very recently the Supreme Court decided to strike down the overall
cap on donations two candidates making even
easier for the rich to influence our elections
and much more important and more ominous than
that the were in the strength and
is very limited version and is very limited definition
up corruption and what would seem to be corruption to many of us no longer
qualifies as such to the Supreme Court
and you can be damn shore that definition is gonna be used in future
rulings to take away even more
up the caption regulations on massive donations
but to give you an idea how dangerous this is let's do a little case study
together we're gonna look at a man
you might have heard his name before his name is Sheldon adults and he's a major
contributor
to republican up political %uh policies and also to
individual candidates and recently just about a week ago
something happened where his at casinos the stock price went up and he made in a
very short pretenders couple days
2.1 billion dollars he's not worth 2.1 billion dollars is worth far more than
that but he made the in just a couple of days
now let's take a look at what he would be able to do with that money
if he was to decide to donate a whole bunch of its republican politicians
he could give a million dollars to every single republican house and senate
candidate in every single election cycle
for the next one hundred and seventy years no million dollars for a senate
Canada is not by itself enough to win an election but it's a damn good start and
it's a very good start for a
House candidate he could do that with just the money he made that last week
alone
to put it in a more recent historical perspective
the 2.1 billion dollars he gained over those two days
is more than four times the total amount of money former Massachusetts governor
Mitt Romney spent in his unsuccessful bid for the White House
in 2012 mirror on the spending $433 million dollars an astronomical amount
of money for any politician to spend
he could find that three times over just what he made
in that previous week and again so what did he actually do this is hypothetical
what he really do
in the 2012 election he spent about a hundred and fifty million dollars
seeking to influence elections
so when we talk about the potential damage to the supreme court has done and
will continue to do
to our democracy and the potential damage that these massively wealthy
Republican donors
can it can make single-handedly we're not talking about small sums of money
we're talking about
historic almost unimaginable sums of money that they could spend
of class back to camp but I'm not nothing
get to get going I'm so but but what happens now is I'm thinking a
will talk to all the different ways he could've spit and
we could implode and we could have bought let's get real a
I was thinking of what can you do about in communities will be to do with
schools kids education system things that actually save our country
$250 million it's been a while I mean I know that the other hypothetical were
based on
the 2.1 billion added to that were
by the way again and we've got about forty billion right now give amazing
I mean I was traffic okay if I had enough money that idly couldn't
big up enough ways to spend it how
could I do something to change at least my just my little country
the outside world I'm so I mean ago things like that where you can actually
see
with schools can be shaped maybe but people on this project for each one is
cool
dog just one lady school minutemen up least that sustains a big part of it to
get something going. we try to change
something in the country maybe I'm not you know a giving enough to do that
today
that Bo who revealed about the stabbing you kept thinking any other ways to
spend a wide
what does it hurt to back to try and change the country for
for the better what I mean to get back well they do for you
well obviously you're not chill the name and obviously Sheldon Adelson is not you
are the vast majority of people in the vast majority people would say
you know oh yeah I actually get a tax break from all this stuff so I'm gonna
give it to some
sometime people to help them do better but that's not what shell Nelson is
about I'm sure he does it
only for the tax deduction and I'm right from what I understand when
all I love the the potential Republican candidates for president
went to Vegas to sort about him then and kiss the feeder
above the God of money Sheldon Adelson you know that that he was looking to see
who is going to be most helpful to him to make money
not because he thinks oh this'll be great for the country it'll be great for
Sheldon Adelson
and that i think is and at the core why this campaign finance rules while they
weren't very good
actually help to sort of hold back the tide over the oligarchy and now you know
as you said a
have the string spring court is dismantling these protections one by one
and we are rapidly losing any control over that so that's why wont bash pack
tax
what you have well dash pack dot com yeah i everybody tries out drug abuse
but I hear you over there doing shots are demanding other pressing on the
light that if the only think about is
then creating more be the last year billions of dollars you not doing
anything anymore isn't that depressing
same other know even tho mounting your yep
as so %uh so I i mentioned in the beginning in the stories are the
definitions and I want to be a little bit clear about that and so
corruption by itself could mean a lot of different things and and
over the course of history especially since about nineteen sixty-three it's
meant
a couple different things to the Supreme Court and see you can imagine
serve a bright giving money directly to a politician in respect in response team
say I will do such-and-such for you to give me the money
obviously that's corruption but also donating $10 million dollars to
candidates that war chest and then having some meetings with him
saw a bit different now what is corruption the Supreme Court in their in
their McEachin ruling seems to believe
that only the most explicitly clear and
comic book version up corruption is
actually corruption in the eyes of the Supreme Court in the eyes of the
candidate in the eyes
up the population they said giving all this money
it doesn't even create the appearance of corruption.
that's just demonstrably not true I feel like it's pretty and corrupt I think I
can get a few other people perhaps an audience to corroborate me so
apparently it does create the appearance of corruption
and that's a relief as I've been working on a bit of an idea because we have a
lot of rights that are stipulated in the serb in the
that the Constitution and so they'll say that you know if money is speech which I
don't agree with but if money is speech
than giving a bunch of money is exercising your freedom of speech but we
know
the freedom of speech is not unlimited you can scream fire in a crowded theater
and the reason you can't is because that would do harm
if this is speech even if you believe that bullshit argument then perhaps
giving unlimited money would cause harm as well
you have a right to bear arms in this country but if somebody had a gun
that if you pulled the trigger would blow up the entire country
we wouldn't let them keep that gun I don't care what's in the second
amendment
and I think that the disparity between a regular gun in that gun is no larger
than the disparity between
this speech on average American and a man like Sheldon Adelson who can't fund
every election for the next two centuries they create not at the
University
exactly in no longer means anything like what the founders thought it would mean
when they
wrote those are those rights into the bill of rights and so
I think that even if you believe their framing that its speech
it obviously speech that could be regulated because the demonstrable harm
that is doing to american democracy
and one last thing about that just remember that the
mainstream corporate media is going to get a huge payday
outta this McEachin ruling that there's gonna be a ton of TV ads that are gonna
on flood the airwaves
between now and the 2013 and from there on out so united by a whole lot I think
negative coverage about it yeah and that they need that money okay if your gonna
put a reporter in a
a flight simulator pretending he's on $3.70 per couple months back of the lot
of money
okay me though that it offers than that to build more viewership
you can you know you advise like you know how much have years we've had
during the stretch last year it was something I can't be money is you I mean
had money and and focus back to making money now that we hold what should
people getting real estate in the out with
open homeless people get rich and poor clean up the average American any also
doesn't even have a benefit
overworking democratic government fall back on