It’s really simple to fix every permutation of this problem. Pass legislation that makes ALL campaign donations from any source illegal, and allows candidates to use only public money-- the same amount of public money given to every candidate. When it has all been spent campaigning is over.
Jen, I do agree the problem is with the Supreme Court. They have assumed too much power and are wielding it against this nation in all kinds of ways. How can a group of old men be able to declare money speech? That is nuts. Roberts tries so hard to come off as a reasonable person, but in reality, he is a man who had a "high-level" education but mostly ignored it in favor of his own ideology and what he thought would help his conservative Catholic cause. For him, and his conservative colleagues, the Constitution is just a guide and if they like what they find there as it is written, they may go along with it. If they don't, they will twist and turn it, pretending it says what they want it to say. That is how the first amendment can be made to include money as speech. Rubbish! (as Dr. Reich would say)
The underlying problem is that the ONLY people that can do what needs to be done (in The People's opinion) are those bought and paid for politicians whose loyalty is first and foremost to their largest "campaign contributors". Yes, there are a _few_ sincere legislators, bbbbuuuuttt this IS a Democracy where "Majority rules!".... and the Majority of legislators are NOT loyal to The People.
CaptainPatch, you are right that there are quite a few legislators who are not loyal to the people. I think it is a smaller number than we might think. A lot of those even on the edge of caring get caught up with all the fund-raising they must do to even be a candidate and can become jaded. Others fall under the spell of a person they believe knows a lot about them and could do them harm if they don't go along with what he says. They have seen what happens when they don't K*** his a**. We could actually let those representatives and senators who want to be more loyal to this nation and the people do it, if we got some real campaign finance reforms in place. We need to focus on that.
It comes back to the fact that the ONLY people that have the ability to make a Change like campaign finance reform are the very same people that most benefit from the status quo: the elected legislators. Furthermore, We The People really do NOT even have the ability to choose those potential candidates that We want. Candidates are chosen by the Parties that endorse them -- at the cost of giving their loyalty, first and foremost, to the Party that endorses them. No oath of fealty, no endorsement. And "everybody knows" that only a Republican or a Democrat have more than a slim chance of getting elected. The VAST majority of Americans that vote are NOT voting for the candidates that they truly want; they are voting **against* the candidates that they don't want to win.
AGAIN, the _only_ people that can make that kind of change are the legislators that rely on those "campaign contributions" to get elected. (In practice, the contributor is essentially putting the legislator "on retainer".) The clear majority of "Our" legislators are bought and paid for by campaign contributors and lobbyists -- and those "sponsors" do NOT want campaign finance reform.... Which is why, despite all the discussion and debate about campaign finance reform over the last several decades, NOTHING has been done to rectify the situation.
Contrary to popular opinion and experience, the SCOTUS doesn't create laws. Look to Congress. There is a great article in the August American Prospect about limiting the SCOTUS by limiting their judicial review abilities. I thought our only option was to expand the court.
It's amazing how many things we can do legally & constitutionally but aren't being done, from failing to discipline justices who break the rules, to failure to apply penalties to Trump's infractions of the Emoluments Clause & so many other laws to failure to expel seditionists in Congress
Yes, it would have to either make Citizens United obsolete by overriding it or it would have to severely modify it. Citizens U is the result of a Supreme Court decision that can be made irrelevant by new legislation.
“the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, is a controversial decision that reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections.” (Brennan Center)
On statutory matters, Congress can negate a Supreme Court interpretation by enacting new legislation, as long as the new legislation is Constitutional.
The Supreme Court reviews legislation to decide whether it violates the Constitution. Roe v Wade was the result of a decision made by the Supreme Court in 1971. Our current Supreme Court was able to override the decision in Roe by re-interpreting its Constitutionality. But, Congress can override this Court’s interpretation by writing new legislation. (As long as the new legislation is Constitutional.)
AND AGAIN, the Supreme Court in question would have a chance to rule on whether the new legislation passes muster. The problem with Citizen’s United is that it based its decisions about what passes for allowable money in politics on the concept of “free speech.” It says Money is Speech. Any LAW limiting how much money a person can spend has to be justified first. As I have said, that is the hurdle to get over — how do we characterize the exercise of speech as permissible or not permissible? And whatever is applied to THIS speech will be applied to ALL speech, so be really careful how you want to limit free speech. OR — which is MY point — IS MONEY REALLY SPEECH AT ALL?
If it’s not, then limiting how much can be spent to influence elections becomes easier.
Every time legislators want to invalidate something the Supreme Court says, they have to know what the Supreme Court based its decision on. In Roe, for instance, they didn’t say women have no right to an abortion, per se, they attacked the ruling on how far any right to privacy might go, and said it doesn’t pertain to decisions about maintaining or ending a pregnancy, with all sorts of questions about what and when and who is involved in determining a “life” … That is why so many people are worried about other rights that are based on privacy and personal autonomy. Because Dobbs was not only about abortion … it’s about privacy.
Expanding the Supreme Court might be the solution — it hasn’t grown with our population for a good many generations … ! But I’d also like to see term limits. Some people want courts to have less authority, but that worries me, too. If there’s no arbiter anywhere, chaos would reign. We DO have a right to revisit court decisions, to appeal them, and even to have a court take another look at one of its own decisions in light of time passing and new information rising. Dobbs did that, even if we think they got it wrong, this time aroaund.
I like the idea that precedent carries weight, but clearly courts CAN get it wrong, so …
I don’t think there’s one perfect solution. I do agree with folks here that justices and judges should always be highly skilled at the law, and demonstrably so. I think it’s a travesty for judges to be named to the bench by general election!
Which is why we need an expanded number of Justices on the Supreme Court, imv. Otherwise we have a court that unilaterally strikes down laws - and that is not their function nor is it legal action, in my opinion.
That’s right. We need to expand the Supreme Crt for several reasons. The conservatives Justices-including Chief Justice Roberts-on the Court demonstrated by how they overturned Roe, they are biased. Justice Thomas has also demonstrated he’s unethical. He did that when he didn’t recuse from participating in a matter before the Court concerning his wife.
Absolutely. We as the public who are suppose to be protected by the Governing forces, are instead subjected to their apparent disdain for us by not following laws and seeminglly care not about the oaths they took. We are beyond "boiling frogs" with intensified oversight and accountability greatly needed..
Or maybe 10. My idea is that for presidential primaries, the country be divided into 5 regions of 10 states each, have 1 state from each region vote each week. Conversely it could be divided into 10 regions of 5 states each, & each region takes turns on a weekly basis. In either case the order of voting would rotate from election to election.
The biggest hurdle is getting enough votes to pass new legislation re campaign finance. I think Dems would pass it if there are enough of them. But we don’t know if we don’t try.
Susan, I agree that getting campaign finance legislation going would be a really good idea. Republicans don't seem to want it because they think their rich money cows will be producing indefinitely and they can just keep collecting. I suspect if we the people could make such unlimited giving a bad idea for those rich guys, we could get some Republican support for the legislation. A decent tax code could get that started.
Susan,It sounds good, but I’m seeing that some folks will find a way to get around any kind of method like that. We are watching trump (et al) finding ways to manipulate our justice system and media to get what they want. I don’t have a solution for all of this, I’m at a loss
The solution is to elect candidates who refuse to accept big money from PACs and corporations. This is what the Bernie Sanders revolution and the “squad” is all about. Corporate Democrats and the party leadership are strongly opposed believing it would be political suicide. So it won’t happen quickly. It’s up to us, the voters to decide.
It’s not that simple, because campaigning isn’t just coming from the candidates--it’s the super PACS and corporations spending endless on behalf of campaigns and issues. Anyone out there can advertise for or against candidates. It seems to me that it goes way beyond any candidates acceptance of PAC money. There are several who don’t accept PAC corporate donations but money still got spent.
Sarah, that’s what I mean. We have to write legislation making ALL campaign donations illegal whether it’s donations coming from individuals, PACs, super-PACs or corporations.
All of it is money from private sources. All campaign donations from private sources are really just bribes. The legislation could address advertising as well--written endorsements could be allowed, but the legislation should require that ads and written endorsements must be factual. If any more than, “I endorse so and so because I believe so and so will do X,” or “I think so & so is really smart,” is said-- it must be factual. For example, “I’m voting for so & so because he or she has experience with X,” must be factual. The burden of proving whether something is factual or not would be on the person saying it. If they can’t provide info showing that it’s true, it can’t be published as either an ad or an endorsement. The legislation would have to require that ads & endorsements be reviewed by a non-partisan Board or Committee. If the non-partisan Board doesn’t approve the ad or endorsement, it can’t be published. If it’s published and later found to be untrue the legislation should require a stiff penalty.
If we can't outlaw campaign donations, maybe we could tax them. For example, any donation over $10,000 will be taxable at 50%. Any outside non-candidate campaign spending over $10,000 will be similarly taxed. If wealthy individuals or corporations insist on campaign spending, they'll have to report it to the IRS and pay taxes. All such reported spending will be maintained in a database open to public inspection.
This does a few things:
(1) It should dramatically reduce dark money. If a corporation donates $100,000 to a candidate, their shareholders deserve to know.
(2) If you don't report your spending to the IRS, you can be prosecuted for tax evasion.
(3) Exposing bribery will discourage the behavior.
(4) It doesn't "limit" spending which the supreme court asserts is a form of speech.
I keep asking, how in the world is "DARK MONEY" even legal in the U.S. of America. Dark Money where you do NOT even know who the donor is? (Your next door neighbor?, Vlad Putin?, Who knows?) Something to remember is the Congress is charged, through OUR Constitution to write the laws (not lobbyists and private interests with money!). Maybe if they were not so seemingly petrified of offending a campaign donor, common sense laws would be on the "books" limiting the many ways corruption is used by the monied entities to get their way. If laws were written by Congress, maybe Roe vs. Wade never would have gotten to a corrupted "supreme" Court. Maybe compassionate immigration reform laws would have passed. Maybe the Federal Minimum Wage would be adjusted annually by the inflation rate. (You have to give Leonard Leo credit for recognizing he ONLY had to select five justices through Republican Presidents to get exactly what he wanted in the U.S. system. Five justices controlling over 350 million people. If only Congress would NOT default decisions to the Supreme Court and take a STAND FOR THE RIGHT THING!). But the POWER OF MONEY changes the game for all who have open eyes.
