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  1. #76
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    "isn't this a tax break?"

    It's a tax expenditure.

    Old news? Cutting social services to KY hillbillies while maintaining tax expenditures for rich and "Christian" s is current.
    Last edited by boutons_deux; 05-21-2011 at 06:44 PM.

  2. #77
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    Meet The Billonaires Who Are Trying To Privatize Our Schools And Kill Public Education

    Two weeks ago, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) marked “a new era for education in Indiana” when he signed into law one of the most expansive school voucher laws in the country, opening up a huge fund of tax dollars for private schools. A few days later, the Wisconsin state Assembly vastly expanded school vouchers, freeing up tax dollars even for private religious schools. GOP legislators in the Pennsylvania Senate say they have the votes to pass a sweeping voucher bill of their own. And on Capitol Hill, House Republicans successfully revived Washington, D.C.’s voucher system after it was killed off two years ago.

    This rapid expansion of voucher programs — which undermine and undercut public education by funnelling taxpayer money to private schools — is remarkable. After all, vouchers have been unpopular with the American public. Between 1966 and 2000, vouchers were put up for a vote in states 25 times, and voters rejected the program 24 of those times.

    A tight-knit group of right-wing millionaires and billionaires, bankers, industrialists, lobby shops, and hardcore ideologues has been plotting this war on public education, quietly setting up front group after front group to promote the idea that the only way to save public education is to destroy it — disguising their movement with the innocent-sounding moniker of “school choice.”

    http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/21/...ize-education/

  3. #78
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    DeVos, Koch, Scaife, Walton, ALEC, AFC: The Corporate Royalists and Right-Wing Groups Propelling the GOP's Assault on the Middle Class


    In January, a small group of Indiana schoolteachers encountered their governor, Mitch Daniels, in a hallway of the state capitol. They were part of an outpouring of Hoosiers who had come to Indianapolis that day to protest Daniels' almost-gleeful political attack on the pay and even the worthiness of public employees. Having the chance, this scrappy group dared to confront his eminence. Why, they asked, was he demonizing and so drastically under-cutting those who educate Indiana's children?

    "You teachers are all making too much money," the governor snapped. He then lectured them with a prepackaged factoid: "You are all making 22 percent more than the taxpayers who are paying your salaries."

    Hmmm, too much? Let's see--classroom teachers in Indiana earn a middle-class paycheck that averages $47,255 a year for handling a daily workload that would break the back (and haughtiness) of any pompous and pampered governor. Yet they are being belittled and their compensation is being slashed by this pea of a public employee who sucks up more than twice what teachers get in annual salary, plus gold-plated benefits, assorted perks of office, and a barn full of personal staffers to help him make it through his day. Someone needs to buy Mitch a mirror.

    Daniels is one of a flock of far right-wing governors who seem to have flown out of the same dark political hole in the past couple of years. Now ruling from the highest roosts of power in more than a dozen states, all of them are pushing vituperative measures designed to disempower and downsize not only public employees and unions, but also the entire workaday majority of their states --the middle class itself. Among other assaults, they are canceling collective bargaining contracts, suppressing union rights, arbitrarily eliminating hundreds of thousands of both public and private-sector jobs, turning over schools and other public functions to low-paying corporations, doing away with minimum wage protections, and cutting unemployment benefits and worker pensions (while simultaneously giving new tax cuts to corporations and millionaires).

    Curiously, the governors all seem to have the same playbook. Not only are their agendas alike and the content of their proposals remarkably similar, but they're also parroting the same scripted rationale for their extremist actions: "The sky is falling on our Great State of [Blank], but luckily I was elected by the good voters of [Blank] to do the people's will, so I am taking these bold steps to balance [Blank's] budget."

    What a crock! First, none of them campaigned on what they're now doing. Second, poll after poll shows that the public supports the workers, not the megalomaniacal governors. And, third, gutting the fundamental workplace rights of wage earners has nothing to do with balancing budgets.

    Indeed, if a budgetary fix was really their goal, the governors could easily achieve it by setting up dunking tanks on their capitol grounds, putting their own ample butts on the dunking boards, and charging a dollar a pop for anyone wanting to dunk them. The lines would stretch for miles, and budget deficits could be quickly wiped out, one dunk at a time.

    Goons in Gucci's

    So where does this sudden, multi-state offensive against the hard-won rights, protections, and democratic power of America's wage earners come from? From the top--from a relative handful of arrogantly rich, right-wing families and corporate chieftains who have long been dedicated to disarming labor, repealing the New Deal, and returning America to the glory days when robber barons ruled. These particular moneyed elites have not idly dreamed of going back to the future, they've been investing hundreds of millions of dollars during the past four decades to assemble a shadowy network of hired political thugs to get them there.

    [HISTORICAL FLASHBACK: In the fierce labor wars of the last century, industrial barons employed Pinkertons and other goons to bloody the heads of laborers or simply gun down those struggling for a share of economic and political power. It was brutal, but organized workers persevered and eventually gained a share of economic and political power. From their sweat and blood, America's middle class flowered.]

    Today, the bands of nouveau corporate royalists (with coats of arms bearing such names as Coors, DeVos, Koch, Scaife, and Walton) are determined to take back those middle-class gains of yesteryear. They are working to achieve this through a coordinated, long-term campaign to (1) crush the ability of working people to unionize, (2) bust America's middle-class wage structure, (3) eliminate job security, and (4) emasculate government as a force capable of controlling corporate avarice and arrogance.

    These latter-day royalists are employing a more sophisticated thuggery than brute force (though don't think they wouldn't resort to it). Instead, their goons are more likely to be in Gucci's than brogans, using dollars and computers rather than clubs and guns. They have been recruiting, financing, training, deploying, and coordinating thousands of political operatives to work through hundreds of front groups, law firms, think tanks, PACs, lobbying offices, media and PR consortiums, faux academic centers, astroturf campaigns, and--of course--compliant politicians.

