'A Threat to Our Democracy'

Looks like the Democrats have some explaining to do.

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate criticizing GOP groups for allegedly funneling foreign money into campaign ads have seen their party raise more than $1 million from political action committees affiliated with foreign companies.

House and Senate Democrats have received approximately $1.02 million this cycle from such PACs, according to an analysis compiled for The Hill by the Center for Responsive Politics. House and Senate GOP leaders have taken almost $510,000 from PACs on the same list.

The PACS are funded entirely by contributions from U.S. employees of subsidiaries of foreign companies. All of the contributions are made public under Federal Elections Commission rules, and the PACs affiliated with the subsidiaries of foreign corporations are governed by the same rules that American firms' PACs or other PACs would face.
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Republicans with groups under fire from the White House say the hefty campaign contributions illustrate Democratic hypocrisy.

“Barack Obama criticized the Supreme Court and his adversaries over the bogus charge of foreign money tainting elections – while leaders in his own party had taken more than a million dollars from the foreign cookie jar,” said Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for American Crossroads, the political group at the center of the controversy.

“The hypocrisy here is just stunning,” he said.

Obviously this foreign money is some kind of threat to out democracy, right?

Of course not. But made up smears against the Chamber of Commerce have led to that absurd statement.

On "Meet the Press" Sunday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs directly called out the executive vice president for government affairs at the Chamber, challenging him to prove the group's claim that foreign money isn't used in the funding of its political ad campaigns.

"Bruce Josten could simply open up the books," Gibbs said. "It's a pretty easy solution to simply show the American people where the money is coming from."

Host David Gregory asked Gibbs whether Democrats' assertions about the Chamber funding ads with foreign dollars are "more smoke than fact."

"Absolutely not," Gibbs fired back.

Axelrod responded to a question about whether voters would prefer that Democrats focus on issues such as the economy by maintaining it was an issue of the economy, as Republican wins could mean danger for the administration victories of healthcare and Wall Street reform.

"Ask these folks why they feel it's necessary to keep these funds secret," he said. "We tried to make them public, even the Democratic funds -- Democratic-leaning funds. We don't think anybody should keep these things secret."

He called the financing controversy "a threat to our democracy."

He has zero evidence to support his ridiculous claim, yet here it's documented his own people are raking in foreign contributions.

Thanks to Hot Air for the links here and here.