Can Corruption In Government Be Legislated Out Of Existence By... Corrupt Politicians?

While the DCCC (+ EMILY's List and the Republican billionaires funding No Labels) are busy making sure conservative, status quo Democrats prevail in primaries, stalwart progressives are offering hope to voters by offering new programs that will never be passed, largely because even with a big Democratic majority in the House, too many of them will always oppose anything they sense is "too progressive." Take, for example, Elizabeth Warren's just-introduced Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act. It may make sense to average Americans, but average congressional careerists will recoil from it in horror. This is what it feels to do:

• Padlock the Revolving Door and Increase Public Integrity by eliminating both the appearance and the potential for financial conflicts of interest; banning Members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, federal judges, and other senior government officials from owning and trading individual stock; locking the government-to-lobbying revolving door; and eliminating "golden parachutes."

• End Lobbying as We Know It by exposing all influence-peddling in Washington; banning foreign lobbying; banning lobbyists from donating to candidates and Members of Congress; strengthening congressional independence from lobbyists; and instituting a lifetime ban on lobbying by former Members of Congress, Presidents, and agency heads.

• End Corporate Capture of Public Interest Rules by requiring disclosure of funding or editorial conflicts of interest in rulemaking comments and studies; closing loopholes corporations exploit to tilt the rules in their favor and against the public interest; protecting agencies from corporate capture; establishing a new Office of Public Advocate to advocate for the public interest in the rulemaking process; and giving agencies the tools to implement strong rules that protect the public.

• Improve Judicial Integrity and Defend Access to Justice for All Americans by enhancing the integrity of the judicial branch; requiring the Supreme Court follow the ethics rules for all other federal judges; boosting the transparency of federal appellate courts through livestreaming audio of proceedings; and encouraging diversity on the federal bench.

• Strengthen Enforcement of Anti-Corruption, Ethics, and Public Integrity Laws by creating a new, independent anti-corruption agency dedicated to enforcing federal ethics laws and by expanding an independent and empowered Congressional ethics office insulated from Congressional politics.

• Boost Transparency in Government and Fix Federal Open Records Laws by requiring elected officials and candidates for federal office to disclose more financial and tax information; increasing disclosure of corporate money behind Washington lobbying; closing loopholes in federal open records laws; making federal contractors - including private prisons and immigration detention centers - comply with federal open records laws; and making Congress more transparent.

The immediate headline wasn't that Elizabeth Warren is taking on corruption but that Elizabeth Warren wants to ban members of Congress from owning individual stocks. And who has to vote on that again?

Doesn't this seem more consequential and more important for the public good?

Warren's bill would also impose a lifetime ban on lobbying for presidents and federal lawmakers, and would bar U.S. lobbyists from using foreign cash to affect American policy. It would slap new taxes on "excessive lobbying" of more than $500,000 a year. It would bind Supreme Court justices to a code of conduct recognized by other federal judges.

In her speech Monday, Warren began by establishing how mistrusted government is today. In 1958, 73% of Americans said they trusted the government to do the right thing most of the time. After Watergate the number went down to 36% and this year the number is... 18%. "Not even one in five Americans today," Warren told her fellow senators, "trust their government to do the right thing. I'd love to stand here and tell you that this was some sudden drop after Donald Trump was elected, but that wouldn't be true. This problem is far bigger than Trump. The way I see it, a loss of faith this broad, and this profound, is more than a problem-- it is a crisis. A crisis of faith. This is the kind of crisis that leads people to turn away from democracy. The kind of crisis that forces people to stop believing in what we can do together. The kind of crisis that creates fertile ground for cynicism and discouragement. The kind of crisis that gives rise to authoritarians."

She went on to talk about how conservatives have denigrated the role of government. She obliquely referred to Reagan, but I couldn't help but think of the obscure Ohio Democratic congressional candidate in OH-01, Aftab Pureval who I mentioned yesterday as a Republican-lite candidate running on a platform of shrinking government. "Government," she explained, "can be a powerful force for good-- but only when it works for the people. And the American people understand that today, it doesn't. Our national crisis of faith in government boils down to this simple fact: people don't trust their government to do the right thing because they think government works for the rich, the powerful and the well-connected and not for the American people... They're right."

At a time when this country faces enormous challenges, our government actively serves the richest and most powerful and turns its back on everyone else.

At a time of skyrocketing inequality and stagnant wages for the middle class, our government is giving gargantuan handouts to the wealthiest Americans.

At a time when mass incarceration grinds down human beings and destroys communities of color, our government is putting more cash into the for-profit prison industry.

At a time when sea levels are rising and the health threats posed by climate change are accelerating by the day, our government is handing over both taxpayer money and federally protected lands to the fossil fuel industry.

At a time of staggering drug prices and soaring out of pocket costs, our government tucks tail and runs away from any serious challenge to big Pharma and greedy insurance companies.

At a time of crippling student loan debt, our government is bending over backwards to help bogus for-profit colleges and student loan companies get richer by cheating students.

Across the board, our government-our government-is failing to fix the problems that face our working families. Instead, it's making the problems worse by giving more money, more power, and more advantages to those who already have all three.

And so often-- whether it leads to poisoned water or toxic bank loans-- communities of color are hit first and hit hardest. Our government systematically favors the rich over the poor, the donor class over the working class, the well-connected over the disconnected.

This is deliberate, and we need to call this what it is-- corruption, plain and simple.

Corruption has seeped into the fabric of our government, tilting thousands of decisions away from the public good and toward the desires of those at the top. And, over time, bit by bit, like a cancer eating away at our democracy, corruption has eroded Americans' faith in our government.

I know that's a stark assessment. But I'm not here to describe the death of democracy. I'm here to talk about fighting back. I'm here because I believe that change is hard, but change is possible.

Change can start with reforming how our largest companies operate. Last week, I introduced the Accountable Capitalism Act, which would restore the once-common idea that giant American corporations should look out for a broad range of American stakeholders. By requiring our largest companies to seat workers on their boards, limiting the ability of executives to get rich quick off short-term stock price bumps, and giving shareholders and Directors a real say in corporate political spending, this bill could go a long way toward restoring real economic democracy in America. And in the process, it would ensure that when American businesses engage with our government, they are speaking on behalf of their entire communities-- and not simply as megaphones for the wealthy and the powerful.

Getting American corporations to start acting like responsible American citizens is an important first step toward limiting corruption. But broader changes are needed.

Today, I'm introducing the most ambitious anti-corruption legislation proposed in Congress since Watergate. This is an aggressive set of reforms that would fundamentally change the way Washington does business. These reforms have one simple aim: to take power in Washington away from the wealthy, the powerful, and the well-connected who have corrupted our government and put power back in the hands of the American people.

We can do this. We must do this. And when we do, we will restore the faith of the American people-- not just in our government, but faith in democracy itself.

The recent explosion of big political spending has delivered a gut-punch to our democracy. I do what I can by not taking any PAC money or any money from federal lobbyists. There's a lot of work to do on campaign finance, starting with overturning Citizens United. But that's not nearly enough. The corrupting influence of big money in Washington reaches much further than political campaigns.

