This morning, the New York Times broke the news that Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade, is planning to unleash a race-baiting advertising assault against President Obama late in the campaign. Rickets, who used his Super PAC to fund an upset victory in Nebraska’s Senate election this week, intends to finance the anti-Obama ads. Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rotenberg report:

“The world is about to see Jeremiah Wright and understand his influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way,” says the proposal, which was overseen by Fred Davis and commissioned by Joe Ricketts, the founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade. Mr. Ricketts is increasingly putting his fortune to work in conservative politics.

The $10 million plan, one of several being studied by Mr. Ricketts, includes preparations for how to respond to the charges of race-baiting it envisions if it highlights Mr. Obama’s former ties to Mr. Wright, who espouses what is known as “black liberation theology.”

The group suggested hiring as a spokesman an “extremely literate conservative African-American” who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a “metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln.”

The article notes that Fred Davis, the advertising consultant who played a key role for John McCain in 2008 and many other GOP congressional campaigns, is helping to craft the ads. Davis was prevented from running similar ads in 2008 because McCain viewed them as derogatory and racially insensitive. The New York Times piece is a reminder that 2012 will be a far uglier campaign than the one Obama experienced when he first ran for president.

It’s also a stark reminder that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision may unleash a new level of ugliness in American campaigns. Technically, the decision only allows corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts in elections. But in practice, Citizens United might fuel a wave of advertising designed to stir racial divisions and hatred against minority groups:

– Super PACs Are Less Accountable: Super PACs and 501c groups that buy advertising (see Stephen Colbert’s primer on “Spooky PACs“) can hide their donors using a number of methods. This makes it difficult for the public or the media to scrutinize an ad once it’s launched. These groups can appear one day, and disappear the next. In 2010, an undisclosed 501(c)(4) nonprofit called the American Future Fund aired race-baiting ads that hit Democrats for supporting a New York mosque at Ground Zero, allegedly built to honor the terrorists victory on 9/11. In reality, the ads misquoted the lawmakers, and the mosque in question was a planned community center headed by a cleric who has worked for the government, including the Bush administration, for years to promote peace.

– Candidates Have Less Control Of The Ads On TV: Limitless fundraising allows Super PACs to have the loudest voice in a campaign.And since Super PACs are legally prohibited from coordinating with candidates, politicians have less say over who defines their own message. In 2008, Fred Davis prepared a fleet of advertisements with racially tinged messages, hitting Obama for crime and for his association with Rev. Wright. But McCain took the high road and never allowed the ads to see the light of day. Davis explained the situation with Time Magazine’s Michael Sherer a few weeks after the election in 2008. Now, Romney has no power to stop Davis from preparing any type of ad for Joe Rickett’s Super PAC.

Dog whistle racism and other cheap campaign tricks, aired using front groups, have always been a factor in American political advertising. In 1988, an outside group called the National Security Political Action Committee, in coordination with the George H.W. Bush campaign, aired the infamous Willie Horton ad with heavy racial overtones.

But for the second time a major party will have nominated an African American candidate, the campaign landscape will be different. Obama faces any number of eccentric billionaires or corporate interests that may have no hesitation in poisoning the public dialogue with hate.

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Rep. Alcee Hastings delivered the first-ever commencement address at FastTrain College. Six months later, the FBI raided the campus.

The FBI raided campuses of Florida-based FastTrain College on Wednesday. The for-profit school has multiple ties to Representative Alcee Hastings (D-FL), who has been a fervent backer of for-profit education companies. This industry has lobbied Congress fiercely in recent years to avoid accountability for waste, fraud, and abuse at the expense of students and taxpayers.

