MYSTERY$$$- The Big Three secret funders of the $75 million campaign to trash Democratic candidates [View All]

[kpete]

CORPORATE "MYSTERY MONEY" MAKES A MOCKERY OF OUR DEMOCRACY
The Big Three secret funders of the $75 million campaign to trash Democratic candidates



......................"We operate like a hedge fund. We look for opportunities where we can invest and make a difference." -- Steven Law, CEO of American Crossroads, a corporate front group created by Karl Rove to pour tens of millions of dollars into negative campaigns to defeat Democrats.

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........ today's proponents of corporate plutocracy have simply elevated money itself above votes, establishing cold, hard cash as the real coin of political power. The more you spend on politics, the bigger your voice is in government, making the vast vaults of billionaires and corporations far superior to the voices of mere voters. Indeed, politicians (Republicans and Democrats alike) rarely speak to ordinary people anymore. They talk to Big Money, and when elected, Big Money talks to them.This distortion of America's democratic ideals was decisive in last year's elections, and its anti-democratic punch will be breathtakingly worse in 2012. This is no accident of history. Corporate powers--working through a web of hirelings that includes political operatives, lawyers, lobbyists, politicians, pundits, academics, and astroturf groups--have been pushing relentlessly for years to get to this point. None have been more determined than the Koch boys--Charles and David.


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Apologists for this perversion of the democratic system insist that it's fair because progressive groups also are free to set up secretly financed campaign fronts. Two problems with that dodge: (1) progressives don't have unfathomable corporate treasuries to draw from; and (2) progressives don't believe in clandestine campaign funding and are generally proud to tell voters who they are. Last year, the 10 biggest secret funds laid out $115 million for their campaigns. One hundred and eight million dollars of that was spent by corporate fronts that hide their donors. In fact, the great bulk of it ($75 million) was spent by 'the Big Three':

1) US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE--$32,851,997.
2) AMERICAN ACTION NETWORK--$26,088,031.
3) CROSSROADS GPS--$17,122,446.


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