Big money eats away at the heart of our democracy. Over the last few decades, it has created a pervasive culture of soft corruption that colors virtually every important decision in Washington.

Consider a couple of examples:

First, the rich and powerful buy their way into Congressional offices. Exhibit A: Mick Mulvaney. After he left Congress, Mulvaney told a roomful of bankers that he had a rule in his office: if a lobbyist didn't give him money, the lobbyist didn't get a meeting-he met only with those lobbyists who ponied up for his campaign war chest. Today, Mulvaney is President Trump's head of the Office of Management and Budget and the person running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And when he made these comments right out in public with the press listening in, Trump and pretty much every Republican in Washington just shrugged.

The rich and powerful also offer up some pretty nice gifts for public servants to do their bidding. In the early 2000s, Congressman Billy Tauzin started pushing an idea: expand Medicare to cover prescription drugs. Good for seniors-in fact, life saving for some. But also very good for Big Pharma-more prescriptions filled, more money coming in.

And it might all have landed there, with seniors getting drug coverage and drug companies selling more drugs-- but Big Pharma wanted more.  Number one on their list was a flat prohibition on the worrisome possibility that the government might actually negotiate for lower drug prices.  And Billy delivered-- which I'm sure had nothing to do with the more than $200,000 in campaign contributions the Congressman received from the drug industry.

Today, Big Pharma rakes in billions from seniors on Medicare while charging sky-high prices for the drugs they need-and no one in government can negotiate those prices. And what happened to Billy?

In December of 2003, the very same month the bill was signed into law, PhRMA-- the drug companies' biggest lobbying group-- dangled the possibility that Billy could be their next CEO.

In February of 2004, Congressman Tauzin announced that he wouldn't seek re-election. Ten months later, he became CEO of PhRMA-- at an annual salary of $2 million. Big Pharma certainly knows how to say "thank you for your service."

Sometimes the payoff comes upfront.  Goldman Sachs handed Gary Cohn over a quarter of a billion dollars on his way out the door to become the head of President Trump's National Economic Council. A quarter of a billion dollars to help quarterback a tax package that included giveaways worth just over a quarter of a billion to Goldman-- in the first quarter of 2018 alone. That's quite the return on investment for Goldman Sachs. For the taxpayers who paid Mr. Cohn's salary and were under the mistaken impression that Mr. Cohn was working for them, the return was not so good.

The examples are everywhere these days. A Commerce Secretary who acts like a cartoon version of a Wall Street fat cat, awash in financial conflicts, intertwined with Russian financial interests, suspected of swindling millions from his business partners and using his official position to pump up his fortune through shady stock trading. An EPA Administrator who resigns in disgrace over corruption, only to be replaced with another EPA Administrator who belongs in the coal baron's hall of fame. A Congressman facing indictment for insider trading.

Let's face it: there's no real question that the Trump era has given us the most nakedly corrupt leadership this nation has seen in our lifetimes. But they are not the cause of the rot-- they're just the biggest, stinkiest example of it.

Corruption is a form of public cancer, and Washington's got it bad. It's time for treatment, time to isolate and quarantine the ability of big money to infect the decisions made every day by every branch of our government.

...Washington corruption is not a small problem, and it will not be rooted out with small solutions. In addition to the big changes I talked about today, my legislation contains dozens more ideas to promote clean government, from giant reforms to small tweaks and everything in between.

These changes will require everyone who runs for or who holds office to change at least some of their practices-- including me. Many of these ideas challenge the most fundamental assumptions about how business is currently done in our nation's capital. Inside Washington, some of these proposals will be very unpopular, even with some of my friends. Outside Washington, I expect that most people will see these ideas as no-brainers and be shocked they're not already the law.

I'm sure the people who make big money off the current system will yell and scream and spend millions of dollars trying to stop these changes. And the all-day-long pundits and Washington insiders who live in the same neighborhoods and eat at the same sushi bars and go to the same book parties will say ‘this will never pass' and try to color me naïve for even trying. But it's that kind of self-serving group-think that's allowed corruption to spread through this town for decades.

Besides, such nay-saying ignores our history: Our country has responded to deep corruption with bold action before.

I won't pretend to be sure I've gotten everything exactly right. I'm willing and eager to discuss the details.  My bill proposes a year-long transition for people to adapt to the new system before these changes would go into effect. But here is my promise: I plan to fight to pass as many of these reforms as possible. I believe we can break the stranglehold that the wealthy and well-connected hold over our government. I believe we can get our democracy working again.

Kara Eastman, the progressive Democrat who is tearing it up in Omaha with her powerful door-to-door grassroots campaign, agrees with Warren. "One thing that most voters I speak with at their doors agree on is that money and corruption in politics and Washington are a fundamental threat to our democracy. As a non-millionaire running for Congress, I have seen first-hand how difficult fundraising can be and therefore, how challenging it is to be viewed as a viable candidate. Public servants in general are no longer beholden to their constituents but rather to large corporations and wealthy donors. We desperately need to bring government back to the people and start serving regular working Americans in order to get our country back on track."

Russ Feingold was one of the first endorsers: "This bill is a bold and comprehensive set of policy solutions that would fundamentally change the way Washington works. It includes new protections against runaway campaign spending, but it also addresses the broad, corrupting influence of corporations over federal government policymaking." And another Wisconsinite is as enthusiastic as Feingold. Yesterday Randy Bryce told me that "It’s a simple choice. Serve people or serve oneself. Citizens United opened up the floodgates to corruption and a terrific way to show one is running to put others first is to get behind Senator Warren with this."

My friend Roberto Rodriguez, a former congressional candidate and an Obama Treasury Department official, came up with a good idea:

Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, was certainly enthusiastic. "There is a danger," he noted, "that the spotlight on President Donald Trump’s outrageous transgressions of ethics standards and unprecedented, global conflicts of interest will blind us to the more pervasive corporate corruption of our government. Corporate corruption has hit its nadir with the Trump administration, but it is a historical, structural and bipartisan problem. That is why Public Citizen is so enthused to endorse Warren’s breakthrough Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act, sweeping legislation to root out corporate corruption and return our government to We the People... No single reform, nor even any single set of reforms, can solve this problem. But Warren’s bill would peel away layers of corruption. Too frequently-- indeed, characteristically in the Trump administration-- revolving door lobbyists and corporate representatives gain control of regulatory agencies, putting them in charge of setting and enforcing the rules for the very industries they previously represented and, typically, will represent again after leaving government. The Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act slams shut the revolving door, significantly through the creation of a new legal category of 'corporate lobbyist,' for whom revolving door rules are airtight... If adopted and coupled with comprehensive campaign finance reform, the American people would regain faith in their government, which would again start working for the people, not the rich and powerful. That’s what’s at stake, and it’s why this anti-corruption legislation is so desperately needed."

