As you probably know, the Supreme Court handed down their deplorable decision in McCutcheon v FEC today. I’m not going to get into an analysis of the decision since you’ve probably read lots of analysis already and my Facebook page makes my opinion on the matter very clear. But to summarize, the Supreme Court eviscerated democracy today. Our only hope now to truly restore democracy is to go for an Article V convention to amend the constitution.
If you read this blog or follow me on social media, you know that I really believe that what Wolf Pac is doing is our last and only resort to fix this. Let me explain what we’re doing and why it’s our only option for fixing this. We’re calling for an amendment to the constitution to get money out of politics. We’re not going through congress or the supreme court. We’re working on the state level to introduce a resolution calling for a constitutional convention. We need 34 states to pass our resolution. We have 10 states on the board right now. By "on the board", I mean that they have either already introduced, or are about to introduce our resolution. How did we do this? By working with legislators in our state. Why? For a couple of reasons. First off, we’re finding that democracy actually exists on a state level. When you call your state senator, on average, you can get a meeting with them in 3 calls. Since no one ever calls their local representatives, they seem to mostly be willing to meet with their constituents because they assume that if one constituent took the time to call, hundreds more are concerned with that issue. I personally met with both the assemblyman (woman) and the state senator who introduced our legislation here in New York. In one state (I can’t remember which), a Wolf PAC volunteer called their legislator, who actually personally answered the phone. He met that legislator for coffee later that afternoon, and had the resolution introduced the next day. In 3 states, the legislators introducing our resolution are far right wing republicans. This is a bipartisan issue, and we have a bipartisan group of volunteers.The second reason for doing it this way, is because we don’t trust congress to get it done. There’s way too much money being spent on a federal level, and our odds of crossing the finish line are exponentially higher if we work on a state level.
Today’s McCutcheon decision will undoubtedly make this harder. Citizen’s United eviscerated democracy on the federal level, McCutcheon has gutted democracy on a local level, since a single donor can now buy all the local politicians in a whole state simultaneously. The Koch brothers are busy working on buying local elections. McCutcheon makes it possible for them to buy lots and lots of local elections.
We all need to pray that they successfully buy one in particular; Mitch McConnell’s senate seat in Kentucky. McConnell’s opponent, Matt Bevin is already getting a ton of money that we know about (this doesn’t include "dark money"). The tea party, whoever the fuck they are anymore, don’t think that McConnell is right wingy enough so they’re pouring money into Bevin’s campaign. Actually, we do know who has put a million dollars (so far) into Bevin’s bank account; Freedomworks. Why are we praying that batshit crazy Bevin beats McConnell? Because this might be the wakeup call republicans need to see how devastating granting money the right to free speech is. If Mitch McConnell is taken down by the tea party, republicans will realize once and for all, that the corporations are the actual puppetmasters, and that they’re just puppets. Corporations are not people. They have no conscience, and they have no loyalties. Corporations have only one mission; to make as much money as possible. No amount of money is ever enough, so if there’s more money to be made, a corporation will go in that direction. Given McConnell’s history of obnixious generosity toward corporations, I can only assume that Bevin plans on direct depositing a percentage of Kentuckian’s paychecks directly into corporate coffers. It’s the only reason why the money wants Bevin to beat McConnell.
If McConnell loses this primary, there’s a slight chance that his buddies who thought they had the money all locked up will realize that their own power doesn’t belong to them. That it’s just been bestowed upon them by their corporate masters who can (and will) reallocate it anytime they want. Maybe a few of our "powerful" politicians will realize that their power is just an illusion created by the corporations that own them.
McConnell should already realize this because of all the money his opponent is getting, but he inexplicably threw in with McCutcheon as a plaintiff in this case. The level of arrogance and self delusion on McConnell’s part is stunning. He’s so confident that the money will never leave him to move on to greener pastures, he’s willing to give the money more power than it already has. Guess what Mitch?
The money has no loyalty. President Obama was confident that the money was going to be loyal to him too. But predictably, the Wall Street money wasn’t satisfied with everything Obama let it get away with and decided that Romney was going to be even more generous. So Obama had to find different money to buy the White House with.
One of the mighty (in their own minds) politicians needs to fall hard because of this decision. I’m rooting for McConnell.
If that happens maybe, maybe some of these guys might realize that the power they gave to the billionaires, is power that will inevitably be used against them. This decision makes the politicians themselves irrelevant because it gives the money even more power to easily replace one patsy politician who isn’t going far enough to increase profits at the expense of the people.
Our politicians have been whores for a long time. This decision has downgraded them from high priced call girls, to $5 hand job, street corner whores.
