Senate GOP Derails Disclosure Bill

The Senate GOP has once again blocked the Disclose Act, a bill which would not curtail unlimited campaign spending, but would at lease force the disclosure of who was donating all those millions. Huffington Post reports:

The vote against the Disclose Act represented a remarkable turnaround for Republicans, who have long supported disclosure as an alternative to campaign donation limits. In fact, 14 of the GOP senators who voted against debate on the bill this time around supported a nearly identical bill in 2000. "A great number of our colleagues abandoned positions that they had held very clearly and very publicly for a long time," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who was joined by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) at a press conference to announce next steps after Republican senators blocked debate on the bill Monday, and then again on Tuesday. Both senators said they knew of several Republican colleagues who would have voted in favor of the disclosure bill were it not for enormous pressure applied by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Bill Moyers writes for Nations Of Change:

Ask any magician and they’ll tell you that the secret to a successful magic trick is misdirection -- distracting the crowd so they don’t realize how they’re being fooled. Get them watching your left hand while your right hand palms the silver dollar: "Now you see it, now you don't." The purloined coin now belongs to the magician. Just like democracy. Once upon a time conservatives supported the full disclosure of campaign contributors. Now they oppose it with their might -- and magic, especially when it comes to unlimited cash from corporations. My goodness, they say, with a semantic wave of the wand, what’s the big deal?