Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Misleading Report Is Misleading, No Matter How Many Times It's Echoed

The Wall Street Journal, aka The Daily Republican, had a report that is titled, I kid you not, "Political Spending by Unions Far Exceeds Direct Donations."  They breathlessly say unions spent four times the money than what was reported on political activity.

What they did was count everything from lobbying to holding rallies (and protests) to cookouts and called it political activity.

The brain-dead zombie echo chamber dutifully parroted this "astonishing" report.

But what none of them did was show a comparison to anyone else and their spending, say like Big Business.

But Open Secrets does:


So while the right wing zombie nut jobs whine about $4.4 billion over years five years, they are suspiciously mum about Big Business spending more than 14 times that much money.  Of course, at least one of the zombies is a known employee of the Koch Boyz, so you can't expect anything like integrity from them.

7 comments:

  1. Labor doesn't seem to get much for it's money. Perhaps there is a better way to spend it.

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  2. The cognitively challenged will continue to absorb the vapid bullshit that is the right wing mantra, for they are unable to think on their own, nor have the gumption to question anything they are spoon fed by the Koch whore media.

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  3. This blog is hilarious.

    Your graph of political contributions only includes data released by the FEC, as noted in the BLIO footnote. That's the entire point of the Journal story, that the FEC misses massive amounts of political spending by unions because it only includes direct contributions to federal elections from union PACs.

    Because of reporting requirements for corporations we know how much they contribute not just to federal elections, but also to state and local elections, and payments to outside PACs and advocacy groups.

    Using these recently discovered Department of Labor filings we can hold unions to that same standard, and we find that reality conflicts with the narrative they've tried to create where they're the poor little peons bravely standing up to the mean old big money bad guys.

    No allegations of wrongdoing. They're not in any trouble. But they don't like the idea of the truth on this issue getting out because the truth doesn't mesh with the fantasy they're selling.

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    Replies
    1. Well, we do know that businesses don't like to have their actions to be publicly known. And that also doesn't include the hundreds of millions in illegal money laundering through the 501(c)3s.

      And it's funny that you say the unions don't want the truth out there when you're the one upset that the truth coming out that business outspent unions by more than 14 times.

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  4. So you're going to continue to call that the truth, even though I (and the WSJ article you're discussing) have just explained to you why it's not the truth? Fine, whatever. I hope you're proud of the damage you're doing to this country.

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    Replies
    1. As if the WSJ is a reliable resource. And what damage? Putting the power - and the money - back in the hands of the people instead of the plutocrats is hardly going to damage the country.

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  5. Serious question - do you consider yourself or this blog to be a "reliable resource?"

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