Slashdot Mirror
Congressman Wants YouTube Video Covered Up
Hugh Pickens writes "Wisconsin Republicans claim that no one else can republish a video of United States Representative Sean Duffy (R-WI) complaining about how he is 'struggling' to get by on his $174,000 salary without their permission, even though they originally released the video on YouTube for the whole world to see. Now the GOP is trying to take legal action to stop anyone else from republishing the video. The tape caused a stir for Duffy, a first-term conservative best known for his past as a reality TV show star on MTV's The Real World after Democrats flagged the comments about his taxpayer-funded salary, which is nearly three times the median income in Wisconsin, and criticisms began to flow Duffy's way. Here's a one-minute clip, excerpted from roughly 45 minutes of video of the public Duffy townhall, that the Polk County GOP doesn't want anyone to see."
My mother-in-law (a small business owner) can afford health insurance now, via the high risk pool in her state. Thanks to "Obamacare" she can get insurance for herself and her husband for $700 a month, rather than the $2,000 a month that the insurance company offers.
Lets start refering to The War Against Terror by it's initials. . .
Government spending is "good" as long as it is for the people who deserve it. People who look like me. People who think like me. Real Americans like me.
Government spending is "bad" when it is for people who don't deserve it. People who don't look like me. People who don't think like me. The people who are ruining this country.
The Daily Show covered this. And they always do a great job.
A banker making $250,000 is barely above the poverty line. Cut them a break! Look at all the good they do for this country!
A teacher making $50,000 is living a lavish lifestyle on the public's dime. They're spending this country into bankruptcy. And they're doing it in only 9 months out of a year.
While I don't think it's fair to compare unions representing 100k's of people for making contributions that benefit them, to the contributions of the 2 Koch brothers which in no way represent the interests of their workers I will grant that in theory the issue is the same on both sides.
As a serious question, on the issue that both sides give political money to candidates:
Why is it even legal to give money to an organization associated with a politician? Last I checked that was a 'bribe'. I know the free speech angle, but a bribe is just money for a particular action; how is that conceptually different from giving money to a politicians PAC? It's not like they don't give the donors preferential treatment right?
I mean if I give money to 'Tony' so that his brother 'Luigi' might go do something I like and Luigi is my representative...that would clearly be illegal wouldn't it?
Not trying to be snarky here, seriously asking the legal ideas behind this. I'd actually prefer that there be *no* money in politics. Buy all the ads you want I don't care, but if a politician takes money from *anybody* that should be a conflict of interest shouldn't it?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
What we need, of course, is to ban political contributions by all groups of people working together. If individuals want to donate money and indicate that they are donating money on behalf of an organization, that's fine, but it should have to be the individual writing the check from his or her own bank account.
It should be illegal for any organization—union or corporation—to take money entrusted to them by shareholders or members and use it for political contributions. This small change would significantly reduce the ability of corporations to buy votes, and would do so in an evenhanded manner.
Next, we should make it illegal for someone to accept money in exchange for lobbying. Paid lobbyists unfairly elevate the voices of a small number of individuals (corporate CEOs) over the public as a whole in a way that cannot effectively be countered except with an outright ban on the activity.
People should be free to lobby for their employers' positions on their own time if they choose to do so, of course, but paid lobbyists are an affront to democracy, and it should be illegal to do so on company time. Similarly, it should be illegal to punish a worker for not lobbying on their own time.
Finally, we should cut the salaries of everyone in Congress to levels comparable with those of people in their districts, provide members of Congress with free paid government housing in D.C. so that they can afford to come up there to work, and mandate that politicians spend a minimum of two-thirds of their time in their districts to be eligible for reelection. This would ensure that politicians continue to understand what's happening on the ground in their districts.
When our government was originally conceived, Congresspeople were supposed to meet for a couple of weeks out of the year. It is the perversion of Congressional duties into a year-round job that has done more harm to our government's ability to represent the people than probably any other mistake in its history. Imagine if lobbying firms had to send lobbyists out to a hundred, two hundred, three hundred different towns across the United States instead of sending a couple of people to Washington D.C. You get the picture.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.