Who Owns Congress? A Campaign Cash Seating Chart

[Scuba]

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2010/09/congress-corporate-sponsors



Eye-opening graphics show that lawyers, drugs and money own the Senate, while labor still has a toehold in the House. Interesting analysis from Mother Jones.

[Philosopher King]

1. Don't forget about this guy...

Obama's 'beautiful friendship' with Wall Street

The president has raised more money from Wall Street through the Democratic National Committee and his campaign account than any politician in American history. This year alone, he has raked in more cash from bank employees, hedge fund managers and financial services companies than all Republican candidates combined.

Even poor Mitt Romney was outraised by the Obama money machine at his former employer, Bain Capital, by a margin of 2 to 1.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/67770.html

[JoePhilly]

6. Joe Scarborough?? Right wing hack ... the article, and your quote from it are dishonest.

Notice that your quote, includes money given to the DNC, pretending that the DNC only supports Obama. That's lie #1. But Dead intern Joe needs to inflate the number if he's going to try and pass off this nonsense.

Lie #2 comes when Joe Scab talks about the GOP candidates, he does not include money to the RNC, which would be required in an honest comparison. Apparently he doesn't know the RNC exists.

And then #3, you'll notice that Scabby doesn't aggregate all of the money given to all of the GOP candidates and the RNC ... because again, that would be an honest comparison.

And then #4 ... surely this embarrassment to people named "Joe" is aware of the Citizen's United ruling. And surely he knows that the real money is going into super pacs. Oddly, there is no mention of that.

Not that any of this is a surprise given the author of it.

I guess my advice would be that if you plan to post right wing propaganda, you might want try and pick something more substantial.

[Philosopher King]

8. Facts are stubborn things...

BARACK OBAMA (D)
Top Contributors

University of California----------$1,648,685
Goldman Sachs------------------$1,013,091
Harvard University----------$878,164
Microsoft Corp------------------$852,167
Google Inc------------------$814,540
JPMorgan Chase & Co----------$808,799
Citigroup Inc------------------$736,771
Time Warner------------------$624,618
Sidley Austin LLP----------$600,298
Stanford University----------$595,716
National Amusements Inc----------$563,798
WilmerHale LLP------------------$550,668
Columbia University----------$547,852
Skadden, Arps et al----------$543,539
UBS AG--------------------------$532,674
IBM Corp------------------$532,372
General Electric----------$529,855
US Government------------------$513,308
Morgan Stanley------------------$512,232
Latham & Watkins----------$503,295

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638

[banned from Kos]

9. So EMPLOYEES at Goldman who are predominately New York City and liberal

donated to Obama? New York City liberals do that!

You have nothing.

[Philosopher King]

13. Liberals on Wall Street...?

I'm shocked...

[No Elephants]

20. WHAT? Everyone knows Wall Street is overrun with liberals.

Oh wait, I thought we were talking about Occupy Wall Street.


never mind.

[fascisthunter]

16. "liberals" on Wall Street! HA!

...you are the one with nothing, just don't want to admit the truth.

[No Elephants]

21. He's the only one backing up his posts with links, and he's the one who's got nothing?

Okie dokie.

[No Elephants]

17. Because using the employee trick to get around donation limits never happens?

Come on, now.

ETA: Wait: Did you really claim employees of Goldman Sachs are predominantly liberal?

[banned from Kos]

35. Of course they are. High-income New York City high percentage Jewish?

Upper East Side votes liberal in overwhelming numbers.

[JoePhilly]

10. And the GOP numbers that would back up Joe Scabs claim? You got those?

I'm betting no.

[Philosopher King]

12. It's all right here....

MITT ROMNEY (R)
Top Contributors

Goldman Sachs---------$367,200
Credit Suisse Group----$203,750
Morgan Stanley---------$194,300
HIG Capital------------$186,500
Barclays---------------$157,750
Kirkland & Ellis---------$132,100
Bank of America--------$125,500
PriceWaterhouseCoopers--$118,250

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/index.php

[No Elephants]

19. Chirp, chirp, chirp went the crickets.

[ieoeja]

