Lawrence Lessig ~ The People Can Save the Republic by Taking Back Power from "The Lesters"

Lawrence Lessig, the founder of Creative Commons, gave a fantastic lecture in which he explained how our crazy system allows a miniscule minority - 0.05% of citizens - the "Lesters" - to fund elections, and how that corruption "at the root" of the Republic is blocking reform. The "Lesters" pick and choose candidates and issues through money influence, and only after they make a choice do the "People" get to vote in general elections. This is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind. Nor did they envision a country in which the public good is secondary to the future of politicians and their staffers to work as well-paid lobbyists for the Lesters. "This is a problem of incentives," says Lessig.




And while it seems impossible to overcome the corruption, we have to try because, as Lessig wryly notes, "Even we Liberals love this country." What is the answer? According to Lessig, it's the Obama-model of fundraising used successfully in two elections - take small contributions from many citizens instead of large lump sums from the one-percenters like the Koch Brothers or Sheldon Adelson (after all, Mitt failed in spite of his money).

TED is a Non-Profit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.

"Lesterland" is available as an ebook download in various formats


Lessig on CNN:

. . . in my TED talk, I created Lesterland: Imagine a country like the United States, with just as many "Lesters" as the United States (about 150,000 out of a population of more than 300 million, or about 0.05%). And imagine those Lesters have a very special power: Each election cycle has two elections. In one, the general election, all citizens get to vote. In the other, the "Lester election," only "Lesters" get to vote.

But here's the catch: To be allowed to run in the general election, you must do extremely well in the Lester election. You don't necessarily need to win, but you must do extremely well.

We all get what Lesterland would be like. Sure, as the Supreme Court said in Citizens United, "the People" of Lesterland would have the "ultimate influence" over elected officials. Ultimate, because in the final election, the people get to vote. But "the People" only get to vote for the candidates who have made "the Lesters" happy. And no doubt, that fact will produce a subtle, understated, somewhat camouflaged bending to keep those Lesters happy.

Once you see Lesterland, and the corruption it creates you understand USA-land, and the corruption we suffer. For the United States is Lesterland.

Like Lesterland, the United States also has two elections. One a voting election, where citizens get to select the candidates who will ultimately govern. But the other is a money election, where the candidates who wish to run in the voting election raise the money they need to compete. As in Lesterland, the candidates don't necessarily need to win the money election. But they must do extremely well.

. . . Members of Congress will always be dependent upon their funders. But if we adopted a system to fund campaigns like the one proposed by Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Maryland, The Grassroots Democracy Act, then "the funders" would be "the People." If members raised the funds they needed from small contributions only, then many more of us would be the "relevant funders." And thus when members were responsive to their "funders," they would thus be responsive to that many more of us.

That, after all, was the Framers' original design. James Madison promised us a Congress "dependent upon the people alone." "Alone." We've got instead a Congress dependent upon the people and dependent upon the Lesters.

Bill Moyers Makes Democracy So Simple a Four-Year-Old Can Understand

Link to Bill Moyers Website

Fact Checking the Big Bird Debacle ~ Mitt Needs Educational TV

After watching the debate last night and the Big Bird sympathy all over the internet, I realized the problem is that Mitt just doesn't know much about PBS and how it works.

Nearly every show has a corporate sponsor all ready, from children's shows to Masterpiece Theater, and guess what - they always have! So his new "plan" to defund PBS and make it commercial is redundant and stupid. Same thing with sister channel "Create" - they don't need advertisements because they get sponsors for the products they use for cooking and crafts, and those are displayed at the beginning of the shows. It's a win-win for the network and for the viewers who watch without commercials.

It's as if Romney just wants to strip PBS and NPR bare the way Bain Capital did all those companies before selling them off piece by piece. He's a scorched-earth kinda guy and he likes to prey on the weakest link - in this case, television that helps children, the elderly, shut-ins, and those who need more education.

What Mitt Romney doesn't understand about everything would fill volumes, but if you are going to attack a beloved childhood icons like Big Bird and Sesame Street, at least know what the hell you are talking about!


CNN Interview with PAULA KERGER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PBS (via telephone):

Joining us now by phone is Paula Kerger the CEO of PBS. Welcome, Paula.

PAULA KERGER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PBS (via telephone): Thank you for having me on Carol. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.

COSTELLO: Oh we're excited to talk to you. I mean -- I mean, the Big Bird moment was funny but there's a serious issue here and that is funding for PBS. Were you surprised that Mitt Romney brought up Big Bird?

KERGER: I was. I mean with the enormous problems facing our country, the fact that we are the focus is just unbelievable to me, particularly given the fact that you know at another part of the debate, both candidates talked about the importance of education. We are America's biggest classroom. We touch children across the country in every home, whether -- whether you have books in your home or computer or not, almost everyone has a television set.

