In 1992, future president Barack Obama led a very successful Project VOTE! campaign in Chicago. Seventeen years later, he was inaugurated. In 2004, I led a very successful Project Vote campaign here in the suburbs of Philadelphia. There is no word yet on whether I will be inaugurated in 2021. You know, he has a twelve year lead so I’m not worried yet. I guess I should be shooting for senator in 2016. Watch out, Pat Toomey!
I have a lot in common with the president, and that’s probably why I was drawn to him in the first place. In some significant ways, I have walked in his shoes. I know what it’s like to work to empower marginalized and under-represented voters, and he knows it, too. That’s why stuff like this fills me with murderous rage.
Billionaire conservative casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who helped keep Newt Gingrich’s failed presidential campaign alive during the Republican primaries, is giving $10 million to the super PAC supporting the presumptive GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The leader of the super PAC Restore Our Future, Carl Forti, wouldn’t confirm the donation and said his policy was to not comment on donors or potential donors. Mr. Adelson’s spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.
Yeah, I know it’s not confirmed, but Adelson has already done enough. I can organize a county and get out the vote, but it takes a ton of shoe leather and sweat and tears. This guy writes a check, and suddenly the air waves are filled with attack ads that more than wipe out whatever I’ve been able to accomplish. If the Supreme Court had ruled that money equals work instead of speech, then I might understand. But the truth is that money cancels out work. There were some rich people who gave money to Project Vote. They paid us to work. Adelson is just paying people to make ads. “Go ahead,” he’s saying, “mobilize as many people as you want. I’ll poison the well and all your work will be for naught.”
I consider what he’s doing to be a crime against democracy and representative government. It’s an absolute crime. I want to say this diplomatically, but I think real patriots should see these billionaires as a serious problem. I really do think that if we can’t change the laws to prohibit this kind of behavior then some people with pitchforks might have to have some kind of conversation with these folks. A man who makes his fortune in large part off of degenerate Chinese gamblers ought not to have the ability to take that foreign money and use it to cancel out the best efforts of those of us who fight for the least of us. Frankly, the foreign money makes it worse, but it is beside the point. There’s no such thing as one person, one vote when our campaigns are financed this way.
But George Will says the First Amendment makes it ok.
I’m with Cosmo Kramer on George Will.
There’s no such thing as one person, one vote when our campaigns are financed this way.
Tell that to Anthony Kennedy!! He’s the stooge who was the deciding vote. And his opinion used logic that would get an 8th grader tossed out of English class, much less civics(if they taught it).
I’d gladly tell it to Justice Kennedy.
When someone as even-keeled as you starts talking about pitchforks, I know we’re close to starting the party. I’ve had mine sharp and ready for some time. (Berkeley liberal meets Montana Rockies, I guess.) Give me a buzz if you want company.
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See, when you get right down to interpreting the First Amendment, and using past case-law, I’m not so sure they were wrong. I would have struck it down merely because, as you said, it undermines democracy and the “spirit” of the Constitution. But on the strict interpretation? I’m with the ACLU and Greenwald.
I think in order to stop this, and get any campaign finance with actual teeth, you’d have to restrict the First Amendment — something I am queasy about. But it is a conversation we must start having.
You must have had a really bad day. You’re normally a lot calmer.
Booman, I got home late again last night after making persuasion calls and let’s just say that these rich a$$holes who will spend obscene amounts of money to buy elections fill me with rage too.
You know the billions of dollars they will give to influence the election could be used to build schools or to set up health and dental clinics or heaven forbid could be paid in taxes to support the country they profess to love.
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I’ve read some estimates that say that 8-9 billion dollars may be spent on this election and the spending is about 9-10 to 1 in favor of Republicans.
And it will be what a dozen or so gazillionaires plus a bunch of anonymous corporations/foreign interests/a$$holigarchs.
And in these persuasion calls I am calling areas that are screwed economically and trying to counter all of the lies that they have heard on the teevee. Beyond outrageous.
The best part of Toobin’s article on Citizens United was the part on the history of attempts to restrict corporate/plutocrat money in elections. It’s been recognized as a problem for more than a century. It’s not something a few disgruntled hippies thought up at a Bill Ayers barbecue because we hate freedom.
We need to not get mad. We need to get even.
This fucking turd runs the only casino in Vegas that is not unionized. That needs to change. The AFL-CIO needs an ALL-OUT SCORCHED EARTH unionization campaign, and they need to TAKE IT TO THIS FUCK.