The New Yorker’s profile of Art Pope last week helped pull back the curtain to reveal more about the 40 million dollar man prodding the right-wing’s recent successes in North Carolina. Rachel Maddow/MSNBC followed with a long segment that put his 2010 electoral victories in a national context for 2012 (jump ahead 7 minutes for [...]
Following up Friday’s LOD, here’s the link to the in-depth profile of Art Pope, his mind, money and rise to power. The New Yorker is known for its long and comprehensive pieces, and this one lives up to the reputation. It’s titled “State for Sale.” See also links to the analysis by the Institute for [...]
The Oct. 10 edition of The New Yorker magazine features an in-depth look at North Carolina’s most politically powerful unelected individual – J. Arthur “Art” Pope, chain-store retailer and Republican patron. One measure of Pope’s power comes from an accounting of his political spending in a set of two charts prepared by Democracy North Carolina [...]
Two national campaign reform groups are asking the IRS to take away the tax-exempt status of 501(c)(4) organizations that are electioneering shells, not genuine “social welfare” organizations as required by law. The letter challenges four Republican- and Democratic-leaning non-profits. Democracy NC has promoted this approach to cope with the expanded use of non-profits after the [...]
A series of charts and analysis by the NC FreeEnterprise Foundation provides an excellent profile of the largest PACs giving to NC General Assembly contests in 2010. PACs supplied nearly $10 million of the $33.3 million raised by legislative candidates in 2010, and they balanced their donations fairly evenly between Democrats and Republicans, in contrast [...]
Two more developments in the evolving world after the Citizens United decision: One is a legislative response by the Congressional brain trust of Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD). They have introduced a bill that calls for an amendment to the US Constitution to give Congress and the states authority to regulate [...]
Public Campaign has a good bi-partisan campaign that challenges members of the debt reduction Super Committee to stop raising money while they are choosing whose ox will be gored by possible spending cuts or tax increases. The nonprofit has calculated that each of the 12 Members has so much money already stockpiled that they can [...]
Anti-public financing lawyer James Bopp has filed a lawsuit to make North Carolina abandon part of the “voter-owned elections” program for state judicial candidates. It’s the part that awards candidates in the public program extra money if their privately financed opponents spend beyond a certain limit. But the US Supreme Court has already ruled that [...]
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 [...]
Mother Jones magazine has released an audio tape of an exclusive retreat of hard-right millionaires, convened by the now infamous Koch brothers. During the event’s activities, Charles Koch spent a few minutes saluting about 30 donors who had contributed at least a million dollars each in the previous 12 months to the Kochs’ causes – [...]