La Cucaracha by Lalo Alcaraz for February 27, 2015

Yes. How about two simple amendments:

1. Money is not speech.

2. Corporations shall not be considered as legal persons.

And here are a few excellent suggestions from former US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, from his book Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution:

Eliminate gerrymandering: “Districts represented by members of Congress, or by members of any state legislative body, shall be compact and composed of contiguous territory. The state shall have the burden of justifying any departures from this requirement by reference to neutral criteria such as natural, political, or historic boundaries or demographic changes. The interest in enhancing or preserving the political power of the party in control of the state government is not such a neutral criterion.”

Reform campaign finance: “Neither the First Amendment nor any other provision of this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit the Congress or any state from imposing reasonable limits on the amount of money that candidates for public office, or their supporters, may spend in election campaigns.”

Get rid of the barbarism of the death penalty (adding 5 words to the 8th Amendment): "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments such as the death penalty inflicted.

Bring some sanity back to gun policy (adding 5 words to the 2nd Amendment): "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia, shall not be infringed.

@agresticLike

The founders would buy a printing press & put out a newspaper, or more often, pay a printer & circulate leaflets. It’s easier, but more expensive, to buy name recognition today. How about just a corruption quarantine; you can only donate to a campaign if you are eligible & registered to vote in the relevant district. No foreign, corporate or union money. No Texas money in Montana or L.A. money in S.F. No anonymous money. You can only buy your own politicians.

3…2…1…

All great suggestions, agrestic; however, doomed to remain so forever. There will be no further amendments unless there is a lot of profit in them for certain people.

Is there any outrage over our Secretary of State taking money from foreign contributors? The Clinton Foundation (slush fund) did quite well while Our Lady of Liberalism held that office. Oh, I forgot, “At this point, what difference does it make?”

Obama raised and spent a billion dollars on his last election. The same amount as Romney. Any one thinking they did not come form the same sources is naive.

Big money people donate to who ever they can get favors form regardless of political or philosophical positions.

The people paying $1,000 per plate to have dinner with Obama are not form the working class.

That’s right! You just nailed it Lalo.Both sides could loose major bucks, but it would noT be thrown down a rabbit hole like about half of it is. It would go towards making the poltitians more honest.

Let’s not leave out Soros, Steyer, Bloomberg, etc

I appreciate you didn’t deny her family’s “fund” took the money. If “The Lady” becomes president, who else will be sitting in the oval office? (Besides “wasshisname”)

To all those folks throwing around numbers about how much Republicans vs. Democrats raised, you’re missing the point. We need this big money out of our political system, period. This is not a partisan issue. It is an issue of regular citizens versus big-money political manipulators.

Um, yeah, I’m not sure you’re the type I’d like to see running around with guns, as unhinged as you sound. And do you even know what “well-regulated” means? The number of folks who end up shooting themselves in this country just goes to show how not “well-regulated” folks are. And when’s the last time the vast majority of our country’s citizens have been trained for civil defense?

As for delusions of paranoia and grandeur versus our military, do you think that with the weapons our military and even police have now they wouldn’t be able to put down an armed uprising as a trivial matter? Or are you suggesting we start to allow citizens to tote around RPGs and drive around in fully-loaded Abrams and Bradleys?

On a related note, are you hoping for a violent uprising? You know, folks in Greece have been doing a fine job of overthrowing regimes they’re disgusted with even though they have much more restrictive gun laws. They just do it largely without the guns part. Same for any number of other countries.

guns are the only thing protecting us from strikes on american soil, and the elimination of innocents as “dissenters”

This is truly a paranoid vision of the world, likely fueled by too many nights watching Red Dawn. Which government of the world do you think has any interest in actually invading the United States? How does gun ownership deter terrorist attacks? And which state or federal agencies do you think are itching to run around eliminating this country’s citizens?

The Koch’s PAC gave $400 million to Republicans.. The labor unions donated $1.2 billion to DEMOCRATS.

Let’s say that’s even true. If it is, then organizations representing 14.5 million working men and women gave just three times as much as just two men. This is patently undemocratic, and Exhibit A for why big money needs to be taken out of our politics.

mdavis4183 has shown repeatedly that he just makes up stuff as he needs to.

I saw a bumper sticker that said:

“I’ll Believe Corporations Are People When Texas Executes One”