An FBI spokesperson said the Bureau executed a search warrant at FastTrain’s Jacksonville campus as part of a joint investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Education. The South Florida Business Journal saw an FBI agent at the FastTrain campus in Pembroke Pines, which was temporarily closed. One report says the investigation found “deceptive and otherwise questionable sales and marketing practices.” Jacksonville TV stations reported that FBI agents retrieved records and computers and also asked students arriving on campus about their federal Pell grants. One student said FastTrain billed her $32,000 for one year, including for charges she did not understand, such as $3,072 for room and board when FastTrain apparently does not offer on-campus housing.

U.S. Department of Education spokesman Justin Hamilton told Republic Report that the Department’s ”Office of Inspector General is conducting search warrants at campuses of FastTrain College in Florida as a part of a criminal investigation. The FBI is involved. Per its policy, and to protect and maintain the integrity of its investigation, the OIG does not discuss any of its ongoing work.”

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As we reported back in February, the over-the-counter drug association known as the Consumer Health Products Association (CHPA) spent $194,000 in January alone to battle legislation that would require a prescription for certain cold medicines so as to combat the spread of ingredients commonly used to make methmethamphetamines.

The bill was eventually watered down after protests by legislators close to the drug industry, but it was signed into law by the governor late last month.

Now, lobbying figures have been released and it’s been revealed that CHPA broke the record in the state for special interest lobbying, spending almost half a million dollars on lobbying within the first three months of the year.

When asked about this lobbying, Sen. Tom Buford (R), who opposed the anti-meth bill, defended CHPA:

“I would not want to restrict anyone’s ability to voice their opinion because I think you move into a dictatorship when you do that,” he says. “It really sounds an exorbitant of money when you look at it, but if you go to Washington D.C. they’re spending hundreds of millions.”

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As voters continue to rebuke status quo incumbents and corrupt politicians, yet another upset election could be on the horizon. Congressman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) is facing a Democratic primary challenge from Beto O’Rourke, a businessman and former member of the El Paso City Council. Reyes, a ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, is known for his incoherent statements on foreign policy and for granting telecom companies blanket immunity for their role in warrantless wiretapping under President Bush.

But as the election heats up in Texas, Reyes’ ties to his campaign contributors may become an issue for voters.

Reyes has a certain dependence on his campaign contributors that extends far beyond elections:

– An investigation from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found that Reyes is the top lawmaker in Congress in terms of spending campaign contribution to reward family members. The study noted that Reyes had distributed at least $600,000 in political funds to his brother and a company controlled by his niece.

– The El Paso Times reports this week that Reyes’ campaign account has paid for a number of services that appear to be associated with personal use. “In 2010, the campaign paid $300 to America OnLine, $600 to Potomac Electric, $1,379.88 to Dish Network and $900 to Southwestern Bell for the ‘DC office,’” the story notes. The Reyes committee paid for pest control and, in what appears to be a violation of House ethics rules, funded campaign events in the U.S. House of Representatives.

– The El Paso Times also reported that a “2002 document filed with the Texas Secretary of State proposed that U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes’ El Paso home would be the state’s registered office for a company that gave the congressman thousands of dollars in campaign donations, hired his children and received a $200 million no-bid contract from the federal government.” A General Services Administration inspector general’s investigation hit the project for defective equipment and tens of millions in wasted taxpayer funds. Over a decade ago, the Texas firm employing Reyes’ children was bought by L-3 Communications, a defense contractor that has donated thousands to Reyes’ campaigns for Congress.

Notably, Reyes happens to be low on cash. He has less than $15,000 in total assets, according to his personal finance disclosure. But Reyes’ campaign fundraising is a different story. The congressman has raised at least $1,117,263 during this campaign cycle.

In addition to rewarding himself and his family, the congressman has put this $1.1 million dollar campaign account to work to viciously smear his opponent. His campaign released a video that depicts children attacking O’Rourke with the claim that he supports legalization of all illegal drugs. The ad, as multiple fact-checking organizations have noted, is a blatant misrepresentation of O’Rourke’s views.

O’Rourke is the co-author of a book that criticizes the government’s handling of the drug war and advocates legalization of marijuana. Marijuana prohibition, O’Rourke says, has only boosted the power of Mexico’s drug cartels. He does not favor legalizing all drugs.

