Be Careful When You Give Political Contributions-- You May Be Making Some Crooks Very, Very Wealthy

Early this morning, Anonymous Operative posted about the corruption inherent in our electoral system. It's no better on either side of the aisle and it has a tendency to keep quality people out of politics so that we wind out with criminal sociopaths like Steve Israel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Michael Grimm, John Boehner, Rahm Emanuel, Tom DeLay, Steve Stockman, Eric Cantor and Joe Crowley.

But its key to remember that to Beltway operatives winning or losing isn't always what's uppermost in minds fixed on self-enrichment, This morning Roll Call san a story about how people running PACs and consulting firms have become very very wealthy raising money that purports to be for causes and candidates their targets believe in. They work the same way the DCCC and the NRCC work, separating the suckers from their cash and pocketing a chunk for their allies. "Recently released tax forms," reports Eliza Carney, "shed light on the big salaries that an elite corps of political organizers earned during the 2012 elections-- and those who made the most often boasted the fewest wins."

The new filings show that liberal groups, which in many cases outperformed their conservative counterparts, typically paid their executives less money. Liberal super PAC, nonprofit and labor salaries tend to land in the $250,000 to the (at most) $600,000 range, while many conservative organizers are pulling in at least a half-million, and several make into the millions over an election cycle. Findings from the new IRS 990 forms include:

Steven Law, the president of the American Crossroads super PAC and its tax-exempt affiliate, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, made $1.1 million during the election cycle. That includes $602,935 from Crossroads GPS in 2011 and $637,562 in 2012. Together the super PAC and the nonprofit spent more than $325 million on the election but had an underwhelming return on investment. According to the Sunlight Foundation, 1.3 percent of the super PAC’s money supported candidates who won and opposed candidates who lost in the general election. The Crossroads GPS return on investment was 14.4 percent.

Stephanie Schriock, the president of EMILY’s List, a political organization that supports female Democrats who back abortion rights, received a $263,194 salary for the entire 2012 cycle, according to Political MoneyLine data derived from FEC reports. The EMILY’s List super PAC Women Vote spent $7.7 million in the 2012 elections and had an 80 percent return on investment, according to the Sunlight Foundation.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue pulled in $5.5 million in 2012, making him one of the top-paid association executives in the nation that year. For the entire election cycle, Donohue made $10.4 million, according to the chamber’s 990s from 2011 and 2012. Said chamber spokeswoman Blair Latoff Holmes: “Tom Donohue leads the largest, most active and most influential trade organization in the world and our board compensates him accordingly.”

Rebecca Burkett, a little-known campaign consultant from Georgia, made more running Winning Our Future, the super PAC that backed losing GOP presidential nominee and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, than many of the nation’s leading labor union presidents make in a year. Burkett earned more than $500,000 during her tenure as the Gingrich super PAC’s chief organizer, according to Political MoneyLine. By comparison, Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, which spent $23 million on the election, made $288,303 during the 2012 calendar year.

…The top GOP super PAC backing Mitt Romney, Restore Our Future, listed no salary lines or payroll recipients by name on its FEC public disclosures. This drew fire from watchdogs who complained that the super PAC shared vendors and even consultants with Romney, violating rules that bar coordination between candidates and the outside groups that back them.

At the center of those complaints was GOP fundraiser Steve Roche, who ran a fundraising firm called Podium Capital Group. As the super PAC’s top vendor, that firm was paid $7.3 million by Restore Our Future, according to the CRP. But how much of a cut went to Roche-- whether 2 percent or 12 percent, both within industry standards-- remains unanswered. Roche did not return a message seeking comment.

Moreover, Restore Our Future had no single executive in charge. It was run by a trio of consultants that included GOP election lawyer Charles Spies, its treasurer. His firm, Clark Hill, took in $746,425 from Restore Our Future, data from the CRP show. But Spies said that amount was paid to the firm as a whole, not to him individually.

As if things weren't bad enough, 4 of the worst-- worst as in voting all the time with Republicans against Democratic values-- House Democrats joined the dying Blue Dog Caucus this week. I guess the Wall Street-owned and operated New Dems just wasn't far right enough for Sinema and Barber. All 4 of these make a habit, a very consistent habit, of giving Boehner and Cantor the excuse to call their anti-working family bills "bipartisan." Here they are, from bad to worse, with their ProgressivePunch crucial vote scores for this cycle.

• Nick Rahall (WV)- 45.52
• Cheri Bustos (IL)- 44.62
• Kyrsten Sinema (AZ)- 33.33
• Ron Barber (AZ)- 25.20

If you contribute any money to the DCCC, whatever is left after they line the pockets of their consultant cronies, goes to characters like these four.

Now, what about Blue America, the PAC Digby, John Amato and I run. Digby's salary and expenses came to zero dollars; Amato's salary and expenses came to zero dollars; my salary and expenses came to zero dollars. The money contributed-- all of it-- goes to elect our candidates. None of us all at Blue America to profit from it. These are our House candidates so far this cycle and these are our Senate candidates. When you contributor to your favorite candidates, you have the option of also contributing to our PAC. When you do, that is money we use to buy TV, radio and newsprint ads as well as billboards and other means of getting out the word about our candidates.

