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Sold Out~How Wall Street & Washington Betrayed America

The Case Against Kagan | .@MMFA unpacks today's Washington Times compilation of distortions + falsehoods used in a massive attack on Elena Kegan, Supreme Court nominee:

we can change the incentives that produce demonstrably bad government in Washington. We are not condemned to have a political system whose chief characteristics are venom, dysfunction and paralysis.

As of mid-August 2009, there were six (6) lobbyists per single (1) member of House and Senate (Bloomberg News). That's 6:1, folks. Just for healthcare reform. For financial industry reform, there are 2,400 lobbyists in play. The Chamber of Commerce spent $26.2 million--in the first 2 quarters (6 months) of 2009. Clearly, private industries and their foot soldiers on K Street/Capitol Hill influence/dictate American policymaking. No matter who's 'voted in,' it's the influence machine that rules Washington. Worse, there's a good chance that the Supreme Court will grant corporations (as 'fictive persons') to spend unlimited dollars in funding electoral campaigns. Is there hope that this country will be a democracy one day? Or is it doomed to become increasingly, irrevocably plutocratic?

Michael Moore addresses press on Barack Obama and Blue Dog Democrats' approach to health care reform at Public Citizen headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009.

President Obama is taking a sharp, populist tone with Wall Street and scolding the ways of Washington

Going for the plausible at the expense of the perfect: Rahm Going for the perfect at the expense of the plausible: Obama Or so they say. Jason Horowitz Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, March 2, 2010; A01

Dave Weigel, now of The Washington Post, becomes the latest to observe the core similarity between the Obama and Bush/Cheney approaches to civil liberties, Terrorism and national security.

Washington Monthly "...real entrepreneurs and real scientists and real executives and real bankers and real farmers and real software engineers and real venture capitalists tend to understand quite well how real power is used against them." -March 2010

"How British oil giant BP used all the political muscle money can buy to fend off regulators and influence investigations into corporate neglect."

"There is nothing inherently good about compromise." / Washington suffers from "compromise fetish."

SEC proposal would disclose political donations by public corporations - The Washington Post http://t.co/38N8bKe via @washingtonpost