Huh, No Wonder the IRS Targeted Conservatives...

[Divinity11]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/us/re ... .html?_r=0

The site won't let me copy/paste text from it, but it exposes what some of us have understood for quite some time, and that is that it is not in our republic's best interest to allow Super PACs (in and of itself a bad idea) to allow unlimited, non-transparent donations, which (predictably) allows for selling access to our government. And if I remember correctly, and I do, there was one political party who pushed hard for this policy.

Which is weird, since Gov. Bob McDonnell was just convicted of doing the very thing the Republican Governor's Association have been doing -- selling access to private interests that allow for input and influence on government decision makers.

[Philly]

Moneyed interest has a disproportionate influence on government. No one can deny that. Most of these lobbies play both sides of the fence rather than roll the dice with one party or one candidate.

[Indy]

What blows my mind is that these dark money groups are allowed to claim with a straight face that they're "social welfare" groups advocating for the public good or something equally silly.

There was a woman on TDS this week who pointed out the absurdity of the SCOTUS ruling on money, in that they pretty much said unless there's absolute proof of a QPQ this isn't, you know, like bribery.

And what would that proof be? Like a written contract? In other words, they set the bar so high for having to prove that cash bought legislation that they just basically paved the way for generations of corruption.

Most people around the world would think that giving a leader a ton of cash meant something was expected in return and thus wasn't something you wanted to permit. Not here, though, where we not only allow it we now call money free speech and corporations "people."

[Philly]

Well we can't separate social welfare from political action but more importantly even if we take out the blatantly political stuff, your idea of social welfare may differ from mine. Tax em all, problem solved.

[Indy]

When I think of social welfare I'm thinking of homeless shelters, charities, food kitchens, etc. But to your point.

But the way this woman explained the SCOTUS ruling, in such plain language, just made it clear how insane this whole thing is (and how crazy SCOTUS is right now).

[Philly]

[eynon81]

[Philly]

To the scotus ruling, I don't think it's crazy, it just has unfortunate implications. It's not exactly that money is speech, but that everyone has the right to use their resources to amplify their speech. We need to find a fix for how that allows people to game the system but I don't think ruling is insane.

[Indy]

And there it gets fuzzy because NOW is probably considered a terrorist organization by Republicans and FoF are a bunch of Bible-throwers trying to turn back the clock to that time that, you know, never existed.

[Ben Huh]

lol guys the Republicans and Democrats are totally different