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What happened to the post about superPACs and dark money? It's not even in the archives after 34 comments. It just disappeared like it never existed, like some Stalinist purge.
JoeSchmoe, his inability not to start wars? He ended Bush's wars and was pretty able to not start one with Syria. ISIL was blowback from Bush's war with and occupation of Iraq.
Are you sure racism "isn't" where George sees it? You don't have any biased judgement, right?
What lies are you talking about JoeSchmoe? Even the Roberts Court judged Obamacare mandate constitutional. Are you in FOXland?
Reply to Ou812,
You not getting me at all. Publicly financed campaigns work but the Maryland campaign was only partially so and even that not meaningfully so. Check today's blog topic by Thom which expresses exactly what I'm talkling about. PACs and superPACs, groups ostensibly not even part of the party, are where the money is. Maryland's election was a very poor example of public financing if it could be considered one at all.
Don't call it bullshit just 'cause you're not getting it.
Not everyone watches FOX in all parts of the country, and even so, you usually need more than just the hardcore suckers to win so you still gotta buy ads. Repugs have an overwhelming advantage there.
But, you're right, publicly financed campaigns do work, when they're really publicly financed - and, you're right, the measure of whether or not they work is whether or not the result is to my (or your) liking.
Obama is a republican in disguise; a Trojan horse placed by Wall St. bankers and the Intelligence agencies. He has stated his favorite U.S. President is Ronald Reagan and he has governed much farther to the right than Reagan and even further to the right than G.W. Bush.
He has one group of supporters: the pro-choice, pro-gay marriage and those whom naively believe they are fighting against racism. However, these supporters have closed their eyes to Obama and the Democratic Party support of corrupt Wall St. bankers, Obama’s war crimes, Obama’s drill-baby-drill environmental destruction and his lack of genuine effort to reduce economic inequality.
Change will not come from Democratic Party elitists concerned only with “identity” issues. Not addressing the major issues allows the Democratic Party to stay in favor with their millionaire and billionaire campaign funders. Placing primary emphasis on women’s issues or gun rights is analogous to worrying about a leaky faucet when the house is burning down. The Democratic Party will not be brought to the left; Hillary is pro-choice – but she is also pro war, pro Wall St., pro-plutocracy, pro Zionist.
We need a genuine third party that accepts no big money, rejects the Neo Con and Neo Liberal war agendas and who will break-up the monopolies and protect our environment.
My understanding is that to be an "educational" Super-Pac and therefore thke gifts becoming a tax benefit to the giver, the expendituires on political thems mustt be less than the "primary" function of the Super-Pac. If this is so and the large amoiunts being spent inthe election, coulddn't the Democrats sute the IRS on the "primar" classifications for the Super-Pacs?
Thom, you wrote, ' outside groups spent $88 million'. That's nothing.....in NY Gov. Cuomo spent $1,000,000,000 to buy votes. He called it the Buffalo Billion. The funny thing about that is that it wasn't his money. It was the state's money, or should I sai it should have been the state Tax Payers' money. Cuomo only won a handful of counties with the opponent Astorino winning (by generally a 2:1 margain) the overwhelming majority of counties. So here, in NYS, NYC rules when it comes to any statewide elections. Do you consider that fair representation?
You often talk about people voting 'against their self interests'. By that I believe you mean make sure you vote for the hand that feeds you, literally. The idea that the Demonocrats continue to ensure their re-election by continually creating a feeling of endenturedness is appalling to me.
What is going to happen when the amount going out is greater than the amount coming in? It's time for real reform. That includes corporate reform too. I agree with you that we should not be ruled by big money donors, whether corporate or private. I remember one of the ideas that Obama ran on was to eliminate lobbyists in Washington. How's that going? Another example of him telling people what they want to hear, and nobody following up on his promises...........
“If you want to govern the people,
You must place yourself below them.
If you want to lead people,
You must learn how to follow them.” Tzu
Chuck
Transferring all of Obama's lies to the supposed ineptness of the other party? LOL . Simple truths spoken on sites like these will garner responses like yours. Thankfully you're in the extreme minority, taking into account the election results.
A little more clarity on Obama's failed policies:
Guantanamo , ObamaCare rollout and website and the unconstitutionallity of forcing people to purchase it, Sanctions against Russia that are tearing apart the financial infrastructure of our Western partners. He doen't understand financials and could care less.
The only antidote to the flood of money going to the GOP are populist, liberal ideas. The Bill Clinton model of having Democrats take that corporate money and governing as Republicans is now dead because the GOP will no longer play ball with the Democrats no matter how corporate friendly they want to be.
The GOP has had one goal since Clinton: to convince the corporate dollars to stay with the GOP because the Democrats, especially the corporate variety, can't manage to get anything done on behalf of the billionaires. With total GOP obstuction all the time of anything the Democratic Party wants to do, the "New Democrat" plan to compete with Republicans in the money game has been completely short circuited.
It's time for an new, truly populist and liberal, anti-corporate Democratic Party. There is no other way. The Bill Clinton era is over. Thank God.
Watching the election results seemed surreal: an out of body experience as once again the inner city poor, African Americans, the disenfranchised slowly made their ways along long, cold lines in ritualistic fashion to cast a vote in the face of hopelessness and refusal to believe their vote cannot be traced or verified - just as votes were counted in the Soviet Union or our biggest trading partnet, Communist China. Voter rights laws fervently fought by the blood of men of all color have been largely cast aside. Elimination of voter rolls, voter ID laws targeted against the poor, the long term unemployed, the elderly, liberal college students... Records amounts of Carl Rove money flowed into my Congressional district for challenger Doug Ose. TV and the net were slammed with lies and innuendo.
