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Subscribe to RSSDecember 2011 was a busy month for supporters of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. The former speaker of the House had surged ahead of his Republican rivals in several polls. Suddenly he was being barraged by negative TV ads produced by Restore Our Future, a Super PAC for rival candidate Mitt Romney.
Gingrich did not have the money to retaliate. Individual donations in federal elections are restricted to $2,500. He needed his own Super PAC that could receive unlimited contributions.
Ever since the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in the Citizens United case paved the way for Super PACS, they have been a legitimate new tactic for political campaigns. As far as can be determined, Winning Our Future (WOF), the pro-Gingrich political action committee, did not do anything impermissible under campaign finance laws. But a look at its regular reports to the Federal Election Commission reveals a degree of legerdemain that appears commonplace in FEC records and makes it difficult for the public to know who ends up with the record amounts of money flowing into the political system today.
"Opaque transactions in politics undermine public confidence in the process," said Meredith McGeehee, owner of McGehee Strategies, which works on public interest advocacy, and policy director at the Campaign Legal Center.
Flying under the radar
Because Super PACs are required to operate independently of the candidates they support, three longtime Gingrich allies scrambled to assemble one on his behalf. Winning Our Future filed papers with the Federal Election Commission on December 13, 2011. Texas billionaire Harold Simmons seeded it with $500,000 and gave twice more, for a total of $1.1 million. The family of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson donated $21.5 million. By the end of March 2012, WOF had raised an additional $1.2 million, for a war chest of $23.8 million.
Who received that money is difficult to discern.
Within six weeks of the Super PAC's launch, three new companies were set up to serve as vendors for WOF. (A fourth had been formed earlier in 2011, after Gingrich declared his candidacy in May, by an individual behind one of the three later outfits.) These four new companies received 84 percent of WOF's total disbursements, according to FEC records.
Some political consultants said they set up separate companies for different races for accounting purposes or to create a kind of firewall between their political work and their commercial activities. Others said the maneuver can be used to conceal work being done simultaneously for rival camps. And it can have tactical advantages.
"A new entity means they can fly under the radar for a few minutes," said one source. "Theoretically, it slows down the opposition research on their buying style." Where a candidate chooses to advertise says a lot about the issues and voters he or she is targeting.
The key word is "buying." The biggest checks written by any campaign or Super PAC go to the companies that buy ads on TV, radio and the Internet. Under long-standing industry practice, the broadcaster gives the buyer a 15 percent discount that the buyer has kept as a commission. These days, the percentage kept by political media buyers is likely to be 5 percent or less, according to various industry insiders. The rest of the discount from the broadcasters may be apportioned any way the leaders of the PAC or campaign wish.
PACs are required to report expenditures, including recipient and amount. Bulk checks to media buyers routinely run into the millions of dollars without disclosing subcontracts and other expenses. Side agreements over splitting of the discounts from the broadcasters are not subject to FEC disclosure.
"Our system is based on the idea that (Super PACs) can basically spend money however they see fit, and if your donors think the committee is not spending it wisely, then they can decide not to give further," said FEC Commissioner Cynthia Bauerly.
Compensation mystery
Rick Tyler is a seasoned political operative who began advising Winning Our Future in December. He described in the harshest terms what he says is the common industry practice of PAC staff secretly divvying up portions of the discount: "Kickbacks … come back either to the campaign or the media vendor, in many cases the campaign manager. So you'll get a congressional campaign manager who on the surface you think is making $50,000-$60,000. The fact is he could be making hundreds of thousands of dollars - you have no idea because he's being paid separate from what you're seeing."
Total broadcast and cable spending during the 2012 race is projected to be $3 billion. That means as much as $450 million could be divvied up among political consultants and campaign or PAC staff according to negotiated fee agreements and informal side deals.
Tyler disparaged this opaque system of fee sharing as a hallmark of big-name political consultants. He didn't name any specifically, but he says WOF avoided their help. Yet it's clear that some of the pro-Gingrich Super PAC's vendors engaged in some opacity.
