‘The Payoff’

 Seldom does a Washington lobbyist, lawyer and power-broker write a book. Even less often do I bother reading such a book. But it looks as if I am going to finish Jeff Connaughton's The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins, in record time. It's not a page-turner for the author's writing (middling at best), his great personal charm (none that I can see), his admirable character (maybe, but like most wealthy people, he has some other aspects) or the novelty of the plot (I suspect this crap was going on long before our republic was a gleam in its founders' eyes), but because I find it simply dumbfounding that Wall Street essentially runs unregulated, and has the power to do literally anything it wants.

Read it and weep: we are wholly owned. Don't buy the book; I found it at the corner library, and you probably can, too.

Imagine The Convenience! Banks To Choose Political Leaders For You... No Need To Think About Anything!

David Dayen of FDL:

The American Bankers Association, a trade group for thousands of banks headed by former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, voted to start a legal entity for this federal campaign cycle, adding millions of dollars into an already overstuffed election.

The ABA entity would reportedly donate to existing Super PACs, so that the member banks can keep their donations secret. 

Candidates Can
Take It To The Bank

The contributions from member banks into this fund could total at least $6 million, if not more. Bloomberg reports that much of this money will be used on 6-12 contested US Senate races. But according to Lee Fang, “Keating has been featured as a financial services policy advisor” to the Romney-Ryan campaign at various fundraisers throughout the year. So it appears likely that at least some of this bank money will get funneled into SuperPACs supporting the Republicans on the Presidential ticket. Banks have turned away from funding Obama, as they did in 2008, and moved the majority of their money toward Romney, probably because of feeling slighted by random comments rather than because of any actual policy differences. ...

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Oh, you poor things; did the O-man hurt your feelings? Were his bailouts not generous enough? There, there, now; let's dry those tears by giving a few million bucks to Rmoney...

This kind of crap is a direct result of Citizens United and an affront to the notion that citizens elect their leaders. Could it come any closer to the raw purchase of elections than having banks contribute millions of dollars to campaigns? But of course, as Rmoney reminds us, "Corporations are people, my friend" (video), and clearly the corporations are his friend, not ours.

The late great Justice Brandeis was right: "We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ABA contributions to super PACs are shining examples of why this is so.

'Money Money Money Mo-ney... MO-ney...'

There has been a change in direction in political campaigns in America.

They used to ask for my vote. They used to ask me to sign petitions, write letters or make phone calls.

All that is history.

In my mailbox today, roughly 80% of the political mailers were requests for money. That is what I am least able to give them. Like most elderly people in America (I suspect), I have enough to live on, but not a lot to spare. At one point, politicians still wanted my vote and my visible support. But since Citizens United, all they want, or at least all they ask for, is my money.

The tragedy is that they are probably right. For some time, even before Citizens United, elections have gone to the candidate with the biggest campaign war chest, usually the incumbent. Now, that candidate is not so likely the incumbent, as likely the Republican.

As remarked in my banner quote by Justice Louis Brandeis, "We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." The upward redistribution of wealth in America is not merely inequitable, not merely hard on people of moderate or modest means: it is inimical to democracy itself. Today, if you are unable to vote with your checkbook, effectively, you are unable to vote at all. It's all... ALL.. about the money.

Where do you think this phenomenon will lead us? Yes, that's what I think, too, damn it all. Orwell was off by less than three decades.

Newsy Video On DISCLOSE Act Followup; Another On ACLU And Family Lawsuit Over Awlaki Death

Derek Hamm of Newsy Community has requested in an email that I embed a video they have made on the DISCLOSE Act failure. Instead, I'll refer you to the Newsy site for the video. It's a good video, but I'm trying to spare some of my lower-bandwidth readers, and I've already posted several videos still on this current main page, so you can watch it over there instead.

UPDATE:  I am indebted to newsy.com for informing me of the lawsuit by the ACLU and the family of Anwar Al-Awlaki against the US government for the assassination of Awlaki and his 16-year-old son in a targeted drone strike. You may recall from my earlier posts that Awlaki was an American citizen not engaged in any battlefield action against American troops at the time of his assassination, and therefore should have been captured and put on trial for any alleged acts of terrorism. Instead, his name was added to President Obama's "kill list," and with no trial, no arrest and not even any showing of probable cause, he was assassinated. As I've said before, this is as un-American as it gets; our nation's founders are surely turning in their graves.

DISCLOSE Act Fails

From SFGate, a hostile editorial (op-ed? not clear):

D.C. Democrats are pushing the Disclose Act again. Disclose stands for Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections. The ACLU and National Right to Life Committee oppose this bill because they fear it would chill free speech. As far as the anti-abortion group is concerned, Disclose stands for "Deterring Independent Speech about Congress except by Labor Organizations and Selected Elites."

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., frames this year's bill, which failed to win a floor vote in the Senate on Monday, as a reform made necessary by the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 decision to allow independent expenditure campaigns to spend unlimited money from corporations, plutocrats and unions.

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For once, I find myself opposed to the ACLU position. If spending truly were speech, chilling campaign contributions by identifying contributors might have a chilling effect on free speech. But the Roberts Court notwithstanding, spending is not speech: inequalities in campaign spending are surely the most corrosive influence on actual free speech by natural humans (not corporate entities, and not PACs or SuperPACs) of any in the long history of campaign abuses. Historically, the party that spends the most money on advertising (usually negative advertising, but put that aside for now) is the party that wins a given office, and historically and at present, that party is almost certainly the GOP. What could be more inimical to free speech regarding a partisan contest than effectively unlimited "speech" (i.e., spending) by Republicans and severely limited "speech" (i.e., spending) by Democrats? They should have renamed the Citizens United decision the "GOP Victory Assurance" decision. However imperfect the DISCLOSE Act may be, the notion that we can merely do nothing about this inequity and yet continue to call ourselves a representative democracy is ludicrous.

