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We’re late jumping on this news, but it’s one story we couldn’t pass up. From The New York Times …
Jurors deliberated for 19 hours before they came back with guilty verdicts against Mr. DeLay on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The verdict was the latest chapter in a long legal battle that forced Mr. DeLay to step down. The trial also opened a window on the world of campaign financing in Washington, as jurors heard testimony about large contributions flowing to Mr. DeLay from corporations seeking to influence him and junkets to posh resorts where the congressman would rub shoulders with lobbyists in return for donations.
Mr. DeLay faces up to life in prison on the money laundering charge.
During the three-week trial, the prosecution presented more than 30 witnesses in an effort to prove Mr. DeLay conspired with two associates in 2002 to circumvent a state law against corporate contributions to political campaigns. Since 1903, Texas law has prohibited corporations from giving to candidates directly or indirectly.
Professional right-wing ideologues continue to push their agenda to prevent minorities from voting, even through new legislation. We turn to Talking Points Memo for the analysis …
One more point to make on these pre-election seminars put on by the Republican National Lawyers Association: The RNLA has been putting on these kinds of seminars for a while.
They held a national election law conference in St, Louis back in the summer of 2008, for example, that included John Ashcroft and Trevor Potter, the former FEC chairman who was then general counsel for John McCain’s presidential campaign.
Back in 2006, Karl Rove addressed the RNLA and thanked it for its efforts to protect the "integrity of the ballot." Rove, who has long been at the center of whipping up hysteria over "voting fraud" among minority voters, told the group: "We have in some parts of the country, I’m afraid to say, beginning to look like we have elections like the ones run in countries where the guys in charge are colonels in mirrored sunglasses, it’s a real problem."
As we now know, Rove was using his White House perch at the time to push for federal prosecutions of alleged "voter fraud" cases. When the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, David Iglesias, refused to go along, he was removed from office by President Bush, at Rove’s behest.
You can’t understand what’s happening in this election cycle without understanding that we’re a decade or more into a long-term Republican strategy to plant the seed that voting by minority groups is rife with fraud. At one point that effort led to the sacking of U.S. attorneys in the darkest episode for the U.S. Justice Department since Watergate. But that hasn’t stopped it.
Boy, the Professional Teabaggers sure electioneer like Republicans. The latest shenanigans, called out by Mother Jones …
If you happen to receive a call from someone who says they’re phoning on behalf of Organizing for America (OFA)—the successor group to Barack Obama’s campaign machine—don’t be surprised if he or she implores you to vote for tea party favorites like Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, or Rand Paul, or merely lambasts health care reform. The caller won’t actually be a member of Obama’s 13-million strong legion of campaign supporters, but rather a tea party prankster who has access to your personal information, thanks to OFA’s privacy-challenged get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaign.
Ahead of the midterms, OFA, which was folded into the Democratic National Committee following Obama’s election, has created an online "virtual" phone bank ostensibly for use by Democratic volunteers. As of Monday, the web page provided the names of Democrats who voted in 2008 but who aren’t always regular voters, plus their phone numbers, ages, locations, and party affiliations. OFA also includes a script to use to encourage those voters to vote (and for the right candidates) on Election Day: "Will you help the president by committing to vote in your local elections in 2010, including the midterm elections on November 2nd?"
Amazing work by Think Progress, published moments ago …
In 2006, Koch Industries owner Charles Koch revealed to the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore that he coordinates the funding of the conservative infrastructure of front groups, political campaigns, think tanks, media outlets and other anti-government efforts through a twice annual meeting of wealthy right-wing donors. He also confided to Moore, who is funded through several of Koch’s ventures, that his true goal is to strengthen the “culture of prosperity” by eliminating “90%” of all laws and government regulations. Although it is difficult to quantify the exact amount Koch alone has funneled to right-wing fronts, some studies have pointed toward $50 million he has given alone to anti-environmental groups. Recently, fronts funded by Charles and his brother David have received scrutiny because they have played a pivotal role in the organizing of the anti-Obama Tea Parties and the promotion of virulent far right lawmakers like Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). (David Koch praised DeMint and gave him a “Washington Award” shortly after the senator promised to “break” Obama by making health reform his “Waterloo.”)
While the Koch brothers — each worth over $21.5 billion — have certainly underwritten much of the right, their hidden coordination with other big business money has gone largely unnoticed. ThinkProgress has obtained a memo outlining the details of the last Koch gathering held in June of this year. The memo, along with an attendee list of about 210 people, shows the titans of industry — from health insurance companies, oil executives, Wall Street investors, and real estate tycoons — working together with conservative journalists and Republican operatives to plan the 2010 election, as well as ongoing conservative efforts through 2012. According to the memo, David Chavern, the number two at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Fox News hate-talker Glenn Beck also met with these representatives of the corporate elite. In an election season with the most undisclosed secret corporate giving since the Watergate-era, the memo sheds light on the symbiotic relationship between extremely profitable, multi-billion dollar corporations and much of the conservative infrastructure. The memo describes the prospective corporate donors as “investors,” and it makes clear that many of the Republican operatives managing shadowy, undisclosed fronts running attack ads against Democrats were involved in the Koch’s election-planning event …
Incisive commentary by Greg Sargent regarding the behind-closed-door cackling of Rove and his uber-wealthy, right-wing gang of ideologues …
“I’m really sorry to be a broken record about this. But a discussion has erupted today among some of our sharpest political commentators about the secret money funding the massive ad onslaught against Dems mounted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the groups founded by Karl Rove.
