The 62,000 or so folks in that Upper East Side zip code who don’t rent live in domiciles worth, on average, just under a million bucks. And those people in 10128 have donated $1.7 million in the 2010 election cycle to federal candidates, national parties, or PACs. (Sorry, Rush: Your neighbors preferred Democratic entities.)

But the folks in 10128 are cheapskates compared with the real money farther south on Fifth Avenue. The 100,000-plus people who live in 10021 have given $3.3 million. In fact, eight zip codes surrounding Central Park rank in the top 20 zip codes nationally in political giving by individuals for this election cycle, their residents having coughed up $17.4 million. 10021, 10022 and 10024 are the top three individual donor zip codes in the nation.

I was going to tell you this a few months ago. I had intended to point out that zip codes in and around Washington, D.C., where the real money is, ponied up $22.9 million in this election cycle. I’d planned to tell you that individuals in the top 50 zip codes in the nation had so far contributed nearly $74 million to federal candidates or committees.

But these numbers summarizing individual donations direct to candidates or parties have become meaningless. That means I will likely end four years of writing about them.

The totals provided here, courtesy of the Center for Responsive Politics, an organization that aggregates Federal Election Commission records to make them easier to understand, represents donations exceeding $200 by individuals. Federal election law limits individual candidate contributions to $2,400, up to an aggregate total of $45,600 per election cycle. Individuals may also give an aggregated total of $69,900 to national parties and PACs per cycle. Bottom line: An individual may make $115,500 in campaign contributions per election cycle.

Well, that’s chicken feed now, so there’s no reason to write about campaign contributions by individuals any more.

You all know why: The Supreme Corporate Court of the United States struck down provisions of campaign-finance law in its 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, overruling precedents. (So much for stare decisis.) The bottom line: The government may not ban corporations from spending unlimited amounts of money on broadcast political ads prior to primary or general elections. (This is not the first episode of judicial activism by the “pro-corporate wing” of the Roberts Court.) Says The New York Times:

For the first time, though, as a result of the [Citizens United] ruling, corporations will be able to spend unlimited amounts of money on “electioneering communications” (i.e., broadcast advertisements) expressly advocating for a candidate’s election or defeat. While the court upheld the ban on direct contributions from corporations or unions to candidates, it also clears the way, for the first time, for corporations to donate money to nonprofit groups that place advocacy advertisements.

But, because the Supreme Court has not yet struck down the remainder of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, corporations may spend limitless money on ads supporting or opposing candidates while individual contributors continue to face limits on their donations direct to candidates or parties.

That means all those donations by folks in the top 50 zip codes for this election cycle — $74 million and counting — are small change now. Those who used to be big players in the Election Power Grab Sweepstakes are now bit players. Corporations — those newly minted artificial beings with more power than individual human beings — can outspend them.

In fact, perhaps many of those well-to-do folks in the zip codes surrounding Central Park, those able to afford that $115,500 aggregate limit, might be high-ranking executives of corporations. Maybe they’ll just stop donating as individuals and leave it to the corporation to pay the advertising freight charges to influence election outcomes.

The Screw Democracy Game™ — spend large amounts of money on behalf of political parties and candidates with expectations of a beneficial return on that investment — has changed, it seems. We’ll know for sure as the 2010 mid-term elections near. To what extent will corporations pour money into television advertising to support candidates they prefer? Will they overtly or covertly threaten candidates holding positions unfavorable to business and corporations by dumping millions into advertising support for those candidates’ opponents?

Will Congress require full, public disclosure of direct corporate (or union) spending on “electioneering communications” (even though they may be unlimited financially) and include immediate online disclosure? Will Congress mandate a “I’m the CEO, and I approved this message” tag for corporation-funded, televised political ads? Will Congress close the door that allows corporations (and unions) to hide massive financial support of political entities by passing corporate (or union) money anonymously through nonprofit civic leagues and trade associations? Says The Times:

That means that those nonprofit groups, which are not required to disclose their donors, can now use corporate contributions to buy political commercials, and the corporations can potentially operate behind the anonymity of their donations. [emphasis added]

The Court’s ruling means it has become useless for me to continue to root through the records in the FEC’s database of individual donations to candidates, parties or PACs. Similarly, how useful will be such data aggregated by categories provided by the Center for Responsive Politics? True, the center is “a clearinghouse for data and analysis on multiple aspects of money in politics—the independent interest groups called 527s committees, federal lobbying, Washington’s ‘revolving door’, privately sponsored congressional travel and the personal finances of members of Congress, the president and other officials.” It will continue to provide an important public service. Perhaps it will find a way to track this new, unlimited spending on “electioneering communications.”

But in light of five men’s decision to dramatically change the face of election financing, the role I’ve played — finding out what individuals gave how much to whom with what effect — appears pointless.

Political advantage is gained or lost through television advertising. Corporations can now spend unlimited amounts of money on such advertising to influence the outcome of elections with more effect than an individual’s maximum donation of $115,500 direct to candidates or parties can accomplish. More importantly, corporations have the legal means to hide that spending.

But, supporters of the Court’s decision argue, individuals can spend on broadcast political ads without limit, too. They are only constrained on direct donations to candidates or parties.

Yes, if you, as an individual, are sufficiently wealthy, you may spend unlimited money on “electioneering communications” just as corporations now can. But can you, the wealthy individual, match the political ad spending of the wealthy corporation? Or corporations, plural?

This means sorting through aggregations of FEC data on individual campaign contributions has lost interest for me.

Now I need ideas, new techniques, to track all this corporate money that will be spent on “electioneering communications.” Suggestions, dear readers?

Part 2 of 2. (Read part 1…)

It’s Time to Separate Church and State, Once and for All

If you recall, anti-Catholic prejudice was once a problem for Catholic politicians in the US. John F. Kennedy went so far as to address the issue head-on in his 1960 campaign – probably because he didn’t feel he had much choice. Here’s what he told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12 of that year:

I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for President who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters — and the Church does not speak for me.

He went on to assert his respect for the separation of church and state and vowed that Catholic officials would not dictate policy to him. As noted in part 1, the times, they have a-changed.

In 1960 it was “anti-Catholic prejudice.” In 2010 it’s “empirical evidence of improper behavior by the Roman Catholic Church.” And it’s time it stopped. Cold.

If I were a Congressman, I’d introduce a bill yesterday stripping all US operations of the Roman Catholic Church of their tax-exempt status. At the press conference announcing the move I’d also say something along these lines: “I won’t be running for re-election – what could possibly be the point? However, between now and the day I leave office, I’m going to raise hell 24/7/4ever over this issue. I know that I’ll probably never get my bill into a committee hearing, let alone get it out of committee, but if Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens can draw as much attention as they have, I feel certain that I, as a sitting member of the United States Congress, can get booked on every talk show in America. Rest assured, my fellow citizens, this is going to make for some epic television.”

Of course, I’m not Congressional material. If you want to know what Congressional material is, recognize that representatives of a foreign theocracy are inside Congress shaping policy … and not a damned one of the spineless sacred whores on Capitol Hill has uttered a fucking syllable in protest.

Did I miss something?

“America is a Christian nation.” It certainly is. Sort of. It’s a Christian nation in the same way that it’s a white nation, a heterosexual nation, a right-handed nation and a nation with brown hair. That is, “Christian” is the majority position. Boy howdy, is it the majority position, with a majority of the population saying it believes angels and demons are active in the world and 80% saying they believe in miracles. Hell, even our atheists and agnostics sound a little religious. A snapshot of American religious affiliation that I offered up back in 2007 is instructive:

• Polls show the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as Christian ranging as high as 85% or beyond.
• The president is a Christian…
• …as is the VP.
• The Speaker of the House is Catholic…
• …and the Senate Majority Leader is Mormon.
• Well over 90% of our Congressional representatives are Christian, with a majority of the remainder being Jewish.
• The Supreme Court features seven Christians and two Jews.
• All of our major presidential candidates in both major parties.
• Almost all of our past presidents; depending on how you count Unitarians, you have to go all the way back to Lincoln (ironically enough, the founder of the GOP) to even find one to debate over;
• Hell, even sports franchises are starting to build their operations around the evangelical litmus test.
• It seems unlikely that a similar review of the legislatures and courthouses in the 50 states would reveal too much variation from this overpowering Judeo-Christian norm.

There’s no denying that we’re a Christian culture – in many ways, that’s a simple math question and it’s about as controversial as noting that whites of European descent are the racial majority. But Christian culture and Christian government aren’t the same thing, and the United States is most emphatically not a Christian state. Not yet, anyway.

Reflecting back on my “if I were a Congressman” fantasy from above, I suppose I’d spend the remainder of my time in office asking the audiences of those TV shows to think about a proposition: to wit, while most Americans are Christian, “Christian” describes a lot of different things and not one unitary thing. Dr. Sid’s “modest proposal” from a couple of months back was more about provoking than persuading, but at its core there’s an important question. If you’re a Christian, you may want to see a more Christian government. But if you’re a Baptist, do you want to see a more Catholic government? If you’re Catholic, how are you going to react when the Texas School Board is co-opted by Mormons and all of a sudden the nation’s textbooks are filled with lessons that transform the hallucinations visions of The Prophets into stone cold fact? If you’re a member of the Foursquare Bible Congregation in Smallpond, Alabama, you probably agree with the Stupakers on abortion, but how do you feel about the idea that your duly elected representatives are keeping counsel with that German eunuch in the pointy hat?

Think about it, Christian supermajority. Think hard.

Crawling Toward a More Rational Future

Evidence suggests that there may be hope in the long run.

From USA Today:

The percentage of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely.

These dramatic shifts in just 18 years are detailed in the new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), to be released today. It finds that, despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.

“More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, ‘I’m everything. I’m nothing. I believe in myself,’ ” says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author.

From FutureMajority:

The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) also found that a movement towards claiming no religious affiliation is “a general trend among younger white American.” The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reported “people not affiliated with any particular religion stand out for their relative youth compared with other religious traditions.”
…
The National Journal profiles a growing faction of non-religious youth – the Secular Student Alliance (SSA). Their motto is “Mobilizing Students for a New Enlightenment.” The SSA’s chapters have grown from 42 in 2003 to 129 this year and they currently have a network of over 14,000 students. Their mission is “to organize, unite, educate, and serve students and student communities that promote the ideals of scientific and critical inquiry, democracy, secularism, and human based ethics.”

From AlterNet:

We are on the verge — within 10 years — of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the “Protestant” 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I’m convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

So perhaps in the 2020s and beyond the Bible-thumping Jesus Jihadi yahoo will be a thing of the past – or at least, his inexplicable influence on the course of government will be. But that’s of little comfort today. Just because the good guys win the war eventually doesn’t mean they don’t lose battles along the way, and lost battles mean casualties, measured in lasting damage to real human lives. Even if it’s just ten years until we’re free of these crusaders, understand that a lot of mischief can be done in a decade. If I might put it in more meaningful terms, remember how long George Bush was in office? Add two years to that.

Not that it will do any good, but your Senators and representatives need to hear from you that it is not acceptable for the Catholic Bishops to be meddling in the people’s business. Separation of church and state. Today.

When Jesus attacks, the proper course of action is to smack him in the nose with a crowbar. It says so, right there in the Constitution.

Part 1 of 2.

I tripped across a provocative headline in the Wall Street Journal the other day: “They Need to be Liberated from Their God.” Turns out the story was about Mosab Hassan Yousef and his spying on Hamas. Which was a little disappointing. There’s no doubt that Palestinian Muslims need to be liberated from their god, but given the recent explosion in documented attacks by US Christians on their fellow Americans (as well as on reason and basic common sense), I thought perhaps the WSJ was going to be the first mainstream “news” outlet to do a story on Jesus Gone Wild!

I keep a running tab of stories that strike my interest. Taken individually, each might suggest a particular narrow social pathology, which is to be expected in a nation of 300 million. But over time they accumulate into a gestalt, with all the small pictures adding up to a disturbing big picture. For instance:

Item: Pope warns against witchcraft in Angola

(AFP) – Mar 21, 2009

LUANDA (AFP) — Pope Benedict XVI issued a warning against witchcraft Saturday during his visit to Angola, after calling on African leaders to battle corruption and drawing a tough line against abortion.

Item: Pope in Africa reaffirms “no condoms” against AIDS

YAOUNDE, March 17 (Reuters) – Pope Benedict on Tuesday reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS as he started a visit to Africa, where more than 25 million people have died from the disease in recent decades.
…
“It (AIDS) cannot be overcome by the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem,” he said in response to a question about the Church’s widely contested position against the use of condoms.

The disease has killed more than 25 million people since the early 1980s, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, and some 22.5 million Africans are living with HIV.

Item: Rape row sparks excommunications

By Gary Duffy
BBC News, Sao Paulo

A Brazilian archbishop says all those who helped a child rape victim secure an abortion are to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

The girl, aged nine, who lives in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco, became pregnant with twins.

It is alleged that she had been sexually assaulted over a number of years by her stepfather.

The excommunication applies to the child’s mother and the doctors involved in the procedure.

The pregnancy was terminated on Wednesday.

Abortion is only permitted in Brazil in cases of rape and where the mother’s life is at risk and doctors say the girl’s case met both these conditions.

Police believe that the girl at the centre of the case had been sexually abused by her step-father since she was six years old.

Item: Did the Mormons baptize Obama’s mother, after her death, without his knowledge or consent? A: Yes, they did.

A reader contacted me last week, saying that last year, in the heat of the presidential campaign, the Mormons had posthumously baptized Barack Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. Baptizing the dead of other faiths, secretly and without the consent of their families, is a common Mormon practice. For the past fifteen years the Mormons have caused quite a stir by forcibly baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims – in other words, converting them to Mormonism – despite strong objections from the Jewish community.

Thus, it’s hardly a stretch to imagine the Mormons’ doing this to Obama’s mother. Still, I had no proof. Then yesterday, I received a document. It’s allegedly a screen capture of the registration-only section of the Mormon-run Web site, FamilySearch.org. In that screen capture, excerpted above, is clearly the name and correct date of birth and death of Barack Obama’s mother (Stanley Ann Dunham, born 29 Nov 1942 in Kansas, died 07 Nov 1995) and the date of her alleged post-death baptism by the Mormons.

Item: Catholic schools bans child whose parents are gay

Last week, a standing policy of the Archdiocese of Denver denied a child from enrolling in the Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School for kindergarten next year because the student’s parents are lesbians.

Currently the student is in the school’s preschool program and will be allowed to finish the year, according to Jeanette DeMelo, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese.

“It’s clear if they only accept students with perfect parents, they would have almost nobody,” said Beth Osnes, an organizer for the protest. “I know they have the right to, but why would they want to?”

Inside the church, the Rev. Bill Breslin addressed the issue in his sermon. He also posted his comments on his blog.

“If a child of gay parents comes to our school, and we teach that gay marriage is against the will of God, then the child will think that we are saying their parents are bad,” Breslin said on his blog. “We don’t want to put any child in that tough position.”

Please note: this is happening in the People’s Republic of Freakin’ Boulder!

That’s some big picture, huh? It’s gotten so bad that even former president Jimmy Carter, a man as responsible as any for introducing the poison of evangelical influence into the mainstream of modern politics, has had enough.

Of course, you live here. You read the news. That a lot of Christians are out of control isn’t a real revelation, is it? But lately, the goddamned Catholic Church has been making an unusually immoral and anti-Constitutional nuisance of itself. For instance:

• The Catholic Church is ending its long-standing relationship with St. Charles Medical Center in Bend over a surgical birth-control technique. Note, that’s Saint Charles the place is named after.
• The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a directive for Catholic health care that insists on inflicting artificial “life” sustaining techniques on dying (or functionally dead) patients despite the wishes of the patients or their families.
• And it doesn’t matter whether you’re even Catholic or not – all you have to do is be in the building.
• 300,000 Terri Schiavos, anyone? Let’s face it, the opinion of one reactionary geezer in Rome has now trumped centuries of ethical progress.

Still, we’re talking about their facilities and they’re paying the bills, and they have the right to control their operations the way they see fit, no? Well, maybe, maybe not. Ignoring the wishes of the patient, especially when those wishes are legally expressed in something like a living will, that’s pretty appalling, but I guess you could make the argument.

Even if you won that argument, though, get a load of the latest shenanigans from our friendly Catholic Bishops, who have now offered their “help” in wrangling an outcome in the Senate. You know, because that would make democracy better and stuff.

The Roman Catholic bishops signaled Thursday that if agreement is reached with House leaders on anti-abortion language, the church would work to get the votes needed to protect the provisions in the Senate — and thereby advance the shared goal with Democrats of health care reform.

“We would strongly urge everyone, Democratic and Republican, to vote to waive the point of order,” Richard Doerflinger, an associate director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told POLITICO. “Whether it would be enough to get to 60 votes, I can’t predict. We would certainly try.”

“I think it’s something we should explore,” said Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.), a longtime opponent of abortion. “It could be something that could carry out the bishops’ objective.”

And why not? The Bishops have “helped” before, after all.

In November, the bishops drove a tough bargain, winning an amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) that would severely restrict the ability of even private companies to provide abortion coverage under new state insurance exchanges. That House deal — since weakened by the Senate — is what the bishops want to revive now as part of Obama’s final push on health care. But to survive the Senate, any revisions would need 60 votes to overcome points of order under the expedited reconciliation procedures being contemplated.

David Dayen observes, astutely enough, that “the Catholic bishops want to show a measure of dominance over the US government.” His nuanced look at the tactical knife fight of this particular backroom liturgical drama is helpful to those trying to understand how sausage law gets made.

Meanwhile, those of us out here beyond the Beltway can perhaps be forgiven for saying “wait a sec – back the truck up.” An organized cabal of Roman Catholic aparatchiks are so far up Congress’s ass that they’re openly discussing how they’re going to inject Vatican dogma into a US health care bill?

Excuse me?

The Constitution is clear that what you believe is your business, and I have no problem with that. But when your beliefs inspire actions that hurt the innocent, that systematically victimize those who believe other things, then I start to care. When those beliefs fuel actions that harm me and impinge on my freedoms, well, that’s the point where it becomes self-defense, isn’t it?

Tomorrow: Divide & Conquer

You can always count on the HuffPo for a sensational headline, whether the actual story backs it up or not. But in this case they have quotes: “In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work,” said Sen. Kyl after stumbling across the obvious by noting that unemployment insurance doesn’t create new jobs. Genius. No wonder this guy makes at least $174,000/year with pension and benefits. It’s not as if Sen. Kyl’s honorable [sic] colleagues on the other side of the aisle are actually interested in earning their $174,000/year working for the benefit of the public either. And the worst part is that all across America people are reading that headline and shaking their head in the affirmative. The lazy and degenerate moochers sucking the hard workers dry.

Look out, bitches, you don’t know what the bottom looks like because you believe that if you don’t open you’re eyes it isn’t there. But you’ll find out…

Go find the actual unemployment and underemployment numbers. I’m not gonna do it for you; you’re too coddled from being fed information by National Propaganda Radio and Fixed News. You know damned well that there’s no truth in the news and no news in the truth, but you want to believe. You need to believe. What would there be without hope, right? Let me know when hope starts putting food on the tables of the millions who aren’t working or who are barely working.

Yeah, there are a few people happy to mooch of the labor of others…besides for the bankers, politicians and traders. There are a few raging alcoholics, serial killers, junkies, cokeheads, pedophiles, and all the rest. But when a Sen. who spends most of his time fundraising for the next cycle while collecting his $174,000/year and favors from the industries he represents starts bitching about the no-good lazy workers trying to get a free ride…and heads all across this once-great nation start nodding…during a time of massive real unemployment, well then you know that we are well and truly fucked.

Because the majority of those people on unemployment benefits want to work. They want to support their families. They don’t want to see their kids get sick and not be able to afford care without turning to “government handouts.” Let’s pause here, since health care is a topic of conversation. If we really were the richest nation on Earth, then we’d probably all have the best health care in the world at an affordable rate. Maybe Sen. Kyl could look the fuck into that, eh?

How many people lost their jobs, have two kids and a mortgage? How many of them would go completely under without those benefits? Should they go on welfare? Eat the damned kids? Exactly what, dear leadership, should these people do?

Maybe nobody in Washington understands that this shining consumer/service economy that they’ve been touting the benefits of (for the benefit of all the neo-liberal Randians, see above: bankers, politicians and traders) requires everybody to have plenty of disposable income. The civil engineer gets laid off in a country with crumbling infrastructure. He does the logical thing and tightens his belt. Fewer discretionary purchases lead to less revenue for the corporations that employ people. And since less revenue hurts the all important bottom line, it must be made up somewhere. So someone else gets laid off.

This is your way of life trickling down the motherfucking drain.

Sen. Kyl probably thinks that tax cuts will spur employment growth, and i’ll bet that he’d be willing to trot out the old “entrepreneurs and small business people on Main Street are America’s economic engine” shtick. Sen. Kyl is a liar. He must know that only Luxembourg ranks below us amongst developed nations in terms of percent of the population that is self-employed. He knows it because like his esteemed colleagues on both sides of the aisle he has been doing everything in his power for decades to stifle the American people.

Like the rest of the sociopath-enamored Randians who purport to love and lead this nation, he’s one of the guys dismembering the American Dream. The murder mystery may never be solved, but the flesh eaters and necrophiliacs are all too brazenly obvious in their tastes.

But this gets funnier. First, House members determine the legal but unsavory and corrupt behaviors that keep them collecting that $174,000 paycheck with generous federal health and retirement bennies. Then they reverse-engineer the ethics code to make all those behaviors ethical. Every now and then they pass serious, consequential ethics reform and lard up a press release touting it, as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, freshly minted as House speaker, did three years ago:

House Democrats got straight to work this week by passing the toughest Congressional ethics reform in history. We have broken the link between lobbyists and legislation: banning gifts and travel from lobbyists and organizations that retain or employ them, banning travel on corporate jets, shutting down the K Street project, subjecting all earmarks to the full light of day …

Oh, don’t stop there, House felons solons. When public outrage rises again, given that Pelosi’s “serious and substantive steps to ensure Congress governs with the highest ethical steps” didn’t work out so well, pass even more ethics reform. This time, pass a bill in 2008 that creates what Common Cause said was “a monumentally important resolution to create an independent, bipartisan panel of non-lawmakers to help review and investigate possible ethics violations by House members.” [emphasis added]

That’s not working out so well either. The House now has two ethics panels that produce more conflict between them than censure or (better yet) strong cases leading to removal of corrupt House members.

Under its brief, the independent Office of Congressional Ethics can recommend to the House ethics committee (which consists of House members) either that “the matter requires the Committee’s further review or that it should dismiss the matter.” In other words, the independent ethics office is toothless. The House committee can ignore the ethics office’s “recommendations.” And it does.

In 2009, the ethics office told the House committee it should review further allegations that Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) asked a business associate of his wife’s to testify before the Small Business Committee. The House balked, dismissing the charge against Graves and criticizing the investigation of ethics office — the very panel the House created. The ethics office fired back, rebutting the criticisms.

What should be expected from a House panel of overseers comprised entirely of the overseen? The House ethics panel does not appear to be overworked: Its website lists only 12 reports dating back to the 105th Congress.

This past week, the House panel, formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, again chose not to act on more ethics office recommendations. So the hilarity continues: From a New York Times story last week by Eric Lichtblau and David D. Kirkpatrick:

The House ethics committee cleared seven members of Congress on Friday of official charges of wrongdoing in a lobbying scandal despite a separate, independent investigation that cast a harsh spotlight on the pay-to-play culture in Washington.

The ethics office, said The Times, found “that private contractors who received millions of dollars in defense industry earmarks from the seven lawmakers generally believed that their political contributions to the members facilitated the financing their companies received.” [emphasis added]

The House ethics panel, that “standards of official conduct” bunch, cleared all seven members of charges. Sayeth The Times : “All served on the powerful defense appropriations panel, which doles out billions of dollars in earmarks.”

Voters can conclude, of course, based on the House ethics panel’s actions, that House members are honest and above reproach. Heck, just ’cause the House ethics panel consists of the foxes watching the foxes, there’s no reason to suspect skulduggery among thieves, is there?

OpenCongress, a project of the Sunlight and Participatory Politics foundations, provides this “index of current and recent members of Congress currently under investigation by the congressional ethics committees, or under investigation, indictment, or conviction by law enforcement authorities, based on credible media reports” [emphasis added]. And there’s a similar list compiled by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Always fun reading is CREW’s annual lists of “the 15 most corrupt members of Congress.” Also delightful is the FAQ section of the House ethics panel’s Web site, apparently intended to guide members to appropriate ethical behavior.

Yep, it’s hysterically hilarious that so many members of Congress, who at one time probably thought that public service meant serving the public, made one little compromise, one small exchange of favor for favor, one itsy-bitsy, wink-wink deal … and look at them now — chasing money to pursue power, and cheating to do it.

Sadly, the joke’s on us.

He could not have imagined that the exorbitant and still-rising cost of electing the members of Congress would argue that not “all men are created equal.” Rather, men, and mostly men, of considerable financial substance worth in sum about $650 million would sit on Capitol Hill. Nor would he have imagined that the most powerful interests in this nation “conceived in Liberty” would be about to spend $3.7 billion to position those (mostly) men in November to immediately forget, polls might suggest, “the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”

President Lincoln could not have imagined, at least on a 21st Century scale, how the enterprise of government would become precisely that – a business enterprise riddled with corruption brought on by the enticements of money primarily intended to lubricate the interests of the powerful who wish to remain that way.

President Lincoln could not have foreseen that a former member of Congress, already convicted and imprisoned for seven years for bribery and racketeering, would threaten to run for Congress again as an Independent, saying, “I have been a Democrat all my life, and quite frankly I am disgusted with both parties. I hate to say this. My father is rolling over in his grave, a truck driver.”

President Lincoln, a lawyer by trade, probably would suggest that it takes a crook to root out a drift of swine-minded crooks.

Polls of popularity generally assign Lincoln at or near the top of lists of “greatest presidents.” Despite whatever historical flaws he may have as a politician, military tactician or executive branch leader, his reputation for honesty and truth prevail scores of years later. His vision for the Republic was clear. But time and the misuse of money have eroded that vision, rendering it unrecognizable.

In his address of only 265 words, he directed a divided nation to heal the deep wounds brought on by such a divisive war. He said, “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion …” He sought freedom — and all the obligations and responsibilities that entails — as a defining characteristic of the Republic.

What would he think of a Congress so divided and held in such low regard by the voters who elected its members? How would he regard an industry surrounding Congress whose sole purpose is to prey on political and philosophical schisms on behalf of powerful clients who seek primarily to retain and expand their means of holding power? Would he be saddened by the decision of the Republic’s highest court to allow corporations the same rights as individuals?

As he sits in effigy, fatigued in appearance by artist’s intent, looking east toward the Reflecting Pool, he may be considering revising his remarks offered at Gettysburg:

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain— that this nation, under the god of Maximize Shareholder Income, shall have an enduring vision of Corporate leadership—and that government of the Dollar, by the Dollar, and for the Dollar, shall not perish from the Corporate Boardrooms.

I’m not alone. Paterson wants to hang on to about $500 million in tax refunds due the state’s citizens. It’s an accounting dodge brought on largely by the political failure of the governor and the state Legislature to balance the budget. By law, the state cannot run a budget year in the red. So, rather than face the realities of a $1.4 billion budget deficit, New York’s incompetent, selfish leaders do what they always do — punt, in this case, until next year. That half billion will be rolled out of fiscal 2009 and into fiscal 2010. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s New York’s insanely inept government: Never deal with reality.

Maybe, state officials promise, I’ll see my $13 in April, two and a half months from now. Well, I’d rather be the one collecting the interest on that $13 over that time rather than the state. Sheesh.

Of course, New York’s financial woes aren’t that simple, and it’s not always (but mostly?) Albany’s fault. Recession + people out of work = higher costs + lower tax revenues + increased fees + fewer services. And New York’s not alone. One estimate puts the total fiscal 2010 budget deficit of all states at nearly $150 billion.

Perhaps that’s why the nation’s governors were meeting in Washington, D.C., this past week. That kind of shortens the distance between those who need to beg and those being begged of — like President Obama, host to the annual Governors Ball at the White House, and Congress, the federal equivalent of New York’s moronic Legislature.

We need money, and now — that’s the conversational topic prevailing at the National Governors Association Winter Meeting.

The governors are saying to anyone who will listen, reports Liz Sidoti, the AP’s national political writer, that:

tax collections keep declining as Medicaid costs soar. High unemployment persists. States cut 18,000 jobs in January alone and more job losses are anticipated. Because states are required to balance their budgets, shortfalls will be made up by raising taxes or fees or cutting services.

Like everyone else who’s financially under water (General Motors, Chrysler, financial institutions “too big to fail”), the states are looking to Washington for help to balance their budgets. After all, the states reaped $135 billion in federal stimulus money last year.

Their reasoning: Unemployment stymies economic growth. Seventeen states face double-digit unemployment. The states want up to $25 billion in a jobs creation bill Congress is considering. Creating more jobs would raise tax revenues. That would reduce budget deficits — perhaps even lead to balanced budgets.

Perhaps. But the balanced budgets that states might achieve in coming fiscal years would not necessarily represent full restoration of so many services and programs whacked by fiscal or political necessity in the past two years. States have been under budgetary pressures for years and have repeatedly cut services and pumped up fees for those that remain for their citizens. Newly balanced budgets would likely just represent an under-served, unsatisfactory, pricey status quo. And all those increased fees for almost any state service you can name? They’re not likely to go down, either.

No matter what happens to state budgets, no matter whether the president or Congress extends some billion-dollar largesse to the states, services and costs are not going to return to happier times.

And take note: 37 of those governors frolicking in D.C. this past week (and who’s paying?) face re-election this year.

If Paterson hangs onto my $13, he won’t be getting my vote.

In fact, if New York real estate mogul and media kingpin Zuckerman becomes a U.S. senator, his own wealth would be almost four times the 2008 net worth of all U.S. senators — about $650 million.

Zuckerman, who owns The New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report, is worth about $2 billion, according to The New York Times. And in a story Friday based largely on “two people told of the discussions,” The Times says Zuckerman is considering taking on lightweight Democrat Kirsten E. Gillibrand, current occupant of that Senate seat. A former Tennessee congressman, Harold E. Ford Jr., is also taking aim at Gillibrand.

So — does the U.S. Senate need a 72-year-old billionaire driving up the age of an already elderly Senate? The Congressional Research Service reports that the average age of senators, a little more than 63 years old, at the beginning of 2009 was among the highest ever.

There’s no suggestion here that Zuckerman is a despicable individual unworthy of sitting in the Senate. In fact, his philanthropy is well known. He has donated about $215 million between 2004 and 2008 to “causes ranging from cancer research to higher education to archeology to child poverty.”

He’s rich and powerful. Now he wants national influence. According to The Times:

Mr. Zuckerman is an outspoken supporter of Israel, and over the last few years, he has become a high-profile student of the national economy, raising his visibility through television appearances on shows like “Meet the Press” and in newspaper and magazine opinion articles. He recently attended a White House economic forum.

Gillibrand, twice elected to the House of Representatives, would face Zuckerman in November. It’s likely, sayeth The Times, Zuckerman would follow New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision to switch party affiliation from Democrat to Republican to run.

Gillibrand, in her five-year career in Congress, has raised about $14.5 million, mostly through individual contributions, and spent about $9 million.

For Zuckerman, that’s a financial hiccup. He’d easily be able to follow the examples of fellow billionaires Bloomberg and California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO. Bloomberg spent only 1.63 percent of his $16 billion fortune — about $261 million — to become and remain mayor of New York.

Whitman has spent about 1.5 percent of her fortune — about $19 million — on her campaign. Zuckerman’s fortune is almost twice Whitman’s. She could easily spend tens of millions more.

If statewide name recognition outside the Big Apple is an issue for Zuckerman, he can easily afford to buy it in all parts of New York.

If he decides to run, he can easily outspend the incumbent Gillibrand. He can independently fund a winning campaign. That fact alone might scare off many other credible, viable contenders for that Senate seat.

Ain’t American politics grand? Apparently, if you don’t have to raise money to run, you can do any damn thing you please — like getting elected to the Senate.

Wilson was primarily famous for two things: fucking anything he could catch, and funneling arms to the Afghani mujahedeen during the country’s war against the Soviet Union. Those of us unfortunate enough to be stuck in the room during Wilson’s speech were regaled by tales of how he ignored the law, bullied, end-ran, lied and cheated to get what he wanted, and I mean all this literally. Wilson was as proud of flaunting the law as he was of his lifelong pursuit of women with obvious esteem issues.

I desperately wanted, when the self-aggrandizement ended, to force my way to the microphone. Of course, by this point in time the recession was in full swing and it struck me that getting turfed wasn’t necessarily in my best interests. So I held fire. But here’s the comment I wanted to make:

Congressman Wilson, if I understand your remarks correctly, then I suppose we have you to blame for 9/11.

I neither advocate nor condone grave-dancing, but it is nonetheless true that there are bad human beings in the world. And the world is a better place when these people move on.

Maybe I’m going to Hell for saying so. But if I do, at least I’ll finally get a chance to talk to Charlie Wilson.

Overturning key provisions of McCain-Feingold campaign finance law and flouting a century of precedent, the decision opens the floodgates to a torrent of spending by banks, insurance companies, energy companies, automakers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, chemical producers, agribusiness giants and media oligopolies — both domestic and foreign – to sway races by buying candidates. And to trash American democracy in the process.

“Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy — it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people — political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority. The irony in Kennedy’s logic is profound, as the Court has in essence granted the status of personhood — of individual citizenship — to corporations, who are the least likely entities on earth to hold officials accountable to anyone but their own interests.

When Goldman Sachs, for instance, finds itself with a $16 billion (that’s with a “b”) bonus pool for top executives, what is the likelihood they are going to make campaign contributions to any political candidate who supports a tax on such bonuses, despite the government’s bailout for Wall Street?

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), who was in the room for the Court’s announcement, condemned it as “the worst Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case. It leads us all down the road to serfdom.”

Yet it may be that prospect that offers the only remaining hope to unite a nation so fractured by partisanship and anger. In the face of this ruling, average Americans will become disenfranchised laborers, with no access to any ability to affect the political system in their favor. The grassroots donations of $10 here and $25 there that Barack Obama credited with momentum for his victory will be so much chump change in the face of these new playing rules. While labor unions and other groups will also be exempt from previous spending limits, it is the staggering power of corporations to shout down ordinary citizens through an exponential ability to outspend them that poses the gravest threat to our common welfare.

The real divide in this country is not so much left vs. right as haves vs. have-nots. Most Americans want health care reform. We just disagree on the best route to get it. Most Americans are disgusted at Wall Street’s escape from the economic hardship average people face every day, losing their jobs and homes and worrying about feeding their kids. Some think Democrats should be punished for the banks’ bailout; others insist it’s a Republican legacy for which the right must bear blame. Today’s decision, however, cements the already-entrenched power of the ‘haves’ to control public discourse and thereby the political agenda toward their own ends.  But if anything can galvanize the populist base of this country – and that is our true, uniting base – it must be today’s catastrophic court decision, which threatens to undermine our jobs, our health, our safety, our environment, the air we breathe and the water we drink, our access to information, virtually every element of the quality of life and freedoms we jointly value as Americans.

In the wake of this decision, progressives have more in common with teabaggers than either of us ever dreamed possible. We’ll need a lot more strange bedfellows to come together to save our democracy, fractious and scarred as it is. Congressman Grayson has introduced a set of bills to bite back – learn more here.

They recognized long ago that those who control the definitions of words rule the conversation. They know that rigorous repetition of their memes is akin to selling any product — advertise, advertise, advertise. That meme machine, usually cranked up biennually, now operates full time. In 30-second, televised chunks, the memes spew forth in every market. The messages are paid for by political organizations and single-minded groups quietly but heavily underwritten by those who wield wealth and power as a blacksmith’s hammer, bending comprehension by the electorate over an anvil. In hour-long, prime-time, broadcast soliloquies, their public voices ritualistically denigrate that which does not serve The Meme.

They are not The Right. They are not The Left. But they perpetrate the meme that the struggle for political power and control is between Left and Right. That’s the remarkable cunning of their strategy: Take two entities that are essentially identical and paint them as vastly different, and one as preferred. Misdirection masquerades as clarity.

They have remarkable resources. They own media organizations that control television, radio, Web entities, and newspapers. They have highly paid minions whose divisive, hateful, meme-managing messages they control. They have massive databases that allow parsing of their memes for different audiences.

They have money. Lots of it. They spend it without reservation in the pursuit of winning. They know that well less than 1 percent of American adults contribute to political candidates. They can outspend those who oppose the meme — and did so, spending $23 billion on campaign contributions in the past decade.

Where will you find them? The paper trails of their political largesse lead to the finance, insurance and real-estate industries; lawyers and lobbyists; ideological and single-issue donors; the health-care, health products and pharmaceutical industries; communications and electronics firms; labor unions; agribusiness interests; energy and natural-resource extraction corporations; transportation; and the defense industry.

They have eroded efforts to reform campaign-finance laws and to curtail and control campaign spending. Now the Supreme Court of All The Land appears poised to remove the last shackles limiting their political spending in service of The Meme. They will be able to spend more money to achieve more power and control over … winning? (What is it, exactly, that they think they’re winning?)

They cannot control what people think. Free will has not yet been fully suppressed. But they can limit what people think about by dunning them with focus-grouped, direct-mailed, oped-paged, demographically diced, Facebooked, tweeted, news-storylined memes. In their world of continuous, mediated shouting, it is difficult to hear an opposing whisper.

They’re winning because they have bought representation — legislators and lobbyists galore. They’re winning because they do not face the electorate — their well-disguised, glad-handing, baby-kissing, well-coiffed, properly memed candidates face the voters.

They’re winning because so many watchdogs are no longer watching. Their natural adversaries are experienced journalists bred in vats of skepticism. But the ranks of professional reporters and editors, never high to begin with, have been thinned to the point of virtual ineffectiveness. They are winning because they can continue to hide in so many dark places.

They are winning. But have they won?

I asked my representative, “What’s the agenda when you return to Washington?”

I did not get any “inside information”. He told me that the newly enlarged Democratic majority led by the newly elected Democratic President would first work to stabilize the financial crisis and then move on to tackling health care reform. If i remember correctly, the goal after that was Iraq…but i can’t be sure. It was a long time ago now and i’m not always the best listener.

We’ll skip over the Democratic Party’s idea of stabilization and financial industry reform. To some degree that situation was forced upon them, and while they continue to do a shitty job from a Main Street perspective, that should come as no surprise. Look at who filled their campaign coffers.

Health care was the battle that the Democrats chose. Many (if not most) of us who voted for them wanted that battle. It’s a good battle, because the US needs health care reform badly. Too many hard-working Americans fall victim to the lack of decent health care, and far too many have their financial future ruined by our current system designed to produce ever-increasing quarterly profits rather than providing health care.

I’ve yet to read anyone who says that either of the bills we’re looking at are good. There are plenty of people who want the reform badly, but see a process so botched that they’d rather kill the bills than accept table scraps from the insurance industry. Of course, there is a chorus of professional and amateur pundits telling us to be satisfied with incremental improvements and that what we see is the very best that we can hope to get right now.

Bullshit. If there’s one thing that’s perfectly clear, it’s that from the perspective of Democratic leadership the most important thing is not health care reform itself. The important thing is to be able to say that the Democratic Party achieved “health care reform”. When the President says that he’s 95% satisfied he’s not necessarily saying that he likes 95% of the bill (though he might be saying that). He’s saying that he’s satisfied by any bill reaching his desk for signature.

He’s already comparing himself to FDR and making statements about how no other Democratic President has achieved what he’s about to achieve. See, this isn’t about the reform, it’s about electoral politics.

Making the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies happy means campaign contributions; that much is clear and understandable…if sleazy. The problem is that there’s some sort of alternate reality generator running in Washington D.C. that completely disconnects politicians from their constituents. The GOP is salivating at the passage of “Obamacare”, because it will be the political equivalent of a two by four with framing spikes pounded through. Not only have the Republicans got the kind of change they can believe in, they’re going to bash Democrats over the head with it for years to come.

LBJ famously gave up the South for a generation to do the right thing. Mr. Obama can make no such claim, because he’s not doing the right thing. He’s setting the stage for a grand screwing over of the American people that will cost his party at the polls for at least as long as LBJ’s civil rights actions. But that is apparently okay by him so long as he can say, “I signed a health care reform bill.”

The apologists cry that something is better than nothing reeks of hollow, political expediency. Do any of them really think that either of these bills (or the reconciled version of both) will be significantly improved upon in the near future? I know that it’s the popular meme to throw at the discontented, but really…how about showing us some examples of that process that are less than four decades old.

I want health care reform, and while i fully understand that politics is the art of the possible, i do not accept that trope as an excuse for doing a thoroughly shitty job. Negotiations are always about the possible, but only a fool starts them by offering less than what he’s willing to accept in the end.

Then again, “Democrats on Crack” explains a lot in very few words, doesn’t it?

Contributions to all federal candidates for House and Senate seats and the presidency from the 2000 through 2010 election cycles totaled $9.7 billion, according to an S&R analysis of records aggregated by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Contributions to candidates and committees in all 50 states, from 2000 through 2009, totaled about $14.5 billion, according to records aggregated by the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

In this decade, thanks to computerization of records and a few top-notch, non-partisan organizations, we’ve learned how to follow the money. Well, so what? Has vastly increased public visibility of political money changed the way politics operates?

The $24.2 billion spent on campaign contributions is only part of the story. Over the past decade, $23 billion has been spent by corporations, labor unions, and other special-interest entities to lobby Congress and federal agencies, according to records aggregated by the center.

More than $45 billion has been spent in the decade now ending to influence legislation and regulation at state and federal levels of government. It’s only conjecture, of course, but it’s hardly likely that the bulk of those billions of dollars was intended to improve the lot of the 99 percent of adult Americans who did not make campaign contributions or made gifts of less than $200.

Where did the $24.2 billion in campaign donations come from? Only a tiny fraction, generally in the tenths of 1 percent, of Americans over age 18 make campaign contributions of more than $200. Those who give more than $1,000 are even fewer — but the amounts given by those latter donors total significantly higher.

The bulk of the decade’s nearly $10 billion in donations to federal candidates came from special interests and individuals associated with specific special interests who gave $200 or more. According to the center, the top special-interest givers in the election cycles in this decade, generally in this order, were

the finance, insurance and real-estate industries; lawyers and lobbyists; miscellaneous business; ideological and single-issue donors; the health industries; communications and electronics; labor; agribusiness; energy and natural-resource interests; transportation; and the defense industry.

Corporations and individuals associated with these special interests donated more than $8 billion this decade to federal candidates. And the leader in campaign largesse for the decade and in each election cycle, at $1.62 billion, or more than 16 percent of all campaign contributions to federal candidates? The winner, by a wide margin, are the finance, insurance and real-estate industries.

The number of lobbyists has increased from 10,641 in 2000 to 13,426 this year. Now, that’s the number of people who have legally registered as lobbyists. There are plenty of revolving-door people (those who have left the Hill or the executive branch to become lobbyists and vice versa) who are not registered as lobbyists but are as influential. Consider the example of former Sen. Tom Daschle, who claims he’s a “resource” for his health-care industry clients and not a lobbyist.

Those interested in studying campaign finance and lobbing — who’s giving the money and who’s getting it — have two non-profit and non-partisan organizations to thank for ready, intelligible access to FEC and state election commissions data. They are the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in State Politics, which provides “free online access to public records in all 50 states, to document political donor and lobbyist contributions to policymakers.” Also helpful is Earmark Watch, a project of Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Sunlight Foundation, which helps expose what these billions of dollars can buy from legislators.

These groups have become technologically more savvy. Tracking campaign contributions and lobbying dollars can be narrowly focused on such data more easily than using the FEC’s website or state election data websites. The center and the institute now have talented staffers who frequently write analyses of donor data, especially when a particularly topic is in the news.

Congress irritated by the college football Bowl Championship Series? There’s the center’s Dave Levinthal on the Capital Eye Blog, detailing how much money the BCS, News Corp., the NCAA and major football universities are giving to whom for what purpose.

Wondering whether Congress will include legal importation of drugs from abroad (i.e., Canada) in health-care reform? There’s Levinthal again, pointing out that the pharmaceutical and health-products industries have spent nearly $200 million in 2009 to oppose it.

Want to know how much money the health-care industry has spent trying to influence state legislation and regulation? There’s the institute’s Anne Bauer, telling you “[i]n the last six years, major players in the health care industry gave $394 million to officeholders, party committees and ballot measure committees in the 50 states.”

When the short-term, high-vig payday loan industry sought to reinvigorate itself (i.e., screw the borrowers) through the ballot box, there was the institute’s Tyler Evilsizer to explain that in Arizona and Ohio, “donors from the industry gave more than $35 million to support ballot measures that would allow them to continue operating.”

Computerization of records and sophisticated staff allow an organization such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, aka CREW, to track robocall ethics complaints against Sen. John McCain, develop a list of the most corrupt members of Congress, and keep track of the revolving door moves of White House staffers and cabinet members.

Yes, the governed can quickly track donations to those who govern or seek to govern. Yes, the governed can track the money spent by individuals, corporations, PACs and unions to legally influence those who govern. Yes, the governed can easily see how easy and legal it is for big spenders to influence legislators and regulators.

So what have we gained because we can do this? Not much.

Over the decade, corrupt politicians have been imprisoned for a variety of crimes. Convicted of crimes such as fraud and bribery, they were selfish and for sale. What they did was illegal.

But what remains unabated in the American political system is legalized corruption. The heightened ability to track political money does nothing to prevent the dramatic increase in legal campaign giving and the host of ethical and moral conflicts that so much money places in front of incumbents, challengers, and regulators.

We’ve seen the amounts of money spent to legally attain and maintain political power grow to such amounts that billionaires now spend tens of millions of dollars to finance their own campaigns. Modern elections trivialize issues and maximize dependence on name recognition. That costs money, which forecloses the possibility that better-qualified candidates who are not as wealthy can prosper at the ballot box.

We’ve seen how those with money to spend and an agenda to enact gain access to the levers of power, as did players in the health-care reform debate behind closed doors in the Obama White House.

Consider the consolidation of media, its threat to competitiveness, its anti-trust implications, and its potential to maintain unreasonably high consumer prices for news and entertainment. When Comcast announced its intended $30 billion purchase of NBC Universal from General Electric, its lobbyists flooded the Hill. Through September of this year, Comcast has spent $9.1 million on lobbying. The Federal Communications Commission must approve the sale.

Comcast’s 20-member D.C. lobbying team, reports Politico’s Kenneth P. Vogel, includes “former aides to Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), former Senate Majority Leader and Obama confidant Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Democratic Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps.” (Oh, look: There’s “confidant” Daschle acting as a “resource” again, “aides” notwithstanding …)

Continual increases in media consolidation by conglomerates reduce the likelihood that Americans’ monthly bills for cable, Internet, satellite, and telephone services will decrease.

Earlier this month, the House faced an impending vote on what Paul Krugman of The New York Times called “a quite modest effort to rein in Wall Street excesses.” Three days earlier, wrote Krugman, “Republican leaders met with more than 100 financial-industry lobbyists to coordinate strategies” to sidestep banking reform. All Republicans and 27 Democrats voted against the measure. (Gosh, what wonderfully independent thinking from our members of Congress.)

That means it’s less likely that credit will flow readily and credibly to America’s small businesses and consumers, and that more Americans may lose their homes unfairly.

And the drug-industry lobbyists? We’ve seen how lobbyists for pharmaceutical giant Genentech have written statements that 42 members of Congress from both parties have “revised and extended” into the Congressional Record.

That means it’s likely the out-of-pocket cost (and that inherent in premiums) for prescription medications is likely to grow as a percentage of Americans’ expenditures even as their wages have remained stagnant through the past decade.

We continue to see the fruits of lobbying in which special interests reap financial reward at little cost, such as the American Jobs Recovery Act that provided no jobs but $100 billion in tax breaks for corporations.

Are Americans better off because of the ease with which they can track who gives how much money to the people who would represent them and propose and pass laws that may help or hinder Americans’ lives, liberties and pursuit of happiness? No. That’s because incumbents and challengers don’t care a whit that this system is so blatantly and transparently stacked toward the influence wrought by so much money.

We point fingers at the financially oiled, undue influence of special interests. Our legislators and regulators just shrug: “So what?”

No legislative intent lies on the horizon of the next decade that would stem the shameful influence of money on the conduct of legislators and regulators and what they do, or fail to do, in the public’s interest. There will be no sufficient, substantial changes in campaign finance laws or congressional ethics policies to end this system of legalized corruption.

No reform candidates exist on the horizon immune to the blandishments the crassly monied political system can promise or proffer.

From 2010 to 2019, expect more of the same. Another $45 billion will speak louder than you or me to those who govern us.

This year the in the United States Senate the majority party risks long-term annihilation if it does not do everything in its power to pass health care reform complete with a new government subsidized insurance program. To this end a traditional filibuster forced upon the minority by the Majority Leader instead of a winter recess, complete with round-the-clock sessions, continuous minority speeches, and a ready quorum of majority party senators, trumps letting the minority return home to conduct caustic town hall meetings. The Majority Leader could (and should) continue the current Senate session until its scheduled re-convention in January, at which time a weary nation would welcome the use of “budget reconciliation rules” to pass reform.

A full blown filibuster, where failure of the minority to hold the floor before a quorum of majority party senators determined to pass the bill, would require that all the Senate’s other business would already be finished and the only task left would be either session adjournment, or bill passage.

With the Senate’s agenda concluded, the Majority Leader can deny the courtesy of allowing a “procedural filibuster.” The minority would be then compelled to conduct a traditional filibuster and to continuously address the Senate as long as the majority maintains a quorum. If the minority fails to hold the Senate floor then the majority will simply vote and pass the bill. If the majority fails to maintain a quorum, the Senate adjourns until it reconvenes in January.

The importance of the majority party demonstrating its determination and using all its legal powers is paramount to the survival of the party. If the leadership of the party shows a lack of discipline or resolve in attempting to make into law a proposal that they have campaigned relentlessly on for forty years, there will be a breach of faith between the leadership and the party faithful who have given decades of support. If the party faithful come to see the elected party leaders as ineffectual, they may conclude that the leaders are either inept or corrupt. Either of these conclusions will lead to a lack of voter support and subsequent electoral loss. Not only will the he party faithful be disillusioned but the unaffiliated voters will come to see the majority party as incompetent.

Convincing unaffiliated voters of the soundness of one set of policy options over another is the key to governing. These independent voters are swayed by both the truthfulness and soundness of an argument as well as the perceived leadership ability of the elected leaders. During a marathon filibuster conducted through out the late December holidays the independent voters would be forced to take stock of both parties’ resolve and conduct.

Having the attention of these voters is a double edged sword. The minority party’s arguments, both intellectual and emotional, would get a full airing both on the Senate’s floor and in all the news media outlets. It is in these outlets that the real debate over the health care reform bill would be carried out. There is a danger that the minority will be more persuasive but it is a risk that must be taken if health care reform is to be realized. Without a full throttled attempt at passage this year the majority risks far more than not passing a bill, it risks self implosion.

Kevin Marley is the long time brewmaster at the Denver  ChopHouse and Brewery. He is a husband and a dad and has voted more times than he can remember.

But viewed in the rarified context of the very wealthy, the amounts are petty cash.

For example, former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman has put $19 million so far into her campaign for governor of California — but that’s barely 1.5 percent of her $1.3 billion fortune.

Whitman has “publicly floated the notion of a record-shattering $150-million campaign budget” — but even if she financed $100 million of that herself, that still would only be 7.7 percent of her billion-dollar-plus wallet.

She wants to be governor of what used to be one of the 10 largest economies in the world. But she takes a back seat to newly re-elected New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in spending your own money to be somebody big. No one in American history has spent so much of his own money to win an election.

Bloomberg has now spent $261 million to become and remain the mayor of the Big Apple. That works out to $174 per vote this year, $85 in 2005, and $74 in 2001, according to New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro.

Egads — more than a quarter of a billion dollars. But even that amount of political spending represents only 1.63 percent of Bloomberg’s $16 billion fortune. But he had to overturn New York City’s term limits law to win that third term. Ironically, this year fewer people voted for him — 557,059 — than voted to approve term limits in 1996— 586,890. In an election in which he had been expected to coast easily to his third term because of his extravagant spending and the perceived weakness of his opponent, he won by only 4 percentage points.

Bloomberg had argued that New York City needed his — and only his — expertise in coping with the crisis that enveloped the global economy and hurt the city. Yes, he does have a credible reputation as mayoral manager. But to argue that a law must be changed — a law he supported — to allow him to continue in office as the only suitable mayor during an economic downturn is arrogant.

And Village Voice writer Tom Robbins reported that, based on a book by former NYTer Joyce Purnick, “many months before economic disaster struck in September 2008 — the crisis that Bloomberg said prompted his reversal on term limits — the mayor was already pondering the move.” More arrogance.

Size — as measured by wealth — matters in politics. For example, the total wealth of the 50 richest members of Congress is nearly $1.3 billion, an average of about $25 million each. Sen. John Kerry tops the list at $167 million.

But compared with the personal finances of mega-rich political and corporate elites such as Bloomberg and Whitman, Kerry’s ability to self-finance an election pales. This trend has been apparent for nearly 20 years, particularly in the land of 90210.

California, it seems, breeds really rich people who want to buy a political title. One of Whitman’s opponents — state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner — says Whitman’s trying to buy her way into Sacramento. Yet Poizner’s no piker. He “sold a high-technology company for $1 billion in 2000, and plunged $12 million of his fortune into his 2006 election as insurance commissioner.”

Internet entrepreneur, eBay founding member, and venture capitalist Steve Westly spent $35 million of his own $200-million-plus wealth before losing the gubernatorial primary election in 2006. Former Marriott and Northwest Airlines exec Al Checchi burned through $40 million of his $700 million nest egg in his 1998 race, also losing in the primary.

And who can forget Michael Huffington, who spent $28 million of his own money and $100 million overall in losing to Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 1994.

Wealth, combined with time served in office, leads to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Liberals would argue he’s been one of the most effective senators in American history (although credible conservatives might disagree). Yet he spent little of his own fortune to stay in office, at least since 1998. Kennedy gave only $1.35 million of his own money to his campaigns, compared with $28 million in individual contributions and $2.6 million in PAC money, according to Federal Election Commission records aggregated by the Center for Responsive Politics. But Kennedy was far from a billionaire. His last Senate disclosure estimated his net worth between $43 million and $163 million.

Money has always spoken loudly in politics. But the tens of millions available to billionaires to spend on their own campaigns is deafening.

Billionaires have always spent plenty of money on politics. Since 1978, one aggregation of data says, 82 billionaires have donated almost $62 million to Republican and Democratic candidates.

Some of these wealthy men (only seven billionaire donors were women) would argue it’s a merely a cost of doing business. Others might argue that campaign contributions to worthy candidates might foster social change (according to their definitions, of course). Still others might admit that they donate large sums simply because they can. The last is called really hefty “political throw-weight.”

But the political largesse of these 82 billionaires is miniscule compared with Bloomberg’s $261 million and Whitman’s $19 million. Her spending has been just since January — and the election is still a year away. Whitman’s spending, since she has no political profile and has rarely voted, has only one goal — name recognition. She can afford to spend $60 million, $80 million, even $100 million to have her name on the tongue of every registered California voter.

I have argued (here and here) for a radical overhaul of campaign financing. I have said that Congress should appropriate sufficient monies to adequately pay for every federal and statewide election in America. If candidates or incumbents took the public money, then they could not take a dime from any other source. (Forget the money-as-free-speech argument. The candidate makes the choice, not the donor.)

But is that argument for massive public financing feasible any more? When a billionaire 16 times over spends $261 million be merely the mayor of a city, how could Congress expect taxpayers to cover that stratospheric cost, let alone statewide and federal races?

The arrogance of Bloomberg and Whitman — I can outspend anyone, and thereby buy the political office I want — fosters another dramatic and saddening change in how America elects its leaders. As Bloomberg and Whitman have discovered, they no longer need to press the flesh and make nice to such commoners as mere multimillionaires to raise the money to run. (There are other consequences, too, as Doc Slammy will explain in his “Democracy & Elitism” series beginning today.)

America has plenty of billionaires. The Forbes 400’s collective net worth is $1.27 trillion. Many are shrewd, capable, intelligent people. Others were merely lucky, married well, or inherited wealth. And wealth by itself does not render any citizen ineligible for public office. (Or poverty, for that matter.)

But what massive wealth offers is literally the ability to avoid the voters. Yes, all candidates face the electorate at the ballot box. But wealth affords the ability to artfully mediate or remanufacture the narrative of one’s self, one’s policies or positions, one’s history and biography. Handshakes and baby-kissing at the county fair are no longer a mandatory ritual for a really rich candidate. The wealthy can manipulate elections through the legal means of self-financing a campaign. They can hire the best consultants (and Bloomberg rewards his consultants with $100,000 bonuses) and produce the most effective ads. And they can spend money on polling to parse the electorate for targeted emails and direct mail messages.

Most important, they need not depend on the Republican and Democratic national parties for financing. They need not kiss anyone’s ass.

These are the major leagues that professional egotists Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck wish to inhabit. Despite their large incomes from various media, they’re still in the minors.

But Rush Limbaugh? He’s at or near the billion-dollar mark, thanks to a first eight-year contract for $265 million and a second for $400 million (and the rumored $100 million bonus).

Limbaugh could self-finance a Senate seat from Florida — or any state he chooses to move to and establish residency.

Frankly, I’d rather have Salma Hayek move to New York state, where I live, and run for the Senate. After all, she married well. With a net worth of $7 billion, she could easily buy that seat. Even Caroline Kennedy, with a net worth estimated between $100 million and $400 million, couldn’t pony up enough.

Welcome to the well-funded New American Political Oligarchy — a Bloomberg-Whitman production.

Back in the good ol’ days, you’d merely text your old pal I.B. Loaded, CEO of Amalgamated Rules Bender Inc. Loaded’s given you tons of cash over the years for your campaigns. He, his wife and children, his employees, his vendors — all have seen the wisdom of slipping dough to you, your official campaign committee, and, of course, your “Leadership PAC.”

And, of course, Loaded would have his Gulfstream V (I mean, rather, his corporate-owned private jet) fly into Reagan National to pick you up (after, of course, a taxpayer-paid car and driver deposited you, your luggage, and golf clubs there). Loaded himself would be on the plane to entertain you and see to your every need. After you’d both consumed a few hits from Loaded’s stash of 40-year-old Glen Garioch, he’d probably steer the conversation into an arcane tax-policy issue that would likely benefit Amalgamated Rules Bender Inc. to the tune of millions of dollars.

You’d be the only passenger on a sophisticated jet costing $59 million with an hourly operating cost of about $7,000. Yet, before 2007, you’d only pay the cost of first-class airfare to LA — maybe a grand or less, depending on discounts. Then Congress shut the door to corporate-provided air travel by passing the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act.

And this week, those idiots at the Federal Election Commission reopened the door.

The act plainly states “a candidate for election for Federal office … may not make any expenditure for a flight on [a noncommercial] aircraft unless … the candidate, the authorized committee, or other political committee pays … the pro rata share of the fair market value of the flight.”

But the FEC changed that by redefining when a member of Congress is or is not a “candidate.” Here’s the explanation from The Campaign Legal Center:

Yet the FEC today adopted a final rule nonsensically declaring that a candidate is not a “candidate,” for the purpose of this statute, when that candidate “is traveling on behalf of another political committee (such as a political party committee or Senate leadership PAC).” Instead, where a candidate claims to be traveling “on behalf of” their own leadership PAC, or one of the many committees controlled by their political party, or any other political committee—the old rules apply, allowing that candidate to pay the price of a commercial air ticket instead of the price of the private plane the candidate is actually flying on.

To make matters worse, FEC Chairman Walther published a statement explaining his decision to provide the necessary fourth vote for the final rule put forth by his three Republican colleagues on the FEC. Preposterously, Chairman Walther cited comments filed in the rulemaking proceeding by the Campaign Legal Center, together with Democracy 21, suggesting that we support this new rule gutting HLOGA. Chairman Walther wrote: “The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 agreed and indicated their support for ‘retain[ing] the existing reimbursement rate structure for non-candidate travel.’” (emphasis added). While we did support retaining the old rate for non-candidate travel, nowhere in our comments did we suggest that candidates should be considered to be engaging in non-candidate travel through the simple expedient of claiming that they are flying “on behalf of” their leadership PAC or other federal political committee. Chairman Walther should know better.

Candidate travel is candidate travel—period.

The FEC’s new rule illegally contradicts the plain meaning of the statute. Unfortunately, gutting or ignoring federal law—that Commissioners would have written differently themselves—has become a recurring habit for the FEC. In an earlier rulemaking, the FEC gutted the intent of another key aspect of HLOGA, allowing lobbyists to easily evade required reporting of bundled campaign contributions.

Provision of non-commercial travel by corporations (and unions) to members of Congress or federal candidates is simply more legalized corruption.

So I wonder how long it will be before enough members of Congress step up to close this loophole by updating the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act. Days? Weeks? Next century?

As we all know, the nation has been alive with discourse of all flavors over the current state of the health care system and the insurance industry. Recently, Senator Baucus has brought forth his proposal, dubbed by some critics (rightly so, in my opinion) the “Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act.”

Please listen: The very reason we need the government to intervene is because millions of us have a Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. Private industry has already proven that it cannot be trusted to look out for its bottom line and simultaneously safeguard and maintain the health of the American people, even if some of us are misguidedly rallying in the streets against our interests at the urgings of their preferred Chicken Littles of media and industry.

It is my belief that what needs to be accomplished is the affirmation of every American citizen’s right to a basic level of health, security and well-being above a private company’s right to make a profit, which it currently does in part by conveniently discounting and disregarding its customers’ human rights at its whims. Private insurers need to know, as my mother would say, that “your rights stop where another one’s starts.”

Legislation that hands millions of new customers directly over to health insurers, who have made clear that they give their profit motives precedence over honoring their commitments to their policyholders, sometimes with deadly consequences, is simply a conversion of taxpayer money into more income for the industry and a tacit acceptance of its horrific business practices.

As a taxpayer, I have no qualms about the cost of health care reform–I consider it our duty to one another as citizens, as a community, and as a nation. How do you think it looks when Washington puts us all further in hock frivolously throwing money down the toilets of the banking industry, tax cuts for the rich, and Iraq, to cite a few recent examples (our last president tried to flush Social Security as well), and then tries to tell us that we’re not entitled to a health care system that won’t be tainted by continued rewards to an industry with no reservations about flipping us the middle finger and leaving us for dead when we dare get sick? Why are regular people being taught to accept the ever-growing obligations to war, to creditors, and to failed industry, and at the same time not to make an across-the-board investment in one another as this nation’s human capital: workers; thinkers; doers; entrepreneurs; taxpayers; human beings?

I am free to help pay your medical bills, and those of my grandparents, and for those of us in states of extraordinary need, but not for a system that’s going to be there for me, free from the tentacles and inflated costs of private interests, even if I don’t have the right job, the right friends, a trust fund, a winning Powerball ticket, or the good fortune to remain healthy and free of accidents between now, at the age of 29, and my 65th birthday, should I find myself again without income or coverage?

Is continued corporate captivity the thanks we are going to get from our representatives for supporting them with our votes and paying for their salaries, benefits and pension plans? We not only sacrifice our own salaries, benefits and pension plans (and for many of us, our homes) for others’ bad decisions and greed, but now we can expect to be groomed to accept some compromise from Capitol Hill that may or may not improve our lives while the jackpots continue to flow upward?

A hostile climate has been created for every working person in this country. We have been told for years by the powerful, privileged and obscenely well-compensated that we are going to have to do things like “tighten our belts” and “weather the storm” (or, as some have called it, the “rough patch”). We’ve individually and collectively been subjected to repeated assaults on our financial well-being, our employment opportunities, our civil rights, our health and our futures by an ever more demanding section of the population so far insulated from what we are truly facing. One can turn on the television and at any given time watch a politician, executive, “industry expert” or news reporter talk about our right to access affordable health care, even though they themselves would never fathom or accept such treatment, as though United States citizens were no better than numbers on a balance sheet or some rogue band of freeloaders trying to burgle the upper class.

We all know who is really being burgled.

Let me tell you something: I don’t care to hear what anybody in a position of privilege has to say unless they have truly done their homework or they have first-hand life experience to back it up. I don’t care if some insurance executive is going to have to postpone the construction of his exact replica of the M.C. Hammer mansion in Dubai if he doesn’t get some additional payoff from the American public. I’ve got skin in the game here, too, and you and the rest of our representatives have the opportunity to come through with flying colors for me and for my fellow citizens. We’re all counting on you, even those of us who don’t know it or won’t admit it because it wouldn’t fit their politics or their way of thinking to do so.

We as Americans need to join the rest of the West in providing each other, across income, party and racial lines, with a guarantee of basic care not as some so-called “middle-class entitlement,” as I have heard wafting condescendingly out of the windpipes of more than one multimillionaire, but as a long-overdue recognition of our needs and our rights, and perhaps the making of amends over the treatment so many of us have endured from entities that have been allowed growing and crippling control over the quality, course, and length, of our lives.

If a strong stand is not ultimately taken on our behalf, it will be a damning and ominous indicator of what this country truly thinks of me, my neighbors, my family, my friends, and the rest of my fellow citizens. I implore you: Keep an irrevocable public option on the table and stick to your guns on it. To be blunt, some of your colleagues absolutely will do their best to beat you over the head with whatever you do, so you might as well make it worth doing in the first place and roll with the punches so that we, as a nation, will come out better for it. I don’t want something for nothing, as the elites would put it–I want something better for what I have put in and will continue to put in, and the people of this nation have more than paid for it in service to their employers, their families, their communities, their country–and some with their lives.

Thank you,
A. N. Cargo
Denver, Colorado (CO-01)

You’ve been taking a beating in the local press recently. Your lack of town hall meetings on health care reform during the August recess appears to be unpopular.

I’ll be honest. I haven’t paid a tremendous amount of attention to the health care “debate”. It’s summer. I’m busy. And frankly, i’ve assumed from the start that the final product will be well less than this nation needs. It won’t be a national health care plan, the solution that’s at least 50 years too late already. GM may not have needed to be bailed out/purchased if we had a health care system like every other developed nation, but we all knew that such a system wasn’t a possible result, so why bother getting worked up by whatever result we get?

I’ve assumed that the best i can hope for is to be required to buy an over-priced, under-covered private insurance plan. (Please feel free to prove me wrong, and i realize that you’re not capable of producing the result single-handedly.) Major American industries set to be reformed have an amazing track record of coming out ahead in the process. Honestly, i have better things to do than wait around for a kiss in this type of situation.

But if i were you, i wouldn’t be holding any town halls gone wild on the matter either. I don’t know what kind of ignorant insanity has gripped this nation, but i fear that it could be contagious. Apparently, a three-cornered hat, a Chinese made “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, and a Glock strapped to your hip is all you need to channel the wisdom of the founders. And over health care reform no less. Where was this when PATRIOTs I and II were passed, or FISA, or the fool’s errands in Afghanistan and Iraq, or the give away of the treasury to a certain bank which shall remain nameless?

We’re not seeing patriots defending their freedom. I’m not really sure what we’re seeing. I keep hoping that it will turn out to be a Monty Python sketch, but i fear that Franklin’s statement to the Convention is closer to the truth.

“Socialism” is the watch word. The fear of socialism is enough to turn what should be open communication between constituents and representatives into the political equivalent of professional wrestling. It’s enough to bring out the guns. I suggest that you propose a bill that requires every recipient of Social Security, disability, unemployment, WIC, the Bridge Card, Medicare, Medicaid, and government subsidies of any sort to write a 1500-word essay before the checks are sent. The essay will define socialism; compare and contrast it with other systems; provide current and historical examples; and examine ways in which socialism may (or may not) co-exist with democracy, capitalism and free markets.

And that’s my compromise position. In the world of Tyrannous Lex, such an exercise would be required for even conversational use of the word.

You’re probably not getting many “keep up the good work” letters these days. But this voter completely understands your position on this matter. As they say on the internet, don’t feed the trolls.

Best of luck on your return to the fetid swamp of philosophical depravity that is our nation’s capitol,

Lex