August 10, 2012

This Week in Dark Money

A quick look at the week that was in the world of political dark money…

the money shot

 


quote of the week

“The point of having a super PAC is like having a Rolex. It’s a pain to tell time with a Rolex, but it’s great for looking rich and picking up girls. Similarly, our super PAC isn’t here for raising money, but it gives us a very unique bragging right.”
—Anthony Kao, president of the Joe Six PAC super-PAC, talking with the American Prospect. He got the idea to create his super-PAC, which has raised $0 to date, after finding an article on Reddit about a Florida man who launched 60 of them.

 

attack ad of the week

A new ad (which has yet to air on TV) from the pro-Obama super-PAC Priorities USA Action features a familiar face. Joe Soptic, who was laid off from a Missouri steel plant after it was sold to Bain Capital, appeared in an Obama campaign ad in May that blamed Mitt Romney for closing the plant. Soptic appeared in the Priorities ad wearing the same shirt (but no glasses) and insinuates that Romney is partly responsible for his wife’s death from cancer. Campaigns and super-PACs are prohibited from coordinating with each other, and both camps said they hadn’t. But after news that Soptic told his story to reporters during an Obama campaign conference call in May, an Obama spokeswoman walked back a claim that the campaign was unaware of Soptic’s story.

Here are the two ads:


 

stat of the week

193 percent: How much spending by groups that don’t have to disclose their donors has increased in 2012 compared with the same time in 2010, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. 

 

chart of the week

A new study by the liberal think tank Demos and the US Public Interest Research Group sheds some light on the wealthy donors behind this year’s “tsunami of slime.” Among the findings: 58 percent of all outside spending has come from just five groups, and 1,082 donors account for 94 percent of all super-PAC donations from individuals. We chartified some of the data:

 

more mojo dark-money coverage

• How Secret Foreign Money Could Infiltrate US Elections: Think the United States is immune from foreigners’ campaign cash? Think again.
• 250 Years of Campaigns, Cash, and Corruption: From George Washington to Citizens United, a timeline of America’s history of political money games.
• Dark Money’s Top Target: Claire McCaskill: Will Dems save the centrist Missouri senator from Karl Rove’s attack ad onslaught? Don’t hold your breath.

 

more must-reads

• New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ramps up his investigation into shadowy 501(c) groups. New York Times
• Republican senators urge the IRS to ignore political pressure for “sudden changes to well-established law” when it considers revising dark-money rules. Senate Finance Committee
• Senate candidate Heidi Heitcamp (D-N.D.) gets Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS to pull a false attack ad against her. Talking Points Memo
• Kansas Senate President Steve Morris, a Republican who lost his primary Tuesday, blames Koch brother-affiliated outside groups from moderates’ defeat in state races. Huffington Post

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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