    Among the compliant is our covey of hyperactive governors, all carrying basically the same anti-worker, anti-democratic policy ideas. Their unified agenda wasn't produced by telepathy or freakish happenstance, but by AFC, ALEC, IFL, SPN,* and other obscure organizational acronyms unknown to 99 percent of Americans. But Daniels of Indiana, Walker of Wisconsin, Kasich of Ohio, Scott of Florida, and the rest of the covey have these organizations on speed dial. Behind the non-descript acronyms are aggressive and insidious right-wing wonk shops that have been set up and richly financed by the corporatists to prepare and hand-deliver pro-corporate programs to compliant governors and key legislators. Once delivered, the organizations work (usually clandestinely) to get the programs enacted. Let's peek inside a couple of these acronyms.

    AMERICAN FEDERATION FOR CHILDREN.

    Forget children, AFC is an astroturf organization spreading the gospel of public education privatization. It is a creature of Michigan's multi-billionaire DeVos family--daddy Richard founded Amway, ranks 62nd among the richest Americans, and owns the Orlando Magic basketball team.

    AFC is ramrodded by Betsy DeVos, whose right-wing bona fides are rock solid. Raised in the wealthy, ueber-conservative Prince family (her brother is Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, the infamous private war corporation), she married (son of Richard) and has been a major donor/fundraiser for the GOP, for religious-right political groups, and for a national web of school privatizers. Also, she and the larger DeVos klan are longtime co-conspirators in and co-funders of the Koch brothers' plutocratic political network. [Bonus tidbit: The DeVoses reportedly helped finance the Citizens United case that the Supreme Court used last year to unleash secret, unlimited corporate money on our elections.] Betsy is unabashed about using the family's vast fortune for, as she puts it, "buying influence" in government. In 1997 she bluntly declared, "We expect a return on our investment."

    Eradication of public schools is her passion, and AFC is her machine. It's essentially a front group that funnels big money from a cadre of like-minded rich people into other front groups across the country. In turn, these groups funnel AFC's money into local privatization campaigns. Last year, for example, just one political action committee registered by AFC in Indiana amassed $4.6 million from only 13 donors--none from Indiana. The list included Alice and Jim Walton (two billionaire Walmart heirs), a trio of super-rich global speculators (who, interestingly, say they base their risky gambles on poker strategies), a multi-millionaire operator of a national chain of for-profit charter schools, and Betsy herself. Very little of the money stayed in Indiana--more than $4 million was flung out to pro- privatization front groups and candidates running campaigns in Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Wisconsin. This s game is repeated in campaigns around the country, with the same core group of gabillionaires putting up the cash.

    While you are not likely to have heard of Betsy DeVos, chances are she and her deep-pocket cohorts are behind efforts to privatize schools right where you live. By running money through their maze of s organizations, they keep their own iden ies secret. Voters in the six states that got cash last year from the Indiana PAC, for example, might see that a group with the sweet-sounding name of the American Federation for Children is running campaign ads and funding candidates in their area--but there's no disclosure that Amway, Walmart, a trio of poker-guided speculators, and a charter school profiteer are the real source of the effort to undermine their public school system

    In campaign after campaign, the 'local' demand for privatization turns out to be little more than AFC money creating the illusion of grassroots support (in fact, the steady infusion of millions of dollars from DeVos, the Waltons, et al. is often the only thing propping up many of the so-called 'school choice' organizations at the local, state, and national levels). AFC will gush money into state initiatives, legislative lobbying campaigns, and political races, especially in the crucial couple of weeks before a vote. The money buys glossy (and often nastily negative) media, creating the impression that there's a groundswell for taking public schools private. "Flooding the zone" is the phrase that AFC's cynical political operatives use to describe this astroturf tactic. Polls consistently show strong public opposition to using tax dollars to fund private and parochial schools, but a little thing like that doesn't deter DeVos and her tiny band of rich ideologues. Through their stealth campaigns, they have helped elect governors who are on board their corporatization crusade. In April, for example, Gov. Mitch Daniels rammed a sweeping, DeVos-backed voucher bill into law. This radical movement is out to eradicate public education (one group funded by DeVos, Koch, and company even calls itself the Alliance for the Separation of School and State, proudly proclaiming that it supports "ending gov- ernment involvement in education").

    The vast majority of America's 310 million people adamantly supports public education, but DeVos intends to overwhelm those millions with her millions of dollars, strategically using untraceable money to pervert public policy to her will, one campaign at a time. Last year she launched the AFC Action Fund to focus on state legislative races across the country, with the intention of surrep iously stacking legislatures with school privatizers.

    2. AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL.

    "With nearly 2,000 members" explains a brochure of this secretive organization, "ALEC is the nation's largest nonpartisan, individual membership association of state legislators." Maybe your very own local lawmaker is one of them--but you won't get that information from ALEC, which hides its list of legislators from public view.

    Nonpartisan? Its website lists 22 legislators from around the country who serve as board members and officers of this tax-exempt legislative service organization. All are Republican. In fact, only token numbers of Democrats are allowed in the club, and all inductees are individually vetted to make sure they will adhere to ALEC's corporate dogma.

    Which brings us to the organization's pose as an association of legislators. The "exchange" in ALEC's name is not between lawmakers, but between lawmakers and such behind-the-scenes powers as Altria, AT&T, Bayer, Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, GlaxoSmithKline, Intuit, Johnson & Johnson, Koch Industries, Kraft Foods, Peabody Energy, Pfizer, Reynolds American, State Farm Insurance, UPS, and Walmart. These giants form ALEC's "private enterprise board," and they are among the self-interested corporations that put up its money and shape its agenda.

    State reps pay only a token $50 a year to be members of ALEC, while at least 82 percent of the $6 million yearly budget comes from corporations (ALEC demurely refuses to name its donors, much less report how much each gives, nor will it disclose how it spends the money).

