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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The sad truth about the big money that bought the Wisconsin recall election

if you want to know the real impact of citizens united, look no further than yesterday's wisconsin recall election where big money bought the seat that scott walker will now continue to occupy...

from mother jones...

$63.5 million: The minimum amount spent by both sides in the recall

70 percent: How much more expensive the governor's recall election is than the state's second-most expensive race (the 2010 gubernatorial campaign)

$30.5 million: Amount raised by Walker to fight off the recall effort

$3.9 million: Amount raised by his challenger, Tom Barrett, the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee

About 2/3: Proportion of Walker's donations that have come from donors outside Wisconsin

About 1/4: Proportion of Barrett's donations that have come from donors outside Wisconsin

Unlimited: Maximum individual donation Walker may accept under state law

$10,000: Maximum individual donation Barrett may accept under state law

$16.3 million: Amount spent by pro-Walker independent expenditure groups, which have invested $22 million in the Wisconsin recall

go read the article where you will see that over $3M of walker's campaign money was donated by only 9 people...

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This is your democracy on meth

post title courtesy of timothy egan in the nyt...

Newt’s Shop of Horrors

ari berman in tomdispatch...

Tomgram: Ari Berman, The Politics of the Super Rich

[T]he super PACs on both sides of the aisle are financed by the 1% of the 1%. Romney’s Restore Our Future Super PAC, founded by the general counsel of his 2008 campaign, has led the herd, raising $30 million, 98% from donors who gave $25,000 or more. Ten million dollars came from just 10 donors who gave $1 million each. These included three hedge-fund managers and Houston Republican Bob Perry, the main funder behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004, whose scurrilous ads did such an effective job of destroying John Kerry’s electoral prospects. Sixty-five percent of the funds that poured into Romney’s super PAC in the second half of 2011 came from the finance, insurance and real estate sector, otherwise known as the people who brought you the economic meltdown of 2007-2008.

[...]

Before Citizens United, the maximum amount one person could give to a candidate was $2,500; for a political action committee, $5,000; for a political party committee, $30,800. Now, the sky’s the limit for a super PAC, and even more disturbingly, any donor can give an unlimited contribution to a 501c4 -- outfits defined by the IRS as “civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare,” and to make matters worse, that contribution will remain eternally secret. In this way, American politics is descending further into the darkness, with 501c4s quickly gaining influence as “shadow super PACs.”

so, the u.s. has now officially joined the ranks of third world countries whose super-rich elites have routinely bought and sold the national assets of their people to the highest bidder, the common good be damned...

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When plunder becomes a way of life

moyers & co...

Here’s what we’re up against. Read it and weep: “America’s Plutocrats Play the Political Ponies.” That’s a headline in “Too Much,” an Internet publication from the Institute for Policy Studies that describes itself as “an online weekly on excess and inequality.”

Yes, the results are in and our elections have replaced horse racing as the sport of kings. Only these kings aren’t your everyday poobahs and potentates. These kings are multi-billionaires, corporate moguls who by the divine right, not of God, but the United States Supreme Court and its Citizens United decision, are now buying politicians like so much pricey horseflesh. All that money pouring into super PACs, much of it from secret sources: merely an investment, should their horse pay off in November, in the best government money can buy.

They’re shelling out fortunes' worth of contributions. Look at just a few of them: Mitt Romney’s hedge fund pals Robert Mercer, John Paulson, Julian Robertson and Paul Singer – each of whom has ponied up a million or more for the super PAC called “Restore Our Future” -- as in, "Give us back the go-go days, when predators ruled Wall Street like it was Jurassic Park.”

[...]

When all is said and done, this race for the White House may cost more than two billion dollars. What’s getting trampled into dust are the voices of people who aren't rich, not to mention what's left of our democracy. As Democratic pollster Peter Hart told The New Yorker magazine’s Jane Mayer, “It’s become a situation where the contest is how much you can destroy the system, rather than how much you can make it work. It makes no difference if you have a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ after your name. There’s no sense that this is about democracy, and after the election you have to work together, and knit the country together.”

These gargantuan super PAC contributions are not an end in themselves. They are the means to gain control of government – and the nation state -- for a reason. The French writer and economist Frederic Bastiat said it plainly: "When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." That’s what the super PACs are bidding on. For the rest of us, the ship may already have sailed.

rape, pillage and plunder...

