Yeah, I don't see how you can interpret what Cenk is saying to be "blaming" Republicans. He says, around 5 min mark "There is hope, but ain't it the Democratic Party ..." Seems knee jerk to me, to assume Cenk is supporting the Dems, recently he's been coming down pretty hard on them.

Also, look at the video posted yesterday (I think) where he praises McCain for being one of the only politicians who he thinks is right on campaign finance reform, over Obama. He even goes as far as to say, since he (Cenk) thinks campaign finance reform is the most important issue that touches everything else, it almost would have made sense to vote for McCain over Obama if McCain could actually succeed in passing some sort of reform...lot of conditions in that statement, but I think it's a valid point, in a hindsighty sort of way.

It's not that Cenk is wrong about voting for McCain, that was just another Pandora's Box to be had at the table. I feel while John would "maybe" try to end this issue, as we've seen his past his stance changes from one way to the other when push comes to shove (gays in the military) he would still end up doing some if not most of the core Republican "threats". Which may mean that if it came down to the wire some sort of "law deal" would be made with house Republicans and they would force John to change his mind. I know John had a law on the books that got railroaded by this Citizens United fiasco--so he may have some actual flesh in the fight. I just need to see him commit/fight first before I believe the words.

But, anyway, you'd have to remember we'd have to deal with the pure drivel of his right hand...The Dumbass From Alaska: Sarah Palin! I'd like to say McCain was OK, he seemed fine circa 2000, but with the state of politics--no offense to Cenk as I think he's a smart guy--but I DON'T trust a damned word coming from ANY of their mouths. They say things TO GET PRESS COVERAGE for hells sake (but, this deserves press coverage)!!! So, yes, I think John is getting a hardy pass to "Go" here when he may not deserve it; John should have already made his move on the issue--if he has done more than introduce his old bill and disagree with the Citizens vs. United, that is all that I know he really did. He passed a law dealing with the subject so I'd assume he has a stake in it somewhere, it just hasn't been made all that clear--it's just talking for now (I'm going to go look for a bit myself as well, to see if I can find more direct maneuvers that he has done either against Citizens United or his bill that was ran over).

Obama talked a great talk, but we knew after two years we didn't get anything remotely close to a revolutionary or visionary president here--let alone progressive (the last progressive probably was Roosevelt to be truthful, I don't think Reagan or Clinton count at all, they just towed in the party lines and left partisanship, unchecked, to take a bigger hold in American politics and they both did a good job for THEIR parties), just a McPresident™ fully endorsed by: [list your 1000 companies here]. Obama is playing his cards close to the middle (not to the far left like oh so many think). I hate the Citizens United Decision and I'm astounded it hasn't been slapped down yet as it LITERALLY allows foreign interests to play with our politics--not funny. Just the business end of it is spooky enough. I hate Obama for a lot of issues, but just because one guy that diametrically opposes everything else he says has one VERY valid point I'm not going to take him on his offer until he commits to the point where his words cannot be swung 180 degrees. I'm betting that even now Sarah Palin thinks the Citizens United decision is either about people getting together to have a party or she thinks it's great; so really she likes it no matter what.

Imagine being in Iran right now, over having Citizens United resolved in the name of 'The People', instead we'd probably get a declaration of a third war instead--we could play this stupid game all day. I'd rather be disappointed in my president and wait for the courts to settle it, if they can--we can all thank Bush Junior for his absolute garbage taste in Justices...

I'm not a fan of John or Obama that much, but I WILL take Obama any-day over a Republican--right now in our current political climate; Republicans are toxic. Personally, I think John's main involvement does go back to the law he passed in 2002 for campaign finance reform. That of course was on the books when Citizens United came about and forced them to take that law into account and the prevailing Justices basically just sneered at it as they seemed to have a malicious view of the other side as their responses gave that away. They were snide and sarcastic in a matter which is neither, except to them--so did they get paid off? I'm thinking, somehow, YES, they did. I'm assuming someone cares at the level of government, it is getting harder to tell every year. Obama certainly doesn't help that issue. I really don't think John would have either, he may have saved us on finance reform for elections--electioneering--but, he would have enacted so many ridiculously TERRIBLE laws in place of the ONE bad law that we'd cry for our country. Plus, we might be in Iran considering the level of vitriolic talk from him and Sarah...

