dark money

Greenberg Poll: Democrats need a reform agenda to go with popular economic policies

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Greg Sargent of the Washington Post reports on Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg’s new poll today which shows that the so-called “Rising American Electorate,” the Obama coalition, is less “tuned in” to the 2016 election than the angry old white conservatives who listen to hate talk radio and FAUX News demographic a year out from Election Day:

A new poll by veteran Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg . . . illustrates the challenge that Democrats face.

The new poll, which was commissioned by Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund and conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, shows that members of the Rising American Electorate — minorities, millennials, and single women — are significantly less tuned in to next year’s election than GOP-aligned voter groups are. [This is a hangover from the midterm election Democratic voter drop-off problem.]

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The poll has some good news for Democrats. The survey, which was taken in four key battleground states — Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin — suggests that in those states, the demographics do favor Dems. That’s because the poll finds that RAE voter groups — who helped drive Obama’s wins — now make up a “majority or near majority of the vote” in all those states. The poll also finds Dems leading in Senate races in two of those states and tied in two others.

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Another right-wing conspiracy debunked – where are the media apologies?

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LoisLernerRemember the manufactured scandal from the conservative media entertainment complex a few years ago that the IRS was improperly targeting conservative 501(c)(4) organizations (i.e., “dark money” organizations) to deny their tax exempt status applications? (Pro Tip: you can operate as a tax exempt 501(c)(4) organization without applying for tax exempt status. It was never clear to me why they were even doing this).

Funny thing, no conservative 501(c)(4) organization was ever denied tax exempt status. But the wingnuts demanded the head of IRS administrator Lois Lerner anyway. She lost her job in this witch hunt. Central figure in IRS tea party controversy resigns.

The Rush Limbaugh of The Republic, Doug MacEachern, was a regular purveyor of this manufactured scandal. I ripped him in August 2013 when this manufactured scandal fell apart. The REAL IRS scandal finally goes to court:

GOP agitprop hack Doug MacEachern at The Arizona Republic has been beating the GOPropaganda “IRS scandal” drum even after it had been debunked by the evidence. The world is still waiting for your correction and retraction, MacEachern, and how about an apology?

Still waiting.

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Distorting Democracy: How ultraweathy Plutocrats and their campaign donations counteract the policies that a majority of Americans want

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The New York Times over the weekend had this must-read investigative report. The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election:

Just 158 families have provided nearly half of the early money for efforts to capture the White House.

Income-InequalityThey are overwhelmingly white, rich, older and male, in a nation that is being remade by the young, by women, and by black and brown voters. Across a sprawling country, they reside in an archipelago of wealth, exclusive neighborhoods dotting a handful of cities and towns. And in an economy that has minted billionaires in a dizzying array of industries, most made their fortunes in just two: finance and energy.

Now they are deploying their vast wealth in the political arena, providing almost half of all the seed money raised to support Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign, a New York Times investigation found. Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through channels legalized by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision five years ago.

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What is Terry Goddard thinking??

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

open primaries dark money
Already trying to make them look similar. Except they’re not. Not even remotely.

Ugh. (Emphasis mine.)

“They both help each other,” [Paul] Johnson said. “The polling was very clear. If they both end up on (the ballot), even through independent efforts, they both help each other.”
More public support may be just what Open Primaries Arizona needs. When Johnson ran a top-two primary measure in 2012, it suffered a landslide defeat. Two-thirds of Arizonans rejected the plan, which garnered only 33 percent of the vote. Johnson’s group is making some changes to the top-two plan, which he said will make it more palatable to voters.

Open Primaries Arizona has commissioned several polls on the top-two primary and other election reforms, including requiring dark money to be disclosed, as other election spending is. Chuck Coughlin of HighGround, which Johnson’s group has retained (!), said polling has shown a lot of support for both ideas.

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Lawsuit filed to stop out of state ‘dark money’ corporation from funding Frank Antenori’s Revitalize Tucson attack ads

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FrankensteinWhen you want to run a negative attack campaign to terrorize the villagers, who are you gonna call?

Why Frank(enstein) Antenori of course, Arizona’s version of Donald Trump (spouting invectives towards anyone whom he sees as an enemy, not just a political opponent).

Antenori doesn’t live in Tucson, but he has for years inveighed against the liberal “dirty hippies” of Tucson.

Right back atcha, Frank.

Those attack ad billboards you have seen around Tucson were paid for by Revitalize Tucson, an independent expenditure committee chaired by Frank Antenori and Christine Bauserman (Statement of Organization .pdf).

Revitalize Tucson has been bankrolled by an out of state “dark money” corporation. Attorney Vince Rabago, a former Assistant Arizona Attorney General and candidate for attorney general, and former chair of the Pima County Democratic Party, has filed a lawsuit on behalf of long time social activist Barbara Tellman against this “dark money” front group, Foundation for Responsible Accountable Government Inc.

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