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Money in Politics

Group Wins Landmark Case Against Super PACs In Alaska

November 7, 2019 By  Jacob Wolinsky, Valuewalk.com , , ,
Today, in a historic ruling, the non-profit group Equal Citizens obtained a judicial ruling that, for the first time since Citizens United, could restore limits on donations to Super PACs and independent groups. The case was brought by a cross-partisan group of three Alaska citizens—Donna Patrick and Pat Lambert of Fairbanks, and James Barnett of Anchorage—who jointly challenged Alaska’s 2012 decision to abandon enforcement of strict limits on donations to independent political groups.

Hedge Fund Billionaires Were Democrats’ Main Bankrollers In 2018

May 21, 2019 Donald Shaw, Readsludge.com , ,
A new report shows that three-quarters of the money that individuals donated to pro-Democrat outside spending groups in 2018 came from finance founders and executives. In the 2018 midterms, Democrats benefited more than Republicans from election spending by outside groups for the first time in recent history. Now, thanks to a new report from Public Citizen, we have a better understanding of where much of that money backing Democrats came from: wealthy individuals who earn their livings as hedge fund founders, bank executives, and other key positions in the financial industry.

Pharma & Insurance Gave $43M To 130 House Democrats Not Backing Medicare For All

March 10, 2019 By Carl Gibson, Grit Post , ,
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) recently rolled out House Democrats’ version of a Medicare for All proposal that would ensure all Americans have guaranteed healthcare. The bill (H.R. 1384) has an impressive 106 co-sponsors, and has been called “the most ambitious Medicare-for-All plan yet” by Vox, which also reported the benefits the House bill contained were even more significant than the companion bill Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) first introduced in his chamber. Grit Post calculated that donors in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries gave a combined $43,740,947 in career campaign donations to the 130 House Democrats who have not yet signed on as co-sponsors to Rep. Jayapal’s bill.

Net Neutrality Advocates Force Republican To Cancel Fundraiser With Telecoms

February 28, 2019 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance , ,
Senate Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) who was scheduled to hold hearings on a an Internet privacy bill abruptly canceled a fundraiser the night before the hearings with the telecom industry when word got out the fundraiser would be protested. Politico reports: "Senate Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) today said a controversial fundraiser the telecommunications industry planned to hold for him has been canceled.

Dark Money — Coming From A Shell Company Near You

February 5, 2019 Karl Evers-Hillstrom and Kietryn Zychal, Truthout.org , ,
So-called “dark money” contributions come from a diverse cross-section of the American landscape. Suburbs, big cities and even small towns are home to corporations created primarily to conceal the true source of money flowing to super PACs that spend millions of dollars to influence elections. One dark money trail leads to Carter Lake, Iowa, population 3,785. Technically, the town is on the Nebraska side of the Missouri River in Omaha, and its horseshoe-shaped lake was once an oxbow bend of the river itself. Flooding changed the course of the river in 1897 leaving a two-mile square piece of Iowa forever marooned in Nebraska.

Ecuador’s Moreno Met Manafort, Discussed Handing Over Assange To US: Report

December 6, 2018 Staff, Telesurenglish.net , , , ,
Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno allegedly spoke to Paul Manafort-former United States lobbyist, political consultant and a convicted felon-about handling over WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange to the United States. A report published by the New York TimesTuesday revealed that in mid-May 2017, Manafort traveled to Ecuador mainly to see if he could negotiate a deal in which China would invest in Ecuador’s power system. This was the last gasp for Manafort who wished to yield a fat commission from the deal, mainly to settle his increasing debts. However, the talks did not go as planned. President Moreno and his aides instead, discussed getting rid of Assange in two meetings with Manafort.

Billionaires, Corporate Money Swing Toward Democrats

November 8, 2018 Staff, Wsws.org , ,
The 2018 midterms have been the most expensive congressional elections in US history, with an estimated $5.2 billion raised and spent by Election Day, according to data collected and reported by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). The total not only rose 35 percent over the previous midterm record in 2014, it exceeds the money spent on congressional races during the 2016 presidential election year. Significantly, the Democratic Party and affiliated political action committees raked in the lion’s share of the record fundraising. Of the $4.7 billion spent by the latest reporting period, Democrats accounted for $2.5 billion, compared to $2.2 billion for Republican candidates and committees. Republicans have traditionally enjoyed a massive fundraising edge.

Scum Vs. Scum

November 6, 2018 By Chris Hedges, Truthdig.com , , ,
There is perhaps no better illustration of the deep decay of the American political system than the Senate race in New Jersey. Sen. Bob Menendez, running for re-election, was censured by the Senate Ethics Committee for accepting bribes from the Florida businessman Salomon Melgen, who was convicted in 2017 of defrauding Medicare of $73 million. The senator had flown to the Dominican Republic with Melgen on the physician’s private jet and stayed in his private villa, where the men cavorted with young Dominican women who allegedly were prostitutes. Menendez performed numerous political favors for Melgen, including helping some of the Dominican women acquire visas to the United States.

