“Exhibit A For What’s Wrong In America”: Race-Baiting Campaign Proposed Against Obama
The good news about the proposed Joe Ricketts race-baiting campaign targeting Barack Obama is that it got flushed out before it had a chance to become a reality. And now it never will.
This is exhibit A of all that is wrong with politics.
When the Supreme Court rules that anyone can say anything—often anonymously—with unlimited money, then they will.
There was once a time in our politics when candidates and parties could be held responsible for what they did and said. Because they were the ones doing and saying it. And you’d generally have adults somewhere around the table who, if presented with a plan like the one given to Ricketts, would have said: “Not just no, but hell no. Burn every copy of this document.”
God bless whoever leaked the document to The New York Times. I’ve never met Ricketts, and for all I know, he may ultimately have had the sense to kill the plan. But the fact that he was even considering it tells me all I need to know about the guy.
This is madness. Of course it’s too early to know, but if things keep going the way are, Mitt Romney has a very good chance to win the election in November. And can you imagine the distraction this campaign would have been if launched in the fall?
It’s not hard to figure out the winning strategy for Romney.
It’s the economy, not Jeremiah Wright, stupid.
Whether you like or agree with Barack Obama, or voted for or against him, the one thing I presumed most of us agree on is that with the 2008 election, we thought we had put the issue of race in American campaigns behind us.
Campaign watchdog Fred Wertheimer sums it up pretty well: “In the case of tax-exempt groups, citizens have absolutely no idea what’s going on here. They have no way of knowing how groups are trying to influence their votes.”
Thanks to a leaked report to The New York Times, we know about this one. But just think about all the other plans out there that won’t be leaked.
BY: Mark McKinnon, The Daily Beast, May 17, 2012
Democratize The “Mother’s Milk Of Politics”: How To Beat Citizens United
We are about to have the worst presidential campaign money can buy. The Supreme Court’s dreadful Citizens United decision and a somnolent Federal Election Commission will allow hundreds of millions of dollars from a small number of very wealthy people and interests to inundate our airwaves with often vicious advertisements for which no candidate will be accountable.
One would like to think that the court will eventually admit the folly of its 2010 ruling and reverse it. But we can’t wait that long. And out of this dreary landscape, hope is blossoming in the state of New York. There’s irony here, since New York is where a lot of the big national money is coming from. No matter. The state is considering a campaign finance law that would repair some of the Citizens United damage, and in a way the Supreme Court wouldn’t be able to touch.
The idea is that to offset the power of large donors, citizens without deep pockets should be encouraged to flood the system with small contributions that the government would match. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has pledged to a state overhaul of this sort, based on the one already in force for New York City elections. In his state of the state address in January, Cuomo spoke of how urgent it is to “reconnect the people to the political process and their government.” He could make himself into a reform hero across the country if he and the Legislature created a model law for other states, and the nation.
The New York City program is straightforward: The government gives participating candidates $6 in matching funds for every dollar raised from individuals who live in the city, up to the first $175. At a maximum, this means a $175 contribution is augmented by $1,050 in public funds. That’s a mighty incentive for politicians to involve more citizens in paying for campaigns. In the city system, participating candidates have to live within certain spending and contribution limits. In a new statewide system, there are likely to be no spending restrictions but lower limits on contributions.
The beautiful thing is that this approach should answer most of the criticisms offered by those who defend the Citizens United world. I say “should” because advocates of current arrangements will find a way to oppose any reforms. But the New York Revolution, if it happens, would undercut many of their arguments — including their constitutional claims.
The New York reform does not limit anyone’s capacity to participate. It creates incentives for more people to participate. It does not reduce the amount of political speech. It expands the number of people speaking through their contributions. It does not protect incumbents. On the contrary, it opens the way for candidates who might otherwise be driven from the competition by established politicians with access to traditional funding sources.
In short, it makes our democracy democratic again.
And it works. A study of the New York City program published recently by Michael Malbin, executive director of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute, and his co-authors Peter W. Brusoe and Brendan Glavin concludes that the evidence “suggests that multiple-matching funds can stimulate participation by small donors in a manner that is healthy for democracy.”
In particular, they discovered that the reform substantially increased involvement by residents of poor and minority neighborhoods. Suddenly, politicians are hanging around with people other than those with yachts, private jets and complicated tax breaks. Malbin and his colleagues put it more soberly: A matching-funds approach means politicians “spending time with a more diverse set of constituents than he or she would if all of his or her fundraising engaged the upper middle class and rich.”
As for those who object to “taxpayer financing of elections,” consider that a candidate doesn’t get a dime unless he or she raises money from willing private donors. Besides, the Malbin paper notes, “political and civic participation are public goods” and elections “are, after all, the public’s business.” Conservatives fond of vouchers in so many other areas should see this as an opportunity to create Democracy Vouchers.