“And no one is talking about what’s in the ads themselves. No one is talking about how these ads are filled with multiple distortions and debunked falsehoods. In other words, no one is talking about what it is the voters themselves are seeing in these ads on an hourly basis. The discussion is largely a Beltway process argument about matters such as whether attack ads are effective and whether the Dem criticism of the secret cash is working politically for them.
“None of this discussion does anything to undercut or challenge what the Chamber and Rove’s groups are actually up to here: They are flooding airwaves across the country with a massive, secret-donor-funded campaign that’s designed to tip control of Congress with a campaign of misinformation, distortions and falsehoods that have been widely debunked by independent fact checkers but nonetheless have attracted little to no notice.”
Raw Story covers a new liberal campaign to educate voters about the Professional Right’s efforts to sway elections. Major kudos to Jack Black for his work.
Meet "Nathan Spewman": comedian Jack Black’s personification of the outrageous claims against President Obama circulated by Fox News and Republican-leaning interest groups.
In a new campaign by liberal coalition group Health Care for America Now, Black’s character, sporting a mustache and Charlie Brown t-shirt, poses as a grade school student who’s paid by interest groups to tell lies about the president and the Affordable Care Act.
HCAN says its video series aims to counter misinformation being spread by "front groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Crossroads and 60 Plus Association."
"While this video is brilliant comedy, it is also part of a serious public education effort," HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome said in a media advisory. "The new health care law puts an end to the worst insurance company abuses, ends out-of-pocket costs for preventive care and helps seniors maintain their independence. Opponents of the law are spending millions to spread outright lies about the law and its supporters."
Black reportedly donated his time and talents to the project, as did child actress America Ferrera. A phone number attached to the campaign (206-438-3964) drops callers into an automated message from Ferrera, who offers tidbits of Spewman’s misinformation via text message.
Earlier in the week, Think Progress announced they obtained evidence that the Chamber of Commerce has been using foreign funds to finance anti-Democrat-candidate attack ads across the country. Apparently, the Chamber’s wingnut leaders are none too pleased with the exposure, and that leading Democrats (including Speaker Pelosi) are jumping on the anti-Chamber bandwagon. From The Plum Line …
With Dems seizing on Think Progress’ allegations that U.S. Chamber of Commerce attack ads may be partly funded with foreign cash, the Chamber sends over its most detailed response yet to the charges, leveling the scorching claim that the liberal blog is part of a Soros-funded plot to stifle the free speech of corporations.
And, from the Open Secrets Blog, more on the clarion call to investigate Rove’s shadow electioneering organizations …
On Tuesday, Democracy21 and the Campaign Legal Center joined a growing chorus by appealing to the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the tax-exempt 501(c)(4) status of prominent conservative organization Crossroads GPS, an offshoot of American Crossroads.
Their public letter echoes a similar, if more general request made by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) who also wants the IRS to take a closer look at such groups’ tax-exempt status. According to the existing tax code, a 501(c)(4) organization must not exist to primarily engage in political activities if it wants to maintain its tax-exempt status. Instead, groups that are focused on elections should be considered 527 organizations or political action committees. The consequence for being defined a 527 organization or a PAC is that Crossroads GPS would have to disclose its donors to the public.
Indeed, the New York Times recently highlighted the preponderance of organizations potentially abusing the tax code in order to avoid disclosure. For Democracy21 and the Campaign Legal Center, this trend should give the IRS added impetus to investigate Crossroads’ status in order to set a proper precedent for the 2012 elections.
And, finally, Australian filmmaker Taki Oldham went undercover to investigate astroturfing and the corporate money that keeps folks fired up and ready to blow.
Exclusive report by Think Progress on the right-wing U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s foreign funding, and how foreign governments are angling to influence the 2010 mid-terms.
“The largest attack campaign against Democrats this fall is being waged by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a trade association organized as a 501(c)(6) that can raise and spend unlimited funds without ever disclosing any of its donors. The Chamber has promised to spend an unprecedented $75 million to defeat candidates like Jack Conway, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jerry Brown, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), and Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA). As of Sept. 15th, the Chamber had aired more than 8,000 ads on behalf of GOP Senate candidates alone, according to a study from the Wesleyan Media Project. The Chamber’s spending has dwarfed every other issue group and most political party candidate committee spending. A ThinkProgress investigation has found that the Chamber funds its political attack campaign out of its general account, which solicits foreign funding. And while the Chamber will likely assert it has internal controls, foreign money is fungible, permitting the Chamber to run its unprecedented attack campaign. According to legal experts consulted by ThinkProgress, the Chamber is likely skirting longstanding campaign finance law that bans the involvement of foreign corporations in American elections … the Chamber has also spearheaded an effort to raise money from foreign corporations, including ones controlled by foreign governments.”
From the UK’s Daily Mail, news you won’t hear read by a MSM fembot. Damning evidence against the Bush-Cheney Warmongers.
America’s most senior general flew into Britain for top secret talks on the invasion of Iraq 11 months before the attack on Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Details of the classified meeting, held at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, suggest Tony Blair’s Government was involved in detailed discussions about toppling the Iraqi dictator earlier than previously disclosed.
American General Tommy Franks flew in to the base in April 2002 to attend a summit meeting called by the then Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.
[…] Secret Pentagon documents reveal Mr Hoon asked about ‘US plans for Iraq’.
Exactly what was said has been censored, but declassified sections of the documents show Gen Franks had a separate meeting with Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, then Britain’s chief of defence staff, and senior officers.
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