East Bay DSA Blows The Whistle On Corporate Dem Donor Class

October 8, 2018 By Steve Early, Newpol.org ,
Wealthy Bay Area investor David Crane is a leading promoter of the neoliberal agenda within the California Democratic Party. A former advisor to Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Crane is a widely-published critic of state and local tax initiatives, publicly-funded health care, public education, public employees and their pensions. He raises lots of money for “courageous” candidates willing to put “citizen interests” ahead of such “special interest” causes. According to Crane, Left Coast governance suffers from voters paying insufficient “attention to the legislators who run their state.”

With Supreme Court Decision On Dark Money “We’re About to Know a Lot More About Who Is Funding Our Elections”

September 21, 2018 By Jon Queally, Commondreams.org , ,
"We are about to drive a lot of dark money donors into the light—it's gonna look like the climax of a Harry Potter movie where the creatures shrivel in the sun." In a win for increased transparency and those demanding an end to the so-called "dark money" eating away at U.S. democracy, the Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a previous stay on a lower court ruling by rejecting the argument by right-wing advocacy groups who said they should not have to reveal the identity of big-dollar donors who fund their issue-based campaign ads. Crucially, the ruling means that groups that in the past have been able to hide the source of their funding before, during, and after campaigns will have now have to make that information available before voters go to the polls—in this case, that means before the upcoming mid-term elections.

Since ‘Citizens United,’ Just 15 Groups Account For 75 Percent Of The $800+ Million In Dark Money Spent On US Elections

September 20, 2018 By Jessica Corbett, Commondreams.org , ,
"Dark money groups hold enormous sway over what issues are, and are not, debated in Congress and on the campaign trail," the report explains. "But the donors behind these groups rarely discuss their motivations for bankrolling these efforts, leaving the public in the dark about who funds these increasingly prominent and potent organizations." In addition the new Dark Money Illuminated (pdf) report, which identifies about 400 donors and organizations bankrolling these 15 secretive groups, the researchers also developed profiles for each dark money group and an "extensive, first-of-its-kind database containing nearly 1,200 transactions, each supported by primary source documents."

Listing Donations Of Committee Members Gets Woman Evicted In W. Virginia

February 12, 2018 Russell Mokhiber, Morgancountyusa.org , ,
Lissa Lucas traveled the 100 miles from her home in Cairo, West Virginia to the state capitol in Charleston yesterday to testify against an oil and gas industry sponsored bill (HB 4268) that would allow companies to drill on minority mineral owners’ land without their consent. Lucas began to testify to the House Judiciary Committee, but a few minutes in, her microphone was turned off. And Lucas was dragged out of the room. Lucas is running for the House of Delegates from Ritchie County, which has been overrun by the fracking industry. “As I tried to give my remarks at the public hearing this morning on HB 4268 in defense of our constitutional property rights, I got dragged out of House chambers,” Lucas said. “Why? Because I was listing out who has been donating to Delegates on the Judiciary Committee.”

How Donald Trump Rode In On “Dark Money”

February 7, 2018 Glen Ford, Blackagendareport.com , ,
A team led by University of Massachusetts professor emeritus Thomas Ferguson reveals that “a giant wave of dark money” flowed into Donald Trump’s campaign coffers in the last months of the 2016 election, enabling him to go heads up with Hillary Clinton’s $1.4 billion juggernaut in the final stages of the contest. The identity of Trump’s late-campaign godfathers is “shrouded,” according to a paper authored by Ferguson and his collaborators, Paul Jorgensen and Jie Chen, but all signs point to “a sudden influx of money from private equity and hedge funds.” The cash infusion brought Trump’s total spending up to $861 million. Although that’s still substantially less than Hillary’s total outlays, Trump’s dark money arrived just in time to capitalize on Clinton’s failure to mount an effective blitz in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Leaked Trump Infrastructure Plan: Blueprint For Corporate Subsidies

January 30, 2018 Pete Dolack, Counterpunch.org , , ,
The Trump administration’s plans to rebuild infrastructure in the United States have been leaked, and it appears to be as bad as feared. At least three-quarters of intended funding will go toward corporate subsidies, not actual projects. It is possible that no funding will go directly toward projects. There’s no real surprise here, given that President Donald Trump’s election promise to inject $1 trillion into infrastructure spending was a macabre joke. What is actually happening is that the Trump administration intends to push for more “public-private partnerships.” What these so-called partnerships actually are vehicles to shovel public money into private pockets. These have proven disastrous wherever they have been implemented, almost invariably making public services more expensive. Often, far more expensive.

Congressmen Pushing LNG Exports Bills Have Deep Financial, Revolving Door Ties

January 24, 2018 By Steve Horn, Desmogblog.com , ,
Last week the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce held a subcommittee hearing on two bills to expedite permitting for exports of natural gas. Domestic production of this fossil fuel has been booming in recent years, mainly thanks to hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) opening up vast reserves in shale formations. Several former and present committee staffers have either taken oil and gas industry-sponsored trips as staffers or spun through the government-industry revolving door between Congress and the lobbying sector. And all of the politicians backing the two bills under consideration have taken tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from the oil and gas industry for their 2018 mid-term election campaigns.
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