We're told it was an election though it looked more like a Wall Street Market frenzy without substance - like a Black Friday Walmart sale.
The politicians were little more than cartoon stooges dancing to the whims of the rich. It is no wonder so few vote. The circus will play on with the usual mediocrity with jesters distracting us from the value we collectively have abandoned.
The United States is no longer the best country in the world.
I'm not sure what would freak out the Right more, Obama promising to sign every bill that they send up to him or promising not to sign any?
Reply to #16 & #17: Then we can shorten the message from: "The truth does not usually fit on a bumper sticker" to "The truth won't..."
Deep do-do, folks... Gettin' deeper.
Now many of the newly elected and re-elected government officials are going to be beholding to their supporters and legeslate the way their doners want them to instead of legeslating in the best interest of the masses of people they represent.
Now with republicans having control of the senate it's going to be up to the president to control what gets passed and what doesn't get passed that comes from congress to his desk.. I hope he's up to the task of not compromising our democracy and vetoing anything that is not in the best interest of the common people.
I just don't understand how so many people can be hoodwinked by these lying rebublicans. They lie about being pro-life and pro gun to seduce voters when they are really pro billionaire, pro millionaire, pro big business, and pro special interest. All the while they don't give a damm about the general welfare of common people.
I have no doubt that the Repug's will keep one promise. They are promising to turn the economy around and they will turn the economy around. Just as they did during Dubya's last term. Prepare for economic free fall. My advice: buy gold.
RichardofJeffer -- John Adams was living proof of what you say. That is why Thomas Jefferson called his presidency the second American Revolution. Have you heard the discussions that Thom has had with Dan Sisson?
The best campaign against tyranny is tyranny itself.
Chi Matt RE#22 -- I agree that "evening news" is a antiquated term. I was using the term as a general statement for however people get their information to decide whether to vote and who to vote for.
You do know that progressives think the media is biased about big business because they talk about the corporate dem, Hillary.
joeshmoe
You are actually giving credit to the American voter that they care enough about that stuff to not vote for their own economic interest?
Are you crazy enough not to understand that a president promising something on the campaign trail has the implicit assumption that the congress has to go along with him. Obama could not possibly have realized that the repugs were willing to commit treason to make sure his presidency was a failure (AKA the Caucus Room Restaurant meeting). For Obama, to accomplish as much has he did with the repugs insurgency is beyond belief. So people would rather vote for the party that funded ISIS (John McCain and Lindsay Graham)
Chuck
What failures? How about this failure...his inability to not start wars, and the fact that this was his initial campaign centerpiece promise...to STOP all wars within 60 days into his presidency (as opposed to Miss Hillary, who stated that she would stop all wars within 90 days of her taking office). His attack on journalists and whistleblowers...total policy failure and direct veiw of his failed personal character. His lying about the NSA not eavesdropping on every single American, AND there not reading their emails. I guess you still think Clinton didn't inhale, too? The list goes on and on. One of his biggest failures is his attack in Syria. Not only did this go directly against the will of the American people, it re- started the military industrial complex money spending machine.
Actually, Chuck, I think most people have given up on watching the news, for a variety of reasons. Either they're too busy working (9-5 jobs are kind of a relic now), too busy with the kids (that's my reason), or they have too many other choices of things to watch. The idea of people coming home from work and watching the news to get their information seems very outdated. More than likely, they don't care about getting news, or get it online or on the radio while they drive.
That having been said, I tried giving ABC's national coverage a chance on election night. I watched for about 15 minutes, right at 10pm central, right when it was becoming obvious how big this red wave was going to be, and what were they talking about? Hillary. The entire time they were talking about Hillary Clinton. Little things like that are why some people are convinced the media is biased towards the left. I know, I know... Progressives think the media skews to the right because they are big businesses. Something both sides always agree on - distrust or dislike of the national media.
I just looked it up. There are about 26 million evening news viewers for all three major networks combined. There are about 146 million registered voters. So roughly one in six registered voters even bothers to watch the news anymore.
Ou812 -- Do you know about Eric Cantor's race a few months back? There were a couple faux news commentators that liked beating up on him. When Eric lost, they took credit for his defeat.
One just has to be fortunate to find commentators in this frame of mind. If not, you need money.
A little more clarity:
Jan 2009 ------------------------------- Today
7,949 ------ The Dow Jones Index 17,390
7.8% ------ Unemployment --------- 5.9%
-5.4% ------ GDP Growth -------------- 4.6%
9.8% ------ Deficit/GDP % ------------- 2.8%
37.7 ------- Consumer Confidence -- 94.5
George
"I think that the gross failure to vote by the electorate with the most to lose can be squarely blamed on the "genteel" racism that pervades our nation - an echo of our slave-holding past. - See more at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2014/11/will-billionaires-buy-another-e.... Seeing racism where their isn't any? The liar in chief is the reason all your so called "minorities" didn't get off their azzes and go vote. They had been played the fool too many times by this slickster. "If you can't baffle em with your bullshit, try dazzling em with your foot work."
C8 if that's the case, why would anyone spend money on political ads...You're not making sense my friend.
reply to joeShmoe13 RE#38 -- I do not know what failures you are talking about. The following set of numbers look good to me:
Jan 2009 Today
7,949 The Dow Jones Index 17,390
7.8% Unemployment 5.9%
-5.4% GDP Growth 4.6%
9.8% Deficit/GDP % 2.8%
37.7 Consumer Confidence 94.5