Saturday, February 15, 2014

The power of union political contributions outed.


Think the Koch Brothers Are Among the Top 10 All-Time Political Donors? Sorry, You Are Wrong. Very Wrong.


The Koch brothers, notorious for donating large sums of money to right-leaning political causes, might not be as influential as some may think.

In fact, according to the data, Koch Industries places 59 on the list with $18 million in donations, 90-percent of which went to Republicans.Opensecrets.org recently compiled a list of the top “all-time donors” from 1989 to 2014 and the infamous duo not only fail to take the top slot, but even place in the top 10.
So who takes the top spot? An organization called “ActBlue” which bills itself as a PAC “allowing individuals and groups to channel their progressive dollars to candidates and movements of their choosing.”
That group has donated more than 97 million to political causes, with over 99-percent going to Democrats.
So who occupies the 58 spots ahead of the Evil Koch Bros? Six of the top 10 are … wait for it … unions. They gave more than $278 million, with most of it going to Democrats.
These are familiar names: AFSCME ($60.6 million), NEA ($53.5 million), IBEW ($44.4 million), UAW ($41.6 million), Carpenters & Joiners ($39.2 million) and SEIU ($38.3 million).
In other words, the six biggest union donors in American politics gave 15 times more to mostly Democrats than the Evil Koch Bros.

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