The White House didn’t blow a dog whistle for deep-pocketed liberal donors on Monday. No, the administration whipped out a supersized vuvuzela. Blaring message: Let loose the campaign-finance-bundling hounds of “super PAC” war!
President Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, who served as White House deputy chief of staff for operations before assuming 2012 reelection duties, announced the super-PAC super-flip-flop in a mass e-mail to supporters and a blog post published on the left-wing Huffington Post website. In a related conference call to major campaign-finance bundlers, Messina encouraged these high-dollar donors to start funding Priorities USA Action. That’s the Democratic super PAC founded by former White House staffers Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney.
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Super PACs and campaigns are barred from coordinating with each other. Nevertheless, Messina said that “senior campaign officials as well as some White House and Cabinet officials will attend and speak at Priorities USA fundraising events.” Of course, they “won’t be soliciting contributions.” Wink, wink; nudge, nudge.
This brazen about-face for Team Obama is a goldmine of campaign lies, contortions, and epic hypocrisy. Let us count the ways.
A bundle of contradictions. “Bundling” is the rustling up of aggregate contributions from friends, business associates, and employees — a practice, long condemned by Obama, to circumvent individual-donation limits. When he announced his presidential intentions in 2007, Candidate Obama decried “the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests who’ve turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.” He indignantly singled out “the best bundlers,” who get the “greatest access” to power.
Last week, Obama acknowledged having raised at least $74 million through his team of big-time bundlers, who have been showered with access, tax dollars, and plum patronage positions. This elite group of Hollywood celebrities (such as open-borders actress Eva Longoria), political cronies (such as Chicago bagman Louis “The Vacuum” Susman), and politically correct businessmen (such as bankrupt Solyndra investor George Kaiser) now totals a whopping 445 gold-card members.
The roar of the revolving door. In his Monday announcement, Messina bragged about how the White House has enacted “sweeping” reforms to “close the revolving door between government and lobbyists.” In truth, the administration has widened the carousel and removed the brakes. The Obama-cheerleading Fishwrap of Record (also known as the New York Times) itself identified at least 15 bundlers “involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies.”
Moreover, “at least 68 of 350 Obama bundlers for the 2012 election or their spouses have served in the administration in some capacity; at least 250 of the bundlers visited the White House, and another 30 have ties to companies that conduct business with federal agencies or hope to do so in the future,” according to a recent iWatch News report. Several first-time 2012 bundlers already have snagged administration posts:
Norma Lee Funger, of Potomac, Md., who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama, was appointed last month to the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Glenn S. Gerstell, of Washington, D.C., who bundled the same amount, was appointed to the National Infrastructure Advisory Commission last fall.
Richard Binder, of Bethesda, Md., another $50,000-to-$100,000 bundler, was appointed to the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health last spring.
And note: The most transparent administration ever still refuses to disclose recusal orders involving the nearly 100 lobbyists and ex-lobbyists on its payroll.
Super-PAC super-hypocrisy. Super PACs are federal political-action committees that only make independent expenditures in support of, or in opposition to, candidates. Their birth and growth were fueled indirectly by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruling in 2010. The decision overturned severe campaign-finance restrictions that essentially criminalized certain forms of political speech. As Chief Justice John Roberts put it during oral arguments: “We don’t put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats.”
Until this week, the Obama administration vehemently condemned the Citizens United decision and vowed to eschew super PACs. The entities are a “threat to our democracy,” Obama railed two years ago. The ruling would “open the floodgates for special interests,” he warned. And last July, Obama-campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt kept talking the anti-super-PAC talk. “Neither the president nor his campaign staff or aides will fundraise for super PACs,” he asserted. Now? President Obama and his wife won’t fundraise for the democracy-undermining super PACs. But countless other cabinet members and advisers, partying with Obama bundlers gone wild, will.
In 2008, Obama lambasted rival Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards for criticizing independent expenditures while raking in big PAC bucks: “So you can’t say yesterday you don’t believe in them, and today you have three-quarters of a million dollars being spent on you. You can’t just talk the talk.”
Obama 2012 campaign motto: Empty talk? Yes, we can!
As many observers commented at the time, the President's very public rebuke of the conservative members of the USSC during his SOTU address in January 2010 was political theatre at its best, as he looked ahead to replacing at least some of those Justices and thereby shifting power to the liberal members of the Court. According to the President's blatantly self-serving comments, the Court's decision in Citizens United "gives corporations and other special interests the power to spend unlimited amounts of money - literally millions of dollars - to affect elections throughout our country. This, in turn, will multiply their influence over decision-making in our government."
With the 2012 election approaching and fundraising in full swing, the President’s response to the Court's dangerous decision is to move to the dark side and accept money from evil corporations, powerful special interests and foreign entities - as though he hasn't been doing that all along - because that's the only way to ensure a fair election. So much for doing the right thing and leading by example. Winning is the President’s one and only concern and how he does so is apparently irrelevant. The very thing he claimed was a threat to democracy when conservative Justices ruled it was First Amendment free speech is now embraced by the President who promised no more politics as usual in Washington.
