http://news.linktv.org Link TV News Videos (Filtered by topics: Political action committee) en-us Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:43:00 -0800 Copyright 2011 Link Media, Inc. http://news.linktv.org/videos/karl-rove-vs-the-tea-party-conservative-civil-war-in-the-us?start=0 Conservatives on the right wing of the Republican Party in the US accuse Karl Rove of selling out the party's base with his new Conservative Victory Project, a charge Rove denies. But the political infighting is delighting the party's rivals.<br /> Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:43:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/karl-rove-vs-the-tea-party-conservative-civil-war-in-the-us Karl Rove, Tea Party, Republican Party (United States), Political action committee, Politics of the United States, Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, Bobby Jindal, Right-wing politics, William F. Buckley Conservatives on the right wing of the Republican Party in the US accuse Karl Rove of selling out the party's base with his new Conservative Victory Project, a charge Rove denies. But the political infighting is delighting the party's rivals. http://news.linktv.org/videos/gunshot-victim-gabby-giffords-launching-pac-to-shoot-down-nra?start=0 In response to mass shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Sandy Hook Elementary, former US congresswoman and gunshot victim Gabby Giffords has announced plans to launch a new political action committee to battle the influence of the gun lobby and push for gun control. The announcement marked the second anniversary of the day Giffords was shot in the head. Wed, 09 Jan 2013 02:27:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/gunshot-victim-gabby-giffords-launching-pac-to-shoot-down-nra Political action committee, Gun control, Gun politics, Gabrielle Giffords, Shooting, 2011 Tucson shooting, PBS NewsHour In response to mass shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Sandy Hook Elementary, former US congresswoman and gunshot victim Gabby Giffords has announced plans to launch a new political action committee to battle the influence of the gun lobby and push for gun control. The announcement marked the second anniversary of the day Giffords was shot in the head. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-november-6-2012?start=3206 Election Day 2012 has arrived, and the battle over voter suppression has reached a fever pitch in battleground states. Democracy Now! reports on the situation in Florida, Virginia, and Ohio. And, the fight continues to reveal the anonymous sources of "dark money" being used to pay for political campaigns. Plus headlines, and more.<br /> Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:55:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-november-6-2012 US presidential election, 2012, Politics of the United States, Swing state, Voter suppression, Ohio, Early voting, Voter ID laws (United States), Mitt Romney, Florida, United States As Democracy Now! has previously reported, one of every four dollars spent on the campaign ads, direct mail and robocalls that target voters now comes from so-called "dark money" organizations. The IRS lets these groups keep their donors secret because they are considered "social welfare non-profits." But that changed this past Friday when a Montana judge ordered the release of one such group's bank records. An investigation had found that Western Tradition Partnership may have misled the IRS about the extent of its political activities, and that citizens have a right to know where its campaign cash was coming from. The group is known for bringing a lawsuit to the Supreme Court that successfully challenged Montana's ban on corporate spending in elections, and the resulting ruling extended the court's Citizens United decision to include all 50 states. Friday's ruling marks the first time a court has ordered a dark money group's donors to be made public, and some say the judge's move could serve as a warning to similar organizations. We're joined by Kim Barker, the ProPublica reporter who helped break the story along with PBS Frontline. We turn now to our last segment, a new investigation that tracks some of one—the $1 billion spent by outside organizations in this presidential election. As we've reported, one of every $4 spent on the campaign ads, direct mail, robocalls that target voters now comes from so-called "dark money" organizations. The IRS lets these groups keep their donors secret, because they're considered social welfare nonprofits. Well, that changed this past Friday when a Montana judge ordered the release of one such group's bank records. An investigation has found that Western Tradition Partnership may have misled the IRS about the extent of its political activities, and that citizens have a right to know where its campaign cash was coming from. The group, which has since changed its name to American Tradition Partnership, is known for bringing a lawsuit to the Supreme Court that successfully challenged Montana's ban on corporate spending in elections, and the resulting ruling extended the court's Citizens United decision to include all 50 states. Friday's ruling marks the first time a court has ordered a dark money group's donors to be made public. Some say the judge's move could serve as a warning to similar organizations. For more, we're joined by the ProPublica reporter who helped break the story. Kim Barker is author of an ongoing series of reports called "Campaign 2012: Revealing Dark Money and Big Data." Her latest piece is called "Dark Money Group's Donors Revealed." She recently collaborated with PBS Frontline on a special report, "Big Sky, Big Money: A Tale of Money, Power and Political Intrigue in the Remote Epicenter of the Campaign Finance Debate: Montana." Kim Barker, welcome back to Democracy Now! Well, we don't have much time. Right. And you have a lot to explain. Right, exactly. Where do you want me to start? Well, just explain what this group is, how the judge ruled, and what are the implications for this country. Sure. Western Tradition Partnership is one of these social welfare nonprofits that are supposed to have social welfare or helping the community at large as their primary purpose. They are allowed to do some amount of politics, but it's not supposed to be what they're doing primarily. They were very involved in 2008 in the state elections in Montana. And after that, Montana investigators started an investigation and found, about two years ago, that this indeed was a political committee and that its donors should be public. A lawsuit ensued, as it often does with this group. And for the last two years, it's just been making its way through court. In the meantime, the group has—had brought a suit that went all the way to the Supreme Court, that, in effect, made Citizens United apply to all 50 states, so—and this happened this last June. So, it's been a group that's not very big, but it's had a—it's really punched above its weight in terms of its impact nationally. What we did is we looked at all the documents that were available in Montana, including documents that had been found in a meth house in Colorado. Excuse me? A meth house in Colorado. A...? Meth house in Colorado. I mean, and I'm from Montana, so, you know, I was like, "Really? I'm doing a campaign finance story that leads back to a meth house?" But, yes, they were found there, by a man who is a convicted felon. He stumbled across these boxes in this meth house, and one name kept popping up in these boxes, which was Western Tradition Partnership. How did these boxes end up in a meth house? Well, we did not know. All we could find out at the time, before the story came out, was that he said that a friend of his had gotten him out of a stolen car and that they somehow ended up in this meth house. He was curious. He went through them. He kept seeing—you know, the group had been in the public domain. You know, there had been stories about them attacking candidates in Colorado, so he reached out to some candidates and their spouses. And one of them, a lawyer, actually, ended up going to pick up the boxes of documents. And we're talking about boxes and boxes of documents, mentioning candidates, having, you know, candidate draft material, campaign final drafts, you know, questionnaires of the candidates, and a lot of communication going back and forth between a man who was very involved with Western Tradition Partnership and the candidates. Now, that is one thing that is not allowed. I mean, everything seems to be allowed these days in terms of outside spending and candidates, but you are not allowed to coordinate. And you write in your piece that some of the donors wrote notes on their checks, you now had a chance to see— Right. —that said things like...? "Stop Obama," you know, mentioning specific names of candidates they would like to support. And these were released separately. These were the documents that were released Friday by the judge. And these donors were? These donors—some of the donors were just small ma-and-pa organizations that clearly had gone to some sort of fundraiser. But then you had other social welfare nonprofits. And this is what you see a lot, and we've reported on this a lot, is that when you even get behind the veil of these groups, they're getting a lot of their money from other social welfare nonprofits. It's a way to sort of further obscure where the money comes from. We're going to link to your investigation at democracynow.org. Kim Barker, reporter for ProPublica, her new investigation called "How Nonprofits Spend Millions on Elections and Call It Public Welfare." http://news.linktv.org/videos/2012-dnc-a-new-era-of-unlimited-money-for-attack-ads?start=0 Link TV's citizen reporters investigate what the impact of super PAC and 501c4 money will be on attack ads leading up to November's election. Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics and John Avalon of the Daily Beast lay out worst-case scenarios, but can a unique contract in a Massachusetts Senate race be cause for optimism? Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:05:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/2012-dnc-a-new-era-of-unlimited-money-for-attack-ads 2012 Democratic National Convention, Attack ad, Campaign finance, Campaign advertising, Elizabeth Warren, Scott Brown, Political action committee, Mitt Romney, 501(c) organization, Center for Responsive Politics Link TV's citizen reporters investigate what the impact of super PAC and 501c4 money will be on attack ads leading up to November's election. Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics and John Avalon of the Daily Beast lay out worst-case scenarios, but can a unique contract in a Massachusetts Senate race be cause for optimism? http://news.linktv.org/videos/gop-split-on-donor-transparency-vs-anonymity?start=0 During a week of reporting from the RNC, Solomon Kleinsmith and Jessica Eise have found that while most Republicans support unlimited political spending, they disagree about donor disclosure. Today, they speak with Congressman Allen West and others about transparency versus anonymity in political donations. Fri, 31 Aug 2012 15:57:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/gop-split-on-donor-transparency-vs-anonymity 2012 Republican National Convention, Campaign finance, Citizens United, Mitt Romney, Campaign advertising, Paul Ryan, Political action committee, Republican National Committee, Republican Party (United States), Barack Obama During a week of reporting from the RNC, Solomon Kleinsmith and Jessica Eise have found that while most Republicans support unlimited political spending, they disagree about donor disclosure. Today, they speak with Congressman Allen West and others about transparency versus anonymity in political donations. http://news.linktv.org/videos/2012-convention-report-the-many-shades-of-political-lobbying?start=0 Reporters Solomon Kleinsmith and Jessica Eise seek out various perspectives on an issue, lobbying, that is essential to understanding the role of money in American politics. They speak with financial services industry lobbyist John McKechnie, Politico's Anna Palmer, and Congressman Jon Mica of Florida. Thu, 30 Aug 2012 11:23:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/2012-convention-report-the-many-shades-of-political-lobbying 2012 Republican National Convention, Lobbying, Campaign finance, Campaign advertising, Financial services, Political action committee, Tampa, Florida, Politico (newspaper), Florida, United States Reporters Solomon Kleinsmith and Jessica Eise seek out various perspectives on an issue, lobbying, that is essential to understanding the role of money in American politics. They speak with financial services industry lobbyist John McKechnie, Politico's Anna Palmer, and Congressman Jon Mica of Florida. http://news.linktv.org/videos/2012-convention-report-investigating-the-effects-of-citizens-united?start=0 Reporting from the Republican National Convention, Link TV spoke with Stefan Passantino, Gingrich campaign lawyer and Georgia delegate, and Sheila Krumholz, Executive Director of the Center for Responsive Politics, about the differences between super PACs and 501c4 nonprofits in terms of donor disclosure and campaign advertising laws. Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:41:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/2012-convention-report-investigating-the-effects-of-citizens-united 2012 Republican National Convention, Citizens United, Campaign finance, Campaign advertising, Political campaign, Georgia, US, Center for Responsive Politics, 501(c) organization, Political action committee, Link TV Link TV spoke with Stefan Passantino, Gingrich campaign lawyer and Georgia delegate, and Sheila Krumholz, Executive Director of the Center for Responsive Politics, about the differences between super PACs and 501c4 nonprofits in terms of donor disclosure and campaign advertising laws. http://news.linktv.org/videos/2012-convention-report-gop-delegates-deemphasize-role-of-money?start=0 Citizen reporters Solomon Kleinsmith and Jessica Eise hit the convention floor running, despite the fact that the first day of the RNC was delayed due to weather. They spoke with Georgia delegate and Ron Paul supporter Catherine Bernard and Texas delegate Jorge Landivar, who both downplayed the importance of money in politics. Tue, 28 Aug 2012 18:05:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/2012-convention-report-gop-delegates-deemphasize-role-of-money 2012 Republican National Convention, Ron Paul, Political action committee, Georgia, US, Republican National Convention, Texas, Mitt Romney, LinkTV News Citizen reporters Solomon Kleinsmith and Jessica Eise hit the convention floor running, despite the fact that the first day of the RNC was delayed due to weather. They spoke with Georgia delegate and Ron Paul supporter Catherine Bernard and Texas delegate Jorge Landivar, who both downplayed the importance of money in politics. http://news.linktv.org/videos/2012-convention-report-citizen-reporters-cover-money-in-politics?start=0 According to United Republic, 94 percent of the time, the candidate who spends the most money in an election wins. Over 80 percent of Super PAC money has come from just 196 individuals. That's why Link TV has sent citizen reporters to the conventions to grill delegates, campaign staffers, and politicians on the issue of money in politics. Mon, 27 Aug 2012 11:34:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/2012-convention-report-citizen-reporters-cover-money-in-politics 2012 Republican National Convention, Citizens United, Republican Party (United States), US presidential election, 2012, Mitt Romney, Campaign finance, Political campaign staff, Paul Ryan, Political action committee, Link TV According to United Republic, 94 percent of the time, the candidate who spends the most money in an election wins. Over 80 percent of Super PAC money has come from just 196 individuals. That's why Link TV has sent citizen reporters to the conventions to grill delegates, campaign staffers, and politicians on the issue of money in politics. http://news.linktv.org/videos/pro-obama-ad-links-womans-cancer-death-to-mitt-romney?start=0 Things are turning ugly on the US presidential campaign trail. A new ad from Priorities USA, a pro-Obama super PAC. links a woman's cancer death to Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, the private equity firm he co-founded -- but critics are crying foul. Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:56:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/pro-obama-ad-links-womans-cancer-death-to-mitt-romney Mitt Romney, US presidential election, 2012, Attack ad, Joe Soptic, Priorities USA, Bain Capital, Barack Obama, Political action committee, Politics of the United States, Health insurance Things are turning ugly on the US presidential campaign trail. A new ad from pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA links a woman's cancer death to Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, the private equity firm he co-founded -- but critics are crying foul. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-27-2012?start=1545 The Supreme Court strikes down a century-old Montana law banning corporate campaign spending, in a case billed as "Citizens United II." Democracy Now! continues its conversation with Monika Bauerlein and Andy Kroll of Mother Jones magazine looking at the hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into the 2012 US presidential race. And Bill McKibben of 350.org speaks about extreme weather, the Keystone XL pipeline, and the failure of Rio+20. Plus headlines, and more.<br /><br /> Wed, 27 Jun 2012 10:03:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-27-2012 Campaign finance, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Politics of the United States, Supreme Court of the United States, United States, Climate change, Citizens United, Keystone Pipeline, Montana, Clean Air Act In part two of our conversation with Monika Bauerlein and Andy Kroll of Mother Jones magazine, we continue to look at "dark money" — the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent by outside groups who are helping to make the 2012 presidential race the most expensive race in history. Bauerlein and Kroll discuss the role of attorney James Bopp, a key legal adviser behind the Citizens United decision; how Karl Rove, Sheldon Adelson and others are quietly bankrolling Mitt Romney's campaign; and why President Obama has opted to accept unlimited super PAC donations. "What the Supreme Court did in Citizens United was say that when you are not giving your money in a campaign directly to the candidate's official campaign committee, then we cannot regulate you, because you are free to speak your mind — and spending a ton of money is a form of speaking your mind," Bauerlein says. We turn now to dark money, the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent by outside groups who are helping to make the 2012 presidential race the most expensive race in history. Experts project spending will top a staggering $11 billion, which is more than double the 2008 total. One of the central figures in the right-wing movement to deregulate campaign finance and help usher in super PACs has been attorney James Bopp. He worked as a legal adviser to the group Citizens United leading up to their victory in the Supreme Court. In this video posted online, Bopp defends the Citizens United ruling on free speech grounds. There is some background noise, so listen carefully. JAMES BOPP JR.: Well, the Citizens United case frees up corporations and labor unions to be able to speak out and give their point of view on who they think should be elected to public office. Of course, this is most important to advocacy groups that are formed to advocate for certain issues or public policy, governmental action, and ultimately candidates, you know, and that's whichever side of the aisle they might be on—that is, Sierra Club or Planned Parenthood or National Right to Life. This means that they are—they have the same freedom that everyone has to speak out if they think they have a point of view that they would like to share. Conservative attorney James Bopp features prominently in a new cover story in Mother Jones magazine called "Follow the Dark Money." Last week, Juan González and I spoke to the article's author, Andy Kroll, and Monika Bauerlein, co-editor of Mother Jones. I asked Andy Kroll to talk about the significance of James Bopp. Jim Bopp is, if not the central character on the conservative side, the libertarian side of this fight, he is one of the main characters. He is in this piece. You know, he is a cool, calm, very soft-spoken attorney who lives in Indiana, who, you know, over the past 20 years or so, has just demolished hundreds of campaign finance laws at the state and federal level. And he's done it in a very methodical way. He's done it in a very sort of subtle or quiet way. You know, there's not much fanfare. He doesn't belong to a think tank or a big white-shoe law firm. And the thing with Jim Bopp that I really focus on in the piece is that Jim Bopp did not decide one day that he was going to start toppling laws governing money in politics, spending restrictions, disclosure laws, etc. What Jim Bopp did was sort of hitch his wagon to the anti-abortion movement—he was the counsel for the National Right to Life organization, he represented the state chapters—and essentially used the culture wars. He used the anti-abortion movement. More recently, he's used the anti-same-sex marriage movement to—you know, basically as a vehicle to go around the country and challenge the legality of rules about money in politics. And he has been quite successful, even more so when John Roberts and Samuel Alito joined the U.S. Supreme Court, essentially paving the way for the Citizens United decision and, frankly, another big decision before that, which was the Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC. And that was something brought by Jim Bopp. And so, he has this—sort of pioneered this strategy, and it has been incredibly effective. And it's—he is a large part of why we're in this cash-drenched political system, this political environment that we have now. And, Andy, you've gone a little further in your article. You've said that you believe that the—all of this deregulation of campaign financing is a direct outgrowth of the culture wars. Could you explain that? Yeah. I mean, it's—you know, the culture wars have been—obviously they have been chugging along for decades now. And they—you know, it's incredibly divisive. It's a reason why we have, you know, a conservative—massive conservative movement, and you have people in the middle of the country who seemingly vote against their own economic interests, as Tom Frank has written, for instance, in the past. Jim Bopp just recognized that, you know, he could go about tackling and taking down campaign finance regulations and loosing this torrent of money in our politics, and he could do it sort of under the guise of National Right to Life or the National Organization for Marriage, which is virulently anti-gay marriage. And he could do that, and people wouldn't necessarily pick up on it as much—until they have now, because he's been so successful. But he was very subtle about it, and he knew that the culture wars were not just about the issues, like guns or gay marriage or abortion, but that underlying all of these issues is money, and it's money in politics. And he—you know, he realized—and I read—and I quote somebody in piece to this effect: he realized that those culture war issues, as well as every other issue, you know, money in politics underlies all of this policy. And if you can deregulate money in politics, deregulate campaign finance, as Bopp has, you can essentially buy the policy outcomes that you want. You've knocked down the laws governing how much money can come into our system, and then you can just get the policy outcomes that you want, whether it's on gun rights, whether it's on tax policy, you know, whatever. And this is sort of the genius of Jim Bopp, if you will. Monika Bauerlein, you're co-editor of Mother Jones. You're devoting this issue, "Wanna Buy an Election?: Inside the 40-Year Campaign to Sell Democracy to the Highest Bidder." Explain this concept, the term that Mother Jones has coined "dark money." It's an astronomical metaphor, of course—you know, we have dark matter in the universe—where the universe of politics is full of these visible celestial bodies: politicians and campaigns and traditional PACs and talking heads and surrogates and pundits and so forth. But then flowing around them is this dark matter, this money that we don't know exactly—as, in fact, none other than Senator John McCain has said that we don't know where it's coming from, we don't know what it's trying to buy, we don't know where it's going, and it exerts this incredibly powerful force on the movements of all the things that we see. And what about the role of the press, of the—especially of the commercial media, in shedding light on this dark money? Obviously, a lot of the money that's being raised ends up going to paid advertising on television and radio and in newspapers. So there's a self-interest problem here for the press, in terms of unmasking or campaigning against this dark money. It is an influx of money for broadcasters, and to some extent, print media. And, you know, surely they all need it. It is also true that it's really hard to follow for reporters. It's not—you know, because it's dark money, it doesn't disclose itself, it doesn't advertise itself, it often doesn't hold press conferences. So you have to really chase—I mean, the kind of work that Andy has to do of identifying the source behind a TV ad that's in heavy rotation in, you know, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and saying this is being paid for by a P.O. box that gets its money from another P.O. box in suburban Virginia that gets its money from another P.O. box in Texas, and behind that last P.O. box are three corporations that are really underwritten by the same individual. You know, that kind of thing is very hard to do, and most news organizations at this point don't have the bandwidth or the reporting power to go after it, which is why, up until now, we had laws requiring disclosure and requiring these entities themselves to tell citizens what they're up to. And that's all gone, or mostly gone, as a result of the Citizens United decision. Let's stick with the Wisconsin recall election earlier this month, the most expensive in the state's history, with more than $63 million spent. Governor Walker, who survived the recall, outspent Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett seven to one, close to eight to one. I want to turn to an ad that was bankrolled by this secretive Virginia-based organization called the Coalition for American Values. KAREN: I didn't vote for Governor Walker. LINDA: I did not vote for Scott Walker. TIM: I didn't vote for Scott Walker, Joel, but I'm definitely against this recall. JIM: Recall isn't the Wisconsin way. KAREN: There's a right way. There's a wrong way. And I just—I think this is the wrong way. JIM: I elected him to do a job. BOB: Let him serve it out. BOB: Living in a democracy, you have to have faith in who the people elect. CHAD: I didn't vote for Scott Walker, but I'm against the recall. I mean, this is an ingenious ad, because I'm sure they did some kind of focus groups or polling, and they saw that Walker was not popular in Wisconsin. But they realized they could raise the issue of the recall being undemocratic. You know, there was an election, someone was elected, let him serve out his time. Andy Kroll, talk about who it was that bankrolled this. I wish I could tell you exactly who it was, because I—but I still don't know. The group behind it was called the Coalition of American Values, which it does really not get more generic than, I guess, Americans for a Better America. What I found—so this ad comes out. As you mentioned, it really does have a potent message. And in retrospect, you know, or in hindsight, we now know that it was incredibly potent, because exit polls showed that a lot of the people who voted for Walker were really voting—you know, were voting on discontent over the recall itself. So, I start digging into this group, find that their address in Milwaukee, in the state, is a mailbox, essentially, and that their office—they have another office in Virginia, and that's a UPS store box. And so, there is no home address or home office. The treasurer, as far as I could tell, and we could never actually pin this down, was a gentleman named Brent Downs, who appeared to be a recent graduate of a university in Milwaukee, didn't answer phone calls, didn't reply to emails. And what brought them to my attention was not only were they running this ad and spending six figures on this ad around the state, they had not filed a single report with a state disclosing their spending. I mean, it's one thing to just funnel money through an incorporation—an incorporated entity in Virginia into Milwaukee, into Wisconsin, and not tell us where your money came from, and they can legally do that with the weird way that campaign finance law works in Wisconsin post-Citizens United, but we also had no idea what they were spending. And I raised this with the elections watchdog in Wisconsin. And not only had this group not disclosed its donors, but they had not even filed a report on their spending, as required. This is what brought them to my attention before the election. They said they were going to fix it. They still hadn't. And so, what you—you know, the takeaway here is you have Wisconsinites who are completely in the dark about a group called the Coalition for American Values, running ads in their state, telling them that this recall is bad; not only do they not know who the donors are, based on our tattered campaign finance system, but they also don't know how much this group is spending, really, and where, as the group is required to disclose. And so, it was just a—it was a really, really disturbing glimpse into how dark money can come into a state election and put out this message, and surely have an impact on voters, and keep those same voters entirely in the dark about how much is being spent, who's spending it, and just who the heck is behind this group in the first place. Andy Kroll, reporter for Mother Jones magazine, and co-editor Monika Bauerlein. Andy's new cover story is called "Follow the [Dark] Money." We'll continue our conversation after break. [break] We continue our discussion about dark money in politics with Andy Kroll, reporter for Mother Jones magazine, and co-editor Monika Bauerlein. Juan González and I did this interview last week. Andy's new cover story is called "Follow the [Dark] Money." I interviewed them, and we talked to them and asked Andy what hope citizens have for fair elections, given the vast sums of money influencing the [outcomes] of [races]. They can't pin their hope on regulators or the cops on the beat, especially at the federal level. The Federal Election Commission, which is the main cop on the beat here in Washington, is hopelessly gridlocked and compromised, and it has sort of been taken hostage by three of its—three of its six commissioners are conservatives who, frankly, don't believe in enforcing the law as it stands today. And so, they have reduced the FEC to sort of a mumbling waste of time, if you will. I mean, I really think it comes—you know, if the hope—if the citizens, you know, want some kind of hope or need to look somewhere for, you know, information or inspiration, I mean, they've really got to look to the media outlets in—whether nationally or in their communities, who are covering this issue, because that is where the information is coming from. And there are a lot of good reporters out there on this beat who are knocking on doors, who are going to UPS stores, who are, you know, riffling through, rifling through thousands of documents and trying to put names and faces in context to all this money coming into our elections. And there are a lot of good people doing this, and, you know, that's really where the public has to go, because our watchdogs are—just they've fallen down on the job, and they're not really—there's really no hope for them this election cycle, it seems. Earlier this year, comedian TV host Stephen Colbert mocked the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling by announcing a planned presidential run in the South Carolina primary. On his show, The Colbert Report, he explained, because he's barred from entering the race and simultaneously running a super political action committee, or super PAC, Colbert had given up control of his super PAC to fellow talk show host Jon Stewart. Colbert Super PAC transfer, activate. STEPHEN COLBERT: I am proud to announce that I am forming an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for the president of the United States of South Carolina. I'm doing it! That was Stephen Colbert. Monika Bauerlein, talk about what he is making fun of, and also name names here—for example, Karl Rove's dark money outfit, Crossroads GPS. Obama's campaign chief counsel Robert Bauer filed a complaint with the FEC arguing that Crossroads GPS now has an obligation to disclose its anonymous donors without delay. Tell us specifically here who's in charge. What the Supreme Court did in Citizens United was say that when you are not giving your money in a campaign directly to the candidate's committee, to their candidate's official campaign committee, then we cannot regulate you, because you are free to speak your mind—and spending a ton of money is a form of speaking your mind. And the court also found that corporations are persons, just like you and me, with protected free speech rights, so that corporations can also speak their minds and spend tons of money as they see fit. And so, this distinction between doing this as what's called as an "outside expenditure" and vis-à-vis giving directly to a campaign is really critical. That's the only—that is, if you will, the thin legal thread on which this deregulatory effort rests. In order to spend money as they see fit, these entities have to maintain the facade, I'll say, that they are entirely independent of campaigns and really have nothing to do directly with the candidates they support. And so, that's why Colbert had to beam his super PAC over to Jon Stewart. That's why there are great lengths being gone to to make sure that the committee that everybody knows is supporting Mitt Romney's candidacy is not directly connected to Mitt Romney, even though we all understand whom they're trying to elect. And so, disclosure of who is giving money to these committees, how they're spending it, is fairly critical to citizens being able to evaluate them. And at the same time, nondisclosure is pretty critical to these organizations' ability to do what they want to do, which is influence elections quickly and without people catching on to them necessarily. Well, the billionaire casino mogul and right-wing donor, Sheldon Adelson, has thrown his financial support behind Republican front-runner Mitt Romney. Adelson and his wife have donated $10 million to the pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, in the past few days. Adelson initially supported Newt Gingrich during the Republican primary, giving a pro-Gingrich super PAC more than $20 million. Adelson said he could do—he could wind up spending up to $100 million to support Republican candidates in the 2012 race. And ironically, though, the donation by Gingrich's former backer to Romney came just as Gingrich himself openly complained that U.S. elections are rigged in favor of the wealthy. Gingrich was speaking in an appearance on MSNBC. NEWT GINGRICH: It's very hard to compete with a billionaire, if they get to spend all the money they want and the middle-class candidate's raising money in $2,500 units. So I think the current system is rigged, frankly, in favor of the wealthy. Monika, your response, given the fact that Gingrich stayed in the race for so long because of the money that was donated to him by Adelson? Good for him, you know. I mean, you might say even a stopped clock is right once a day. I mean, Gingrich hits it on the head here, that in fact it's true that billionaires are underwriting political campaigns and are in a position to change our political fortunes in a way that regular people at this point really cannot. And, you know, Sheldon Adelson is somebody we know about, because he is public about his giving, but there are a lot of people whom we cannot know about. They can conceal their giving in a 501(c) organization, that then gives the money to a super PAC, that then spends it, and it's very, very hard to trace it back to who originally made that investment and what they expect as a return on that investment, if you will. Interestingly, one of the co-chairs of President Obama's re-election campaign has openly criticized the president's decision to accept super PAC funds. Democracy Now! spoke to former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin after his appointment as co-chair of the Obama re-election campaign in February. RUSS FEINGOLD: And I think it's a big mistake to go down the road of unlimited, undisclosed corporate contributions. That's not Barack—who Barack Obama is. That's not what the Democratic Party should be. And I think it doesn't help him get re-elected. And I think it delivers the Democrats, as well as the Republicans, to corporate power and corporate domination. So, that's why Progressives United and I feel this way. Yep, that is Russ Feingold. It wasn't hours after he was chosen as one of the co-chairs of President Obama's re-election campaign. Andy Kroll, talk about this. I mean, often the corporate media just expresses the range of debate between the Republicans and the Democrats, and often that debate is almost nil. We're in an election year. It may come up a little more, because President Obama is so far behind in raising money that they may start to raise this issue. But they're going after the same money trough. They are picking the same pockets as the Republicans. So it's unlikely that the Democrats are going to be raising this issue and going after the super PACs. Can you please talk about that? Yeah. The Obama campaign is in a weird place right now. And their attempts to court big donors for—for instance, for the Priorities USA Action super PAC, which is a strictly pro-Obama super PAC, is in a very difficult spot, because, you know, in 2008 President Obama said, "No, we don't want any outside help. We don't want any outside political groups spending money independently to help us or to attack George W. Bush. You know, we want complete control of our message." And, you know, the irony is that the Obama staffer in 2008 tasked with basically getting those outside groups out of the picture is a man named Bill Burton, who is now running President Obama's super PAC. There's a little bit of irony there. Problem is, you have the Citizens United decision, you have the Speechnow.org decision, which directly paved the way for super PACs, and what you have is a political playing field in which Republicans have no qualms with raising unlimited money, with going to the Sheldon Adelsons, with going to the Harold Simmonses of the world, these big donors, and just raking in seven- and eight-figure donations. You know, what the Democrats will tell you is that: "We cannot unilaterally disarm" is one line they use. "We cannot fight with one hand tied behind our back" is another line that they use. "We are going to use all the tools at our disposal to try to win this race, both at the presidential level and in House race and in Senate races." I was just sitting down with a super PAC fundraiser for the Democrats yesterday. And, you know, his line is, you know, "We've got to play by the rules of the game as we have them, and the president, you know, is going to get steamrolled by money from Sheldon Adelson, by money from the Koch brothers and their donor network, by money from, you know, the conservative movement anyway. He's going to get steamrolled. He's going to get buried in money anyway. But we have to punch back against that money. And we're going to use every tool that we can." It's interesting, though, because you see, for instance, Obama adviser David Axelrod out talking to people and saying, "You know, we might think about a constitutional amendment to fix Citizens United after we win this race. You know, we're going to think about big-time campaign finance reform. We're really concerned about super PACs." But, you know, they're saying one thing, and they're, in a way, doing—they're really in a tough spot, but they're going to—they're going to jump into this money race just as much as the other side, because they think it's crucial, and they think they're dead in the water if they don't. That was Andy Kroll, reporter for Mother Jones magazine, and co-editor Monika Bauerlein. Andy's new cover story is "Follow the Dark Money." http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-26-2012?start=111 The Supreme Court has overturned key parts of Arizona's anti-immigrant law S.B. 1070 but upheld the law's controversial "show me your papers" provision. In a separate ruling, the court also said states may not impose mandatory life sentences without parole on children. And Sharif Abdel Kouddous reports on how Egypt's historic presidential election is being undermined by continued military rule. Plus headlines, and more.<br /> Tue, 26 Jun 2012 12:11:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-26-2012 Supreme Court of the United States, United States, Arizona SB 1070, Immigration law, Immigration, Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Arizona, Citizens United, Egyptian presidential election, 2012, US juvenile justice system The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down a Montana law limiting corporate political spending, declining to revisit its landmark Citizens United ruling that opened the floodgates for corporate spending on elections. In a five-to-four ruling Monday, the justices reversed a lower court decision that upheld a century-old Montana law curbing corporate political spending. Many supporters of fair elections had hoped the court would reconsider Citizens United, but instead the Court said the 2010 ruling applies to Montana state law. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer challenged the decision, writing: "Montana's experience, like considerable experience elsewhere since the Court's decision in Citizens United, casts grave doubt on the Court's supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so." http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-22-2012?start=3039 The 2012 US presidential election is set to become the most expensive race in history, with spending projected to top $11 billion. But where exactly is the money coming from, and what will it mean for the US political system? Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:33:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-22-2012 Solitary confinement, Incarceration in the United States, United States, US Senate, Anthony Graves, United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, Dick Durbin, Prison, James Ridgeway, Prisoner abuse The 2012 presidential election is set to become the most expensive race in history, with spending projected to top $11 billion — more than double the 2008 total. It will be the first presidential election since the Supreme Court's landmark Citizens United decision, which lifted a 63-year-old ban prohibiting corporations, trade associations and unions from spending unlimited amounts of money on political advocacy. We're joined by reporter Andy Kroll and editor Monika Bauerlein of Mother Jones magazine, whose new cover story is "Follow the Dark Money." The article warns: "Super-PACs, seven-figure checks, billionaire bankrollers, shadowy nonprofits: This is the state of play in what will be the first presidential election since Watergate to be fully privately funded." We turn now to the 2012 presidential election, which is set to become the most expensive race in history. Experts project that spending will top a staggering $11 billion, which is more than double the 2008 total. It will be the first presidential election since the landmark Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The ruling lifted a 63-year-old ban prohibiting corporations, trade associations and unions from spending unlimited amounts of money on political advocacy. This weekend, the largest donors from the Romney campaign are traveling to Utah for a three-day retreat with the presumptive Republican nominee. The event in the Deer Valley resort area of Park City will bring donors from all over the country together. Last month, the Romney campaign out-raised their opponents, bringing in $16 million more than the Obama campaign. The Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee raised $76.8 million, while the Obama campaign and the National Democratic Committee brought in $60 million. For more right now, we go to Washington, D.C., where we're joined by Andy Kroll, reporter for Mother Jones magazine. His new cover story is called "Follow the Dark Money." He writes, quote, "Super-PACs, seven-figure checks, billionaire bankrollers, shadowy nonprofits: This is the state of play in what will be the first presidential election since Watergate to be fully privately funded." Andy Kroll, welcome to Democracy Now! You begin your piece in a dramatic way. You go back to CREEP—that's the Committee to Re-Elect the President, that was Richard Nixon—and the suitcases filled with money that were being taken to CREEP headquarters. And you make comparisons, 40 years later, to today. Please, take it from there. We're back to the era of secret money pouring into our elections by, you know, six- and seven- and eight-figure sums. Back then you had Clement Stone, the insurance magnate who pumped millions and millions into Richard Nixon's reelection effort, into CREEP. This time around, we have the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who is not only giving $10 million to Mitt Romney's super PAC, the super PAC supporting him, that can take unlimited money and spend unlimited money. You also have Sheldon Adelson pledging to inject millions more secretly into Karl Rove's outside political groups. And so, almost more than any election since that incredible Watergate election, if you will, with CREEP and Richard Nixon and all the secret money coursing through the system, we're back to that era. In some ways, we're back to an era, but it's legal now. Instead of corporations illegally giving money to Nixon's reelection effort, we have corporations legally pouring money into the 2012 effort, whether it's through the Chamber of Commerce or through, you know, any number of gauzy-named, anonymous front groups run out of UPS boxes here in the D.C. area. So, it's a return of sorts to one of the darkest eras when it comes to money in our political elections. But you also hearken even further back in American history to the days of Teddy Roosevelt, long known as a reformer president, but who also was one who encouraged and sought out secret campaign contributions for his own presidential runs. Yeah, there's a long, bipartisan tradition of politicians on both sides of the aisle, reform and not, going to the biggest donors in the political system and shaking them down for money to stay in office. I mean, this is as American as apple pie. It dates back, you know, as far—into the 1780s even, about, you know, paying—trading quarts of rum for votes in an election in Virginia, for instance. So, there's—you know, the story of American politics is deeply intertwined with money. It always has been. It always will be. It's just a matter of—you know, if you think about money as water and regulations as sort of the dam blocking the flood coming into our system, it's just a matter of how damaged is that dam? How damaged are our regulations? How crippled are the laws that prevent money from just flooding the system? And right now the dam is breaking. The dam has holes in it, and the money is pouring in, you know, in ways that we really haven't seen since Watergate or, you know—and some of the experts I talk to say we're back to the days of the robber barons, you know, the Gilded Age, where corporations and millionaires and billionaires are just—you know, they have a megaphone, and they dominate sort of the political playing field. We're also joined by Monika Bauerlein, the co-editor of Mother Jones magazine. Monika, you write about Citizens United. Talk about—you know, everyone talks about Citizens United, the decision, the Supreme Court decision that unleashed the massive amounts of corporate money, allowed it to come into these elections, but I don't think very many people really understand how it changed things. It's really very simple. It essentially said you cannot regulate political money, because political money is speech, and speech, of course, is protected under the First Amendment. It's a little schizophrenic, because, of course, we do regulate what people can give to political campaigns directly, but we can no longer, according to the Supreme Court, regulate what corporations and people who are behind corporations spend, outside of directly giving it to a campaign committee. And so, that's why we hear about super PACs, that's why we hear about these shadowy 501(c)s, that can pretty much do as they please. They can walk, you know, into a congressional district or walk into a judicial campaign or a state legislative race or into the Wisconsin recall a couple weeks ago, and just dump millions of dollars into ads that don't have to disclose who made them or what's behind them or which interests are really being served—and all of this under the banner of protecting free speech. And in terms of the public outrage and the possibilities of being able to pass new reform legislation on money in politics, it seems less likely than ever. Do you feel that the public outrage will channel itself into some kind of insistence on new laws? I do, actually. I'm an optimist by nature, and I also believe that the American people are a lot savvier than they're often being given credit for in politics. It is very difficult at the moment for people to really make out the connections between their own lives and, you know, this kind of thing that we're talking about. It's very difficult for people to see that they are hurting economically, because the political playing field has been tilted by vested interests. But that is possible. Andy and, you know, other reporters and transparency advocates are really working to get some disclosure into the system. And once you start seeing the paths that this money takes and the results that it buys, I think people do make the connection. There's only one thing that politicians really are more afraid of than having large sums of money being dumped into their campaign by people they cannot see, and that's having to really answer to their constituencies every day on something that the constituents are really, really upset about. Monika Bauerlein, we want to thank you for being with us, and Andy Kroll, as well, both of Mother Jones magazine. We're going to continue this conversation and post it at democracynow.org. Monika Bauerlein is the co-editor of Mother Jones. Andy Kroll, a reporter for Mother Jones magazine. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-040512?start=630 In a broadcast exclusive, Democracy Now! reveals the name of the police officer who allegedly killed 68-year-old Kenneth Chamberlain, a retired African-American Marine who was shot dead in his own home in White Plains, New York, after he inadvertently triggered his medical alert pendant. Plus headlines, and more. Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:00:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-040512 United States, US Congress, Shooting, Civilian casualties, Barack Obama, Politics of the United States, Suicide attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Athens, World Trade Organization Eleven state attorneys general have issued a letter to Congress declaring their support for a Constitutional amendment that would overturn Citizens United, the controversial 2010 Supreme Court ruling that opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending on election campaigns. The advocacy group, Free Speech for People, hailed the move as a step toward reclaiming democracy. http://news.linktv.org/videos/romney-crushes-rivals-gingrich-vows-to-fight-on?start=0 With his comprehensive victory in Florida, Mitt Romney appears to have delivered his Republican rival Newt Gingrich a serious blow. Romney's advantages now make it more likely than ever that he will go up against Barack Obama in November. Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:29:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/romney-crushes-rivals-gingrich-vows-to-fight-on Mitt Romney, Florida Republican primary, 2012, Florida, Newt Gingrich, Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012, Attack ad, Political action committee, US presidential election, 2012, Politics of the United States, Republican Party (United States) With his comprehensive victory in Florida, Mitt Romney appears to have delivered his Republican rival Newt Gingrich a serious blow. Romney's advantages now make it more likely than ever that he will be the man going up against Barack Obama for the presidency in November, and he is relishing his prospects. http://news.linktv.org/videos/why-is-newt-gingrich-so-anti-palestinian?start=0 Many analysts say Newt Gingrich's recent rise in the Republican contest would have been impossible without the backing of multi-billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. Gingrich has openly admitted Adelson's support comes down to a single issue: Israel. Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:10:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/why-is-newt-gingrich-so-anti-palestinian Newt Gingrich, Sheldon Adelson, Palestinians, Newt Gingrich presidential campaign, 2012, Political action committee, Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012, Politics of the United States, US presidential election, 2012, Israel, US-Israel relations Many analysts say Newt Gingrich's recent rise in the Republican contest would have been impossible without the backing of one man, multi-billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. Adelson and his wife have donated $10 million to the pro-Gingrich super PAC, "Winning Our Future," which has run a series of ads attacking Gingrich's opponent Mitt Romney. Gingrich has openly admitted Adelson's support came down to a single issue: Israel. Gingrich has adopted the most extremist anti-Palestinian stance of the Republican presidential field, calling the Palestinians themselves an "invented" people. We speak with Gal Beckerman of the Jewish Daily Forward and Linda Sarsour of the Arab American Association of New York. ---- We turn now to the issue of money and politics. Over the past two weeks, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary and has surged in the national polls. Many analysts say Gingrich's rise would not have been possible without the backing of one man: multi-billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. With a net worth of over $20 billion, he is the world's 16th richest person, according to Forbes. Ahead of the South Carolina primary, Adelson donated $5 million to the pro-Gingrich super PAC, Winning Our Future, which ran a series of ads attacking Gingrich's opponent Mitt Romney. On Monday, it was revealed his wife, Miriam Adelson, gave another $5 million to the pro-Gingrich super PAC. Under the nation's campaign finance laws, the Adelsons could give the super PAC an unlimited amount of money in the coming months. In a recent interview with Ted Koppel on NBC, Newt Gingrich was asked about why the Adelsons would give so much money. Gingrich admitted it came down to a single issue: Israel. TED KOPPEL: But what do these multi-millionaires expect? NEWT GINGRICH: They want—they want—they want— When you give someone five million bucks— NEWT GINGRICH: They want their candidate to win. But there has to be a "so what" at the end of that. So, if you win, what does Adelson get out of it? NEWT GINGRICH: Well, he knows I'm very pro-Israel. And that's the central value of his life. I mean, he is very worried that Israel is going to not survive. Sheldon Adelson is the owner of Israel's largest daily newspaper, a financial supporter of Birthright Israel, and a close friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Adelson has also supported the Clarion Fund, which produced The Third Jihad film, which we just discussed. The Washington Post reports Adelson and Gingrich met when Gingrich was House speaker and Adelson was lobbying to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Gingrich raised this very issue at last night's debate when he was questioned about his past claims that the Palestinians are an "invented" people. NEWT GINGRICH: It was technically an invention in the late 1970s, and it was clearly—it was clearly so. Prior to that, they were Arabs. Many of them were either Syrian, Lebanese or Egyptian or Jordanian. There are a couple of simple things here. There were 11 rockets fired into Israel in November. Now imagine, in Duval County, that 11 rockets hit from your neighbor. How many of you would be for a peace process? And how many of you would say, "You know? That looks like an act of war." You have leadership, unequivocally—and Governor Romney is exactly right—the leadership of Hamas says, "Not a single Jew will remain." Well, you're not having a peace negotiation then. This is war by another form. My goal for the Palestinian people would be to live in peace, to live in prosperity, to have the dignity of a state, to have freedom. And they can achieve it any morning they are prepared to say, "Israel has a right to exist. We give up the right to return. And we recognize that we're going to live side by side. Now let's work together to create mutual prosperity." And you could, in five years, dramatically improve the quality of life of every Palestinian. But the political leadership would never tolerate that. And that's why we are in a continuous state of war, where Obama undermines the Israelis. On the first day that I am president, if I do become president, I will sign an executive order directing the State Department to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. To talk more about Newt Gingrich and Sheldon Adelson, we're joined by Gal Beckerman, who is the opinion editor at the Jewish newspaper, The Forward. He recently wrote an article called "What Sheldon's Money Buys: Adelson Millions Ensure Gingrich Steers to Far Right on Israel." Still with us, Linda Sarsour, director of the Arab American Association of New York. Gal, explain what it is, this Adelson-Gingrich relationship, why he supports him. Well, he supports—the relationship is really symbiotic, in a way. It developed, as you said, in the mid-'90s over issues of union busting. Adelson wanted some help; Gingrich was able to offer it. And it developed as time went on. It seems to have helped kind of in Gingrich's evolution in terms of his pro-Israel stance. Wayne Barrett recently reported in The Daily Beast that, you know, if you look at what Gingrich was saying about Palestinians and Israel in 2005, even, as recently as 2005, it was kind of a different line. He was talking about investing in their ancestral lands. He was really speaking a much different language. This is now changed. You won't hear Gingrich saying anything like that anymore. And it's not—you know, one can't draw a direct causal link, you know, find the telephone call in which Adelson said, you know, "I want you to say this." But it's not hard to imagine that if your political life depends on a man who has very extreme-right views when it comes to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, that you're going to hear that same language come out of that candidate's mouth. And Adelson has a determined opposition even to a two-state solution in the Middle East, doesn't he? He does. I mean, in my column, I quote him from last year speaking to The Jewish Week, saying, "I believe" — and I'm paraphrasing here, but "that a two-state solution is a stepping stone to the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people." So, you know, this is even more further to the right than the current Israeli government is, which is engaged now, whether, you know, successfully or not, in talks in Jordan with the Palestinians. You have a prime minister who, you know, whether he wants a two-state solution to eventually happen, he's speaking the language of a two-state solution. He's talking about the need for a Palestinian state. So, you know, Adelson really, in the spectrum of political belief in Israel, really falls, you know, to the right even of the current government. AIPAC, where does Sheldon Adelson stand on his views on the American Israeli Political Action Committee? Right, well, here's another example where you— Public Affairs Committee. Right. Here's another example where you can see that Adelson really kind of is on that right side of the spectrum, because he broke with AIPAC in 2007 over a congressional initiative that AIPAC was backing, and that the Israelis actually were backing, as well, to provide more economic aid to the Palestinians. He didn't feel that this was a good idea. Adelson and super PACs? I mean, the one thing that should be said is that, you know, we can talk about Adelson's influence, you know, all we want, but there's nothing illegal about it. I mean, the real problem here is this vehicle that he's been allowed, through super PACs, to be able to have this kind of outsized influence, which really wasn't the case before the Citizens United case two years ago. And Linda Sarsour, as we're talking here about the influence of Sheldon Adelson—we were just discussing how he helped fund the group that produced the jihad film—your reaction? I'm also—I happen to be Palestinian, too. And listening to a couple of debates ago and having my children sit in front of the TV and playing on their laptop and hearing, you know, our potential presidentials talk about the "invented" people and hearing Palestine, and stopping and saying, "What does he mean by we're invented people?" and having to explain that to, you know, a 12-year-old and 11-year-old, it's just so disappointing in this country that money is what buys power in this country and buys influence. And we actually agree. One-state solution, one-state solution over here. One-state solution, for me, is the only way to go. And that's an equal state for all, for justice for all. So, we can agree on that area, as well. But really, the views that Newt Gingrich is spouting in these debates, he's making George Bush look like a walk in the park. I mean, it's getting—I mean, we're not—we're supposed to be progressing in the peace process. We're supposed to be moving forward. And what we are doing, and the GOP is doing, is moving back. So if the American people have any sense, we cannot let this guy go forward. Linda, I wanted to get your response to this issue of the "invented" people. You heard it last night at the debate. Last month, Gingrich defended his claim the Palestinians are an invented people. The former speaker of the House made the comment during an interview with the Jewish Channel. NEWT GINGRICH: Jewish people have the right to have a state, and I believe that the commitments that were made at the time—remember, there were—there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places. And for a variety of political reasons, we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and I think it's tragic. That was presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. Linda Sarsour? I mean, he must have been politically asleep for the first 50 years of his life. And he talks about us being invented in the '70s? Like, what is he talking about? I mean, it's just—I mean, for me, when I watch this, it's just that—it's like a comedy. It's like Saturday Night Live. It's like, where have you been all this time? And for the Palestinian people, we've been—I mean, we've been talking about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at least for the past 60 years. So, for me, honestly, I just laugh, and I think that, unfortunately, the way that our political system is set up is you talk about issues that are going to get you elected depending on who gives you money. So you talk about immigration because you want Latino votes. You talk about Israel because you want Jewish votes. I mean, it's all, for me, a scam. And for me, I don't know about anybody else, but it doesn't—it doesn't do anything for me. And Gal, I'd like to ask you about the impact of the Adelson money on the general tenor of the foreign policy debate among the Republican candidates. It almost seems that he has single-handedly been able to shift the entire debate more to the right on a variety of issues. Right. Well, I mean, and this is what I think is the much bigger concern, is that, you know, if you have Gingrich saying the things that he believes Adelson wants him to say, nobody wants to be outflanked to the right, and so everyone is going to kind of move in that direction. And you get kind of this dynamic where it's kind of like toughness for toughness's sake, you know, on a range of issues, any time that talk turns to foreign policy, whether it's Cuba or, you know, when you talk about Afghanistan. Romney was asked twice what he would do with the Taliban, whether he would negotiate with the Taliban, and he said, "No, we're going to beat them," which, as far as I'm concerned, is what we've been trying to do for the last 10 years without much effect. So, you know, he—there is—and then Iran, of course, is the ultimate example, where everyone is trying to just kind of have this kind of belligerent language that doesn't really kind of offer any alternative solutions, that doesn't kind of look at all the full implications of some of the things that they're saying. It's just kind of, you know, let's talk as tough as possible. And it pushes people into a corner. Go very quickly, the newspaper in Atlanta, where the editor was just forced out. Right, right. Can you explain what happened? This was an editor of a very small—about 2,500, I think, was their circulation—newspaper, one of two or three Jewish newspapers in Atlanta, who wrote this incredibly, extraordinarily inflammatory column that said that one of the things on the table, in terms of dealing with Iran, should be a possible assassination of President Obama. And this was kind of roundly condemned by everybody. The guy eventually came out himself, you know, in this kind of half-an-hour tearful confession a few days ago, saying he doesn't know what he was thinking. And, you know, I think it's possible to see this as just the production of one crank, you know, who's—you know, but underneath—underneath it is a real kind of, I think, irrational fear that you see among some people in the Jewish community that Obama and his policies towards Iran is somehow harming Israel. Thirty seconds, how did Adelson get his fortune? He is a casino magnate, built a lot of casinos in Vegas and, in the last 15 years, has grown even richer through building the same types of resorts and casinos in China. We want to thank you both for being with us. And that editor, the publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, named Andrew Adler, said Israel should consider assassinating President Obama, quote, "take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel." We're going to end it there. Gal Beckerman, thanks so much for being with us, opinion editor at The Forward, author of When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry. And Linda Sarsour, director of the Arab American Association of New York, also with the National Network for Arab American Communities. She was just named a "Champion of Change," honored at the White House, a Palestinian-American activist. http://news.linktv.org/videos/super-pacs-and-occupy-protests-iowa-gop-caucus-kicks-off-2012-race?start=0 Iowa is awash in millions of dollars of negative campaign ads funded by so-called Super PACs as voters head to their caucuses in the first real test of the 2012 election. The Iowa caucus is considered an important early barometer for the US presidential elections. Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:57:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/super-pacs-and-occupy-protests-iowa-gop-caucus-kicks-off-2012-race Republican Party (United States), Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012, Newt Gingrich, Iowa caucuses, Political action committee, Politics of the United States, US presidential election, 2012 Iowa is awash in millions of dollars of negative campaign ads funded by so-called Super PACs as voters head to their caucuses in the first real test of the 2012 election. "If you want to see the future of politics in America, turn on the television in Iowa," says John Nichols, correspondent for The Nation magazine. "If it is this kind of overwhelming flood of negative ads, literally flipping on a dime to take down any candidate who rises in opposition to the mainstream, or kind of core Republican contender with the most money -- it's a pretty scary picture. And it is one that suggests that if we don't get serious about addressing Citizens United [v. Federal Election Commission], we're going to end up with a much uglier, much more destructive politics." Nichols estimates the candidates and their PACs spent "$200 per vote" in Iowa. The latest public opinion polls show Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney holding a narrow lead of 24 percent over Rep. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Nichols says Santorum's comments over the weekend about not wanting to "make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money," highlight how Republican candidates have failed to reach out to Iowa's many minority communities. Meanwhile, the Occupy movement has tried to inject the voices of the 99 percent into the race by holding protests at events and both Republican and Democratic campaign headquarters throughout the state. ----- Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney speaks at a campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa January 2, 2012: REUTERS/Brian Snyder The first real test of the 2012 election is taking place tonight in Iowa, when Republican caucus members will choose their party’s presidential nominee from a playing field of seven major candidates. Tonight’s caucuses are expected to draw some 120,000 Iowans to about, oh, 1,700 meetings in the state’s 99 counties. They’ll elect 28 delegates to the Republican National Convention, which will be held this August in Florida. As the vote in Iowa nears, the latest major public opinion poll taken by the Des Moines Register shows Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney holding a narrow lead of 24 percent over Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Romney focused much of his stump speech on criticizing President Obama. MITT ROMNEY: We’re an opportunity nation. I hear the President wants to turn this into a European-style welfare state, an entitlement nation, where the role of government isn’t to provide our freedom and opportunity, but instead the role of government is to take from some to give to others, in the name of equality. That model hasn’t worked anywhere in the world. Polling a close second to Romney is Texas Congress Member Ron Paul, with 22 percent of likely Iowa voters. On Monday, Paul’s supporters took down a wall in their Marriott ballroom to accommodate the large numbers of people who came to hear him speak. Ron Paul told the packed conference room he is the only unique candidate. REP. RON PAUL: The others represent the status quo, variations of the status quo. But they’re not talking about a foreign policy to defend America; they’re talking about mischief around the world and policing the world. Are they talking about change in the monetary policy and look at the basic problems with the monetary system and how it creates our financial bubbles? Are they—do they really care about personal liberties? When you look at the votes and what the President has been doing, they don’t care about your personal liberty, or it wouldn’t be continuously undermined. So, therefore, a lot is at stake. Meanwhile, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, who picked up an informal endorsement from Fox media mogul Rupert Murdoch on Twitter, has surged from behind to place third in Iowa in the polls, with 18 percent of likely voters. RICK SANTORUM: I would just say this: we have raised more money in the last few days than we have in the last few months. And going from zero to 60 in the polls, if you will, will help those resources a lot. I think you’ve seen other candidates who have had the opportunity to get a little national attention, that resources have followed. Negative campaign ads from Ron Paul and a group that backs Romney helped to knock former House Speaker Newt Gingrich down to 12 percent of support from Iowa voters in the polls so far. Texas Governor Rick Perry is polling at 11 percent. Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who was born in Iowa, came in at 7 percent in the polls so far. The Des Moines Register poll did not track voters’ opinion on the seventh Republican contender, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman. More than $12.5 million will be spent on the election in Iowa by the end of today’s caucus, almost two-thirds of it spent by so-called Super PACs, or political action committees, where individuals and corporations can drop unlimited amounts of money. As all of this takes place, the Occupy movement has tried to inject the voices of the 99 percent by holding protests at campaign headquarters and events throughout Iowa. Monday night, they mic-checked a speech by Mitt Romney, chanting, "Stop the War on the Poor." Meanwhile, scores of protesters marched on the campaign headquarters of Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, calling for kicking money out of politics. Protesters also focused on Democrats. On Monday afternoon, 12 Occupy Iowa Caucus protesters were arrested after staging a die-in at a Des Moines hotel where the Democratic National Committee has set up a communications "war room." After six months of campaigning, 13 Republican presidential debates and millions of dollars spent to flood the airwaves with ads, voters are finally getting a say in the race for the GOP presidential nomination. We go right now to Des Moines to speak with John Nichols, the Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine, maintains the blog "The Beat" at thenation.com. Welcome to Democracy Now!, John. Talk about what’s happening so far in these last few hours before the caucus. Good morning, Amy. Well, it’s been a very wild last few hours, especially around Rick Santorum. As you mentioned, the polling suggests that he is on the rise and potentially pulling together the evangelical vote that had been split between Santorum, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, and to some extent, Newt Gingrich. I was with Santorum last night, and it was a really remarkable event for a candidate who’s been on the sideline so far. Now he is literally surrounded by dozens of television cameras and real crowds of Iowans. And he is the one injecting at least a measure of uncertainty into tonight’s process. But I will emphasize that everywhere I went, I saw crowds of Ron Paul backers, as well. It’s very intense, and there’s a real politics, not merely on the television screens, although that’s where most of it’s played out, but also on the streets. There’s a lot of political energy, and some of that political energy, and some of the most exciting political energy, is actually coming from the Occupy Des Moines and Occupy Iowa Caucus folks, who are very present at a lot of events and in a lot of places, not just in Des Moines, but around the state. Well, let’s talk about what Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum is saying. He was a second-tier candidate until a jump in the polls last week. While campaigning in Sioux City over the weekend, he made a controversial comment about cutting entitlement funds for African Americans. RICK SANTORUM: I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families. John Nichols, your response to former Senator Santorum’s comments just this week? Well, it’s an unsettling comment, and it’s a particularly unsettling one because in Iowa there is a significant African-American population, not just in Des Moines, but in a number of other cities. These are folks who have really been hit hard by deindustrialization, the shutting down of factories, and a lot of the shifts in our economic system in this country. African Americans have been hit hard in Iowa, and there is a very well-entrenched, very active community. And to have a candidate for president making comments like that, instead of reaching out to the African-American community, is unsettling. Really, one of the things that’s worth noting, Amy, is that these candidates on the Republican side have made very little, if any, effort to reach out to Iowa’s many minority communities. And I know it’s often said that Iowa is an overwhelmingly white state. It is. But there’s growing African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American communities here, and they have been largely neglected by the Republican candidates, just as the advertising for the Republican candidates tends to neglect a lot of the core economic issues. You don’t see ads on television talking in the way that you’d expect about unemployment, about real job creation. So many of the ads are just repeating of hard-right, social conservative talking points, obviously aimed at a tiny portion of the population, rather than the whole of even this state. In 2003, a controversy arose over Rick Santorum’s statements about homosexuality and the right to privacy. In an interview with the Associated Press, Santorum said he believed mutually consenting adults do not have a constitutional right to privacy with respect to sexual acts. During the interview, he made comments that shocked many, saying, quote, "In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be." Those, the words of Rick Santorum, comparing homosexuality to bestiality in 2003. Are these issues being raised, John Nichols? Not directly, but you went to the heart of the matter there, Amy. Rick Santorum’s appeal, his core appeal, is to the hard-right social conservatives, often referred to as evangelicals, but also a very conservative Catholic base, particularly in the eastern part of the state. Santorum has reached out to these voters, attracting endorsements from pastors, as well as from people involved in anti-gay-rights campaigning in Iowa. And there’s been a lot of that. Remember, Iowa was one of the first states to allow for same-sex marriage, and there’s been real battles on the ground here. Santorum has positioned himself on the anti-gay-rights side. I do think it’s also significant, Amy, that you point out Santorum’s disregard for right to privacy. One of the less noted aspects of the Santorum campaign is his passion for amending the U.S. Constitution. He wants to amend it to ban abortion. He wants to amend it to restrict same-sex marriage and gay rights. He wants to put in a balanced budget amendment that is designed mainly to shift funding toward faith-based programs. He wants to shut down the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals out in California and the western part of the United States, because he sees it as a liberal court. This is really a very radical candidate for president, a very radical right-wing candidate. And that has appeal to a portion of the Iowa electorate, but it’s really a very small portion. And I think as people become more aware of this, Santorum is going to have an awful lot of questions asked about his stances, not just in the past, but right now. You know, it’s interesting on abortion, because Romney and Gingrich have been fighting over the issue. In one of those Super PAC ads of Romney’s friends against Gingrich that have swamped the airwaves, he talks about Gingrich supporting some kind of tax-paid abortions. And then Gingrich, last night on television, said, in fact, that Romneycare, you know, talking about the healthcare plan in Massachusetts, included supporting Planned Parenthood and included supporting abortions. But I wanted to go to Ron Paul right now, who is obviously very threatened by the Santorum surge and actually calling Santorum a liberal. But on the eve of the Iowa caucus, supporters of Ron Paul took down a wall in their Marriott ballroom to accommodate the large numbers of people who came to hear him speak. Ron Paul said individual liberty is the most important issue. REP. RON PAUL: As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one issue. You know, they talk about a lot of issues. They talk about the foreign policy, monetary policy, economic policy. There’s one issue that has made America great, and the issue that you can answer all your questions on is individual liberty. That is the issue. Ron Paul—talk about his place in Iowa right now and what you expect, John, and the positions that he has taken, among—most recently talking about North Korea, saying soldiers should be brought home from everywhere now—Korea, Germany, Japan, not just Iraq and Afghanistan. Sure. Ron Paul has been an absolutely fascinating presence in this Iowa race. He’s been fascinating because he came in with a set of stands, and he’s going out with the same set of stands. On his pre-caucus rally yesterday, a big rally he had, he talked very specifically about his opposition to interventionism abroad, his desire to bring troops home, his criticism of wars of whim in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere—a very blunt, very direct message. Also one on civil liberties. Now, the reason that that is significant is because most candidates in Iowa have really tacked hard to the right and to a kind of core set of Republican talking points. Paul has been the outlier here and has determined to stay there. One of the fascinating things about Ron Paul’s appeal in Iowa is that it is not just to Republicans. Iowa has a very long tradition of anti-interventionism. Goes back to World War I. And to a greater extent than most states, this state has a real broad-based antiwar movement in many small towns and also, of course, in college towns like Iowa City and Ames. And Paul has made an appeal to that community. Now, those folks are not naive. They recognize that they disagree with Ron Paul on a host of social issues and also with—have real discomfort with things that have appeared in his newsletter in the past, particularly on racial issues. But there is a portion of the electorate here in Iowa, including some independents and, frankly, some Democrats, who will re-register tonight to vote for Ron Paul, to send an antiwar message. And Paul is clearly reaching out to that broader base. Polling suggests that among young people, he is usually the leading candidate. And if you go to caucuses tonight and see a lot of young folks, it’s very likely that they’ll be there to vote for Ron Paul. And yet, these questionable old newsletters you talk about, that much of the media doesn’t actually repeat what he said. This wasn’t him, you know, contributing to a magazine that maybe had other comments; this was—these were newsletters under his name, the Ron Paul Political Report and others, that said things like—described the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday as "Hate Whitey Day," said 95 percent of Washington’s black males were criminals, a headline lamenting the country’s disappearing white majority, among others. This was under his name, though he says he robo-signed them. But how are young people talking about this? Sure. There is real discomfort with those newsletters. And I think the revelations about Ron Paul’s newsletters have done serious damage to his campaign. He was really rising in the polls, not just with Republicans, but also with independents, and frankly, I do think, with some crossover Democrats. When those revelations came out, I think they did serious damage to his candidacy. And one thing to understand about Iowa is that while it has a large social conservative population and is certainly a swing state, this is a state that has great pride in its role on the Northern side of the Civil War, in the support of its congressional delegation for civil rights back in the 1960s. And so, I do think that even with some older votes, not just with younger voters, there’s been a real discomfort with those revelations and some revulsion, frankly, toward them. I think it has harmed Ron Paul. By the same token, Paul has a core of supporters, most of them very conservative folks, or even libertarian, who will stick with him. And there will be some crossover to try and send that antiwar message. But there is no question that the revelation about his statements has done him damage. Iowa has been inundated with television ads critical of Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich. Both parties agree the ad campaign, which has cost millions of dollars, is what accounts for Gingrich’s drop in the polls and Mitt Romney’s corresponding rise. A recent poll found 45 percent of all advertising in Iowa was aimed at attacking Gingrich. A group called Restore Our Future is responsible for a number of the ads, with no direct participation from the Romney campaign. The ads have been enabled by last year’s landmark Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance, which created powerful new channels for outside money—unidentified—to influence elections. Restore Our Future is the most prominent of the Super PACs, or political actions committees, that have been formed as a result. Let’s go to one of the most cited anti-Gingrich ads. It’s called "Happy." RESTORE OUR FUTURE AD: Know what makes Barack Obama happy? Newt Gingrich’s baggage. Newt has more baggage than the airlines. Freddie Mac helped cause the economic collapse, but Gingrich cashed in. Freddie Mac paid Newt $30,000 an hour: $1.6 million. Gingrich not only teamed up with Nancy Pelosi on global warming, but together they co-sponsored a bill that gave $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s brutal "one child" policy. As speaker, Gingrich even supported taxpayer funding of some abortions. And Newt is the only speaker in history to be reprimanded. He was fined $300,000 for ethics violations—by a Republican Congress. As conservative National Review says, "his weakness for half-baked (and not especially conservative) ideas–made him a poor Speaker of the House. He appears unable to transform, or even govern, himself." Newt Gingrich—too much baggage. Restore Our Future is responsible for the content of this message. One of those attack ads from the Super PACs that has brought down Newt Gingrich in the polls, to say the least, John. The issue of this—of money—and I should say, I mentioned last year’s Citizens United ruling. I have to get used to 2012, because it was 2010. It was— I know. Go ahead. The anniversary is coming up. Talk about the significance of the money that is going—the untraceable money, the people behind these ads we don’t know, though we know some of these committees, of course, some of the closest former staff members of Romney. Absolutely. In fact, the advertisement that you showed is one that Newt Gingrich has specifically asked Mitt Romney to get off the air, and has suggested, very bluntly, that if Mitt Romney said to his former aides, "You should take that down," it would go down, even if he said so publicly, not a kind of backroom coordination. Romney has refused to do so. And here’s the interesting dynamic. We have always assumed that Citizens United would play out initially in partisan races, where you saw perhaps a Republican candidate with dramatically more funding than a progressive Democratic candidate, something like that. That’s not what’s happened. The reality is that the first major Citizens United election, where you’ve seen massive amounts of money come in, particularly in negative ads that are not directly tied but clearly behind-the-scenes tied to one candidate taking down another candidate, has occurred here in Iowa. And it has been directed at, of all people, Newt Gingrich, a politician who for years said that what we needed was more money in politics. It’s been a fascinating playout, but it’s one people should keep a close eye on. I think that when all is said and done, we are likely to have seen roughly $200 per vote spent by the various Republican candidates and Super PACs in Iowa. That’s just massive amount of spending. And to have most of it, or at least very close to a majority of it, on television being negative advertising has an incredibly destructive impact on our democracy. If you want to see the future of politics in America, turn on the television in Iowa, and you see what it could be. If this is it, if it is this kind of overwhelming flood of negative ads, literally flipping on a dime to take down any candidate who rises in opposition to the mainstream or kind of core Republican contender with the most money, it’s a pretty scary picture. And it is one that suggests that if we don’t get serious about addressing Citizens United, we’re going to end up with a much uglier, much more destructive politics. It’s one of the reasons why activists in Iowa will be going to Republican and Democratic caucuses tonight, urging those caucuses to pass Move to Amend resolutions. These are resolutions designed to encourage both parties to support the amendment of the U.S. Constitution to take out money from politics, at least in the form of corporate money that is uncontrolled and unrestricted. John Nichols— These are essentially anti-corporate-personhood resolutions. We’re going to go to break, but when we come back, we’ll also be joined by Thomas Frank. He’s written a new book. It’s called Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right. Even as some have described the Republican Party in disarray, Thomas Frank makes a different argument about what’s happening in this country. And I’d like to get your comment on it, as well, John. John Nichols, with The Nation magazine, maintaining the blog "The Beat," is in Des Moines, Iowa, with us today. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.