(<> means "not equal to, for those of you who aren't particularly math-inclined)
Predator's ball
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
"Apres nous, le deluge." Surely the reactionary gang of five
In the common vernacular: “the majority”
on the Supreme Court should have cited Louis XV
Actually, Madame de Pompadour.
Not to be a nitpicker, but this is what the Supreme Court does. It either upholds or overturns precedent based on Constitutional justifications. Its sole function is to be the arbiter of precedent. If the Supreme Court were bound by the precedent of lower courts then, well, it wouldn’t be very supreme.
to open the floodgates to corporate campaign spending.
The Citizens United case is indeed an important ruling, but no more or less activist than, say, Roe v. Wade (loathe though I am to bring up social issues in a fiscal political cycle). Do we really want our austere Justices citing (or mis-citing) 18th Century French trollops in legal opinions?
For all the fixation on Tea Partyers, what is most notable about this election is the rising tide of money that is lifting many Republican candidates –
Talking Point 1: Republicans are only winning because they have more money.
The New York Times’ David Brooks disagrees http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/opinion/19brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
Without any Internals, CNN’s Political Tracker puts Republican adspend at $150M vs. $134M for Democrats, or roughly a difference of 10%. In a year where Republicans have completely out-hustled Democrats across the board, that sounds just about right. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/16/midterm-tv-ad-spending-could-top-1-billion/
and how it ultimately contradicts the message that GOP contenders are delivering to voters.
This is absolutely nonsensical. In what world does the existence of a vehicle to advance a message undercuts the message itself?
Only two months ago, Democratic Party operatives were boasting that the war chests of Democratic incumbents would repel Republican challengers.
“Mine’s bigger than yours”
That was then.
Is this some sort of rhetorical device that simply doesn’t resonate with me? I see it all the time, and it always strikes me as a turd of transcription. “That was then” is the journalistic equivalent of a debater croaking “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” as he searches for an answer. Thanks for explaining how the past tense works for me, Kat.
Not coincidentally, in the last quarter, Republicans have opened up leads in many formerly competitive districts and pulled close in formerly safe Democratic districts. In what financial types refer to as “signaling,” George Soros conceded that he couldn’t stop a Republican “avalanche” in 2010.
And let’s not forget that Robert Gibbs, mouthpiece of the Democratic machine started out Q3 rankling the rank-and-file left with his claims that “there are enough seats in play” for Democrats to lose the house.
Republicans have out-fundraised Democrats because Republican donors smell blood in the water. Hardly the result of some sinister ad spin, this is because there actually is blood in the water.
More important, the campaigns have been aided by an unprecedented wave of independent expenditures -- over $150 million and rising, the vast bulk spent on attack ads against besieged Democrats.
This is asinine. It would take a deaf-blind recluse to think that Republicans were the ones unleashing the attack ads.
Etc, etc, etc…
Many of these contributions are anonymous, made to nonprofit institutions that don't have to reveal their donors.
a)
Political privacy is essential to the Republic. When you force disclosure of political donations, you are a very short jump away from disclosing voting records.
Political privacy is essential to the Republic. When you force disclosure of political donations, you are a very short jump away from disclosing voting records.
b)
There are plenty of good reasons to give to a nonprofit PAC as opposed to the party mechanism. PACs tend to be more targeted towards the donor’s voting priorities. Similarly, PACs can also pivot faster than and are less embroiled in cronyism than party funding machines
There are plenty of good reasons to give to a nonprofit PAC as opposed to the party mechanism. PACs tend to be more targeted towards the donor’s voting priorities. Similarly, PACs can also pivot faster than and are less embroiled in cronyism than party funding machines
c) Republicans and Democrats are taking nearly identical amounts from nonprofit institutions. Republicans draw from corporations; Democrats draw from unions. Here’s the kicker: all of it, ALL OF IT is perfectly legal.
d) Barack Obama deliberately obfuscated his donor records in 2008. There was absolutely no political pressure on him from the left then. Unlike Obama’s 2008 donor records, Vanden Heuvel’s motives are utterly transparent.
Karl Rove,
Fun side note: Alexi Giannoulias used Karl Rove’s name six times tonight in his debate against Republican Mark Kirk for the Illinois Senate seat of Democratic primary causalty Roland Burris. Not only did Giannoulias speak as though Rover were a convicted felon awaiting sentencing for high treason, he also seemed genuinely surprised that a conservative would take the initiative to fund and aid in the election of another conservative.
infamous as George Bush's political "brain," has essentially displaced the Republican National Committee with his American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS organizations, claiming that they will dispense over $50 million into the elections.
