There were a number of competitive Senate races last year, Democrats ended up shocking Republicans in the Great Lakes and Sunbelt, while Republicans were able to do fairly well in the Midwest. Independent experts have described this midterm cycle as “the most expensive in history” with over $5 billion dollars spent on organizing and ads. We’ve grown accustomed to high-dollar spending in competitive races, but what’s happening in a state like Wyoming which hasn’t historically been competitive? No Democratic presidential candidate has carried Wyoming since 1964, so one might imagine that the state would be immune to the gratuitous levels of spending that we’ve seen in Missouri. Yet, incumbent senator John Barrasso raised over $7 million dollars and spent over $5 million on his race which had not even the slightest chance of being competitive.

Barrasso’s race isn’t an outlier, there are a number of noncompetitive races where favored candidates spent ungodly amounts of money. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D) of Hawaii has spent over $3 million, Mitt Romney (R) of Utah has spent nearly $5 million, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) of Massachusetts spent an eye popping $20.4 million.  There’s simply an unconscionable amount of money in politics and the tactics campaigns have been using to fundraise border on the ridiculous (Something Arthur Lieber has written about at length here and here). The numbers get even more extreme when we look into the actually competitive races. In Texas, Beto O’Rourke spent $60 million to lose to Sen. Ted Cruz (R). In Missouri, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) spent $33 million to lose to Josh Hawley. In Florida, Rick Scott had to spend $66 million to barely beat Sen. Bill Nelson (D).

Which poses an interesting question…why the hell are we spending so much money on campaigns and was it always like this? The answer to the first question isn’t overly complicated. In politics there aren’t a whole lot of quantitative measurements, metrics that have numbers and not only measure success but can be understood by voters. Of course, we have poll numbers, but voters already follow those and campaigns have essentially no control over the polls. So, when there aren’t any meaningful things to measure, you begin to measure things that were previously meaningless that you’ve decided to assign meaning to; money. A negative consequence of our decision to use money to measure success means that we’ve prioritized fundraising numbers over important things that are hard to quantify like policy positions or authenticity. Our present situation is reminiscent of Vietnam when the military began tracking “body counts” to produce some misleading characterization about American strength throughout the war. We’re at the point that voters ask candidates “how much money have you raised” and we have countdown clocks to await the end of quarter fundraising numbers, the party apparatuses are pushing candidates harder and harder to beg for money and the candidates oblige because the donor-industrial complex demands that they do.

Now as to the question of is this the way it has always been, the answer is no. Believe it or not, there was once a time where the media didn’t report on campaign contributions and knowing your constituents was enough to get re-elected. Before there was Citizens United or CNN or ActBlue or email, there was Bill Proxmire.

Sen. William Proxmire was the longest serving senator from Wisconsin, in office from 1957 until 1989, succeeding Ted Cruz lookalike and anti-communist crusader Joseph McCarthy. Proxmire did not do the rubber chicken circuit nor did he send out solicitations for campaign donations in his last two campaigns. In fact, Proxmire returned campaign donations and typically only spent $200 on each of his campaigns and that money was earmarked for postage to return donations. Proxmire wasn’t necessarily the exception, many of his contemporaries didn’t spend time dialing for dollars. Until 1976 when the Supreme Court decided Buckley v. Valeo there were very few enforced rules on spending and fundraising which allowed for some obviously unethical activities, namely the slush fund utilized by the Committee to Re-elect the President during Watergate. However most established politicians like Birch Bayh in Indiana or Frank Church in Idaho simply went about the business of legislating with the assumption that doing their jobs well would be enough. Which was true to an extent, from 1970 until 1990 incumbent senators could expect to outperform the partisanship of their state somewhere between 11 to 22 points compared to less than 3 points in 2018.

Proxmire in the elections where he eschewed campaign donations was still re-elected by large margins, 29 points in 1982 and 46 points in 1976. This is more impressive when one remembers that Proxmire was a Democrat and Wisconsin supported Republican Presidential Candidates in every election from 1952 through 1984 with the exception of a narrow Carter victory in 1976 and LBJ’s landslide in 1964. Of course, partisanship was not as high nor were the parties as fractured 40 years ago as they are today, however what Proxmire figured out then could still be true today and that is if you prioritize your principles over getting re-elected that can endear you to voters. Proxmire was famous for his monthly “Golden Fleece Awards” where he listed what he believed to be a particularly jarring use of government money like thousands of dollars spent to study why people fall in love or a study by the army on how to purchase Worcester sauce. But perhaps even more important than principle is authenticity and voters will forgive you for being wrong so long as you give it to them straight. Which is important because Proxmire was not always on the side of progress (but perhaps neither were the people of Wisconsin), he was opposed to busing, spending on public works projects that he deemed “frivolous”, and he supported the Vietnam War way longer than was politically necessary.

