Got Another Stamp and How Often Will I Post?

About two weeks ago, the package of my second Stamp Stampede stamp came to my mail box.

Along with that, a coupon for free Ben & Jerry ice cream and a textbook I need for next week.

Let's get dough out of ice cream!

And the editor of Columbia Daily Tribune mailed me back about the Citizens United editorial and suggested me to revise it shorter. (They published it eventually, and I got some comments written by right-wing trolls who just want things business as usual. Cowards).

Then there was one time I try to encourage Catholic priest to join the causes (coincidentally, this year is not only the fifth anniversary of Citizens United case, but also the forty-second anniversary of Roe v. Wade), but I'm worried if that would cross the separation of church and state line, so instead I try to make a compelling case of why Catholics need to concern on this issue just as much as abortion.

Another big story related to Citizens United case was last week, The Undercurrent (one of The Young Turks' partner channel) released the video of protesters stood up to the Supreme Court justices and got arrested for disrupting inside the the Supreme Court. (you can see the video down here)

And..... that's all I could say. Some of you may wondering why I haven't post anything for a week. First of all: college stuffs. Second of all: I am a lazy son of a bitch. Because of these, I will update this blog bi-weekly rather than once in every week as you might have expected.

In fact, this bi-weekly schedule could give me some times to research Missouri politic. More later, I could write more posts about how dysfunctional Missouri politic is. 

See you soon.

State of The Union 2015 - Establishment Strikes Back

Update: You know I could have make more comments - like where the fuck is Justice Scalia, Thomas, Alito etc. And also this I Spy game I invented before President Obama comes in. 

(at first)

On January 20th Tuesday, President Barack Obama gave a State of the Union address at the House of Congress. He listed out his past achievements during presidency (like partially-ending War on Afghanistan), and talked about expanding middle class economics, making community college free, building more infrastructures, bringing more innovations, etc. He even quoted Pope Francis on the Cuban diplomacy. 

On the podium, this was the 2008 Obama we have admired long time ago. The same Obama we have all promised to - the one many conservatives scorned while many liberals cheered.

On top of that, he asked the congress to play "a better politic" without demonizing each other. He asked them to stop focusing on constant fundraising and false hysteria. No more partisanship - he asked all to spend more time lifting young people up and make worthy debate in the house. 

Unlike the State of the Union address from few years ago, he did not mentioned Citizens United. He may have mentioned "constant fundraising", but he did not mentioned what actually made the politic in Washington a 24/7 fist-fight (in War Room style) starring rejected Looney Tune characters. 

The President embraced future and hopes people can united each other in another year. He ended a speech with a fierce comeback line "I have no more campaigns to run. I know, 'cause I won both of them". 

President Obama hoped us that we could work together. Sure, we could work together. Even in this movement where we try to get dark money out of Washington - something that the President wanted to do but neglected often.

How right-wingers (and some progressives) really view him now.

Are there more? At least we have a Republican Senator from Iowa rebutted the President's address in Stepfordian language. 

Joni Ernst, ladies and gentlemen - a pin-up poster girl for 1950s conservatives. (Judging by her military background, she could be one of those machines sent from the future to kill John Connor!)

Just How Much I Support Campaign Finance Reform?

Virginia Choi, one of the bloggers for stampstampede.org, sent me an email and asked me some questions of how did I get involved in the movement to reduce big money in politics.

I gave her this lengthy response (I slightly edited it for this post):

You want to know how did I get interested in the movement? Very long story. It's all starts with my love-hate relation with The Young Turks to the last year's McCutcheon vs FEC case.

I think like a year ago, back in my high school junior/senior year, I used to subscribe and watch The Young Turks youtube channel. But the tone of their progressive messaging was so negative and cynical in a cringe-worthy way I decided to unsubscribe it. 

Back then, I was a part of school newspaper group, so politic and journalism was dominant discussion topic at that time. At the journalism room, while we were working on the latest issue of the paper, I came across this kid who watches The Young Turks regularly, and I told him how I don't like The Young Turks anymore. 

One day, we walked together in the middle of the night and discussed about politic. He mentioned how the billionaires funds political candidate's campaign and how someone like Mitt Romney won the Republican primary against someone more reasonable and honest like Ron Paul. He also said that's the part of reasons why Wolf-PAC, a campaign finance reform group founded by The Young Turks creator Cenk Uygur, exist and how he's part of the movement to get money out of politic.

