That's it. Congress is officially BROKEN.

Let's face it: in 1776, the fact that money could be used to influence politicians didn't really seem like that big a deal. Unfortunately, 200+ years later, it's destroyed Congress: the politicians are voting in bills that no one in the country wants just because lobbyists have unofficially taken over the congressional system!

Unfortunately, as much as we'd like it, the congresspeople have no choice; if a powerful lobbying group says "So what if voting 'yes' on this bill screws over 300 million people? If you vote yes, we'll give you ten million dollars. If you dare to vote 'no' however, we'll throw all our support behind your opponent in the next election; remember, we're rich, so if you lose us, you're screwed!"

We need to flat-out overhaul the system:

-SEVERELY limit lobbying power: no lobbyist group may spend more than, say, $10,000 a year on ANY monies, hard or soft,
-no more of these "fly out a half-dozen congresspeople and spend a half-million apiece on expensive gifts" shits,
-Massively regulate and force lobbyists to record down all gifts over a $1 value; failing to do so will cause lobbying abilities to be revoked for one year

Stuff like that. But, unfortunately, we're just the "Joe Averages"; we don't count for shit because we don't donate millions to Congress.

Until the world quits its addiction to money, we are never gonna see the money stop flowing.

The republicans have won.

If we decide to fight we might be able to save the Nation.

on edit: meant to write plutocracy but no big diff.

should be a Democratic rallying cry. Just like the GOP's constant 'promise' to not raise taxes. We must restore some honesty to government.

Two things have changed. We are more aware of it and are able to track it much more accurately in real time. The elites perpetrating these deeds are much more in your face about it than in the past. They don't mind letting us know because they are confident that there isn't a damned thing we can do about it. Best case they figure is we will simply switch from their elites to our elites, in the end changing little.

A true progressive change will really upset that particular apple cart which is why they are so opposed to that taking place.

on what they are supposed to say is scary, the Pentagon should not be writing policy, they
can advise, provided factual documentation but they should not be running our congress.

The media went away then as well. Remember how they would show up like hungry little birdies at Whirehouse press conferences? The media sat silent as a government on the purchase system took hold.