Political cash flow: the land of milk and...money.

THERE IS SO much cash flowing this election season that it would be reasonable to refer to America as the land of milk and money. By all accounts there will be a greater transfer of dollars to campaign jackpots than what Americans have spent on sexier abs the past year.

For this record high-finance moment in American history, we can thank the Republican appointees to the Supreme Court who said in the Citizens United (!) case that it would be OK with them no matter how much corporate and union money is spent. Even though they pretended not to discriminate between the white-collar and blue-collar contributors , they didn't get to the high court by being total dummies about who helped put them in their lifetime jobs. Offhand, can you think of any union presidents who are billionaires?

The decision did raise a little curiosity about Clarence Thomas, who unsurprisingly rubber-stamped the 5-4 Republican majority while his wife Virginia was bragging that her right-wing Liberty Central movement would be bigger than the Tea Party. Her anguished cry is that President Obama is a tyrannical leftist, a notion that must have at least casually influenced Clarence to vote the way he did. There are days when being a strict conservative is more persuasive than being a strict constitutionalist.

The justices also were aware that not one of them would be summarily laid off from his seat on the bench during a downturn in the economy. Nobody else can safely make that statement these days.

Some of us had a little trouble understanding George W. Bush when he talked with such enthusiasm about turning the country into an ownership society. How could we have known that he was setting into motion the Supreme Court decision that would allow the fat cats to own a politician for no more than airfare and a comfortable hotel room? When the probable next Speaker of the House (John Boehner) can enjoy pleasure flights to Shangri-la for golf and a 5-star hotel, courtesy of this lobby (R. J. Reynolds) or that one, that's as good a definition of corporate ownership as you'll find. Guys like Boehner are so certain that they are a perfect fit for today's political culture that they see no reason to apologize for their odd behavior.

We're told that outfits like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is spending everything but the kids' lunch money on the elections , is merely protecting American business from Barack Obama's invasive tax policies that soak 2 pct. of the wealthiest Americans. Wall Streeters, meantime, are outraged that anyone would consider government restraints on the highly suspect way that they pocket their profits and bonuses. The news these days, however, tells a completely different story about the Ninjas on Wall Street who managed to cripple the economy with sour subprime mortgages without even reading the documents that drove hundreds of thousands of Americans from their homes. And these are the same perps who are putting up millions to return Republicans to power in the House of Representatives?

Obama is shattering the American Dream of a a no-tax society, or at least one that can be gamed in a way that the gap between rich and middle class/poor continues to widen.

Columnist Gail Collins was so fascinated by the money flying out of the bloated piggy bank of Linda McMahon. the Republican senate nominee in Connecticut, that she had to wonder why McMahon didn't give every voter a car instead.

Yeah, every vote is important, but not quite as important as another cushy golf outing among friends for Boehner et al.

Oh, skip the milk. We are now, without challenge, solely the land of money.