On Friday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute where he endorsed not just allowing unlimited spending in elections, but also letting big donors to keep their identity secret. In support of this view, McConnell, as he has done before, described campaign spending as a form of speech, suggesting that limits on spending contravene the First Amendment.
Former DNC chairman Howard Dean joined MSNBC host Ed Schultz Monday to discuss McConnell's radical support for unlimited secret money in America's elections.
"You couldn't find very many tea party people who agree with Senator McConnell," said Dean. "The fact of the matter is, this is bad for America and McConnell has put his party ahead of his country."
Indeed, there is widespread and bipartisan concern about the growing role of money in American politics. A New York Times/CBS News poll released in October 2010 found that 92% of Americans think "that campaigns be required by law to disclose how much money they have raised, where that money came from, and how they have spent it."
But don't take our word for it. Take the word of a senior Republican lawmaker, who said this: "We need to have real disclosure. And so what we ought to do is broaden the disclosure to include at least labor unions and tax-exempt business associations and trial lawyers so that you include the major political players in America. Why would a little disclosure be better than a lot of disclosure?"
Those words come from none other than Mitch McConnell himself in April of 2010.
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Meet the NEW Terrorists. God only knows how he sleeps at night.
Very well as psychopaths have very little problems with their deeds that harm others after all they only worry about themselves and the end justifies the means.
The Turtle-Worm needs to crawl back into his shell and shut-up and get out of the political arena !!! As All of these Obstructionists Need to do !!! Obama/Biden 2012 !!!
Cudos whomitmay, you nailed it.
Liberals like to think Obama "evolves" when he changes his position, but Conservatives "flip flop" then they evolve their position on an issue. Keep running with nonsense stories as the economy and jobs picture suffers for most Americans, aka "voters". Don't worry, we'll all do a good job of reminding citizens of the important issues while MSNBC reports on fluff and pro-Obama fantasies. :-) Children.
Vatican. LOL Get serious.
India. Surely you jest. Vat doesn't know what serious is. He's another right winger here to disrupt, and cause problems. He thinks he's got some points but hasn't a clue what being a liberal is about. I think he get paid by the number of words he posts. It sure isn't the content.
He thinks he is better informed that a 5th grader. Fox nose info un-fair and un-balanced. Reveal only what they believe to be truth, and refuse to open their minds.
The mitch counts his payback checks every night that he gets from the right wing power machine. You can afford a lot of sleeping pills with that, and anything else that releifs his mind, if he has one?
The GOP is adept at the use of legislative terror tactics
Yes, the gop congress has held the American citizens hostage for almost two years now.
What idiotic speech from the blog idiot that uses extremist language to make up for a lack of intellect. :-)
@Thankful Mom-3182614, RE:
That would be true for both Houses of Congress, but with McConnell's "filibuster every Bill I don't like policy," along with the Democrat's purported Super-majority existing only in the theoretical sense, prior to Sen. Kennedy's death, consisting of 59 Democrats and the Independent Sanders, there was a major flaw in that theory, even when Sens. Collin & Snowe voted with the Democrats, there were (almost) always more Blue Dogs who voted with the Republicans than Republicans voting with the Democrats. Therefore, enough votes to invoke Cloture hardly ever happened. So, Senate Minority Leader McConnell has essentially had the Senate in a stranglehold since Inauguration Day.
Even Obama's "major successes," ARRA, ACA, and Dodd-Frank ended up being much less successful than they could have been, were it not for McConnell and his ilk violating the US Constitution by giving the interests of the GOP higher priority than the interests of their constituents who were insufficiently employed, who couldn't get health insurance, who were given mortgages when the lenders new the prospective homeowners could not afford them, or ....
Effectively, there are far too few Robin Hood Democrats up against far too many Sheriff of Nottingham Republicans, where the good guys are defending the Constitution and the Constituents, and the bad sheriffs are the only beneficiaries of Trickle Down Economics, provided by the Oligarchy. [Granted that there are too many Democrats who have also been corrupted by the Oligarchy, and there are a few Republicans who have managed to remember who they were elected to serve. So, strictly speaking, the distinction between Democrats and Republicans isn't quite diametric opposition.]
I long for the old days in the Republican Party. I didn't agree with them, but you didn't get this continual flip-flopping to serve whatever position they think will get them the most votes and the most money from the SuperPacs to obtain that goal. They have turned into a bad caricature of what they used to be. Any self-respecting Repub should be complaining from the rooftops, or better yet, leave the Party and come over to the REAL right side.
Obama... flip flops. Kerry... flip flops. Biden - foot in mouth disease. Congressional Democrats that supported the KKK and filibustered Civil Rights legislation. No flip flop - still consistent. :-) Wackos!
And still none of them hold a candle to won't make a stand Romney.
MJB You never answered my friend request. Did you know I sent one?
misty mitt the prince and want-a-be president, who not only has hoof and mouth disease, he vacillates so badly in trying to please all the right wing nuts. He couldn't find his rear, because he has never had to wipe it. He is so full of himself that must take him a lot of time on his porcelain thrown, to contemplate what his next move will be. Flip it this way, then flip it the other way. Doing what ever it takes to look more and more stupid. I just can't wait until he has to debate Obama and try to make some sense. He hasn't been very successful at it so far. Waiting for his opinion today, for tomorrow it will not be the same. Good luck gop, not.
Hi India~ No, I must not have gotten it. Send me another one? :)
Wasn't it the republicans who want everything to be transparent? What?
The GOP is reliably reprehensible. Gobama!
Amen!
Amen? Coming from a leftist athiest! HA! Now that is rich! Easy saying "Amen." Now that's funny! :-)
Is the
only
way
you
can
prove
a point
is to
attack
a person
on his
resligious
beliefs?
