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. 

Merry Christmas to you all

Christmas is already here, and I started this blog very late in this year.

Hopefully, in the future, I could write more blog posts about how billionaires rigged the system and interview people who wants to fix the system.

Now keep in mind, I have no problem with people wanting to be rich and billionaires doing their business; in fact, I want to get rich. I want to have a very successful life. But the problem is that these billionaires get involve in a politic and support the policy that satisfies them and do more harm to people of below rather than do something common good. You know, the middle class people who wants to come home from work and spend their times with their family during Christmas season. 

Christmas - it's not the materialism what's matters. What matters is getting a time to spend with your family and ends the year in a heartfelt way. 

Even this year, things gotten turn for the worst. But there are solid reasons to still remain happy as possible. Christmas is always here and it is the light that will warm up the winter. 

I hope you all early readers of this Blog to have a great holiday and see you next year. 

This is Jay Whang - signing off. 

So what is this 28 about?

The number 28 stands for the soon to be 28th Amendment for the United States Constitution. 

I am part of this nationwide volunteering group called Wolf-PAC, where we call state representatives and tell them to pass a resolution to call for Article V* Convention for the new amendment to the constitution that "corporations are not people and they do not have the right to spend money to buy our politicians". So yeah, we are trying to overturn 2009's Citizen United v. FEC case, which gave corporations a personhood and turned their political campaign contribution into "free speech" (If money is free speech, then why I can't "talk" to prostitutes?)

Basically, the judicial branch of the government legalized bribery within the politic. 

Once the Supreme Court made corporate money into free speech, they can buy any politicians as they want and make them listen to their demands, rather than the demands of the people. That's all I could summarize in one sentence, but I already over this last spring back at my high senior year when I was writing an editorial for the school news site and you can check it out here.

This political action committee was founded by Cenk Uygur, the co-founder and the host of one of YouTube's largest news network The Young Turk. He announced the formation of Wolf PAC on October 2011 during the Occupy Wall Street rally. 

The goal is to end corporate personhood and make all elections of this country publicly financed, by adding 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. However, the current state of the congress is too corrupt to the point they cannot function and fix themselves, so they all have no interest in making campaign finance reform what so ever. In fact, their billionaire donors to their political campaign told them not to make any restriction or changes within the current system, or else it will hurt their interest.  

The only way gotta do is to make two third of the 50 states (that would make 34) to call for Article V convention for the new amendment to the constitution. To do this, by contacting local state legislatures to talk about the influence of money in politic in political process, and make them introduce a resolution to call for the convention. So far, California, Vermont, and Illinois just called for the convention this year, and soon New Jersey will the the fourth one to call for it as well. (Recently, the State Senate house of NJ passed the resolution, after constant pressures from their own people they represent).

This will going to be tough, because corporations already knew what we are doing and they once try to stop what we were doing that would hurt their interest. While the resolution was in the NJ committee, Americans for Prosperity, the political organization that's directly associated with Republican donors the Koch brothers, came forward and argued against Wolf-PAC's resolution. Why they didn't do this when Senator Tom Udall introduced the amendment bill that will overturn Citizen United? Because the congress is already overtaken by billionaires. Fortunately Wolf PAC won and it passed through the committee. The Young Turks covered what happened at the NJ committee so you can check the video out here. 

Right now, I am trying to make Missouri to join the calls for Article V convention. However, the challenge is that Missouri happens to be one of 26 states that doesn't have a law that would limit the donations to political campaign. So some of the legislatures within the Missouri house of congress were already bought by right-wing billionaires, including Rex Sinquefeld, biggest campaign donor within the state. (You can check out how many lawmakers he contributed to and not only he donated to Republicans, but also Democrats as well) 

There are so many things Rex Sinquefeld (which I like to call him: Rex "Seinfeld") have done that diminish person's integrity, including this story of how he and his organization Grow Missouri to bribed this local newspaper columnist to write story that would give positive image to them. Good thing is, he rejected it and later write a story of how it went through. 

This country is no longer democratic anymore - it is a country that only ruled and represent the group of few people who wants to screw other people from below and take their profits away. This will be the biggest fight I will forget. I am not alone. I've met a lot of people, including some within University of Missouri and local activists in Columbia, who wants to bring back republic and restore democracy. 

I can go on how McCutheon case from last spring affected this year's midterm election, but I got no time and energy for that; I would probably do it on other blog post someday. 

So that's enough for today and I'll write more how this kind of political spending hurts our country.

Stay frosty.

*The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

My new blog!

Hello world.

This is Jay Whang speaking.

I am starting this new blog covering political cronyism, current state of oligarchy and any issues dealing with campaign finance reform. 

From there, I will be posting up my opinions on American politic, interviewing activists, and all the random shit coming out of my head. 

Got that?

Good.

Now sign this petition please: http://www.wolf-pac.com/sign_petition?recruiter_id=63374