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I wish I could be more agreeable, but if you actually consider the impact of the issues, the D's almost always have a big lead over R's. Net neutrality is a big deal, and R's are for big businesses even though it will hurt the whole industry - almost everyone. Clinton's email server, I'm sorry, was not a big deal compared to this. Poisoning Flint's water supply hurt everyone in an entire city, Bill Clinton got a BJ and "ruined" one young lady's life (granted she was able to sell her story and made $ off it). The Iraq War and related conflict has killed over 1 million people (thousands of Americans) the neocon R's lied to the country to get us into that. In Benghazi a few Americans died, and if Hillary personally shot them it'd still be _absolutely_ nothing compared to Iraq. I know, Obama continued it but by then the decision really was a lose-lose. Obama did increase the drones and they've still killed some tiny % of the million+ overall picture, and few (or none? idk) were American.

I have actually donated to causes that fight superpacs and money in politics in general, so trust me, I'm with you on #thankscorporateamericaandyoursuperpacs. But the organizations that fight it always seem to have more D's (ask watchers of Colbert and Oliver), while the R's do stuff like Citizen's United - wait, does that have anything to do with what you care about - who pushed that one?

... that I have to get my lazy ass moving and see to it that I finally enroll in one of the countless tution-free universities in the rhine-ruhr area to ooph my education and academic rank for zero personal costs . I've been dragging this out for months now since I left the local GED evening high-school with a neat score.

Curiously, my indecisiveness is partially actually due to the abundance of choices available. I'm still not 100% sure which field to study in. ... First world luxury problems I guess.

BTW: How is that two-party gridlock and effed-up electorial and campaing financing system over there working out for you guys? *aaaah rub it in* ... Have you started supporting Lessig/Mayday yet? How about it? Get your lazy asses moving! *cheering from across the pond*

My 2 cents.

His group, http://mayday.us/ is also interested in the Congress as well as State-level elections.

... where I thank god that I live in Germany. An abundance of colleges to choose from, all for free (except some trivial Semester fee that's well below 200 Euros that gets you rebated admittance to public events, a free public transport ticket and some other niceys along with it).

Fucking dig this: You actually *save* money if you are a student over here - even as a part-time student!! I'd pay less healthcare as a freelancer with cheap student rates (look up "healthcare" on wikipedia if you're from the US. ... SCNR) and my PT ticket is cheaper!

This is also one of the reasons I'm gonna get off my lazy ass and start a college CS track this year - it would be an insane freakin' waste not to. Just finished mit GED A-Levels with prime scores btw. for exactly that reason.

Tip from across the pond: You guys should help Lessig get through with his Superpac initiative and then redo some core parameters of your system - it's broken at to many places.

My 2 eurocents.

I think it's time to get a crowdfunding scheme going. Maybe we can at least buy one congressman who's working for "the people".

This is exactly the idea behind Lawrence Lessig's[*] brainchild: MAYDAY PAC. It's a PAC whose mission is to end all PACs (including itself). It raised some money and tried some things in the last election cycle, but didn't succeed. However, Lessig says they learned some lessons and are gearing up to try again.

Check it out at http://mayday.us./

[*] If you don't recognize that name it's because you haven't been paying attention to these issues. Among other things, Lessig is the founder of Creative Commons.

Well, you could try voting in the primaries this time too. That's the only election that actually scares our lawmakers, so that's where an impact can really be made.

That's the realization Lessig's MAYDAY PAC recently came to.

And that was exactly their takeaway:

Second, it is easier to win voters in safe seats than in partisan battle ground seats: Following from the first lesson, we saw a significant difference in the willingness of both Republicans and Democrats to support the issue of reform in safe, rather than divided, seats. Though we didn't have enough opportunities in primaries to prove this point, the data suggest that it is much easier to rally both Democratic and Republican voters to reform, when the voters don't perceive their decision as affecting the ultimate likelihood of their party's candidates to prevail in the general election. Put differently, if partisanship doesn't matter — because the seat is a safe seat anyway — voters are more willing to be moved on the basis of reform.

Lessig has been very clear that most of what they were trying to do for 2014 was to learn if and how to move votes on this issue. Don't think they are missing these lessons.

And that was exactly their takeaway:

Second, it is easier to win voters in safe seats than in partisan battle ground seats: Following from the first lesson, we saw a significant difference in the willingness of both Republicans and Democrats to support the issue of reform in safe, rather than divided, seats. Though we didn't have enough opportunities in primaries to prove this point, the data suggest that it is much easier to rally both Democratic and Republican voters to reform, when the voters don't perceive their decision as affecting the ultimate likelihood of their party's candidates to prevail in the general election. Put differently, if partisanship doesn't matter — because the seat is a safe seat anyway — voters are more willing to be moved on the basis of reform.

Lessig has made it very clear that most of what they were trying to do in 2014 was to figure out if and how to swing elections on this issue. Don't think they are missing these lessons.

Why not reform the way election laws work, so elected representitives of both state and federal government reflect the will of the people?

There's a certain nerd (Lawrence Lessig) who used to work for the EFF who's working on precisely that.

There is no need to throw up your hands and give up. Chatanooga managed a high speed public interenet. http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/2.... Plus, you have people like Lawrence Lessig going after the root of the problem of corruption, and getting some serious traction with Mayday PAC. http://mayday.us./ Hell, even I am trying to fix the problems, but I am not getting too much exposure or traction. http://i-party.us./ But I still have hope. There are too many people trying to fix the problem of corruption and increasing monopolistic control for everyone to fail.

How do plan we make people care?

Here's a plan. Here's another plan. Here's another plan.

I suppose I could go into a rant and write a long post lamenting the influence of the wealthy on our government. However, I think I will just shut-up and do something about it instead by going here and doubling my pledge. . .

It's time to throw your support behind Lessig's movement!

https://mayday.us/v8/

If you don't already know who Larry Lessig is, you're obviously new here.

I support MAYDAY-PAC and I support WOLF-PAC. If you're tired of elections being bought, you should too.

Why do you support the "publicly finance" of elections ("publicly finance all elections in our country")???
http://www.wolf-pac.com/the_plan

You propose to take my tax dollars to give to politicians to convince me to vote for them so they can take more of my tax dollars?

Why do I need more robocalls that circumvent 'do not call' efforts?

Why do I need more subsidized junk mail?

Why do I need to pay for more commercials to skip? (and is it theft if I paid for that commercial to begin with?)

There are problems in this country, but a plan to take more tax dollars by force is not something I would support.

Keep in mind their reform will GUT the first amendment. All political speech will get routed through the government. The inch you think you're giving will soon be a mile.

If you don't already know who Larry Lessig is, you're obviously new here.

I support MAYDAY-PAC and I support WOLF-PAC. If you're tired of elections being bought, you should too.