"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men
from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
(Thomas Jefferson)


Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Super PACs Are Super-Fly! ProPublica Rocks an Explanation of Unrestricted Cash with Video

Maybe now some people will understand what a Super PAC is and what they can do.  The lines have been so blurred intentionally that most people just know how annoying all these negative ads have become from the Super PACs.  The idea that candidates try to make voters believe they don't have anything to do with the negative advertising from the Super PACs is ludicrous.  This video is a better explanation of what is happening then what we have been reading:
Super PACs Are Super-Fly! ProPublica Rocks an Explanation of Unrestricted Cash
By Bruce Watson

Posted 5:05PM 03/19/12

Over the past few months, newspapers, magazines and the Internet have been crammed with stories about super PACs. On the bright side, an ever-larger portion of the voting public has become aware of that the political system has a big, fat loophole that allows unlimited, almost-unrestricted campaign funding. In fact, notable PAC superstars like Sheldon Adelson, Foster Friess and Frank L. VanderSloot have become, if not household names, at least well-known for their contributions to the political process. 
Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert -- not to mention much of the news media -- there still seems to be some widespread confusion about how exactly super PACs work, and how they came into being. Recently, investigative journalism website ProPublica and educational music company Explainer Music took the Schoolhouse Rock tack, creating "Oh, Super PACs," a 1970s Super Fly-style video that explains how super PACs are funded. Take a listen:



Way to go McCain/Feingold -- citizens who vote are limited in their donations to a candidate but a corporation/union can now donate unlimited amounts that has subjected us to all the negative advertising. Have seen negative ads before but NOTHING compared to the blitz of millions of dollars of them in primary states for Romney to take out everyone else. No wonder it is hard to get people to run now but believe it is going to get harder if something is not done to bring a halt to these attack PACS. This practice of anonymity of some donors through giving to a 501(c) non-profit or setting up a phony company to give and then shut it down needs to stop if individuals are restricted in what they can give.

Stop the pretense there is no coordination between Super PACs and the candidate because a Super PAC would not go against the wishes of the candidate. Supreme Court should have thrown out all of Campaign Finance Reform when they threw out this part that now allows unlimited donations to Super PACs. Make it so anyone can give unlimited to a candidate but every last dime a candidate receives has to be made public when they file versus today when they only have to report the information of the person giving if they give over the limit in a certain time period. If they don't have the information on who gave, the money goes to charity. Then we will know who is giving across the board.

No comments: