Dark Money Doesn't Buy Freedom, It Stifles It

Dark Money Doesn't Buy Freedom, It Stifles It:

"Money, according to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, should be considered merely a tool that facilitates "free speech" under the First Amendment. The decision infamously extended unlimited dark money political spending even to corporations. In her prodigiously documented and riveting book, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, Jane Mayer provides an historical account of how Charles and David Koch tenaciously built a network among the wealthiest people in the United States to buy elections and influence public policy. In just one telling fact, Mayer provides a glimpse into the oligarchical impact on elections that the Koch network and other rich individuals and corporations are having: The 100 biggest known donors in 2014 spent nearly as much money on behalf of their candidates as the 4.75 million people who contributed $200 or less. On their own, the top 100 known donors gave $323 million. And this was only the disclosed money. Once the millions of dollars in unlimited, undisclosed dark money were included, there was little doubt that an extraordinarily small and rich conservative clique had financially dominated everybody else. As a "former family friend" of the Koch brothers said of Charles (as quoted by Jane Mayer), "Maybe he confused making money with freedom." The Kochs are self-styled libertarians. David even ran for vice president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980. This was an indicator of how extremist the Kochs and their billionaire and multi-millionaire cohorts are. After all, David was running on a ticket that was opposing Ronald Reagan, the successful Republican candidate that year and the reigning presidential deity of the GOP. The Kochs were well-positioned to take advantage of the 2010 Citizens United ruling, having for years championed and donated to right-wing think tanks, public policy front organizations and academic "free market" learning centers and legal scholarship."