From: "t r u t h o u t" <messenger@truthout.org>
Date: Jul 12, 2012 4:02 PM
Subject: Secret Donors vs. First Amendment: The Tricky Task of Reforming Election Abuse by Nonprofits
To: <aquarianm@gmail.com>
Click here to view this and past newsletters online. Please add "messenger@truthout.org" to your email contacts to ensure delivery.  Thursday 12 July 2012 Secret Donors vs. First Amendment: The Tricky Task of Reforming Election Abuse by NonprofitsDina Rasor, Truthout: "In last week's column, I laid out the problem of nonprofit organizations, especially 501(c)4, 'social welfare' organizations being used to channel money toward campaigns while keeping their donors secret. In fact, for all the ink spilled concerning super PAC committees, which must reveal donors, according to iWatch News, these nonprofits have been spending more money on the 2010 campaigns than the super PACs. The trend is now to start a super PAC and a C4 organization at the same time, then have the skittish donors, especially corporations that don't want the public to know that they are backing specific candidates, use that money for campaign ads done by the C4 and give some of the money from the C4 to the super PAC, which still hides the original source of the money." Read the Article A Prophet Crying in the Wilderness: Montana's Governor Vows to Continue His Fight Against Citizens United Richard Schiffman, Truthout: "'I'm just a rancher who ended up governor of Montana,' Brian Schweitzer is fond of saying. In a world where even Mitt Romney paints himself as a populist with humble roots, one might reasonably be skeptical of Schweitzer's self-portrait. The governor of the Big Sky State, however, appears to be the real deal - a plainspoken 51-year-old farmer and irrigation engineer, who had never held public office before he ran for the highest post in Montana eight years ago." Read the Article Kucinich Explains the LIBOR Scandal Congressman Dennis Kucinich: "We don't know just how deep this scandal goes. But the fact is that if a fundamental component of our financial system has been or is being manipulated, we have the right to know about it. Banks are not above the law and they should not be allowed to operate in secrecy, especially when they have a history of taxpayer bailout and when we are forced to rely on them to provide capital for economic growth." Watch the Video and Read the Article Workers Protest Con Ed Lockout: "They Couldn't Raise Rates on Customers ... So They Went After Us" John Knefel, Truthout: "As negotiations between union reps and management to settle the Con Ed lockout continue far from the public's view, the workers are making their presence known in the street. Union workers have staged a protest outside Con Ed's main headquarters on 4 Irving Place in New York City every day this week and will likely continue to do so until an agreement is reached." Read the Article Congress Considers Prosecutions of Reporters Over Leaked Information Annika McGinnis, McClatchy Newspapers: "In response to New York Times stories that relied on leaks of sensitive national-security information, a House of Representatives panel on Wednesday discussed legislation that could allow journalists to be prosecuted for disclosing such information. Army Col. Ken Allard testified to a House Judiciary subcommittee that the extent of national security leaks is 'unprecedented' in American history. Recent examples include the Times' investigations of President Barack Obama's terrorist 'kill list' and American cyberattacks on Iran." Read the Article Bill Moyers | Unions Are in Peril Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co.: "Lost in the Supreme Court media chatter last week: a disturbing ruling in Knox vs. SEIU Local 1000 that restricts labor unions from directing collected dues toward political causes. There's no similar limit on corporations, naturally - yet another indication that the power and status of modern unions is waning, especially when compared to the unbridled influence of Corporate America. With a sharp decline in union membership, a legion of new enemies, and a series of legal and legislative setbacks, can unions rebound and once again act strongly in the interest of ordinary workers?" Watch the Video and Read the Transcript Obama's Scramble for Africa: Secret Wars, Secret Bases and the Pentagon's "New Spice Route" in Africa Nick Turse, TomDispatch: "They call it the New Spice Route, an homage to the medieval trade network that connected Europe, Africa, and Asia, even if today's 'spice road' has nothing to do with cinnamon, cloves, or silks. Instead, it's a superpower's superhighway, on which trucks and ships shuttle fuel, food, and military equipment through a growing maritime and ground transportation infrastructure to a network of supply depots, tiny camps, and airfields meant to service a fast-growing US military presence in Africa." Read the Article On the News With Thom Hartmann: Public Transportation System Is Failing Low-Income Workers, and More In today's On the News segment: According to a new study by the Brookings Institute, only a quarter of Americans can get to work in less than 90 minutes using public transportation; the LIBOR rate-fixing scandal is coming to America; in Wisconsin, there are questions about whether or not June's recall election was rigged; and more. Watch the Video and Read the Transcript Paul Krugman | Blame Politics, Not Economics, for This Enduring Crisis Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: "So Econ 101 has done just fine, and perhaps more to the point, it has made successful predictions 'out of sample' - that is, about what would happen under conditions very different from normal experience. This is the sort of thing that produces paradigm shifts in the hard sciences: Light bends! Einstein is right! So why the sense that macroeconomics is a mess? I'd say that it's essentially political." Read the Article Where the Money Lives: Vanity Fair Report Reveals Loopholes, Offshore Havens Behind Romney's Fortune Amy Goodman, Democracy NOW!: "Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is on the hot seat over where he stashes his vast personal fortune, estimated at up to $250 million. We speak with reporter Nick Shaxson, whose new Vanity Fair article, 'Where the Money Lives,' delves into the murky world of offshore finance and reveals loopholes that allowed Romney to skirt tax laws and store millions in foreign tax havens. The article has sparked the latest round of questions about Romney's taxes and offshore accounts, amplified by Romney's refusal so far to release more than one year's worth of tax returns." Watch the Video and Read the Transcript Click here for more Truthout articles
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "This blows a huge credibility hole in the Romney narrative of being a job creator, in addition to his own company's documents contradicting him, and leaves little room to conclude anything other than that he lied. It will be legally impossible for him to effectively deny what is stated in SEC documents and Massachusetts State filings, because that could raise the specter of being accused of fraudulent financial reports. FactCheck.org previously implied that such a scenario, filing false government reporting documents, would be a felony." Read the BuzzFlash Commentary Lab Contamination May Have Led to Occupy Wall Street/Sarah Fox DNA Match A Scandal Over Rate-Fixing Is About to Hit the US Not Again! How Our Voting System Is Ripe for Theft and Meltdown in 2012 Romney Invested Millions in Chinese Firm That Profited on US Outsourcing Joe Conason | If We're Headed Toward Greece, Republicans Are Driving Us There Mitt Romney the Race Baiter at the NAACP As Long as the Rich Can Speculate on Food, the World's Poor Go Hungry Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines
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