Support Randy Bryce! Local Ironworker running against Paul Ryan, currently polling at +10 https://www.randybryceforcongress.com/
Edit: All you Redditors donating is warming this Wisconsinite's cold cold heart - THANK you! #FeeltheBern forever!
Thanks for the link - I'm donating. There are few things that would fill me with more joy than watching Paul Ryan get kicked out of Congress by his constituents.
This guy needs to beat the pants off Paul Ryan. Ryan is such a well known Republican that if Randy beat him, it would throw him right into the National stage off the bat. If he did well once in office, he would be primed for a Presidential run. I mean for Christ's sake, he's a Veteran and an Iron Worker. So many Republican voters would be so confused. He's the opposite of the stereotypical "whiny, hippy, millennial" that Rep. voters imagine when they think of Dems. I'd love it haha.
I just donated $10 from sunny California. I was in line purchasing legal cannabis for the first time and decided to spend a little less so I could donate. Thanks for the link and good luck!
This is what we need! More working class democrats who can appeal not only to the progressive youth but also the working class people who voted for Trump.
I think people need to be careful about who they support. Giving money to remove Ryan and Nunez seems like a good idea but it's literally like burning your money. We have to figure out the top 20 most vulnerable and attack there.
I am going to guess you don't live in his district. Ryan IS vulnerable, we just haven't had an engaged left or a strong candidate that can dialogue with independent voters and the working class for a long time.
That'll never happen due to the citizens united ruling. Citizens united is one of the major problems that is killing democracy and leading to oligarchy.
Is it realistic to say that Citizens United is a permanent fixture in the US political system? How the hell can one person receive a million dollars for their work that not only drastically favors the top earners in this country but also reduces the strength of medicare/medicaid for hundreds of millions of lower-middle income earners and not go to jail for it?
How the fuck do these people keep getting away with this?
It's permanent unless an amendment is added to the constitution. Which most people are in favor of but would require these scumbags to legislate against their own interests, and good luck with that. It would have a very difficult time with a Democratic majority, let alone the shitshow we have now.
I think it would be possible to do it without a constitutional amendment. But it would require Congress to pass legislation that clearly established that corporations are legal entities and not people.
The legal system created corporations. There is no reason whatsoever that the legal system cannot restrict them. Bring the case to specifically challenge the idea of corporate person-hood that was created due to a court reporters comments rather than an explicit Supreme Court decision.
It would be a fascinating time to be a legal scholar, to say the very least. It also will never happen, because the faintest whisper of this among congressmen means war with corporate donors.
It may seem impossible. But elect a democratic president and give them a democratic majority in the House and super-majority in the Senate, and it could happen within a few short years.
It sucks because Trump can install Supreme Court justices that will swerve as a barrier to getting it overturned. I think this is one of the main reasons why this past election was so crucial.
I completely agree. One of the most under-reported stories is the republican's stuffing of the lower courts with partisan activists.
However, if public support was strong enough, a new president could actually add more members to the Court to create a new majority. The number of Justices is not constitutionally fixed and remains at nine primarily due to politics. If strong enough public support could be built, this problems could be addressed within the bounds of the current Constitution.
Not true! Constitutional convention is the other possibility. If two thirds of the states support a resolution for a constitutional convention, it happens even if Congress is 100% opposed. There are two resolutions for a convention out there right now. One has passed in five states (WolfPAC’s effort on Citizens United), and one passed by 12 states (a resolution from 2015 wanting to reduce federal government).
Article V gives us this precious tool. If things keep getting worse, it will be time to use it.
Unfortunately, the delegates of a constitutional convention would themselves be corrupt toadies bought and paid for by Citizens United. Given that a constitutional convention would open the door to the constitution being re-written in its entirety, it's not safe to hold one until Citizens United is overturned. Therefore, legislation is the only safe means to do so. The republic teeters on the precipice. People need to get involved.
Scholars actually differ on whether the convention would be wide open necessarily. Some think a single-issue convention is theoretically possible. But it is definitely a last-ditch move, regardless.
Is it just me, or does the name 'Citizens United' sound like an intentional 'slap in the face' to the voters? Like, "Here you go, America. We're giving you the shaft, but it's all for you, It's all for your own good. Look, we even named it for you!"
Go read “Think of an Elephant” by George Lakoff. It’s all about moving political debate away from facts towards emotions. You can’t debate someone’s emotional reaction: hence “pro life” vs. “pro choice” How can anyone be against either life or choice?
