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Armies of One

By CREW Staff

Generally speaking, when it comes to the English language, adding an "s" at the end of a word makes it a plural.

Take for example the following two sentences:

Look at that dog. (Signifying the existence of only one dog.)

Look at those dogs. (There is more than one dog.)

Unfortunately as we saw in the Huffington Post today, proper English and general logic don't seem to apply to the wacky post-Citizens United world of campaign finance law.

Look at the Citizens for a Working America PAC. You'd think that the "s" means there is more than one citizen, or perhaps even a group of like-minded citizens. But you'd think wrong. Turns out this Virginia-based group has exactly one donor, a shadowy "nonprofit" called New Models, (we have to put nonprofit in quotes, because while New Models claims to be one, is has never filed as such the IRS.)

What's more, New Models' president Timothy Crawford also serves as treasurer for Sarah Palin's SarahPAC. Mr. Crawford also seems to have the amazing talent of being in many places at the same time. Crawford and New Models were sued by Ohio Attorney General Jennifer Brunner in May for their actions relating to another seeming shell group called "LetOhioVote.org".

Meanwhile, in Chicago, there's the Taxpayers Against Earmarks - which is really just one taxpayer, Joe Ricketts (who owns, among other things, the Chicago Cubs). Ricketts is the sole funder of the group, as well as its "super PAC" called the Ending Spending Fund, which just poured almost $600,000 into the Nevada Senate race against Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

Why do we know about Ricketts? Only because he told the world what he's doing, and according to him, he actually believes in transparency (just not campaign finance reform it seems). That earns him half an "attaboy," we suppose.

We shouldn't have to hope that megalomillionaires decide on their own to do the right thing when they're trying to buy our elections. And is there really a "right thing" when buying elections? We can't wait for the toothless Federal Election Commission to restore sanity to our democracy. Congress must pass the DISCLOSE Act when it returns for a lame duck session after the election, and one of the priorities for the 112^th Congress should be real and meaningful campaign finance reform with legislation like the Fair Elections Now Act.

We deserve better.

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