Maybe you shouldn't be talking about "billions of dollars in donations" when you have.... $500.

It's about REALISTIC GOALS, REALISTIC AIMS, and A PLAN OF ACTION.

You don't have any of them.

Still waiting for you to point out to me when "Big Money" started EXACTLY.

"I left my job to make this a priority and will be working as a volunteer for the next few months. If Voucher Vendetta is growing or successful by then I will need to draw a survival sized salary ( a few hundred dollars per week ) or return to my old job. Please don’t make me return to my old job. I would much prefer working for you. While I don’t expect to ever approach this amount, I will never take more than 100 thousand dollars per year ( peanuts by political consultant compensation ) even if Voucher Vendetta were to receive hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in contributions because I want your money to be used for Voucher Vendetta. ( If Voucher Vendetta is successful I expect I may have the opportunity to cash in personally on the back end with a book deal or something along those lines."

It sounds to me like not only is your idea bad, but before it's even off the ground you quit your job? Already talking about how YOU might get rich off the idea?

Come on.

With the slimmest of majorities, they are trying to ram through the most partisan agenda in recent history, openly abusing procedures for their own political gain.

"You don't have a mandate" is something you say to reasonable people.

We all know they didn't intend to be reasonable.

More later...

:-)

-CW

Excellent point, because while perhaps not as severe as the Moore example, this is indeed the type of choice many face in each and every election.

-CW

The Who put it best, I think:

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The whole song is a post-revolutionary prayer that the same mistakes don't get made once again... "the parting on the left / is now parting on the right"... the lyrics hold up as a universal statement, much like Pink Floyd's "Us And Them," really.

-CW

You bring up a good point. Bill Clinton was hounded -- after both elections -- in the media for "not having a mandate" because he didn't manage to get over 50% of the vote. Obama did manage to do so, so he never got the question.

But why hasn't anyone made this case about Trump? "You have no real mandate, Mr. President!"

Hadn't really thought about it before seeing your comment.

-CW

Nice rebuttal. Although Goldwater, in his declining years, did come out for legalization of marijuana and laid out a purely conservative case for doing so (getting the gubmint outta people's lives!), so I have to at least minimally give him credit for that (this was in the 1980s, when NOBODY else was standing up for marijuana legalization).

But you're right, on everything else, he was pretty cringeworthy.

:-)

-CW

Wow... a Goldwater fan here? So I have to ask, what did you think about Jeff Flake ripping off Goldwater's book's title?

:-)

-CW

Did you see this, about a (different?) Gary Cohn speech?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/14/why-arent-the-other-hands-up-a-top-trump-advisers-startling-response-to-ceos-not-doing-what-hed-expect/?utm_term=.e58108fda98d

President Trump's top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, looked out from the stage at a sea of CEOs and top executives in the audience Tuesday for the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council meeting. As Cohn sat comfortably onstage, a Journal editor asked the crowd to raise their hands if their company plans to invest more if the tax reform bill passes.

The president and his senior team have kept saying that the tax plan would unleash business investment in the United States — new factories, more equipment and more jobs. But, perhaps as the informal poll suggested, there are reasons to be doubtful that a great business investment boom would materialize.

This is an audience of freakin' CEOs, and even they are not that excited about the tax cuts!

-CW

No, no, it means the gentrification of the Russian influence on our elections... (heh)... that's why all those tony borscht restaurants have been popping up in all the high-end suburbs all of a sudden!

(couldn't resist... heh)

:-)

Don Harris [13] -

When it comes to voting for Big Money Democrats and Republicans it has been thirty years of fool me once, shame on the people that weren't fooled and I will keep voting for you no matter how many times you fool me.

You're slipping, dude. Only 30 years? Really? Here's some things to look up to bolster your own case:

trust-busting, Teddy Roosevelt
railroad barons, eg. Leland Stanford
the original Progressive movement
The Grange movement
the origin (related to above) of ballot initiatives
Boss Tweed, Tammany Hall
The DFL Party (still active in upper midwest)
the "patronage" system (pre-dates the civil service system)

Money's been corrupting our politics for a LOT longer than three decades, that's for sure. It is only (temporarily, in limited fashion) overcome when the people have truly had enough. That's where you and I probably see 100% eye-to-eye, I'd bet.

-CW

Wow, I hadn't even though of "Moore's Law." Man, we could have all kinds of fun with that!

Let's see... Moore's Law: the acceptibility of previoiusly-disqualifying (and downright dehumanizing) qualities of a Republican candidate will double with every 300 days Trump spends in office.

Heh. Man, there's all kinds of ways to have fun with that!

[Note: for non-computer-geek types, here is the real Moore's Law]

:-)

-CW

You have NO evidence that 'Big money" is the source of the problem.

You have NO evidence that "Small Money" candidates would be any better.

Without evidence to show those things, "Big Money" is a bad metric to judge a candidate on.

Their voting record is literally the only thing that should matter.

So, you're admitting you're a troll then.

It is not an average idea. It is a poorly reasoned bad idea that will not supress big money influence. Small donor money is a tiny fraction of the total. Most voters never donate a dime to to anybody. They have no decisive financial hold on the parties their only decisive power is showing up to vote. Big money will be delighted if they stay home and don't vote, or cast a protest vote. If you had bothered to do some elementary research you would know this and factor it into your model. If you knew enough or bothered to game your idea with real data you would conclude your concept not merely flawed, but dangerous. Who are holding hostage? The average voters you pretend to protect. Your idea is similar to holding your breath if you don't get ice cream. Mom knows you are going to breath. Holding your breath is dramatic but not decisive.

Get your own blog. Oh, right you have one, but hardly anybody goes there. So, you use piggy back on this blog. Free advertising for your web site, which solicits donations. There is a rank odor to that.

You are a species of troll. I don't know why you bother. Do you crave attention? Is this some bizzaro performance art? A bar bet? Mental illness? Doesn't matter. Go away. You clutter the comments. I usually block you, but that leaves all the comments to your comments that make for a lot of scrolling on a small screen . This cheapens my morning coffee ritual, which is a damn shame, but nothing more.

I leave you with a piece of wisdom from my late mother: "What the hell is wrong with you. Straighten up and fly right."

If you look at Bernie's Senate campaigns, I bet you'd call him a "Big Money Independent"

Also, you didn't respond to my point about it being the decisions they make, not the money they take, that matters.

I would vote for a politician in a second if they took a million dollars from some CEO and then voted directly against them, says "I'll take your money, but I vote how I vote."

I'm pretty sure it was Clinton and his economic policies that leaned to the right (designed to capture upper middle class white voters and to undercut the GOP's main talking point)

With the economic ground cut out from under them, the GOP combined fantasy economics (the only place they could go after Democrats basically agreed with them) and red-meat social issues.

But all of this started in the 90's.

When exactly did "Big Money Democrats" begin? Who was the first?

I'm pretty sure Senators have basically always been "Big Money" especially considering popular election of Senators is relatively new.

Again, you don't actually listen. YOU have decided that "Big Money" is the MAIN issue.

It's just not.

You, in your own words, call yourself an average person.

Consider this; perhaps your idea is merely average, and needs to be refined with thoughts from others.

You never once responded to the IMPORTANT parts of my argument; that there's no proof that "Big Money Democrats" would be replaced with anything better.

And maybe CW has not provided his reasons/excuses for not writing about One Demand because he has seen how spectacularly you have all failed using the arguments that he would use.

Have you perchance considered that CW saw how spectacularly you failed when you stated that Buddy Roemer had won multiple elections to Congress and LA governor as a Democrat and Repulican when a quick search of FEC records that a child could perform proved that this was untrue, that you didn't do your homework and just believed the rhetoric versus the easily searchable reality, and that Buddy Roemer actually ran only one campaign using that type formula and failed spectacularly in the doing it?

Or maybe CW has not provided his "reasons/excuses" because he quite simply is smarter than the rest of us and simply abstained from feeding a once decent poster who decided to turn troll.

Maybe. :)

Bernie did not win the primary but came close enough to show it's possible.

No, Don. Bernie didn't even remotely come close. He got his ass blown out on Super Tuesday and stayed in the race with almost no chance of winning it; that is a statistical FACT. I blame the California primary and that rich delegate count sitting at the end of primary season for this quite predictable conundrum, same as happened with HRC and BHO with the exception that they were actually neck and neck until the end.

The great State of California making their move to early in the primary cycle circa March 2020 should nip that utter nonsense right square in the bud, and that would also be an interesting column for CW to ponder and offer his thoughts {please, CW... hint, hint}. :)

https://i1.wp.com/bhamnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/e6897835f5ac075ffbfc1f9028636e9c.jpg?w=407&ssl=1

Spot on, TS.

The New Yorker article about the Gadsden ban has been independently corroborated by other news sources. Additiional common knowedge. In the 80's, Moore was the Maurice Chevaliar of Alabama! I think his Senate bid is about to implode. There seems to be an awful lot of common knowledge making a break for freedom of information. Time for Moore to make sure the old passport is valid and to Google "countries with weak US extradition treaties"

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-healthiest-state-in-the-country-has-some-of-the-steepest-premiums/

Just when they thought this would all get easier...

Interesting article -- basically has "off the record" recollections by several people that Roy Moore had been banned from the local mall because he was known to hang around there trying to pick up teenaged girls. Not PROOF but appears to have been something lots of people knew or believed -- this was back in the 1980's. Also notes Moore was not popular in this town -- Gadsden, where he grew up and was Assistant DA for awhile -- during the primary.

We've now updated the story with @ByronTau's great catch: @realDonaldTrump tweeted about the release of Podesta's emails *15 minutes* after @Wikileaks wrote to @DonaldJTrumpJr about it. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-secret-correspondence-between-donald-trump-jr-and-wikileaks/545738/ …

Pence denied anyone in the campaign was in contact with wikileaks. The emails in this story put an end to that claim.

See photo:

https://am13.akamaized.net/med/cnt/uploads/2017/11/Roy-Moore-Gun-650x488.jpg

If it ever gets to court. Moore is playing his cards very close to his drugstore cowboy vest.

You've got to know when to hold 'em*
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done

* Earl Haffler (confusion) "We're talking about people, right?" - Seinfeld

Moore has never categorically denied the pedo accusations, he just uses legalese to assert that he can't recall his committing inconveniently criminal behavior.

Mooreover, he is inconsistent about assessing the credibility of individual witnesses, credible when it helps him, not credible when they don't. Works on TV, but wouldn't hold up as well in court with cross examination etc. Moore seems to know Alabama political sensibilities very well*.

To borrow from an Addams Family flick:

"You're a lady killer Judge!"

"Not convicted!"

I don't know precisely when wikileaks went bad, but it went bad.

Why Don? How does that make her story any more or less credible? There were thirty corroborating statements given to the Washington Post the first time. Is that not enough smoke to suspect fire?

Moreover, other statements have been given to Huffpo and other outlets that it was 'well known' that Moore had a predilection for dating teenagers at the time. Then there's Moore's own damning statement that some of his dates were young enough that he had to ask the permission of their parents to take them out.

It doesn't matter whether he's actually Chester the Molester or not; the point is that he's a rank hypocrite who judges and lambasts others for their supposed moral failings while excusing and covering up his own. That alone should disqualify him.

Establishment GOP is already running from Moore, but then they never liked him. It's going to be a deplorable vs. establishment fight, of sorts. But if yet more women come forward -- which I expect -- I don't think Moore will survive it.

Go Doug Jones!

And she voted for Trump.

So, if a candidate is funded by $201 donations, does that make them "Big Money"? I'm just trying to narrow down your definition of big money. Do you have one?

