quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

Hmmmmm ..."we give millions and millions but we don't buy elections or candidates " Is anyone stupid enough to swallow that?

Since when do billionaires donate millions without expecting some kind of return? If you know any please point them in my direction thanks.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sanity

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

Hmmmmm ..."we give millions and millions but we don't buy elections or candidates " Is anyone stupid enough to swallow that?

Since when do billionaires donate millions without expecting some kind of return? If you know any please point them in my direction thanks.

Why does that bring to mind all of the massive donations to the Clinton Foundation by foreign billionaires and governments, and others (such as George Stephanopoulos), and the millions and millions that Bill, Hillary and Chelsea have pocketed for "speaking engagements"

Oh, wait - thats only supposed to work one way, isnt it. Its not supposed to apply to people like the Clintons

quote:

ORIGINAL: HunterCA

I wonder if Cloudboy wants to stop the unions from pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into leftist candidates too?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucylastic

Americans of both parties fundamentally reject the regime of untrammeled money in elections made possible by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and other court decisions and now favor a sweeping overhaul of how political campaigns are financed, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.

The findings reveal deep support among Republicans and Democrats alike for new measures to restrict the influence of wealthy givers, including limiting the amount of money that can be spent by “super PACs” and forcing more public disclosure on organizations now permitted to intervene in elections without disclosing the names of their donors.

And by a significant margin, they reject the argument that underpins close to four decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence on campaign finance: that political money is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. Even self-identified Republicans are evenly split on the question.


“I think it’s an obscene thing the Supreme Court did,” Terri Holland, 67, a former database manager who lives in Albuquerque, said in a follow-up interview. “The old-boy system is kind of dead, but now it’s the rich system. The rich decide what’s going to happen because the Supreme Court allows PACs to have civil rights.”

Most Americans say that money has too much of an influence on politicians and that campaign finance changes are needed.

The poll provides one of the broadest and most detailed surveys of Americans’ attitudes toward the role of money in politics since the Citizens United decision five years ago. And the responses suggest a growing divide between the nation and its highest court on constitutional questions that have moved to the heart of the American system, as the advent of super PACs and the abandonment of public financing by both parties in presidential elections have enabled wealthy donors, corporations and unions to play a greater role in political fund-raising.

In recent years, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has steadily chipped away at restrictions on political donations while narrowing the constitutional definition of corruption. In a series of decisions, the court has rejected the notion that the access and influence afforded big donors can justify further restrictions on campaign money, while dismissing concerns raised by the court’s liberal wing that unrestricted political money skews policy-making in favor of the wealthy.

The broader public appears to see things differently: More than four in five Americans say money plays too great a role in political campaigns, the poll found, while two-thirds say that the wealthy have more of a chance to influence the elections process than other Americans.

Those concerns — and the divide between Washington elites and the rest of the country — extend to Republicans.


Three-quarters of self-identified Republicans support requiring more disclosure by outside spending organizations, for example, but Republican leaders in Congress have blocked legislation to require more disclosure by political nonprofit groups, which do not reveal the names of their donors.

Republicans in the poll were almost as likely as Democrats to favor further restrictions on campaign donations, even as some prominent Republicans call for legislation to eliminate existing caps on contributions.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/us/politics/poll-shows-americans-favor-overhaul-of-campaign-financing.html?_r=1



Edited to add
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/02/us/politics/money-in-politics-poll.html
shows the polls in graph form

quote:

ORIGINAL: JVoV

If PACs & lobbyists were ever under as much scrutiny as the Clinton Foundation has been, I think we'd see new politicians on both sides.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucylastic

I never said it was...only that the whinning in here lately has been all about hilary, or soros, or clinton, or clinton foundation, money for speeches and expectations....but nothing about the other side....the fact that the two stories i linked to today talk about the very same thing...seemed appropos..
Please feel free to change the subject, derail, bloviate at will. Its all you have.
Have a nice day.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JVoV

If PACs & lobbyists were ever under as much scrutiny as the Clinton Foundation has been, I think we'd see new politicians on both sides.

quote:

ORIGINAL: cloudboy

He's F*cked in the HEAD, because the driver and spear-tip behind money-in-politics is THE RIGHT characterizing it as free speech and perfecting ways to hide and disguise who the donors are while also creating faux front organizations with misleading populist names.

(1) A billionaire or Monsanto hides its multi-million dollar contribution;
(2) the money then goes to an organization entitled "AMERICANS FOR BETTER GOVERNMENT";
(3) that funds misleading campaign ads;
(4) the money comes with political strings attached that Joe-the-Wage-Earner never sees or understands;
(5) The public interest gets pushed out by special interests.

----

I think we could eliminate whacked out politics by simply having open primaries wherein any American could vote, regardless of primary affiliation. Closed (especiially Republican) Primaries simply congregate too many crazies together -- and produce candidates at odds with the general population.

quote:

Hillary Clinton just proved why campaign finance reform isn’t a real issue

In the early days of her 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton decried the influence of big money in politics -- calling the system "dysfunctional" and pledging to make fixing it a centerpiece of her second bid for the White House.

Then, on Wednesday night, the New York Times' Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Confessore reported this:

Hillary Rodham Clinton will begin personally courting donors for a “super PAC” supporting her candidacy, the first time a Democratic presidential candidate has fully embraced these independent groups that can accept unlimited checks from big donors and are already playing a major role in the 2016 race....

...Mrs. Clinton’s allies hope that with her support, the top Democratic super PAC, Priorities USA Action, will raise $200 million to $300 million. That is on par with what the largest Republican organizations, such as the Karl Rove-backed American Crossroads super PAC and its nonprofit affiliate, spent in 2012.

As the Times' story notes, Clinton is the first likely Democratic presidential nominee to fully embrace the world of super PACs; President Obama allowed the creation of Priorities USA Action during the 2012 election but never attended any of the events to raise money for the endeavor and, generally, kept it at arm's length...

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2015/04/17/Editorial-Opinion/Images/2015-04-15T142317Z_01_IST03_RTRIDSP_3_TURKEY-ECONOMY-LIRA-1400.jpg&w=1484

quote:

ORIGINAL: KenDckey

I don't believe they are purchasing an election. Never have. I do believe that they are purchasing access to the candidate to get them to listen to whatever their cause wants - profits, social change, etc.

I do agree that there is a pushback, but putting big money into an election does not dictate how a person will vote, unless they are REALLLY stupid

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucylastic
I never said it was...only that the whinning in here lately has been all about hilary, or soros, or clinton, or clinton foundation, money for speeches and expectations....but nothing about the other side....the fact that the two stories i linked to today talk about the very same thing...seemed appropos..
Please feel free to change the subject, derail, bloviate at will. Its all you have.
Have a nice day

quote:

ORIGINAL: mnottertail

Or letting corporate managers give money, and dark money to rightwing goons and thugs instead of paying their employees. And we pay for that as well.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Politesub53

quote:

ORIGINAL: KenDckey

I don't believe they are purchasing an election. Never have. I do believe that they are purchasing access to the candidate to get them to listen to whatever their cause wants - profits, social change, etc.

I do agree that there is a pushback, but putting big money into an election does not dictate how a person will vote, unless they are REALLLY stupid

Au contraire......... The Conservatives won most seats in last moths election, where they spent the most money. Constant adds all over town and one page sponsored articles in the press really did have a big effect.

You are right about one thing, big sponsors expect to have influence over policy. FIFA, for instance got Brazil to change a law on no alcohol in football stadiums as Budweiser was a FIFA sponsor. Brazil was told, no beer, no tournament. They even called the new law "The Budweiser Law"

quote:

ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucylastic
I never said it was...only that the whinning in here lately has been all about hilary, or soros, or clinton, or clinton foundation, money for speeches and expectations....but nothing about the other side....the fact that the two stories i linked to today talk about the very same thing...seemed appropos..
Please feel free to change the subject, derail, bloviate at will. Its all you have.
Have a nice day

Perhaps the fact (not challenging it) that there has been an awful lot about Hilary, the Clinton's, or the Clinton Foundation lately, just might have to do with Hillary getting into the race and, oh, I don't know, news?

At some point, she'll fall out of the news headlines a bit, and someone in the GOP will pop up, but, at the moment, it's Hillary.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucylastic

quote:

ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucylastic
I never said it was...only that the whinning in here lately has been all about hilary, or soros, or clinton, or clinton foundation, money for speeches and expectations....but nothing about the other side....the fact that the two stories i linked to today talk about the very same thing...seemed appropos..
Please feel free to change the subject, derail, bloviate at will. Its all you have.
Have a nice day

Perhaps the fact (not challenging it) that there has been an awful lot about Hilary, the Clinton's, or the Clinton Foundation lately, just might have to do with Hillary getting into the race and, oh, I don't know, news?
At some point, she'll fall out of the news headlines a bit, and someone in the GOP will pop up, but, at the moment, it's Hillary.

Um, yeah..you notice, theres little OTHER news, or mention of any other "corruption and big money" from the right". which is why I posted this thread
You will also notice that no one has anything of note to mention unless, its "fighting back against the hilary, or the clintons, or obama, or, lefties in general, lots of derail...not even you....have anything to say about the kochs giving nearly one billion for ONE election.