I will put the link up again. With the graphics. You have to get down to number 17 before you find a donor that rates two elephants, and down to 61 before you find one that rates three. Note the entries with three donkeys.
Of the top 20 donors--this chart reflects donations since 1989--12 are unions, and all of them are solidly in the Democratic column. Of the remaining 8, only two of those lean Republican.
I thought the evidence was overwhelming from the last time I linked this, showing which group in this country swings the most weight politically, and where that weight is thrown. But hey, if I have to point it out again, fine.
If you look at the donations from industries as a whole, you will find that a lot of them are either evenhanded on donations, or tend to donate to whatever party is in power at the moment. Documentation on this here. I will be greatly interested in seeing the numbers for 2008.
A couple of comments on the newspaper articles (it is nice to have someone reading the same paper I am!):
"Middle Class Squeeze." I could have some fun with this, including the amazing conceit of using Silicon Valley as an example of how bad things have gotten since 2000. But I'll just pull one example, Figure 1.8 from the report:
Wonder why they started the graph in 1997? Go to the BLS data retrieval site, enter the same categories they did and run it back to 1990, and see what you get. For those who don't want to take the trouble, the number of people employed between 1990 and 1997 was pretty much flat, and about 100,000 LESS than the current number.
Who draws the graphs, decides the truth. I give them some credit for not starting the graph in 2001.
"The New Face of Unions.":
If there's anything in here about white-collar workers, I must have missed it. Casino dealers? Doesn't change anything I've said about what unions do with the cash they rake in.
"Yahoo Reduces Bonus:"
From this article:
Since Joining the Internet giant at the bottom of the dot-com bust in 2000, Susan Decker, 42, has taken Silicon Valley by storm. She is widely credited with leading Yahoo's charge into the search arena, which today accounts for half the company's revenues. A former financial analyst, she has earned Wall Street's respect for her candid approach to reporting earnings.
She's probably worth twice what they pay her.
Incidentally, all of these fall into the aforementioned category of "the rich are getting more than their 'fair share,' and we need to take some of it away and spread it around a bit more."