Regarding today's McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision: I pulled together this news release: "Supreme Court Establishing 'Plutocrat Rights'," which has some good crit.
But beyond that, I've always wondered: If (money = speech) and speech is free -- then shouldn't money be free? But the ultimate logic of the "freedom" for money in politics proponents, we have a an argument for a rather radical form of material equality.
The story of money in politics is in a sense of the story of the United States: As the franchise has expanded, money has been used to make its import seemingly, increasingly meaningless. That is, It used to be that you could only vote if you were a white, male property owner. Now, all peoples' votes are diminished as money dominates. I think this is why some people have an image of the U.S. as having a "golden age" -- being a citizen actually meant something. That's been rather hollowed out because most actual decisions in the society are not taking place in any meaningful democratic form.
Should note: The NSA story is very much related to this story since the surveillance companies are huge funders for the politicos who enable them. See: "New Study on Campaign Cash Behind the National Surveillance State." Appropriately enough, Thomas Ferguson is featured on that release, he wrote the book Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Politics, which traces the influence of money in politics way back, so perhaps the preceding paragraph is too generous to the history of the U.S.