As we've been saying for days now, the situation in Wisconsin is not really about finances. Governor Scott Walker calls his union-busting legislation a "budget repair bill," but what he and the national Republican Party are really about is trimming the power of labor unions to organize voters, gather campaign cash and swing elections.
Today the National Republican Senatorial Campaign says as much in a fundraising letter headlined "Critical Test." NRSC director Rob Jesmer writes:
As I write you now the fat cat labor bosses are busy scrapping together millions of forced "dues" money to build a massive political war chest. They are preparing to launch an unprecedented negative smear campaign against Republicans in an attempt to hold onto the Senate in 2012.
But we have a plan to beat them and need your help...
The D.C. labor bosses are going all in to hold onto the Senate in 2012, and to pave the way for forced unionization for Government employees.
Two bits here at once -- first, that union members do give a lot and tend to vote their affiliation -- translated, that's likely the "going all in" part. Second, a couple of states with Republican governors have floated right-to-work bills, which weaken unions by letting employees opt out of paying dues -- that's probably the part about the "forced 'dues' money."
Leave a Comment:
Remember that bunch of statistics about the top 10 contributers to political campaigns, 7 huge conservative machines and 3 unions? Can someone please create and publish a graph showing the conservative vs. union money so we can debunk this BS once and for all? "Massive political war chest" my ass. And re-count the heads while we're at it. What is it, 7 billionaires vs. how many regular people?
I've been spending my low-call time here at work trying to answer that very question. I am not finding a lot of reliable information regarding the 2008 election income. There has been a massive blogger movement, apparently, to try to convince people that President Obama earned something between 500,000 million and 750,000 million to run for President. In order to justify those numbers (which any political scientist will tell you are beyond ludicrous) these sites attempt to argue that anywhere between 230,000 million and 400,000 million were donated by unions. There is also a secondary (and equally strange) story attached to this myth that the unions are somehow international and that it's unions from China and India that donated the largest amount to Obama's campaign. There is also, apparently, a conspiracy regarding Obama's campaign accusing the campaign of stealing people's credit card numbers and falsely charging their accounts. Wikipedia and Obama's campaign site both maintain he grossed $150,million for his campaign. Anything beyond that (with the few minutes of down time at a time I'm able to look) has yet to surface as credible. If I find anything I'll send it your way.
Excuse me I am wrong. I misunderstood what I was reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_presidential_campaign,_2008
The part I misread was this (thought this meant grand total funds, not quarterly):
So it appears he did raise at least 600 million, which is ridiculous. That means the next election will likely put the campaign cost at something like 1 billion. Wow. So I am wrong there. It turns out the conspiracy of financial fraud is a right-wing conspiracy and the House has promised to investigate it (RE: Issa).
Some sites of interest:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/campaign-finance-tracker.htm
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20020498-503544.html
http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/blio.php
http://businessjournalism.org/2010/09/29/tracking-corporate-campaign-contributions-on-your-beats/
Thanks Mickey!
Hi Mickey!
Yes, it is well known that he raised well over $500 million but, to be fair, it should be remembered that he started running VERY early and he had a lot of heat behind him because he was/is charismatic. The numbers are a matter of public record and it wouldn't pay anyone to lie about them. Also, though those figures are shocking to me, it has become par for the course. You know how I feel about public employee unions and why but I don't care if private workers unions give every dime they have to the democrats. It should be noted however that unions are not democratic organizations where one has any choice in the matter. One rarely, if ever, has a choice about joining one or paying into one and you are bound by the decisions they make on your behalf. That is usually fine with most people but that is not the same as X saying I want to be a part of Y and I am willing to pay dues into it.
You are one tireless lady! You should be a blogger.
I suspect that the actual amounts of political money raised by unions is beside the point. The major point of contention from the Republican point of view is that they are able to raise any political money at all.
Yes and I wounder how many union members know they are mow connected throug Van Jones the non repentant Comunist Washinton protest organized and had permits aqured by the National Socialist party who support Marx, communist state, unbelievable and we wan't these people running our public unions come on people.
Rick does not know he benefits from communist-infiltrated American labor unions every day of his life.
Let's see Rick tell us ONE benefit from the fascist-leaning Republican Party in the last 100 years.
I wouldn't call it raising money for the dems, more like taking it from people and giving it to the libs to pass legislatn for them.