Proxmire was visible around Wisconsin, he visited VFW halls, he marched in parades, and he was interviewed by local papers. It’s hard to imagine this now but there was a time when our members of Congress simply went to Washington but were not of Washington. Proxmire was of course a larger figure in his day, not towering like Robert Byrd or Bob Dole, but big nonetheless and that certainly helps when running for re-election. But being well known isn’t everything, Tom Daschle found that out being Senate minority leader doesn’t mean you can’t lose re-election which happened to him in 2004. Being visible also doesn’t guarantee success, in Missouri Claire McCaskill held more than 50 townhalls just to lose 109 out of 115 counties.

So, the larger more important question is what changed? Ryan Grim discusses the emergence of big money in his book We’ve Got People: From Jesse Jackson to AOC, the End of Big Money and the Rise of a Movement. The moral majority and the election of 1980 permanently changed the calculus of the Democratic Party which until then had succeeded largely on the strength of organized labor. The election of 1980 was a very good year for Republicans and for the first time since 1952 they’d won control of the US Senate. This was a result that stunned Democrats but leadership still didn’t fully see the writing on the wall and there was an assumption that they would never lose the House because a so-called “blue wall” had been amassed that was insurmountable. From 1930 until 1980 Democrats controlled the House 46 out of 50 years and hadn’t lost control since 1952. Previously the organizing theory of the party was to register the most people and incentivize them to the polls, ideally with hope but occasionally with fear. However, this historic loss lead some to believe in a new theory, that raising more money than the GOP and spending it on ads or consultants and targeting voters could produce majorities. So, starting in 1980 Democrats started turning to Wall Street and other corporate interests for money and the natural consequence was a monetary arms race between both parties trying to out fundraise each other which is how we’ve arrived to our current state of affairs, made worse by a few particularly heinous SCOTUS decisions.

So, can a candidate do what Proxmire did and still win? Are elections now won on money instead of ideas? Even the examples we have of the underdog beating the more monied competitor like Donald Trump in 2016 or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018, those candidates still raised huge sums (Trump raised $333 million to Clinton’s $563 million and Ocasio-Cortez raised $600 thousand to Crowley’s $3 million). Are the parties so polarized that it’s simply not enough to be effective in Congress or represent the views of your constituents? In 2018 we saw a particularly animated electorate where races were decided purely on what party had more voters as split ticketing disappeared in many states. Voters and their elected members are more partisan now than at any time since the civil war which likely means the era of landslide victories built on bipartisan majorities is over for the foreseeable future.

This chart displays the partisanship in each house of congress. The lines represent the ideological distance between the average Democratic member and the average Republican member. The distance today is greater than any time since the end of Reconstruction.

It’s worth noting that as was alluded to at the beginning of this article, every state isn’t competitive. Proxmire himself said “I think fully two-thirds of the senators could get re-elected without spending a penny.” and he very well have been right, Idaho likely isn’t electing any Democrats soon and Hawaii almost certainly isn’t sending any Republicans to Washington. The same can be said of probably 200 house seats give or take a dozen. So, for the majority of cases, Proxmire would be right. However, there are a good number of seats in the Senate and the House, enough to decide control of either chamber, that are competitive and so the question of money and fair elections is still relevant.

This is all to say that as our system currently exists, it is not possible to recreate the successes of Sen. Proxmire everywhere. However, our system does not have to carry on as it has been and some states are experimenting with ways to bring people back into democracy. In 1995 Maine enacted the Maine Clean Election Act (MCEA) which established a voluntary program of full public financing of political campaigns for candidates running for Governor, State Senator, and State Representative. Before Citizens United v. FEC there was a point when a full 85% of members of the legislature were elected using this system. It’s clear that in our current political eco-system it would be impossible to achieve Proxmire style campaigns for a number of reasons, even in non-competitive states where politicians are forced to fundraise if not for themselves then for the party and are punished for refusing. But perhaps we can look toward a system of public financing which could still create expensive races, but it would also lead to more open and transparent races. Public financing would also allow a more diverse crop of candidates. Continuing to use Maine as an example, 7 out of 10 women stated that the MCEA was very important in their decision to run.

The way forward for politics has to involve reducing the role of money or inevitably our democracy will morph into a corporate kleptocracy if that transition has not already occurred.

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One of the terms with which Republicans couch their conservative views is supply-side economics. It sounds innocent enough, but history since the “Reagan Revolution” has shown us that it tends to benefit the 1% (only in the short run) and stagnate growth for the remaining 99%.

