Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN) served in Congress until 2011.

When you’re a congressman looking for your next job, selling out and becoming a lobbyist is an attractive option. You can even get a 1,452 percent raise. That’s why a lot of lawmakers start shilling for corporate interests while they’re still in office, so they can get generous payouts after they leave.

ProPublica’s Justin Elliot has an example of one such legislator. In 2009, Republican congressman Steve Buyer gave a speech defending smokeless tobacco, fighting back against lawmakers who wanted to regulate it. He argued that only the smoke kills people, not nicotine:

BUYER: You could have smoked…lettuce and you still end up with the same problems. You could cut the grass in your yard, dry it, and roll it up in aAi??cigaretteAi?? and smoke it ai??i?? and youai??i??re still going to have aAi??lot of problems. It is the smoke that kills, not the nicotine.

Watch it:

A new federal disclosure filing shows that Buyer and his former chief of staff, Mike Copher, recently registered as lobbyists for the “Reynolds American subsidiary calledAi??RAIAi??Services as of the beginning of September.”

Reynolds American makes all sorts of tobacco and nicotine products.

So the next time you see a Member of Congress make some crazy defense of corporate wrongdoing, remember this: Maybe it’s just their version of a job interview.

Don’t let Big Money and lobbyists run our country. Join PCCC’s Take Back Democracy campaign.

Alan Grayson must defeat one far-right radio host before he returns to Congress.

Bold progressive Alan Grayson is currently campaigning to return to the House of Representatives. His opponent in the race is right-wing radio host Todd Long. Last year, Long appeared at a rally for the so-called “Fair Tax,” which would enact a 23 percent sales tax on all goods sold. Long said this tax would treat everybody “the same”:

LONG: Does anybody here think we should all be taxed the same? That we should all be treated the same under the tax code? We are all created equally by God we should have the same rights and benefits and privileges? […] The Fair Tax is brilliant!

Watch it (the relevant remarks are at 03:00):

Something Long didn’t tell the audience about what the “Fair Tax” would do is that it would dramatically increase the tax liability for the middle class while reducing it for the most wealthy Americans. Former Bush economist Bruce Bartlett ran the numbers, and I compiled them into a chart for ThinkProgress last year. Here’s how the Fair Tax would change the tax responsibility distribution in the United States:

As you can see, the highest quintile of earners — those who earn more than $200,000 every year — are the big winners under the so-called “Fair Tax.”

(Photo credit: Flickr user Adam Glanzman)

During his debate with President Obama last night, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney boasted of being governor of Massachusetts while the state was ranked best in the nation in education.

Romney is likely referring to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test, which the Department of Education uses to grade states based on student knowledge in reading and mathematics.

Indeed, Massachussetts’ ranking has been impressive, and it ranked first in the nation in 2005 and 2007 in math and reading scores for 4th and 8th graders, both years under which Romney was governor. What Romney didn’t note was that the state also ranked first in 2009 — long after he had left his position.

In fact, it was also that way before Romney ever became governor. Here’s a table showing NAEP scores for Massachusetts from 1992 to 2003, drawn from a UMass Amherst report by researchers Stephen Jirka and Ronald Hambleton (click on it to expand it):

As you can see, Massachusetts significantly outperformed the nation every year tested. Some of this has to do with the public policies followed by the state, but it also has a number of social benefits that boost its educational potential. That includes the lowest number of uninsured individuals and the second-highest per capita income among all states.

Can Mitt Romney really take credit for his state’s educational results when they were already high before he took office and remained high after? No, the most he can take credit for is not catastrophically ruining an already good system.

Tommy Thompson’s health “reforms” are ones we already have.

On Monday, Wisconsin Republican Tommy Thompson and bold progressive Tammy Baldwin debated about their competing visions for the country as they both run for the state’s Senate seat.

As Thompson continued to rail on the Affordable Care Act, one moderator asked him about his own vision for health care. The candidate went on to the normal Republican proverbs about the need for tort reform and other non-reforms, but also bizarrely mentioned that we need to be able to buy health insurance online:

THOMPSON: What I want Bob is I want a health care system that’s affordable…let’s base it on quality. Number 2, let’s allow individuals be able to purchase health insurance over the Internet. Be able to put in what they want in there. Number three let’s do away with the liability problems.

