Note the last question below: LEFT’S NON-PROFIT FUNDING LEAD KEEPS GROWING: Michael Watson and Shane Devine of the Capital Research Center (CRC) update through the 2018 campaign the center’s ongoing study comparing charitable funding resources for the Left and Right and finds the former’s advantage continues to expand. “In the 2017–2018 cycle, the 301 groups supported by … Read more
General Don Bolduc is a Republican running for the US Senate in New Hampshire. He seems like a solid guy who has some excellent ideas. I’m not entirely sure if they are his ideas, but there are people I like and trust that have endorsed him. But I can’t. One of his “ideas” is a dealbreaker.
Jim Rubens has a very long email; almost no one will read. It’s just too long. But the title is “The Conservative Role in Passing an Anti-Corruption Amendment.” So, as a favor to you, I’ll suffer through it, if only to remind you why the title is misleading and the premise is wrong.
The ‘Granny D’ walk to get money out of politics in, you guessed it, Peterborough, will happen this Sunday. According to the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript,
You’ve probably seen it; billionaire Tom Steyer’s presidential ad. It’s everywhere, online, streaming. There’s plenty to say about the ad and the effort. Like, why isn’t he pictured stroking a white Cat?
One of the PACs that own Senator Jeanne Shaheen is focusing its influence peddling operation on State Legislatures in 2020. EMILY’s List, the kill them if they are moving pro-abortion PAC wants to get Lefties Elected in State Houses to improve redistricting for Democrats.
A few days after insiders said Mayor de Blasio “was in,” he wasn’t. Maybe we scared him off? Not to worry, the governor of Montana has decided he needs national attention. Steve Bullock has formally announced his candidacy for President.
In a recent post, I wrote about the importance of “framing the conversation.” I cited a segment on Tucker Carlson’s show in which he debated a Bernie Sanders surrogate over the Green New Deal. In response to my post, a Grok reader added some remarks in the comments section.
Hat tip to Jeff Chidester and Dan Hynes for the link. And we can’t thank Bob Clegg, Susan Olsen, Nicole Fortune and many others for their work in defeating the most recent attempt to push Marsy’s Law on New Hampshire.
But there will be a second effort because the billionaire behind it still has lots of money to spend and thanks to Dan and Jeff and others we can look at who got paid to push Marsy’s law on the Granite State.
Will you be surprised to see who is on the list?
Still no word from “get money out of politics” groups like Open Democracy regarding Billionaire Tom Steyer dumping three-quarters of a million dollars into New Hampshire for the last four-plus months of the 2018 Election cycle. Not that I expected as much as a peep. Steyer is, after all, one of them. He’s supporting their issues and their candidates.
While we wait for them to find their outrage, here’s a story about one PAC spending $23 million to protect a Democrat “get money out of politics” US Senator who could lose his seat in November.
Democrats like to talk about “keeping money out of politics.” Well, meet Henry T. Nicholas III, a wealthy Corporate baron. One of those ‘Big’ corporation guys the left ‘hates’ so much. He’s also the brother of Marsalee, the woman for whom Marsy’s Law is named, and the money behind the push to amend the NH Constitution under the cover of “victims rights” reform.
Henry T. x3 has spent several million in New Hampshire already to advance his pet project to the detriment of victims, the constitutional protections of the accused, but that’s peanuts compared to the $29.49 million he has spent on political initiatives over the past nine years.
Sorry, but the good judge got one thing really wrong – the word “allow” (emphasis mine):
To be sure, many Americans of good faith bemoan the amount of money spent on campaign contributions and political speech. But if you don’t like big money in politics, then you should oppose big government in our lives. Because the former is a necessary consequence of the latter. When government grows larger, when regulators pick more and more economic winners and losers, participation in the political process ceases to be merely a citizen’s prerogative—it becomes a human necessity. This is the inevitable result of a government that would be unrecognizable to our Founders. See, e.g., NFIB v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012).
So if there is too much money in politics, it’s because there’s too much government. The size and scope of government makes such spending essential. See, e.g., EMILY’s List v. FEC, 581 F.3d 1, 33 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (Brown, J., concurring) (“The more power is at stake, the more money will be used to shield, deflect, or co-opt it. So long as the government can take and redistribute a man’s livelihood, there will always be money in politics.”).
That’s got a catchy ring to it, doesn’t it? How Extreme is Jeanne Shaheen? Someone should write a song. Perhaps a dirge would be appropriate?
Jeanne Shaheen, a recipient of truckloads of money from abortion groups like EMILY’s list, supports Kermit Gosnellesque abortions, all the way to birth including live birth abortion. That sounds extreme to me. Though I suppose, if you never really took off the blue tinted glasses to look past the progressive bubble, into the world where we are not all either propagandized acolytes, millionaires, or sycophants, you might discover that a recent National Journal poll shows that 48% of all Americans would support a law that prohibits any abortion after 20 weeks.
That’s only 20 weeks sooner than Extreme Ja Heen Sha Heen.
One of the best sources for large dollar Political Donation history is Newsmeat.com. I use it often, as regular readers may have noticed, but one of the features I have not used is the ability to look at large lists of Celebrities, Executives, Politicians, Media people, and see their contributions and party preferences.
The donation amounts are total reported (including all single donations of $200.00 or more) since 1978. Donations under $200.00, if any, are not going to be included. But you won’t be terribly surprised with the celebrities list–a snippet of which is posted on the jump. That list includes actors, directors, producers singers, writers, radio personalities and so on. Take note of the % columns and how much is donated to each party or special interest groups. (Click on the name to see their specific donation history and what groups they support.)
Oh. They also point out how many winners and losers each has “backed ” in the WIN/LOSS column. And Newsmeat says the entire list is updated every Monday so it is up to date. (Newsmeat also has news, by the way.)
The real fun, I think, is looking for which of these popular people actually support Republicans since they are so few and far between compared to the liberal/Progressive support that dominates this industry–and dominate it does.
The Big table…on the jump….is just A through C. Here’s the link if you want to browse the other parts of the list.
All things being equal, the only reason Democrats might have to complain about the affect of FEC vs. Citizens United on paid political speech is if it somehow removed some pre-existing advantage they had. Why else cause such a fuss? The left clearly has just as much right to take advantage of the current state of political discourse as anyone, right?
So that’s not the problem, is it?
The real problem has nothing to do with money. Democrats have tons of that and always have. And they never complained when they could afford more “speech” than anyone else. So spending money on speech is not the issue.
And it has nothing to do with ‘transparency, not the way they have framed it. They want “transparency” because without it they can’t use their media advantage to intimidate opponents into keeping their opinions, ideas, and money to themsleves. Democrats can’t silence groups of donors they cannot specifically identify (see also Obama/FEC trying to force Right wing groups to release donor lists).
So Democrats are not worried about money in political speech. They are worried about money and speech they can’t control. They are worried about people hearing any message that is not their message.
Democrats are afraid of free speech because they simply do not think you are smart enough to know what you are supposed to believe.