Trump Saving Chinese Jobs While Harley Davidson Ships Kansas City Jobs To Thailand

Several congressional Republicans bitch and moan when Señor Trumpanzee does something outrageous or dangerous-- but never work it up enough to actually vote against him. Rand Paul R-KY), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Little Marco (R-FL) are the first to come to mind. The question is often related to national security-- as is Rubio's tweet above. What a woos! Does anyone think he'll actually stand up to Trump? Over the weekend it was all over the news that Trump had ordered the Commerce Department to help create jobs (between 70 and 80,000)-- at ZTE, a Chinese telecom company which has been sanctioned for several reasons... including espionage. Trumpanzee, who persuaded millions of simple-minded voters (and racists) that he is the world's greatest negotiator, has ordered Wilbur Ross to get ZTE "back into business."

Since Rubio identified Trump's reversal on ZTE as a national security threat and followed the above tweet with a question: kvetch: "I hope this isn't the beginning of backing down to China." Can Rubio back down after that? Of course he can-- and will; he has no spine.

At issue is that department's move last month to block the ZTE Corp., a major supplier of telecoms networks and smartphones based in southern China, from importing American components for seven years. The U.S. accused ZTE of misleading American regulators after it settled charges of violating sanctions against North Korea and Iran.

ZTE, which has more than 70,000 employees and has supplied networks or equipment to some of the world's biggest telecoms companies, said in early May that it had halted its main operations as a result of the department's "denial order."

Trump, who has taken a hard line on trade and technology issues with Beijing, tweeted on Sunday that he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping "are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast. Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!"

ZTE has asked the department to suspend the seven-year ban on doing business with U.S. technology exporters. By cutting off access to U.S. suppliers of essential components such as microchips, the ban threatens ZTE's existence, the company has said.

During recent trade meetings in Beijing, Chinese officials said they raised their objections to ZTE's punishment with the American delegation, which they said agreed to report them to Trump.

The U.S. imposed the penalty after discovering that Shenzhen-based ZTE, which had paid a $1.2 billion fine in the case, had failed to discipline employees involved and paid them bonuses instead.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, criticized Trump's decision in a reply to his tweet late Sunday.

"Our intelligence agencies have warned that ZTE technology and phones pose a major cyber security threat," Schiff said in the tweet. "You should care more about our national security than Chinese jobs."

Trump later tweeted that while the two countries were working together, past trade negotiations "have been so one sided in favor of China."

"China and the United States are working well together on trade, but past negotiations have been so one sided in favor of China, for so many years, that it is hard for them to make a deal that benefits both countries," he said in the tweet. "But be cool, it will all work out!"

The BBC headline wouldn't go over well at Trump voters in the Midwest: Trump seeks to save Chinese jobs at ZTE ahead of trade talks. Trump is backing down from having banned American companies from selling ZTE components after ZTE admitted to making illegal shipments to Iran and North Korea. I bet Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Missouri works would like those 70-80,000 jobs. It was just announced the Harley Davidson is shutting down an American factory and moving the operation-- and jobs-- to Thailand. That's on top of the Harley factory already opened in India.

[T]hat case is tough to accept in Kansas City, where the company has assembled some of its most popular motorcycles since 1997.

“I am being directly affected by a corporate decision that I had no say in,” said Pence, who has worked at the plant for 21 years and has the highest seniority ranking in the facility.

Pence, who works in machine maintenance, said engineers from the plant are going to Thailand to help set up that operation, with trial production runs expected this summer.

He believes that some of the Kansas City plant’s equipment, too, will be shipped to Thailand.

“They are going over everything now, getting ready to crate it up,” he said.

About 35% of the bikes assembled in Kansas City are destined for sale outside of the U.S., according to Pence, although Harley would not confirm that.

Asia has been one of the company’s fastest-growing markets, but over the years it’s also been a market with steep tariffs on U.S.-made motorcycles.

“We have been fighting tariffs for the 21 years I have been employed with the company. But tariffs are just a fact of life,” Pence said.

The union is critical of Harley for investing in Thailand while also receiving tax cuts under President Donald Trump’s new corporate tax plan.

“These companies are taking tax breaks with one hand and handing out pink slips with the other,” said International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers President Bob Martinez Jr. “I’m going to call it like I see it ... this is a corporate ambush on working people."

“They should be reinvesting in America,” Pence, the Kansas City employee, said.

I suspect-- strongly-- that Paul Scott, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, would agree with the displaced Harley Davidson workers. His comments, though, were about Trump's cock-up over ZTE. "Trump’s weekend comments regarding ZTE," he said, "the Chinese telecom firm barred from doing business in our nation for breaking U.S. law, are alarming. In the middle of a trade dispute, the president is publicly offering a major concession to China that could potentially harm national security. This is a company that has broken trade embargoes with Iran and North Korea, and generated legitimate security concerns. As recently as February the entire national security establishment has advised American consumers to avoid products made by this company because it considers them beholden to the Chinese government. Meanwhile, Beijing has yet to agree to end any unfair trade practice or make any meaningful reform. And Trump’s very capable trade team hasn’t made any discernible progress on the myriad trade irritants that are costing America jobs. Trump’s tweet on ZTE is indefensible."

Ready for another-- even bigger and uglier-- ZTE shock? This one is horrifying even for Trump and it came from Public Citizen, which referred to it-- correctly-- as "breathtaking venality."

It’s hard to capture in words how shocking and outrageous is the confluence of events around President Donald Trump’s ZTE tweet and the Chinese government's expected loan to an Indonesian resort with Trump-branded hotels and a golf course.

Trump’s Twitter pledge to intervene to rescue a Chinese company from law enforcement measures was startling enough. The tweet saying that he will aid Chinese telecom company ZTE contradicts his tough-on-China posture and is especially surprising given the national security issues raised about the firm.

But the most disturbing element is Trump’s readiness to interject himself into a corporate law enforcement measure as part of a deal with a foreign government – a move that threatens the integrity of all corporate law enforcement against foreign-based companies, and really against all companies, period.

It is no longer easy to be surprised by this administration. But the revelation that the ZTE tweet comes just days after the Chinese government reportedly committed to funnel $500 million in loans to an Indonesian resort development that includes Trump-branded hotels and a Trump-branded golf course is absolutely jaw-dropping.

Here are some questions the president and his administration must answer:

• How is this possibly not a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clause?
• When did Trump become aware of the anticipated Chinese loan to the Indonesian resort project?
• What are the terms of the expected loan?
• Have Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed the loan to the Indonesian resort project? Has it been discussed at any other governmental level?

There is no doubt that geopolitical considerations are informing Trump’s ZTE intervention. But is there anyone in America who believes that benefiting indirectly from a Chinese loan would NOT influence Trump’s decision to intercede?

Brent Welder is the progressive Democrat running for Congress in the Kansas City district. "For far too long," he told us, "our economy has been rigged against those who work for a living in favor of those that ship jobs overseas. It’s outrageous that we are giving huge tax breaks to companies that are closing down American factories, while we cut assistance to workers who are getting hurt most. Unfortunately, nothing will change until we change the people we send to Washington. It’s time to kick out the corporate bootlickers and replace them with leaders who represent working people."

My neighbor keeps asking me if Trump is building a resort in North Korea. Maybe that question should be added to the above four. Has Little Marco commented yet?

Where Trumpism And Pretend Christianity Meet-- A Danger To America

The Last Supper by Nancy Ohanian

This morning, the NY Times reported that "While Republicans have been bracing for months for a punishing election in November, they are increasingly alarmed that their losses may be even worse than feared because the midterm campaign appears destined to turn more on the behavior of the man in the White House than any other in decades... As much as gun control, immigration, the sweeping tax overhaul and other issues are mobilizing voters on the left and the right, the seamy sex allegations and Mr. Trump’s erratic style could end up alienating crucial blocs of suburban voters and politically moderate women who might be drawn to some Republican policies but find the president’s purported sex antics to be reprehensible."

Right after Stormy's 60 Minutes show-- with its 22 million eye-popping ratings-- Washington Post reporters Andrew Whitehead, Joseph Baker and Samuel Perry asked "Why are white Christians sticking so closely to Trump, despite these claims of sexual indiscretions? And why are religious individuals and groups that previously decried sexual impropriety among political leaders suddenly willing to give Trump a ‘mulligan’ on his infidelity?" They pointed to a Pew Research Poll from earlier this month about values. The poll shows that "Sizable shares of Americans say that those with views different from their own about how Donald Trump is handling his job as president also probably don’t share many of their other values and goals. Just over half (54%) of the public disapproves of the job Trump is doing, while fewer (39%) say they approve of his job performance... Among those who disapprove of Trump, 65% of self-identified Democrats say they don’t think those with a different view of Trump share their other values and goals... By 60%-34%, self-identified Republicans who approve of Trump say those with a different view of him probably do not share their other values and goals."

Among those who approve of the job Trump is doing as president, 51% say that those who feel differently about him probably do not share many of their other values and goals, while 44% say they probably do share their other values and goals.

Among those who disapprove of Trump-- the larger share of the overall public-- 56% say that those who approve of him probably do not share their other values and goals; fewer (39%) say that they probably do.

...Wide differences in views of Trump by educational attainment also persist. By 71% to 26%, those with a postgraduate degree disapprove more than approve of Trump’s performance. Similarly, nearly two-thirds of those with a bachelor’s degree (64%) disapprove.

By contrast, adults with a high school degree or less education are divided in their views: While 49% approve, about as many (46%) disapprove of Trump.

Among religious groups, white evangelical Protestants continue to be solidly supportive of the president’s job performance: 78% approve today, while just 18% disapprove. By comparison, white mainline Protestants are divided in their views on Trump, while black Protestants express overwhelming disapproval. A majority of Catholics disapprove of Trump’s job as president (57%), as do 68% of those who are religiously unaffiliated.

Back to Whitehead, Baker and Perry, but not to The Post, but to a sociology of religion podcast they did, Make America Christian Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election. "Why," they asked, "did Americans vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election? Social scientists have proposed a variety of explanations, including economic dissatisfaction, sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. The current study establishes that, independent of these influences, voting for Trump was, at least for many Americans, a symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage. Data from a national probability sample of Americans surveyed soon after the 2016 election shows that greater adherence to Christian nationalist ideology was a robust predictor of voting for Trump, even after controlling for economic dissatisfaction, sexism, anti-black prejudice, anti-Muslim refugee attitudes, and anti-immigrant sentiment, as well as measures of religion, sociodemographics, and political identity more generally. These findings indicate that Christian nationalist ideology-- although correlated with a variety of class-based, sexist, racist, and ethnocentric views-- is not synonymous with, reducible to, or strictly epiphenomenal of such views. Rather, Christian nationalism operates as a unique and independent ideology that can influence political actions by calling forth a defense of mythological narratives about America’s distinctively Christian heritage and future." And of course, none this has anything whatsoever to do with Jesus Christ or his teachings.

While American “civil religion” and “Christian nationalism” are closely connected in that both present a narrative and origin myth that expresses purpose and unites those who adhere to it, there are important differences between the two. Civil religion, on the one hand, often refers to America’s covenantal relationship with a divine Creator who promises blessings for the nation for fulfilling its responsibility to defend liberty and justice. While vaguely connected to Christianity, appeals to civil religion rarely refer to Jesus Christ or other explicitly Christian symbols. Christian nationalism, however, draws its roots from “Old Testament” parallels between America and Israel, who was commanded to maintain cultural and blood purity, often through war, conquest, and separatism. Unlike civil religion, historical and contemporary appeals to Christian nationalism are often quite explicitly evangelical, and consequently, imply the exclusion of other religious faiths or cultures. Also paralleling Old Testament Israel, Christian nationalism is often linked with racialist sentiments, equating cultural purity with racial or ethnic exclusion.

Unlike civil religion, contemporary manifestations of Christian nationalism can be unmoored from traditional moral import, emphasizing only its notions of exclusion and apocalyptic war and conquest. Trump represents a prime example of this trend in that he is not traditionally religious or recognized (even by his supporters) to be of high moral character, facts which ultimately did little to dissuade his many religious supporters. In this way, the Christian nation myth can function as a symbolic boundary uniting both personally religious and irreligious members of conservative groups. In this respect Christian nationalism, while more common among white conservative Protestants, also provides a resilient and malleable set of symbols that is not beholden to any particular institution, affiliation, or moral tradition. This allows its influence to reach beyond the Christian traditions of its origins.

During his candidacy, Trump at times explicitly played to Christian nationalist sentiments by repeating the refrain that the United States is abdicating its Christian heritage; however, Trump’s appeals to Christian nationalism were typically overlooked in media coverage of the campaign, which focused more on whether a relatively nonpious candidate could win the vote of the Religious Right. For example, in a speech to a crowd at Liberty University on January 18, 2016, Trump infamously quoted a Bible verse as being from “two Corinthians” rather than the customary “second Corinthians.” News coverage of the event focused on whether this gaffe displaying lack of knowledge about the Bible would hurt Trump with religious voters. Overlooked was the fact that immediately following his faux pas, Trump successfully made a direct appeal to Christian nationalism:

But we are going to protect Christianity. And if you look what’s going on throughout the world, you look at Syria where they’re, if you’re Christian, they’re chopping off heads. You look at the different places, and Christianity, it’s under siege. I’m a Protestant. I’m very proud of it. Presbyterian to be exact. But I’m very proud of it, very, very proud of it. And we’ve gotta protect, because bad things are happening, very bad things are happening, and we don’t-- I don’t know what it is-- we don’t band together, maybe. Other religions, frankly, they’re banding together and they’re using it. And here we have, if you look at this country, it’s gotta be 70 percent, 75 percent, some people say even more, the power we have, somehow we have to unify. We have to band together... Our country has to do that around Christianity (applause).

Similarly, at a campaign stop at Oral Roberts University, Trump announced that “There is an assault on Christianity... There is an assault on everything we stand for, and we’re going to stop the assault.” Later that year, on August 11 in a meeting with evangelical pastors in Florida, Trump claimed:

You know that Christianity and everything we’re talking about today has had a very, very tough time. Very tough time…. We’re going to bring [Christianity] back because it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing. They treated you like it was a bad thing, but it’s a great thing.

