Tuesday, June 12, 2012 8:27:43 AM
The Billion-Dollar Mitt Machine
Charles and David Koch
John Chiasson/Liaison; Robin Platzer/FilmMagic
POSTED: May 30, 2012 1:45 PM ET | By Tim Dickinson
In my latest Rolling Stone piece I profile the 16 mega-rich donors [ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/right-wing-billionaires-behind-mitt-romney-20120524 ] who've ponied up at least $1 million each for the SuperPAC backing Mitt Romney. But even those giant checks may soon look like chump change, according to a new report in Politico [ http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=0F866DCD-F8DC-436E-B46D-504340FEB315 ].
Led by the billionaire Koch Brothers, forces allied with the GOP are now planning to spend a record-shattering $1 billion to put Romney in the White House.
The biggest news is that the Kochtopus [ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/the-koch-brothers-exposed-20120420 ] — the shadowy network of political advocacy groups funded by industrialists Charles and David Koch — is alone planning to spend $395 million to defeat Obama. Take a second to let that sink in with the help of a tweet [ http://twitter.com/mmckinnon/statuses/207841237116534784 ] from former George W. Bush consultant Mark McKinnon this morning:
"Think the $$ political system is screwed up? Koch brothers alone are planning to spend more $$ than McCain's entire 2008 presidential budget."
The Koch money — twice what the billionaire brothers had previously committed — will dwarf even the $300 million the American Crossroads network controlled by ex-Bushies Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie expects to spend.
The Romney-linked SuperPAC, Restore our Future, which raised $50 million for the primary says it now expects to spend another $100 million before election day.
Other megadollar players backing Mitt, according to Politico?
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce: $100 million
• YG Network (Eric Cantor's SuperPAC): $30 million
• American Action Network (led by former GOP Senator Norm Coleman): $30 million
• Freedom Works (Dick Armey's group that helped launch the Tea Party): $30 million
The spending seems sure to outpace the money raised by President Obama's SuperPAC — which hopes to raise just $100 million — and Big Labor, whose budget may be as small as $200 million.
The Big Money gap puts tremendous pressure on the Obama campaign to maximize returns from its vast network of small-dollar donors. And it makes even more pivotal the president's most powerful weapon [ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/hope-2-0-inside-obamas-campaign-20120329 ], the intricate network of on-the-ground volunteer organizers the campaign has built out in the electoral battleground.
Copyright ©2012 Rolling Stone
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/the-billion-dollar-mitt-machine-20120530 [with comments]
===
GOP groups top Democrats in TV spending by far
By DAVID ESPO
AP Special Correspondent
Published: Monday, June 11, 2012 9:17 AM MST
WASHINGTON — Independent Republican groups are heavily outspending their cross-party counterparts on television advertising in the campaigns for the White House and control of the Senate, eating into President Barack Obama’s financial advantage over Mitt Romney and prompting expressions of alarm from top congressional Democrats.
The disparity is most evident in the race for the White House, where Crossroads GPS, Restore Our Future and other organizations aligned with the Republicans spent nearly $37 million on TV ads through the first few days of June, most of it attacking Obama. That compares with about $11 million by groups supporting the president, with much of it from Priorities USA Action.
Senate campaigns also have been affected, notably in Ohio, where Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown’s commanding lead in the polls began to erode this spring after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others started a televised attack. Overall, Republican-aligned organizations have spent roughly $30 million on ads in key races, compared with about $11 million for groups supporting Democrats.
Underscoring the concern, Rep. Steve Israel of New York, who heads Democrats’ efforts to regain House control, issued a thinly veiled call for his party’s donors to step up. The recent recall election in Wisconsin “should serve as a wake-up call,” he wrote, referring to the lopsided advantage in spending by outside groups that helped Republican Gov. Scott Walker overcome a union-backed bid to dump him from office.
Other Democratic efforts to catch up are less publicized, particularly when it comes to Priorities USA Action, the group formed to boost Obama’s re-election.
