Not ideas, not principles, but money that reigns

Harold Simmons, the billionaire Dallas investor, has grown accustomed to using his vast wealth to influence the outcome of elections.

For decades, Simmons has poured millions of dollars into the campaign coffers of mostly Republican lawmakers to get legislation introduced that would greatly benefit his financial holdings.

Simmons has had a close relationship with President George W. Bush and the Bush family for more than a decade. He contributed at least $90,000 to Bush’s Texas gubernatorial campaign, was one of the largest donors to Bush’s presidential campaign in 2000, and donated $100,000 to Bush’s 2004 inauguration.

In 1998, Bush backed a highly controversial plan to construct a radioactive waste dump near the New Mexico border that Simmons’s company, Waste Control Specialists, would operate.

“I basically told George that I was involved in the company as a major investor,” Simmons said in an interview with the Dallas Morning News in early 1998. “And wanted him to be aware of it in case the issue ever came up.”

The Austin Chronicle reported last December that “Simmons seemingly greased every palm in the statehouse to smooth his radioactive plans, with his company, Waste Control Specialists, giving more than $2 million in political cash since 2001 while spending $2.8 million on 63 lobby contracts, according to Texans for Public Justice.”
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3686.shtml

A little-known Georgia lobbying network in Washington, DC, is working together with faux progressive guru George Soros and John McCain foreign policy adviser/Georgia uber-lobbyist Randy Scheunemann to prop up Georgia as a NATO client state and engineer a renewed Cold War with Russia, with U.S. defense contractors poised to rake in even more obscene profits.
Soros and his neocon allies are playing a dangerous game by threatening to support independence movements throughout the Russian Federation. The prospect of Soros-funded governments-in-exile of some 20 autonomous republics along or near the borders of China, Mongolia, Finland, and Azerbaijan threatens to unleash a major war between Russia and the West. And the word from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization currently taking place in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, is that Russia is discussing with China and the Central Asian “stans” the “nuclear option,” not nuclear war but waging an economic war against the United States that will see Chinese and Russian support for the dollar and the underwriting of America’s debt halted with a resulting financial collapse of the United States
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3692.shtml

GOP vice presidential pick Sarah Palin accepted at least $4,500 in campaign contributions in the same fundraising scheme at the center of a public corruption scandal that led to the indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens.

The contributions, made during Palin's failed 2002 bid to become Alaska's lieutenant governor, were not illegal for her to accept. But they show how Palin, a self-proclaimed reformer who has bucked Stevens and his allies, is nonetheless a product of a political system in Alaska now under the cloud of an ongoing FBI investigation.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=2008-09-02_D92UUGPG0&show_article=1&cat=breaking

"A tiny portion of the population controls the lion's share of the wealth and most of the command positions of state, manufacturing, banking, investment, publishing, higher education, philanthropy, and media... these individuals exercise a preponderant influence over what is passed off as public information and democratic discourse.


The ruling class is the politically active component of the owning class, the top captains of finance and policy who set the standards for investment and concentration of capital at home and abroad... Their overall economic domination and their campaign contributions, media monopoly, high-paid lobbyists, and public relations experts regularly predetermine who will be treated as major political candidates and which policy parameters will prevail... Though relatively few in number they get the most of what there is to get. Their wealth serves their power, and their power serves their wealth."

Michael Parenti

" A majority of the people want national health care, but the lobbyists for the insurance and medical industries have stymied it. A majority of the people want campaign finance reform, but the tobacco companies have crushed it. A majority of the people want a livable wage, but the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers undermine efforts to raise the minimum wage to a decent level... A majority of the people are willing to spend more money for education and the environment, but most of our legislators balk at allocating tax dollars for anything other than the Pentagon, prison construction, and corporate welfare."
Mathew Rothschild, editor of the Progressive magazine

Many of us regard ourselves as mildly liberal or centrist politically, voice fairly pleasant sentiments about our poor children, contribute money to send poor kids to summer camp, feel benevolent. We're not nazis; we're nice people. We read sophisticated books. We go to church. We go to synagogue. Meanwhile, we put other people's children into an economic and environmental death zone. We make it hard for them to get out. We strip the place bare of amenities. And we sit back and say to ourselves, "Well, I hope that they don't kill each other off. But if they do, it's not my fault."
Jonathan Kozol, educator and author

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Bailed Out After Buying In
Published by Lindsay Renick Mayer on September 8, 2008 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As economists and analysts try to sort out how giant mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ended up needing to be bailed out by the federal government this past weekend, here at CRP we can see part of the picture of why that solution won out over others. Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are prolific political players, pouring millions of dollars into campaign contributions and lobbying, efforts that have resulted in keeping the two companies afloat as more Americans have defaulted on their mortgages.

Since the 1990 election cycle, Freddie Mac and Frannie Mae's employees and political action committee have given $19.5 million to federal candidates and committees, 53 percent of which has gone to Republicans. Freddie Mac, which has given $10.2 million of that, actually ranks among the top 100 donors of all time, including all industries. Although Fannie Mae doesn't quite make that list with employees and its PAC giving $9.4 million since 1989, it has so far given two times more than Freddie Mac has this election cycle ($1.3 million compared to $595,800). Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have also inadvertently hedged their bets--while Freddie Mac has given Republicans 57 percent of its total contributions since 1989, Fannie Mae has given Democrats 52 percent of its total. Both are giving more to Democrats than Republicans this election cycle.

Current members of Congress have received $3.8 million from the two companies since 1998 (including only their candidate committees). Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate banking committee, collected the most from the employees and PACs of both mortgage buyers at $133,900. Democrat Barack Obama collected the most from individuals associated with Fannie Mae at $101,150 and a total of $122,850 from both companies, putting him behind Dodd. Obama's opponent in the presidential election, John McCain, has received only $21,300 from both since 1989.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have spent $7.4 million total on lobbying in the first six months this year (Fannie Mae spent $2.9 million and Freddie Mac spent $4.5 million). As Congress develops legislation to address the current economic woes, it's no surprise that mortgage bankers and brokers overall are on course to spend about $6.6 million more this year than last year. In the first six months of the year, the industry spent $20.1 million on lobbying. Last year it spent $33.7 million.
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac-bai.html