WOF's TV ad buys were handled by Media Advantage, which was incorporated in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on December 6, 2011 - a week before WOF submitted its organizing statement to the FEC. The owner was listed as Laura Lancaster, of Baton Rouge, who did not return phone calls from Reuters.
The real buyer, according to Tyler, was Ken Kurson, a partner and executive vice president of Jamestown Associates in Princeton, New Jersey. Neither Kurson nor Jamestown CEO Larry Weitzner would comment for this story.
Tyler said that when WOF first approached Kurson, Jamestown said it had a conflict: It was already handling TV ads for the pro-Rick Perry Super PAC Make Us Great Again.
While media buyers have no obligation to avoid such conflicts the way law firms or investment banks do, they prefer not to advertise them. Commercial clients may not want to be linked to certain politicians, and political clients may worry about leaks inside the organization.
Political vendors sometimes work for rival campaigns because there are more candidates than companies that can execute a good national media-buying strategy, according to industry experts. To avoid disclosing their identity in FEC records and to avoid leaks within the organization, one prominent media consultant explained, they spin off a separate corporation. How separate is another matter.
Jamestown Associates "just told Ken it would be fine to set up his own company," Tyler said in explaining why Kurson established Media Advantage in December.
Kurson was behind another mysterious WOF vendor, according to Tyler. Empire Creative is shown in FEC reports as receiving $195,875 to produce ads. This company was incorporated in Delaware on October 31, 2011, by National Registered Agents Inc. An official with National Registered Agents said the company has an agreement with its customers to keep their identities confidential. The incorporation documents reveal nothing beyond a post office box number in New York City.
Spotty records
The name of Sam Hassell does not appear on any FEC reports from Winning Our Future, but Reuters discovered that he received the largest chunk of money from the Super PAC. Payments totaling more than $8.1 million were made to his two companies. He created Marketel Media Inc five months before WOF was formed and Intelimarc Inc just nine days before.
Although Hassell is the sole stakeholder in Intelimarc, his name is not on its incorporation documents. Two local attorneys are cited instead. Because December was so hectic, said Hassell, he had his brother's law firm do the work. WOF paid Intelimarc $1.2 million for Internet and email advertising, according to FEC records.
In recent years, Hassell sold radio ads for Salem Radio Network, a national network of stations that feature Christian music and conservative talk show hosts. He left in May 2011 to become chief executive officer of one of its clients, the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC), a for-profit company that offers members discounts on various goods and services. When Hassell incorporated Marketel in July, AMAC was its only client. WOF is now a second.
WOF bought $1.9 million in radio air time, according to Smart Media Group, a political advertising company in Alexandria, Virginia, that monitors political ads on TV, radio and cable outlets. According to its reports to the FEC, WOF paid Marketel at least $2.9 million solely for radio advertising.
That leaves $1 million - a third of the disbursements - that didn't show up as buys.
Hassell couldn't explain the gap or say how much his companies profited. He did say they took the "industry standard" of something less than 15 percent in commissions for the placing of radio ads.
Explanations for the gap could include Smart Media's missing some air-time purchases by Winning Our Future. Some of the expenditures listed in the Super PAC's reports to the FEC might have included money spent on something else, such as producing the ads. (Winning Our Future reported separate outlays for ad production.)
From the FEC records alone, however, it's hard to know where much of the $8.1 million paid to Hassell's two new companies ended up.
"You have to have people you can trust"
Rebecca Burkett came to Winning Our Future from American Solutions, a nonprofit political group run by Gingrich that largely closed down when he became a candidate. The Super PAC paid her $249,505 between December and March for fundraising and management consulting. In all, Winning Our Future paid out $217,834 for fundraising, although only $1.2 million was raised beyond amounts contributed by Simmons and the Adelson family.
A vendor listed as VHH Consulting LLC turned out to belong to the wife of Lee Habeeb, who helped build up the roster of popular conservative radio hosts at Salem Radio and has had a long association with Gingrich. He also helped WOF get organized in December, including providing advice about how to handle the radio and Internet advertising eventually contracted to Hassell's two companies. Habeeb and his wife, Valerie, have consulting companies in their hometown of Oxford, Mississippi - LMH Consulting LLC for him, VHH for her. VHH received $59,235 from Winning Our Future for consulting "on strategy and branding and the ways to go about putting the ads together," she said.
