James Comey's book tells the story of bad people on all sides, Liberal, Conservative, law enforcement, justice department, Congress, FBI, and on and on. There's no "good guy" in Comey's book revealing just how corrupt our nation and our democracy is.
I am convinced we are mired in a muck of slime in America. Willima Blum makes some valid points in his Anti-empire Blog that we are not the good guys we think we are.
An incredibly insane 5-4 Supreme Court decision put up America's democracy for sale to the highest bidder. Sinclair Broadcasting, the Koch brothers, super rich Political Action Committees, and lobbyists can buy access to politicians by donating huge sums of money. The prostitute pols take the money and give favors to these big money donors. The rich get their way to fix the system to their benefit.
American democracy is rigged to help the rich, and manage the poor.
"Mick Mulvaney and the Trump Administration’s Sellout to Wall Street"
By John Cassidy April 26, 2018
"ick Mulvaney, the Trump Administration macher who heads the White House Office of Management and Budget and also serves as the temporary head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has been heavily criticized for some remarks he made on Tuesday to an audience of bankers and financial-industry lobbyists. But Mulvaney may have performed a public service by drawing attention to the institutionalized corruption that passes as the business of government in many parts of Washington.Speaking to a conference organized by the American Bankers Association, Mulvaney recalled that when he was a Republican congressman he only talked to lobbyists who had made contributions to his campaigns, and he encouraged the members of his audience to carry on their work of seeking to influence legislators and policymakers, him included."
So, there you have it in black and white, plain and simple, directly from a Government / political whore, Mick Mulvaney, not surprisingly of Irish gang leader decent ( I am kidding . . . ). Congress is for sale to the highest, or any bidder, actually. Bring money and we deliver favors.
"Eight years after Obama’s unusual State of the Union attack, Citizens United endures"
By James Varney - The Washington Times - Sunday, January 28, 2018
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/28/citizens-united-us-supreme-court-decision-endures-/
"The Capitol’s chambers are no strangers to violence, though fortunately the anniversary of the last canings has passed the sesquicentennial mark. It was only eight years ago, however, that President Obama chose to go after Supreme Court justices in that arena.
The occasion was his first State of the Union address and the topic was Citizens United, a case the justices had decided in a 5-4 ruling a week earlier, dealing an uppercut to the campaign finance reform movement by ruling that interest groups’ political spending is protected speech under the First Amendment.
The decision rocked politics, and Mr. Obama predicted it would “open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.”
In the first election after the ruling, spending did soar. Cash in congressional races leaped 46 percent and continued to tick up in the years since.
But spending on presidential elections has dropped since the ruling, challenging Mr. Obama prediction of runaway campaigns."
Really? You are willing to twist to get your outcome on the story, a false equivalency? The real question is have donations dropped though, it is DONATIONS that matter, my friend, not spending! Fool!
"The Daily 202: Mick Mulvaney’s confession highlights the corrosive influence of money in politics"
By James Hohmann By James Hohmann Email the author April 25 at 8:49
"THE BIG IDEA: Mick Mulvaney said the quiet part out loud.
“We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Tuesday at the American Bankers Association conference in Washington. “If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”"
" . . . told the 1,300 industry executives and lobbyists that they should push lawmakers hard to pursue their shared agenda.He told the crowd that trying to sway legislators is one of the “fundamental underpinnings of our representative democracy.” For good measure, he insisted that he always made time for his constituents. “If you came from back home and sat in my lobby, I talked to you without exception, regardless of the financial contributions,” Mulvaney said."
OK, that's not terrible. But what else did Mulvaney say?
" , , , Mulvaney’s comment appears emblematic of a mentality that pervades Trump’s orbit.Multiple Republicans admitted last fall during the debate over tax cuts that they worried about losing campaign contributions if they didn’t vote for the legislation."
The end game is pay for play, PERIOD. Mulvaney thinks this is good policy. Period. It is a way to corrupt democracy, PERIOD.
" . . . [Mulvaney} didn’t offer this as a sad concession to reality but an actual principle of governance he had personally abided,” notes New York magazine columnist Jonathan Chait. “People in government might have always given their donors more influence over their decisions, but they at least pretended that was not the case in public. The Trump administration is not even bothering to put up a facade. … The completely accurate sense that Trump and his party are out to get themselves and their friends rich is the administration’s gaping vulnerability.”"
Wow! Stupid or arrogant or nasty, I do not know which, but this guy grew up believing in fairness and honestly FOR THE RICH. He is working to make the rich richer, and fix / rig the American government and our economic system for the rich. He looks out for the strongest? Nope, the richest? The smartest? Nope, the richest. The kindest? Nope, the richest.