Similarly, to those gathered at Great Faith Ministries International on September 3, 2016, Trump said, “Now, in these hard times for our country, let us turn again to our Christian heritage to lift up the soul of our nation.” Finally, there were a number of instances where Trump used the Johnson Amendment restricting political speech by nonprofit organizations as a foil, claiming that the Amendment singled out Christians and trampled on their right to freedom of speech.

While Trump directly referenced the Christian nation myth periodically, his various supporters and endorsers also made the connection between voting for Trump and the United States as a Christian nation. This was especially prevalent among various conservative Christian leaders. Many times the connection was made by arguing that Hillary Clinton would make the United States godless and potentially lead to an apocalyptic future. Christian author and media personality Eric Metaxas claimed that “God will not hold us guiltless” if Clinton were elected instead of Trump. James Dobson, founder of the evangelical ministry Focus on the Family, wrote that “If Christians stay home because he [Trump] isn’t a better candidate, Hillary will run the world for perhaps eight years. The very thought of that haunts my nights and days.” In another interview Dobson highlighted the importance of the Supreme Court vacancy and how “unelected, unaccountable, and imperialistic judges have a history of imposing horrendous decisions on the nation. One decision that still plagues us is Roe v. Wade.” He went on to share how religious liberty, religious freedom, and all religious institutions in America would be under siege if Clinton were elected.

Trump’s Christian nationalist rhetoric also expressed a particular eschatology of America’s future, emphasizing how America was once a great nation, but had rapidly disintegrated under the influences of Barack Obama, terrorism, and illegal immigration. Trump’s promise was to restore America to its past glory, a point he made most clearly with his ubiquitous slogan emblazoned upon red hats. The catchphrase has even been refashioned into a Christian hymn.2 Those supporting Trump, like Sarah Palin in her endorsement speech at Oral Roberts University, also implicitly aligned with a Christian nationalist eschatology: “In this great awakening, you all who realize that, man, our country is going to hell in a handbasket under this tragic fundamental transformation of America that Obama had promised us, know what we need now is a fundamental restoration of America.” The 2016 election was repeatedly labeled as conservative Christians’ “last chance” for citizens to protect America’s religious heritage and win back a chance at securing a Christian future. As Trump told conservative Christian television host Pat Robertson, “If we don’t win this election, you’ll never see another Republican and you’ll have a whole different church structure … a whole different Supreme Court structure.” Pining for America’s distinctively Christian past and insecure about her Christian future, all fomented by Trump’s apocalyptic campaign rhetoric, we hypothesize that Americans adhering to Christian nationalist ideology were more likely to vote for Trump.

It is critical to clarify that we are hypothesizing that the influence of Christian nationalism on the 2016 Presidential election is distinct from, even as it is closely related to, other cultural factors influencing voting for Trump. Christian nationalism has been linked to attitudes opposing economic regulations, welfare, and affirmative action, as well as gender equality and gay rights. And even more research has demonstrated that Christian nationalism is a strong predictor of antipathy toward racial boundary crossing, non-white immigrants, and non-Christians, especially Muslims. Consistent with its earlier racialist connotations, Christian nationalism can serve as an ethno-nationalist symbolic boundary portraying nonwhites and Muslims as threatening cultural outsiders. Indeed, in light of the strong role that Islamophobia was shown to play in shoring up support for Trump, and because Islam is often framed as the antithesis of both Christian and American identities, we would expect Trump support, Christian nationalism, and Islamophobia to be closely related.

Despite these close connections with economic views, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, however, Christian nationalism is not synonymous with or reducible to any or all of these. Rather, Christian nationalism operates as a set of beliefs and ideals that seek the national preservation of a supposedly unique Christian identity. Voting for Donald Trump was for many Americans a Christian nationalist response to perceived threats to that identity. Stated more formally, we hypothesize that Christian nationalism will predict voting for Donald Trump even after these other important and interrelated factors have been held constant, as well as under empirical contexts that allow for the potential interplay between Christian nationalism and various forms of ethnic resentment.

If these fake Christians overlook Trump's violation of Biblical proscriptions and injunctions, does anyone think they care at all about his Regime's blatant violations of ethical rules? Yesterday Public Citizen filed 30 ethics complaints against the regime. Lisa Gilbert an officer of Public Citizen explained that “The bottom line is that neither Trump nor his administration take conflicts of interest and ethics seriously. 'Drain the swamp’ was far more campaign rhetoric than a commitment to ethics, and the widespread lack of compliance and enforcement of Trump’s ethics executive order shows that ethics do not matter in the Trump administration.”

A key provision of the ethics order prohibits former lobbyists from being appointed without a waiver to governmental positions that oversee the same specific issue area they lobbied within the past two years. In a report titled The Company We Keep, Public Citizen identified dozens of appointments throughout the Trump administration that appear to violate this rule and has sent letters to the respective designated agency ethics officers requesting that they investigate and explain 30 such lobbyist appointments.

“These 30 apparent violations of Trump’s own ethics rules are only the tip of the iceberg,” said Craig Holman, co-author of the report and lobbyist for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. “We looked at only a quarter of all presidential appointees because records were not readily available at the time. I suspect the real number of potential violations is fourfold.”

About a week into his term, on a Saturday afternoon, Trump issued an ethics executive order designed to implement his campaign pledge to “drain the swamp.” The ethics order came as a surprise to many and borrowed some key provisions from President Barack Obama’s earlier ethics executive order. One such clause reads in part:

• “If I was a registered lobbyist within the 2 years before the date of my appointment, in addition to abiding by the limitations of paragraph 6, I will not for a period of 2 years after the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter on which I lobbied within the 2 years before the date of my appointment or participate in the specific issue area in which that matter falls.”

Public Citizen identified 36 lobbyists who have been appointed to positions that oversee the same specific issue areas they recently lobbied, with only six of those appointees having received publicly disclosed waivers from the ethics rule. Violations of Trump’s ethics rules by the remaining 30 former lobbyists would occur if they are in any way involved in influencing official actions on the matters that they had recently lobbied in the private sector and have not received a waiver.

Wall Street Loses A Top Congressional Ally As Jeb Hensarling Announces His Retirement

Yesterday, Jeb Hensarling announced he is retiring after the current term. It matters because he's been a major player in Wall Street congressional politics. Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee-- he's quitting Congress because this is his last term as chair-- he's taken $7,956,248 from the bankster sector since first being elected in 2002. The only current members of the House who's taken more in bribes from Wall Street are Paul Ryan ($11,479,082) and... no one. Ryan and Hensarling are the two most corrupt, although Ed Royce (R-CA) is close at $7,520,376 and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy does ok with the banksters as well ($6,942,617). These 4 have been working their hands to the bones to make sure Wall Street can return to the good ole (pre-Dodd-Frank) days of ripping off their customers with impunity... and legal immunity.