And so we're able to bring kids across the country, not just enjoyable programs but programs that really help them prepare and get ready for school with core curriculum and math and science and literacy. So the fact that we're in this debate, this is not about the budget. It has to be about politics.

COSTELLO: So -- so tell us how much money does Big Bird get from the government?

KERGER: Well, actually, Big Bird doesn't get money from the government. In fact, the money that comes from the government into the corporation for Public Broadcasting actually doesn't even come to PBS. It goes to our member stations.

And so that is actually what's at risk if, in fact, we are defunded because the money is going to stations across the country. In aggregate our money is 15 percent of our budget. But you know when you look at it station by station, there are some stations, particularly in rural parts of the country, that they are a part of the federal budget is 50 percent, 60 percent, 70 percent. Those stations will go off the air. And so for people sitting in communities across the country, that is at risk. That is the consequence if, in fact, our money is zeroed out.

We have been for the 40 years of our history a great public/private partnership and we take the federal money and we leverage that with resources that we -- that we raise.

COSTELLO: I want to talk a little bit about Jim Lehrer. Because there are critics this morning just annihilating his performance last night. What did you think of Jim Lehrer's performance?

KERGER: Well I think you know that it was a very complicated debate structure and so you know and I think that in -- and you saw that I think in the debate last night.

COSTELLO: Well, there was criticism even when Jim Lehrer was initially named to be a moderator. People said oh another old white guy. He's too old to be doing this we live in a new world, we don't need an old-fashioned journalist doing these things any longer.

KERGER: Again, I think it was -- it was a complicated structure for the debate. And -- but, I -- you know again, the fact that we were, you know, singled out early in the debate, to me was just -- it was -- it was stunning. It was just a stunning moment.

Mitt Tries to Mingle on Saturday Night Live

 SNL did a skit last night of Mitt Romney trying (and failing) to mingle with other Americans, and I think it's an instant classic that we will see hundreds of times between now and the election.

Ever since the "I had mah cheesy grits tis mornin'" debacle in Alabama, it's been obvious that Romney will say or do anything to try and fit in. Of course, all politicians pander - Obama tried (and failed) to go bowling once and got nothing but gutter balls. McCain re-branded himself as a far-right Tea Partier, then showed up at every Sausage and Beer joint in Pennsylvania and Ohio. It is always embarrassing to see that sort of thing - no one will ever forget Michael Dukakis riding in that tank in 2004 like G.I. Joe Wrong.




Pic by Jed Lewison on Daily Kos

But Mitt is in a class by himself, and it really hurts him when he comes to the South. I mean, the man came to Tennessee and in a stilting voice mouthed the words to "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" while even the sympathetic Republican crowd watched agape. Yes, Mr. Romney, we know that song, thanks. Is that really all you know about Tennessee - the Walt Disney version set in the early 1800s? I'm surprised he didn't show up in a raccoon cap and a buckskin shirt, but there's plenty of time for that in the general election. I shudder to think what is going to happen to him in Texas, if he even campaigns there. Let's hope no one gives him a rifle full of birdshot to wave around in the air, and I can only imagine what he will say about the whole Tex-Mex BBQ - beans-or-no-beans debate. For goodness sake, keep him away from the border! Well, I confess I'm really looking forward to all of it immensely and can't wait for his next gaffe, LOL. I imagine he will make jokes about the TV show, Dallas, since that is 20 years out of date, as Davy Crockett was 50, no make that 200 years out of date for Tennessee.

And of course Romney will pander to the very rich - his people, the 1% - by talking about Big Oil and how he knows the owners of every oil rig and yacht in the Gulf of Mexico. That's how he acted in Daytona, Florida,  when he tried to fit in with the middle-class Nascar crowd, but ended up bragging that he knew all the wealthy team owners instead. Oh, and he taunted them for buying plastic ponchos to wear in the rain while he wore his Don Draperesque London Fog coat.
From Raw Story:

“I like those fancy raincoats you bought. Really sprung for the big bucks,” he reportedly said. Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Wednesday asked Romney if it was even worth making those kind of jokes because Democrats would attack him as a “snob.”

“You know, it’s hard to imagine all the things they are going to try and turn into attacks,” the former Massachusetts governor replied. “That’s the first time I’ve heard the one that you’ve mentioned.”

“Look, I’ve worn a garbage bag for rain gear myself,” he added. “We’re out there in the rain. The rain was getting us soaked. I didn’t have a raincoat myself. I would have liked one of those.”

