EXCLUSIVE: Chamber of Commerce-CAUGHT-Coordinating Wall Streets Stealth Lobbying Campaign

[kpete]

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Coordinating Wall Street’s Stealth Lobbying Campaign To Kill Reform

........... there is a large, more subterranean effort from industry to kill reform. As the Politico Playbook reported yesterday morning, “financial-services giants are going grassroots” to lobby against reform. ThinkProgress has learned that the banks and financial conglomerates are using the same stealth lobbying operation the health insurance industry employed last year to mobilize opposition. Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Master Card, and other industry players are working through “Democracy Data & Communications” (DDC) — a firm that specializes in helping corporations activate their employees and customers into grassroots advocates — to join the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s effort to kill reform. The domain list of the DDC server, obtained by ThinkProgress, contains various Wall Street websites, including one seemingly named after JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, which all transfer visitors to the Chamber’s anti-reform campaign:

www.bankofamericavotes.com
www.dimonvotes.com
www.aftermarketvotes.org
www.mastercardvotes.com

USAA, the financial services corporation, also employs DDC for its grassroots lobbying and mass e-mailed its customers Friday morning to call lawmakers and oppose reform (view a copy here). http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/usaaemail.pdf Last year, DDC helped JP Morgan Chase coordinate a stealth campaign to kill efforts to tax banker bonuses.
http://ex.democracydata.com/JPMorgan/200903/Take_Action.pdf

.....................

The Chamber’s agenda on Wall Street reform is clear. On Wednesday, the Chamber’s political director Bill Miller met with Wall Street executives, Karl Rove, and other Republican operatives. The next day, Miller fired off an e-mail directing Chamber members to fight reform, declaring that the Chamber “fundamentally” disagrees with President Obama’s approach and that the legislation cannot be improved. Miller characterized reform as a “federal takeover of our financial industry” that “won’t do the one thing America needs most: create jobs.” Of course, the Chamber was one of the main lobbying fronts used by Wall Street to deregulate the financial markets under President Bush — and then demanded bailouts as the market crashed.

Much more (links and evidence):
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/24/stealth-chamber-banks/

[pleah]

1. K&R

[deminks]

2. K&R for Sunday morning.

:kick:

[mmonk]

3. The Powell memo in action.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. This is a surprise?

How pathetic is it that small business people in every community join this organization which effectively lobbies against many things that would actually help small business, like REAL healthcare reform, duh!

[malaise]

5. They no longer remember self interest I see

Wall Street banks have been running casinos not facilitating commerce.

[bobthedrummer]

6. So that's one of the many interests of the man who was called the "brain" of George Walker Bush-kick

:argh: