Category — Campaign Finance

Today’s ruling by SCOTUS has the Donkeys braying, their mouthpiece Sen. Schumer bucking and kicking and Sen. Sap, Leahy of VT trampling lessers to get to a mic.
Rather humorous to watch, I had the “fortune” to see this circus on C-Span.

Citizens United case: A “small revolution” in campaign finance?

Adam Bonin Attorney and

Chairman, Netroots Nation :

As First Amendment jurisprudence goes, this is almost certainly correct — it’s not just “persons” whose speech that Congress is forbidden from restricting. Still, that doesn’t mean that this might not end up with absolutely lousy results for our democracy, given the potential for amassed corporate wealth to distort political discourse. The majority puts a lot of faith in the people to sort things out, but there’s still a role for Congress to play in leveling the playing field through instituting voluntary public financing of public elections, and perhaps through targeted corporate governance provisions to ensure that shareholders have a say in where their money is going.

Sure the corps. have big bucks, so do the unions.Shareholders can control corporate spending, union membership dues cannot be legally used for political speech.

What causes heartburn among the Jackasses is the diminution of union membership.  But the oh so caring Proggies brought this on themselves, by jacking corporate taxes up to 35%. Businesses took jobs overseas to countries where rates are 10 to 15%, bye-bye union jobs.
Talk about molesting your own kitten!

Barack Obama broke his promise to accept public financing, but don’t worry, he’s not like the others:

The presumptive Democratic nominee says his 1.5 million donors represent a real grassroots campaign. “What we’ve built frees ourselves from special interests,” he said, unlike Republican John McCain’s operation, which Obama said is based on big donors and lobbyists.

Of course, when Obama lies, the NY Times is at the ready with a quick hallelujah!  However, a quick examination of the facts tells another story:

Obama’s team in Nevada, put together last summer to help him with the state’s January caucuses, included at least two Nevada lobbyists: one that represented Barrick Gold of North America, a mining company that also lobbies in Washington, and another whose clients included U.S. Airways, Corrections Corp. of America and consulting company Accenture, which lobby in Washington.

Barack thinks we’re as dumb as he looks standing behind his fake presidential seal.  Special interests are going to play a major role in politics no matter how many laws are passed.  Barack’s nose is a lot longer after telling these whoppers.

Everyone, all at once!

OOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!

A Hillary supporter? With foreign money too!

“Valley of the Wolves Iraq” was an anti-Semitic, anti-American film featuring American actor Gary Busey as a Jewish U.S. army doctor who cuts out the organs of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and sells them to wealthy foreign clients. [snip]
The Kurdish News reported that the producer of one of the most hostile anti-American films made in Turkey “Valley of the Wolves-Irak” is a Hillary Clinton megadonor and bundler and was appointed a delegate by Hillary clinton to the Democratic National Convention later this year. (emphasis added)

Hillary Clinton has recently employed Mehmet Celebi, a Turkish ultra-nationalist - who has worked on and raised money for various anti-American, anti-Armenian, anti-Semitic and anti-Kurdish projects - as one of her delegates for her campaign for President of the United States. [snip]

Mehmet Celebi co-owns BMH Worldwide, which produced “Valley of the Wolves-Irak.”
Mehmet Celebi is a Hillraiser for the Clintons.
Hillary Clinton accepted over $100,000 from this Holocaust denier.
Don’t expect this to make any headlines.

More… Debbie Schlussel has more details on Mehmet Celebi. [snip]

What’s next? A bed linen party for Obama!

Lawmakers Rush To Rewrite
Campaign Finance Reform Bill

MONTPELIER, Vt. — With this fall’s election, campaign finance reform will be one of the Legislature’s first tasks in the session that opened Tuesday.

Last year, Republican Gov. Jim Douglas vetoed the campaign finance bill. Lawmakers tried but failed to override the veto in a special session.

Now legislative leaders are rushing to rewrite the bill early in the session so new limits on campaign contributions could be in effect for the election. [snip]

The original bill had all of the bouquet of McCain-Feingold. Holding their noses, the Supremes disinfected Vermont, burying that bill. Back came the same old socialist cant tatted into a new bill, praised by all comrades of Progressive ilk.

Now, one more skip about the May Pole ensues, to slash the financial throat of political speech with the bloody sickle of yore.

Vermont will fund Single Payer Health Care by imposing one party rule. Imagine the savings realized with no costs for elections, lost time from work to vote and except for the approved opposing party candidate no ballot printing costs.

Quite simple isn’t it.

Anatomy of a political hangover

Listening to the promises made by the candidates, most overstep presidential powers and violate the Constitution. Tax law belongs to the House as does all money bills. Susurrations to the contrary, the President isn’t a King which makes the MSM anointments a futility in progress.

On Clinton–
Rush Limbaugh said last night was the worst night for Hillary since Bill’s second term. Not even close, people, for Communist Hillary, the election of Nixon crushed her ideals. Last night, this Alinsky drone’s pyloric valve seized in the open position, showing her true color.

You will never hear her expound upon her vision for the US. With Clinton, as Yoda said to Luke, “With you, it’s change, always change.” Her idea of change, abolishing the Constitution, doesn’t sound good on the hustings. Afterwards, the loud noise heard off screen was a boomer exploding.

On Edwards–
He wants to make your life better, but not quite the way he made his better. An envious man, he wishes to have more money than the collective you. To accomplish this end, everything will be free on his watch. Wait till you see what that costs. You will be verrucose in short order, waiting in line for universal medical relief. Then again, it would be kinder if he merely sued you. Under current tort laws, at least you keep your dignity.

On Obama–
Same droning sounds as from Silky. Different words used. Obama likes the word hope. We have hope. Hope we can make changes. Change is good for it gives us hope. He has no idea how the real world works. That will never prevent him from lurching into the breech. To give us hope for change, hopefully.

On Huckabee–
Having prodded GOP caucus goers with his RINO horn to get what he wanted, let us see how he dolls up the message for low denomination voters. I do not believe many NH voters place hands on the TV. Anyway, Huckabee is calling the NH primary, the Big Camp Meeting, can I get an AMEN.

On Romney–
Many questions need be asked of the Mitt. Does the U.S. deserve the type of government foisted on MA inmates? Do we need a “Big Dig” in every state? Why is the working population of MA shrinking? Why isn’t the illegal immigration population shrinking?
More to the point, which Mitt is running for office?

On McCain–
He is in the wrong party. That speaks to his good points. There isn’t room for the thought on the dark side.

On Paul–
Collaborating with the Donk moonbat Kucinich, both are investigating the appearance of illegal aliens at Groom Lake aka Area 51, instead of along the border and in meat packing plants. Art Bell is chairman of this primary of two.

On Thompson–
Not running hard while running, this makes one wonder, Wassup! If he keeps dissing the lame stream media, he may become the front-runner rather quickly. More of a Washingtonian politician (person, not place) he says it is about duty, not desire. We’ll see if this reaches fruition.

On the usual perennial weeds–
After signing up for campaign matching funds, they cash the check; spend a minimal amount on electioneering and pocket the rest. This is a common trope for most politicians, usually seen as groveling for power and re-election, and by the older politicians, sex in strange places with alien DNA types. Their attendance is for obfuscating purposes only, this heterophony helps shield the front-runners from real questions.

The Boston Globe endorsement of John McCain should scare most conservative voters off his candidacy. But even if you didn’t have the damning evidence in the form of this endorsement, McCain is on the wrong side of too many big issues. He’s an enemy of free speech with his unwavering support of campaign finance reform laws. He’s pro-amnesty and will revive those disastrous proposals the second he’s elected. And he wouldn’t harm a hair on bin Laden’s to get valuable intelligence information out of him.

