moran]

countdown for liberal outrage, in 3-2..

[Katherine]

"..so they can shape the narrative of how Obama failed not because he was a big time Lib, but because he was just another pol"

Ranger,
I think it will be worse: my fear from the beginning was that when the disaster that is Obama would be so obvious that not even NYT and Co. would be able to hide it, liberals will blame the disaster not on implementation of their cherished ideology, but on the fact that the implementer was... a half black men.
They are racists at heart, so this explanation will seem obvious.

If we only give socialism one more chance, this time with proper people at the helm, it would will work, right?

[Thomas Collins]

Thanks for the link to that article on Bol, Captain Hate. Bol, who as far as I know never held a governmental position, did more for humanity than Gore, Obumbler and Bai Ki Moon could even think of doing. And Bol's hospitals leave a legacy of continuing good works.

[Captain Hate]

Glad you liked it TC. Ya know, if Stern had some functioning brain cells he'd be on the phone with HBO about doing a documentary on Bol's life. If done right (which HBO could do unlike those NBA preferred idiots at ESPN who do their best to ruin sports, most recently on their horrible coverage of the draft last night) it would be very well-received and boost the image of the league by association. Unfortunately Stern is probably spending his efforts on dragging out next year's playoffs until July 4th. And jobbing teams to subsidize the WNBA. Fannnnnnnnnnntastic.

[glasater]

I believe Katherine @10:42 AM is on to something here...

[daddy]

I hope that are not using that horrible pollutant, milk, to make those latte's, because if any of it spilled into the Potomac, it'd be as bad if not worse than the Gulf Oil Spill.

"Gayle Miller, legislative director of Sierra Club Michigan Chapter, said agricultural pollution probably is the nation's most severe chronic problem when it comes to water pollution.
"Milk is wholesome in a child's body. It is devastating in a waterway," Miller said. "The fact that it's biodegradable is irrelevant if people die as a result of cryptosporidium, beaches close for E. coli and fish are killed." ">http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/06/epa_classifies_milk_as_oil_for.html"> EPA labels the prime ingredient in Latte's an Environmental Hazard.

[narciso]

Ok, they've officially gone insane, Futurama and even the Simpsons can't properly satirize
this, btw I think the former used the same
five writers from the first Mission Impossible
film

[Porchlight]

liberals will blame the disaster not on implementation of their cherished ideology, but on the fact that the implementer was... a half black men.

No, they won't, at least not out loud. They will blame it on Republicans for fielding a weak candidate (McCain) and on McCain himself for choosing the vile Sarah Palin as his running mate. Had he not done that, they all would have voted for him instead of Obama. But as it was, they had no choice, you see.

I have already seen hints of this future excuse previewed by my more sane liberal friends (the ones that are smart enough to have sensed that Obama isn't all he was cracked up to be).

[narciso]

Yes, blame the candidate, who had his number from the get go, not McCain he gave up without
consideration to the stakes involved

[Ignatz]

--EPA labels the prime ingredient in Latte's an Environmental Hazard.--

This is the same crap that has ruined California.
They, for the most part sensibly, cleaned up the 95% of water, air, etc pollution that caused the vast majority of the problems and had cost effective fixes.
But being zealots that wasn't enough, so now they are bankrupting us to clean up the last 5% which has little effect on anything anyway.
Come join us in our CA hell guys.

[Jane]

I don't care who they blame, in fact feel free to blame me, just get this nightmare over with.

[daddy]

Narciso,

That was awful last night wasn't it. Ughh. Wrong Alternate Universe. Anyhow, off to work.