"Hope and Change" To "Smear and Intimidation"

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has responded to the Obama Administration's unfounded charges that foreign money is being used by the Chamber for political ads.

Bloomberg is reporting:

Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue denied Democratic Party charges that the business lobbying group buys political ads with money from foreign donors and promised to “ramp up” its election activities.

Of more than $200 million in annual revenue, only a “small fraction” comes from the chamber’s foreign affiliates and the group has “strict financial controls” to make sure that money doesn’t fund political activities, Donohue said in a letter yesterday to the chamber’s directors and partners.

Donohue sent the letter in response to attacks on his group that intensified over the weekend.

In addition to the above, Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce, spoke with Jake Tapper of ABC News on Tuesday and said this:

TAPPER: Are you worried at all that this is damaging the reputation of the Chamber?

JOSTEN: Well so far, we don't have any proof that it has done that, it has certainly upped the profile of the Chamber. So I suspect and I hope that people are paying even more attention to the ads that we have up in this cycle, as the president is drawing more and more attention to us.

And specifically since we're the only group out there talking about issues, unlike the administration or the democrats running, I hope that the American people are drawn to pay attention to our issues.

A year ago when we ran issue ads across this country, hundreds of them, against the patients protection and affordable care act, citing the CBO report, citing the Center for Medicare Studies--Services report, the companies that got divulged publicly were harassed, were intimidated.

TAPPER: How?

JOSTEN: The outside allies of this administration, the SEIU, the AFL-CIO, HCANN - Health Care Action Now network and Moveon.org, all combined and coordinated protests at those companies, at the CEOs' homes in some cases, as they did here with us. And they began a proxy campaign, through outside groups, the Center for Political Accountability, and another group, Walden Asset Management. This is a game, ok? And they like to play that game out. So it's clear that the game here is to harass and intimidate.

When I cited what took place in California, there is a gentleman who has done research for the Institute for Justice in California, on Prop 8 and what happened with the CA marriage protection act, when personal information about those donors to support Prop 8 was posted on the internet.

It led to death threats. It led to physical violence, vandalism and economic reprisals from against those people and their homes. So we know, how the public, if outed in supporting some controversial causes, if you will, we know what happens. We know what happens to our people.

Obama's "hope and change" has morphed into "smear and intimidation."

To read Tapper's full interview with Josten, go here.