I'll revisit this topic, but right now I have other responsibilities.

New SCOTUS Ruling Extends Citizens United To State, Local Elections

The hits just keep coming in the War on Voters. Here's John Nichols of The Nation:

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The same Court that in January 2010 ruled with the Citizens United decision that corporations can spend freely in federal elections—enjoying the same avenues of expression as human beings—on Monday ruled that states no longer have the ability to guard against what historically has been seen as political corruption and the buying of elections.

The court’s 5–4 decision in the Montana case of American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock significantly expands the scope and reach of the Citizens United ruling by striking down state limits on corporate spending in state and local elections. “The question presented in this case is whether the holding of Citizens United applies to the Montana state law,” the majority wrote. “There can be no serious doubt that it does.”

Translation: if Exxon Mobil wants to spend $10 million to support a favored candidate in a state legislative or city council race that might decide whether the corporation is regulated, or whether it gets new drilling rights, it can. But why stop at $10 million? If it costs $100 million to shout down the opposition, the Court says that is fine. If if costs $1 billion, that’s fine, too.

And what of the opposition. Can groups that represent the public interest push back? Can labor unions take a stand in favor of taxing corporations like Exxon Mobil?

Not with the same freedom or flexibility that they had from the 1930s until this year. Last Thursday, the Court erected elaborate new barriers to participation in elections by public-sector unions—requiring that they get affirmative approval from workers they represent (but who may not at the moment be union members) before making special dues assessments to fund campaigns countering corporations.

...

The fat Catholic overgrown choirboy is getting everything he wants, and it isn't even Christmas.

What will a mayor's race cost in a major city? What will it cost in Houston, which is "major" when measured in terms of commerce transacted here? If the popular Mayor Annise Parker chooses to run for a third and final term next year, will she face $1 billion in opposition?

We have gone from strict legal curbs on campaign contributions, together with the Equal Time rule and the Fairness Doctrine, to a freewheeling, devil-take-the-hindmost spending race at every level of government, a race that makes a mockery of the very concept of democracy. That Republicans authored and approve of this change speaks volumes about the party; that Democrats seem to be following that same path to hell is enough to make one cry. As for the rest of us, who have nothing to contribute but our votes... well, that noise you hear is the aforementioned devil at your heels.

Representative democracy: it was nice while it lasted.

How Super PACs Dodge The Citizens United Coordination Ban

It's deplorably easy. And it's easy because FEC regulations are both sparse and weak. Here's Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon:

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When the Supreme Court overruled almost a century of campaign finance laws in its 2010 Citizens United decision and opened the floodgates to outside money, it made two promises to keep things in check: It expected groups to disclose their donors and activists, and it sought to prevent groups from coordinating with candidates. Both restrictions have proven to be farces.

“The statu[t]e and the Supreme Court have been very strong on preventing coordination. But the FEC regulations have basically gutted the laws and given us very weak laws to prevent coordination between outside spenders and candidates,” veteran campaign finance watchdog Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21 told Salon. This, “despite the fact that the Court’s entire decision in Citizens United is based on the notion that the expenditures are going to be entirely independent from the campaign,” he added.

Indeed, as Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation told Salon, “the FEC has a very narrow definition of what coordination actually is.” As long as a campaign and an outside group don’t directly communicate, and their use of a “common vendor” like Black Rock doesn’t meet several specific criteria, they’re fine. “It kind of boggles the mind, but that’s what the FEC has defined and there’s nothing illegal about it,” Allison explained.

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Seitz-Wald gives examples before and after this passage. In a North Dakota Senate race, for example, Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS/American Crossroads super PAC is de facto coordinated with the Republican candidate's campaign through an intermediary company, the Black Rock Group, which has corporate officers in common with the Republican candidate's campaign. No explicit coordination is needed, because the same person sits in meetings of the campaign and Crossroads. And this is NOT illegal, despite all the reassurances the Republican-dominated Supreme Court gave us in the Citizens United decision.

Our democracy has been bought, sold, paid for and delivered. I can imagine what Thomas Jefferson would say.

Walker's Wisconsin: Why? - UPDATED

Andy Kroll at MichaelMoore.com offers a long piece contemplating the course of the protest movement, its ultimate effective absorption and co-opting by the traditional Democratic Party, and its downfall in the recall election. This thought-provoking piece gave me much to think about. A couple of my conclusions:

• Traditional establishment Democratic Party candidates do not provide adequate motivation to voters to swing the small undecided vote;
• The Democratic Party, intent on playing elections by the methods they've used for years, are lamentably vulnerable to the overwhelming Republican money advantages brought about in part by Citizens United.

We are all still learning how politics can and cannot work in this brave new world (and I'm using the phrase in the sense of Aldous Huxley, not William Shakespeare). I hope our lefty learning curve improves quickly.

UPDATE: David Dayen of FDL offers an insightful post-mortem. Good comments, too.

UPDATE: Rick Perlstein at Rolling Stone talks about How How Republicans Cheat Democrats - and Democrats Cheat Themselves. Right on target!