What happens on September 17? According to an insider, New York’s Wall Street will be “occupied” by an army of rebellious dissidents determined to attack corporate greed and the grip of big money over the nation’s political economy. Who knew? A crowd of 20,000 “leaderless” rebels will camp out and cripple Wall Street as others occupy [...]
Here are recent links for those of you interested in the money behind the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for President, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and the favors he’s done for his big donors. As with other candidates, his new Super PAC could dwarf what he raises himself for the nomination. The Washington Post weighs [...]
The Center for Responsive Politics continues to monitor the development of Super PACs, the post-Citizens United creatures that can accept gigantic donations to “independently” support or oppose candidates. CRP says that liberal Super PACs (like those gearing up to support Obama’s re-election) have taken in nearly $8 million in the first half of 2011, with [...]
In contrast to incentives for small donors (per Wednesday’s Link of the Day), the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision encourages limitless donations by corporations (and unions) for so-called independent expenditures. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is the latest candidate to benefit from this subterfuge, with the creation of a super PAC called “Americans for Rick Perry” that [...]
The recent Supreme Court decision knocking down rescue funds is pushing advocates of public campaign financing to look at alternative models that meet many of the goals of the Voter-Owned or Clean Elections approach. In a new report, the Campaign Finance Institute has applied its favorite model to state legislative elections in six Midwestern states. [...]
When the US Supreme Court liberated purchased political speech from nearly all regulation in the Citizens United decision, it opened a Pandora’s Box loaded with all sorts of strange creatures: partisan c-4s, super PACs, corporate slush funds. The Federal Election Commission is struggling to apply its rules to new creatures served up by operatives across [...]
This week has definitely been one for the books!!!! We’ve been tabling, phone banking, writing letters to the editor, researching, base building, and even some picketing. Our week began on Saturday. We tabled at an event in Ayden, North Carolina to try to get residents up-to-date with the Voter Photo ID bill and also to [...]
The same rightwing law firm that engineered the Citizens United decision also attacked North Carolina’s judicial public financing program a few years ago; they took their challenge all the way to the US Supreme Court and lost. Now they’re representing a “right to life” group in Wisconsin, claiming that state’s new judicial program (modeled on [...]
Big Tobacco has dropped from its ranking at the top of big contributors to federal candidates, but the industry is still spending millions to advance its political agenda in less visible ways. A new report from the Center for Responsive Politics tracks millions going into 527 committees and leadership PACs and notes that the Citizens [...]
Another report, this one by Citizens for Tax Justice, spotlights mega-corporations that rake in massive profits and pay nothing in federal income taxes – in fact, they get a credit, which means money from you. This is what happens when corporations rig the tax code to their advantage, a product of their investment in bad [...]