I am incensed at the thought of the Clean Elections Act being questioned in recent weeks. This act is a matter of Maine pride, especially since so many states do not enforce clean elections.
Independents, Greens, Republicans and Democrats should all be equally incensed at the recent actions by non-Maine groups to attempt to crush our Maine laws.
For more than a decade, Maine has led our nation with rules that equalize how campaigns are run, how campaign money is spent and how candidates run their elections. "Clean Election candidate" has been a welcome phrase during elections.
Will Maine people accept the recent arguments that corporations deserve First Amendment rights? Please. Rights are for people, not for corporations.
As voters, we deserve the respect and the right to make our decisions based on real arguments, not on who spent the most for an ad, or what company supported a candidate.
I value my right to vote. Corporations, advertisers and big business don't have that right and I, for one, do not intend to let them have that voice.
Lisa Ward, Lisbon Falls
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What Do YOU Contribute, Momof4?
Hey Momof4, while you're posting on here every day accusing those who also post of being "unemployed" or "on welfare," what the heck are you doing? You never get around to answering that? Playing house? Well?
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four fathers and trolling around for number five. You available?
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No personal attacks.
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why did you leave the post up? shouldn't that be taken down?
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond."Rights are for people, not
"Rights are for people, not corporations"
And, corporations are run by and are made up of..........? The missing word wouldn't be people, would it?
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Yet the 'Rights' those Corporations claim are.....
Separate and above those of the people.
And when the Corporations commit criminal acts - those 'People' are not criminally sanctioned... Neato, eh!
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Who is responsible for the Deficit?
It’s not Obama.
About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.
Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing.
About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.
If the analysis is extended further into the future, well beyond 2012, the Obama agenda accounts for only a slightly higher share of the projected deficits.
How can that be? Some of his proposals, like a plan to put a price on carbon emissions, don’t cost the government any money. Others would be partly offset by proposed tax increases on the affluent and spending cuts. Congressional and White House aides agree that no large new programs, like an expansion of health insurance, are likely to pass unless they are paid for.
George Bush and a Republican Congress sc***** the pooch no matter how you look at it.
Republicans live in denial because if they were capable of dealing with addressing problems, they would be Democrats solving problems that Republicans CREATE.
Republican: Ignorant. Irrational. Clueless.
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RS,
Again, your comments confirm who and what you are! You apparently can't deal with cause-and-effect. You're darned right that President Obama is doing an "eceptional job," turning from Bush policies that nearly brought us to another Great Depression. Did you think that recoving America from what Republicans did would be easy? Thanks to what Bush and Republicans did, when Bush left office America was losing over 100,000 jobs a month! We're nowhere near that thanks to Obama's economic policies. Yet you can't process or are so far in denial of reality that the cause-and-effect of what Bush did is lost on you. Meanwhile, Republicans want to return to the VERY SAME policies that nearly drove America off an economic cliff ... and you have the nerve to talk about rationality?! Wow, just goes to show that Republicans are so far gone that they're not even capable of recognizing the truth, let alone admitting it.
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Voisine, exactly what has President Obama done to improve the economy. Be specific. You speak
For example, passing the Stimulus Package kept unemployment below 8% putting more people to work. More people are unemployed after that past. Okay, his tax policies will lower taxes. Damn, taxes are going up next year. Okay, he got health care. No, we have to pay for it for 4 years before we see benefits. He'll be out of office by the time we see an impact.
I have to admit that the President has done an "Exceptional Job" of more the country close to a socialist state. He tried and thankfully failed to nationalize health care. He successfully took over an auto industry. He successfully transferred the ownership of another auto industry from the bond holders to the unions. He has successful raised taxes to transfer the wealth of some to others. So, is socialism is what you want, then the President is doing an "Exceptional Job"
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President Obama is raising taxes next year. He's got nothing to do with it. This is all a republican tax hike, pure and simple. They supported it, they voted for it and it will happen. President Obama wasn't even in the Congress when that law was passed.
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tron, taxes are going up next year to pay for health care.
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Tron, will taxes be higher, lower or the same next year?
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you're blaming President Obama, when it was bush and the republicans that approved the measure.
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Tron, President Obama is not stopping from happening. Also, taxes will be going up to pay for the health care fiasco that was past.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.The President has no obligation to 'stop' them. The republicans
all thought it was a good idea to raise taxes next year, and he probably agrees with them. So do I. Don't you? It isn't going to affect you, anyways.
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Tron, you don't know my situation. How can you claim it will not affect me?
By the way, the tax increase will affect you.
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... you're precisely the person described. Any course in basic logic applied to Republican inability to deduce cause-and-effect serves as further evidence to the illogic of individuals who gravitate to this anti-rational party and ideology. Thanks for providing a case in point.
What's wrong with America? One word: Republicans.
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Voisine, I'm afraid you are off in left field(pun intended). That definition is closer you. You are the one who said President Obama is doing an "Exceptional Job". Unemployment hovering at 10%, tripling deficits, tax increases on the horizon. Sorry, but you are the one who cannot see the evidence right in front of you.
What is wrong with America are the uninformed of both parties.