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Robert Scheer: Our elections are a hoax

so very, very sad...

robert scheer writing in truthdig...

Our own elections, the ones our government has modeled for the world, are a hoax. What other word should we use to describe this year’s presidential election, whose outcome will turn on which party’s super PACs gets the most generous bribes from billionaires? The Republicans, enabled by decisions of a Supreme Court they still control, were the first out of the gate and are far more culpable in destroying our system of popular governance. But the Democrats, no less committed to winning at any cost to political principle, have now jumped in.

The generally reserved New York Times editorial page responded to the Obama campaign’s decision to seek super PAC funding with a scathing editorial headlined “Another Campaign for Sale.” The Times reminded that Barack Obama, in his State of the Union speech two years ago, called out the Supreme Court justices sitting before him over their decision to free special interests from campaign spending limits. “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests,” Obama said then. “They should be decided by the American people.” But sadly, as the Times editorial noted this week, “On Monday, the President abandoned that fundamental principle and gave in to the culture of the Citizens United decision that he once denounced as a ‘threat to our democracy.’ ”

[...]

Once again he has failed to take that case for economic justice to the American people and instead validated the Republican assault on what remains of our democracy.

and, with breakneck speed, we are headed to yet another presidential election where the choices are not really choices at all... i'm both angry and embarrassed that i actually thought 2008 presented a choice... silly me...

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Lawrence Lessig and Chris Hedges on Citizens United, the corporatocracy and the courts

occupy the courts...

On January 20th, occupiers across the country rallied together in protest against the insidious influence of the corporations over the judiciary. Shortly before the rally in Foley Square, New York CIty, Lawrence Lessig and Chris Hedges met in front of Occupy TVNY's cameras to discuss their vision of change.

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On the eve of the Citizens United SCOTUS ruling

how cool is this...?

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We can vote for Romney or Obama, but Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil and Bank of America and the defense contractors always win

chris hedges...

Our electoral system, already hostage to corporate money and corporate lobbyists, gasped its last two years ago. It died on Jan. 21, 2010, when the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission granted to corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts on independent political campaigns. The ruling turned politicians into corporate employees. If any politician steps out of line, dares to defy corporate demands, this ruling hands to our corporate overlords the ability to pump massive amounts of anonymous money into campaigns to make sure the wayward are defeated and silenced. Politicians like Obama are hostages. They jump when corporations say jump. They beg when corporations say beg.

[...]

Turn off your televisions. Ignore the Newt-Mitt-Rick-Barack reality show. It is as relevant to your life as the gossip on “Jersey Shore.” The real debate, the debate raised by the Occupy movement about inequality, corporate malfeasance, the destruction of the ecosystem, and the security and surveillance state, is the only debate that matters. You won’t hear it on the corporate-owned airwaves and cable networks, including MSNBC, which has become to the Democratic Party what Fox News is to the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party. You won’t hear it on NPR or PBS. You won’t read about it in our major newspapers.

[...]

Voting will not alter the corporate systems of power. Voting is an act of political theater. Voting in the United States is as futile and sterile as in the elections I covered as a reporter in dictatorships like Syria, Iran and Iraq. There were always opposition candidates offered up by these dictatorships. Give the people the illusion of choice. Throw up the pretense of debate. Let the power elite hold public celebrations to exalt the triumph of popular will. We can vote for Romney or Obama, but Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil and Bank of America and the defense contractors always win.

[...]

[V]oting is nothing more than a brief chance to register our disgust with the corporate state. It will not alter the configurations of power. The campaign is not worth our emotional, physical or intellectual energy.

[...]

Our efforts must be directed toward acts of civil disobedience, to chipping away, through nonviolent protest, at the pillars of established, corporate power. The corporate state is so unfair, so corrupt and so rotten that the institutions tasked with holding it up—the police, the press, the banking system, the civil service and the judiciary—have become vulnerable. It is becoming harder and harder for the corporations to convince its foot soldiers to hold the system in place.

keep on keepin' on... what else can we do...?

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Bill Moyers: How ordinary people can fight ‘Citizens United’

i still think bill moyers ought to run for president... he could pick stephen colbert for his vp...

from raw story...

