Tag: Political Process

Another Nail In The Coffin Of Democracy?

From the VOMITORIUM

Last year the Supreme Court opened up the way for the control of elections by corporations and special interests……they rules that it was fine for corporations to donate almost endless amount of funds to campaigns…..the Congress is already in the back pocket of special interests….and yet there is even more effort to keep the people from having a say in the electoral process……

This from the AP…….

Eager to cut spending, the Republican-controlled House voted to end multimillion-dollar federal subsidies for presidential candidates and national political conventions on Wednesday, the first of what party leaders promised will be weekly, bite-sized bills to attack record deficits.”Eliminating this program would save taxpayers $617 million over ten years, and would require candidates and political parties to rely on private contributions rather than tax dollars,” said Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., “In times when government has no choice but to do more with less, voting to end the Presidential Election Campaign Fund should be a no brainer.”

Under the law, presidential candidates qualify for matching funds from the government once they have met certain requirements during the primary elections. In accepting the subsidies, the White House hopefuls also must agree to certain restrictions.

Presidential nominees are eligible for funds after the party political conventions as long as they do no fund raising on their own during the general election campaign. Additionally, the conventions themselves are financed through the presidential fund.

Looks like another way that the GOP is trying to take the people out of the equation of the selection of who will become president……if this is enacted only the special interests will have the power to make a president….if they succeed then we can say hello to a “Corporatocracy” (thanx to Quin for the term…I knew I could eventually use it in a post….go to blogroll and visit Quin’s site, Quintessential Havoc….)

Is this really what the people want?  Do they really want to be marginalized like this?

Slowly the people will play a lesser role in the election of our politicians…..it will be up to the special interests to decide who will lead us….and the way the GOP is going…how long will it be before that is NO longer our part in the process?

Voting Can Be Orgasmic!

As a political junkie…..I sometimes think that the whole process is damn sexy….but I never thought about it being too orgasmic….but then……..

This is a link to my friend and all around good guy,  Quin of Quintessential Havoc (go to blogroll and look around his site….you will not be disappointed)…….great minds think alike…..

http://bit.ly/fdNBrX

Apparently there is NO sense of humor in politics, either…..personally, I like a woman that can find satisfaction in the political process….

Thanx Quin!

Are You Voting Today?

Today is the day the Repubs and Teabaggers have been waiting for for 2 years…the 2010 mid-terms…..for some voting is such a chore and if you are looking for a better way then I have an answer for you…..

Watch this and then tell me that we would not get a better crop of representatives with this method…..

http://bit.ly/9Iezg4

Not only are they cute but they show a certain zest for politics…..I know the feeling…..

Going Once….Going Twice….Sold!

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  American Government/Politics/

Lecture #3

This is a continuation of my corporatism post of yesterday……….

For many many years I have been bitching about the possibility that the government is up for sale to the corporate interests….something I like to call “auction politics”….that is that the government is up to the highest bidder in the form of donations….which in turn gives them special access to the wheels of government and with that access comes unimaginable influence on the direction of the country.

SCOTUS recently filed a decision that has made this situation even more likely””

landmark decision, approved by a 5-4 margin, could unleash a torrent of corporate and union cash into the political realm and transform how campaigns for president and Congress are fought in the coming years.

The new ruling blurs the lines between corporate and individual contributions in political campaigns. It also strikes down part of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that banned unions and corporations from paying for political ads in the waning days of campaigns.

“The Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics,” Obama said in a statement. “It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

All this is just reinforcing the belief that the government is up for sale to the highest bidder…..the recent “successes” of the Obama admin shows how the influence of cash has turned out……the FinReg was so watered down that it is impotent….health reform is so watered down that it is a joke, at best…….two major issues that have been influenced by money from corporations…..

Americans!  You government and your country are being sold to the highest bidder….your vote means nothing after the election…no matter which party you think is the best…neither are on your side!  Rethink your vote, please, for the sake of your family and the country….RETHINK your vote!

