Some actual good news

A few days ago, TMI was one of the few news outlets that reported on how House Democrats included provisions in a new bill that would funnel PPP money to corporations’ dark money groups that bankroll political ads. This absurd boondoggle didn’t get much attention in the corporate press, but a small group of independent media outlets diligently spotlighted it.

And now here’s a bit of good news: Democratic lawmakers have just quietly stripped it out of their legislation.

See page 46 and 47 of this amendment revising the bill — you’ll notice that the language now requires PPP recipients to “not make a contribution, expenditure, independent expenditure, or electioneering communication.” In practice, that makes political dark money groups ineligible for the small business loans.

I don’t want to oversell this — we’re living through an era of unthinkable greed, in which both parties seem adamantly focused on using the pandemic to enrich their donors. The fact that some Capitol Hill monsters ever even thought to try to siphon money from mom-and-pop shops to corporate dark money groups just illustrates how grotesque the situation really is.

That said, the fact that Democrats felt enough pressure and shame to back off this provision proves the value of independent media — and I’m proud that this newsletter project was part of helping spotlight the situation.

I hope you’ll see this example as one of many reasons to click here and become a supporting subscriber of this newsletter to help us expand what we are doing.

Rock the boat,

Sirota