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Elections News Articles

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'Dark Money' in the States: Arizona GOP Blocks Cities From Implementing Transparent Elections
2018-04-02, Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/arizona-legislature-ensures-dark-money-stays-secret-w...

The Arizona legislature passed a bill that protects anonymous political spending Thursday, less than a month after Tempe, Arizona, residents voted overwhelmingly to increase transparency on that type of spending in local elections. The battle between city and state opens a new front in the national debate over so-called dark money in politics; it's also the first time a state has moved to ban local governments from shining light on secret spending. This type of spending is most consequential at the local level, experts say, because since local elections are relatively cheap and receive little media coverage, ads or mailers backed by just a few thousand dollars of dark money can easily dominate a campaign. More than 90 percent of Tempe voters cast ballots for an amendment to the citys charter requiring all groups spending more than $1,000 on local races to disclose their donors in March. In response, the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature passed a bill last week that bans local governments from requiring non-profit groups, the most common dark money vehicles, to disclose the source of their funding. Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Courts 2010 Citizens United decision, these groups can spend an unlimited amount of money on elections, so long as they dont coordinate with candidates and their parties. Anonymous spending has surged. As a result, cities and states have passed their own political disclosure laws. Denver and Philadelphia, for example, have passed laws requiring disclosure of dark money.

Note: South Dakota citizens also voted for tougher ethics laws, only to have this reversed by the state's Republicans. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Our Hackable Political Future
2018-02-04, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/opinion/hacking-politics-future.html

Imagine it is the spring of 2019. A bottom-feeding website, perhaps tied to Russia, surfaces video of a sex scene starring an 18-year-old Kirsten Gillibrand. It is soon debunked as a fake, the product of a user-friendly video application that employs generative adversarial network technology to convincingly swap out one face for another. Then it is fall. The junior senator from New York State announces her campaign for the presidency. At a diner in New Hampshire, one low information voter asks another: Kirsten Whats-her-name? Shes running for president? Didnt she have something to do with pornography? Welcome to the shape of things to come. The technology [is] closer than you might think. And even when fake video isnt perfect, it can convince people who want to be convinced, especially when it reinforces ... stereotypes. It might be impossible to stop the advance of this kind of technology. But the relevant algorithms here arent only the ones that run on computer hardware. They are also the ones that undergird our too easily hacked media system, where garbage acquires the perfumed scent of legitimacy with all too much ease. It already feels as though we are living in an alternative science-fiction universe where no one agrees on what it true. Just think how much worse it will be when fake news becomes fake video. Democracy assumes that its citizens share the same reality. Were about to find out whether democracy can be preserved when this assumption no longer holds.

Note: Read more about producing fake video with computer programs. While governments have long been developing technologies to produce very convincing illusions, and it has become trivial to edit video footage of a person talking to change their words and facial expressions, this emerging technology makes it possible to manipulate mass media in previously impossible ways.


Web of secret money hides one mega-donor funding conservative court
2017-11-21, Sacramento Bee (Leading newspaper of California's capital city)
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/article185832818.html

A small nonprofit called the Judicial Crisis Network poured millions into a campaign to stop the Senate from confirming Barack Obamas Supreme Court pick last year, and then spent millions more supporting President Donald Trumps choice for the same seat. JCNs money came almost entirely from yet another secretive nonprofit, the Wellspring Committee, which flooded JCN with nearly $23.5 million in 2016. Most of Wellsprings funds, in turn, came from a single mysterious donor who gave the organization almost $28.5 million. Like JCN, Wellspring - at one time tied to ... conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch - is a nonprofit that is supposed to be dedicated to social welfare functions and doesnt have to disclose the names of its benefactors. Since the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision loosened certain constraints on political spending, these and other ... groups have become increasingly politically active while providing anonymity to their donors. "Wellspring Committee acted as a dark money conduit to provide an extra layer of secrecy to whomever was bankrolling the Judicial Crisis Network ads," [said] Brendan Fischer of the ... Campaign Legal Center. "This has the effect of layering secrecy on top of secrecy, and almost entirely insulating donors from any form of public accountability." The American Future Fund, another former Koch dark money nonprofit, pulled in $2 million from Wellspring last year. It spent more than $12.7 million in 2016 federal elections without disclosing its donors.

Note: Read more about the influence of billionaire oligarchs on US politics. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Good News For Russia: 15 States Use Easily Hackable Voting Machines
2017-07-17, Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/electronic-voting-machines-hack-russia_us...

In 2006, Princeton computer science professor Edward Felten received an anonymous message offering him a Diebold AccuVote TS, one of the most widely used touch-screen voting machines at the time. Feltens team then spent the summer working ... to reverse-engineer the machine. In September 2006, they published a research paper and an accompanying video detailing how they could spread malicious code to the AccuVote TS to change the record of the votes to produce whatever outcome the code writers desired. And the code could spread from one machine to another like a virus. That was more than a decade ago, but Georgia still uses the AccuVote TS. The state is one of five ― the others are Delaware, Louisiana, New Jersey and South Carolina ― that rely entirely on [direct-recording electronic machines, or] DREs for voting. Ten other states use a combination of paper ballots and DRE machines that leave no paper trail. Many use a newer version of the AccuVote known as the TSX ― even though computer scientists have demonstrated that machine, too, is vulnerable to hacking. Others use the Sequoia AVC Advantage, which Princeton professor Andrew Appel demonstrated could be similarly manipulated in a 2007 legal filing. On Nov. 7, the day before last years elections, former CIA Director James Woolsey flagged DRE voting machines as a key vulnerability. If I were a bad guy from another country who wanted to disrupt the American system ... Id concentrate on messing up the touch-screen systems, he told Fox News.

Note: Many who follow elections closely have known and spread the word for years about serious vulnerabilities in US electronic voting. Read an enlightening analysis of elections hacking in the US which raises many serious questions. And don't miss the critically important information provided in our Elections Information Center.


How Trumps nationwide voter data request could lead to voter suppression
2017-06-30, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/30/how-trumps-nationwide-...

President Trump's Election Integrity Commission is asking all 50 states to turn over all publicly available voter registration data, including highly sensitive information about voters' political affiliation, Social Security numbers, criminal history and military status. The request was initiated by commission co-chair Kris Kobach, the secretary of state in Kansas and a fervent believer that voter fraud is widespread despite decades of evidence to the contrary. In Kansas, Kobach championed the use of Crosscheck, a multistate database of voter registration information that authorities use to check whether voters are registered in two states. Kobach has said he's interested in using a similar process to compare state voter roll data to a federal database of legal immigrants. Crosscheck's matching algorithms are highly inaccurate. A recent working paper by researchers at Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and Microsoft found that Crosscheck's algorithm returns about 200 false positives for every one legitimate instance of double registration it finds. We're concerned about unlawful voter purging, which has been something that Kris Kobach has been leading the charge, said Vanita Gupta of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and former head of the Justice Department's civil rights division. Some of Kobach's voter ID requirements have been struck down in federal court, with one federal judge ruling that they constituted mass denial of a fundamental constitutional right.

Note: Learn how 25 states are resisting this request in this Washington Post article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources. And don't miss the critically important information provided in our Elections Information Center.


Homeland Security official: Russian government actors tried to hack election systems in 21 states
2017-06-21, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/homeland-security-offi...

People connected to the Russian government tried to hack election-related computer systems in 21 states. Samuel Liles, the Department of Homeland Securitys acting director of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis Cyber Division, said vote-tallying mechanisms were unaffected and that the hackers appeared to be scanning for vulnerabilities which Liles likened to walking down the street and looking at homes to see who might be inside. Liles was testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russias efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election. Officials in Arizona and Illinois had previously confirmed that hackers targeted their voter registration system. In a separate hearing ... former Department of Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson testified that Russias meddling ... was unprecedented, the scale and the scope of what we saw them doing. He said the severity of Russias efforts persuaded him to sign onto an Oct. 7 statement publicly blaming the Kremlin for what had happened. We needed to do it, and we needed to do it well before the election to inform American voters of what we saw, Johnson said. FBI Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap ... said Russia for years has tried to influence U.S. elections but that the scale and aggressiveness of its efforts in 2016 made the attempts more significant.

Note: Many who follow elections closely have known and spread the word for years about serious vulnerabilities in US electronic voting, yet only now that Russia is involved is it getting widespread coverage. Do you really think the Russians are the only ones who have hacked US elections? Read an enlightening analysis of elections hacking in the US which raises many serious questions. And don't miss the critically important information provided in our Elections Information Center.


