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A second piece of great news this Sunday:
**It raised and distributed over $560,000 to candidates for the House and Senate, making it the largest pro-Israel PAC in the country
**It endorsed 24 incumbent members of Congress (all of whom won re-election), the new Senator from Oregon Jeff Merkley and six new Members of Congress (Three races remain too close to call including J Street’s Al Franken). The PAC’s endorsees included four committee chairs and many senior Jewish members of Congress
**J Street has attracted 86,000 online supporters in just six months
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Have not followed the activities of J Street very closely. But I am a firm believer that any Pac organization lobbying for another country whether it is Israel, Poland, France should have to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was enacted in 1938. FARA is a disclosure statute that requires persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities. Disclosure of the required information facilitates evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements and activities of such persons in light of their function as foreign agents. The FARA Registration Unit of the Counterespionage Section (CES) in the National Security Division (NSD) is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Act.
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fara/
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More in our ongoing coverage of J Street’s efforts to build a better American Zionist movement. Earlier this month, J Street endorsed a Washington Democrat running for Congress named Darcy Burner. Burner is the driving force behind something called the Responsible Plan, a manifesto and strategy for withdrawing from Iraq that this year’s crop of progressive Democratic candidates are supporting. Natural fit, right? Well, according to OpenLeft’s Matt Stoller, AIPAC — the powerful, right-wing Israel lobby group in Washington — is none too pleased:
http://washingtonindependent.c…..rcy-burner
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I completely support Senator Fulbrights efforts in the early 60’s
http://www.irmep.org/FULE.htm
Like George Washington, Fulbright fought to expose and regulate the foreign financed and influenced grassroots groups and lobbies seeking unconditional “passionate attachments” to foreign nations. His insistence that US lobbying groups adhere to established US statutes was grounded in his commitment to the rule of law. Fulbright’s belief in foreign agent registration requirements were anchored in his legal studies and US Department of Justice experience; he earned a law degree from George Washington University Law School in 1934. In the same year, he was admitted to the Washington, DC bar and became an attorney in the DOJ anti-trust division. This legal expertise would serve Fulbright well as he fought to expose one of the most complex and opaque chains of interlinked nonprofit corporations ever to be assembled in the United States: the nascent Israel
lobby.”
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Sunlight Foundation Releases First Online Foreign Agent Lobbying Database
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 2, 2008
Contact: Gabriela Schneider 202/742-1520
WASHINGTON, DC – In its continuing effort to make hard to access government data accessible with the click of a mouse, the Sunlight Foundation is releasing a beta version of FARAdb, which digitizes disclosures filed by lobbyists representing 15 foreign countries required by the Foreign Agent Registration Act.
http://www.sunlightfoundation……-foreign-/
Ari watch out for the complaints of the trolls who show up when this topic comes up. Those individuals have been successful at shutting the I/P or I lobby debate down in the so called progressive blogosphere. They are vicious and show up throughout the blogosphere when these difficult issues come up.
This is such a great tool as they expand this. But until all Pac groups that are lobbying for a foreign country have to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act we will not be able to see who is influencing who and how much money and influence is in the exchange
http://fara.sunlightfoundation.com/