Actually, Covah, let's see Rick construct a sentence that doesn't sound like it came from a 1980s "artificial intelligence" program.
I have studied politics for years and do not know of a single positive contribution by the Republican Party in the last 100 years.
A single positive contribution by the Republican Party?
Still waiting.
I'm surprised that none of the devotees of the cult of Saint Ronnie have shown up to sing hosannas to him.
But St. Ronnie couldn't even be admitted to the repub party today; he'd be called some sort of left wing commie lover and be shouted down at Tea Party meetings.
Still waiting...
Oops, Jesmer has negligently left out the little-known fact that those "fat cat labor bosses" have been adding hallucinatory drugs to the union workers' Nescafe.
And I replaced Jesmer's nose candy with Folger's Crystals. Let's see if he notices the difference.
Poem by Langston Hughes entitled “Let America be America Again,” which includes this verse:
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme. That any man be crushed by one above
Something left unmentioned is the fact that it is ILLEGAL for union to use dues money for political donations. 100% of the money unions give to candidates is through voluntary COPE (Committee On Political Education) donations - not dues.
See this is the strategy - he has to be assured that people cant ever collectively bargain for better employment - so that he can afford to lose money selling Wisconsin utilities. You cant have it both ways you see. You cant sell utilities for dirt cheap AND have properly paid state employees AND have a balanced budget.....so the employees have to take less so the Koch Bros dont have to pay anything for the assets they want. Sorry folks but this IS a "budget repair bill" ya know. Does make you wonder how much those assets would have done towards balancing the budget doesnt it?
I find this amusing - the wealthiest people in the world are asking for hand-outs from average folks so they can use their money to buy more elections that will favor them (the rich) more and you less. Wow what a con.
Robyn - yeah, and it seems they can get away with it, mores the pity.
Someone once said "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and that's enough to make a pretty good living"
Looks like the Conservatives are very good at that and are making a very good living off the gullible.
I just can't get this image out of my mind-- Some granny, living in a shack, eating cat food.
When asked why she always votes republican she'll answer- "because those damn democrats hate god and everything American"
Propaganda works... just ask millionaire trash like Limbaugh
If I say that the solution to our problems is to soak the rich, many would say that it is not possible because they are too powerful.
What we have to do is to show the powers that be that they can no longer soak the middle class. We, starting in WI, need to show the powers that be that we (the American people) are more powerful than the rich.
There is power in numbers. They showed us that it can be done in Egypt for God's sakes. Can we let them one up us?
It is payback time. The rich have used the gov. (at all levels) to take Trillions from us. It is time for us to take Trillions back from them.
Hey union members now have more millionairs in there top 25% per capita when you look at what it would cost for private employee to get same beni's at retirement look it upin order for private sector employes to get 50k salary medical paid at age 55 they would have to have almost 2 million to last 20 years at 30K with beni;s over 1 million an us poor tax payers foot the bill.
Rick needs to supply evidence to support his assertions. Otherwise he can be accused of just making stuff up.
Please delete - link wont appear
Robyn, if you omit the leading h t t p colon slash slash, your link will appear in such a way that people can cut and paste it into a browser, like so:
nytimes.com
Editor: Please fix the link-eating editor.
On your Newsvine account page, contact Newsvine to get permission to post links. Once they give the OK you shouldn't have any more issues.
Governor Walker’s union-busting budget plan contains a clause that went nearly un-noticed. This clause would allow the sale of publicly owned utility plants in Wisconsin to private parties (specifically, Koch Industries) at any price, no matter how low, without a public bidding process.
Anonymous Declares War On The Koch Bros. // Current
current.com
Dear Citizens of the United States of America, It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch–the billionaire owners of Koch
Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2010
We are all poker chips or guinea pigs which ever you prefer?
We are middlemen. Theoretically, corporations can't simply "purchase" their own Senator or Congressman, so they give money to campaigns to convince voters to elect the representative they want to purchase. Usually a middleman makes out pretty well, but in the case of voters, it doesn't hold true, because all the money spent to convince us to "buy" a candidate goes into campaign ads, enriching the ad agencies, but giving us middlemen nothing but annoyance, having to sit through endless mindbending political ads for months on end. Citizens United moved us one step further toward eliminating the voter as middleman.
So when was the last time you heard of a CEO announcing to the shareholders of their company that they were donating CORPORATE money to so and so's campaign and if the shareholder wanted to opt out, they could?
After reading that "Dear Fellow Conservatives" letter -- it's kind of like I stepped in something that is smelling up the room.... and there sure aren't any elephants around here....
How much money can they get for those utilities mentioned in the bill? I wonder if its equal to the amount the employees are giving up? Is collective bargaining being eliminated so the utilities can be sold cheap to his cronies? If they are so strapped for cash - and this is a budget repair bill - then why arent they using a public bidding process to help them get top dollar??
If they had a bidding process, it's possible Koch might actually lose, or at the very least, the price may end up being more than they want to pay. So, we do it the repub way, no bid contracts to campaign contributors as a quid pro quo for campaign cash. It worked so well for Bush and Blackwater and Halliburton, so why change a winning formula? And we all know what a GREAT deal that turned out to be for the taxpayer, don't we?
'it's not the economy/budget, stupid!'
I went to the Washington St rally to support WI Unions this weekend. Obama said he would put his comfortable shoes and support Unions during the Election cycle.
I watched his speech this morning and listened to him say that we need to be the best country for business in the world. Does that include gutting the Unions? that seems to be businesses answer. How long has it been since the Unions managed to rally members in all 50 states? I think its an impotent event, unfortunately Obama doesn't seem to agree.
Has anyone checked on the pension plans of Gov Walker or of all of the Senators and or reps. I would love to see how they come out and who bargained for them.
It really IS about the budget. Fixed Expenses vs. Discretionary Expenses. It is (like so many other things Fascism does) a re-definition of terms.
Fixed Expenses are NOW money that the corporations and lobbyists have to have, money that has to go to fund the re-elections, war profits, money to grease the wheels of Wall St. Pension money for the Senate, Congress and the highest Judges, tax rebates to corporations, Oil Subsidies, loopholes in tax law, and so on. And, whatever the cost in interest and debt- these expenses MUST BE MET.
Discretionary Expenses are NOW Feeding the poor, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Education, living up to contractual obligations with any unions for pensions, wages, sick pay, disability payments, Medical care for the homeless, heating assistance, preschool, Head Start, PBS, NPR, Art (except the pieces used for "investment and tax shelters") roads, bridges, safety regulations and consumer protection, FDIC, EPA, FCC, FAA, NTSB, and so on. These entities and costs are totally optional in that the new order of corporate - run government must control those costs to keep profit flowing. If it has to consider any of these expenses as necessary, it simply can't continue. It would have to make a fundamental change in business methods - like make something.
Thus we have the logical - Rachel - foolishly using the "Old" definitions for Budget Terms, while the Faux Views Logical - Washington, The Pundits and Press, Corporations and PACS and the Tea Party- have switched to the new definitions.
Where is George Carlin when you need him?
RE: Why linguistic accuracy is so important!
The capitol windows have been bolted shut so that protestors inside can't get any food. The capitol is not allowing any food or medications through the door. Go toni facebook.com/werunited to see the pictures. They didn't drag them out yesterday. They are starving them out today. Photos are also being tweeted at @ericming5
I love it when people are asked to strike a blow against the "fat cats" by giving money to Republicans. The irony is almost enough to alter the structure of the universe.
Unions only account for about 7% of private sector jobs and less than 40% of public sector jobs...
This seems like wasted effort on their part. Again.
Dear fellow conservative,
I want your money so I can ban some of your rights. I don't need it because I could use mine, but I prefer to use yours. So give it to me.
Thank you.
So it all boils down to 2012 elections.
I just pity those folks who in mid-terms voted these Repubs in. Are they still celebrating?
Maybe its time to tear down the whole system and rebuild and start over ...like it says in the Declaration of Independence.
Just a thought.
Please site in the Declaration of Independence were it says this. The Declaration of Independence is a list of grievances against George III.
A large part of Republican attacks on Democrats is an an expression of psycholoical projection.
Psychological projection or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person unconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, such as to other people. -wiki
Obvious examples are attacking President Obama's teleprompter as a projection of shame over Bush's miserable elocution, attacking Obama's occasional vacations and nights out as a projection of shame over Bush's record-breaking vacation time, birthers attacking Obama's legitimacy over shame about Bush's loss of the popular vote in 2000 and his tiny margin of victory, if any, in 2004.
"As I write you now the fat cat labor bosses are busy scrapping together millions of forced "dues" money to build a massive political war chest." PROJECTION: Fat cat CORPORATE bosses are busy scrapping together millions of forced "PROFITS" money to build a massive political war chest.