Russian Cyber Hacks on U.S. Electoral System Far Wider Than Previously Known
2017-06-13, Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-13/russian-breach-of-39-s...

Russias cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before [the recent] election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported. In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states. The scope and sophistication so concerned Obama administration officials that they took an unprecedented step -- complaining directly to Moscow over a modern-day red phone. In October, two of the people said, the White House contacted the Kremlin on the back channel to offer detailed documents of what it said was Russias role in election meddling and to warn that the attacks risked setting off a broader conflict. The new details, buttressed by a classified National Security Agency document recently disclosed by the Intercept ... paint a worrisome picture for future elections: [This is] the newest portrayal of potentially deep vulnerabilities in the U.S.s patchwork of voting technologies.

Note: Many who follow elections closely have known and spread the word for years about serious vulnerabilities in US electronic voting, yet only now that Russia is involved is it getting widespread coverage. Do you really think the Russians are the only ones who have hacked US elections? Read an enlightening analysis of elections hacking in the US which raises many serious questions. And don't miss the critically important information provided in our Elections Information Center.


Who Won the Election? NSA Report Suggests Russia Might Have Hacked Voting System
2017-06-05, Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/who-won-election-nsa-report-suggests-russia-might-hav...

Russian military intelligence attempted to cyber-attack a U.S. voting software supplier and more than 100 local election officials in the days leading up to the 2016 presidential election, The Intercept reported Monday. According to an NSA document ... Russian military intelligence cyber-attacked a U.S. voting software supplier, using information gained in that attack to launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations. Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions, the document states. The operation gave the hackers persistent access to the targeted computers, allowing them to survey the victims for items of interest. But Pamela Smith, president of election integrity watchdog Verified Voting, said the hacking might have kept some Americans from voting. If someone has access to a state voter database, they can take malicious action by modifying or removing information, she told The Intercept. This could affect whether someone has the ability to cast a regular ballot or be required to cast a provisional ballot which ... may mean the voter has to jump through certain hoops such as proving their information to the election official before their eligibility is affirmed.

Note: Why have those who set up our elections allowed private companies to develop software which can be hacked? For undeniable evidence our voting systems have not been safe for years, read summaries of these major media news articles.


CIA concludes Russia interfered to help Trump win election, say reports
2016-12-10, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/10/cia-concludes-russia-interfer...

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in last months presidential election. Officials ... were told that intelligence agencies had found that individuals linked to the Russian government had provided WikiLeaks with thousands of confidential emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and others. The emails were steadily leaked via WikiLeaks ... revealing that DNC figures had colluded to harm the chances of [Clintons] nomination rival Bernie Sanders, and later giving examples of collusion between her campaign and figures in the media to blindside Trump in debates. The Kremlin has rejected the hacking accusations. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has previously said the DNC leaks were not linked to Russia. A ... senior official cited by the Washington Post conceded that intelligence agencies did not have specific proof that the Kremlin was directing the hackers. Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange, [said of] the CIA claims: They are absolutely making it up ... I know who leaked them. They are certainly not Russian and its an insider. Its a leak, not a hack; the two are different things. If ... the CIAs statement refers to people who are known to be linked to the Russian state, they would have arrested someone. America has not been shy about arresting whistleblowers and its not been shy about extraditing hackers. They plainly have no knowledge whatsoever.

Note: The Guardian newspaper's website removed all front page links to the above article just three hours after it was published. In its place, the Guardian ran a new article that was entirely supportive of what Wikileaks affiliate Craig Murray calls "the CIAs blatant lie" about the leaked DNC emails. A short essay by WantToKnow.info team member Mark Bailey explores this apparent media manipulation.


Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House
2016-12-09, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of...

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter. Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others. It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russias goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected, said a senior U.S. official. Thats the consensus view. The CIA shared its latest assessment with key senators in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill last week. The CIA presentation ... fell short of a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies. A senior U.S. official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agencys assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered. For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin directing the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks. Some key ... lawmakers have continued to question the quality of evidence supporting Russian involvement. Ill be the first one to come out and point at Russia if theres clear evidence, but there is no clear evidence - even now, said [chairman of the House Intelligence Committee] Devin Nunes.

Note: The above article comes on the heels of the Washington Post's promotion of an anti-Russian "McCarthyite blacklist" which smeared dozens of U.S. news sites as routine peddlers of Russian propaganda. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on elections corruption and the manipulation of public perception.


US election: Broken machines throw Michigan recount into chaos
2016-12-07, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/us-election-mic...

The final result of the US presidential election is still unclear almost a month after polling day and the recount in Michigan has now been thrown into chaos because of broken voting machines. As officials began a full recount in the swing state, it emerged that faulty machines mean half of all votes cast in the city of Detroit may be ineligible for recount. A third of voting precincts in Wayne County, that largest of Michigan's counties, could also be disqualified. The problems were discovered after voting clerks were unable to match the number of votes cast on the machines with the number of people who had been registered at polling stations. Officials said at least 87 of Detroits decade-old voting machines had failed on Election Day, with many jamming when ballot papers were fed in. In 392 of the citys 662 voting precincts, the number of votes recorded on machines was not the same as the number of voters registered by polling station staff. According to Michigan state law, voting precincts where polling registers do not match with voting machines cannot be included in a recount. In that situation, the original election result will stand. The potential recount ineligibility of so many areas could hinder Hillary Clinton, who significantly outperformed Mr Trump in both Detroit and Wayne County and whose hopes of winning Michigan rest largely on uncounted ballots being found in Wayne County.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.


Wheres the proof?
2016-12-01, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/letterstoeditor/article/Letter-to-the-Edit...

In your Monday editorial, Russias roulette, you mentioned the alarming evidence of my governments alleged involvement in the U.S. presidential elections. I do believe that its just nonsense, but if you insist that its true, then it would be interesting and necessary to see the evidence. I am sure that your respected newspaper meticulously worked through all the proofs before publishing the above-mentioned editorial. Unfortunately, nobody, including my government, despite numerous official requests, has never been presented with the onus probandi. The latter will not come from just repeating the unsubstantiated accusations over and over again or referring to unknown independent researchers. As far as I know, (National Security Agency Director) Adm. Michael Rogers in his recent interview with Wall Street Journal has never mentioned RUSSIA, while the official statement of Oct. 7 that has been repeatedly referred to, has never INDICTED Russia (believing and even being confident is something very different). Without evidence, in every state of law, with the United States being one of them, the principle of the presumption of innocence prevails. And accusations remain pure speculation. In this case, ill-intentioned.

Note: The above was written by Maxim Goncharov, a press attach with the Russian Consulate in San Francisco. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.


The NSA Chief Says Russia Hacked the 2016 Election. Congress Must Investigate.
2016-11-16, Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/will-congress-investigate-russian...

There is one story this week that deserves top priority: Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. On Tuesday, the director of the National Security Agency, Admiral Michael Rogers, was asked about the WikiLeaks release of hacked information during the campaign, and he said, "This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect." This was a stunning statement that has echoed other remarks from senior US officials. He was saying that Russia directly intervened in the US election to obtain a desired end: presumably to undermine confidence in US elections or to elect Donald Trump - or both. If the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies are digging into the Russian effort to affect US politics, there is no guarantee that what they uncover will be shared with the public. The investigative activities of these agencies are not designed for public enlightenment or assurance. That's the job of Congress. When traumatic events and scandals that threaten the nation or its government have occurred ... Congress has conducted investigations and held hearings. The goal has been to unearth what went wrong and to allow the government and the public to evaluate their leaders and consider safeguards to prevent future calamities and misconduct. That is what is required now. So far, the only Capitol Hill legislator who has publicly called for [a congressional inquiry that includes open hearings and ends with a public report] is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Note: Read this article for more serious evidence the US elections results were manipulated. Explore also an excellent essay by two of the best elections researchers showing how gross manipulations of the recent US election may have had a major impact on the results. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.


Trump and the Nuclear Keys
2016-10-12, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/opinion/trump-and-the-nuclear-keys.html?_r=0

As the 1973 Yom Kippur war between Israel and neighboring Arab states intensified, I was in an underground missile launch center in Montana with a crewmate when we received an emergency message to prepare for nuclear war with the Soviet Union. We trusted the president to defuse the crisis and avert a nuclear war. Dwight D. Eisenhower recoiled at the concept of nuclear overkill, where far more people are killed than necessary to defeat an enemy. Richard M. Nixon (president during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war) ... worried about the way war plans lightly tossed about millions of deaths. Ronald Reagan, for all his thunder about the Soviet Union being an evil empire and joking that we begin bombing in five minutes, was privately averse to nuclear weapons. Donald J. Trump is of a radically different ilk and temperament from past presidents. In 1973, as it turned out, President Nixon was not in charge when the order came down to prepare for nuclear conflict. Under stress from the Watergate scandal, he had retired for the evening, drunk. His unelected advisers, led by the national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, and Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger, ran the show that night. Our trust in the president was misplaced. He was not even awake when my crewmate and I saddled up for nuclear war. The president had lost personal control of the situation. But upon reflection, it would have been far scarier if a cocksure Mr. Trump, consulting no one but himself, had been there calling the shots.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and war.