Who knew? There are people farther out of touch with reality than the traditional Beltway dopes!

FRANK OBJECTS TO REPUBLICAN EFFORTS TO MAKE WIDESPREAD CHANGES TO U.S. GOVERNMENT IN ONLY THREE DAYS OF DEBATE

by Ken

No, don't bother trying to click on anything in the above image. There actually is a clip, somewhere. Yesterday a colleague sent me a link to what I presume was this clip, but the link didn't work. So I went to the congressman's website and found the above in sort-of-clip form, but I didn't get any sound, so I was less distraught than I might otherwise have been that I couldn't find any way to embed the clip. I'm sure there are a lot of Republicans, and probably not a few Democrats, who've wished for years they could kill the sound on Barney Frank. I don't think any of us is keen on watching Barney gesticulate silently for several minutes. So I settled for the above screen grab.

In any case, I'm going to assume we've got the gist of it in that descriptive blurb: "FRANK OBJECTS TO REPUBLICAN EFFORTS TO MAKE WIDESPREAD CHANGES TO U.S. GOVERNMENT IN ONLY THREE DAYS OF DEBATE." I thought of this even more when I read this Washington Post e-mail alert this morning:

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Breaking News Alert: House approves dramatic cuts in federal spending in 235-189 vote
February 19, 2011 4:51:18 AM
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In a rare early morning weekend vote, the House approved an aggressive plan Saturday to eliminate dozens of federal programs and offices while slashing agency budgets by as much as 40 percent, drawing out more than $60 billion in deficit savings.

Setting up a showdown early next month with President Obama and Senate Democrats, House Republicans pushed the legislation through after a marathon debate capped off by an all-night session Friday that spilled into Saturday morning. During the bleary-eyed final roll call at 4:35 a.m., 235 Republicans were joined by no Democrats in support of dramatic spending reductions that they said were needed to address a soaring annual deficit of $1.6 trillion; 189 Democrats -- as well as three Republicans -- opposed it, accusing Republicans of writing the bill with a "double meat ax."

http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/SFBD1U/IYSYUB/ZBUAH4/4SFZBZ/7RL9J/QR/h

In a grim way I suppose you could say they had it coming, those clueless Beltway insiders Howie's been screaming about since DWT came into being. (I'm proud to say I've done my share of screaming too.) Unfortunately, the price those cynical pols are being invited to pay now for their proud tradition of turning their backs on the outside world is actually going to be paid by all of us.

Because the American Voter, understandably put out by the "service" rendered by those Beltway dopes, again understandably turned their backs on them. Lots of them, triply understandably, simply stayed home on Election Day, but that unfortunately left an opening for a gaggle of loons even farther out of touch with reality, difficult as such a thing is to believe. At least the traditional Beltway dopes mostly knew where to look for reality in the event that they ever felt any curiosity. Of course they rarely did.

Because of the way those traditional Beltway dopes have been operating, there's unquestionably a sizable chunk of spending waste in the federal budget which could be eliminated with no inconvenience except to the beneficiaries. Well, not just the immediate beneficiaries, because one of the universe of things the new class of Beltway know-nothings doesn't know is the way spending actually generates economic activity. Let me quickly add that this doesn't justify wasteful government spending. It means, though, that especially in times of economic distress you really do have to keep in mind

The lucky thing is that, according to the consensus of economists untainted by the Chicago Virus, the kinds of pork-ish government spending most favored by Beltway dopes, notably the military kind, actually tend to have the least effectual "multiplier" effect, so that slashing that kind of spending would tend to have the least economically damaging effect. Naturally those kinds of spending cuts aren't on the table.

Just because a band of self-made simpletons who have chosen to live their lives as brain-dead morons have learned to parrot the phrase "job-killing" doesn't mean that any one of them has the ghost of a shadow of a hint of a clue as to how even a single job is created. And yet these people living in the shadow world of their self-made imperviousness to reality have the effrontery to impose their bottomless ignorance on people struggling to eke out a living in the real world. They should be ashamed, or whatever comes the next infinity worse than ashamed.

And let me be clear: I don't disparage these people because they're stupid, or ignorant, or insane, but because they've chosen -- actively or passively -- to live their lives as if they're stupid or ignorant or insane. That, in my book, is not only dangerous (the more immediate concern) but utterly inexcusable.

Nothing could be easier than to pull a spending item out of context and ridicule it. It's a favorite trick, of course, in "debunking" funded scientific research projects. And it's "win-win" for people who have adjusted their shut-off brains to function in "anti-understanding" mode, where even the effort to understand anything at all that goes on in the world of reality that surrounds (and oppresses) them is regarded as one of mankind's supreme sins. "Understanding" has been targeted as a liberal and probably faggish plot, to be dealt with accordingly. These anti-decency militants have taken a solemn vow to beat the crap, metaphorically or if necessarily literally, out of anyone who tries to insinuate any whisper of understanding of reality into public discussion. Now the reality-defying Far Right, in addition to controlling the infotainment noozemedia and the Supreme Court, have seized control of countess statehouses across the country in addition to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In fairness, it may be that goons like the governors of Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio -- taking their cue from the Right's economic "guru," Paul Ryan, who based on his public pronouncements understands less about actual economics than any living being on the planet -- aren't so much ignorant of the realities of economics as they are cynically poised to impose an unstated economic agenda: to assist the country's privileged elites, who caused the economic meltdown and in many cases turned it into a boomtown bonanza built on the rest of the country's misery, in using that very economic meltdown as cover to remake the country's political reality to establish uncontested control of the political and economic agenda for those elites.

