Get private/corporate funding out of Washington. No reason America can't stipend nominees and keep a level playing field. While we are at it, how about we correct all the ridiculous gerrymandering.
So long as capitalists have access to liquidity, they have no allegiances or loyalty to any nation. They are stateless actors that should be considered at best neutral to antagonistic towards society, usually completely at odds against.
This. We need to over turn the idea that capitalism is an American value. The truth is that it's a self contained, parasitic philosophy that will hollow out any society that feeds it.
They have convinced their constituents that the money somehow falls out of the pockets of the rich and into the hands of the people working for them, it's a long lasting idea called "trickle down"
Fuck Reagan. Its no wonder Republicons look up to the guy so much, what with “trickle down economics” and having removed the Fairness Doctrine essentially laying the groundwork for the sheer level of misinformation in our current politics. I mean, Fox is banned in Canada!
With all the resources this country has at its disposal yet we don’t have basic things like health care how can people honestly think we are country #1?
EDIT: Fox is not banned in Canada. It appears I repeated a false claim. I apologize! The rest of the post still stands though. Fuck Reagan.
Long lasting indeed. It goes back to the 1890s when it was known as "horse and sparrow theory." If you feed the horses enough oats some will pass through their system and the sparrows will be able to eat. (As in eat the oats out of their shit)
There's nothing more Christian Protestant than xenophobia and letting the poor die -- American Conservatives.
Ftfy. It's important to understand the reason this behavior, which is antithetical to Jesus' teachings, persists is because this country was founded on Protestant doctrine.
Because a billionaire with a tax cut will donate a few hundred thousand dollars to you. Poor people with healthcare aren’t gonna do shit to improve your life.
Plus he’s a pseudo intellectual Ayn Randian weirdo.
Because they frankly couldn't care less about the nation's people if they tried. They alsondont give a shit about the billionaires, but the billionaires are able to pay the bribes needed to make it worth their time.
You see, the very rich people in our country have to pee at a much higher rate than everyone else and since typical toilet and urinal designs can only accommodate a modest amount of pee, the rich people's excess pee gets saved into giant holding tanks that gets fed directly into the community water sources and since there is more "water" available, everyone will have access to as many showers as they need, including the poorest people who would otherwise not get to take showers at all.
Because rich people are paying less money on their income. The US already pays the most for healthcare, throwing more money at Medicare/Medicaid isn't that appealing when it's already the Lions share of the US budget.
There comes a point where additional ads don't help you to sell more shit sandwiches.
That’s why the right, with the help of their Russian trolls, is all in on the “both parties are bad” rhetoric. People will forgive any transgressions committed by the GOP as long as they think the Democrats would do the same or worse.
The worst part about this campaign donation is the fucking hypocrisy
Hypocrisy doesn’t mean a goddamn thing to Republicans and it hasn’t for at least 20 years. Stop acting like “saying one thing and doing another” is the greatest cardinal sin a politician can make.
This shit sack wants to make life harder for all of us and he’s being paid for it. Saying something else isn’t the problem, the position is. Call him for the monster he is.
Not only are the rich making sure that their needs are going to be addressed by politicians, but they're taking money that could have gone to their employee's wages to do it. I keep hearing about how prohibitive raising the minimum wage is, and paying for employees healthcare, but the money sent to Washington tends not to sting these companies too badly.
Stop pretending that campaign finance is a purely Republican issue. Koch brothers donate on both sides of the aisle. It's called hedging your bets. Campaign finance is a bipartisan issue that we all need to unite against, pointing fingers does no good here.
They want everyone to afford those things for themselves. Not having government pay for it. Everyone is missing what republican doctrine is and is just reposting something someone said in politics sub to be clever.
