Politics Plus

Banksters are using taxpayer funds to support the Chamber of Commerce assault on Wall Street reform.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the most powerful lobbying force fighting financial reform in Congress. Last month, the Chamber announced that it is “fundamentally” against reform efforts. Accordingly, the Chamber has hired top insider lobbyists to pressure Senators to water down the bill while running millions of dollars worth of television and online ads [GOP front group delinked] smearing Wall Street reform as a “government takeover.”

Historically, the Chamber’s role is to help big business achieve its goals — fighting the minimum wage, opposing health reform, pushing for outsourcing — while hiding the corporate identities of its funders. As ThinkProgress originally reported, many backers of the Chamber with a stake in financial reform are banks that were bailed out by taxpayer TARP funds. For instance, CitiGroup is a Chamber member that was bailed out by taxpayers and still has not repaid the money.

ThinkProgress recently caught up with Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) to ask him about firms who are using bailout money to lobby against financial reform. Pawlenty became defensive when asked about this, eventually arguing that the Chamber has a right to use taxpayer money in lobbying because “it’s important that groups in a free society with free speech rights to express themselves in the public policy arena”:

TP: Excuse me, Gov. Pawlenty, you’ve criticized ACORN for using taxpayer money for political purposes. The Chamber of Commerce here is funded by dues-paying members including CitiGroup and many other banks that were bailed out by taxpayers using TARP. Do you think that’s appropriate that the Chamber of Commerce is now using those taxpayer dollars to lobby against reform?

PAWLENTY: Who are you with? … Well I think it’s important that groups in a free society with free speech rights to express themselves in a public policy arena whether its the Chamber, or the unions, or your blog. I welcome and applaud people who want to join the debate.

TP: Right but we don’t accept taxpayer money for what we do, but the Chamber uses taxpayer money to lobby against reform. Is that appropriate? […]

PAWLENTY: I think the Chamber of Commerce is an important business voice. We need people who will advocate for private sector job growth in our country, they’re one of the leading voices in the country to do that. I think they do a good job and I think they’re an important group.

Watch it:

 

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), who cosponsored a draconian bill to cut off funds to ACORN, similarly shrugged off ThinkProgress’ question about the Chamber’s use of taxpayer funds to lobby against reform. Chambliss instead took the opportunity to lavish praise on the Chamber before disregarding its membership of bailed out banks. “I don’t think [the Chamber is lobbying] with our money,” he said.

Tom Donohue, the President of the Chamber, first told ThinkProgress that all the bank members of the Chamber have “paid back all their [bailout] money.” However, when presented with the fact the CitiGroup still has not repaid the TARP funds, Donohue became dismissive and absurdly argued that the Chamber is not lobbying against the larger framework of financial reform. Before quickly darting to another reporter in the room, Donohue said the Chamber had proposed financial reform even before the financial crisis.

In reality, the Chamber was the top lobbying front that fought to weaken bank regulations that led to the crisis in the first place… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

The video illustrates just how sleazy these creeps are.  What an outrage!

Do you see how easy it is for these criminals to hide behind front groups?

Corporations are NOT people!  Money is NOT speech!

This should be quite interesting.

The two men vying for the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nomination enter the last weekend of the race locked in a dead heat according to the latest tracking poll released by Muhlenberg College. The latest results of the poll, taken between May 11-14: Sen. Arlen Specter 44, Rep. Joe Sestak 43.

The poll, which has tracked 400 likely voters since Apr. 28 and has a margin of error of 5%, has fluctuated in the homestretch of the primary, alternately showing Sestak or Specter ahead by as much as 5 points. Overall, however, the poll has shown the race to be too close to call. Though Sestak has had all the momentum in the closing weeks, the Muhlenberg poll suggests he has not achieved a big enough lead to write off a Specter win by any means.

The TPM Poll Average for the primary, which includes the new Muhlenberg poll, shows Sestak ahead by a margin of 44.5-43.1…

Inserted from <TPM>

Despite polls to the contrary, I think Specter has an better chance to defeat Teabag Toomey than Sestak.  Polls on the general, before the primary, are seldom accurate.  Nevertheless, were I a Pennsylvanian, I would vote for Sestak, because he is more likely to support progressive positions.  However, if Specter wins, I shall support him over Toomey.

Of late, we have been so focused on the Gulf oil leak that other oil industry atrocities have slipped under the radar.  Bill Moyers wrote this excellent piece on one of them.  I’m so glad to see that continues to share the benefits of his integrity, intellect and experience despite his retirement.

