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?

Let's not deprive the NRA of credit for the near-certainly that we won't have any serious debate about gun control

[Click to enlarge.]

by Ken

I don't suppose there are champagne corks popping today at NRA HQ. They're too modest. But even though today's incident notched only two more casualties, the fact that it happened on live TV was a big win for gun nuttery. Just like the upcoming presidential election seems finally have to have been hijacked by the reality-substitute unreality of "reality TV," so now have the gun nuts invaded the tube.

I have no interest in looking at, and certainly no intention of reproducing, any images from this morning events. So instead I've given you the "title graph" from Georgetown poli sci Assoc. Prof. Danny Hayes's washingtonpost.com post this afternoon, "Why it's so hard to pass gun control (in one graph)."

Personally, I hate this whole miserable genre of "such-and-such explained in one graph" posts, because not only do they hardly ever explain such-and-such, they usually manage to obfuscate what we knew before their "one graph." So while what Professor Hayes has to say is all true enough, and I certainly agree with his conclusion that today's incident isn't likely to lead to any serious push for sanity in our gun policies, what's missing from his piece pretty well disqualifies his undertaking as a serious effort to "explain" why it's so hard to pass gun-control laws.

I'm sure you'll spot what's missing too (lots more links onsite):

With another shooting capturing the headlines today, the debate over gun control will once again make its way back into the news.

Indeed, within hours of the on-air killing of two Roanoke television journalists, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe issued a call for stronger gun regulations. “We’ve got, in America, we’ve got to come together,” McAuliffe said. “There’s too much gun violence in the United States of America.”

Will this be the incident that leads to reforms that gun control advocates have for years pushed for? Will public support for tighter regulations translate into meaningful legislation this time?

Recent history says we should be doubtful. Not only do numerous political interests make it difficult to enact gun control legislation, but without major efforts by politicians themselves, the gun debate is likely to fade quickly from public view.

That’s because of what’s known as the “issue attention cycle.” Mass shootings often generate significant media coverage immediately after they occur. But as time goes by, journalists move on to other stories, leading the public to grow less concerned with gun control.

This is what happened in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. As the graph below shows, news coverage of gun control in the nation’s newspapers surged in the shooting’s aftermath, but declined quickly through 2013.

It was only executive action by President Obama and the U.S. Senate debate over a background check bill that kept the story in the news. Once politicians in Washington quit fighting, media coverage of the issue mostly disappeared. Not even a national tour by former representative Gabby Giffords or the Navy Yard shooting in Washington managed to hold the media’s attention.

This recent history – a pattern also evident in other mass shootings – suggests that a sustained debate over gun control after today’s shooting in Franklin County, Va., is likely only if McAuliffe or other politicians decide to take up the cause. Otherwise, the media and the public will turn their attention to other issues.

MISSING, OF COURSE, IS MENTION OF THE NRA

Technically, the NRA isn't entirely missing. It is, in fact, in the one link that I included -- the one where Professor Hayes remarks in passing that "numerous political interests make it difficult to enact gun control legislation." If you didn't follow that link, you may be surprised to learn that it's to another of those goddamn "such-and-such explained in one graph" posts -- a Sunlight Foundation post by Lee Drutman ("prepared in collaboration with Alexander Furnas and Amy Cesal") from Dec. 17, 2012 (three days after the Sandy Hook school gun massacre), "Explaining the power of the National Rifle Association, in one graph."

A quick graph count doesn't bolster the post's credibility. It came, not with "one graph," but with two bar charts, comparing "Election Spending" and "Lobbying Expenditures" by the NRA and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The accompanying estimate was that the NRA has spent 73 times what the Brady Campaign has.

Nevertheless, Lee Drutman had his target squarely in sight. Here's how he began:

In the wake of the tragic shooting in Newtown, one of the emerging debates is whether there will even be a debate. Past mass shootings have come and gone without any action. Many argue that the reason for this inaction is simple:  politicians have been afraid to take on the National Rifle Association, the large and influential pro-gun lobby that spent at least $18.6 million this past election cycle - $11.1 million through its Political Victory Fund, plus $7.5 million through its affiliated Institute for Legislative Action.

As CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer put it,  “Congress is literally afraid to take on the National Rifle Association because they know that if they make any kind of statement [that] even suggests some sort of limits on gun control, the NRA is going to pour, literally, hundreds of thousands of dollars in a campaign to defeat them."

(Read about the 51 percent of lawmakers in the 113th Congress who have received campaign contributions from the NRA)

Here are the data: The NRA has spent 73 times what the leading pro-gun control advocacy organization, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, has spent on lobbying in the 112th Congress ($4.4 million to $60,000, through the second quarter of 2012), and 3,199 times what the Brady Campaign spent on the 2012 election ($18.6 million to $5,816). (One caveat on the data is that the NRA itself does a very poor job of accurately reporting its spending, and we must rely on its self-reports.)

Note that the parenthetical link about "the 51 percent of lawmakers in the 113th Congress who have received campaign contributions from the NRA" was to a follow-up post that Lee wrote -- "in collaboration with Alexander Furnas and Amy Cesai" -- on December 18: "NRA's allegiances reach deep into Congress."

Note too that Lee himself saw a limitation in the explanatory power of the two bar charts.

What these numbers don't capture is that the NRA boasts a grassroots  list of millions of voters and the resources to mobilize these voters at even the slightest threat of gun control laws. Gun control advocates have nothing that comes close. In 2012, the NRA spent at least $682,595 on communication costs, that is, political messages to its own members.

When it comes to the debate on gun policy, Congress is only hearing from one side.

Lee also wrote that it's "important to note that the NRA is not the sole pro-gun group," and added numbers from the Gun Owners of America and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which continued to dwarf the amount spent by "the only other explicitly pro-gun-control group we can find, Mayors Against Guns."

What's more, important as the money obviously is, it's still not the whole story of the gun lobby's power, which includes a mind meld with a sizable chunk of the American public, whose impact seems to me to carry well beyond the merely monetary. (Did I just say "merely monetary"? Actually, yes.)

And speaking of Sandy Hook, my takeaway from the utterly predictable political non-epilogue to those horrific shootings is that not only does the gun lobby no longer fear the possible public impact of such incidents, especially given their long experience at jumping in with instant spin, but they've learned that such incidents can be turned to their advantage with fund-raising campaigns about the supposedly looming threat to their supporters' gun "rights." Not to mention the propaganda campaign claiming that the real tragedy was lack of guns -- that Sandy Hook should, for example, have been overflowing with guns to prevent such an attack. (No, not in the hands of students. But teachers? You bet.)


ARE GOP POWER-BROKERS SMART ENOUGH TO FEAR
PEOPLE EXERCISING THEIR GUN "RIGHTS"? YES!

By sheer coincidence, just yesterday Scott Keyes compiled a terrific piece for ThinkProgress Justice: "Republicans Say You Should Be Able To Carry Guns Everywhere. This Proves They Don’t Mean It." Scott began:

“Get rid of gun free zones,” Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump tweeted after a gunman massacred five in Chattanooga last month. “Gun-free zones an easy target for killers” an opinion headline on Fox News read after a white supremacist shot up a black South Carolina church and killed nine. Conservative sites also blamed gun-free zones after massacres at multiple movie theaters and other shootings.

If conservatives are so convinced that gun-free zones attract killers, then why do so many conservative places and events ban guns?

Across the country, from conservative confabs to Republican presidential libraries and even to gun shows, loaded weapons are frequently prohibited. When an explanation is given, the reason is invariably for the safety of visitors.

And he proceeded to offer an annotated "list of some of these conservative places that ban loaded guns" (again, they're all discussed onsite):

Gun Shows
Political Conferences
George W. Bush Presidential Library
Republican Conventions
Trump Hotels And Golf Courses
NRA Events
Town Halls
Presidential Campaign Stops
GOP Debates
Congress

"Of course," Scott concluded, "there’s a good reason why many conservatives don’t actually want to have guns in their own areas or events."

Contrary [to] the NRA’s claims, the vast majority of mass shootings don’t happen in gun-free zones. There’s also no evidence that a mass shooter ever chose his target because it prohibited firearms.

Instead, study after study has shown that more guns leads to more killings. In addition, even armed civilian bystanders with good intentions of stopping a shooter can wind up exacerbating already violent situations, as nearly happened in the Giffords shooting. [Links onsite.]

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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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