    What do corporations get for their tax-deductible donations? A greased skid for sliding their wish list into the laws of multiple states. ALEC is something of a speed dating service. It holds three national conferences a year, plus convening issue-specific policy sessions in 20 to 30 state capitols annually. These are cozy sessions that conveniently gather groups of legislators to meet in private with corporate executives. The two groups schmooze together and develop bills to help extend corporate power over workers, consumers, environmentalists, and others--then the lawmakers go back home to pass the corporations' bills.

    ALEC is the ultimate back room for corporate-legislative collusion. Its promotional brochure describes it as a dynamic partnership "that will define the American political landscape of the 21st century."

    That's no empty threat. ALEC's tête-à-têtes result in about 1,000 bills being introduced across America every legislative session, and an ALEC official proudly adds, "We usually pass about 200 bills a year." And what pieces of work they are! For example:

    Even before Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took office this January, ALEC agents were handing him model bills for clubbing teachers and other public employees. Pushing ALEC's attack from inside the legislature were Wisconsin state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, the rancorous, union-busting majority leader who was ALEC's state chairman last year, and state Rep. Robin Vos, the house budget slasher who heads ALEC's state organization this year. Likewise, governors in Indiana, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio have backed anti-union legislation this year that closely resembles ALEC's 'model' bills.
    In 2009, ALEC drew up the Voter ID Act to ban university students from using their college-issued ID's as proof of residency for voting. Seven states have adopted this model law, which is intended to bar eligible students from the voting booth. These kids must be disenfranchised, New Hampshire's house speaker bluntly said in February, because they're "voting liberal, voting their feelings, with no life experience." This model bill has been introduced in 18 other states this year in a rather obvious ploy to hold down the student vote in the 2012 presidential election.
    Arizona's infamous anti-Latino immigration law was crafted at an ALEC conference. The state senate leader who sponsored the bill was in the meeting, as was an eager executive from Corrections Corporation of America, the private prison operation that stands to get a nice business boost from Arizona's law.
    Numerous state bills have been filed to kill, dilute, or withdraw from Obama's universal healthcare reform. Many bear remarkably similar wording, perhaps because they were drawn from a special report churned out by the 'nonpartisan' ALEC, en led "The State Legislators Guide to Repealing ObamaCare."
    One of ALEC's specialties is developing state laws to stop citizens from interfering with corporate whim. For example, when various communities began outlawing the use of genetically altered seeds in their area, ALEC rushed out a model bill to remove local control of seeds--11 states have passed it. Also with such climate-change deniers as Koch and Exxon funding ALEC and sitting on its board, you can guess why this corporate policy front has produced more than 800 draft measures against regulating global warming emissions--and, at least six states are considering bills nearly identical to ALEC's draft resolution for "state withdrawal from regional climate initiatives."

    The big lie

    Something unconscionable is at work here, something that is shameful, unworthy of our people, and directly contradictory to our country's founding ideals. The richest, most powerful, most privileged people in our land--in cahoots with a horde of the least principled, most venal political opportunists in civic life-- are intentionally savaging the well-being of America's majority and aggressively suppressing the democratic rights that make America America. And for what? Solely for themselves, for the aggrandizement of their own wealth and power.

    To pull off this grand political larceny, the narcissistic right has manufactured a huge lie that has largely been accepted as truth not only by the GOP and tea partiers, but also by the mass media, nearly all of the mainline pundit class, and too many fraidy-cat Democratic leaders, including the one in the oval office. The lie is that extreme budgetary measures (they call them "coura- geous") simply must be imposed now, this instant, in order to slay the looming deficit monster that is gorging itself on government spending at all levels.

    "In the name of your grandbabies," they cry, "teachers must be fired, rights smothered, pensions abrogated, Medicare tossed aside, little kids cut off from Head Start, and the bright promise of America's shared prosperity dimmed. We have no choice but to slash and burn."

    No choice? One hedge fund hustler pocketed $2.4 million last year. Not for the year--$2.4 million AN HOUR. Yet he and his ilk pay a much lower tax rate than you and I do. In recent years, huge corporations like GE, ExxonMobil, and Bank of America have pocketed billions of dollars in profit, yet paid not a dime in federal income taxes. Indeed, far from paying taxes, these three have even been handed millions of dollars in "refunds" from our public treasury in some of their profitable years. Sliding through loopholes created by their lobbyists, two-thirds of corporations in the US pay no income taxes to help cover the priceless benefits they get from our national government.

    America does not face a deficit crisis--we face a multi-billion dollar annual tax dodge by the most elite of moneyed elites. The money our society needs is right there--in the coffers of flagrantly rich Fortune 500 corporations and Wall Street banks, in the personal accounts of absurdly wealthy CEOs and fast-buck speculators. America is hardly a poor country. It's the richest in the history of the world, and it ought to have the very best public education program in the world, the most advanced infrastructure network, and the finest system of health care for all.

    Yet our 'leaders' only talk of what they can't do, of what must be cut, of how the middle class and the poor must sacrifice, of how Americans must adapt to the new normal of diminished expectations and shriveled democratic power. The ugly truth is that these de able governors and lawmakers are willingly trashing teachers and butchering our public budgets simply to spare the privileged and plutocratic few from paying what they owe to sustain a just, democratic, and truly prosperous society. This is ridiculous. Let's tax the super-rich! We the People must join together, stand up, push back, and shift the focus in this fight from hardworking teachers to these disgusting deadbeats and their political puppets.


    View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/151213/

  4. #79
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    VRWC-packed SCOTUS ruling for VRWC-funded litigants

    Blow To Public Financing At The Supreme Court Litigated By Koch and Walton-Funded Groups

    – Ins ute for Justice: Founded with “initial seed money” from Charles Koch, the Ins ute for Justice is a nonprofit litigation group focused on bringing cases to decrease regulations on corporations and to remove clean election laws. Foundations connected to Koch Industries have given the Ins ute for Justice well over $2.6 million. The Walton Family Foundation, a foundation run by the three children of Walmart founder Sam Walton who have a controlling stake in the company, has donated $1.64 million, and is one of the Ins ute’s other top donors. Recent 990 disclosures from the group showcase amicus briefs filed in the Citizens United and the Arizona clean election case as top priorities for the Ins ute.