A Political Fairy Tale

College of Political Knowledge

Once upon a time…not so long ago….and in a land not so far a way…there lived two feuding families….let us call them thew Federalists and the Anti-Federalists…..they inherited a new land and they fought over how that land would be governed….they debated….they argued….they wrote published essays defending their points of view….and after much debate and exchanges a compromise was settled upon and that settlement was the Constitution of the United States……

It seems that the Federalists thought that a strong central government was needed to protect the newly found country and the Anti-Federalists wanted a weak central government with a strong local one….but finally by 1787 they had compromised on what and how the nation would be governed…they set up the terms for the Pres and VP, the set up the freedoms…..they set up the conditions of government…..(I realize that this is a simplified and generalized history lesson, but that is NOT the meat of the post)

And once it was signed into law….they all lived happily ever after…..

Well not for long…..

The two sides were screaming along using the strengths of their new system of government….those being…the separation of powers to discourage the concentration of power and the checks and balances that kept each branch of government from over stepping its bounds and without a party domination the reps could be more centered on what the people wanted…..but the years dragged by….the country twisted and turned in the wind….but it made it on its own and became a shining light for the world to see……

But all was not good on the horizon….after 200 years of solid and good government cracks began to form in the foundation of the system…..these weaknesses were the very strengths it had in the past…the separation of power started fragmenting the system and began rendering the system immobile (nothing was being accomplished)…without a party dominated system the voters could not pin responsibility to anyone in particular and that lead to the break down of the system even further…the voter was used to set the political agenda that did not really apply to them in the least and finally the voter has to wait for anb election to rid itself of worthless adventurism of the politicians that are in it for their own glory and benefit not the interests of the country…….

The kingdom adjusts to fit the situation…..but the adjustments were beginning to fail to bring the success to the marriage of the two families….slowly but slowly the nation was dying and the leaders, all the leaders were standing on the oxygen tube while debating the need to stand aside and let the patient heal……this system is slowly becoming obsolute because of the partisan crap of its leaders……if it is to survive then the people will have to do it themselves and ignore the rumblings of the leaders that care not what happens….their only concern is that they retain the power and the purse strings…..DOOM is eminent!

A Revolution Or A Cultural War?

Inkwell Institute

2010/12 Election Series

Lots has been said by many in the media of a possible revolution in politics…..it began in New York with the failed attempt of a political outsider and continued on to Mass where Brown won in a landslide over a traditional Dem and now we come to the latest CPAC and their straw vote on a presidential candidate and for the last three years everyone has been enamored with Mitt Romney…but this year he had to settle for the “also ran” category for the winner was Rep. Ron Paul of Texas a Libertarian in the GOP…….the GOP was surprised at the vote, but they are NOT paying attention….anyone that is watching politics was not caught off guard…..at least we see the anger, even if the Repubs do not…..

Looks like a culture war is brewing….maybe even as pronounced as the one during the Nixon years…..Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic has a few observations of the battle brewing:

1. The Tea Partiers are a movement within the Republican Party; it is increasing the energy density inside the GOP; very few Tea Partiers are true independents. It remains to be determined how many of them are not registered to vote, or how many of them are unreliable Republican voters.
2. There are different Tea Party movements; some parts seem more influenced by different issue sets than others; it is mostly a shared sensibility; a few common strands run between them: outrage and anger at Washington, and a diffuse but palpable sense that the Elites and the Obama administration are changing the way American works — and looks and acts — for the worse.
3. The Republican primary base is different than the Ron Paul revolutionaries, many of whom are not registered Republican. They’ll be more influential in open primaries than closed primaries.
4. Ron Paul is really the only libertarian with street cred. (Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor? He gets the issues but doesn’t speak the language well.)
5. The Tea Partiers and Ron Paul’s libertarians overlap to some degree, but they differ strongly on national security, and the Tea Partiers are, generally, more ready to identify as Republicans than Paulites are. They’re also older.
6. Sarah Palin seems like a natural candidate for the Tea Party crowd; from a very un-elite state, anti-technocrat; anti-shades of gray; she’s taken on the elites and lost, and has a cross to bear; their embrace of her, for the most part, reveals how orthodox the TP movement actually is.  Problem for Palin: if she’s seen as part of the establishment, she won’t play as well with the Tea Partiers. She really will have to run as an outsider and forcibly reject, for example, the Weekly Standard types who are rooting for her.
7. Uniting the Paulites and the Tea Parties is a view about the the role of government, expressed in the familiar cliches: low taxes, creeping socialism, lay off.  And, I would argue, a geo-racial-ethnic anxiety about the emerging majority-minority nation and its attendent economic effects. When the immigration debate flares up, watch out.
8. Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty have no chance whatsover to share the sensibility of the Tea Partiers and the Paulites, certainly not in their current incarnations. They don’t speak the language; and because the movement is not about particular issues, their resumes don’t particularly matter. Romney and Pawlenty have a much better chance with that portion of the GOP base which does not identify with the Tea Party movement — which is, by definition, more establishmentarian and hierarchical. The Tea Partiers, at least, have a vehicle for advancing a candidate; Libertarians (the Paulites) really don’t, because they are…libertarians and don’t like to be all collective-y.

