New:Campaign-Finance
"Reforms" Break Down
Tony Sanchez spent $60 million of his
own money in his race for governor of Texas. He lost. And don't forget
Oliver North and Michael Huffington.
And HERE
you'll find: "Mobility 20/20
spent $1.5 million, or roughly $37 per vote, and lost. Ax the Tax spent
about $20,000, or roughly 37 cents per vote [AND WON -- with
a little help from your webmaster, BTW -- in a totally come-from-behind
victory]."
So money doesn't always control
elections.
The
"Who funded it?" (or the "Who paid you?") Fallacy
Why
"Reformers" suffer from rectal cranial-displacement
THE
BLOG SQUELCHERS
THIS
outrage in Washington State is WHY
"Shall.
Make. No. Friggin'. Law."
Speech
Crime in Wisconsin | Will
journalists ever understand how campaign finance reform abridges free speech?,
| "Pauline
Kanchanalak: Poster Girl for the Futility of the McCain- Feingold Bill",
| "McCain's
Bane" and "There's
always another CFR loophole."
"And now the court has let the most powerful
of American interest groups -- incumbent politicians -- have their way
with the First Amendment. Wednesday's message to the mere people
was clear: Shut up, the court explained." -- Paul
Greenberg
"[If the Supreme Court lets McCain- Feingold stand (which it did)]
the only voices we'll hear are those the government has approved."
-- is posted
HERE.
See: A
Constitutional Obscenity HERE.
See: "Last week's
[court]
decision is just a start in restoring political liberty" HERE.
Find
your lazy, ignorant, unprincipled legislators in a well-deserved state
of shock HERE
-- "in a story that is simultaneously hilarrious and appalling."
If you believe in CFR, you have to believe
THIS
kind of corruption is OK.
The outrageous way "Campaign Finance" laws
are really enforced is shown HERE.
See how every attempt to manipulate the election
rules in an of itself is dirty politics -- as it always aids
some participants and hurts others
HERE.
And
here's an example from the state of Arizona.
Why McCain-Feingold couldn't even solve the problems it's wrongly identified
as the source of corruption is pointed out HERE.
“After watching the senator for years, Smith believes
McCain doesn’t truly understand his own signature issue. 'He is woefully
ill informed on campaign-finance issues,' Smith says. 'I have seen him
repeatedly misstate what the law is, misstate what court decisions held,
and I think that’s one reason he gets so angry when he talks about it.
It’s because he doesn’t really understand what a complex issue it is, what
a difficult issue it is, he doesn’t understand the court hearings, he doesn’t
understand how we’ve gotten where we are -- so he just gets mad.' ”-- Byron
York
See: "Too many voters are already bought -- not
by corporate campaign donors, but by the government itself." --
Joseph Sobran, HERE.
(and don't forget the government gets to use guns and jails, which corporations,
unions and other interest groups do not. Duh.).
"For all their talk about the virtues of democracy, many incumbent politicians
really don't like it when voters have a voice -- not if that voice is effective."--
Paul
Jacob and David M. Brown
And see: "Campaign spending has never been a guarantee of electoral
success -- ask Michael Huffington or Oliver North. Incumbency is a better
predictor of electoral success than campaign bucks -- and it's when incumbents
are spending a lot that they are obviously most in trouble. Nor is there
any solid evidence that campaign contributions wag the dog of legislators'
decisions more than do party affiliation, ideology, and their perception
of their constituents' desires. It's far easier to support people who
agree with you than to bribe people to do your bidding."
HERE.
Here's a surprise: an FEC commisioner
brings skeptical perspectives to the table. In fact, he now says "I
have found that the regulations are worse than I thought, especially in
how they effect grassroots politics." HERE.
Also:
"why government cannot be trusted with the authority granted under
the campaign finance law" is unveiled
HERE
(Hint: Government power attracts swarms of crooks and demagogues as surely
as horse manure attracts swarms of horseflies. Duh.). And
HERE
is a discussion of a right too precious to be trusted to ANY decision-maker
but yourself.
"There is way
too much regulation." -- Lee Ann Elliott, former FEC Chairman, before
the House Admin. Committee, 3-17-2001
Nomatter
what, "protection racket" is the name of the game, and will
remain
so ... until there's too little power left
in government to attract the crooks and demagogues. Duh.