    – The Goldwater Ins ute: The Goldwater Ins ute is one of the premiere right-wing think tanks on the state level. Most recently, the group has taken a leading role in challenging the cons utionality of health reform. The Goldwater Ins ute is funded by a number of conservative foundations. However, both the Walton Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation are among its top donors.

    http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...funded-groups/

  5. #80
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    Operating Instructions

    The Supreme Court shows corporate America how to screw over its customers and employees without breaking the law.


    Depending on how you count "big cases," the Supreme Court has just finished off either a great (according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) or spectacularly great (according to a new study by the Cons utional Accountability Center) term for big business. The measure of success here isn't just the win-loss record of the Chamber of Commerce, although that's certainly part of the story. Nor is it news that—in keeping with a recent trend—the court is systematically closing the courthouse doors to everyday litigants, though that's a tale that always bears retelling. The reason the Roberts Court has proven to be Christmas in July for big business is this: Slowly but surely, the Supreme Court is giving corporate America a handbook on how to engage in misconduct. In case after case, it seems big companies are being given the playbook on how to win even bigger the next time.

    http://www.slate.com/id/2298330/pagenum/all/#p2

  6. #81
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    The Real Scandal of US Justice

    Right-wing judges now dominate the American legal system, from the state level where corporate donations help elect them to the U.S. Supreme Court where ideologues tip the scales in favor of big business.

    On the state level, with more than 80 percent of judges in this country elected and money, much of it corporate donations pouring into their campaigns — $200.4 million in the last decade — jurists, whether they admit it or not, are under constant pressure to favor their benefactors.

    And on the federal level, take a look, for one, at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, covering Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, described by the progressive website ThinkProgress as “probably the most conservative court in the country.”

    Among its 16 active judges, “Emilio Garza and Edith Clement were both on President George W. Bush’s ‘short list’ of potential Supreme Court nominees, and Clement serves on the board of the leading organization providing industry-funded junkets for judges.

    “Garza, who recently suggested that undo ented immigrants have no right to be free from illegal searches and seizures, is best known as one of five Fifth Circuit judges who held that a death row defendant whose lawyer slept through much of his trial was not denied his cons utional right to counsel…

    “[Judge] Priscilla Owen took thousands of dollars worth of campaign contributions from Enron and then wrote a key opinion reducing Enron’s taxes by $15 million when she sat on the Texas Supreme Court.”

    These, by the way, are the three who ruled last year that a high school cheerleader had no case against her school when it required that she cheer for her alleged rapist and then ordered her to pay the school district’s more than $40,000 in legal fees.

    It was also last year, ThinkProgress reports, that the Fifth Circuit “had to dismiss a case brought by Katrina victims against the energy industry because so many judges were required to recuse themselves that there weren’t enough judges left to hear an appeal.

    “More recently, two Fifth Circuit judges, Jerry Smith and Eugene Davis, ruled in favor of the oil industry in a major drilling moratorium case, despite the fact that they both attended expense-paid ‘junkets for judges’ sponsored by an oil-industry funded organization.

    “As of last year, a majority of the court’s active judges had oil investments, even though their court is frequently called upon to resolve questions involving the oil industry.” (One subsequently divested herself of up to $15,000 n BP stock, several weeks after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.)

    In May, none of this gave House Republicans the slightest pause when they included in the “Putting the Gulf Back to Work Act” a provision requiring that civil lawsuits arising from drilling in the Gulf must be heard in, you guessed it, the Fifth Circuit.

    But at least federal judges are supposed to be bound by a code of conduct. On the United States Supreme Court, adherence to the code is merely voluntary, flouted by Justice Clarence Thomas, whose conflicts of interest, along with his wife’s, have been widely reported; and Justices Scalia and Alioto, who have shown up at political events.

    “The court cannot maintain its legitimacy as guardian of the rule of law when justices behave like politicians,” the July 1 New York Times editorialized. “Yet, in several instances, justices acted in ways that weakened the court’s reputation for being independent and impartial…

    “Among the court’s 82 rulings this term, 16 were 5-to-4 decisions. Of those, 10 were split along ideological lines, with Justice Anthony Kennedy supplying the fifth conservative vote. These rulings reveal the court’s fundamental inclination to the right, with the conservative majority further expanding the ability of the wealthy to prevail in electoral politics and the prerogatives of businesses against the interests of consumers and workers.”

    Stanford Law professor Jeffrey L. Fisher told the Times, “This is a court that is, oddly enough, very su ious of the courts as a place to vindicate rights. The hostility is amped up when it’s a civil-rights-type claim.”

    Next session, many say, could be “the term of the century.” With possible major decisions on affirmative action, same-sex marriage, immigration and health care reform, the devastating impact of this right-leaning, ideological court may only get worse.

    So if you want to get mad about something, get mad about that.

    http://www.readersupportednews.org/o...-of-us-justice

    =============

    If the Dems had ANY balls, they'd impeach C Thomas.

    Like Fox Repug Network and all spewing from Murdoch's empire, Repug darling Thomas obliterates the bar for propriety and lowers the standing of the legal system, as do so many Repug radical, politicized judges.
    Last edited by boutons_deux; 07-15-2011 at 04:58 AM.

  7. #82
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    Inside ALEC, The Koch-Funded Group Behind Right-Wing State Laws

    ALEC contends that government agencies have an unfair monopoly on public goods and services.

    Though the specifics are secret and "restricted to members," ALEC openly advocates privatizing public education, transportation and the regulation of public health, consumer safety and environmental quality including bringing in corporations to administer:

    • Foster care, adoption services and child support payment processing.

