Tag Archives: Donor

Commentary

Rich Wall Street donors abandoning Democrats

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Story here in the leftist Washington Post. (H/T Wes Widner, ECM)

Excerpt:

A revolt among big donors on Wall Street is hurting fundraising for the Democrats’ two congressional campaign committees, with contributions from the world’s financial capital down 65 percent from two years ago.

[…]In reviewing the FEC records, The Post analyzed fundraising data for New York City and its suburbs in New Jersey, on Long Island and north of the city — a region that had become an outsized source of Democratic campaign cash. In the 2008 cycle, 28 percent of the two committees’ itemized individual contributions came from the region. Manhattan alone accounted for 20 percent.

In this election cycle, the percentage raised in New York is less than 10 percent of the total.

More than 600 regular donors from the New York area — whose four- and five-figure checks added up to $10 million for the DSCC and DCCC in 2006 and 2008 — have so far abandoned their effort to retain the Democratic majorities.

Take Jamie Dimon, the head of J.P. Morgan Chase, who is known for his close relationship with President Obama.

In 2006 and 2008, he donated $65,000 to the Democratic committees. This election cycle, he has not contributed at all to the DSCC or DCCC. At the end of March, however, he gave $2,000 to the campaign of Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who is seeking to claim Obama’s former Senate seat. A spokeswoman for Dimon noted that he has given to individual Democratic candidates, just not to the campaign committees.

Other prominent Democratic donors who have not given to the Democrats this year include Leon Black, a co-founder of the $53 billion New York-based Apollo Global Management a private-equity firm, and his wife, Debra Black. The couple gave more than $200,000 to Democratic congressional committees over the previous two election cycles but have not given this year, according to the latest disclosure documents. A spokesman for Apollo declined to comment.

Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive and chairman of Goldman Sachs, has not donated to the Democrats, either, after giving $50,000 in the previous two cycles. A company spokesman declined to comment.

The problem has been particularly acute for Senate Democrats, whose previous DSCC chairman, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), had strong connections to Wall Street.

Wow, bet you never knew that big Wall Street bankers were all Democrats, did you?

News

New study compares donor-conceived vs biologically-conceived children

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The study is here. (H/T Dr. J from RuthBlog)

Dr. J writes:

The Institute for American Values has just published a new study, My Daddy’s Name is Donor, of how donor conceived persons are doing in comparison with those who were born and raised by their biological parents and in comparison with those who were adopted.

And she notes this comment from a gay man who thinks that the fact that he and his partner PLANNED their donor-conceived child, that they are therefore justified morally in doing so.

The gay man writes:

I’m a gay man who has had a child, with my partner of 8 years, through surrogacy and egg donation. The egg donor and surrogate will be known to our son.

One way that I explain to people our experience with the artificial reproduction process is that it is the opposite of being ‘knocked-up’. We were very involved in the planning and conception and the growth and birth of our child. Our child’s conception and birth was considered, thought about, planned for, dreamed about, fantasized about. He was most definitely wanted. He is loved and treasured.

We did not have sex to have our child. We did not have wedded, heterosexual, within marriage, we-want-to-have-a-child-sex. We did not have wedded, passionate, spur-of-the-moment at the wrong time of the month (or the wrong time of our life) sex. We did not have wedded, spur-of-the-moment, right time of the month sex. We did not have any of these types heterosexual sex as unmarried heterosexuals.

But so many children are born to heterosexual couples via each of these eight scenarios. So many. Many more, around the world are born in wider range of unloving scenarios.

And then one of the authors (Elizabeth Marquardt) of the new study responds by citing evidence.

I just want to note that one way of looking at the My Daddy’s Name is Donor study is as a study of three groups: The first completely one hundred percent wanted and intended — that is, the donor offspring. The other two groups made up of a lot of unintended pregnancies — that is, the adopted and those raised by their biological parents.

Which group is faring the worst? The 100 percent wanted, planned, intended group. The donor offspring, overall, even with controls, are twice as likely to have struggled with substance abuse and delinquency, and 1.5 times as likely to have struggled with depression, compared to those raised by their biological parents (and these differences are significant). The adopted generally fall in between except with regard to depression in which case they were higher than both the donor conceived and the raised-by-biological.

No one is saying, T, that “all” of those raised by biological parents are doing great. But when you look at these populations, measured by our study, you find that, contrary to today’s conventional wisdom, being wanted isn’t enough. What the child is born into — who the child is raised by — matters.

Some more stats from Maggie Gallagher.

Excerpt:

Forty-five percent of these young adults conceived by donor insemination agree, “The circumstances of my conception bother me.” Almost half report that they think about their donor conception a few times a week or more. Forty-five percent agree, “It bothers me that money was exchanged in order to conceive me.”

Nearly half of donor offspring (compared to about a fifth of adopted adults) agree, “When I see friends with their biological fathers and mothers, it makes me feel sad.” Similarly, 53 percent (compared to 29 percent of adoptees) agree, “It hurts when I hear other people talk about their genealogical background.”

This is not fair to children – it treats them like a commodity instead of as a gift from God to be treasured and nurtured.

Commentary

How the siege mentality of Christians hurts us all

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Here is a profile of the undisputed champion of gay rights activism, Tim Gill. (H/T Jennifer Roback Morse)

Read the article, and then answer this question: where is our Tim Gill? Why are we raising the next generation of Christians to build higher and better walls between faith and knowledge?

Excerpt from the article:

Tim Gill is best known as the founder of the publishing-software giant Quark Inc., and for a long time was one of the few openly gay members of the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans. He was born in 1953 to one of Colorado’s well-known Republican political families. (The town of Gill in the north-central part of the state is named after them.) After earning a degree in applied mathematics and computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder, Gill founded Quark in his apartment in 1981, in the manner of other self-made computer magnates like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, with a $2,000 loan from his parents.

[…]In 2000, he sold his interest in Quark for a reported half-billion dollars in order to focus full-time on his philanthropy.

Even as he has shied from the spotlight, Gill has become one of the most generous and widest-reaching political benefactors in the country, and emblematic of a new breed of business-minded donor that is rapidly changing American politics. A surge of new wealth has created a generation of givers eager to influence politics but barred from the traditional channels of participation by recent campaign-finance laws designed to limit large gifts to candidates and political parties. Like Gill, many of these figures are entrepreneurs who have made fortunes in technology.

[…]Gill’s principal interest is gay equality. His foundations have given about $115 million to charities. His serious involvement in politics is a more recent development, though geared toward the same goal. In 2000, he gave $300,000 in political donations, which grew to $800,000 in 2002, $5 million in 2004, and a staggering $15 million last year, almost all of it to state and local campaigns.

Not everyone has to be like Tim Gill, be we all have to try to have an influence in the most effective way possible. And that means being realistic about what it takes to have an influence. Some things just don’t work.