As if the Citizens United ruling were not malevolent enough, the House Republicans are seeking to make it worse. According to the Supreme Court in Citizens United, corporate spending does not distort the political process, give rise to the appearance of corruption, or undermine the people’s faith in democracy. Obviously, they are out of their minds, but a big part of their reasoning is that disclosure requirements should allow the people to see who is sending them a political message. To further that end, the FCC released new guidelines in late April.
A new FCC guideline that would have forced the nation’s top television stations to list the funders behind political advertisements online.
But the House Appropriations financial services subcommittee voted along party lines to prohibit the FCC from implementing their proposal to add another layer of transparency to the political ad process.
We’re entitled to the information. According to the High Court of Antonin Scalia, this information protects us so much from the corrupting influence of corporate money that we should probably consider it to have superpowers. It’s this information that is keeping corporations and politicians honest, after all, and also allowing us to make informed choices.
But, no, you can’t have it in a nice easy to search online form. No, you need to go down to the television stations on your own and request the records. You can see how easy that is here.
This is the worst kind of collusion. The billionaires want to give anonymously. The Republicans want to protect the billionaires. The television stations want to keep it difficult to figure out what they’re charging for their ads. So, even though the law says this information must be publicly available, they work together to make it extremely burdensome for anyone to see it.
We’re entitled to the information.
I don’t think “entitled” today means quite what it used to 10-15 years ago.
I feel certain that the good Mr. Scalia will rethink his Citizens United decision in light of these setbacks.
It is a track where the richer you are the more your power protects your own freedom of information, or privacy. The less money you have, the more information you have to give up just to get your power company to turn your lights on.
The methodology of the voter ID requirements nationwide vs disclosure runaround of campaign finance just screams, and yet the Rep once again block to protect and get away with it.
One cannot fail to see the irony that is supposed to be President Obama who wants to be the “dictator”. Meanwhile, as the mainstream media reports idiotic ideas like that, behind the scenes the GOP is silently working toward creating their own private country; in which citizens are simply tools to generate wealth for the GOP buddies and themselves. No doubt, though, there are some diligent reporters working up that story as we speak.
Well…..maybe not.
Just this morning in our Dayton Daily News there was a lengthy article about this. Ohio is a key state in voting and the money is gushing in. The scary part is the third-party spending, which includes Crossroads GPS, Karl Rove’s group. They’re buying up TV ads as fast as they can into November. These ads are separate from those produced by the actual candidates.
The amount of private money, the unaccounted-for money, and the massive corporate dollars that are being spent is mind-numbing. And Republican money coming in outnumbers Democratic money 7-1.
scary.
Why, Oh Why, do voters vote based on how many times they have seen the same ad? It makes one wonder about the value of democracy.
I’m not sure this link to the newspaper article will let you in, but there’s the article:
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/politics/groups-outside-of-state-pumping-money-into-ohio-1388883
.html
The media want to keep their “Christmas” bonanza as a part of normal political life in the US. And since they provide the information used for Americans to decide to what they consent…
It’s to guard the precious advertisers from backlash campaigns by citizens, like the one that is slowly stripping membership from ALEC.
Perhaps an enterprising reporter could gather this information and publish it on the papers website.
Information on salaries in the UC system has a similar history. Supposedly they are public information, but until a few years ago you had to make a formal request in person to see them. Now they are published on the Sacamento Bee’s web site.