    • School support services such as cafeteria meals, custodial staff and transportation.

    • Highway systems, with toll roads presented as a shining example.

    • Surveiling and detaining convicted criminals.

    • Ensuring the quality of wastewater treatment, drinking water, and solid waste services and facilities. (After all, when someone mentions a safe and secure public water supply, the voter's next immediate thought is: "Only if it's cost-effective!")

    Playing Fast and Loose With Nonprofit Status

    ALEC annually spends more than $1 million for corporate lobbyists to meet state lawmakers at lavish retreats--lawmakers who will return home and try to shepherd ALEC's corporate-sponsored "model legislation" into law.

    However, through an accounting sleight of hand, ALEC hides the iden y of the corporations that are paying for the lawmakers' junkets and backing the group's model legislation.

    In recent years, ALEC has taken in about $6.5 million in tax-deductible donations: From 1999 through 2009, ALEC reported $743,446 in legislative ("public sector") membership dues, with a two-year membership at $100; during the same 10-year period, ALEC reported $54,504,702 in "gifts," "grants" and other contributions from its corporate and special interest members.

    In 2009 alone, ALEC tax returns show that the group spent a combined $2,620,343 on organizing conferences and a membership services program that manages "the recruitment and retention of ALEC state legislator members" and "provides assistance to ALEC state chairs in raising state scholarship funds, tracking the expenditures of these funds, and ensuring that members of ALEC leadership are operating in accordance with ALEC policies and procedures." In 2009, ALEC held $1,042,629 as "scholarship" funds to reimburse lawmakers attending ALEC functions. That's listed on the tax returns not as an expenditure, but as a liability. Through this accounting trick, ALEC retains its tax-exempt status while simultaneously wining and dining thousands of the nation's state lawmakers--who then go on to introduce ALEC's legislation. In each state, ALEC has both a "public sector" and "private sector" chair.


    http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/151627

  8. #83
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    ALEC Exposed


    ALEC is a critical arm of the right-wing network of policy shops that, with infusions of corporate cash, has evolved to shape American politics. Inspired by Milton Friedman’s call for conservatives to “develop alternatives to existing policies [and] keep them alive and available,” ALEC’s model legislation reflects long-term goals: downsizing government, removing regulations on corporations and making it harder to hold the economically and politically powerful to account. Corporate donors retain veto power over the language, which is developed by the secretive task forces. The task forces cover issues from education to health policy. ALEC’s priorities for the 2011 session included bills to privatize education, break unions, deregulate major industries, pass voter ID laws and more. In states across the country they succeeded, with stacks of new laws signed by GOP governors like Ohio’s John Kasich and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, both ALEC alums.

    The details of ALEC’s model bills have been available only to the group’s 2,000 legislative and 300 corporate members. But thanks to a leak to Aliya Rahman, an Ohio-based activist who helped organize protests at ALEC’s Spring Task Force meeting in Cincinnati, The Nation has obtained more than 800 do ents representing decades of model legislation. Teaming up with the Center for Media and Democracy, The Nation asked policy experts to analyze this never-before-seen archive.

    “Business Domination Inc. [2],” by Joel Rogers and Laura Dresser

    “Sabotaging Healthcare [3],” by Wendell Potter

    “The Koch Connection [4],” by Lisa Graves

    “Starving Public Schools [5],” by Julie Underwood

    “Rigging Elections [6],” by John Nichols

    http://www.thenation.com/print/artic...8/alec-exposed

  9. #84
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    With ALEC Exposed, Common Cause Demands an IRS Audit of Corporate-Funded Group's Gaming of State Lawmaking

    The American Legislative Exchange Council has since 1973 operated in relative secrecy, avoiding scrutiny from the media and watchdog groups as it has sought to impose a one-size-fits-all corporate agenda on all fifty states.

    Now, however, ALEC’s scheming to game the lawmaking process [1]—with “model legislation” penned by corporation insiders and their legislative minions, and with resolutions that outline initiatives to protect polluters, privatize public education, break unions and undermine democracy—has been revealed [2].

    And the nation’s premier watchdog group is asking the Internal Revenue Service to audit ALEC, an organization that counts among its alumni [3]House Speaker John Boehner, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Ohio Governor John Kasich and other key players in the current push to restructure federal and state government with tax breaks for the rich, regulatory breaks for corporations, privatization strategies and draconian “Voter ID” laws that threaten to make it harder for millions of Americans to cast ballots.

    “ALEC spends most of its time developing and distributing model bills to state elected officials, with the intent those bills be introduced and passed in as many state legislatures as possible.” argues Common Cause President Bob Edgar. “It’s time for ALEC to stop masquerading as a nonpartisan public interest group.”

    A leak of do ents detailing the agenda and activities of the organization, and the influence of wealthy right-wing zealots such as the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch on the organization and its agenda, made it possible for The Nation [1] and the Center for Media and Democracy [4] to bring ALEC out of the shadows.

    One day after the details of ALEC’s activities became public, Common Cause asked the IRS to investigate [5] evidence that suggests the group has under-reported its lobbying activities and may have engaged in federal tax law violations.

    http://www.thenation.com/print/blog/...-state-lawmaki

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    St Ronnie'w War on Employees has paid off immensely (globalization was one of the thrusts)

    JP Morgan: Wage reductions have driven corporate profit increases

    If you were looking to blow holes in claims that the way to help workers is to make sure corporations are profitable, this report from JP Morgan (PDF) just about says it all (emphasis in original):

    [P]rofit margins have reached levels not seen in decades. The challenge, which we have discussed many times before: what is driving these margins? One useful way to deconstruct profits is to measure them from peak to peak, and analyze what changed. As shown in the first chart, S&P 500 profit margins increased by 1.3% from 2000 to 2007. There are a lot of moving parts in the margin equation, but as shown in the second chart, reductions in wages and benefits explain the majority of the net improvement in margins. This trend has continued; as we have shown several times over the last two years, US labor compensation is now at a 50-year low relative to both company sales and US GDP (see EoTM April 26, 2011).

