The Supreme Court reinterpreted the law about how money from corporations and unions could be spent on campaigns. Super PACs and other outside groups made possible by the court’s decision spent nearly $1 billion on advertising in federal races. J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Citizens United decision led to spending blitz in 2012
6:00 am, January 16, 2013 Updated: 9:58 am, January 16, 2013
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The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision unleashed nearly $1 billion in new political spending in the 2012 election, with media outlets and a small number of political consulting firms raking in the bulk of the proceeds.
Spending records released by the Federal Election Commission show that throughout the 2012 election, corporations, unions and individuals that could take advantage of the high court’s ruling were responsible for about $933 million of the estimated $6 billion spent during the contest.
Nearly two-thirds of the new money — about $611 million — went to 10 political consulting firms, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis. All but one of the top 10 recipients bought advertising in various media markets on behalf of super PACs and nonprofits. Eighty-nine percent of the expenditures made to the top 10 went to spots attacking candidates, the data show.
“For some in the industry, it has been a definite boon,” said Dale Emmons, president of the American Association of Political Consultants. “This election appears to have set a new benchmark on the amount of money that could be spent, because there were no limits on what could be spent.”
The 2010 Citizens United decision and a lower-court ruling allowed unlimited donations to super PACs and nonprofits, independent groups that used the funds primarily to fund ad campaigns.
Media buyers keep only a fraction of the total spending — usually 15 percent, according to Federal Communications Commission records, with the rest going to media outlets.
The winners
The top recipient of independent spending among media buyers was Mentzer Media Services, the Towson, Md.-based media placement firm run by longtime GOP consultant Bruce Mentzer.
Mentzer attracted nearly $204 million from conservative super PACs and other outside groups. In a tough year for Republicans, only 26 percent of the candidates who were supposed to benefit from the ads won their races, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis.
The firm was the preferred vendor for the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future, which paid Mentzer nearly $132 million to purchase air time in presidential battleground states.
A Mentzer employee who answered the phone declined to comment on the firm’s involvement in the 2012 election.
Second was Crossroads Media, which was paid about $163 million to buy media time for conservative super PACs and nonprofits in 2012. The firm is run by Michael Dubke, the former president of Americans for Job Security — a pro-Republican nonprofit and one of Crossroads’ top clients.
The United States, like most countries in the world, bans political campaign donations by non-citizens. Since the Supreme Court case of Citizens United v. FEC, however, foreigners—including even foreign governments—have been able to evade the law by donating to trade associations. Unlike other campaign committees, including labor unions and Super PACs, which must disclose the names of their contributors on a monthly or quarterly basis, trade associations face no such rules, and thus are able to influence elections using corporate and foreign money. As a result, in 2010, trade associations and related issue-advocacy groups outspent Super PACs $141 million to $65 million, according to the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics.
The recent political activities of the American Petroleum Institute (API) are illustrative. API has roughly 400 oil and gas company members, but a small group of executives on its board of directors make all the real decisions, including regarding political campaigns. Among the leading members of the API is Saudi Refining Inc., the wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, the giant oil company owned by the government of Saudi Arabia. Aramco’s CEO, Saudi citizen Tofiq Al-Gabsani, sits on API’s board, where he helps make decisions about spending on U.S. elections.
Because he is a foreign national, federal law prohibits Al-Gabsani, who is also a registered lobbyist for the Saudi government, from leading a PAC, but nothing stops him from heading a trade group that makes campaign expenditures just like a PAC. On issues like global warming, the Keystone XL pipeline, drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, government subsidies for oil companies and a host of others, the Saudi government—one of the most regressive and least democratic in the world—is able to influence U.S. elections and U.S. policies, without ever having to acknowledge doing so.
Similarly, the US Chamber of Commerce, like many large trade associations, is international in scope and has many foreign business members. Although the Chamber claims that money received from foreign source is segregated from domestic money, there is no way of knowing if that is true, because there’s no way to audit foreign corporate spending when it occurs through trade associations. “Precisely because there is no disclosure by these groups, there is no way to monitor what they’re doing,” Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman, told The Nation.
This lack of transparency makes a mockery of Super PAC disclosure rules. “Prior to Citizens United, all federal election money could be traced back to an individual who expended it or contributed to a political committee,” said Karl Sandstrom, a former FEC commissioner now with the law firm Perkins Cole. “Once you enable artificial entities to contribute, money is no longer traceable back to identifiable individuals.” That includes foreign individuals, foreign corporations and foreign governments, all of which are spending millions to influence the 2012 elections.
Tennessee Lawmakers Pass Resolution Blasting UN Agenda 21
Legislation attacking the United Nations’ “Agenda 21” agreement as a radical socialist plot at odds with American liberty and values was approved overwhelmingly by members of the Tennessee House of Representatives last Thursday, sparking some criticism by far-left activists but widespread praise by conservative groups and Tea Party organizations across the nation.