9. Romney could not be positioned more poorly to harness the Tea Partiers, the Paulites, and the social conservatives right now: protestant evangelicals still think he’s a Mormon of the suspect kind (unlike, say, John Huntsman Jr., who comes off as a real guy); he is a national security hawk at a time when there is a growing “get us out of there” movement within the base of the GOP; he is unlikely to embrace libertarianism (gambling, marijuana, civil unions) that would transform his political image and attract some of the Paulites; his immigration positioning is solid enough, but his association with the GOP establishment — he’s seen as the establishment candidate — will make anything he says suspect. A deft candidate, which Romney can be, can find a way to articulate a muscular vision for national security (pro “enhanced interrogation,” anti-Gitmo closing) but simultaneously argue that American strength ought not be projected, lest it be diluted.

There seems to be a mounting opposition to the standards set by the GOP…the Tea Partyers, Libertarians, and others are preparing for a run at the 2010 and 2012 elections…..the young voters are tired of the crap in Washington and they showed their disappointment with the GOP at the CPAC……

But with all their anger, the Tea Partyers seem to be shying away from traditional conservative planks like family, faith, especially the meat of GOP politics gay marriage and abortion……The motto of the Tea Party Patriots, a large coalition of groups, is “fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets.” The Independence Caucus questionnaire, which many Tea Party groups use to evaluate candidates, poses 80 questions, most on the proper role of government, tax policy and the federal budgeting process, and virtually none on social issues.  (Reported in the NY Times)…..

I found a very interesting thought on Republicans United (go to blogroll it is a very good and informative site) one of their writers, Travis Johnson, when writing about Dick Armey and the Tea Party, had some excellent points that I feel would be a winner if the GOP would just put aside the BS and concentrate on good governance…….

Republicans can counter the Democrats promises of hand-outs with a hand-up.  We need to be actively encourage English-language and GED classes for legal immigrants.  We should work with poor minorities to get them trained to do the jobs we are currently importing.  We should target extremely low-interest government loans and grants to poor people to start their own businesses (then, keep the tax burden extremely low for them, to give them room to thrive).  We should sponsor community-run childcare facilities to ensure the people who would be working or going to school so that they can feed their families don’t leave their children home to fend for themselves and can have adult supervision top help them with homework and teach them how to stay out of trouble.

These ideas are winners…..this is why it is time for moderate even liberal Republicans to take back the party of Lincoln from the hijackers that are now in control.

There is NO political revolution approaching. but there is what I believe a cultural war coming…….old farts will remember the one from the Nixon years….and with all that said….with the “new” mode of thought could also attract old farts like me……

To Be Continued……….

E-Democracy?

Inkwell Institute

Professor’s Classroom

Subject:  Electoral Politics/Democracy/Political Theory

Paper #5

I have written a post on participatory democracy and how I think it would be a better way of governance….but then there is the question of how would the people stay totally informed…..My friend Quin or Quinesstential Havoc (go to blogroll) has said that technology would be a good starting place….so I decided to start there…….

So why not give wiki a shot at a definition:

a form of direct democracy that uses information technologies and communication technologies and strategies for political and governance processes. Such processes can be used for governance of local communities, nations and internationally. Democratic actors and sectors in this context include governments, elected officials, the media, political organizations, and citizens/voters.E-democracy aims for broader and more active citizen participation enabled by the Internet, mobile communications, and other technologies in today’s representative democracy, as well as through more participatory or direct forms of citizen involvement in addressing public challenges.

E-democracy is a relatively new concept, which has surfaced out of the popularity of the Internet and the need to reinvigorate interest in the democratic process. Access is the key to creating interest in the democratic process. Citizens are more willing to use Web sites to support their candidates and their campaign drives.[5] In the United States, just over 50% of the population votes, and in the United Kingdom, only 69% of citizens vote.

