Amex

The controversial radio host has a $400 million contract with Clear Channel Communications which runs through 2016, and sources say the contact leaves very little in the way of an out for the media giant.  In other words, even if Clear Channel were to decide that Limbaugh's drag on ad revenue had gone on long enough, they would likely have to pay him the remainder of his contract to cut him loose.  A much more likely scenario has Clear Channel putting Limbaugh on its own stations in markets where Cumulus removes him and limping along for as long as possible.

But what Limbaugh is definitely NOT correct about is that "everything's cool."  Since March, 2012, more than 2,600 advertisers have requested that their ads not run on his program, driving ad rates on his program to an all-time low and apparently forcing Cumulus to make a business decision that his profitability was not coming back.  The Flush Rush Facebook community and #stoprush Twitter campaign have seen a torrent of new volunteers since word of the Cumulus decision broke last night.  So maybe Rush is right when he says "what's on the table for this program is growth."  It's just not the sort of growth he's hoping for.

==

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Express

American Express is a New York City based company that issues credit cards and traveler's checks. It is one of the world's largest travel agencies with more than 2,200 travel offices worldwide. It publishes magazines such as Food & Wine and Travel & Leisure. In 2006, it had sales of $27 billion and profits of $3.7 billion. ^[1]^

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council

American Express has been a corporate funder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)^[2][3][4]. See ALEC Corporations for more.

Political contributions

American Express gave $278,500 to federal candidates in the 2006 election through its political action committee - 41% to Democrats and 55% to Republicans. 4% ($10,000) went to independent Joseph Lieberman (CT-I). ^[5]^

Lobbying

The company spent $1,460,000 for lobbying in 2006. $220,000 went to two lobbying firms, Wexler and Walker Public Policy Associates and Baptista Group, with the remainder being spent using in-house lobbyists. ^[6]^

Personnel

Selected board members: ^[8]^

• Daniel F. Akerson, Managing Director, The Carlyle Group
• Peter Chernin, President and Chief Operating Officer, News Corporation
• Richard C. Levin, President, Yale University
• Steven S. Reinemund, Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PepsiCo, Inc.
• Ronald A. Williams, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, Aetna, Inc.

Contact details

World Financial Center

200 Vesey Street

New York, NY 10285

Phone: 212-640-2000

Fax: 212-640-2458

Web: http://www.americanexpress.com

References

1. ↑ American Express Profile, Hoovers, accessed August 2007.
2. ↑ Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research, project of the Environmental Working Group, Information on American Legislative Exchange Council, archived organizational profile, archived by Wayback Machine December 2, 2000, accessed August 19, 2011
3. ↑ Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, "Corporations and Trades Associations that Fund ALEC," Corporate America's Trojan Horse in the States: The Untold Story Behind the American Legislative Exchange Council, online report, 2003
4. ↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Winning the Debate in the States, organizational annual report, 1992, p. 31, archived in Tobacco Library, accessed April 2012
5. ↑ 2006 PAC Summary Data, Open Secrets, accessed September 2007.
6. ↑ American Express lobbying expenses, Open Secrets.
7. ↑ American Express Key Executives, Yahoo Finance, accessed September 2007.
8. ↑ Board of Directors, American Express, accessed August 2007.

Categories:

• ALEC Exposed
• Corporations
• United States

A 2000 Washington Post survey of cases involving First USA Bank, then the nation's second largest credit card company, revealed that arbitrators ruled for the bank 99.6 percent of the time. In 2007, a Public Citizen report revealed that one giant firm, the National Arbitration Forum, hired out its private adjudicators to hear some 34,000 consumer-versus-bank cases in California during the previous four years, and they ruled for the financial giants 95 percent of the time. Even more incredible, the City of San Francisco discovered in a 2008 lawsuit that of 18,045 cases brought by the financial powers against overwhelmed California consumers, NAF's private judges sided with the corporations 100 percent of the time.

Brand name riggers of the justice system

Practically every national brand name you’ve ever heard of now slips predatory arbitration provisions into their customer terms-of-service agreements and/or employment agreements. Not only do these sneaky inserts strip away your constitutional right to take them to court (peremptorily immunizing them from any wrongs they do to you), but many of the boilerplate provisions also arbitrarily ban you from joining with other small claimants in class actions to hold them accountable. ... [read more]

Supremely shafted

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court is still messing with us, still systematically undermining the Seventh Amendment by herding us ever deeper into the darkness of these backroom corporate courts. The same supreme wrecking crew of Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas that smashed our People's democratic sovereignty with its infamous Citizens United decision, has also been siding with corporate America to sledgehammer the People's right to judicial fairness.

For example, in real courtrooms, it's common for many wronged employees or consumers who have the same complaint against a corporate rip-off to roll their small cases into one big one. This "class action" process saves money and time, because instead of 100 cases needing 100 law firms, judges, and juries, only one of each is needed. Makes sense. But common sense is a feared foreigner in ArbitrationLand, and--surprise!--nearly all BMA agreements ban class actions.

In 2010,the supremes took this ban to extremes, declaring that even if an agreement is silent on the use of class-action arbitration, class actions are still disallowed, forcing each individual to battle the goliaths alone. In a 2011 consumer case against AT&T, the Court majority ruled that even when a class-action ban in a BMA clause is so "unconscionable" that it violates state law, the corporate miscreant can nonetheless ban the class from arbitration and compel each claimant to go it alone.

This June, the Court's corporate supremists are expected to stretch the primacy of private arbitration even farther--so far that corporations could openly and willfully violate our antitrust, civil rights, and other landmark laws enacted to protect the less powerful. The case pitsAmerican Express against a group of its own small business customers that accept AmEx credit cards. The restaurateurs, retailers, and others say the powerhouse financial firm flagrantly runs roughshod over them by using its monopoly position to make them pay excess "swipe fees" on charge card transactions. Each merchant is gouged by a few thousand dollars a year, but proving their claims in court could cost about $1 million each, making solo suits cost-prohibitive. Thus, to see justice done, they filed their lawsuit as a class.

"No you don't," barked AmEx lawyers, pointing to fine print in the corporation's contract with merchants that (1) requires disputes to go to arbitration, and (2) prohibits "any claims from being arbitrated on a class action basis." The upshot? If the Court agrees with AmEx, the one-sided bit of corporate boilerplate it slipped into its standard-form contract would allow it and every other corporation to use their private judicial system to nullify an Act of Congress. In other words, by corporate fiat, America's antitrust laws (and, by extension, other basic laws) would be superseded by a piece of mumbo-jumbo that private businesses put in BMA agreements.

[An "aha!" tidbit: The US Chamber of Commerce, which claims to be the unrelenting defender of small business, has put its own legal muscle firmly behind AmEx in this case, strenuously pushing the Court to let the credit card colossus hammer the little guys.]