It will take courage for incumbent politicians to risk establishing a bold new system that could put some of them in danger. But in the course of our history, New York has been a proudly innovative place. A nation looking for a way out from under the money regime created by Citizens United badly needs the example of politicians who believe in democracy enough to democratize the mother’s milk of politics.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, April 22, 2012
“An Alternative Legislature”: Judicial Activists In The Supreme Court
Three days of Supreme Court arguments over the health-care law demonstrated for all to see that conservative justices are prepared to act as an alternative legislature, diving deeply into policy details as if they were members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Senator, excuse me, Justice Samuel Alito quoted Congressional Budget Office figures on Tuesday to talk about the insurance costs of the young. On Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts sounded like the House whip in discussing whether parts of the law could stand if other parts fell. He noted that without various provisions, Congress “wouldn’t have been able to put together, cobble together, the votes to get it through.” Tell me again, was this a courtroom or a lobbyist’s office?
It fell to the court’s liberals — the so-called “judicial activists,” remember? — to remind their conservative brethren that legislative power is supposed to rest in our government’s elected branches.
Justice Stephen Breyer noted that some of the issues raised by opponents of the law were about “the merits of the bill,” a proper concern of Congress, not the courts. And in arguing for restraint, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked what was wrong with leaving as much discretion as possible “in the hands of the people who should be fixing this, not us.” It was nice to be reminded that we’re a democracy, not a judicial dictatorship.
The conservative justices were obsessed with weird hypotheticals. If the federal government could make you buy health insurance, might it require you to buy broccoli, health club memberships, cellphones, burial services and cars? All of which have nothing to do with an uninsured person getting expensive treatment that others — often taxpayers — have to pay for.
Liberals should learn from this display that there is no point in catering to today’s hard-line conservatives. The individual mandate was a conservative idea that President Obama adopted to preserve the private market in health insurance rather than move toward a government-financed, single-payer system. What he got back from conservatives was not gratitude but charges of socialism — for adopting their own proposal.
The irony is that if the court’s conservatives overthrow the mandate, they will hasten the arrival of a more government-heavy system. Justice Anthony Kennedy even hinted that it might be more “honest” if government simply used “the tax power to raise revenue and to just have a national health service, single-payer.” Remember those words.
One of the most astonishing arguments came from Roberts, who spoke with alarm that people would be required to purchase coverage for issues they might never confront. He specifically cited “pediatric services” and “maternity services.”
Well, yes, men pay to cover maternity services while women pay for treating prostate problems. It’s called health insurance. Would it be better to segregate the insurance market along gender lines?
The court’s right-wing justices seemed to forget that the best argument for the individual mandate was made in 1989 by a respected conservative, the Heritage Foundation’s Stuart Butler.
“If a man is struck down by a heart attack in the street,” Butler said, “Americans will care for him whether or not he has insurance. If we find that he has spent his money on other things rather than insurance, we may be angry but we will not deny him services — even if that means more prudent citizens end up paying the tab. A mandate on individuals recognizes this implicit contract.”
Justice Antonin Scalia seemed to reject the sense of solidarity that Butler embraced. When Solicitor General Donald Verrilli explained that “we’ve obligated ourselves so that people get health care,” Scalia replied coolly: “Well, don’t obligate yourself to that.” Does this mean letting Butler’s uninsured guy die?
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick called attention to this exchange and was eloquent in describing its meaning. “This case isn’t so much about freedom from government-mandated broccoli or gyms,” Lithwick wrote. “It’s about freedom from our obligations to one another . . . the freedom to ignore the injured” and to “walk away from those in peril.”
This is what conservative justices will do if they strike down or cripple the health-care law. And a court that gave us Bush v. Gore and Citizens United will prove conclusively that it sees no limits on its power, no need to defer to those elected to make our laws. A Supreme Court that is supposed to give us justice will instead deliver ideology.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, March 28, 2012
“Roiling The Political Waters”: Supreme Court Has Made Ugly U.S. Politics Even Uglier
The Supreme Court has done the impossible by making American politics even worse than it already was. The bomb that the court dropped on campaigns was the infamous Citizens United decision.
This year the court will decide two cases that will have an immediate effect on federal and state elections. Monday, the court will begin to hear arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Next stop for the nine justices is a ruling on the constitutionality of the Arizona law that restricts immigration. Both cases could roil the political waters.
But the court’s 2010 Citizens United decision has already changed the complexion of this year’s campaigns. The basis of the court’s decision to allow unlimited corporate political spending was that a corporation is a person and therefore is entitled to freedom of speech under the First Amendment. If a corporation is a person why hasn’t Gov. Rick Perry executed BP for the death and destruction it caused in the Gulf Coast? God knows, real people in Texas have been fried for less.
The court’s Citizens United decision made a bad system even worse.
After the 2008 presidential campaign Americans were already horrified at the negativity of political campaigns. They ain’t seen nothing yet. The extra money that Citizens United has pumped into the political system has exponentially increased the number of negative ads on the air. Voters in the early primary and caucus states are completely shell shocked and the super PACs for congressional campaigns are still waiting in the wings. Former Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaign and super PAC that supports it, Restore Our Future, have a great good cop, bad cop combo. The Romney campaign took the high road while the Romney Death Star completely obliterated former House Speaker Next Gingrich’s candidacy. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
The avalanche of negative ads has predictably driven turnout down. During the 2008 Democratic slugfest between then-Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, voter participation increased. But because there are a lot more negative ads on the air now in the GOP contest, turnout has been down. Because of the scale of the electronic mud wrestling match, the images of all the GOP candidates are soiled. Maybe Mitt Romney’s Etch A Sketch can scrub his image but it won’t be easy to do in the two short months between the GOP convention and November 6.
