Legislating Under the Influence

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• Reader Comments (10)

  Page 1 of 1 pages

  Were was Dave Sirota during the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s when the Democrat dominated Congress created these structures?  Or is only now that the Dems have lost control of the candy machine that they can bring themselves to complain and point out the problem…

  Democrats, especially Liberal big-government, big-spending Democrats, have no credibility when complaining about the other kids playing with their toys…

  Rich Delzer, Hancock, WI

  Posted by rdelzer on Jul 10, 2006 at 2:44 PM

  Funny how some people blame Liberals for everything but turn a blind eye when “conservatives” do the same or even worse. The “conservatives” have outspent the liberals on everything, most of it to pay their corporate devils, and and that doesn’t even including defense spending, most of it again to satisfy their corporate cronies like Halliburton and Bechtel, and yet the same rightwing lunatics try to blame liberals for everything. If Delzer had some common sense, he’d realize that there were faux “conservatives” as well as faux “liberals” in both parties throughout the decades. Oh by the way, Mr. Delzer, if your buddy Mr. Sense-LESS-brenner actually believed in curbing illegal immigration and fighting for national security, why the hell is he too busy fighting to “free” trade America off through NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, WTO, US-Oman “Free” Trade Agreement, etc… all the while pushing to depress wages in America, minimum or middle-class? And why does Sense-LESS-brenner keep supporting business offshoring and outsourcing against the economic and national security interests of America?

  By the way, didn’t these same GOP bastards promise to clean up the mess once voted in to power back in 1994? If so, they sure broke their promise. Maybe they too felt like they shouldn’t abolish the “candy machine” rdelzer accuses the Democrats of building because it would give them all the fuckin’ money they wanted. So rdelzer, happy that your “conservatives” in power broke their promise on cleaning up the mess by joining it and giving you the middle finger in return for falling for their bait-and-switch and frame-and-blame cheap shots?

  The next time you keep bashing liberals for everything, take a look at your “conservative” ilk and try to understand why even true conservatives feel betrayed by the current YOYO “Screw You” ideology that has destroyed America:

  THE DEATH OF CONSERVATISM

  The Destruction By The Neo-Cons Of All That Was Held Dear By Conservatives Has A Growing Number Joining The Ranks Of Independents

  by Samuel A Stanson

  http://www.moderateindependent.com/v1i15conservatism.htm

  Posted by maxpayne on Jul 10, 2006 at 4:53 PM

  In response to maxpayne the question has to be asked:

  Who build the Federal Cash Machine?  The Democrats or the Republicans? 

  *Now* some people have a problem with Republicans using it but who created it?  Where were the complainers 10, 20, 30 years ago?  -rwd

  Posted by rdelzer on Jul 10, 2006 at 9:43 PM

  I just shake my head in disbelief when I hear people saying “but the Democrats did it too” or “the Democrats started it”. It makes me feel like I’m talking to my children!

  My answer to that is, the same as what I tell my kids. So what? Even if it’s 100% true, does that make it right? If someone else behaves immorally or unethically, does that mean they get a free pass to do whatever they want to do? No. I expect better out of my children than that, and I expect better from my representatives, too.

  I can’t answer for what anyone did 10, 20, 30 years ago. I can tell you many things people of all parties have done that are unethical. That is all completely beside the point. and nothing but a distraction from the real issue.

  The real issue is, the system is being abused to the detriment of nearly ALL Americans, no matter their party.  I don’t know a single American citizen that WANTS the congress to waste their tax dollars, and that is exactly what is happening as it stands right now.

  I wish people would address the issue rather than playing this pathetic blame game.  The appropriations system needs to be un-rigged. ALL of our representatives should have the opportunity to understand what they’re voting on, and ALL of our representatives should have enough huevos to sign their name to the legislation they want to pass.

  As for publicly financed elections, I’m all over that. Big money has completely corrupted the democratic process, and it’s time for US to own the system again.

  Posted by tface1000 on Jul 10, 2006 at 10:34 PM

  Once again, back to the basic question: Who build the Federal Cash Machine?  The Democrats or the Republicans? 

  Democrats keep dodging this question.  This has to be addressed first before we move on to any other issues…  -rwd

  Posted by rdelzer on Jul 11, 2006 at 2:13 AM

  Are you asking me to give you a history lesson? I think you’re probably just baiting me. There’s no question to dodge. Maybe you’ve just been ignored before now, because the answer is so obvious and so irrelevant to the issue today. The Democratic and Republican parties have built a lovely, efficient Federal Cash Machine together. They’ve cooperated beautifully in that regard. It should be very easy to find plenty of abuse to go around for everyone over the course of the last two hundred years. It took a lot of people to get it to where it is today.

  Now it’s my turn for a question. Do you think the system is fine the way it works right now? If not, what needs to be done to fix it. No matter the party. It’s not a partisan issue. It’s about our democracy, isn’t it?

