Daily Kos

[Thursday], national public policy organizations Demos and U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) released “Million-Dollar Megaphones: Super PACs and Unlimited Outside Spending in the 2012 Elections,” which provides a detailed analysis of Federal Election Commission (FEC) data and secondary sources on outside spending and Super PAC fundraising for 2012 election cycle.

This new report analyzed data through June 30th and reveals:

• Outside spending organizations, which work to influence elections in a way that is not legally “coordinated” with candidates, reported $167.5 million in spending to the FEC. Of this, $12.7 million (7.6% of the total) was “secret money” that cannot be traced back to an original source.

• But, because of gaps in reporting requirements, spending reported to the FEC is only part of the picture. When all types of outside spending on television ads related to the presidential race are taken into account, 50% the spending has been by “dark money” groups that do not disclose their donors.

• The Top 5 “dark money” groups spent $53.0 million on TV ads related to the presidential race alone through July 1, but reported only $420,920 in spending on all races through June 30th to the FEC. This means that these groups are currently reporting less than 1% of their spending.

• The Top 5 outside spending groups have accounted for 58.5% of all reported outside spending in the 2012 cycle.

• More than half (57.1%) of the $230 million raised by Super PACs from individuals came from just 47 people giving at least $1 million. Just over 1,000 donors (or 0.00035% of the population) giving $10,000 or more were responsible for 94% of this fundraising.

• Sheldon and Miriam Adelson have given a combined $36.3 million to Super PACs in the 2012 cycle. It would take more than 321,000 average American families donating an equivalent share of their wealth to match the Adelsons’ giving.

“Today’s outside spending groups act as megaphones for moguls and millionaires,” said Adam Lioz, Counsel for Demos and report co-author. “The more money they pump in, the louder they’re able to amplify their voices—until a few wealthy individuals and interests are dominating our public square, drowning out the middle and working classes.”

According to report co-author Blair Bowie, Democracy Advocate at U.S. PIRG, “Our analysis in 'Million-Dollar Megaphones' shows clearly that unlimited, corporate, and secret money continues to undermine the principle of ‘one person, one vote,’ and yet our findings are only the tip of the iceberg.

You can read the whole report here.

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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2009:

As mcjoan wrote earlier, during the second quarter alone, AHIP, the health insurance industry's political arm, has bankrolled anti-reform efforts to the tune of at least $133 million. To put the insurance industry's largesse in perspective, they spent about as much in the second quarter as the Bush-Kerry campaigns spent in the 2004 general election combined and50% more than the Obama campaign's quarterly average.

To fight back, reform advocates are on the air with a tough new ad going after the health insurance industry, and the GOP for supporting it. Going after the GOP's ties to the health insurance industry is an important new front in the debate, and it was made possible in large part by the GOP itself, which gave Democrats a stationary target last week when its House leadership introduced a health care plan that amounts to a $700 billion giveaway to the health insurance industry.

With their legislation, Republicans have made it clear they are on the side of health insurance companies. Democrats are on the side of patients and health care providers.

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Tune in Monday to Friday from 9-11 AM ET for Daily Kos Radio, hosted by David Waldman a/k/a KagroX. You can listen here. A good show and a good time today, with both DemFromCT and David Nir as guests. Where else but on Daily Kos Radio could you end up theorizing that Santa Claus was the 20th hijacker? What?! How? Listen and find out!

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Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Steve Singiser On a quiet polling Friday, one result out of the Heartland definitely qualified as headline news. You see, few people had freshman Republican Rep. Kristi Noem high on the endangered list in South Dakota's lone House seat. And yet, if a new independent poll out of the state is to be believed, she is locked in an absolute coin toss of a race when paired with Democratic nominee Matt Varilek, a former staffer to Sen. Tim Johnson.

On a day when the rest of the polling numbers fit in the realm of "as-expected," that one was a pretty unexpected result.

On to the numbers:

PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:

NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama d. Romney (47-45)

NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney d. Obama (47-43)

SOUTH DAKOTA (Nielson Brothers): Romney d. Obama (49-43)

DOWNBALLOT POLLING:

IN-SEN (Rasmussen): Richard Mourdock (R) 42, Joe Donnelly (D) 40

SD-AL (Nielson Brothers): Rep. Kristi Noem (R) 47, Matt Varilek (D) 46

WV-03 (Anzalone-Liszt for Rahall): Rep. Nick Rahall (D) 62, Rick Snuffer (R) 34

A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump ...

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson

Think this is a tie race, a dead heat as the media would have you believe? Not so, says Nate Silver.

