Campaign finance regulation
May 19, 2013 — Steven Hayward
CBS News reported yesterday that senior officials in the Treasury Department knew of the IRS targeting of conservative groups during the 2012 campaign. While this doesn’t yet place the matter inside the West Wing, it assures another leg to the scandal at least. To paraphrase an old Watergate-era slogan, “Follow the money-grubbers.” (CBS News) WASHINGTON – There were new questions Saturday night concerning if anyone in the White House was
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February 21, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Massachusett’s Democratic Rep. Edward Markey is currently a front-runner to succeed John Kerry in the Senate from the Bay State, and he’s perhaps the only candidate who can make Elizabeth Warren seem intelligent and probative by comparison. I’ve always thought Markey’s advocacy of low-wattage light bulbs is obviously congruent with his low-wattage intellect, and who can resist thinking of him as Rep. Malarkey? He’s one of those kind of politicians
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February 12, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Henry Ford is reported to have said that “History is bunk.” Reviewing Paula Baker’s new book, Brad Smith reminds us of some history made by Ford: Ninety-five years ago Truman Newberry, a modest, well-mannered scion of an old-money Detroit family, suddenly found himself under federal indictment and his very name synonymous with political corruption. Newberry’s “crime”? He had run for the United States Senate as a long-shot underdog against the
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October 30, 2012 — Scott Johnson
The Obama campaign has chosen to operate an online contribution system that facilitates illegal falsely sourced contributions, illegal foreign contributions and the evasion of contribution limits. We’ve noted how the campaign facilitates illegal foreign contributions here (a case study provided by the New York Post) and here (a case study provided by PJ Media). The theory and practice of the Obama campaign’s shenanigans are laid out in the Government Accountability
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October 25, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Earlier this month the Government Accountability Institute report cited chapter and verse showing how the Obama campaign was set up to facilitate illegal foreign contributions (among other kinds of illegal contributions). We wrote about the case study provided by the New York Post a few days ago. Over at PJ Media, Mike McNally goes the whole nine yards to show how the Obama campaign accepts illegal foreign contributions. McNally is
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October 24, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Earlier this week the Government Accountability Institute published yet another report featuring Obama’s dubious donations. The GAI has posted a PDF of the report here. Courtesy of readers Hunter Schultz, Sean Mahan, Charlie King, Jim Bell, Jim Arneson and Dave Wollstadt — thanks to you all — I’m posting the report’s chart from page 3 below. Analyze this: GAI president Peter Schweizer describes the report as “a big picture look
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October 21, 2012 — Scott Johnson
I first wrote about Barack Obama’s “Dubious donations” for the New York Post just before the 2008 election. We returned to the subject earlier this month in a series of posts upon the publication of the Government Accountability Institute report documenting this fact: Same as it ever was. Today the New York Post arrives on the scene at just about the same point in the campaign that I did four
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October 20, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Last June, Mitt Romney conducted a conference call with a group of small business owners, in the course of which he urged his listeners to talk to their employees about how political decisions can affect their companies: I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections. And
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October 10, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Peter Schweizer has forwarded this column addressing the Obama campaign’s response to the Government Accountability Institute report we have been covering: The Government Accountability Institute’s 108-page report is a detailed investigation of the widespread vulnerability of federal campaigns to fraudulent and foreign donations. The Obama campaign’s response to the report has been surprisingly defensive. As the report demonstrates, this is a systemic problem that affects Republicans and Democrats alike. The
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October 10, 2012 — Scott Johnson
I called Peter Schweizer to get his comments on each of the five substantive points with which Obama For America has responded to the Government Accountability Institute report released earlier this week. Below are each of the Obama campaign’s substantive points (in italics) with Peter’s response following, based on my notes. 1. All credit card contributions are processed using AN Address Verification System (AVS) to ensure their legitimacy. Peter responds:
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October 10, 2012 — Scott Johnson
The Obama campaign has posted a response to the Government Accountability Institute report that addresses the campaign’s online fundraising methodology. I wrote about the report most recently in “Dubious donations: Hasen down the wind.” Here is the Obama campaign’s response (links not included): Amidst the unparalleled spending from super PAC billionaires and outside groups, nearly 4 million Americans have come together to change the face of this race and help
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July 19, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Matt Bai of the New York Times has written an excellent article which shows that most of what we’ve been told by the left about the alleged evils wrought by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizen United decision doesn’t hold up. For example, Bai disputes the common complaint that Citizens United unleashed a torrent of money from businesses and the multimillionaires who run them, and as a result we are now
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July 18, 2012 — John Hinderaker
On the floor of the Senate yesterday, Frank Lautenberg did something that to our knowledge is unprecedented: he called publicly for a boycott of his own constituents. The context was the “DISCLOSE Act,” which would require 501(c)(4) entities to disclose the identities of their donors. The bill is opposed by a coalition that includes the ACLU and the NRA, and likely is unconstitutional, but the Democrats think it is good
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July 17, 2012 — Steven Hayward
From The Hill: Reid: Lack of Campaign Finance Reform Turns US Over to “Angry Old White Men.”
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June 17, 2012 — Scott Johnson
I previewed Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell’s AEI address on threats to the First Amendment in “McConnell at the bridge” in advance of the speech on Friday. Senator McConnell’s office has now posted the text of the speech. The video is below. The American Glob’s Aleister G. breaks down the video with a timeline here. This is an important speech on an important subject. Please check it out.
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June 14, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has long been a supporter of the First Amendment rights of citizens in the face of what goes under the name of campaign finance reform. He knows what he is talking about and he has been a stalwart on the subject. Tomorrow he will be giving a major address at the American Enterprise Institute on “Growing Threats to the First Amendment” at 11:15 a.m. (Eastern).
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