wisconsin election results: Temmuz 2012

Just over a week ago we spent a little time with Washington state Senator Steve Hobbs, an unabashedly conservative Democrat, who would like to move up to represent Washington's new first congressional district in DC. He's in an August 7th jungle primary race with 4 other Democrats and an unhinged Tea Party Republican, John Koster. The other Democrats are Darshan Rauniyar, who, like Hobbs, isn't showing up on any polling, and the three front-runners, conservative millionaire Suzan DelBene (New Dem and choice of the corrupt DC Establishment), conservative former state Rep. Laura Ruderman and progressive activist (and Blue America endorsee) Darcy Burner. With all those ConservaDems and the Tea Party guy splitting the votes of people who think that way, Darcy Burner has been the top Democrat in every single poll without exception.

The King 5/SurveyUSA poll showed Darcy with a lead of more than five to one over DelBene, the big-spending self-funder who that DC Establishment is backing. FIVE TO ONE! That's how clueless and out of touch with America the DC Establishment is! Darcy, according to their survey, is the only Democrat competitive in head to head match-ups with the far right-wing Republican, John Koster. What the SurveyUSA polling shows-- a confirmation of the internal polling Koster made public in March-- is that Darcy is leading her Democratic opponents with 46% among those who have already decided to vote Democratic. Ruderman and Hobbs tied for second with 17% and DelBene was a distant loser with 13%.

Even after DelBene started spending massive amounts of her husband's cash hoard, daily polling over the last month never showed Darcy dropping from a 2 to 1 lead over her and Darcy has been particularly strong among Democrats and left-leaning independents in the northern counties, new territory for her, DelBene and Ruderman. DelBene dropped several hundred thousand dollars into TV ads and then followed up with 4 mail pieces-- one of which was targeted at Whatcom County where she was desperate to win the Democratic Party's endorsement. Her flash mailer didn't do the trick; Darcy won the endorsement with 73.04% of the vote.

Last week a SuperPAC supporting Laura Ruderman struck back against DelBene with a powerful and destructive mail piece that went to every likely Democratic voter in the district, hitting her on her string of business failures, which is likely to prove very effective since she's basing her entire campaign on what a "successful" and "savvy" businessperson she's been. The Ruderman campaign made sure WA-1 Democrats knew that in "the latest Suzan DelBene mailer, she claims 'she went on as a senior level executive at Microsoft and as an entrepreneur creating jobs at technology startups.' Sounds good, doesn’t it? The problem is that it’s not really accurate. After DelBene left Microsoft, she worked at Drugstore.com. It started out as a success story as it’s stock went from $18 to $70. However, it ended up going down in flames, lost $115 million and the stock plummeted to $8/share. In the end, Walgreens bought what was left of the company. Then, DelBene went to “Nimble Technology” assuming the role of CEO. Again, the company never turned a profit and the remnants of the company were sold to another company. In other words, jobs briefly created were lost as both companies were sold in a firesale. I know what you are thinking. She may be the nominee for the Democrats. Don’t tell people this stuff... Trust me, the Republicans already have it."

Why would Ruderman turn so negative against DelBene? First of all, they're competing for the same conservative-leaning, low-info Democrats. Secondly, DelBene's strategy from day one-- cobbled together in DC-- has been to starve her opponents of resources while she writes her own checks, Romney-style. Her campaign-- backed by ConservaDems like spectacularly unpopular Gov. Christine Gregoire and sleazy New Dem Rick Larsen-- are insisting that Democratic donors and constituency groups "sit it out," either giving no endorsements or endorsing everyone. DelBene and her Establishment allies know that if they can keep the progressive candidate, Darcy, from having the resources to communicate, they can buy the seat-- and win the same way Romney beat Gingrich and Santorum.

When DelBene entered the race, she told KUOW radio that, "Democrats don't compromise enough with Republicans." Think about the depths of a millionaire's out of touch with reality mindset inherent in that attitude-- and what it would mean for a Member of Congress. That leads straight to the Blue Dog/New Dems caucus. In fact, the New Dems have already endorsed her campaign. DelBene publicly told the King County party activists that "Democrats aren't friendly enough to business" and she spoke of using deregulation as a primary means of stimulating the economy at a recent King5 debate.

