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Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Election's biggest corporate donor an enigma
By Michael Beckel and Reity O?Brien, The Center for Public Integrity
The biggest corporate contributor in the 2012 election so far doesn?t appear to make anything ? other than very large contributions to a conservative super PAC.
Specialty Group Inc., of Knoxville, Tenn., donated nearly $5.3 million between Oct. 1 and Oct. 11 to FreedomWorks for America, which is affiliated with former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey.
FreedomWorks? super PAC has spent more than $19 million on political advertising,?including $1.7 million on Oct. 29?opposing Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat running for Congress in Illinois against Tea Party favorite Joe Walsh, a first-term incumbent.
The buy was more than four times greater than the group?s previous largest single expenditure.
Specialty was formed only a month ago. Its ?principal office? is a private home in Knoxville. It has no website. And the only name associated with it is that of its registered agent, a lawyer whose phone number, listed in a legal directory, is disconnected.
Specialty is the biggest and most mysterious corporate donor to super PACs, but it is not unique.
A new analysis by the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics shows that companies have contributed roughly $75 million to super PACs in the 2012 election cycle.
Super PACs, which were created in the wake of the controversial U.S. Supreme Court?s Citizens United decision in 2010, can accept donations of unlimited size from corporations, unions and individuals. They spend the funds mostly on negative advertising.
The centers? analysis found that 85 percent of money from companies flowed to GOP-aligned groups,?11 percent went to Democratic groups and the?remainder went to?organizations not aligned with either party.
First Read: Full coverage on the campaign trail
Prior to Citizens United, corporate spending on candidate advertising was not allowed. The decision raised fears that massive donations from corporate treasuries would flood the election in 2012.
In fact, the largest amounts have come from wealthy businessmen. However, about 11 percent of the $660 million raised by all super PACs through mid-October has come from company treasuries ? mostly privately held businesses, sometimes organized as limited partnerships or limited liability companies.
High-profile donors
Yet a few high-profile companies haven?t been afraid to jump into the partisan fray.
In mid-October, oil and gas giant Chevron donated $2.5 million to a super PAC close to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the Congressional Leadership Fund, which has aired a bevy of ads attacking Democratic House candidates.
Oxbow Carbon, the energy company owned by billionaire William?Koch, the lesser-known brother of conservative industrialists David and Charles Koch, and Contran Corp., the business of Republican super donor Harold Simmons of Texas, have both steered significant sums to the coffers of super PACs.
Oxbow Carbon has donated $4.25 million to GOP super PACs, making it the No. 2 corporate donor to super PACs, while Contran, No. 3, has donated more than $3 million to Republican-aligned groups.
Another top corporate donor is a retirement community in central Florida known as The Villages ? a Republican stronghold where Paul Ryan held his first campaign rally the day after GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney named him as his running mate.
Developer H. Gary Morse created The Villages more than 50 years ago, and this election cycle, more than a dozen companies connected to Morse and The Villages have collectively steered $1.6 million to GOP super PACs. That?s in addition to the $450,000 that Morse and his wife, Renee, have donated from their personal funds.
Notably, Morse is also the Florida co-chairman of the Romney campaign, and during the Republican National Convention, Morse?s Cayman Island-flagged yacht, named ?Cracker Bay,? was the site of a soiree for some of Romney?s top donors and fundraisers.
Other high-profile corporate donors include:
- The Apollo Group, a for-profit education company, which gave $75,000 to the pro-Romney Restore Our Future and another $5,000 to JAN PAC, the super PAC of Arizona?s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer;
- Convenience store giant 7-Eleven, which donated $25,000 to Hoosiers for Jobs, a super PAC that supported Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., during his failed primary campaign;
- Hamburger chain White Castle, which gave $25,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund;
- Defense contractor B/E Aerospace, which gave $50,000 to Restore Our Future;
- Payday lender QC Holdings, which gave $25,000 to Restore Our Future; and
- Weaver Holdings, the parent company of the Indiana-popcorn company known for its brands ?Pop Weaver? and ?Trail?s End,? sold by Boy Scouts across the country, which has donated $2.4 million to American Crossroads, the super PAC founded by GOP strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie.
