This is interesting. In December, 2011, the month before signing on to the mortgage fraud settlement, the entity charged with electing Republican Attorneys General called the Republican State Leadership Committee collected a bunch of large checks from big banks. As this IRS disclosure form shows, on December 19, 2011, it received a $10,000 donation from
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On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court moved to block a ruling from the Montana Supreme Court that upheld a century-long ban on corporate money in politics. In overruling Montana’s law, the court may be setting itself up to revisit the Citizens United decision. If the Court decides to hear a full appeal of the Montana
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Bloomberg’s Hans Nichols reports that on February 7, one day after Obama’s promise-breaking announcement to embrace unlimited corporate donations for his campaign, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina held a private meeting with top executives from Wall Street. According to Nichols’ sources, Messina told the donors that Obama would not demonize Wall Street during the campaign:
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The Huffington Post’s Paul Blumenthal reports that Senators Al Franken and Check Schumer are pursuing an investigation into the new array of 501(c)(4) political nonprofits that are raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars in elections: The letter came amid rising concerns that nonprofit groups are acting primarily as political vehicles after the Supreme
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The recently announced mortgage settlement has set off a debate about the conditions of the deal, who benefits, and if the amount for homeowners is sufficient. To help visualize the deal, the Republic Report has produced the following infographic: Look to money in politics to understand the disparity between aid to homeowners and the numbers
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The Huffington Post’s Chris Kirkham travelled to the “palatial Ritz-Carlton, Lake Tahoe resort” for the “senior executive management seminar” of the for-profit college trade group APSCU. As Kirkham notes, the vast majority of for-profit college revenue (more than 90 percent for many schools) comes from federal financial aid, so we all paid for the for-profit execs
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Late last year, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) — Chairman of Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands of the Natural Resources Committee — raised eyebrows when he began aggressively advocating for mining on and selling off public lands. He even told ThinkProgress reporters that he favored mining in an area around the Grand Canyon
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I believe President Obama’s proposed tax hikes — including the massive “bank tax” — are a prescription for economic calamity. But I do understand that the “tax the rich” frenzy finds resonance with many Americans. Throughout history, banks — and bankers, in particular — have been identified with the worst elements of societal greed. They
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