Why so many longtime Gingrich associates got business from Winning Our Future is no mystery, she said: "You have to have people that you trust. You need to know who you're dealing with."
Scams waiting to happen
Meredith McGeehee points to another tie that binds: "Any politician has a retinue of people that over time they build up, and if you're one of those consultants, one of those who provides services to those candidates, it's a great business. You can make a good living growing all the different services to the candidate or to the Super PAC."
But the complex web of shell companies effectively thwarts the transparency the Supreme Court took for granted in Citizens United, and scams or self-dealing would be difficult to detect.
"It's very hard to keep track of that and have accountability," said McGeehee.
Where she sees danger in the advent of Super PACs, Lee Habeeb sees opportunity.
"(The) Super PAC is constitutional, so it's with us for a while," he said. "To the talented will go some real spoils."
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
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well i am glad the supremes did the citizen united thing.....someone had to counter all the union ssuper pac money.
PAC's Political Action Committees??, yeah if that is what is politically correct an how you want to hide the truth. I would say it's ingrediants are Wallstreet funded by 1% members, smoke & mirror spin doctors, and probably a mixture of foreign governments who want to keep their Billion dollar "aid" package each year. Throw in the perverse polititian who gets his hand stuck in the cookie jar every month.
Seems like the rise and fall of Rome but we have accomplished it in less than 250 years............
Ah keck, unions were part of the citizen united thing you dumbass
"keck...you dumbass"
...thanks for the personal attack on me jim.
Best Government money can buy.
Keck... corporations, the uber-wealthy, industry groups (oil, defense, finance, US chamber of commerce, etc.) and special interest groups (NRA, anti-abortion groups, etc.) contribute much more money than unions. Citizens United applies to both but has truly opened the door for the Grand Ole Plutocrat party to outspend any challenge to their elected officials.
This is not, and should not be, a partisan issue but rather an issue of who our government is meant to represent and legislate for. SCOTUS's Citizens United and, in essence, stating that corporations are people will DESTROY the founding principles of this country... "government of the people, by the people, for the people..." Lincoln - Gettysburg address. These actions by SCOTUS mean that our elected officials will be EVEN MORE dependent on campaign contributions and to those who fund their "independent" (what a crock of horse manure) PACs and SuperPACs. No longer will the will of the people be represented (even marginally) but rather the US will/has become government for the wealthy/corporations/industry groups, by the wealthy/corporations/industry groups, ONLY for the wealthy/corporations/industry groups.
Welcome to the demise of the representative government that our founding fathers established and WE have squandered.
AMF
US is not a democracy. It is a plutocracy - rule of the rich. The make believe election BS that poses as democracy is not even a thin disguise anymore.
Hahaha, it's amazing what rightwingers will believe. Aside from the difference being that unions actually are made up of lots of people, just look at Wisconsin and Scott Walker lying about "union bosses" when in fact he has been going around the nation raising tons of outside money:
And hey, who needs an eight-hour work day, weekends, and all that stuff? Let's bust unions and the democratic right for labor to organize, let's support the Teabaggers in destroying labor rights like the minimum wage. Because that's what the oligarchy rule by a few want, yeah (you ignoramus).
But why any American would be against transparency of donations, or limits on donations, and getting money out of politics, I'll never understand.
Best Government money can buy.
It is interesting to note that we see government as being inefficient but for many of these Super Pac donors it makes them money! Lobbying and donating to campaigns pay off big time for these people. It is messed up. It is not democracy nor is it "free speech". Last time I checked, money is not free!
In the spirit of the one man,one vote theory, why not ban all group participation in politics ? Whether it be a Union or corporation, they are made up of individuals who each may have a different political preference than the majority of the group, or the leadership. Therefore an individual should not be able to financially support a particular candidate in both the role of an individual and as part of a group who's donors are anonymous.
PS; in my early working days I was a member of a union, yet every election leadship use my dues to often support politicians I personally did not support...........Take groups out of politics.