So after we had this conversation, I learned there's a legalized bribery within our political system. I played around with the idea of trying to make awareness to this issue. I remember last spring, during the afternoon meeting, where I talk with my editor about which story, event, or topic I am going to cover for the month. I told her that I am going to write an editorial about money in politic and trying to encourage readers to join Wolf-PAC  and their causes. 

Right after I finished talking with her, the kid who told me about this issue came to me and said, "So you want to write about Wolf-PAC?", and showed me the article that the Supreme Court struck down another campaign finance restriction and declare that there will be no restriction whatsoever. This ruling happens to be, McCutcheon v. FEC. While I was working on this editorial [you can read it by clicking the link], I thought, "Oh my God. Democracy in America is dead."

From there on, I read many news articles, commentaries, and books about dark money in politic. And, for entire year, I slowly connecting the dots of financial-related events in the past (like the Occupy Wall Street and 2013 government shutdown) and finally came close to an answer of why we have this unresponsive government. 

I used to think United States as the great example of successful democracy, but now we no longer have this successful democracy anymore. We are living in a state where big corporations take over everything and the government that doesn't represent the citizens.

And that's how I became the most vocal supporter of campaign finance reform. Even though there are more things I want you to tell, but I think that's enough for today. I may not be a US citizen (I am from South Korea), but I will fight for this country and their values no matter what.

(.....)

p.s. Here is one thing I want to say to the Chief Justice Roberts' Supreme Court, the mega-donors and the establishment: JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE​!!!!!!

She asked me if I could write a brief testimony on why Stamping is important for me or if I've had any interesting conversations/encounters related to the Stampede.

I haven't send her a response to that question yet, but I will say this:

Whenever I have a dollar bill, I always stamp on it and spend it at convenient store or coffee shop, so more people within Columbia can get my dollar bills as changes. Also, whenever I encountered a homeless person on the street, I gave him some stamped dollars to buy more stuffs at small store nearby. 

That's only way to get the message across: we use banknotes, or money, this property that kept the broken system of the society running, to spread the awareness of that broken system within the public and encourage citizens to fix the system. Tell them to join the Stampede or Wolf-PAC for that matters. These crony capitalists are buying our representatives every elections and come to screw your life. Do something, for Christ's sake!

I still haven't met anyone who is part of the Stampede, but I know there are few people living in my area who has the Stamp Stampede stamp. How do I know? The front page of the website has this map that shows how many people purchased and where the purchasers live (but not in much specific details). 

In fact, I want to meet these people. I want to talk with them about how we could make people come together, despite political barriers, and demand more for campaign finance reform.

For more than a year, I encourage people that I know of and talked with to sign Wolf-PAC's petition and join their causes. I handed out flyers to people who are either progressive or politically active and lobbied candidates to make them introduce a resolution to call for Article V Convention (only if they elected to the office). 

To me, I feel like Stamp Stampede could give the public an attention to the important issue that mass media rarely talk about. People uses bills to give a tip to employees and buy items from small store. It could reach to other people from far away and make them notice the issue. 

So that's my statement on this, and it went longer than I thought. 

I am thinking about buying another stamp that has stronger message. It needs more impact to make people care about the issue, rather than just telling them to join Wolf-PAC. 

Stamp Stampede Asked Me to Blog for Them

Edit: I forgot. For those of you who are reading this - come buy their stamps and help them get money out of politic.

Good News.

After I wrote the letter to the editor post, I got a retweet and a reply from Stamp Stampede's official twitter account and they asked me if I could (write) blog for them.

In a response, I gave them my personal Carlton Banks Face of Approval.

Right now, I am quite ecstatic over this. I feel like I just got a new job or something. 

I mean, I am just a Ben & Jerry's ice-cream eating, idealistic college-student activist who wants to be part of the change, and now they asked me if I could write for them.

To be honest - even though this new opportunity overwhelms me - I am still thinking about it whether I should accept this or not. I am a college freshman now and the new semester will start next week. Not only that, I am gonna be very busy like hell.

Depending on time and schedule, I could write a blog for them. I will just message them and say, "I'm in and tell me what to do."

Seriously though. I have no words what to say about this. I couldn't explain more how amazed I am.

And I am expecting this blog will take a different direction in the future. 

We'll see.

A Letter to The Editor of Columbia Press

I am writing this blog while eating Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

Ben & Jerry's happens to be my personal favorite ice cream brand. In fact, it just became my ultimate favorite ice cream brand of all time.

Not only I like their creativity with flavors and their progressive business model, but they are also very outspoken on the issue of money in politic. Ben Cohen, the 'Ben' of Ben & Jerry's, even started the Stamp Stampede campaign which you can legally stamp on a dollar bill to spread the #GetMoneyOut message to wider people. In fact, whenever I have dollar bills, I just stamp them right away. (You should better buy their stamps and join their causes right now!)

My personal StampStampede stamp

When I went to their site, I saw the Take Action! section and there is a link that says "Write a letter to the Editor of your local paper". It directly takes you to FreeSpeechForPeople.org and you could find a local paper around your zip area and write a letter to their editor. 

I thought, "This might sounds cool. I will do it right away!"

So I sent a message to two local papers, Columbia Daily Tribune and Columbia Missourian, and this is what I wrote:

Dear editor,

The U.S. Supreme Court has a chance now to fix the enormous mistake it made in the Citizens United decision.  A Montana case challenging that Supreme Court decision has just been appealed back to the Court (American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock).

Citizens United vs. FEC decision just turned five this month, and it continues to damage the democratic system of our government. This Supreme Court ruling gave corporations a personhood, which means they have a constitutional "free speech" right to spend unlimited amount of money influencing our elections.

The corporate interest groups are using these moneys to create more TV ads and give political candidates a bigger chance to win a higher seat. Now I’m appalled by how our airwaves are already being filled with vicious campaign ads, and it’s only February! Just imagine how much worse things will get as the year goes on.

Every major Presidential candidate now has a Citizens United -enabled super PAC that allows corporations and the ultra-rich to spend limitless sums, anonymously, to buy our elections. 94% of elections are won by the candidate who spends the most money. That’s not an election, that’s an auction.

Corporate personhood - and campaign contribution as "free speech" - is the biggest threat to democracy, and now it ended out country's democracy by making politicians to rely on a legalized bribery from corporations.

This has to be stopped. Even 80% of Americans, want Citizens United overturned [http://j.mp/PHart]. As President Abraham Lincoln has said in his famous Gettysburg address that the government "of the people, by the people, [and] for the people". Free speech is for people, not corporations.

It is time we undo the damage by Citizens United. The Supreme Court has just been handed an opportunity to fix this mess. It should take it.

Justices Ginsburg and Breyer just issued an extraordinary statement, calling on their fellow Justices "to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway." [http://j.mp/GBstmt]

Even Justice Scalia recently said, "If the system seems crazy to you, don't blame it on the court.” [http://usat.ly/zQbXPU] Well, I do blame it on the Supreme Court. Its decision in the Citizens United case two years ago is destroying our democracy.

It might take large time and energy to fix the system, but it definitely worth it by the end. We must restore our democracy, and bring back the republic for our people.

Sincerely,
Jay Whang - college student

(off-topic rambling) What can I say about #CharlieHebdo attack?

The whole purpose for forming this blog was to spreading awareness of legalized cronyism in politic and advocating people to demand campaign finance reform. I intended this blog solely focusing on an issue that any Americans, including conservatives, liberals, libertarians, religious, non-religious ect., can agree on and need to work together to fight against it. 

However, this morning, I heard about the assault at Charlie Hebdo office in Paris, the French satirical magazine publisher (think The Onion meets Mad magazine but much more provocative). Everyone inside the building were killed, including cartoonists, the artists, and the editor. I thought I need write my thought out to those who were affected by this attack, to those who are in debate over religious violence, and to those who dedicate their lives to defend freedom of press.

Charlie Hebdo was well-known for one thing: publishing a caricature cartoon of Islamic prophet Mohammed back in 2011. Of course, many fundamentalist Muslims were offended by this drawing, giving death threats to the artist and the editor alike. But the artist and the editors of the magazine decided not to back down, and pushed many buttons as they can by publishing more caricature drawings of every religious icons. 

This started the debate whether we should draw sacrilegious imagery in the name of freedom of speech, or we should just shut up and not to add any more fuel to the fire. 

I debated myself over this, whether we are allow to draw Prophet Mohammed or not. The question is: for what intent? 

First of all, I believe I have a right to draw Prophet Mohammed in a harmless smiley face (even though I never drew a smiley face with the title Mohammed in my life). I don't subscribe to Islam, so this dogma never applies to me at all. 

Actually, there was one time I had this brief debate between a Muslim friend of mine, and, not surprisingly, he was against anyone drawing his prophet. I remember commenting that one of the reasons why some Muslims were angry over this because some people portray the prophet in a very racist intention. Like, they just draw this picture for the sake of being an asshole.

While this notion of religions must deserve its criticism may be debatable, but, from my perspective, people have struggle to spread the message of "your religion is flawed" to much more wider audiences in this globalized world, due to its occasional racist root. 

Why not many people accept legitimate criticism of Catholicism of today? Because of the most outspoken Anti-Catholics in the past were anti-Irish bigots. Why people calls you anti-Semite when you criticize Israeli government? Because many vocal critics of Israel the supporters have ever met or heard are straight-forward anti-Semitic conspiracy nuts.  Why people calls you racist when you make legitimate criticism of Islam? Because the most of outspoken critics of Islam are right-wing commentators, politicians, and pundits who are anti-immigrants and support policies that marginalize people "who looks like Muslim." 

(And I am SPECIFICALLY saying RIGHT-WINGERS who has biggest voice in media like Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Louie Gohmert, and even European like Geert Wilder. Although left-wingers like Bill Maher and Sam Harris has their own large following, but the latter supported racial-profiling policy while the former, well, should have spoke out against anyone who makes ILLEGITIMATE criticism of Islam. If Maher sympathize with the right when it comes to Islam, then why not he encourage them to use facts and evidences over propaganda?) 

Some people join in the causes not because they want to spread the message in meaningful way, but to cause more trouble. You get my point.

Sure religion is not a race, but many critics of religion should realize that some people criticize religions just for bigoted purpose rather than intellectual way. They shouldn't see them as an ultimate ally, but mere distractors. 

Also, I have to admit, I am quite skeptical on this view that religions influence violent behavior. There are no psychological or scientific studies that proves this notion, yet. So far, there is one research study that shows both religious and non-religious people are equally moral. Whether that research is flawed or biased or not, it still proves that we are human being and we want to live in righteous way.

Regarding human morality and violence, this is a very deep topic. Human psychology is so vast and complex it is better not to make any generalization. 

However, there is one thing I want to say to people who have no mental diagnosis but wants to kill (or already killed) other people in the name of religion (like these shooters): Don't you feel any remorse after this? Do you know if you killed harmless figures in the name of religion only cause more damage to the people of your religion rather than protection?

Thanks to Freedom of Speech, I can write what's going on in Washington and how the system we have now negatively affect the society.

Thanks to Freedom of Speech, I can write my personal statement on the current event of the world and to people who demand peace and to people who attacked Freedom of Press. 

Thanks to Freedom of Speech, everyone, including many Muslims and artists around the world, are able to condemn this devastating attack and support the artists who want their voice to be heard.

On Twitter, people use hashtag #CharlieHebdo or #JeSuisCharlie to support Charlie Hebdo and refuse to be silenced by the massacre. At the same time, people continue to blame Islam itself for the tragedy. If Muslims are to blame for the attack (I should have mentioned France's conflicts between Muslims since Algerian war, but that's another story), then should we blame white people for NAACP bombing in Colorado that happened at the same day? 

I admire supporters of Charlie Hebdo for their bravery, and  I also admire the late artists and editors for same reason. 

Satire exist in free society, to lift us up from the harsh nature of reality. One of us should tell a truth through laughter and help us not to surrender the absurd aspect of our lives. 

I went too deep here. But this entire post is deep in non-nonsensical way.

This reminds me of The Interview controversy from last month. When I heard Sony pulled the film from theaters, I thought we surrender ourselves from the egomaniac dictator. However, thanks to the internet, we could watch the film online and stand up for the right to make fun of Kim Jong-un. 

That's my thought. I might have made some fallible statement on Islam or any religion in general, but the point is, I don't approve any kind of bigotry in this harmonious diverse world, whether religious or not. 

It's so strange that I made from reporting of the attack to my perspective on the debate to a tribute to people who defend the freedom of speech. 