See: " ' The only way to end political corruption for good is to strip
politicians of their ability to hand out favors at taxpayers' expense,'
... And that means dramatically reducing the size and power of government.
After all, the only politician who can't be bought is one who has
nothing to sell." HERE
and HERE.
See: "In the name of campaign finance reform, Democrats and Republicans
have written a comedy of errors that has aggravated every single problem
it has ever tried to solve ... It's time to repeal
these laws, deregulate the electoral process, and encourage healthy
competition from third
parties."
HERE
See: "campaign spending [does NOT cause] public mistrust of government"
HERE.
Find that "it's not 'major party campaign finances' they're worried
about." HERE.
See Paul Jacob's novel idea for campaign finance reform: allow the free
citizens of the U.S. to give as much money as they want to whomever they
want (!) HERE
Now,
go to RealCampaignReform.org
HERE.
See: "The value of gadfly disobedience" HERE.
See: "Abolishing public financing would force politicians to pay for
their campaigns the old-fashioned way: By earning the support of voters."
HERE
Alexis Nepomuceno's CFR links are
HERE.
The LP's points about Shays-Meehan are HERE.
Michael Lynch's observations are HERE.
Geoff Metcalf's interview of Mike Lynch is HERE.
Important References:
Amendment
I, Constitution of the United States
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and
to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment
X, Constitution of the United States
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively,
or to the people.
**Find A Thorough
and Specific Constitutional Analysis of Campaign Finance Reform
HERE
.**
Now, since it appears most Congresspersons have
NOT read, or at least, have not understood the Constitution, we
present "The SacredBull Basic English and Math Test for American Politicians"HERE.
| In his Bill for Religious
Freedom, Thomas Jefferson condemned the use of public funds to support
religious beliefs: “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money
for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful
and tyrannical.” What would Jefferson say about Arizona having
a process that provides public funds for believers in the Church of Big
Government?
Such, apparently, is the [Arizona] Citizens
Clean Elections Commission—official distributor of public money to participating
candidates. In this year’s elections for state offices, 10 percent
of Republican candidates, 46 percent of Democratic candidates and 67 percent
of Green Party candidates chose to receive public money for their campaigns
from the commission. The contention is that Clean Elections money
helps to level the playing field, but what about the Libertarians [WHO
HOLD THAT "WELFARE FOR POLITICIANS" FUNDED BY TAX MONEY IS SINFUL
AND TYRANNICAL]? ... there are no Libertarian Clean Elections
candidates. The evident conclusion is that when the government is
handing out money to political candidates, the ones most likely to stand
in line are those who believe that every worthy human endeavor should be
rewarded with a government check.
A system with such a de facto bias towards
holders of certain political beliefs is antithetical to the founding principles
of this country.
-- from "Money Laundering: The Bias in the Clean Elections Law"
by Robert J. Franciosi Ph.D., publication no. 00-27 of The Goldwater Institute,
October 6, 2000 |
|
"The
problem with politics isn't the money; it's
the power." --
Harry
Browne
Politicians sold 'protection'
Blackmail was the game
Plunder was made legal!
Yet, it's the moral men we blame!
-- from "A
Poem by Richard W. Grant" |
| "Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every
corner and crevice of industry." -- THOMAS PAINE |
| Understand how "The campaign
finance scandals are merely symptoms of the disease of a coercive government"
HERE. |
|
|
"McCain / Feingold ... 'Shut Up or
Go To Prison' " -- Brad Cloven
"The politicians should not tell the people
to shut up." -- John
Stossel
|
"McCain-Feingold's backers claimed the law would rein in large
donors and facilitate political campaigns that are less expensive, less
negative and less influenced by special interests. If that nirvana has
arrived, we haven't noticed. . . . Perhaps the lesson is that limiting
political speech isn't the cure for whatever supposedly ails the electoral
system. Let's hope the Supreme Court seizes this opportunity to start dismantling
the speech-regulation regime known as McCain-Feingold." -- Wall Street
Journal editorial, 12-29-06
"Putting aside the ludicrous notion that 535 incumbent politicians sat
down and tried to write a piece of legislation that would make it harder
to get reelected, five years later there's no evidence electoral competition
has increased." -- Ryan
Sager, New York Sun, 3-27-07
About
Campaign Finance
"Reform"
If all the alleged reasons for "reform" are correct, we must assume
enough campaign contributors come rushing in with enough money to run a
campaign up front, making it unnecessary for politicians, especially powerful
incumbents, to make very many fundraising calls, right? After all, conventional
wisdom says that campaign contributions from business people are bribes,
and that it's the bribe donors who initiate the bribes, not
the
bribe recipients, right? (Check THIS
out for your first clues. Another clue: if it's the donors who
start the process, don't you wonder WHY the politicians have to make so
many, let alone ANY, phone calls to raise campaign money?). And what do
you think the politicians SAY during all those phone calls? ... [HINT:
"Trick
or treat!" (Help OR ELSE!!!)]