Reyes, in contrast with his opponent, has called for militarizing the drug war. Last year, he suggested to reporters that the military should send drones to Mexico to kill cartel leaders:

“We have to do what we’ve done essentially in Pakistan, and that is start taking out the heads of the cartels,” said Reyes, whose four-year tenure as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee ended in December.
That, he said, is what it will take to end the cartel drug wars that have caused 35,000 deaths and brought Juárez and other Mexican towns and cities to their knees since 2008.
Asked if he meant employing the kind of drone missile strikes that have been effective but hugely unpopular in Pakistan, Reyes told El Paso Inc., “I wouldn’t rule that out.”

Reyes’ ultra-hawkish views might seem abnormal for the Democrat, until you consider that drones are helping to finance both Reyes’ political videos and his personal AOL account.

Defense and homeland security companies — in particular, drone-maker — have been the top donors to Reyes for several years. As the election nears, the largest donors to the Reyes campaign have been drone companies:

– DRS Technologies gave another contribution to Reyes, increasing the total amount the company PAC has given the congressman to $4,500. DRS makes RQ-15 Neptune drone.

– General Dynamics also donated to Reyes this month, increasing to total amount the company PAC has given the congressman to $10,000. General Dynamics has several drone-related contracts with the military, and manufacturers mortar weapons for drones.

– This cycle, Reyes’ top contributors include drone-makers like Honeywell ($14,500), Lockheed Martin ($13,500), Raytheon ($10,000), SAIC Inc. ($10,000), and BAE Systems ($7,500).

We’ve covered in the past how corruption has entrenched our broken drug laws. The Reyes-O’Rourke race is another example. Here, an eight year incumbent is using money supplied to him by companies that stand to benefit from the drug war to smear his opponent for favoring a more sensible approach to marijuana. Unfortunately, there’s big money to be made from intensifying the war on marijuana — money that is used to keep politicians with draconian positions elected to office.

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American veterans risked their lives fighting insurgents like the Taliban. Now, lobbyists like Brian Moran (left) work to ensure that for-profit college companies remain unaccountable, even when they scam veterans and their families. Moran is also chair of the Virginia Democratic Party.

After risking their lives abroad, American veterans are returning home to a new set of dangers. For-profit college companies are increasingly targeting veterans and their education benefits as a source for easy profits. The companies have a record of fraud, from deceptive recruiting practices to extremely high drop-out and default rates. Unlike tradition private or public schools, for-profit college executives often reward themselves with compensation of over $20 million a year. Experts have noted that much of the $640 millionin G.I. benefits channeled to for-profit companies is spent on executive salary, marketing, and recruitment — not education services.

As Bloomberg News has reported, for-profit colleges have even targeted veterans facing serious traumatic brain injuries. Some marines reported not being able to remember which classes he was enrolled to take.

The good news is that President Obama issued an executive order this month forcing accountability standards on for-profit college companies targeting veterans. The order compels the companies to provide prospective students with vital information like loan repayment amounts and transferability of their credits to other schools.

For most veterans and their families, this is good news. But to Beltway lobbyists, Obama’s order was a call to arms. To protect their gravy train from the government, for-profit colleges have summoned an army of K Street hacks to help them exploit our nation’s veterans.

Republic Report has assembled a list of K Street lobbyists — many of whom who refer to themselves as “hired guns” — are now gunning to exploit our veterans and their education benefits:

– The lobbying trade group that represents the for-profit college industry, the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU), attacked the recent executive order by President Obama as a “deeply unfortunate development.” Former Congressman Steve Gunderson (R-WI), now the chief lobbyist for the group, testified today at a hearing designed to scrutinize the Obama executive order. APSCU also employs Brian Moran, head of the Virginia Democratic Party, as a lobbyist.

– Career Education Corp, which owns Missouri College, Brooks Institute, the International Academy of Design & Technology, and many other online school company brands, is registered to lobby on veterans benefits. The company has two in-house lobbyists and retains three outside firms, including the politically-connected Podesta Group.

– Bridgepoint Education specializes in online university degrees, and has been cited for fraudulent recruitment practices and other abuses. The firm is registered to lobby on veterans benefits; the lobbying team includes former Senator Tim Hutchinson (R-AR), who now works for the firm Dickstein Shapiro as an influence peddler.

– Capella University, a for-profit college company based in Minnesota, is registered to lobby on veterans benefits. The corporation counts former Congressman Vin Weber (R-MN), now a lobbyist and advisor to Mitt Romney’s campaign, among its team on K Street.

Today, lobbyists are converging on Capitol Hill to join Congressman Jeff Miller (R-FL), who is hosting a hearing to undermine Obama’s executive order. Miller, the recipient of a great deal of for-profit college campaign funds, called the executive order an attack on the “free market.” Republic Report has two of our reporters on the scene.

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Today, private organizations charge U.S. citizens hundreds of dollars simply to read a copy of standards they issue, standards that regulate things like gas pipeline safety, crane usage, and toy manufacturing — even though citizens are required to obey those standards, because the federal government has incorporated them into regulations.  This adds up to tens of millions of dollars annually that businesses, consumers, even government officials must pay to receive copies of our own laws. It’s a ridiculous situation, and at last there’s a public fight over it. Tuesday that fight heated up.

At the suburban Maryland campus of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), government bureaucrats and well-paid executives from the private Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) held a largely one-sided discussion. Some of the bureaucrats acknowledged the problems for our economy and our democracy of hiding many key provisions of our law behind expensive pay walls, when the Internet revolution gives us the power to make these laws immediately accessible and searchable online. (One official mentioned an aviation standard that sells for $40,000.) But these officials stressed that the solutions were complicated.  The executives thundered back that no one should be threatening any aspect of a business model that has served them so well.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Public.Resource.Org took action. Carl Malamud, founder of this non-profit group, which is one of my law clients, announced on Boing Boing that the group had posted 317 of these standards, most of them previously unavailable on the Net. Legal precedent supports our position — a line of judicial decisions hold that the law, including private standards incorporated into law, belong in the public domain and cannot be hidden behind copyright claims. To document the release of these standards, Malamud held an Internet town hall, joined by publisher Tim O’Reilly, Code for America head Jennifer Pahlka, and the 2012 Code for America fellows. You can watch the town hall here — it’s filled with enthusiasm for the vibrancy of our democracy and for a private sector that thrives on technological change and possibility.

Carl had asked that Public.Resource.Org be included on one of the panels at the NIST conference, but we weren’t. The five CEOs who spoke at the NIST meeting and complained that putting the law online would destroy their non-profit enterprises receive an average salary of $633,061. They were quite aggressive in their advocacy, yet their position indicates that they lack the confidence that they can adapt their businesses to the Internet, which, of course, is what thousands of other businesses have done. Republic Report filmed the NIST panel addressing this issue and, exclusively, you can watch it here — part 1 and part 2. It’s filled with gloom and doom, resignation, and semi-veiled threats.

The standards organizations do feel threatened, because reality is catching up with them. Recently, when real-world crises arose — the Gull oil spill, a California pipeline leak — government agencies, first responders, and advocacy groups were shocked to find that they couldn’t access the relevant governing standards without ordering them and writing a big check — an inefficient and dangerous state of affairs. Then Congress got in the act:  A congressional committee wanted to read standards that are part of federal pipeline safety rules, and an SDO, the American Petroleum Institute, demanded $1,195 to read one document. In response, Congress passed a law prohibiting the government from issuing pipeline safety regulations that incorporate private standards, unless those standards are available for free on the Internet. While industry lobbyists immediately set to work to overturn this provision, some in Congress have discussed instead broadening it to cover other categories of standards.

