We Have To Close This "Revolving Door"

We have got to close this "revolving door" between government and business and we must close it legally and formally and soon as possible.

What Campaign Contributions Are

Let's face it, we all know this. This is what campaign contributions have become. They are legal bribes.

We have to fight these things. We have to get the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling overturned and then we need to end campaign contributions totally. Unless or until we do this, nothing will change. It will still be legislation and government for the wealthy and corporations first and for the rest of us a distant second, if at all.

And it has to come from us.

Let's get the big, ugly money out of our elections

And so, out of our government.

 

Fight to end campaign contributions.

 

 

Quote of the day

“'Big government' isn’t the problem. The problem is the Big Money that’s taking over government. Government is doing fewer of the things most of us want it to do—providing good public schools and affordable access to college, improving infrastructure, maintaining safety nets and protecting the public from dangers—and more of the things big corporations, Wall Street and wealthy plutocrats want it to do." --Robert Reich, Professor, writer, columnist and writer for The New York Times. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why we have to kill "campaign contributions." If we don't, we'll never get our government back for the people first. Link to original post: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/23-2#.T23Zrj2Y1FI.facebook

The "Big Money" Corrupts Our Government--still, more, again

Here's yet another example of how the big money from the wealthy and corporations of the world, really, are buying our legislators, their legislation, our laws and so, ultimately, our government: Congressman Norm Dicks, Ranking member of House Appropriations Committee, Steps Aside Following Allegations by Tacoma Lawyer..." It seems this Congressman Dicks, ranking Democrat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee (read: financing) did the following: •In return for campaign contributions, PMA group clients received over $200 million in contracts. •In November, 2008 FBI agents raided PMA's offices and removed records of the firm's political action committee and files from some of its employees. •In January of 2011, Lobbyist Sentenced to 27 Months in Prison for Role in Illegal Campaign Contribution Scheme. The thing is, too, this representative wouldn't have been caught, either, had it not been for an attorney who pursued the situation and asked for records throught the Freedom of Information Act. I keep saying, repeatedly, that we know these "campaign contributions" for the bribes they are. Corporations and the wealthy keep buying our legislators and so, their legislation, our laws and finally, our government. We have to overturn the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling and have true, tough, stringent, accountable and prosecutable campaign finance reform, once and for all. If we don't get the money out of our political system and government, nothing will ever change. It will continue to be government by and for the wealthy and corporations. We need to get at this and the sooner the better. If we the people dont' demand this, nothing will ever change. Links: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/03/congressman-norm-dicks-ranking-member.html?x#echocomments; http://news.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=316458l http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/washington-state-lawmaker-will-not-seek-re-election/?scp=2&sq=norm%20dicks&st=cse

Missourians brow-beaten by Texas attorneys

A Texas law firm has been sending letters to churches, trying to say that "..."criminal penalties apply to the collection of signatures for an initiative petition. It also warned that religious organizations trying to influence legislation 'may lose their tax-exempt status.'" Why would this law firm do this? Why, because churches, statewide, have been organizing and collecting signatures to propose a vote on the regulation of payday loans in Missouri. You know, the people who charge upwards of 400% in interest rates for their loans? A little data: "A Missouri Division of Finance study conducted in 2007 found the average age of consumers taking out payday loans was 43 with an income of a little more than $24,000. The average interest rate for a payday loan in Missouri is 445 percent annually. The national average is 391 percent." As Rev. Richard Creason, pastor of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in St. Louis said, "It's an effort to intimidate and pretend that we have no First Amendment rights as citizens of this country." Personally, I'm all about churches staying out of elections of individuals but this is utterly different. This is about helping people on an issue about the poor. They shouldn't tell anyone for whom to vote in an election but this is about organizing for an issue. From the article (link at bottom: The IRS prohibits political campaign activity on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office by houses of worship that are tax-exempt through their status as a 501(c)(3) organization. But the IRS defines political activities and legislative activities — or lobbying — as different things. Religious organizations can engage in "a limited amount" of lobbying, including ballot measures, and can advocate for (or against) political issues. Hopefully this will blow up in the faces of the attorneys in Texas. Regardless, this initiative should go forward. Link to original post: http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/letters-warn-against-petitions-on-payday-loan-fee-issue/article_d7b08603-b0f4-5dda-a085-d66c4efb29ff.html

The Koch brothers: a statewide and nationwide embarrassment for Kansas and the country

When the game is rigged in your favor, you win. So despite the worst economic downturn since the Depression, the big corporations are sitting on mountains of cash, the stock markets are up and all is well among the plutocrats. The endlessly egregious Koch brothers, David and Charles, are worth an estimated $35 billion. Yet they seem to feel as though society has treated them unfairly.

