The President Obama Campaign Trail
More President Obama campaign photos:
(Credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President Obama shares a laugh with Vice President Joe Biden, at a fundraiser for Delaware Democratic Senate candidate Chris Coons.
Showing posts with label campaign. Show all posts
Showing posts with label campaign. Show all posts
Saturday, October 23, 2010
More President Obama campaign photos:
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Corporate Citizens United to Take Over America.
The Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, that allows corporations, unions and interest groups to spend as much as they want on political campaigns opened a Pandora's box of potential ways to exploit the already corrupted campaign process, as well as paving the road for "corporate persons" to to render we the people, obsolete.
Secret corporate "people" are funneling their funds into nonprofit organizations - who don’t have to disclose their funders, and who can spend as much as half of their revenue on political activities - in order to buy elections that further their corrupt agendas. Some of these nonprofits appear to be shell groups for political operatives looking to influence races. Mike McIntire of the New York Times investigated one of those groups, the Coalition to Protect Seniors, and came up empty when he tried to track down exactly who was behind the group.
The Supreme Court opened the door for foreign nationals to intervene in American elections. And guess what? The right-wing didn't waste any time, personally escorting them through...patriotic as always. Yep. Lee Fang from Think Progress broke the story about foreign contributions to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a trade association organized as a 501(c)(6) that can raise and spend unlimited funds without ever disclosing any of its donors, that are possibly being used to fund political ads. They have already raised over $75 million and paid to have ads run more than 8,000 times on behalf of Republican Senate candidates.
"What we found were several fundraising documents that the Chamber has been using in places like Bahrain (and) India. The documents say foreign businesses are welcome and ask that these businesses send money to the same campaign account the 501(c)(6) that the Chamber is using to run attack ads. And they're telling these foreign businesses that they can have a voice in American public policy debates." - Lee FangThen, if things aren't bad enough, the Citizens United precedent threatens to undermine progress in America's hard fought battle for equality. Specifically, the repeal of the "public accommodations" section of the "The Civil Rights Act" which specifically states: "to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations."
But who and why would anyone want to repeal any part of the Civil Rights Act? The libertarians, of course, who populate the the "Tea Party" movement, for one. They believe private businesses should be permitted to discriminate without legal repercussions, therefore they believe the public accommodations section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act interferes with the corporate citizen's first amendment rights. Glen Beck, at his “Restoring Honor” rally held on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech," claimed that he and his Tea Party followers would “take back the civil rights movement.”
Links:
Move to Amend
We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:A recent report, Fading Disclosure: Increasing Number of Electioneering Groups
* Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
* Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our vote and participation count.
* Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments.
Keep Donors’ Identities Secret by Public Citizen found that in the 2004 elections, 98% of outside groups disclosed the names of donors who paid for their political ads. Fast forward four years and only 32% disclosed the names of donors.
GOP Quietly Funded Foreign Donations.
Republicans Thwart New Campaign Finance Disclosure Rules As DISCLOSE Act Fails Procedural Vote in Senate Read more...
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Tea Party 'Astroturf Front for Corporate Agenda' Movement Gets Richer.
Conveniently, the Tea Party Patriots are organized as a social welfare organization, [501(c)4 of the tax code], therefore not regulated by federal finance campaign laws and not required to disclose funding sources.
"As long as the Tea Party Patriots do not mention candidates' names in their material or explicitly advocate for or against a specific candidates' election, they don't have to meet federal requirements to disclose their donors.[...] There certainly seems to be an increase in the use of 501(c)4s to launder political donations. Big donors find them attractive because they can give money without getting their names in public." -- Paul Ryan, an expert at the Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan watchdog group that monitors election law.However, despite the anonymity of the donor, thanks to Jane Mayer's article in The New Yorker, Covert Operations , it's fairly safe to assume that the incredibly rich Koch brothers, of Koch Industries, an oil refiner and the nation’s second largest private company with about $100 billion in annual revenue, and who are tied at #24 on Forbes top billionaire's list are behind most large donations.
Many of the groups on the right receive funding from a network of influential conservative foundations, including those connected to the Koch brothers of Wichita, Kan., who run the largest private energy firm in the United States. Records show that the Koch-connected Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, for example, has given $3.1 million to Americans for Prosperity, a group that has taken a leading role in organizing "tea party protests" and other anti-reform efforts.
Links:
'Shadow RNC' American Crossroads Raises Millions in August from Wealthy Individuals, Corporations - American Crossroads is a tax-exempt group organized under section 527 of U.S. tax code, created to primarily influence elections. In July, the group registered with the Federal Election Commission as an independent expenditure-only committee and now reports its income and expenditures to the FEC on a monthly basis
Shadow RNC Read more...
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Illuminating the Connection Between Money and Politics
MapLight.org connects together campaign contributions and votes on specific legislation transparent in an effort to help American citizens hold their legislators accountable. The idea is to demonstrate the direct connection between the money elected officials receive and how they vote. Elected officials collect large sums of money to run their campaigns, and they often pay back campaign contributors with special access and favorable laws.
This common practice is contrary to the public interest, yet it is legal. MapLight.org illuminates the tightly woven corruption, that makes up the political fabric of our society normally invisible to the naked eye.
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