Janesdiggo's List: Elections

• But in this Wild West year of political money, that longstanding ban is being set aside. The United States Chamber of Commerce — one of the biggest advertisers in midterm races around the country — is actively soliciting foreign money, and government enforcers seem to be doing nothing to stop it.
• the chamber is getting “dues” payments of tens of thousands of dollars from foreign companies in countries such as Bahrain, India and Egypt, and then mingling the money with its fund to advocate for or against candidates in the midterm races.
• Because the United States Chamber is organized as a 501(c)(6) business league under the federal tax code, it does not have to disclose its donors, so the full extent of foreign influence on its political agenda is unknown. But Tuesday’s report sheds light on how it raises money abroad.

1 more annotation...

• Karl Rove has rounded up other multimillionaires to fund right-wing candidates, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is funneling corporate dollars from around the world into congressional races, and Rupert Murdoch is evidently spending heavily
• No one knows for sure where this flood of money is coming from because it's all secret.
• Credit the Supreme Court's grotesque decision in Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, which opened the floodgates.
• According to FEC data, only 32 percent of groups paying for election ads are disclosing the names of their donors. By comparison, in the 2006 midterm, 97 percent disclosed; in 2008, almost half disclosed.
• Last week, when the Senate considered a bill to force such disclosure, every single Republican voted against it
• nearly ten years ago campaign disclosure was supported by 48 of 54 Republican senators

4 more annotations...

• charging that they solicited foreign donations and pumped the millions of dollars they received into congressional races
• The president appeared to be referring to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
• "Just this week, we learned that one of the largest groups paying for these ads regularly takes in money from foreign corporations,"

1 more annotation...

• The Federal Election Commission says only 32 percent of groups paying for election ads are disclosing the names of their donors. By comparison, in the 2006 midterm, 97 percent disclosed; in 2008, almost half disclosed.
• Just before it recessed the House passed a bill that would require that the names of all such donors be publicly disclosed. But it couldn't get through the Senate. Every Republican voted against it.
• he marginal income tax rate on the very rich is the lowest it's been in more than 80 years.
• Under President Dwight Eisenhower
• it was 91 percent. Now it's 36 percent.
• the Clinton top tax of 39 percent.
• Much of the income of the highest earners is treated as capital gains, anyway -- subject to a 15 percent tax.
• The typical hedge-fund and private-equity manager paid only 17 percent last year.
• The top 15 hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion.

7 more annotations...

• Political scientists have tried to measure the effectiveness of campaign spending using a variety of methodologies. There is no consensus in the field. One large group of studies finds that spending by incumbents makes no difference whatsoever, but spending by challengers helps them get established. Another group finds that neither incumbent nor challenger spending makes a difference. Another group finds that both kinds of spending have some impact.
• In the end, however, money is a talisman.
• In this day and age, money is almost never the difference between victory and defeat. It’s just the primitive mythology of the political class.

1 more annotation...

• Is what he says true? He fails to mention money's power to influence candidates; lobbyists and corporations are known to give money to both sides in an election; obviously they believe their money gives them influence, if not on who wins, at least on the way the winner will vole on legislation that directly influences the donor. - janesdiggo on 2010-10-19

• In 2006, Koch Industries owner Charles Koch revealed  to the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore that he coordinates the  funding of the conservative infrastructure of front groups, political  campaigns, think tanks, media outlets and other anti-government efforts  through a twice annual meeting of wealthy right-wing donors.
• He also  confided to Moore, who is funded through several of Koch’s ventures,  that his true goal is to strengthen the “culture of prosperity”  by eliminating “90%” of all laws and government regulations
• According to the memo, David Chavern, the number two at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Fox News hate-talker Glenn Beck  also met with these representatives of the corporate elite.
• Participants collaborated with infamous consultants who  specialize in generating fake grassroots movements, as well as experts  on how corporations should take advantage of Citizens United.
• the U.S. Chamber of  Commerce’s 501(c)(6) and Americans for Prosperity’s 501(c)(4) can “now  use general treasury funds to produce communications materials opposing  or supporting specific candidates”
• corporations can aggressively  pressure their employees to vote a certain way
• Past Koch meetings  have included various Republican lawmakers, including DeMint, and  Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia as speakers.
• Beck hosted  an on-air fundraiser, asking his audience  to give to the Chamber.
• Beck never disclosed his long  working history of discussing political strategy with America’s largest  corporations.
• The Koch memo clearly shows that Beck has been  collaborating with the Chamber, as well as other titans of industry,

8 more annotations...