Please help Blue America elect Darcy Burner to this seat-- by keeping conservative corporate shills John Koster (R) and Suzan DelBene (D) out. Here's where you can contribute to her grassroots campaign. August 7th. That's less than a month away! And voting starts July 20. See that magazine cover up top? Your contribution is likely to help her send copies of that to voters in WA-1. Here's another page from it (you'll have to click on the image to read it):

UPDATE: MoveOn Members Vote To Endorse Darcy!

From her campaign's press release:

Darcy has built a powerful, grassroots campaign spanning the entire new 1st District-- from King County all the way up to Whatcom County. And now, in a crowded field of seven candidates, Darcy emerged as the clear favorite, earning 51% of all the votes cast by MoveOn's 19,000 members in the district-- more than twice as many as her nearest competitor.

When Darcy heard about our endorsement, she said:

"I am honored to receive the endorsement of MoveOn.org and the support of their more than 19,000 members living in the 1st District. This is a year in which millions of people working together will overcome the influence of big money and big business. I look forward to working with MoveOn's members to show how it's done so that we can end the war in Afghanistan, fix our broken Congress, and get our economy back on track for people who work for a living."

As GOP guvs nix Medicaid expansion, Zap says: "Republicans are way past the point of being shamed by any action they perform"

To contact us Click HERE

"You may recall that a few weeks ago President Obama came to this chamber, and he addressed the chamber on health care before a joint session of the House and the Senate. During that session I was privileged to be here, and I saw my colleagues on the far side of the aisle, the Republicans, waving pieces of paper during his speech. And I was wondering what they were. I couldn't imagine. It almost seemed like they wanted President Obama's autograph. I just didn't get it.

"I heard from one of my colleagues that this is what they called the Republican Health Care Plan. I went over after the speech was over. I picked up a copy that was lying down on the Republican side, and it turns out that the Republicans' Health Care Plan was a blank piece of paper. I inquired further, trying to find out exactly what the Republicans; health care plan is, and it's my duty and pride tonight to be able to announce exactly what the Republicans plan to do for health care in America. It's this. [Turning to easel with cards] Very simply -- it's a very simple plan -- here it is, the Republican Healh Care Plan for America: 'Don't get sick.' That's right, don't get sick! If you have insurance, don't get sick! If you don't have insurance, don't get sick! If you're sick, don't get sick! Just don't get sick! That's what the Republicans have in mind for you, America. That's the Republicans' Health Care Plan.

"But I think that the Republicans understand that that plan isn't always going to work. It's not a foolproof plan. So the Republicans have a backup plan, in case you do get sick. If you get sick in America, this is what the Republicans want you to do. [Turning over new card] If you get sick, America, the Republican Health Care Plan is this: 'DIE QUICKLY.' That's right, the Republicans want you to die quickly if you get sick."

"Trying to shame Republican Governors over their refusal of funds to improve the health of their citizens is a monumental and narcissistic waste of time."
-- Zappatero, in a SquareState post, "Death Panels come to life: Republican Governors refuse to help their own citizens"
by Ken

We've all seen this Alan Grayson clip a zillion times, I know. I still thought it was worth making it a zillion and one. Because Republican governors in the wake of the Supreme Court's upholding of much of the Affordable Care Act, with the signal exception of the federal government's ability to threaten states into participating in the expanded Medicaid program, are planning more and more cop-outs, showing us how right Alan G has been all along.

Earlier this week our Colorado colleague Zappatero, inspired by Joan McCarter's Daily Kos post "Republican governors will let people die to make political point," asked on SquareState: "What can you say about these assholes?"

He began his post, "Death Panels come to life: Republican Governors refuse to help their own citizens," by quoting from Joan McCarter's post, then continued on his own.

Proving that making a political point is more important to Republicans than anything else, including saving potentially millions of lives, an increasing number of Republican governors are announcing that they'll refuse the Medicaid expansion money from the federal government. Think Progress has been tracking the state's decisions and has found, so far, 10 Republican governors will refuse it, and another 19 are unsure.

Something Democrats have forgotten as this "argument" has progessed:

* Republicans are way past the point of being shamed by any action they perform. Trying to shame Republican Governors over their refusal of funds to improve the health of their citizens is a monumental and narcissistic waste of time.

