The Shame of American Politics: GOP Presidential Hopefuls now Trek to Las Vegas seeking Adelson Bles

http://www.juancole.com/2014/03/politics-presidential-blessing.html

The Shame of American Politics: GOP Presidential Hopefuls now Trek to Las Vegas seeking Adelson Blessing
By Juan Cole | Mar. 30, 2014

A series of pro-corporation Supreme Court decisions and the latter’s disingenuous equation of money with speech, including “Citizens United”, have turned the United States from a democracy to a plutocracy. It is not even a transparent plutocracy, since black money (of unknown provenance) has been allowed by SCOTUS to flood into elections. These developments are not only deadly to democracy, they threaten US security. It is increasingly difficult to exclude foreign money from US political donations. We not only come to be ruled by the billionaires, but even by foreign billionaires with foreign rather than American interests at heart.

The most frightening scenario is for corrupt money to dictate our politics. Casinos may no longer be mobbed up the way they were in the 1950s and 1960s, but they ( http://tinyurl.com/k7jy544 ) are still significantly implicated in government corruption.

The perniciousness of this growing plutocracy was on full display on Saturday, as GOP governors Scott Walker, Chris Christie and John Kasich trekked off to Las Vegas in an attempt to attract hundreds of millions in campaign donations from sleazy casino lord Sheldon Adelson. Since Adelson is allegedly worth $37 billion, he could fund the Republican side of a presidential election (which costs $1 billion) all by himself. In the last presidential election he is said to have donated $100 million.

There is no way to mince words here. These practices are absolutely disgusting.