The research indicates that the political process has been alienated from ordinary people, where laws are made by representatives far removed from ordinary people. The goal of e-democracy is to reverse the cynicism citizens have about their government institutions. However, there are increasing doubts about the real impact of electronic and digital tools on citizen participation and democratic governance, and warning against the “rhetoric” of electronic democracy.

I am positive that Quin will have a comment or two……

The Internet provides a distinctive structure of opportunities that has the potential to renew interest in civic engagement and participation. Civic engagement can be understood to include three distinct dimensions: political knowledge (what people learn about public affairs), political trust (the public’s orientation of support for the political system), and political participation (conventional activities designed to influence government and the decision-making process).

The information capacity available on the Internet allows citizens to become more knowledgeable about government and political issues, and the interactivity of the medium allows for new forms of communication with government and elected officials. The posting of contact information, legislation, agendas, and policies makes government more transparent, potentially enabling more informed participation both online and offline.

Broadband,  an up and coming phenom will be the greatest tool for the people’s participation…….but now we ask….will the people actually give a sh*t and actually participate in their government?  Or will they continue to piss and moan about it?  My guess is the later…..

This IS the future of politics and governance….like it or not…does not matter….it is coming and coming quickly!

What Obama Wants In Health Reform

Tomorrow will be the big meeting of the minds…the health summit between Obama, Dems and Repubs……let us hope that this will not be the circus that I fear it will be……unless these people strat talking to each other instead of the finbger pointing then this will be a huge waste of time and effort….anyway Obama has finally come out with what he will support and they are suppose to go from there…….he wants:

Insurers such as WellPoint Inc, UnitedHealth Group Inc and Aetna Inc overall face increased regulations and payment cuts.

* Insurance plans would face a new federal Health Insurance Rate Authority to help U.S. states review “unreasonable rate increases and other unfair practices of insurance plans.”

* Restrictions on companies that aim to protect consumers are expanded to add new protections, such as prohibiting all annual and lifetime limits, and ban pre-existing condition exclusions, among others.

* Private Medicare plans called Medicare Advantage would see payment changes that aim to compromise between the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate bills. Reimbursement rates for the plans, which can offer more benefits than traditional fee-for-service Medicare coverage at a higher cost, would set benchmark payments at a certain percentage of traditional Medicare and then phase them out.

* Medicare Advantage plans would also see payment adjustments for unjustified billing practices.

* One small positive for health insurance companies: The 10-year $67 billion in fees they would face would be delayed until 2014.

The brand-name pharmaceutical industry faces another $10 billion in fees over 10 years on top of its earlier agreement with the Senate Finance Committee to provide savings and rebates.

* The industry wide fees, to be parceled out among companies such as Pfizer Inc and Merck & Co Inc, will be used to eliminate a gap in Medicare’s prescription drug coverage known as the “doughnut hole.” That could help brand-name companies by getting patients to continue taking their medication rather than switching to a generic or stopping medication altogether.

* In a positive move for the companies, the fees will be delayed by one year until 2011.

Companies that make cheaper, generic versions of brand-name medicines would see an end to lucrative “pay-to-delay” settlements with brand-name drugmakers.

* Obama’s measure gives the U.S. Federal Trade Commission authority to address the settlements and makes it illegal to pay generic manufacturers

“to limit or forego research, development, marketing, manufacturing or sales of the generic drug.”

* Exemptions would only be allowed if the companies can show their settlement would “outweigh the anti-competitive effects of the agreement.”

Medical device makers such as Boston Scientific and Medtronic Inc maintained their earlier win of reducing their costs to $20 billion, down from $40 billion, and won a two-year delay until 2013.

* The industry wide fees were replaced with an excise tax that raises the same amount of revenue over 10 years.

I know a helluva list….but at least we now know exactly what Obama is looking for….read over the list….I do not see many areas for negotiation by the parties if they stick to the line they have held for a year or more…..The summit ought to be a kick in the butt for us political observers….the rest of the world will just tire of the news…and if you will look closely there is still NO elimination of the health industry’s anti-trust exemption….meaning they still control the prices and the screwing of the American people…..there is not tort reform, which will piss off the Repubs and there is nothing in it about ALL Americans….in other words looks a lot like the Senate version that has already passed….so what’s new?

