Guerrilla Plutocracy

Today's New York Times has an alarming report by Jonathan Weisman on a new development -- new to me at least -- in the annals of plutocracy in the United States. In this new phenomenon, guerrilla-style hit-and-run organizations pop up, pretend to be apolitical to get tax-exempt status, raise anonymously donated cash, spend the money on election attacks (always against Democrats), and then, faced with challenges from the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service, quietly shut down and disappear into the dark.

“I still don’t know who they are,” said John Spratt, the former chairman of the House Budget Committee, who lost his 2010 re-election bid after facing a deluge from one such group (called "Hope, Growth and Opportunity"). “It’s a classic case.”

Weisman also discusses what Republican senators did yesterday to preserve the ability of their patrons to help them without having to display their dirty hands.

Efforts to require more public accounting of campaign money hit a new roadblock Monday evening in the form of a Republican filibuster that stopped the Senate from formally debating it. The measure fell 9 votes short of the 60 required to clear the procedural hurdle, with no Republicans voting in favor.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, had earlier supported the need for disclosure, but now thinks differently.

Finally, from now on, I don't want to hear the idiotic notion that "both sides do it." The Democrats are clearly making a good-faith effort to get donor disclosure. Their motives are probably simple self-preservation, but they still are angels compared to the Republicans, who do not even have the decency to allow the issue to be debated on the Senate floor.