Barack Obama’s standing in the FiveThirtyEight forecast reached its strongest position to date on Tuesday as a result of favorable polls in a set of swing states. The forecast model now gives Mr. Obama a 70.8 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, up from 69.0 percent on Monday and from 65.0 percent last Tuesday.

Think the Bain attacks aren't working? Check this out from the Quinnipiac/NY Times/CBS poll that has Obama above 50 percent in FL, OH and PA:

From what you have read or heard, does Mitt Romney have the right kind of business experience to get the economy creating jobs again or is Romney's kind of business experience too focused on making profits?

LIKELY VOTERS...
                             FL     OH     PA

Right experience     42%  41%  42%
Focused on profits   48     50     51
DK/NA                    10       9      8

So how's the conversation going about the two candidates, especially after Romney's Euro fiasco? This just in from National Journal:

Add to Mitt Romney's bad polling week with this from Pew:

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted July 16-26, 2012, among 2,508 adults, including 1,956 registered voters, finds that, in keeping with his favorability advantage, Obama continues to hold a sizable lead over Romney in the election contest. Currently, 51% say they support Obama or lean toward him, while 41% support or lean toward Romney.

Obama's favorability and Romney's unfavorability are a big part of the picture. In fact, Romney's unfavorability is historic:
Pew has been favorable to Obama this cycle. But there's a major reason why Obama is ahead in this poll and other recent polls: Romney is really disliked (and thanks to his foreign affairs trip, not just here). While the trackers (Rasmussen and Gallup) the pundits and the economic models still predict a close race (and they are probably right about that), as of this moment it is anything but a tie.

And while predictions in a close race are sketchy, Romney's unlikeability is not going to suddenly change.

So when you hear the pundits talk about a tie race, or a dead heat, don't you believe it. Romney is behind by some amount in the polls, Nate's got Obama at a 70 percent chance of winning and Intrade has Obama in the high 50s (58 today). And whether it's because they are underpolling minorities or cell phones or some other methodological reason, the trackers appear to be off track.

Mini-Mitt Scott Brown has at long last found a real issue to campaign on, though he might be on shaky ground pushing this message.

Brown, the incumbent Republican senator, plans today to kick off his “thank-you for building this” series of campaign events, stopping by Commodore Builders in Framingham to drop off coffee and bagels and thank the employers and employees for their work.

“America’s small businesses are the cornerstone of the American economy and their success is what will lead us to economic recovery, not Washington, D.C.,” Brown said in a statement issued Thursday. “It’s the creativity, ingenuity and work ethic of the American people that has made our country great. We should be celebrating small business and encouraging their success, not demonizing it.”

Brown, of course, is arguing that "liberal Harvard professor" Elizabeth Warren is "demonizing" small business, as specious a proposition as the original cut and paste job the Romney campaign did on President Obama. What Scott Brown won't tell the workers he's talking to in his campaign events is that he, Romney, and the rest of the Republicans don't have a plan for jobs, for the economy, or for the middle class. What he's not telling these workers is that the Republican tax plan will hike their taxes.

And what he won't tell those workers is that when his campaign went out to find images for his bizarre web ad, they didn't hire local hard-working and entrepreneurial photographers to find the best local businesses and highlight their proprietors. Nope, he's using stock footage that features overseas businesses.

In one scene, a beaming chef is shown before he flips ingredients in a frying pan over an open flame, while President Gerald Ford praises American capitalism. According to Getty Images, the kitchen is located in Barcelona, Spain, a country currently stuck in its second recession in three years.

In two other scenes, video portraits depict a butcher standing in the doorway of his shop and another worker posing in front of a delivery truck full of boxes. Both clips were filmed in Dublin, according to Getty Images.

Brown could have prominently featured some of Massachusetts home-grown businesses, maybe giving them a bit of a boost in tough economic times by giving them some free advertising. If Scott Brown feels so strongly about the sanctity of local small businesses, why isn't he putting his campaign money where his mouth is? And why is he supporting policies that will ultimately hurt them? (Those are rhetorical questions, by the way. The answer is, of course, because he's a Republican.)

Boot Brown. Donate $3 to Elizabeth Warren's campaign. Do it for American small businesses.

Hello, human diary. It is I again, Mitt Romney, your better.

I cannot help but feel I am forgetting something. My staff asked me whether or not I had heard news from the Olympics yet, and how the competition went—did I have involvement with some competition? It feels like one of our many sons or pets was competing there. Was it Tagg? It might have been Tagg.

I shall have to ask him how he did. I must confess I have not been following the Olympics very closely this time around. I tried at one point, but the network coverage seemed to have completely ignored the ski jumping and slalom events, which were the ones I was most interested in. The ski jumping competition was quite enjoyable during my own Olympics in Utah. They are very precise in their measurements of the height of the hill, and I am fond of any event that involves such accurate quantification of things. Ski jumping sounds like something Tagg would be competing in, but I cannot even find newspaper mentions of it.

P.S. After talking with Ann, it turns out that it was, of course, one of our horses that was in the Olympic Games. I remember that now. It was my idea for that horse to compete. It was also my idea for that horse to win an Olympic medal, however, so it remains to be seen whether they will fully follow through with my advice.

P.P.S. Tagg says he did not compete this year, and that as far as he knows no ski jump competitions will even be held this year. It appears the rumors of London not being prepared for these games was true after all. I will be chastising them at length for this, Mr. Diary.

P.P.P.S. My staff suggests to me that chastising London for this would not be taken well on the campaign trail, and that I should refrain. While they have no doubt that I would be correct in pointing out London's many failures, they have convinced me that not mentioning them would be seen as the more statesmanlike position.

I'm just gonna leave this here. Rep. Steve King, in the press conference for his totally not racist "English Only" bill:

"The argument that diversity is our strength has really never been backed up by logic," King told The Huffington Post.

Well that's just mean. Of course diversity is a good thing. If everybody was as stupid as Steve King, nobody would have ever invented the light bulb, and then Steve King couldn't get all self-righteous and pissy that someone was trying to take away his light bulbs and replace them with other light bulbs.

In all the mush to be found in the presumptive GOP nominee's campaign pledges, Mitt Romney's Plan for a Stronger Middle Class is the mushiest.

It's a tract filled with bumpersticker slogans like "energy independence" whose paltry details don't include even a hint of how this is to be achieved other than clearing the path for more fossil fuelery. And then there's the chicken-in-every-pot stuff that would embarrass a cliché: "Give every family access to a great school and quality teachers." Yowser.

But the crème de la merde in this huckster's "plan" has got to be the "Reagan Economic Zone."

Of course, every Republican office-holder from now until the 23rd century must name something after the 40th president. Ronzo himself must be groaning in his grave every time his moniker gets stuck on something else. The only surprise is that Reagan fetishism has yet to garner its own television channel. Or perhaps there is one and my cable provider has failed me.

The Bain buccaneer, big thinker that he is, wants to put the GOP icon's name on something really big even though the Great Communicator probably couldn't an wrangle endorsement from the tea party these days. So he came up with the Reagan Economic Zone. It's not new. He's been hawking this idea for 11 months.

The idea is that the zone will encompass nations around the world that commit themselves to free markets and free trade. The Reagan Economic Zone would be a “powerful magnet that draws in an expanding circle of nations seeking greater access to other markets.” This would, of course, exclude China and Russia but not Israel even though the latter, with its universal health care, is probably more socialist these days than either of those two giants.

Romney's plan is nonsense. But give it credit for being grandiose nonsense.

He is apparently unaware that there is already an organization dedicated to liberalizing access to markets around the world. It's called the World Trade Organization. It has big problems, not the least of which is the pain it causes American workers. Not a few environmental and worker advocates believe the WTO ought to be eviscerated and something more human- and planet-friendly put in its place. But despite the critics' accurate assessment, the organization is the culmination of decades of trade diplomacy and provides a multilateral forum for nations to bring their issues to be sorted out. That's very attractive to world leaders and businesspeople. Nobody wants to be left out of the club even if the dues are onerous and the bylaws pernicious.

A Reagan Economic Zone could be counted on to espouse even worse free trade and free-from-regulation policies than the WTO, no doubt much to Romney and his cronies' liking. But against an international entity hammered together over 60 years, the R.E.Z. has little chance of attracting many members. Like most of the rest of Romney's proposals, this one is pure boilerplate. Exactly what you'd expect from a life-long political cipher whose best feature, according to Grover Norquist, is that he'll sign whatever is put in front of him.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Olympic Late Night Snark Sticks the Landing!

"Everything went smoothly at the sailing events today. Except for the British team. They forgot to bring limes and they all got scurvy."
---Craig Ferguson
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"[Tomorrow] President Obama will celebrate his 51st birthday. Obama already got one really nice gift: Mitt Romney’s trip to London."
---Jimmy Fallon
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"Romney is going to be in London for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, and he plans to take his tax returns and drop them into the torch."
---David Letterman
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Clip of Charles Krauthammer on Fox News: I'm not sure why the [Romneys'] horse has to be in the most upper-class, hoity-toity Olympic event ever invented. It's unnecessary. They're running for the presidency!
Stephen Colbert: How dare you, sir! Dressage is not hoity-toity! it's froo-froo! Get your facts straight!
---The Colbert Report
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"A former U.S. Olympic swimmer in an interview said that nearly all elite competitive swimmers pee in the pool regularly. So apparently I am an elite competitive swimmer."
---Conan O'Brien

Four years ago…

"The skies over Beijing are very smoggy. The government says the pollution is just a harmless mist. They made a similar statement about the treatment of prisoners---it’s not torture, it’s Pilates."
---Craig Ferguson

Weekend ho! Your west coast-friendly edition of  Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Um, what?

The odds of Republicans keeping the House are getting even better, Speaker John Boehner told reporters Thursday. [...]

“Our members have made a real difference in changing the direction of the country in creating jobs and fixing our economy,” Boehner said.

Republicans are creating jobs and fixing our economy? When did that happen? Just last week, Boehner was trying to beat up on President Obama for the continued sluggish economy.

About the only thing Boehner and his merry band of nihilists in the House have succeeded in doing in the last two years has been taking hostages and forcing deals that they're desperately now trying to disavow. That and making very, very clear that while air and water pollution shouldn't be regulated, anything to do with lady parts must be.

Give the gavel back to Pelosi. Send $1 to all of the Orange to Blue House candidates on ActBlue.

Ryan J. Reilly is reporting that Horace Cooper, the author of a paper saying voter ID protects minority voters, remains on probation for making fraudulent statements on disclosure forms.

Cooper may not have any expertise on voter fraud, but he does know a thing or two about falsifying documents. Cooper was indicted in 2009 on five public corruption charges, charged with exchanging political favors for gifts from Jack Abramoff. Cooper allegedly accepted bribes as a staffer to former Majority Leader Dick Armey, as chief of staff for Voice of America and when he worked for the Department of Labor. Cooper later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of falsifying a disclosure report and was sentenced to 36 months of probation.

Cooper failed earlier this year to persuade a judge to shorten his probation.

He wrote the voter ID paper, which Fox News and the right-wing Daily Caller have labeled a "study," for the 30-year-old National Center for Public Policy Research, which describes itself as a “conservative, free-market, non-profit think-tank.” After the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) took voter identification laws off its priority list last April, NCPPR stepped up to the plate with its Voter Identification Task Force.

The paper reads like a screechy op-ed. Its footnotes refer only to newspaper or online media sources. In it, Cooper claims that Democrats and groups like the now-defunct ACORN have engaged in wide-scale voter fraud that includes large-scale registering of dead people, felons and non-citizen immigrants. In the latter two cases, they tell the newly registered voters how to cast their ballots, he claims. He outrageously compares what he claims they did by targeting minorities with what was done under Jim Crow laws in the South. Another fine example of upsidedownism.

The solution, he says, parroting the Republican line, is voter ID.

The view of voter-advocacy groups is that voter ID tends to make it more difficult for certain demographics to vote, specifically the youngest voters, the oldest ones and minorities. But Cooper claims the lack of IDs does not cause problems for such citizens at the polls and labels as flawed state data in Pennsylvania showing hundreds of thousands of people do not now have the IDs they will need at the polls in November

In a fine bit of incoherent word salad, he says: “Merely because 18 percent do not have at present have the ID card it does not follow that lawfully, that is an impediment that meets the standard of a hurdle that would prevent a person from being able to vote.”

As many as a million Pennsylvanians may not have the right kind of ID to allow them to vote in November. Other states have problems too, but not as well documented.  Cooper and his right-wing sponsors don't see this as a problem. Of course not. Because theirs is a partisan mission tailored to suppressing the votes of people who, in the aggregate, vote Democratic. That the right wing is touting the tendentious voter fraud paper by a fraudster is so very telling.

What's coming up on Sunday Kos ...

• Why internal polls can tell us more than we think about the 2012 elections, by Steve Singiser
• Mitt Romney perverts concept of a level playing field in energy. Not by accident, by Meteor Blades
• Hunt for swing voters ignores an even more valuable group of voters, by David Jarman
• Gabby, Dominique, and Black Women's Never Rewarded Quest for Recognition, by shanikka
• The battle against whitewashing and racebending, by Denise Oliver Velez
• The will to preserve society, by Dante Atkins
• Swing voters want their Social Security, Medicare, and good government, by Joan McCarter