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Bill USA

(6,436 posts)
Sat Nov 29, 2014, 06:00 PM Nov 2014

Robert Reich- Foreign corporations contribute unlimited amounts to campaigns thanx to CitizensUnited

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/858896700789594
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The New York Times reports this morning that more than a dozen prominent Washington think tanks have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign sources in recent years while pushing U.S. government to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities. But the Times misses the really big story about foreign influence in Washington: Global corporations owned and run largely or partially by non-Americans that since the Supreme Court’s shameful “Citizen’s United” decision have been pouring unlimited sums into election campaigns. This includes major foreign-based banks, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies, as well as American-based global companies whose management and shareholders are substantially non-American. It’s a back door for non-Americans to have their way in our nation’s capital. In 2012 they began donating big-time to SuperPACs and secret 501-c-4 “social welfare” entities that don’t have to disclose sources of their money, and the sums are increasing. It's exactly what Justice John Paul Stevens anticipated in his prescient dissent in the case.

This is why all political expenditures must be fully disclosed, why public corporations must report all campaign contributions, and "Citizens United" must be reversed if not by the Court then by constitutional amendment. It's also why corporations using tax inversions to desert the United States must no longer have a voice in American politics.[/font]


here's the NYT article about foreign corporations buying influence in prominent think tanks

Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks
WASHINGTON — The agreement signed last year by the Norway Ministry of Foreign Affairs was explicit: For $5 million, Norway’s partner in Washington would push top officials at the White House, at the Treasury Department and in Congress to double spending on a United States foreign aid program.

But the recipient of the cash was not one of the many Beltway lobbying firms that work every year on behalf of foreign governments.

It was the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit research organization, or think tank, one of many such groups in Washington that lawmakers, government officials and the news media have long relied on to provide independent policy analysis and scholarship.

More than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities, an investigation by The New York Times has found.
(more)

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Robert Reich- Foreign corporations contribute unlimited amounts to campaigns thanx to CitizensUnited (Original Post) Bill USA Nov 2014 OP
Where are the xenophobes when we need them?? nt 99th_Monkey Nov 2014 #1
saying being opposed to people of other countries influencing our public policy is xenophobic is Bill USA Nov 2014 #5
Oopsie. I forgot to add my sarcasm smilie 99th_Monkey Nov 2014 #7
I rest my case. Bill USA Dec 2014 #8
You get what you pay for Demeter Nov 2014 #2
a complete non sequitur regards the OP. Bill USA Nov 2014 #6
Reich actually includes the category of pharmaceutical companies? Third rail, nonetheless. proverbialwisdom Nov 2014 #3
Of course they do. Scuba Nov 2014 #4

Bill USA

(6,436 posts)
5. saying being opposed to people of other countries influencing our public policy is xenophobic is
Sun Nov 30, 2014, 05:21 PM
Nov 2014

patent sophistry.

Don't be an ass. I know you GOPers LOVE money but I think if ANYTHING is un-American it is selling yourselves to people or corporations from other countries for influence in the setting of public policies or drafting legislation.



 

99th_Monkey

(19,326 posts)
7. Oopsie. I forgot to add my sarcasm smilie
Sun Nov 30, 2014, 05:46 PM
Nov 2014


Hopefully this will make up for it.

Sorry my oversight got your panties in a bunch about it.

proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)
3. Reich actually includes the category of pharmaceutical companies? Third rail, nonetheless.
Sat Nov 29, 2014, 07:03 PM
Nov 2014

"This includes major foreign-based banks, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies, as well as American-based global companies whose management and shareholders are substantially non-American."

http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/11/best-of-age-of-autism-brian-deer.html

November 28, 2014
Best of Age of Autism: Brian Deer Basks at a Pharmaceutical Conference by Lake Annecy


(Note: We published this post three years ago this week. It serves as a reminder of the background of the "team" devoted to crushing the vaccine autism connection. In a rare mainstream re-appearance a few weeks ago Deer claimed to have inside knowledge of anonymised court case.)

By John Stone

This week journalist Brian Deer has been enjoying celebrity status at the luxury villa of Les Pensières of the Fondation Mérieux on the banks of Lake Annecy in the French alps: The Merieux foundation advertises its financial links to all three MMR manufacturers that were defendants in the UK litigation (GSK, Merck and Sanofi), as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

<>

At a conference entitled ‘See Re-invigorating Immunisation Policy Implementation and Success: From Parent to Partner and from Broadcast to Engagement' Deer was keynote speaker at the introductory evening on Monday with an address ‘Money, media and retrospection. What drove the MMR crisis, and what lessons should we learn for the future?’ but also was listed to chair two sessions on Tuesday afternoon and evening.

This puts in ironic perspective the scathing remarks that Deer made about Dr David Lewis attending a vaccine safety conference in Jamaica in January in both in BMJ and in Nature News, but is also perhaps a gratifying apotheosis for everyone who has watched his remarkable career.

John Stone is Contributing Editor to Age of Autism.

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