From now on, I am not going to post this kind of rambling again.

P.S. My thoughts and prayers goes to the victims of massacre and people of Paris.

Republican candidate Jim Ruben on "Mega-Donor Incumbent" complex and the romnibus spending bill

2014 Republican candidate for US Senate Jim Ruben wrote a column about the way to fix the corrupted government system and went over briefly about the bipartisan cromnibus spending bill.

He mentioned that there's this large, bi-partisan supported incumbent protection amendment snuck into this $1.1 trillion dollar spending bill, and the House voted on it without even reading it. Considering how President Obama signed this into a law, we get to see donors giving more money to the incumbents, and two political parties depending on these corporate donations are now protected under the law. What's more outrageous that this amendment "was drafted at the request of Reid by Marc Elias, the same Perkins Coie attorney who successfully argued for the super PAC loophole before the Federal Election Commission."

In short, Washington is now ruled by a corporate-sponsored one-party disguised themselves as two-party system, and this law just officially confirmed this status.

They only listen to big guys with big money, rather than the American people they suppose to listen to.

They let big companies monopolize everything and suppress healthy competition and economic progress.

Rubens continue to explain how to this "mega-donor-incumbent" complex made it more difficult for non-establishment candidates to communicates with voters:

The media tends to ignore candidates unable to win the mega-donor “money primary.” This is how the M-I complex suppresses debate about disfavored and uncomfortable issues and positions. So, voters hear little about the hard choices needed to balance the budget, about regulatory capture of fiscal and monetary policy by Wall Street, or about national security alternatives to endless war.

He proposed a three-part alternative to today's form of corruption:

- Enact a public elections finance system for candidates voluntarily opting out of the current corrupted money system. Each two years, every voter is given a $50 tax rebate voucher assignable to and spendable only by in-district candidates for Congress or president. As shown in Maine, which has a state-level public elections finance system, candidates and elected officials preferring to focus on all of their constituents have the financial incentive to do so.

- Require searchable, real-time online reporting of all contributions to any candidate or organization engaging in campaigning for or against candidates, legislation or regulatory activity. While disclosure can suppress paid speech, there is a stronger and offsetting public interest in knowing about real or perceivable conflicts of interest involving public money or the public trust.

- Remove all political spending and contribution limits. Attempts to limit private political spending have failed and the First Amendment protects the right of wealthy and well-organized people to speak using as much money as they wish.

Although I find the last one to be questionable, but I agree with the first two of the alternative. We need more transparency on political contribution and switch from today's system to public elections finance system. Some may decided to stay "business as usual" by arguing that public finance is no cure at all but these are the same people who happens to work for top billionaires like the Koch brothers, who donates right-wing candidates.

Trust me. I have met one so-called expert who argued against public finance. Later turns out to be a well-known Koch-puppet.

Hello the New Year, and So-Long the Dodd-Frank Law

Hello 2015. Welcome to another year of post-Citizen United era of United States of America where the government still cares only about what corporate-humans does rather than the actual citizens, NYPD stopped what they are doing and flipped the bird to their mayor, and one Republican congressman finally came out as a white supremacist. Sort of.

This year will might be a different year than before, thanks to the congress now controlled by the radical right wingers under the corporate-financed Democratic president. Last month, the President Barack Obama passed the bi-partisan spending, known as "cromnibus bill" within the media, which includes reversing Dodd-Frank requirements to regulate big banks' financial activity. 

To give you a clear and brief background: the whole purpose of Dodd-Frank act was to prevent another Great Depression right after financial crisis of 2007-2010. Since this financial reform law prevent big banks from gambling people's money, they would like to get this removed so Jaime Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, telephoned Congressional Democrats to urged them to vote for the spending bill. Because of this, Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts and Wall Street's number one boogeyman, spoke out against it.

On that Christmas day, The Federal Reserves granted banks an extra year to comply with a key provision of the Volcker Rule, a move that gives financial lobbyists more time to kill the new regulation before it goes into effect. Which means, as I said before, banks can demand the government to guts the bank regulation, leading to another big national financial meltdown.

To give you more details on how much progressive politicians are against this, see the The Young Turks coverage of this below, and join Wolf-PAC as they encouraged.  

This what happen when the big guys with big money have the loudest voice in the room (much like the last year), and we got to get these bribe money out of the government.