Alison Lundergan Grimes and Kentuckians Swamped by Corporate Dark Money

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Democrats rightly express pride when they out-raise their corporate-friendly Republican opponents. After all, we’re the Party of the Individual – the little guy, the downtrodden facing the rapacious behemoth. We are all, in some way, Alison Lundergan Grimes facing Mitch McConnell and the corporate money machine.

But Bloomberg Politics is reporting that “record Wall Street money flows to Republicans.” Max Abelson at Bloomberg reported on October 31 that, “The $169 million from donors in the securities and investment industry is the most they’ve ever contributed in a midterm election, according to Center for Responsive Politics data.”

And The Center of Public Integrity reports that, “flush with mystery money,” a mysterious “Kentucky nonprofit haunts Grimes’ Senate bid.”

Yes, our country is for sale, and the enemy is not the Chinese. It is Republicans, like Mitch McConnell, willing to raffle off their states – and its citizens – to the highest corporate bidder.

The Center’s Michael Beckel writes,

Hunt for the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, and one finds no grassroots army, no canvassing operation, no office or headquarters at all — just a scuffed U.S. Postal Service box nestled inside a suburban shopping plaza about 10 miles from downtown Louisville.

The Kentucky Opportunity Coalition represents the method by which we have had our democracy co-opted by big money. Why, if you do not vote, you may soon not have a vote.

As Beckel explains this mysterious entity,

Despite having effectively no physical presence, the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition now ranks among the largest social welfare nonprofits in Kentucky — bringing in more money, according to Internal Revenue Service records, than some of Kentucky’s more high-profile nonprofits, such as the Kentucky School Boards Association and the Kentucky Derby Festival, the group behind two weeks’ worth of events surrounding the Kentucky Derby.

Thank, in part, the loosened rules on corporate electioneering following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision for Kentucky Opportunity Coalition’s unexpected rise. Certain types of donor-shielding nonprofit corporations may now raise unlimited funds to advocate for and against federal political candidates, not only in Kentucky, but in any race.

Running things for this group? Former Bush and McConnell man, Scott Jennings, who told the Center for Public Integrity,

“The Kentucky Opportunity Coalition seeks to bring about long-term positive change with fewer additional regulatory burdens and taxes. Its activities are all geared toward that mission.”

So states rights are inviolate, apparently, until Republicans have the opportunity to sell them. We are told by Republicans that the federal government will override our local values, but it is corporations who are overpowering the voters, not Washington.

Mitch McConnell, like every other Republican, is pointing at Washington while they take fistfuls of cash under the table – and sell you, the voter, into corporate slavery.

With Jennings’ assistance, the group, he said, has spent $14 million since the beginning of 2013 — nearly as much money as Grimes has raised — though Jennings is quick to assert that “much of the advertising was of an issue nature and has no connection to any election.”

“But,” as the Center for Public Integrity makes clear, “records show the group has reported more than $7.1 million to the FEC for expenditures that “expressly advocate” for election of McConnell or defeat of Grimes.”

And this means if Republican candidates want Washington to keep its hands off their states – though they love suckling the public teat themselves, of course, whenever earmarks are to be had – they do want to whore themselves – and their citizens – to as many corporations as they can. Of course, while they get the money, you get the…well, you get the drift.

The Kentucky Opportunity Coalition isn’t telling where it’s money is coming from. Suffice it to say it is not coming from Kentucky. Like Mitch McConnell buses in supporters, he also buses in outside money.

This is dark money, and it is safe to say, as did Randy Kroll recently on Mother Jones, that not only is “2014 is on pace to be the Year of Dark Money,” but “the dark-money apocalypse is upon us.”

It is certainly upon Alison Lundergan Grimes and her fellow Kentuckians.

All Republicans have to do in exchange for their largesse is promise corporations that they will make money in their state. And that you won’t. That corporations can, with impunity, lift their collective legs and water you like a fire hydrant. That you won’t have a voice when you can no longer feed your family, when your air is unbreathable and your water undrinkable, your children are dying from the effects of their pollution, and you have no healthcare with which to save them.

This isn’t just an election they are buying, but the future. Wall Street says its their future.

As Bloomberg relates:

“If Wall Street is in fact the largest contributor to the midterms, it is precisely because of its true concern for the future of our country,” said Dan Lufkin, who co-founded investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and has donated to candidates from both parties. “Wall Street, in its many forms, has as its operative word ‘the future.'”

But it’s your future too. And why should Wall Street get to decide your future. Look what happened to you last time they decided your future:

2008. The Great Recession. Jobs lost. Homes foreclosed. Futures destroyed. Not theirs. Yours.

They get their future at the expense of yours.

Republicans like McConnell accuse women of just “wanting stuff,” while they show what wanting stuff is really all about with the brazenness of Vegas hookers.

The difference between hookers and Republicans though is that hookers, at least, are honest about what you are getting. And people like McConnell are not just prostituting themselves, but they are pimping you, your families, and your children as well.

Remember that tomorrow, when you go to the polls.

Image by Hrafnkell Haraldsson

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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