Hensarling's district has a PVI of R+16. Obama lost with 37% in 2008 and with 34% in 2012. Hillary-- who won Dallas County (which is about a third of Hensarling's district) with a huge 61-35% landslide-- lost to Trump district-wide by an even bigger landslide in the other direction, 62.7-34.3%. Democrats don't even run against Hensarling. The last Democrat who ran, Linda Mrosko, didn't even get a third of the vote and since then Hensarling's only opposition has been a libertarian with no money at all. Before he announced his retirement there was no Republican challenging him and the Democrat in the race, attorney and former Terrell City Council member Dan Wood, has raised only $27,737. Hensarling ended the 2016 cycle with $648,063 in his campaign account. He's been raising prodigiously since then, having spent nearly $400,000 and sitting on a $1,165,568 campaign warchest today.

War criminal and former Florida congressman Allen West lives in the Dallas area now and he's asking for backers from the far right to push him to get back into Congress. Unfortunately for West, though, there's a homegrown psychopath, state Senator Bryan Hughes of Mineola, who plans on running and is beloved of anyone and everyone to the right of the Tea Party.

Bartlett Naylor, the financial policy expert from Public Citizen’s Congress Watch Division, seemed delighted to see Hensarling retiring. "In the face of extensive Wall Street fraud, abuses and misconduct," he said, "Hensarling has conducted almost no investigative hearings. His sole hearing with failed Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf only presaged a wasteful probe of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency that brought the case against the bank for fake accounts. While his own party platform calls for the restoration of the Glass-Steagall separation of lending and speculation, Hensarling has defended the vision of his mentor, former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), who authored the repeal of this law. With Hensarling’s departure from Congress, lawmakers should reject Wall Street’s agenda in favor of one that puts Main Street first. Polls show that clear majorities, including Independents and Republicans, want tough financial rules that hold Wall Street accountable for its crimes and abuses. Public Citizen’s message to Hensarling: Don’t let the revolving door hit you on the way out."

So... more important than another right-wing dog from Texas finally retiring, who's taking over as head of the House Financial Services Committee? Probably a Democrat because the likelihood of a Democratic House flip is gigantic and growing with every passing tweet. The Republican ranking member will probably be Patrick McHenry (R-NC). Boehner had two things to say about the whacked out North Carolina closet case in the infamous interviews over the summer-- one was that he laughed about telling the porcine little McHenry to stop sneaking into the cloak room to gobble down ice cream bars or he'd become a "fat ass." The other was that McHenry, who he likes, would one day become Speaker of the House. McHenry has taken a hefty $4,634,742 since being elected in 2004, but as he's risen in influence on the committee, Wall Street has been stepping up to the plate for him more and more aggressively. When you look at who the banksters bribed most last cycle, among current House members, only Paul Ryan ($4,434,364), Kevin McCarthy ($2,150,229), and Ed Royce ($1,408,949) took in more in bribes than McHenry's $1,381,400. And so far this cycle McHenry is number two on the Wall Street gravy train, after Ryan and McCarthy. The only possible challengers to head the Republicans on the committee would be Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO), Frank Lucas (R-OK) and Ed Royce (R-CA), but the GOP will let the banksters and lobbyists make the decision and they'll go with the most corrupt, as they always do, and-- hands down-- that means McHenry. (Closet queens are always the easiest to control too; a sweet bonus for the lobbyists.)

Do You Think That Someone Who Gives A Candidate A Million Bucks Gets Special Treatment If The Candidate Wins?

PREFACE: The three biggest campaign contributions from individuals-- all to SuperPACs-- were for $15 million (the Wilks brothers), $11 million (Robert Mercer) and $10 million (Tony Neugebauer) dollars and all went to anti-democracy fanatic Ted Cruz. So... Hillary is better than he is.

If you ask most Democrats-- and pollsters often do-- you get the impression that getting dark money out of politics is important, even very important, to them. And yet, Hillary Clinton, who has more in common with the Republicans on campaign finance than she does with Bernie Sanders has managed to stay the #1 choice for most Democrats. Bernie is being clear that he not only opposes dark money in politics but that he won't accept any under any circumstances. It puts his campaign at a financial disadvantage-- you can help him here-- but, some think, at a moral advantage. Hillary, meanwhile, is taking money-- at lot of it-- from really bad players who want a say in how she governs if she's the nominee and goes on to win another idiotic lesser-of-two-evils general election. Some of the big money donors giving to her superPacs include:

• Jeffery Katzenberg- $1 million
• Haim Saban- $2 million
• Herbert Sandler- $1 million
• George Soros- $1 million
• Steven Spielberg- $1 million
• Donald Sussman- $1 million

Yesterday the Sunlight Foundation shined a little light in places that the Clinton campaign prefers stay dark.

We already examined Clinton’s biggest super PAC supporters earlier this week, Priorities USA Action and Ready PAC, plus her official campaign PAC. Now we’re going to dive deeper into the dark money supporting Clinton: the money in groups that don’t have to disclose their donors, and the money that moves from those groups to super PACs that support Clinton.

The groups we’re looking at here are all founded by David Brock, a Clinton enemy-turned-ally who runs a number of liberal super PACs and nonprofits. Some of these groups are directly supporting her; others aren’t, but have donated to the groups that do support her. In addition to the groups we’ve outlined here, Brock is also on the board of Priorities USA, and he’s president of a group called the American Independent Institute, which funds “individual journalism projects, with an emphasis on exposing the nexus of conservative power in Washington.” Just a few weeks ago, Brock bought the progressive news site Blue Nation Review, which will now be headed by Peter Daou, Clinton’s former digital strategist and founder of the Hillary Men project. In 2014, Brock became chairman of the board of the ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which is now located at the same offices as all the groups listed below.

All the groups listed below are located in the same offices: 455 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, D.C...

American Bridge 21st Century (super PAC)

Brock established American Bridge 21st Century in 2010. Much of its activity comes in the form of opposition research against Republican candidates-- for example, a recent post on its website attacks Marco Rubio’s record as an instructor at Florida International University. It also sends trackers to follow Republican candidates on the campaign trail, recording “almost every public utterance by prominent Republican politicians, using both DC-based researchers and a national network of professional trackers.” So far this cycle, it has raised $6.2 million and spent $5.2 million. While it has spent on races in the past, it hasn’t directly spent on any races so far this cycle. Most of its major expenses this year have been on staff and fundraising.

Until May 2015, Bridge had several staff dedicated solely to pushing back on attacks against Clinton as part of a project called Correct the Record, but that split off as a separate super PAC. This division of labor-- opposition research at Bridge, pro-Clinton defensive work at Correct the Record-- has been described by Brock himself, discussing his decision to leave Bridge for Correct the Record:

I essentially had to make a decision. Do I want to be involved in supervising and handling the research against the Republican candidates? ... Or do I want to be involved in some combination of defense and offense for Hillary Clinton?

Notable donors this cycle to Bridge include American Bridge 21st Century Foundation (more on that in a minute), which gave $1.2 million; philanthropists George Soros and Steve Silberstein, who gave $1 million and $200,000, respectively. NextGen Climate Action Committee also contributed $250,000. We’ve written extensively about how this 501(c)(4) is funded almost entirely by hedge fund manager and environmentalist Tom Steyer.