Watch Thompson’s response (it begins at 24:38):

It’d be interesting to know why exactly Thompson thinks purchasing health insurance over the Internet will make health care cheaper (is he confusing health insurance with Amazon.com deals on consumer products?), but what’s even more important to point out is that consumers are already getting that option. There are already websites where you can shop for quotes and then purchase insurance online and one of the main features of the Affordable Care Act that Thompson opposes is the provision of health insurance exchanges where people will be able to directly shop for insurance online.

As for tort reform, a number of states have already enacted it. When Texas did, it did absolutely nothing to reduce overall health care costs.

Tammy Baldwin has an actual solution — and not just gimmicks about online purchasing and tort reform — to the health care crisis. She …

Romney’s view on who deserves federal help — big corporations, hedge funders, private equity managers, and every else who’s already wealthy.

Tonight, Mitt Romney set off an avalanche of criticism and satire following his remarks that at the Republican convention that he likes “Big Bird,” but he will be cutting all funding to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

Here’s the clip of him saying that:

It’s worth pointing out that federal subsidies only account for a tiny minority of public broadcasting budgets. Only 15 percent of PBS’s budget comes from the federal trough.

In fact, all public broadcasting put together under the umbrella of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), only accounts for $420 million from the federal government.

So Romney wants to wipe out this funding, which amounts to $4.2 billion over ten years if the funding stays consistent. But his corporate tax plan — which involves a huge tax giveaway to Big Business — would blow a $1 trillion hole in the federal budget over the next ten years.

That means that Romney’s corporate tax cuts cost 238 times more than all public broadcasting funding combined.

Maybe the satire is onto something. It’s possible Romney doesn’t actually like Big Bird very much, or at least 238 times less than he likes ExxonMobil, Wal-Mart, and other corporations he’d be rewarding with his tax plan.

Join the fight to save Big Bird. Click here.

One of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee-endorsed candidates for Congress, Annie Kuster in New Hampshire, just got attacked in full-page ads by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles of the Simpson-Bowles Commission — which famously proposed gutting Social Security and the social safety net.

In their attack on Kuster, Bowles and Simpson praised her Tea Party opponent, Congressman Charlie Bass, for supporting their plan to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. Their attack ad is appearing in three local newspapers: the Concord Monitor, New Hampshire Union Leader, and the Nashua Telegraph.

Instead of backing down, Kuster is doubling down on her promise to protect Social Security and Medicare from cuts in a new TV ad.

Click here to watch it and chip in $3 to help it run in New Hampshire.

Annie has been endorsed by local and national progressive groups, and her bold statement today shows why:

“During his nearly 20 years in Washington, Congressman Bass has repeatedly voted to cut and undermine Medicare — including his votes for both the Simpson-Bowles and Ryan budget plans. There’s a right way and wrong way to reduce the deficit. Let me be clear: I will never cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. My Tea Party opponent will.”

This Simpson-Bowles attack on Kuster is part of a wider national campaign. The two have formed an organization called the “Campaign To Fix The Debt” that has a mysterious $25 million war chest to promote its plan to shred Social Security and lower corporate taxes.

They want to use this money to buy public opinion — the vast majority of Americans oppose cuts to Medicare and Social Security — and to push Congress to support the Bowles-Simpson plan that it already defeated in a 382-38 …

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN)

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) is looking to move from the halls of Congress to his state’s Governor’s mansion. He is campaigning heavily on the theme of “family,” and says he is promoting heterosexual marriage in order to fight child poverty.

But when time came to actually give families a leg up by making sure that hard work is rewarded for good pay, Pence stood on the side of Big Business instead. Here’s a clip from a floor debate in 2007 where the congressman argued (unsuccessfully) against raising the minimum wage to $7.25. He called the increase “excessive” and warned that it would be “irresponsible” for employers to be required to pay their workers that much. Watch it:

All of the credible studies of increases in the minimum change over time have found that they do not result in job losses, and there indeed was not some massive wave of job losses resulting from Congress increasing the minimum wage in 2007 (it slowly phased in through 2009).