    ThinkProgress puts this into context in two key ways. First, "since 2009, 88 percent of income growth has gone to corporate profits, and only 1 percent has gone to wages," and second, "the JP Morgan report explains this behavior taking place between 2000 and 2007, meaning that it began long before the Great Recession."

    So: Prior to the recession, increasing profit margins were overwhelmingly due to reductions in wages and benefits. Over the past two years, income growth has gone to corporate profit, not the workers who produced the income. And the outcome—as summarized by JP Morgan, not by some dirty hippie socialist—is that "US labor compensation is now at a 50-year low relative to both company sales and US GDP."

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/0...28Daily+Kos%29

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    ALEC's big this week

    ALEC Exposed: State Legislative Bills Drafted by Secretive Corporate-Lawmaker Coalition

    This week the Center for Media and Democracy released 800 model bills, legislation that is straight out of the corporate playbook and drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council. The group’s membership includes both state lawmakers and corporate executives who gather behind closed doors to discuss and vote on draft legislation. ALEC has come under increasing scrutiny in recent months for its role in crafting bills to attack worker rights, to roll back environmental regulations, privatize education, deregulate major industries, and pass voter ID laws. Thanks to ALEC, at least a dozen states have recently adopted a nearly identical resolution asking Congress to compel the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stop regulating carbon emissions.

    http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/1..._bills_drafted

  12. #87
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    The idea that ALEC isn't a charitable organization should be commonsensical but isn't, for some reason. I have no idea how many charitable organizations get by this way -- probably way more than one.

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    The Conservatives' ALEC Philosophy: Everything Related to Government Should Be Demonized, Starved or Privatized

    In the world according to ALEC, competing firms in free markets are the only real source of social efficiency and wealth. Government contributes nothing but security. Outside of this function, it should be demonized, starved or privatized. Any force in civil society, especially labor, that contests the right of business to grab all social surplus for itself, and to treat people like roadkill and the earth like a sewer, should be crushed.

    This view of the world dominated the legislative sessions that began in January. GOP leaders, fresh from their blowout victory in November, pushed a consistent message—“We’re broke”; “Public sector workers are to blame”; “If we tax the rich we’ll face economic extinction”—and deployed legislative tools inspired by ALEC to enact their vision. They faced pushback, but they also made great progress—and will be back again soon.

    http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/151662

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    ALEC: Democracy's Arch-Nemesis

    n an 1864 letter to Col. William F. Elkins, Abraham Lincoln warned, "... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

    In the buildup to the bloodiest war of the 20th century, Benito Mussolini said, "Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." He is one of history's most reviled characters for good reason.

    Now, corporations like Koch Industries are funneling money into the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a shadowy partnership between Republican legislators and corporate lobbyists. Essentially, ALEC's purpose is to pass laws that enrich corporate profits and investor returns by starving the government of revenue, rigging elections and union-busting.

    98% of ALEC's funding comes from corporations

    ALEC provides "model bills" to state legislatures, all of which are previously seen by ALEC's corporate board. These model bills are aimed at taking the teeth out of government regulation, giving lavish tax breaks to the wealthy, and using the resulting budget deficits to privatize ins utions like schools and prisons. These bills are introduced in multiple statehouses with no required disclosure about an outside group of corporate lobbyists originally crafting the legislation. Some of ALEC's notable alumni include Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Governor Scott Walker.

    Some of ALEC's model budget bills would repeal capital gains taxes and estate taxes, fattening the pockets of millionaire hedge-fund managers and trust-fund brats while putting public goods and services under the knife. ALEC's 1995 "Sound Federal Fiscal Policy Resolution" falsely antagonizes higher taxes as the source of higher deficits (instead of the aforementioned tax breaks for the wealthy). This would steer lawmakers toward needless budget cuts that systematically starve the states of jobs and tax dollars, blow massive holes in the budget and create whopping revenue shortfalls.

    http://readersupportednews.org/opini...s-arch-nemesis

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    Repugs, always advancing the country to the rear

    Dirty Money For Dirty Water: Groups Supporting Bill to Gut Clean Water Act Outspend Opposition 23 To 1

    The president of the West Virginia Coal Association, Bill Raney, praised the bill’s passage:

    HR 2018 is a bipartisan bill that would rein in the Obama EPA and end the agency’s destructive abuse of authority and restore the balance needed to get America working again.

    But the West Virginia Coal Association did much more than offer written support for the act; the organization is one of 44 such groups who donated a combined $28.9 million to House lawmakers in a push to secure the bill’s passing and thus limit the EPA’s role in the making, promulgation, and enforcement of clean-water regulations.

    Lobbyist money played a pivotal part in what Earth Justice calls the fight of “clean water versus dirty water.” Interest groups working in support of the bill spent 23 times more money than did the opposition. In some instances, lawmakers received as much as $100,000 from lobbyists in support of the measure and not a cent from those opposed.

    http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/...ition-23-to-1/

    =========

    Corporate-Americans Votes Count, Human-Americans Screwed Again, Again, and Again.

  16. #91
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    New ChamberLeaks Presentation Emerges, Details More Plans To Sabotage Liberals

    http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/11/...ks-more-plans/

    CoC of course receives anonymous $100Ms from Corporate-Americans, and is lobbying aggressively to allow contributions from foreign companies and sovereign funds, and to lift bans on Corporate-Americans using graft/kickbacks/corruption/payoffs to win foreign business.
    COC is (or was) badass. My favorite CD's are Deliverance and Wiseblood. I hope the money doesn't make them lazy.

