She's different, she's "one of us"!

She even said in her ad:

A corporatist, war-happy wolf in populist sheep's clothing is still a corporatist, war-happy wolf.

the design?

That's my forte, friend.

See ya over at the creative spec forum.

Hillary wants $2.5 billion.

Way to get money out of politics!

"We have to get money out of politics, even if it takes a Constitutional amendment. Reality Time.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12776799

I mean, doesn't anyone remember all the fun that was had with the old Bush/Cheney logo?





I find it a bit disturbing that her team has such disregard for the 1st Amendment and free political expression.

(although i'll eat my hat if there hasnt been a high level connection between the two from the get-go)

So maybe whoever sent these letters is profoundly clueless in the way these things work, particulalry how satire is a long-protected type of speech particularly in the context of politics.

If they were using a copyrighted image, maybe, but spoofing on a campaign logo or slogan is pretty well-established.

I dont think you can trademark a political logo the way you can trademark a corporate one. Different entity entirely.

And they backed right the fuck down, too, apparently before they could be countersued, which they were about to be.

doesn't care.

Someone really hasn't been paying attention.

a sense of humor? They have an entire country to finish selling to the plutocrats and otherwise destroying and it's serious damn business.

for a long time now. 35 years, at least.

wasn't a legitimate criticism. It pains me to see someone on DU downplaying how bad the 1% has duped us.

should be fought at every turn and/or disregarded at will.

Loyalty oaths. Silencing criticism. Yuck.

Just stay away from making snarky comments about her foreign policy (especially the TPP), her relationship to Wall Street, the contributors to her campaign & PACs, the Clinton Foundation, her vaguely disavowed positions on cutting Social Security, her email system and similar annoying irrelevancies, and we're all gonna get along fine.

I have no clue what this one is about.




These are more clear.

And, that's exactly what they count on: Merry Supreme Court and a very happy "Say hello to President Cruz" to us, every one.

I don't know whether it's terribly funny, terribly sad, or just plain terribly true.

I want one of those buttons. May as well laff for the time being.

In the end, those who do bother to vote win nothing more than a continuation of the system. And, if you`re a citizen interested in REAL change, you`re considered part of the dreaded "fringe" or worse..... a hater.

been talking populism years before anyone heard of Warren. It was very disappointing. However, I am relatively certain McCaskill didn't get her talking points from DU's Hillary Group. Where do you suppose she did get them?

Security etc.

Decades of Wall St workers and investors slowly bending and shaping the rules with the help of paid off politicians to make outright theft successively easier for each ensuing generation of them.
Any restrictions or regulations that could be imposed to restrain the outright looting is fought tooth and nail with the assistance of millions of shareholders all demanding things not only stay the same, but get easier for them.
To the detriment of all living things, to honesty, to democracy, to justice, to the very ability of our climate to sustain us and to the sorrow of those who truly care about those things.

think he had a different definition though. I think he was referring more to the limitations on who got to vote back then - just white male land owners.

Good post.

We're a plutocracy

When you can own a country?

to just run it the way you want them to.

These are the wealthiest times in human history, so more austerity, please.

and real people (no, not corporations)

The Republicans got their justices in...they did their bidding called Citizen's United...now some people are playing the blame game on candidates who have to play by these rules...some better than others... Meanwhile the Republican's are poised to get 2-3 more Supes if we don't stop eating our own.

Put the blame where it should be and fight/blame the Republicans and the Supreme Court (I know...good luck with that) but seems the Democrats are so handy. Please.

and it was sponsored by and for the Rs and the corporations. Just much less complicated back then.

It didn't.

So, I don't know how rhetorical my question was.

bid/beg. You know, the political beauty parade bowing before the cash kings. But then I haven't been watching that much until a very few years ago. Got turned off, although I always voted D.

And that was said years before the Citizens United decision.

The cash kings can wave as much money as they wish. They are not forcing the politicians to be corrupt.

not everything. Just a lot.

In my view CU put the final polish to a system that started to take form under Ronnie Wilson Reagan, and has been a bipartisan effort.

It made the bribery that has long been a part of the process an open, legal, and completely above-board thing. Nothing more.

