Taking Care of the Formalities

From AP:

The Supreme Court's conservative majority voted Wednesday to free wealthy donors to give to as many political candidates and campaigns as they want, further loosening the reins on giving by big contributors as the 2014 campaign moves into high gear.

It was a fresh declaration by the 5-4 majority that many limits on big-money contributions violate the givers' constitutional free-speech rights, continuing a steady erosion of the restrictions under Chief Justice John Roberts. The biggest of those rulings was the 2010 decision in the Citizens United case that lifted restrictions on independent spending by corporations and labor unions.
Wednesday's ruling voided the overall federal limit on individuals' contributions — $123,200 in 2013 and 2014 — and may have more symbolic than substantive importance in a world in which millions in unlimited donations from liberal and conservative spenders already are playing a major role in campaigns.
The ruling will allow the wealthiest contributors to pour millions of dollars into candidate and party coffers, although those contributions will be subject to disclosure under federal law, unlike much of the big money that independent groups spend on attack ads.
The early beneficiaries could be the political parties, which have lost influence amid the rise of independent spending, and challengers who may have been cut off from getting money from wealthy contributors who previously hit the cap that the court invalidated Wednesday.
Roberts said the aggregate limits do not act to prevent corruption or the appearance of corruption, the rationales the court has upheld as justifying contribution limits.
The overall limits "intrude without justification on a citizen's ability to exercise 'the most fundamental First Amendment activities'," Roberts said, quoting from the court's seminal 1976 campaign finance ruling in Buckley v. Valeo. By contrast, Roberts said the individual or "base limits remain the primary means of regulating campaign contributions."

Because, you know, without being able to buy a large number of politicians, you end up with a dangerous system where caveat emptor is the rule:

according to close associates of the conservative Las Vegas casino magnate who told WaPo's Matea Gold and Phil Rucker that “the bar for support is going to be much higher" in terms of who Adelson decides to back in the 2016 Republican field in 2016. That's a decidedly consequential decision given that Adelson and his wife, Miriam, donated $93 million to super PACs in the 2012 election -- making them the biggest givers in the political world. (That $93 million only counts donations Adelson made to groups that must disclose their donors; it does not include contributions to groups that are not required to disclose the identity of their donors; that means his actual donations during 2012 was likely far higher than $93 million.)All told, the Adelsons spread that $93 million around to 17 different groups -- with their donations ranging from $30 million down to $250,000. Thanks to the good people at the Center for Responsive Politics, we can break down what went where.

But the best part is that his goal was to defeat Obama, and guess who won. However, next time is another chance to close the deal, and Adelson wasn't even waiting for the Supreme Court to rewrite the rules to improve the efficacy of his "political activism":

On Friday night in Las Vegas, Sheldon Adelson pulled up to his private airplane hangar in twin powder-blue Maybach limousines. (The second was for his bodyguards.) Inside, the rich and right-wing were gathered to hear from Jeb Bush, a private audience whose exclusivity seemed to signal the former Florida governor's privileged position in the suck-up contest.

Three other Republican leaders—New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and Ohio Governor John Kasich—were consigned to the public program of the event, which was ostensibly a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition. But everybody knew what it was really about: impressing Adelson. Like the daughters of King Lear, or the cast of Mean Girls, each sought to outdo the others in his fawning. Christie told of his recent trip to Israel, which, he noted, is "about the same size as New Jersey." Walker mentioned he owns a menorah. Kasich dispensed with the pretense of speaking to the roomful of Republican Jews and addressed his remarks to Adelson directly, as in, “Hey, listen, Sheldon, thanks for inviting me.”

There was also a Scotch tasting, a poker tournament, and a gala dinner featuring former Vice President Dick Cheney, who defended the National Security Agency and railed against isolationism.

You know what's amazing about this, besides the fact that so-called "real 'Mericans" put the interests of a foreign nation ahead of the interests of their native land, is that John Kasich, who is a giant douche, is a compassionate human being next to all the other dirtbag motherfuckers clamoring for the leadership of the mental and moral midgets who make up the Republican party.  God help this country that nearly hlaf the population supports these total shitheads.  I guess the moral of the story is that even though Sheldon Adelson doesn't get what he pays for, we all pay the price for having almost half the population detached from reality.