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OT: Fight Citizens United: Don't let corporations hide their political spending

The U.S. Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United v. FEC ruling has allowed corporate CEOs to unleash a torrent of secret corporate spending into our political system.

Indefensibly, CEOs are able to keep both the public and their own shareholders in the dark about the use of company funds for political ends.

This gives CEOs free rein to make political expenditures that they would never be able to justify publicly -- including campaigns so toxic they would inevitably tarnish the company's brand were the funding source made public.

And the results have been absolutely corrosive to our democracy.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is a federal agency, can require publicly traded companies to disclose the money they spend on politics. And they are accepting public comments on the merits of doing so.

You can find out more information and easily submit a comment at the link below.

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Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred
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I agree. This was a horrendous decision. Fortunately the huge expenditures by special interest groups proved futile in most cases, and mostly just stimulated the economy of advertising agents and TV stations.

Paul

Reply to
P E Schoen

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Those wishing their money worked harder than it did will also learn a great deal from those expenditures. And in two years things will be VERY DIFFERENT and far more effective than it was this time. They learned lessons, no question, and their impacts will be far more noticeable, two years hence. And then even more so, two years after that. They aren't idiots, rest assured.

One area is that they do a better job of "getting together" far more closely beforehand and working out ways to avoid hammering at each other, which they did this time.

Another fact is that in the next presidential election, less four years from now, the Democrats will be fighting each other in the primaries (they didn't have to, this time, so much money was conserved and there was no internal mudslinging going on) just as the Republicans did, this last election.

Situations will be different and lessons learned. Much closer working together and applying ideas learned from this bout is very likely, and very likely to be far more effective in years ahead.

The Supreme Court decision impacts will become of increasing concern over time, not less or stay the same.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Kirwan

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