From The Daily Beast:
In this second midterm election since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, nonparty groups such as super PACs and politically active nonprofits have already spent nearly $31 million on these kinds of ads, three times more than they had dumped into congressional races at this point in the 2010 cycle.
It’s not just the amount of money pouring into states like North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Alaska that is startling. Voters are increasingly left in the dark about where it’s coming from. That’s because the “dark money” nonprofits, primarily 501(c)(4) social-welfare organizations and 501(c)(6) trade associations, neither of which must disclosure their donors, are playing an increasingly prominent role in the fight to control Congress. By themselves, they have already spent 75 percent more at this point than in the record-shattering 2012 cycle, in which they would ultimately spend a whopping $310 million. (emphasis mine)
The article goes on to quote a Democratic consultant saying that “the post-Citizens United gold rush is ‘the greatest windfall that ever happened for political operatives in American history.’”
American democracy is being swallowed up in a money laundering maze of a getaway car attempt to cover its tracks as the overthrow of elections is greeted with little more than a shrug from the alleged guardians of freedom.
When the Citizens United decision was handed down from Mt. What-The-Fuck?, the ACLU was quick to defend it, writing at the time, “Unfortunately, legitimate concern over the influence of “big money” in politics has led some to propose a constitutional amendment to reverse the decision. The ACLU will firmly oppose any constitutional amendment that would limit the free speech clause of the First Amendment.”
Good to know it’s all working out, and that the ACLU will be sure to oppose any amendment in the future to define corporations, foreign and domestic, as free speech impostors. Better to toil in the muddy fields of nitpicking national security methods and further depressing the vote for Al Gore 2000.
Evidently, the integrity of elections in America and the fight to control the free world just isn’t as sacred as protecting the integrity of ‘dark money’ in politics.
Money fight! You lose!