tagged w/ Political Donations
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Congressional Republicans have spent the first two years of the Obama administration as the rock-solid party of "no," "uh-uh," "no way," "forget about it," "nothing doing," "we're-against-it-and-we'll-kill-it." This is one reason their job approval rating is lower than that of BP executives.
But now, GOP leaders in the House say they are shifting from pure negativity. Instead, they intend to step forward with their own bold policy ideas. Terrific! What are some of those ideas? "Uh ... um ... well," say the leaders, "we don't know yet, but that's why we've launched an exciting new campaign that we call America Speaking Out. We'll go directly to the grassroots people, asking for their ideas, giving them a voice and letting them shape 'the new Republican agenda.'"
Again, terrific! Where are you starting your grassroots campaign? "Uh ... um," stumble the leaders, before mumbling: "Washington, D.C."
Indeed, only six weeks after America Speaking Out was introduced as "an unprecedented initiative to listen to the American people," ASO did not rush out to hold open policy-crafting town hall forums in places like Fargo, Fresno and Freeport. Instead, they held a closed session in the snug confines of House minority leader John Boehner's Capitol Hill office.
And just who were the plain folks the GOP leader invited? His e-mailed solicitation went to 20 top lobbyists representing big corporations and such business front groups as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. Apparently, this is the bunch Republican leaders consider to be their real "grassroots" constituency.
Well, sniffed an ASO spokesman, it's important to "receive input" from the nation's largest employers.
Bovine excrement! These corporate lobbyists give their input every day, usually with campaign donations attached. They're the problem, not the solution, and ASO is just more of the same -- listening to the money interests at the top rather than the workaday majority of Americans who are barely scraping by.
Speaking of corporate campaign spending, the dam was dynamited back in January by the Supreme Court's infamous decision in the Citizens United case, and the deluge is now upon us. By decreeing that corporations are now free to spend unlimited sums of cash from their vast treasuries to elect or defeat anyone they want, the court is allowing these narrow special interests to swamp America's elections, displacing our democracy with their plutocracy.
You might recall that the five-man judicial majority that pulled off this black-robed coup argued disingenuously that there was no evidence that corporate spending would even increase under the court's ruling, much less flood the process. Nice theory, but -- look out! -- here comes the flood.
In addition to unfathomable sums that corporations will pour directly into this fall's congressional elections, they are also channeling unparalleled amounts of cash into assorted front groups. For example, in 2008, a presidential year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce put $36 million into elections, which was the most ever by a corporate organization. This year the chamber intends to more than double that, funneling $75 million into campaigns, with practically every penny going to corporate-hugging Republicans.
American Crossroads, a new corporate outlet run by former Bush operative Karl Rove, collected more than $8 million in June alone and expects to put $52 million into this year's elections. Various laissez-faire, anti-government extremist groups will also add to the rising tsunami, including $45 million from Americans for Prosperity, $25 million from American Action Network, $24 million from The Club for Growth and $5 million from FreedomWorks.
With such gross levels of spending, moneyed corporations intend to overpower America's democratic process and purchase a government that'll do their bidding. To stop them, We the People must repeal the Supreme Court's malicious, anti-democratic ruling. To help, connect with a grassroots campaign pushing for a constitutional amendment that will overturn the Citizens United decision. Find them at www.freespeechforpeople.org.
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.Congressional Republicans have spent the first two years of the Obama administration... more
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http://www.opensecrets.org/news/assets_c/2010/08/karlrove_1-thumb-160x80-1728.jpg
Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:
527 GROUPS ATTRACT BIG INDIVIDUAL DONORS: Individuals -- many of them wealthy CEOs and executives from some of the nation’s more moneyed businesses -- contributed more than $20.5 million to 527 political action groups in the second quarter of 2010, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis. The big winner seems to be American Crossroads, the new conservative organization founded by Republican political strategist and former advisor to President George W. Bush, Karl Rove. The new group collected $2.3 million from the two biggest donors in the second quarter: Wayne Hughes, founder of storage giant Public Storage, and Trevor Rees-Jones, the founder and CEO of Chief Oil and Gas. The Republican Governors Association also brought in $1.3 million from two business-minded individuals: David Koch, a co-owner of oil giant Koch Industries ($1,000,000) and Paul Singer of the hedge fund firm Elliot Management ($500,000).
Left-leaning groups also got some help from generous individual donors. Lynde Uihlein of the philanthropy group the Brico Fund donated $582,000 to several groups, the bulk of it going to Wisconson political funds and the League of Conservation Voters; and Steve Mostyn, founder of the Mostyn Law Firm, gave $400,000 to the Democratic Governors Association.
