Citizens United Archives - Kit O'Connell: Approximately 8,000 Words

‘Which Side Are You On?’ Rapper B. Dolan On Corporate Power & Making Racists Afraid Again

B. Dolan performs at The Met in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on july 11, 2015. (Flickr / Tony Pacitti)

August 15, 2016

‘Which Side Are You On?’ Rapper B. Dolan On Corporate Power & Making Racists Afraid Again

B. Dolan was my favorite discovery of SXSW, an unabashedly political rapper from Rhode Island, and also an anti-corporate activist with Knowmore.org. I caught him during the same show where I saw Wheelchair Sports Camp and I knew we’d have to talk more.

It took until early last month before we finally connected with an interview, and then another month (thanks to the distracting spectacle of the election) before I finally put his words up on my site.

Thanks, B. Dolan, for taking the time to talk, and for your patience in seeing this published!

Kit O’Connell, Approximately 8,000 Words: Talk to me about what it’s like to play a huge commercial event like SXSW, especially the impact it can have good and bad on a community or your career. We had anti-gentrification protests at the event this year, in fact — is this something you take into consideration, as a politically aware musician?

House Passes Koch-Backed Bill Aimed At Opening Doors To Foreign Donors, Dark Money

At the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, activists project an image readiing "Corporations ≠ People. Money ≠ Speech." (Flickr / Peg Hunter)

June 28, 2016

Kit

House Passes Koch-Backed Bill Aimed At Opening Doors To Foreign Donors, Dark Money

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Rather than following the lead of prominent advocates for campaign finance reform, the House of Representatives recently voted to make American politics less transparent than ever.

The issue of the influence of so-called “dark money” on politics — hidden, high-dollar donations made possible by reforms to campaign finance law like the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision — is receiving renewed attention this election cycle thanks to successful awareness-raising campaigns by presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, and legislators like Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

A September poll by Bloomberg Politics found that 78 percent of Americans would like to see Citizens United overturned. And that opposition isn’t coming from just one corner; it’s consistent across the party spectrum, from Democrats to Republicans to independents.

Big Ag Is Big Money For Congress: Monsanto Spends $2.5M Lobbying In 2015

During a German march against the Agribusiness giant Monsanto, a woman carries a NO MONSANTO sign illustrated with a bee. (Flickr / Die Grünen Kärnten)

August 26, 2015

Kit

Big Ag Is Big Money For Congress: Monsanto Spends $2.5M Lobbying In 2015

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Monsanto spends millions of its billions of dollars in annual revenue on lobbying and hiring some of Washington’s most notorious firms to ensure that laws continue to favor the agribusiness giant’s profits.

OpenSecrets.org, a project of the Center For Responsive Politics, reported that, as of July 21, Monsanto had already spent over $2.5 million dollars on lobbying this year. The corporation is on track to meet or beat last year’s 2014 spending total, which reached $4,120,000. Yet it doesn’t appear to be on pace to break the record the company set for itself in 2008, when it spent $9 million on lobbying.

At the federal level, Monsanto’s millions are spent to ensure Congress passes laws that work in the company’s favor. The corporation lobbied heavily for the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, better known to food safety activists as the “DARK Act,” which would overrule hundreds of local laws regulating the labelling of foods containing genetically-modified ingredients with a still undeveloped USDA program.