Ironically, one of the ways in which we might be able to fend off those advocating supply-side economics is to take a tactic that we’ll call supply-side democracy.

First, let’s clarify our definitions of these terms. In the case of supply-side economics, Wikipedia has a good and somewhat concise definition:

Supply-side economics is a macroeconomic theory which argues that economic growth can be most effectively created by investing in capital and by lowering barriers on the production of goods and services.
According to supply-side economics, consumers will then benefit from a greater supply of goods and services at lower prices; furthermore, the investment and expansion of businesses will increase the demand for employees and therefore create jobs.
Typical policy recommendations of supply-side economists are lower marginal tax rates and less government regulation.

In a nutshell, what supply-side economics does is to have the government directly or indirectly give more money to the wealthy with the hope that it will trickle down to the middle class and poor. Perhaps that would be so if the captains of industry and finance were altruistic in their business practices, but that is not the way in which they became profitable nor the way in which they would utilize incentives from the federal government. In supply-side economics, the government gives breaks to the suppliers of goods and services, not to the consumers or “demanders.”

Supply-side democracy (which we are somewhat inventing here) is designed to take power from the entrenched and put it in the hands of individual citizens. In this case, think of supply as being the supply of voters in a democracy. In the United States that is now over 240 million people. The “demanders” would be the well-funded politicians who place demand after demand on the American people. First they want your money, and lots of it. Next they want your attention, and with the help of the mainstream media which is always in a position to make money from politics, they nag you day and night.

The politicians set the agenda and the ones who often get the furthest are those who have the most money, either in their own campaign coffers or through the “generosity” of PACs and Super PACs that support them. This is not new or news. But what would be different with supply-side democracy is that there were be a fundamental change in tactics in working to reduce the role of money in politics. While it certainly would be helpful to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and perhaps more effective for Congress to pass new meaningful campaign finance reform with public funding of campaigns, these changes would have to be made by the already entrenched. Do not expect any quick action.

What would happen with supply-side democracy is that the voters (the supply) would simply say that they would not vote for the candidates who are backed by large sums of money.  Voters frequently say that they want a candidate who “is like them,” but how can any man or woman who spends months begging for money and kowtowing to those who have the money actually be like you or me? The fact that politicians need so much money morphs them into people who are fundamentally different from the people whose votes they seek.

This would be a good time for a new “just say no,” campaign, one that could be much more effective than the ones designed to reduce drug use or to promote sexual abstinence. Using information about campaign finances that is available through the Federal Elections Commission, Open Secrets, and state ethics commissions, voters can learn which candidates are funded by the wealthy and powerful rather than citizens of modest means. If voters stand up and refuse to vote for the very well-funded candidates, the following things can happen:

• More candidates in play who are “more like the people”
• Less time spent by office-holders begging for money
• Less offensive negative political ads on TV.
• More citizens would consider running for political office
• A better functioning democracy

There are obvious hurdles to this approach, most particularly how does this idea get disseminated to the American people. But because the other solutions to limiting money in politics also seem to be long-shots at the moment, it would be worthwhile to consider an idea like supply-side democracy.

The post Defeating supply-side economics with supply-side democracy appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Hating Citizens United is easy. Overturning it is much more difficult, but that’s not stopping some intrepid legislators from trying.

The hurdle is high: You may remember, from your middle-school Civics class [I didn’t], that to upend a Supreme Court decision of this magnitude, you have to amend the U.S. Constitution. One route is for states to hold a Constitutional convention. On May 2, 2014, Vermont passed JR27 by a vote of 95-43. The bill places the following language on the November 2014 ballot for voters to ask the U.S. Congress…

…to call a convention for the sole purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America that would limit the corrupting influence of money in our electoral process…by overturning the Citizens United decision…

Ten other states are currently considering similar resolutions this year. I don’t remember if they covered this on Schoolhouse Rock, but it would take 34 states to trigger a convention to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Another way to override Citizens United is for Congress to pass a Constitutional amendment, which must then be ratified by 38 states. On May 28, 2014, the California State Assembly passed a bill that would put an advisory [meaning non-binding] question on the November 4th, 2014 General Election ballot, asking voters whether Congress should propose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution [it would be the 28th Amendment, in case you’re counting] overturning Citizens United.
The California ballot question would ask voters:

Shall the Congress of the United States propose, and the California Legislature ratify, an amendment or amendments to the United States Constitution to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission … and other applicable judicial precedents, to allow the full regulation or limitation of campaign contributions and spending, to ensure that all citizens, regardless of wealth, may express their views to one another, and to make clear that the rights protected by the United States Constitution are the rights of natural persons only?