It never occurred to him that taunting someone for cheap clothes would make him a snob. What do we expect from a man with a Car Corporation father, a wife who drives a "couple of cadillacs," and owns a special car elevator out in the fancy two-store gah-rahge. Good Lord.

  

I really wish that Jim Bacchus of Gilligan's Island was still alive to see this guy - what a laugh he would have! I don't know think Mitt realizes that most voters see him as a combination Thurston Howell III (complete with bags of money and Lovey by his side) and Guy Smiley from Sesame Street.

Reblogged from Leftish on Tumblr

And I have to throw in the late and fabulous Ted Knight of Caddyshack fame as well, although no one would dare toss Romney through some double doors as Lou Grant once did to bumbling Ted Baxter on the Mary Tyler Moore show. The shout-out from the audience of "We don't believe you!" on SNL will have to suffice, and certainly rings true.

Broccoli Supreme

Via The Bloomington Herald-Times 

Yesterday, Justice Scalia compared the health care mandate to a rule that would force us all to eat our broccoli. It reminded me of  the Elder President Bush carping that he didn't like broccoli and by God he wasn't going to eat it, as if his old nanny was forcing it down his throat back in 1930. G.H.W. Bush sounded silly then, and Scalia sounds silly now. I realize the Supremes don't have to answer to the actual citizens of the country, but shouldn't they take their power a little more seriously? Turning this into an episode of Veggie Tales makes the Supremes sound like first year law students mulling over hypotheticals without any real knowledge of the pain and suffering out health care system foists on the disenfranchised. Apples versus . . . Broccoli anyone?  If they are worried about their image and their legacy, they jolly well should be after this.

As one writer put it: Good Luck Treating Cerebral Palsy with Broccoli.

Charles Pierce blogged on Esquire: Tony Scalia's Retirement Has Started Early

It is plain now that Scalia simply doesn't like the Affordable Care Act on its face. It has nothing to do with "originalism," or the Commerce Clause, or anything else. He doesn't think that the people who would benefit from the law deserve to have a law that benefits them. On Tuesday, he pursued the absurd "broccoli" analogy to the point where he sounded like a micro-rated evening-drive talk-show host from a dust-clotted station in southern Oklahoma.

In a New York Times op-ed entitled Broccoli and Bad Faith Paul Krugman wrote:

Let’s start with the already famous exchange in which Justice Antonin Scalia compared the purchase of health insurance to the purchase of broccoli, with the implication that if the government can compel you to do the former, it can also compel you to do the latter. That comparison horrified health care experts all across America because health insurance is nothing like broccoli. Why? When people choose not to buy broccoli, they don’t make broccoli unavailable to those who want it. But when people don’t buy health insurance until they get sick — which is what happens in the absence of a mandate — the resulting worsening of the risk pool makes insurance more expensive, and often unaffordable, for those who remain. As a result, unregulated health insurance basically doesn’t work, and never has.

So often in this political year the whole thing seems like a Funhouse Nightmare, but it's terrible when a Supreme Court Justice sounds like a cross between Rush Limbaugh and Dana Carvey singing the Broccoli Song on SNL. Then again, maybe the fact that this nonsense is on the record and will be in the history books is some kind of justice after all.

The Supreme Court Has no Cred with the Public

All day I've been referring to the Supreme Court as "The Supremes," which is probably irritating my daughter, who is in Law School. But in a way, these illustrious judges have become no different from any other narcissistic celebrities with delusions of grandeur. Appointed for life with all the benefits, and treated like royalty by the Washington elite, they answer to no one but themselves. Too bad they only talk and pontificate instead of sing and dance.

Do I sound cynical? Maybe it's because I remember all too well the Bush v. Gore decision which gave the election to George W. Bush even though later it was discovered that Gore won the popular vote. Before the 2000 election, I had faith that the Supremes were truly above politics, and that they would let the recount proceed in Florida because it was the American Way. Before Citizens United decided that "Corporations are People" we could placate ourselves that at least they recognized the basic rights of human beings to run their own country instead of big business. But I don't see them as infallible Gods of Law anymore, and no one should. Yes, even now with a natural split they sometimes write a nearly unanimous decision. But they won't be remembered for that. In fact, whatever they decide in this case about Obama's Affordable Care Act, that's what people will remember. When the verdict is handed down from Mt. Olympus sometime in June, one side or the other will damn the Supremes and take to the streets.

 Rachel Maddow had a great recap of all that Supreme Court history tonight. Watch it Here She brought up the following poll showing that the American Public is skeptical that the High Court will be fair and untainted by partisan politics. People expect the Republicans on the Court to side with...the Republicans and against President Obama. That's okay. I'm glad we know. This could get us one step closer to Medicare for everyone or Single Payer like the rest of the civilized world. From Bloomberg