It is the stunning hypocrisy of Barack Obama that the American people should vote against in 2012. He has revealed himself to be the epitome of the politician he claimed not to be during the 2008 campaign and has revealed himself to be the epitome of the President he promised not to be after he was elected. Because this man has little respect for the intelligence and good judgment of the American people, he believes he can blame the GOP for his change of position on campaign finance - an issue he felt so strongly about two years ago that he publicly insulted Justices of the United States Supreme Court to their faces - and we will follow along behind him like the dutiful drones he believes we are.
Are you really that surprised? People aren't going to care, not because they are drones, but because Obama has to use Super PACs to stay competitive in 2012. I mean, if one side is using spears to fight and the other is using machine guns then you either get your own or get beat. There isn't really any logic disconnect. Obama will say, "I still believe the USSC decision was wrong, but this is how things are now. If my opponent did not use Super PACs, I wouldn't either". Democrats and most independents will accept this explanation. No one will consider it "stunning hypocrisy". They will resign themselves to the fact that this is, unfortunately, how all future campaigns will be done.
Democrats would vote for Jack the Ripper if he had a "D" after his name - my Democratic mother-in-law told me that - but if Independents accept the "I'm doing it because they're doing it" explanation from the man who promised to bring a new kind of politics to Washington, then they aren't the enlightened, thoughtful voters they're given credit for being. Doing that which he harshly criticized others for doing - regardless of the reason - is hypocritical and reasonable people know that. Money and influence have always been a part of American politics and how it's packaged doesn't make much difference. The only reason Obama made an issue of the Citizens United decision is because he wanted a reason to attack the conservative Justices. Now that attack has come back to bite him and politcal cover was required, so he did what he always does - blamed someone else.
Are you against Super PACs in general, or are you just opposed to Obama using them?
And as someone who's obviously a Republican voter and presumably supports the Citizens United ruling, why are you so concerned about President Obama sticking to his stated opposition--- which you don't agree with?
"The more she spoke of her virtues, the faster we counted the spoons." Emerson
Jenna makes a good point. It's becoming more and more obvious that the democrats yell a lot of subterfuge in order to distract from their own ugly behavior. Any time anyone brings up the sleazy activities of Obama and his lackeys, a liberal starts yelling about something obscure by comparison that a republican did. Why not address the issue? Is Obama a hypocrite? Is he a weak little fellow who isn't to blame for all of the ugly things done by his handlers? Is he an innocent trying to deal with the quagmire created by the evil President Bush and his Republican cohorts?
Obama has been president of this country for 3 years. For two of those years he had total control of the congress. He has decimated the economy. Unemployment has skyrocketed. The national debt has gone up exponentially. Productivity is down, and the size of the group of takers expecting entitlements in this country has grown while the size of employed hard working taxpayers has shrunk.
George Bush was a lame duck president for the last two years of his presidency, and he was too weak as a conservative to be really confrontational with the liberal democrats.
Don't try to pull the "Wahhh Wahhh, things are unfair for poor little Barry!" routine. The guy is a thug, and only the profoundly out of touch or tragically ignorant don't see this. History will see it clearly, and hold the liberals responsible for the destruction they've caused.
Ah, but Obama isn't just using super PACs to fund his campaign. He's using super PACs primed with tax payer money fleeced from the tax payers under the guise of 'green energy' and bailing out banks and the most recent mortgage slight of hand that he's pulled. When Obama gave money to these sham green companies he was giving it to his friends and operatives who have bundled it into campaign donations to his PACs.
The robo-signing scandals are now history as the US announces $26 billion foreclosure settlement with the big banks:
• $26 BILLION FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT ANNOUNCED IN WASHINGTON
• FORECLOSURE ACCORD RESOLVES 16-MONTH ROBO-SIGNING INVESTIGATION
• FORECLOSURE ACCORD IS SUBJECT TO APPROVAL BY FEDERAL JUDGE
• FORECLOSURE DEAL PRESERVES U.S., STATE RIGHTS TO OTHER CLAIMS
• FORECLOSURE ACCORD COULD CLIMB TO $40 BLN IF 14 SERVICERS JOIN
For those who don't understand what just happened, US banks just funded Obama's re-election campaign to the tune of $26-$40 billion.
In other words, got foreclosed on for being unable to make payments? YOU GET $2,000!
Obama won't frame it that way. He'll say, 'Look at all of the donations I got. Everybody loves me!' and this will explain all of the phantom voters he gets from Acorn.
There is a straight forward explanation for what Obama has done. The Republican candidates have funded their PACs with their own hard earned money or real campaign donations. Not taxpayer money siphoned off in this sleazy way.
What would really help this situation is an advertising campaign pointing this out. Unfortunately, nobody has the money to pay for one because Obama has emptied their pockets.
