Your writer possesses well-meaning friends forever vigilant in my best interests. Most recently, one such kind soul sent an email alerting me to the dangers of so-called “dark money” in the political process. Believing himself on the side of the angels – and fully onside with activist nuns, priests and other religious – my friend sought my assistance in the fight against “evil” corporations participating in the political process.

So I got the following in my inbox. And all I had to do for America’s campaign finance salvation was sign a petition circulated by The Daily Kos and People for the American Way:

Bruce, join Daily Kos and People for the American Way in urging the SEC to require that publicly traded corporations disclose their political spending….

The Supreme Court’sCitizens Unitedruling was a travesty, which has opened the floodgate to corporate money in our political spending. Repealing it via a constitutional amendment will take years, but there’s something we can do in the meantime that will go a long way.

The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) is the federal agency with the job of protecting investors from corporate abuse. It is well within its authority to require that publicly traded corporations disclose their political spending—but it won’t happen without a fight.

End the shroud of secrecy. Join Daily Kos and People For the American Way in urging the SEC to require that publicly traded corporations disclose their political spending.

Keep fighting,

Paul Hogarth, Daily Kos

Note that People for the American Way is a George Soros’ funded nonprofit. In fact, Soros’ Open Society Initiative donated nearly $3.5 million to PFAW – a liberal organization founded by the late television producer Norman Lear (“All in the Family” and “Maude” – between 2005 and 2009. Actor, political activist and credit card shill Alec Baldwin and “Family Guy” creator and Academy Award embarrassment Seth MacFarlane currently sit on PFAW’s board of directors.

As stated here, here and here, corporations that choose to participate in the political process and donate privately – and legally – to groups that advance their interests more resembles a cherished American tradition than it does the ominous-sounding “shroud of secrecy.” As I noted this past summer in a recap of a debate between Brian G. Cartwright, senior adviser, Patomak Global Partners, as advocate for Citizens United, and Bruce F. Freed, president and founder, Center for Political Accountability (another Soros’ funded outfit):

Cartwright began his seven minutes by declaring that ‘a government large enough, pervasive enough and intrusive enough’ makes it necessary for businesses to engage in politics. To live meaningfully and effectively in a republic such as the United States, he said, requires an engagement with government panies have any hope of protecting or advancing their interests.

Just so. This brings up an interesting point concerning who spent more political “dark money” in 2013. Wrote Tony Lee last week on Breitbart’s “Big Government” website, 70 percent of dark monies spent this year actually flowed out of liberal/progressive bankrolls:

Though Democrats have railed against the influence of money in politics after the Supreme Court’sCitizens Unitedruling, liberals have accounted for 70% of the so-called ‘dark money’ that has been spent this year.

Accordingto Open Secrets, ‘liberal dark money in 2013 makes up 70 percent of all the dark money spent so far. At this point in 2011, liberal money accounted for less than 6 percent of the dark money spent, and in 2009, the total was a little higher, at 6.5 percent.’…

‘Spending by liberal 501(c)(4) groups is already more than $1.7 million so far this cycle,’ Open Secrets writes. ‘That’s an increase of nearly 6700 percent over the $25,458 spent by liberal dark money groups at this point in the 2012 cycle.’

Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who won John Kerry’s Senate seat, has been the biggest beneficiary so far of ‘dark money.’ The League of Conservation Voters reportedly spent ‘more than $800,000 in direct support’ for Markey’s campaign, which was ‘almost twice as much as all dark money bined had spent at this point in the 2012 cycle.’

The ‘dark money’ from which Markey has benefited is made more ironic because paredtheCitizens Uniteddecision to the infamousDred Scottdecision while he was receiving the ‘dark money’ the decision allowed.

Somehow I don’t believe I’d be siding with the angels by hitching my wagon to the ideological likes of Soros, Baldwin, MacFarlane and Markey – nor, for that matter, the religious activists who sympathize with overturning or circumventing Citizens United. These individuals and groups wish only a one-sided debate in the political process.

Inquisitive readers may want to know if I signed the electronic petition. In the interest of full transparency and disclosure, dear audience, I answered my friend simply, “I think not!”