Rolling the dice with World War 3 looming...



That is the one thing that MAY keep John on your side throughout all of this as he did try the first time to try and sway their opinion and he also had an old law on the books that dealt with some of the issues presented.

Gyms and diet drug manufacturers get dollar signs in their eyes when they hear that more Americans are obese or overweight. Dentists get dollar signs in their eyes when they hear that kids are eating more sugar and drinking more soft drinks. Airbag manufacturers get dollar signs in their eyes whenever there is a fatal highway accident. US grain farmers get dollar signs in their eyes when they hear there is a famine in China or Russia. Munitions manufacturers get dollar signs in their eyes every time we take a step closer to the inevitable next war with North Korea, Iran, or whoever else.

People investing in "terrible" things that make you more money when situations go from bad to worse, and companies that try to sell shares to investors based on the cynical assumption that things are going downhill fail to shock or dismay me. On the other hand, companies that spend boatloads of money lobbying to ensure that things actually do go from bad to worse deserve all the ire we can muster. So I guess that the bigger problem that I see here is the incredible extent that we've allowed lobbying, "campaign financing", etc. to corrupt and subvert our governmental system.

You don't blame the banks for corrupting politicians, but you do blame the politicians for being given so much power? And you think that less regulation is the answer? Banking regulations are irrelevant in this conversation. The only question is whether it should be legal for banks to bribe politicians. As long as politicians are open to bribery, the rich will have enormous sway over them, and most regulations the politicians produce will favour the rich. If campaign contributions were illegal or limited to an amount that most interested parties could afford -- an amount that might help them in a small way, but not in a disproportionate way -- then the rich wouldn't be able to write themselves blank cheques.

So politicians who accept bribes AND banks who bribe them are out of order. The power doesn't like with society, nor with the clients, nor the market, and certainly not with doing good business. The power could lie with those groups if the system were less corrupted by unchecked campaign financing.>> ^renatojj:

@Porksandwich The question is, who is out of order? The banks for bribing politicians, or politicians for having so much power to forcibly regulate banking/monetary/financial practices and institutions?
Politicians have their hands all over their businesses, the financial, monetary and banking sectors are already heavily regulated. I'm not saying they're WELL regulated, not at all, but there are tons of regulations in place on everything and that screams to big bankers and businesses, "the power lies with us, politicians. Not with society, not with your clients, not with the market, not with doing good business and taking calculated risks. We dictate everything that is and isn't allowed. If you're not on our good side, we will screw you over".
What you don't seem to realize is that, big banks and big businesses usually lobby for more regulations that benefit them, because the more regulations you have, the bigger the burden is for smaller competitors.

That would be another smart thing to do then. But I'd start with campaign financing. Surely that has to stop first before there will be the political will to dismantle the Fed.>> ^renatojj:

>> ^messenger:
Does the Fed contribute to political campaigns?
I don't work there, you'd have to audit the Fed to find out.
The Fed's monopoly over the monetary system is what mostly facilitates crony capitalism. They use inflation to dilute everybody's wealth and benefit those who are politically connected and are getting the easy money first: the big banks.

yeah, we really need to separate the money from politics.
not just reversing citizens united, but making fundamental changes to the election system...
a reasonable taxpayer funded campaigns with limited duration would ultimately cost a lot less than what we're currently paying at the other end.

when we have separated money from politics, only then the meaningful policy changes are possible.
the way it is now, it's almost impossible to beat the lobbies on any issue.

Lawrence Lessig's talk on campaign finance reform:
http://fora.tv/2012/01/17/How_Money_Corrupts_Congress_and_a_Plan_to_Stop_It

found a shorter version on sift here =)
http://videosift.com/video/Laurence-Lessigs-New-Lecture-On-Money-In-Politics

>> ^quantumushroom:

The deliberate Uncertainty created by this corrupt regime is fking everything up. There's two trillion dollars in the hands of the people that is parked (you read that right, two TRILLION) waiting for two events: the Supreme Court's decision on obamacare and the election.

For the sake of argument, let's say your basic point is right and uncertainty about government is the only reason that $2 trillion is "parked," and the people who actually control what's done with that money bear zero responsibility for the damage their choices are wreaking on the economy.

