So I got this link from the ActBlue folks, and it’s hard not to be impressed- I remember when they seemed just a tiny start up of yahoos (kidding, guys!) and now they are raising millions. With money from regular people too, the average donation size for this quarter is just under $100. I’ll have some money soon, and here’s my question to you: is anyone out there worth it? I’m not trying to be flip here, I’m curious what you all think about donating to campaigns (and I’m speaking only of campaigns, not organizations or charities). Is it feeding the Beast (the SCLM)? Does it cause candidates to take the Little People more seriously? Is there any fucking point to the national game anymore, or are we just fucked and thus should save our cash for ourselves? Tell me what you think.

How ironic that Vilsack is out today.  Read more 

Here’s a great takedown of that pariah thankfully no longer running the the DNC. I’m told this is the “polite” version; I’m sure if I were to research Terry in-depth I’d have some strong stuff to say. There is much to explain what the problem is in party in this piece, here’s a quote I liked particularly:

By his own account, his friends are always selfless, whether it’s Dick Gephardt driving four hours to pick out just the right puppy for the McAuliffe kids or a strip-mall builder doing a financial favor for the Democrats (“Terry, we’ve got to do this for the sake of the party”). By his own account, too, McAuliffe is always a hero: he saves the Democratic Party (several times); he even saves a small, struggling independent bank (it’s a wonderful life). But in real life there’s always a cost, and the political effects of McAuliffe’s rehabilitation of the Democrats among the wealthy may be nugatory.  Read more 

Good on you, Chris. One of the advantages of being ahead of the game is that you get to make decisions like this one, and Chris is showing he’s a ’money where his mouth is’ kind of guy. I encourage all of our readers with a little pocket change to toss in. No, I’m not getting any, but I agree with Chris and many others- sooner or later we’re going to have to start getting serious about organization, compensation, and support. What, did you think Soros was going to do it for you?

It’s like NPR, but without the Federal support. You like what you read on blogs? You like your new Democratic congress? Well, once in a while you have to be ready to pay for it. You know Republicans are so flush with your stolen tax dollars money that they can keep people like the Pantload and Drudge in slush money and cushy jobs, no matter how little money they make from blogging or writing. And as I’ve said before, for those of you who are activists, bloggers and Open Source types: the next step is to Unionize. Kudos, Chris. You’re really proving yourself to be a leader.

Let me say it again: one billion dollars.

That’s just the presidential race. Add this to what will be spent on all races across the country, and you’re talking serious money here.  Read more 

This is more proof that our government is run by a bunch of rude, annoyingly simple minded frat boys:

A few weeks after departing the House of Representatives, Tom DeLay served as charity auctioneer at a fundraiser for Safari Club International, a gun-lobby group defending man’s right to defend himself against unarmed animals.

“Who wants a beaver?” DeLay asked the crowd, hawking a sheared-beaver vest that a lobbyist later won for $1,400.  Read more 

They are really cheap whores, our leaders. I was reading this and wondering, “where’s the real money?” Then I hit this passage:

Public Citizen’s Congress Watch The Bankrollers 37

In recent years, Kies has used his remarkable skill and motivation to lobby Congress and the IRS to retain a tax credit that costs the Treasury an estimated $1 billion to $4 billion a year and appears to serve no public policy purpose other than enriching the businesses that exploit it.56 It’s called the synfuel tax credit, and it stems from a 1980 law created by Congress as an incentive to use coal and other fossil fuels to create synthetic natural gas and oil as alternatives to foreign sources of energy.57 But tax sleuths eventually figured out that the law’s loose definition of synthetic fuels could be exploited to claim massive tax credits for producing products that barely differed from conventional fuels.58

By 2006, opportunistic companies – including the hotel chain Marriott and retail electronics chain Rex Stores Corp. – had created 55 plants that were fashioning synfuel by such means as spraying regular coal with diesel fuel, pine-tar resin, limestone or various other substances. Industry critics call the practice “spray and pray,” the prayer being that the IRS doesn’t conduct an audit that results in an unfavorable ruling. Time, which has published a pair of exposés on synfuel, estimated that the tax credit cost the Treasury $9 billion from 2003 to 2005.  Read more