American Bridge has paid the executive vice president of Media Matters, Angelo Carusone, $3,000 a month for management consulting since January 2014.

American Bridge 21st Century Foundation (501(c)(4))

American Bridge 21st Century Foundation is another 501(c)(4) organization, also known as a dark money group. It runs Bridge Project, which says it’s “dedicated to opposing the conservative movement’s extreme ideology and exposing its dishonest tactics.” The site has a database, “Conservative Transparency,” that allows users to search for conservative donors, recipients and organizations. Featured donors include the Koch brothers and The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

The hilarious part (if you find dodging transparency hilarious) is that the group has an entire database for uncovering the money behind conservative causes, documenting spending from their 990s, and blogging about conservative donors, but it does not disclose its own donors on that website, or anywhere else. We reached out to American Bridge for comment on this, and will update this post if we receive anything from them.

On that note: The foundation arm of American Bridge 21st Century has donated a lot of money to the Bridge super PAC, which does have to disclose its donors. In the first six months of 2015, the foundation gave $1.2 million to the super PAC. In 2014, they donated $2.5 million. That’s $3.7 million dollars funneled from the foundation to the super PAC in just the last two years-- with donors safe in the knowledge that their names won’t be disclosed to the public.

Correct the Record (super PAC)

Correct the Record was originally part of the American Bridge super PAC, but was spun off in May 2015 to be its own super PAC. It’s headed by Brad Woodhouse, the past president of American Bridge 21st Century and former communications director of the Democratic National Committee. Correct the Record is located in the same offices as Media Matters and American Bridge; as National Journal pointed out, “When long­time Demo­crat­ic op­er­at­ive Brad Wood­house left his job head­ing one su­per PAC to lead an­oth­er, he didn’t even change desks.” Most of Correct the Record’s staff used to work at the super PAC arm of American Bridge, according to FEC filings.

The FEC has stated that it only regulates Internet activity when it is “communication placed on another person’s website for a fee.” So, Correct the Record says it actually can communicate with the campaign because all of its activity is on its own website. (This underscores the so-called "Internet “blind spot” that we pointed out a couple weeks ago.)

In theory, Correct the Record could coordinate with the campaign, then coordinate with the other super PACs. We don’t know if that is true, and even if it was, it’s doubtful the FEC would do anything about it. But Campaign Legal Center’s Paul Ryan has described the group’s activity as “creating new ways to undermine campaign regulation.”

The New York Times has reported that Brock, who officially left American Bridge for Correct the Record when it was formed, is “focused on paying attention to the activities of Correct the Record and Media Matters, which will play the biggest role in defending Mrs. Clinton throughout the campaign.”

Since it was formed in May, Correct the Record has raised $1.4 million from some of the same donors as American Bridge-- big donors Steve Silberstein, Joan Cooney and Barbara Lee have donated to both. Correct the Record was only active for about a month before its first and only FEC filing, so we’ll know more about their finances in January. (Yes, super PACs go six months without divulging donor information some years.) The Clinton campaign itself is Correct the Record’s single biggest donor, at $275,615.

Correct the Record also has a joint fundraising committee with Priorities USA, called American Priorities, but it’s raised no money and spent only $1,200.

Franklin Forum (PAC)

The Franklin Forum is a nonprofit “communications organization that provides media training and support, including message development and speaker promotion, to strengthen top progressive messengers and messaging.” They also have a PAC, Franklin Forum PAC, which raises money from several of the same donors as American Bridge: Paul Egerman, Barbara Lee and Stephen Silberman have donated to both. The PAC’s single biggest expense was $60,000 given to American Bridge, which supports Clinton, in November 2014, and spent directly on a few races in 2014: Mark Warner, Ami Bera and Shenna Bellows’ campaigns all received contributions from the PAC. Most of their expenses are in-kind contributions to non-federal candidates.

Media Matters (501(c)(3))

Media Matters For America (MMFA) is a media watchdog organization, “dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media,” founded by David Brock in 2004. Since 2013, Bradley Beychok has been president of the organization; he was previously Campaign Director at American Bridge. It’s a 501(c)(3), meaning it can’t conduct political activity on behalf of a candidate. This means MMFA can’t explicitly advocate for Clinton’s election, but it can (and does) publish material about Clinton: for example, posts criticizing media coverage of her, or highlighting positive coverage. Long-time Clinton adviser James Carville works for them, and fellow Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal was also reportedly paid $200,000 a year by the organization.

Unlike PACs and campaigns, MMFA doesn’t have to disclose its donors or what it pays most of its staff (only executives and top-paid staff) because it’s a 501(c)(3). Correct the Record and American Bridge both pay rent to Media Matters for their office space.

According to its 2013 IRS 990 form, the most recent one available, David Brock draws an annual salary of $280,060 from Media Matters.

American Democracy Legal Fund (527 organization)

The American Democracy Legal Fund is a 527 organization set up in September 2014 to, according to its website bio, “hold candidates for office accountable for possible ethics and/or legal violations.” The group files legal complaints against Republican candidates for violating election law: For example, they filed a complaint with the FEC in October over Jeb Bush’s super PAC, Right To Rise, claiming “illegal coordination” between the campaign and the super PAC.

The group has only received two contributions: $50,000 from American Bridge, and $25,000 from the National Education Association. It’s worth noting that while they’re alleging illegal coordination between GOP campaigns and super PACs, the group is chaired by Brad Woodhouse, president of Correct the Record, which is (supposedly legally) coordinating with the Clinton campaign.

The Bonner Group (nonprofit fundraising firm)

This one is a little different. The Bonner Group is a fundraising consulting firm that raises money for American Bridge and Ready PAC, which we know from FEC filings, and other groups like Media Matters, which was reported by the New York Times. Bonner solicits donations for these groups, who then pay Bonner a sizable cut-- in the first six months of 2015, American Bridge super PAC paid Bonner $593,007. So we have no idea how much of American Bridge, Media Matters or Ready PAC’s money comes through Bonner Group fundraising, but we do know that Bonner makes a lot of money off it, and that David Brock thinks he’s getting “the best fund-raising product for the lowest cost.” Media Matters’ 2013 990 form reported they paid $1.4 million for fundraising services.

The New York Times report on The Bonner group notes that Brock and Mary Pat Bonner, who runs the Bonner Group, share a house in the Hamptons.

Like we said last time, there’s still a lot we don’t know about these groups’ finances: We won’t have the relevant FEC filings for the second half of 2015 until January. And the 501(c)(4) nonprofits involved in the campaign won’t file 990 forms covering this cycle until likely 2017, well after voters have cast their votes. Even then, we still won’t know who donated to those groups because 501(c)(4)s don’t have to disclose their donors. And while the FEC is gridlocked, any enforcement action is unlikely. All of this leaves voters in the dark about exactly who is spending some pretty big money to support Hillary Clinton.