Those are bullshit questions because I have already provided proof that One Demand can work that you refuse to accept and try to dispute with conventional political wisdom that is no longer valid. And because you can't dispute the evidence you resort to avoiding the thirty years of evidence with a demand for proof that is unattainable.

I can't dispute what you have yet to provide...

Just like a demand for absolute proof of climate change.

Not that I am asking for such, but considering you are taking an absolutist approach to big money, I think absolute proof is close to what you should provide.

And maybe CW has not provided his reasons/excuses for not writing about One Demand because he has seen how spectacularly you have all failed using the arguments that he would use.

A true a legend in your own mind...

RE your web page

I have none of the credentials normally listed in a bio. No degrees, no years of running a successful business and no experience in political campaigns or activism. I am simply an average person that has been working and living at survival mode. But I have the only credentials that I believe really matters. I am a citizen and I have an idea that may improve our political system.

Not much of an endorsement....there hundreds of millions of US citizens in survival mode with ideas...some of which are downright scary.

Total Participants 10

A groundswell of 10 participants! A typical Girl Scout sells more boxes of cookies than this! Would I recognize any of your supporter's names...or does their bio read much like your bio.

Money Pledged to Candidates in 2018 $465

Not a lot of investors.

You have been going to the public since roughly 2015. Your idea is not catching on. A normal, rational, person would think, "hmm...this is not going anywhere...there MUST be something wrong with my idea.. or at the very least, my something is wrong with how I am pitching it. Perhaps I should step out of the limelight and do some retooling."

What is your definition of "Big Money"? If a candidate runs their campaign on $300 or $500 or $2000 donations are they still "Big Money"? How about candidates that run their campaigns on large individual donations that are not connected to business?

Secondly you toss out "proven" and "evidence clearly suggests" when it really doesn't. Bernie lost. Your other candidate who actually ran a $100 donation campaign not only lost but got beaten by "no preference" in the Iowa Caucus.

There is a mountain of difference between polls indicating that big money is a problem and taking your idea as the only answer. You need to prove that your idea is the right one instead of getting definitive. Show me the money trail between "big money" politicians and the legislation it paid for. Show me evidence that the lower the level of money in the campaign, the better the candidates participating. These are not "bullshit" questions. They are what you have to answers for if you want CW to take you seriously. If you want to go beyond ten supporters and ZERO participating candidates...

Your "I am rubber you are glue" argument doesn't cut it past the 4th grade.

Here is something that might change my mind: a list of people who have endorsed your idea - with links to their endorsements. Good ideas tend to get gather support. You - not so much.

BOTH statements are 100% true, and there ain't neither "more" true, 'cause 100% is as true as you can get!

But you ARE doing my stmt, and I am NOT doing yours.

I do NOT expect them to "stop representing big money interests", I fully expect that they WONT stop! And I don't necessarily condemn all 'big money interests', many of them are legitimate, and I have to hope that most of the illegitimate ones don't get enacted.

Definitely not the most nearly ideal situation, but a totally realistic one!

And I question the legitimacy of your 'evidence' that it is possible to make a go of it with only small money. You have to be talking about Bernie Sanders, and I think his type would be even worse for the country than the "big money" guys.

"That's a terrible idea, and all you're going to do is get yourself killed without helping accomplishing anything productive"

AKA "committing suicide to avoid being killed."

Just ignore the one note mating call of the Crankus domesticus.

You sure your name isn't really Don Q (as in Quixote)? Your quest for getting big money out of politics is beyond Utopian, somewhere into unreality.

Your only (slim) hope would be to have congress enact public campaign funding, while simultaneously outlawing private campaign donations (aka bribes). Obvious problem is, politicians don't go into politics to serve their fellow men, they go into politics to GET RICH, and the current system best achieves that goal.

You are actually, in a forum that includes mostly Democrats, trying to encourage democrats to only support candidates that can't compete financially.

