The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Most importantly, as I've written about previously, the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling in 2010 was awful for this country. Think people were fed up by big money in politics before the ruling? Of receiving seemingly countless fliers in the mail? Of seeing nothing put campaign commercials during dinner? Of thinking their voices meant little to nothing? Well, after the ruling, things just got worse on all of those fronts. Campaign spending increased, and with that, so too did the release of fliers and television ads, not to mention people's voices began feeling even smaller than before. But, while the ruling was awful for the country as a whole, it's also been awful for the Democratic Party. The Republican Party wasn't phased a great deal by the ruling. They've increasingly become the party of the top 1%, so to them, what would better give them a chance come election day than providing that very top 1% unlimited contribution capability? For the Democratic P...

After $4 billion was spent this election season and under 38% of eligible voters voted in the midterm elections yesterday, with control of the Senate swapping parties as a result, I think it's safe to say our political system is broken. We can try to call this a democracy all we'd like, but when between roughly 1/3 and 1/2 of eligible voters tend to decide this country's future, and are often times influenced by millions of dollars corporations spend misleading them, I'm sorry, but this isn't a democracy. For the most part, the people no longer decide; money decides. With a big helping hand from the Supreme Court and the Citizen's United ruling, this once proud "democracy" (or republic, I suppose) is becoming an oligarchy, and as sad as it is to say, it appears as if most people don't seem to realize or care about this. Many have given up any hope of having a legitimate voice in the election process, because their voice counts for just one vote, ...

One reason I really hope that the Democratic Party kicks some serious tail tomorrow night in the elections is the Citizens United ruling. In this election cycle, $628,942,928 has been spent by Super PACs. Among the top five Super PAC spenders are three conservative-leaning groups: American Crossroads, Restore Our Future and Americans for Prosperity, whom have spent a combined $355,098,737. The two liberal-leaning groups - Priorities USA and Majority PAC - have spent a combined $104,905,151, or 29.5% of the there conservative-leaning groups. For the presidential election, Super PACs have spent a combined $556,746,117. When it comes to President Obama, $25,889,820 has been spent in support of him and $137,772,488 against Romney. On the flip-side, for Governor Romney, $90,957,779 has been spent in support of him and $290,006,064 against the president. So, the ratio of anti-Romney to pro-Romney spending by Super PACs is at roughly 1.5 : 1. However, the ratio of anti-Obama to pro-Obama sp...