It's
"protection" money, stupid.
And, of course the REAL reason is: "Money doesn't
corrupt politics...
Politics corrupts money-making."It's
all made clear HERE,
HERE
and HERE.
"I don't think it's bribery;
I think it's extortion. Bribery, you know, is when the person that's
giving the money does it voluntarily. What it is in Washington is
extortion because they all ask for the money." --
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on FNC's The O'Reilly Factor, Feb. 22, 2001
"It's a shakedown system" -- Christopher Hitchens to Chris Matthews
on MSNBC's Hardball, Jan. 16, 2002
"Is it donors' fault if they are being forced
to buy 'protection' from powerful politicans?" -- Robert W. Tracinski
"John McCain told me that the industries which contribute the most to
political campaigns are the ones which are the most heavily regulated by
the federal government." -- John Fund on Hardball March 26, 2001
"Corruption lies in the heart of the receiver, and not in the wallet
of the giver." -- Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT) on the floor of the Senate,
March 29, 2001
"Contrary to popular belief, people who deliberately go out to buy
political influence are vastly outnumbered by people who are sold
political influence by creative or desperate politicians." -- Rick Gaber
"[John McCain] has raised every conceivable concern about constituents'
improper influence over their government, while expressing little or no
concern about the government's improper power over its constituents." --
Jack Wakeland
"There's something psychotic
about people who go around asking whether large business concerns should
be allowed to operate without first getting government permission for every
little thing, but who never ask whether politicians should be allowed to
shake down businesses and businessmen any damn time they want to." -- Rick
Gaber
"The problem with politics isn't the money;
it's the power." --
Harry
Browne
The incumbent politicians that supported McCain-Feingold prefer to keep
us quiet and prevent us from making noise about their records as Election
Day gets closer. A great travesty of the law is that it makes it
harder for candidates of middle-class means to run for office at all. Instead,
we have the example of how one candidate spent $100 million personally
to buy a Senate seat, then a governorship, but while in the Senate voted
for McCain-Feingold to limit every middle-class citizen to $2,500 in donations
per election campaign. These rules move us dangerously closer to a plutocracy
where the highest bidder [among politicians] can buy a seat." -- Newt
Gingrich
Nomatter
what, "protection racket" is the name of the game, and will
remain
so ... until there's too little power left in government to attract
the crooks and demagogues. Duh.
| ...and the
ENRON
debacle
proves it. If those payments actually were "bribes"
then all those phone calls Enron executives made to the Bush administration
would have actually gotten something done for the company. But the
fact is: THEY DIDN'T.
Maybe a willingness to listen to their suggestions
on energy de-regulation
in general, but nothing for Enron in particular.
Not
even support for the draconian "Kyoto Treaty" which Ken Lay so desperately
begged for us to be party to. Zip, Zero, Nada. The White House has
actually
published its energy policy recommendations. They're
all right
here.
Anyone
can see them and study them. There's absolutely NOTHING there to
bail out, or even favor, Enron. Check
THIS
out too, while you're at it. See
how the ENRONS of the world are made possible by PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS. |
| Dr.
Jack "The REAL Indiana Jones" Wheeler says, "What I'm waiting for
is a businessman with balls enough to explain to the American people that
Congress is a Mafia running a protection racket, and that the tax code
bears a principal responsibility for business failures."HERE. |
Hilarious, even...
