Did you miss "Become a Citizen Journalist" on July 21, 2007? Click above to see Eric Black's speech to mnpACT!
Garrison Keillor
Minnesota Network for Progressive Action
Our Mission
The mission of mnpACT! is to build a progressive community based upon the
core values of respect, dignity and opportunity, by educating people about
progressive ideas, advocating for progressive issues, and electing
progressive candidates to local, state and federal offices.
Money pervades politics and government in oh so many ways. Even in this current deep recession, money continues to flow to political pockets -- deep and deeper.
That is why it is so disturbing that this so-called "monetary freedom of speech" is now going to invade the third branch of government, the judiciary.
Greg Wersal has made it his life's goal to make judges just another political monetary tool. The courts have ruled recently that endorsements cannot be denied in judicial elections. And with that comes money and political games.
And to furthur complicate things, the Citizen United ruling brings more unseemly possibilities via unlimited corporate money.
Can you imagine an elected judge deciding cases against a corporation that was his biggest donor? And if he or she would have the integrity to recuse themselves, what's to stop a corporation from "buying" the whole court?
There is a lot of ways to look at the coming onslaught of corporate donations. This flap with Target's corporate donation is giving us a preview of the arguments to be made.
I always hate the contention that unlimited money donations is akin to free speech, but we have a Supreme Court that seems to side with that interpretation, so we are stuck with it for now.
However, the flip side of that needs to be addressed. We should be entitled to know who is making those large contributions and to whom.
After all, a democracy is only as good as its informed electorate and when making voting decisions, an important aspect of what we need to know involves public record of large donors to any particular campaign.
Too often, in the past, the campaign finance laws that existed were circumvented by PAC groups disguised with inocuous names, . . .
Our soon to be ex-governor Tim Pawlenty makes a lot of statements that have a lot of tax hyperbole. Well, Politifact decided to examine the quote below and check it out for "truthiness":
"I don't think the argument can be credibly made that the United States of America is undertaxed compared to our competitors." Tim Pawlenty, Monday, July 26th, 2010.
Verdict?
In an opinion column published the following day, Washington Post reporter Ruth Marcus took aim at Pawlenty's remark.
"Actually," Marcus wrote, "the United States is on the low end in terms of the overall tax burden -- 28 percent of gross domestic product in 2007, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, compared with an average of 36 percent in the 30 OECD countries. Only South Korea, Mexico and Turkey were lower."
