Welcome to Bizarro Amerika!

Nearly a year after its massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP has broken a moratorium on political giving by making contributions to Speaker John Boehner and other GOP leaders.

BP Corp. North America gave $5,000 contributions to Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) through its political action committee, according to a campaign finance report filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) received $1,000 and $5,000 contributions, respectively, from BP North America’s PAC. Upton told The Hill late Tuesday he is not accepting the contribution and will return it to BP.

The National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee were also recipients, each accepting $5,000.

The only Democrat to receive a donation was Rep. Pete Visclosky (Ind.), who received $3,000 on March 22.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36783.html (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36783.html)

Obama biggest recipient of BP cash


Worth every penny!

...media outlets seized on Palin's accusation and cited Center for Responsive Politics' calculation that Obama had received $71,051 in BP-linked contributions for his presidential campaign. Only problem is, contrary to Palin's and the media's suggestions, all of that money came from BP employees, not BP the company. A spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics confirmed Monday that "the $71,051 that Obama received during the 2008 election cycle was entirely from BP employees." The CRP spokesman also stated that "Obama did not accept contributions from political action committees, so none of this money is from BP's PAC. And corporations themselves are prohibited from donating directly to candidates from their corporate treasuries."

Why is this an important distinction? Because Obama raised far more money than any other candidate ever has, therefore, it is completely unsurprising that Obama also received the most amount of money from BP employees. Moreover, BP-linked contributions to Obama's campaign are a drop in the bucket when compared to Obama's total campaign haul. In addition to the $71,051 Obama received from BP-linked contributors in 2008, Obama's 2004 Senate campaign raised $6,000 from BP-linked sources, bringing Obama's total BP-related campaign contributions to 77,051. This represents less than .01 percent of the nearly $800 million that Obama raised for his campaigns.

And corporations themselves are prohibited from donating directly to candidates from their corporate treasuries."

Wow. That would have been good for the Then and Now thread. If it was true. (http://mediamatters.org/blog/201005240042)
   

   

*sigh*

I guess that's a good one for the Then and Now thread too. Thanks Citizens United! :'(

I guess this could be a good time to point out that some of the money came from an employee PAC was in the second paragraph of the article I posted, however if I did point that out, it might lead someone to think that you didn't do any research whatsoever.  Not even to bother to actually read the article, and instead went on an internet search for some sort of counter vailing opinion.  And instead of finding something that you could proudly source, you just found a collection of blogs, and decided to leave your quote unsourced so I wouldn't mock it.

When really all you had to do was read the second paragraph in the article.

Donations come from a mix of employees and the company’s political action committees — $2.89 million flowed to campaigns from BP-related PACs and about $638,000 came from individuals.