We can expect many, many more attack ads against Lansing Mayor and Democratic Gubernatorial nominee Virg Bernero while Rick “Chief Executive Outsourcer” Snyder gets to keeps his millions and maintains the lie that he does not accept PAC money and is running a clean, positive campaign.
Rich Robinson, the director of the non-profit and non-partisan Michigan Campaign Finance Network, released a report on Tuesday that said the so far in 2010 the Michigan Chamber of Commerce has contributed more than $5.3 million to the Republican Governors Association (RGA).
The RGA also received $1 million form News Corp., which owns Faux “News," and it has been very busy smearing Bernero. It has spent so much money, that it refuses to even say how much. In fact, it has been "bullying" Michigan television stations into not revealing to the public the size of their substantial ad buys. If a station dares to be honest and reveals that number, they don’t get to share in the millions in smear money and ad revenue.
The spending has been so large that the Outsourcer did not buy a single ad from the time of the primary election in August until just a few days ago.
Earlier this month Robinson tried to get Snyder to convince the RGA to reveal that information, but he claimed “he cannot stop the Republican Governors Association's efforts to push Michigan television stations not to release information about the size of the organization's ad buy.”
The Internal Revenue Service classifies the RGA as a 527 organization whose primary purpose is to support or oppose candidates for public office. Robinson only found out abut that huge donation because contributions to the RGA must be disclosed through the IRS. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce is a 501 (c)(6) nonprofit corporation that does no public disclosure of its donors. Its members’ dues payments are tax deductible as business expenses. In other words, the chamber can accept money from anywhere and from anybody, including foreign governments.
Robinson said the advertising agency for the RGA is Target Enterprises of Encino, Calf. The RGA’s third quarter report to the IRS shows $15.5 million worth of media buys through Target Enterprises. Target has asked several Michigan broadcasters to withhold records of its Michigan gubernatorial ad buys from their public files, and some broadcasters have complied with Target’s request for non-disclosure. Target was the advertising agency for the Rick Snyder’s campaign committee through the primary election. So much for Michigan first with the Outsourcer.
“The Michigan Chamber of Commerce has been aggregating contributions from anonymous donors for candidate-focused electioneering advertisements since the 2000 state election,” Robinson said. “They’ve spent millions of dollars for television advertisements that sought to define political candidates’ suitability for office, and they reported nothing about the sources whose contributions paid for those ads.”
Most people have this old fashioned image of the chamber of commerce as promoting business and the community. That is a false image.
“What is new in 2010 is that the Chamber’s primary financial purpose now appears to be aggregating contributions to give to the Republican Governors Association, an organization whose purpose is to promote the election of candidates for public office,” Robinson said. “The Chamber’s function as a business association is secondary, financially, to its role as a political fund aggregator.”
3 comments:
This is the price that's paid for the attacks on anyone that stands up for their beliefs. The Socialist Democrats are forever demonizing anyone that dares to have a Conservative belief.
If you believe in God, the Socialists call you Christian extremists. If a person earns alot of money from their hard work over their lifetime and they believe in Conservative causes, the Socialist Democrats say they earned it by putting someone else down.
If a person believes in lower taxes, lower spending and less government, the Socialist Democrats call them right wing extremists.
Bipartisanship to a socialist Democrat is "vote my way on this bill".
If conservatives disagree with the Socialist Democrats, they are called the party of no.
In other words, there is no dialogue, just name calling from the Socialist Democrats.
I don't blame these businesses at all for not wanting to put their name behind their dollars. They want to contribute to candidates that will better their business, but if their name is out there the Socialist Democrats will start boycotts against them.
With this administration, it's become even more important to protect their names. This administration is racist. They have no problem suing state governments and they have demonstrated that they aren't interested in what the majority of Americans want or think. They pass the stimulus that the majority didn't want. They pass Obamacare that the majority of Americans don't want. Then they say they did a poor job of selling it. What they don't realize is that they are not in touch with the country as a whole.
From their arrogance sprang the tea party's and this election which is showing signs of setting records for turnover from one party to the other.
When you have a Republic and you ignore the people, you don't last long. Socialist Democrats are sinking like rocks in water, and this country is going to be so much better for it.
By the way, the word is "reveal" not "revel".
Wow. We actually agree on something. It’s nice to see you are standing up against the false attacks on Bernero. The only problem, anonymous coward, is that there is no such thing as a Socialist Democrat in the United States, and that is just a false, Republican smear.
I call a Christian extremist when I see one. I don’t know what you would call the Westboro Baptist Church or people who murder doctors in the name of religion, but I call then Christian extremists.
Do you have any point? Can you tell me what this has to do with the chamber funneling millions of dollars they got from no one knows who or where, and then the Outsourcer lying about it? All you have is an attack on me.
Republicans are not interested in “lower taxes, lower spending and less government,” and we saw that with Bush. As for bipartisanship, the President reached out to them, and all they said was no; on everything. Even though the party of no tried to stall the recovery and everything else simply to win power, many of their ideas were still in the health care insurance bill.
Who said they were businesses? I guess transparency is just another buzz word with Republicans, and you and the Outsourcer proved that.
You are so full of shit, anonymous coward. “This administration is racist?” Apparently, you have never seen a “tea party.” What exactly are you basing that lie on? They are interested in what the majority of Americans want and think, and that is why the Congress passed the health care insurance reform bill. The federal government’s job is to protect the Constitution against states like Arizona violating it. Perhaps you have heard of the Civil War fought in 1861-1865? The majority of Americans wanted the President to fix Bush’s recession, and the stimulus did that.
I get it, you have a blind hatred of Democrats. You just have no facts to back up that irrational hatred.
Thanks for the correction, anonymous coward. Unlike you, I always correct my mistakes.
Again, anonymous wimp, I am still waiting for you to back up your outrageous lie that we were “nearly shoulder to shoulder once.”
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