During the 2010 State Of The Union Address (January 27,
2014) Supreme Court Justice, Sam Alito, shook his head when the President
claimed in his speech that their recent “Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission”
decision had opened “the floodgates for special interests –- including foreign
corporations –- to spend without limit in our elections.” Besides being
unspeakably rude it has also proven to be almost wholly untrue.
The stupidity of the implied statement by Alito has left me shaking my head! Of course there will be more money in politics if you remove the restrictions (what few there had been) from it! And if you don't enforce any accountability, how can you say that what the president said was wrong!? You simply can not!
By eliminating practically all accountability and limits on
contribution, there is no way to verify that what the president said is wrong –
there is no way to prove it is happening either, but there is ample evidence
that the Citizens United decision was a boon to the broadcasters and the
politicians. It has been MONTHS since I have seen an advertisement that is not
a political hack job.
And despite the one remaining restriction that these Super
PACs (organizations incorporated as tax-free ventures under §527 of the tax
code) not be able to collaborate with the candidates they support. The problem
is that this one remaining restriction is being ignored – which is not to say ‘flagrantly
violated.’ One need only look at the ads running in any “battleground state’ to
know that there is almost no difference between the ads running for the
candidates and those created by the 527s that support them.
A perfect example is (as parodied by Jon Steward on ‘The Daily Show’) the case of Senator
Mitch McConnell (R of Kentucky) who produced an ad which had no dialogue to it,
simply a montage of shots of the candidate. As Jon observed in his piece, this
isn’t an ad for the candidate – it is B-Roll for the PACs to re-edit into their
ads.
If you’re disgusted by the things going on in the Halls of
Power – remember to vote on Tuesday and then make it known that you do not
support the politics as usual attitude they all seem to live with. Don’t settle
– VOTE!
Wherever you are today, I hope that you’re having a lovely
weekend!
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