Indiana’s voters should keep all of this in mind when they vote this November.

Wayne Powell

On Monday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) debated with his Democratic opponent, veteran Wayne Powell.Ai??At one point, Cantor tried to turn the tables on Powell by snidely referring to public financing of campaigns as a “government welfare program for politicians”:

CANTOR: You say on your website that if you are elected that on your first day in Congress you will introduce legislation to make campaigns publicly funded. So your first act in Congress would be to increase the deficit and take money from other important programs or to raise taxes to pay for political campaigns. Don’t we have more pressing issues than to create a government welfare program for politicians?

But Powell deftly parried Cantor’s jab by pointing out that the Majority Leader gets the vast majority of his campaign funding from powerful corporations:

POWELL: That’s a great question. [laughter from audience.] Well actually I don’t think that public financing of campaigns is a great idea, but let me tell you something, based on the corporate welfare that you’re receiving in order to run your campaigns, it’s gotta be better than that. At least it comes from the people, and not from the corporations! [applause] You’re either number 1, 2, or 3 in receiving the most money from the pharmaceutical industry, the investment industry, the real estate industry, I mean thank God for the first amendment, thank God for the disclosure that we have. It is almost obscene, the millions of dollars that you’ve earned. Does anyone in this room think these corporations give Mr. Cantor a million dollars or more just because he’s a nice guy? […] They do that because they want him to vote the way they want him to vote. […] You’ve got a person …

Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY)

Some new independent expenditure disclosures just came out, and they show that a special interest group has just dumped over $200,000 on ads to re-elect Republican congressman Tom Reed (NY). Here’s a copy of the disclosures:

Mentzer Media Services, Inc.

600 Fairmount Avenue
Suite 306
Towson, Maryland 21286

Purpose of Expenditure: Television Advertising
Name of Federal Candidate supported or opposed by expenditure: Rep. Tom Reed
Office Sought: House of Representatives
State is New York in District 23
Date Expended = 09/28/2012
Person Completing Form: Ms. Melinda Hatton
Date Signed = 09/28/2012

Amount Expended = $211960.00
Calendar YTD Per Election for Office Sought = $223928.78

McCarthy Hennings Media, Inc.

1850 M Street, NW
Suite 235
Washington, DC 20036

Purpose of Expenditure: Television Production
Name of Federal Candidate supported or opposed by expenditure: Rep. Tom Reed
Office Sought: House of Representatives
State is New York in District 23
Date Expended = 09/28/2012
Person Completing Form: Ms. Melinda Hatton
Date Signed = 09/28/2012

Amount Expended = $11968.78
Calendar YTD Per Election for Office Sought = $223928.78

This huge media buy comes on behalf of the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) political action committee. AHA is not just some friendly group of hospitals that advocates for healing the sick and aiding the poor. It’s a massive lobby that represents hospitals that gouge patients and fight real reforms of the system.

In 2010, former Senator Tom Daschle — who himself has worked for the health care industry as an informal lobbyist — revealed that AHA had demanded that the White House oppose the public option in its health care reform bill. As we know now, that demand unfortunately succeeded.

Reed doesn’t just oppose the public option, he wants to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act, including patient protections that hospitals have stridently opposed.

Voters should know that these ads are simply designed to pay back a congressman …

President Obama leads Republican candidate Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, 51 percent to Romney’s 43.5 percent, according to a new poll from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling and commissioned by the liberal-leaning Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC).

Alan Grayson must defeat one far-right radio host before he returns to Congress

Bold progressive Alan Grayson is currently campaigning to return to Congress as a member of the House of Representatives. His opponent in the race is right-wing radio host Todd Long.

At a debate with his Republican primary opponents this past summer, Long revealed just how extreme he is. He told the audience that he would work to replace Speaker of the House John Boehner Ai??with either Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) or fellow right-wing extremist Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN):

LONG:Ai??I’ll fight passionately for a Paul Ryan, a thoughtful conservative, Michelle Bachmann or someone that has ideas and solutions based on the founders principles [to be Speaker of the House.]