The rise of the super PACs has also been a godsend for single issue politics. The Gingrich presidential committee ran out of money a couple of months ago and the only thing keeping the former speaker on life support is the more than $20 million that casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his family has given to the Gingrich-supporting super PAC Winning Our Future. Adelson’s cause is blind American support for anything Israel wants to do, even if those actions threaten our national security. Wall Street bankers and billionaires who have shunned the president because of his efforts to tame corporate abuses have donated millions of dollars to the Romney-supporting super PAC.
Citizens United has also allowed individual millionaires to have a lot of influence on the candidates. Sheldon Adelson is an obvious example the ability of one wealthy person to get a hook on a candidate but there are others. Bob Perry is millionaire Houston homebuilder who funded the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth PAC, which badly wounded John Kerry in 2004. The U.S. Navy should have rewarded the Massachusetts senator another Purple Heart for the beating he took from Swift Boat Veterans. Perry has donated $3 million to the Romney super PAC. Energy investor and noted birth control expert Foster Friess has been a generous donor to the super PAC that supports former Sen. Rick Santorum, The Red, White and Blue Fund. Friess frequently appears standing next to the candidate on the podium at campaign events. So much for Santorum and Friess obeying the law that forbids coordinated strategy between the two of them.
There was a time when the Supreme Court did everything it could to avoid the “political thickets.” That approach has gone the way of of moderate Republicans and clean campaigns.
By: Brad Bannon, U. S. News and World Report, March 22, 2012
“Insufficient Influence”: Mitt Romney’s “Ultrawealthy” Backer Wants Even More Political Control
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Ken Griffin, a hedge fund billionaire who is one of the 400 richest people in America, argued that the ultrawealthy in this country don’t have enough influence over politics. Griffin went on to say that the ultrawealthy “have a duty” to step forward and save the U.S. from what he says is a drift toward Soviet-style state control of the economy:
Q. I’m going to come back to this. But I want to touch on two more areas first. What do you think in general about the influence of people with your means on the political process? You said shame on the politicians for listening to the CEOs. Do you think the ultrawealthy have an inordinate or inappropriate amount of influence on the political process?
A. I think they actually have an insufficient influence. Those who have enjoyed the benefits of our system more than ever now owe a duty to protect the system that has created the greatest nation on this planet. And so I hope that other individuals who have really enjoyed growing up in a country that believes in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – and economic freedom is part of the pursuit of happiness – (I hope they realize) they have a duty now to step up and protect that. Not for themselves, but for their kids and for their grandchildren and for the person down the street that they don’t even know …
At this moment in time, these values are under attack. This belief that a larger government is what creates prosperity, that a larger government is what creates good (is wrong). We’ve seen that experiment. The Soviet Union collapsed. China has run away from its state-controlled system over the last 20 years and has pulled more people up from poverty by doing so than we’ve ever seen in the history of humanity. Why the U.S. is drifting toward a direction that has been the failed of experiment of the last century, I don’t understand. I don’t understand.
He also complained that this is a “very sad moment in [his] lifetime,” citing the now-familiar Republican charge that the Obama administration has “embraced class warfare.”
Griffin is the founder and CEO of Citadel Asset Management, a Chicago-based hedge fund. In recent years, has lavished some of his estimated $3 billion net worth on a wide variety of right-wing groups and Republican candidates.
He and his wife contributed $150,000 to the pro-Romney Super PAC, Restore Our Future, joining nine other billionaires who contributed a total of $2.8 million to the group during the second half of last year. Griffin has also contributed the maximum allowable amount directly to Mitt Romney’s campaign, $550,000 to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads Super PAC, $1.5 million to the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, $560,000 to the Republican Governors Association, $38,300 to the Republican National Committee, $72,900 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, $30,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the $5,000 maximum to Paul Ryan (R-WI)’s Prosperity PAC, and $4,000 to Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) Every Republican is Crucial PAC.
While Griffin has contributed to some Democratic candidates for federal office in the past (mostly those from his home state of Illinois or who sit on congressional committees overseeing taxation and the financial industry), over the two most recent election cycles he has given just $2,500 to one Democrat while contributing $55,300 to Republicans candidates, including Sens. Scott Brown (MA), Marco Rubio (FL), Dan Coats (IN), Pat Toomey (PA), and Mark Kirk (IL) and Reps. Ryan, Cantor, and Sean Duffy (WI).
Griffin said that ultrawealthy individuals like himself should “absolutely” be allowed to donate unlimited amounts to Super PACs and political campaigns, citing “rules that encourage transparency.” However, he added that he views actual transparency with “trepidation,” noting a successful campaign that progressives launched against Target after it made a post-Citizens United corporate contribution to a group supporting an extreme anti-gay Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota.
By” Josh Dorner, Think Progress, March 10, 2012
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 