Congress doesn’t “default decisions” to the Supreme Crt. Congress writes legislation or, as you said, lobbyists write it and members of Congress present it as their own. If the legislation is passed it becomes law. If that law is challenged at some point as being unconstitutional, the Supreme Crt may or may not decide to review it.
I agree, the Court is corrupt. It’s was corrupted by republicans with help from Putin and Trump.
That’s why it’s so important to make campaign donations illegal. If campaign donations are illegal, dark money is also illegal.
Rivka, there may not be ONE way to thwart everything, but we can sure try! Citizens United is the case that went to the Supreme Court and the Court’s ruling reversed long-standing campaign finance laws. That’s what’s responsible for where we are now. But, new legislation can be crafted to render Citizens U irrelevant.Democrats can form a committee to write new campaign finance laws. I would suggest that Lyn Cheney act as an advisor to the committee. If new legis. doesn’t address every loophole or work-around republicans come up with we can modify it or create more new legislation to address it. What I can’t envision is going on as we are. Millions of dollars that are nothing more than sanctioned bribery are being poured into campaigns. That money makes our senators and representatives wealthy, but it’s wealth at our expense. Our elected representatives no longer represent us,
they represent the corporations and industries that contribute the most money to their campaigns. Our America can’t survive that.
I live in a country, Canada, that has a mix of public funding and limited private donations--I donate to the party of which I am a member. It is better than the US, but it is also a Westminster system which limits campaigning to the weeks between the election being called and election day. The problem is that the system still depends on laws passed by federal or provincial parliaments and a majority government can rig the system. Here in Ontario, the current Tory government has done exactly that, limiting contributions from labor unions and other groups that tend to favor other parties. As they say, no system is foolproof because fools are so ingenious. No system is crook proof either. Don't misunderstand. I think that public funding of elections and parties is essential (though I wouldn't prevent supporters from supporting a party that reflects their own ideology) but by itself it doesn't solve the problem of the influence of money in politics. That requires many interconnected approaches.
Of course I think it could be done, but you’re correct when you say no system is foolproof. But the way I see it is that almost anything would be better than what we have now, which is sanctioned bribery.
Thanks, Robert, for telling us how it's done in Canada. You're correct: no system is foolproof. The U.S. could learn a lot if it would look at how some other nations do it and adopt those advantages. But we're too prideful . . . I've lived a long time and seen a lot of changes, but never, ever, have seen a systemic shift where we actually credited some other entity for the ideas. The U.S. has simply got to get over this addiction to "we're perfect, and we're a superpower" thing . . . it's offensive as hell to the rest of the planet.
A 90% excise tax on campaign contributions over the prior small donor limits might even be something for reconciliation. Lobbying expenses should also be subjected to the tax. The funds could then be used for funding of elections.
Taxation also requires documentation so we also get the benefits of Sheldon Whitehouse's Disclose Act.
I believe the problem lies in deeming money spent as "speech." We don't want to put limitations on real speech by going after money-as-speech. We need to get rid of the idea that spending money IS speech. To me, that is paramount.
Dr. DG, I really like your idea of taxing large contributions to candidates and political entities and lobbyists too. That could really make a difference in the quality of people who run and the level of contributions that individuals and corporations are willing to make. I also like being able to know who is contributing and how much.
“People” will [and should] insist on their right to speak personally, but how they use that to get around the campaign finance system might be interesting. Perhaps someone would set up a “forum for discussion” and only allow in people they agree with, and they’ll all say nice things about their candidate, but it’s not campaigning [this forum right here … 🙄 ]. It would be gamed … that’s what some people just do … And having the money to game it would still confer a leg up for some and not others.
I do believe the idea that corporations are people needs to be struck down, and the declaration that “money is speech” needs modification, too. But that one is dicier -
Oh, I don’t think this column is gamed — but having the wherewithal to create this, and keep it going — even without subscribers, if the originator is an Oligarch — opens it up to being gamed. And as long as “money is speech,” those who have it will use it to game our system.
The problem is that you would have so many candidates filing it would make it impossible. Everyone and their brother and every crazy person would come out the woodwork just to get free money. We just need to make non profits and NGO's make their books available to the public like we have to do with our campaigns. Anyone who wants can look at my books for my campaign. We should also put a limit on campaign funds for federal races.
That’s at the heart of the problem — the Supreme Court said “money is speech,” so putting a limit on how much you can spend is akin to abridging free speech. Money is NOT speech, but logic of an argument to that effect needs to be made in a new Supreme Court case to turn it around. I’ not sure anyone is going to do it.
Also, corporations are NOT people. The ONLY thing these "decisions" are proving is that despite whatever colleges these so-called judges have gone to, they are ONLY very imperfect people who have WAY TOO MUCH CONTROL over what THEY (or should I say their OWNERS) believe should be law in this country. Proving, as I have said previously, that the Supreme Court is the oligarch's last bastion to protect THEIR OWN WEALTH AND WAY OF LIFE. By the way, OUR U.S. Constitution does NOT state that the Supreme Court justices have "Lifetime appointments". Those words are NOT found anywhere in the document. It is written that they can keep their positions as long as they act in "good behavior", a very subjective term open to interpretation. Keep in mind, the politicians and media want YOU to believe it means "Lifetime Appointment" for a reason and that reason is NOT for your best interest.
I'm for codifying via permanent Constitutional language -- in non-arbitrary terms -- that SCOTUS justices serve for a limited time. And not the eighteen years some are suggesting, either.
State races can also be corrupted by campaign money, Isaac. My state of Ohio is a perfect example. Atypical for the country, we went almost full-blown Republican in the midterms, because our system is rigged by the GOP cabal that has redistricted an illegal supermajority. Our governor was terrified of debating a Democratic woman who spoke truth to power and only emerged from his basement to comment post-midterms to "discuss the election." Unlike Biden during COVID, our red voters didn't mind. And because they had been trained, like seals, to vote their party, jumped up and swallowed the rotten fish of J.D. Vance.
Supermajorities are not illegal, that is democracy. The very idea of Democracy is majority rules. Either you respect democracy or you don't. You cannot have it both ways. J.D. Vance ran a good race and hit on the issues people care about. This is the problem with people like you. Never pay attention to the issues, you just vote party line, this is why we need to get rid of the 2 party system.
The Ohio supermajority IS illegal . . . it was formulated by a GOP cabal that defied the rulings of the Ohio Supreme Court multiple times (five or six!) and the deciding vote against the GOP maps was cast by a Republican Chief Justice, a fair-minded woman. The Republicans presented virtually the same maps to the Court in each appeal, thereby giving the middle finger to that Court. Their redistricting process walked all over the two-time voter popular mandate (>80% of Ohio voters voted for it) of redistricting reform that established a redistricting commission that consisted of, on the Republican side, the Governor, Sec. of State, State Auditor, and both leaders of the Ohio legislature (all Republicans). The two Democratic commission members were helpless. The impressive number of public comments before the Commission were ignored, despite being intelligent, fair and reasonable. The maps presented by the public were drawn with expert consultation and fairly gave the Republicans a majority, but not a supermajority. But Republicans weren't satisfied until they rigged a supermajority, which critical experts who study redistricting said didn't satisfy the mandate requirements. Republicans dragged their feet until the last minute presenting their maps before the Commission so that comments would be limited and the two Democratic members, who were left out of their collaboration, wouldn't have time to analyze the GOP maps. That is why I call it a corrupt cabal.
Look up the "Ohio Bunker redistricting in 2010," Isaac, if you want a taste of what the GOP did to capture a purple state. Well, the purple still exists in Ohio and is growing, due to Columbus' growing population -- where I live -- but the 2020 redistricting cabal was the Bunker on steroids. The maps are still being appealed.
Everything you just described is what Democrats do in almost every other state. Sounds to me like they followed the process. The voters wanted a SM when they voted them in. Nothing you described is "illegal" you just don't like it. Sounds like they played some snake type government games, but everyone is doing it. Until you call out your side when they do this stuff it means nothing. If you want change, start calling out everyone who does this. Or you can just blame Republicans and turn a blind eye to everything Dems do in the same manner. Oh and I don't take stock in your so called "experts", those days are over. You didn't clearly site a law that was broken or a constitutional amendment they violated. It sounds like lawyer huffing and puffing because they are mad about what happened. This is what the voters wanted when they elected all Republicans, this is Democracy. The very idea of a SM is DEMOCRACY, majority rules. This is why America is a constitutional Republic, so the majority can't just vote away our guns, voices, religions, and freedoms. This is the failure point of democracy.
No, Isaac . . . Ohio 2020 redistricting HAS been called "illegal" by the experts, because Republicans violated both the voter mandate and the state constitution. I tried through my details to make that very clear.
As for "everybody does it," progressives are not buying that anymore and are calling those forces out for corrupting the system.
Correct, there are details that would have to be worked out. Requiring that books are available for review is one. There could also be a requirement for the candidate to register with the state and maybe turn over their tax info to a state Board for their review, or there could be a requirement that potential candidates pass a test demonstrating they have basic knowledge about how our government works. Of course all requirements must be lawful & Constitutionally appropriate.
But the oldstream media that should be disseminating your idea as our primary vehicle for public information is quite unfortunately the biggest beneficiary of all that ad revenue income. We share this truth in our own enlightened internet circles but you won't see the mainstream broadcast TV viewers and cable-culters discussing it. Why would The Media, by any name, want to give up all that Citizen's United gravy? Great idea, but until a candidate runs and wins an ad-free campaign, those ad revenues are so ubiquitous to the process, there is no way out. Do the best with the tools we have, and unfortunately that means playing the media money game just to stay in The Game at all.