Watch his remarks at around 03:42 in the following YouTube video:

This makes the choice between Long and Grayson clear. Long wants either an Ayn Rand acolyteAi??in Paul Ryan or fellow right-wing extremist in Bachmann to replace his party’s leader.

To refresh your memory, Bachmann has demanded a McCarythist witch hunt of Muslims in the federal government, has said stopping gay marriage is the biggest issue over the next thirty years, said that global warming is a “hoax” and based on “voodoo,” and has accused Obama of holding “anti-American views.”

So the good voters of Florida should know that a vote for Long is a vote for Ryan and Bachmann by proxy.

Pitch in a few dollars to help Grayson defeat Long.

Veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder would likely benefit from the use of medicinal marijuana. (Photo credit: Flickr user Fort Rucker)

The fight over medical marijuana is heating up in Colorado, as police associations, corrupt drug rehab centers, and hospitality industry moguls have pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat Amendment 64, which would legalize the adult possession of small amounts of marijuana.

But Amendment 64’s backers received a boost late last week, as a new group of military veterans announced their support for the measure.

Earlier this year, veterans petitioned the Colorado Department of Health to include post-traumatic stress disorder as an allowable condition to purchase medical marijuana in the state. The state failed to act, so now veterans are organizing to pass Amendment 64 under the banner of “Veterans for 64.”

“The state’s failure to act is an effective denial of this compassionate petition,” said group founder and Vietnam vet Bob Wiley. “Our only option is to support Amendment 64, which will ensure that Coloradans 21 and older who suffer from PTSD will no longer be subject to arrest and prosecution for using marijuana to alleviate their suffering.”

One Wisconsin protester’s sign against the Kochs. (Photo credit: Flickr user Sue Peacock)

Americans For Prosperity (AFP), the group founded and funded by the right-wing billionaires the Koch Brothers, has its sights set on Arkansas.

Having just spent big in Kansas to unseat some of the state’s last moderate Republicans, AFP is now looking to swing both the House and Senate in Arkansas to the Republican Party.

The Washington Post reports today that the organization has pledged to spend a million dollars on state races there, and is already organizing astroturf events to entice voters, including free barbecues and bus tours.

Let’s put that million dollars into perspective. The Institute for Money In State Politics estimates that the average House race in the state cost $30,723 during the previous 2009-2010 cycle. The average Senate race cost a bit more at $95,626.

Arkansas Republicans only need to win three seats in the Senate and five seats in the House in order to win control of the state’s legislature. That means that if the average cost was similar to the previous cycle, the Kochs’ AFP could afford to fully subsidize each winning race through outside expenditures (which are not subject to strict limits like donating directly to a candidate).

It doesn’t have to be this way. We can kick Big Money out of our politics. Click here to join PCCC’s Take Back Democracy campaign and help kick Big Money out of our politics.

Growing income inequality help set off Occupy Wall Street last year.

Reuters today has a great articleupAi??about income inequality in the United States. One of the most pressing facts in the piece is how the richest Americans have been able to get the vast majority of income growth — meaning that most Americans have their incomes stagnating, declining, or growing only very slowly.

Reuters points to a March paper by UC Berkeley economistAi??Emmanuel Saez, who found that the top 1 percent of Americans received 93 percent of the nation’s income growth in 2010 (as the country was struggling to get out of a recession).

Income inequality has grown so severe that even some of the 1 percent themselves are starting to revolt against it. Reuters interviews former American Airlines CEO Bob Crandall, who started a blog last year to expound on various political ideas. “Income inequality of the scale we have today is destroying our democracy,” the former chief executive told the news service.

(Photo credit: Flickr user DonkeyHotey)

During tonight’sAi??MassachusettsAi??Senate debate, moderator David Gregory asked the candidates who their “model” Supreme Court Justice is. Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) replied by saying that his model was far-right justice Antonin Scalia.