Even if I, for the sake of argument only, stipulate all that as true, why does only Obama bear responsibility for that uncertainty? Using your own logic, if Republicans put the well-being of the country before their own ambition, they would restore certainty by a) dropping their suit against the ACA, and b) letting Obama run unopposed in the 2012 election.

Certainly that would restore "certainty" to the markets.

Now, if what you really meant was that the so-called "job creators" are intentionally fucking over the economy in order to a) put pressure on the SCOTUS to rule against the ACA, and b) try to get a Republican into the White House, why is Obama the villain in your story? Clearly if that's the case, then these people formerly known as job creators are actually terrorists who deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
>> ^quantumushroom:
It's certainly true that certain companies legally pay no taxes, and they grease the palms of BOTH parties. But why do these companies (as well as everyone else) NEED lobbyists? Because the government is too big and too powerful.

Right, if it weren't for the government, corporations would be free to collect their own taxes from people, and make their own laws directly without any need to go through the pretense of democratic process.

You know, Utopia!

Again, even if I accept your basic premise, your logic is still flawed. If I bribe a bank security guard to look the other way while I rob his bank, the right response to that is to say "that bank should be more careful about who it hires" not "the entire practice of banking should be abolished."

Same for you and government -- if you don't like corporations buying influence in our government, you should be trying to find a way to limit their opportunities to do so (like campaign finance reform), or voting for people who are a lot less cozy with business than the people you like to vote for.

As for "make government smaller," that's no solution. All that does is create a power vacuum, one corporations step in to fill themselves. It doesn't level the playing field, it tilts it even more towards the people who already run things now.

If you're interested in getting out from under the thumb of people with too much power, you need to focus your sights on trying to reduce income and wealth disparity, and help try to return us to a more egalitarian society, rather than going out and trying to help the rich and powerful fuck us all over.

You can't cause the electorate to become educated any more than you can cause people to stop being greedy, unless you're talking OWS-style education.>> ^marinara:

Feb 15, 2010 is the date of this video.
IMHO, there's no good way to prevent cash from deciding elections. public campaign financing is a start. but IMHO an educated electorate is more important.

Feb 15, 2010 is the date of this video.

IMHO, there's no good way to prevent cash from deciding elections. public campaign financing is a start. but IMHO an educated electorate is more important.

>> ^Diogenes:

@criticalthud
let's be really clear... i agree with your position on corporate personhood
but... we can use "citizens united" to abbreviate the scotus decision: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission... and how that decision has overturned several previous legal precedents and aspects of bcra -- and we can also use "citizens united" to refer directly to the non-profit group of the same name...
i'm just pointing out the latter (the npo) filed suit against the fec because they felt that a media corporation (moore, et al) was violating bcra - the fec dismissed their complaint -- then the group made a similar 'documentary' about hillary clinton and promoted it with the same style and timing of moore's anti-bush film - a lower court barred it, stating that it violated the bcra -- this background led us to the troubling scotus decision
what i was pointing out was that bcra, etc, was already allowing corporate political advocacy through the media, i.e. movie producers, book publishers, newspaper conglomerates, and television networks, etc
this, imho, is what really muddies the waters


thanks i really appreciate the clarification. muddy waters for sure. You raise some good points. Especially in distinguishing an over-reach of political influence from entertainment and documentary media. But are we getting to the point where campaign finance legislation will necessarily intrude on free press and the works of film-makers? what is your take? I would prefer to think that legislation could and should be narrowly tailored in this instance.
and (edit)
@bmacs24 I think it makes sense to start with the fundamental underlying legal ambiguity by which the power grab occurs. The war on "terror" is another ambiguous area of laws that also leads to incredible abuse.
Otherwise you find yourself caught in the minutiae, trying to re-arrange the top bricks on the shit-stack

Um, you do realize the Patriot Act reduced restrictions on the use of power right @GeeSussFreeK ? A patriot act on the rich would allow them greater flexibility in how they continue to drain the economy and environment of whatever remains.

Also, using the word "attack" when talking about the rich is simple rhetoric. Rational policy that redistributes some of the wealth (as one example) is not 'attacking' - it is something that would benefit everyone.