I - DON'T - FIND - IT - TO - BE - A - LAUGHING - MATTER ! ! !
I am a atheist of Teapublicans and some day I hope it comes true!
Listen to your hypocrisy as you all attacked Mitt Romney and his Mormon religion. Give me a break.
I'm not blind and I scanned all of the posts that I could find and I didn't see anyone say anything about Willard's religion but you. Sen. Reid is also Mormon as is Jon Huntsman and I think both are fine men despite their religion.
So it looks like you're just spouting stuff to try and get a reaction. This is not a reaction, just an observation of your contempt for those of us who believe in our President. Good try but no cigar.
The more that Mitch McConnell opens his mouth the more the man becomes irrelevant. He makes no sense at al. But then again, if we look at the fact that he is owned by the wealthy and multinational corporations, it does make sense. Problem is that we want our country to remain a democracy instead of a corporate entity whereby corporations are considered people and they use their money to buy politicians to enact laws to protect them while denying the rest of us a voice in what laws are enacted. So we have a right to know that people like the Koch brothers are paying top dollar to have their voices heard above the rest of us so that they can have a country where they can pollute our air and water with no regard for the people living in these communities who are dieing from these actions.
we have a right to know WHO is buying our government!!!!
We already know it's being bought and paid for ---we know because we know that they are working to take away the rights that we send our Soldiers to fight for ===for other people in other countries.
Mitch McConnell is a spokesman for the corporate oligarchs who are running our democracy straight into the ground. Mitch McConnell is a sycophant for his corporatist masters who control him just like a puppet. Mitch McConnell does not give a rat's tail about our democracy because he wants to turn America into a corporatist state. The horrible "Citizens United" ruling by our right winged corporate Supreme Court said that a corporation is a person with the same free speech rights as a human. If the logic of this argument that a corporation is a person is true, than Texas or Mississippi needs to be able to execute a corporation.
Look at the Wisconsin recall election and we can see that Scott Walker received about $50 million for his reelection campaign raising $30 million on his own. About two-thirds of this money came from donors who were outside of Wisconsin. Most of these donors were the usual cast of characters: the Koch brothers, Karl Rove's SuperPAC's, and other GOP billionaire/multimillionaire donors. The Wisconsin recall was an auction not an election. Barret could barely raise $4 million and three-fourths of his money came from within Wisconsin. Walker had a seven to one advantage in money. This recall election was not an election it was an auction. These special interest groups are only interested in their corporatist agenda of deregulation of all environmental laws, more tax cuts for billionaires or corporations, more corporate welfare and government subsidize for mature industries, and privatization of all government services including the privatization of Social Security and Medicare.
We need public funding for all elections in this country. Both parties must have access to public funding and limits on campaign spending. The U.S. right now is slipping back into the bad old days of the late 19th century and the early 20th century where the corporate trusts reigned supreme. If we all remember the very bad old days of the Haymarket affair, the 1894 Pullman Strike, the Homestead strike, the 1914 Ludlow mine massacre, and the 1920's West Virginia coal mine strikes and human misery these events and many others caused we should refrain from reliving them. The Mitch McConnell's and Scott Walker's of this world are going to force America to relive those very bad old days of our history where human life was as cheap as the wages the plutocrats paid their workers. If you like supporting the big corporate bosses vote for Mitt Romney. I support President Obama.
Thank you Rex. I doubt that people remember or even know about the "bad old days of our history". If they did, they might not be so fast to want to revisit times like that. I too support President Obama which makes your post even more important to me. Obama/Biden2012
No what happend was Mitch McConnell thinks that billionaire donors should be disclosed and then the billonaires called and told him they do not want to be named so naturally Mitch McConnell has always been in favor of anonymous big money donations
Its hard enough to get one out in 9 months!!!! Than all they want to do is get back in!!! Why are they so interested in spelunking because it seems that they want to block the entrance at all costs!
The Bakken in ND has some oil in it. And at $100 a barrel its worth $240.000.000.000 or 2.4 trillion dollars. More info than you need or want to read. But here it is.
http://milliondollarway.blogspot.com/p/faq.html
If it goes to Big Oil, I would rather it stay in the ground.
Mitch McConnell is living proof that with the Republican Party you will get the best government that money can buy.
And we all know what those who sell their souls for money are called.
We have a right to know who is buying the PRESIDENT. We already see Willard is a puppet on a string!!!
Indeed I can see Tea stains on his lapel!
There's only one way I could come close to tolerating anonymous free speech for money:
Then, those candidates who are successfully elected won't know who is wanting to legally bribe them, and they will be more likely to represent We the People instead of the Oligarchs.
Still, I'd rather see the equivalence between money and free speech outlawed, and the equivalence between citizens and corporations restricted to only what is necessary, for legal purposes, in a court of law. The first is Buckley v. Valeo, the second, of course, is Citizens United.
C.C. Either that or all the cash get divided equally between all of the candidates regardless of party. I can guarantee you it would STOP!
I have never done this before. I am a 72 year old retailer/manufacturer in the most rural/
agricultural county of ny state. Also, the most republican cuonty. I have survived a number of politicians that i disagreed with. However, Mitch takes the cake in putting his party before the well-being of the American people. Maybe, he just does not get it. We (a majority of Americans) elected Barack Obama to preside over the country. We expect him and his party to work with our president for the common good. We will decide who the next president is. Mitch, keep your nose out of selecting a new president. Just do your job. I will say that I have as much respect and gratitude for all people of either party that are willing to submit themselves to the scrutinity of public office. I am not a politician disliker. Chuck B
mitch, just do your job.