One-Issue Decision? Not This Year

by muon

I made a list last night of all the issues, off the top of my head, that seem to hinge on this election. I'm sure I forgot something. Here's my list, in no particular order:

Unemployment
Education
Energy independence
Climate change
Renewable energy
Equal pay for women
Middle East, terrorism, war, national security
Healthcare
Women's healthcare, including contraceptives, abortion, and Planned Parenthood
Medicare and Social Security
Immigration
FEMA and crisis management
Infrastructure
Welfare, food stamps, other poverty issues
Science, Arts, PBS
Deficit
Gun control
Citizens United
Supreme Court appointees
Banking/mortgage industry problems
Foreign and Domestic Trade
Wealth imbalance

For all of you still undecided folks out there (if any), really, all you have to do is go down this list and decide who you trust to make policy for you on these issues, at the Presidential, Congressional, State and Local levels. For instance, if you're hit by a natural disaster in the next 4 years, do you want someone who acted the way President Obama, Governor Christie and Mayor Bloomberg acted this week, or say, the way President Bush acted during Hurricane Katrina? Do you want a president who'd shut down FEMA and tell the states to handle disasters themselves, even when their infrastructure is completely compromised?  You might say, oh, but I don't live in a natural disaster prone area. I thought so, too, until Hurricane Sandy.

These issues are the main reasons I'm voting, not only for Obama, but for all the Democrats on my ballot.  I say main reasons because there are others.

I refuse to vote for a party that condones and spreads the blatant lies of its presidential candidate. This week Mitch McConnell and other GOP leaders pressured the independent Congressional Research group to suppress a report showing that tax cuts for the wealthy do nothing to help the economy. I won't vote for anyone who has such a contempt for truth.

GOP leaders have gone out of their way to make voting more difficult this year. Voter ID laws, voter roll purging, laws restricting registration drives, reduced early voting in many states, and intimidation measures aimed at African-American and Latino voters are all forms of voter suppression. For the first time, the UN has sent monitors to the US to observe our elections. I'm not voting for the party that made all this happen.

Legislation in this country shouldn't be influenced by anyone but the voters. Many Democrats are in the pockets of lobbyists as much as Republicans, but the worst offenders right now--the Koch Brothers, Grover Norquist, the NRA, far-right religious fanatics, and Big Oil--are GOP cronies.

So that's the election in a nutshell for me. You're on your own.

The 7-Figure Donor

by Ruth A. Sheets

This morning I heard a story that, had it not been NPR, I would have thought I was listening to a “Saturday Night Live” sketch.  A seven-figure donor to a super PAC complained about the level of criticism he has received since his check was written.  He was startled that folks might object to his contribution.

One can’t help but wonder where Mr. Vandersloot has been.  He intends to help to buy an election and he worries people will find out and that some might not be pleased.  He claims he has lost business and has even received some death threats. 

I certainly think the death threats, if he has received them, are appalling and wrong in every way.  Losing business, though, that is fair.  Mr. V. is clearly using his profits to get politically involved.  It seems to me that an effective way for citizens to object to a particular donation is to stop using the product or service of the donor.

The wealthy, the 1%, have been accused of being “out of touch.”  Yes, Mr. V. is out of touch.  I can’t help but wonder at his naivete.  Does he really believe his money entitles him to do whatever he wants to do, and that no one will respond?  Of course he does. 

With the “Citizens United” ruling by the Supreme Court calling money speech, how can the wealthy not try to make their opinion more weighty than that of the average citizen?  Isn’t more money more speech?

In their attempt to be “fair,” NPR actually found people to support Mr. V.’s position that no one should have to know about his donation.  The Koch brothers were sympathetically cited as people maligned for making large contributions.  Those Koch brothers used their funds to spread lies and half-truths against Democrats in Wisconsin and other states.  Of course, not under their own name, but through a Super PAC that is not to be held accountable for whatever they put out there.

It is obscene that anyone should feel entitled to contribute millions of dollars to influence elections, with or without their names being attached to the donation.  Such large money contributions, speech or not, shouldn’t be able to buy candidates.

When people contribute to Super PACs or any other political influence machine, they are buying a service, and the PACs should then be taxed as a service provider.  I am thinking of oh, 40% or so.  That’s higher than the wealthy are paying now in taxes, so I think it is a way to help the deficit and to limit huge donations.  Oh wait, Congress would never pass such a law since they have been bought by the very Super PACs that would be taxed.  Darn!