* Any, and I mean ANY penny, dime, quarter, or dollar, obtained by ANY government, be that local, state, or federal, to be used for ANY purpose, let alone a common public good like the "general welfare" (sound familiar?) of its citizens, is stolen and should be returned to its owner immediately.

* Health Insurance, not to mention Health Care (Jesus Forbid!) is not a right, nor even an entitlement. If you can't afford it, then you are obviously not worthy and, as Alan Grayson says: if you get sick, you better die fast so as not to burden your family. Let the Free Market prevail!

* Corporations are people, the only people recognized by Republicans, and they are the people who deserve most from governments' ability to choose winners, skew policy to favor one group, or refrain another group from impinging on their inalienable right to make every last frickin' cent available from The Market.

These are the people with whom we are supposed to be bipartisan.

And all I can say to Democrats, until they realize the truth, is bring your own lubricant, because this ain't going to be pleasurable trying to improve upon the "tax" and bill that the Dread Justice Roberts just affirmed. And thank your local Physician Practitioner that we [i.e., in Colorado] have a "Democrat" Governor: John Hickenlooper can bow at the alter of Natural Gas Fracking, but he wouldn't dare decline health care money for our poorest citizens and their children, would he?

Alan Grayson took a lot of heat for that snarky but altogether accurate characterization of the GOP idea of a health care policy as encouraging people to die quickly. Recent events have only reinforced that basic accuracy.

"Republicans are way past the point of being shamed by any action they perform. Trying to shame Republican Governors over their refusal of funds to improve the health of their citizens is a monumental and narcissistic waste of time."
#

Hang The Banksters... Or Jail Them If You're A Wimp

To contact us Click HERE

Friday the editors of the NY Times asked a simple, straightforward question. They want to know who's to blame for the jobless rate... and how the problem can be fixed and their answer-- though it doesn't go far enough (more on that in a moment) is simple and straightforward as well:

The question then is why the recovery under Mr. Obama has not been stronger. Part of the answer lies beyond the control of any American politician, including the euro zone crisis and, more recently, the slowdown in China. But part is the result of obstructionist Republican politics, including the fiasco in 2011 over raising the debt ceiling, which dented confidence in Congress’s ability to steer the economy.

Mr. Obama’s big mistake was to turn prematurely from the need for stimulus to a focus on cutting the budget. He may have hoped to co-opt the Republican emphasis on deficits. He would have done better to slam them on their cynicism in lamenting the deficit after enabling the tax cuts, wars and financial crisis-- all Bush-era creations-- that have deepened the debt.

What he is not responsible for is the continued Republican obstructionism, even in the face of a weakening economy. Last fall, Mr. Obama returned to job creation, with a proposed package that would have created up to 1.9 million jobs, including aid to states to hire teachers and other public employees, investments in infrastructure and tax breaks for new hiring.

Republicans in Congress blocked the package and have balked at other plans from the administration ever since. Wed as they are to the notion that the weak economy is their best shot at victory in November, there is virtually no chance for change in the months ahead. And that means more jobs reports like the one for June.

Defeating every single Republican from Mitt Romney, Eric Cantor, Scott Brown and Paul Ryan down to the bottom of the garbage pile-- your Joe Walshs, Virginia Foxxs, Louie Gohmerts, and Buck McKeons would seem like the logical answer. And it's certainly a logical and necessary start. But Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stigliz has a much better and more long-lasting solution: going after their financiers. He wants us to jail the banksters. (Miss McConnell is also worrying that other shady GOP financiers besides just banksters may be in for rough times if anything-- whether his sexuality or their contributions-- are forced out of the closet. Miss McConnell is a clown, though, so read his silliness at the link and let's go right to Mr. Stiglitz:

[Joseph Stiglitz is] convinced that jailing bankers is the best way to curb market abuses.

A towering genius of economics, Stiglitz wrote a series of papers in the 1970s and 1980s explaining how when some individuals have access to privileged knowledge that others don't, free markets yield bad outcomes for wider society. That insight (known as the theory of "asymmetric information") won Stiglitz the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001.