Meanwhile in Washington DC, some politicians are taking a similar approach. During the current, 113th Congressional session, Senators and Congressmen have introduced 15 bills calling for a Constitutional amendment, which—using varying language—would either mitigate or overturn Citizens United. Of course, some of the sponsors of these bills–and many others who are not on board– are undoubtedly slurping up the tsunami of campaign donations unleashed by the Citizens United ruling they say they are trying to remediate. Given that reality, the odds are heavily against passage of any of the suggested amendments.

On the other hand, just because the Congressional route seems impractical, we need to be careful about states calling for and convening a Constitutional convention. I think I remember that such a convention can’t be limited to just one topic. It’s wide open and therefore fraught with opportunities for mischief and ill-conceived ideas. I recently read that 49 states have passed resolutions calling for a convention to propose some 700 different amendments. So, I shudder to think, in today’s extreme political climate, what kinds wacko ideas might worm their way in to a wide-open convention and make things much, much worse.

We can only hope that Congress comes to its senses, our representatives look beyond their own next election cycles to see what’s good not just for them, but for our democracy, and that voters push for what’s right. It’s going to be very difficult to put the Citizens United toothpaste back in the tube, but we really must keep trying.

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Gaius Publius writing at Americablog comments on a recent New York Times article on this election cycle’s monstrous cost. I suggest reading the NYT article then read Gaius’ commentary here—one of two posts he is writing on money in this past election. The second post will deal with foreign contributions, which, he notes, appear to be “banned from public discourse.”

In his first post on 2012 election spending, Gaius covers the main players: Sheldon Adelson, the Koch Brothers, wrestling executive Linda McMahon, and other oligarchs and what they gave. He also mentions Joe Ricketts, owner of the Chicago Cubs who spent almost $13 million to attack President Obama on federal spending. Gaius’ comment:

See what happens when sports owners are made invisible to the fans? Fans give them their money to spend against them. Dumb; really dumb. Take that, Cubs fans. And don’t worry, there’s plenty more waiting. You give him the wherewithal, every losing season.

So will a more politicized and politically enlightened electorate put heat on elusive arch-conservative sports owners? Will fans begin to boycott games over an owner’s massive right wing political spending aimed squarely against their interests? Interesting thought as we move on from a startling election that resembled the awakening of a sleeping giant—a brown-faced electorate that will no longer tolerate Republican attempts to suppress their voices and votes.

In one of his most interesting insights, Gaius fingers corporate owned networks and TV stations as deeply invested in perpetuating our massively expensive elections. He asks:

Where did all this money go? Most of it went to the media:

Remember how I said above that the media — the networks and TV stations — were a huge part of the [election reform] problem? Most people only look at the front end of the election system. They see how Big Money buys candidates who pay them back with favorable laws, low taxes, and lack of prosecutions.

But think of the candidate as just a pass-through for the cash. The money starts somewhere (Our Betters); they give it to campaigns and campaign surrogates; tons of people take a very generous cut; and it ends up somewhere. The candidate isn’t bought with the money; the candidate is bought with electoral office.

What does most of that money actually buy? TV time. Very expensive TV time. Think for a minute from the standpoint of the network or TV station owner:

■ I the media owner have a broadcast license that, in practice, I can never lose. (I pray daily to the Great God Clinton, blessings on his name, for that one.)

■ I have a political system that allows me to charge big bucks for what used to be free — access to TV for candidates.

■ I have a campaign financing system that dumps unlimited money into the pockets of politicians and their supporters — and that money needs to be spent.

■ Who do they spend it on? Me.

As a general rule, 75% of campaign money goes to media and communications, and while I don’t have the TV numbers (national and local), I’d bet that TV accounts for the bulk of it.

And this is why we may never get low-cost uncorrupted elections. It’s not just the candidates who are corrupted. Everyone who touches that money is corrupted — especially the end-user, our national and local media. They will kill to keep things just like this. Wouldn’t you, if you were a monomaniac money-seeker (sorry, corporate-profit-responsible CEO)?

I’ll link to part 2 of Gaius’ comments on money in the 2012 election when he posts it.

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According to Dick Morris—the Republican political consultant and Fox News contributor who was the recorded voice on my phone a few minutes ago– “Barack Obama  is the biggest threat to the American way of life” that we face today. Morris, representing Citizens United, wants to tell me how bad President Obama is, and how I can find out even more about his nefarious ideas about America.