Last edited Wed Apr 22, 2015, 12:50 PM - Edit history (1)

"If the presidency were to pass back and forth between two or three families in any Latin American nation we would call it an oligarchy"

No, that by itself is not an oligarchy. And Johnson-Nixon-Ford-Carter-Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama-Clinton (the last 10 Presidents assuming Hillary is elected) isn't enough data to make a determination that there is something wrong in the US just because of who has been President. It could be a statistical blip. If we don't get any more Bushes or Clintons for a while after Hillary, it will be an amusing discussion among future historians, but that's it.

Folks who don't want Hillary should find their own candidates and support them, not make up silly arguments against Hillary.

1980-1988: Bush was vice president
1988-1992: Bush was president
1992-2000: Clinton was president
2000-2008: Bush was president
2008-2012: Clinton was secretary of state
2016-2024: Clinton (or bush) likely to be president

Thats a potential 40 years out of the last 44 that a Clinton or a Bush has had a high level role in the white house... that maybe a statistical blip to someone who is currently in their 70s, but to those of us currently in our 30s, it is our entire life experience.

To us, 30-40 years is forever. To the rest of the world, that is nothing. And it's only 30-40 years if we include time by folks spent as Vice President and Secretary of State and that is pushing it.

For the people in the Middle East, the Crusades are still recent enough to be a big deal, even though the last one ended over 700 years ago now.

This is not a big deal.

Wait.. no I don't. As I said, its MY entire life experience. Way to bring the 700+ year old crusades up as a false analogy to my statement of what has happened in the 80's, 90's, 2000's.

And to imply the VP and the secretary of state don't play a role in foreign and domestic politics is just being obtuse. Try again

The idea that my forming a search committee for candidates and raising the millions, if not billions, it will take to make them even mildly competitive is my only option is hilarious. So is whoever made that a talking point for Hillary's camp. Almost as hilarious as her campaigning on getting money out of politics.

Oligarchy, plutocracy, nepotism, dynasty, who cares? Semantics is not the point. No more Bush. No more Clinton.

oligarchy

1.
a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.
2.
a state or organization so ruled.
3.
the persons or class so ruling.

We are ruled by 1%...that's government by the few, in my opinion. Our politicians are forced to participate in that in order to run the government. IOW, regardless of who gets there, they play by the same set of rules, are generally funded by the same billionaires, voting is often rigged especially with the new digital machines, voter's rights are under successful attack, Citizen's United has legalized political bribery, and they play like they pass the baton back and forth to keep the unwashed masses (i.e. Jonathon Livingston Seagull) scrambling for the leftovers. And now that unions are almost gone....

Another word for Oligarchy, in my lexicon, is Banana Republic.

Cuba, for instance, could stay ruled by the Castros and their descendants forever and remain Socialist.

and it's so-and-so's turn...usually the first son and then down the bloodline.

It's totally egregious in terms of the wife of a former President. Especially for Democrats.

Benjamin Harrison and John Quincy Adams.

It really doesn't happen very often.

And a spouse is not genetically related anyway, in the end it's going to the Rodham family.

He would make a great Secretary of Defense.

O'Malley worked for his Presidential campaign in 1984 (Me too!) and they are friends.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/04/23/gary-hart-says-he-would-support-a-martin-omalley-presidential-bid/

but the academic information on this is at this point, undeniable. We are in a deep crisis of democracy.

Our elections have been run the same way for 200+ years. No one otherwise eligible is ineligible due to family ties either. Plus the Presidency is not all powerful or identical to top Latin American posts.

What about the Kennedys who are in Congress? Or were in the Senate? That should be a problem too.

Regardless of what else may be said about him.

But hey, if Gary wants jump on this meme to make himself relevant...go for it.

It's not really an oligarchy. It's an abomination of the proper use of a Republic. Our American Republic assumed we would have objective newspapers properly keeping us informed about the activities of our elected officials. But they don't. They take sides and they report information in a manner that will not impede the interests of the status quo. Unfortunately, our newspapers are more attached to business interests than we would like them to be.

Because the average voter is not given the information he or she needs to make the proper choice, our election system has become stagnant and is now easily usurped by money interests.

Our "Republic" is not functioning as it should be. It has been gamed. How it was derailed can best be seen in the way the concept passed on into our private communities. What we find is that founding documents, which were meant to protect individual rights, are continually ignored as the community leaders bond with outside networks that are committed to objectives that have absolutely nothing to do with the original intent of our community's constitutions.

In sum, if you want to usurp the rights of the many, create boards where the leaders can easily be bought and/or controlled.

You won't find new blood under this format, because it's not just a wilful government system you're fighting against.