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What you state didn't happen - at least not for the Trump campaign. We have the Mueller report which explicitly states as much. But we do know - with sworn testimony - that the Clinton campaign and the DNC hired foreign nationals to make shit up. And that is a crime. Would you join in a mutual call to investigate the DNC and Clinton campaign involvement with Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele, and the Russian dossier which was used to justify so much bullshit about the election and afterwards? Yes or no...

You know, Democrats haven't been this mad at Republicans since we freed their slaves...

she failed to register and then used foreign money. both are against the law.

False.

Only agents of foreign governments have to register. Whatever "project lachta" was, it has not been proved that it's a front for a government. Nor was she charged with not registering. So your assertion that this is the crime at hand is unfounded.

Spending foreign money on advocating issues (rather than advocating for any candidate) is legal. This was decided by Bluman vs FEC. Specifically, the FEC website says

In a decision that was later affirmed by the Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the foreign national ban “does not restrain foreign nationals from speaking out about issues or spending money to advocate their views about issues. It restrains them only from a certain form of expressive activity closely tied to the voting process—providing money for a candidate or political party or spending money in order to expressly advocate for or against the election of a candidate.” Bluman v. FEC, 800 F. Supp. 2d 281, 290 (D.D.C. 2011), aff’d 132 S. Ct. 1087 (2012).

If done with the purpose of influencing a federal election, it is ALL considered campaign funds. https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/types-contributions/

Considering the two relationships were in 2006, and the payoffs were done ten years later in 2016, just before the election, Trump will have an almost impossible task arguing that these payoffs weren't related to his candidacy in a federal election.

The determination of "campaign funds" depends on what it was spent on vs what account it came from.

It's illegal to make political donations with money that someone else asked you to donate. But it's actually still unclear if it's legal or not to place ads with money given to you by someone else. It's not covered by the FEC, either.

Despite the general prohibition on foreign national contributions and donations, foreign nationals may lawfully engage in political activity that is not connected with any election to political office at the federal, state, or local levels.

It is pretty odd though that Google didn't require an id to place political ads for candidates up until now. I don't actually know if it's more odd or scary. Frankly, I am more worried about our policy being governed by ad buying by Middle Eastern oil money than by Russian money.

If you want to avoid having candidates you really dislike, get involved in the nomination process.

We have popular-vote instead of ranked-choice. People strategically vote based on for whom they think everyone else will vote.

Also, I'm voting for myself for US Congress this year.

From what I gather, Trump used the Cambridge data as an alternative to GOP data - in case his own party decided to shaft him. This was data bought without users consent.

Obama had a FB app that was optional and informed the users that it would gather data.

Just did a quick read here, no idea how accurate or biased the writeup may be.

TLDR; Trump bought data, Obama asked for it.

So FB was actively complicit in gaving away for free to Obama, that a normal company would have had to pay for?

Hmm, did the Obama campaign report that as a political contribution-in-kind?

I'm going to guess "No".

What law prohibits hiring a foreign worker for a campaign? Because the FEC is quite explicit and while a foreign national cannot contribute money or tangible assets, they can work for a campaign.

And you do realize that Dick Morris was one of the most powerful men in the first Clinton term, and directed Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign until he we caught letting a prostitute listen in on Presidential phone calls. But I guess because he goes on Fox every once in a while he's a bad guy?

From the article about fines for Obama's campaign:

The resulting fine, one of the largest ever handed down by the FEC, is the result of a failure to disclose or improperly disclosing thousands of contributions to Obama for America during the then-senator's 2008 presidential run, documents show.

That means they did not disclose or did so improperly. And then it goes on to cite they illegally accepted donations above $46,000. Sorry, just because you "gave it back" does not mean you didn't violate the law. If I steal from you, and then give it back - doesn't make it right, I still broke the law in the first place.

They BRAGGED about doing the same things (and worse) than what they're accusing Cambridge of doing.

There's at least one big difference (besides the biggest difference which is that what the Obama data team did was nothing like what Trump's Cambridge Analytica team did, but let's put that aside for now). The people who were on Obama's data team were American citizens or were authorized to work in the US. Cambridge Analytica had a team made up primarily of foreign nationals who did not have US visas, green cards or work permits.

And, there is a law against that. Foreign nationals without green cards cannot work on US election campaigns even if they are volunteers.

https://www.fec.gov/updates/fo...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk...

Nope, not by itself. But it's illegal to be paid to tweet a political opinion if you're a foreigner and didn't register your status as a foreign lobbyist (for example). Read the Federal Election Campaign Act. Tthe US government provides a helpful summary for foreigners if you are confused.

your utopia sounds nice, but here in the real world there is much more going on. theres a reason its illegal for foriegn governments to influence US elections.

Except for a few well-defined cases, it's not illegal for foreign governments to attempt to influence US elections. For example, In a decision that was later affirmed by the Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the foreign national ban “does not restrain foreign nationals from speaking out about issues or spending money to advocate their views about issues. It restrains them only from a certain form of expressive activity closely tied to the voting process—providing money for a candidate or political party or spending money in order to expressly advocate for or against the election of a candidate.” Bluman v. FEC, 2012.