• O'Donnell replied in apparent bewilderment: "You're telling me that's in the first amendment?"
• O'Donnell asked: "Where in the constitution is the separation of church and state?"
• security guards for Republican senate candidate Joe Miller forcibly handcuffed a local journalist after a public event in Alaska, while Nevada Republican Sharron Angle recently told a room full of Hispanic students that "some of you look a little more Asian to me".

1 more annotation...

• Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year
• And Goldman Sachs, Chevron Texaco, and Aegon, a multinational insurance company based in the Netherlands, donated more than $8 million in recent years to a chamber foundation
• And these contributions, some of which can be pieced together through tax filings of corporate foundations and other public records, also show how the chamber has increasingly relied on a relatively small collection of big corporate donors to finance much of its Washington agenda.
• health insurance providers funneled at least $10 million to the chamber last year
• The chamber’s increasingly aggressive role — including record spending in the midterm elections that supports Republicans more than 90 percent of the time — has made it a target of critics, including a few local chamber affiliates who fear it has become too partisan and hard-nosed in its fund-raising.
• because it says no donations are earmarked for specific ads aimed at a candidate, it does not invoke federal elections rules requiring disclosure.
• the tax filings of corporate foundations must publicly list their donations to other foundations, including one run by the chamber.
• half of its $149 million in contributions in 2008 came from just 45 donors.
• Many of those large donations coincided with lobbying or political campaigns that potentially affected the donors.
• Dow Chemical, for example, sent $1.7 million to the chamber in the past year to cover not only its annual membership dues, but also to support lobbying and legal campaigns. Those included one against legislation requiring stronger measures to protect chemical plants from attack.
• Prudential Financial’s $2 million donation last year coincided with a chamber lobbying effort against elements of the financial regulation bill in Congress.
• News Corporation gave $1 million to support the chamber’s political efforts this fall; Chairman Rupert Murdoch said it was in best interests of his company and the country “that there be a fair amount of change in Washington.”
• Business interests also give to the chamber’s foundation, which has worked to shield businesses from lawsuits, along with promoting free trade. Its tax filings show that seven donors gave the foundation at least $17 million between 2004 and 2008, about two-thirds of the total raised.
• An organization that in 2003 had an overall budget of about $130 million, it is spending $200 million this year, and the chamber and its affiliates allocated $144 million last year just for lobbying, making it the biggest lobbyist in the United States.
• a review of the nearly 70 chamber-produced ads found that 93 percent of those that have run nationwide that focus on the midterm elections either support Republican candidates or criticize their opponents.

14 more annotations...

• Mr. Rove and Mr. Perry worked together in the 1986 Texas governor’s race for William Clements, with Mr. Perry as campaign treasurer and Mr. Rove as a political consultant.
• They shared a desire to secure tort reform to limit the liability of corporations in civil litigation. Mr. Rove used the issue in Texas in the late 1980s as a way of galvanizing conservatives, particularly in the business community, and Mr. Perry gave more than $2 million to promote the issue.

• • The US elections are quickly disintegrating into banana republic area; employers telling employees how to vote, voters being questioned outside polling stations = intimidation tactics.
    
    What a joke; when the hell are they going to wake up?
• The pamphlet said: “If the right people are elected, we will be able to continue with raises and benefits at or above the current levels. If others are elected, we will not.”
• It then named three Republican candidates after stating, “The following candidates are the ones we believe will help our business move forward.”
• The incident came as liberal voting-rights groups expressed concern that conservative complaints about fraudulent voting would lead to a reduced turnout on Election Day. Some Tea Party members have announced plans to question voters at the polls whom they suspect of being ineligible.

2 more annotations...

