{"id":183735,"date":"2012-12-06T20:16:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T01:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2012\/12\/06\/the-house-of-saud-tried-to-buy-our-elections\/"},"modified":"2012-12-06T20:16:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T01:16:00","slug":"the-house-of-saud-tried-to-buy-our-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2012\/12\/06\/the-house-of-saud-tried-to-buy-our-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"The House of Saud Tried to Buy Our Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/blog\/171529\/saudi-led-oil-lobby-group-financed-2012-dark-money-attack-ads\">natural result of the Supreme Court&#8217;s Citizens United Decision<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">The \u201cAmerican\u201d in American Petroleum Institute, the country\u2019s largest oil lobby group, is a misnomer. As I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/169639\/never-mind-super-pacs-how-big-business-buying-election\">reported<\/a> for <i>The Nation<\/i> in August, the group has changed over the years, and is now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/sites\/default\/files\/2012-gabsani-apiboard.pdf\">led by men<\/a> like Tofiq Al-Gabsani, a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/sites\/default\/files\/4184-Short-Form-20091118-6.pdf\">Saudi Arabian national<\/a>  who heads a Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) subsidiary, the  state-run oil company that also helps finance the American Petroleum  Institute. Al-Gabsani is also a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/sites\/default\/files\/4184-Short-Form-20091118-6.pdf\">registered foreign agent<\/a> for the Saudi government.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">New <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/114944284\">disclosures<\/a>  retrieved today, showing some of API\u2019s spending over the course of last  year, reveal that API used its membership dues (from the world\u2019s largest  oil companies like Chevron and Aramco) to finance several dark money  groups airing attack ads in the most recent election cycle.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Last year, API gave nearly half a million to the following dark money  groups running political ads against Democrats and in support of  Republicans:<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2022 $50,000 to <b>Americans for Prosperity\u2019s<\/b> 501(c)(4) group, which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gOteefhlfJo\">ran ads<\/a> against President Obama and congressional Democrats.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2022 $412,969 to <b>Coalition for American Jobs\u2019<\/b> 501(c)(6) group, a front set up by API lobbyists to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.republicreport.org\/2012\/coalition-for-american-jobs\/\">air ads<\/a> for industry-friendly politicians, including soon to be former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA).<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2022 $25,000 to the <b>Sixty Plus Association\u2019s<\/b> 501(c)(4), which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8qOzN_wIM90\">ran ads<\/a> against congressional Democrats.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Jack Gerard, the president of API, was a close ally to the Mitt  Romney campaign. Like the US Chamber of Commerce, API is one of several  large trade associations that has spent heavily in support of Republican  candidates. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Seriously, I&#8217;d rather have Greece&#8217;s Fascist <b><span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">Golden Dawn<\/span><\/b> party involved in our politics than the House of Saud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the natural result of the Supreme Court&#8217;s Citizens United Decision: The \u201cAmerican\u201d in American Petroleum Institute, the country\u2019s largest oil lobby group, is a misnomer. As I reported for The Nation in August, the group has changed over the years, and is now led by men like Tofiq Al-Gabsani, a Saudi Arabian national &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1094,970,1031,977],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-finance","category-corruption","category-house-of-saud","category-presidential-campaign"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183735"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}