{"id":13943,"date":"2010-10-01T12:00:11","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T17:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=13943"},"modified":"2014-10-05T14:38:04","modified_gmt":"2014-10-05T19:38:04","slug":"common-shills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=13943","title":{"rendered":"Common Shills"},"content":{"rendered":"

Common Cause Minnesota is a “non-profit, non-partisan” organization whose every initiative is, mirabile dictu<\/em>, exactly in sync with the “progressive” wing of the Minnesota DFL.<\/p>\n

No huge shock there.<\/p>\n

Speech rationing – “campaign finance reform” – has long been one of their main initiatives. \u00a0Read for yourself<\/a>. \u00a0They want – so they claim –\u00a0transparency\u00a0in politics.<\/p>\n

Of course, as Luke Hellier notes at MDE<\/a>, they are a 501c4 lobbying organization which, in 2008, took in over $665,000 on donations, entirely from anonymous “individual” sources (check it out starting on Page 13 of this very large PDF file<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"Sample<\/a>

Sample swiped from MDE<\/p><\/div>\n

Now, the law doesn’t require <\/em>them to divulge exactly who their donors are – which is kind of a weaselly out for a group that wants government to limit and regulate your <\/em>First Amendment right to political speech.<\/p>\n

At any rate, yesterday they released word that they were going to file a complaint against a series of Minnesota political action committees (PACs) that were playing a shell game with third-party donations, trying to make accountability difficult.<\/p>\n

And given how hard Common Cause has been proclaiming their ecumenicism and non-partisan mission, I thought “Halleluiah! \u00a0They’re going to do something about the epic three-card monte game the Dayton campaign has going on!”<\/p>\n

As we discussed last June<\/a>, the Dayton campaign was being supported by a huge <\/em>ad campaign\u00a0from a group called “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”. \u00a0At that time, ABM’s funding came from a bunch of unions, and a group called “Win Minnesota”, which was largely funded by…the Dayton family; as of last June, the list was…:<\/p>\n