Ever since five of the most corrupt members to ever sit on the Supreme Court decided to legislate from the bench and foist the corrupt Citizens United decision/abomination on the country, there's been an ongoing debate. The debate has centered around whether Citizens United has really had that much of an effect.
There are even folks on this site who have claimed that, overall, Citizens United hasn't really had the disastrous consequences that many had feared. This particular kossack has been skeptical about whether or not that's true.
Then, comes a story today from Michael Isikoff, writing for Yahoo's politics page, about $1.5 million in secret money from just one person (a person who happens to be the richest in all of Wisconsin). The article
https://www.yahoo.com/...
That's $1.5 million more that Scott Walker had to purchase himself another term in the governor's office that we didn't know about until now. The larger question is this: How many more millions of dollars were spent on behalf of Scott Walker, and other Republicans throughout the country, in 2014 that we still don't know about?
The answer: we'll probably never know, since Citizens United has opened the floodgates for unlimited amounts of this kind of secret money.
Now, a lot of political pundits, including liberal ones, will continue to whitewash the influence of Citizens United money by claiming that they somehow know that it all evens out in the end (even though they don't really know, since nobody, not even they, know exactly how much dark money has been lavished on Republicans throughout the country since the Citizens United money-laundering scam perpetrated by those five corrupt Supreme Court Injustices (Antonin Scalia, Sam Alito, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts).
To my way of thinking, something doesn't smell right.
Citizens United first unleashed all of this corrupt money in 2010. That's when the Tea Party movement, funded by the wealthy monied elites like the Koch brothers, first started. As we all know, that election was devastating for Democrats.
Then, again, in 2014, unlimited amounts of money through Citizens United helped Republicans throughout the country simply saunter on in and purchase themselves political offices. Their political victories in 2014 were not only as great but, many would argue, even greater in 20014 than in 2010, meaning that Republicans and their oligarchic puppet-masters appear to be getting better and better at bundling all of that Citizens United money for maximum benefit.
Sure, there are examples of where all of that unlimited Citizens United money hasn't been used wisely, but it appears that they are getting better and better at utilizing it for maximum advantage.
It appears that this country is going backwards, as far as campaign finance and the influence of money in politics. The only way to stop this backward slide is to get rid of Citizens United. And the only hope of doing so any time soon is to ensure we have a Democrat appointing the next Supreme Court justice.