When we talk about "buying" elections, we only talk about the "buyers." Who's doing the selling?

it's abundantly clear that seats for our elected officials are being bought... this isn't news... it's been happening for a long time but never more visibly than in this week's wisconsin recall election... what often gets left out in the buying and selling discussion is where all that money is going... yes, it's easy enough to say it's being spent on political advertising... that's a no-brainer... but just as we're coming to find out just exactly who is doing the "buying," we need to know just exactly who all that money is going to... besides the source, it would be very useful to know how much media outlets and advertising firms are making and the details of the majority ownership - by name - of those outlets and firms... my hunch, which is also undoubtedly a no-brainer - is that we would see a maze of interlocking interests, back-scratching and mutual hand-washing... 

from the huffpo via the republic report...

For decades, broadcasters have kept the public in the dark about their massive election-year windfalls.

Those that own news outlets prefer silence on this issue. (See Disney, which owns eight ABC stations reaching 24 percent of the U.S. population, CBS Corp., which owns and operates 28 stations, Comcast, which provides news programming to more than 200 NBC affiliates, and News Corp., which owns and operates 27 local affiliates) Covering this story exposes their conflict of interest, in which profit-taking trumps the news media’s duty to educate viewers about the forces behind modern-day elections.

In the two years since Citizens United took effect, Super PACs and independent third-party groups have spent hundreds of millions to inundate the airwaves with political ads. That amount is projected to double before viewers become voters in November.

 The FCC’s response was an obvious solution: Require stations, which already archive this information for public view in paper files, to post ad spending data on the Internet, where anyone can see it. As viewers are being hammered by deceptive political ads we need a full accounting of the billionaires and corporate slush funds that stand behind this misinformation. 

but... 

But as with any hard-won reform in the age of big-money politics, this positive change can be undone by a generous application of corporate lawyers, lobbyists and campaign contributions.

the cardinal rule, "follow the money," is anathema to our super-rich elites and their bought-and-paid-for elected puppets... god forbid we should shine a light on their shell game...

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