Not coincidentally, donations to the RNC have fallen; conservatives trust Rove’s political judgements more than Michael Steele’s.
This article is bullshit; I read most of it so you don’t have to. Here’s the meat and potatoes: conservative watchdog and advocacy groups in voters rights and campaign fundraising areas have grown in recent years to counter the dominance of similar liberal-leaning groups. Far from being nefarious, this seems like Republicans finally correcting course from years of neglect.
by Eric Lichtblau in the New York Times detailed, conservatives -- led by Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, the "Darth Vader of campaign finance" -- have systematically sought to dismantle the post-Watergate efforts to limit the impact of money in politics, and to curb secret donations.
No one actually believes Democrats can or want to keep money out of politics. (Nor do they believe that Republicans can keep money out of politics.) That said, here’s the key: Corporations and lobbyists are involved in political campaigns because there is money to be made from even marginally more congenial relations with the government. When you take away the ability of the government to haphazardly distribute taxpayer money, you choke off the lifeline of the political donor and are left with only the contributions of the true believers. In short, the conservative utopia of limited government is the only reasonable means for limiting the influence of money in politics.
They've linked legislative obstruction with litigation, placed conservative zealots
Read: anyone right of Joe Leiberman
on regulatory agencies to block enforcement of the laws,
This seems like the type of allegation you should have proof for. Obstructing the enforcement of the law is illegal. My J.D. from the University of Fake Degrees taught me that improper accusations of criminal activity is libel.
and propagated the ideological distortion that money is speech.
What, if not for an expression of your freedom to allocate resources according to your convictions and desires, is money? Someone get this woman a copy of Atlas Shrugged.
Aided by the reactionary majority on the Supreme Court,
I was to understand that Vanden Heuvel was arguing that Citizens United was needlessly and irresponsibly proactive.
the conservative drive has effectively shredded much of the financial arms control
Does the Second Amendment apply to financial arms control?
of the post-Watergate period. As Lichtblau reported, conservatives acknowledge their purpose: the more money in politics, the better the party of the monied class -- the Republicans –
Oh?
is likely to fare.
Well Republicans are doing well because they have money, which they have because they’re doing well, which is because there was once this chicken that came from an egg that came from a chicken that came from an egg…
The barrage of attack ads,
As we’ve already established, in 2010, liberals—almost uniformly—went negative first.
however, comes not simply from the absence of legal restraint,
Which is a clear infringement on sacrosanct First Amendment rights.
but from the decision of conservative corporate wealth to open fire.
If you say it enough times, it might become true.
Some of this surely is ideological, the financial side of Tea Party revolt against Democrats in power. But much of it isn't about ideology, it's about interest.
I find it overwhelmingly convenient how this gives you an excuse not to view the impending electoral landslide as a referendum on liberal policies.
Faced with the cumulative calamities besetting this nation, President Obama had little choice but to challenge entrenched corporate interests.
Since when has “prosperity” been a “corporate” interest?
He sought to cut subsidies to Big Oil and King Coal.
A fantastic proposal! Well, it would be fantastic if we also cut subsidies to solar, wind, geothermal, and other nonsensical “green energy” initiatives or offset the price increases in production with tax cuts for gasoline and diesel. (Needless to say, these ideas didn’t get proposed.)
He pushed health-care reform to the dismay of the insurance companies.
Well…
http://www.wthr.com/story/11026741/wellpoint-ceo-braly-argues-for-health-care-reform?redirected=true
…that was certainly the intention. That said, Obamacare isn’t going to do away with private health insurers immediately. In the short term, legislation that effectively guarantees market share and balloons barriers to entry is good for insurers, even if the cost of compliance eats into profits.
Financial reform, however limited, angered Wall Street's barons.
It should anger everyone; that’s what happens when you deliberately use the governmental apparatus to weaken an entire industry.
He even had the gall to suggest that private equity billionaires should pay income taxes like the rest of us.
