interesting things
Mitt Romney’s campaign announced Monday that in addition to the stunning $106.1 million it raised with the Republican National Committee in June, it has approximately $160 million cash on hand.
About 537,000 donations were less than $250, according to the campaign, for a haul of $22.3 million from small donors.
via Homepage http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/romney-reports-160-million-cash-on-hand-20120709
To hear Pandora founder Tim Westergren tell it, the last fight he had in Washington was for his very survival.
In 2007, the Internet radio company faced new royalty rates that would have amounted to about 70 percent of the company’s revenue, putting the fledgling start up out of business, said Westergren, Pandora’s chief strategy officer.
“It was a disastrous outcome,” he said.
So Pandora reached out to its users – for whom they conveniently have gathered names, zip codes and email addresses – and asked them to push their lawmakers to intervene. And then Pandora hit Washington to lobby. Congress eventually stepped in and passed the Webcaster Settlement Act, which gave Pandora and the recording industry a different royalty framework and time to negotiate a rate that would replace the government-imposed one. Pandora now pays royalties that equal about 50 percent of its revenue.
Since then, the Internet radio company has become ubiquitous. They have 150 million registered users in the U.S., according to company statistics. And, as of March, it was the second-most downloaded free iPhone app, following only Facebook. Eighteen car companies sell vehicles equipped with Pandora.
And they’ve grown up Washington-style, too. Pandora’s royalty rate won’t expire until 2015. But rather than wait around for another rate set under rules Westergren says are unfair, the Internet radio company is ramping-up its lobbying efforts. And it looks like they’re preparing to take the fight to the Hill.
via Homepage http://influencealley.nationaljournal.com/2012/07/pandora-all-grown-up.php
An Associated Press report says that a once-invisible offshore company has helped bolster Romney’s wealth even though it did not appear on his state or federal financial reports for 15 years.
President Obama’s reelection campaign seized on the report as raising further questions about their rival’s business background, prompting Romney’s campaign to seek to turn the focus back to Obama’s handling of the economy.
“The mystery surrounding Sankaty reinforces Romney’s history of keeping a tight rein on his public dealings, already documented by his use of private e-mail and computer purges as Massachusetts governor and his refusal to disclose his top fundraisers,†AP wrote. “The Bermuda company had almost no assets, according to Romney’s 2010 tax returns. But such partnership stakes could still provide significant income for years to come, said tax experts, who added that the lack of disclosure makes it impossible to know for certain.â€
Good morning. Here’s a look at what’s going on around the web today.
WaPo has an interesting interview with William D. Newell, who headed the Phoenix ATF office for five years. Newell is at the heart of one of this week’s big stories. In the Post, he defended the much-derided Fast and Furious operation this way: “It was the only way to dismantle an entire firearms-trafficking ring and stop the thousands of guns flowing to Mexico,”he said.
Over at 2 Chambers, they take a stab at handicapping tonight’s congressional baseball game at Nationals Park. “In recent years, Democrats have come out on top, so, depending on how things go, winning a baseball game might be the only victory they enjoy today,” writes Ed O’Keefe.
via Homepage http://influencealley.nationaljournal.com/2012/06/news-roundup-newell-defends-fa.php
SALEM, Va. – If the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act this week, President Obama will have “wasted†most of his first term, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney said Tuesday.
“As you know, the Supreme Court is going to be dealing with whether or not Obamacare is constitutional. If it is not – if Obamacare is not deemed constitutional — then the first three and a half years of this president’s term would have been wasted on something that has not helped the American people,†Romney told a crowd of about 1,500 voters at Carter Machinery Company, one of the leading Caterpillar machine dealerships in the country.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling Thursday. On Monday, in another major ruling, it struck down most of a controversial Arizona immigration law. The decision was viewed largely as a victory for the Obama administration, but Romney used it to attack Obama for not passing immigration reform during his first year in office.
With no sign of compromise on Capitol Hill for a deal on the budget deficit and debt, National Journal‘s National Security Insiders are hedging on whether the across-the-board defense cuts that Pentagon officials have warned would be devastating to the military’s capabilities will actually happen.
Amid talk that members might punt a budget deal into next year, 49 percent of Insiders said the so-called sequester mandating $600 billion in cuts over the next decade is “somewhat likely” to take effect.
Others were less sure of Congress’s capabilities–and doubted its commitment to finding a solution. “The current Congress has consistently shown an inability to perform even the most basic tasks of governing. Both sides seem content to score points and [settle] scores rather than solving problems,” one Insider said. “Sequester would be devastating, but I have no confidence in the Congress and the administration’s capacity to fix it.”
PARK CITY, Utah – Spirits were high among Mitt Romney’s top donors this weekend as they gathered at a Utah resort town to receive an update on the presidential race and rub shoulders with some of the Republican party’s top talent.
The three-day retreat in Park City – a town that boasts top-notch ski slopes and plays host to the Sundance Film Festival each year – brought together a crowd estimated at more than 700 people for socializing, issue panels and a campaign briefing by top Romney aides.
“I’ve found everybody to be quite approachable in and in quite high spirits,†he said. A number of donors echoed the excitement, expressing confidence that the election was going well.
PARK CITY, Utah – Spirits were high among Mitt Romney’s top donors this weekend as they gathered at a Utah resort town to receive an update on the presidential race and rub shoulders with some of the Republican party’s top talent.
The three-day retreat in Park City – a town that boasts top-notch ski slopes and plays host to the Sundance Film Festival each year – brought together a crowd estimated at more than 700 people for socializing, issue panels and a campaign briefing by top Romney aides.
“I’ve found everybody to be quite approachable in and in quite high spirits,†he said. A number of donors echoed the excitement, expressing confidence that the election was going well.
Â
Â
Moving away from its “Day One†theme, the campaign is now outlining what the first 100 days of a Romney presidency would look like. At the beginning of three of the ads, excluding Ohio, the narrator says that Romney would repeal the president’s health care overhaul and cut the deficit.
via Homepage http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/romney-campaign-goes-local-in-new-ads-20120622
By a two-to-one margin, Americans favor the Obama administration’s new immigration policy, according to a Bloomberg poll released on Tuesday.
The results, which show that 64 percent of Americans agreed with the policy announced on June 15, suggest that the president has reinforced his standing on immigration, an issue that Romney and Republicans have tried to make gains in recently. Just 30 percent said they disagreed with the policy.
“President Obama announced that the U.S. would halt the deportation of some illegal immigrants if they came here before age 16, have been in the country for five years, have no criminal record, are in school or have a high school diploma or have been honorably discharged from the military. Do you agree or disagree with this new policy?” the poll asked.
via Homepage http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/poll-americans-favor-obama-s-immigration-policy-2-to-1-20120619