Here’s a list of the top ten individuals donating to 527 groups in the second quarter:
#1 Wayne Hughes, founder of Public Storage: $1,300,000 to American Crossroads
#2 Trevor Rees-Jones, founder and CEO of Chief Oil and Gas: $1,000,000 to American Crossroads
#3 David Koch, executive at Koch Industries: $1,000,000 to the Republican Governors Association
#4 Lynde Uihlein, founder of the Brico Fund: $582,000 mainly to Wisconsin political funds and the League of Conservation Voters
#5 David Teece, chairman of the recently formed Californians for a Balanced Budget and a Better Economy: $540,000 to Californians for a Balanced Budget and a Better Economy
#6 Pitch Johnson, founder of Asset Management Company: $500,827 to Californians for a Balanced Budget and a Better Economy (IRS link here)
#7 Sheldon Adelson, CEO of the Las Vegas Sands: $500,000 to American Solutions Winning the Future
#8 Paul Singer, founder and CEO of Elliot Management Corporation: $500,000 to the Republican Governors Association
#9 Steve Mostyn, founder of the Mostyn Law Firm: $400,000 to the Democratic Governors Association
#10 Peter Ackerman, former Wall Street investor and now in the leadership of the recent 527 group Americans Elect (formerly Unity08): $400,000 to Americans Elect
RESORT COMPANY DONATES BIG-TIME DESPITE 2ND QUARTER LOSS: Despite reporting a second quarter loss of $517,000, MTR Gaming Group Inc. still managed to contribute $225,000 to governors associations during the same period, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. MTR, a casino and resort company based in Chester, West Virginia owns and operates through its subsidiaries Mountaineer Casino and Resort, and Presque Isle Downs and Casino among other entities. MTR donated $50,000 to the Democratic Governors Association on April 12th, $125,000 to the Republican Governors Association on April 28th, followed by another $50,000 to the Democratic Governors Association on June 29th. As a comparison, the governors association contributions make up 43 percent of their losses for the quarter.
THE CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS IN THE NEWS: The Center’s report on second quarter Wall Street political donations favoring Republicans attracted significant attention from many media outlets this week, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and CNBC. Andy Kroll at Mother Jones used the Center’s data to show the percentage of donations from people giving $200 or less to Colorado Senate Democratic primary winner Michael Bennet and opponent Andrew Romanoff. Kathy Kiely from USA Today highlighted the Center when reporting the fact that Linda McMahon has put more than $22 million in to her campaign for the US Senate.
For links to the data goto the site.**************http://www.opensecrets.org/news/assets_c/2010/08/karlrove_1-thumb-160x80-1728.jpg... more
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A protest this afternoon at Target’s corporate headquarters, 1000 Nicollet Mall, culminated in an attempt to deliver to CEO Gregg Steinhafel 260,000 petitions, each urging the retailer to stop donating to political candidates.
The demonstration, organized by the progressive political action committee MoveOn, came on the heels of a $150,000 donation Target had made to MN Forward, a pro-business group that is backing Republican Tom Emmer’s bid for governor. The donation has triggered calls for boycotts from GLBT groups, who cite Emmer’s socially conservative stance on gay-rights issues.
Seinhafel issued an official apology to customers and employees yesterday, saying “I realize our decision affected many of you in a way I did not anticipate, and for that I am genuinely sorry.”
On July 29, MoveOn began gathering signatures online for a protest petition. In the following week, the group generated phone calls to Target headquarters and flooded the retailer’s Facebook page with complaints.
Around noon today, MoveOn’s Bob Brereton arrived at Target headquarters with hard copies of the 260,000 petition signatures. The print-outs filled three cardboard boxes, which Brereton had stacked on a dolly.
Randi Reitan, the now-famous Target boycotter whose checkout line tirade went viral on YouTube, addressed the crowd. Standing alongside her husband Philip and their son Jacob, a gay rights activist, Reitan decried the donation as an insensitive assault on its gay customers and employees.
“As a shopper at Target, their contribution was in part my money, and it was being used to attack the civil rights of my son,” she said. “Corporations are not people, and they should not attempt to buy an election which rightly belongs to the people.”
Philip Reitan described Emmer as “the most anti-gay person you can imagine running for governor.”A protest this afternoon at Target’s corporate headquarters, 1000 Nicollet Mall,... more
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Crawling back into the sunlight after a the publicity nightmare it created for itself, Target and CEO Gregg Steinhafel now say the company is "genuinely sorry" for donating $150,000 in cash and services to the political action committee MN Forward. Steinhafel also told employees (and, by proxy, consumers) today, "We remain fully committed to fostering an environment that supports and respects the rights and beliefs of all individuals. " But how can Target remain fully committed to something it never had in the first place?
"The truth is not that Target and its leadership have suddenly turned on their commitment to gay rights. It's more that it never really existed to begin with." So says The Awl's Abe Sauer, who's been on top of Target's anti-gay political donations. "Further research shows that Target has funneled significant funding to the most socially conservative of Republicans and that it boasts a frightening culture of anti-gay candidate support from Target's own stable of top executives."
We already knew CEO Steinhafel personally donated money to the campaign of Rep. Michele Bachmann, easily one of America's worst people to hold elected office. But the anti-gay money from Target's toppers doesn't end there.
