President Donald Trump promised voters during last summer’s Republican National Convention that he would ‘not look the other way’ and ignore Washington politicians that have “sold out to some corporate lobbyist for cash.”

But newly released documents show that while Mr. Trump was delivering his remarks, top Republican officials and some of the nation’s biggest corporate lobbyists were enjoying a plush, corporate funded private hideaway where politicians could safely meet with corporate interests away from the public’s glare.

The Center for Public Integrity could not directly obtain information about the “cloakroom” — the informal name designated by the GOP for the space designed to look like a cross between an elite hotel lobby, a private club, and expensive office space — because the organizers sought to keep it a secret. But an unrelated lawsuit filed in a Ohio court made public important bank records which revealed just how much some of America’s top corporations were willing to quietly spend to keep the Republicans happy.

The top donor was Comcast Corp., which contributed $200,000. Microsoft, the Koch Brothers, and AT&T each donated $100,000. Those companies were joined by large banks, the oil, gas, and pharmaceutical industries, and curiously an $80,000 check from the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, among the top political donors in California. The group has spent more than a quarter-billion dollars on campaign contributions and lobbying to convince lawmakers to allow the Native Americans the right to spread slot machines around the state.

To keep the contributions a secret, Republicans created a limited liability corporation — “Friends of the House 2016 LLC,” according to bank records. This group was not obligated to disclose its funding sources, and fought hard in court to keep the names of its corporate donors from being revealed to the public.

Corporate interests were nervous about sponsoring the 2016 Republican convention that was widely expected to choose Mr. Trump as the Republican candidate. Corporate interests told the New York Times last year they were under pressure to scale back their contributions as the campaign grew divisive. AT&T told the newspaper it was limiting its contributions to convention activity “aimed at benefiting the democratic process.” The company had no comment about how their contribution to fund an exclusive, strictly off-limits to the public-“cloakroom” accomplished that.

Instead of foregoing contributions, the Republicans devised a way to quietly obtain corporate money while giving donors cover from public scrutiny.

“The immediate effect is it looks like it hid certain donors to the convention,” said Lawrence Noble, senior director and general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for campaign finance reform.

One of the designated perks of being a donor to the ‘Friends of the House’ was a free pass to enjoy the facilities for refreshment and relaxation.

“As a sponsor of the hospitality venue, we were invited to use it, as well,” said Jori Fine, a spokeswoman for Health Care Service Corp. The company paid Friends of the House 2016 LLC $100,000, according to bank records, a payment that Fine said “supported hospitality and other events during the 2016 GOP Convention in Cleveland.”

Should a donor’s lobbyist or corporate executive bump into top Republican lawmakers inside, such as House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was given his own private space in the “cloakroom,” that was ‘purely coincidental.’ Since donor companies were given access while non-donors were not, lawmakers using the “cloakroom” could easily deduce donors by the presence of their lobbyists or company officials.

Most of the companies who made contributions are still trying to keep it a secret. In addition to an effort to get a Ohio judge to seal the records before they were made public, 15 of the 20 donor companies refused to confirm they were donors and had no comment or did not respond when asked about it.

Marketing materials from the company that constructed the “cloakroom” give the public their only view of its elegance. Members of the public were not allowed inside.

“The convention is one big loophole to the limits of corrupting money on politics,” Paul S. Ryan, vice president for policy and litigation at Common Cause, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for limits on money in politics told the Center. He is not related to House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The Center for Public Integrity also exposed how companies and individuals like the Koch Brothers claimed they were staying away from contributing to the GOP convention, while eagerly feeding secret contributions to the LLC that benefited it:

Friends of the House 2016 LLC appears to have provided companies an especially discreet opportunity to support the GOP convention.

For several of the companies that didn’t otherwise donate cash directly to the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee — a list that includes 12 of the entities listed in the bank records — there was little or no public evidence of their use of corporate dollars to support of the 2016 Republican convention.

For example, Comcast Corp., which wrote a $200,000 check to Friends of the House 2016 LLC, isn’t listed as a donor by the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee.

Neither is Koch Companies Public Sector, which wrote a $100,000 check to Friends of the House 2016 LLC. In fact, a Koch Industries spokesman in June said the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, well-known Republican megadonors, weren’t planning to contribute to the convention at all.

Neither firm responded to a request for comment about the payments to Friends of the House 2016 LLC.

The majestic space created for politicians and corporate interests to relax together in a familiar “cloakroom” setting was no small undertaking, according to Joe Mineo Creative, the company that transformed the Cleveland Cavaliers’ practice basketball court inside the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland into something that would fit comfortably in a high-end D.C. hotel or private offices for corporate executives. It was with some embarrassment to the Republicans that the company that did the work was sufficiently proud of it to boast about it in marketing materials, giving the public its only glimpse of how more than $1 million in corporate contributions was spent during the three-day convention. When it was over, the “cloakroom” was torn down to restore the basketball court.

It isn’t known if any campaign finance laws were broken as a result of these contributions.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee, but mostly AT&T and Comcast)

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) is angry that FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is sticking his nose into AT&T, Comcast, and Charter Communications’ private playground — the state of Tennessee.

In an editorial published by The Tennessean, Blackburn throws a fit that an “unelected” bureaucrat not only believes what’s best for her state, but is now openly talking about preempting state laws that ban public broadband networks:

Legislatures are the entities who should be making these decisions. Legislatures govern what municipalities can and cannot do. The principles of federalism and state delegation of power keep government’s power in check. When a state determines that municipalities should be limited in experimenting in the private broadband market, it’s usually because the state had a good reason — to help protect public investments in education and infrastructure or to protect taxpayers from having to bailout an unproven and unsustainable project.

Chairman Wheeler has repeatedly stated that he intends to preempt the states’ sovereign role when it comes to this issue. His statements assume that Washington knows best. However, Washington often forgets that the right answers don’t always come from the top down.

It’s unfortunate Rep. Blackburn’s convictions don’t extend to corporate money and influence in the public dialogue about broadband. The “good reason” states have limited public broadband come in the form of a check, either presented directly to politicians like Blackburn, who has received so many contributions from AT&T she could cross daily exercise off her “things to do” list just running to the bank, or through positive press from front groups, notably the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

According to campaign finance data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, three of Blackburn’s largest career donors are employees and PACs affiliated with AT&T, Comcast and Verizon. Blackburn has also taken $56,000 from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the lobby for the big telecoms.

Combined, those organizations donated more than $200,000 to Blackburn. In comparison, her largest single donor is a PAC associated with Memphis-based FedEx Corp., which donated $68,500.

Phillip “States’ rights don’t extend to local rights in Blackburn’s ideological world” Dampier

Blackburn’s commentary tests the patience of the reality-based community, particularly when she argues that keeping public broadband out protects investments in education. As her rural constituents already know, 21st century broadband is often unavailable in rural Tennessee, and that includes many schools. Stop the Cap! regularly receives letters from rural Americans who complain they have to drive their kids to a Wi-Fi enabled parking lot at a fast food restaurant, town library, or even hunt for an unintentionally open Wi-Fi connection in a private home, just to complete homework assignments that require a broadband connection.

Blackburn’s favorite telecommunication’s company — AT&T — has petitioned the state legislature to allow it to permanently disconnect DSL and landline service in rural areas of the state, forcing customers to a perilous wireless data experience that doesn’t work as well as AT&T promises. While Blackburn complains about the threat of municipal broadband, she says and does nothing about the very real possibility AT&T will be allowed to make things even worse for rural constituents in her own state.

Who does Blackburn believe will ride to the rescue of rural America? Certainly not AT&T, which doesn’t want the expense of maintaining wired broadband service in less profitable rural areas. Comcast won’t even run cable lines into small communities. In fact, evidence has shown for at least a century, whether it is electricity, telephone, or broadband service, when large corporate entities don’t see profits, they won’t provide the service and communities usually have to do the job themselves. But this time those communities are handcuffed in states that have enacted municipal broadband bans literally written by incumbent phone and cable companies and shepherded into the state legislature through front groups like ALEC.

Chairman Wheeler is in an excellent position to understand the big picture, far better than Blackburn’s limited knowledge largely absorbed from AT&T’s talking points. After all, Wheeler comes from the cable and wireless industry and knows very well how the game is played. Wheeler has never said that Washington knows best, but he has made it clear state and federal legislators who support anti-competitive measures like municipal broadband bans don’t have a monopoly on good ideas either — they just have monopolies.

That isn’t good enough for Congresswoman Blackburn, who sought to strip funding from the FCC to punish the agency for crossing AT&T, Comcast and other telecom companies:

Marsha is an avowed member of the AT&T Fan Club.

In July, I passed an amendment in Congress that would prohibit taxpayer funds from being used by the FCC to pre-empt state municipal broadband laws. My amendment doesn’t prevent Chattanooga or any other city in Tennessee from being able to engage in municipal broadband. It just keeps those decisions at the state level. Tennessee’s state law that allowed Chattanooga and other cities to engage in municipal broadband will continue to exist without any interference from the FCC. Tennessee should be able to adjust its law as it sees fit, instead of Washington dictating to us.

Notice that Blackburn’s ideological fortitude has loopholes that protect a very important success story — EPB Fiber in Chattanooga, one of the first to offer gigabit broadband service. If municipal broadband is such a threat to common sense, why the free pass for EPB? In fact, it is networks like EPB that expose the nonsense on offer from Blackburn and her industry friends that claim public broadband networks are failures and money pits.

In fact, Blackburn’s idea of states’ rights never seems to extend to local communities across Tennessee that would have seen local ordinances gutted by Blackburn’s telecommunications policies and proposed bills. In 2005, Blackburn introduced the ironically named Video Choice Act of 2005 which, among other things:

• Would have granted a nationwide video franchise system that would end all local oversight over rights-of-way for the benefit of incumbent telephone companies, but not for cable or other new competitors like Google Fiber;
• Strips away all local oversight of cable and telephone company operations that allowed local jurisdictions to ensure providers follow local laws and rules;
• Prohibited any mechanism on the local level to collect franchise payments;
• Eliminated any rules forbidding “redlining” — when a provider only chooses select parts of a community to serve.

More recently, Blackburn has been on board favoring legislation restricting local communities from having a full say on the placement of cell towers. Current Tennessee law already imposes restrictions on local communities trying to refuse requests from AT&T, Verizon and others to place new cell towers wherever they like. She is also in favor of highest-bidder wins spectrum auctions that could allow AT&T and Verizon to use their enormous financial resources to snap up new spectrum and find ways to hoard it to keep it away from competitors.

Not everyone in Tennessee appreciated Blackburn’s remarks.

Nashville resident Paul Felton got equal time in the newspaper to refute Blackburn’s claims:

Rep. Marsha Blackburn is on her high horse (Tennessee Voices, Oct. 3) about the idea of the Federal Communications Commission opposing laws against municipal broadband networks, wrapping herself in the mantle of states’ rights. We know that behind all “states’ rights” indignation is “corporate rights” protection.

The last I heard, there was only one Internet, and anyone can log into Amazon or healthcare.gov just as easily from any state. Or any budget.

No, this is about the one Internet being controlled by one corporate giant (or two) in each area, who want to control price and broadband speed, and now want to link the two. They don’t want competition from any pesky municipal providers hellbent on providing the same speed for all users, at a lower price. Check the lobbying efforts against egalitarian ideas to find out which side of an issue Marsha Blackburn always comes down on.

But comments like these don’t deter Rep. Blackburn.

“Congress cannot sit idly by and let a federal agency trample on our states’ rights,” she wrote, but we believe she meant to say ‘AT&T’s rights.’

“Besides, the FCC should be tackling other priorities where political consensus exists, like deploying spectrum into the marketplace, making the Universal Service Fund more effective, protecting consumers, improving emergency communications and other important policies,” Blackburn wrote.

Remarkably, that priority list just so happens to mirror AT&T’s own legislative agenda. Perhaps that is just a coincidence.

Gov. Cuomo

Does N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo support or reject the merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable and why has an administration official been meeting behind closed doors with the companies involved?

If the merger is successful, more than 95 percent of upstate New York will be served by a single cable operator – Comcast, with little chance Verizon will mount a major challenge for video, broadband, and phone service customers outside of the areas where FiOS fiber upgrades have been announced. Although the Cuomo Administration promised an in-depth investigation into the merger, the governor has kept his own views close to the vest and has not publicly supported or opposed the transaction. But an administration official has met privately with executives of both cable companies and state regulators behind closed doors according to a new report.

According to public schedules obtained by Capital, Comcast representatives met at least three times in August with PSC members or staff in what one former commissioner called unusual circumstances.

James Larocca, a N.Y. PSC commissioner from 2008-2013, said it is not typical for officials from the governor’s office to meet with state regulators and cable executives in the same closed-door meeting.

“I did not meet with the second floor on pending matters and I’m not aware that other commissioners ever did,” Larocca said.

It is not unusual for companies with business before the Commission to meet with its staff or commissioners in ex parte conversations to set the parameters of hearings, filings, and other regulatory proceedings. All such meetings appear to have been properly disclosed by the PSC staff and the companies involved. But the fact some were held behind closed doors with a Cuomo Administration official and without public disclosure of the subjects discussed bothers some.

Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, said what was discussed behind closed doors should be disclosed so the public can see what top state officials are saying to the cable executives.

“There are questions as to whether the PSC is a strong enough advocate for the people or the industry,” Lerner told Capital. “The agency has lost sight of its initial mission, which is to serve the public in regulating these absolutely essential services.”

Gerald Norlander at the Public Utility Law Project ponders what would happen if there were two negotiating tables discussing the merger, one public and the other secret.

“If there is a second table where views are exchange and negotiations are occurring, it doesn’t do well for transparency,” he said.

Public statements from both Comcast and the Cuomo Administration did little to clear the air.

“It was an initial meeting to discuss the public interest benefits of the transaction for New York,” a Comcast representative said in a one-sentence statement in response to questions about the meeting.

Not exactly, says the Cuomo Administration.

“The meeting was to explain the new law, the PSC’s new powers and its expanded oversight,” Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi said.

As has been the case during much of the merger debate, Time Warner Cable has remained silent and has refused to comment.

The governor himself has avoided taking sides, claiming he will abide by the recommendations made by the PSC. But if true, why involve the governor’s office in the merger or meet privately with either the PSC or the companies involved?

“The state is taking a hands-on review of this merger to ensure that New Yorkers benefit,” Cuomo said in May. “The Public Service Commission’s actions will help protect consumers by demanding company commitments to strong service quality, affordability, and availability.”

Cuomo himself has received at least $200,000 in campaign contributions from Comcast and Time Warner Cable. With customer satisfaction scores for both Comcast and Time Warner Cable in the basement, lobbying has been a necessity and Time Warner Cable is one of the state’s top lobbying forces, spending $500,000 of its subscribers’ money in New York in 2013 alone. Comcast spent $60,000, despite only serving a small sliver of customers in downstate New York.

The two companies also donated a combined $500,000 to a secretive state Democratic party account which Cuomo controls. Ironically, some of that money was used to run ads celebrating Gov. Cuomo’s efforts to get money out of politics.

New York Democratic candidate Zephyr Teachout is seeking to oust Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the fall election. One of the issues she is campaigning on is Cuomo’s significant contributions from Comcast and Time Warner Cable and his apparent lack of interest in stopping the merger. At a campaign stop in Syracuse, Teachout claims Comcast will raise your rates and offer no significant benefits to New Yorkers. She’d strongly oppose the merger and media consolidation in general, if elected. WRVO Radio reports. Aug. 29, 2014 (1:26)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

Teachout

Cuomo’s Democratic primary opponent Zephyr Teachout and her running mate, Tim Wu (who coined the term “Net Neutrality”) are less murky on the issue. Both strongly oppose the merger and cable industry consolidation generally and have expressed serious concern about the governor’s acceptance of hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from both Time Warner Cable and Comcast.

Andrew Letson’s Politics Blog considers the differences between the two campaigns striking.

“It’s a sharp contrast – between the hypocritical man in office taking money from corporate interests and the candidates with integrity who are funding their campaign through largely individual donors,” Letson writes.

“[Both Wu and Teachout] have said that they would work to block the frightening Comcast-Time Warner merger, something that’s certainly on the minds of many New Yorkers,” says Letson. “What’s nice about that is that New York actually has a lot of power when it comes to this merger, so opposition from both the governor and lieutenant governor would go a long way.”

Letson is a Teachout campaign volunteer, so it is no surprise which candidate he supports.

A merger of Time Warner Cable and Comcast is just one more step towards undermining our democracy, worries former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.

In a blog entry republished by Salon, Reich sees increasing evidence that the trust-busting days at the turn of the 20th century are long over, and Americans will likely have to relearn the lessons of allowing capitalism to run amuck.

It was the Republican Party of the 1890s that had the loudest voice in Washington protesting the concentration of business power into vast monopolies that had grown so large, they not only hurt consumers but threatened to undermine democracy itself.

Republican Senator John Sherman of Ohio was at the forefront of acting against centralized industrial power, which he likened to the abusive policies of the British crown that sparked America’s revolution for independence.

“If we will not endure a king as a political power,” Sherman thundered, “we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life.”

The merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable is just the latest example America is in a new gilded age of wealth and power that no longer prevents or busts up concentrations of economic power, observes Reich.

“Internet service providers in America are already too concentrated, which is why Americans pay more for Internet access than the citizens of almost any other advanced nation,” Reich argues.

Reich

Reich worries about the implications of allowing Comcast to grow larger, considering how much the current company already invests in Washington to get the government policies it wants:

• Comcast has contributed $1,822,395 so far in the 2013-2014 election cycle, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics — ranking it 18th of all 13,457 corporations and organizations that have donated to campaigns since the cycle began. Of that total, $1,346,410 has gone to individual candidates, including John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and Harry Reid; $323,000 to Leadership PACs; $278,235 to party organizations; and $261,250 to super PACs;

• Last year, Comcast also spent $18,810,000 on lobbying, the seventh highest amount of any corporation or organization reporting lobbying expenditures;

• Comcast is also one of the nation’s biggest revolving doors. Of its 107 lobbyists, 86 worked in government before lobbying for Comcast. In-house lobbyists include several former chiefs of staff to Senate and House Democrats and Republicans as well as a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission. Nor is Time Warner Cable a slouch when it comes to political donations, lobbyists, and revolving doors. It also ranks near the top.

Atwell-Baker

The Center for Responsive Politics expanded on the revolving door issue between the cable industry and the Federal Communications Commission that will be responsible for approving the Comcast-Time Warner merger.

It found one of the most prominent travelers to be former FCC commissioner-turned Comcast lobbyist Meredith Atwell-Baker. Always a friend of the cable industry, the Republican commissioner hurried out the door two years into her four-year term after getting a lucrative job offer from Comcast in June 2011. Despite claims she stopped participating in votes relating to Comcast after getting her job offer, she was a strong supporter of Comcast’s merger with NBCUniversal and favored the cable industry’s approach towards preserving a barely noticeable feather-light regulatory touch.

Atwell-Baker never contemplated her move might be seen as a conflict of interest, but then again, it represented nothing new for Washington. At the time, the only condition limiting her was a two-year ban on lobbying the FCC. But that does not apply to Congress so Atwell-Baker spent her time as Comcast’s senior vice president of government affairs trying to influence the House and Senate on 21 bills that could affect Comcast’s bottom line.

Just as shameless — Michael Powell, who served as FCC chairman during the first term of the George W. Bush Administration. After leaving the FCC he took the lucrative position of top man at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the cable lobby. The Center found several other former FCC employees heading into the private sector, advising Big Telecom companies on how to best influence regulators:

• Jonathan Adelstein, FCC commissioner from 2002 to 2009, became the president and CEO of PCIA: The Wireless Infrastructure Association in 2012;

• Rudy Brioche, was an adviser to former commissioner Adelstein before moving to Comcast as its senior director of external affairs and public policy counsel in 2009. Brioche was so valued by the FCC, in fact, that he was brought back to join the commission’s Advisory Committee for Diversity in the Digital Age in 2011;

• James Coltharp, who served as a special counsel to commissioner James H. Quello until 1997, is now a Comcast lobbyist;

• The same is true for Jordan Goldstein, who worked as a senior legal adviser to commissioner Michael J. Copps.

Once out of the public sector for several years, some lobbyists see their value deteriorate as they get increasingly out of touch with the latest administration in power. So several seek a refresh, temporarily leaving their lobbying job to return to public sector work.

The Center offered David Krone as a potential example. Krone formerly held leadership and lobbying positions with companies like AT&T, TCI Communications and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. After 2008, he was hired by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to advise him on telecommunications matters. Today he is Reid’s chief of staff. If and when Reid leaves office, Krone can always join the parade of ex-Hill staffers back to the lucrative world of lobbying.

Will elected officials give a receptive ear to Comcast’s arguments in favor of its merger? Most likely, considering every member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (except deal critic Sen. Al Franken), has recently received campaign contributions from the cable giant, according to OpenSecrets:

Comcast PAC donations to Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats

• Chuck Schumer, New York: $35,000
• Patrick Leahy, Vermont, Chairman: $32,500
• Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island: $26,500
• Chris Coons, Delaware: $25,000
• Dick Durbin, Illinois: $23,000
• Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota: $22,500
• Dianne Feinstein, California: $18,500
• Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut: $11,500
• Mazie Hirono, Hawaii: $5,000
• Al Franken, Minnesota: $0

Comcast PAC donations to Republicans

• Orrin Hatch, Utah: $30,000
• Chuck Grassley, Iowa, Ranking Member: $28,500
• John Cornyn, Texas: $21,000
• Lindsey Graham, South Carolina: $13,500
• Jeff Sessions, Alabama: $10,000
• Mike Lee, Utah: $8,500
• Ted Cruz, Texas: $2,500
• Jeff Flake, Arizona: $1,000

Reich thinks its time to return to the trust-busting days of President Teddy Roosevelt, who found the transportation infrastructure of the 20th century and the fuel used to power it increasingly controlled by a handful of giant players that abused monopoly power to set unjustifiable prices and suppress competition. Getting Congress, increasingly flush with now-unlimited corporate money, to agree to its own refresh a century later may prove a tougher sell.

Time Warner Cable will get up to $4 million in tax breaks courtesy of New York taxpayers to create a new call center in Buffalo’s now defunct Sheehan Hospital.

Time Warner Cable donated $175,000 to the New York Democratic State Committee that aired a series of pro-Gov. Andrew Cuomo ads, including one touting the governor’s efforts to get corporate money out of politics.

The cable company donated the funds to the Committee’s “housekeeping” account, exempt from New York’s campaign finance laws which ordinarily limit the maximum amount a corporation can contribute to $5,000. The New York Democrats spent nearly $5.3 million to air the advertising on stations across the state this spring.

Asked how Cuomo could justify promoting campaign finance reform while exploiting various loopholes to accept unlimited corporate contributions, Cuomo told the Albany Times-Union, “It’s not a loophole — it’s the law.”

“You can only live within the system that exists,” Cuomo added. “As soon as the campaign finance system is changed — and I’ve worked very hard to change it, I’ll continue to work very hard to change it — no one will be more pleased than myself.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380”]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/NY Dems Clean Up Albany Ad 5-8-13.flv[/flv]

Time Warner Cable, CBS, a giant teacher’s union and other large corporations helped pay to run this ad featuring New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo promising to cut the influence of money in politics. (1 minute)

Time Warner Cable was hardly alone. Other major donors were rooted out by the newspaper’s Capitol Confidential:

• — $250,000 came from “Educators United,” an offshoot of the United Federation of Teachers.
• — $200,000 arrived from the Hospitals Insurance Corporation.
• — $750,000 from George Soros. His son, Jonathan, has been a vocal proponent of establishing a system of public campaign finance.
• — Lucy Waletzky and Larry Rockefeller, children of Laurance Rockefeller and niece and nephew to Gov. Nelson A. and uber-banker David, each gave $25,000.
• — Hedge funder James Simons, the founder of Renaissance Technologies, gave $1,000,000.
• — $102,000 from “New Yorkers for Affordable Housing,” whatever the hell that is, an entity that shares an address with The Arker Companies’ Queens headquarters.
• — $50,000 from SONY Pictures Entertainment, $25,000 from Paramount Pictures and $50,000 from CBS.
• — $350,000 from Brookfield Properties, $200,000 from Tishman-Speyer and $100,000 from The Related Companies, all major New York City real estate firms.
• — $150,000 from billionaire fertilizer tycoon Alexander Rovt.
• — $200,000 from Leonard Litwin. Oh wait, I’m sorry: mega-donor Leonard Litwin’s name doesn’t appear in the filing. As is his wont, Litwin funneled his donations through various property-based LLCs he controls. New York’s glorious campaign finance laws treat an LLC like an individual.

Virtually all the donors have some business or regulatory dealings with the state government.

Last month, the governor’s office announced Time Warner Cable was being given taxpayer assistance to take over office space in the former Sheehan Hospital in Buffalo.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WGRZ Buffalo Erie County IDA Approves Tax Breaks For Time Warner Cable 7-15-13.flv[/flv]

This week, the Erie County Industrial Agency approved $757,000 in additional tax abatements for Time Warner Cable. That does not include the $3.1 million in state and local tax breaks already granted the cable company in return for job creation at a new call center being opened in Buffalo. WGRZ-TV reports. (1 minute)