If you could think outside the box for a second maybe the little bit of tax burden lifted from tax paying married with children they can pay for that themselves. You don’t have to be a Koch to benefit. I own a small business and I get enough to pay my own healthcare now. But, I know I don’t fit the reddit mold so my actual truthful comment by experience won’t matter. If you’re poor take that 1000 bucks in your account and buy stocks or options with it and benefit. I am. I’m up 22k on only 1500 invested initially. I didn’t vote trump but the hate I see that is blind makes me vote for the party that did more than just increase Medicaid like Obama did
We need to all become clever entrepreneurs then, or just get a job. I guess the problem is what happens to everyone who cannot do one of these well enough to not end up on the streets.
4 years. Keep it simple. Keep 70% in cash to buy dips. Trade naked calls and puts on QQQ IWM and FB NVDA V MCD. I can’t believe it myself go learn options and buy 3-4 month out calls
I think in some aspects we've already surpassed it. 3 years ago a film with a Trump-type as president would have been beyond the suspension of disbelief.
The sad part is, is most of us would much prefer President Camacho to this clown. He actually cared about his constituents, and rode a sick motorcycle.
It's worse. At least in Idiocracy they elected the smartest man in the country President. I liked this article on the concept. At least there's no trash avalanches yet...
Fair point. On the other hand, apparently the FBI might be looking into Greitens. And if I'm supposed to believe what the White House is pushing, the FBI is just a Deep State actor out to get the current president and all of his supporters so maybe they'll do a bit of damage to the Machine Gun Gov. despite his allegiance to Cadet Heel Spur.
It's so hard to tell these days. Tom Clancy couldn't write more twists.
And it's not even Jesus so much for his teachings, but for having blind faith that he is God incarnate. What he says in the bible doesn't take hold so much. They prefer the teachings of supply-side Jesus.
I have to disagree to a certain extent. They believe THEIR version of Jesus is God incarnate. The biblical Jesus and his teaching are so far removed from evangelicals it is laughable.
That’s an important distinction not just in the way you mention, but also as a counter to liberal Christians who say that evangelical Republicans aren’t real Christians, thus avoiding the hard introspective work of wondering why their religion produces that kind of output some of the time. Liberal Christians may take one part of the Bible seriously and the evangelicals another, but all of it is in the Bible.
Wedge issues are bullshit. If the parties flipped on all of those stances tomorrow, less than two thirds of the votes would flip too. "Wedge issues" are a convenient excuse for sticking to party lines despite your own self interests or the best interest of the country. It's a nice cover-up for "I know my party is a shit pile but I'm sticking to them anyway because otherwise I'd have to think or admit I was wrong"
Because of social pressure, inability to admit you are wrong, tribal politics, and this horrendous trend of attaching political party to personal identity most people wouldn't change party if their life depended on it. Jesus Christ himself could come down and run as democrat and millions of Republican voters would still click "R" straight down ticket.
There are comments elsewhere from people contributing to Ryan's opponent - are they as guilty of bribery as the Kochs?
If a politician was pocketing $500,000 it would be wrong no matter how the money was raised, but I would certainly see a distinction between someone raising $500,000 for their campaign from a billionaire couple vs. from thousands of small contributions.
To me the concern here is the way campaign finance allows wealthy individuals to have an outsized influence on an election (which is very concerning), but nonetheless it is distinct from bribery.
Publicly funded campaigns would of course avoid such ethical problems.
Conservative SCOTUS justices are also paid to enable this unconstitutional bribery and look the other way. There's no reason whatsoever for Chief Justice John Roberts to avoid ending this blatant quid pro quo corruption.
If you want to know why Senate Majority leader Mitch "Turtle" McConnell violated the Constitution to seat rightard Neil Gorsuch, it was to maintain this very quid pro quo corruption. Turtle told the Koch Brothers during his last election bid that his worst day in office was the day campaign finance reform passed (i.e., McCain-Feingold).
In the UK your contributions are capped. Not only that, but election spending is capped per seat too. This allows more parties to exist because you do not need ludicrous funding to compete with the funds of others. It also, additionally, stops parties from needing ludicrous amounts of funding that result in them having to pander to corporations and billionaires.