Moreover, you only ever say "Big Money Democrats" and not "Big Money Democrats and Republicans". Truth is, if I ever find a Republican that can't be called a 'Big Money Republican' I'll kiss you square on the mouth, because such a thing exists in nature in about the same quantity as obsidian colored red polka-dotted bunny rabbits.

We have wasted enough time discussing and dissecting your hopeless and counter-productive plan. Well, I have.

There will always be some amount of corruption and self-dealing; the key is that they need to be effective.

And no, you don't listen.

You're acting just like the crazy people on Redstate in their comments who insist Mitch McConnell is trying to bring down the GOP because he's in the pocket of Soros.

"Big Money" is not a pure binary decision, and people here don't "defend" them; we would ALL like a decrease in lobbyist and campaign contributions.

When we point out the flaws in your reasoning, we're not "defending" them, we're pointing out the flaws in your reasoning and trying to explain the reasons we think it's both a bad idea to push it, and doomed to failure.

If there's a ship full of people and the boat is on fire, and you want to swim out there by yourself with no equipment, I'll tell you "That's a terrible idea, and all you're going to do is get yourself killed without helping accomplishing anything productive"

It's the same here. We agree with your goals; but your tactics, methods and expectations just are unrealistic.

You do understand that the fall of the GOP establishment has led to a revival in the right-wing extremism, and is a large part of why our government is shutting down?

You're assuming that getting rid of the "big money Democrats" is in and of itself a good thing.

This is predicated upon the assumption that their replacements will be better.

With something the size of the US government, changes should occur gradually.

Otherwise you get erratic swings as people react and over-react to increasingly large changes in how things work.

Absolutism has no place in democracies.

The GOP can't claim, either, that the problem was 'inherited' from the Democrats as it's now well-established that Nixon threw a wrench into an imminent Peace Deal even before he took office in 1968, convincing the South Vietnamese that they could get a better deal from a Nixon administration/

It's true that a helluva lot of the Vietnam insanity happened before LBJ took it over. You can go clear back to the French involvement while spreading blame, but bottom line, likely 85,000 of the total 86,000 American lives wasted in that hell hole over there were his doing. Goldwater never would have been that dumb, in spite of being against outlawing nukes, or whatever.

Don, while I totally agree with what you are saying, I think that is trying to pigeonhole it into too stark of a black vs white terms.

If my "realistic" choice is voting for the big money Democrat, or voting for the Republican pedophile, and I vote for a third party small donor candidate instead, and because of my vote, the Republican pedophile gets into office when I could have prevented that by changing my vote, than I am just as complicit that he got into office as they people who voted for him in the first place. So you can better believe that, at least in the short run, I am going to vote for the big money Democrat in order to prevent that from happening, with the complete knowledge of what I am doing.

Sometimes the lesser of two evils is the better choice.

I think that unfairly singles out the United States. It's really a problem for the whole Western World. After all, Le Pen garnered 34 percent of the vote in France, and the far right Freedom party managed to secure 27 percent of the vote in Austria, as just two examples. It's only because of the peculiar nature of the American electoral college system that Trump became President while getting only 46 percent of the popular vote.

Historically, Hitler never got more than 44 percent of the vote in Germany.

I think a few things need clearing up.

1.) LBJ didn't start the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war, John Kennedy did that.

2.) It was Congress which passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution giving the President the power to wage unlimited war.

3.) It was LBJ who supported and pushed Civil Rights legislation through Congress, and America is better for it. Barry Goldwater never would have done that. Goldwater was all about states rights.

4.) The "statesman" Goldwater was opposed to both the nuclear test ban treaty and the Hot Line between the White House and the Kremlin, both of which made the world infinitely safer.

5.) It was Nixon who vastly expanded and escalated the war after running on a platform to end it.

But I agree, there are a lot of Americans out there who are very gullible. (Hillary Clinton should have used that term, instead of the unfortunate "deplorable" comment.) Do they constitute a plurality? Unfortunately yes, a lot of the time. Are they a majority? Thankfully no. I just happen to disagree somewhat about just when, where, and who exemplifies they have fallen victim to a carnival barker con man. But at least we can apparently agree that Trump definitely fits the bill.