You've got that right, John. It is a gravy train. And far too many politicians are lapping up some of that gravy. I really believe that is what encouraged school boards to give up teaching civics, An enlightened population would see through the parasitic political realm and start demanding Representatives that truly represented them and not Corporate America (which includes media and healthcare - both the insurance and pharmaceutical portions) Too many of us stayed asleep at the wheel and didn't see the trend that was the ruination of our democratic "experiment". Citizen's United was our first wake up call, trump and his thrust toward a fascist dictatorship. was the second. We can't afford a third wake up call.
Years ago — must have been all the way back in the late 1980s — maybe 1990 — I was covering the schools beat for my local newspaper. At a school board meeting where hiring some new teachers was under discussion, I spoke to a someone sitting in the room about whether the board wanted teachers adept at developing “critical thinking” in our town’s students. The woman looked at me aghast and said “I certainly hope not. That’s code for challenging authority, and children challenging their parents.” She told me critical thinking means lack of respect for religious teachings, accepted morality, etc., etc….
I was gobsmacked. But I get why some quarters wanted to stop encouraging kids to question received “wisdom.” Getting the religious sector to fear “critical thinking” would be a good way to foster acceptance of whatever “influential people” want to dish out.
Civics and discussion of free speech and challenging overreaching authority — badddd!
And these days, cult thinking appears to be rampant. No surprise.
You are so very correct, Pat. The problem is this "fear" of 'difference goes back at least to the Victorian age. It is especially dominant in women and one of the reason's my mother never liked me. The creed was you MUST fit in, what would others think, nice girls don't do that, and the acceptance of male dominance. Fortunately for me I had a very enlightened father who adored me. I was the first born, brighter than average and as far as he was concerned, I could do and be anything I wanted. Therefor I did really well in languages, math, history, English, and not so well in home economics. My father (who dropped out of school in the 8th grade to help support his family) encouraged me to question, research and make my own decisions. So, I can relate to those good, little, kids who do everything they are told, but when they were my students encouraged them to question and research. I told them that science is not exact, that what I taught them in chemistry today may be very different in 10 or 20 years as new discoveries are made. Even history changes as we get more insight into the period. I just wish adults would be as amenable to change as children are.
Nobody said “ad free” campaigns. The public money spoken of would certainly be used to buy advertising, as well as whatever else is needed. Though, for sure, the amount of money flowing into ads would be far less.
The point, Pat, is that public funding will be fought by Corporate America and their obedient lap it up dogs in the legislatures (Federal and State) who are in it for the gravy - that's our real enemy.
There’s the media [I was a journalist] who want to collect the ad fees — and there’s the monied class that wants to use its dollar power — Yes, I realize both will {and likely have] opposed full public funding of campaigns. Without donations, how would the wealthy curry favor, and how would the money aggregators like PACs exert pressure?
I thought you did. Unfortunately, it took us too long to recognize the danger, This mess started in the early 1970's and continued unabated until suddenly in the early 21st Century we woke up. I just hope that sometime (the sooner the better) we can figure a way to undo the damage. A Constitutional Convention to correct our current Constitution could be a start. The whole of Article 3 needs to be modernized, updated to assure all Federal Courts at all levels are presided over by judges who know and agree that justice is blind, their personal biases, religious beliefs, peer groups must be stifled in favor of written law. There need to be term limits. No judge at any level should gain their position through political appointment or the electorate. There needs to be a branch of Civil Service specifically for the testing and employment of all Judges, Police Chiefs, and Sheriffs (and this should be both Federal and State). As to taking money out of politics that can be done by a preponderance of the electorate demanding free and fair elections, to hell with PACs and Citizen's United.
I agree with what needs to be changed, but I absolutely oppose a Constitutional Convention. I’m all for amendments going through the process, but a Convention puts the entire Constitution up for grabs, and I have NO idea what sort of malevolent actors might dominate the stage and what sort of changes might be proposed and passed. Not an appetizing thought …. Not at ALL.
I know it’s a drag to deal with it by amendment, but we’ve done it a whole bunch of times so far, and we can keep it up. A convention could mean we scrap the whole thing, and who know WHAT would come of it. Egad.
Susan, I like your idea of using public money for campaigns. I would also like to see campaigns limited to say 2 months or so. The campaigning all the time is disgusting and leads to constant negativity and spending far too much on that negativity.
I long thought the same. However... New law allows only public money in the amount of $500,000 to run a presidential campaign.....Wouldn't we ALL sign up for it? Even if we didn't have a chance at all and had to give leftovers back, we'd have one heck of a year traveling...I mean campaigning. Otherwise you have to limit who can run and well, game over there.
Indeed, put these articles in a book, one that reaches across & unites by appealing to the decent majority. The centre is where all progress is consolidated, not on extremes.
this is why the centre left need find a left populism that uses empathy and policy to touch peoples real day-by-day concerns. In the UK, and in particular in England it, was in then States, has a dark hole of racism at its centre and also another of classism. Having been brought up in the mid-west, I believe there is also a form of class snobbery in the US as well. Until we can overcome that and then imagine ourselves in those other shoes, we will not be able to attract the non-readers. I recommend everyone to reread Grapes of Wrath to reinvigorate once sense of unity and to re-remember why we need a proper, caring welfare state.
OK, yet if a book is good and contains the right principles, it may well get picked up by others and things will come right in the end.
As RR has written, it is true and accurate knowledge of underlying causes that is needed and needs spreading widely.
This is promised to be the best way to reduce the effects of our collective ignorance of these things and our subsequent wrong actions; this was one of the successes of 17th / 18th c. Enlightenment's thinking on education.
as a scientist and journalist, i've relied more and more on twitter to make connections with, and communicate with, scientists, political figures and others (astonishingly, i even chatted with Malala on twitter shortly after she was nearly killed) which kept me informed and nimble within the science and news streams. i am also on mastodon and counter social, but these platforms are NOTHING like twitter. i feel completely out-of-touch with both of my worlds now, and that lack of knowing about stuff is terrifying to me.
it's utterly depressing to think that one egomaniacal oligarch can take this incredibly valuable platform away from us, the people, cuz he's mad at twitter for telling him he could not join its board of directors without passing a background check.
So that's the source of his tantrum. I didn't even know, although I feel sure it has been reported. No one should have enough money or power to escape being known.
that is the rumour. he did have a tantrum about this very thing before he bought twitter. others think it is the reason. i personally, am not sure if this is true, but it makes as much sense as anything else i've heard or read about musk's motivations to destroy twitter.
That is why this should be a public regulated platform. The only thing I miss about twitter or FB is that so many businesses and orgs use it, and I cannot access it being banned. There needs to be outside arbitration for ppl being banned to present their case not just the whim of algorithm 'bots misinterpreting "hateful conduct" because you call out "evil white monsters" who killed Ahmaud Arbery.
One of the challenges to solve would be the international users. Could a similar service be offered by other countries? It so, it could be a network of digital postal services. How would we deal with government officials or governments purposely manipulating or censoring?
I agree. We need a Twitter-like platform that’s a public utility & is regulated like a public utility. This platform we’re on now is a good way to communicate, but it doesn’t replace Twitter.
Interesting. But how would we distinguish from the ones that invite regulation like a public utility and ones like Substack, that don't? Size? That discourages building a user base and encourages covertly farming out influences to additional clones.
I'm so glad, GrrlScientist, to see someone who uses twitter the way you do defend it. I consider it invaluable and don't even have an account. The proximity and immediacy of the best minds in fields like law and journalism that twitter offers make it singular. I desperately hope twitter's recently departed are working feverishly on a successor platform.
the rumor is that jack, who was the big cheese at twitter, is writing the code for a new platform called bluesky. i'm on the waiting list now for an invitation to try out the beta version, so we'll see how that goes. (i'm not a fan of jack -- he's so disorganised -- but he's a million times better than musk.)
First the Senate, now this! How can I handle so much good news in so few days! Seriously, if beta invitations have a waiting list, bluesky sounds like more than a rumor. Whatever anyone wants to say about Jack, he was a founder, returned to see things through, and could have sailed off with a bundle. If he feels an obligation to loyalists he's a better human being than most Silicon Valley types.
He has a predecessor model, Opera browser cofounder Jon von Tetzchner, who sold his baby to jerks who also betrayed the concept. Jon returned to his native Iceland and built a full-featured new browser, Vivaldi, for the old community. I hope bluesky works as well as Vivaldi's android version in my smartphone.
Taxing the rich and making it a requirement that political donations be grassroots and never beyond a certain amount regardless of how much money they have would be two giant steps in the right direction. I realize how unlikely those things are but it’s the truth.
Biggest obstacle to holding them accountable? The old All-American "Free Enterprise vs. Socialism" bugaboo, as lately exploited to the max by Trump's MAGA minions.
Yes ; witness the talk on the 'right' about ending social security as we know it, along with Medicare. Both support the common good. Of course, they would never go against massive subsidies and tax breaks for the rich.
Yes! And calling progressives "extremists." I've been surprised at how many such references I've discovered in the MSM. I make it a crusade to contact the origin of those quotes and call them out, explaining that progressives are only trying to recapture the tenets of the original Party, at least in the Twentieth Century:
"In the early 20th century, it supported progressive reforms and opposed imperialism, with Woodrow Wilson winning the White House in 1912 and 1916. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition after 1932, the Democratic Party has promoted a social liberal platform, including Social Security and unemployment insurance."[Wikipedia]
“You own it, you can break it” IS an insane norm for a complex society.
To me, bankruptcy is a license to steal. I know that it's in the Constitution. But here in Florida, it seems to be the last stage of a lot of business plans.
Last night I watched the Heat/Suns NBA game. The "Heat's House" had been called the FTX Arena since June 2021, after the crypto trading platform agreed a 19-year deal worth US$135 million for the naming rights. The agreement promised the Heat US$2 million per year, while the county was to be paid about US$90 million over the duration of the contract.
While they are removing the name from the basketball arena, I learned that bankruptcy will protect some of the fortune of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried; $16 billion. I'm a Miami Heat fan but until this week I never heard of Bankman-Fried. I had seen the omnipresent commercials starring Heat players and Tom Brady and his ex. I wonder who else has been screwed?
In research, I find that although he is an American, Bankman-Fried probably lives in the Bahamas. From what I can tell, control of FTX was taken over by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao last month. Apparently, simultaneously, Zhao invested $500 million through Binance to finance the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk.
Wow. I didn't realize that Zhao was in deep w/ the Twitter purchase too. The U.S. has a blind eye w/re to bankruptcies, both at the upper and lower end: the largest # of bankruptcies here is reportedly medical bankruptcies -- we need to fix that by fixing the out of control medical insurance industry. But corporate bankruptcies need a wholly different fix. I'm sure that we can come up with some creative solutions for consequences for deep-sixing a company, many times with intent. For repeat offenders, prison isn't a bad one.
** Notice how those of liberal persuasion don't have any trouble criticizing our own, unlike conservatives. Indeed, calling out one of the Party's largest donors is warranted.
Hi, S.A. Linden, The "jails" these criminals are sent to are not lockups. They have nice private rooms, are treated respectfully. What needs to be done is to strip them of ALL their misbegotten gains, every penny, mansion, yacht, airplane, limousine. Leave them enough to live in a middle class subdivision, with maximum 2 mid-size cars, sufficient to buy groceries. Force them to go to work, or maybe donate 10 years to charitable agencies. To hell with prison, let them live an ordinary life scrabbling from paycheck to paycheck. Do you think for one minute that these bred to luxury brats would enjoy that life. Also think of the message it would send to other would-be fraudsters. But this is exactly why it won't happen. The Kevin McCarthy's and Josh Hawley's of this world would never risk joining the Trump's, Bankman-Fried's of this world. What we need to do is advertise widely in the rural Conservative enclaves to tell the people there what is really happening. The immigrants and others are not their enemy. It is the very people they are electing who are out to dominate and ruin them.
Thank you for pointing this out Daniel. Even when criminal charges are brought against these shysters, and they are convicted, they get a slap on the wrist and a few months in one of the Nation's Country Club Jails, AND they are allowed to retain most of their fortune no matter how many ordinary citizens are left with a BIG FAT ZERO for their pension. Sorry I can't shed a tear for Tom Brady and baby elon. I first experienced this travesty during the Savings and Loan fiasco.
How right you are Robert, but it seems the only 'morality' the lunatic rertrumplicans and ilk care about is sexual morality, as if the fact that two men or two women love each other matters a rat's ass. They moan and scream about abortion but don't care a fig about the resulting child. What we need is more like you who point out that real morality touches everyone's lives and livelyhood, and National presence in the real world.
Uh, I don't think they give a hoot about sexual "morality". That's all just window-dressing to pander to their voters. Just look at the personal actions of some of them, in particular Dear Leader (who is maybe not quite so "dear" post-election), and his chosen candidate for Senate in GA. It's just words.
That's true of their behavior, but it's not what they say. I've worked amongst these people for several years in the past. They go to church every Sunday, believe implicitly in what their preacher tells them. And since that same preacher is more interested in the collection pot than their trials and tribulations he or she feeds them what they want to hear, And they want to hear that trump and h. walker will make the bad men go away and their lives will be good.
That's SO sad... The preachers who do that I call "christians". They are not spreading Jesus's teachings, they are not encouraging their customers (I know) to do the right thing. This is what Jesus taught, and what the preachers should be teaching their congregations (Matthew 25:35-40): "I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me." Then these righteous ones will reply, "Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?" “And the King will say, "I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!" This is the only thing that Christians need to know. This is our guide for how to live a good life. The "christian" preachers and their clients are not following a single one of these teachings, e.g., look how they detest poor, often desperate, immigrants.
Sure hope we can move forward now to restore our democracy! We must pass am amendment to reverse Citizens United! Elizabeth Warren had introduced a bill to do this in the Senate. I hope we can all come together to reclaim our democracy by passing this amendment.
As the dust from this election settles the Democrats must use any improvement in voting majority to influence an amendment to reverse Citizen's United. Elizabeth Warren should continue to pursue an amendment vigorously. I cringe each time I hear about the undemocratic influence of obscene amounts of $$ on any issue. Next, get rid of the filibuster.
With so many republicans losing it does seem that voters are awakening to an understanding about flakey candidates. We voters must demand results from those in elected office. Republicans often talk about freedom from federal mandates then support a ban on abortion. Freedom? For an old guy, Biden has an "enlightened" attitude about many issues as he embraces new ideas and seems to manage enough energy to make sharp comments while doing his job (at 80 years old). A landslide election in 2024 may be a dream. The next two years should be a preview of better governing if only we will demand high standards and qualified candidates for office.
Article V of the Constitution. Congress must pass a proposed amendment by a two-thirds majority vote in both the Senate and the House of Representatives and send it to the states for ratification by a vote of the state legislatures.
The kicker, Daniel is "when ratified by the Legislature of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof," What I don't see is a time limit on how long these 3/4 of the States have to ratify. I also don't see a time limit in the Amendments, although my copy only includes the 25th amendment, and I don't have easy access to the 26th or 27th. I'm mentioning this because conservative journalist George Wills was railing about the ERA Amendment which is still out there and has not been ratified. He says it is superlative and should just go away.
There are some things that can be owned. Corrupting The commons for gain by making things up for profit that have no purpose, service or value, propaganda, unprovable theories and outright lies isn’t one of them. It’s fraud and more hot air. People have been conned by these guys and enabling businesses and institutions. Causing devastating harm as usual. Predators is a good word for them and predatory in every way.
I agree, Kath, but we need laws, statutes, regulations, with stiff penalties. Until we force political parties to give up their lucrative donors "It ain't gonna happen"
How I wish you were right, Steve, but they seem to pop up with devastating regularity. I don't know if it's too difficult to legislate protections against them, or if the legislator's themselves want an opening to join them,
And amongst the preditors lurk the most dangerous of all . . the Rouge Preditor. Known to prey even on their own species they are not tolerated by their group. The obvious question presented then is who do they prey uopn once they have eliminated their own kind? Just food for thought.
This credo begs to be applied to our own democratic republic, wherein our former wealthy President in many ways irreparably damaged our governmental institutions, especially those beyond the protection of the electorate (i.e. the Supreme Court), while coming way too close to an actual coup d'etat. For him, "drain the swamp" meant trying to set himself up as another dictator, just like his buddies Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un.
Word. It has been a Republican plan forever. Ask yourself, why? Self interest? No, because it destroys their personal economy soon enough. Racism. They are willing to hurt themselves to maintain Racial Superiority. This is of course, illogical.
They fear the Oppressed rising up, and doing to them. The 1930’s and the New Deal had a multi-generational impact. It got too damn close to creating some (not for Brown folks, still not yet) actual Wealth Redistribution. They will do anything to wipe that out. Then Johnson’s Great Society. Civil Rights.
Republicans are fear driven. Scarcity driven. Zero-sum thinkers. It is reaching its zenith. Can we do better?
There are astounding similarities now to the time when Teddy Roosevelt was president and the economy was run by the robber barons as so brilliantly laid out in Ken Burns' documentary, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History.
Fortunately, we had a president in Roosevelt who was willing to take on the robber barons and bring them to heel. He made no bones about their designs: "Regarding the very wealthy, Roosevelt privately scorned, "their entire unfitness to govern the country, and ... the lasting damage they do by much of what they think are the legitimate big business operations of the day.” - Wikipedia
Years later, another Roosevelt, Franklin, in a speech on October 31, 1936, described forces which he labeled "the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.” - Wikipedia
Until we the people stand up and demand an end to special interest influence, and an end to the idea that “corporations are people, too,” we are at the mercy of corporate greed and the corporate vision that EVERYTHING exists to be controlled, exploited, and monetized.
On October 20, 1912 Teddy Roosevelt said in a speech, "Perhaps once in a generation, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights.”
Was watching a movie last night, not particularly a good one, "Killing Them Softly". I thought the last line in the movie kind of relates to Dr Reich's comment today. In the end Brad Pitt says " the US is not a country it's a business".
It’s really simple to fix every permutation of this problem. Pass legislation that makes ALL campaign donations from any source illegal, and allows candidates to use only public money-- the same amount of public money given to every candidate. When it has all been spent campaigning is over.
Love it, If Only - we could get greedy politicians to agree
It’s not politicians, they do what they have to to win.
It’s the Supreme Court, starting with the corporate whore- and I mean that kindly- Roberts.
We need to impeach half of it, starting with him.
Jen, I do agree the problem is with the Supreme Court. They have assumed too much power and are wielding it against this nation in all kinds of ways. How can a group of old men be able to declare money speech? That is nuts. Roberts tries so hard to come off as a reasonable person, but in reality, he is a man who had a "high-level" education but mostly ignored it in favor of his own ideology and what he thought would help his conservative Catholic cause. For him, and his conservative colleagues, the Constitution is just a guide and if they like what they find there as it is written, they may go along with it. If they don't, they will twist and turn it, pretending it says what they want it to say. That is how the first amendment can be made to include money as speech. Rubbish! (as Dr. Reich would say)
The underlying problem is that the ONLY people that can do what needs to be done (in The People's opinion) are those bought and paid for politicians whose loyalty is first and foremost to their largest "campaign contributors". Yes, there are a _few_ sincere legislators, bbbbuuuuttt this IS a Democracy where "Majority rules!".... and the Majority of legislators are NOT loyal to The People.
CaptainPatch, you are right that there are quite a few legislators who are not loyal to the people. I think it is a smaller number than we might think. A lot of those even on the edge of caring get caught up with all the fund-raising they must do to even be a candidate and can become jaded. Others fall under the spell of a person they believe knows a lot about them and could do them harm if they don't go along with what he says. They have seen what happens when they don't K*** his a**. We could actually let those representatives and senators who want to be more loyal to this nation and the people do it, if we got some real campaign finance reforms in place. We need to focus on that.
It comes back to the fact that the ONLY people that have the ability to make a Change like campaign finance reform are the very same people that most benefit from the status quo: the elected legislators. Furthermore, We The People really do NOT even have the ability to choose those potential candidates that We want. Candidates are chosen by the Parties that endorse them -- at the cost of giving their loyalty, first and foremost, to the Party that endorses them. No oath of fealty, no endorsement. And "everybody knows" that only a Republican or a Democrat have more than a slim chance of getting elected. The VAST majority of Americans that vote are NOT voting for the candidates that they truly want; they are voting **against* the candidates that they don't want to win.
If we make all campaign donations illegal, our senators & reps don’t have to do any fundraising.
The whole point is to make our elected representatives 100% responsive to their constituents.
AGAIN, the _only_ people that can make that kind of change are the legislators that rely on those "campaign contributions" to get elected. (In practice, the contributor is essentially putting the legislator "on retainer".) The clear majority of "Our" legislators are bought and paid for by campaign contributors and lobbyists -- and those "sponsors" do NOT want campaign finance reform.... Which is why, despite all the discussion and debate about campaign finance reform over the last several decades, NOTHING has been done to rectify the situation.
It's okay, Ruth. You can say "kiss" and "ass." (First Amendment: Freedom of Speech!)
Contrary to popular opinion and experience, the SCOTUS doesn't create laws. Look to Congress. There is a great article in the August American Prospect about limiting the SCOTUS by limiting their judicial review abilities. I thought our only option was to expand the court.
Some one also recently posted a link to an interesting link to PoliticsGirl's interview w/ Thom Hartmann touching on this very subject. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-politicsgirl-podcast/id1595408601?i=1000585450002
Another option would be to enhance the ability to impeach or expel justices for corrupt behavior.
We can impeach Justices now. That’s actually the only tool we currently have.
Thanks for your encouragement about my book!
It's amazing how many things we can do legally & constitutionally but aren't being done, from failing to discipline justices who break the rules, to failure to apply penalties to Trump's infractions of the Emoluments Clause & so many other laws to failure to expel seditionists in Congress
I think it's doable. But why stop at campaign contributions? We need comprehensive reform of Citizens United.
Absolutely! Citizens United legalized political bribery, didn’t it?
The best legislation money can buy!
Yes, it would have to either make Citizens United obsolete by overriding it or it would have to severely modify it. Citizens U is the result of a Supreme Court decision that can be made irrelevant by new legislation.
“the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, is a controversial decision that reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections.” (Brennan Center)
Very interesting. I didn't realize legislators can overrule SCOTUS. Can Dobbs be made irrelevant?
On statutory matters, Congress can negate a Supreme Court interpretation by enacting new legislation, as long as the new legislation is Constitutional.
The Supreme Court reviews legislation to decide whether it violates the Constitution. Roe v Wade was the result of a decision made by the Supreme Court in 1971. Our current Supreme Court was able to override the decision in Roe by re-interpreting its Constitutionality. But, Congress can override this Court’s interpretation by writing new legislation. (As long as the new legislation is Constitutional.)
AND AGAIN, the Supreme Court in question would have a chance to rule on whether the new legislation passes muster. The problem with Citizen’s United is that it based its decisions about what passes for allowable money in politics on the concept of “free speech.” It says Money is Speech. Any LAW limiting how much money a person can spend has to be justified first. As I have said, that is the hurdle to get over — how do we characterize the exercise of speech as permissible or not permissible? And whatever is applied to THIS speech will be applied to ALL speech, so be really careful how you want to limit free speech. OR — which is MY point — IS MONEY REALLY SPEECH AT ALL?
If it’s not, then limiting how much can be spent to influence elections becomes easier.
Every time legislators want to invalidate something the Supreme Court says, they have to know what the Supreme Court based its decision on. In Roe, for instance, they didn’t say women have no right to an abortion, per se, they attacked the ruling on how far any right to privacy might go, and said it doesn’t pertain to decisions about maintaining or ending a pregnancy, with all sorts of questions about what and when and who is involved in determining a “life” … That is why so many people are worried about other rights that are based on privacy and personal autonomy. Because Dobbs was not only about abortion … it’s about privacy.
Expanding the Supreme Court might be the solution — it hasn’t grown with our population for a good many generations … ! But I’d also like to see term limits. Some people want courts to have less authority, but that worries me, too. If there’s no arbiter anywhere, chaos would reign. We DO have a right to revisit court decisions, to appeal them, and even to have a court take another look at one of its own decisions in light of time passing and new information rising. Dobbs did that, even if we think they got it wrong, this time aroaund.
I like the idea that precedent carries weight, but clearly courts CAN get it wrong, so …
I don’t think there’s one perfect solution. I do agree with folks here that justices and judges should always be highly skilled at the law, and demonstrably so. I think it’s a travesty for judges to be named to the bench by general election!
Which is why we need an expanded number of Justices on the Supreme Court, imv. Otherwise we have a court that unilaterally strikes down laws - and that is not their function nor is it legal action, in my opinion.
That’s right. We need to expand the Supreme Crt for several reasons. The conservatives Justices-including Chief Justice Roberts-on the Court demonstrated by how they overturned Roe, they are biased. Justice Thomas has also demonstrated he’s unethical. He did that when he didn’t recuse from participating in a matter before the Court concerning his wife.
Absolutely. We as the public who are suppose to be protected by the Governing forces, are instead subjected to their apparent disdain for us by not following laws and seeminglly care not about the oaths they took. We are beyond "boiling frogs" with intensified oversight and accountability greatly needed..
Citizens U becomes obsolete if all donations are illegal.
And shorten the campaign season to 8 weeks to improve the quality of life for us all.
Or maybe 10. My idea is that for presidential primaries, the country be divided into 5 regions of 10 states each, have 1 state from each region vote each week. Conversely it could be divided into 10 regions of 5 states each, & each region takes turns on a weekly basis. In either case the order of voting would rotate from election to election.
Good idea, now that’s reality TV!
Yay on that one!!!
A superb idea, if only we can enact it!
The biggest hurdle is getting enough votes to pass new legislation re campaign finance. I think Dems would pass it if there are enough of them. But we don’t know if we don’t try.
Susan, I agree that getting campaign finance legislation going would be a really good idea. Republicans don't seem to want it because they think their rich money cows will be producing indefinitely and they can just keep collecting. I suspect if we the people could make such unlimited giving a bad idea for those rich guys, we could get some Republican support for the legislation. A decent tax code could get that started.
Susan,It sounds good, but I’m seeing that some folks will find a way to get around any kind of method like that. We are watching trump (et al) finding ways to manipulate our justice system and media to get what they want. I don’t have a solution for all of this, I’m at a loss
The solution is to elect candidates who refuse to accept big money from PACs and corporations. This is what the Bernie Sanders revolution and the “squad” is all about. Corporate Democrats and the party leadership are strongly opposed believing it would be political suicide. So it won’t happen quickly. It’s up to us, the voters to decide.
It’s not that simple, because campaigning isn’t just coming from the candidates--it’s the super PACS and corporations spending endless on behalf of campaigns and issues. Anyone out there can advertise for or against candidates. It seems to me that it goes way beyond any candidates acceptance of PAC money. There are several who don’t accept PAC corporate donations but money still got spent.
Sarah, that’s what I mean. We have to write legislation making ALL campaign donations illegal whether it’s donations coming from individuals, PACs, super-PACs or corporations.
All of it is money from private sources. All campaign donations from private sources are really just bribes. The legislation could address advertising as well--written endorsements could be allowed, but the legislation should require that ads and written endorsements must be factual. If any more than, “I endorse so and so because I believe so and so will do X,” or “I think so & so is really smart,” is said-- it must be factual. For example, “I’m voting for so & so because he or she has experience with X,” must be factual. The burden of proving whether something is factual or not would be on the person saying it. If they can’t provide info showing that it’s true, it can’t be published as either an ad or an endorsement. The legislation would have to require that ads & endorsements be reviewed by a non-partisan Board or Committee. If the non-partisan Board doesn’t approve the ad or endorsement, it can’t be published. If it’s published and later found to be untrue the legislation should require a stiff penalty.
Excellent suggestions, Susan! Too bad that we live in a culture of advertising in the most-capitalist country on earth.
If we can't outlaw campaign donations, maybe we could tax them. For example, any donation over $10,000 will be taxable at 50%. Any outside non-candidate campaign spending over $10,000 will be similarly taxed. If wealthy individuals or corporations insist on campaign spending, they'll have to report it to the IRS and pay taxes. All such reported spending will be maintained in a database open to public inspection.
This does a few things:
(1) It should dramatically reduce dark money. If a corporation donates $100,000 to a candidate, their shareholders deserve to know.
(2) If you don't report your spending to the IRS, you can be prosecuted for tax evasion.
(3) Exposing bribery will discourage the behavior.
(4) It doesn't "limit" spending which the supreme court asserts is a form of speech.
Read my lips. In spite of ALL THIS, the American people said NO!! So we should listen. This is THEIR VICTORY.
I keep asking, how in the world is "DARK MONEY" even legal in the U.S. of America. Dark Money where you do NOT even know who the donor is? (Your next door neighbor?, Vlad Putin?, Who knows?) Something to remember is the Congress is charged, through OUR Constitution to write the laws (not lobbyists and private interests with money!). Maybe if they were not so seemingly petrified of offending a campaign donor, common sense laws would be on the "books" limiting the many ways corruption is used by the monied entities to get their way. If laws were written by Congress, maybe Roe vs. Wade never would have gotten to a corrupted "supreme" Court. Maybe compassionate immigration reform laws would have passed. Maybe the Federal Minimum Wage would be adjusted annually by the inflation rate. (You have to give Leonard Leo credit for recognizing he ONLY had to select five justices through Republican Presidents to get exactly what he wanted in the U.S. system. Five justices controlling over 350 million people. If only Congress would NOT default decisions to the Supreme Court and take a STAND FOR THE RIGHT THING!). But the POWER OF MONEY changes the game for all who have open eyes.
