As we continue our effort to keep you up-to-date on how money corrupts American government and politics, as well as other news of the day, we’re pleased to publish this daily digest compiled by BillMoyers.com’s John Light.
Cross your fingers –> Andrew Taylor at AP: “Congressional leaders are throwing their collective weight behind a hard-won, two-year bipartisan budget plan aimed at heading off a looming government debt crisis and forestalling a government shutdown in December.”
New details on hospital bombing –> Ken Delanian at AP: “The Army Green Berets who requested the Oct. 3 airstrike on the Doctors without Borders [Medicins Sans Frontieres] trauma center in Afghanistan were aware it was a functioning hospital but believed it was under Taliban control.” Meanwhile, Reuters reports, “A Yemeni hospital run by medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres was bombed in a Saudi-led air strike, wrecking the facility and wounding several people, the hospital director said on Tuesday.”
It’s not just Trump –> Jeb Bush and other candidates also are pretty cozy with their super PACs. At WSJ’s “Washington Wire” blog, Beth Reinhard and Christopher Stewart write, “Some presidential candidates are openly embracing super PACs, even helping them to raise money, giving the campaigns a connection to vast wealth with few restrictions but also risking a loss of control. This new, closer relationship between campaign and political action committee is a departure from previous years when candidates kept these outside organizations at arms’ length for fear of crossing legal lines.”
Best friends forever –> Liz Essley Whyte writes at the Center for Public Integrity that many wealthy donors who stayed overnight at the White House during Bill Clinton’s presidency are still donors to the family. Of those still living, “more than half are still giving — this time to Hillary Clinton.”
No longer outsiders enough? –> Voters are losing their enthusiasm for the idea of the the “tea party,” according to a new Gallup poll. Jon Queally at Common Dreams: “As Democrats and self-identified liberals continue to represent the largest set of outright opponents, the largest drop in support for the Tea Party comes from so-called ‘conservative Republicans,’ of which only 42 percent are now supportive, compared to 63 percent who described themselves as backers in 2010.” AND, The Washington Post‘s Philip Bump: “Part of this is because it’s hard to sustain high levels of grass-roots energy over the long-term. And part of it is because the tea party no longer needs to fight the Republican Party from the outside: It can fight it from within.” AND, Jaime Fuller at NY Mag’s Daily Intelligencer: “It [the tea party] seems to have so successfully infiltrated Washington and state governments across the country that Americans, drunk in love with the new hottest political trend — the outsidier, the better — are no longer impressed by their antics. Even devoted outsiders become boring insiders eventually.”
If you think the Benghazi committee is bad… –> The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology has been harassing researchers, sometimes because their findings contradict lawmakers’ unscientific views on climate change, and sometimes for no discernible reason at all. David Roberts at Vox: “The science committee’s modus operandi is similar to the Benghazi committee’s — sweeping, catchall investigations, with no specific allegations of wrongdoing or clear rationale, searching through private documents for out-of-context bits and pieces to leak to the press, hoping to gain short-term political advantage — but it stands to do more lasting long-term damage.”
Related –> New Hampshire’s Senator Kelly Ayotte is in for a difficult reelection fight, challenged by popular Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan, and so has become the first Republican to support Obama’s climate-change rule. Ben Geman reports for National Journal. Beer plays a role, too, so read on.
A banker might go to jail –> A Goldman Sachs banker who took confidential Fed documents could face jail time. Ben Protess and Peter Eavis at DealBook: “The banker and his source, who at the time of the leak was an employee at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, one of Goldman’s regulators, might plead guilty to misdemeanor theft charges rather than fight the case at trial, according to lawyers briefed on the matter who were not authorized to discuss private deliberations. The men, who were both fired in the wake of the leak, would face up to a year in prison if they accept the plea deals this week.”
Bummertown –> Inspired by the acrimonious Benghazi hearings, Walter Shapiro at the Brennan Center for Justice blog tries to figure out the last time politicians were willing to compromise — and finds himself going back to George H.W. Bush’s time in office. “Americans over the age of 40 are the only citizens with even the dimmest adult memories of the presidency of George H.W. Bush. What that means is that close to 100 million eligible voters have no first-hand recollection of a time when things worked in Washington. That might be a starting point for understanding the crippling cynicism that hangs over contemporary politics.”
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