Hillarysworld

Sanders · Diamond

"The Perfect Storm" (Robert Reich, 10/18/10)

VotedHillary · Platinum

Why is it that these kind of articles NEVER discuss the heavy dollars from the unions?

I have a question. Do the union members get to choose who they want their union membership dollars to go to or do the union leaders make it an arbitrary decision by them?

To me, when it comes to BIG BUSINESS, unions rank right up there.

BTW, should any union whose industry was bailed out by our tax dollars be allowed to make campaign contributions?

Sanders · Diamond

No, I dont like ANY kind of corporate financing of elections.

But the Supreme Court has spoken. The Corporations have the same right.

But you and I as individual donors - if we donate to campaign, our name is out there in reports with date, amount, who is our employer...

Corporations (including unions which are a type of corporation) donating and putting out advertisements -- their money, their voice is HUGE... and yet, their advertisement does not end with "I approved this message" from their CEO. You do not know the soruce of funds behind the corporations. When a non-profit corporationi funds these advertisements, you do not know who is behind them at all.. so many are in vague sounding websites.. we dont even know who is behind the entity and who is footing their bill or funding their expenses.

As for Senators, all are already in the pocket of corporations (of all kinds) to foot their bills and advertisements. They proved it already. If Tea Partiers think special interests and pork will go down as a result of this evoluation -- Dream on!

My focus here (today) though has been on jobs amidt this perfect storm.

I hope the Unions and the U.S. Secretary of Labor (who we seem to be not hearing anything from) find new ways to retain jobs in the US as companies making and selling stuff happily take their U.S. profits and invest it to expand their non-US operations.

But it seems that we have ended up with democracy sliding into plutocracy, thanks to the Supreme Court of all institutions.

-- Edited by Sanders on Friday 22nd of October 2010 11:04:18 PM

freespirit · Moderator

This from Mother Jones follows the money of well financed senators:

Who Owns Congress?
(snip)

The Senate: Lawyers, Drugs, and Money

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)
Terms: 2 (9 in House)
Total raised: $62.2 million, 27% from finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE)
Top donors: A major defender of Wall Street interests before the crash, Schumer has netted more big bank money than any member of Congress who hasn't run for president.

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.)
Terms: 1
Total raised: $17 million, 7% from FIRE
Top donors: In the special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat, Brown's biggest donors were Fidelity Investments, Bain Capital (Mitt Romney's old firm), and Credit Suisse. But—whoops!—he voted for the financial regulation bill.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
Terms: 5
Total raised: $37.2 million, 14% from FIRE
Top donors: The top Senate Republican's most generous contributors have been US Smokeless Tobacco—now part of Altria, née Philip Morris—and Brown-Forman, the maker of Jack Daniel's. Cheers!

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.)
Terms: 4 (2 in House)Total raised: $35.4 million, 17% from lawyers and lobbyists
Top donors: 5 out of the majority leader's top 10 lifetime donors are casinos or gambling interests. The industry has bet more than $1.7 million on him, plus $1.3 mil on fellow Nevada Sen. John Ensign.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)
Terms: 3 (5 in House)
Total raised: $75.3 million, 7% from lawyers and lobbyists
Top donors: Boxer is Hollywood's favorite member of Congress (aside from Sen. John Kerry). Her second-biggest donor is Time Warner; Disney is sixth.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.)
Terms: 2 (4 in House)
Total raised: $31.8 million, 12% from agribusiness
Top donors: The ranking member of the ag committee has never met a federal farm subsidy he didn't like. He just happens to be Congress' second-most bountiful recipient of agribusiness cash.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.)
Terms: 4 (4 in House)
Total raised: $16.2 million, 13% from energy and natural resources
Top donors: Inhofe, who's declared that "man-induced global warming is an article of religious faith," has received more money from Koch Industries than any other company. The oil firm has given nearly $25 million to climate-change denial groups.

This groups house members according to their primary donors:

The House: Big Labor vs. Big Money

The House
SECTOR | # OF MEMBERS

Labor 159

Finance, insurance, and real estate 159

Health 26

Agribusiness 23

Lawyers and lobbyists 20

Miscellaneous business 18

Energy and natural resources 10

Defense 7

Transportation 6

Communications and electronics 4

Construction 1

Unfilled seats 2
Total seats | 435

Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.)
Terms: 21
Total raised: $10.8 million, 21% from labor
Top donors: The chair of the appropriations committee and a subcommittee with oversight of labor matters, is the House's second-biggest recipient of union cash. Obey's retiring in the face of a challenge from Real World star Sean Duffy.

Lots more information at this link:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/09/congress-corporate-sponsors

Sanders · Diamond

freespirit, wow, that's quite remarkable.

I find the differences of influences between House and Senate quite interesting. It shows the extent of influence these groups are buying into our legislative process to tip the scale in favor of their respective corporate interests.

The Senate

SECTOR | # OF MEMBERS

Finance, insurance, and real estate 57

Lawyers and lobbyists 25

Health 5

Agribusiness 3

Labor 2

Energy and natural resources 2

Miscellaneous business 2

Communications and electronics 1

No money raised 3

Total seats | 100

THE HOUSE

SECTOR | # OF MEMBERS

Labor 159

Finance, insurance, and real estate 159

Health 26

Agribusiness 23

Lawyers and lobbyists 20

Miscellaneous business 18

Energy and natural resources 10

Defense 7

Transportation 6

Communications and electronics 4

Construction 1

Unfilled seats 2

Total seats | 435

So, Labor has the House and Lawyers and Lobbyists have the Senate.