Even as headlines and broadcast news are dominated by BP’s fire-ravaged, sunken offshore rig and the ruptured well gushing a reported 210,000 gallons of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico, there’s another important story involving Big Oil and pollution — one that shatters not only the environment but the essential First Amendment right of journalists to tell truth and shame the devil.

(Have you read, by the way, that after the surviving, dazed and frightened workers were evacuated from that burning platform, they were met by lawyers from the drilling giant Transocean with forms to sign stating they had not been injured and had no first-hand knowledge of what had happened?! So much for the corporate soul.)

But our story is about another petrochemical giant — Chevron — and a major threat to independent journalism. In New York last Thursday, Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered documentary producer and director Joe Berlinger to turn over to Chevron more than 600 hours of raw footage used to create a film titled Crude: The Real Price of Oil.

Released last year, it’s the story of how 30,000 Ecuadorians rose up to challenge the pollution of their bodies, livestock, rivers and wells from Texaco’s drilling for oil there, a rainforest disaster that has been described as the Amazon’s Chernobyl. When Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001 and attempted to dismiss claims that it was now responsible, the indigenous people and their lawyers fought back in court.

Some of the issues and nuances of Berlinger’s case are admittedly complex, but they all boil down to this: Chevron is trying to avoid responsibility and hopes to find in the unused footage — material the filmmaker did not utilize in the final version of his documentary — evidence helpful to the company in fending off potential damages of $27.3 billion.

This is a serious matter for reporters, filmmakers and frankly, everyone else. Tough, investigative reporting without fear or favor — already under siege by severe cutbacks and the shutdown of newspapers and other media outlets — is vital to the public awareness and understanding essential to a democracy. As Michael Moore put it, “The chilling effect of this is, [to] someone like me, if something like this is upheld, the next whistleblower at the next corporation is going to think twice about showing me some documents if that information has to be turned over to the corporation that they’re working for.”

In an open letter on Joe Berlinger’s behalf, signed by many in the non-fiction film business (including the two of us), the Independent Documentary Association described Chevron’s case as a “fishing expedition” and wrote that, “At the heart of journalism lies the trust between the interviewer and his or her subject. Individuals who agree to be interviewed by the news media are often putting themselves at great risk, especially in the case of television news and documentary film where the subject’s identity and voice are presented in the final report.

“If witnesses sense that their entire interviews will be scrutinized by attorneys and examined in courtrooms they will undoubtedly speak less freely. This ruling surely will have a crippling effect on the work of investigative journalists everywhere, should it stand.”

Just so. With certain exceptions, the courts have considered outtakes of a film to be the equivalent of a reporter’s notebook, to be shielded from the scrutiny of others. If we — reporters, journalists, filmmakers — are required to turn research, transcripts and outtakes over to a government or a corporation — or to one party in a lawsuit — the whole integrity of the process of journalism is in jeopardy; no one will talk to us.

In his decision, Judge Kaplan wrote that, “Review of Berlinger’s outtakes will contribute to the goal of seeing not only that justice is done, but that it appears to be done.” He also quoted former Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis’ famous maxim that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

There is an irony to this, noted by Frank Smyth of the Committee to Protect Journalists.Brandeis “made his famous sunlight statement about the need to expose bankers and investors who controlled ‘money trusts’ to stifle competition, and he later railed against not only powerful corporations but the lawyers and other members of the bar who worked to perpetuate their power”

In a 1905 speech before the Harvard Ethical Society, Brandeis said, “Instead of holding a position of independence, between the wealthy and the people, prepared to curb the excesses of either, able lawyers have, to a large extent, allowed themselves to become adjuncts of great corporations and have neglected the obligation to use their powers for the protection of the people.”

Now, more than a century later, Chevron, the third largest corporation in America, according to Forbes Magazine, has hauled out their lawyers in a case that would undermine the right of journalists to protect the people by telling them the truth… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Huffington Post>

I agree with Moyers completely.  I can understand judges requiring the same materials to review themselves in the privacy of their chambers under strict secrecy.  In this way, the defendants are afforded protections from creative editing of the type that occurred in the ACORN case.  But revealing whistleblowers will shut them up tighter then a Republican Senator’s grip on a nickel for the poor.

This piece reveals how Machiavellian Big Oil has become, and in that respect it dovetails nicely with a Rachel Maddow report on the lengths to which Big Oil will go to evade taxes, regulation, and responsibility.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Honesty in Big Oil is as common as Muslim Popes in Catholicism.  Whatever it takes, they all need to pay the full cost of producing their product, including all the suffering they inflict on humankind and nature alike.  There are ways.  A 90% excise tax, perhaps?

Corporations are NOT people!  Money is NOT speech!