Chamber of Secrets

While scary in real life, the vast amount of secret money the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is stockpiling to purchase the next election is fodder for fiction if you are J.K. Rowling flirting with the idea of writing another book. How hard could it be to write a sequel to this Harry Potter favorite and describe all the Democrats petrified by a big-business basilisk?

Just like the Gringotts Wizarding Bank, the US Chamber houses secret vaults for Dow Chemical, News Corporation, Prudential Financial, Goldman Sachs and other corporate behemoths that are filled with cash and gold coins, and guarded by gremlins resembling a cross between Dobby and Karl Rove. Millions of unmarked payola dollars have been carted out by the “non-profit” Chamber in Washington, DC, and used to shape the healthcare reform law, soften the financial regulation bill, and spin myths about climate change. Now thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, these same Chamber gremlins are secretly financing the campaign of a witch. Really. 

If the Chamber of Secrets isn’t titillating enough for today’s “conservatives,” Rowling might write, “Harry Potter and the Half-Stud Prince.” The sordid saga of Clarence Thomas, and how one justice’s obsession with pornography has shaped American jurisprudence and campaign finance law.  After all, Thomas didn’t think the Citizens United case “went far enough.”