The charts are even more interesting when you consider that Senators have 6-year term and never overhauls all at once, and the House Reps have 4 year term as well as the House overhauls at once every four years (like this year). So, the House influences were "bought" at once (almost except for a few here and there), four years ago. The percentages of sector influence across Senate and House and the relative raio of sector influence within the House and the Senate are also quite interesting. Worth studying a bit more.. I'll revisit this.

VotedHillary · Platinum

The House members have 2-year terms, Sanders.

Sanders · Diamond

Thank you VH.

I wonder how much damage they can cause in one two year period - if the senate also turns Republican... as we know the Dems in the Senate are already in the pocket of the corporations. Their most recent vote absolutely proves the extent of corporate influence.

I am really very concerned. I think the supreme court decision on corporate funding and nonprofit funded advertisements has totally defeated individual voice and broadly opened the door for misinformation society. If Hillary runs today, the movie Hillary that the nonprofit had made would kill her candidacy - not because it has truth, but because it has so much horsepower in advertising dollars that it can drown the message of her accomplihments. This is just a terrible thing that the supreme court has pulled on this society.

Just look at the map. That corporations totally rule us going forward.

VotedHillary · Platinum

I think we can look at the last two years and all the HOR members that road in on the coattails of Obama in 2008 to know how much damage can occur.

Sanders · Diamond

This time around the extent of corporate influence is far worse I am afraid.

I just looked at the company contributions summary in Fundrace on Huffpo (scroll down). Most of them have contributed to the same party as they did in 2008; all have contributed to both sides (and all seem to have scaled back) except Chevron and Wells Fargo that have made MAJOR donations to GOP. Now, these company donations do NOT include nonprofit donations -- those are not reported, and their sources are also not reported. A lot of nonprofits derive their funds from for-profit entities and that contribution is not captured in the Fundrace summary..

So, the seating map of corporate and lobbyist influences shown above is just a small part of the story. Hm.. wish they had actually shown the dollar amounts that went into campaigns and campaign advertising funded by corporations as well as nonprofits on the same seating map. That would really tell the story.

-- Edited by Sanders on Sunday 24th of October 2010 01:13:11 AM

VotedHillary · Platinum

Sanders, I trust HuffPo's impartiality as much as I trust our news media as a whole for impartiality.

We all can find sources to back any position we want. HuffPo is a poor choice as they are so biased in their "reporting".

I am going to be very frank and honest with you. You have lost credibility with me tonight when you didn't know the most fundamental of American politics. That a House member's term is two years. This is a question on the immigration test that they must pass to become a citizen. But you as a citizen didn't know that.

You are pushing an agenda here and that is your right as a member of this board just as I do.

I know I am going to catch all sorts of hell for this...but I am tired of those that don't know the most fundamentals of how our government operates telling us how it should operate.

HillarysGirl, I will understand if you need to ban me for this.

-- Edited by VotedHillary on Sunday 24th of October 2010 02:25:01 AM

Sanders · Diamond

VH, Fundrace is fed from FCC report of campaign contribution. The numbers are roll up from reported categories. If they did the rollup, yeah, I would not trust much.

Yes, I got confused on the years. As I wrote it I did pause for a while. I am not an expert on US Politics, but I try to learn all I can. What I could not recall is if all had turned over in 2008. Honestly, I was not much into US politics before the 2008 elections - just your basic average voter. Not even involved in local politics.. but that sure changed in 2008, but my focus there was on the national election. I have been interested more in Senate action than the House... but I often call my House Rep and gave input on proposed legislation - that I often do. Our current House Rep is new; previous one was there for a long time before he retired. If I had thought abotu it more I woudl have known; the current guy got elected in 2008 - Hillary campaigned for him and he is up for re-election. I think it is the senate terms and the backfills that I got confused with the House. As a registered independent voter, I used to vote more Dem than Repub but it was always a choice based on who is on the ballot up and down the ballot. And, I have only voted in the U.S. since the 1990's.

I am a big proponent of democracy - one person one vote principal. That needs to be in letter and spirit, unfortunately that balance is being shifted greatly by the corporate interests. Having been born and raised in (another) democracy, I thought the U.S. democracy is the better model.. There are pros and cons in both. The U.S. 2-party system has its disadvantages and the India multi-party system had its own set of headaches.

As to the spread of numbers in the above seating, what surprised me (and I should have expected it) is the heavy focus of lobbyists on the senate. The FIRE sector is not taking any chances and has put heavy influence on both the Houe and the Senate. I wanted to find more on dollar amounts, but could not.

I think democracy is worth protecting. I have significant concern that our democracy is totally being sucked into moneyed corporations that are channeling money through nonprofits. This bother me greatly.

I hope Hillary runs in 2012, and I hope she can raise a lot of money. I just saw three of Jen's posts that give me a bit more hope on Hillary running. If she does, and the nonprofit movie is not tossed at her to hurt her, we might be safe afterall.

The saddest part is we dont know which sources to trust anymore. I for one visit all kinds of news media to get data. And, no, I dont like conclusions from Huffpo. Data sourced from FCC is the best we can do at this point, and I think the seating thing that we got is also derived from FCC reported data.

-- Edited by Sanders on Sunday 24th of October 2010 03:24:08 AM