http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/22/politics/kochs-reserve-fund-health-care/index.html Are others as outraged about this as I am? I know this isn't precedent-setting and the story seems to be sliding under the media radar. What a pitiful demonstration of our US Republic. It almost seems against the law -- but I know it isn't. It's only a more blatant out-in-the-open form of lobbyism. And it doesn't matter if you agree with their cause or not, buying votes is just wrong. One of the sicker sides of capitalism.
Not to mention the fact that it is a false equivalence and the Cook County Machine ceased decades ago.
What, did Limbaugh, Hannity, et al. not tell you? "By the beginning of the 21st century the party had largely ceased to function as a machine due to the decline of political patronage following the issuing of the Shakman Decrees." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_County_Democratic_Party
I don't care what Waki says , I have property in cook county and live in cook county and there are many aldermans that produce voters. The change is due to come because yapi are moving in into the new highrise buildings, and they are moving the trash to the suburbs by destroying the proyects.
The fact is the Cook County Machine is dead, and has been dead for sometime. The patronage which allowed the machine to thrive is gone. Are there corrupt politicians? Sure there are. Koch money has corrupted many people: academics as well as politicians. Republicans thrive on dark money, e.g. Citizens United. If you want clean government, then you need to drain the money out of our electoral processes. You need to reform ethics in Congress, e.g. strictly forbid elected and appointed officials and their families benefiting from lobbying activities. You need to change the way we elect our representatives. Republicans have been steadfastly vehemently opposed to all those things. The first thing this Republican Congress wanted to do was to destroy the Office of Congressional Ethics. They've put it off until October because of appearances. Congressional Republicans have steadfastly refused to put drain the swamp. Those are hard facts. For your further edification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakman_Decrees
