Look the other way and cough.

N

no conflict of interest • i-'ma-jə-ne-rē frend

     terminus politicus

     1. clear quid pro quo denied

D

deniability • dē-nī-ə-'bi-lədē 

     terminus politicus

     1. making sure the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing

We don’t need campaign finance reform. We need publicly financed campaigns. Because this kind of shit happens all the time.

Move along. Nothing to see here!
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.)

An interesting essay by James Downie in yesterday’s Washington Post online about why conservatives and others – tax preparers and the makers of tax-preparation software, for example – don’t want to make filing your taxes easier, though there are viable alternatives, for example return-free filing. But read about that here. (It’s well worth it.)

At the end of the article we find this paragraph about who's in bed with whom.  Frankly, it's the same old shit:

[Grover] Norquist and company have powerful allies in the tax preparation industry, especially Intuit, the makers of TurboTax. Manjoo writes that Intuit has spent $13 million on federal lobbying just in the past five years, the same amount as much larger companies such as Apple, almost entirely to preserve the current tax system. . . . And while Republicans have provided most of the resistance to return-free filing, some Democrats have been swayed. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who counts Intuit as one of her top contributors, has co-sponsored legislation limiting return-free filing.

Publicly financed campaigns violate no one’s right to free speech.  You can yell at a candidate as loud and long as you want; you just can’t interrupt someone else's yelling to wave a wad of cash in her face and say, “Am I right?”