Day: November 29, 2010

2010 Anal-Ocity #29

Just when I thought it was safe to start narrowing down thew Anal statements to prepare a list of finalists for the “Assie” award…there had to be yet another mindless politician that just had to make it harder……

With the House of representatives to be in the hands of the GOP major committee assignments are already being prepared…the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee could be lead by Illinois Repub. John Shimkus, which is all well and good but for one minor point……he says that the Bible will protect the Earth from climate change……

“The earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood. … I do believe God’s word is infallible, unchanging, perfect.”

“Really, the focus is not going to be climate,” as Shimkus told Politico. “The climate debate has, at least for two years, has ended with this election. The real focus is on energy security.”

Need we say more?

Is Democracy Served By Special Interests?

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  Government/Politics

Paper #40

The 2010 mid-term elections are now over and they proved to be the most expensive for the special interests…..about $80+ million was spent so that the GOP could regain the House and damn near took back the Senate….this was up from the $16 million spent in the 2006 mid-terms….so this begs the question, Is our democracy served by special interests?….to be answered.

An observation in the HuffPo by Julie Hirschfield Davis….

Interest groups from across the political spectrum are spending millions to target ultra-specific messages to voters in the final days of congressional campaigns in efforts to turn out key groups that could sway tight races from California to New Hampshire.

Armed with carefully tailored lists of which voters are sympathetic, these organizations are hoping to transform their top issues into deciding factors in close contests. They hope to cut through the near-universal worries about the economy and job losses that have defined this year’s campaign and appeal to people on a single topic that could motivate them to keep – or fire their representatives.

All this was made possible by a decision from the US Supreme Court….

Thanks to a sweeping and ill-considered 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority, corporations will now have the same rights as citizens to support candidates through independent expenditures. With this action, the court has effectively undermined the influence of individuals and parties on electoral outcomes, while vastly increasing the clout of business behemoths and their lobbyist representatives to influence and intimidate legislators to support their agendas. If the lawmaker doesn’t play ball, he or she can be threatened with an unregulated financial blitz come election time.

The court’s ruling came in a case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that centered on a conservative advocacy group’s expenditures to publicize an anti-Hillary Clinton movie shortly before last year’s Democratic presidential primaries. Current federal law bans such corporate expenditures for communications targeting individual candidates 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election.

The SCOTUS has in essence made special interests the 4th branch of our government…..to the point that they write the bills and finance the passage……the FinReg was basically written by the financial sector….Health reform was basically written by the insurance sector and look at the Pledge To America…the GOP plan to save the country….it was written by a pharma lobbyist….so welcome our newest branch of government…..the special interests….

I ask again…..Is our democracy served by special interests?