Are you dreaming of a white Christmas? Did you know that some hyper-political Democrats are dreaming of a blue Christmas? Let me explain: a website has outlined the political donations of major corporations, directing websurfers to retailers who give to the Democrats.

Want to buy a book? In 2004, Borders gave 100% of its political donations to Democrats, while Barnes & Noble gave 98%. J Crew, Calvin Klein, Netflix, Foot Locker, and Starbucks (I'm shocked, shocked!) donated exclusively to the Democrats.

Are you more of a red Christmas person? Take your sweetheart to dinner at the Outback (95% R), buy your mom some Russell Stovers (100% R) chocolates, or send some distant relative a Hallmark (92% R) card.

The idea of a "blue" or "red" Christmas a bit too politicized for you? Try having a FlynnFiles Christmas. Give Intellectual Morons or Why the Left Hates America as a Christmas present. Get a Book, DVD, or CD listed on the right side of the page, and it helps fund the site, which, like the government, operates on a deficit. If the items listed in the right column don't appeal to you, how about unleashing your brother's inner-Atari by getting him a cool 5-in-1 Ms. Pac Man/Galaga (buy it here) game console? How about getting the uncloseted Anglophile in your life The Young Ones (buy it here) on DVD? Since all normal people like The Beatles, you're safe getting anyone the Fab Four's new box-set collection (buy it here).

To sweeten the pot, I testify that not one cent of the proceeds to FlynnFiles that comes from your purchases will subsize any candidate, of any party, for any office, any where. Have a merry FlynnFiles Christmas!

I'd like to see similar numbers from, say, 1993-4. Here's my hunch: I bet a lot of the companies that give between 50 and 80 percent to republicans (check out the arilines!), do so because republicans are in charge right now.

It should be illegal for a publically traded company to give any money to politicians or to charities. It is a misuse of shareholder investments. And what are the poor chapter 11 airlines doing?!

If the political activities of the corporation are fully disclosed to the shareholders, including the cost and dollars associated with donations, the shareholders should be able to approve those activities.

If you're saying that this is not happening with more frequency, that shareholder are being duped or that they're in some sort of silent revolt against the political activities of companies in which they hold an interest, then something should be done to address the problem. I would disagree, however, that there is a problem. The annual reports for most companies disclose dollar figures for political and lobbying activities, and what does not appear in the report is available to the public via the FOIA. Lobbyists are required to file their activities twice a year and this data is easily available.

The shareholders can demand change anytime they like, after all: they own the company. What shareholders DO demand is that companies take actions that are in the best interests of the corporation, including addressing political situations that may impact the bottom line.

Illegal? Shareholders should have the right to protect their investment! If that means authorizing a corporate staff budget that includes 2-3 million in lobbying efforts, that tool should not be taken away from them by government. Government is business' biggest enemy, it stifles innovation, forces companies to pay for ridiculous policies, and slows time to market. Why would you take away one of the primary means to counter that?

Short is right that these stats are misleading since they do not take into account which party is in office but there are several interesting things to be learned from them. For one, note the extent to which supposedly red companies may give 80% or so to the GOP but apparently still give 20% or so to Dem candidates. This possibly indicates a) they give money to who is in power and so should not be characterized as a "Red company"; b) the percentages possibly reflect the representatives in power in the specific districts home to plants or warehouses of the company or home offices; and c) these companies do not seem to be giving based on a determined ideology.

But then look at the huge number of companies giving a full 100% to the Dems. That is clearly telling since they are not even the party in power. These companies are completely ideologically motivated and not giving based on a sense of political prudence vis-a-vis their shareholders interests. Clearly this is the case when you notice that even Coors, a company owned by a staunch Republican family (one member of which lost in a Senate race this year) did not give a full 100% but only 92% to the GOP.

100% of what?

From the site cited by Dan: "In many cases, the organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families."