"They are preparing to launch an unprecedented negative smear campaign against Republicans in an attempt to hold onto the Senate in 2012." PROJECTION: WE are preparing to launch an unprecedented negative smear campaign against DEMOCRATS in an attempt to hold onto the Senate in 2012.
"The D.C. labor bosses are going all in to hold onto the Senate in 2012, and to pave the way for forced unionization for Government employees." PROJECTION: D.C. CORPORATE bosses are going all in to hold onto the Senate in 2012, and to pave the way for forced DEunionization for REMAINING employees.
I like the part "negative smear campaign". As opposed to what- a positive smear campaign? Republicans want to make English the official language but first they'll have to learn it.
I've been thinking along the lines of projection, too, and not just in relation to this fundraising thing. For a long time, Republicans have been projecting onto Democrats the things that they intend to do themselves as a way of justifying themselves. For example, Nixon's political dirty tricks. Now, Democratic politicians are rarely saints, but in the imaginations of Nixon and his cronies they were always up to worse things than they were in reality. That justified, in their minds, all the things they pulled up to and including everything connected with Watergate. The idea, I suppose, was "Screw 'em hard before they can screw us."
So, although it's not a pleasant line of thought, consider all the various things Republicans accuse Democrats of engaging in: rushing legislation through to prevent debate, tyranny, shutting down right-wing media, FEMA concentration camps, and so on. Is that projection of what they would do if they had unfettered power? It is my opinion that what made the Nazis so unfathomably evil was not that the ideas that they held were more evil than anyone else's (their ideas were really just run-of-the-mill right-wing stuff) but the fact that they had the nearly unlimited freedom to implement those ideas. To paraphrase an Anglo-Saxon proverb: people show what they're really made of when they can do as they please.
And here's another unpleasant thought and another example of projection: the Rand Paul Stomp. The men who did that say they believed that the woman and the others with where were dangerous. More accurately, I think, they projected their own violent intentions as a means to give themselves permission to be violent.
Excellent!
Projection in psychology may be unconscious but as a rhetorical technique it is assuredly NOT unconscious. I wonder if there is a better term for the technique of blaming others for you own devices before the other can blame you. Republicans are real sensitive about using rhetorical devices such as speaking in metaphors and euphemisms. They use these devices all the time but let the opposition try and they jump all over him like they did to Greyson who called them the "America Taliban" and Representative Cohen who compared Republican Big Lie technique to Goebbels.
Another example of rhetorical projection is when Glenn Beck says "the communists and the Moslems and the Democrats are conspiring to bring Shari'a law to America!" he means "the fascists and the right-wing Christians and the Republicans are conspiring to return aristocratic rule to America!
So much of right-wing hate speech is such a reversal of reality it cannot be an accident. Fox News is really a spoof like a supermarket tabloid and its commentators are comedians but no one gets the jokes. They think they are Comedy Central with Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert instead of Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.
Essentially, the NRSC has declared that our political parties will no longer be Republican and Democrat. As of 2012, the two major parties will be Corporate and Union.
It my just be wishful thinking on my part but consider this for a moment:
The Tea Party is not an organized group of like-thinking individuals, much as they'd like to believe.
There are100's of groups with "Tea Party" as part of their name. This is because there is comfort in numbers. These splinter groups have their own leaders who report to no one. There is no true Tea Party leader who "runs the show". The very name "Tea Party" brings to mind the brave rebels who dumped tea in the harbor to protest British rule. It makes them feel very patriotic.
But I cannot help wondering and hoping that many of these individuals are now feeling somewhat disillusioned. They "joined" because some of the original talking points were very appealing to them. Displeased with the traditional political party options available, a new alternative presented itself. But I believe that many of the smaller groups do not feel they are in sync with the more outspoken mouthpieces. And it's human nature to find it difficult to admit you were wrong about something, especially if you started out very enthusiastic about your affiliation with a group.
I believe/hope that the relatively small turn outs to protest against union rights is a sign of some distancing themselves from stands they do not truly support. The Tea Party is clearly different things to different people. I am hoping that, with their true agenda now out in the open, those who feel they've been misrepresented will show their displeasure in the privacy of a voting booth. I certainly could be wrong, but I sincerely hope I am not. It's food for thought anyway.