And he has leveraged those credentials relentlessly ever since to batter at the walls of "free market fundamentalism."

...When traders working for Barclays rigged the Libor interest rate and flogged toxic financial derivatives-- using their privileged position in the financial system to make profits at the expense of their customers-- they were unwittingly proving Stiglitz right.

"It's a textbook illustration," Stiglitz said. "Where there are these asymmetries a lot of these activities are directed at rent seeking [appropriating resources from someone else rather than creating new wealth]. That was one of my original points. It wasn't about productivity, it was taking advantage."

Yet Stiglitz's interest in the abuses of banks extends beyond the academic. He argues that breaking the economic and political power that has been amassed by the financial sector in recent decades, especially in the US and the UK, is essential if we are to build a more just and prosperous society. The first step, he says, is sending some bankers to jail. "That ought to change. That means legislation. Banks and others have engaged in rent seeking, creating inequality, ripping off other people, and none of them have gone to jail."

Next, politicians need to stop spending so much time listening to the financial lobby, which, according to Stiglitz, demonstrates its spectacular economic ignorance whenever it claims that curbs on banks' activities will damage the broader economy.

...The central argument of his latest oeuvre is that the huge inequalities of income and wealth that have developed in the US and elsewhere in the West over recent decades are not only unjust in themselves but are retarding growth.

"Every economy needs lots of public investments-- roads, technology, education," he says. "In a democracy you're going to get more of those investments if you have more equity. Because as societies get divided, the rich worry that you will use the power of the state to redistribute. They therefore want to restrict the power of the state so you wind up with weaker states, weaker public investments and weaker growth."

It's an elegantly simple proposition. And one that logically points to a radical manifesto of redistribution and higher taxation in the name of the general public good. Time will tell whether this comes to be regarded as another manifestation of towering economic genius. But, for now, crusading Stiglitz has one more weapon in his hands with which to batter down those walls of folly.

See, it's not just about revenge. In fact, it isn't about revenge-- or even punishment-- at all. It's about what the Times editors asked Friday-- how the country's staggering economic problems can be solved. Personally I've been advocating a more historically just tax systems to get rid of billionaires and other social predators and parasites-- perhaps the Eisenhower rate of 91% will work-- but I'd be happy to see the banksters all carted off to prison too. Very happy in fact.

In CT-5, A Battle Between The Democratic Wing Of The Democratic Party & The Corporatist Republican Wing Of The Party

To contact us Click HERE

Connecticut's August 14 primary is in the final stretch. There's one important Democratic congressional race-- to replace Chris Murphy in the 5th district, the well-to-do western part of the state from Danbury, Waterbury and New Britain up through all of giant Litchfield County. And the traditional media is still getting the story wrong, missing the boat as usual.

Emily's List and MoveOn.org, two national powerhouses of fundraising and political support for progressive Democratic candidates, are fighting not against Republicans, or the religious right, but each other.

Half right; MoveOn.org is a national powerhouse of fundraising and political support for progressive Democratic candidates. Emily's List? What decade is the writer stuck in? There's nothing remotely progressive about Emily's List. In fact, the organziation has become part of the toxic DC conservative consensus. A "liberal titan?" Don't think so. Not in this century. Emily's List exists to elect pro-choice women, and it doesn't care about their ideology, or whether they are running against equally pro-choice male candidates (or even more dedicated pro-choice women with a more progressive, less pro-Big Business bent) who are more progressive on every other issue. In other words, they have become a wing of the DCCC and other conservative-leaning parts of the corrupt Inside-the-Beltway Establishment, existing to elect corporate candidates of the 1% running against progressive champions. When you see Emily's List has endorsed a candidate, you have to check and recheck to see what's wrong with that candidate.

You may remember when Emily's List became the electoral face of virulent anti-semitism in Memphis, Tennessee, but there's a more recent case in point: CT-05 where they are running the wealthy Ivy League educated ConservaDem Elizabeth Esty against the progressive Speaker of the House Chris Donovan, despite the fact that Chris, as Majority Leader to a conservative Speaker of the House, successfully fought for Plan B medication to be available for rape victims at all of Connecticut's hospitals (even the private Catholic hospitals who bitterly opposed the law), despite Chris leading the fight to strengthen protections against domestic violence, and despite Chris, as Speaker of the House, not allowing a single vote that would restrict women's right to choose to come to the floor on his watch.

