Sanders Fundraising Tactics Raise Ethical, Legal Questions

by in Campaign 2016, Campaign Finance Comments Off on Sanders Fundraising Tactics Raise Ethical, Legal Questions

When Bernie Sanders asked for money to fuel his underdog presidential campaign, Geraldine Bryant didn’t even need to think about it. “I loved Bernie, and every time he asked for money, I just gave it to him,” Bryant told me in a recent phone interview. A filmmaker in Manhattan, Bryant gave the Sanders campaign 44 separate contributions over a nine-month period between October and June, in amounts ranging from $1 to $2,000. The donations totaled $14,440—more than five times the legal limit that an individual…

How Scammer Consultants Cannibalized the Tea Party Movement

by in Campaign Finance, Conservatism, Corruption, How the Right Got It Wrong Comments Off on How Scammer Consultants Cannibalized the Tea Party Movement

As we watch the Republican Party tear itself to shreds over Donald Trump, perhaps it’s time to take note of another conservative political phenomenon that the GOP nominee has utterly eclipsed: the Tea Party. The Tea Party movement is pretty much dead now, but it didn’t die a natural death. It was murdered—and it was an inside job. In a half decade, the spontaneous uprising that shook official Washington degenerated into a form of pyramid scheme that transferred tens of millions of dollars from rural,…

Are Think Tanks Whitewashing Their Donors’ Messages?

by in Campaign Finance, Metapolitics Comments Off on Are Think Tanks Whitewashing Their Donors’ Messages?

At think tanks like Brookings, the majority of reports and events, with titles like “Five Evils: Multidimensional Poverty and Race in America” or “India at the Global High Table,” have no obvious link to corporate donors. Still, the benefits afforded to corporations looking to cloak themselves with the authority of think tanks are strikingly evident, according to a review of documents from more than a dozen institutions. The likely conclusions of some think tank reports, documents show, are discussed with donors — or even potential…