"What family did their values come from?"

Borgia?

The Republicans have chosen to treat this as a public relations problem. It will come back to bite them. WAPO stumbled upon the story only because it was common knowledge among the locals. More details are sure to surface.

"The chair recognizes the Pedophile from the great State of Alabama." Say it loud wear it proud, see where it gets you.

But it's the old story of some people being capable of being fooled "all of the time", and all people capable of being fooled "some of the time".

Well, 1964 and 2016 turned out to be instances where the "some of the timers" were in the majority.

They've got one-party hegemony, in all branches, both at the federal level and in most states.

In a minimally sane and decent country, no candidate even remotely resembling Trump would be able to get double digits in the primaries of any significant party, let alone actually win a major-party nomination. Certainly, in no country capable of democratic self-rule could such a candidate come close enough to actually winning for the peculiarities of the electoral college combined with a feasible level of voter suppression to tip the election to him.

The voters -- the people actually to blame for Trump -- haven't been thrown out of office in the past two years. And until they are, democracy is not an option.

Well that settles it.

Trump also dissed the heads of the intelligence agencies under Obama. "They're hacks," says the President who appointed a bartender to be Asst. Secretary of Agriculture.

Trump has lately been pushing an alternative theory that Clinton hacked the DNC, in a desperate attempt to make herself lose the election. Last week it was reported that Trump sent the head of the CIA to interview an author who claims to have discovered the incredible plot, and swears to Alex Jones that he didn't make the whole thing up.

Meanwhile, Gary Cohn, the leading White House economic adviser and former chief operating officer at Goldman Sachs, says the super-rich are super-psyched about the new GOP tax plan: “The most excited group out there are big CEOs,” Cohn bragged to CNBC. Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), himself a millionaire, said on Tuesday that the rich are even getting pushy about it. “My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again,’” said Collins, who will definitely call again.

Oh to be a fly on the wall when they tell all this to someone just waking up from a four year coma.

Have you seen how that's working out for the Republicans?

We're tired of hearing your repeated bashing of anyone who doesn't kow-tow to your specific demands.

It's not worth debating with you because you don't listen.

If, as you say, Americans are too dumb to catch on to a scam, what is the point of your OneDemand Concept/Crusade? If the voting public is too dumb to recognize the big money contribution scam, then you have cut through the plank of your own hobby horse. OD is doomed to fail. Maybe you should move on to a new project?

Never mind Putin's anger-bots and troll farms - they've got nothin' on Fox News and right wing radio for whippin up discord and base emotion.

Didya see how friendly Putin & Trump were to each other at the summit? I'd bet that a few of Trump's wives, past and present, were feeling just a bit jealous. But then, if Donald wants to hold hands, Putin won't slap his away like Melania does.

Sadly, this actually seems to be the case of many average Republican voters in Alabama. Of the interviews done and reporter's comments that I have seen, they don't care that he's now an accused child molester, they will vote for him anyway because they still see a Democrat as the bigger enemy. To me, that's totally shocking and I can't understand that mindset at all. One can only hope that enough of Moore's supporters will lose their enthusiasm and stay home and not vote at all on election day to give Doug Jones just enough of an edge to squeak out a victory.

All it indicates is the the Russians were primarily interested in the U.S. Presidential election and in gaining power and influence in Washington and the White House.

Turn the question around.

If you were Americans, would you be interested in influencing the leadership in the Kremlin? Or in some local province out in Siberia?

To summarize in his own seedy vernacular: Trump has been royally "cucked." Not for the first time in his life mind you - Trump is serial cuck-up. This time, to paraphrase Truman: The Cuck Stops Here.*

* I Googled this phrase - it has been "a thing" for a while now. Cuck-up Googles up nil.

-CW

I'm still really bummed at the news of the untimely demise of the @FirstCatofNZ...

:-(

-CW