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Obama Joins the Democracy Sell Off
President Obama succumbed late Monday to the dark logic of the Super PACs, instructing top West Wing staffers to help raise money for the so-called "independent" groups that have been successful in picking winners and losers thus far in 2012.
"We decided to do this because we can't afford for the work you're doing in your communities, and the grassroots donations you give to support it, to be destroyed by hundreds of millions of dollars in negative ads," Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina wrote supporters in an email Monday night.
This is no small news -- which explains why the New York Times placed this story on page one today -- as it signals that the president has reversed his earlier stance against working with Super PACs and joined others on the low road to political influence.
It also sounds the starting gun for the real race to win the White House in 2012 -- one that will very likely award the candidate who raises the most cash with victory in November. In this case, though, it won't be the victor who gets the spoils, but the wealthy corporations and individuals that funded him.
What's really happening in 2012 is a transfer of money and power unlike any other in the history of U.S. politics. It's a process that's unfolding in corporate boardrooms and corridors of political power, far from public view or scrutiny.
Here's what we've found:
1. Money Wins Elections: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the federal candidate who raised more money in 2008 won his or her race nine out of 10 times. Former White House political czar Karl Rove knows this well. His Super PAC American Crossroads and 501(c)(4) group Crossroads GPS recorded an unbroken string of victories in 2010 after spending an estimated $40 million. This year he's aiming to raise more than five times that.
2. The Wealthiest Give the Most: Thanks to the 2010 Citizens United decision, the overwhelming majority of political contributions (in terms of dollars) now come from the wealthiest corporations and individuals. According to the Sunlight Foundation, almost half of the contributions to the nine largest super PAC spenders thus far came from just 22 donors, who each gave more than $500,000. Nearly 80 percent of their donors were those who gave more than $100,000. It's a list that includes some of the wealthiest hedge fund managers (Julian Robertson: $1 million for pro-Mitt Romney Super PAC), Hollywood execs (Jeffrey Katzenberg: $2 million for pro-Obama Super PAC) and property developers (Bob Perry: $2.5 million for Karl Rove's Super PAC).
3. There's More Being Spent Now than Ever Before: 2012 will break all previous records for contributions to campaigns, Super PACs and even less accountable 501(c)(4)s, all of which are concentrating their spending on media buys in local television markets. Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group estimates that candidates, political parties and independent groups will spend up to $3.3 billion to buy TV ads during the 2012 election season. That's a 57 percent increase over the estimated $2.1 billion that was spent on local ads during the 2008 election cycle.
4.Political Ads Work: The reason so much money is being spent on so many ads is that it's a proven formula for success. Newt Gingrich saw a near-complete reversal of his political fortunes in both Iowa and Florida after "Restore Our Future," a pro-Romney Super PAC, plowed many times more money into ads in those states than Gingrich's counterpart. Romney's camp and his allies aired nearly 13,000 television commercials in Florida, compared with fewer than 300 by Gingrich and his supporters, according to a study by the Wesleyan Media Project. As in Iowa, this on-air onslaught coincided with the decline of Gingrich support in the polls, and, ultimately, at the ballot box.
5. Broadcasters Are a Part of the Problem: The broadcasters benefiting most from this massive transfer of money oppose any effort that would require them to better disclose who's buying political influence. Broadcasters balked at the Federal Communications Commission proposal to put online the political advertising information in their "public files," preferring to keep this information hidden away. But it gets worse. According to Free Press' recent report Citizens Inundated, stations are also providing less of the sort of local political coverage that would help viewers separate political fact from fiction in an election year.
6. Transparency Can't Take a Back Seat to Business as Usual: The FCC chair who is supposed to hold stations accountable just got a signal from his boss in the White House that this backdoor money-and-media game is now business as usual in Washington. The FCC would do well to ignore that message and push broadcasters to embrace the sort of transparency and accountability that would shed light on the money that makes these Super PACs tick. This action becomes even more important now that the president has decided to cast his lot with these shadowy outside groups.