Only a few other Fortune 500 companies have joined Chevron, which ranks third on the elite list behind only Exxon Mobil and Walmart, in making contributions to super PACs, and none has given as much as the energy giant.
Caesar?s Entertainment Corp., for instance, ranked by Fortune at No. 288, has given $150,000 to Majority PAC, a group that is spending to help Democrats retain the majority in the U.S. Senate.
?Fortune 500 companies are the least likely to be the ones who will be out in front giving publicly,? said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California-Irvine. ?They want to have influence over elections and elected officials, but they don't want to alienate customers.?
By category, companies in the finance, insurance and real estate sector donated more than $15 million, ?general business sector? firms gave about $14 million and energy sector companies contributed more than $11 million, according to the analysis.
Unions, by contrast, have donated about $60 million to super PACs, from their treasuries or political action committees.
The top union donors include the National Education Association ($9 million), the United Auto Workers ($8.6 million) and the AFL-CIO ($6.4 million). All of these groups have spent heavily on Democratic candidates.
Money 'hiding in plain sight'
Additional corporate money may be flowing through politically active nonprofits that don?t disclose their funders.
?I strongly suspect that most of the corporate money is hiding in plain sight in trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,? said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor at the Stetson University College of Law.
For its part, the?Chamber ? which collects dues from companies such as Aetna, Chevron, Dow Chemical and Microsoft ? has reported spending more than $35 million on political ads, which have overwhelmingly favored Republican politicians.
Facts about?Specialty Group Inc. are scant.
Records filed with the Tennessee Secretary of State?s office show it registered on Sept. 26, listing 61-year-old attorney William S. Rose, Jr., as its agent. Rose?s $634,000 home ? about a 30-minute drive from downtown Knoxville ? is listed as its ?principal office.?
Yet the company?s money has made a huge impact.
After the cash infusion from Specialty, FreedomWorks produced numerous advertisements, including one that blasts Duckworth as a crony of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached and sentenced to 14 years in federal prison following a corruption scandal.
Duckworth is a double amputee and Iraq War veteran. She?headed Illinois? Department of Veteran Affairs and later served in President Barack Obama?s U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
FreedomWorks? new ad features grainy footage of Duckworth and audio of her saying, ?Gov. Blagojevich has charged me with the mission of taking care of my buddies, and that is what I?m doing.? But it leaves out the fact that when she said ?buddies,? she was referring to other veterans and members of the military.
FreedomWorks for America treasurer and legal counsel Ryan Hecker says the organization only supports candidates who are ?ethically right.?
Anton Becker, Duckworth's campaign press secretary, says it?s conservative outside groups who are peddling "lies."
When asked for details about Specialty Group and the source of its contributions, Hecker expressed ignorance, and doubted that voters care about where the money came from.
?We are in compliance with the law, and we are doing what we can to report to the Federal Election Commission,? he said. ?If there?s an issue with Specialty, it?s their issue. It?s not our issue.?
Andrea Fuller of the Center for Public Integrity contributed to this report.
This story is a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics. For?up-to-date news on outside spending in the 2012 election, follow our Source2012 Tumblr and the hashtag #Source2012 on Twitter.
