In light of the long overdue ruling by the Supreme Court to throw out the free speech killing and unconstitutional McCain Feingold finance law (was there ever a more destructive, corrupting influence on elections ever?):
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the main opinion, which reads in part that there is “no basis for allowing the government to limit corporate independent expenditures.”
“There is no basis for the proposition that, in the political speech context, the government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers,” he wrote. “The government may regulate corporate speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but it may not suppress that speech altogether.”
Dissenters included Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.
“The notion that the First Amendment dictated [today's ruling] is, in my judgment, profoundly misguided,” Stevens wrote for the others.
“In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it,” he added. (more here)
You can read the whole opinion here.0;
I thought I might take the opportunity to update Atlas Shruggers on the an active complaint to the FEC over Barack Husein Obama's campaign finances, FYI.0; Latest updates were posted about a week ago.
Back when Obama was running for President, I broke a number of campaign donation stories that should have blown the race wide open. The most egregious election campaign0; violation of0; election contribution was dismissed with a wave of the hand. All of the Atlas posts on this are here. Millions came in from foreign countries (which is illegal. The influence peddling has manifested itself in Obama's catastrophic first year).
The FEC generally takes several years to process a complaint and their statutory limit is 5 years.0; The commission still needs to vote on any action, but if they decline, the complainant can sue the FEC.0; So the complaint is ongoing. (hat tip Lu)
Atlas0; broke the jaw dropping story where tens of thousands of dollars that came in from a Hamas controlled camp in Gaza. Al Jazeera actually ran video of0; phone banks in Gaza.
Monir Edwan, one of Obama's Gazan donors said he sold the T-shirts the Obama campaign sent him, in Gaza for around $9 and that a profit was made. "Some young men even bought the T-shirts for 60 shekel ($17.29), which is a lot to spend in Gaza on a T-shirt, but that is how much Gazans like Obama."0; I love it, jihaids in Obama Tees, how fitting.
Tom Blumer wrote a year in November of '08: The Obama Campaign’s Crack-up PJ media
In mid-August, Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, writing at American Thinker, summarized a pattern of irregularities she had found. Geller, and readers who assisted her, discovered that:
- “Obama’s overseas (foreign) contributors are making multiple small donations, ostensibly in their own names, over a period of a few days, some under maximum donation allowances, but others are aggregating in excess of the maximums when all added up.”
- The contributions had come from over 50 specifically named countries and major cities.
- Obviously bogus contributor names that a 7 year-old would have known to be fictitious, including “Hbkjb, jkbkj,” “Doodad Pro,” and “Good Will,” were frequent.
- “Thousands of Obama’s foreign donations ended in cents.” U.S. contributors very rarely contribute in anything other than whole dollar amounts, so the reason why contributions would end with anything other than “.0083; would almost always involve foreign currency translation.
In a later post, Geller listed 18 donors who had contributed more than the legal $2,300 limit. “Good Will” and “Doodad Pro” were among them, to the tune of over ten grand each.
You might think “Well that’s pretty bad, but really no big deal, because at some point, Obama will just refund the money.”
In many cases, that does not appear likely.
On October 22, Geller’s “Who Is John Galt?” post revealed information that should have set off alarms in newsrooms across America — namely, that anyone could pretend to be someone else, with someone else’s address, and successfully process a credit-card donation to Obama.
Obama has illegally been taking donations from Tamil Tiger leaders, according to the FEC. The Tamil Tigers are, according to the FBI, the most successful terrorist group in the world.
A well- known LTTE operative whose funds were returned by an embarrassed Clinton campaign earlier this year has turned around and made a donation to the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama. This time though, the money had not been rejected and there’s another pro-LTT E group out there raising more (.....read the rest here)
It is important to point out that I had also reviewed McCain's donations and they were so clean you could eat off 'em.
Obama spent a record $744 million on his campaign but has disclosed donors for only $485 million of his windfall. Many of those donors are subject to questions about exceeding campaign donation limits and being legitimate donors. His campaign spent $312 million on Broadcast Media (versus $63 million by the McCain Campaign) while groups like ACORN received funding and abused voter registration processes. Obama further refuses to disclose information about his own citizenship, employment, health and education while claiming policies of transparency.
In addition to the $259 million with undisclosed donors, studies of the reports filed with the FEC, by the Obama Campaign, through the 2008 Year End Report, show the following irregularities in their submissions:
• $1.8 million — Contributions over the $4,600 limit (1,608 contributors)
• $26 million — Contributions over the $2,300 per campaign limit, reallocated without contributor affirmation.
• $4 million — Contributors with Foreign Addresses (4,158 contributors)Details have been submitted to the FEC as complaint MUR6142 and are posted here
Continue reading "MUR 6142: CALL FOR AN AUDIT OF THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN FINANCES" »