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83 Comments so far
Show AllDemocracy got sold out a long time ago...and the only reason Obama got "elected" was because democracy had been sold.
Some typical government ..oh no you won't crap...
http://www.drugwatch.com/fda-spies-on-whistle-blowers.php
I'm a fan of Alex Jones. Because he's so "in your face" and manic he gets ridiculed and disregarded by so-called "serious" people.
But his message is sincere, cogent, and quite serious. I'm not sure i believe every bit of it- however, his sources seem to always check out; I don't see him making anything up, unlike several recent presidents and other "serious" people, who lie their asses off as a matter of habit and preference. Jones is a bit like an Old Testament prophet, warning the people of their doom should they not wake up and smell the coffee... or rather, the cyclonite in the cement.
INFOWARS is a treasure.
Obama's rationale: "The candidate in the highest-spending campaign wins 95% of the time. Now all I have to do is come up with a good excuse for keeping my Super Pacs. Something like, we all do it; but not, we all do it."
Obama has always been a whore of the corporate/financial/militarist (and media) Empire that has now 'captured' and fully "occupied" our former country by hiding behind the facade of its modernized two-party "Vichy" sham of faux-democratic and totally illegitimate government --- just a surely as the Nazi Empire tried to hide behind the facade of its earlier crude single-party Vichy facade in France c. 1940 --- it's just that most people had not noticed his fishnet stockings and hot pants until recently.
Best luck and love to the "Occupy Empire" educational and revolutionary movement.
Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality
Over
Violent/Vichy
Empire,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
I understand your frustration ddills, but to shut down and cause havoc with the few crumbs that have been bestowed upon the public such as "our infrastructure, our schools and our public transit" is not only counterproductive, it also plays right into the hands of corporate America. If you really want to take a bite out of corporate oppression, burn down Rush Limbaugh's house, throw a brick at some scummy corporate executive, don't watch TV, boycott 'brands', stick your money into a local credit union and most of all... demand MORE infrastructure, MORE public schools and MORE public transit with higher wages, better service and the same benefits for those public servants that the corporate lackeys in Congress receive! Your anger is justified but directed at the wrong sources.
Wow, what an enlightening article! Obama isn't the messiah and money runs things in american politics. Thank you so much for posting such an informative piece. No one could have known. It is almost like i am watching CNN - only reading.
readytotransform, it sounds like you are ready to transform the corporate/financial/militarist (and media) EMPIRE that deceives us, into something that is NOT a propaganda engine.
Wow, "what an idea to go with our beer" (as Senator Bulworth might have put into rap rhyme in the fabulously honest film of the same name).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV_49xlZ07Q
readytotransform, Best luck to you and yours in this troubling and gawd-awful time of disguised Empire.
Alan
See the nice picture of President Obama? See the nice President signing the nice bill in front of the nice flag with all his nice friends? They are all done with the NDAA with which to disappear you at will and whim. Now they are selling our asses down the toilet in advance of Nov. 2012. Game Over. System bought and sold, and thank you Massah Biznizzman. You can count on it absolutely that the nice President will shiney-uppey his supah-bad pro-gressive rhetoric for about 6 months, and then fuck us with it. Just like last time. I WILL vote, but bring a crayon for writing in "fuck this."
While I intend to vote 3rd party, yours is a far more effective alternative than simply refusing to go to the polls.
Jack37, you've really got me 'jacked-up' man.
What a friggin fantastic idea, or as my brother would say, "what 'an' good idea".
Just imagine, if more than a million people, maybe even 3 or 4% (about 5 million voters) simply scrawled out "fuck this" in red crayon on the friggin ballot.
Boy, the media would have trouble not reporting something on this.
The internet alt-media would certainly find out from poll workers and exit polls that many many many people were doing this as a protest to making a choice between our current friggin gutless, complicit, and smooth-talking whore of Empire, and the Private Equity Pirate alternative whore of the very same friggin dual-party "Vichy Empire".