Death Throes Of American Democracy

Since the very beginning there has been those detractors of American democracy that have predicted its demise…but few have been accurate until recently….the activist judges (to use a GOP slogan) on the Supreme Court have taken a step to finally end the government of the people, for the people and by the people…..

This from an article in the LA Times:

The ruling removes limits on corporations from spending their money on federal races, meaning that companies — and probably labor unions — will be free, for instance, to buy up advertising time days and weeks before an election to support or attack a potential candidate, perhaps creating slick spots with high production values similar to drug or car ads, or purchasing large blocks of network time.

Previously, federal law prohibited corporations and unions from using their treasuries to advocate for a specific candidate, allowing them to express themselves only through political action committees that were tightly regulated. They will still be prevented from donating money directly to campaigns even after today’s decision.

The question now is whether corporations and labor unions will take advantage of their new freedom. For the past decade, labor unions have been more aggressive than corporations in finding legal ways to fund independent political campaigns. But the relaxation of campaign-spending restrictions could clear the way for groups from all points along the political spectrum to spend more, and target more of that spending in the critical final days of a campaign.

This ruling is putting the very fabric of American democracy in danger….no longer will the people be the deciders…but rather the corporations will decide who rules and who gets what…..

The American will NO longer be a minor inconvenience to be tolerated; they will become insignificant to the political process…I have always said that Americans get the best government money can buy and now, thanks to the Supreme Court, I am proven right, yet again…..

The American voter will NO longer be relevant to the political process….more so than NOW!

A Dysfunctional System

Professor’s Classroom

Subject:  Am Government/Federalism

In the beginning there was the debate on the formation of the US Constitution….it raged in 1787 and continued for a couple years, the back and forth between the Federalist and the anti-Federalists…..finally, they settled on the checks and balances that we so cherish now of the  three branches, executive, judicial and legislative…….and for awhile it work nicely…..but that was to give way, the cooperation of the branches, into the dysfunctional family we have now…..

Partisanship has for a generation brought the functioning of the Congress to a standstill, especially the Senate, the original idea was that the Congress would listen, debate, the act on any given proposal…..that 3 part system is no longer working…there is little listening, there is absolutely NO debate and action is slowed to a pace that makes most knowledgeable people ill.  Madison warned of the result of partisanship in Federalist #10 and he also said that there were two ways of controlling factionalism, they being, to remove its causes and to control its effects.

“a number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

In today’s Congress we have extreme factionalism or partisanship, at least on the part of the GOP….the Party of NO is an accurate description……they refuse to listen….they refuse to debate…..what they call debate is nothing but misinformation that is not geared to finding answers to the problems confronting the country but rather to defeat ALL issues not theirs….this factionalism has brought the once mighty Congress to a stand still…..making many Americans doubt the validity of their claim to speak for them……

For the reason I say the Legislative branch is dysfunctional….NOTHING moves through the system as desired by the Founders, instead there are sound bites and hyperbole…little constructive……and now the American people are seeing just how much of a game Congress is…..it is controlled by forces outside the people, the ones that elected them have NO voice in what is to be done….instead it is the cash that is influencing legislation, not the needs of Americans….

With a broken legislative branch, the other two work not at all, so the cherished Federal system is NOT working properly…..Garry Wills argued against Madison and Federalist #10:

“Minorities can make use of dispersed and staggered governmental machinery to clog, delay, slow down, hamper, and obstruct the majority. But these weapons for delay are given to the minority irrespective of its factious or nonfactious character; and they can be used against the majority irrespective of its factious or nonfactious character. What Madison prevents is not faction, but action. What he protects is not the common good but delay as such.”

Read the above quote again……(time for the re-read)…….now look back at the past year of 2009 and the antics in the Senate and to a lesser extent, the House……..does it sound familiar now?  While one may like what Madison had to say, I think that the quote by Wills is far more accurate in the shedding of light on the modern legislative branch.

The Congress is NOT working in the electorates best interest……..these people are self-serving and sanctimonious ….they personally profit from special interests and in doing so they are NOT to be trusted…..also in doing so they are only pretending to do the people’s work…the extremely sad part in this game is that the people actually realize they are being duped and allow it to continue……so with that said you tell me who is more PATHETIC……the liars or the ones that allow the lie?