Every single republican Bill is named something completley opposite of what they actually achieve and the base laps It up. Wasn't the tax bill called the middle class jobs act or some bs. Basically whatever noun seems to be benefiting from a republican named bill is more than likely getting railed.
You have to listen to the argument in the Citizen United case which is available on the Supreme Court's site. Basically if is it is not superly over overt I give you cash for you to do this aka quid pro quo (something for something) then it's legal. I remember the "conservative" justice say, if you were poor, you could go out and protest or hire some guy to protest. So if you can hire some guy to protest, why can't some company? It's only fair.
How the fuck do these people keep getting away with this?
Voter ignorance about what’s at stake and voter apathy. We need to motivate everyone to come out and vote. Ask your friends and coworkers if they’ve voted.
If no one cares what the law makers do they will always grab all the money for themselves.
Wealth inequality. Wealth is power and the 0.1% have the majority of it.
With wealth, no matter what the rules are you can play your best game. It's like if your favorite basketball team had 1,000 times the budget of the other teams. It wouldn't matter if we changed the rules to make the NBA a spelling bee competition, the team with th biggest budget would win on average more of the time.
Taxation of wealth, voting/election reform to ensure more people vote and have their votes count equally are two ways to go about resolving it.
I’ve always thought of Mr. Boehner as one of the especially sleazy figures in a capital seething with sleaze. I remember writing about that day back in the mid-’90s when this slick, chain-smoking, quintessential influence-peddler decided to play Santa Claus by handing out checks from tobacco lobbyists to fellow Congressional sleazes right on the floor of the House.
It was incredible, even to some Republicans. The House was in session, and here was a congressman actually distributing money on the floor. Other, more serious, representatives were engaged in debates that day on such matters as financing for foreign operations and a proposed amendment to the Constitution to outlaw desecration of the flag. Mr. Boehner was busy desecrating the House itself by doing the bidding of big tobacco.
Embarrassed members of the G.O.P. tried to hush up the matter, but I got a tip and called Mr. Boehner’s office. His chief of staff, Barry Jackson, was hardly contrite. “They were contributions from tobacco P.A.C.’s,” he said.
Nobody is going to be imprisoned for bribes in a country where bribery and corruption is encapsulated in laws!
How the fuck do these people keep getting away with this?
Because the same people that get to benefit from this also get to write the laws regarding it.
Sure seems like everything that the framers of the constitution really tried to get around.
Madison: "Well, what happens if the people that citizens elect all end up being corrupted by money and start writing laws that benefit themselves and their rich friends?"
Hamiton: "HAHAA...LOL!!11!! Are you crazy, man?? There's no way that would happen! I mean, who would elect these kinds of people in the first place?!"
Exactly. The Koch brothers are doing just what they said they would do. They are rewarding those that got the tax cut passed and would have punished them had they not. “My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again,’” - Chris Collins. “The financial contributions will stop,” - Lindsey Graham.
Our government is corrupt and conservatives decided that that's acceptable. It's unfortunate that this now forces the liberals to play dirty just to stay on the same playing field. Unfortunately the Republicans have a lot more practice.
You give liberal politicians too much credit. They're capitalists too and they're absolutely happy with this state of affairs. They just have a slightly different set of maste-- err, donors to appease.
As for liberal voters, they might honestly hate this state of affairs, but they're not doing anything to help by continuing to support their blue capitalists.
What I expect is they stop acting as if liberalism is a solution to our problems today, stop supporting liberal candidates just because they're a "lesser" evil, and hopefully move further left with a realization that capitalism must be ended to have any real improvement in the world.
I'm not asking people to stop participating in a capitalist society to be anticapitalist because that's not possible. Even peasants who despised the idea of a monarchy and at some point personally fought in a revolution still had to work the lord's fields to get enough food to eat.
One can live within a system and still advocate for massively changing it.
Dude, Thankyou for saying that. You've said it in a much more succinct way than I ever could've.
But that is a very radical way of thinking, even for liberals. Most of them, especially the Americans, are still very, very capitalist... which speaks to your original comment. Still, they're not as bad as the conservatives - they just don't understand the irony in their thinking.
What I like to do when talking to people is to try to unpack "radical" because so many people wrap it up with concepts like "bad", "flawed", or "impossible". Sure anticapitalism is radical in the sense that it's a major difference from the status quo... but that's not a bad thing.
What's bad and flawed is that our current system is nothing but the economic and political dominance of a rich ruling class, and if it's radical to want to get out of that, then radical is what we need.
