AAR RIP

Four years ago today, we took a double hit on democracy. The Supreme Court issued its ruling on Citizens United vs FEC, and in one fell swoop, undid a century of campaign finance law and opened the floodgates for special interests to buy influence. Since then, a number of groups have mobilized, creating a movement toward a constitutional amendment to overturn this ruling that undermines democracy.

United for the People is an umbrella group comprised of the many organizations fighting to fix this monetary mess. One of the groups, Move to Amend, produced a documentary, Legalize Democracy, that will air tonight on Free Speech TV and FreeSpeech.org at 9ET.

Can’t watch tonight? Watch it now, right here:

The Nation‘s John Nichols‘ new book, Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America is all about this problem. He joined me this morning to discuss the issue in depth.

In the second hour of my show each Tuesday morning, I’m joined by @GottaLaff of The Political Carnival. Today we honored her late partner at The Political Carnival. Paddy Kraska passed away last Thursday. Laffy has all the details here, and we talked a bit about what happened on the show today, joined by Cliff Schecter who credits Paddy for encouraging him to get where he is today.

The bottom line is that Paddy had some health issues that were exacerbated by her economic struggles. No heat and no hot water in Indiana and no access to quality health care all contributed to her death. Talking about that while we learn that 85 people on the planet have amassed wealth equal to the combined fortunes of  half of the planet’s population makes it all the more sickening.

If we ever needed the motivation to work as hard as possible to not only save, but strengthen our social safety net, we now have Paddy’s death. This should never, ever happen in the richest nation in the world. Let’s work to ensure that it never happens again.