Thomas
Sowell says "The idea that money is corrupting innocent politicians
would be laughable if it did not lead to such dangerous legislation..."
HERE.
Walter
Williams' comments on campaign finance shenanigans where congressmen play
"the bad cop-good cop sham" are HERE,
Thomas
Sowell asks, "Do we really want to allow bureaucrats and politicians to
be able to harass citizens for expressing political opinions?" HERE,
and Congressman
Ron Paul answers the question, "Why Is There So Much Money in Politics?"
HERE.
Jason
Thomas demonstrates exactly who is making sure political contributions
remain an essential feature of business
HERE. |
|
| Reformed politicians
Every time I hear a politician say, "We need campaign-finance reform,"
I think of some mentally disturbed criminal begging the police to "please
stop me before I strike again."
Before we embark down the road that ultimately could lead to publicly
financed campaigns consider this:
The average snack producer spends more money promoting a new product
than all the money spent on political commercials in the average election
cycle. And I have a problem with my tax dollars being spent electing Ted
Kennedy again.
What we need is a reformed politician not a reformed system.
I suppose that after this next round of new laws fails to stop the habitual
offenders (and it will), we will be forced to enact such drastic measures
as handcuffing each elected official to a Boy Scout and the respective
politician's mother. We could call it the "You just wait till your father
gets home" Act of 2004.
Rob Goderis
Orlando
letter-to-the-editor, Orlando Sentinel, Feb. 6, 2002 |
| What
do you think the politicians say in those first phone calls?
Things like, "How would you like a government-protected monopoly for your
business?" AND / OR, "You wouldn't like it if your competition got such
a monopoly, would you?" AND ESPECIALLY: Listen, I'm sure you're a player,
and you know I won't let any regulators or revenue agents send any swarm
of inspectors to descend on you or your company for no reason... ..." |
"Remember
Al
Gore's telephone calls from the White House, telling various businesses
how much money he expected them to contribute? They weren't beating down
the White House gates, trying to get inside to force money into the pockets
of those inside. Businesses were being summoned to pony up. No one
said that refusal could lead to OSHA inspectors, IRS agents or others from
the vast Washington bureaucracy descending on these entrepreneurs' factories
or offices, or new taxes or red tape being imposed on them by Congress.
No one had to."
-- Dr. Thomas Sowell HERE |
|
| Find a discussion of what the hell our elected legislators
think they're in the business of doing, anyway HERE.
And a catalog of 'MONEY AND POLITICS" issues HERE. |
Can a candidate with a staggering war-chest disadvantage win?
Please. Don't get me started. Evidence for it is easy to find.
HERE's
one place. HERE's
another. HERE's
another.
Now, WHAT was the purpose of restricting -- er -- sorry --
"reforming"
campaign
finances again????????????
Oh, yes -- it was to give THESE
bozos a monopoly on information; I almost forgot.
.
| "I did notice that the ONLY way you can spend any amount of money to
promote and formally endorse candidates for public office is if you are
a media organization. This already gives media a disproportionate influence
on elections. Restrictions on "campaign finance" only further tip the balance
of power in favor of media organizations because they can (and do) give
millions of dollars worth of free advertising to candidates in the form
of news stories and editorials and even endorse candidates (newspapers
usually publish a list of endorsements) without having to file a single
campaign report.
"Of course, media organizations SHOULD be able to spend as much as they
want to get out the word about candidates they favor and to endorse them.
But
so should everyone else. For the media to be an unabashed cheering
section for legal limits on campaign contributions and for the morass of
regulations the rest of us must follow is a contemptible hypocrisy, an
insult to our intelligence and a threat to our liberty." -- Charles Champion,
Aug. 29, 2000 here.
Find more on major media arrogance and treachery here,
here
and
here.
And another reason newspapers push hard for Shays-Meehan here. |
| Find: "It’s interesting that the most unregulated industry in America—the
major corporate media—thinks that everyone else needs to be regulated."
here |
| "The media will grow in political clout, which is one reason the press
corps has been reform's loudest cheerleader. Mr. McConnell quipped Wednesday
that editorials over the years in the Washington Post and New York Times
amounted to $8 million in unregulated soft money contributions for reformers.