You can make electability arguments for McCain all you like, but like the 2 Bush’s before him, he’ll harm the conservative agenda far more than he’ll advance it.

A lot of people naturally assume the Democratic Party has the biggest, most ideologically diverse tent. However, an analysis of the parties’ 1^st tier presidential candidates implies otherwise. The Democratic candidates lean so far left they’re practically horizontal. Hillary Clinton’s main governmental “accomplishment” is a failed attempt to socialize our medical system. Barack Obama thinks 5 year olds need sex education. And John Edwards wants to expand the nanny state because he thinks we all live in broken down trailers with a car on cinder blocks in the front yard.

On the other hand, the Republican presidential field is dominated by squishy moderates trying to convince the party faithful they’re conservatives. Rudy Giuliani is a social liberal who supported making New York a “sanctuary city”. Mitt Romney is trying to explain his abortion flip-flop and ran as a centrist in MA. John McCain takes great pleasure in annoying the party’s base on issues like immigration and campaign finance reform.

I’d wager that a socially conservative Democrat could not achieve the front runner status that a socially liberal Giuliani has in the Republican race. Could a Democrat ever be pro-life? Democrats talk about diversity, but they’re all died in the wool liberals.

The Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito look like they’ll be one of the few bright spots in President Bush’s legacy. The Court issued several very good 5-4 rulings today. (See excerpts here.) First up, it struck down McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform restrictions on advocacy group issue ads during the later stages of an election, which clearly violated our 1^st Amendment rights. 2^nd, it ruled that public schools could limit student’s free speech. This case is distinguishable from the 1^st instance because public schools are educational institutions where appropriate limitations on disruptive behavior are valid. The student in question even admitted he wasn’t exercising free speech as much as he was looking for attention.

Last, it upheld the Bush administration’s decision to give money to faith based charities. Although I don’t believe this is necessarily unconstitutional, I’ve changed my position this type of funding. One of the fundamental reasons these organizations were successful was because they weren’t government organizations. Long-term they may regret their government ties if they integrate into the bloated and ineffective government bureaucracy that’s incapable of performing even the most basic task. Next, is creating another special interest group with designs on our tax dollars a good idea? There are already enough people with their hands in our pockets without creating another group of them.

But all in all, these were pretty good decisions. I have a feeling this 5-4 voting block will decide a number of cases provided the composition of the court doesn’t shift in the immediate future. Conservatives made the correct call on forcing the president to back down on Harriet Miers because Alito looks like a keeper.

Apparently Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer isn’t in the habit of examining the merits of his own statements:

Pointing to the example of campaign finance, Breyer also said the court was right in 2003 to uphold on a 5-to-4 vote the McCain-Feingold law that banned unlimited donations to political parties.
 

Acknowledging that critics had a point in saying that the law violates free speech, Breyer said the limits were constitutional because it would make the electoral process more fair and democratic to candidates not tied to special interests.

For the sake of argument, let’s stipulate that making the election process “fairer” and “more democratic” by weakening special interests groups justifies limitations on our freedom of speech.  Has McCain-Feingold weakened the special interest groups?  If anything, the McCain-Feingold version of campaign finance reform has strengthened special interest 527 organizations, like MoveOn.org, who raise millions of dollars to influence the political process.  But since liberals are never required to analyze the results of their actions, Justice Breyer continues to trade on good intentions while he blithely ignores reality.

A Newt Gingrich candidacy seems very appealing on the issues he’s raising.

Newt on Campaign Finance Reform:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says First Amendment rights need to be expanded, and eliminating the McCain-Feingold law’s restrictions on campaign contributions would be a start.

Good start.  McCain-Feingold is a travesty.  President Bush should have kept his campaign promise not to sign it or the Supreme Court should have slapped it down.

Newt on fighting terrorism:

Gingrich also called for tougher laws to fight terrorism. He said situations such as the thwarted mass terrorism plot in London this summer call for “a totally different set of rules.”

