"According to Bachus, that means Republicans aren't really in charge in Washington. "You can wipe that thought from your mind," he said. "Democrats are in control of the presidency and the Senate. It would take 67 votes to override any veto.""

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/201...l-of-the-senate

Really, I don't care. Time for this partisan bickering to end. Many folks are like me, they vote for the best person, and seldom vote the party line on anything. I voted about 60/40, as I usually do. Sometimes D's are the majority, other times R's.

Time to move forward and fix the country instead of bitching and pointing fingers.

Yup DF you hit it. Second is one D ( West Virgina ) and the Blue Dogs have said nope no more. The D's have give or take 6 votes less than the number on paper and blindly following Harry the Pied Piper is all done. On the R side same way. Rand Paul and others aren't going no place and the stupid idea, we won you loose, factor will not rule. Two Senators are independents and the D's have a whole bunch of seats up in the next election and the R's a few which has a lot to do with what happens also.

It is interesting though that hard core Libs & Conservatives don't seem to get it. Last time we did not vote a blank check to the Lib D's but rather threw the bum R's out. Well the D's did not get the picture and went nuts sooooooooooo, we threw the D bums out but that does not mean we endorse the hard right R BS.

Question is will both sides get the message that the 50% of the country that does buy either sides bs will throw them out again if the make a mess out of things.

R's have already said they will not budge. Not even sworn in yet.

Again, more finger pointing. I don't care who is pointing fingers, politicians, fishermen, bankers, or anybody. Stop it. Blamestorming will get us nowhere. If you are pointing fingers, saying "Look what they did or won't do!" you are part of the problem as much as the politicians are.

So much divisiveness. It isn't good.

novel idea Andy, I'm liken you more and more and more. Just wish someone other than the common joe could figure that [censored] out.

Power corrupts and money doesn't have a conscience. Combined they make for decisions that only be understood by following the money.

Until campaign reform rules are in place to remove money from the process, we are going to get what we have now.
Candidates saying what ever is nessessary to convince voters, then when elected they serve the interrsts that paid them.

Amen!

"Until campaign reform rules are in place to remove money from the process, we are going to get what we have now."

That will require a constitutional amendment that eqauls a complete rewrite of the 1st amendment. It simply will not happen.

Freespool, you and Dave are delusional if you think that will make ANY difference. Even if all campaigns were self funded by those running, the winner will still pander to those who shower them with borderline legal vacations, sweetheart deals, and the promise of well paying lobbying jobs after they are out of office.

So we've never amended our Constitution?
Who's really against campaign reform?
Is it bipartisan, or does follow a particular parties believes?

Are you really that stupid?
I suggest doing some research into what campagin reform legislation is being considered.

"So we've never amended our Constitution?
"

That is not at issue what is at issue is are we willing to limit free speech and what case law precedent do we have to make the argument for that limit? Zero zip nada or less.

If buying an election, or a politician is considered free speech, then by all means amend the Consitution.

Freespool, only you are stupid enough to believe that gutting our constitution because YOU don't like it, will help. Quit pretending your intelligent, my dogs chit is smarter than you.

I have often wondered that myself AM. Find one jacka$$ to argue it and five other jacka$$es to buy it and you have law straight from the bench. Way to go SCOTUS......your number one!

There are already laws on the books limiting what we consider free speech: hate speech, yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theater, etc. There are also currently laws on the books limiting how much one may give to an individual candidate. The precendence is already there, it's the ethics that are missing.

AM, so if I want to donate 1k to Susan G Koman ( aside from the CEO making 500k+ a year in salary, and the foundation giving money to planned parenthood when it's well documented that having an abortion increases chances of breast cancer) I don't have the right as either freedom of speech or freedom of expression yo do so? I don't see that as an extreme stance. Don't we exercise our point of view with our pocket books all the time? I don't buy Levis because they are anti 2nd amendment, maybe you don't shop at Walmart because you feel it hurts small business. Why should we be prohibited from exercising our free speech or expression with money?

The difference is these are government employees (our employees) who are legally on the take.
Charities, Levi's or Wal Mart aren't working for us.

Don't forget that prior to Dred Scott the supremes held slavery to be legal. What the supremes consider legal at one time may be somethng diffrent at another.

As others have mentioned the supremes have already held certain types of speech illegal they can just as well uphold campaign contribution limits. One more supreme court vacancy could change it all. Two of the current crop are 74 plus.

I'm surprised it isn't yet legal to "donate" to supreme court judges.

Why is there a difference? Why shouldn't I have the right to contribute to the candidate who I believe will represent my views or interests? So no supporting anti gillnet politicians?

Of all the proposed legislation to remove the ability of money being the deciding factor in politics.
This top down concept seems fair to all candidates, and still allows Bait Dunker the option of contributing.



Voting with Dollars
The Voting with Dollars plan would establish a system of modified public financing coupled with an anonymous campaign contribution process. It has two parts: patriot dollars and the secret donation booth. It was originally described in detail by Yale Law School professors Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres in their 2004 book Voting with Dollars: A new paradigm for campaign finance[1]. All voters would be given a $50 publicly funded voucher (Patriot dollars) to donate to federal political campaigns. All donations including both the $50 voucher and additional private contributions, must be made anonymously through the FEC. Ackerman and Ayres include model legislation in their book in addition to detailed discussion as to how such a system could be achieved and its legal basis.

Of the Patriot dollars (e.g. $50 per voter) given to voters to allocate, they propose $25 going to presidential campaigns, $15 to Senate campaigns, and $10 to House campaigns. Within those restrictions the voucher can be split among any number of candidates for any federal race and between the primary and general elections. At the end of the current election cycle any unspent portions of this voucher would expire and could not be rolled over to subsequent elections for that voter. In the context of the 2004 election cycle $50 multiplied by the approximately 120 million people who voted would have yielded about $6 billion in “public financing” compared to the approximate $4 billion spent in 2004 for all federal elections (House, Senate and Presidential races) combined [2]. Ackerman and Ayers argue that this system would pool voter money and force candidates to address issues of importance to a broad spectrum of voters. Additionally they argue this public finance scheme would address taxpayers' concerns that they have "no say" in where public financing monies are spent, whereas in the Voting with Dollars system each taxpayer who votes has discretion over their contribution.

The second aspect of the system increases some private donation limits, but all contributions must be made anonymously through the FEC. In this system, when a contributor make a donation to a campaign they send their money to the FEC indicating which campaign they want it to go to. The FEC masks the money and distributes it directly to the campaigns in randomized chunks over a number of days. Ackerman and Ayres compare this system to the reforms adopted in the late 19th century aimed to prevent vote buying, which led to our current secret ballot process. Prior to that time voting was conducted openly, allowing campaigns to confirm that voters cast ballots for the candidates they had been paid to support. Ackerman and Ayres contend that if candidates do not know for sure who is contributing to their campaigns they are unlikely to take unpopular stances to court large donors which could jeopardize donations flowing from voter vouchers. Conversely, large potential donors will not be able to gain political access or favorable legislation in return for their contributions since they cannot prove to candidates the supposed extent of their financial support.

Your money is equal to your voice in regards to elections. There will never be a legal case of any merit make it out of the SCOTUS to reverse that belief, There will never be an amendment to the constitution on that issue.