In a not-unrelated matter, the FCC Transparency Act, has been endorsed by Public Citizen as "a simple and straightforward measure requiring broadcast stations to present their online disclosures of political ad buys in an easily navigated format that is searchable, sortable and downloadable. This has been the law for TV stations since 2012, although the FCC didn't make these online disclosures easily searchable and sortable for the public, helping politicians to cover their corrupt tracks.

Craig Holman, Public Citizen’s Congress Watch Division's Government Affairs Lobbyist: "In this day and age, there is no excuse for failing to employ the full transparency powers of the Internet, making digital information and data easily searchable by the name of a sponsor or sorted by the amount of an expenditure. Federal and state Internet disclosure programs today widely employ this state-of-the-art standard of making online information machine-readable-- in other words, searchable, sortable and downloadable."

No doubt if Bernie endorses this, which he will, Hillary will follow, right?

Who Gets Fucked When DC Republicrats Decide To Compromise? Not The Koch Brothers, Wall Street Or The Adelsons

Well, the regular working families are the ones who take it in the neck, of course. Republicans grudgingly prepared to not shut down the government by bragging to their extremist fringe that they would still enforce plenty of pain on the poor people their party is perpetually at war with. As John Nichols wrote last week for The Nation, "the problem with bipartisanship as it is currently understood is that, for the most part, cooperation in Congress serves the elites that already are living large thanks to federal tax policies that redistribute wealth upward."

As we pointed out, a handful of House progressives were among the 46 congressmen to vote against the GOP Tax Extenders bill, hailed as a glorious compromise, December 3. Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Keith Ellison (D-MN) and CPC First Vice Chairman Mark Pocan was two of them. Ellison says the bill "gives away too much to big business, while doing little to help working families make ends meet... The bill is full of deficit-financed corporate giveaways that won't stimulate the economy or help working Americans. The bill retroactively restores the bonus depreciation tax break, which doesn't increase economic growth because it helps companies pay for equipment they've already purchased. It also costs $1.49 billion. The active financing exemption allows companies to keep a huge amount of profits overseas and costs $5 billion. The bill also provides tax breaks for motorsports tracks such as NASCAR ($33 million) and racehorses ($45 million)."

Compromise-prone Democrats tried to argue that they had to back the measure because it extended some programs that benefit working Americans. However, Pocan explains, "almost all of the significant tax extenders were going to corporations, not to working people. And they were retroactive. You couldn't even argue that they would create jobs-- except in the last two weeks of the year."

Ellison's assessment was that "the bad clearly outweighs the good in this bill."

"The bill passed [December 3] does little for working families, but lots for corporations already booking big profits," added Ellison. "Too many Americans are working in jobs that don't sustain their families. Nearly 75% of the tax breaks in the package will make their struggle to attain the American Dream even tougher."

And that takes us to the bill Boehner and McCarthy are shepherding through Congress this week to keep funding the government. They hope to cause as much pain as they can for working families without making it impossible for enough Democrats to back it so that it passes despite Ted Cruz and the absolutists who want nothing less than a complete shutdown of the government (and impeachment of Barack Obama and a unicorn for every wing-nut).

Congress prepared on Monday to scale back Michelle Obama's school-lunch nutrition mandates and curtail some clean water regulations in a $1 trillion spending bill that would avert a government shutdown this week but extract a policy price from Democrats.

Continued fighting over such policy changes threatened to delay a huge spending agreement that lawmakers hope to pass to keep the government funded past Thursday. The measure would keep domestic spending at current levels while increasing funding to fight crises abroad, from the war against the Islamic State in the Middle East to the threat of Ebola in West Africa.

But in keeping with the broader theme of this 113th Congress, even reaching the finish line was proving harder than expected. Since Republicans took control of the House after the elections in 2010, the government has largely been funded by a series of short-term spending laws that held down overall government spending without shifting money to reflect Republican priorities.

With the spending bill now in the works, Republican leaders hope to leave their imprint more firmly-- and signal the direction they will try to take the federal government starting next month, when Congress is in their complete control.

Under the plan drafted by House and Senate Appropriations Committees, President Obama would get $5.4 billion in emergency funds to battle Ebola, Democratic and Republican aides say.

More than half of the overall package-- about $554 billion-- would go to military spending. The deal would also allocate roughly $948 million to handle the surge of unaccompanied minor children who began pouring across the southern border this summer.

...Policy prescriptions, including those to ease standards on school lunch content and the Environmental Protection Agency's jurisdiction over some bodies of water, have been more contentious than the negotiations over money. Cultural conservatives in the House and Senate were also pressing to include a "conscience clause" for employers who say funding contraception violates their religious beliefs.

...Conservative groups like Heritage Action, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation, were pressuring Republicans to vote against the measure, saying it did too little to combat Mr. Obama's increasingly bold use of executive authority. That, in turn, strengthened the Democrats' hands, since with Republican defections it will take Democratic votes to secure a majority to pass the bill.

"I remain cautiously optimistic that there will be sufficient votes," said Representative Charlie Dent, Republican of Pennsylvania, who added that his preference would have been to pass a broad spending bill to fund all of the government, including the Department of Homeland Security, through the current fiscal year. "Maybe in the new year we add some policy riders, but at the end of the day we're going to pass the Homeland Security bill, so why not do it now rather than wait."

Speaker John A. Boehner may need several dozen Democratic votes to push the legislation through the Republican-controlled House, and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader, has signaled that she will provide the necessary votes only if Democrats and Republicans can find "common ground" on the policy provisions.

UPDATE: More Self-Serving Crap The Politicians Are Sneaking Into The Omnibus

Public Citizen just announced that they caught the transpartisan crooked politicians we just elected sneaking further institutionalization of corruption into the "must pass" omnibus bill. They've included provisions in the spending bill that authorize individuals to give $97,200 per donor per year to each of three separate committees set up by the national parties-- "to fund the national conventions, to pay for the building funds and to pay for recounts and other legal proceedings, in addition to the current $32,400 maximum a donor can currently give per year to each party. This includes giving separately to each of the three separate committees the parties set up. Depending how the Federal Election Commission interprets this change, a federal officeholder may be able to solicit, and an individual donor would be able to give, $777,600 per year to a national party or $1,555,200 per election cycle. A couple could give $3,110,400 to a national party in a two-year election cycle."

The deal that was struck as a part of the omnibus appropriations bill filed yesterday is a clear-cut step in the wrong direction for our democracy. Using the funding bill to increase party limits is a move back toward the days of corrupting soft-money contributions. Increasing these limits would only enable more dollars to pour into a system already flooded with cash and would encourage higher independent expenditures in the money arms race to counter them.

This embarrassing deal sacrifices the interests of everyday Americans who want clean elections while elevating the concerns of politicians who want to raise more money.

The answer to out-of-control and unlimited outside spending by the super-rich and giant corporations isn’t to enable virtually unlimited contributions to parties-- and, inevitably, candidates-- but to get outside spending under control. To do this, we need to begin by putting an end to dark money with full disclosure.

Bipartisan! Compromise! Beltway! Yayyyy!