The Deep, Dark Pond of Political Money
Spending in the 2012 presidential election is expected to top $11 billion—more than twice the 2008 total. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling has taken American electoral politics back six decades, to before a time when corporations, trade groups and unions were banned from spending unlimited money on political campaigns.
Spending in the 2012 presidential election is expected to top $11 billion—more than twice the 2008 total. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling has taken American electoral politics back six decades, to a time when corporations, trade groups and unions were allowed to spend unlimited money on political campaigns.
A reporter for Mother Jones magazine, Andy Kroll, far right (pictured next to “Democracy Now!” correspondent Juan Gonzalez), discusses the history of both legal and illegal attempts to win elections and the fully privately funded presidential election that will occur in November.
— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
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Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Mother Jones investigative reporter Andy Kroll told "Democracy Now!" about "the next Citizens United" -- the Supreme Court's decision this Wednesday to eliminate a long-standing limit on how much donors can give to political candidates and causes.
At their last fundraising conference, hell-raising right-wing billionaires David and Charles Koch left behind a confidential document detailing one-on-one conversations with donors and their operatives, offering a rare look into their savage political machine.
It’s May 2012 and we’re in Woodlawn, a largely African American neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. The goal of the HIT Squad, short for Housing Identification and Target, is to map blighted, bank-owned homes with overdue property taxes and neighbors angry enough about the destruction of their neighborhood to consider supporting a plan to repossess on the repossessors.
The streets are much darker now, since money for streetlights is rarely available to municipal governments. The national parks began closing down years ago. Reports on bridges crumbling or even collapsing are commonplace. It’s 2023 -- and this is America 10 years after the first across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequestration went into effect.
Politics, 79-year-old casino mogul Sheldon Adelson told The Wall Street Journal, is like poker: "I don't cry when I lose. There's always a new hand coming up." He said he could double his 2012 giving in future elections. "I'll spend that much and more," he said. "Let's cut any ambiguity."
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