Dark Money Groups Are Funded By Dark Money Groups That Fund Dark Money Groups That Fund...

[unhappycamper]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/09/dark-money-networks_n_4234206.html




Dark Money Groups Are Funded By Dark Money Groups That Fund Dark Money Groups That Fund...
Paul Blumenthal
Posted: 11/09/2013 9:44 am EST | Updated: 11/09/2013 10:17 am EST

WASHINGTON -- A recent million-dollar settlement in California has stripped back the curtain on how "dark money" is secretly moved in and around electoral politics. Documents and interviews revealed how a networks of nonprofits passed dark money -- that is, money whose source is not disclosed to the public -- from one to another to another to further obscure the original sources.

Examples of similar financial transfers uncovered by The Huffington Post, in addition to a host of examples reported by the Center for Responsive Politics and NPR, demonstrate that the California case is no isolated incident.

Networks of nonprofits are being created across the country, at the national and state levels, to secretly fund candidate and ballot initiative campaigns, according to tax documents and campaign records accessed through Guidestar, CitizenAudit.org and the National Institute for Money in State Politics. Their tactics are similar to the schemes adopted by the global rich to hide their wealth -- except instead of avoiding tax collecting authorities, they're trying to skirt disclosure laws.

The best known of these networks are those tied to the billionaire Koch brothers. Linking the groups together are two dark money hubs: the Center to Protect Patient Rights, which doled out as much as $182.2 million to other dark money groups from 2010 through 2012, and Freedom Partners, which gave $236 million to other dark money groups, including $115 million to the Center to Protect Patient Rights.

[cantbeserious]

1. When First We Practice To Deceive ...

eom

[MisterP]

2. OTOH, they've been doing this since like 1975/6, so they've got the experience

www.sourcewatch.org

[bemildred]

3. Yep, this started back then in response to the democratizing reforms made after 1968.

Before then, they didn't have to win elections to control who got into office. The game is still rigged in favor of the elites, but not enough to rig the outcome. Hence the need for lots more money in elections.

Been very successful too, thanks to the supine cooperation of our political classes, media and corporate rulers. And a long, downhill, and bumpy ride it's been, too.