Congress doesn’t “default decisions” to the Supreme Crt. Congress writes legislation or, as you said, lobbyists write it and members of Congress present it as their own. If the legislation is passed it becomes law. If that law is challenged at some point as being unconstitutional, the Supreme Crt may or may not decide to review it.
I agree, the Court is corrupt. It’s was corrupted by republicans with help from Putin and Trump.
That’s why it’s so important to make campaign donations illegal. If campaign donations are illegal, dark money is also illegal.
Think bigger. Way bigger. Think like a Democrat. Be brave.
Even though candidates like Bernie with compelling messages showed that campaigns could prosper while relying on small donors only.
Rivka, there may not be ONE way to thwart everything, but we can sure try! Citizens United is the case that went to the Supreme Court and the Court’s ruling reversed long-standing campaign finance laws. That’s what’s responsible for where we are now. But, new legislation can be crafted to render Citizens U irrelevant.Democrats can form a committee to write new campaign finance laws. I would suggest that Lyn Cheney act as an advisor to the committee. If new legis. doesn’t address every loophole or work-around republicans come up with we can modify it or create more new legislation to address it. What I can’t envision is going on as we are. Millions of dollars that are nothing more than sanctioned bribery are being poured into campaigns. That money makes our senators and representatives wealthy, but it’s wealth at our expense. Our elected representatives no longer represent us,
they represent the corporations and industries that contribute the most money to their campaigns. Our America can’t survive that.
I live in a country, Canada, that has a mix of public funding and limited private donations--I donate to the party of which I am a member. It is better than the US, but it is also a Westminster system which limits campaigning to the weeks between the election being called and election day. The problem is that the system still depends on laws passed by federal or provincial parliaments and a majority government can rig the system. Here in Ontario, the current Tory government has done exactly that, limiting contributions from labor unions and other groups that tend to favor other parties. As they say, no system is foolproof because fools are so ingenious. No system is crook proof either. Don't misunderstand. I think that public funding of elections and parties is essential (though I wouldn't prevent supporters from supporting a party that reflects their own ideology) but by itself it doesn't solve the problem of the influence of money in politics. That requires many interconnected approaches.
Of course I think it could be done, but you’re correct when you say no system is foolproof. But the way I see it is that almost anything would be better than what we have now, which is sanctioned bribery.
Thanks, Robert, for telling us how it's done in Canada. You're correct: no system is foolproof. The U.S. could learn a lot if it would look at how some other nations do it and adopt those advantages. But we're too prideful . . . I've lived a long time and seen a lot of changes, but never, ever, have seen a systemic shift where we actually credited some other entity for the ideas. The U.S. has simply got to get over this addiction to "we're perfect, and we're a superpower" thing . . . it's offensive as hell to the rest of the planet.
A 90% excise tax on campaign contributions over the prior small donor limits might even be something for reconciliation. Lobbying expenses should also be subjected to the tax. The funds could then be used for funding of elections.
Taxation also requires documentation so we also get the benefits of Sheldon Whitehouse's Disclose Act.
I believe the problem lies in deeming money spent as "speech." We don't want to put limitations on real speech by going after money-as-speech. We need to get rid of the idea that spending money IS speech. To me, that is paramount.
Dr. DG, I really like your idea of taxing large contributions to candidates and political entities and lobbyists too. That could really make a difference in the quality of people who run and the level of contributions that individuals and corporations are willing to make. I also like being able to know who is contributing and how much.
“People” will [and should] insist on their right to speak personally, but how they use that to get around the campaign finance system might be interesting. Perhaps someone would set up a “forum for discussion” and only allow in people they agree with, and they’ll all say nice things about their candidate, but it’s not campaigning [this forum right here … 🙄 ]. It would be gamed … that’s what some people just do … And having the money to game it would still confer a leg up for some and not others.
I do believe the idea that corporations are people needs to be struck down, and the declaration that “money is speech” needs modification, too. But that one is dicier -
Pat, I don't find this column "gamed," but provocative. But, point taken.
Oh, I don’t think this column is gamed — but having the wherewithal to create this, and keep it going — even without subscribers, if the originator is an Oligarch — opens it up to being gamed. And as long as “money is speech,” those who have it will use it to game our system.
We do get the occasional trumpster spewing hateful things, at first I responded. then I realized that made them happy so now I just delete.
I can speak to you without giving you money, and I can give you money in silence. I don't understand how those two acts are the same or even similar.
The problem is that you would have so many candidates filing it would make it impossible. Everyone and their brother and every crazy person would come out the woodwork just to get free money. We just need to make non profits and NGO's make their books available to the public like we have to do with our campaigns. Anyone who wants can look at my books for my campaign. We should also put a limit on campaign funds for federal races.
I believe we now need to get a predetermined number of signatures to qualify to be on a ballot.
That’s at the heart of the problem — the Supreme Court said “money is speech,” so putting a limit on how much you can spend is akin to abridging free speech. Money is NOT speech, but logic of an argument to that effect needs to be made in a new Supreme Court case to turn it around. I’ not sure anyone is going to do it.
Also, corporations are NOT people. The ONLY thing these "decisions" are proving is that despite whatever colleges these so-called judges have gone to, they are ONLY very imperfect people who have WAY TOO MUCH CONTROL over what THEY (or should I say their OWNERS) believe should be law in this country. Proving, as I have said previously, that the Supreme Court is the oligarch's last bastion to protect THEIR OWN WEALTH AND WAY OF LIFE. By the way, OUR U.S. Constitution does NOT state that the Supreme Court justices have "Lifetime appointments". Those words are NOT found anywhere in the document. It is written that they can keep their positions as long as they act in "good behavior", a very subjective term open to interpretation. Keep in mind, the politicians and media want YOU to believe it means "Lifetime Appointment" for a reason and that reason is NOT for your best interest.
I'm for codifying via permanent Constitutional language -- in non-arbitrary terms -- that SCOTUS justices serve for a limited time. And not the eighteen years some are suggesting, either.
State races can also be corrupted by campaign money, Isaac. My state of Ohio is a perfect example. Atypical for the country, we went almost full-blown Republican in the midterms, because our system is rigged by the GOP cabal that has redistricted an illegal supermajority. Our governor was terrified of debating a Democratic woman who spoke truth to power and only emerged from his basement to comment post-midterms to "discuss the election." Unlike Biden during COVID, our red voters didn't mind. And because they had been trained, like seals, to vote their party, jumped up and swallowed the rotten fish of J.D. Vance.
Supermajorities are not illegal, that is democracy. The very idea of Democracy is majority rules. Either you respect democracy or you don't. You cannot have it both ways. J.D. Vance ran a good race and hit on the issues people care about. This is the problem with people like you. Never pay attention to the issues, you just vote party line, this is why we need to get rid of the 2 party system.
And on a different thread, calling the overwhelming national opinion on Vance a "party line" sentiment is absurd.
The Ohio supermajority IS illegal . . . it was formulated by a GOP cabal that defied the rulings of the Ohio Supreme Court multiple times (five or six!) and the deciding vote against the GOP maps was cast by a Republican Chief Justice, a fair-minded woman. The Republicans presented virtually the same maps to the Court in each appeal, thereby giving the middle finger to that Court. Their redistricting process walked all over the two-time voter popular mandate (>80% of Ohio voters voted for it) of redistricting reform that established a redistricting commission that consisted of, on the Republican side, the Governor, Sec. of State, State Auditor, and both leaders of the Ohio legislature (all Republicans). The two Democratic commission members were helpless. The impressive number of public comments before the Commission were ignored, despite being intelligent, fair and reasonable. The maps presented by the public were drawn with expert consultation and fairly gave the Republicans a majority, but not a supermajority. But Republicans weren't satisfied until they rigged a supermajority, which critical experts who study redistricting said didn't satisfy the mandate requirements. Republicans dragged their feet until the last minute presenting their maps before the Commission so that comments would be limited and the two Democratic members, who were left out of their collaboration, wouldn't have time to analyze the GOP maps. That is why I call it a corrupt cabal.
Look up the "Ohio Bunker redistricting in 2010," Isaac, if you want a taste of what the GOP did to capture a purple state. Well, the purple still exists in Ohio and is growing, due to Columbus' growing population -- where I live -- but the 2020 redistricting cabal was the Bunker on steroids. The maps are still being appealed.
Everything you just described is what Democrats do in almost every other state. Sounds to me like they followed the process. The voters wanted a SM when they voted them in. Nothing you described is "illegal" you just don't like it. Sounds like they played some snake type government games, but everyone is doing it. Until you call out your side when they do this stuff it means nothing. If you want change, start calling out everyone who does this. Or you can just blame Republicans and turn a blind eye to everything Dems do in the same manner. Oh and I don't take stock in your so called "experts", those days are over. You didn't clearly site a law that was broken or a constitutional amendment they violated. It sounds like lawyer huffing and puffing because they are mad about what happened. This is what the voters wanted when they elected all Republicans, this is Democracy. The very idea of a SM is DEMOCRACY, majority rules. This is why America is a constitutional Republic, so the majority can't just vote away our guns, voices, religions, and freedoms. This is the failure point of democracy.
No, Isaac . . . Ohio 2020 redistricting HAS been called "illegal" by the experts, because Republicans violated both the voter mandate and the state constitution. I tried through my details to make that very clear.
As for "everybody does it," progressives are not buying that anymore and are calling those forces out for corrupting the system.
Correct, there are details that would have to be worked out. Requiring that books are available for review is one. There could also be a requirement for the candidate to register with the state and maybe turn over their tax info to a state Board for their review, or there could be a requirement that potential candidates pass a test demonstrating they have basic knowledge about how our government works. Of course all requirements must be lawful & Constitutionally appropriate.
But the oldstream media that should be disseminating your idea as our primary vehicle for public information is quite unfortunately the biggest beneficiary of all that ad revenue income. We share this truth in our own enlightened internet circles but you won't see the mainstream broadcast TV viewers and cable-culters discussing it. Why would The Media, by any name, want to give up all that Citizen's United gravy? Great idea, but until a candidate runs and wins an ad-free campaign, those ad revenues are so ubiquitous to the process, there is no way out. Do the best with the tools we have, and unfortunately that means playing the media money game just to stay in The Game at all.
