What Charles G. Koch Can Teach Us About Campaign Finance Data 238
Lasrick writes "Lee Drutman is a political scientist with the Sunlight Foundation who does terrific work. In this article, he attempts to trace campaign donations made by one of the Koch Brothers and discovers just how difficult it is to do: 'The case of Charles G. Koch is a nice lesson in just how hard it is to determine who is breaking and who is abiding by campaign finance limits. It's hard to make accurate tallies of individual aggregate campaign contributions when the Federal Elections Commission doesn't require donors to have a unique ID, and when campaigns don't always reliably report donor names. Given this, it is unclear how the FEC would even enforce its own aggregate limit rules. The FEC's spokesperson told me that while the FEC welcomes complaints, it does not typically take enforcement initiative."'
Asinine Article of the Year Award Goes to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama is spying on every American with blanket data grabs and still fails to stop terrorist attacks
Obama has the IRS pry into the personal lives of anyone (and high school kids) who is trying to start a conservative non-profit
And you want to bitch about money from people supporting a candidate that DIDN'T WIN the election.
Step 1: Get the tyrant in power
Step 2: Keep the tyrant in power
Posting an article about people who are harassing conservatives for who they dare to support with their money... That's just special. I guess the IRS isn't doing a good enough job, we need to find other avenues to ensure Conservative/Republicans politicians don't get financial contributions to their campaign.
Re:Why Koch and not Soros? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, real stand up guys. Like how they've been trying to re-implement segregation, erm, sorry... "Neighborhood Schools" in the RDU/Triangle area. Couldn't possibly be that they are legitimately regressive ass hats. Nope... just more of that liberal agenda.
Of course it is difficult. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would politicians that got elected enact laws to make it harder for them to be bribed? They specifically make the campaign finances difficult to track in order to hide the bribery.
Not only that, but we let the people being elected set their own paychecks as well.
Re:Who cares who donates and how much? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you know who donates to which parties, politicians, and organizations, it can highlight what things you might want to give extra scrutiny to.
You don't have to use the information, but I would like it to be available for analysis.
Re:Why Koch and not Soros? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's much more likely because the Koch brothers quite literally astroturfed the Tea Party into existence. It doesn't take a genius to realize that the agenda being pushed by the Tea Party is obviously pro-corporation and anti-liberty.
If people could detach emotional bias from politics, the Tea Party would disappear overnight when everyone realized how hoodwinked they had been by corporate interests.
Re:Why Koch and not Soros? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you think that free markets and deregulation are pro-corporate policies, you're not paying enough attention. The whole point of corporatism is to use "consumer protection" as an excuse to prevent new entrants into the marketplace.
Re:Asinine Article of the Year Award Goes to... (Score:1, Insightful)
Citizen, you may only rant about GOP politicians here. /. rules of political discourse:
Remember the
1. Article about GOP politics = rant about GOP politics/politicians
2. Article about Democratic politics = rant about politics/politicians in general
Re:Why Koch and not Soros? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why Koch and not Soros? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it because the Koch is considered evil by the left while Soros is a saint?
No, it's a directive. This is part of the larger campaign to instruct left-wing career bureaucrats to abuse their power, of which the IRS abuses are only the beginning. Rather than using "dog whistles" or "code words," they're using goddamned bullhorns to coordinate this, out in the open.
The top leaders of the left, including Obama, deliberately claimed that conservative and libertarian organizations were cheating on their taxes, and groups like Sunlight and Media Matters made similar claims. It was basically an instruction, directly from leading Democrats and liberal activists, to do precisely what we've seen happen. Hell, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid falsely claimed on the Senate floor that Mitt Romney, then a private citizen, had not paid taxes for 10 years.
Sure enough, IRS agents did precisely what they were instructed to do.
Obama has also repeatedly decried Fox as an illegitimate news organization. Sure enough, the Justice department has charged Rosen for passing on data that had been leaked to him. Passing on leaked data is normally considered to be okay by people who don't have a clearance, but the Justice department is claiming that Rosen, a private citizen, is an enemy of the state under the Espionage Act.
Claiming that conservative and libertarian (Koch being libertarian) organizations are not abiding by the byzantine campaign finance regulations are another way to instruct bureaucrats to harass and silence them. We should expect to see these organizations hounded and harassed by FEC and others.
Re:Why Koch and not Soros? (Score:4, Insightful)
ok, so we're at a special moment in US history. both the right and the left agree that the government is dysfunctional, highly corrupt, and borderline totalitarian.
appropriate next move... anyone?
Whine and bitch about the other guy and the lesser of two evils. In other words, exactly the same move that got us into this mess.
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were asking what was actually going to happen.
Re:Why Koch and not Soros? (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember that Enron crisis a decade or so ago in CA?
I live in California. When they deregulated the energy market, they only did a partial deregulation. In this case, partial dereg made things much worse.
The 2008 economic meltdown was caused by deregulation
No, the meltdown was caused by the government interferring in the market and forcing lenders to loan money to people who had no chance of paying it back.
Socialism only works in some imaginary liberal fantasy world where greedy douchebags can't game the system to their own benefit. Under every economic system you will always have people who are able to game the system for their own benefit. Under free-market capitalism w/ minimal necessary regulation (not the corporatism we have now), the playing field is the most level.
Re:Why Koch and not Soros? (Score:1, Insightful)
No, the meltdown was caused by the government interferring in the market and forcing lenders to loan money to people who had no chance of paying it back.
The only thing "forcing" people to loan money was citibank and others making "money" hand over fist (as long as you count outstanding debt as "money"). Are you going to claim it was CRA? Bush canceled his "Blueprint for the American Dream" and ended enforcement of the CRA. Maybe it was Fannie and Freddie? Funny thing about "subprime" is that it's defined as "loans fannie and freddie won't touch".
So go on ahead. Tell us exactly what forced banks to invent "ninja loans" and "alt-a" subprime loans and CDOs. We're waiting.
Re: Who cares who donates and how much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where in the Constitution is there a right to privacy for individuals?
The Supremes have repeatedly ruled that the enumerated rights in the constitution add up to an implied right to privacy, since you can't realistically have several of them (including the right to freedom of speech) without it. It is ignorant at best to utilize this argument. It is also highly disingenuous to ask this question in any case because the constitution was never intended to exhaustively enumerate the Human Rights of The People. Your one-liner amounts to nothing more than tired prevarication.
Re: Government. Is there ANYTHING it can't screw u (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why Koch and not Soros? (Score:2, Insightful)
The difference is that MoveOn has no pretenses in what it's about. What exactly is the tea party these days? All I hear from its mouthpieces right now is how gay marriage is a sign of the end times and moral decay causes deficits but we should totally spend trillions more dollars on war. And tax us less or something maybe.
I guess meanwhile you can sit around apologizing to Bush. [teaparty.org] Thats what you do these days, right? Tell everyone how shit Bush did was awesome then but stopped being awesome when Obama does the exact same thing?
Re: Who cares who donates and how much? (Score:0, Insightful)
Jesus. Thank you drinkypoo. Things have gotten so out of hand as a way to defend the government and administration that they're starting to turn on the Bill of Rights to defend the position. All Americans should be angered about the attacks on the AP, other news agencies, and private Americans that have transpired since 2010.
Re:More support for a national ID (Score:3, Insightful)
Really strange - the lefts HATRED of brothers promoting freedom with their own money.
For the record - did you know that the Koch Brothers support:
Decriminalizing drugs,
Legalizing gay marriage,
Repealing the Patriot Act,
Ending the police state,
Cutting defense spending.
They call this being way right wing?
The problem is that even though they support Freedom and Liberty they don't support Liberalism. They're against big government, heavy taxes and heavy regulation. They tend to be individualists and not collectivists, ergo they are right wing extremists (or something).
Re: Who cares who donates and how much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where in the Constitution is there a right to privacy for individuals?
4th Amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure, and the 9th Amendment which clearly says that just because a set of rights are enumerated doesn't mean those are the only ones you have, and the 10th Amendment which says that the only powers the Federal government has are those delegated to it, and that all others are reserved to the States (where not prohibited) or the People.
So, the real question which you should have asked is where in the Constitution was the government given the power to snoop through all your crap in the first place.
Here comes the liberal propaganda... (Score:0, Insightful)
Oh good Lord. Liberal / progressives have *always* been the shadiest purveyors of campaign finance trickery, but all the liberal press writes about is the *much* smaller Conservative PACs.
