Infographic: US campaign finances revealed

[velik_m]

http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2012/10/9/201210995649977734_8.jpg

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2012/10/201210995526117912.html

[RandomGuy]

654 + 536 = One billion dollars


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-d_BYPR4Ol0k/TrhFA1AhCeI/AAAAAAAAAew/eUyDn_9xv2o/s1600/dr-evil-2.jpg


Talk about a stimulus plan.

[coyotes_geek]

Political campaigns should have to pay taxes IMHO.

[boutons_deux]

Canadian-owned firm's mega-donation to super PAC raises ‘legal red flags’
A million-dollar donation by a foreign-owned corporation to a Republican super PAC has raised legal concerns and opened up the controversial Citizens United Supreme Court decision (http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/01/03/7782/big-bucks-flood-2012-election-what-courts-said-and-why-we-should-care) to new criticism.

Restore Our Future (http://www.publicintegrity.org/node/7977/), the super PAC supporting Republican Mitt Romney’s run for president, received a $1 million donation in mid-August from reinsurance company OdysseyRe (http://www.odysseyre.com/about-odysseyre-overview.htm) of Connecticut, a “wholly-owned subsidiary” of Canadian insurance and investment management giant Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (http://www.fairfax.ca/Corporate/insurance-and-reinsurance-companies/odysseyre/default.aspx).

Fairfax Financial’s founder is Indian-born V. Prem Watsa. Watsa serves as CEO and chairman and owns or controls 45 percent of the company’s shares. He is also the chairman of the board of OdysseyRe, the American subsidiary.
The law says that any foreign national is prohibited from “directly or indirectly” contributing money to influence U.S. elections. That means no campaign donations, no donations to super PACs and no funding of political advertisements.
But campaign finance law is not as clear for U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies as it is for individuals.

Most of the regulations on political spending by subsidiaries of foreign companies were written before corporations were legally allowed to fund political advertisements or donate to super PACs. And Republican members of the Federal Election Commission have thwarted the implementation of new rules regarding the practice.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/05/11148/canadian-owned-firms-mega-donation-super-pac-raises-legal-red-flags

[TeyshaBlue]

654 + 536 = One billion dollars


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-d_BYPR4Ol0k/TrhFA1AhCeI/AAAAAAAAAew/eUyDn_9xv2o/s1600/dr-evil-2.jpg


Talk about a stimulus plan.

:lol:lol

[boutons_deux]

Loophole Allows Saudi Arabian Businesses To Spend Freely In Our Election (http://www.thenation.com/blog/170496/loophole-allows-saudi-arabian-businesses-spend-freely-our-election)

Some Republican bloggers have circulated what seems to be a complete dud (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/09/977251/why-the-obama-foreign-donation-scandal-is-pure-fiction/) of a story about foreigners donating discretely to the Obama campaign using credit cards. Yesterday, Josh Israel demolished (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/10/987681/obama-foreign-donation-scandal-hyped-by-right-wing-based-on-inaccurate-google-translation/) what was left of the pseudo-scandal. There’s actually a more significant loophole that should give anyone pause.

Foreign corporations can in fact influence American democracy in pernicious ways. For instance, how can Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich countries keep us dependent on fossil fuels? Well, thanks in part to the Citizens United decision, a new loophole allows foreign corporations to spend unlimited, undisclosed amounts on American elections.

Saudi-funded groups have run ads (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/29/454672/american-petroleum-institute-issue-ads-mere-coincidence/) against Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat in Missouri, as well as in support (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJZYXrX7j-8) of Tommy Thompson, a Republican in Wisconsin. But in both cases, they’ve been able to conceal the spending behind a wall of secrecy, and under the banner of groups with “American” in the name.

Super PACs have to disclose their donors, so for a foreign corporation to spend big without ever revealing itself, a more practical vehicle (http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigations/politicsandgovernment/1689/how_big_business_is_buying_the_election/?page=entire) to influence an election is something called a trade association, which can now operate as a PAC but without revealing a cent of its funding.

A typical trade association consists of many businesses that pay an annual fee depending on its size. Companies can also pitch in extra funds to their respective trade association at any time, as health insurance companies secretly did with an $86 million (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-17/insurers-gave-u-s-chamber-86-million-used-to-oppose-obama-s-health-law.html) transfer to the U.S. Chamber in 2009 for ads against health reform. As the company’s representative, a trade association engages in everything from lobbying to promotional campaigns to efforts to develop common industry standards.

The largest trade associations have been around for nearly a century, and in the last few decades, many have taken an international scope. For instance, the American Petroleum Institute, which began in 1919 as a trade group for domestic oil companies, is now led in part by a Saudi government lobbyist (http://www.thenation.com/article/169639/never-mind-super-pacs-how-big-business-buying-election) and has offices (http://www.api.org/news-and-media/news/newsitems/2011/mar-2011/api-opens-new-standards.aspx) in Singapore, Beijing and Dubai. ExxonMobil and Chevron are reportedly among the highest dues-paying members of API, but so is Aramco, the state-owned Saudi oil company. (The American Petroleum Institute, as Bloomberg has reported (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-29/chevron-merck-disclose-funding-to-2010-attack-ad-groups.html), now transfers money to attack ad groups like the 60 Plus Association.)

Here’s the rub. Citizens United allows trade associations, for the first time, to dip into their general treasuries—made up in many cases of both foreign and domestic money from businesses—and spend unlimited amounts on American elections. Before the Supreme Court began taking an axe to campaign finance, if a trade association wanted to spend on a federal election, it had to spin off (http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigations/politicsandgovernment/1689/how_big_business_is_buying_the_election/?page=entire) a regulated and disclosed political action committee. Though a foreigner can’t manage a PAC, they are more than welcome to manage major trade associations like the American Petroleum Institute.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/170496/loophole-allows-saudi-arabian-businesses-spend-freely-our-election#

[LnGrrrR]

Political campaigns should have to pay taxes IMHO.

What?!? You can't be serious! That would involve double taxation! *gnashing of teeth*

[Drachen]

yeah, citizen's united needs to go. Anyone can influence our politics now. It's like they are just trying to hasten the reign of our Chinese overlords.

(or canadian as it were)

[boutons_deux]

Republican Party Lawsuit Seeking To Make Citizens United Even Worse Is Headed For The Supreme Court (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/11/993351/republican-party-lawsuit-seeking-to-make-citizens-united-even-worse-is-headed-for-the-supreme-court/)

A lawsuit brought by the Republican National Committee now wants to eliminate most of these modest restrictions on election buying, and eliminate the $117,000 cap on donations by people like Adelson. Moreover, because of a federal law that requires the Supreme Court to hear certain campaign finance cases, the Supreme Court is now almost certain to take the case (http://www.politicallawbriefing.com/my-blog/2012/10/election-cycle-limits-in-doubt-as-case-heads-for-supreme-court.html) — potentially handing the Republican Party their biggest Supreme Court victory since Citizens United (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/02/475343/why-republicans-love-citizens-united-in-one-chart/).

As the lower court decision rejecting the GOP’s attempt to suspend the donation limits explains, the likely impact of a Republican victory would be enabling billionaires to launder as much money as they want through political party committees to the candidates of their choice (http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation/mccutcheon_dc_memo_opinion.pdf):

Eliminating the aggregate limits means an individual might, for example, give half-a-million dollars in a single check to a joint fundraising committee comprising a party’s presidential candidate, the party’s national party committee, and most of the party’s state party committees. After the fundraiser, the committees are required to divvy the contributions to ensure that no committee receives more than its permitted share, but because party committees may transfer unlimited amounts of money to other party committees of the same party, the half-a-million-dollar contribution might nevertheless find its way to a single committee’s coffers. That committee, in turn, might use the money for coordinated expenditures, which have no “significant functional difference” from the party’s direct candidate contributions. The candidate who knows the coordinated expenditure funding derives from that single large check at the joint fundraising event will know precisely where to lay the wreath of gratitude.


Notably, this opinion was authored by Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who is arguably the most conservative judge in the country. Brown once compared liberalism to “slavery” and Social Security to a “socialist revolution.” (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/01/931671/bush-appointed-judge-rejects-catholic-employers-challenge-to-birth-control-access-rules/) She authored an opinion earlier this year suggesting that any effort to regulate labor, business or Wall Street is constitutionally suspect (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/16/464731/two-federal-judges-suggest-all-labor-business-or-wall-street-regulation-is-unconstitutional/). Yet even Brown acknowledges in her opinion the corrupting impact of unlimited money pouring directly to a political party.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/11/993351/republican-party-lawsuit-seeking-to-make-citizens-united-even-worse-is-headed-for-the-supreme-court/