Fan of McCain-Feingold? You may want to reconsider.
Bryon York discovered some interesting stuff as he reported in NRO:
"Although Democrats often maintain that their unprecedented outside-the-party campaign against President Bush last year, led by the so-called 527 groups, was a broad-based, grassroots effort, it was, in fact dependent in substantial part on just five donors: financier George Soros, Progressive Insurance chairman Peter Lewis, Hollywood mogul Stephen Bing, and the California investors Herbert and Marion Sandler. Together, they spent about $78 million in the effort to defeat the president — more than the $75 million in federal funds that each presidential candidate received to conduct his entire general election campaign."
"Anti-Bush 527s spent about $230 million in the effort to defeat the president — nearly two and a half times the amount spent by Republicans to reelect Bush."
"Next week the Senate Rules Committee is expected to consider the "527 Reform Act of 2005," sponsored by Republican Sen. John McCain, which would impose on 527s the same contribution limits that now apply to other political-action committees. No longer would the groups be able to accept seven- and eight-figure, Soros-style contributions. And that will be the end of the 527s, at least as they existed during the 2004 campaign...Under the immutable laws of political spending, however, the money is already going elsewhere. And this time, it is likely to go to 501(c)(4) organizations, known in short as C4s, named for the subsection of the Internal Revenue Service code which allows their formation. C4s are allowed to engage in unlimited lobbying, and can also engage in partisan campaigning, as long as that campaigning is not the group's "primary" purpose, according to the law... C4s have an enormous advantage over the old-style 527s: They are not required to disclose their contributors."
"So now, after years of campaign-finance reform, we are entering an era in which a donor can give an unlimited amount of money to an unaccountable group without any public disclosure. "
Meanwhile, George Soros organized a well-monied group to discuss the future of liberal politics. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I just have one question - what, if anything, do these people stand for?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I know what they stand for:
ReplyDelete21...and did enter into their covenants and their oaths, that they would protect and preserve one another in whatsoever difficult circumstances they should be placed, that they should not suffer for their murders, and their plunderings, and their bstealings.
22 And it came to pass that they did have their signs, yea, their asecret• signs, and their bsecret• words; and this that they might distinguish a brother who had entered into the covenant, that whatsoever wickedness his brother should do he should not be injured by his brother, nor by those who did belong to his band, who had taken this covenant.
23 And thus they might murder, and plunder, and steal, and commit whoredoms and all manner of wickedness, contrary to the laws of their country and also the laws of their God. (Helaman 6:21-23)