This is called the Alternative Minimum Tax, and it’s been around since the 1969. That said, it is completely asinine to suggest any of the following:
a) President Obama has been anything shy of overtly hostile towards wealthy Americans
b) This hostility has been economically productive
c) Wealthy Americans do not pay their “fair share” in taxes (http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/menu/ny_times_top_20__pay_80__of_taxes_.guest.html)
The response, as The Post reported, has been
Economic calamity, massive financial uncertainty, needless volatility, and unprecedented upheaval in the political zeitgeist.
a corporate-financed "frenzy fueled in part
Well that’s vague. I suppose one could argue that Germany invaded Poland in part because Poland was asking for it.
by a relatively small number of rich donors -- oil and gas industry chief executives,
Of which there are maybe 25 from publicly traded “Big Oil,” but boy it sure sounds nefarious.
construction magnates and other tycoons."
Not including trial lawyers and unions, of course. Each group gives some 75% of their campaign contributions—which dwarf those of “oil and gas industry chief executives”—to Democrats.
That reality mocks the Republican pieties about being born-again conservatives.
This sentence doesn’t make sense. Even if I concede—which I don’t—that Republicans are taking exorbitant sums of legal campaign contributions from corporate interests, how does effective fundraising in any way undermine the principles of limited government?
The money flooding into Republican coffers isn't for small government or balanced budgets.
Well, you know what they say about a fool and his money.
It's for retaining profitable subsidies,
I don’t get it. If you wanted subsidies, why wouldn’t you give to the Democrats?
rolling back consumer or worker protections,
Which Conservatives largely see as micromanaging that introduces inefficiencies in the free market.
sustaining anti-trust exemptions,
One thing just about every Obama Administration piece of legislation has in common is that it has reduced competition and entrenched market share. Again, if the corporate interests wanted what the Democrats are offering, why wouldn’t they go headlong behind the Democrats?
reopening the financial casino,
Reading through the liberal jargon, that means “understanding that there exists a market for risk and its commensurate returns and ceasing any efforts to undermine the freedom to undertake such a risk.”
thwarting efforts to tax the wealthy.
Which has the benefit of both moral and economically stimulating. (To be avoid confusion, I’ll clarify: I’m talking about the thwarting)
The respected economist Jamie Galbraith described this as the "predator state," where powerful corporate interests profit by creating and defending lavish government benefits.
This is, of course, opposed to the “leech state” in which private citizens pool together their collective voting power to create and defend lavish government benefits which they bestow upon themselves. Also known as the “tyranny of the majority.”
The Tea Party protest has been sparked in part by the widespread sense that government serves the powerful,
No. The Tea party protests (yes, there were many, so plurals are in order) have been sparked by the widespread sense that government serves itself. The tea party doesn’t seek to shift the exercise of that power to the powerless; it seeks to limit the exercise of governmental power all together.
not the middle class -- that it bailed out Wall Street, not Main Street. But the Republican campaign is bankrolled in no small measure by money from those intent on maintaining their government privileges and subsidies.
Republicans, Tea Partiers, and Conservatives alike do not begrudge the wealth that comes with success. We like corporations, and want them to continue to prosper and employ. We also understand that most business are honest extensions of their owners, who are, by and large, private citizens. Those honest businesses simply want an environment free from government intervention where they can engage in open competition.
This tidal wave of corporate cash -- which could run up a $5 billion price tag on the most expensive midterm election in history –
With the importance of this year’s election, anything else would be a massive disappointment.
is, "the dagger directed at the heart of democracy," as Bill Moyers said in a speech at Common Cause's 40th anniversary gala.
Which is asinine. The greatest danger to democracy is not corporate influence. Peddling legislative favors is still a crime, as it should be. The greatest danger to democracy happens when 51% of the population recognizes that they can simply vote the wealth of 49% of the population into their own pockets. In this regard, we are very much at the tipping point.
It is increasingly possible, he added, for "oligarchs and plutocrats to secretly buy our elections and consolidate their hold on the corporate state."
All of this talk about secretive deals without even a mention of the Chamber of Commerce story it is so clearly echoing is just disingenuous.
This, in the end, is the current front of a historic struggle. Who governs America -- the powerful few or the many, money or citizens?
Well, considering:
a) The even distribution of funds across parties from all donors
b) The marginal effect more money has on highly funded races
c) The destruction of the First Amendment that would come with limiting corporate speech and
d) The massive conservative fundraising efforts at the grass roots,
The power is in the hands of the many. Many of them just also happen to be rich. And the rich (not the super-rich) tend to be conservative because they understand that progressivism kills progress.
Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of the Nation and
(poorly)
writes a weekly column for The Post.
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