Stacey Abrams and Lauren Groh-Wargo: How to Turn Your Red State Blue. Koch donors worried Trump may lose, seek to preserve GOP Senate majority. Charles Koch, head of Koch Industries.
Bo Rader | Wichita Eagle | Tribune News Service | Getty Images Libertarian and conservative donors who attended the annual Koch network summit over the weekend discussed the need to defend the GOP majority in the Senate as a backstop in case a Democrat defeats President Donald Trump in November. People at the meeting in Palm Springs, California, didn’t just fret about progressive candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren winning — they were also concerned about the moderate former Vice President Joe Biden, according to attendees who declined to be named since the conversations were deemed private.
(2) Banned TED Talk: Nick Hanauer "Rich people don't create jobs" Capitalism in crisis: U.S. billionaires worry about the survival of the system that made them rich. 'Pay-for-access to Trump club': Mar-a-Lago faces renewed ethics concerns. Amazon will pay $0 in taxes on $11,000,000,000 in profit for 2018. While some people have received some surprise tax bills when filing their returns, corporations continue to avoid paying tax — thanks to a cocktail of tax credits, loopholes, and exemptions.
According to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), Amazon (AMZN) will pay nothing in federal income taxes for the second year in a row. Thanks to the new Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), Amazon’s federal tax responsibility is 21% (down from 35% in previous years). Meet Dr Miriam Adelson: the record-breaking Republican donor driving Trump's Israel policy. When Dr Miriam Adelson was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s top civilian honor, by Donald Trump in November, the public response ranged from disdainful to “who?”
Her husband, the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, is widely known for his record donations to Republican causes, as well as passionate support for conservative Israeli interests. Slate’s Use of Your Data. Is America an oligarchy dominated by billionaires? Midterm big spenders: the top 20 political donors this election. The 2018 midterms will probably be the most expensive in US history.
More than $5.2bn is predicted to be funneled into closely watched races – and an extraordinary amount is coming from just a few individuals. Political spending has leapt by 35% since the 2014 midterms, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). The center has found that individual political donations account for the majority of campaign cash across the board: they comprise about 71% of donations to Senate races for both Republicans and Democrats and about 61% of donations to House candidates. Arron Banks: Brexit Billionaire Under Criminal Investigation. The billionaire who donated over $10 million to a campaign urging the U.K. to vote to leave the European Union is now the subject of a criminal investigation into the “true source” of the funds, raising questions of whether foreign money could have swayed the Brexit referendum.
On Thursday, Arron Banks was referred to Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA), the body that investigates serious and organized crime, by Britain’s Electoral Commission. Banks is the biggest donor in British political history and a co-founder of Leave.EU, a campaign group for Brexit that was fronted by Nigel Farage during the 2016 referendum campaign. What billionaires want: the secret influence of America’s 100 richest. If we judge US billionaires by their most prominent fellows, they may seem to be a rather attractive bunch: ideologically diverse (perhaps even tending center-left), frank in speaking out about their political views, and generous in philanthropic giving for the common good – not to mention useful for the goods and jobs they have helped produce.
The very top titans – Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates – have all taken left-of-center stands on various issues, and Buffett and Gates are paragons of philanthropy. The former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is known for his advocacy of gun control, gay rights, and environmental protection. George Soros (protector of human rights around the world) and Tom Steyer (focused on young people and environmental issues) have been major donors to the Democrats.
In recent years, investigative journalists have also brought to public attention Charles and David Koch, mega-donors to ultra-conservative causes. Driven by Trump Policy Changes, Fracking Booms on Public Lands. To proponents, the Trump administration is putting government-owned land to good use, with big returns for taxpayers. Nationally, oil production on federal lands is rising at an extraordinary pace, jumping 25 percent in the first seven months of this year compared with 2016, the last year of the Obama administration. That boom has driven up government revenue from lease sales and royalties collected from oil and gas production on federal lands, which is shared with the states. Wyoming received $669 million from federal oil, gas and coal sales last year, money it uses to help pay for its schools, roads and other needs. Oil giant Koch Industries try to stop the attempt to expand the electric vehicle federal tax credit - Electrek.
With a new Republican-backed effort to expand the electric vehicle federal tax credit, the Koch brothers are urging senators to vote against it – putting their political donation dollars at work.
The situation around the federal tax credit for EVs is weirder than ever right now. As Tesla hit the threshold to initiate the phase-out, there are two different legislative efforts to change it. Earlier this month, a Republican senator introduced a new bill to end the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric cars and tax them even more instead. But a few days later, another Republican senator proposed a new bill to remove the federal tax credit cap for EVs and expand it to 2022. We don’t want billionaires’ charity. We want them to pay their taxes. “Charity is a cold, grey loveless thing.
If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.” Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh, and the Rule of Pampered Princelings. The Hidden Money Funding the Midterms. This story was co-published with Politico.
Allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell used a blind spot in campaign finance laws to undercut a candidate from their own party this year — and their fingerprints remained hidden until the primary was already over. Super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited sums of money in elections, are supposed to regularly disclose their funders.
But in the case of Mountain Families PAC, Republicans managed to spend $1.3 million against Don Blankenship, a mustachioed former coal baron who was a wild-card candidate for a must-win West Virginia Senate seat, in May without revealing who was supplying the cash. Was There a Connection Between a Russian Bank and the Trump Campaign? In June, 2016, after news broke that the Democratic National Committee had been hacked, a group of prominent computer scientists went on alert.
4 Ways Fred Trump Made Donald Trump and His Siblings Rich. In Donald J. How much dark money is fueling the Kavanaugh confirmation fight? Sen. Oligarchs hide billions in shell companies. Here's how we stop them. Worried about the US being led by a tyrant who may destroy the earth? Blame Alex Jones. Immigrants Don’t Steal Jobs or Wages. Billionaires Do. - BillMoyers.com.
Game of life rigged. Morning Reads: New Details on the Kochs' Dark Money ATM, Contemplating a US-Russia Alliance, Who Relies on Wall St. Most? Oil, gas, and coal industries get a shocking amount of funding from the US government, a new report shows. Meet Darth Pai, the Sith Lord who’s taken over the Federal Communication Commission. Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of ... - Nicole Hemmer - Google Books. Revealed: how US billionaire helped to back Brexit. This article is the subject of a legal complaint on behalf of Cambridge Analytica LLC and SCL Elections Limited. "They tried to supplant mainstream media": Jane Mayer on the billionaire behind Bannon and Trump. Robert Mercer Is A Force To Be Reckoned With In Finance And Conservative Politics. Robert Mercer speaks on the phone during the 12th International Conference on Climate Change on March 23, 2017. The Washington Post/Getty Images hide caption.
Here’s How Much Comcast Paid Members Of Congress To Sell Your Browser History. Yesterday, we reported that the Republican-led Congress betrayed the American people by selling our internet privacy. But campaign finance data suggests that our elected officials in Congress sell out to special interests for remarkably little money. Less than three months into the disastrous Trump administration, Republicans in Congress have undone numerous regulations put in place by former President Barack Obama. Who Controls Think Tanks? Shift In Funding Highlights Changes In The Industry. Donald Trump’s FCC is a Clear and Present Danger to Democracy. Sinclair's vast media merger threatens democratic ideals. Congress must fight it. How America Lost Faith in Expertise.
How rich are US Congress members? The typical lawmaker is 12 times wealthier than the US median.