The union pennies don't really add up to to bosses' billions when it comes to buying government.
But there are other ways to think about it, that a keck imbecile would never know.
Think about 1910 or so, planting wheat in the great plains when storing grain in elevators wasn't the norm.
Shipping of wheat dictated the price, sell the seed for grain high in the spring when the farmers need to buy seed, and but low in the fall, when the farmers needed to ship their harvest, because they had no ability to store it. Well, that completely follows the laws of capitalism, which is the man who controls the money controls everything (just like what Romney claims as his experience with Bain Capital).
But farmers in the 1920s beat this screwing of the farmer by forming coops, and building graineries to store the harvest until the next spring, and sold it then when the price was high.
There's a clear parable in this for all of you who are of a Christian bent. Read it as parable or history, this story from the midwest of America is what truly has made America great. It's those farmers who said, "there must be a better way!", who changed this country a long time ago.
so, how do those farmers relate to union workers? Simply by saying a reasonable portion of the profit of an enterprise should go to the labor that produced the product that produced the profit that benefited the rich a*****e that took all of the profit, while sitting on his backside (like Romney did throughout his career in "business".
Ellis,
That is no longer the case. Nowadays each member that wants to donate must sign a form allowing their money to be withheld and donated.........
However, seems foolish to me not to donate to the Democrats they supported, because it has always been obvious to me, that republicans are against union organization and are over the top, pro-business !!!!
@Ellis,
The Founding Fathers' greatest fear was that this country would slide into democracy, a thought that scared them to death. They had seen democracy in action in the French Revolution and with Cromwell's Roundheads and even in the early colonies, such as Rhode Island. They understood that the Pilgrims came here, not to escape religious persecution, but to practice religious persecution on others. They well understood, as Ambrose Bierce said some time later, that "democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch."
This was why the Founding Fathers made every single top government position from President and Vice-President and Senators and Supreme Court Justices and cabinet ministers and even top civil service popsitions as appointed, not elected. In fact, they made the House the only elected body in government and restricted it to the very shortest term of office imaginable.
This is NOT a democracy. It is a Republic. One man, one vote is a nice concept, but it was intended when said to exclude both women and "sub-humans" such as slaves, Chinamen and Irish.
Show me the Money!
Our treasonous supreme court opened up a can of worms that will harm the US for years to come....
America: For Sale, SOLD!
Agree. The Supreme Court Jesters have put the screws to any real government.
I just cant wait for the decision on health care.....
US is not a democracy. It is a plutocracy - rule of the rich. The make believe election BS that poses as democracy is not even a thin disguise anymore. The only country in the world where corporations are considered to be "People".
The super PACS are constitutional???? Really???? The supreme court is a mockery! What they did was allow the very rich to decide the elections in this country!!!!! This really pi**es me off!!!! Until this decision is overturned, none of us will have true representation!!!!!!
I'll bet you have a much better answer and, when you become Supreme Dictator of the Known Universe you are free to impose your will. For now however, I'll take the Constitution and the three branches of Government we already have. If we toss Pinky Reid, Pelosi Galore and the HNIC out of American politics things will begin to run smoothly once more.
I agree with Keck, until this SCOTUS decision untold amounts of union money was flowing to the Democratic coffers. I was a member of CWA AFL/CIO for ten years and was gently prodded to vote Democratic. Yesterday I was in the Sec of state here in Detroit and all the staff had UAW pins on one side and Obama pins on the other. Not hard to figure that one out.
Nobody is going to deny the truely needy, but damn, there needs to be some control. Used to be we provided free lunch for children in need, then it was breakfast, now it's breakfast, lunch and dinner! Do parents have NO responsibilty? It's called enabling. Get a grip. And Obama has been riding that "I got Osama" horse for a year now- he wouldn't have done it without a conservative military! If libs had their way, we would have no military at all. Get rid of the waste and fraud!
umm, I'm a liberal and a vet.
Crystal,
Offering free food to children is not horrible. Children should not suffer because of their parents. The sad thing is about 20% of children go hungry in America and the number is not going down.
The military is pretty evenly distributed when it comes to politics.
