No WONDER We "LEFT (used to be mainstream) DEMOCRATS" Are Being Screwed!

[KoKo]

Here's list of Center for American Progress Funders as of 2013--Very Disturbing

I donated to CAP one or two times but started to get disillusioned with them and even removed myself from their e-mail alerts when it seemed they were different from the organization I thought would be our New Progressive Think Tank (Ha!)....now I know why. Their funding says much about who their policies benefit. Reads like a list of Bail Out Recipients Anti-Union, Anti-Labor Big Business Globilization Supporters, Insurance/Pharma along with ALEC and Media Conglomerates plus influential Law Firms.

No wonder we Left (used to be mainstream) Democrats are being screwed!

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Center for American Progress's Corporate Donors In One List
Friday, December 13, 2013 1:24 PM

http://www.dailykos.com/rss/tag:corporate%20funding.xml

Earlier today, the Center for American Progress provided the Huffington Post with a list of all of its corporate donors. Ken Silverstein, a fellow at Harvard's Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, wrote on CAP's corporate funding in two excellent articles for the Nation earlier this year (See here and here) and then later for the Baffler. CAP's 10th anniversary conference notably received funding from Walmart and AT&T. The issue of corporate sponsorship of think tanks has gotten more traffic over the past few weeks. Elizabeth Warren wrote to the CEOs of the largest banks in the U.S., urging them to disclose their donations. And with John Podesta joining the administration, CAP was facing more pressure to release the information of its donors.

So here's the list:

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
The Albright Stonebridge Group
American Beverage Association
American Iron and Steel Institute
America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP)
Apple Inc.
AT&T
Bank of America
Blackstone
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
Blue Engine Message & Media
Blue Shield of California
BMW of North America
CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield
Citigroup
The Coca-Cola Company
Comcast NBCUniversal
Covanta Energy
CVS Caremark Inc.
Daimler
Monitor Deloitte
DeVry Education Group
Dewey Square Group
Discovery
DISH Network
Downey, McGrath Group, Inc.
DRS Technologies
Eli Lilly and Company
Facebook
Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas
GE
Genworth Financial
The Glover Park Group LLC
Goldman Sachs
Google
Health Care Service Corporation
The Ickes and Enright Group
Japan Bank for International Cooperation
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
Livingston Group
McLarty Associates
Microsoft Corporation
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
MyWireless.org
Northrop Grumman
Pearson
PepsiCo
PG&E Corporation
Quest Diagnostics
Samsung
Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO)
Tata Sons Limited
Time Warner Inc.
T-Mobile
Toyota Motor North America
Visa Inc.
Walmart
Wells Fargo

At least as of 2011, six of these were members of ALEC: AT&T, Bank of America,Eli Lilly and Company, Microsoft Corporation, Time Warner, and Visa.

[Maedhros]

1. Once the Party discovered that it can generate votes via marketing, rather than platform,

it abandoned its platform and started chasing the money to pay for the marketing.

[Scuba]

12. Bingo.

[BrotherIvan]

17. Exactly correct

[Cleita]

2. K&R

[PowerToThePeople]

4. And they all scream out,

Congratulations, you are still my patsy congress thing...

[Oilwellian]

5. When you look at who they list as distinguished senior fellows...

it will all make sense to you.

Distinguished Senior Fellows

Tom Daschle
Austan Goolsbee
The Rt. Hon. David Miliband MP
Lawrence H. Summers

http://www.americanprogress.org/about/staff/

[Kablooie]

6. I heard a lot of companies play both sides.

They don't exactly have a political philosophy, they simply want favors from whoever is in charge.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

7. "The Center for American Progress is an independent nonpartisan educational institute"

That's what it says on the Center for American Progress website. "The Center for American Progress is an independent nonpartisan educational institute"

[zeemike]

10. That is what they all say when the first start out.

And then are soon co-opted by the money.
Because let's face it, they can get more form a corporations in one day than they can from individual donations in a month.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

11. Exactly. No such thing as a corporate-bought non-partisan entity.

Corporate-bought is partisan. It belongs to the corporate party.

[lonestarnot]

8. I love it when people wake up to corporate plutocracy in the morning.

Even in the afternoon if you're old and take naps like me.

[WillyT]

9. Hey KoKo... Did You Catch This:

DULink: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024647215

[KoKo]

15. THANKS "Willy T" ! Explains just what I was talking about with CAP! Here:

This is exactly what started to bother me about CAP years back. It seemed their blog was geared to Progressive Democrats in their writings (I used to get their blog notice in my e-mail to read) and yet there would be actions where it seemed Obama was doing nothing like what they had said to readers on what his position was or what he really thought or how he would would eventually act on an issue they were touting.

They are nothing but a PR Campaign for Obama and his donors....which does not help our Democracy and verifies how "Citizens United" is ruining what's left of our Democracy. John Podesta back in the White House doesn't matter much. The Corporations already seem to own the place. Podesta is just there to make it all seem to come together a little better for the spin for the 2014 Mid-Term elections.

From the article you linked:

But then phone calls from the White House started pouring in, berating my bosses for being critical of Obama on this policy. Obama’s advisor Ben Rhodes — speaking of a staffer who follows policy set by others for his career path — even made a post on the White House blog more or less attacking my chart by fudging the numbers and including both the Iraq and Afghan troop levels in a single chart to make it seem as if the surge never happened (the marvels of things you can do in Excel!).

Soon afterwards all of us ThinkProgress national security bloggers were called into a meeting with CAP senior staff and basically berated for opposing the Afghan war and creating daylight between us and Obama. It confused me a lot because on the one hand, CAP was advertising to donors that it opposed the Afghan war — in our “Progressive Party,” the annual fundraising party we do with both Big Name Progressive Donors and corporate lobbyists (in the same room!) we even advertised that we wanted to end the war in Afghanistan.

But what that meeting with CAP senior staff showed me was that they viewed being closer to Obama and aligning with his policy as more important than demonstrating progressive principle, if that meant breaking with Obama.

[Crunchy Frog]

13. Under corporatism they get their tentacles into pretty much everything.

I guess it really shouldn't come as such a surprise.

[treestar]

14. Always the victims

Yes, the left is always getting screwed. Always the victims. It's terrible. All those other people out there, screwing you over every day and not a thing you can do about it. You know how many people work for Wells Fargo alone? Every janitor there works there just to screw the left over every day.

[Maedhros]

19. So, you're in favor of corporate think-tanks setting policies

that are at odds with liberal principles, and pressuring bloggers to suppress opinions they don't like?

Welcome to the ignore list.

[raouldukelives]

16. The one return every Wall St investor can depend on. The best government their money can help buy.

Why bother voting for republican candidates when funding them yourself is so much more effective.

[Zorra]

18. Useful information. Thank you, my dear KoKo. nt