David Axelrod, a top strategist for the president, is expected to meet with potential donors to the group in New York on Monday, according to officials familiar with his plans. Separately, former President Bill Clinton has agreed to help, although it isn’t clear whether he will appear at a formal fundraising event.
Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, and White House aide David Plouffe, who ran the 2008 campaign, met previously with possible donors to the group.
The heavy infusion of outside money comes on top of candidate spending and ads financed by the political parties. While it can alter a race in several ways, one Democrat with long campaign experience cautioned that the impact easily can be overstated.
“You hate to be outspent at all, but in point of fact if you’re communicating loudly and the other guy is communicating twice as loudly, that doesn’t mean he’s communicating twice as effectively,” said Jim Jordan, who has worked in presidential and Senate races.
Outside groups have allowed Romney to remain competitive in the television ads wars while restocking a treasury that was depleted during the battle for the Republican nomination. It also raises the possibility that Obama, the Democratic Party and allied groups will be outspent by a combination of Romney, the GOP and allied organizations, erasing an advantage the president had in 2008.
Earlier this year, Obama’s campaign decided to dip into its own treasury to respond to commercials from the American Energy Alliance, which had spent more than $3 million attacking the president.
Privately, the president’s top campaign aides frequently express concern about the disparity, according to several Democratic officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. There is irony in that, because Obama previously had shunned support from groups that may rely on unlimited or undisclosed donations. It wasn’t until February that he permitted top aides to publicly bless the work of Priorities Action USA.
By contrast, Crossroads GPS and American Crossroads, groups formed by prominent Republican strategist Karl Rove and others, were active in the 2010 election campaign.
Bill Burton, one of the founders of Priorities Action USA, said the pace of donations has picked up as the group expanded its staff and Democratic donors began to focus on a race between the president and Romney. “There’s natural progression,” he said, adding that until recently, it wasn’t clear who Obama’s rival would be, and the imperative they might feel to donate was more distant.
In the Ohio Senate race, ads financed by the Chamber of Commerce, American Crossroads, Sixty Plus and other groups coincided with a drop in Brown’s poll ratings, creating at least the appearance of a competitive race against Republican Josh Mandel where little or none had existed. The most recent attack, airing at a cost of $1 million statewide, says the incumbent voted for “every bailout proposed by (George W.) Bush and Obama,” a rare use of the former president’s image or name in the current campaign.
Brown gained modest support on television from Democratic-aligned groups after he came under attack, and swiftly began using the disparity to appeal for campaign donations.
Brown and many other Democratic incumbents hold advantages over their rivals in campaign cash on hand. But a multimillion-dollar disparity in television advertising by outside groups could eventually stretch the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee thin at a time it is struggling to defend a narrow Senate majority.
“It’s a source of great disappointment that people who say they’re on our side remain on the sidelines,” Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a member of the Democratic leadership, said recently. Durbin, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York have all attended fundraisers for the Majority PAC, an organization established to aid Democratic Senate candidates that reported taking in $6.1 million through May 23.
“There’s some movement in our direction but not enough” since then, Durbin added, and other officials said fundraising has picked up in recent weeks.
In the general election race for the White House, television ads designed to aid Obama totaled about $55 million through the early days of June. Of that, the president’s own campaign spent $44.7 million, more than 80 percent of the total, with $9.3 million from Priorities USA Action.
The situation was reversed among Republicans, where outside groups put up about $37 of $44 million spent so far on television ads, or more than 80 percent of the GOP total. Romney’s campaign has spent about $7.8 million.
The Republican advantage comes at a time the system for financing of campaigns is in flux.
Recent Supreme Court rulings mean that corporations and unions may donate unlimited amounts to political groups. The rules are so complex that some organizations must disclose their donors’ names and the amount of their contributions, while others are not. Some television purchases by independent organizations must be reported to the Federal Election Commission with 48 hours, some within 24 hours, and others not at all.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://trivalleycentral.com/articles/2012/06/11/casa_grande_dispatch/top_stories/doc4fd6198270bf1926133233.txt [no comments yet]
===
Whose Welfare?