WOW, what an idea, Jack!!
Hope your idea catches on and is promoted by all the supposedly progressive, anti-war, anti-empire sites --- now that you have hit the pin on the head with a great idea to show Americans' absolute CONTEMPT for being kept prisoner in this friggin Vichy Empire and being made to listen to all this disguised Empire's media bull shit about Amerika being a friggin democracy.
Best luck and love to the "Occupy Empire" educational and revolutionary movement.
Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality
Over
Violent/Vichy
Empire,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
BTW, being 63, I have voted multiple times for Gene McCarthy, four times for Ralph Nader, and never in my life for either of the vichy parties proffered whores of Empire --- and it hasn't done much good --- so your idea is exactly what I will do in red crayon!
I'm in. ;>)
I think we should all write in Pogo.
Wow, sometimes I find it hard to believe the comments from left,right and center. Well folks you have the options of sitting it out or voting. As election 2000 showed every vote counts. As to the choice of candidates it's always been the lesser of evils for the thinking person. Has Obama changed his stance on many issues? Of course he has. Once you get into power you discover that your options are limited and your grand ambitions are easier said then done. This is the way of the world. The wealthy, be they individuals or corporations, have always ruled. Is it fair? Is it the way a democracy should operate? Of course not, but fair is what you give the bus driver. As to the morality of it all we are all guilty on so many levels. The fact we are communicating using devices most likely produced in a sweat shop by exploited labor is just one example of our moral ambiguity. So back to point. You will have the option of not voting or voting. The race for who will occupy the WH will be between Democrat and Republican, a third party will not win (having voted for Nader in Florida in 2000 I will not do that again). Do you vote for the party that monolithicly supports the status quo, GOP, or do you vote for a party which is run by the same block of monied interests but at least seems to have dissenting members. Their are many adult children 26 years of age and younger who have health benefits due to Obama, more than the repubs would have given us. Don't like the political system? It not whether it is good or bad, it's the way it is and to change it we must stay involved and at the very least vote for the lesser of evils.
DUH !!!!!! Of course they all answer to wall street, could you not comprehend what I plainly stated? For you Obama is evil to me not so much. Does not change the fact that for the next 4 years this country will be lead by Obama or the republican nominee. Do you foolishly believe that it is not going to be so? So you want Romney? Santorum? Gingrich? Wow some choice. So I will choose to go with the devil I know. In spite of his many flaws he is preferable to who will oppose him. As stated I voted for Nader in 2000 in protest to a choice of Gore or Bush, did not turn out so well. If you want change then you must do what the religious right did 30 years ago. Get involved in local politics and indoctrinate and take over from the ground up.
In the presidential debates in 2000 candidate Gore said that he thought that the sanctions in Iraq that caused the deaths of something like half a million Iraqi children were a good thing ... but they didn't quite go far enough. Gore had always been a proud supporter of the original Gulf War and the murderous sanctions that followed. Gore implied during one debate that he wanted to remove Saddam from power. He certainly did not object when Bush said that he would overthrow Saddam, and that he presumed a Gore administration would want to do the same.
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When asked if there were any differences between himself and candidate Bush on Middle East/Iraq... Gore said "I have not heard a big difference...."
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This was less than 1 month before the 2000 elections.
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Don't forget that Gore also chose the ultra-right wing war hawk Joe Lieberman to be his runningmate. Joe Lieberman, who almost makes Cheney sound rational and reasonable. The same Joe Lieberman who became the mentor of freshman senator Barack Obama a few years later.
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You made the right choice in 2000 ... you're making the wrong one now.
Did I make the right choice? Gore vs 8 years of Bush? Impossible to say how things may have turned out differently.I just do not see that voting for a 3rd party is of much use, might as well stay home. However as I do not want a Rebulblican in the WH I will vote for Obama with my eyes wide open. I know it's the difference between a Big Mac and a Whopper but there is really no other REALISTIC choice at this time.
