This is what we're up against. Meet one of Amendment One's most generous donors.
Above is Phil Drake. He's speaking at the Tax Day Tea Party rally in his hometown of Franklin, NC on April 15, 2009. Yes, that's a Freedom Works banner, a sign the event is an astro-turfed event financed by Dick Armey.
Drake is President of Drake Enterprises, Ltd., which owns Drake Software, which specializes in tax preparation software. More on Drake here:
Phil Drake is Founder and Chairman of Drake Enterprises, a group of 18 businesses based in Western North Carolina. Mr. Drake is the Chief Technical Advisor to Drake Software, the flagship company of Drake Enterprises. He began developing tax preparation software in 1977. In 1985, Drake Software was one of the first companies to electronically file tax returns. In 2004, the company won the IRS Modernized e-file Pioneer Award for its efforts. Today, more than 30,000 tax professionals nationwide use Drake Software. Each year, Drake Software processes more than 9 million federal- and state-accepted returns.
The tax preparation site
1040.com is a component of Drake industries.
Drake babbles on and on about deficits and taxes and quotes statistics that are almost certainly the usual nonsense, fabrications and distortions.
At the 3:00 mark he claims abortion has created the federal deficit. You see, because of abortion, America has killed has 30 million people who could be working today and pay into Social Security system, which in Drake's view is apparently the source of our country's economic problems.
While railing about all the out-of-control spending he calls defense spending "appropriate," of course. Apparently there's not a nickel of waste going into the Pentagon's budget or any of America's Imperialist follies overseas, or wasted on graft lining the pockets of overpaid defense contractors.
He also says the biggest expenditure of the government is "the redistribution of wealth." Which he soon makes clear is all about the people who feel they don't have to work. It's the welfare state that is bringing us down.
So, Social Security, food stamps, aid to dependent children, disability, those are all the cause of the deficit (which never mattered when George W. Bush was president) which is why the economy was faltering in 2009 at the time of the speech.
It also isn't entirely clear to me why Drake assumes the 30 million aborted babies wouldn't grow up to also be welfare state leaches, rather than our country's financial salvation as Drake imagines?
These are the Tea Party forces that pushed to include painful cuts to the the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) aka, "food stamps" in the farm bill that just passed out of Senate committee. My Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, riled against these austerity measures saying they would endanger the food security of as many as 300,000 families with kids in New York. She also voted against the bill on that objection.
Of course, what I find most interesting is for all his concern about how high his darn taxes are, Phil Drake is clearly not hurting. Financial disclosure reports reveal him to be the third largest donor to the Vote for Marriage campaign. Drake donated $250,000 to fund Amendment One in North Carolina.
Yes, Phil Drake resents being asked to pay for children getting a free yogurt and bowl of cereal at a public school, finds the Defense Department's spending perfectly "appropriate, and also has a quarter million dollars laying around to, as the New York TImes put it, finance "Bigotry on the Ballot."
He resents extension of unemployment benefits to keep struggling Americans from losing their homes but will donate $250,000 to stop people he doesn't know from ever getting married, or even civil unioned. It's worth that much to him even though as Charlotte Observor columnist Tommy Tomlinson observantly concluded, "No one is hurt by gay marriage."
Drake is the living embodiment that proves Dr. Rev. William Barber of the NC NAACP was right. Rev. Barber said Amendment One is a "Trojan Horse Trick" being pulled on the "sons and daughters of the Civil Rights Movement" by the "same regressive, ultra-conservative Tea Party type folks."
And there you go. Amendment One's biggest fan: "regressive, ultra-conservative Tea Party" folk hero enjoying his accolades at a Tea Party rally.
Update: Jesus, so typical. Multi-millionaire Phil Drake a fervent foe of the "welfare state" was once on food stamps himself. See, when he needed a hand, food stamps were fine, but now? The other people are bankrupting the country. Hat tip gregflynn.
Other fundraising news
A few other noteworthy items from
WRAL's crunching of the fundraising reports. The good news is opponents retained their lead, says WRAL: "The anti-amendment forces have out-raised and out-spent the pro-amendment forces." Campaign totals to date are
$1,192,278.59 for the pro side versus
$2,035,613.90 for the opposition.
There is huge discrepancy between the two campaign's individual donors. WRAL says:
...it looks like amendment opponents got more money from individuals, while backers got the bulk of their money from nonprofits.
"Non-profits" meaning the usual
national religious-based anti-gay special interest hate groups, while Protect ALL NC Families was largely small donor and came from North Carolina. These totals are very telling:
Vote For Marriage campaign:
Amount from individual contributors: $310,962.62
Protect ALL NC Families campaign:
Amount from individual contributors: $1,405,166.53
The Amendment One oppposition has 4.5 times as much from small donor individuals. This is once again a fight between powerful special interest groups vs. the people.
The Catholic Church broke ranks with the over 400 leaders and houses of faith who are working to defeat Amendment One. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte and Raleigh contributed $50,000 each to pass Amendment One.
Surveys have shown two-thirds of Catholics support some form of legal recognition for LGBT couples, and 44 percent favored marriage. Catholic Church, unfortunately, continues to ally themselves with the most virulently homophobic groups pushing this legislation that could hurt not only LGBT people, but unmarried couples and children as well. Christian Action League was the top donor giving $309,652.70 and number two was the National Organization for Marriage which donated $302,589.52.
Of course, let us not lose sight of the fact that with as much money as National Organization for Marriage and the Catholic Church have, Amendment One opponent's fundraising lead could easily evaporate overnight with a single check.
What else you can do to help defeat Amendment One:
- Contribute to the campaign on ActBlue so they have the resources they need to get our message out.
- Sign up for a Courageous Conversation about Amendment One with someone you know in North Carolina.
- Follow the campaign on Facebook and Twitter.
- Download social media tools and yard signs to show your opposition to Amendment 1.
- Volunteer to Call for Equality—a national, virtual GOTV phone banking effort against Amendment 1.
- Sign up to help get out the vote in NC yourself! Courage Campaign is arranging out-of-state caravans and travel assistance is available.