And despite Elizabeth Esty being a conservative Democrat fighting for he interests of the 1%, always ready to capitulate to the Republicans at the first hint of turbulence.

For example, in the budget fights of 2009-2010, encompassing Esty's lone term in the CT House of Representatives, while progressive leaders like Chris Donovan set about the important work of replacing Connecticut's flat tax with the first progressive income tax to ask millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share, Esty was joining with the so-called "moderate caucus" to suggest an "alternative budget."

The alternative being that it protected the income of the 1% and cut the programs that serve Connecticut's working families. Please, let me encourage you to click on the link and read Esty's whole hideous plan. But here are some of the low-lights:

* Cut youth employment programs

* Eliminate OTC drug coverage under Medicaid

* Increase fees for Medicaid patients

* Increase premiums for children's health care through Husky (S-Chip) program

* Cut affordable housing programs

* Eliminate funding for two magnet schools (including one that served her district)

* Eliminate After School Programs

* Reduce funding to Connecticut's Public Colleges and Universities

Sounds a little like a junior league version of Paul Ryan's budget, doesn't it? And then she joined with those other "moderate" legislators to send a letter to the leaders who were fighting for working families, asking them to capitulate to the Republican governor's budget demands so that programs would be cut, and their millionaire constituents wouldn't have to pay a little bit more for the common good.

Sending her to Congress would be guaranteeing another vote for the Simpson-Bowles plan to gut Social Security and Medicare, another vote to capitulate to the Republican Ryan plan to voucherize and destroy Medicare, and another vote for the 1% at the expense of the 99% of families who have to work for a living. Not issues on Emily's List radar.

And sending her to Congress would allow us to watch her walk back her campaign promises. For example, while she now claims to be in favor of paid sick leave, when she had her chance to vote for the first statewide paid sick leave law in the country she voted no (Chris Donovan didn't give up, and that law was passed in 2011).

That's why Esty has the support of "moderate" DC groups like Emily's List and Chris Donovan has the support of progressive groups like Blue America, PCCC, MoveOn.org, CCAG and the Working Families Party. The media has one thing right-- its a battle, but the battle is between us and them; between the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party and the spineless, corporatist, Republican wing of the Democratic Party. (There's also some rich lobbyist's son running in the primary.)

Let's make sure we win this one, and send Chris Donovan to Congress.

Republican Party Against Democracy

To contact us Click HERE

The political right has always had a problem with democracy. Obviously a party representing the interests of 1% of the population-- or even 5 or 10%-- will have a problem with elections. So conservatives have always done whatever they could to change the subject and make elections about divisiveness or xenophobia. And then there's the whole anti-democarcy crusade that's always part of any right-wing political party-- especially limiting the franchise-- and, of course, there's the money aspect, basically buying votes. This isn't just about our times or our country.

But there are a few ways Republicans here in the U.S. have tried to win elections in ways that have nothing to do with persuading voters that their ideas are better-- or that they even matter. We won't even bother rehashing electronic vote theft-- from Katherine Harris in Florida to Ken Blackwell in Ohio and Kathy Nickolaus in Waukesha County, Wisconsin-- but let's take a look at a more tried and true conservative tactic-- limiting voter participation by taking away voting rights from people who might vote against their party. In every state the Republicans took over in 2010 they've either instituted or are trying to institute drastic voter ID laws that will disenfranchise large numbers of African-American, Latino, young and poor voters... all constituencies that tend to vote Democratic.

Their latest blow against democracy was in Pennsylvania, a state Obama won in a landslide in 2008, but where the GOP hopes to win for him in November... if they can prevent close to 800,000 people from voting. That's close to 10% of the state's registered voters-- and around 18% in Philadelphia, a Democratic stronghold where many people use public transportation and don't have drivers licenses.

Watch the video above where you're hear Republican state House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, a well-known dirtbag, bragging how the GOP legislation to prevent hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania registered voters from being able to cast their ballots "is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania."