You remember Dick Morris, right? He once offered political advice to President Bill Clinton. Now he’s helping his Republican friends. But, hey. That’s where the money is. And I digress.

“Barack Obama doesn’t like how the United States was founded 236 years ago,” said Morris. “And that’s why my good friend Dave Bossie, the president of Citizens United—the group that Obama hates and fears the most—has launched a new project called ‘Obama: The Movie.’”

“With Hollywood in the tank for Obama, we’ve created this explosive production” that will reveal the truth about Obama, and which everyone should see, he continues. “It will help to dismantle Obama’s liberal agenda over the next few weeks.

The movie, first released during the 2012 Republican National Convention, is said to feature people who voted for Obama in 2008, but who are now disappointed and disillusioned.  I’m not sure, but I think Morris may have misstated the name of the movie. When I searched for it, I found its title to be “The Hope and the Change.” Maybe that title was too positive, and they’ve altered it since then?

Unfortunately, when asked by a live operator, “Which part of Dick Morris’ message did I like best,” I made the mistake of answering honestly. “None of it,” I said. And when I added that I wouldn’t trust anything Dick Morris said, she hung up on me. I’m sorry I did that, because if I had played along, I might have heard some more great, awful stuff about President Obama. And that would have made a better post. Okay. Next time I’ll try to be better, I mean worse.

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In the following video, Mike Papantonio, host of Ring of Fire Radio, suggests that the GOP is no longer a viable political party. Thanks in part to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, the Republican Party has been completely taken over by a group of billionaires. Think Koch brothers, Harold Simmons, the Marriots, Sheldon Adelson.

The takeover started decades ago when a small group of extremely wealthy people led by Adolph Coors (beer baron, and founder of the Heritage Foundation) recruited Ronald Reagan to be their front man. Their intention was to destroy labor unions, crush the progressive political movements of the previous decade, and slowly and steadily move the country to the right. Reagan did his best to deliver on their expectations. Over time, they have systematically consolidated their hold on state governments. They created ALEC to churn out 1000 right wing, corporate friendly model bills per year. They have succeeded in getting right wing governors elected in a number of states, and now they are again going for the presidency with their new front man, Mitt Romney. Papantonio explains how this “hostile takeover” of the Republican Party is deeply threatening to the future of the United States.

Mike Papantonio, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Sam Seder co-host Ring of Fire Radio.

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Drawing in the cantankerous Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson, Rove had even consolidated the money under his power. He has co-opted the Tea Party, defanging the uncontrollable elements in it, marginalizing their leaders and seizing their resources. Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Herman Cain, and Rick Perry had been consigned to the dustbin of history. Mitt Romney was forever indebted to Rove. He had built his new machine into a ruthlessly efficient political operation outside, above, and, finally subsuming the party structure, beholden to no one but himself. . .

—From Boss Rove: Inside Karl Rove’s Secret Kingdom of Power by Craig Unger

Scott Horton, columnist at Harper’s, asks Craig Unger six questions about his new book, Boss Rove. His answers will make your hair stand on end. Karl Rove, the ruthless political operative who fell from grace after the 2008 election, is back—and he is more powerful than ever—thanks to right wing money unleashed by the Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision.

Unger confirms what most of us intuitively understand: that Reince Priebus, the new chairman of the RNC, is nothing more than a media attack-dog, a kind of yapping poodle. He runs nothing. Karl Rove, although operating in secret and outside of it, is the alpha dog and de facto head of the GOP. He is the money and power behind Mitt Romney’s campaign. He decides who has a voice in the party, and who doesn’t. His billionaire donors are counting on him, the ultimate master of dirty tricks, to deliver the election. Rove, who seems to have no moral core whatsoever, who started his dubious political career in college smearing Democrats and “ratfucking” for Nixon, who with the help of Neoconservative war mongers promoted an ill-prepared frat boy to the presidency, has dedicated his life to handing the country over to wealthy sociopaths.

Rove’s intention to use the more than $1 billion now under his control to manipulate the upcoming election with massive media buys in the eight battleground states poses a grave threat to what’s left of our democracy. For a host of reasons—his involvement in outing CIA operative Valerie Plame, his use of the Republican funded computer company SmarTech to corrupt elections and hide email evidence, his use of the Justice Department to frame former Alabama governor Don Siegelman—Rove belongs in prison. But, he has escaped that fate because, like a brilliant character in a crime novel, he is a master at keeping his fingerprints off his dirty operations.

