That is how money and influence works. The monied interest gets someone on the committe to insert a paragragh or two into an unrelated bill on their behalf. That is how Enron got to own water rights across South America, for example.

Any bill that has been deemed 'sure to pass' gets immense amounts of pork inserted over time. By the time is is voted on, there are dozens of riders that are unrelated to the purpose of the original bill. The beauty of being in Congress is you can support a bill for its good points, or vote against a bill because too much pork was inserted. Either way, you have a good argument to your constituents.

If you want to use it as a cudgel, feel free. Then find me any member of Congress that hasn't voted on a bill that contains some aspect they didn't campaign on.

Some at the top of the party now have a seat at the BIG table. Democratic insiders are able to get rich. Years have been spent ingratiating themselves to the beltway institutions that can make that happen. The problem is the cost of that seat at that table.

It costs selling out the rest of the party. They turned the Democratic Party into a vehicle for their own enrichment. We peons are, as Rahm so eloquently put it, "f*cking retarded" anyway. They got rich by getting us dems to go along with neoliberalism.

The problems are: it isn't 1992, Hillary doesn't have Bill's charisma, and America has seen this movie several times now.

Most of the party insiders haven't collected several years' worth of quarter-million-dollar speaking fees. Their promised payoff is yet to come. Bernie upsets that entire apple cart.

I do believe they'd rather keep the possibilty of a movie sequel alive and sell out the party further than give it up. They've sacrified so much already - they deserve a payoff. Besides, Bernie isn't of their ilk; thus, he is easily put on the chopping block.

If they were smart, they could get some restitution from the other side of the aisle for taking down a common enemy, if they haven't already.

when he began. He was in the political wilderness. Before any vote is cast, he has not only shifted the conversation, he has single-handedly dragged the presumptive nominee toward his policies at virtually every single turn. She is taking positions she never has nor never would have taken if it weren't for him.

That should make him dance. It SHOULD make any Democrat dance who is capable of putting aside the cult of personality.

When Hillary evolves, some see it as good. When Bernie tries to get some Trump supporters to evolve, the same people see it as bad.

Some Trump supporters are probably enthusiastic about him. Many are probably amused by him and know that liking him in a phone poll is not the same as pulling the lever. Trump is running at 39%. His support among many of them is tenuous at best. He is running as an outsider and doing well among Republicans.

Is every single Trump supporter unreachable? Is the brainwashing so complete that they are all lost causes? If they were devout Republicans, then an outsider like Trump wouldn't be polling so well against the other staunch party guys.

The 50 state strategy was a good idea. Those who rejected it are more than happy to have the resulting converts to the Democratic party. Same idea at play here.

This whole 'Bernie's Bad for trying to appeal to Trump voters' thing does boggle the mind. To paraphrase what I've read, ' We don't want Trump's bigots to consider any alternative - we just want them to go on living in their pathetic bubble and voting for the opposition.'

I've spoken to many Bernie supporters who are opposed to the rightward lurch the party has taken over the past many years. Its odd that those who support the candidate representing that lurch to the right are opposed to courting some just a bit further to the right. Its like a 'we've gone this far, but not a step further.'

Last I checked, Democrats were the Big Tent. If its big enough for some converts, it should be big enough for even more.

… it should never be necessary to resort to extra-constitutional measures" - N Machiavelli

You are right, it is intentional, not waste.

The other side of National Security has more potential than any foreign adversary to bring down our Republic. It operates beyond the Constitution, the law, accountability, oversight, etc. A couple Congresspeople are the only effective oversight, and they've been more than happy to ask no questions, and if they do, to wait years for partial or forged documentation reviewed by a new pliant commitee chair.

Why doesn't anyone with authority ever follow 'the money'? In this case its taxpayer dollars to the Pentagon, and that is merely what they admit.

The Black Budget has been additionally funded by tens of billions in drug money since the 80s at least. Iran-Contra and Danilo Blandon are as bright a light as will ever shine on these activities. Since then, mostly undocumented, or, as you say, dismissed as overages.

I learned this past week that our former Attorney General serves on the board of Academi. They are the latest incarnation of Blackwater, the military contractor & supplier of security forces who has risen from the ashes to fly again as often as the Phoenix. You can bet they will have military contracts for the forseeable future.

http://academi.com/pages/about-us/board-of-directors

It looks like the US has a separate contractor economy paid for with tax dollars behind the National Security shield whose positions are only held by those who are on board or who have played ball.

It seems like a bribe to me, and they aren't even trying to hide it.

Let's not pretend that those actors invented a revolutionary alloy, nor anything remotely similar. Without their looks and bods, they'd be among the great unwashed they apparently revile.

Atlas Shrugged is filled with simplistic strawman arguments, John Galt's first speech the worst. Ooh, someone at work once abused the health plan. I'm quitting society. No fighting to improve things, nobody gets second chances. You moochers are all beneath me.

May all Rand fans take her advice, collectively go to some remote part of the Rockies, and never be heard from again by the the rest of us. I'd love to see them give up their palatial existences to go barter with each other. I'll take my chances with the rest of you in a society without their "brilliance."

May the movie cost billions, and been seen only by the 1%.

In the CMO mess, the ratings agencies looked at only a small percentage of the total combined mortgages within a security, 10-20%. In short time, Wall Street handed them that percentage of good mortgages, and filled the rest of the security with known garbage. This is similar. They want to overwhelm the regulatory capacity, so some organizations get no scrutiny. This 'scandal' is an attempt to shame the regulators into less future scrutiny.

When an understaffed regulatory agency gets a unique huge spike in activity, in this case 501(c)(4) applications, it may have to take steps like using keyword identification to narrow the potential field of infractions, because they know they can't investigate all of them.

The real point is that it is the IRS's job to make sure that a non-profit isn't abusing its mandate. If they abuse it, it is their JOB to catch them. The travesty is that the GOP meme is we are not supposed to look, as if the fact that the IRS wanted to look is wrong somehow. In a perfect world, the IRS would check all 501(c)(4)s - last thing the GOP wants.

If the IRS doesn't, who else should? GOP Answer: Nobody, because we have more $$$, and we want to spend it politically, and we want to do so tax-free.

My question is existential. How did the US get to the point where we are electing complete morons? Hasn't the electorate always been able to be misled? Somehow, those elected by previous generations still had some sort of 'pedigree'. Certainly, every generation of every society fortunate enough to live and vote in a democracy/republic has and will elect a lemon or two. Hell, Joe McCarthy was a lawyer, judge, WWII Marine and then Senator. I can understand his election based on these qualifications. Yes, I know, his administration of those duties were questionable and more, but at least he had it. His blathering then was at least somewhat novel, not the hackneyed echo chamber of today's mass media that still gets traction on the electorate.

I'm not saying all elected representatives now are dolts, far from it, yet so many are. I haven't researched it, but aren't there more elected reps with thinner qualifications now than in decades? Having run a company has become a political trump card, even if it was run poorly (Harken). It is so disturbing. My god, half of DU would make better Congressional timber.

Somewhere in the late 80's - mid-90's, it became okie dokie to nominate and elect popular figures. Sonny Bono, Steve Largent, Heath Shuler, Jesse Ventura, Arnold (who ran against Gary Coleman and a porn star among many others in a circus campaign). Some turned out well, America didn't come crashing down, rinse - repeat?

Electability over substance. The film The Candidate came out in 1972, so the concept has been around. Is Rove the inevitable result of the politics of sound byte & news cycle where to look & sound good is paramount and ideas don't matter to the electorate?

This one has been brewing in me for a while. Post-Peristroika, what an opportunity, and what a face palm. Help me to understand.