The nation's two top-billing Medicare doctors are both bigtime Democratic donors

[gwb-trading]

The problem is UNLIMITED money from the very rich is turning our country into an Oligarchy where the politicians from both parties merely do the bidding of the wealthy. Before some recent court rulings and other changes, the U.S. had a system with better control over donations. This allowed the middle-class to have financial voice with candidates with donations of $100, $500, $2000, etc. - these were meaningful to a candidate because reasonable limits were placed on the size of money being poured into politics and 'dark money' (529s, etc.) was not allowed.

Now the entire system is broken and we are spinning downhill at a rapid pace where only a few ultra-rich voices have any influence on U.S. politics.

Apparently I am not the only one who thinks this...

Bernie Sanders: Greedy billionaires twisting American dream into nightmarish oligarchy
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/...ng-american-dream-into-nightmarish-oligarchy/

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) asked Thursday whether the U.S. was evolving into an oligarchy during a speech on the Senate floor.

The senator said recent Supreme Court rulings on campaign finance law would further tip the economic and political balance toward the very wealthiest Americans.

 

[AAAintheBeltway]

Bernie Sanders is a socialist. He's the last person I would listen to.

Why is it so terrible that the people with the most at stake are given a voice? You want to go back to the world where the party bosses, big media and big unions ran things.

I find it fundamentally unfair that the local newspaper can run editorial after editorial slamming a candidate, but his supporters face draconian limits on what they can spend. Or that local municipal unions can put tons of resources into local elections of officials who will be "negotiating" with the same unins over pay and benefits, yet local taxpayer groups face huge obstacles in opposing them.

I think contributions to candidates should be disclosed immediately on the internet. Independent expenditures however should be confidential. We need look no further than the Mozilla scandal to see why confidentiality is warranted. We have secret ballots for a reason, and people should be able to support a cause or candidate without putting themselves in the crosshairs of bullies or thugs.

 

[JamesL]

Another Koch Brothers attack from the Left. What are the odds.





134 Times Harry Reid's Railed Against the Koch Brothers

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/vP7V0hrt1aw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[bigarrow]

Bernie Sanders is a socialist. He's the last person I would listen to.

Why is it so terrible that the people with the most at stake are given a voice? You want to go back to the world where the party bosses, big media and big unions ran things.

I find it fundamentally unfair that the local newspaper can run editorial after editorial slamming a candidate, but his supporters face draconian limits on what they can spend. Or that local municipal unions can put tons of resources into local elections of officials who will be "negotiating" with the same unins over pay and benefits, yet local taxpayer groups face huge obstacles in opposing them.

I think contributions to candidates should be disclosed immediately on the internet. Independent expenditures however should be confidential. We need look no further than the Mozilla scandal to see why confidentiality is warranted. We have secret ballots for a reason, and people should be able to support a cause or candidate without putting themselves in the crosshairs of bullies or thugs.

Brilliant aaa, and since the rich deserve a bigger voice why not just give everyone one vote for every $10 million of net worth. That would weed out all those worthless worker bees and let the real people run the country without having to go to the trouble of writing checks and spending their wealth to buy influence.

 

[gwb-trading]

This may come as a shock, but business groups and the wealthy have substantial impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens have little or no influence. Here comes the science...

Rich people rule!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/08/rich-people-rule/

Everyone thinks they know that money is important in American politics. But how important? The Supreme Court’s Gilded Age reasoning in McCutcheon v. FEC has inspired a flurry of commentary regarding the potential corrosive influence of campaign contributions; but that commentary largely ignores the broader question of how economic power shapes American politics and policy. For decades, most political scientists have sidestepped that question, because it has not seemed amenable to rigorous (meaning quantitative) scientific investigation. Qualitative studies of the political role of economic elites have mostly been relegated to the margins of the field. But now, political scientists are belatedly turning more systematic attention to the political impact of wealth, and their findings should reshape how we think about American democracy.

A forthcoming article in Perspectives on Politics by (my former colleague) Martin Gilens and (my sometime collaborator) Benjamin Page marks a notable step in that process. Drawing on the same extensive evidence employed by Gilens in his landmark book “Affluence and Influence,” Gilens and Page analyze 1,779 policy outcomes over a period of more than 20 years. They conclude that “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

(More at above url)

 

[futurecurrents]

I agree we should get big money out of politics. Too bad the Supreme Court is screwing it up big time with their flawed "interpretation" of the Constitution.
As for the cheating doctors, hospitals and insurance companies, massive fines and prison time.

Exactly. And it is the right that is in favor of this unlimited influence of big money. It was the conservative side of the court that favored this.