In this clip, commentator Bill Moyers answers a question frequently posed to him by viewers — “How can ordinary people fight ‘Citizens United’?”

The controversial Supreme Court ruling enshrines the notion of “corporate personhood” into law, giving companies many of the same rights and protections as U.S. citizens, allowing businesses to pour unlimited amounts of money into influencing political contests.

Moyers urges viewers to believe in themselves as agents of change, to stick together and understand that there is real power in numbers. He quotes an African proverb, “If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk together.”

He concludes by giving contact information for two organizations fighting the “Citizens United” ruling, Move to Amend and Free Speech for People.

Ask Bill: How can ordinary people help to overturn or nullify the Citizen United Decision? from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

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A modest proposal for a Voters' Rights Amendment that brings Occupy and the Tea Party together

i'm inclined to believe we're ready for this... my gut has told me for a long time that the ptb have worked tirelessly to keep us off balance and fighting each other and the tea party vs. the occupy movement is just one more instance of this as is the bogus two-party system, socialism vs. capitalism, war vs. peace, and all the other false dichotomies that are shoved down our throats on a daily basis...

apologies to truthout for exceeding the fair use standard but this deserves a full treatment...

A Voters' Rights Amendment as a Focus for Dissent

Unification of the Tea Party and Occupy movements for a common goal - a Voters' Rights Amendment - will re-establish the United States as a democratic republic and will restore control of its government to the voters. The sort of cooperation I will suggest here is possible only to the extent that there is not more opinion-manufacturing or co-optation by political parties or private interests.

Although the corporate and wealthy elite is doing everything in its power - primarily through its mouthpiece, the mainstream media - to convince Occupiers and Tea Partiers that each is an enemy of the other, it is becoming increasingly clear that the two groups have much in common.

Not only do both groups march under the "Don't Tread on Me" flag, they both very strongly believe that corporations should not enjoy the constitutional rights of individuals, regardless of what the US Supreme Court may have ruled. Moreover, both groups believe that their government ignores their most critical concerns, including jobs, personal freedom, and the health, nutrition and well-being of their families, as their elected representatives feed at the trough slopped by the corporate and wealthy elite.

The time is ripe for an open consideration of unity between the two groups. The extensive media coverage amounting to the propaganda-style coverage and pandering of the Tea Party's far smaller demonstrations has given way to acknowledgment of the Occupy movement in the face of police brutality and that movement's staying power.

Support for the Tea Party is lagging with the nonaligned public, as it is increasingly evident that the populist movement has been and is being manipulated by Republican operatives. At the same time, the Occupiers are fighting off attempts by establishment progressives to co-opt their movement.

It is essential that both groups identify their common interests and take collective actions to unify their efforts, instead of attacking each other over other issues about which they may have an honest difference of opinion. Uniting with the increasingly large block of independent voters, Tea Partiers and Occupiers will organize a more effective defense of both of their basic principles, rather than those offered by either the Republican or Democratic party, both of which subvert the rights and interests of workers and small-business owners in favor of wealthy donors and corporate supporters.

The most basic issue that Occupiers and Tea Partiers may perhaps readily agree upon is a Voters' Rights Amendment to the Constitution that ensures that the future of the United States is decided by its voters rather than by the corporate and wealthy elite, which currently manipulates and controls the voters' representatives. The Voters' Rights Amendment provides that only natural persons are protected by the Constitution, establishes a national paid voters' holiday and calls for a national paper ballot, which includes a national policy referendum on critical policy questions and an alternative write-in vote.

The Voters' Rights Amendment
to the Constitution of the United States of America

Section 1

Only natural persons shall be protected by this Constitution and entitled to the rights and freedoms it guarantees, including the freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, petition and privacy.

Section 2

Prior to the end of the calendar year preceding a presidential election, Congress shall adopt a joint resolution setting forth the 12 most critical policy questions that should be addressed by the next president and Congress.

Failure of Congress to adopt a joint resolution prior to the end of the calendar year shall result in the disqualification of all sitting members of Congress to be eligible for re-election.

Section 3

Federal elections conducted every second year for senators and representatives shall be held on a national voters' holiday, with full pay for all voters who cast a ballot.