The crowd began booing, which prompted Brown to start naming off other justices he also favored, most of them conservatives. Watch it:

It’s incredibly telling that Scalia is the first one to come to Brown’s mind. Here’s a primer on Scalia’s views:

He Loves Money In Politics: Scalia was the deciding voteAi??in the Citizens United case to open new floodgates of corporate money in our elections. In a television appearance discussing the case, he compared billionaire spending in our elections to free speech. Brown helped kill the DISCLOSE Act, which would’ve exposed some of the corporations and billionaires buying our elections.
He Has Extreme Views On Immigration: Scalia was a huge backer of Arizona’s draconian anti-immigration law, and even cited Southern slavery laws in his court defense of Arizona’s measure. Perhaps Brown was taking after Scalia when he voted to kill the DREAM Act.
He Is Stridently Against Ai??Womens Rights: Scalia voted with the court’s conservative justices in the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. case to limit discrimination suits over equal pay. He is also tirelessly opposed to abortion rights. Keep in mind that Brown voted against women and with lobbyistsAi??by voting against the anti-discrimination Paycheck Fairness Act.
He’s An Apologist For Torture:Ai??During a 2008 radio interview, Scalia said it’s “absurd” to say the government can’t hit prisoners “in the face.”
He’s Anti-Gay: Scalia was the dissenting opinion in Lawrence v. Texas,Ai??which invalidated America’s last sodomy laws (focusing on Texas). Remember that Brown has refused to endorse …

A smile paid for by Big Oil.

The fossil fuel industry — oil, coal, gas and other dirty energy sources — are expected to get $113 billion in taxpayer subsidies over the next decade. These subsidies are bought by the industry’s lobbyists and public relations campaigns, which succeed in getting Congress in their pockets.

At a recent public event, an activist from the environmental group 350.org attempted to ask Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO) about his votes for these subsidies. But he refused to answer her question and soon fled, with his staff in tow. Watch Gardener obfuscate and flee:

The oil and gas industry is Gardener’s top donor, and he constantly advocates for the industry’s interests from his perch on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

We don’t have to let Big Oil’s campaign cash run our government. Click here to join PCCC’s Take Back Democracy campaign and help kick Big Money out of our politics.

Late last night, Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA) vetoed the “Domestic Worker Bill Of Rights,” which would’ve expanded sorely-needed protections to domestic workers in his state of California.

In rejecting it, Brown said that the bill “raises a number of unanswered questions,” and that he’d be unable to approve it.

The United Farm Workers (UFW)Ai??reacted harshlyAi??to Brown’s veto with the following statement:

The UFW is appalled at the governor’s decision to deny farm workers the basic legal tools to protect themselves from employers who intentionally put their lives at risk by refusing to provide them with adequate water and shade despite the dangerously high temperatures. By vetoing AB 2676, the governor continues the policy of giving animals more protections than those currently offered to farm workers.

Ironically, Brown also on the same night approved funding for a Ronald Reagan statue in the capitol building, saying that the former president and California governor had “courage and unique leadership ability.”Ai??Keep in mind that Reagan was actually the governor who ended free college tuition at all of the state’s universities, in a huge blow to progressivism.

Jerry Brown needs to take a good look at his values and decide whether he wants to walk in the shoes of Reagan or that of the Democrats.

It turns out that higher taxes aren’t sending the rich fleeing. (Photo credit: Flickr user Molly DG)

Right-wing dogma preaches that hiking taxes on the wealthy will lead the rich to simply move away to find lower tax rates elsewhere. But a new analysis shows that this isn’t necessarily the case.

The San Jose Mercury News conducted an analysis of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data and found that states with higher taxes actually have the highest number of rich individuals, and that lower-tax states don’t necessarily have as many wealthy people:

An analysis by this newspaper of IRS tax-return data shows that states that charge high income taxes — from California to New York to New Jersey — are home to the highest number of rich people per capita. And two-thirds of the states that don’t charge any income taxes actually have fewer numbers of millionaire residents per capita, the analysis shows.

Consider Florida and Texas, which are often cited as havens for rich movie stars, CEOs and athletes because they are income-tax free. California, on the other hand, has the nation’s second-highest income tax rate.

So in those three states, how many people earn at least $1 million a year for every 100,000 taxpayers?

Florida: 202. Texas: 217. California: 252.