• for the first and last time in U.S. history, a president found himself running against his vice president

• this election has a price tag that “obliterates” all previous midterm records.  It’s estimated at $4 billion to $4.2 billion, mostly from what is politely called “fundraising” or from “outside interest groups” -- in other words, from that 1% and some of the wealthiest corporations, mainly for ad and influence campaigns
• First of all, those right-wing billionaire and corporate types are not for small government.  They regularly and happily back, and sometimes profit from, the ever-increasing power of the (national security) state to pry, peep, suppress, and oppress, abridge liberties and make war (endlessly) abroad.  They are Pentagon lovers.  They adore the locked-down “homeland.”
• Of the 1,400 Tea Party groups nationwide that the Post tried to contact, it reached 647.  Many of the rest may have ceased to exist or may never have existed at all. (“The findings suggest that the breadth of the tea party may be inflated.”) 
• On the other hand, the funding machines like Tea Party Express (run by Sal Russo, longtime Republican operative, aide to Ronald Reagan, and fundraiser/media strategist for former New York governor George Pataki), FreedomWorks (run by Dick Armey, former Republican House majority leader), and Americans for Prosperity (started by oil billionaire David Koch) have appropriated the Tea Party name nationally and were pouring money into “Tea Party candidates.” And don’t forget the Tea-Partyish funding groups set up by Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s bosom buddy and close advisor.
• It is estimated that, for election 2010, the TV ad bill may total $3 billion (up from $2.7 billion in the 2008 presidential campaign year, and $2.4 billion in the 2006 midterms that brought the Democrats back to power in Congress).
• In this particular case, all those ad dollars are visibly to the benefit of the very media promoting the world-shaking importance of this election season.
• the state that matters, the national security, war-making one, hardly needs Congress at all, or rather knows that no Congress will ever vote “no” to moneys for such matters.

5 more annotations...

• The Tea Party has given voice to this indignation. Notwithstanding the role a few wealthy business magnates have played in funding ersatz Tea Party groups, the real thing exists and remains a high-decibel manifestation of the overall national mood.

  • Not true if the Washington Post article mentioned on TomDispatch is to be believed
• The consequences, for Democrats, are likely to be brutal. Most prognosticators are expecting a Republican tsunami in the House of Representatives that will match or exceed the rout that netted the GOP a 52-seat gain in 1994.
• Republicans will likely fall short of the 10 seats they need to pick up to take control of the Senate. But they will come close enough to effectively call the shots in the upper chamber for the next two years.
• A USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday gave Republicans 55 per cent support among likely voters, compared with 40 per cent for Democrats.

2 more annotations...

• The nonpartisan Cook Political Report estimates that more than 90 previously safe Democratic-held House seats are in danger.
• Republicans are also expected to make big gains in the Senate, although it will be more difficult for them to pick up the 10 seats they need for a majority.

• would make this year’s voters about $10 more expensive.

• The Harper government and the opposition parties have agreed to quietly sink legislation that would have given Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta more seats in the House of Commons. As a result, urban and visible-minority voters will continue to be discriminated against in Parliament.
• Under the legislation, Ontario would have received 18 new seats, British Columbia seven, and Alberta five, bringing all three provinces up to the level of representation in the House warranted by their populations.
• Constitutional and legislative provisions heavily favour smaller provinces and rural ridings at the expense of large cities in growing provinces.
• Liberal Democratic Reform critic Carolyn Bennett, from Toronto, said her party was not ready to support the bill “without robust consultation with the provinces.”
• if [the Conservatives] are not going to move on C-12, they should bloody well bring forward something that deals with this.” Mr. Christopherson’s seat is in Hamilton, another underrepresented Ontario city.

3 more annotations...

• Last week, the Census released population figures that will reshape the House of Representatives, moving political power south and west. The four states that added the most people were  California, Florida,  Georgia and Texas, and the two states with the highest growth rates were Arizona and Nevada.
• Low incomes and productivity in the growing states of the Sun Belt strongly suggest that their expansion is not driven by outsize economic success.
• Housing in the growth regions is inexpensive, both in absolute terms and relative to those areas’ incomes.
• These states have built hundreds of thousands of homes despite having low housing prices.
• • These assumptions seem illogical; the reverse of supply and demand rules. He's saying supply the houses and people will come; but there is not point in their coming if they have no where to work; you'd have to supply more than houses. Are the people moving there all involved in construction work?
    