The SDOs may lack the confidence that they can make a living in the Internet age, even though most of them already have multiple revenue streams and hefty incomes that permit hefty CEO salaries (as much as $2 million per year).  They may not believe that they can keep motivating their member engineers and companies to keep developing valuable standards if those standards are not concealed behind paywalls, even though logic and business realities indicate otherwise. But I believe in these standards bodies, even if their CEOs don’t. Once they accept reality and come out of the dark ages, they, too, can thrive in the Internet era. And our country will be stronger once all of us can read the law without having to pay cash for it.

To learn more about these issues, read Public.Resource.Org’s letter to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget or this Business Week article.

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National Journal has obtained an e-mail sent from Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) staffer David Banks to two dozen oil lobbyists where he asks for more support from the industry on policy. Here’s the crucial passage:

Moving forward, we—your partners—would kindly ask for better coordination and communication from you to prevent the Obama administration from pulling similar stunts [referring to an Obama administration committee related to fracking] in the future.

This is the most evidence yet that lawmakers are coordinating with lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry to make policy. As ThinkProgress’s Rebecca Leber notes, Republicans have “received 88 percent of the [oil and gas] industry’s political contributions in 2011.” It appears that this money is paying off.

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Maryland is home to 296 million broiler chickens. That many chickens means just one thing — lots of chicken manure, some of which is used to fertilize fields. According to a Waterkeepers study reported on by Grist, “billions of pounds of chicken litter have flowed into the bay in the decades since international poultry conglomerates such as Perdue and Tyson targeted the Delmarva Peninsula for their multi-million-dollar operations.” But that fertilizer runs off and pollutes the nearby Chesapeake Bay, which is so polluted it’s home to a “dead zone” that covers an entire third of the Bay, causing the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science to recently award the Bay a D+ in a health report card. The poultry industry, Waterkeepers writes, has been “treating the Chesapeake Bay like an open toilet.”

So you’d think Maryland’s politicians, especially Democratic governor (and rising star in the Party) Martin O’Malley, would have a vested interest in protecting the Chesapeake, the country’s largest estuary. Not so much, as the group Food and Water Watch show, after obtaining 70 pages of emails between O’Malley and Perdue officials, especially the company’s general counsel Herb Frerichs, whom O’Malley knows from law school.

Grist highlights one exchange that’s particularly disturbing given O’Malley’s deference to Purdue’s wants. Purdue, Grist writes, “gets to give direction to Maryland’s Department of Agriculture”:

O’Malley -> Frerichs, November 5, 2011 at 7:19 PM

What is it about the Secretary of Agriculture’s job performance that you find lacking?

Frerichs -> O’Malley, November 6, 2011 at 7:22 AM

I just feel like I’m trying to push a bunch of stuff and I don’t see him around. He’s not as strong as his counterparts in DE and VA. I work w all three.

O’Malley -> Frerichs, November 6, 2011 at 10:01 AM

I’m guessing you don’t have the personal email of governors of DE or VA, so let me know when Buddy [Earl “Buddy” Hance, Maryland Secretary of Agriculture] can/should be doing more to help you push stuff. I’m serious. I’ll have him call you monday.

Frerichs is a partner at the law firm that represents Perdue in the Clean Water Act lawsuit by environmentalists for pollution. O’Malley has stood with Perdue against the lawsuit, according to Food and Water Watch, “going so far as to support legislation that would defund the Maryland School of Law clinic that represents the plaintiffs in the case.”

O’Malley’s relationship with Purdue is about more than law school buddies. The Baltimore Sun reports that around the time the emails between O’Malley and Frerichs started, Purdue’s political giving pattern changed:

Perdue wrote annual checks to the Republican Governors Association until 2010…when the company suddenly also started donating to the Democratic Governors Association, which is headed by Gov. Martin O’Malley. The firm gave the DGA $10,000 in 2010 and $15,000 in January 2012.

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