A Step in the Right Direction

As of the 15th of this month, according to realpolitics.com, 76.2% of American's disapprove of the job Congress is doing.  Yep--that's more than 3/4 of us that think they're doing a crap job of it.  That's some pretty epic failure by anyone's standards.  I find myself wondering why, exactly, people think that they're doing so poorly.  Perhaps it's because they're getting NOTHING done.  Republicans and Democrats refuse to come together on ANY issue.  The last time there was any consensus in our governing body was when Arizona Representative Gabby Giffords was shot.  Congress had no problem agreeing on a symbolic resolution condemning the attempted assassination of a member of Congress.  That's as good as it gets.  Someone could introduce legislation stating the sky was blue, and Congress would fail to pass the legislation based on debate as to the degree of blueness of said sky.
   This week, the Senate failed to pass the DISCLOSE (Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections) act.  In a nutshell, this legislation would have:

• Prevented US Corporations controlled by foreign governments from making campaign contributions.
• Banned TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) recipients from making campaign contributions.
• Given access to the general public (including shareholders and organization members) access to information regarding corporate in interest group campaign contributions.
• Forced groups with more than 500,000 members to take credit for the political advertisements that they sponsor.

   So, how does this benefit the average citizen, you ask?  Well, it holds a lot of people responsible for their actions.  For example; 
Uber-Insurance giant Aetna, donated over $3 million dollars to Republican supportive Super-pac American Action Network.  AAN then spent millions of dollars on ads attacking the Affordable Health Care Act.  Publicly, Aetna "supported" President Barak Obama.
Had DISCLOSE been made law, Aetna would have had their signature all over their agenda. You see, in the simplest of terms, Aetna has a good reason business wise, to oppose health care reform.  They like making money and denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and instituting lifetime caps on coverage, etc...but they wanted you to believe that those lovely ads they sponsored were "grass roots" opinions from people like you and me.  It's the business of misinformation.
   So, why are the republicans opposed to such legislation, you ask?  According to Senate Minority Leader, Mitch (ol' turtle face) McConnell, it's because the legislation doesn't go far enough, and might exempt Unions from having to disclose their memberships.  
  Hasn't Senator McConnell ever heard of a step in the right direction?  Come on, now.  No piece of legislation is perfect or completely comprehensive.
  Long ago, while Lady Liberty was still having contractions in the birth of this nation, the framers of the Constitution took their document to the states who felt that it didn't go far enough to protect the rights of the individual states...so those framers said to the states, Look, guys...you ratify this for us, and we'll come up with another document to address your concerns--this is a step in the right direction.  The states took those fellows at their word, ratified that step in the right direction, and surely enough, true to their word, the Bill of Rights was born.  Can you imagine their approval rating?