Check.  I think we do need tougher laws to fight terrorism.

Newt on the judicial branch and the Pledge of Allegiance:

Gingrich also reaffirmed the Pledge of Allegiance, criticized attempts to ban its recitation and said the executive and legislative branches should watch over the courts.

I think the courts have overstepped their bounds, and I don’t see anything wrong with the Pledge of Allegiance.  On first blush and with this limited set of issues, Newt seems like an attractive candidate.

From the Diane Wilkerson File……Okay, I don’t keep a file, but it sounds good. Read on from today’s Boston Herald…

Meanwhile, campaign finance records filed this week show that Wilkerson has paid herself more than $28,000 from her campaign finance account in a dozen separate reimbursements this year, all in round number amounts ranging from $1,000 to $5,000.

Let’s keep it in the family too….

It also shows her son, Kendall Mills, took in more than $21,000 from the account in consultant services and reimbursements this year, including one $2,200 payment to “GMAC.”

It appears Senator Wilkerson does not care what people think and is going to use this fund as her personal account. If I were a contributor to her campaign, I would want to know where my money is going. Is it going to the re-election effort, or is it going to subsidize her life?

On page B5 of today’s Globe, it details one payment of $5000.00 as a reimbursement for a political consultant. Why is she taking the payments herself instead of paying her vendors directly? This woman has too many problems.

Even for her most loyal supporters she has got to be an embarrassment.

Amazingly, the Senate got one right when it voted to criminalize taking underage teens across state borders to subvert parental notification laws on abortion. But the most interesting quote in this NY Times article comes from Hillary Clinton:

“Sometimes tragedies happen, and sometimes families are not just negligent but abusive, and sometimes young girls are taken advantage of by members of their family, people in whom they should be able to trust.”

Mrs. Clinton is right. Sadly, there are abusive and negligent parents, but does that fact justify taking away everyone’s parental rights? In most cases, parents are perfectly within their rights to be involved in major decisions involving their minor children. Would Mrs. Clinton have wanted someone taking Chelsea across state lines for a medical procedure without her knowledge? I doubt it.

But this case really feeds into two larger liberal themes. First, no restriction on abortion is reasonable. It’s a silly notion given that even our most fundamental rights, like freedom of speech, have reasonable restrictions (can’t yell fire in a crowded theater) and unreasonable (McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance RDeform). Second, it fits Hillary’s “It takes a village” meme, which roughly translated means the state knows how to raise your children better than you do. You see this when school districts teach content that parents don’t approve of on religious or other grounds (Johnny has 2 daddies or how to put condoms on bananas). Remember this if Mrs. Clinton starts preaching values in the ’08 campaign.

MikeTheActuary has an interesting response to my post on Warren Buffett’s charitable donation:

Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and others have argued…and I mostly agree… that permitting the richest of the rich to allow their wealth to roll over from one generation to the next permits a family to become dynastically wealthy. If this happened with enough families over enough time, there is a risk of creating aristocracy — a group of families who control wealth and power in the country, probably negating the wishes and desires of the masses.

If the basic argument is that extreme wealth is dangerous to a democracy, is it more dangerous concentrated in Buffett’s hands or spread amongst his progeny? Was the Walton fortune more dangerous when Sam Walton had it or now that it’s spread amongst his wife and children? Using that reasoning, we should take Buffett’s wealth now.

And why worry exclusively about dynastic family wealth? Buffett and his family members have less wealth and power than General Electric and Exxon Mobile. You could argue that shareholders provide a check on these corporations, but in reality, the power is concentrated with the CEO and board members. Should we go break up all companies larger than $X?

These arguments are similar to arguments attempting to justify campaign finance reform. However, it ignores the reality that even people with money disagree and support different sides of any cause. John Kerry had a group of billionaires supporting him, but he didn’t win the election.

We shouldn’t forget the enforcement problem either. In reality, these people can move their assets to any tax haven they want. Even US law provides them with a number of ways to avoid those taxes if they wish. Just like McCain Feingold didn’t remove money from politics, almost any law you pass on estate taxes will be circumvented.

It’s very nice of Buffett to donate a large part of his fortune, but I still believe it was his choice and not ours. Concerns for democracy are a bit contrived.  I also still find it hypocritical that Buffett supports estate taxes he won’t be paying.

I am a longtime reader and commenter on this site. I was invited by NER to contribute and I am grateful for the opportunity.

The attempt to introduce an amendment to allow for the protection of the flag yesterday failed by a single vote. Some are pouncing on the occasion to blame Hillary Clinton, who spoke in favor of such protections before voting against the amendment, or Lincoln Chafee, the Rhode Islander whose voting record makes many pine for the days when Jim Jeffords called himself a Republican (though in fairness to Chafee, his father, a decorated WWII vet, opposed such an amendment prior to his death in 1999). In that support for such a measure is polling somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% approval, I would imagine there may be a cost for some of the amendment’s opponents. Personally, I am pleased with the outcome.

[Read more →]

Republicans who think the current rift in the party will be healed once the immigration furor subsides could be sadly mistaken. Immigration only calcified what conservatives knew in their hearts already, but had hoped was not true—this President and GOP are more “compassionate” than they are conservative.

The conservative agenda is not moving forward and the evidence is everywhere you look. The government budget is expanding at rates not seen since LBJ was crafting the Great Society. Republicans pass massive FDR style entitlement programs like Medicare prescription drug benefits without even blinking. The President signed McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform after having explicitly campaigned against it in his presidential run. Republicans allowed Ted Kennedy to write the No Child Left Behind Act. After promising us Scalias and Thomases for the Supreme Court, the President nominated his personal lawyer. Even if Harriet Miers became the Court’s most conservative member, did the President expect us to believe she was the most qualified candidate he could find? And even on the rare occasions when they try to reform the welfare state with personal savings accounts for Social Security they cannot muster the strength to push it through.

The President’s failure to implement a conservative agenda is all the more painful because conservatives gave him every tool they could to implement it. Conservatives entrusted the party with both Houses of Congress by ousting Democrats from the Senate. They poured 10s of millions into Republican campaign coffers. They went door-to-door registering voters. They staved off midterm election malaise in 2002 to keep both Houses of Congress firmly under Republican control. One can only dream what a similarly blessed Ronald Reagan might have accomplished with these advantages.

No, the dissatisfaction with the President and party has been growing for a long time. Its roots run much deeper than immigration. Until now events have conspired to paper over the differences. Conservatives disliked President Clinton to such an extent that any Republican president was going to get a honeymoon period. After 9/11, conservatives put their own desires on hold believing it was their duty to support a wartime president. In 2004, they believed promises that a President Bush freed from election concerns would really govern in a conservative fashion.

Except for strong efforts in the War on Terror and small tax cuts they cannot make permanent, the Bush presidency is unsatisfying like a cake without frosting. But we are told maintaining power is important because a Democratic takeover would be disastrous and this logic is not without merit. It might even be undeniable if the party was not spending billions advancing the nanny state while congratulating itself on spending a few billion less than their Democratic counterparts.

Ultimately, it really comes down to your goals. If holding power, tapping on the breaks of government growth, and electing candidates with the R after their name is your definition of success, you probably feel very comfortable in today’s GOP. However, those wishing to shrink government and implement a conservative agenda are left wanting something much more. Ask President Bush 41 what happens when you abandon the base of your party. Bush 41 drove conservatives to Ross Perot and gave the presidency to a man who could never muster over 50% of the popular vote even with a split opposition and good economy the media actually acknowledged. Many will blame conservatives for not supporting the party if a November disaster occurs, but I am left to wonder who really abandoned who?