Uh, yeah. Okay. Sure. By the way, would you like a glass of water to wash down that throat choking sized lie? Do you think these politicians really believe it themselves, or what do you think are the drugs of choice they need to partake of in order to be able to live with such pronounced contradictions between stated intention and reality?

This is just one small example of the a much, much larger condition regarding our whole governance process in this nation.

AT&T doles out $54,000 ahead of cable bill debate

Communications giant AT&T pushed a controversial bill to have state government license cable systems by showering more than $54,000 in campaign cash on dozens of lawmakers and Gov. Jim Doyle over the past 15 months.

Campaign-finance records show that AT&T’s political action committee gave a total of $10,000 to four legislators and the Assembly Republican Campaign Committee in the past two months, when legislators negotiated details of the complex package with AT&T’s 15 registered lobbyists.

AT&T is launching its own Internet-based television service, called U-Verse, to compete with cable systems.

It’s unusual for one special-interest group to donate so much after November elections. The next partisan elections are 18 months away, and $1,000 went to the chief Senate sponsor of the bill, Sen. Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee) five weeks ago, even though Plale won’t need the money until his re-election in 2010.

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“It’s impossible to not see the connection” between AT&T’s campaign cash and its push for the deregulation bill, said Mike McCabe, executive director of the non-profit Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which monitors campaign donations.

AT&T’s recent campaign gifts are also unusual because company officials haven’t been “particularly active” givers in past years, McCabe said. “The giving is targeted.”

AT&T spokesman Jeff Bentoff disagreed.

“That’s absolutely wrong,” Bentoff said. “Giving is never done with specific outcome, or bill, in mind.”

AT&T, the Mother Theresa of corporations.

Doyle, Republican leaders pushing the bill and Plale all had the same response when asked about the AT&T campaign checks: The money won’t influence their decisions or votes.

“It’s not a factor at all,” said Doyle, whose re-election campaign got about $13,000 from AT&T workers last year and who would have to sign or veto what the Legislature passes.

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“I don’t think it’s money talking,” said Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem), whose personal campaign fund got $1,100 from AT&T employees last year, according to state Elections Board records.

But the Assembly Republican Campaign Committee, which Huebsch controls, got $6,000 from AT&T’s political committee in February.

This is like people claiming that the tens of billions of dollars a year business spends on advertising each year really doesn’t have an effect. Yeah, that is why they spend billions of dollars a year on it, because it has no effect.

Corporations should simply flat out not be allowed to have ‘political action committees.’ Only people should have rights in this country and be able to participate in the political process, not fictitious artificial entities which allow a small governing few from usurping our rights to wield power over democratic majorities.

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