This is one form of political speech the bill will not restrict. A second
group of winners will be incumbents, who have easier access to both hard
money and the media than challengers do." -- Wall Street Journal
editorial, Sunday, March 24, 2002 here |
| "Maybe when they no longer receive Sierra magazine in their
mailboxes, journalists will understand how campaign finance reform abridges
free speech." -- Matt Welch, here |
Many of the solutions suggested for solving the alleged "problem" of
campaign contributions are designed to diminish the number of ads and commericials
which voters see and hear, on the theory that whoever has the most money
can buy the most ads and commercials, and that's not "fair." They
NEVER go on to explain WHY it's "unfair" -- because if they did then their
unspoken contempt for their constituents would be exposed. The real
reason they think it's "unfair" is that they believe THEIR voters are too
stupid, ignorant and unthinking to identify and dismiss exaggerations,
lies, and irrelevancies if they are repeated often enough, and they want
to keep them that way for their purposes, AND/OR: they know their
busy, productive, intelligent constituents would seldom find out about
their
real voting records and agendas unless enough opposition commercials
were aired. Clarifications of even more of the pompous, self-righteous
irrationality employed in this issue are
HERE.
See why the stink of corruption will continue to pervade the system
until the current lack of any specific criterion for actually defining
corruption is ameliorated HERE.
| Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Federal Election Commissioner
Bradley Smith characterizes some supporters of the McCain-Feingold bill
thus:
"What [Senators Cochran and Roberts] like about
McCain-Feingold is that it restricts citizen speech critical of politicians
in the 60 days prior to an election. It does this by severely limiting
the sources of money that can be used for such speech, requiring citizens
engaged in such speech to disclose their identities (opening them up to
retaliation), and prohibiting some organizations from speaking about candidates
at all. The motivation of these senators is clear: They do not like being
criticized by the public and they intend to use the power of government
to stop the criticism." |
"...Microsoft's financial and lobbying involvement in Washington, D.C.
was puny. In 1995, Bill Gates was naive enough to declare that political
issues are not 'on our radar screen.' As of 1994, the company had
one lobbyist in Washington. Even in late 1997, Microsoft 'had zero
presence on the Hill,' according to Republican Rep. David McIntosh.
"Incredibly, Microsoft's political non-involvement
was dubbed 'arrogant' by the Washington, D.C. establishment -- as if the
D.C. political class were an organized crime syndicate to which every large
company should be expected to pay protection." [bold type added]
--David Kopel in the Jan.,2002 issue of >Liberty. |
Transcript of Deposition of Albert
Gore Taken April 18, 2000 by the Department of Justice Campaign Financing
Task Force:
| Question: |
Did you have any understanding, or do you have any understanding, that
there was a price tag associated with the
[White House] coffees? |
| Gore: |
No, I do not and did not. |
| Question: |
With respect to raising the $108 million, did you have discussions
with anybody concerning the role coffees would play in raising that type
of money? |
| Gore: |
Well, let me define the term "raising," if I could,
because if you mean by it, would they be events at which money was raised,
the answer is no. But it is, it was then and has for a long time been common
practice to have meetings with people who are interested in various subjects,
spend time with them, cultivate the relationship, show them the respect
that the time signifies, and then, on the basis of the relationship that
is built up then and in other ways, ask them to support the DNC [Democratic
National Committee]... |
The above transcript section was read verbatim by Chris Matthews on his
Hardball
TV Program on 6-26-2000, and without skipping a beat, he added: "In other
words, warm 'em up -- and hit 'em for money," as only Matthews could know
so well after having served as Administrative Assistant to Democratic Speaker
of the House Tip O'Neill, arguably the most powerful speaker of the last
century (Washington's dirty little secret: the vast majority of all "first"
campaign contributions from a particular source are initiated by the politicians,
not by the donors). Thereupon his guest, Vanity Fair editor
and The Nation columnist Christopher Hitchens said, "It's enough
to make a cat laugh, isn't it? Lanny Davis -- remember him? --
was asked after they discovered the videos of those coffee mornings, and
where
money is openly being solicited..." See THIS
reference. |
|
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