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It's official: Beltway Creeps have no shame (but a lot of convenient "scheduling conflicts")

Sir Elton and the Piano Man face2face --

uh-oh, watch out for Beltway Creeps!

by Ken

Oh man, you just can't take your eyes off these Beltway Creeps, not for a second!

Okay, as you undoubtedly know, piano-rockers Sir Elton John and Billy Joel really enjoy performing together. They've had huge success with their Face2Face concert tours, and are currently in the midst of the first since 2003.

(No Beltway Creeps yet. Just wait, they're coming!)

One of the stops on the current tour, this coming Saturday, July 11, in fact, is in Washington, D.C., at Nationals Park.

(Uh-oh, did you feel that chill? I think that was the icy breath of Beltway Creeps creeping up on us.)

Now presumably anybody can buy tickets, and that applies to group sales as well. So if, say, a person wanted to hold a fund-raiser based on Saturday's event, and if that person puts up his/her cash, the tickets are turned over, and everybody's happy.

Now enter the Beltway Creeps. Presumably those rules we were just talking about -- all that applies to Beltway Creeps just like people. And among the foot-stomping fans at Nationals Park Saturday will be paying guests of Illinois Rep. John Shimkus and longtime DWT fave Ohio Rep. "Mean Jean" Schmidt. That's right, the Queen of Mean herself!

They'll both be squeezing moolah out of their fat-cat benefactors to see, um, Elton John? Wait, wait, that can't be right, can it? There must be some mistake.

Oh, but it is! We have it on the authority of The Party Blog, part of the Sunlight Foundation's Party Time project.

YOU DIDN'T KNOW THERE'S A PARTY TIME PROJECT?

Frankly, neither did we. But somebody's got to keep an eye on these creeps, no? Party Time's "remit" (as they say in British spy shows):

Sunshine's Party Time is a project to track parties for members of Congress or congressional candidates that happen all year round in Washington, D.C. and beyond.

We also post information we receive about parties where members of Congress are expected to participate -- such as convention or inaugural parties.

Since we don't hear about all the parties, you can also tell us if you know where the party is and we don't.

At this point, let's turn the floor over to The Party Blog (I'm telling you, you're going to love this):

ANTI-GAY RIGHTS REPS USE ELTON JOHN TO RAISE CASH

At least two members of the House of Representatives -- both of whom are on record opposing gay rights -- will be hosting fundraisers at the upcoming Billy Joel/Elton John “Face2Face” concert at Nationals Park on July 11.

In July 2006, Reps. John Shimkus (R-IL) [right] and Jean Schmidt (R-OH) both voted to define marriage in the Constitution as a one man-one woman affair, according to ontheissues.org and the Human Rights Campaign.

In November 2007, both representatives voted against a measure aimed at prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. And in June 2008, they co-sponsored a bill to amend the Constitution to prevent same sex couples from marrying. Shimkus voted to ban gay adoptions in DC in July 1999. (Ontheissues records of these votes can be found here and here).

Sir Elton John has been a vocal advocate for HIV/AIDS prevention and for global gay rights (see his foundation here, and attempts to raise public awareness here).

This isn’t Shimkus’ first Elton fundraiser. In 2005 the Kentucky Democrat reported:

“A spokesman for Shimkus, Steve Tomaszewski, said his boss’s fund-raiser at the Elton John concert was neither an endorsement of the singer’s politics nor a betrayal of Shimkus’ stand on gay marriage. Shimkus won’t attend himself, however, because of a scheduling conflict, Tomaszewski said.”

Tomaszewski confirmed Thursday to Party Time that the congressman will most likely not be attending the fundraiser on July 11 either. Rep. Schmidt’s director of communications would only agree to answer questions by email, and has not yet responded to Party Time.

And speaking of the Piano Man, one wonders how those intrepid Defenders of Marriage, Schedule-Conflict Steve and Mean Jean, responded to last month's news, Billy Joel splits from third wife:

Billy Joel and his wife, Katie Lee Joel, are getting a divorce, according to The New Jersey Star-Ledger. The 60-year-old rock star and his 27-year-old wife have been married for five years.

The couple released a statement saying the decision to split "is a result of much thoughtful consideration."

The marriage was Joel's third. He previously was married to Christie Brinkley and, before that, to his business manager.

Katie Lee Joel was described by the Star-Ledger as a cookbook author, socialite and fashion show habitue who hosted the first season of Bravo's "Top Chef."

If you want to see which of the Creeps is partying, check here. And if you've got party tips, here's the Sunlight Foundation's contact page.

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