Organizing For Corruption

The White House denies a report that it is selling access to the president for $500,000 through its new Organizing for Action "social welfare group." Frankly, that's not believable, given what's already been going on.

 

As if it weren't bad enough already that President Obama has decided to keep his campaign machine active as a tax-exempt, "social welfare organization" to advocate his political agenda, it's a fact that anyone who writes a check for $500,000 sits on OFA's "national advisory board" and gets face time with the president four times a year.

 

That's a lot of access from a president who refuses to answer questions from the press about his actions and rarely ever holds press conferences.

 

It also renders White House spokesman Jay Carney's blunt denial that the president is selling access for cash total baloney. How is it that a board seat and four meetings with Obama are somehow not cash-for-access?

 

Fact is, it's a dinner triangle for corruption, as special interests, lobbyists and big-money donors with radical-chic values have a go-to place to exert power on a man who's gladly done their bidding for four years already.

 

Cash for access has pretty much been a hallmark of the Obama years and it's just getting worse.

 

It probably started in 2008, when then-candidate Barack Obama changed his position, rejecting federal funding and accepting unlimited private funding.

 

That helped with the likes of BP, whose PAC gave Obama $3 million, more than any other candidate.

 

Other mercenary types followed, such as Obama golf buddy Jim Crane, who donated to Republicans until they started losing, and who has a long record of overcharging the government for goods.

 

Obama said he would never take money from lobbyists. Well, he has. He's also made his White House a revolving door of jobs for lobbyists.

 

And then there are the crony capitalists — such as Solyndra, which was awarded $500 million in federal cash despite not being viable. The taxpayers got stiffed on that,while Obama's donor-owners got paid.

 

The Nation reports that cash-for-Obama-access seems to have bought the Southern Company an $8 billion loan guarantee for a plant, directly traceable to the firm's donation to the Obama Inaugural Committee.

 

All of this has happened in direct contradiction to Obama's stated claims of a pure policy. As Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause noted, "it just smells."

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