  Posted by tface1000 on Jul 11, 2006 at 5:32 AM

  Notice that rdelzer talks like a staunch Republican troll. As tface1000 pointed out, both parties pretty much built the machine but at the time, those folks could dream that the either political party would have abused it to this extent. If a system is broke, why not fix it instead of blaming the people who built it. By the way, the GOP promised to clean up the mess back in 1994 and yet 12 years after dominating the legislature, the GOP killed any attempts at genuine reform and look what happened? And what about their promises on term limits and balanced budgets? Your buddy Newty happily killed the contract once he came to power and allowed corruption to get worse. The GOP, who I might have trusted in 1994, has ended up being another pot calling the kettle black. You can keep blaming the Liberals for everything or you can repair your damaged brain and wake up to the fact that your “conservative” buddies have been playing you for a fool through the victimization game of talking about corruption while doing nothing about it. And before you get started about Democrats doing it too, please note that none of us would trust the Democrats if they were to do the same thing as the GOP is doing once in power. Yes, everybody knows that corruption was always rampant in both parties but how far are you willing to let it stretch until you say enough already? And if you even bothered to actually read the article instead of ramble the Bush/Limbaugh bullshit, you would have realized that the author is not saying the Democrats are clean either.

  P.S.: So rdelzer, you want to tell me that racists like Sense-LESS-brenner and Tom Delay, the real culprits of illegals working in this country, are somehow better than the rest? Be my guest. Your partisan idiocity and ignorance goes a long way to supporting the corrupt system. Your buddy Sense-LESS-brenner and his GOP ilk still blames immigrants for taking money out of the pockets of American citizens by driving down wages and calling them a threat to national security.  Never mind the fact the GOP has repeatedly voted against raising the minimum wage, for GATT and NAFTA that let jobs be shipped to these immigrants to do in the home countries for slave wages, support for outsourcing and off-shoring. Never mind that the lobbyists you ignore are continuing to import cheap and illegal labor all the while your favorite GOP contininues to leave your damaged brain in poisoned state like a zombie by bait-and-switching you on hot button issues while playing the frame-and-blame game on those that oppose their evil ways all the while doing nothing to clean up their act let alone what they promised. Happy now?

  Posted by maxpayne on Jul 11, 2006 at 12:18 PM

  Neither party is completely pure.  But the basis for this whole culture of corruption began in the late 70s when corporations were allowed for the first time to contribute to campaigns.  An item was slipped into a bill in, I believe, 1978 and went largely unnoticed for several years.

  It was the Republicans who milked this provision for all it was worth.  It was the Republicans who created the K Street Project.  It was either Gingrich or DeLay who, when asked about the danger of special interest money in politics, said that the problem was that there was “too little money in politics.”  It was the Gingrich “revolution” that brought Jack Abramoff to Washington.  It was Gingrich who pushed the K Street Project and set it in motion.

  But to then blame Dems for being less than driven snow pure is like blaming someone for defending himself against an assailant.  The Republicans have been in control of both houses of Congress most of the time over the last 12 years.  The corruption that exists today is utterly unprecedented.

  Corruption is a human condition.  It has always existed and probably always will.  But in the past it has existed largely at the local level (Daley in Chicago, Agnew in Maryland, Taft in Ohio, etc.).  But this is something new and totally out of control.

  The best correctives would include public financing of elections, total elimination of corporate money from elections, reversal of Buckley v. Valeo and its forebears, restoration the fairness doctrine, instituting a truth in news labelling, and reversing the media consolidation of the last decades.

  Posted by Sefton on Jul 11, 2006 at 5:25 PM

  rdelzer - who cares? why is it some important ‘first step’ to determine the originators before moving forward?

  I’ll give you what you want: it was the Democrats, pure and simple. All of them, everyone of them, working together in the 60s and 70s to create this corrupt machine. There. Satisfied? Can we move on now and fix this thing?

  Sirota names Dems and Republicans in his article as serial abusers, and he’s just scratched the surface. But it just so happens that the Republicans have controlled the purse strings for the last 12 years. So all their pontificating about it for decades evaporated as mere partisan rhetoric. They had their chance to fix it. They even would have won my ultra-left wing vote if they had actually done it. But they fell right into the swamp just as sure as they swore they wouldn’t for 2 decades. (See why it’s pointless to do the history lesson?)

  I will pledge right here and now to limit my Republican bashing/blaming in the name of resolving this issue, if you will do the same.

  All

  Incumbents

  Out

  Now

  Posted by dagger09 on Jul 11, 2006 at 5:50 PM

  The US ‘democratic process’ is amazing. This is a country that can’t even ensure that everyone gets to cast a ballot that is actually counted! This from a country that neo cons on this site insist, should blast the crap out of any country that doesn’t conduct itself in the usual ‘approved by the US’ manner!

  Ya know, it really doesn’t matter which bit of the corrupt US elite started it all-Dems or Repubs all look a lot the same from elsewhere. The point is, what are y’all going to do to make the US less of a laughing stock in every other democratic country in the world?

  And if you think I am kidding about what the rest of the world thinks, try googling the Pew Polls that are taken across the world on the attitudes of the rest of the world to the US.  I know that a section of the uS doesn’t give a damn what the rest of the world thinks, but you know, when you are in debt to your eyeballs to the rest of the world, you aren’t really in a position to keep on telling your creditors to go take a hike.

  Posted by Jane Doe on Jul 12, 2006 at 7:22 AM

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