The Human Rights Campaign pledged Friday to donate $150,000 to political causes in Minnesota to offset a donation by retail giant Target to MN Forward, a political group backing GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. HRC will be donating $100,000 to…
A charity under investigation in five states has deep ties to Minnesota, from substantial contributions to state Republicans like former Sen. Norm Coleman and Rep. Michele Bachmann to its employment of a Minnesota lobbyist and a recently closed St. Paul operation. Officials in other states are calling the United States Navy Veterans Association (USNVA) a fraudulent charity, and its founder and sole organizer, Bobby Thompson, has disappeared in the wake of investigations alleging the group diverted charitable donations intended for military veterans to Republican candidates and political action committees.
With Goldman Sachs facing civil fraud charges stemming from misrepresentations of credit default swaps, Republicans and Democrats are attacking each other for accepting campaign contributions before the fraud charges were filed.…
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the Lewin Group, a health care research consulting firm, is owned by Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth Group. Research by Lewin has been a staple talking…
The office of Rep. Keith Ellison says a Thursday report by the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute is “shameful.” The institute’s blog, Smart Politics, examined contributors to Ellison’s campaign, noting that a number of those were out of state — and implying many were Muslim.
National businesses and banks have been feeding Norm Coleman major sums of cash this last quarter, despite the fact that corporations and, especially the financial sector, are withering in a crippling economy and asking taxpayers for bailouts. According to a story in L.A. Times last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $30 million on lobbying in the third quarter of this year, more than twice as much as it spent for the same purpose in the previous quarter. And a chunk of that change is going to Minnesota senator Norm Coleman.
It’s still not clear why Michele Bachmann used her congressional status to try to leverage a presidential pardon for someone who does not even live in her district. At this point, the only apparent connection between Frank Vennes Jr. and Bachmann as a congressperson is the $27,400 Vennes and his wife, Kimberly, have donated to Bachmann’s campaign funds since 2005, making the couple among Bachmann’s largest individual contributors. Vennes’ brother and his wife, Greg and Stephanie Vennes, have donated an additional $8,400 to Bachmann since 2005.
Read the letter, inside.
In 2007, Rep. Michele Bachmann sent President Bush a letter recommending he pardon a man who is a major contributor to her campaign even though he lives outside of her district. Last Thursday, Bachmann withdrew that letter, written on behalf of Frank Vennes, after FBI, IRS and U.S Postal Inspection officials seized numerous items from Vennes’ home in connection with the ongoing investigation of Vennes’ business associate Tom Petters.
The Sunlight Foundation has put together a fascinating animated graph that tracks the political donations from the finance, insurance and real estate sectors and to which party the money has gone. Utilizing Google Motion Chart and 20…
It’s called a “bundle,” and it’s a wad of campaign cash collected by a supporter’s friends, family members and associates and delivered in one lump sum to the candidate as a gift from the supporter. According to a story…
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