Federal elections shall be conducted on uniform, hand-countable paper ballots and, for the presidential election, ballots shall include the 12 most critical policy questions identified by Congress, each to be answered yes or no by voters.

Paper ballots shall provide space for voters to handwrite in their choice for all elective federal offices, if they choose, and all such votes shall be counted.

Section 4

In balancing the public benefit of maximum voter participation with the prevention of voting fraud, Congress and the states shall not impose any restriction on voting by citizens except for the most compelling reasons.

The intentional suppression of voting in national elections is hereby prohibited and, in addition to any other penalty imposed by law, any person convicted of the intentional suppression of voting shall be ineligible for federal office for a period of five years.

Section 5

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 6

This article shall become operative once it has been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several states as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.

definitely worth considering...

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Bill Moyers talks about his return to TV with Stephen Colbert

as i posted the other day, moyers returns to television on sunday with moyers & co...

from the colbert report...

Bill Moyers believes that capitalism is out of control and there can be no people's democracy as long as corporations are considered people.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

isn't it amazing that some of the best reporting on television is coming from a comedy show...?

i'm also reminded that the late, great molly ivins back in july 2006 proposed that bill moyers run for president... can you imagine what kind of impact moyers would get if he mounted a primary challenge to obama in even a single state...? what a message that would send...!

Molly Ivins: Run Bill Moyers for President, Seriously

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Corporate personhood

fresh from the good news of the la city council passing a measure supporting the abolishing of corporate personhood, we should be aware of the history and background of this scandalous notion...

noam chomsky...

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Money in politics - addiction as a metaphor for corruption

all in all, a useful metaphor...

william b. daniels in truthout...

Addiction and recovery metaphors are helpful for framing the private money crisis facing American democracy. The funders and the lobbyists are the dealers. Private money is the drug of choice. Members of Congress are the addicted consumers. Cynical and apathetic voters and the Citizens United Supreme Court justices are the codependents who enable the corruption machine to continue functioning. There can be no sobriety unless there is complete abstinence. This dynamic is what makes Congressional reform so daunting and cynicism such a facile response.

yes, and...?

Can we afford to be cynical? Do we give up on electoral politics and accept that our democracy is a corrupt, private-money machine? Or do we stop being codependent? Do we intervene and take steps to stop the new bosses in 2012? Do we confront the elephant in the room and show the addicts, the dealers and the codependents that we, the people, are the higher power of the Constitution?

We have all the tools. We can register voters and counter voter suppression laws. We can cultivate and support local and state candidates committed to the public interest. We can contribute. We can seek out every eligible voter who believes in the public interest and persuade them to vote. We can vote and participate in get-out-the-vote drives in our own communities.

[...]

Every time a hit piece attacks a candidate committed to public-interest policies, we strike back with the truth and the facts. We explain the manipulation to our friends and acquaintances. When we see an ad promoting an evidence-free ideological candidate, we expose it as the machine talking. When we see candidates thriving without a campaign organization, we check for their boss connections. By striking back in these and similar ways, we will help to knock out the candidates the new bosses purchased with private money.

So power up, cynics. We are America’s higher power. We need your help to change our dysfunctional republic and restore the American social contract.

mr. daniels has considerably more faith in our profoundly and - dare i say - terminally broken system than i do... i have been belaboring what to do for a number of years and have come to the conclusion that incremental fixes simply ain't gonna cut it... i believe the only thing that can save us now is a constitutional convention and what's the likelihood we're going to see one of those any time soon...? the other option is a deus ex machina which i give about the same odds of happening...

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Putting natural persons back in charge of our government

thom hartmann...

With the end of corporate personhood, it will be possible for the humans of the United States and every nation in the world to define the terms of a new economy. With natural persons once again in charge of government, we can redefine the rules of business so that corporations are profitable when their actions lead to sustainability and a clean environment, respond to values defined by local communities, and promote and develop renewable forms of energy. We can strip out the strings and the harnesses put into regulatory law by corporate lobbyists so that the government agencies charged with protecting us from malefactors and criminals can once again work.

[...]

Once corporate personhood is eliminated and corporations are again seen as they really are—the fictitious legal creatures of the states that authorized and created them—all this can change. The rightful representatives of humans— our governments—can then pass laws like the ones that were once part of this nation and its states, forbidding corporations from attempting to influence the laws and the regulatory agencies that oversee their activities.

