2007 . Supreme Court loosens restrictions on campaign advertising.
2008. Congress mulling bills allowing corporations' direct donations to
candidates.
2010 and Continuing. Supreme Court rules in favor of selling elections leading to all sorts of contrivances to collect and conceal private funds for public office, such as Super PACs, less super PACS, dark money, secret money, outside spending, unlimited spending, and soft money.
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Mud Slinging
Politicians campaigning for public office often act like schoolyard brats in their name calling, taunting and jousting. The campaign advertising for the 2012 election cycle reportedly has been the most negative ever. So-called "attack ads" were used more than 60% of the time. [10]
Once In the Chambers
Bad Behavior Nosedives Even Deeper
Winning the election doesn't stop the bad behavior; it nosedives deeper below "the universal bottom line of behavior" (below which are all incompetent, slothful, and unethical actions of human beings that range from the mostly harmless to the deadly). The maleficent campaigners simply become more maleficent office holders. They are now occupying seductive positions in which they routinely get corrupting expectations and pressures from their corporate sponsors. The victorious campaigners have acquired power, but it is power their sponsors both control and milk, largely through their swarming touts.
The 535
"To my mind," Mark Twain said in 1873, "Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman."
And as the French always say, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." It doesn't matter which era, which session, the 535 "pol"ecats in Congress stink, some worse than others, a very, very few hardly or not at all. The more odious are the twin parties, which mean all but a handful of two or so legislators.
The Twin Parties
If you look for mention of any political parties in the U.S. Constitution you won't find it. The Framers disdained the very notion, warning that political parties simply invite factionalism and could create all sorts of mischief and civil strife. How prescient they were! The U.S. was governed for over 20 years before the first political parties emerged.
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