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a closer examination shows that there is little evidence that what the chamber does in collecting overseas dues is improper or even unusual, according to both liberal and conservative election-law lawyers and campaign finance documents.In fact, the controversy over the Chamber of Commerce financing may say more about the Washington spin cycle — where an Internet blog posting can be quickly picked up by like-minded groups and become political fodder for the president himself — than it does about the vagaries of campaign finance.Organizations from both ends of the political spectrum, from liberal ones like the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the Sierra Club to conservative groups like the National Rifle Association, have international affiliations and get money from foreign entities while at the same time pushing political causes in the United States.
In fact, the controversy over the Chamber of Commerce financing may say more about the Washington spin cycle — where an Internet blog posting can be quickly picked up by like-minded groups and become political fodder for the president himself — than it does about the vagaries of campaign finance.
Mr. Obama has increasingly used the issue of campaign finance to motivate his supporters as the elections grow nearer and polls signal trouble for Democrats. With his party outmatched in advertising sponsored by groups that do not have to disclose the source of their financing because of a free-speech Supreme Court decision earlier this year, Mr. Obama has suggested that the sponsors of campaign advertising have sinister motivations.“You don’t know,†he said here. “It could be the oil industry; it could be the insurance industry; it could even be foreign-owned companies. You don’t know because they don’t have to disclose. Now that’s not just a threat to the Democrats; it’s a threat to democracy.†More
Didn't Lord Zero receive contributions from BP, also known as British Petroleum?
That's right, nobody seemed to care. It was the first inkling of what this presidency would be like, and it went downhill from there.
Black Sabbath 11 October 2010 at 18:25Vidal is out of his mind. 23 months of Obama has given us record deficits, record unemployment, longest jobless stretch since the 1930's, record bank failures, record foreclosures, record poverty rate, failing dollar, national poverty at record highest level, foreign policy disasters, record number of golf games played by a president, record death toll in Afghanistan, record number of food stamp recipients, consumer confidence at record lows, auto bailout money being used to build a plant in Mexico, ME-Chelle with a record number of personal assistants, the worst environmental disaster in the US largely ignored and exploited for political gain, SEC now immune from FOIA, internet wiretaps made easier, executive order used to assassinate Americans overseas, don't ask don't tell still on, Gitmo still open, secret wiretaps still on, lobbyists, corporations and special interests still have unimpeded access to members of Congress, a 'Safe Schools Czar' who is pedophile friendly, record number of unelected and unaccountable Czars, continuation of the war in Iraq and the expansion of the war into Pakistan and Yemen, bills passed in the dead of night on weekends and holidays in order to hide them from the public - November can't come soon enough!
Even the LA Times piles on:http://discussions.latimes.com/20/lanews/la-na-chamber-foreign-money-20101012/10Go for the article, stay for the reader comments.
In Georgia's 8th Congressional District the Chamber recently sponsored an issue ad supportive of Democratic Rep. Jim Marshall, who is battling former Republican state legislator Austin Scott for a fifth term in the House."We're very thankful to have the Chamber's support," Marshall's spokesman Doug Moore said in an interview with ABC News. "We were glad to wake up one morning and have someone supporting us and not attacking us."Besides Marshall, the Chamber of Commerce is running issue ads on behalf of Democratic Congressional candidates Frank Kratovil in Maryland, Glenn Nye in Virginia, Travis Childers in Mississippi, Bobby Bright in Alabama, Walt Minnick in Idaho, Mike Ross in Arkansas, Jim Matheson in Utah, John Barrow in Georgia and Dan Boren in Oklahoma, according to Federal Election Commission reports and the watchdog group, Campaign Money Watch. More
ten congressional democrats that are supported by the chamber of commerce:
But what makes it so infuriating to watch Gibbs make this argument is that Gibbs himself -- back in 2003 and 2004 -- was heavily involved in exactly the same kind of anonymous-funded negative campaign the Chamber is running now, when the brand new advocacy group for which he was the spokesman invoked the same excuses as the Chamber is invoking now to conceal its donors. As Chris Moody recalls, when Howard Dean was the 2004 Democratic front-runner, a new group abruptly popped up -- calling itself "Americans for Jobs, Health Care and Progressive Values" -- and, shortly before the Iowa primary, began running an extremely ugly anti-Dean TV ad campaign, featuring images of Osama bin Laden, along with ominous claims that Howard Dean would fail to Keep Us Safe, that he could not "compete with George Bush on foreign policy." ...The Dean campaign was furious that fellow Democrats would run an ad like this that so obviously relied on (and reinforced) core Rovian, fear-mongering attacks, but more so, they were absolutely incensed that nobody knew who had funded this group, of which the very same Robert Gibbs, having supposedly just left his position as Press Secretary with the Kerry campaign, was the spokesman. And just as the Chamber is doing now, Gibbs' group categorically refused to disclose its funders until the law compelled it to do so -- i.e., months later, once the Dean campaign was destroyed. Just read this December 16, 2003, New York Times article on the controversy to see how similar this was, and how hypocritical it is for Robert Gibbs of all people to be trumpeting "the fundamental threat to our democracy" posed by non-disclosure of campaign funding sources:QuoteA new Democratic group that is running advertisements against Howard Dean and has not yet disclosed its sources of financing has introduced by far the toughest commercial of the primary election season.The spot opens with a Time magazine cover featuring Osama bin Laden as synthesizer music seemingly out of a post-apocalyptic science fiction movie is heard.As the camera focuses on Mr. bin Laden's eyes. the following words flash on the screen: "Dangerous World," "Destroy Us," "Dangers Ahead" and "No Experience.""Americans want a president who can face the dangers ahead," an announcer intones. "But Howard Dean has no military or foreign policy experience. And Howard Dean just cannot compete with George Bush on foreign policy. It's time for Democrats to think about that and think about it now."The advertisement is the latest salvo in what amounts to a "stop Dean" campaign sponsored by the new Democratic group, Americans for Jobs, Health Care and Progressive Values. . . . Its spokesman, Robert Gibbs, recently resigned as the press secretary for Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, another presidential candidate.The mystery about who is financing the group, which began its efforts about two weeks ago with an advertisement highlighting past support for Dr. Dean from the National Rifle Association, infuriated Dr. Dean's campaign staff."Whoever is behind this should crawl out from underneath their rock and have the courage to say who they are," said Tricia Enright, a spokeswoman for Dr. Dean. "It is hateful, it's cynical, it's exactly the kind of ad that keeps people from voting, that keeps people from getting involved in the process."Mr. Jones, the group's treasurer, said in response, "We will disclose donors when the law requires."As Moody notes, The Chicago Tribune's Lynn Sweet, months later, did a post-mortem on the collapse of the Dean campaign, and attributed a large part of its demise to "the 18 individuals, two corporations and six unions [Democratic fund-raiser David] Jones persuaded to donate to his Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values fund." As Sweet noted, this smear-Dean group was created with the specific purpose of circumventing campaign finance disclosure laws and hiding its funders until after the key primaries were held:QuoteJones conceived the anti-Dean operation last year and became the treasurer of what is called a 527 organization, named for the section of the Internal Revenue Code under which these groups operate. . . .Jones' group would operate in initial anonymity because it did not have to file a report disclosing donors with the IRS until Jan. 31 to reflect money collected in 2003. That would be after the Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina contests. That's a reason most of the stories written about Jones' group -- really a fund since there were only a few people involved, despite the name -- described it as "shadowy" and "secretive."Once the full funding was finally disclosed -- after the Dean campaign was essentially dead -- it turned out that its largest donor was the "Center for Middle East Peace," which bankrolled it for $200,000, along with the YES Network ($125,000), the Senate campaign fund of Bob Torricelli (who had been forced not to seek re-election in disgrace over a campaign finance scandal and is now a lobbyist), and various unions. All of that was actively concealed from voters while these smear ads ran against Dean; and it stay steadfastly concealed until well after the dirty deed was done. In other words, in order to destroy Howard Dean's candidacy, the group for which Robert Gibbs was the Spokesman did exactly that which the Chamber of Commerce is now doing (albeit Gibbs' group did it on a much smaller scale), and invoked the same rationale to justify its covert actions. When Obama chose Gibbs to be his campaign spokesman, Jerome Armstrong -- who had worked on the Dean campaign -- was outraged precisely because of Gibbs' involvement in this ad. He argued (presciently, one could say) that Obama's affection for someone who would be responsible for such a covert, right-wing-replicating, fear-mongering Rovian attack ad against a progressive candidate reflected what type of politician Obama was.
A new Democratic group that is running advertisements against Howard Dean and has not yet disclosed its sources of financing has introduced by far the toughest commercial of the primary election season.The spot opens with a Time magazine cover featuring Osama bin Laden as synthesizer music seemingly out of a post-apocalyptic science fiction movie is heard.As the camera focuses on Mr. bin Laden's eyes. the following words flash on the screen: "Dangerous World," "Destroy Us," "Dangers Ahead" and "No Experience.""Americans want a president who can face the dangers ahead," an announcer intones. "But Howard Dean has no military or foreign policy experience. And Howard Dean just cannot compete with George Bush on foreign policy. It's time for Democrats to think about that and think about it now."The advertisement is the latest salvo in what amounts to a "stop Dean" campaign sponsored by the new Democratic group, Americans for Jobs, Health Care and Progressive Values. . . . Its spokesman, Robert Gibbs, recently resigned as the press secretary for Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, another presidential candidate.The mystery about who is financing the group, which began its efforts about two weeks ago with an advertisement highlighting past support for Dr. Dean from the National Rifle Association, infuriated Dr. Dean's campaign staff."Whoever is behind this should crawl out from underneath their rock and have the courage to say who they are," said Tricia Enright, a spokeswoman for Dr. Dean. "It is hateful, it's cynical, it's exactly the kind of ad that keeps people from voting, that keeps people from getting involved in the process."Mr. Jones, the group's treasurer, said in response, "We will disclose donors when the law requires."
Jones conceived the anti-Dean operation last year and became the treasurer of what is called a 527 organization, named for the section of the Internal Revenue Code under which these groups operate. . . .Jones' group would operate in initial anonymity because it did not have to file a report disclosing donors with the IRS until Jan. 31 to reflect money collected in 2003. That would be after the Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina contests. That's a reason most of the stories written about Jones' group -- really a fund since there were only a few people involved, despite the name -- described it as "shadowy" and "secretive."