What sort of campaign finance reform would you support btw? Do you like Lawrence Lessig (and others) idea of publicly financed elections via a constitutional convention?

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/4/as_states_take_on_citizens_united

@joedirt

I think both I and Mr. Greenwald understand what a corporation is. Let me describe it in another way from you, even though I don't think your description is wrong. Is it a free collection of citizens arranged for a specific end. For instance, the ACLU is a corporation. Are we going to start staying that only certain groups of freely gathered citizens are allowed protection under the law? Are we going to start writing different sections of laws for different factions of people? I can honestly say this is the WORST idea we could have to amend the constitution in this way. This is the same kind of logic that denies voting rights to minorities, and to women, or to Catholics. Specifically limiting certain groups participation is censorship of the worst kind, it is also forbidden by the constitution, see Article I, Section 9.

And @dystopianfuturetoday, if money isn't speech, then isn't there no problem? I mean, no "group" has vocal cords persay, but factions are things we all are a part of. How is a political faction, or a family faction, or a business faction, or a religion faction any different? The ALCU isn't that much different than IBM computers, or the Church of Christ in the way the carry out their actions. They are groups of freely gathered people with common aim to achieve certain goals, and as such, have a right to freely petition the government in the affairs that concern them collectively. I don't see how collective spending is any more of less evil that individual spending. If you aren't free to petition the government as a certain faction because some other faction has successfully lobbied your legal pacification, then far have we fallen from what was supposed to be the thrust of the 10th federalist paper.

Not to say that I don't support some form of campaign finance reform of sorts, but I do not agree with the legal notion of denying people the ability to do with what they own they like; spare it harm someone else, because some other group doesn't like you...it is horrible and reeks of the worst kind of oppression.

Believe me Mr Dirt, I find all those subsidy and bail outs abominable, just as I found those terrorists on 911. But I will not permit anyone to pass a new sort of patriot act against the rich that really is attacking us all in the end. I say this not as a rich man, but one whom exists in poverty.

(crap, misclick on the upvote, sorry dirt )

This isn't an issue of speech, it's an issue of campaign finance. Corporations don't have vocal cords and corporatists don't have any special limitations on what they can say in public. The fact that anyone even takes the money = speech argument seriously is evidence of how beaten and broken our political culture has become.

another EXAMPLE of GOVERNMENT WASTE!!!!
anytime I hear a brainwashed lapdog spout that I shake my head

if you want to look for waste? stop looking at the local/department level where there is more oversight than in the PRIVATE sector

and start looking at things like defense spending, tax cuts for the rich, subsidies for big oil, etc etc

the whole government waste at the local level is corporate fed propaganda devised to reduce funding to government service so that they can point the finger and go look at how crappy it is, only private enterprise can do this right! and then they come in to MAKE MONEY on something that was previously UNPROFITABLE and WASTEFUL; and where does that money come from? the poor/lacking quality of service and government subsidy

firefighters watching a house burn down, watching someone drown, etc...
police deciding to respond to fewer criminal calls and focus more on traffic violations...
overpriced healthcare costs for low quality return

these are all the effects of privatization
privatization NEVER has a social conscience... its all about profit, margins, and share prices
quality of care doesn't make the top 10
especially when these interests can buy the lawmakers to give them effective monopolies

you want a healthy, strong society... and not a society of wage slaves? start caring for each other more than you care about the unobtainable dream of being rich... and realize, money's goals rarely align with being humane (call it Christian, call it Muslim, whatever values)

people are your brother's and sisters, not Wal-mart, not Wall Street, and not the politicians who represent you but make 30x more than the median income in your country

you aren't being represented if you next door neighbor has no chance to become an elected representative, because they can raise a few million dollars to run (billions now-a-days to get to the highest levels of power)

you'd think in this day and age of internet and smartdevices, that we'd have the medium to EASILY do away with the problems of campaign financing (we do)...

but don't worry, the rich are getting SOPA in place to ensure content they don't want out there, isn't

@DFT

One word: bank bailouts.

Second point: How exactly is our regulation of big banks working so well for us? Do we even have real regulation now?

That said, Ron Paul would probably be against campaign finance reform, so, you may have a point