You've got that right, John. It is a gravy train. And far too many politicians are lapping up some of that gravy. I really believe that is what encouraged school boards to give up teaching civics, An enlightened population would see through the parasitic political realm and start demanding Representatives that truly represented them and not Corporate America (which includes media and healthcare - both the insurance and pharmaceutical portions) Too many of us stayed asleep at the wheel and didn't see the trend that was the ruination of our democratic "experiment". Citizen's United was our first wake up call, trump and his thrust toward a fascist dictatorship. was the second. We can't afford a third wake up call.
Hear, hear, Fay Reid.
Years ago — must have been all the way back in the late 1980s — maybe 1990 — I was covering the schools beat for my local newspaper. At a school board meeting where hiring some new teachers was under discussion, I spoke to a someone sitting in the room about whether the board wanted teachers adept at developing “critical thinking” in our town’s students. The woman looked at me aghast and said “I certainly hope not. That’s code for challenging authority, and children challenging their parents.” She told me critical thinking means lack of respect for religious teachings, accepted morality, etc., etc….
I was gobsmacked. But I get why some quarters wanted to stop encouraging kids to question received “wisdom.” Getting the religious sector to fear “critical thinking” would be a good way to foster acceptance of whatever “influential people” want to dish out.
Civics and discussion of free speech and challenging overreaching authority — badddd!
And these days, cult thinking appears to be rampant. No surprise.
You are so very correct, Pat. The problem is this "fear" of 'difference goes back at least to the Victorian age. It is especially dominant in women and one of the reason's my mother never liked me. The creed was you MUST fit in, what would others think, nice girls don't do that, and the acceptance of male dominance. Fortunately for me I had a very enlightened father who adored me. I was the first born, brighter than average and as far as he was concerned, I could do and be anything I wanted. Therefor I did really well in languages, math, history, English, and not so well in home economics. My father (who dropped out of school in the 8th grade to help support his family) encouraged me to question, research and make my own decisions. So, I can relate to those good, little, kids who do everything they are told, but when they were my students encouraged them to question and research. I told them that science is not exact, that what I taught them in chemistry today may be very different in 10 or 20 years as new discoveries are made. Even history changes as we get more insight into the period. I just wish adults would be as amenable to change as children are.
Sad. True. Hoping for better as we … progress. Or, get back on track, as it seems we are seriously off it right now.
Nobody said “ad free” campaigns. The public money spoken of would certainly be used to buy advertising, as well as whatever else is needed. Though, for sure, the amount of money flowing into ads would be far less.
The point, Pat, is that public funding will be fought by Corporate America and their obedient lap it up dogs in the legislatures (Federal and State) who are in it for the gravy - that's our real enemy.
There’s the media [I was a journalist] who want to collect the ad fees — and there’s the monied class that wants to use its dollar power — Yes, I realize both will {and likely have] opposed full public funding of campaigns. Without donations, how would the wealthy curry favor, and how would the money aggregators like PACs exert pressure?
Yes, I do know that.
I thought you did. Unfortunately, it took us too long to recognize the danger, This mess started in the early 1970's and continued unabated until suddenly in the early 21st Century we woke up. I just hope that sometime (the sooner the better) we can figure a way to undo the damage. A Constitutional Convention to correct our current Constitution could be a start. The whole of Article 3 needs to be modernized, updated to assure all Federal Courts at all levels are presided over by judges who know and agree that justice is blind, their personal biases, religious beliefs, peer groups must be stifled in favor of written law. There need to be term limits. No judge at any level should gain their position through political appointment or the electorate. There needs to be a branch of Civil Service specifically for the testing and employment of all Judges, Police Chiefs, and Sheriffs (and this should be both Federal and State). As to taking money out of politics that can be done by a preponderance of the electorate demanding free and fair elections, to hell with PACs and Citizen's United.
I agree with what needs to be changed, but I absolutely oppose a Constitutional Convention. I’m all for amendments going through the process, but a Convention puts the entire Constitution up for grabs, and I have NO idea what sort of malevolent actors might dominate the stage and what sort of changes might be proposed and passed. Not an appetizing thought …. Not at ALL.
I know it’s a drag to deal with it by amendment, but we’ve done it a whole bunch of times so far, and we can keep it up. A convention could mean we scrap the whole thing, and who know WHAT would come of it. Egad.
Susan, I like your idea of using public money for campaigns. I would also like to see campaigns limited to say 2 months or so. The campaigning all the time is disgusting and leads to constant negativity and spending far too much on that negativity.
And then this …
I long thought the same. However... New law allows only public money in the amount of $500,000 to run a presidential campaign.....Wouldn't we ALL sign up for it? Even if we didn't have a chance at all and had to give leftovers back, we'd have one heck of a year traveling...I mean campaigning. Otherwise you have to limit who can run and well, game over there.
good luck
Thank you again for these essays, they are like a handbook of democracy. Appropriate stories, clear conclusions.....
Indeed, put these articles in a book, one that reaches across & unites by appealing to the decent majority. The centre is where all progress is consolidated, not on extremes.
I’m actually working on a book like that.
Sounds like you have some very good ideas for the book.
Agreed but unfortunately rose that need it don’t read books.
Those
this is why the centre left need find a left populism that uses empathy and policy to touch peoples real day-by-day concerns. In the UK, and in particular in England it, was in then States, has a dark hole of racism at its centre and also another of classism. Having been brought up in the mid-west, I believe there is also a form of class snobbery in the US as well. Until we can overcome that and then imagine ourselves in those other shoes, we will not be able to attract the non-readers. I recommend everyone to reread Grapes of Wrath to reinvigorate once sense of unity and to re-remember why we need a proper, caring welfare state.
OK, yet if a book is good and contains the right principles, it may well get picked up by others and things will come right in the end.
As RR has written, it is true and accurate knowledge of underlying causes that is needed and needs spreading widely.
This is promised to be the best way to reduce the effects of our collective ignorance of these things and our subsequent wrong actions; this was one of the successes of 17th / 18th c. Enlightenment's thinking on education.
Hear Hear !!
as a scientist and journalist, i've relied more and more on twitter to make connections with, and communicate with, scientists, political figures and others (astonishingly, i even chatted with Malala on twitter shortly after she was nearly killed) which kept me informed and nimble within the science and news streams. i am also on mastodon and counter social, but these platforms are NOTHING like twitter. i feel completely out-of-touch with both of my worlds now, and that lack of knowing about stuff is terrifying to me.
it's utterly depressing to think that one egomaniacal oligarch can take this incredibly valuable platform away from us, the people, cuz he's mad at twitter for telling him he could not join its board of directors without passing a background check.
So that's the source of his tantrum. I didn't even know, although I feel sure it has been reported. No one should have enough money or power to escape being known.
that is the rumour. he did have a tantrum about this very thing before he bought twitter. others think it is the reason. i personally, am not sure if this is true, but it makes as much sense as anything else i've heard or read about musk's motivations to destroy twitter.
That is why this should be a public regulated platform. The only thing I miss about twitter or FB is that so many businesses and orgs use it, and I cannot access it being banned. There needs to be outside arbitration for ppl being banned to present their case not just the whim of algorithm 'bots misinterpreting "hateful conduct" because you call out "evil white monsters" who killed Ahmaud Arbery.
Wouldn’t it be great if a modernized post office provided a digital communications platform that was well regulated and non-profit.
One of the challenges to solve would be the international users. Could a similar service be offered by other countries? It so, it could be a network of digital postal services. How would we deal with government officials or governments purposely manipulating or censoring?
Good question. Now that you brought it up, I’m wondering if we’re being manipulated and censored now.
That’s a very interesting idea!
I agree. We need a Twitter-like platform that’s a public utility & is regulated like a public utility. This platform we’re on now is a good way to communicate, but it doesn’t replace Twitter.
Interesting. But how would we distinguish from the ones that invite regulation like a public utility and ones like Substack, that don't? Size? That discourages building a user base and encourages covertly farming out influences to additional clones.
I'm so glad, GrrlScientist, to see someone who uses twitter the way you do defend it. I consider it invaluable and don't even have an account. The proximity and immediacy of the best minds in fields like law and journalism that twitter offers make it singular. I desperately hope twitter's recently departed are working feverishly on a successor platform.
the rumor is that jack, who was the big cheese at twitter, is writing the code for a new platform called bluesky. i'm on the waiting list now for an invitation to try out the beta version, so we'll see how that goes. (i'm not a fan of jack -- he's so disorganised -- but he's a million times better than musk.)
First the Senate, now this! How can I handle so much good news in so few days! Seriously, if beta invitations have a waiting list, bluesky sounds like more than a rumor. Whatever anyone wants to say about Jack, he was a founder, returned to see things through, and could have sailed off with a bundle. If he feels an obligation to loyalists he's a better human being than most Silicon Valley types.
He has a predecessor model, Opera browser cofounder Jon von Tetzchner, who sold his baby to jerks who also betrayed the concept. Jon returned to his native Iceland and built a full-featured new browser, Vivaldi, for the old community. I hope bluesky works as well as Vivaldi's android version in my smartphone.
Taxing the rich and making it a requirement that political donations be grassroots and never beyond a certain amount regardless of how much money they have would be two giant steps in the right direction. I realize how unlikely those things are but it’s the truth.
Biggest obstacle to holding them accountable? The old All-American "Free Enterprise vs. Socialism" bugaboo, as lately exploited to the max by Trump's MAGA minions.
Yes ; witness the talk on the 'right' about ending social security as we know it, along with Medicare. Both support the common good. Of course, they would never go against massive subsidies and tax breaks for the rich.
Just shows that the real issue for Republicans is that donors trump constituents. All puns intended.