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    How Murdoch’s Times of London and Fox News Coordinate Their Deceitful Reporting on Climate Change

    If you wondered whether Murdoch’s various news outlets operate in sync when they misrepresent the facts about climate change, consider the deceitful reporting done by Ben Webster, the Environmental Editor for The Times of London. His smears against the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were immediately amplified and embellished by Fox News in New York. Both Webster’s story and its Fox News incarnation were used to defame the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and to lend an air of legitimacy to the phony “Climate-gate” scandal that had already been debunked by scientific journals and scientific inquiries .

    Today we know that one of the Murdoch employees arrested in Britain, Neil Wallis, was deeply implicated in two hacking scandals, the first pertaining to the News of the World, and the second pertaining to the invasion of computers at the University of East Anglia, the victim of the phony Climate-gate scandal touted by Fox News. So it may be worthwhile to take another look at how deceitful reporting within the Murdoch empire can spread like a virus. Look at the opening paragraphs in The Times of London story:

    Climate scientists at the centre of the row over stolen e-mails acted with integrity and made no attempt to manipulate their research on global temperatures, an external inquiry has found.

    Their research was, however, misrepresented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which failed to reflect uncertainties the scientists had reported concerning the raw temperature data.

    An inquiry panel of leading scientists, nominated by the Royal Society, said that the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit may not have used the best methods for analyzing temperature records.

    Webster’s second and third paragraphs distort the panel’s findings beyond all recognition.

    http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/0...limate-change/
    Last edited by boutons_deux; 07-24-2011 at 11:20 AM.

  18. #93
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    Koch And Exxon Pay To Write State Legislation Repealing Climate Change Laws

    According to tax records and other materials acquired by Bloomberg News, Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, and numerous other corporations paid tens of thousands of dollars to write legislation for lawmakers that would repeal carbon pollution reduction programs in various states around the U.S.

    These companies working to dismantle environmental programs are members of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, which allows private-sector parties to “pay-to-play” – charging thousands of dollars to sit at the table with legislators and craft bills.

    According to Bloomberg News, Exxon Mobil donated $39,000 to ALEC last year and the Koch Charitable Foundation donated $75,858 in 2009, the final year in which tax do ents were available. Both companies, along with BP, the American Petroleum Ins ute and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy helped draft legislation that has been introduced in Oregon, New Hampshire, Washington State and New Mexico designed to take those states out of regional cap and trade programs:

    http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/0...e-change-laws/

    ==========

    That's how the UCA rolls, they own government.

  19. #94
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    shock/crony/pay-to-play capitalism at work by the PIC:

    Florida Looks for the Lowest Bidder as It Privatizes 30 State Prisons

    GEO Group already manages two of the state's seven private prisons and is a "prime financier of the Republican Party [6]" that gave more than $400,000 to GOP in the 2010 election cycle alone and gave the maximum $25,000 to Scott's inaugural fund.

    The Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest corrections company, also has close connections [7] to GOP statehouses across the country. The company has spent $373,000 in political contributions [5] in Florida since 2003, over 60 percent of which have gone to Republicans.

    And the private prison industry isn't just lobbying to take over state prisons; it's also "working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences." According to a report by the Justice Policy Ins ute (JPI), private prisons spend millions on lobbying [8] to put more people in jail, which translates to more profits for them. Last year, Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group made over $2.9 billion in revenue.

    http://www.truth-out.org/print/4544

  20. #95
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    More the VRWC ALEC conspiracy:

    Six Extreme Right-Wing Attacks by ALEC in State Governments

    Disenfranchising American Citizens Through Voter ID

    Union-Busting

    Undoing Efforts to Address Climate Change

    Filling For-Profit Prisons Through Anti-Immigrant Bills

    Opposing Health Insurance Reform

    Privatizing K-12 Education

    http://www.truth-out.org/print/4542

    ==========

    An amazing, surprising paper from AEI on decarbonization:

    http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/Clim...matism_web.pdf

  21. #96
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    Corporate tax evasion/avoidance for the predatory, abusive monopoly in your PC

    Microsoft's Use Of Lox-Tax Havens Drives Tax Bill To 7 Percent Of Profit

    But Microsoft is straightforward about the core reason for its lower tax bill: It is increasingly channeling earnings from sales to customers throughout the world through the low-tax havens of Ireland, Puerto Rico and Singapore.

    Microsoft's pre-tax profits booked overseas nearly tripled over the past six years, to $19.2 billion in the fiscal year that just ended, from $6.8 billion in the year ended in June 2006, according to company filings. By contrast, its U.S. earnings have dropped, to $8.9 billion from $11.4 billion in the same period. Foreign earnings now make up 68 percent of overall income.

    The change is fueling its shrinking tax bills. According to its 2010 annual report, by keeping a good chunk of foreign earnings away from the U.S., Microsoft has ac ulated $29.5 billion overseas -- and that is before the impact of its last financial year.

    In theory, the company has saved $9.2 billion in U.S. federal taxes on that figure, though if it brought the entire $29.5 billion back home tomorrow its tax bill would be lower because of credits for foreign taxes paid and other U.S. deductions.

    Microsoft's effective worldwide tax rate fell to 17.5 percent in the last fiscal year, down from 25 percent the previous year and 31 percent in the year to June 30, 2006. The company said it expects to owe tax at an effective rate in the next year of between 19 percent and 22 percent.

    Few companies, including Thomson Reuters, pay the standard U.S. corporate rate of 35 percent thanks to loopholes and deductions but the Microsoft tax rate is still at the low end when compared with other large technology companies.

    In their last reported fiscal years, Google Inc's effective tax rate was 21 percent, Apple Inc's 24 pct, and IBM's was 25 percent.

    ===========

    The UCA loves the tax policies it pays for.