New Obama Executive Order Seizes U.S. Infrastructure and Citizens for Military Preparedness
Brandon Turbeville
BlacklistedNews.com
In a stunning move, on March 16, 2012, Barack Obama signed an Executive Order stating that the President and his specifically designated Secretaries now have the authority to commandeer all domestic U.S. resources including food and water. The EO also states that the President and his Secretaries have the authority to seize all transportation, energy, and infrastructure inside the United States as well as forcibly induct/draft American citizens into the military. The EO also contains a vague reference in regards to harnessing American citizens to fulfill “labor requirements” for the purposes of national defense.
The Vetting – Holder 1995: We Must ‘Brainwash’ People on Guns
by Joel B. Pollak
Breitbart.com has uncovered video from 1995 of then-U.S. Attorney Eric Holder announcing a public campaign to “really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.”
Holder was addressing the Woman’s National Democratic Club. In his remarks, broadcast by CSPAN 2, he explained that he intended to use anti-smoking campaigns as his model to “change the hearts and minds of people in Washington, DC” about guns.
Holder’s Brainwashing Against Guns Foreshadowed Operation Fast and Furious
Yesterday, Breitbart.com revealed exclusive video of then-U.S. Attorney Eric Holder speaking to the Woman’s National Democratic Club, stating that he wanted to “brainwash” people against gun ownership.
The video reveals Attorney General Holder’s early, consistent, and strident enthusiasm for gun control legislation. He wanted schools to talk about anti-gun propaganda “every day, every school, and every level.”
Operation Fast and Furious — in which Holder’s Department of Justice (DOJ) smuggled guns illegally to Mexican drug cartels — could finally have provided Holder the material for that anti-gun curriculum.
Forecasting Wilting Government and Growing Economies
Wars and Rumors of War
SYRIA: Media Accuses Syrian Government of Collaborating with Al Qaeda. How the Media Refutes its own Lies…
The latest terrorist attack in Damascus is described by the media as yet another government sponsored initiative geared towards killing Syrian civilians.
The CTV-AP report of this tragic event resulting in 27 deaths and some 140 wounded is riddled with contradictions. First it acknowledges that the target of the attacks was government buildings including Air Force Intelligence and National Security buildings in Damascus:
Two explosions rocked the Syrian capital of Damascus Saturday … The twin suicide car bombs were aimed at intelligence and security buildings in the capital. (CTV, March 17, 2012, emphasis added)
Treasury submits report showing it has frozen $21.1 billion of terror organizations’ assets in 2011, including $12 million of al-Qaeda’s, $55 million of Iran’s accounts
Narcotic task force and child services steal children from California medical marijuana patients
On the morning of September 29, 2011, around 8 AM, the Butte Interagency Narcotic Task Force (BINTF) out of Butte, California, forced their way into the home of Jayme Walsh and his wife Daisy Bram.
The officers then arrested the two parents and with the help of Child Protective Services (CPS) and the Child Services Division of Butte County, seized their children.
WAR PLAN IRAN: Dispelling the Lies, Telling the Truth about Western Aggression in the Persian Gulf
GR ONLINE NEWS READER
by Finian Cunningham and Michel Chossudovsky
The year 2012 may become known as a watershed for humanity – the year when mankind was precipitated into a global conflagration involving nuclear weapons. The signs are indeed grimly ominous as formidable military forces converge on the Persian Gulf in the long-running stand-off between the United States and Iran.
On side with the US are its European allies in NATO, primarily Britain, Washington’s Middle East client states: Israel and the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf – all bristling with weapons of mass destruction. Recent naval exercises by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz have also displayed a fierce arsenal of missiles and military capability, and Iran has strategic alliances with Russia and China, both of whom will not stand idly by if their Persian partner is attacked.
As we have consistently analysed on Global Research, the conflict between the US-led powers and Iran has wider ramifications. It is part and parcel of Washington’s bid to engineer the social and political upheavals across the Arab World in order to redraw the region in its strategic interests. It is no coincidence that fresh from NATO’s conquest of and regime change in Libya, the focus has quickly shifted to Syria – a key regional ally of Iran. As Michel Chossudovsky has pointed out “the road to Tehran goes through to Damascus”. Regime change in Syria would serve to isolate Iran. Subjugating Iran and returning it to Western tutelage is the prize that Washington and its allies have been seeking for the past 33 years ever since their client the Shah, Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi, was deposed by the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
5 Politicians Pushing the US Closer to a Disastrous War With Iran
President Obama may be pushing back against the “loose talk of war,” but Congress sure isn’t.
Republican candidates for president have made Iran a top issue in their attacks on President Barack Obama. While US and Israeli intelligence have concluded that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon, Rick Santorum recently suggested that “the issue of the day come this fall” could be the existence of a “nuclear Iran,”
Global arms trade growth by a quarter is spurred by India
Fears of arms race in Asia as Stockholm peace institute data shows India is now biggest importer
The global arms trade has grown by nearly a quarter over the last four years, with new growth mainly in poorer countries and India now officially the world’s biggest importer of arms, research has revealed.
Statistics published on Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute show that demand from emerging economies – in particular India – drove the volume of worldwide arms transfers between 2007 and 2011 to a level 24% higher than in the previous four years.
The Syrian regime has pointed the finger at Saudi Arabia and Qatar, saying the Arab states were involved in the chain of weekend terror blasts in Syria’s largest cities. The Gulf nations have been accused by Assad’s government of arming whoever carried out the attacks, which left around thirty people dead and dozens injured.
Sara Marusek, a Beirut-based researcher from Syracuse University talks to RT. She says the Syrian people are falling victim to Saudi Arabi and Qatar’s brutal tactics, to push their political agenda.
Environmental
France Bans GM Corn Amid Mass US Protests against Monsanto
by Rady Ananda
Amid mass US protests against Monsanto in mid-March, France imposed a temporary moratorium on the planting of Monsanto’s genetically modified corn, MON810.
“Due to the proximity of the planting season,” said Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire along with Francois Fillon, Minister for Ecology and Sustainable Development, in a press release on Friday, authorities “decided to take a precautionary measure to temporarily prohibit the cultivation of maize MON810 on the national territory to protect the environment.”
RIAA chief: ISPs to start policing copyright by July 1
Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon are among the ISPs preparing to implement a graduated response to piracy by July, says the music industry’s chief lobbyist.
Megaupload Seizure Order “Null and Void” Says High Court
In another astonishing development in the Megaupload saga, a judge in New Zealand’s High Court has declared the order used to seize Kim Dotcom’s assets as “null and void”. The blunder, which occurred because the police applied for the wrong type of court order, means that the Megaupload founder could have his property returned.
Just when it seemed that the handling of the Megaupload case couldn’t get any more controversial, a development from New Zealand has taken things to the next level.
Texas Mayor Officially Cancels Agenda 21 Membership
The city of Irving, Texas has officially withdrawn its membership from ICLEI — the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. This NGO was established in 1990 and is the action division of the policies laid out under the UN’s Agenda 21 plan — the globalist initiative to usher in a post-industrial world for the 21st century through the creation of local laws and requirements for city planning that essentially erase personal property rights and even steal land under a “sustainable” umbrella.
One year on from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan’s northeast, details continue to emerge about how the crisis was much worse than the government and TEPCO originally let on.
Joining us to discuss the legacy of Fukushima is Helen Caldicott, a physician, author and radio host who has spoken out for decades about the deadly effects of nuclear radiation.
Midnight Climax: CIA’s MK-ULTRA LSD experiments in San Francisco
Newly released documents shed light on the San Francisco edition of the CIA’s notorious MK-ULTRA program (through which people were unwittingly given massive doses of LSD to see if the drug would be useful for brainwashing), which ran from 1953-1964. There’s lots of detail about MK-ULTRA’s work in NYC and Montreal, but the San Francisco operation has been shrouded in mystery.
Spies could use your TV to snoop on you, according to CIA director David Petraeus
Spies could now snoop on you through your TV, dispensing with the necessity of planting bugs in your room, according to CIA director David Petraeus.The CIA says it will be able to ‘read’ these devices via the internet – and perhaps even via radio waves from outside the home, Petraeus added. Everything from remote controls to clock radios can now be controlled via apps – and chip company ARM recently unveiled low-powered, cheaper chips which will be used in everything from fridges and ovens to doorbells.
Don’t want to be groped by the TSA or go through a body scanner? Just pay $100!
With their thoroughly reprehensible “grope-down” procedure, not to mention reportedly strip searching multiple elderly women, harassment of elderly terminal cancer patients and the severely mentally challenged, and the potentially dangerous and ludicrously costly naked body scanners (which can be circumvented with shocking ease), the TSA has become a bit of a joke in the United States.
Not to be outdone, they have now introduced a program which allows travelers to pay $100 to take part in a program where they are able to skip the degrading, dehumanizing procedures the rest of us are subjected to every time we’re unfortunate enough to travel by plane.
The State Integrity Investigation, a partnership between the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity and Public Radio International to measure the risk of corruption in every state, released full state report cards today. They include letter grades, reporter comments and research details, as well as each state’s rank among all 50 states.
See How Your State Ranks
The State Integrity Investigation is an unprecedented, data-driven analysis of each state’s laws and practices that deter corruption and promote accountability and openness. Experienced journalists graded each state government on its corruption risk using 330 specific integrity indicators. The Investigation ranked every state from one to 50. Each state received a report card with letter grades in 14 categories, including campaign finance, ethics laws, lobbying regulations, and management of state pension funds.
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