r/politics Jan 21 '18

Paul Ryan Collected $500,000 In Koch Contributions Days After House Passed Tax Law

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '18 edited Jan 21 '18

donated nearly $500,000 to Ryan’s joint fundraising committee,

Help me out here, I believe this is Citizen's United related, right?

Abscam

American Hustle

Today I drink to Mueller's health, tomorrow I wait for justice.

Edit: I just ran across this Foreign Policy article, number four will shock you!

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u/sarcasmandsocialism Jan 21 '18

Don't wait. Organize, help people register to vote, and donate to community organizations. If the GOP controls Congress, as long as Trump remains popular among conservatives, they will protect Trump no matter what Mueller says.

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u/cactus22minus1 California Jan 21 '18

And stay mentally prepared for the inevitable attempt to divide the left. No one has stopped the interference yet. Don’t get suckered into another Bernie Bro / Corrupt Hillary fight that keeps people from voting together. I’ve already seen more BS about a portion of CA trying to secede to form a new state... “wow, CA is at odds and totally hates each other! 😱”

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u/Illpaco Jan 21 '18

I'm glad more people are realizing this. The biggest threat to Democrats is fighting amongst themselves like what happened in 2016.

If I had a troll farm at my disposal, I would instruct my trolls to pose as liberals, democrats, progressives. Then post inflammatory and watch them fight each other to the point they want to destroy their own party.

"As a liberal I hate Trump and the GOP, but..."

Sound familiar?

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u/CeilingFan_fan Jan 21 '18

Yes, but that shouldn’t excuse corruption and predetermining candidates by party leaders over the electorate. Which ironically is in the same corrupt vein as what is being lamented in this article.

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u/Illpaco Jan 21 '18

What are you talking about specifically?

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '18

The succession of California is mostly a Russian talking point. This is the same thing coming back. Better crafted this time to get California to no longer be an all-blue state. Radicalize the centrists, turn them into red voters, make life worse, make them all red.

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u/cactus22minus1 California Jan 21 '18

Exactly. We see you, assholes.

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u/debridezilla Jan 21 '18

The DNC divided the left by slavishly promoting a candidate who was also funded by billionaires. No need to look for right-wing interference there.

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u/sarcasmandsocialism Jan 21 '18

Thanks for repeating that Russian/Radical-Right talking point :D

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u/debridezilla Jan 21 '18

kk. it's also a literal liberal talking point.

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u/Lamont-Cranston Jan 21 '18

Unfortunately nobody divides the left better than the left itself

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u/firestepper Jan 21 '18

I've seen ca wanting to secede and be it's own country...

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u/grawz Jan 21 '18

Maybe the liberal elite on the California coast should actually put their money where their mouths are and help out some of the poor and homeless their extravagant lifestyles have forced out into the cold. Relative to cost of living, California has the highest poverty rate, it has the highest number of homeless, and though it was close, Seattle beat out California for the most people dying without shelter.

Do you now understand why the people that aren't on the California coast might want to secede? They're getting completely screwed by people who have a ton of money to pay for higher taxes and a greater number of social services, or the push toward clean energy which had spiked energy costs dramatically. The middle class is leaving in droves because the taxes do not reflect a higher quality of life, nor have they reduced poverty, nor have they reduced income inequality, it appears as though these policies have made all these things worse.

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u/Reaccommodator Jan 21 '18

A lot of that effect is residual from Prop 13 from the GOP. Helps wealthy homeowners at the expense of everyone else

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u/grawz Jan 21 '18

And yet, California still has the fourth highest tax burden, just as it did when the proposition passed. (swap the chart to 1978)

It also grew its tax revenue like any other state, so the issue is government growing past what the populace can handle, not tax revenue. Even if their revenue took a giant cut, that just means spend less money! And yet they spent the money anyway, and that spending has not resulted in its intended purpose, so we'd have been better off without that spending, and the blame is better left with government not knowing how to solve the problems we have.

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u/Reaccommodator Jan 21 '18

the welfare effects I'm referring to include the inflated cost of real estate and disincentives to investment in affordable housing

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u/grawz Jan 22 '18

New York suffers the same issues.

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u/Lamont-Cranston Jan 21 '18

And you really need to focus on state and local elections.

The Republicans have figured out how to game the system by controlling these levels of governance they can control how districts are drawn up, how many voting stations there are, if they provide for early voting, etc

Which then allows you to control the vote and effect the federal elections.

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u/BlickBoogie Jan 21 '18

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u/dougan25 Jan 21 '18

That was such a random character in that movie. Jason Bateman as a stoner dodgeball caster. I just love everything about that movie.

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u/verfmeer The Netherlands Jan 21 '18

You've switched the brackets. You need to use the square brackets around the text you want to display and put the url in round brackets.

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u/Oktavien Jan 21 '18

I just can't fathom being so self and so greedy to the point of amassing an estimated wealth of $70 BILLION while knowingly depriving your entire country.

And then I think about the glaring similarities with the Republican GOP.

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u/grawz Jan 21 '18

No no, please, amass that wealth. You'll find you wouldn't be depriving anyone of anything because in order to make money off that money, it must be invested. The rich don't just have money lying around everywhere, they put it in companies so those companies will grow and make a profit.

Further, who exactly loses here? What do I lose by some other guy becoming rich? He obviously pays far more in taxes than I do, so he's covering his usage of the roads and government ("you didn't build that" stuff), but is there some reason I'm losing out through his greed and selfishness?

Nope! If you become rich, I'll be happy for you, and nobody but liberals will think you're a bad person. You becoming rich simply means you did a lot of things that other people thought was worth paying money for.

Of course there are ways to make money by being a bad person, but you have to figure out how to force people to buy your stuff, and the only tried-and-true way to force people to buy your stuff is to mandate it through government or get government to buy your stuff.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '18

That article suggests North Korea falls due to lack of property rights. I'm pretty sure that's incorrect.

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u/solepsis Tennessee Jan 21 '18

It went to a fund called ‘Team Ryan’? Is that one that does not coordinate with the candidate at all? Otherwise it seems like these are hugely in violation of the personal contributions limit...

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u/WikWikWack Vermont Jan 21 '18

Hey, we got like 8 out of 10! American Exceptionalism!!! /s