[...]

"Democracy alone can supply the vitalizing force to stir the peoples of the world into triumphant action," Truman said, "not only against their human oppressors, but also against their ancient enemies—hunger, misery, and despair."

The role of government is to protect, defend, and represent the interests of its own people, he said. "Democracy maintains that government is established for the benefit of the individual, and is charged with the responsibility of protecting the rights of the individual and his freedom in the exercise of his abilities." Citing Locke’s concept of natural rights, he added, "Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice."

"natural persons"... kind of has a nice ring to it, doesn't it...?

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At a single address in this sleepy city of 60,000 people, more than 2,000 companies are registered

the good ol' us of a... is this a great country or what...!

At a single address in this sleepy city of 60,000 people, more than 2,000 companies are registered. The building, 2710 Thomes Avenue, isn't a shimmering skyscraper filled with A-list corporations. It's a 1,700-square-foot brick house with a manicured lawn, a few blocks from the State Capitol.

[...]

Reuters investigation has found the house at 2710 Thomes Avenue serves as a little Cayman Island on the Great Plains. It is the headquarters for Wyoming Corporate Services, a business-incorporation specialist that establishes firms which can be used as "shell" companies, paper entities able to hide assets.

Wyoming Corporate Services will help clients create a company, and more: set up a bank account for it; add a lawyer as a corporate director to invoke attorney-client privilege; even appoint stand-in directors and officers as high as CEO. Among its offerings is a variety of shell known as a "shelf" company, which comes with years of regulatory filings behind it, lending a greater feeling of solidity.

[...]

All the activity at 2710 Thomes is part of a little-noticed industry in the U.S.: the mass production of paper businesses. Scores of mass incorporators like Wyoming Corporate Services have set up shop. The hotbeds of the industry are three states with a light regulatory touch-Delaware, Wyoming and Nevada.

The pervasiveness of corporate secrecy on America's shores stands in stark contrast to Washington's message to the rest of the world. Since the September 11 attacks in 2001, the U.S. has been calling forcefully for greater transparency in global transactions, to lift the veil on shadowy money flows. During a debate in 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama singled out Ugland House in the Cayman Islands, reportedly home to some 12,000 offshore corporations, as "either the biggest building or the biggest tax scam on record."

Yet on U.S. soil, similar activity is perfectly legal. The incorporation industry, overseen by officials in the 50 states, has few rules. Convicted felons can operate firms which create companies, and buy them with no background checks.

No states license mass incorporators, and only a few require them to formally register with state authorities. None collect the names and addresses of "beneficial owners," the individuals with a controlling interest in corporations, according to a 2009 report by the National Association of Secretaries of State, a group for state officials overseeing incorporation. Wyoming and Nevada allow the real owners of corporations to hide behind "nominee" officers and directors with no direct role in the business, often executives of the mass incorporator.

given the supreme court decision on citizens united, i have to ask, how many of these false front corporations now serve as conduits for cash to elect our public officials...?

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Big news from SCOTUS: "We trust that AT&T will not take it personally"

this is going to have far-reaching and - imho - very positive implications...

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled Tuesday that AT&T and other corporations do not have personal privacy rights under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The Freedom of Information Act requires federal agencies to make documents publicly available upon request, but contains an exemption for documents that "constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

Claiming they were a "corporation citizen," AT&T tried to use the personal privacy exemption to prevent the disclosure of federal government documents about the company.

The unanimous decision in Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, Inc. reversed a ruling by a US appeals court in favor the telecommunications company.

"Personal' in the phrase 'personal privacy' conveys more than just 'of a person,'" Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his decision. "It suggest a type of privacy evocative of human concerns—not the sort usually associated with an entity like, say, AT&T."

"We reject the argument that because 'person' is defined for purposes of FOIA to include a corporation, the phrase 'personal privacy' in Exemption 7(C) reaches corporations as well," he said.

"The protection in FOIA against disclosure of law enforcement information on the ground that it would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy does not extend to corporations."

"We trust that AT&T will not take it personally," Roberts added. "The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed."

personally, i don't see how the court can square this decision with the citizens united decision but, hey, i'm not a supreme court justice...

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