That damn Union money from hard working AMERICANS!
Never mind all the never ending money from Wall Street crooks
Union boss Richard Trumka is the most frequent visitor of the White House. He secured a sweetheart deal for the unions in the auto bailout, while investors got screwed. So yeah, the unions are in bed with the Democrats plain and simple. As for Wall Street, well the Democrats should be doing pretty well with that bunch. Obama has bailed them out, and financial fraud prosecutions with the Obama DOJ are at a 20 year low. The DOJ has more important issues to deal with then going after Wall Street, namely Roger Clemons who might have lied to congress about using HGH. Of course Eric Holder lied to congress on when he found out about Fast and Furious, but that is entirely different then what Clemons did. Right?
I will no longer vote
It appears that businesses and the media will dictate who our next president will be and I don't want to interfere.
If you don't vote then it's YOU who will be allowing businesses and the media to dictate elections.
Remember, the PAC's and the media don't vote, only the PEOPLE do, and the PEOPLE decide elections no matter how much money PAC's spend or how much the media licks Obama's shoes.
People voted for Obama even though he has never held a real job in his life....why should I bother?
JW you sound like you dont like the man whos policies are bringing America back. Dow is at its peak, GM is #1 and you hate lololol0olololol Real Job? Really, Wow you will believe anything.
Pissedoffperson,
GM is not number one. Selling the most cars and making less in profits than several other car companies does not make you number one.
I doubt that they will be number one in auto sales at the end of this year.
Just wait until all the cars are built like the volt. I wonder how many cars will be sold that year?
I have nothing against the volt, I am talking about the future mileage standards.
The super PAC thing is a crime against America. We should limit all donations for political campaigns at every level of office no matter where the money comes from.
@jw101,
You have been listening to Fox too much. Before getting into politics, Obama was a law school instructor (professor) for 12 years. That was ignored whole the righties were claiming that he was a "community organizer". And if you don't think that being a black professor in a lily-white rightie law school is a hard job, you are not considering that he was offered tenure, and turned it down, not once, but three times.
Thanks SCOTUS. I'm so glad that I don't have to know who owns our condidtes now that it isn't us anymore.
Bet you weren't saying that when the unions were buying Democrats though.
...until the democrats ban money from unions.
...until obama adheres to ban on soft money.
then what choice do americans have ?.....if they do nothing...then obama buys the election.
and the republicans ban money from big oil and big pharma and big finance and the NRA and Dupont and ConAgra and Bear Sterns and AIG. Shall I go on? Open your ears shut your mouth and maybe learn something and quit drinking the Limbaugh, OReilly Beck kool aid you dumbass
" you dumbass" ..wow, i hope tyler does not ban you for personally attacking me.
Yeah, the Repubs are just burning that the Dems. raised more for once. Union money is from WORKING AMERICANS.
Wall Street money is from the crooks who nearly brought America to it's knees and overseas interests
Here's your towel, go cry.
Considering that the unions are a big owner of oil stock I really do not see your point. We should stop both of them from spending money for elections.
The big change has been who gets the sweet heart deals. You complain about the oil companies, well at least they make a profit. We put billions of dollars in solar and wind. Over half the companies then went out of business. How is that better?
The potus today is entirely different from just a decade ago. It's because being president today, is being president of the world. You need a person who is truly a world commander. A military statesman like julius caesar i mean obama. What you cannot have is someone who changes his mind a lot. Who can be easily influenced. Can be bought off. A mr etch-a-sketch. That is who you cannot have in the age of superpacs. Where influence money cannot traced. Not even to russia or china or saudi arabia.
President Obama is different in what way?
If I remember correctly he was accused of taking money from Saudi Arabia for his campaign.
He is hardly a statesmen, he does give a good speach when he follows the script.
It is not president of the world, that is so arrogant that it is beyond description. Words and actions like that is what gets us as a country in trouble. We think that we know what is best for everybody. What a lark, we do not even understand what is best for us.
And the most shocking thing is how soooo many are duped by mr grover, the gop, & the rushbo. Take how they have their minions believing that they are the true patriots. The ones who support the constitution. Common sense will tell you the constitutional scholar obama will be the one who supports the constitution and the country. But no. No. The minions of mr grover, the gop, & the rushbo have been duped.