For Christ's sake - George Soros has been pumping hundreds of millions into shady socialist activist groups and the press says nothing. George Soros funded the 'Secretary of State Project' which funded the campaigns of radical progressives for ofices of SoS so that they would have power over election results in 2008 and 2012. (Communist Mark Ritchie of Minnesota who oversaw radical progrressive Al Franken's highly controversial election recount results was a result of Soros' project).
One thing liberals are very good at it deflecting attention away from their own crimes - because they are the ones with the barrels of ink.
WTF is income equality? (Score:5, Insightful)
Should we all be paid the same per hour regardless of what we produce in that hour?
The Koch brothers employ 10's of thousands of people.
Obviously they're doing something for ordinary people.
Re:WTF is income equality? (Score:3, Insightful)
Everybody should be able to earn a living wage no matter what kind of job they have. I'm sick and tired of this race-to-the-bottom bullshit where executives make millions of dollars a year (or more) while rank-and-file workers are paid so little that they need food stamps to survive (and now the right-wingers want to cut that out of pure spite). And no, I don't envy the rich. Why does anybody need that much money? The rich have not done anything for me or for you without expecting much more in return. Let them be taxed at 90% like in the Eisenhower days. You want to talk about "takers" vs. "makers"? The rich are the takers because they live on other peoples' work. The people who go to work every day and get shit done are the real makers and the real job creators. When regular people have money to spend, everybody does well. When the rich suck up all the money, the economy craters. Do we really have to relive the gilded age and let the modern batch of robber barons take us for everything we have before we come to our senses?
Do the fact the Kochs employ people mean they deserve praise? Those people only have jobs there because they make more money for the Kochs. Can you even list one good thing the Kochs have done for this world that hasn't been tainted by self interest?
Re:If you donate to leftists (Score:4, Insightful)
What does any of that have to do with being far-left? Harassing Fox News is just political partisanship, not leftism. Abolishing capitalism and private property and promoting communism: now that would be a far-left organization. Media Matters are just Democratic partisans who don't appear to have any interest in actual leftism, just in attacking Republicans.
That's more about how fervent you are in approaching politics as team sports, than about position on the left/right spectrum. You can be a hardcore partisan and be anywhere on the spectrum; even some very centrist politicos in terms of their actual political ideology are hardcore partisans, in both parties.
Re:WTF is income equality? (Score:5, Insightful)
Capital gains (how the rich make most of their income) should be treated no differently than regular income. This is one way the current tax code favors the rich. Also, eliminating the cap on social security would keep it solvent indefinitely. Would it be such a bad thing if more industries were nationalized? I've seen how the private sector runs the economy and honestly, I'm not very impressed. (banking and healthcare, I'm looking at you!)
I disagree that our standard of living has improved since the 50s. When the rich paid higher taxes, the country experienced a period of high prosperity. We experienced a similar thing when Clinton raised taxes in the 90s. We ended up with a budget surplus that was soon squandered by Bush. Sure, we have more cheap electronic gadgets nowadays but job security, healthcare affordability, and infrastructure have gone to shit since Reagan came up with trickle-down economics. I'd call trickle-down the most ghastly economic failure in history except it did exactly what it was supposed to do (redistribute middle class wealth upward to the rich).
Biased by design (Score:4, Insightful)
This would have more validity if the the title was "What Charles Koch & George Soros can teach use about campaign finance data"
Re:WTF is income equality? - Exaclty. (Score:4, Insightful)
FFS!
WTF is wrong with you stupid fucking americans?
How do you get to believe that kind of bullshit? are you just born stupid or is it brainwashed into you?
"the government" is *NOT* the source of all evil. There are plenty of other sources that have nothing at all to do with government, and there are plenty of things that governments can and do do that aren't in the least bit evil.
why the fuck, when you hear a rich and poweful man telling you that "government and regulation is evil and bad for you" that you never, ever, not even for one moment stop to think and ask yourself "what's in it for him to say that? why does he want me to believe that?"
have you no natural suspicion? or cynicism? or has it all been channeled and misdirected via propaganda into anti-government theology?
rent-seeking, for instance, is completely unrelated to government or 'government powers'. it is what happens when a private individual or organisation uses their monopoly or near-monopoly of supply to charge whatever they think they can get away without an angry mob with pitchforks burning them down.
and that means a lot...far more than you might expect because most people will take a hell of a lot of shit from businessmen parasites and exploiters before getting angry enough to even think about doing something about it. rebellion only occurs when conditions become completely and relentlessly unbearable.
it's got nothing at all to do with governments or governmental powers.