Where is the dark money pushing to ban abortion pills coming from?
Conservative group sues FDA to revoke approval of abortion pill – Washington Post
Who is this group? What is their agenda? Who funds them? What else are they up to? Follow the dark money…
- Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) the group filing the lawsuit had a revenue of over $78 million in 2020!
- The ADF lawsuit is against Mifeprex which was approved decades ago.
- Attorneys for ADF served on the legal team that helped defend Mississippi in the case that led the Supreme Court to strike down Roe v. Wade.
- ADF also donated to the Rule of Law Defense Fund that helped organize the rally on Jan 6th.
- ADF also backed a nationwide campaign in 2020 to get anti-trans sports bills passed in state legislatures.
- Michael Farris, CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom circulated a detailed draft of the lawsuit that Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, ultimately filed against states including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin in an effort to help President Donald J. Trump remain in office.
- ADF is a section 501(c)(3) charitable organization, meaning both that it is tax-exempt and that contributions to it are tax-deductible.
How do billionaires get to dodge taxes by secretly making tax deductible donations to groups helping support an insurrection? Denying women access to abortion pills? Defending state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people?
Follow the money taking away your freedoms
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Suit against a drug approved decades ago
Abortion foes sued the Food and Drug Administration in federal court in Texas on Friday in an effort to reverse the agency’s decades-old approval of mifepristone, the drug used in medication abortions. The suit claims that the FDA lacked the authority to approve the drug, did not adequately study the medication and that the drug is unsafe. More than half the abortions in the United States are performed using mifepristone.
Nine Democratic senators urged the agency to quickly finish up work to permanently allow mail-order delivery and to make other changes that would ease access to the drug. In a letter to FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, the lawmakers said, “As states implement new restrictions, it is more important than ever that you take immediate steps to expand access to medication abortion.” – Washington Post
How to dodge paying taxes while stripping other Americans of their freedoms
A 501(c)4 non-profit organization and can keep its donors secret. It can collect unlimited donations from people and keep their identities secret, and then pass the money on to other groups. The top Super PAC for Republican House candidates, CLF, also has an affiliated non-profit, the American Action Network, that operates the same way.
The public has no idea who is actually funding candidates in the United States. The largest sums of money spent on elections come from anonymous donors. Making disclosure effectively optional allows unscrupulous individuals to manipulate public perception. – Popular Info
DISCLOSE ACT
The DISCLOSE Act is one solution to this problem. It would require “organizations spending money in elections – including super PACs and 501(c)(4) dark money groups – to promptly disclose donors who have given $10,000 or more during an election cycle.” If the DISCLOSE Act was law, donations to all candidates would be public. The bill would also “crack down on the use of shell corporations to hide the identity of the donor by requiring companies spending money in elections to disclose their true owners.”
Republicans used filibuster to block disclosure
The Senate brought the DISCLOSE Act up for a vote in September. All Democratic members voted for it, and all Republican members opposed it. Since the bill required 60 votes to pass, it failed.
“The American people are fed up with dark money influence campaigns that rig their government against them and stymie their priorities,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who sponsored the legislation, said. “The DISCLOSE Act would shine a light on special interest spending to neutralize its toxic effect, giving Americans’ voices a chance to be heard. Republicans heeded the wishes of dark money donors today, but the fight to pass this bill isn’t over.” – Popular Info
References
- Citizens For Ethics Review (CREW)
- Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
- Washington Post
- New York Times
- SourceWatch
- Documented
- Popular Information
- Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- Open Secrets
Take Away: Demand Senators pass the DISCLOSE ACT to stop dark money influence campaigns stripping working Americans of their freedoms.
Deepak
DemLabs
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