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Tuesday’s race was the first presidential election to take place since Citizens United, and campaign spending this cycle exceeded $6 billion. With fundraising split roughly evenly between the two major parties, it was inevitable that some donors wouldn’t be able to buy the electoral outcomes they were hoping for.
After an election season of climate silence that endured despite record-breaking temperatures and prolonged drought, not to mention Superstorm Sandy, President Obama stated in his victory speech that, we want our children to live in an America, “that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.” While it was a relief to hear the President acknowledge the threats we face from cliamte
As the election draws to a close, pundits and other race watchers are attempting to write the final word on the most expensive, secret, and billionaire-friendly election in history. Many are starting to take the position that in the end, the $6 billion in spending didn’t matter much because swing states voters got so saturated with ads that they tuned out. If the balance of power doesn’t change, some are even saying, that tsunami of spending will have been for naught.
The stories are horrifying. Without electricity, the poorest New Yorkers are unable to pay for food with food stamps. Public housing residents muddle through the night sans power, elevators and water.
Nikole Hannah-Jones has written an important article for ProPublica about how the Fair Housing Act has failed to reduce racial segregation in America's housing market since its passage in 1968 -- or more accurately, how the FHA has been failed by a bipartisan political consensus against activist integration policy from the federal level.