Doesn't matter why the person couldn't make their mortgage payment. Forged and incomplete foreclosure documents are a Due Process issue. As in protected by the Constitution. And the banks profited - from TARP, the Fed, foreclosure, mortgage insurance, interest only loans, derivatives, etc, etc.
Gee, I kept wondering where all of those tax payer dollars, money borrowed from China, and money printed with reckless abandon had gone. Where have all the 'stimulus' dollars gone, a long time passing....? They're filling Obama super PACs my friends, soon will this country end... soon will this country end....
Seriously, I did wonder where the trillion dollars of stimulus had disappeared to. This is the biggest heist in history and it was all done with such clumsy slight of hand that only ignorant Americans couldn't see it. Now Obama's minions will crow about how much money he's gotten, demonstrating how popular he is, when he really just stole it from our economy and the citizens of this country.
Anyone who cares had better remove the dead voters from the polls in their towns and monitor every absentee vote that comes in. Obama is counting on Acorn and his control of so much money to assure a win.
It's hard to figure out which is worse...that we have an administration that can double-deal, cheat, lie, waffle, flip-flop on critical issues of ethics and principals and seemingly get away with it...or that we have a media and a large swath of the American public that thinks this is all okay!
Read the post "Campaign Finance Reform for Individuals" & "Campaign Fiance Reform for Unions and Corporations" on the web site CashInTheHand.org. It describes how to do return elections to voters, insiders and remove money from PAC's, outsiders. The first part of the posts are copied here:
Campaign Finance Reform for Individuals
Should voters in New York be allowed to contribute to local elections in New Hampshire?
Should voters in Concord, NH be allowed to contribute to elections in Manchester, NH?
If you can not vote in an election, why should you be allowed to contribute to that election?
Whom do you want politicians to raise money from, their constituents or people that can NOT vote for them?
Should there be any restriction or limits placed on people that can vote in an election?
Campaign Finance Reform should be about Insiders versus Outsiders not hard money versus soft money.
To read the rest of this post, please go to "CashInTheHand.org"
Campaign Finance Reform for Unions and Corporations
Should a union that represents no workers in New Hampshire be allowed to contribute to elections in New Hampshire?
Should a corporation that has no employees in New Hampshire, sells no products in New Hampshire, nor pays taxes in New Hampshire be allowed to contribute to elections in New Hampshire?
Campaign Finance Reform should be about Insiders versus Outsiders, not hard versus soft money.
To read the rest of this post, please go to "CashInTheHand.org"
Wait a minute, I thought conservatives believed the Citizens United decision was a good thing? Does Ms. Malkin like or not like Super PACS? She is railing in her article about the shady stuff Democrats are doing, but this is probably happening on the Republican side too. I mean, can you really expect one party to use super PACs and the other to not? I know, she is also saying Democrats have been doing this all along before the annoucement and is pointing out Democrat hypocrisy. But, I think the main issue is, we need laws to limit these campaign finance shenanigans (like the stuff struck down in Citizens United). We can't expect the parties to police themselves; politics is just too dirty. Maybe after this election we can put in place better campaign finance laws. The whole thing makes me ill.
"We decided to do this because we can't afford for the work you're doing in your communities, and the grassroots donations you give to support it, to be destroyed by hundreds of millions of dollars in negative ads," Jim Messina – Obama campaign manager
What this really means, from Obama’s perspective, is:
- He’ll have a record $1 billion to spend directly on his campaign.
- He’ll have the incumbency and the accompanying bully pulpit.
- He’s got the mainstream media in his pocket (which is priceless).
- He’s had all those 60 Minutes appearances, SOTU speeches and countless other free TV appearances to get his point across.
- There are lefty pacs everywhere that already support his re-election.
- He’ll have union, ACORN and Black Panther boots on the ground.
- He’ll have four years of presidential experience and his record to run on (or not).
All of this is not enough. He’s scared of losing his job and his power, he has no principles to which he must be held accountable, and there is no media to hold him accountable in the event he claimed the existence of such principles.
Oh come on, both sides are guilty and we should all want an end to it.
A pro-Romney super PAC, with donors from Bain Capital and Goldmans Sachs, has already spent $17.3 mil on anti-Gingrich and anti-Santorum ads.
Harold Simmons, owner of Contran Corp, gave a total of $8.5 million to 3 super PACs in the last quarter of 2011 (pro-Perry, then pro-Gingrich and American Crossroads.)
And Katzenberg of Dreamworks has given $2 mil to the pro-Obama super PAC.
A bundle of contradictions. “Bundling” is the rustling up of aggregate contributions from friends, business associates, and employees — a practice, long condemned by Obama, to circumvent individual-donation limits. When he announced his presidential intentions in 2007, Candidate Obama decried “the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests who’ve turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.” He indignantly singled out “the best bundlers,” who get the “greatest access” to power.