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Good post, ST
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There are studies that explain the anti-rational thinking that plagues far right wing zealots like Momof4 (her job title, or excuse for hiding at home yet expecting praise??):
Right wing authoritarian conservatives are more likely to:
• Make many incorrect inferences from evidence.
• Hold contradictory ideas leading them to `speak out of both sides of their mouths.'
• Uncritically accept that many problems are `our most serious problem.'
• Uncritically accept insufficient evidence that supports their beliefs.
• Uncritically trust people who tell them what they want to hear.
• Use many double standards in their thinking and judgements.
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Voisine, that definition sounds more like a liberal than a Republican, but thanks for the laugh.
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Momof4 (what is that, your JOB TITLE? Or are you just entitled to a life of playing house??),
Why do you assume that people who don't agree with your brand of far right ignorance fit into some neat stereotype? In point of fact, people like YOU fit far easier into a stereotype. "Liberals" didn't cause this economy, that's the result of Republican "thinking." If you had any ability to think, you wouldn't be an ignorant Republican voting against fairness for the majority of Americans. You'd rather live in your own fantasy world than consider what Republicans have delivered to America, namely, little more than failure. You're nothing more than a perfect example of why Democracy is fragle, because the least informed are granted the "right" to mess up this country, and they're called REPUBLICANS! Wingnut!
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Voisy writes, "If you had any ability to think, you wouldn't be an ignorant Republican voting against fairness for the majority of Americans".
oBAMa's in the White House, the democrats are in control of both the House and the Senate. Aren't they giving us fairness for the majority of Americans now? Are you suggesting they're not giving us our "fairness"? Which is it? It doesn't go both ways.
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I should have added "or unemployed" to my post. I guess I must have touched a nerve for you to get all flipped out again, causing you to cut-and-paste someone else's rantings for the umpteenth time. You'd b*tch if you were hung with a brand new rope....
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All the far-left liberals (and I'm not including all liberals in that definition) certainly have no problem raking in taxes (sales, unemployment, FICA, etc., as well as income) from the evil business community to fund social programs you cherish. But you would deny businesses the opportunity to speak out against policies or individuals in office that can do harm to them? And you have no problem with unions spending members dues to further their (and your) political wishes? Hypocrites. And before you avalanche me in a tirade of names, I am not a Republican but unenrolled.
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that they are all self-employed.
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The recent Supreme Court ruling by far right Republican appointed "Justices" throws open the doors for corporations to influence the political process as never before. Once again the far right fringe and Republican party -- the same now -- prove that they actually are fascists, not believers in Democracy. In 2000, Bush didn't even win the popular vote and yet was installed by Republican appointees. Republicans are nothing more than a plague upon America and they will destroy this country if they can.
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Ahhhh, the voice of reason.
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The decision also threw wide open the ability of foreign corporations to influence American elections.
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Voisine, that ruling you dislike also gives the unions the ability to advertise. It cuts both ways.
Heck, unions have done more to destroy businesses in this country than Republicans ever could do.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Agreed...with a proviso
Ms. Ward, your assertion that only "people" should be allowed to contribute to the campaign of their preferred candidate is acceptable...only if that restriction also applies to other entities such as political action committees, grass-roots organizations of any stripe or color, non-US citizens, lobbyists and special interest groups, and (especially) labor unions. If contributions were limited only to REGISTERED voters with a ceiling of, say, $5000 per individual and a requirement for documentation of those contributions, we would likely see an end to the constant, negative campaign advertisements from even the most honorable office-seekers. They might actually be forced to spend their campaign dollars addressing the issues affecting the voting public rather than slamming the candidates' personalities, physical appearances, marital histories, imbibement tendencies and any other character flaws that usually have nothing to do with the candidates' ability to perform (which would actually be refreshing).
So if you want to prohibit corporations from making political contributions, be prepared to do the same to all other "non-person" entities.
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Lisa, why then are unions allowed to piss away hard earned membership dues in support of candidates that lean to their way of doing business? Don't both sides have "equal rights"? My problem with the clean election law is that no matter how hard privately funded candidates work for funding, we the people keep dishing out matching funds to the candidates that chose "clean", regardless of whether they have a legitimate shot at winning or not. Some changes need to be made to this law.
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Chief Justice Marshall, in the Dartmoth decision wrote that corporations are a accumulation of contracts not people. People have inalienable rights precisely because we are people. Corporations are not people. They have no civil rights.
What's insane is the idea that there are two sides. Employees share many of the interests with the corporations they work for.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Well not sure about Maine people but there are theses ugly...
things called Republicans...
You ask.
"Will Maine people accept the recent arguments that corporations deserve First Amendment rights?"
Well since corporations are aligned with reptiles and they don't believe in doing anything right just what will get them elected or re-elected. They have already shown they don't believe in the Constitution with FoxSnooze leading the charge, as well they should, now that Fox has been shown to be a part of the republican party. When they are done saying "no" this is next out of their mouths "greed is good". I think it is in their bible that Jesus said it as he was throwing the moneychangers out of the temple. Yeah that's what he meant. Greed is good. Just don't need no Gawldang money changer middlemen, I want it all for ME.
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