Welcome to the real world of the 2012 election

We won’t know until it’s over how effective unlimited money, fear mongering, and repeated bald faced lies are in swinging an election. But even though Rove is to be feared, it’s important to remember this: the Republican Party has nothing to offer the American people. Nothing. For example, consider the hastily devised convention slogan “We Built It.” It refers to the Ayn Rand fantasy that every wealthy person made it completely on their own, without government help. The truth is that  many “built” their businesses with generous tax subsidies, government loans and contracts, and of course, tax loopholes unavailable to the ordinary person. They also took advantage of tax supported infrastructure and government services.

If Democrats get it together, grow a spine, and align themselves with the majority; if they expose the lies, and offer substantive polices that help working families, (like forcing banks to deal with mortgages); if they start to communicate and actually explain Obamacare (which they have started to do); if they carefully monitor and vigorously fight vote tampering and voter suppression efforts (which they have been doing); if they reinvigorate the Democratic base that put Obama in office in 2008 (the first day of the Democratic convention suggests they could), then Barack Obama will win the election in spite of Karl Rove and the deep pockets of the Koch Brothers.

If Obama wins (and I think he will), because the Democrats will have been outspent, the victory will be especially sweet. An Obama victory will mean our democracy, currently on life support, has temporarily rallied. But, to make sure Karl Rove doesn’t rise again in 2014 or 2016 like a vampire from the ashes of his smoldering “secret kingdom of power,” his life force, Citizen’s United, must be repealed. And that’s a tall order.

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What they have clearly become is a partisan arm of corporate America. This is a real serious problem for our democracy. It’s essentially a court that rules in one direction. Even if they do uphold the health care law, this court is no longer perceived as the independent arbiter of the law that the people expect them to be.

—former U.S. Senator, Russ Feingold

In a surprise move, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the more liberal members of the Court in upholding the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But, it would be a mistake to assume this decision signals a return to balance and judicial restraint. Roberts appears to have restored impartiality to the institution, but it is more optics than substance designed to shore up a reputation increasingly under criticism by the American people. Since its infamous Citizen’s United decision, the court has not fared well in public opinion. According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll:

Just 44 percent of Americans approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing and three-quarters say the justices’ decisions are sometimes influenced by their personal or political views.

In the short term, the upholding of ACA is genuinely good news for millions who will suffer less under the wasteful, punishing, for-profit health insurance system we have in the United States. No more pre-existing conditions, no more life-time caps on treatment, kids get to stay on parents insurance until 26, subsidized insurance exchanges for those who can’t afford premiums, no more dumping you if you get sick, and so on—no doubt these are good, even life-saving, changes to this notoriously bad system—one that has devoted whole departments to denying care.

But, at its core, the ACA is a corporate friendly bill. So, even though it allows better health care access for millions of Americans—and the decision to uphold it is a political victory for the Obama administration—the Robert’s Court keeps its reputation as a partisan arm of corporate America intact. No matter which way this decision went, the health care industry would be fine. The right wanted ACA to fail for political reasons. They wanted to use it to harm Obama’s chances for a second term. Although Roberts, voted to uphold the law, his treatment of the Commerce Clause is of concern to a number of progressive court watchers. Senator Chuck Schumer also expressed concern that the courts limiting the Commerce Clause in the ACA decision could be a way to, in the future, limit the ability of the federal government to help average families.

Adam Serwer, writing for Mother Jones feels the Commerce Clause is not as much of a problem as the court’s reasoning on the expansion of Medicaid. According to Serwer, “The Affordable Care Act substantially expanded Medicaid coverage so that it would cover 16 million more Americans, but it forced states to either take the new funding or give up all the Medicaid funding they were already getting. The high court said that was not kosher.”

The court upheld most of the law, and the mandate that citizens have to buy health insurance or face a tax penalty. Because we have a for-profit health delivery system, in which profits trump human need, we will continue to spend twice per person what other Western countries spend for what has proven to be inferior care. Which is why, as a nation, we can’t let this decision take our eyes off the only sane solution: single payer health care or “Medicare for all.”

Citizen’s United decision was intended to undermine democracy

In the wake of his seeming non-partisan, impartial ACA decision, it’s important to remember Roberts presided over one of the worst decisions ever made in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court—Citizens United. In a recent article penned for the Stanford Law Review, “The Money Crisis: How Citizens United Undermines Our Elections and the Supreme Court,” Feingold writes:

. . . Chief Justice Roberts apparently wanted a much broader, sweeping outcome, and it is now clear that he manipulated the Court’s process to achieve that result. Once only a question about an “on-demand” movie, the majority in Citizens United ruled that corporations and unions could now use their general treasuries to influence elections directly.

Despite giving strenuous assurances during his confirmation hearing to respect settled law, Roberts now stands responsible for the most egregious upending of judicial precedent in a generation. As now-retired Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his dissent to the majority in Citizens United: “Five Justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.”

