Good morning! Here’s your daily digest of money-in-politics news and the headlines of the day, compiled by BillMoyers.com’s John Light.
Time for another debate –> Republican candidates for president will take the stage in Colorado tonight. CNBC assures us that it “will focus on the key issues that matter to all voters—job growth, taxes, technology, retirement and the health of our national economy.” Donors are worried about Jeb Bush — and are preparing to “close their checkbooks if the ex-Florida governor doesn’t have a breakout moment,” write James Hohmann and Elise Viebeck at the Washington Post. The “pre-debate” — Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki, and Lindsey Graham — begins at 6 pm, ET. Serious contenders face off at 8 pm, ET.
“Direct action” –> The US is shifting its strategy on the ground in Iraq and Syria, and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told the Senate Armed Forces Committee yesterday that this will include “direct action on the ground.” Zack Beauchamp at Vox: “This is not a transformative change to US strategy against ISIS, but it does show some revealing things about what’s working and not.”
“A new low in campaign finance” –> In a New York Times op-ed, the Center for Responsive Politics’s Robert Maguire argues that dark money groups are growing more brazen, increasingly supporting just one candidate and dropping the guise of educating voters on issues in favor of outright partisanship. Case in point: Carolina Rising spent $4.7 million in the three months before Election Day last year to support Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC). Most of that money — 98.7 percent of it — came from a single donor, but we may never know who he or she was.
About time –> USA Today: “FEC overhauls website to make it easier to track campaign money.”
Coming to a city near you –> Super PACs are getting more active at the local level, reports Dave Davies for NPR. “Three super PACs raised and spent more than $10 million total in Philadelphia’s mayoral election this year. That’s roughly twice the spending of the candidates themselves, who were bound by contribution limits in city election law. Mayoral superPACs have also been active this year in Chicago, Nashville and Washington, D.C.”
A blow to Net Neutrality in Europe –> The EU’s parliament has passed a package of internet regulations “without the amendments that rights groups said were crucial to protect free speech, democracy, and innovation online,” writes Nadia Prupis at Common Dreams. “Wide loopholes in the rules open the door for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to discriminate against networks, speed up or slow down internet traffic, charge companies for faster loading times, and strip users of protections. The legislation passed 500-163.”
“Aggressive and inhumane” –> A video posted to the Internet shows a white South Carolina “school resource officer” pulling a black high school student from her desk, tossing her across the classroom while still in her chair and then pinning her to the ground. The Department of Justice is launching a federal civil rights investigation. Matthew Teague at The Guardian: “According to a classmate, the student in question had peeked at her cellphone during class. When the teacher tried to take the phone away, the student refused to hand it over, and when a school administrator told her to leave the class, she stayed at her desk, which is when [school resource officer] Fields was summoned.” AND: At the Center for Public Integrity, Susan Ferriss writes that this incident is only unique in that it was caught on video. Data shows that thousands of students annually are being arrested, ticketed and sometimes involved in physical disputes with security officers while at school, sometimes for minor issues like disrupting class.
Ignoring the problem –> At The New York Times, Eduardo Porter writes that both state and federal authorities have failed America’s poor in the wake of Clinton-era welfare reform, and that policy proposals advanced in Paul Ryan’s budget would squeeze America’s neediest even more tightly.
Jeb Bush, governor of the Old South –> In Florida, 20 percent of the black voting-age population are disenfranchised because of felony convictions. Florida is one of only three states with this rule. To have their civil rights restored, ex-felons must plead with the governor in person — so from 1997 through 2007, it was Jeb Bush’s job to pass judgement on whether 385,522 ex-felons were fit to vote. Only one fifth were, he decided. Pema Levy reports this longread for Mother Jones.
New Gilded Age –> Report from the Institute of Policy Studies: “Just 100 CEOs have as much in their company retirement assets as the entire retirement savings of 41 percent of American families (50 million families total).”
One more argument for gun control –> Christopher Ingraham at the Washington Post: “In the past five years, at least six Americans have been shot by dogs.” The latest guilty canine is named — we’re not making this up — “Trigger.”
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