I think it's safe to say that a Gore administration would not have been substantially different than Bush's. Just as with Obama now ... there's hardly a dimes width of daylight separating Obama's policies from Bushes.
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So what exactly do you gain out of making a deal with the devil? A false sense of security that "at least a democrat is in charge"?
I disagree. Gore would have continued to take the threat from Osama Bin Laden seriously instead of blowing him off like Bush did. If he prevented 9/11 then the patriot act would have never come into being nor would there be a reason to invade Iraq or Afghanistan. All speculation of course but....
re: my deal with the devil. I'm pragmatic and see nuances. There are differences between Bush and Obama on a number of levels,subtle though they may be. In voting for Obama I will at least have someone who does not want to force their Judeo/Christian views on all off society. As to the 3rd party candidates people need to get their Haldol upped if they think they can win. We currently have a horrible system but it is the one that exists and until there are structural changes made to the process it is the system that will exit. So you will have a choice between Dem and Rebub, that is the way it is. Dream all you want about anyone else but the system will only allow Dem or Rebub.
I'm going to ignore the fanasty that Al Gore would have, could have, should have stopped 9-11 and stick to the realm of facts.
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The unpatriot act was initially pushed by Bill Clinton, written in 1995 by Joe Biden, sponsored by several democrats and republicans in the house and senate. At the time it was called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. Biden is on the record saying that the unpatriot act of 2001 was the same bill that he had written six years earlier. He even called the unpatriot act "my bill."
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The unpatriot act was being pushed (under a different name) by democrats before 9-11 even happened ... and has been reauthorized in an overwhelmingly bipartisan manner ever since. So to say that democrats wouldn't support such a bill if 9-11 didn't happen is just completely false.
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After 2001 democrat apologists said something similar to what you're saying about Gore ... they said Clinton could have prevented the Oklahoma City bombing and 9-11 if only the republicans hadn't dragged their feet and tied his hands and allowed him to pass Joe Biden's un-patriot act back in the 90s.
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Beyond being advocates for the unpatriot acts .. democratcs were on board for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Liyba, drone bombings in Pakistan, Yemen .. and god knows where. What else? ... The Bush/Obama tax cuts, de-regulation of the banking industry, the enormous expansion of the military budget, coups in Haiti, Venezuela, Honduras, now one in the Maldives, ignoring all of Bush's criminality (probably because they were mostly complicit in it), the domestic attacks on social security, medicare, welfare, single payer health care, confirming both of Bush's corpratist right wing corporate supreme court judges, Obama even installed a judge (Kagan) who was originally nominated to the federal court by Bush's father, giving retroactive immunity to the telecom giants who had illegally spied on american citizens, assinating american citizens abroad without charge or trial ... including a 16 year old boy! ... bailing out the banks and other huge corporations while selling out the public and cracking down on Occupy wall street in conjunction with the FBI and DHS .... the list is endless.
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But I'm glad that you can find comfort in your practicality and ability for distinguishing the subtle nuances ....
I find no comfort I simply face reality. We have and will have (until structural changes are made to the system) a 2 party system. That's the way it is. So do you deal with it and continue to push toward change or do you bail out and sit around and kvetch about all the wrongs that have been done to give us our cushy lives. Moral outrage is very fashionable and usually perpetuated by the well fed.
On the other hand, in a second term Obama will have no reason to hold back on further erosions of civili liberties, military actions, assassinations, torture, police oppression, further theft of the U.S. Treasury by his comnrades, renditions, "enhanced interrogations", etcetera.
. I don't trust him even a tiny bit. Not a BIT. Why should I? He has destroyed the trust I gave him. Again and again. He's a burn. He''s proven to me so may times that he is a person who will not hesitate to lie to us. He seems to be a "pathological" liar who prefers lying, and perhaps even a person who has lost the distinction between honesty and deceit in his own mind as sociopaths and megalomaniacs tend to do.
I do not believe a word he says, ever, without additional corroboration from TRUSTworthy sources.
He's a wolf in sheep's clothing. And if we must have a wolf, I'd rather have a wolf in wolf's clothing. Easier to keep track of, you know.
I can't tell anyone who to vote for, but as for myself, I believe that voting for Obama is little different than going back to an abusive spouse: "But he promised he would never lie to me or hit me again... I know he really means it this time."
Yeah, right.
to me Obama is the classic wolf in sheep's clothing.
I see your point but disagree. What 2000 showed me was precisely that votes don't count- at least, not in a definitive way, anymore. Having buddies on the Supreme Court is what counts.
43,000,000 Americans out of work.
40% of the population on some form of public assistance.
Thousands and thousands protesting the state of our union being gassed, shot, trampled, jailed, burned, peppered, beaten, and yes, the press also.
We have no rights left as given to us in the Declaration of Independence.
Regardless of who gets in office, the next battle will be bloody, right here on our own soil. And the people at the top may find themselves on a short road to hell.
And I am willing to help them along.
I am reading a lot of to-ing and fro-ing about who to vote for in the November election. There's a really simple test, or at least it works for me - don't vote for a mass murderer or anyone who is trying to become one.
That may mean having to find the road less traveled, but there are a few, Justice Party, Green Party, write in Bradley Manning, etc.
That is a good sentiment and i share it.
Unfortunately, willingness to order killings is not an option, but an unspoken requirement, for anyone who will ever be allowed to occupy the Oval Office. And not because of being CIC of the military, either.
No one unwilling to be a murderer should run for president, because if elected, he will have to order people killed, or face consequences.
I wish I had a better voting choice coming up- for example, a choice between Stalin and Hitler, or a choice between Jimmy Swaggart and Joel Osteen, or maybe a choice between Satan and Beezelbub.
Even a person tried for witchcraft had more interesting alternatives. A person convicted of being a "witch" might be pressed, or burned, or drowned, maybe even drawn and quartered. It was still awful, but at least there it wasn't all like the SAME punishment, the way the upcoming election promise to be.
Letter to a Civics Student
Dear Heartbroken Civics Student:
Thank you for your interest in our Electoral Process Study Program, a brand-new way of not just looking at, but actually streamlining your experience as a coalition member.
"Coalition member? Wow!" you might be saying right now. The truth is, we here at the T.N.P.I have stopped using the word "citizen", our researchers having found, to our great regret, that its many connotations, and indeed, its very presence- its enduring (not to say stale) presence- on the "public stage of words" did not fit the needs of the forward-looking 2012 man who really wants to go places where he can vigorously demonstrate in front of everyone what he wants to be.
So here's what we did- with your help, of course.
Our privately endowed, and very "well-endowed" (!) Research wing came up with something which we believe can really change this great Nation of ours the way we want to change it. We named it our Electoral Process Streamliner, and it is a course of studies and training that is all about efficiency and making your time with us one of the best times of your student life.
Think about this. Where are you going? We thought so. (L.O.L.!!)
So when the time comes, why not come here, and "get with the program", as you kids like to say?
Truth: We have some big ideas; some new ideas. And we want to share them with you.
As to your specific questions, we are pleased to try to answer, although without the necessary classes under your belt it may be a little more difficult to pick up on WHY we here at the T.N.P.I. believe that this is the best thing we can offer you.
And we will tell you why. (TM)
Now as to your remarks about your 9th-grade Civics teacher. Our instructors and staff here were, frankly, somewhat nonplussed to learn that "Civics" was even taught any more!
We suppose they still have Latin, Music, Art, and Physical Education, too!
But no matter. Our program IS designed and built to address this issue as well as all the other issues which may be important to you or to your source of finance.
And that's a real bargain.
We do not know who taught the (ugh) "Civics" -or whatever they calls it nowadays -at the school you mention. All T.N.P.I. can say is, if they don't know that it's not a "vote" anymore, but a "preference", they need to get with their update people on the P.D.Q.
Here is the "perimeters" as we call them of the latest program we have available which may fit your needs. If it does not, we are sorry, as it is not only the best program currently available, it is also the only program currently available. And you won't find a "two for one" deal like that anywhere but at the T.N.P.I. and its authorized satellite campuses and phone marketing centers nationwide.
The classes take the student through the following series of steps in role-playing scenarios involving the priveliege and duty to express our preference on all the most critical and crucial and vital issues of the day once every fourth November on a Tuesday.
There was no impelling animus to change the Tuesday in November part, and so, as we of the T.N.P.I. are love-birds of traditions if nothing else, this whale-seasoned classic theme has been carried over bodily into our new, exciting program.
Here are the main divisions, or phrases, of our program process procedure of which we hope you soon become a permanent and fully organically assimilated part to your ultimate benefit and great chagrin.
And we mean that. Here's why. We want to teach you how to succeed. And the way to succeed today is to realize that everything not forbidden is compulsory.
That's the secret. Sure, it sounds simple.
But don't be fooled. How to utilize this knowledge is the critically hinge pin, and the Irish pennant that separates the real men from the sheep goat, who despite his vast harem and money and property may never will accurately secede in his vaunted excesses of his clinging blind stupidity and abrasive ignorance!
Excuse me.
-----------
And that's where we come in.
Step 1: We learn that we get to express a "preference," [ What's This?] once every 1,461 days (depending on Leap Year) to "elect", or "hire" a few VERY special people we don't know, to do everything important we need done for four years while we wait and hope.
Does that sound like a winner? We aren't asking! But that's just the first step!
T.N.P.I.
We Believe.
We Laugh. (TM)
Step 2: We are given a series of presentations and lectures which devolve us into the understanding and comprehension that after casting our preference, we will be told that our preferences have been tallied by officials.
We know. You are probably now going saying "Like whoa dude! Officials?! It doesn't get any better than this!".
And you would be right, if ungrammatical.
But we are not the type of program peolple who care about your "grammar". How is she anyway? L.O.L. !!
See what we mean? Hey... is this great? or what? Or is it a "Meme"? L. O. L.!! You decide!
Join us.
Now.
T.N.P.I.
Today.
Step 3: The third series of lectures show us how the election proceeds to its predetermined result, which in the most fascinating and educational ways may or may not agree with the "tally" or preference count.
This part of the series is a little tougher to "get behind" as the young people like to say, but once you get through it you are over the lump and almost cot-free.
Step 4 The fourth, and next to final, series of classes will focus on the protocols and procedures by which the Party is given four years in order to have sufficient time to consider how to best evaluate and usefulize OUR preferences to prepare us, and the nation, for the predetermination of the NEXT election.
It's a Process.
Be a Part.
Step 5 The final segment of the program will show how Steps 1 through 4 are repeated, with some creative variations, until full national dissolution is accomplished. When that happens, we'll be out of a job. but we will have fought the good fight.
So come to the Institute, and learn with us!
Sincerely,
JOE.
Joe Scamyomama, LL, CNM, BR, (A.B., Charponzi University, M.B. from Karovian College), Regional Associate Interim Pro Tem Vice-President for Enrollment, Publicity, and CYA.
"The New Program Institute:
Where Your Best Preference
is Met with Our Indeference"
All Major Credit Cards Welcome.
We do Not Accept American Express.
Should be a great stimulus for the economy, especially for the media, for campaigners, and especially for the voting officials who can raise their "per vote" price for taking votes away from opponents in the actual election counts. We have speculated that prices of $100 each, per vote switched, was the going street price; but now it will probably go up to $200, even $1000. per vote. The sky is the limit with unlimited funding. Pastures a plenty, if you are a scumbag.
Come on now Mr. Karr. "Slick Oliy" succumbed to the lure of easy money a long time ago. Please don't try to make people believe that the republicans made him do this. That statement is as old as Mitch McConnell riding a dinosaur in Kentucky!