Americans, well sane Americans, are concerned that SCOTUS is doing more to harm our electoral system……we as a country need to find a way to put the process back into the hands of the people…or we can continue this path and lead us to ruin….your choice.
Want to cut the rich’s influence? Take away their money! – Salon.com.
Finally, the professor will actual comment on the Chris Christie debacle! He has been avoiding it like the plague…..but there comes a time when the avoidance must cease…..today is that day…..joy, joy!
I heard recently a major news anchor say that the whole country is disgusted with the actions in New Jersey, Bridge-gate if you like.
I say bollocks! There is NO one in Peoria that gives a crap what happens in New York/New Jersey and people in LA have their own sets of problems…..so hyping the story by saying that the whole country is disgusted seems a bit disingenuous.
If you are one of those that could care less….let’s review what we ‘know’…….a traffic study was done in close proximity to the GW Bridge that closed off access to the city of Ft. Lee, NJ….the mayor did not endorse Christie………now there are emails that appear to be some sort of retribution against the Dem mayor of the city….those that are involved are many close Christie advisers and appointees…..but Christie has not been implicated by any yet with the exception of the media. An investigation has been set up and subpoenas issued…..and the investigation continues…..
That is a very simple explanation of what is happening so far….if you want a more detailed one then I suggest that you clean off your Goggle finger and go to work….
Before I go any further I want to state that I Am Not Defending Christie! Personally, I think is an egotistical prick, a typical maniacal politician that wants everything his way and will do whatever he must to get his way…..a typical politician.
Now to the reason that I am posting this……..knowing how politics works I think the investigation will find, that is according to what we know now, that the people involved in this political retribution did it without informing the governor….why? Plausible Deniability!
These people did what they thought would help their friend and boss and did not tell him to protect him from recriminations. They did what they thought would be in the best interests of the admin and will go down covering Christie’s butt. So it is plausible that his people did this without his knowledge….loyalty is a funny thing……people will act impetuously to try and make things ‘right’…..for lack of a better word….and those acts are not always on the up and up.
Is Christie guilt free? Probably not, but he has the buffer zone to survive the ‘scandal’…….all this depends on whether or not another shoe falls…but for now I do not see this as a problem for him in the 2016 election….the only problem he has for now, is the media is like a Pitt Bull with a human leg bone….just will not let it go.
PS: After I wrote this draft for future post….that damn ‘other shoe’ dropped! Now he, Christie, is in some lukewarm water, not hot yet, over the possibility that he withheld some Sandy recovery money from a city in New Jersey for political reasons…..someone is lying….either the mayor or the governor……is it possible I was a bit premature?
And now runner Carl Lewis is throwing accusations at Christie…….
Add Carl Lewis to the list of people piling on Chris Christie. The Olympic legend today revived his allegations that Christie’s administration abruptly ditched a plan to name him New Jersey’s “youth fitness ambassador” as soon as Lewis announced that he’d be running for state Senate as a Democrat, the Star-Ledger reports. “I felt like he was trying to intimidate me, absolutely,” he says, alleging that Christie directly told him that “if you run, we’re going to have to cancel the program.” Lewis first made the allegationsback in 2011. Christie’s administration has always denied them. “A lot of people said, ‘He didn’t do that, he didn’t say that,'” Lewis tells the paper. “Now you’re calling to ask about it because it’s a lot more plausible.” Christie’s administration ultimately got Lewis kicked off the ballot for not meeting state residency requirements. “It’s interesting, everyone calling him a bully. I don’t really see him as a bully,” Lewis says. “I see it more as someone who’s insecure … and has got power.”
Could all these shenanigans really have some substance behind it?
Let me have your thoughts.
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?
This is a question that I had been asking myself for years because of the influence that corporations are exerting on the government….my question was sort of answered last week when the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of limitless funds from corporations in the path of ultimate buying of the government…..
As a student of political philosophy the idea of corporatism has interested me for a long time now…but first let us look at corporatism to see if it would apply in this case…..originally it referred to a system where the corporations remained in private hands but did the bidding of the government…much like that of Italy in the 1930’s under fascism……but in today’s world that definition needs a bit of tweaking to make it more modern….
Today’s corporations have entered into the world of government by influencing the making of laws through the bribery of elected officials, but it is legal bribery, in the forms of campaign donations and such…..they are now writing legislation and giving it to their hired minions in government to be passed into law…..the corporations have been quietly for years taking over the reins of government, with elected officials on their payrolls and in doing so they are shaping the life of the polity…..they do this by letting the politicians on their rolls pass the laws and then tell the electorate what is and how it benefits them….and they believe it!
As I have said, this situation has been developing for years mainly through the use of political action committees (PAC) and now with the newest ruling by the Supreme Court those institutions may not be needed as much as they are today….
These corporations will in effect outright buy their political allies and not have to worry about the inconvenience of the PACs……
A dismal future approaches……the Left has been screaming about this day for decades and now their predictions do not seem so extreme……look for politicians to start wear corporate sponsorship patches like those in NASCAR….
If this holds up then the Dems can kiss their asses good-bye….the GOP will be the only form of political organization left…though there could be some promise for those conservative democrats….many of those already are in the pockets of corporations so they could be safe for awhile….
It is not too late but the door of opportunity to save American democracy is closing slowly…..will YOU let the system that you are so damn proud of die this horrible death…or will you stand up and do something about this political tsunami?
Today is the BIG health summit….you know that piece of political theater that will set the stage for health reform….just wanted to add a thought or two into the mix…..
There have been a massive amounts of accusations that health reform is being beaten by the lobbies that are spending lots of cash on our diligent Congresspeople…..and if you think that is a bit harsh then you need to drop the playstation and pay a little more attention to what will be effecting you in the future…..I know….not an easy thing to do when you are so close to the high score….but give it try….
For months we have been bombarded with the facts that the health insurance industry has a anti-trust exemption and can basically gouge the crap out of its consumers with NO fear of reprisal by the government….in other words they have a Free Ride to make all the money they can off the plight of those insured……
The good news was that the Dems were fed up with the insurance companies and would do all they could to change the anti-trust exemption……they were going to make them more responsive and accountable…..well, that was the plan…..but as usual Washington is just full of surprises……the Politico’s Patrick O’Connor is reporting:
In an upcoming House vote to repeal the long-standing antitrust protections for the insurance industry. To most members of Congress, it seems like a no-brainer: Why should insurers be exempted from antitrust laws, anyway.
But Democrats look like they’ll scale back the legislation to protect insurance companies that offer malpractice coverage to doctors and other health care providers, bowing to industry pressure in the latest concession of the health care fight.
Democratic aides in the House said the final bill likely won’t include controversial new restrictions on medical malpractice insurers. Its authors also appear inclined to strip new authority for the Federal Trade Commission because it sparked similar unease.The concessions illustrate just how hard it’s been for the president and his congressional allies to overhaul a single sector of such an enormous segment of the economy.