The Supreme Court on Wednesday continued its crusade to knock down all barriers to the distorting power of money on American elections. In the court’s most significant campaign-finance ruling since Citizens United in 2010, five justices voted to eliminate sensible and long-established contribution limits to federal political campaigns.
On Wednesday, April 2, the United States Supreme Court ruled that any cap on the overall amount a person can spend to influence an election is unconstitutional. Following on the heels of the court's previous decision in Citizens United, the McCutcheon ruling will allow unlimited spending to influence our nation's political process. [...]
High-frequency trading (or “HFT”) is suddenly the financial market scandal of the day. Michael Lewis has published a book that was featured on Sunday in a 60 Minutes report and in a story in the New York Times Magazine. HFT is the use of high-powered computers, blazing fast connections with exchanges, and sophisticated trading algorithms to transact in time frames measured in milliseconds or shorter.
An elite class of wealthy donors who have gained mounting influence in campaigns now has the ability to exert even greater sway.
A Supreme Court decision Wednesday to do away with an overall limit on how much individuals can give candidates and political parties opens a new spigot for money to flow into campaigns already buffeted by huge spending from independent groups. [...]
Any doubts about the determination of an activist United States Supreme Court to rewrite election rules so that the dollar matters more than the vote were removed Wednesday, when McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission was decided in favor of the dollar. [...]
In the past four years, under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court has made it far easier to buy an election and far harder to vote in one. [...]
The Supreme Court on Wednesday released its decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the blockbuster money-in-politics case of the current term. The court's five conservative justices all agreed that the so-called aggregate limit on the amount of money a donor can give to candidates, political action committees, and political parties is unconstitutional.
Just days after 2016 GOP hopefuls traveled to Las Vegas to kowtow to billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, the Supreme Court has made it even easier for the ultra-rich to control elections. In McCutcheon v. FEC, the five conservative Justices ruled that aggregate limits in campaign contributions are unconstitutional. [...]
I've been complaining about the deduction for home mortgage interest for years, so it's hard to say to something bad about this tax break that I haven't said myself.
Talk about a missed opportunity. Last night, the New York State legislature passed a $137.9 billion budget for the upcoming year. Senate Deputy Republican Leader Thomas Libous lauded the effort and said, “We, at least, have done our job and the budget is complete." Not quite. The budget may be complete, but legislators certainly did not do their job.
Today's Republican Party does a great job of sticking up for rich people, which is ironic given that most wealthy Americans live in states and congressional districts that are represented by Democratic lawmakers -- which, of course, helps explain why Democrats also do such a good job of sticking up for rich people.
Think of it this way: The GOP is ideologically committed to defending the rich, even as it increasingly speaks for white voters of modest means, while the Democratic Party -- which represents much of affluent Ame
Roughly half of all U.S. families have no money set aside for retirement, Federal Reserve data show. Not a cent. But even that alarming savings deficit doesn't fully capture the emerging socioeconomic crisis facing what is, after all, a rapidly graying nation. [...]
Did you hear that one of the biggest banks in America just agreed to one of the biggest penalties ever for committing one of the biggest financial frauds in U.S. history? It happened just the other day and, no, chances are you didn't hear because the story was buried in the business section.
The bank is Bank of America. The penalty is $6.3 billion.
Despite the fact that Tennessee has one of the most restrictive photo ID requirements for voting in the nation, the state is rarely discussed when voter ID is the topic. However, Tennessee’s law will now allow college students to use their university identification cards to vote, just like in Texas and North Carolina, the poster children of voter ID. In each case, it seems, students decided they were tired of being unseen and unheard.
Remember when the Democrats won both houses on Congress in 2006, and everyone predicted that committee chairs like Henry Waxman would launch far-reaching investigations of the Bush Administration? It never happened, and not because of a lack of potential scandals to dig into. Democrats apparently didn't see much point in burying an already unpopular administration in subpoenas. Instead, they stayed relatively positive and won the presidency in 2008 by a healthy margin.
Our political class is feuding about whether Rep. Paul Ryan is a racist. Rather than fearing that this donnybrook degrades political discourse, we should welcome it.
Ryan sparked the controversy when he blamed poverty on “a tailspin of culture” in our “inner cities,” while invoking for support Charles Murray, notorious for postulating the genetic inferiority of blacks. Within hours, Rep. Barbara Lee rebuked Ryan for launching “a thinly veiled racial attack.”