[F]or most voters, the Pennsylvania driver's license is the standard photo ID. The disclosure that 9 percent of the state's registered voters don't have one - or an alternative, nondriver PennDot photo ID-- provides a clearer picture of the hurdle set up by the state's new voter ID requirement.

Republican lawmakers pushed the bill through the legislature in March and it was signed into law by Gov. Corbett, over protests from Democrats that the measure would disenfranchise thousands of voters, disproportionately affecting those without driver's licenses-- the poor, the elderly, and the young.

House Republican leader Mike Turzai acknowledged the law's political implications at a Republican State Committee meeting last month.

...The law still faces a legal challenge as a possible violation of the state constitution. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson scheduled a July 25 hearing and his decision is likely to reach the state Supreme Court before November.

...Philadelphia's top election official, City Commission Chair Stephanie Singer, said the figures reinforced her view that the state's new law was designed to suppress voter turnout in the predominantly Democratic city.

With 18 percent of voters not having PennDot ID, she said, "Philadelphia is hit much harder by this than any of the other counties."

Singer had sought to obtain PennDot's data directly and set up a telephone call last month to speak to PennDot Secretary Barry J. Schoch.

But Aichele's office found out about the call and canceled it on the ground that the Department of State was supposed to be the point agency for all matters involving voter ID.

Singer said she now was anxious to receive the state data including names and addresses for those without PennDot ID - data that the state initially promised to send her office in May, Singer said.

Ruman said the state planned to distribute the lists to county election boards by next week. In addition, he said, the state intends to send letters this summer to all voters without PennDot ID telling them of the new law, the types of ID that will be necessary to vote in November, and how to obtain suitable ID if they need it.

Behind Philadelphia's 18 percent, nine other counties-- Allegheny, Cameron, Centre, Cumberland, Delaware, Lackawanna, Lawrence, Montour, and Union-- were reported to have 10 percent to 12 percent of their voters without PennDot ID. In the other 57 counties, more than 90 percent of voters reportedly had driver's licenses or nondriver ID, according to the state data.

And then there's the financial shenanigans-- many given the green light (Citizens United) by the 5 corporate whores the GOP managed to get onto the Supreme Court. Over the weekend Romney partied at the Koch mansion in tony East Hampton with the parasites of American society.

A woman in a blue chiffon dress poked her head out of a black Range Rover here on Sunday afternoon and yelled to an aide to Mitt Romney, “Is there a V.I.P. entrance. We are V.I.P.”

No such entrance existed. The line of cars waiting to enter a Romney event at a waterfront estate here had reached 30 deep, testament to the Republican candidate’s fund-raising might on a weekend when he is expected to haul in $3 million in the Hamptons.

Mr. Romney’s aides apologized for the wait: each donor had to be checked off a guest list in the driveway, leading to a major backup. “We are doing our best,” an aide carrying a clipboard said, sweat dripping down her cheeks.

Mr. Romney arrived in this town of outsized homes and conspicuous consumption for the first of three major fund-raisers on Sunday afternoon, his motorcade of Chevrolet Suburbans passing a gleaming line of Bentleys, Porsches and a Mercedes Benzes waiting to deposit guests who paid up to $25,000 a head to hear him speak.

A luncheon fund-raiser was held at the sprawling home of Ronald O. Perelman, the billionaire financier and chairman of Revlon. Widely described as the largest estate in East Hampton, it has 40 rooms, nine fireplaces and takes up mile along Georgica Pond.

After that, Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, was also scheduled to attend fund-raisers at the Hamptons homes of Clifford Sobel, the former United States ambassador to Brazil, and the billionaire industrialist David H. Koch, a major donor to conservative causes.

The event at Mr. Koch’s home, the biggest of the day, was expected to attract a sizable crowd of protesters, who, in brochures promoting the demonstration, said they opposed “the ever-growing and pervasive influence of Koch Industries,” the company controlled by Mr. Koch and his brother, Charles.

At Mr. Perelman’s house, a handful of guests stuck in the line outside rolled down their tinted windows to chat or simply shouted from their convertibles of their enthusiasm for Mr. Romney and disdain for President Obama.

Laura R. Schwartz of New Jersey, the woman inside the Range Rover, complained that Mr. Obama had not visited Israel as president, a slight to the country, in her eyes. “I don’t think he is good for Israel,” she said. Mr. Romney, she said, “is a fresh face.”

