contributions

ARRA Editor: While Sen. Lieberman (D disguised as ID) prides himself as a maverick and is supporting Sen. John McCain (R) for President, Lieberman not only caucuses with the Democrats, he also gives them money. He recently made a second donation to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) in what some see as a effort to assure of keeping his position as Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee intact, regardless of the outcome in November. In addition, Lieberman has been giving money through his Responsibility/Opportunity/Community PAC to various re-election campaigns for Democrat Senators.

Glenn Thrush at The Crypt reports:

After forking over $100,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee last year, the Connecticut Democrat-turned-Independent has written a second $100,000 check to DSCC chairman Chuck Schumer in recent days, according to a people familiar with the situation. “Basically, he doesn’t want everybody to hate him,” one Lieberman-friendly Democrat said. “Plus he wants to keep his committee.”

Lieberman caucuses – awkwardly — with Democrats at their weekly meetings but is on the outs with many in his longtime party . . . More than a few have talked about stripping him of his committee post after November.

Thus Lieberman’s schmear campaign. Lieberman’s Responsibility / Opportunity / Community PAC, has given the DSCC $30,000 since last year – in addition to doling out smaller donations to the New Mexico Democratic party and the re-election campaigns of Democratic centrists Max Baucus, Mary Landrieu and Mark Pryor.

Did you see the 230,000 Reasons? Money Talks: Lieberman in two years gave the DSCC $100,000 + $100,000 + $30,000 to elect or keep Democrats in power.

(Promoted by Soren. We feel very strongly about transparency. I have talked to one office who has not co-sponsored this who clearly should. Simply no one had talked to them. Ping your Senators or offices you know. They will respond. This is such a no brainer about entering the 21st century)

(cross posted from the Sunlight Foundation)

Today, the Sunlight Foundation launched a new web site, Pass223.com, to harness the distributed power of the Internet to pressure the Senate into increasing disclosure of campaign contributions by passing a bill - S. 223, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act - requiring senators to file their contribution reports electronically.

We need your help to pass this bill. Please follow the link to Pass223.com and call your senators to find out where they stand on S. 223. The site has full instructions on who your senators are, how to call, what to say, and how to report back to us. For more detail on the bill, keep reading.

Currently, presidential candidates and candidates running for the House of Representatives file their campaign contributions in electronic form. Electronic filing speeds the process by which campaign contribution data reaches the public over the Internet, allowing citizens and journalists to more easily spot a conflict of interest or an inappropriate contribution. Filers in the Senate do not file electronically, delaying disclosure by weeks and possibly months.

Passage of S. 223 appears to be a “no-brainer,” and isn’t publicly opposed by any senator. However, at every step of the way over the past year and a half the bill has been interrupted and blocked for a variety of reasons.

Right now, Sen. John Ensign is blocking the bill by insisting on adding a poison pill amendment. This poisin pill is meant to protect senators from legitimate ethics complaints filed by outside groups. The amendment would impose an unconstitutional burden on on charities, religious organizations and other nonprofits by forcing them to disclose their donors when they file ethics complaints against sitting senators. Ensign’s amendment is opposed by a group of non-profits, religious groups, and charities from the right and the left.

For S. 223 to pass, Ensign’s amendment must be defeated. And to do that, we need you help in identifying senators who OPPOSE Ensign and SUPPORT S. 223. This is a great chance to help pass a long overdue bill.

Go to Pass223.com and get started calling your senators (remember, you have two of them). Don’t forget to report back so that we know where these senators stand on increasing campaign finance disclosure.

Pass223.com is a joint project of the Sunlight Foundation, Public Citizen, Public Campaign, Center for Responsive Politics, Campaign Finance Institute, Change Congress, and Open the Government.

(Disclaimer: I am the Online Organizer for the Sunlight Foundation)

Obama's most recent pastor difficulties won't be easy to shake.  There's a longstanding relationship between Obama and Pfleger (who could best be described as the Vanilla Ice of black liberation theology) which features at least one sizeable transfer of taxpayer funds to the benefit of Pfleger's programs at his church, St. Sabina.

One of those long-time supporters was Rev. Michael Pfleger, the politically active leader of St. Sabina Church. He gave Obama's campaign $1,500 between 1995 and 2001, including $200 in April 2001, about three months after Obama announced $225,000 in grants to St. Sabina programs.

What one has to wonder is just how Pfleger manages to maintain tax exempt status in spite of the fact that he makes absolutely no bones about being politically active, and has in fact expressed a high degree of pride in the fact.  Add to that the fact that his church has benefited from taxpayer funds, secured by Barack Obama as a state senator, after he personally donated money to Obama's political campaigns.

This could be a case where Pfleger is within the letter of the law while being far outside the spirit.  But, if nothing else, the relationship between him and the likely Democratic presidential nominee warrants close examination by the press, if not federal authorities.

UPDATE:  You have to wonder if Pfleger intentionally set out to undemine Obama with his comments on Sunday, especially after reading this passage from the Christian Science Monitor in light of Obama's disassociation Jeremiah Wright following his performance at the National Press Club and NAACP meeting:

The night before he announced his candidacy for president in February, Obama withdrew an invitation to Wright to give the public invocation, a decision that did not sit well with some other Chicago pastors. Pfleger said Obama told him that he didn't want criticism of Wright to detract from the big day. "I told him I thought it was the wrong decision," Pfleger said in an interview.