Editorial
Published: June 3, 2012
Every week the campaign dollars pile up, by the tens of millions, by the hundreds of millions, to a level never before seen in American political life. Outside groups now say [ http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=0F866DCD-F8DC-436E-B46D-504340FEB315 ] they plan to spend $1 billion on behalf of Republicans in the November election, which will probably be twice the level raised by groups supporting Democrats. Even the slush-funders of the Watergate era would have been slack-jawed at the number of seven- and eight-figure checks pouring into groups with names like Crossroads and Americans for Prosperity.
The reason for these staggering numbers — and for the growing imbalance between the parties — is that the vast financial power of the business world has been loosed as a political tool by the federal courts. In pursuit of lower taxes and less regulation, businesses, led by the United States Chamber of Commerce, are determined to remove President Obama from office and return full control of Congress to the Republican Party. Executives and companies are the principal source of the unlimited checks that are fueling the rise of these outside groups.
Many of the executives are giving money to “super PACs,” which have to disclose their names. But because businesses usually don’t want the public to know of their political activity, they prefer to launder their political contributions through the Chamber [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/opinion/end-of-the-charade.html ] or through “social welfare organizations,” which can keep the names a secret.
The law that permits these undisclosed contributions also puts explicit limits on these organizations’ activities. Tax-exempt social welfare groups, known by their Internal Revenue Code section number as 501(c)(4)’s, cannot be organized for the “primary” purpose of political activity [ http://www.irs.gov/charities/nonprofits/article/0,,id=96178,00.html ]. So far, the I.R.S. is looking the other way.
But if not political activity, what is the primary purpose of a group like Crossroads GPS, the 501(c)(4) organized by Karl Rove, which plans to spend more than $100 million this year? It has already run at least a dozen ads this year, 11 of which accuse President Obama of breaking promises or committing serious policy errors. “Obama added almost $16,000 in debt for every American,” says the latest
As Jeremy Peters recently reported in The Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/us/politics/new-crossroads-gps-ad-takes-a-soft-shot-at-obama.html?pagewanted=all ], that ad is part of a $25 million campaign that was based on 18 focus groups and field tests conducted by Crossroads, all to determine the most effective attack lines against the president. Is that the action of a tax-exempt social welfare group not primarily active in politics?
The I.R.S. generally makes that kind of assessment by examining a 501(c)(4)’s activity over a calendar year, so a full reckoning of this year’s campaign finance travesty won’t happen before 2013. But some of these groups, including Crossroads, have been operating with the tax agency’s implicit consent since 2010. Even a cursory audit would show how little they deserve to call themselves a “social welfare group” and claim a tax exemption.
Removing the 501(c)(4) exemption would be serious: it would force Crossroads to either retain its tax exemption by converting to a super PAC and disclosing its donors, or pay taxes on its tens of millions in donations. American voters would win either way: they might learn who is behind those millions, and the disclosure and tax requirements would reduce the shadowy money pouring into the campaign
If the I.R.S. had stood up to this farce last year, it would have had a hugely beneficial effect on this year’s campaign. Though it needs more resources and better legal tools, it mostly requires the will to enforce the law.
*
Related News
Subtler Entry From Masters of Attack Ads (May 22, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/us/politics/new-crossroads-gps-ad-takes-a-soft-shot-at-obama.html
Related in Opinion
Editorial: End of the Charade (May 29, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/opinion/end-of-the-charade.html
More on United States Elections
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/united-states-politics/index.html
More on Law and Legislation
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/law-and-legislation/index.html
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/opinion/whose-welfare.html [with comments]
===
Dark money in campaigns: unlimited, untraceable, unaccountable
May 30, 2012
Congressman Bruce Braley talks with Rachel Maddow about the damaging effects of Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling that has allowed a flood of hundreds of millions of dollars of "dark money" to be spent anonymously and unaccountably in American elections.