Families and employees? It's not fair to count the personal contributions from officers/employees of a company as donations from that company, and much less fair to count the donations of their families. If I worked for McDonalds and gave 100 bucks to EJ Pipkin, it's not a donations FROM McDonalds to the Pipkin Campaign. It doesn't matter that the money I used was derived from the benefit of my McDonald's employment. This data is pretty "dirty", and I don't see how you can really get anything useful from this website.

By the way, the numbers on this site are LOW, with only WalMart going over the 1M mark. These dollar figures, especially disbursed among the various targeted Members, would hardly amount to much. But even so, I stand by my position that people should be allowed to give to any candidate they want to, and generally do whatever the hell they want with their own money, including capital that I control as a shareholder.

Homer seemed to take this personally. But, I hate the game, not necessarily the players:

1) The shareholder's investment is an investment, not a political statement, or a charitable donation.

2) Some lobbying by corporations is to protect the investment, but certainly no charitable donations count here. And lobbying can be done without money or gifts changing hands, so the legitimacy of lobbying does not legitimize donations to political campaigns.

3) The donations are not made with prior approval of investors, and are usually quite hidden (even if "released" in annual reports).

Bottom line: it is a form of unjust appropriation from Joe Investor to the CEO's favored charity and party. Just like union dues, no publically traded company should be permitted to make charitable or political donations.

It's not personal. It's strictly business.

I would be very surprised to learn that Joe investor is as un-savvy as you suppose him to be. Shareholders, especially shareholders with controlling interests, are quite active and aware of most high-level activities, especially as regards decisions around Corporate Staff programs such as lobbying. It doesn't necessarily have to come up for a vote in a shareholders meeting for these players to have an influence. In addition, many companies specifically reach out to and target their shareholders for assistance in grassroots lobbying campagins. That kind of transparency hardly represents an "unjust appropriation" nor could you call it "hidden". And if someone doesn't like it, they can always divest themselves of the stock. No one at Merrill Lynch puts a gun to anyone's head and forces them to invest in Wal-Mart.

It's true that effective lobbying can be done without any money changing hands. However, without a PAC, the lobbying party is at a serious disadvantage. Those are the rules of game, for better or worse.

But I question whether such donations are even a problem. Would you agree that I have the right to personally contribute to a political campaign? If so, then whether I use my own funds, or collectively use the funds of an entity in which I have an interest, should be immaterial. If I can contribute, why can't I use the funds of the company owned by me (and others) to contribute?

And let's face it, governments are slow. Business is always light years ahead of government in nearly every way. If business does not have the right to influence government, it will have to do so anyway in order to survive. And quite frankly, government needs business and business lobbyists to help it govern. Government cannot see what the private sector sees in real-time. It doesn't have the real-world knowledge that companies can acquire "on the ground". And policymakers need just such interaction to craft sound law and regulation to keep the US competitive.

Business should NOT be prohibited from funding campagins and candidates. I really still can't see why such a vital tool, which is incredibly restrictive even in its current form, would be denied to the private sector.

If all companies were barred, then it wouldn't be a disadvantage, as you imply. But more to the point, you ask: "If I can contribute, why can't I use the funds of the company owned by me (and others) to contribute?" Precisely because it isn't _just_ your money.

What your saying about shareholders knowing ahead of time, etc., applies well only to active shareholders "with controlling interests," as you say; it is appropriate to companies with few shareholders, professional shareholders, etc. It doesn't apply to the contemporary Joe Schmoe shareholders that exist in the contemporary economy.

And any other reason you have in favor of lobbying doesn't require donations from investments, but only a lobbying office.

Well, my last word on this is that if all companies were barred then we would all be at a disadvantage. The landscape would change to one completely dominated by wealthy individual donors (Gates, Soros, et al) instead of a healthy balance of ideology vs. lobbying and donations driven by economic and market-based realities. Business, for the most part, knows best how to keep markets healthy and the economy growing. They certainly know better than government and we know the ideologues could care less. America's corporations have an important voice, it would be foolish to silence it.