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POPSUS is slipping toward Plutocracy: Money rules
Latest example is healthcare reform. In the second quarter of 2009, the health industry spent $133 million on lobbyists, reckons the Center for Responsive Politics. That doesn’t count lobbying by associations. The US Chamber of Commerce alone spent $26 million on lobbying in the first half of this year, “a good chunk” on the health issue, says Dave Levinthal, spokesman for the center. Polls show the public wants healthcare reform and a public-insurance option. So the health-insurance industry is pretending to be in favor of reform while trying to kill it through campaign contributions, ads, and lobbying, says Wendell Potter, who until recently led corporate communications at CIGNA, a major health-insurance company. Moreover trade unions provide some balance of power to the might of business and wealth. In Sweden, 85 percent of the labor force is organized; in other major nations 35-40 percent. Compare with 7.4 percent of workers in the private sector in the US.
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POPSLobby Money: Hillary #1, McCain #2 More: Even as they pledge to rein in special interests, the leading Democratic and Republican candidates are relying on lobbyists to bring in campaign cash by raising money from other donors, a technique known as bundling. Heather Podesta, a Washington lobbyist, donated $4,600 to Clinton, FEC records show. She's raised more than $250,000 for Clinton by tapping her network of contacts and holding fundraisers. Like Podesta, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Steve Ricchetti has also signed on to be a so-called Hillraiser. Ricchetti's firm was paid $1.7 million during the first six months of 2007 to lobby on behalf of Amgen Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio, among others. McCain, 71, an Arizona Republican who led the successful 2002 effort to ban corporate and union donations to the political parties, counts as campaign co-chairman former Representative Tom Loeffler of Texas. Loeffler was paid $2.5 million by such clients as AT&T Inc. and Southwest Airlines.
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POPSMoral Majoritists Love Hookers For over three decades, Privette has been one of the best known and most outrageous spokesmen for “family values” and Christian extreme right politics in North Carolina. In the 1970s, he was serving as minister at the North Kannapolis Baptist Church when he joined the tide of evangelicals entering politics that included the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition. He served in the N.C. Legislature from 1984 to 1992, and has been a member of the board of commissioners in Cabarrus County since 1998
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