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Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Big Apple improvises to reopen for business
A customer shops at Andy's Deli in the dark, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, in New York. Days after superstorm Sandy hit, businesses both big and small are facing a tough choice, to reopen or stay closed. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
A customer shops at Andy's Deli in the dark, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, in New York. Days after superstorm Sandy hit, businesses both big and small are facing a tough choice, to reopen or stay closed. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
People wait in line to purchase steaks while George Elizalde cooks the food on a grill in front of the Old Homestead Steakhouse in New York, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012. In lower Manhattan, some stores are open even though their power is still out. Others are busing essential employees to work. Days after superstorm Sandy hit, businesses both big and small are facing a tough choice, to reopen or stay closed. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Oscar Paulino, left, and Angel Hernandez move produce from the juice bar where they work into a refrigerated van in New York, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012. The juice bar, like most businesses in lower Manhattan, was without power and was trying to save some of their perishables. Days after superstorm Sandy hit, businesses both big and small are facing a tough choice, to reopen or stay closed. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
People shop in a candle-lit deli in New York's Tribeca neighborhood, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012. In lower Manhattan, some stores are open even though their power is still out. Others are busing essential employees to work. Days after superstorm Sandy hit, businesses both big and small are facing a tough choice, to reopen or stay closed.(AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Commuters cross New York's Brooklyn Bridge, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012. The floodwaters that poured into New York's deepest subway tunnels may pose the biggest obstacle to the city's recovery from the worst natural disaster in the transit system's 108-year history. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Two days after Superstorm Sandy brought business in New York City to a standstill, stores that lost power are again serving customers, albeit by flashlight. Companies with closed offices are setting up shop in coffeehouses. And the owner of the Skylight Diner is borrowing bacon from his neighbors because the restaurant's cupboard is bare.
The world's financial center is struggling to get back to work as it deals with a subway system that's still crippled by the worst damage in its 108-year-history and power outages in major sections of the city. That's kept both employees and customers at bay. As a result, big multinational banks are in the same proverbial boat as corner bodegas: looking for creative ways to get their businesses back up and running.
New York City is home to roughly a million companies of all sizes. While the impact of Sandy varies, the city's businesses face billions of dollars in damages and lost sales. So while reopening quickly is a priority, it can require resourcefulness and a smidge of creativity.
For Teddy Papaioannou, that meant calling in some favors. On Wednesday, the co-owner of the Skylight Diner was running low on supplies at his restaurant in the midtown section of the Manhattan borough, so he borrowed a few pounds of bacon from his neighbors who also are restaurant owners.
Papaioannou and his brother and father, who all own the diner jointly, were so eager to open that the three of them even chauffeured employees around on Tuesday and Wednesday. They picked up a total of 20 workers for various shifts over the two-day period.
"Closing for three days would ruin us for a month," he said.
Lost sales were a big motivator for other business owners too. William Badie, owner of Food Fair food market and deli, estimated he lost $8,000 because the store was closed on Monday and Tuesday. So he made sure he was open Wednesday. Only one of his usual three staffers could make it into work, so he paid for him to get there.
The 40-minute cab ride into Manhattan from the Queens borough typically costs about $35, which wasn't a huge cost, he figured, especially considering that he expected to make about $1,500 on Wednesday. But by afternoon, only two customers were eating lunch at a small table and another man bought a turkey sandwich. Still, Badie said he's fortunate because he never lost power and didn't have to throw away anything.
"It's very slow. There are no customers," he said. "But business is like that. You lose or you make. You can complain, but who is going to listen to you?"
In the lower section of Manhattan, where a massive power outage persisted, things got even trickier for businesses that wanted to reopen. Most stores were closed, but a few found a way to get customers.
Bareburger in the trendy Chelsea neighborhood in lower Manhattan was grilling burgers outside and giving them away, asking only for donations for the Red Cross. The restaurant, which has been in the neighborhood for a year, has lost several thousand dollars a day since losing power Monday. Workers iced down the restaurant's meat, but decided to grill after they realized it wouldn't be safe to eat after Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Deli & Grocery Corp. was open for business, just two doors down from a building whose facade had completely shorn off, making the exposed rooms appear like an open dollhouse, with decorated with beds, lights and furniture. The deli didn't have power, but a gas range was working so it was able to sell coffee, sodas and canned goods. Manager Tariq Mohamed Ali used a flashlight to see what he was doing.
Ali declined to estimate how much in sales the deli has lost, but he acknowledged that he really needs the subways to start running again and the electricity to come back so that customers can return. Otherwise, the deli may not be able to make its rent for the month. Still, he insisted that he opened so that neighbors would have a place to go.
"It's cold outside, so we wanted to give people coffee," he said. "If you do something nice it will come back to you."
For many of New York's technology companies and banks, the difference between opening or closing is not as clear cut as it would be for a grocery store or restaurant. Getting ? or staying ? open has been a matter of complex planning so that employees can work remotely.