In other words, let’s not forget, the Robert’s court is a right-wing, partisan court on steroids. The ACA decision, as Arthur Lieber writes, was conservative rather than extreme. But I don’t think it signals a lessening of the ongoing danger this court presents to the nation and the rule of law.

In his article, Feingold suggests that beginning in 2004, with Howard Dean’s campaign, and culminating in the election of Barack Obama in 2008, corporations and their billionaire owners were increasingly alarmed at the growing power and democratizing influence of the Internet. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama raised an astounding $500,000,000 online and engaged the electorate through a new, sophisticated use of the Web. The right wing members of the Court, equally alarmed at this expansion of democracy, were eager to counter the growing power and influence of ordinary people with a heavy handed tipping of the scales toward big money. Rather than apply the law narrowly and impartially, the Roberts court, in its Citizens United decision, revealed itself to be actively aligned with the fears and anti-democratic agendas of the 1%. Stepping way outside of its intended role, the court, under Justice Roberts leadership, used a case before it to severely damage the democratic process.

Citizens United resulted in the creation of corrupt entities called “super pacs” designed to drown out the voices of the majority of Americans with massive infusions of anonymous money into the political process. Thanks to John Roberts and the other conservative members of the Court, instead of small-dollar online donations making up the biggest sources of money in the 2012 election, the lion’s share will come from unnamed corporations and a small group of, mostly conservative, anonymous billionaires.

Which is why for progressives, no matter how disappointed you are in President Barack Obama (and I am), it is absolutely crucial that we reelect him for a second term. With a possibility that there will be three vacancies on the Court in the next four years, if Barack Obama appoints them, Citizen’s United can be overturned.

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The new award-winning documentary “HEIST: Who Stole the American Dream?” traces the origins of the worldwide economic collapse of 2008 to a series of bi-partisan, corporate-fueled policy decisions dating back to the early 1970s. Stephen Holden, in a review of the film for the New York Times writes:

. . . produced and directed by Frances Causey and Donald Goldmacher, [“HEIST”] has the virtue of taking the long view of a crisis that recent films like “Inside Job” and “Too Big to Fail” have only sketchily explored. It makes a strong case that government regulation of business is essential for democracy to flourish. One of many pertinent observations from a host of experts is that the rich really don’t need the government as much as everybody else.

Following is the extended trailer for the documentary “HEIST.” The DVD is available for purchase for individual and group showings at www.heist-themovie.com.

The Powell Memo

In its effort to trace the origins of the 2008 meltdown, HEIST explores a long forgotten 1971 memo penned by Lewis F. Powell at the request of Eugene B. Sydnor, chairmen of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce education committee. The 6,400-word document, “Attack on the American Free Enterprise System,” reads today as a blueprint for the conservative agenda as it has unfolded over the past 40 years. Powell—a corporate lawyer and conservative Democrat—sat on the boards of eleven corporations. Two months after writing his memo, Richard Nixon appointed him to the Supreme Court. Nixon had tried to appoint him earlier but he declined, not wanting to give up his lucrative law career. But Nixon appealed to his sense of patriotism and Powell finally accepted.

Bill Black, a former bank regulator and author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One has a very interesting and lengthy analysis of the Powell memo at Naked Capitalism. He says of Powell:

He issued a clarion call for corporations to mobilize their economic power to further their economic interests by ensuring that corporations dominated every influential and powerful American institution. Lewis Powell’s call was answered by the CEOs who funded the creation of Cato, Heritage, and hundreds of other movement centers.

In his decidedly undemocratic memo, Powell argued for a big business takeover of government, media, academia, churches, arts and sciences, and the destruction of organized labor and consumer protection groups. All this was to preserve “the American Free Enterprise System” which he worshipped as the driving force that made the American way of life superior to all others. Because he believed free market capitalism was under threat, he advocated “constant surveillance” of textbook and television content and a purge of left wing elements in all aspects of society. In order to accomplish these goals, he recommended a “scale of financing only available through a joint effort.” His aim was none other than total corporate control of law and politics. Through the efforts of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, his memo was widely distributed among bankers, corporate board members, CEOs, and lobbying groups.

The movie “HEIST” explores the systematic implementation of the corporatist ideas expressed in Powell’s memo by both Democrats and Republicans over the last forty years including the deregulation of industry (the gutting of the Glass-Steagall Act), outsourcing of jobs (NAFTA), and regressive taxation (Bush tax cuts). All of which led us to the global financial crisis of 2008, an increase in poverty, and the dismantling of the American middle class.