Target's current group of top corporate officers have supported a murderers row of anti-gay politicians. Even more confusing, some of those anti-gay candidates supported by Target's PAC and its executives don't even represent Minnesota.
Of the small handful of donations he's made, Target CFO Douglas Scovanner has given to both Rep. John Kline and Rep. Erik Paulson. John Kline joined Bachmann with a group of Republican members of Congress who put their names on a lawsuit to force the District of Columbia to put gay marriage to a Prop 8-like referendum. Meanwhile, Paulson supports amending the constitution to ban gay equality.
Of the five candidates to whom Target CMO Michael Francis has donated, three are George W. Bush and the aforementioned John Kline and Erik Paulson. Target's Chief Information Officer Beth Jacob gave her largest personal donation ever to Erik Paulson. John Kline also received money from Terrence Scully, Target's president of financial services. So did anti-gay amendment-supporter Mitch McConnell, who isn't even a representative of Minnesota.
And equally tellingly:
All of these executives also gave money to former Minnesota senator Norm Coleman during his much contested 2008 race against Al Franken. Even largely politically inactive Target executives, such as Executive VP of Stores Troy Risch, gave to Coleman in 2008.
Al Franken, who is a very staunch supporter of complete gay equality, received zero dollars from Target executives or the Target PAC. Coleman, meanwhile, supported a constitutional amendment against gay equality.
And while those are all individual donations, which the heinous Supreme Court decision in Citizens United wouldn't affect, Target's own PAC, the newly formed Citizens Political Forum, has been funneling money to groups like Freedom First PAC, the fiefdom of outgoing Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, whose record on LGBT equality is terrible. It's one more way some of the billions Target generates every year finds the pockets of bigoted politicos.
Target and its executive suite have a clear connection to a slew of anti-gay candidates. Listening, then, to the company trumpet its commitment to diversity and equal rights and blah blah flies in the direct face of what these individuals are doing in private. And while every American has the right, deservedly so, to donate money to politicians they support, consumers also have a right to understand that as they spend dollar after dollar with Target, the company's earnings increase, and these executives' salaries, bonuses, and equity stakes in the company become more lucrative. Which gives them more money to donate to political candidates who want nothing more than to zap rights away from queer Americans.
I'd write something about Target's executives now having "a target on their backs," but it turns out they always have. We just never put on our special goggles to see it.Crawling back into the sunlight after a the publicity nightmare it created for itself,... more
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I was less than pleased with last week's Supreme Court decision to allow corporate money to flood into political races. Not that I'm anti-business, I just think there's too much money in the mix as it stands and more money means more screaming advertisements means more voter apathy.
So what can we do? Sure we can watch corporate money as it gets funneled into political causes - but honestly, a lot of that giving isn't transparent. It comes as gifts. Like a weekend of golfing, or a really nice dinner, or...a trip to the Super Bowl to see the Saints defeat play the Colts.
And it's with that in mind that ProPublica has launched their Super Bowl Blitz - asking people to help them identify which Congressmen are getting Super Bowl perks this year.
The Super Bowl is America’s most expensive sports spectacle, and it has long been used to rub shoulders, gain influence and form ties that help congressional candidates raise the approximately $1 billion they spend on their campaigns every two years. While most of us can’t afford a ticket to the Super Bowl, we know the NFL sets aside a large number of them for public officials and corporations to buy at face value (the cheapest tickets are going for as much as $1,799 on StubHub). Politicians use the tickets to reward big donors, and corporations use them to reward politicians.
They need your help. They want you to help them call all 535 members of Congress and find out if they're going to the Super Bowl. Here are the instructions.
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I was less than pleased with last week's Supreme Court decision to allow corporate money to flood into political races. Not that I'm anti-business, I just think there's too much money in the mix as it stands and more money means more screaming advertisements means more voter apathy.
So what can we do? Sure we can watch corporate money as it gets funneled into political causes - but honestly, a lot of that giving isn't transparent. It comes as gifts. Like a weekend of golfing, or a really nice dinner, or...a trip to the Super Bowl to see the Saints defeat play the Colts.
And it's with that in mind that ProPublica has launched their Super Bowl Blitz - asking people to help them identify which Congressmen are getting Super Bowl perks this year. From their site:
"The Super Bowl is America’s most expensive sports spectacle, and it has long been used to rub shoulders, gain influence and form ties that help congressional candidates raise the approximately $1 billion they spend on their campaigns every two years. While most of us can’t afford a ticket to the Super Bowl, we know the NFL sets aside a large number of them for public officials and corporations to buy at face value (the cheapest tickets are going for as much as $1,799 on StubHub). Politicians use the tickets to reward big donors, and corporations use them to reward politicians."
They need your help. They want you to help them call all 535 members of Congress and find out if they're going to the Super Bowl. Here are the instructions.
Instructions: http://projects.propublica.org/tables/superbowlblitz
More about the program: http://www.propublica.org/ion/reporting-network/item/super-bowl-blitz-which-congressmen-are-getting-super-bowl-perks-126I was less than pleased with last week's Supreme Court decision to allow... more
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