The data seems to debunk the myth that lower tax rates will draw the presence of rich people and that higher tax rates will send them fleeing.

Kids are being tested more and more, and lobbyists pushing big for these policies are part of the reason why.

Corporate special interests get their way not only by spending big to buy off legislators, but by working to influence public opinion behind the scenes.

On Saturday, the Austin American-Statesman published an education op-ed by Sandy Kress. Kress offered an impassioned argument in favor of neoliberal education policy, starting with a defense of the use of high-stakes standardized testing.

But what the op-ed did not see fit to mention was Kress’s own lobbying work on behalf of testing companies and other education interests. Here’s some education-related interests that Kress works for as a lobbyist. This data is drawn from the Texas Ethics Commission:

Edvance Research Inc.
9901 IH-10 West, Suite 1000 San Antonio, TX 78230
Type of Compensation: Prospective
Less Than $10,000.00
Client Start Date: 01/20/2012
Client Term Date: 02/09/2012

Pearson Education
1 Lake Street Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
Type of Compensation: Prospective
$50,000 – $99,999.99
Client Start Date: 01/20/2012
Client Term Date: 12/31/2012

Teach For America
315 West 36th Street, 7th Floor New York, NY 10018
Type of Compensation: Prospective
$10,000 – $24,999.99
Client Start Date: 01/20/2012
Client Term Date: 12/31/2012

The paper should make every effort to disclose these …

This anti-union movie bombed at the box office.

Earlier this week, we educated you about the right-wing billionaire who producedAi??Won’t Back Down, a film that premiered on Friday that demonizes teachers unions. Since then, critics trashed the movie, over the objections of astroturf groups that are promoting it.

Now it appears that movie audiences agree that the film isn’t worth watching. Box Office Mojo reports that the film debuted in eigth place, which it says is one of the worst debuts ever for a wide-release movie:

In eight place,Ai??Won’t Back DownAi??debuted to an atrocious $921,000 from 2,515 locations. It will earn around $3 million this weekend, which will be one of the worst debuts ever for a movie inAi??2,500 or more theaters.

The anti-teachers union documentary Waiting For Superman — also produced by the same right-wing billionaire — also performed poorly at the box office. It appears that Americans are starting to tire of simplistic propaganda designed to demonize teachers but propose no constructive solutions for the American education system.

Coming to airspace near you soon? (Photo credit: Flickr user sancho_panza)

Drones are the latest tool in the ever-expanding security state, and part of the reason why is because they represent a huge new booming industry for defense contractors.

Earlier this year, I attended a Washington, D.C. conference of theAi??Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems InternationalAi??(AUVSI), the primary lobbying group for drone makers. While there, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), who gets the vast majority of his campaign cash from arms manufacturers, was praised for his role in getting Congress to authorize the widespread use of drones in American airspace for surveillance and other purposes. Read all about this conference in a report I filed at Republic Report.

Now that AUVSI succeeded in getting Congress to authorize the use of drones in American airspace, the lobbyists are now setting their sights on incentivizing government officials to use these robotic machines on Americans.

AUVSI will be hosting another conference this February in the D.C. suburb of McLean, Virginia. They have yet to announce their slot of speakers, but are promising to have the support of Members of Congress. One thing they have announced is that they intend to hold a program discussing the use of drones for domestic “law enforcement and security applications.”

The coming rapid expansion of the use of robotic drones — particularly the use of these machines to spy on Americans here on our shores — has Ai??spawned a bipartisan backlash. Earlier this year, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) warned that drone lobbyists were seducing Congress, and bold progressive Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) spoke out against their reckless use abroad as early as 2010.

But it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to properly regulate the use of drones or ever …

A new Democratic poll offers good news for the party in New Hampshire, putting Democrat Carol Shea-Porter in a statistical tie with Rep. Frank Guinta (R-N.H.) in the 1st District and giving Democrat Ann Kuster a slight lead over Rep. Charlie Bass (R-N.H.) in the 2nd District. The polls were commissioned by liberal PAC the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and conducted by Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling on Sept. 24 and 25.

Who’s funding these kids’ smiles?