Take their presidential candidate michele. She would swear obama is a traitor to the country. That he is the most dangerous person to our constitution. Ok. So she hasn't been popular enough so drops out of the presidential race. Ok. So she & her family gets citizenship to switzerland. But while she still a member of this country's congress. And what if she had been elected and become the president. How could obama be worst than a citizen of another country as president. I tell you it is sooooo obvious to me but mr grover, the gop, & the rushbo have their minions thoroughly fooled.
SuperPACs isn't just corporate money, it's also foreign money. Since when is it good policy to allow other nations to fund American politics?
Here's the link to the petition to overturn Citizens United.
http://democracyisforpeople.org/
A point conveniently glossed over by FUX News.
This is a NBC page you know?
Then NBC did not cover it either, or I should say they seemed to have "glossed over" that little tid bit.
The citizens united decision is treason pure and simple. SCOTUS has been bought and paid for just like congress.
Democrats showed the way when they let the George Soros Super-pacs buy the2008 election for Obama. Now they scream like babies with a wet diaper when the field is leveled.
The question has become this...do we as voters ... follow big money aand what it has bought,,or do we really listen to what these pretenders actually say in order to know just who to vote for. ? So far...I have heard nothing from Romney that tells me anythiong about what he would really do as president...some of the republican right wing ideas are scary....I had always thought this was a country for all its citizens...that is not the case anymore.
ivan, nc
So republicans are the ONLY party that has big money behind it? Where have you been when obama has had all these "fund raising" dinners? Where have you been when the first whats-her-face is doing behind the scenes to get the old man re-elected? It's not hollow promises of support but FINANCIAL support she's look for.
I had always thought that the democrats were for people and republicans were for business but that isn't the case anymore either. NEITHER party gives a damn about people; all they care about is their agendas and the hell with the people UNITL it comes to campaign time. Then it's let's kiss the voters a$$ to keep our jobs.
The Republican/Romney platform is simple. Get Obama out.
They'll think of something else later... much later.
Habeeb must be the dumbest person in the world if he can't see that super PACs are just a way of buying political power and is just plain wrong.
This country needs to rid itself of super PACs and lobbyists and let the voter elect the candidate THEY want. Remember it's: "of the people, by the people and for the people". You can't substitute PAC for people!
PACman is a liar. They are spending your democracy.
Corporations are people. PACs are corporations. Super PACs must, therefore, be super-people and therefore have more rights and privileges than ordinary people. It all makes perfect sense. POWER TO THE PEOPLE!! I mean TO THE SUPER-PEOPLE!
Superpacs are the last nail in the coffin for our democracy. This decision by the supreme court turns over to the rich and powerful the final word on who gets elected. Politicians on the right and the left will tow the line for the rich and powerful, big oil and big business if they want the millions of dollars offered by these people and companies to buy influence. If a politician is not willing to sell their influence he will not get the millions and millions of dollars offered. They will buy someone else.
There is a whole lot of aggressive effort going on to put over biased propaganda aimed to deceive, con and manipulate the voters, all for self-serving purpose without real concern for the people’s best interests, so what is reality?
Obama is accused of being at fault for everything, which of course is total exaggeration and really doesn’t make a lot of sense. We know Obama actually inherited the problems from Bush-Cheney, including the deficit, which necessarily increased with the responses required to address the problems. There is really ample room for wanting better results but there also is real justification for criticizing the Republican’s stubborn and arrogant blocking and faulting of all efforts as well as belligerently and obnoxiously withholding any bipartisan cooperation and refusing to compromise. The point being that while we want better results and Obama needs to accomplish more, to accept the propaganda aimed to completely discredit him is not only unfair but really only serves the interests of “the few”, those who don’t have the interests of the majority in mind.
