You want to talk a little foreign money in politics? George Soros has admitted to donating $1 million to Media Matters for America. – Rush Limbaugh
How wrong can Limbaugh get it? Well, first of all, Soros announced that he was donating money to Media Matters, which he didn’t have to do. Unlike all those secret billionaire donors to The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity, and American Crossroads (founded by Karl Rove) who have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Republican campaigns.
But the big lie here? George Soros is an American citizen. He can vote and everything.
Not to be outdone, Glenn Beck has repeatedly claimed (on 14 separate occasions this year alone) that George Soros was funding Media Matters (a frequent critic of Fox News), but the reality is that this is the first time that Soros has given any money at all to Media Matters. In announcing his donation, Soros said the following:
Despite repeated assertions to the contrary by various Fox News commentators, I have not to date been a funder of Media Matters. However, in view of recent evidence suggesting that the incendiary rhetoric of Fox News hosts may incite violence, I have now decided to support the organization. Media Matters is one of the few groups that attempts to hold Fox News accountable for the false and misleading information they so often broadcast. I am supporting Media Matters in an effort to more widely publicize the challenge Fox News poses to civil and informed discourse in our democracy.
Last summer, convicted felon Byron Williams armed himself and set out to kill staffers at an organization funded by Soros, While in jail, Williams claimed he was incited by Glenn Beck.
In addition, Fox News commentators often claim that Soros funds MoveOn.org, but Soros last gave money to them in 2004.
13 Comments
Raised Spent Cash on Hand
Democrat Total $177,753,157 $134,074,839 $61,760,605
Democrat Average $1,932,100 $1,457,335 $671,311
Republican Total $121,047,338 $80,990,563 $40,497,386
Republican Average $1,315,732 $880,332 $440,189
Advantage +47% DEM +66% DEM +53% DEM
OK – I don’t know what happened, but when I hit the space bar to straigten up th echart and this thing posted instead.
What I was trying to show was a chart in a link from:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/10/in-tightest-house-races-democrats-m.html
that shows campaign spending which clearly still favors the Dems by a big margin (+47%). I am not endorsing or verifying the source so i anyone has any different facts please contribute. I also don’t know how much of the dem or repub money comes from “undisclosed” sources, but I’m sure their is some on both sides.
As I understand it, Union money doesn’t need to be disclosed. This is usually for the Democrats.
Here is an even better example of political contributions from 1989 to 2010 showing the “heavy hitters” biggest donors. Suprisingly, most contribute to dems, matter of fact the top 15 lean largely to the dem side and are mostly labor groups, but do include Goldman Sachs (Hmmmmmm).
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?order=A
Patriot, what in the world does any of that have to do with the original post?
PGT, goldman sachs is like a loose woman.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/10/22/5334167-money-chase-the-chambers-donors
BTW what was the hmmmmmmmmmmm for?
Jonah – We or at least I always here about how the big financial firms own republicans.
1032 – not alot, I’d just like to put out the whole campaign finance picture since one side seems to demonize the other for collecting campaign donations. Remember the old show “The Equalizer”, I’d just like both sides to be equally depicted so people are well informed. Thats all. Good morning 1032.
Besides, if I wasn’t so contrarian you all wouldn’t be posting so much. This just gets the conversation going and gets everybody thinking about what they read, hear and write.
I don’t like Fox News for the simple reason that fact don’t matter to the editorial managers of the network. I wouldn’t like that even if they were squarely on the liberal left (which is why I am cautious about my MSNBC watching, though kudos to most of their news hosts who own up to mistakes and thus avoid most egregious repetition of falsehoods).
Funny how Murdoch’s naturalization makes him American enough to use corporate money to support a political party but Soros’ naturalization means he can’t use his own private money to support a watchdog group. Oh, right, there’s that factual thing again…
PGT, regarding financial firms and republicans, I for one haven’t heard/read about it. I think most corporations are a common enemy to both republicans and democrats because they side with whichever political party would enact policy beneficial to them. The link below would hijack this thread but its another reason I maintain that excessive capitalism is a bigger enemy than big government.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/21/AR2010102106377.html
The BOD and CEO’s are symbiotic and that cycle has to be broken. As a result of the cycle described above the BOD keeps reelecting whoever they want into the BOD and the executive mgmt team and the only way a shareholder can disagree is to sell his/her shares. Companies are still making money but one reason they hire fewer employees is because an abnormally high % goes to the executive team.
Patriot, it’s fantastic that you are putting out the whole campaign finance picture, but this has nothing to do with campaign finance. This is a donation to a website.
It’s as if you picked up Rush’s non-sequitur and tried to run it in for a touchdown.
Jonah – I agree with big corporations and the non-effect of share holders. I often thought (sometimes outloud)it would be nice to create a “shareholder union” that could collectively pool shares and create a voice that could have some small say in things like executive salaries and such. Anybody else ever wonder the same outloud?
I know 1032, but I’m just tired of the usual blah blah he said they said.
Any thoughts on NPR firing Juan Williams, anybody?
I’m imagining Rush Limbaugh wearing a big crimson shirt, standing in the middle of a city full of people wearing blue and saying, “Look at all of these people in red!”
Rush’s audience doesn’t care that every single claim he makes is based on a completely invalid argument. They only care about the way in which he says it with complete confidence, and because the conclusions drawn match up to their predisposed opinions.