Obama was the first billion dollar candidate, first to forgo public financing. Dems have been the pioneers in the era of unlimited soft money. HRC solidifies the impression.
We still have the vote.
If the masses really cared enough to eliminate this crap they could. People got it inverted... Money buys recognition. Recognition leads to votes. This rule can be eliminated with an educated public willing to do some work. But it won't because it has not become a big enough issue. There are organizations that have the sole purpose of digging into contributions. Give them money. Or don't.
soft money? you mean dark money from billionaires and fraudulent right-wind "social welfare" orgs?
same phenom as Obama vs Bishop Gecko: "noted that 91 percent of the contributions were $100 or less"
"influence peddling" politicians pay attention to who pays the most for influence.
Politicians run on a "platform", on sound bites, on hot buttons, just enough to win votes, but once in office, they legislate to please their biggest donors, not to satisfy their voters.
People that work, and work long hours don't have the time to post on this board. And if they do I hope they are single. Once a person is in office he/she is not immune to influence of the masses. The masses must be informed however and must be willing to participate. It's not like corruption is at an all time high right now. This is not the 1920's for example. Just because we live right now does not make our time the best and worst of times.
theoretical, airy fairy academic idealistic bull
several studies have shown that big contributors obtain the policies that favor themselves, eg:
https://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/...contributions/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/20/1378855/-The-richest-0-01-percent-of-Americans-gave-42-percent-of-political-donations-in-2012#2012
way up again. the Marxist-Leninists at WSJ highlight the bigger role billionaires play now:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/jeb-bush...res-1438372919Billionaires are bankrolling the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign to an unprecedented degree, with at least 40 of the wealthiest Americans plowing $60 million into super PACs aligned with the top tier of candidates.
The torrent of super PAC money is revolutionizing presidential politics in the wake of a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that opened the door to unlimited contributions from corporations, unions and individuals into these outside groups.
Super PACs backing 17 presidential candidates raised more than $250 million in the first six months of this year, roughly doubling the $125 million raised by the candidates for their campaigns, disclosure reports filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission show.
The proliferation of the committees also is transforming how presidential campaigns will be run. Some candidates are exporting to outside groups some core components of their operations, including voter-turnout programs and television advertising. Since federal law prohibits coordination with super PACs, the candidates won’t have direct control over some essential tasks, pushing the 2016 race into uncharted territory.
The broad engagement by wealthy donors also helps explain why the GOP field, in particular, keeps expanding. Almost every one of the primary candidates has a billionaire at his back, which means the life of their candidacies is now divorced from their ability to directly raise money from voters.
Our media isn't designed to create an educated public, and our schools sure aren't either.
"their candidacies is now divorced from their ability to directly raise money from voters."
or EVER to be President.
America is ed and un able, and the laughing stock of the rest of the industrial countries.
a Republican Super PAC torpedoed Don Blankenship:
https://www.propublica.org/article/t...g-the-midtermsAllies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell used a blind spot in campaign finance laws to undercut a candidate from their own party this year — and their fingerprints remained hidden until the primary was already over.
Super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited sums of money in elections, are supposed to regularly disclose their funders. But in the case of Mountain Families PAC, Republicans managed to spend $1.3 million against Don Blankenship, a mustachioed former coal baron who was a wild-card candidate for a must-win West Virginia Senate seat, in May without revealing who was supplying the cash.
The move worked like this: Start a new super PAC after a deadline for reporting donors and expenses, then raise and spend money before the next report is due. Timed right, a super PAC might get a month or more undercover before being required to reveal its donors. And if a super PAC launches right before the election, voters won’t know who’s funding it until after they go to the polls.
The strategy — which is legal — is proving increasingly popular among Democrats and Republicans. The amount of super PAC spending during the 2016 congressional primaries in which the first donor disclosure occurred after the primary election totaled $9 million. That figure increased to $15.6 million during the 2018 congressional primaries and special elections.
Super PACs were created after the Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision ruled that people and corporations had the right to spend unlimited amounts of money on independent expenditures such as funding ads or mailers, but that they couldn’t hide that spending from the public.
But while they can’t keep donors secret forever, super PACs are increasingly figuring out methods of temporarily masking donor iden ies that are either legal or fall into gray areas that rarely attract regulators’ attention.
Nobody cares
eh, how would you know?
I thought it was kind of neat how Republicans created a bespoke Super PAC to undermine Don Blankenship and hid their fingerprints until aft.er the election, don't you?
Sounds cool
I thought you'd like that
in before ed and un able
... as ELN says, the American political system is totally corrupted, owned by the oligarchy, and beyond the reach of suppressed, defrauded, disenfranchised citizens.
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