Karl Rove SuperPAC Gets Majority "Secret" Donors

Karl Rove.

There are a great many mysteries to me, as it pertains to conservative politics, and American politics in general right now. On Sunday morning, I saw Karl Rove as a panelist on FOX "News" Sunday. The panel included (the always wrong) Bill Kristol, and the discussion was over how Mitt Romney should be going 100% high-road, letting people like Rove be the attackers on President Obama. Rove understandably concurred.

WTF? Karl Rove wasn't being interviewed, he was empaneled in a discussion group, abstractly discussing a campaign that he is a key player in. It's almost surreal. Then you have ALEC, a group that melds corporations with legislators. They've become a bit radioactive since liberals started turning their Geiger counters on them. But--because liberals hate it?--conservatives have leapt to to ALEC's defense. Granted, they are a creator of legislation that then gets mostly Republicans to enact them verbatim. But is it at all conservative to support a group like that?

But back to Rove. Rove runs one of the biggest groups of SuperPACs, two actually, American Crossroads, and CrossroadsGPS. They're the same but different in ways that aren't particularly important. Different money from different people in different pockets. But the one that's allowed to get secret donors has just stuffed its pockets with them. 62% from secret donors! They could be anyone. . .church groups, criminals, illegal aliens, foreign interests, anyone. How is that a conservative ideal?

[Excerpt]


62 Percent Of Karl Rove’s $123 Million In ‘Crossroads’ Fundraising Comes From Secret Donors

The Karl Rove-linked American Crossroads Super PAC and Crossroads GPS 501(c)(4) organizations have the same president, same spokesman, same mailing address, and same right-wing ideology. Both groups can, thanks to the Citizens United and SpeechNow.org rulings, accept unlimited sums of money from individuals and corporations — a privilege they’ve wielded to raise $100 million for the 2012 cycle alone and to run millions of dollars worth of political television ads. . .

Read more at: Think Progress

ALEC is Losing Major Members (Pepsi, Coke, Kraft)

Have you noticed the spate of similar draconian laws enacted all across the country on a variety of subjects? "Stand your ground?" "Voter I.D.?" "Collective bargaining" removal? Doesn't it seem weird that a dozen or more states would have the same idea at the same time? That a whole bunch of newly strongly Republican states would enact very, very similar laws? While people like me warned of GOP overreach should they win in 2010, I really had no idea that there really was a vast, right-wing conspiracy!


ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) is kinda sorta the definition of fascism. The union of government and corporations. Not exactly of course. ALEC has no legislative weight. But they're enormously influential. It works like this: Business writes laws, hands them to governors or legislative bodies, and the laws are enacted by (at least right now) hugely skewed state governments, overreaching from their 2010 victories. It was kind of a perfect storm.

The hardcore right--the FReepers--can square ALEC into their "small government/free market" world view. They'd lap up whatever Rush Limbaugh and FOX "News" fed them, with no quarrel and not a second thought. But the less hardcore, the less partisan among us would likely be appalled if they knew the scale of ALEC's influence. Thankfully, people are starting to catch on. Big people ("Corporations are people, my friend!" --Mitt Romney) like Pepsico, Coca-Cola and Kraft Foods. Uh oh.

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BREAKING: Kraft Becomes Third Corporation To Drop ALEC

Following Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, tonight Kraft became the third major corporation to announce its departure from the right-wing business front group ALEC. . .

Read more at: Think Progress