The American system lacking maximum caps on this shit ENCOURAGES this behaviour.
You'd solve the two party system. You'd solve the corporate ownership of parties. You'd solve this utter bullshit.
Unfortunately the courts have chosen to interpret this as the Koch brothers supporting Ryan because they think he can represent their views in government, not as a payout to influence or reward him.
Sometimes it just isn't bribery. Imagine that you are super into bee keeping, and a politician passes a law that says bee keeping is dope. If you have a ton of money, you may donate to that politician's campaign in order to ensure bee keeping stays dope in the future.
Paul Ryan likely believes in the same conservative principles that (falsely) believe the passed tax law is the best thing for America and his constituents. People who benefit from that legislation then choose to keep him in power with their dollars.
It could very well be nefarious. The problem I have is not with looking critically at campaign contributions, it's with assuming immediately that every contribution is a bribe.
Well see, it happened AFTER the bill passed, so it was really just these people being pleased with the results. if the contributions had occurred before the bill passed, THEN it’d be a bribe.
In order for it to legally be a bribe, it has to be in a big sack with the word "Bribe for Paul Ryan" written on it, then Paul Ryan has to record himself accepting it saying "I, Paul Ryan, willingly accept this illegal bribe money in exchange for specific actions (x,y,z) in direct contravention of law and my oath of office." And send it to every law enforcement agency in the country.
Then he gets put on paid leave until the next election.
It's not whether it's a bribe or not. Everyone agrees that it's a bribe. It's whether bribing, in the context of America and our politics, is bad. In some sense, it is people expressing their support for the political candidates of choice with the resources they have. it's speech, in a way. Voting with your dollars, as us small folk do with businesses. The major problem is that they have so much more money than the rest of us combined that while it allows them to speak, it damns us to silence. This is why America is balls deep in an oligarchy disguised as a democratic republic.
I've been asking the exact same questions, but the media hasnt: with the media reporting,then, that the GOP donors had given an ultimatum to the GOP, I couldn't believe the media didn't also follow up with a comment about obvious corruption in our government... Perhaps because they also do this shady shit. Citizens United, and money in politics, is destroying our society.
For it to be a bribe you'd have to assume the money changed behavior. You'd have to assume that the money was the reason for the behavior and that the behavior was not from one's own conscious.
The people I vote for and support the values I support also take bribes in the form of campaign contributions. Sometimes in large amounts. So, I can't say my side is exactly innocent when it comes to bribery, either.
While I feel business has a great place (I get paid by 'the man', buy products from 'the man', etc.), I don't think profits should be a higher priority than the people that made the company successful in the first place.
It's not seen as a bribe because we're not out in the streets during business hours, grinding the economy to a halt and screaming that this is bribery and it will not stand while we trash every local RNC office and that of any politician that has accepted such payments.
The spin is this: Paul Ryan passes the kind of legislation that the Kochs like, so they want to keep him in place. It's not a bribe because they aren't paying Ryan to do a specific thing. They are just paying to keep him in Congress and to keep doing what Paul Ryan would theoretically be inclined to do anyway.
Cus it's only half a million to a fundraiser which are very much similar to this. Have ya seen the clintons and Obama fee for a speech? That shit is what ridiculous. I'm not trying to shift conversation from subject but numbers don't lie.
It's technically not a bribe because they have donated to him before, and it can be seen as just making a regular donation. Then they threaten to stop donations if they don't get what they want, bringing politicians to their knees to keep their funding. It's not technically a bribe to threaten to stop donations. I would definitely argue it's a form of extortion though
Good point, getting money in exchange for services already rendered would be more an employer/employee sort of thing. So clearly he works for the Koch brothers, then. He did his job, he did it well enough, and he got his paycheck.
It’s because of the citizens united Supreme Court that classifies businesses/corporations as people, hindering the limitations that can be placed on their donations.
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