© 2012 msnbc.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/47623790#47623790 [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PjGiNY-OKM , also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfH6LH4REpk and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c1dqtGJQcU ]
*
Call it a Koch Brothers coincidence
May 30, 2012
Rachel Maddow notes the funny coincidence that the Koch Brothers' "Americans for Prosperity" group that previously toured Wisconsin as the "Stand with Scott Walker" tour is touring Wisconsin again less than a week ahead of the recall election of that same Scott Walker, but this tour has nothing to do with that recall election.
© 2012 msnbc.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/47623870#47623870 [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cwCv5oS6VQ ]
===
Wisconsin not the only big news Tuesday
The Rachel Maddow Show
June 5, 2012
Rachel Maddow reports on some of the other major news stories developing Tuesday in the media shadow of the Wisconsin recall election, including the United States dealing a major blow to al Qaeda with the killing of second-in-command, Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi, and in the Senate, Republicans blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act even though Democrats had a majority of votes.
© 2012 msnbc.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/47699135#47699135 [no YouTube of the segment evident]
*
Churchill. Roosevelt and Hitler, oh my! Welcome to Texas, Mitt Romney
By Wayne Slater/Reporter
wslater@dallasnews.com
7:09 am on June 5, 2012
Mitt Romney’s two-day fundraising waltz across Texas begins today in Dallas with a pair of high-dollar events — one for $2,500-givers at the Belo Mansion and for the really big donors – those who cut a check for $50,000 for the GOP or bundle $200,000 from others — dinner with Romney at the Highland Park home of developer Harlan Crow. What better place for Romney to get a Texas-size sense of the American spirit than Crow’s spacious estate.
Crow is quite a collector. His personal library would rival a small college, complete with first editions on American history, several original Gilbert Stewart paintings decorating the walls and, under long glass displays, letters of famous people from Thomas Jefferson to the Wright brothers. Then there’s the room mementos of the principals of World War II – on one wall, a painting by Winston Churchill, on another wall a landscape by Dwight Eisenhower and, on a third wall, two original paintings of a European city scene by Adolph Hitler. On an antique table is a signed copy of Churchill’s book on fly fishing. Outside, should Romney get an opportunity to wander the grounds, is a garden of tyrants. Crow has collected busts and statues of famous dictators of the past, which he displays with a certain elan on the lawn. There’s a head of Stalin, a rare statue of Fidel Castro, a towering Lenin and various other bad guys expropriated from their countries of origin.
On Wednesday, Romney fundraisers include a breakfast at the home of Fort Worth socialite Kit Moncrief, a luncheon at the Marriott Rivercenter in San Antonio and an evening reception at the St. Regis Hotel in Houston, followed by a dinner for major donors at the home of Jonathan Fairbanks, a broker for offshore drilling rigs. Fairbanks, who lives in Houston’s River Oaks, has a long Republican-American pedigree. His father was an ambassador at large for President Reagan and his great-great-grandfather was Teddy Roosevelt’s vice president.
©2012, The Dallas Morning News, Inc.
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2012/06/churchill-roosevelt-and-hitler-oh-my-welcome-to-texas-mitt-romney.html/ [with comments]
===
Is there a Democratic 'Plan B' to defeat dark money?
June 6, 2012
Rachel Maddow explores how unlimited money can have a profound impact on public opinion in elections, and shares video from her interview with Nancy Pelosi about the special interest strategy of suffocating the system, suppressing the vote, and poisoning the debate and what kind of plan Democrats have to liberate the political system from the corrupting influence of unlimited dark money.
© 2012 msnbc.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/47714722#47714722 [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c2iK73qf50 , also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1_00NcsJ-A ]
*
How do Democrats win post-Citizens United?
The Rachel Maddow Show
June 6, 2012
Senator Sherrod Brown, who is running for reelections in Ohio, talks with Rachel Maddow about the challenges of competing against an opponent backed by unlimited dark money.
© 2012 msnbc.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/47714771#47714771 [no YouTube of the segment evident]
===
Hope: The Sequel
May 27, 2012
http://nymag.com/news/features/barack-obama-2012-6/ [with comments]
Charles and David Koch
John Chiasson/Liaison; Robin Platzer/FilmMagic
POSTED: May 30, 2012 1:45 PM ET | By Tim Dickinson
In my latest Rolling Stone piece I profile the 16 mega-rich donors [ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/right-wing-billionaires-behind-mitt-romney-20120524 ] who've ponied up at least $1 million each for the SuperPAC backing Mitt Romney. But even those giant checks may soon look like chump change, according to a new report in Politico [ http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=0F866DCD-F8DC-436E-B46D-504340FEB315 ].
Led by the billionaire Koch Brothers, forces allied with the GOP are now planning to spend a record-shattering $1 billion to put Romney in the White House.
The biggest news is that the Kochtopus [ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/the-koch-brothers-exposed-20120420 ] — the shadowy network of political advocacy groups funded by industrialists Charles and David Koch — is alone planning to spend $395 million to defeat Obama. Take a second to let that sink in with the help of a tweet [ http://twitter.com/mmckinnon/statuses/207841237116534784 ] from former George W. Bush consultant Mark McKinnon this morning:
"Think the $$ political system is screwed up? Koch brothers alone are planning to spend more $$ than McCain's entire 2008 presidential budget."
The Koch money — twice what the billionaire brothers had previously committed — will dwarf even the $300 million the American Crossroads network controlled by ex-Bushies Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie expects to spend.
The Romney-linked SuperPAC, Restore our Future, which raised $50 million for the primary says it now expects to spend another $100 million before election day.
Other megadollar players backing Mitt, according to Politico?
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce: $100 million
• YG Network (Eric Cantor's SuperPAC): $30 million
• American Action Network (led by former GOP Senator Norm Coleman): $30 million
• Freedom Works (Dick Armey's group that helped launch the Tea Party): $30 million
The spending seems sure to outpace the money raised by President Obama's SuperPAC — which hopes to raise just $100 million — and Big Labor, whose budget may be as small as $200 million.
The Big Money gap puts tremendous pressure on the Obama campaign to maximize returns from its vast network of small-dollar donors. And it makes even more pivotal the president's most powerful weapon [ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/hope-2-0-inside-obamas-campaign-20120329 ], the intricate network of on-the-ground volunteer organizers the campaign has built out in the electoral battleground.
Copyright ©2012 Rolling Stone
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/the-billion-dollar-mitt-machine-20120530 [with comments]
===
GOP groups top Democrats in TV spending by far
By DAVID ESPO
AP Special Correspondent
Published: Monday, June 11, 2012 9:17 AM MST
WASHINGTON — Independent Republican groups are heavily outspending their cross-party counterparts on television advertising in the campaigns for the White House and control of the Senate, eating into President Barack Obama’s financial advantage over Mitt Romney and prompting expressions of alarm from top congressional Democrats.
The disparity is most evident in the race for the White House, where Crossroads GPS, Restore Our Future and other organizations aligned with the Republicans spent nearly $37 million on TV ads through the first few days of June, most of it attacking Obama. That compares with about $11 million by groups supporting the president, with much of it from Priorities USA Action.
Senate campaigns also have been affected, notably in Ohio, where Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown’s commanding lead in the polls began to erode this spring after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others started a televised attack. Overall, Republican-aligned organizations have spent roughly $30 million on ads in key races, compared with about $11 million for groups supporting Democrats.
Underscoring the concern, Rep. Steve Israel of New York, who heads Democrats’ efforts to regain House control, issued a thinly veiled call for his party’s donors to step up. The recent recall election in Wisconsin “should serve as a wake-up call,” he wrote, referring to the lopsided advantage in spending by outside groups that helped Republican Gov. Scott Walker overcome a union-backed bid to dump him from office.
Other Democratic efforts to catch up are less publicized, particularly when it comes to Priorities USA Action, the group formed to boost Obama’s re-election.
David Axelrod, a top strategist for the president, is expected to meet with potential donors to the group in New York on Monday, according to officials familiar with his plans. Separately, former President Bill Clinton has agreed to help, although it isn’t clear whether he will appear at a formal fundraising event.
Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, and White House aide David Plouffe, who ran the 2008 campaign, met previously with possible donors to the group.
The heavy infusion of outside money comes on top of candidate spending and ads financed by the political parties. While it can alter a race in several ways, one Democrat with long campaign experience cautioned that the impact easily can be overstated.
“You hate to be outspent at all, but in point of fact if you’re communicating loudly and the other guy is communicating twice as loudly, that doesn’t mean he’s communicating twice as effectively,” said Jim Jordan, who has worked in presidential and Senate races.
Outside groups have allowed Romney to remain competitive in the television ads wars while restocking a treasury that was depleted during the battle for the Republican nomination. It also raises the possibility that Obama, the Democratic Party and allied groups will be outspent by a combination of Romney, the GOP and allied organizations, erasing an advantage the president had in 2008.
Earlier this year, Obama’s campaign decided to dip into its own treasury to respond to commercials from the American Energy Alliance, which had spent more than $3 million attacking the president.
Privately, the president’s top campaign aides frequently express concern about the disparity, according to several Democratic officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. There is irony in that, because Obama previously had shunned support from groups that may rely on unlimited or undisclosed donations. It wasn’t until February that he permitted top aides to publicly bless the work of Priorities Action USA.
By contrast, Crossroads GPS and American Crossroads, groups formed by prominent Republican strategist Karl Rove and others, were active in the 2010 election campaign.
Bill Burton, one of the founders of Priorities Action USA, said the pace of donations has picked up as the group expanded its staff and Democratic donors began to focus on a race between the president and Romney. “There’s natural progression,” he said, adding that until recently, it wasn’t clear who Obama’s rival would be, and the imperative they might feel to donate was more distant.
In the Ohio Senate race, ads financed by the Chamber of Commerce, American Crossroads, Sixty Plus and other groups coincided with a drop in Brown’s poll ratings, creating at least the appearance of a competitive race against Republican Josh Mandel where little or none had existed. The most recent attack, airing at a cost of $1 million statewide, says the incumbent voted for “every bailout proposed by (George W.) Bush and Obama,” a rare use of the former president’s image or name in the current campaign.
Brown gained modest support on television from Democratic-aligned groups after he came under attack, and swiftly began using the disparity to appeal for campaign donations.
Brown and many other Democratic incumbents hold advantages over their rivals in campaign cash on hand. But a multimillion-dollar disparity in television advertising by outside groups could eventually stretch the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee thin at a time it is struggling to defend a narrow Senate majority.
“It’s a source of great disappointment that people who say they’re on our side remain on the sidelines,” Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a member of the Democratic leadership, said recently. Durbin, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York have all attended fundraisers for the Majority PAC, an organization established to aid Democratic Senate candidates that reported taking in $6.1 million through May 23.
“There’s some movement in our direction but not enough” since then, Durbin added, and other officials said fundraising has picked up in recent weeks.
In the general election race for the White House, television ads designed to aid Obama totaled about $55 million through the early days of June. Of that, the president’s own campaign spent $44.7 million, more than 80 percent of the total, with $9.3 million from Priorities USA Action.
The situation was reversed among Republicans, where outside groups put up about $37 of $44 million spent so far on television ads, or more than 80 percent of the GOP total. Romney’s campaign has spent about $7.8 million.
The Republican advantage comes at a time the system for financing of campaigns is in flux.
Recent Supreme Court rulings mean that corporations and unions may donate unlimited amounts to political groups. The rules are so complex that some organizations must disclose their donors’ names and the amount of their contributions, while others are not. Some television purchases by independent organizations must be reported to the Federal Election Commission with 48 hours, some within 24 hours, and others not at all.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://trivalleycentral.com/articles/2012/06/11/casa_grande_dispatch/top_stories/doc4fd6198270bf1926133233.txt [no comments yet]
===
Whose Welfare?