It’s a leap to say that the memo was the seminal document that galvanized the right into action. At the time Powell wrote it, there were many who shared his views. His memo served more to collect those ideas into a working document that the business world could use. Decades later, the Citizens United Supreme Court decision is the grotesque culmination of the undemocratic, oligarchic ideas of Powell and his profit worshiping friends.

Powell believed that bankers and corporate CEOs were responsible, moral human beings—superior and trustworthy citizens—who, if freed from regulation and supported by government, would lead themselves and therefore the rest of the country to prosperity. He assumed these upright citizens would police themselves. He may not have known (or allowed himself to know) how extreme, and even sociopathic, the right would become in the ensuing years.

Powell served as Associate Supreme Court Justice from 1972 until 1987 and throughout his tenure, had a reputation for being moderate, a “master of compromise and consensus building.” If he had witnessed the criminal behavior in the finance industry first hand, and the growing, bi-partisan, revolving door corruption in Washington DC that led to the 2008 meltdown, given that he identified himself as a moral man, would he have questioned his admiration the corporate world?

The new documentary “HEIST” is a must see for progressives, or anyone else, who want to understand how we got to where we are today.

The post HEIST: Who Stole the American Dream? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

When the Citizens United decision was handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in January, 2010, the most common criticisms were:

1. Corporations are not citizens.

2. It will increase the already disproportionate role of money in politics.

3. There is no requirement for identifying the donors to the SuperPACs that worked on behalf of candidates. Money would now come into the political system that could not be traced.

A common misconception about the ruling was that there would be a firewall between the actual campaign committees for candidates and the SuperPACs that worked parallel to, but distant from, the campaign committees.

As is the case with much of the news, it takes comedians such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to shine light on what is hidden from much of the public. When Colbert began his semi-facetious campaign to run for president of “the United States of South Carolina,” he quickly determined that he could vastly increase money available for his race if he had a SuperPAC to complement his regular campaign committee. With the help of friend and colleague Jon Stewart and former Federal Elections Commission Chairman Trevor Potter, Colbert completely dispelled the myth that there was strict separation between a campaign committee and a SuperPAC.

Part of Colbert’s shtick is being a control freak. If he were to permit a SuperPAC to be established on his behalf, could he control both the regular campaign committee and the SuperPAC? To find the answer to this question and others, he called upon a true expert in Potter. With crocodile tears flowing, Colbert petulantly accepted the reality that he could not be chairperson of both committees. But as revealed in the video clip below, virtually everything else that Colbert wanted to control both his campaign and the SuperPAC was legal.

Colbert: Can I run for president and keep my SuperPAC?

Potter: No, you cannot be a candidate and run a SuperPAC. That would be coordinating with yourself. You can’t have the PAC, but you can have it run by someone else.

[Jon Stewart enters]

Colbert: Jon, are you here to offer to take over Colbert SuperPAC?

Stewart: I would be honored. But can we do this, because you and I are also business partners?

Colbert: Trevor, is being business partners a problem?

Potter: Being business partners does not count as coordination, legally.

Stewart: I assume that there are reams of complicated paper work that need to be executed before we transfer the reins of power.

Potter: I brought the one document with me.

Stewart: It’s double-spaced.

[Colbert and Stewart each sign once]

Colbert: Colbert SuperPAC is dead.

Stewart: But it has been reborn: The definitely not coordinating with Stephen Colbert SuperPAC, making a better tomorrow, tomorrow. Now that I have the SuperPAC, the money, can I run ads on behalf of Stephen Colbert, perhaps attacking his opponents who I don’t believe in at all?

Potter: Yes you can, as long as you do not coordinate.

Stewart: I’m busy. Can I legally hire Stephen’s current SuperPAC staff to produce these ads that will be in no way coordinated with Stephen?

Potter: Yes, as long as they have no knowledge of Stephen’s plans.

Colbert: Well that’s easy; I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. From now I’ll just have to talk about my plans on my television show and take the risk that you might watch it.

Click to play 

The bottom line is clear. The loopholes that allow official campaign committees and SuperPACs to work together are as large as the ones in Mitt Romney’s safety net for the poor. As Colbert says in his final line, all he has to do is publicly state his plans and Stewart can take those coordination orders. This isn’t just comedy theory. Newt Gingrich actually gave a speech in which he said what he would like his SuperPAC to do. To date there have been no negative repercussions from that because he is following the guidelines as outlined by an honorable former chairperson of the Federal Elections Commission.

So if you thought that the one limitation on runaway campaigns in Citizens United is that official campaigns and SuperPACs cannot coordinate, just watch them do it.

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