I agree with HuffPost and PP: I don't like seeing my Congresswoman funding her campaign with money from dirty, greedy, Gulf-killing BP. Her being in the company of Alaska's Republican oil lapdog Lisa Murkowski on this "issue" is embarrassing. And I tell you what: if the people of South Dakota vote Stephanie Herseth Sandlin out of office purely on the basis of her taking money from Big Oil, I will consider that a giant leap forward in the political thinking of our state. I would expect my District 8 neighbors to take the same stance toward State Senator Russell Olson and kick him out of office for sucking up to TransCanada by killing the pipeline tax and preserving their tax exemptions.
Also worth noting: over the last 20 years, 71% of BP-related campaign contributions have gone to Republicans. I wonder why this issue didn't make PP's radar until Herseth Sandlin's name popped up?
I'd be more than happy to be able to go through every candidate's donor list and exercise a line-item veto on contributions from sources I or my fellow South Dakotans might consider scuzzy... speaking of which, where's Republican candidate Kristi Noem getting her money? A quick run-through of the Federal Election Commission numbers show...
- $500 from Harms Oil of Brookings
- $500 from Howes Oil of Sioux Falls
- $1250 from subsidy-sucking Poet Ethanol
- $500 from economy-crashing Citibank (SHS has $12,750 from Citigroup)
- $450 from usurer extraordinaire Premier Bank
- $1000 from an out-of-state Metabank banker
- $4650 from Sanford Health's CEO and docs (surely to promote evil stem-cell research)
- $2400 from wealthy venture capitalist Steve Kirby
- $1000 from Apple (Dietr! What are you thinking?!)
- $2400 from Sioux City's Agri Beef Co.
- $6900 from lawyers
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Bonus Raspberries: As for the guy who isn't running because no one would chase him, don't forget that Senator John Thune has received $3500 from BP. Thune's biggest donors include the bankers and real estate agents, among whom one might find a fair amount of responsibility for our current economic plight. Lawyers also like Thune, as do Poet, Xcel Energy, DM&E, Wal-Mart, and Moyle Petroleum.
Larry Pressler, Tom Daschle, Tim Johnson, Larry Diedrich, and Rick Weiland also appear on the two-decade roll of BP donations to South Dakota candidates. BP employees have also given $250 to our neighbors Michele Bachmann and Al Franken. Go figure.
Mr. Powers' quest to build his political centrifuge while banking on his herd of anonymoids appears to have reached a climax. One senses a pending retrograde.
ReplyDeleteI see Bill chose not to cut and paste your entire re-rebuttal into the War College archives; ip should not be expected to be quite so empathetic.
Politicians depend on the rich for their campaign funds. The common man isn't going to write a thousand dollar check for any fancy dinner. He'll take that money and add to it from somewhere else to pay the increase in his health insurance premium.
ReplyDeleteI support candidates by voting for them.
The real story is the millions in anonymous (presumably corporate or uber-rich) donations coming in thanks to Citizens United, which is fueling some very lopsided spending around the Nation. My guess there will be a massive peak in the coming few weeks from these faceless astroturf organizations like "60 plus" and "Citizens for better government".
ReplyDelete