Editorial
Published: June 3, 2012
Every week the campaign dollars pile up, by the tens of millions, by the hundreds of millions, to a level never before seen in American political life. Outside groups now say [ http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=0F866DCD-F8DC-436E-B46D-504340FEB315 ] they plan to spend $1 billion on behalf of Republicans in the November election, which will probably be twice the level raised by groups supporting Democrats. Even the slush-funders of the Watergate era would have been slack-jawed at the number of seven- and eight-figure checks pouring into groups with names like Crossroads and Americans for Prosperity.
The reason for these staggering numbers — and for the growing imbalance between the parties — is that the vast financial power of the business world has been loosed as a political tool by the federal courts. In pursuit of lower taxes and less regulation, businesses, led by the United States Chamber of Commerce, are determined to remove President Obama from office and return full control of Congress to the Republican Party. Executives and companies are the principal source of the unlimited checks that are fueling the rise of these outside groups.
Many of the executives are giving money to “super PACs,” which have to disclose their names. But because businesses usually don’t want the public to know of their political activity, they prefer to launder their political contributions through the Chamber [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/opinion/end-of-the-charade.html ] or through “social welfare organizations,” which can keep the names a secret.
The law that permits these undisclosed contributions also puts explicit limits on these organizations’ activities. Tax-exempt social welfare groups, known by their Internal Revenue Code section number as 501(c)(4)’s, cannot be organized for the “primary” purpose of political activity [ http://www.irs.gov/charities/nonprofits/article/0,,id=96178,00.html ]. So far, the I.R.S. is looking the other way.
But if not political activity, what is the primary purpose of a group like Crossroads GPS, the 501(c)(4) organized by Karl Rove, which plans to spend more than $100 million this year? It has already run at least a dozen ads this year, 11 of which accuse President Obama of breaking promises or committing serious policy errors. “Obama added almost $16,000 in debt for every American,” says the latest
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcO1AsvcorI ], a classic in misleading political hyperbole.
As Jeremy Peters recently reported in The Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/us/politics/new-crossroads-gps-ad-takes-a-soft-shot-at-obama.html?pagewanted=all ], that ad is part of a $25 million campaign that was based on 18 focus groups and field tests conducted by Crossroads, all to determine the most effective attack lines against the president. Is that the action of a tax-exempt social welfare group not primarily active in politics?
The I.R.S. generally makes that kind of assessment by examining a 501(c)(4)’s activity over a calendar year, so a full reckoning of this year’s campaign finance travesty won’t happen before 2013. But some of these groups, including Crossroads, have been operating with the tax agency’s implicit consent since 2010. Even a cursory audit would show how little they deserve to call themselves a “social welfare group” and claim a tax exemption.
Removing the 501(c)(4) exemption would be serious: it would force Crossroads to either retain its tax exemption by converting to a super PAC and disclosing its donors, or pay taxes on its tens of millions in donations. American voters would win either way: they might learn who is behind those millions, and the disclosure and tax requirements would reduce the shadowy money pouring into the campaign
If the I.R.S. had stood up to this farce last year, it would have had a hugely beneficial effect on this year’s campaign. Though it needs more resources and better legal tools, it mostly requires the will to enforce the law.
*
Related News
Subtler Entry From Masters of Attack Ads (May 22, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/us/politics/new-crossroads-gps-ad-takes-a-soft-shot-at-obama.html
Related in Opinion
Editorial: End of the Charade (May 29, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/opinion/end-of-the-charade.html
More on United States Elections
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/united-states-politics/index.html
More on Law and Legislation
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/law-and-legislation/index.html
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/opinion/whose-welfare.html [with comments]
===
Dark money in campaigns: unlimited, untraceable, unaccountable
The Rachel Maddow Show
May 30, 2012
Congressman Bruce Braley talks with Rachel Maddow about the damaging effects of Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling that has allowed a flood of hundreds of millions of dollars of "dark money" to be spent anonymously and unaccountably in American elections.