Leaked emails show what Clinton told executives in private
2016-10-08, PBS News/Associated Press
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/emails-clinton-wall-street-private/

Hillary Clinton took nearly every precaution to ensure voters would never know what she told investment bankers, lobbyists and corporate executives in dozens of closed-door paid speeches before running for president. Turns out, the Democratic presidential nominee had good reason to do so. She is ... happy to cut backroom deals with corporate interests and curry favor with Wall Street for campaign dollars. The WikiLeaks organization on Friday posted ... emails obtained in a hack of the Clinton campaign chairmans personal email account. Among the documents posted online was an internal review of the speeches conducted by campaign aides to survey the political damage her remarks could cause if they ever became public. In what aides calculated were the most damaging passages, she reflects on the necessity of unsavory political dealing. To investment bankers from Goldman Sachs and BlackRock, Clinton admits that shes kind of far removed from the middle-class upbringing that she frequently touts on the campaign trail. And in speeches to some of the countrys biggest banks, she highlighted her long ties to Wall Street ... saying that she views the financial industry as a partner in government regulation. In an effort to keep those speeches private, strongly worded contracts prohibited unauthorized recordings, reporters were banned and, in some cases, blog posts about her remarks pulled off websites.

Note: BBC has an article listing 11 intriguing revelations from the recent Wikileaks release. The emails also showed discussion of the Clinton campaign's interest in "elevating" Trump and other 'extreme' Republican candidates to make the party's eventual nominee 'unpalatable'. In 2013 alone, Clinton received $2.3 million for delivering these speeches. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the financial industry.


How 10 mega-donors already helped pour a record $1.1 billion into super PACs
2016-10-05, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-10-mega-donors-already-helped-pou...

Super PACs seeking to influence the 2016 elections have collected more than $1 billion, a record haul driven by jumbo-sized contributions from rich donors on both sides of the aisle. Just 10 mega-donor individuals and couples contributed nearly 20 percent of the $1.1 billion raised by super PACs by the end of August. The total exceeds the $853 million that super PACs collected in the entire 2012 cycle. The top givers were split roughly equally along party lines, with five Republicans, four Democrats and one independent. Together, super PACs seeking to sway the White House and congressional races have pumped more than $674 million into TV ads and other outreach through September, filings show. By the end of the 2012 elections, such groups had spent $608 million. The figures illustrate how American campaigns have been reordered by the ability to give unlimited sums to political committees. In the six years since the Supreme Courts Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision created new paths for massive contributions to flow into elections, a tiny sliver of donors with immense financial capacity have rushed to participate. Along with the $1.1 billion raised by super PACs, hundreds of millions more has been directed into politically active nonprofits on both sides of the aisle that can keep the names of their contributors secret. The huge sums washing through campaigns are contributing to a growing estrangement between voters and the political system.

Note: Read more about how ghost corporations are funding the 2016 elections. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections corruption news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.


Cable News Devotes 30 Seconds to Mass Arrests Protesting Political Corruption
2016-04-12, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/12/democracy-spring-media-coverage/

A protest movement calling on Congress to end the corruption of big money in our politics and ensure free and fair elections, converged on Capitol Hill on Monday, staging a nonviolent sit-in that resulted in over 400 arrests. While the action, dubbed #DemocracySpring, garnered wide coverage on social media and over 136,000 tweets, cable news programs found little time to cover the political protests. During daytime and afternoon news segments, CNN did not devote any coverage to the actions. MSNBC mentioned the protests for approximately 12 seconds, while Fox News mentioned the arrests and discussed the protests for about 17 seconds. Hosts on both networks misrepresented the protests. The focus on systemic political corruption ... during the rally yesterday was ignored. The protests were widely covered by CSPAN, Al Jazeera, and NPR, among other outlets. But cable news programs, which specialize in American political news, were another story. The parent companies of cable news networks are closely tied to the Washington establishment being challenged by protesters. Comcast, parent company of MSNBC, is among the biggest spenders on political lobbying. Broadcasting companies have lobbied in recent years against reforms that would diminish the role of big money in election campaigns largely because the bulk of campaign funds are spent on television advertisements. [An] estimated ... $4.4 billion [will] be spent on television ads during the election cycle this year.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about elections corruption and the manipulation of public opinion.


Three Paths Citizens United Created for Foreign Money to Pour Into U.S. Elections
2016-04-03, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2016/08/03/citizens-united-foreign-money-us-elections/

Before the 2010 Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United, all money spent in federal elections urging the election or defeat of a candidate had to originate from identifiable human beings. Corporations and unions were forbidden from involvement beyond organizing individuals contributions. Then Citizens United struck down the prohibition ... so corporations had the right to spend unlimited money espousing their political views. This was the birth of Super PACs. Citizens United [also] opened ... paths for foreign money to flow into the U.S. political process. The 2016 election has seen a surge of contributions to Super PACs by so-called ghost corporations, which appear to exist solely to make those donations and whose ownership is unknown. Almost all large publicly traded U.S. companies have some degree of foreign ownership. Any donations by such corporations are technically partially of foreign origin. Nonprofit corporations ... have always been able to accept unlimited donations from individuals or corporations, but before Citizens United, could engage in little federal political activity. Now, thanks to the combination of Citizens United and a 2007 Supreme Court decision, social welfare organizations ... and trade associations [can] make independent political expenditures just like Super PACs. Unlike Super PACs, they are not required to publicly disclose their donors. This is why contributions to politically active nonprofits are often referred to as dark money.

Note: Read more about how ghost corporations are funding the 2016 elections. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about elections corruption and the manipulation of public perception. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.


Defense Contractors Laud Themselves for Steering Candidates Toward Militarism
2015-12-07, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2015/12/11/defense-contractors-laud-themselves-for-s...

A group formed this year by executives and lobbyists for the defense contracting industry is taking credit for driving the national debate on foreign policy during the 2016 presidential election, and in particular for getting Republican presidential candidates to call for escalating military action in Syria. In an email to supporters over the weekend, Mike Rogers, the founder of Americans for Peace, Prosperity, and Security, hailed the group for pushing candidates on national security. The email also highlighted a quote from Jeb Bush at an APPS forum calling for the U.S. to be prepared for a long haul war on ISIS, and a similar comment from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who said the U.S. should engage ISIS as it had against the Taliban in Afghanistan. APPS was formed by current and former officials from Raytheon, BAE Systems, SAIC, and other major defense contractors. Lobbyists who represent the defense industry are also involved. Rogers, the former House Intelligence Committee chairman who retired from Congress last year, also represents private clients. To help elect a president who supports American engagement and a strong foreign policy, the group spends money on public events in primary states and encourages presidential candidates to take hawkish positions.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about government corruption and the manipulation of public perception.


Brazil bans corporations from political donations amid corruption scandal
2015-09-18, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/18/brazilian-supreme-court-bans-cor...

Amid a massive corruption scandal which has tarnished Brazils political class and driven the countrys president to the brink of impeachment, the Brazilian supreme court has banned corporate donations to candidates and parties in future elections. With eight votes in favour and three against, the court declared late on Thursday that the rules allowing companies to donate to election campaigns were unconstitutional. Rosa Weber, one of the judges who ruled in favour of the ban, argued that undue economic influence comprised the legitimacy of the countrys elections. The influence of economic power has ended up transforming the electoral process into a rigged political game, a despicable pantomime which makes the voter a puppet, simultaneously undermining citizenship, democracy and popular sovereignty. According to The Spoils of Victory, a US academic study into campaign donations and government contracts in Brazil, corporate donors to the PT in the 2006 elections received between 14 to 39 times the value of their donations in government contracts. The case was brought to the supreme court around one and a half years ago by the Order of Brazilian Attorneys (OAB). On Thursday the organizations secretary general, Cludio Pereira de Souza Neto, celebrated the decision. It is what Brazilian society has been hoping for, even more so in these times of crisis, he said, adding that the court order should make future elections cheaper.

Note: What do you think might happen if the US and Europe banned corporations from making political contributions? Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.