Yes! And calling progressives "extremists." I've been surprised at how many such references I've discovered in the MSM. I make it a crusade to contact the origin of those quotes and call them out, explaining that progressives are only trying to recapture the tenets of the original Party, at least in the Twentieth Century:
"In the early 20th century, it supported progressive reforms and opposed imperialism, with Woodrow Wilson winning the White House in 1912 and 1916. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition after 1932, the Democratic Party has promoted a social liberal platform, including Social Security and unemployment insurance."[Wikipedia]
“You own it, you can break it” IS an insane norm for a complex society.
To me, bankruptcy is a license to steal. I know that it's in the Constitution. But here in Florida, it seems to be the last stage of a lot of business plans.
Last night I watched the Heat/Suns NBA game. The "Heat's House" had been called the FTX Arena since June 2021, after the crypto trading platform agreed a 19-year deal worth US$135 million for the naming rights. The agreement promised the Heat US$2 million per year, while the county was to be paid about US$90 million over the duration of the contract.
While they are removing the name from the basketball arena, I learned that bankruptcy will protect some of the fortune of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried; $16 billion. I'm a Miami Heat fan but until this week I never heard of Bankman-Fried. I had seen the omnipresent commercials starring Heat players and Tom Brady and his ex. I wonder who else has been screwed?
In research, I find that although he is an American, Bankman-Fried probably lives in the Bahamas. From what I can tell, control of FTX was taken over by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao last month. Apparently, simultaneously, Zhao invested $500 million through Binance to finance the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk.
The road goes on forever......
Wow. I didn't realize that Zhao was in deep w/ the Twitter purchase too. The U.S. has a blind eye w/re to bankruptcies, both at the upper and lower end: the largest # of bankruptcies here is reportedly medical bankruptcies -- we need to fix that by fixing the out of control medical insurance industry. But corporate bankruptcies need a wholly different fix. I'm sure that we can come up with some creative solutions for consequences for deep-sixing a company, many times with intent. For repeat offenders, prison isn't a bad one.
** Notice how those of liberal persuasion don't have any trouble criticizing our own, unlike conservatives. Indeed, calling out one of the Party's largest donors is warranted.
Hi, S.A. Linden, The "jails" these criminals are sent to are not lockups. They have nice private rooms, are treated respectfully. What needs to be done is to strip them of ALL their misbegotten gains, every penny, mansion, yacht, airplane, limousine. Leave them enough to live in a middle class subdivision, with maximum 2 mid-size cars, sufficient to buy groceries. Force them to go to work, or maybe donate 10 years to charitable agencies. To hell with prison, let them live an ordinary life scrabbling from paycheck to paycheck. Do you think for one minute that these bred to luxury brats would enjoy that life. Also think of the message it would send to other would-be fraudsters. But this is exactly why it won't happen. The Kevin McCarthy's and Josh Hawley's of this world would never risk joining the Trump's, Bankman-Fried's of this world. What we need to do is advertise widely in the rural Conservative enclaves to tell the people there what is really happening. The immigrants and others are not their enemy. It is the very people they are electing who are out to dominate and ruin them.
Thank you for pointing this out Daniel. Even when criminal charges are brought against these shysters, and they are convicted, they get a slap on the wrist and a few months in one of the Nation's Country Club Jails, AND they are allowed to retain most of their fortune no matter how many ordinary citizens are left with a BIG FAT ZERO for their pension. Sorry I can't shed a tear for Tom Brady and baby elon. I first experienced this travesty during the Savings and Loan fiasco.
Days of yore:
"If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?"
The implied corollary:
"If you are rich, you must be smart."
It ain't necessarily so.
'
More money than brains
Money -- no heart.
Of which there are so many in U.S.
How right you are Robert, but it seems the only 'morality' the lunatic rertrumplicans and ilk care about is sexual morality, as if the fact that two men or two women love each other matters a rat's ass. They moan and scream about abortion but don't care a fig about the resulting child. What we need is more like you who point out that real morality touches everyone's lives and livelyhood, and National presence in the real world.
Uh, I don't think they give a hoot about sexual "morality". That's all just window-dressing to pander to their voters. Just look at the personal actions of some of them, in particular Dear Leader (who is maybe not quite so "dear" post-election), and his chosen candidate for Senate in GA. It's just words.
That's true of their behavior, but it's not what they say. I've worked amongst these people for several years in the past. They go to church every Sunday, believe implicitly in what their preacher tells them. And since that same preacher is more interested in the collection pot than their trials and tribulations he or she feeds them what they want to hear, And they want to hear that trump and h. walker will make the bad men go away and their lives will be good.
That's SO sad... The preachers who do that I call "christians". They are not spreading Jesus's teachings, they are not encouraging their customers (I know) to do the right thing. This is what Jesus taught, and what the preachers should be teaching their congregations (Matthew 25:35-40): "I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me." Then these righteous ones will reply, "Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?" “And the King will say, "I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!" This is the only thing that Christians need to know. This is our guide for how to live a good life. The "christian" preachers and their clients are not following a single one of these teachings, e.g., look how they detest poor, often desperate, immigrants.
Gosh, the idea of morals in public life…what a quaint, old-fashioned idea.
Thank you for writing so eloquently about and idea whose time has come (back).
Love this post !!
Sure hope we can move forward now to restore our democracy! We must pass am amendment to reverse Citizens United! Elizabeth Warren had introduced a bill to do this in the Senate. I hope we can all come together to reclaim our democracy by passing this amendment.
As the dust from this election settles the Democrats must use any improvement in voting majority to influence an amendment to reverse Citizen's United. Elizabeth Warren should continue to pursue an amendment vigorously. I cringe each time I hear about the undemocratic influence of obscene amounts of $$ on any issue. Next, get rid of the filibuster.
With so many republicans losing it does seem that voters are awakening to an understanding about flakey candidates. We voters must demand results from those in elected office. Republicans often talk about freedom from federal mandates then support a ban on abortion. Freedom? For an old guy, Biden has an "enlightened" attitude about many issues as he embraces new ideas and seems to manage enough energy to make sharp comments while doing his job (at 80 years old). A landslide election in 2024 may be a dream. The next two years should be a preview of better governing if only we will demand high standards and qualified candidates for office.
Article V of the Constitution. Congress must pass a proposed amendment by a two-thirds majority vote in both the Senate and the House of Representatives and send it to the states for ratification by a vote of the state legislatures.
Just pass legislation to pen the beast and see what they do.
Right. If nothing else, good campaign fodder for 2024.
Sigh...
The kicker, Daniel is "when ratified by the Legislature of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof," What I don't see is a time limit on how long these 3/4 of the States have to ratify. I also don't see a time limit in the Amendments, although my copy only includes the 25th amendment, and I don't have easy access to the 26th or 27th. I'm mentioning this because conservative journalist George Wills was railing about the ERA Amendment which is still out there and has not been ratified. He says it is superlative and should just go away.
There are some things that can be owned. Corrupting The commons for gain by making things up for profit that have no purpose, service or value, propaganda, unprovable theories and outright lies isn’t one of them. It’s fraud and more hot air. People have been conned by these guys and enabling businesses and institutions. Causing devastating harm as usual. Predators is a good word for them and predatory in every way.
I agree, Kath, but we need laws, statutes, regulations, with stiff penalties. Until we force political parties to give up their lucrative donors "It ain't gonna happen"
Predators who are too good, go extinct. Nature sees to it.
How I wish you were right, Steve, but they seem to pop up with devastating regularity. I don't know if it's too difficult to legislate protections against them, or if the legislator's themselves want an opening to join them,
And amongst the preditors lurk the most dangerous of all . . the Rouge Preditor. Known to prey even on their own species they are not tolerated by their group. The obvious question presented then is who do they prey uopn once they have eliminated their own kind? Just food for thought.
Our gov coukd help by making tax payable from ALL. BUT IT DOESNT. WHY.
Republicans vote against it. That’s why.
This credo begs to be applied to our own democratic republic, wherein our former wealthy President in many ways irreparably damaged our governmental institutions, especially those beyond the protection of the electorate (i.e. the Supreme Court), while coming way too close to an actual coup d'etat. For him, "drain the swamp" meant trying to set himself up as another dictator, just like his buddies Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un.
2 words: Citizen’s United. Our political system was sold by (and to) our Supreme Court.
Buckley v Valeo.
Word. It has been a Republican plan forever. Ask yourself, why? Self interest? No, because it destroys their personal economy soon enough. Racism. They are willing to hurt themselves to maintain Racial Superiority. This is of course, illogical.
They fear the Oppressed rising up, and doing to them. The 1930’s and the New Deal had a multi-generational impact. It got too damn close to creating some (not for Brown folks, still not yet) actual Wealth Redistribution. They will do anything to wipe that out. Then Johnson’s Great Society. Civil Rights.
Republicans are fear driven. Scarcity driven. Zero-sum thinkers. It is reaching its zenith. Can we do better?
"It has been a Republican plan forever." And corporate Democrats have taken good advantage of it too, as they coasted in on "someone else's fault."
There are astounding similarities now to the time when Teddy Roosevelt was president and the economy was run by the robber barons as so brilliantly laid out in Ken Burns' documentary, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History.
Fortunately, we had a president in Roosevelt who was willing to take on the robber barons and bring them to heel. He made no bones about their designs: "Regarding the very wealthy, Roosevelt privately scorned, "their entire unfitness to govern the country, and ... the lasting damage they do by much of what they think are the legitimate big business operations of the day.” - Wikipedia
Years later, another Roosevelt, Franklin, in a speech on October 31, 1936, described forces which he labeled "the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.” - Wikipedia
Until we the people stand up and demand an end to special interest influence, and an end to the idea that “corporations are people, too,” we are at the mercy of corporate greed and the corporate vision that EVERYTHING exists to be controlled, exploited, and monetized.
On October 20, 1912 Teddy Roosevelt said in a speech, "Perhaps once in a generation, there comes a chance for the people of a country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the age-long warfare for human rights.”
NOW is our chance.
Was watching a movie last night, not particularly a good one, "Killing Them Softly". I thought the last line in the movie kind of relates to Dr Reich's comment today. In the end Brad Pitt says " the US is not a country it's a business".
When you hear that in pop culture, it's more confirmation.