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In We Are Who We Take Money From Part One I took a look at the wisdom of having Wal-Mart as a sponsor of a NHDP event. It turns out that the same event was also sponsored by GE, The Genesee & Wyoming RR, Unitl, and Fidelity Investments aka FMR.
That's why we investigate who donates to our elected officials. We pay attention to who the big corporate campaign donors are.
In 2005, Abramoff's money, via Tom DeLay's ARMPAC , caused considerable stir. J. D. Hayworth, the Republican primarying McCain in Arizona kept his Abramoff money. Pressure exerted by NH Democrats forced Jeb Bradley to return his $15,000 from ARMPAC. Ron Paul came under fire in 2007 for refusing to return donations from Neo-Nazi Don Black, the creator of StormFront, a white nationalist website. Former Speaker of the NH House, Gene Chandler, got in big trouble for taking donations and not reporting them.
Even as oil devastates the seafood industry and the coast of Louisiana, Senator Mary Landrieu is calling for accelerated offshore oil drilling. Mary Landrieu is the top recipient in Congress of donations from BP.
A recent press release from the NHDP criticizes Kelly Ayotte for taking some $150K from Wall St. execs, including a billionaire hedge fund manager.
Given that we watch and we criticize - it was especially painful to learn that one of the sponsors of the recent NHDP 100 Club Dinner was Wal-Mart. As we all know, Wal-Mart has long been criticized for their shoddy business practices, including not paying overtime, not providing health insurance for employees, and paying so poorly that many employees are eligible for food stamps and Medicaid. They are anti-union. They are anti-women. Wal-Mart pharmacies do not stock the morning after pill. Wal-Mart engages in censorship. Books, movies, and CDs purchased at Wal-Mart may be censored for bad language. Wal-Mart is an evil empire in many, many respects.
I'm dismayed that the NHDP accepted money from Wal-Mart. Not only are their ethics non-existent, taking money from them will lead to speculation about what they got in return.
Last week Virginia's Orange County Board of Supervisors vote to approve the building of a new Wal-Mart Supercenter within the historic boundaries of the
Wilderness Battlefield - and one of the most significant battlefields of the Civil War. The Civil War Preservation Trust has been fighting Wal-Mart on this location for over a year - seeking an alternative location and compromoise - and after last week they desperately need everyones help to stop Wal-Mart from moving forward and opening the door to further destructive development.
Even State Senator Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate for Virginia Governor, has written a letter to the president and CEO of Wal-Mart pleading with him to move the location off the historic battlefield. Wake-Up Wal-Mart is helping in this fight and you can too by also writing a letter on the Civil War Preservation Trust's website and also help spread the word yourself.
More from Blue Virginia and the Washington Post below:
Amid a new national recognition of our utterly corrupt centers of finance, and with an economic tailspin generating from those centers now reaching the very heart of the nation, John McCain is changing his mind by the hour.
He doesn't know which master he's supposed to please.
My friends, you ask: what's this got to do with Walmart?
My freinds: this has got everything to do with Walmart:
Yesterday's New York Times posted a misleading article that uses the relationship between SEIU President Andy Stern and Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott as evidence of a "slowing down" of the Wal-Mart campaigns. (NYT registration required-- it's also re-posted at
HuffPo.)
While we cannot speak for Wal-Mart Watch, everyone should know WakeUpWalMart.com has NO intention of letting Wal-Mart off the hook. None. Zero. Zilch.
Wake Up Walmart has released its first video of 2008. Walmart is a key issue for progressives to focus on- because of their awful health care benefits, New Hampshire citizens are estimated to be paying $8,045,170 a year in taxes to cover poor Walmart employees and their families with health care- while Walmart is making huge profits.
Please check out this video, and let your friends know why we need to "Wake Up Walmart".
Berlin State Senator John Gallus is proposing a bill that would allow resort casinos to be built in Berlin and at the Pease International Tradeport. It is scheduled for a public hearing on March 6th.
I don't think it is going to pass. At least, it shouldn't. We're smarter than that, I hope.
I don't think we're desperate enough either in Portsmouth or Berlin to open the floodgates to gamblers either flying in or driving up for "a few days of fun."
We can do better.
Nor are we willing to put at risk the future of New Hampshire by relying on expanded gambling as a supposed source of income.
Oh, expanded gambling. It sounds so good -- such a good deal for the state. But greater gambling causes many side effects, and eventually doesn't bring much money into the state because the gambling interests put up their tent stakes, take hold in the state, and then rent lobbyists and make campaign contributions to "persuade" lawmakers to lower the state take.
Plus, the corruption we have seen in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Nevada should encourage us to turn thumbs down. Not good.
Having a casino as a destination site isn't going to help the Berlin economy all that much, and might well put some of the motels and hotels and restaurants in that area out of business.
Gambling casinos are the Wal-Marts of the "entertainment industry" when located in tourist areas. People go there, sleep there, play there, eat there, spend (as in mostly lose) their money there, and the corporate "profits" are sent out-of-state to the stockholders and corporate bosses.
Plus, local residents who might gamble there only have so much money; if you lose your paycheck playing slots, you won't be visiting your neighborhood restaurant or movie theater quite so often, or perhaps the neighborhood clothing store. The seduction of a quick buck is hard for some people to resist, and that will put more burden on other local services.
And as for Pease, I think we're doing just fine. I was one of the seven members of the original Pease Redevelopment Commission in 1990 and 1991 which set into motion a vision for Pease that has paid off in considerable airport-related businesses being located there. Some 6,000 jobs have been generated, many of them in technical industries and most of those well-paid. We don't need a couple of hundred low-paid service-type jobs with the resulting additional traffic, crime, and addiction problems resulting.
For New Hampshire and for our future generations, we can do better than this.
