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Saturday, December 20, 2014

OMG: The Tea Party and I Agree On Something?


I didn't think this could, let alone would happen. I ran across something the Tea Party and I agree on:

Members of the Tea Party movement protest in San Francisco in May; Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Tea party fumes over campaign finance plan


Activists see high dollar limits as a power grab by GOP establishment

From the article: 

Tea party activists are attacking a campaign finance rider in the $1.1 trillion spending bill that they view as a sneaky power grab by establishment Republicans designed to undermine outside conservative groups.

The provision would increase the amount of money a single donor could give to national party committees each year from $97,200 to as much as $777,600 by allowing them to set up different funds for certain expenses. The change would be a huge boost for party committees that have faced steep challenges in recent years from well-funded outside groups.

Yes, it surprised me. But actually, it shouldn't. I have said for a long time, in my campaign to educate Americans on campaign contributions, that we need to  Get the Big, Ugly Money Out of Our Election System and Government and that the only way to do so was/is to kill campaign contributions. Unequivocally. And I've always thought and said most all Americans agree on this, too. Well, unless they're fatcat Republicans. Or wealthy. Or someone high up and well paid in a corporation.

But the Republicans see the big money as on their side since, as we've seen in the last 50 years, they consistently and repeatedly write and propose legislation that is for the wealthy and corporations---their donors---and not for the American people, not for the nation. They don't do any of the sort for the middle class, the lower class or the working people of the country. They just don't. Heck, there's no big money in it.

So rather than cut campaign contributions, or even keep them the same, they keep opening more and yet more floodgates of cash. All for themselves. What was the Citizens United ruling but just one more example? And that came from the US Supreme Court, not Congress.

The Tea Party grew out of the Republican Party and they've been a nightmare, let there be no mistake about it. Too often, they've been seen and shown to be racist, in public, with their signs and they are the extreme of the extreme in the Right Wing of the nation. But on this, they--we--see clearly. The Republicans are trying still more to have it all their way or the highway, especially with cash, especially with money, the big money, in campaign contributions.

And these Republicans don't want anyone to get in their way. Not the other political party, not the current, sitting president, not even the Right Wing of their own party.

Heck, they don't even want the nation to get in the way of their own needs and wants.

America be damned.


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