The Inspector General for Tax Administration at the Treasury Department has issued a preliminary report on the IRS’ targeting of Tea Party and “patriot” groups that applied for 501(c)(4) status. You can see that report here. The report does conclude that inappropriate criteria was used, but finds no evidence that it was anything other than …
Category Archive: Corporate Influence in Politics
May 17 2013
Adelson Hit With $70 Million Verdict
Sheldon Adelson, one of the world’s richest men and now one of the primary money men for Republican politicians, has lost another major lawsuit. A jury awarded a man who had helped Adelson get a license to open several casinos in Macau a $70 million judgment.
May 15 2013
The Real IRS Scandal
The IRS has admitted that they targeted Tea Party and “patriot” groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for non-profit status over the last couple years, something that is clearly beyond the pale. The real question, which should be answered by the Inspector General of the Treasury Department who is investigating, is who authorized this …
May 07 2013
Fix the Debt: Fiscal Responsibility for Thee
ThinkProgress links to a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies and the Campaign for America’s Future about a group called Fix the Debt, which is made up of the CEOs of many large and powerful corporations. While demanding fiscal responsibility, they all make far more money both personally and for their companies because …
Apr 25 2013
TX Fertilizer Plant Failed to Disclose Hazardous Materials
Here’s one likely reason why the explosion at that fertilizer factory in West, Texas was so massive. According to Reuters, the company had failed to report stores of ammonium nitrate that were more than 1300 times more than they were supposed to have without DHS oversight.
Apr 23 2013
Business as Usual Continues in Politics
When President Obama took office, he promised to change business as usual in Washington. No lobbyists would work in his administration, he declared, but quickly made so many exceptions to the rule that it became irrelevant. And in reality, as Noam Scheiber notes, virtually nothing has changed; the revolving door is still revolving as quickly …
Mar 07 2013
Those Uncoordinated (Wink, Wink) Super PACs
Salon.com has a report on a new study from Public Citizen about those allegedly “independent” Super PACs that support a candidate. They’re forbidden by law from coordinating their actions with a candidate’s official campaign committee, but everyone knows that isn’t really true.
Mar 07 2013
Adelson Bribed Foreign Officials
Sheldon Adelson, one of the richest men in the world and the single largest contributor to Republican politicians in 2012, has admitted to the SEC that he likely violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits the bribing of foreign officials.
Feb 22 2013
Making Citizens United Worse
The Supreme Court has granted cert in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a case that could potentially make the result in Citizens United much worse by allowing essentially unlimited contributions to political candidates and parties.
Feb 06 2013
Lobbyist: Businesses Don’t Do Enough Lobbying
Every once in a while you read something that is so staggeringly out of touch with reality that you fear it may rip a hole in the space-time continuum and cause that total protonic reversal thing from Ghostbusters. Please turn off your irony meters before reading this:
Feb 02 2013
Roberts’ Convenient Loss of Memory
Still reading Jeffrey Toobin’s new book, The Oath: The Obama White House and The Supreme Court, and found this very interesting quote from Chief Justice John Roberts in the chapter about the ruling in Citizens United v FEC. Legal experts have long regarded Roberts as an advocate of judicial restraint. That’s why his ruling in …
Jan 16 2013
Interesting Facts About the Citizens United Ruling
I’m reading Jeffrey Toobin’s new book The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court and there is some very interesting information about the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling that I wasn’t aware of. There are lots of fascinating facts about how the case was decided that are worth taking a look at. Toobin …
Dec 19 2012
More Lobbying = Lower Taxes
Joseph Rotella and Dennis Van Roekel have an article at U.S. News and World Report that details more than $220 billion in tax subsidies given to some of the largest corporations in the world, allowing them to pay very low taxes even while earning record-breaking profits. And it’s hardly a coincidence that many of them …
Nov 19 2012
How Would You Amend the Constitution?
Someone on Facebook recently asked a very interesting question, which was apparently asked at the third party presidential debate: If you could make one amendment to the Constitution, what would it be? Let me offer a couple of different possibilities.
Nov 16 2012
Why Campaign Money Didn’t Matter So Much
My former colleague Dave Weigel has an interesting article about the influence of money — or lack thereof — on the outcome of the recent election. An extraordinary amount of money was spent by outside groups, especially on the Republican side, with little to show for it:
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