© 2012 msnbc.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/47623790#47623790 [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PjGiNY-OKM , also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfH6LH4REpk and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c1dqtGJQcU ]
*
Call it a Koch Brothers coincidence
The Rachel Maddow Show
May 30, 2012
Rachel Maddow notes the funny coincidence that the Koch Brothers' "Americans for Prosperity" group that previously toured Wisconsin as the "Stand with Scott Walker" tour is touring Wisconsin again less than a week ahead of the recall election of that same Scott Walker, but this tour has nothing to do with that recall election.
© 2012 msnbc.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/47623870#47623870 [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cwCv5oS6VQ ]
===
Wisconsin not the only big news Tuesday
The Rachel Maddow Show
June 5, 2012
Rachel Maddow reports on some of the other major news stories developing Tuesday in the media shadow of the Wisconsin recall election, including the United States dealing a major blow to al Qaeda with the killing of second-in-command, Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi, and in the Senate, Republicans blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act even though Democrats had a majority of votes.
© 2012 msnbc.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/47699135#47699135 [no YouTube of the segment evident]
*
Churchill. Roosevelt and Hitler, oh my! Welcome to Texas, Mitt Romney
By Wayne Slater/Reporter
wslater@dallasnews.com
7:09 am on June 5, 2012
Mitt Romney’s two-day fundraising waltz across Texas begins today in Dallas with a pair of high-dollar events — one for $2,500-givers at the Belo Mansion and for the really big donors – those who cut a check for $50,000 for the GOP or bundle $200,000 from others — dinner with Romney at the Highland Park home of developer Harlan Crow. What better place for Romney to get a Texas-size sense of the American spirit than Crow’s spacious estate.
Crow is quite a collector. His personal library would rival a small college, complete with first editions on American history, several original Gilbert Stewart paintings decorating the walls and, under long glass displays, letters of famous people from Thomas Jefferson to the Wright brothers. Then there’s the room mementos of the principals of World War II – on one wall, a painting by Winston Churchill, on another wall a landscape by Dwight Eisenhower and, on a third wall, two original paintings of a European city scene by Adolph Hitler. On an antique table is a signed copy of Churchill’s book on fly fishing. Outside, should Romney get an opportunity to wander the grounds, is a garden of tyrants. Crow has collected busts and statues of famous dictators of the past, which he displays with a certain elan on the lawn. There’s a head of Stalin, a rare statue of Fidel Castro, a towering Lenin and various other bad guys expropriated from their countries of origin.
On Wednesday, Romney fundraisers include a breakfast at the home of Fort Worth socialite Kit Moncrief, a luncheon at the Marriott Rivercenter in San Antonio and an evening reception at the St. Regis Hotel in Houston, followed by a dinner for major donors at the home of Jonathan Fairbanks, a broker for offshore drilling rigs. Fairbanks, who lives in Houston’s River Oaks, has a long Republican-American pedigree. His father was an ambassador at large for President Reagan and his great-great-grandfather was Teddy Roosevelt’s vice president.
©2012, The Dallas Morning News, Inc.
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2012/06/churchill-roosevelt-and-hitler-oh-my-welcome-to-texas-mitt-romney.html/ [with comments]
===
Is there a Democratic 'Plan B' to defeat dark money?
The Rachel Maddow Show
June 6, 2012
Rachel Maddow explores how unlimited money can have a profound impact on public opinion in elections, and shares video from her interview with Nancy Pelosi about the special interest strategy of suffocating the system, suppressing the vote, and poisoning the debate and what kind of plan Democrats have to liberate the political system from the corrupting influence of unlimited dark money.
© 2012 msnbc.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/47714722#47714722 [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c2iK73qf50 , also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1_00NcsJ-A ]
*
How do Democrats win post-Citizens United?
The Rachel Maddow Show
June 6, 2012
Senator Sherrod Brown, who is running for reelections in Ohio, talks with Rachel Maddow about the challenges of competing against an opponent backed by unlimited dark money.
© 2012 msnbc.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/47714771#47714771 [no YouTube of the segment evident]
===
Hope: The Sequel
May 27, 2012
http://nymag.com/news/features/barack-obama-2012-6/ [with comments]
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
Join the InvestorsHub Community
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