29. Using *your* figures Obama owes 25% to Finance while Romney owes 91% to them.

3,670,417 / 26% from Universities = 1648685 + 878164 + 595716 + 547852
3,603,567 / 25% from Financial Sector = 532674 + 1013091 + 808799 + 736771 + 512232
2,199,079 / 15% from Computer & Electronics = 852167 + 814540 + 532372
2,197,800 / 15% from Lawyers = 600298 + 550668 + 543539 + 503295
1,718,271 / 12% from Media = 624618 + 563798 + 529855 (I am including GE here; they could go many places)
513,308 / 3% from Public Employees

1,353,250 / 91% from Financial Sector = 367200 + 203750 + 194300 + 186500 + 157750 + 125500 + 118250
132,100 / 8% from Lawyers

[JoePhilly]

33. And the RNC? And all the others GOP candidates? Your pal Scabby ...

Is claiming that Obama, via the DNC, is getting most of the wall street money.

And so again ... if you want to prove that point ... at a minimum ... Gather the numbers for all the GOP candidate and also that given to the RNC ... and then compare THAT to Obama's totals.

The other funny thing here is that Scab is also one of the right wing folks who claims that the business community hates Obama.

But that is standard GOP messaging ... scatter-plot. Make any number of claims, and just ignore if they are total opposites.

[Kingofalldems]

34. That's a happening list!

[LanternWaste]

15. Quite stubborn and rather open to interpretation...

Quite stubborn and rather open to interpretation...

I imagine any fact will validate our own biases and dogma if we try hard enough.

[No Elephants]

23. Oh, I don't know. I think comparing the numbers in Reply 8 with those in Reply 12 is telling.

And that is an apples to apples comparison.

PK did okay.

[ieoeja]

30. And that tell us that Finance makes up only 25% of Obama's contributions to 91% of Romney's. nt

[newfie11]

2. We are screwed!

What good does it do to vote anymore. Even if by some miracle the votes are counted correctly, the politicians are bought off before the election!

[HereSince1628]

3. That's about two years old. It's probably somewhat worse now...

[stillwaiting]

7. "Big Labor" is certainly not on equal par with Big Finance in the House that's for sure. nt

[No Elephants]

24. Maybe that's why EFCA died and the regs for Dodd Frank are unwritten for the most part?

Nah. Probably pure coincidence.

[hughee99]

25. They're on par with how much they've given, not how much they've gotten

in return.

[stillwaiting]

32. I don't think they're even on par with how much they've given today.

The data shown is from two years ago. Prior to the 2010 Republican/Tea Party trouncing of the previously Democratic House Majority.

Not that Big Labor doesn't have its own issues within its ranks. The corporate boys and girls have infiltrated the ranks of many labor organizations as well.

We have a lot of work to do to take back some power from our corporate overlords.

[malthaussen]

4. Robert Heinlein suggested that over half a century ago...

... I particularly remember his character "The Senator from Standard Oil."

-- Mal

[No Elephants]

26. Over half century ago, lobby money was going only to Republicans and there were only

a relative handful of lobbyists.

That changed in 1980, after the DNC wrote Congressional Democrats asking if they couldn't get some of the donations that the Republicans were getting. So, a competition for lobbyist dollars began.

Then Ronnie, lover of big business, moved into the WH.

Then, in 1985, the DLC formalized itself.

Between 1980 and now, the number of lobbyists--in D.C. alone--has increased unbelievably.

And there you have it.

[CanonRay]

5. This makes me want to vomit

Three. THREE that aren't wholly owned subsidiaries. We're sooooo fucked. I knew this shit, but seeing it in graphic form is amazing.

:puke:

[PETRUS]

11. K&R

[woo me with science]

14. Kick. nt

[Zorra]

18. Great ammunition. Thanks. nt

[ieoeja]

22. Labor and Financial were evenly split. Yet, of 7 leadership positions, Labor has 1 and Finance 4.

Labor should press our representatives to seek equal footing (at least) in the leadership positions after the next election.

Which may explain my ongoing complaint about the "rank the issue" surveys I get from the DNC. I have never seen labor issues listed as an option. I used to manually write it in as my #1 concern along with complaints that they don't even mention it. Now I throw the things away unread.

[Scuba]

28. Excellent observation. n/t

[nc4bo]

27. K&R. nt

[and-justice-for-all]

31. That is the primary reason America is so fucked up...

it needs to end and sooner rather than later, and I do not care how.