Employees at Foursquare Inc., a social network that lets people tell friends and family where they are, were working from their homes or nearby coffee shops on Wednesday.
Though Foursquare encouraged people to work from home, the company also found space for about 70 people in Manhattan and some in the trendy Williamsburg section of the Brooklyn borough. There, regular tenants at a co-working space called Secret Clubhouse were joined by stranded employees not only from Foursquare but the gossip blog Gawker and the photo blogging site Tumblr, among others.
Meanwhile, financial giants such as Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley ? all with operations in the evacuated zone in downtown Manhattan ? were able to keep open by shifting work to offices in other areas of the city and neighboring states. Goldman Sachs said essential employees in the city were being shuttled to its headquarters in the Financial District, which a spokesman said suffered "minimal damage." Others were working in the company's backup offices in Connecticut and New Jersey.
Bank of America reopened its office in midtown Manhattan, but two offices downtown remained closed because they were in an evacuation zone. The bank also told employees who work elsewhere in lower Manhattan to work from home if possible.
"There will be a lot of cleanup in lower Manhattan," said bank spokesman Mark Pipitone. "And it's good to let the crews get their work done without the additional challenge of a few thousand more people moving through the area."
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AP reporters Bernard Condon, Anne D'Innocenzio, Christina Rexrode, Barbara Ortutay and Joyce Rosenberg contributed from New York.
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Monday, October 29, 2012
Review: Dishonored [Gaming Dead] | N4G
Kevin Roberson writes: "Original IP, ?play it your way? mechanics, stealthy badass protagonist and an engrossing story? It?s like they made a game just for me!" 4.5/5
Source: http://n4g.com/news/1105632/review-dishonored-gaming-dead
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
biology - Science Discussion
Maybe you should consider it like a train. The engine is responsible for moving all the other cars along the track. However, the man inside--the engineer must drive, slow, and brake to a stop. Consider the pituitary gland as the train, and consider the hypothalamus as the engineer.
eNotes has more in-depth information at the following link.
Source: http://www.enotes.com/science/discuss/biology-121678
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Scoopinion Recommends Articles Based on Your Reading Habits and Browser History [Chrome Extensions]
Scoopinion works behind the scenes, and analyzes where you spend the most time reading. It then takes that data, looks at other users with similar tastes, and recommends new stories to you. The longer you use it, the more applicable your recommendations should get. If you prefer, you can also remove stories from the recommendations to improve what you see in the future. Scoopinions does track everything you do, so it's not the most private extension around, but if you're looking for some new reading material it's worth taking a look at.
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Yahoo Hires Google Sales Executive as COO - Hollywood Reporter
Yahoo said Monday it has hired Henrique de Castro away from Google, where he was vp worldwide Partner Business Solutions group, as its new COO, reporting to CEO Marissa Mayer, also a Google alumna.
According to a regulatory filing, de Castro could make nearly $60 million by jumping to Yahoo from Google, where he earned his reputation as a top sales executive over the six years he was employed there.
STORY: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Welcomes Baby Boy
His new compensation package includes a $600,000 base annual salary and the opportunity to double that with bonuses, plus $1 million cash for leaving money behind at Google and another $20 million in Yahoo stock to replace Google shares he?ll not get, plus a possible $36 million in stock grants.
?De Castro will join the company on or before Jan. 22, 2013, or as soon as he has satisfied his obligations to his current employer,? Yahoo said.
Prior to Google, de Castro spent two years at Dell, and he was a consultant for McKinsey & Co.
STORY: Yahoo Replaces CFO as New CEO Marissa Mayer Delivers Pep Talk
?Henrique is an incredibly accomplished and rigorous business leader, and I?m personally excited to have him join Yahoo?s strong leadership team,? Mayer said. ?His operational experience in Internet advertising and his proven success in structuring and scaling global organizations make him the perfect fit for Yahoo as we propel the business to its next phase of growth.?
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Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/yahoo-hires-coo-top-google-sales-exec-379096
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