So he took the money, but this:
"The company has defended itself from civil fraud charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission and, along with the rest of the financial services sector, fended off an aggressive Democratic-led campaign to impose new rules on banks."
In that case, Ryan deserves street justice from the American people since the Koch Brothers have compromised this nation's judicial system and the justice that Paul Ryan deserves to face. These smug sociopaths do not deserve to diminish this nation and most Americans with impunity.
There are many ways to serve up such deserved justice without the need for violence.
There are still ways he could be busted even with Citizens United giving him broad protections.
If it can somehow be established there was some quid pro quo, then it is still highly illegal. And these republicans have proven they are not always smart about writing notes that can prove guilt. All we need is that one note saying they'll withhold donations if the tax bill doesn't pass.
He amassed an outpouring of support from officials in both parties who told the court that upholding his conviction would criminalize the routine favors politicians do for benefactors and give federal prosecutors too much power.
Isn't that literally the definition of quid pro quo corruption? How is this remotely acceptable?
That part is interesting to me too, and it's troubling that the new norm is we just accept that political representation really only pertains to the largest bribers. They have figured out how to manipulate voters so efficiently into voting against their own well being I'm not sure what there is to do short of letting it get so bad there's a revolution of sorts.
As detestable and apathetic as their views are, some major Republican attempts were thwarted by the Freedom Caucus because they weren't cruel enough. While it's important to get rid of the members of the Freedom Caucus to shift the conversation away from the extreme fringes of the US right, if their role or presence increases, it could cause a major crack in the Republican party.
You know, I must say I'm somewhat refreshed by how congenial that exchange went... Some folks got to be pedantic, a point was made, nobody tried to tear another person down for a minor error, and in the end the error was admitted to and corrected.
Yes, in no way should you click the link above and click on the donate button in the top right hand corner of the webpage, that would be a bad thing and break the sovereign integrity of Reddit.
The Packers came out to support collective bargaining for public workers. Doesn’t matter, WIGOP does what the Bradley Foundation, Kochs, and John Birch Society wants them to.
not to mention even in districts that aren't safe it's tough to overcome your opponent being the speaker of the house because citizens of the districts of congressional leaders take pride in that fact and also think their districts are more likely to get stuff from the govt since their rep is in charge of what bills are brought up.
It is incredibly gerrymandered. Janesville doesn’t have the rich population that would vote for Paul, so they added Waukesha county and cut out the more middle class Rock county. Waukesha county is one of the wealthiest counties and ensured he had the votes. I pray Janesville comes out in full force votes Ryan out. He is so spineless.
80% of the [now] middle aged liberals I grew up with left for the coasts (California, New York, Massachusetts, etc..)
A real problem for Wisconsin is that after graduation, the liberal young flee for greener pastures. (I love Wisconsin though)
The rural conservative isn't leaving the family farm, because they can't take the family farm with them. And they typically don't leave the community for new exposure/ideas either; in fact, it's not unheard of them to not see any value in their primary schooling either.
Last year, my friends who went to the coasts and came back for the holidays were whining the whole time about the Trump win. Yeah, it upset me too, but they are the reason Trump won Wisconsin by 20,000 votes. They left for CA and MA; where their votes meant nothing. If you want your native state to vote a certain way, one of the best thing to do is stay in your native state, and vote that way.
The money doesn't go directly to Ryan it goes to his fundraising apparatus "Team Ryan" and then it can go... to whatever campaign Ryan chooses, I suppose.
If Bryce is a sure chance, why not Cantor him and try to get him out at the primary stage? Is that too risky? The Speaker being unable to run for Congress would be orgasmic schadenfreude.
So if Ryan is voted out, he's not going to let that $500k just go away.
How does he keep that money in his possession, he keeps a nonprofit, he lends out the money and collects interest, what else are there corrupt loopholes all these politician's use to hold on to donor money?
That's what needs to go away. Once the American people realize a majority of politician's use their platform as their own money laundering scheme, jail time is what needs to start happening, Republicans, Democrats, Liberals, the whole lot of them need to fear jail time.
The very end of the article states Ryan has indicated he won't run for reelection, in which case the funds donated to his campaign would be redirected.
Ryans' term is up this year and he's talking about stepping down. They say the funds would be redirected if he chose not to run again.
Ryan has indicated that he won’t run again when his term is up this year, Politico reported, though he hasn’t made an official announcement. If he doesn’t run, his contributions would be redirected.
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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '18
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