The problems we have are the direct result of exploitation by “the few” and, contrary to the propaganda aimed to excite and deceive, are not the result of the deficit, or government spending or of “big government”, It is important to control government spending and to reduce the deficit but doing only those things won’t solve the problems and, in fact, government spending is currently needed to address the problems. What has caused us the havoc we have experienced is permissive politicians, catering to the wishes of “the money” for their strong support, by having policies, excessive deregulation, lax enforcement and little oversight that encourages exploitation by “the few” (1%) , resulting in run-away greed, self-indulgence and gross dishonesty with “the few” walking away “fat and sassy” and always leaving the majority (99%) with the costs. We have continually seen these drastic problems with crises in savings-and-loan, banks, dot.coms, in the financial, mortgage and investment industries, also in corporate corruption (like Enron) and with industrywide failures, all of it being similar to illegal “pyramid schemes”, where the few substantially gain and the majority are fed the subterfuge and loose. This is the mentality that is constantly pushing us to be a two-class society with “the few” competing in having it all while the majority is left struggling.
Politicians refusing to address those problems and who stubbornly put their political ambitions above all else, no matter what the cost to the people, as they just serve as “puppets” for “the money” who strongly support them and “pull their strings”, absolutely offer no hope to the majority. It has been said that the Republican Party has become owned and controlled by “the money” and as such are currently incapable of honestly and responsibly governing. Over the last twelve years we have seen this completely substantiated with the stubborn and arrogant refusal to compromise by Boehner, McConnell, Cantor, Ryan, Bachmann and others, always protecting only the interests of “the few”. We have seen it with Norquist, Cheney, Rove, SuperPacs and others as they use the mega-millions provided by “the few” to first, intimidate and coerce their own to squelch individual consciences and assure unity behind “the money’s” interests and second, to aggressively promote the propaganda aimed to deceive and sway the public, insultingly taking them for granted as “pawns” to be used and abused. It has been totally obvious with the “puppet” candidates they offer who are always ready to do just as they are told, GWBush style. We see it in the obnoxious personalities of Limbaugh, Palin, Beck, Hannity and others who always use hyped up exaggerations and deceptions aimed to excite and cloud over reality, trying to block rational and objective discernment. The total picture presented by all of them just leaves no doubt and no hope.
It is up to the voters. If they can be disciplined to put aside emotions, firmly reject the abundant, aggressive efforts to con them and to instead ascertain what is reasonably in their best interests, then the stranglehold “the money” has on the Republican Party may be broken, encouraging their return to being the Grande Ole Party with a sincere and honest interest in the people, and thus avoiding a return to “more of the same”, Bush-Cheney style, which cost us so much.
The Supreme Court. Burn it down.
US is not a democracy. It is a plutocracy - rule of the rich. The make believe election BS that poses as democracy is not even a thin disguise anymore. The only country in the world where corporations are considered to be "People".
You really gotta admire Benito Mussolini. Why? Because he had the transparency to just dissolve Parliament and invite representatives from Italian corporations to start writing their own laws.
What we have in America today, my friends, is Fascism-by-proxy. We get the illusion of a choice, when the reality is most corporations donate to BOTH sides and hope to get a legislative payoff at some point.
At least before Super PACs, you kind of knew who it was who was buying the influence, but with this new system, you have no idea who the candidates are beholden to. You can bet your favorite body part, though, that the ones who give the money will be damn well sure to let our Fearless Leader, whoever it may be, know where that money came from.
Why didn't the article mention the Super PACs for Obama? Why didn't they look into Priorities USA Action and Bill Burtan or Sean Sweeny? Not any bias in this article at all.
Sure am glad to see no one sided partisan bias in this campaign ad (oops "news article").
The Republicans are leading America down a path of self-destruction. They would destroy America rather than have wealthy people such as themselves pay their fair share in taxes. Before Bush, America had a fair system of taxation. I hope we can just go back to that.
None of this matters. In the end it's a choice between Socialism and Capitalism!
ralph,........It does not have to be either, or
In themselves, both capitalism and socialism are unsustainable. Since capitalism is based on an ever growing return on investment, at some point it is destined to price itself out of competition. Socialism, on the other hand discourages entrepreneurship and breeds stagnation... Sustainable prosperity and health are only possible by way of a blend of the core principals of both capitalism and socialism