    What is going to happen in the West (Arizona, Nevada, California) when the water runs out? There is already major pressure on the water supply, if more people keep moving in it can only get worse.  
     
• The future shape of America is being driven not by quality of life or economic success but by the obscure rules regulating local land use.
• If New York and Massachusetts want to stop losing Congressional seats, then they must revisit the rules that make it so difficult to build. High prices show that the demand would be there if the supply is unleashed.

5 more annotations...

• The Canada Elections Act was amended in 1997 to allow for the creation of a permanent voters’ list, the National Register of Electors (NRE). The NRE contains the personal information of approximately 23 million eligible Canadian voters. Under section 44(3) of the Canada Elections Act, inclusion in the NRE is at the option of the elector
• Elections Canada updates the NRE using personal information it obtains from various provincial, territorial and federal partners. It collects information from more than forty provincial and territorial sources, named in a Schedule to the Canada Elections Act. It collects vital statistics (information about deaths only) and driver’s licence information, information from the Canada Revenue Agency (from consenting tax filers), from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (to capture information about new Canadians), and address changes from Canada Post (the National Change of Address Database).
• It also has agreements to exchange information with provincial electoral bodies and municipal partners, for the purpose of updating the NRE.
• Canadians will be most familiar with the key mechanism used to update the NRE, the tick-off boxes on their income tax return form that ask them to consent to the sharing of their name, citizenship, address and date of birth with Elections Canada.
• In addition to the names, and current and previous addresses of voters, the NRE holds information about a voter’s date of birth, gender, driver’s licence number, and any unique identifying numbers assigned by the institutions that provide personal information to Elections Canada.
• recent amendments to the Canada Elections Act. Most of these changes came into force on March 1, 2008, for elections called subsequent to that date
• Secondly, the Chief Electoral Officer is now required to assign a unique, randomly generated personal identifier to each person registered in the NRE, and to disclose that identifying number to candidates during an election, and to political parties and members of Parliament on a yearly basis.
• According to a report of the Chief Electoral Officer, the unique identifier will make it easier for political parties to integrate the lists of electors into their own internal party lists³. About 23 million Canadians (about 76% of the total population of Canada) will have a unique number assigned to them, a permanent identifier which will be disclosed, along with their names and current address, to political parties and federal candidates.
• While registered political parties receive a complete list for those ridings in which they ran a candidate in the previous election, individual candidates and MPs only receive a list of the constituents who live within their riding.
• the Canada Elections Act has been amended to require the disclosure of an eligible voter’s full date of birth on the lists of electors that are distributed to deputy returning officers and poll clerks
• The list of electors provided to them would contain the first and last names, civic and mailing addresses, gender, date of birth, and unique personal identifier of eligible voters who live in their polling division.
• As a result of amendments to the Federal Accountability Act, Elections Canada first became subject to the Access to Information Act in 2007
• The Guidelines on Disclosure and Use of the Lists of Electors stress the importance of protecting the privacy of the personal information on the lists
• Political parties, MPs, and candidates are not required by either the Canada Elections Act or the Privacy Act, or requested by the Guidelines, to report any loss or inappropriate use of the electoral lists.
• Electors who have had their personal information removed from the NRE can still choose to vote during an election. If they do, in spite of the fact that they have requested that they be removed from the NRE, the Canada Elections Act requires that their personal information be included on the final list of electors that is distributed to the political parties.
• Elections Canada collects (but does not share) information from provincial vital statistics and driver’s licence agencies, from the Canada Revenue Agency, from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and from Canada Post, for the purposes of updating the NRE.

14 more annotations...

• The presence of commercial activity is the most important consideration in determining whether or not an organization is subject to the Act. Section 2 of the Act defines "commercial activity" as:

   

   

  "...any particular transaction, act or conduct or any regular course of conduct that is of a commercial character, including the selling, bartering or leasing of donor, membership or other fundraising lists. "
• The bottom line is that non-profit status does not automatically exempt an organization from the application of the Act.
• As the definition of commercial activity makes clear, selling, bartering or leasing a membership list or a list of donors would be considered a commercial activity

1 more annotation...