"Super PAC Money Sources:" Unregulated Undisclosed Will be Our Downfall Quickly

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Here, go git 'em kiddo - need more, give us a call

(Super PACs R Us, Inc.)

A serious report worth reading. 

Highlight: A sum of $5,190,063,790 (yeah, that's right in billions for both the House and Senate and key Governor races). B/L: “Unlimited and most donors can remain anonymous.”

Examples are in the report – the headline:

Where money mattered and where it didn’t

Background – two key USSC rulings:

Citizens United v. the FEC (5-4) (January 21, 2010): “Political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and the government may not keep corporations or unions from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections. While corporations or unions may not give money directly to campaigns, they may seek to persuade the voting public through other means, including ads, especially where these ads were not broadcast.”

“This ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path the Court has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.”  — Justice John Paul Stevens (Dissent in Citizens United)

McCutcheon v. the FEC (5-4) (April 2, 2014): “The Supreme Court issued a ruling that struck down the aggregate limits on the amount an individual may contribute during a two-year period to all federal candidates, parties and political action committees combined.”

As polls showed after the 2012 election cycle, there was an unprecedented torrent of negative TV attack Ads that took their toll on almost every presidential and congressional candidate.  A lot of Americans have spoken out about that dreadful Citizens United ruling and the McCutcheon ruling that followed and for good reason – some of that damage: 

·  It swept aside decades of bipartisan regulation of campaign finance and “went back to the future” as it were.

·  Some 23 billionaires contributed a minimum of $250,000 each so far in the upcoming cycle. (Much more was forthcoming).

·  That number is really much greater because many of these contributions are made in secret.

·  That small handful of powerfully rich Americans are just not content to own our economy, that 1 percent wants to own all of government.

·  That small handful already own a significant part of the wealth of America and have enormous control over the entire economy.

·  The wealthiest 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans — half the country.

My 2 cents: What we seem to see now more so than ever is either premier democracy in action, or the demise of “We the People” – take your pick. 

As noted this massive uncontrolled amounts of money is thanks to USSC rulings ... a sad day in America for sure. Ideas be damned – who has the fattest bank account and who can fork over the most for narrow (and in most cases, shellfish motives) policies for their pick to write laws that favor them – but not quid pro quo, right, Mr. and Mrs. America – just good old-fashioned politics and favoritism, um?

One word sums it up: Pathetic or pitiful – maybe both. 

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