Meg Whitman spent $249 a minute for her lead in the polls

By GottaLaff

Meg Whitman, in her quest to become governor has spent $358,439 a day, $14,935 an hour, $249 a minute.

No, I'm not exaggerating:

Whitman has injected $39 million of her own money into her race. She also has raised $1.1 million this year from independent sources, but she paid $531,269 to professional fundraisers, her filing shows -- a high ratio of expenses to fundraising, experts say. [...]

Derek Cressman, Western states regional director for Common Cause, a civic group, said wealthy candidates largely have the political arena to themselves.

"I do feel like our elections are now out of striking distance for regular people, and the only way you can run for office is to be personally wealthy yourself or be really well-connected to rich people," he said.

Read all about it here.

If one very wealthy person can buy herself a lead in the polls, imagine what all those SCOTUS Corps. can do.

Private business: Yay!! Obama: Booo! at elementary school

By GottaLaff

Remember when President Obama's education speech caused that Big Indoctrination Kerfuffle? I don't know how all those innocent little indoctrinees survived it. I somehow missed all the Stepford kids with glazed-over eyes and blank expressions chanting, "Obama mmm, mmm, MMM!" aimlessly marching in lockstep across America.

Yes, a wholesome speech by our wholesome president about wholesome goals became a negative talking point. However, I betcha you haven't heard Word One about Time Inc.'s fundraising company QSP visiting one of the same schools that fretted over the Indoctrinator in Chief.

Yes, boys and girls, it's time for the annual school fundraiser assembly, "kicking off a couple of weeks of good, capitalist behavior by our country's youngest army of salespeople":

Private employee to captive students: "Who's ready for more prizes?!"

President of the United States to students, many of whom are not allowed to listen:

"I'm here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I'm here because I want to talk with you about your education and what's expected of all of you...."

Private employee: "How many of you would like to get out of school for a show?" (The motivator describes a BMX show that will come to the school for certain sales numbers.) "The top 25 sellers of the school will sit in a special VIP section and get autographs."

President: "But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities."

Private employee: "Who wants to get out of school ... and ride in a limo?! YAY!" The kids scream madly. (Top-selling kids get a lunchtime limo ride to a pizza place.)

President: "[S]how up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents, and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed."

Go read the rest here. Then come on back to Comments and discuss the so-called Values Party.

(The author of the article is Betty Buehler, who has taught sixth-grade writing in Las Vegas since 2001.)

Introducing the FEC approved Swiftboat Network

By GottaLaff

Please, please, please read the entire piece here. This is major. Huge. And about as unAmerican as anything I can think of, all blessed by the FEC. Someone wake me up when this nightmare is over:

Buried deep within the Internet, there is a place called the Federal Election Commission. Buried deeper within the Federal Election Commission, there is a place where any interested party can view requests for advisory opinions, read both sides’ arguments for and against, comment, and listen to the audio of public hearings.

Buried deeper still, are the seeds of a plan to circumvent all election finance laws and everything we know right now about so-called ‘astroturf organizations’ in a perfectly legal, United States Federal Election Commission-approved kind of way. [...]

People who might otherwise make donations to 527 groups (which are subject to campaign disclosure laws), will instead incorporate on their own as Limited Liability Corporations (LLCs). Each corporation will advertise, take polls, or conduct direct media campaigns for or against Federal candidates as they choose. The corporation will not accept any funds from any outside sources. Simply put, wealthy donors will no longer be restricted to current contribution limits or disclosure laws because they will be acting individually as a corporation to put their message on the air. This has long been held to be a First Amendment right of individuals. They’re allowed to spend whatever they want. It isn’t new. [...]

It’s not difficult to imagine 100 different Swiftboat ads, each with the same message but a different messenger, a messenger who is a client of Black Rock Group and involved in the same campaign against the same candidate. [...]

[W]e will be inundated with negative campaign ads funded by shadow entities who will be shielded from the light of day. They will say whatever they want to say in whatever fashion they want to say it, including the usual smear tactics, but will never have to own one word of what they’ve said, because they are shielded by a corporate entity surrounding the individual.

That’s the real problem here. If a Goldman Sachs executive wants to go negative on a candidate and has the funds to pay for it, no one will ever be able to point back to Goldman Sachs, nor will that executive ever have to own the words. Now multiply that by a factor of many, all blasting the same message over radio, tv, push poll, polls, and other means. It’s lucrative for Black Rock Group, shields candidates from associations they’d rather not disclose, and inundates the rest of us with a barrage of ‘nattering nabobs of negativity.’

This isn’t astroturf. It’s a concrete firewall, intended to shield and protect the messenger who brings destructive messages.

Bye bye democracy.

Go. Now. Here.

Thank you to everyone!!

Fundraising is over, done, complete! Thank you to everyone- those that gave, those that cheered us on and those that thought the good thoughts. Hell, I'll even thank the trolls!!

Big-Money Corporate Squeeze: Employee Pressured to Donate to Mitt Romeny

By GottaLaff

Poor Twitt Romney. He needed more mon'-mon':

A former executive who says his boss pressured him to contribute to Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has filed an employment-bias complaint that offers a rare glimpse behind the curtain of big-money corporate fund raising.

Richard Pimentel, a former executive of Huron Consulting Group Inc., contends he lost his job as a financial-management consultant partly in retaliation for refusing the chief executive's repeated calls to contribute to the former Massachusetts governor's bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

This comes to us, by the way, via the Wall Street Journal, of all things. But let's not stop here! There's more! They have proof:

The company denies that charge. But officials confirm the authenticity of emails showing that the CEO of the Chicago-based corporate consulting firm, Gary E. Holdren, repeatedly linked his requests for donations to Huron's business prospects. The emails were provided to The Wall Street Journal by Mr. Pimentel.

But wait, gang! There's even more! Excerpts from the emails!

"This is not about me trying to force a political candidate on you and trying to see how you vote," Mr. Holdren wrote in one email, dated Jan. 27, 2008, to Huron managing directors, the firm's senior executives. "This is just business and the way business works."

In another email, dated Sept. 21, 2007, Mr. Holdren wrote, "I wanted to thank all of you who contributed to Mitt Romney. You can't realize how much leverage this gives Huron going forward to ask various people for business."

Other emails from Mr. Holdren refer to conversations with Mr. Romney, deals Huron supposedly won from Romney supporters at other firms and promises to reward Huron executives with "business for your contributions."

Whoopsie Daisy, there, Bucko. That's pretty damning. Go here for the rest.