A few cars back, Ted Conklin, the owner of the American Hotel in Sag Harbor, N.Y., long a favorite of the well-off and well-known in the Hamptons, could barely contain his displeasure with Mr. Obama. “He is a socialist. His idea is find a problem that doesn’t exist and get government to intervene,” Mr. Conklin said from inside a gold-colored Mercedes as his wife, Carol Simmons, nodded in agreement.

Ms. Simmons paused to highlight what she said was her husband’s generous spirit: “Tell them who’s on your yacht this weekend! Tell him!”

Over Mr. Conklin’s objections, Ms. Simmons disclosed that a major executive from Miramax, the movie company, was on the 75-foot yacht, because, she said, there were no rooms left at the hotel.

In Southampton, where Mr. Koch lives, the local police spent much of Sunday gearing up for as many as 200 protesters, a rare sight in these precincts. It would be “the first large-scale protest” the village has ever had, Chief Tom Cummings said.

The packed schedule of fund-raisers seemed to create some confusion among the guests. As he pulled up outside Mr. Perelman’s estate, Ms. Schwartz’s companion initially wondered if he was the home of the Koch brothers.

Oh, he said, not yet.

“We are going to all of them,” Ms. Schwartz explained.

As I may have mentioned a few times this week-- and last week and the week before-- the only way to solve this country's growing economic problems is by eradicating billionaires-- all of them. Now I'm not advocating hanging or shooting or anything like that. I'm advocating sensible tax policies from times when the country's economy was most robust and grew at the fastest pace-- grew for everyone, not just a few assholes in golden Mercedes and yachts. Like in the Eisenhower days, when the top rate was 91%. That isn't quite as high as it should be now, but it's a start. So where does the cheating come in? Ah... to me it's very clear, but if you have to ask, the NY Times had another fine example Saturday: corporations disguising their political contributions behind fake non-profits.

The giant insurer Aetna directed more than $3 million last year to the American Action Network, a Republican-leaning nonprofit organization that has spent millions of dollars attacking lawmakers who voted for President Obama’s health care bill — even as Aetna’s president publicly voiced support for the legislation.

Other corporations, including Prudential Financial, Dow Chemical and the drugmaker Merck, have poured millions of dollars more into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a tax-exempt trade group that has pledged to spend at least $50 million on political advertising this election cycle.

Two years after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the door for corporate spending on elections, relatively little money has flowed from company treasuries into “super PACs,” which can accept unlimited contributions but must also disclose donors. Instead, there is growing evidence that large corporations are trying to influence campaigns by donating money to tax-exempt organizations that can spend millions of dollars without being subject to the disclosure requirements that apply to candidates, parties and PACs.

The secrecy shrouding these groups makes a full accounting of corporate influence on the electoral process impossible. But glimpses of their donors emerged in a New York Times review of corporate governance reports, tax returns of nonprofit organizations and regulatory filings by insurers and labor unions.

The review found that corporate donations-- many of them previously unreported-- went to groups large and small, dedicated to shaping public policy on the state and national levels. From a redistricting fight in Minnesota to the sprawling battleground of the 2012 presidential and Congressional elections, corporations are opening their wallets and altering the political world.

Some of the biggest recipients of corporate money are organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, the federal designation for “social welfare” groups dedicated to advancing broad community interests. Because they are not technically political organizations, they do not have to register with or disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission, potentially shielding corporate contributors from shareholders or others unhappy with their political positions.

“Companies want to be able to quietly push for their political agendas without being held accountable for it by their customers,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has filed complaints against issue groups. “I think the 501(c)(4)’s are likely to outweigh super PAC spending, because so many donors want to remain anonymous.”

Because social welfare groups are prohibited from devoting themselves primarily to political activity, many spend the bulk of their money on issue advertisements that purport to be educational, not political, in nature. In May, for example, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, a group co-founded by the Republican strategist Karl Rove, began a $25 million advertising campaign, carefully shaped with focus groups of undecided voters, that attacks Mr. Obama for increasing the federal deficit and urges him to cut spending.