  22. #97
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    How Shadowy Right-Wing Front Groups Engineered Our National Embrace Of Debt Reduction Over Job Creation

    – Founded in 2010 by former Bush admin flak Gretchen Hamel, the group Public Notice has quietly pumped millions into advertising about debt reduction: Public Notice sponsored at least $3 million on a debt ad called “Shovel” that falsely claims the spending doesn’t create jobs, an undisclosed amount for online ads promoting a highly produced web series on the evils of government spending, a debt pledge that features pop singer Justin Bieber, and what is believed to be another multimillion dollar ad buy recently for a commercial, appearing like a PSA, that warns that government spending is akin to cocaine addiction. To warp elite opinion, the group sponsored billboard ads at Reagan National Airport and on buses and bus shelters near Capitol Hill. Although Hamel does not reveal her donors, she is connected closely with the Koch network of billionaire and investors. Last year at a right-wing donor conference attended by top hedge fund manager Steve Schwarzman and Charles Koch, Hamel gave a presentation on “Framing the Debate on Spending.”

    – Retired investor Pete Peterson has dedicated $1 billion of his personal wealth to reducing government spending; much of that money has gone to a multifaceted marketing campaign: The Peterson Ins ute has spent $1 million underwriting a movie about the debt, at least $1,010,232 developing a children’s debt sports game that also directs users to a Econ4U, a front group created by infamous lobbyist Rick Berman, and millions more for a TV ad campaign called “Hugh Jidette,” an MTV-U cable television series that misleadingly conflates personal debt with the national debt, a newspaper partnered with the Washington Post, and even a program at Columbia University to develop a national debt-related K-12 curriculum.

    – Corporate astroturf lobbyist Rick Berman has spent large amounts orchestrating a scare-mongering campaign over the national debt. Along with his connections to the Peterson network mentioned above, Berman has set up a campaign called “Defeat the Debt” to push the public into believing the national debt is the country’s top priority. He has run ads on television, purchased billboards throughout the Washington D.C. metro area, and aggressively marketed his campaign to Capitol Hill staffers. Last year, Berman purchased an ad during the Super Bowl — spending approximately $3 million — that showed schoolchildren pledging allegiance “to America’s debt, and to the Chinese government that lends us money.”

    – A network of other right-wing groups have used a series of public relations gimmicks — like barnstorming bus tours filled with highly paid GOP operatives posing as Tea Party activists — to orchestrate an astroturf effort to build support for cutting spending over creating jobs. Groups like Americans for Prosperity and Americans for Tax Reform sponsored a group called Spending Revolt that toured the country organizing debt-related rallies with Republican candidates last year. The group, which has organized events with the Ohio Coal Association, gained countless local press hits appearing as a genuine citizens groups, despite the fact its sponsors are corporate lobbyists. This year, Americans for Prosperity has continued a separate effort to organize debt-themed rallies. American Majority, a group founded after Obama’s election by two GOP operatives, has quietly provided training efforts across the country to mobilize around the issue of the national debt.

    This is only a snapshot of the debt-related public relations campaign; millions more have been spent by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, FreedomWorks, Club for Growth, and other big business advocacy groups.

    http://thinkprogress.org/politics/20...-job-creation/

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    UCA never sleeps:

    U.S. Chamber To Rank Politicians On Whether They Vote To Keep Contractor Donations Secret

    The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has written a letter to members of the House telling them that voting for federal contractors to be more transparent about their political spending will negatively impact their legislative scorecard.

    "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce strongly supports legislative proposals to ensure that political spending -- or the lack thereof -- continues to play no role in federal contracting decisions," the Chamber's R. Bruce Josten wrote in the letter sent on Wednesday.

    "Therefore, the Chamber supports amendments that have been offered by Rep. Cole to several Fiscal Year 2012 appropriations bills considered by the full House, and any similar amendments should they be offered to the remaining FY 2012 appropriations bills," he wrote.

    http://www.readersupportednews.org/o...uiet-on-donors

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    Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding ALEC’s Influence On Your State Laws

    http://www.propublica.org/article/ou...our-state-laws

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    Koch Joins Wellpoint to Help Fight Wisconsin Recalls in Battle With Labor

    Republican and Democratic groups are pouring money into Wisconsin with eight legislative recalls scheduled this month and control of the state Senate hanging in the balance.

    The Republican State Leadership Committee, based in Alexandria, Virginia, has spent about $370,000 on the special elections, while the Washington-based Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has spent about $250,000, according to do ents filed with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board in Madison.

    Wellpoint Inc. (WLP), an Indianapolis-based health insurer that has been critical of the new federal health-care law, is among the top donors to Republican organizations active in the contests, including $450,000 to the RSLC and $250,000 to the Republican Governors Association.

    Wellpoint gave $842,000 to the RSLC for the 2010 elections. State officials are playing a key role in implementing -- or fighting -- the new health law. Kristin Binns, a Wellpoint spokeswoman, didn’t return a phone call seeking comment.

    “Big Labor has made Wisconsin their Waterloo,” the RSLC states on its Website, seeking donations to help the Republican lawmakers facing recall elections following their support of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s legislation to take away bargaining rights of state workers. Walker said the law was necessary to trim spending and balance the state budget.
    Republican Cash Advantage

    Overall, the national groups trying to elect Republican governors, legislators and other state officials almost doubled Democratic fundraising, new Internal Revenue Service records show.

    The Republican groups reported raising $28 million between Jan. 1 and June 30, compared with $15 million for their Democratic counterparts. Unlike the national political parties, these committees can accept contributions from corporate and union treasuries, and unlimited donations from individuals.

    The RSLC’s chairman, Ed Gillespie, is a former aide to President George W. Bush. Gillespie worked with former Bush political strategist Karl Rove in 2010 to create American Crossroads. American Crossroads and its related organization Crossroads GPS spent $38 million last year in support of Republican congressional candidates. In March, Crossroads GPS spent $750,000 in ads supporting Walker’s new anti-labor law, according to the Center for Media and Democracy.

    “Wisconsin is a huge priority,” said Carolyn Fiddler, a DLCC spokeswoman.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/...e-recalls.html

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