Supreme Court ‘s “Money doesn't Corrupt” theory trashed again, as Congress Hides Pay to Play Junkets from the Public.

While the rabid right is distracted by lawsuits and the possible impeachment of our corrupt imperial president, their conservative elected representatives are increasing the power and influence by piling away, unreported, lavish junkets from their wealthy contributors to do their bidding. It's an old magicians trick.

Republicans couldn't make it any more obvious about the influence of money on our political elite! The following admission leaves little doubt. TPM:

House Secretly Kills Disclosure Of Junkets By Congress Members: The House Ethics Committee has quietly done away with the requirement that lawmakers disclose their all-expense-paid trips on annual financial forms, National Journal reported on Monday. The disclosures had been required since the 1970s. Lawmakers must still disclose any privately-paid trips to the House clerk's office, but the financial disclosure form is the "chief document" that journalists and watchdog groups use to review members' finances, according to the Journal.

"This is such an obvious effort to avoid accountability," Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a top watchdog group, told the Journal. "There's no legitimate reason. There's no good reason for it."

Republicans deny Deception, happy to usher in Pay-to-Play Government!

Folks, it can happen here. We've been sold down the river:

jsonline-Patrick Marley: State election officials cleared the way Wednesday for lobbyists to deliver campaign checks from their clients and political action committees at any time, including while lawmakers deliberate the state budget and other major legislation … the state Government Accountability Board unanimously ruled that a law approved in March eliminated that prohibition … to hand off big campaign checks from special interest groups as legislators decide whether to tighten or loosen regulations affecting them.

Nice clean transparent government? I know that in a few years after Walker has left office, under a Democratic governor, Republicans will say they never did agree with such a corrupting law or bizarre interpretation.

Public outrage over the obvious pay to play proposal forced the Republicans to promised to pull that part of their bill...supposedly. But they tricked us:

…after introducing the bill, senators said they were backing off from that position, moving up the date only … But in recent weeks, officials (the GAB) determined the law said something other than what legislators claimed they intended.

It’s the old Republican bait and switch, and they pulled in on their own constituents too. 

...in a letter this week to the accountability board, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) urged the board to adopt the latest (pay-to-play) position of the Legislative Council.

Under the threat of being disbanded and replaced with a more partisan group overseeing elections, the GAB made the only decision they could:

WSJ: Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, accused lawmakers of ... bullying the GAB into agreeing with their interpretation of the law, despite a drafting error made in crafting the measure … the GAB originally said a drafting error in the legislation banned lobbyists from ever passing along others’ contributions to candidates.

But that interpretation drew criticism from Republican leaders in the Legislature and others … Vos and Fitzgerald argued that the language of the measure allows lobbyists to make most campaign contributions at any time … “We believe that this is the only logical interpretation of the statute, and fear that other interpretations could lead to confusion, inadvertent non-compliance, and costly litigation against the state,” Vos and Fitzgerald wrote.

That interpretation is different than how lawmakers described the measure as it was passing the Legislature and being signed into law. At the time, they said it was widening the time window for lobbyists’ contributions but leaving other rules the same.

They lied, and have found a new way to deceptively pass laws with no political blowback from voters.  

Charles Koch beating Harry Reid in Iowa? Moyers on our Slide into Oligarchy.

Bill Moyers' recent focus has been on income inequality and the rise of the oligarchs. Merriam Webster defines oligarch this way: "a person who belongs to a small group of people who govern or control a country, business, etc. "

Just more whining and needless fear mongering from losing liberal Democrats shut out by billionaire contributors? Well, if the picture to the right doesn't worry you at all, than we've got a real problem.

The conservative Washington Free Beacon found Charles Koch had an impressive lead over Sen. Reid in their imaginative matchup:

Iowa voters would back libertarian philanthropist Charles Koch by a hefty margin over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) in a hypothetical 2016 presidential race, according to a new Washington Free Beacon poll. The results are in keeping with earlier polls showing that Charles and his brother David Koch are more popular than Reid, despite the majority leader’s breathless campaign to portray the libertarian philanthropy barons as “un-American” and “against everything that’s good for America.” Voters may have tired of Reid’s deranged bluster about the Koch brothers trying to “buy our democracy” while his Super PAC raises money from a handful of liberal billionaires.

The Oligarchic point:

A study, to appear in the Fall 2014 issue of the academic journal Perspectives on Politics, finds that the U.S. is no democracy, but instead an oligarchy, meaning profoundly corrupt, so that the answer to the study’s opening question: "Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that … the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy." To put it short: The United States is no democracy, but actually an oligarchy.  

But then we kind of had bad feeling about the money pouring into campaigns, didn't we? Here's a much shortened, highlight version of Bill Moyers, with Paul Krugman. See the whole thing here: