Bad Deeds for 7-28-2010

 

Every Republican Senator Voted to Kill the DISCLOSE Act – Yesterday, 40 Republican senators blocked the passage of legislation that would counteract the growing influence of corporations in the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision.

The DISCLOSE Act would have helped shed light on the hundreds of millions of dollars corporations and special interests plan to spend to influence our elections this fall — and would have helped ordinary Americans to make their voices more clearly heard in campaigns across the country. Under the current rules, special interests “can hide behind a name like ‘Citizens for a Better Future,’ even if a more accurate name would be ‘Companies for Weaker Oversight.'”

Republicans believe that killing the bill and strengthening corporate power gives them a tactical edge, allowing right-wing groups to raise more than ever to help their candidates win. Not a single Republican voted for the bill. Not a single Republican was willing to bring greater transparency to our election process.

The bottom line is that right-wing corporate interests don’t want any restriction on their efforts to sway elections. Even letting the American people know just who is pouring millions into negative campaign ads is too much accountability for them.

 

In Rick Perry’s Texas, We Do Risky Business With School Money – Texas State Board of Education Board members have decided to risk funds set aside since the beginning of Texas. Last year the financial consultants hired to give advice to the SBOE were fired when some board members did not like the advice they paid for. That advice included not investing Permanent School funds in risky schemes, and one example was real estate for charter schools. After an amazingly convoluted session of arm-twisting last weekend, it appears that the Texas SBOE has decided to toss prudence to the wind along with any appearance of propriety and buy real estate to lease back to Texas charter schools at a reduced rate. After the first vote failed, a second vote was taken the following day, after two Democrats had left.

I’m not sure what I think is worse: Rewriting history or bankrupting the funds set aside to teach it.

 

Rick Perry’s Campaign Pays to Settle Campaign Violation Lawsuit – A lawsuit brought against Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign by Democratic challenger Chris Bell alleging Perry did not properly identify his campaign contributors was settled earlier this month with Perry’s campaign paying Bell $426,000. Bell alleged that Houston homebuilder Bob Perry tried to hide a $1 million contribution to Rick Perry (no relation) late in the 2006 campaign by sending it to the Republican Governors Association, which then sent $1 million to Perry.

Bell named the Perry campaign and the governors association in his lawsuit. Because the campaign did not properly identify the group on state finance reports, donors to the governors’ group were not properly disclosed to the public, Bell alleged.

 

Breaking News: Conservative Andrew Breitbart Admits True Allegiance to Al-Qaeda 😉 – We’ve just uncovered a video in which Andrew Breitbart admits he “hearts” terrorists while a conservative audience applauds.

The news media is ignoring this new video entirely, even though just last week they took at face value Breitbart’s selectively-edited video purporting to show USDA official Shirley Sherrod making racist comments. That claim, of course, was quickly exposed as fraudulent.

Is this video real? Hey, video can’t lie, right? Just ask Fox News and other news outlets who’ve faithfully covered Andrew Breitbart’s videos.

This video is just as truthful as any Breitbart has ever released, and deserves equal coverage. Click the link to watch it.

Regards,

Jim