One of Romney's early political boosters is coming out today as the man who laid the untraceable million dollar golden egg in the Romney henhouse:
The anonymous donor behind the headline-making $1 million contribution to a pro-Mitt Romney super PAC is a former Bain Capital official with long ties to the candidate, who's asking the outside group to amend its filings, POLITICO has learned.
The check-writer is Ed Conard, who was a top official at Bain, the private-equity firm Romney helped create, and who has been a strong supporter of his over the years.
The donation, made to the super PAC "Restore Our Future" - which was founded by former Romney advisers and is able to take in unlimited contributions, but must report them to the FEC - showed up in the group's first round of filings. It was listed as coming from a W Spann LLC.
In a statement to POLITICO, Conard said, "I am the individual who formed and funded W Spann LLC. I authorized W Spann LLC’s contribution to Restore Our Future PAC.
"I did so after consulting prominent legal counsel regarding the transaction, and based on my understanding that the contribution would comply with applicable laws," he said. "To address questions raised by the media concerning the contribution, I will request that Restore Our Future PAC amend its public reports to disclose me as the donor associated with this contribution."
It really makes the point for campaign finance watchdogs, democrats, and people who value equal access to democratic communication means of communication. Romney's golden egg man was able to do all of this legally, within what is now normal in campaign finance. So if you have a few billion dollars, you can make an untraceable donation to a candidate of your choice without having anyone seeing your fingerprints on the bankroll in the candidates pocket.
It's times like this that I wish Sandra Day O'Connor hadn't resigned from the Supreme Court.
Charles Krauthammer is a fascinating commentator. Usually he's at his best when he proclaims that nuclear war is just around the corner if American military hegemony isn't preserved. These paranoid parades of terribles are at least entertaining and at best offer high school debaters excellent human extinction impacts. His typical content is also why no one takes him seriously except for the neo-conservative class. His column today, "Rubicon is a river in Wisconsin" is a rare example of real insight on the politics of union-busting Republicans:Led by famously progressive Wisconsin - Scott Walker at the state level and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan at the congressional level - a new generation of Republicans has looked at the debt and is crossing the Rubicon. Recklessly principled, they are putting the question to the nation: Are we a serious people?
The comparison to Julius Caesar is striking. When General Caesar decided to take his army into the fields outside of Rome, he was breaking a long tradition of democratic (if oligarchic) rule. The threat of force against his political opponents was clear and disturbing. No other general had ever passed south of the Rubicon with an army under his control. Julius Caesar's move effectively ended democracy in Rome, establishing the Roman empire.
I personally would not have made the argument that taking away bargaining rights for workers would be such a cathartic break from American democracy. Yet this is exactly the hope that Krauthammer espouses.
Sarah Palin's massive new media empire is facing closer scrutiny with the pre-publication leak of a former aide's memeoir. Wonkette picked up on a second facebook page controlled by Sarah Palin, a violation of Facebook terms of use:Maintaining multiple accounts, regardless of the purpose, is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use. If you already have a personal account, then we cannot allow you to create business accounts for any reason. You can manage all the Pages and Socials Ads that you create on your personal account.
One would think that Sarah Palin's followers and extensive pull in the traditional and rightwing media outlets would be enough power for her, but here she is resorting to an illegitimate doubling of her capacity to influence the social media world with a second account. A normal person only needs one facebook account, but Sarah Palin thinks that she deserves special treatment.
This position is totally consistent with Palin's support for the Citizens United decision, which essentially provided additional political speech power to wealthy investors that is unavailable to 98% of Americans. The Republican notion that the wealthy, or powerful deserve special protections is logically extended in this instance to the social world. Facebook explicitly prohibits this type of activity, yet Palin feels that she is entitled to her second account. While the powerful have carefully ensconced the legitimacy of their disproportionate access to political speech in constitutional discourse (equating campaign expenditures to political speech), Sarah Palin's facebook violation displays the selfishness and elitism behind the Republican idea that their voices deserve more volume than yours.
The Koch Brothers have a type of distributed speech multiplier
I'd like to find a copy of this ad attacking Ron Kind(WI-03) ran in the Madison Market on CBS affiliate during 11:00PM CST show, in the first or second adbreak
I just saw this ad, the main complaint of which is that Ron Kind (WI-03) allowed the government to spend money wastefully. Specifically, they list some boilerplate about how the stimulus money was a waste because it didn't turn around the unemployment momentum, then a pure pork project: replacing broken windows on a building owned by the federal government.
In my neighborhood, when there's a building on your block with gaping holes in the windows, we call it a nuisance. Dilapidated buildings depreciate property values in the entire neighborhood. If that building were on my block, I would ask the owner to fix it up. If not to inhabit it, then at least to dress it up well enough to ensure that it will sell quickly. The incumbent's position is "fix buildings". He probably voted for a bill which included a line item like "Federal building maintenance- Replace Windows;" now he's being attacked for it. That's silly, because the logical outcome of this ad is that the challenger in the race would prefer to "not fix buildings." Who would put up such an obviously bankrupt ad?
Well, turned out it's one of those old post-Citizens United corporate speech money holes. I'm not really sure I got its exact name correctly because I can't find it on the web, and the voice said it really quickly. I think it was, "National Foundation of Independent Businesses." I found a National Federation Independent Businesses but I don't think it was it.
Speaker Pelosi is giving some credence to the report that the Chamber of Commerce is funding independent expenditures with foreign corporate money. The Chamber of Commerce, a purely lobbying and political operation, has set up a network of foreign offices which while controlled by foreign boards, direct money directly into the pot of money which is used to purchase electioneering ads. In the wake of the Citizens United v. FEC 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010), we must acknowledge that there is nothing currently illegal about this arrangement.
There are genuine questions of great importance when we then ask ourselves whether foreign money should be able to be used to further a political agenda. Are our national interests vulnerable to outside influence through corporate laundering of foreign donations? The prohibition of foreign funds being used to further political goals would require some sort of separation between funds. Is a firewall between funds provided by foreigners and those provided by residents onerous enough for Justice Kennedy to decide that it creates a practical prior restraint on speech?
It should be answered to the first question that much of the CIA's covert operations budget have gone towards influencing national, regional, and even local elections in foreign countries. Electioneering is a potent tool for a foreign power to exercise in order to achieve policy goals. The possibility that foreign agents might be funding political speech to further their interests via the elected American Government is chilling. Citizens United declared that corporations, which are merely associations of people, cannot be banned from political speech. Is the same true for foreign corporations?
