( – promoted by buhdydharma )
The January 21 Supreme Court decision [.pdf] in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case lifted bans on corporate spending for campaign finance, drawing heavy criticism from across the country for the ruling’s potential to undermine the American democratic process.
Now with that ruling in their back pockets, “[a]t least half a dozen leaders of the Republican Party have joined forces to create a new political group with the goal of organizing grass-roots support and raising funds ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, according to people familiar with the effort”, says the Wall Street journal in an article January 30.
The Supreme Court ruling could potentially allow the group, called the American Action Network, to take unlimited contributions from corporations for use in political campaigns.
The New York Times reports that the group aims to “develop and market conservative ideas…hoping to capitalize on the fundraising and electioneering possibilities opened up by a recent Supreme Court ruling.”
“This administration as well as Citizens United – when you combine the two the prospects for funding these types of efforts are greatly enhanced,” said former senator Norm Coleman, one of the group’s organizers.
RawStory lists the intitial members of the group as
Kenneth Langone, a former director of the New York Stock Exchange who defended a $139.5 million bonus in 2004 and has been sued for “extortion, defamation, fraudulent misrepresentation.”
Robert K. Steele, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, helped Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson make his former bank one of the biggest beneficiaries of the $700 billion bailout.
Norm Coleman, who supported President Bush’s 2005 bankruptcy bill.
Ed Gillespie, whose lobbying firm represents Enron, Citibank, Bank of America, Zurich Financial, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The Wall Street Journal adds that:
People familiar with the group said the American Action Network sprung in part out of an unsuccessful effort last year by Republicans called the National Council for a New America which was intended to help redefine the tarnished party brand after the 2008 elections.
Party leaders have found renewed buoyancy following a series of recent election victories and as Republicans stand poised to make further gains in the 2010 elections.
Perhaps since they already own the Oval Office, which we were warned about as early as May 2008 with…
“Despite claiming that his campaign wealth comes from small individual donors, Obama is backed by the biggest Wall Street firms: Goldman Sachs, UBS AG, Lehman Brothers, J P Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, as well as the huge hedge fund Citadel Investment Group. ‘Seven of the Obama campaign’s top 14 donors,’ wrote the investigator Pam Martens, ‘consisted of officers and employees of the same Wall Street firms charged time and again with looting the public and newly implicated in originating and/or bundling fraudulently made mortgages.‘”
…and according to Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, the second highest ranking Democrat, already own most of Congress and the Senate, as well as the majority of mainstream media, they’ve decided that’s it’s time for a ‘surge’ and to go whole hog?
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a McVoters, Inc. network now too?
Maybe we start something along the lines of Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet’s investment company) that we sell shares in and use the money we raise to buy up shares of all the corporations who are corrupting the government and become majority shareholders so that we can dictate policy to them.
We should be able to sell shares all over the world in something like that, and raise enough money to…
them bid and buy our Congress critters? Even if we can’t possibly fork up enough bucks to buy our own critter(s), we’ll be able to see who brings in the highest bids and who owns who, right?
It would be hysterically funny if it weren’t so damn outrageous.
rip head off country, crap down neck.
to pass legislation requiring prior shareholder approval for corporate political expenditures. Not holding my breath for it, though.
No later than the time the DLC succeeded in marginalizing the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. The reason this SCOTUS ruling (as wrong as it is) has troubled me less than it troubles many people is that it doesn’t really introduce anything new into our political system; it merely gives the Gang of Five’s official seal of approval to something that has already been the case for a long time, even with some feeble “limits” on corporate spending.
Happily, voters now are growing more and more disenchanted with “both” corporate “parties.” The multi-party system that’s likely to evolve pretty soon on the basis of this disenchantment will be harder for Wall Street to control–at least for a while.
when you can socially engineer reality through corporate owned media.
Yes but then again the news that now they can buy an election advances that thought that there really is a secret government. Fake elections with fake candidates ever since JFK.
I promise to be the first Hofstra alumn that DOESN’T fuck people over.
And even there, the results were pretty pathetic. Sure, the South surrendered, but the Northern businessmen came out smelling like a rose, and it’s never been the same since. Trying to turn the illusion of Democracy into reality is really difficult when money is God. And why pray for it if you can steal it freely. Praying is for the plebians and hoping that an election can actually do anything.
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