This November, Colorado’s voters will have the chance to take a historic vote by approving a ballot amendment — Amendment 64 — that would legalize the adult possession of small amounts of marijuana.

There’s a well-funded campaign being waged to convince voters to oppose this amendment. Calling itself Smart Colorado, this group claims that passing Amendment 64 would “harm” the state’s children and generally cause havoc.

Smart Colorado is not upfront about who is funding its campaign. But its recently filed disclosure with the secretary of state makes one thing shockingly clear: the campaign is largely being funded by individuals and organizations who profit from the drug war status quo.

Let’s take a look at some of the campaign’s biggest funders:

Police And Police Associations: The police profit off of the drug war because they gain access to drug enforcement grants that allow them to hire additional staff and purchase more equipment. The Colorado Drug Investigators Association gave $1,000 on September 10th. The Association of Colorado State Patrol Professionals gave $500 to the campaign on September 7th. Patrick Crouch, an agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, gave $50 on the same date. Regina Marinelli, another police officer, gave $100 on the same date, as did Kevin Burke, another law enforcement official. Police commander Jerry Peters has chipped in $220. These are just a few of the donations from police officers.
Drug Rehab Centers:Ai??The single largest donation to Smart Colorado comes from an organization called Save Our Society from Drugs based in Florida. It gave a whopping $126,497.21 to the campaign. The organization, as The Nation’s Lee Fang documents, runs abusive drug rehab centers that have been compared to “torture.”
The Hospitality Industry: The hospitality …

This anti-union movie premieres today.

On Wednesday, we exposed the right-wing billionaire behind the new anti-union movieAi??Won’t Back Down that’s releasing today in theaters. It seems like the critics are on to his game too — the movie has a pitiful 33 percent rating on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

So the film’s promoters have taken a new route to try to boost the film: astroturf reviews. Ai?? Education blogger Jersey Jazzman and advocate Leonie Haimson has discovered that Matthew David, a staffer with Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst — which is working with right-wing groups to promote the movie — actually wrote a review of the film on the Rotten Tomatoes site in an attempt to boost its rating.

Here’s a screenshot of David’s review:

A few other StudentsFirst staffers also wrote reviews on the site, but they at least did identify themselves as members of the organization, unlike David. David is actually a former McCain rapid response staffer and Bush-Cheney campaign operative.

Interestingly, one of the other Rhee staffers who posted a review, Catherine Durkin Robinson, was previously caught offering the chance to win a gift card to individuals who would promise to post comments in favor of Rhee’s agenda.

What all of this means is that Big Money groups are doing everything to try to make their education agenda — one of disempowering unions and empowering private schools — popular. Unfortunately for them, the facts just aren’t on their side.

Billionaire Honeywell CEO David Cote joined former Senator Sam Nunn to advocate for cutting Social Security. (Photo credit: Flickr user Policy Network)

Former Senator Sam Nunn has a new gig. He’s a Steering Committee memberfor the “Campaign to Fix The Debt,” which is advocating for economy-killing austerity.

This week he appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box as a guest host. He was joined by fellow Campaign to Fix The Debt committee member David Cote, a billionaire CEO who has said he wants a zero percent corporate tax rate. Nunn laid out his case for cutting Social Security benefits by raising the retirement age:

COTE: When you recommend something like that you raise the retirement age by a year 75 years from now when my grandchildren will already be retired — and the outcry begins — say this is ridiculous […]

NUNN: When we passed Social Security and we passed Medicare the life expectancy was somewhere in the mid-60’s. Today the life expectancy is somewhere betwen 78 and 82, somewhere in that range. We basically haven’t made the adjustment. You can’t live with that!

Cote then heartily agreed. Watch Cote and Nunn’s remarks (they begin at around 11:50):

The problem with Cote and Nunn’s justification for raising the retirement age — the idea that we’re all living longer — is that it simply isn’t true. Life expectancy has shot up — but only for white collar workers like lawyers. Life expectancy for blue collar workers has stayed fairly constant over the past few decades. Here’s a chart from the Center for Economic and Policy Research demonstrating this inequality in life expectancy:

So if we were to raise the retirement age, we’d essentially be …