Radio

Gay Rights: Are Congress and the President Too Slow?

President Obama and the Democrats in Congress swear to the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender community that they will keep their promises.  There are four, listed in order of least-important, easiest-to-get to most important, hardest-to-get:
– Hate Crimes Legislation
– Employment Non-Discrimination
– Freedom to Serve in the Military
– Repeal of “Defense of Marriage Act”
In my opinion, the Democrats in Congress must achieve at least the first 3 by November 2010. Or they will see that GLBT supporters will simply stop giving money to Democrats. Many also — although I do not recommend this — will stay home and not vote.
If there is a Republican rout in 2010, let me the first to explain why strong and tireless supporters of the Democratic Party — namely gays and lesbians and their friends and family, parents and children — stayed home.
President Obama will have to deliver more than a great speech.

Virginia Elections 2009

Guest: George Burke

Debate Monday

Mark debates Republican strategist Mike Lane on:
– Iran
– Afghanistan and Counter-Insurgency Strategy
– Health Insurance Reform (including the “Mark Levine One-Sentence Solution to Health Reform”)
– The Economy
– The Pending Supreme Court Case on Whether to Allow Corporations to Fund Political Campaigns

My Political Philosophy

Will the Supreme Court Allow Corporations to Buy Elections?

Mark on The Leslie Marshall Show discusses the pending case of Citizens United v. FEC before the United States Supreme Court. Congress has banned corporate contributions to Congressional campaigns since 1906, but if the Supreme Court holds that corporations have the same rights as individual American citizens to “free speech,” this will allow the floodgates to open.
Think about it. Barack Obama raised more money than any political candidate in American history:  more than $750 million from more than 1 million Americans. John McCain raised almost as much.  All political parties combined raised about $1.5 billion for American Presidential candidates.
But Exxon’s profit last year was $42 billion.  That means if Exxon would devote a paltry 5% of its profits (not its revenues, just its profits) to a Presidential candidate–a total of 2.1 billion– this one corporation could influence American elections 40% more than the grand total of every single American contributing to every single Presidential candidate and still keep 95% of its profits.
This may be what the five-member right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court vote for soon.
Allowing the single CEO of a single corporation, a “legal fiction,” to play with other people’s (his shareholders’) money and use that power to trump all 300 million Americans combined would be devastating to American democracy.
Thought Bush v. Gore was bad?  Now, in one obscure case, the Supreme Court will determine not just one President, but all future federal elections for all time.  Yikes!  And the CEO of Exxon will simply get the only vote that matters.
Might as well as pack up those voting booths….we won’t be needing them anymore.