As Jane Mayer pointed out in her celebrated New Yorker article, “The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry — especially environmental regulation.” (A good hard look at their air-pollution record would make you sick.)

It’s a perversion of democracy, indeed, when individuals like the Kochs have so much clout while the many millions of ordinary Americans have so little. What the Kochs want is coming to pass. Extend the tax cuts for the rich? No problem. Cut services to the poor, the sick, the young and the disabled? Check. Can we get you anything else, gentlemen?   --Bob Herbert, Columnist, The New York Times

That is, an embarrassment unless you're one of the wealthy who benefit by their influence.

Apparently, when you're wealthy in America now, there really is no shame.

Or accountability.

Noblesse Oblige'.  How quaint.

Try to enjoy your Sunday, y'all.

Link to original post:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/opinion/12herbert.html?hp

Be afraid. Be very afraid

Well, it's begun. The floodgates of money that were officially unleashed by the Supreme Court with their ruling earlier this year, letting corporations and who-knows-who-all spend as much as they want on campaigns, have been opened: ​The Adam Smith Foundation, a conservative, Jefferson City-based political nonprofit started by some of Matt Blunt's pals in 2007, just wrote a $498,000 check to California political cause Yes On 23, which is trying to stop California's tougher pollution regulations. Now a whole lot of people are asking questions of Adam Smith. The mystery at the center of the uproar is why a political group that has never engaged in any action beyond the state border is suddenly sending oodles of cash out west. That's one-half million dollars, dumped out of the blue from a Missouri group to a California organization to fight new pollution laws on corporations. This is just the beginning, too, folks. It's going to get a lot bigger and uglier from here on. It's as I've said here before--our votes shrank tremendously when the Supreme Court made this ruling. It's as if you and I no longer exist, politically. The corporations and wealthy may now get whatever they wish. We're just along for the ride--and it's whatever ride they want. This is just one more reason, too, why Roy Blunt--and all the Blunts--need to be summarily voted out of virtually any and every political office in the country. Link to original story: http://blogs.pitch.com/plog/2010/08/adam_smith_foundation.php

The real problem here is unlimited corporate money buying our elections

Forget the small issue here. The real issue, the big issue, the big concern for the country and for our politics and government and functioning society is that, with the Supreme Court's ruling this year, corporations can, right now, give unlimited money to any campaign they want, skewing the democratic political process in this country. Your vote just got a whole lot smaller, folks.

Agreed. Lets go get 'em

There was a pretty fascinating one-half page advertisement in The New York Times today, in the very important first section by the Catholic group, the Knights of Columbus.

Now, normally, the last thing I'm going to do is even mention any Catholic group, let alone agree with them but I think they got it right this time.

Under the title "Now is the Time for Change", in big, bold letters, they write that "The United States is suffering an economic crisis, a leadership crisis and a moral crisis."

They go on:

We must do something...Now."

Most Americans would have long ago agreed with this.

They write that their "polling shows more than three-quarters of our country believes the corporate world's moral compass is pointed in the wrong direction. Moreover, a majority of Americans, and two-thirds of executives, gave a grade of D or F in ethical matters to the financial and investment industry."

They say that "We have lived with this lack of business values too long. It is a problem that cannot be legislated or regulated away."

Okay.

Agreed.

And way overdue.

But the thing is, what they're saying needs to be taken to its logical, harsh, complete truth and that is that CAPITALISM HAD FAILED US.

Captialism has failed us and the corporations of America are eating us alive.

Corporations are chewing up their employees and workers, using them and spitting them out, at the end of their work-cycles as desperate, poor, unsupported people who have no resources--because it all went to the CEOs and the corporation itself--and no health care coverage.

All this in the name of "unfettered Capitalism" and progress.

We need to stand up and force our government to stand up for us.

We need to take power back from corporate America.

So the Knights of the Columbus is on the right track on these issues but at the end of the advertisement, they merely ask for us to "join us in creating a Culture of Volunteerism..."

Volunteering to help one another is not enough. Volunteering won't get this done.

Getting lobbying, lobbyists and corporate lobby money out of our election system--now, that will start to get something done.

Then we'll start to get our corporations to stop completely exploiting all of us.

Link to ad here: