It’s not even worth getting
worked up about anymore…Dems win big in high voter turnout elections; lower
turnout favors the GOP.So the GOP has won big in the
midterms and they’ve taken control of state and local houses too. They’ve also
consolidated a number of Governor’s seats. That
was a surprise!
Because Sam Brownback put forward
legislation that slashed taxes, but also contributed to a huge budget shortfall
in Kansas. Yet they voted him in again and that’s not all. They also re-elected a
Congressman from Staten Island, Michael Grimm, who is currently facing
indictment on 19 counts of tax fraud. And in Florida, my home state, Rick Scott
was considered one of the most vulnerable and least popular Governors in the
Nation. Yet he won a narrow margin of victory.
Rick Scott poured millions of dollars of his
own money into the race in the final days. And Florida became one of the most
expensive races in the country. That’s saying a lot. 4 billion dollars in total
was spent on this election cycle. All of
this occurred in order to bring us the same old group of players: John Boehner,
Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were all re-elected as leaders of
their respective parties in Congress.
And the Koch Brothers? Instead
of simply wasting money on ad campaigns, they worked behind the scenes in many
states, including Florida, and funneled undisclosed amounts of dark money to
seed the ground game for 2016. While governors like Rick Scott worked
tirelessly above ground to continue his get-out-of-the-voting booth campaign,
the Koch brothers astutely worked below the radar to fund lots of undisclosed
organization groups. We’ll never know, thanks to Citizens United. It turns out
we have the best government that money can buy. That is, dark money funneled in
through undisclosed sources.
It’s the Perfect Storm. And
until the Citizens actually do unite
and rise up against the Corporate Takeover of our Political system, we have only
ourselves to blame. As Barney Frank so astutely pointed out, “These people didn’t
just suddenly parachute through the roof of the Capitol Dome. They were voted in to office!” It’s not just
Kansas that I have a funny feeling about these days. I have a feeling we’re
never going to be back in Kansas again. Thanks to dark money and Citizens
United, we may never return to a government duly elected by the people, made up of
the people and elected to enact laws for
the people.
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