The Internal Revenue Service has no clear test for determining what constitutes excessive political activity by a social welfare group. And tax-exempt groups are permitted to begin raising and spending money even before the I.R.S. formally recognizes them. Two years after helping Republicans win control of the House with millions of dollars in issue advertising, Crossroads GPS’s application for tax-exempt status is still pending.

During the 2010 midterm elections, tax-exempt groups outspent super PACs by a 3-to-2 margin, according to a recent study by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Center for Public Integrity, with most of that money devoted to attacking Democrats or defending Republicans. And such groups have accounted for two-thirds of the political advertising bought by the biggest outside spenders so far in the 2012 election cycle, according to Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, with close to $100 million in issue ads.

The growing role of issue groups has prompted a rash of complaints and lawsuits from watchdog organizations accusing groups like the American Action Network, Crossroads and the pro-Obama Priorities USA of operating as sham charities whose primary purpose is not the promotion of social welfare, but winning elections. Efforts in Congress to force more disclosure for politically active nonprofit organizations have been repeatedly stymied by Republicans, who have described the push as an assault on free speech.

“These groups are being used as a conduit to hide from voters the identity of people and corporations who are bankrolling these television ads, which are designed to influence the outcome of elections,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland.

UPDATE: A Last Word About Romney And Koch And Their Lovely Rich Friends

Reading the L.A. Times coverage of Mittens day in the Hamptons with his base is unhealthy, at least for me. I'm been spending a lot of time meditating on Jesus' message and reading this stuff shatters the inner peace I've been finding. The rich donors were happy to talk with reporters-- as long as they didn't have to give their names.

"I don't think the common person is getting it," she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits. "Nobody understands why Obama is hurting them.

"We've got the message," she added. "But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies -- everybody who's got the right to vote-- they don't understand what's going on. I just think if you're lower income-- one, you're not as educated, two, they don't understand how it works, they don't understand how the systems work, they don't understand the impact."

8 Temmuz 2012 Pazar

The Egalitarian Myth of "School Choice"

To contact us Click HERE
(By Andrew MacKie-Mason)

The "school choice" movement is interesting, because it has managed to claim an egalitarian mantle, while really being an anti-egalitarian movement. Take this quote, excerpted from a news article by Rick Garnett:

"No parent should be forced to send a child to school that does not meet the child's needs," O'Brien said. "This is good legislation to allow parents to give their children the best chance possible to succeed. It makes school choice a reality for many children who lack the ability to find an educational environment where they can thrive."

The result of school choice programs will be to let a few more children into private schools, while driving up the cost of education across the board and driving down the quality of the remaining public schools significantly (I talked about this in more detail here and here). Unless we fully commit to a private education system with guaranteed, fully paid vouchers for the poor (for any school they want to go to, not for a specific amount), "school choice" will help middle-class children (and those in certain religious communities with strong sectarian education programs) at the cost of damaging the situation for those who are truly struggling.

The "school choice" movement has been effective with their rhetoric, but don't buy into the idea that "school choice" is really about helping the disadvantaged.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald To Quit On June 30

To contact us Click HERE
May 23, 2012 - U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald will step down on June 30, reports CBS2 Chicago. "He took over on Sept. 1, 2001, making him the longest-serving U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. He became a national celebrity for going after political corruption in Illinois. Most...

To read the full post at Chicago News Bench, click on the headline above.

UPDATED: Watch the Trayvon Martin Fight Club Video Here

To contact us Click HERE
Punk UPDATE, MAY 26, 2012 - You can STILL watch the Trayvon Martin "fight club" video here (below). For how much longer, we don't know. The cowards at YouTube seems to have finally pulled all of the copies that were posted there, including the one we posted on May 22. However, we found it still up...

To read the full post at Chicago News Bench, click on the headline above.

The Lamest Political Video You Will Ever See: Obama's Election Day Message to Wisconsin

To contact us Click HERE
June 5, 2012, 2:00 P.M. CDT - Today is the day that Wisconsin voters take to the polls to decide whether Gov. Scott Walker (R) will stay or be replaced by challenger Tom Barrett (D). The "recall Walker" effort in Wisconsin is well over a year old, and Badger State Democrats have been frustrated by...

To read the full post at Chicago News Bench, click on the headline above.