Note the word "expressly". If an ad paid for by a foreign entity speaks against the policy or behavior of a candidate (whether true or false), but does not explicitly say "Do not vote for " or "Vote for " , it's legal.

Educate yourself..

The USA did OK without a secret ballot for 100 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Sure, there may be voter intimidation and vote buying and so on without a secret ballot. But will the consequences really be worse than widespread electronic election fraud?

And the fact is, you can find out who many people probably voted for by looking at campaign donation records anyway.
http://classic.fec.gov/finance...

We expect elected representatives to generally vote in a recorded way and to defend their votes. Why do we think that can work but doing the same for individuals won't?

Otherwise, use paper ballots -- ideally counted by a group of humans from different political affiliations like is done in many other countries.

Some bigger issues than technology for the USA:

We could return to the original constitutional number of Representatives so that each vote for one counts 10X more -- which might reduce the role of money in such elections.
https://economix.blogs.nytimes...

And maybe go back to having Senators appointed by State Legislatures.
https://www.senate.gov/artandh...

And also consider a Parliamentary system where Congress selects a Prime Minister instead of a direct election of the President (given what a money-driven circus such elections have become):
https://www.minnpost.com/eric-...

The crime of selling 100k worth of ads, that promoted both sides ?

"Both sides"? What side do Russians have in the US election? Last I checked they were neither democrats nor republicans. They have no business being involved at all. If Facebook facilitated their actions then there is a good chance Facebook was complicit in attempted election rigging and quite possibly in violation of federal election laws.

Which statute does that break exactly ?

There are plenty of articles on this very topic.

If anything, the ads just served as confirmation bias to people on either side, and were used more to sow discord than to actually influence the election one way or another.

Russians buying ads is by definition an attempt to influence the election. You are making a distinction without a difference.

It is legal for foreign nationals to buy political ads in the US. They cannot endorse a candidate or party, but can buy and show issue ads. Taking a position one way or another on an issue. That is 100% legal. Endorse a candidate or party. That is illegal.

What is illegal is taking funds from a foreign national, for use in your political campaign, something that Hillary is quite familiar with.

Here's a summary of the FEC regs: https://www.fec.gov/updates/fo...

"In a decision that was later affirmed by the Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the foreign national ban “does not restrain foreign nationals from speaking out about issues or spending money to advocate their views about issues. It restrains them only from a certain form of expressive activity closely tied to the voting process—providing money for a candidate or political party or spending money in order to expressly advocate for or against the election of a candidate.” Bluman v. FEC, 800 F. Supp. 2d 281, 290 (D.D.C. 2011), aff’d 132 S. Ct. 1087 (2012)."

So, depends on the nature of the advertisement. If it's issues-oriented, it's probably fine.

Let's assume Russia paid to advertise something online. Fine. Whatâ(TM)s the charge?

That's forbidden by the FEC. A quick search found the FEC page on foreign nationals. Since the FEC, of course, can't prosecute foreign nationals (at least if they never enter the US), it's unclear what power they actually have. For buying advertising, it may be that the advertiser (Facebook in this instance) as a US entity is responsible ensure they do not accept money for advertisements violating this rule... but that page does not say that and it would be a difficult thing for an online advertiser to enforce because they do not tend to manually inspect ads.

Additionally, while it may not be illegal, the US government definitely has an interest in investigating foreign interference in its elections. This goes for any government, including, of course, those whose elections the US has interfered with. The Russian campaign of fraudulent social media posts is definitely a problem that Congress should care about, although making new laws may or may not be the appropriate response. Facebook and Twitter are US corporations which have a profit motive for having more user accounts on their servers and therefore have a disincentive towards banning users lying about their identities, which is what makes this type of social media campaign effective on those platforms in the first place (notably, on platforms like here or Reddit with less of a real-name culture / profiles with information, the case for the posts being fraudulent is a lot less clear), which Congress could put pressure on them about. As researchers have been able to identify thousands of obvious Russian troll accounts on Twitter, it's absurd to claim those companies don't know about them. And it's not just Russia; we know China runs a similar program on Chinese social media sites, it would frankly be a little surprising if China weren't doing the same on English-language ones.

If you are a foreign national you cannot legally contribute to a candidate for federal office.

In the USA foreigners can purchase ads and are free to discuss political ideas. Facebook chief security person even says that the ads they are bringing up here are legal except for possible a few of them.
The ads purchased by forgeigner have to be idea based, cannot support a specific person and a few other limitations. It is these same laws that allow illegal immigrants to speak at political conventions without the law makers hosting them going to jail.
https://www.fec.gov/updates/fo...

While I don't think you "believe the wrong things" because you "read slate," Will has at least one salient point. The FEC page with a relevant summary of the issues has some exceptions, including the Green Card holders he mentioned. There's also a section about Non-Election Activity, which appears to be rather nuanced, particularly the paragraph that reads

In AO 1989-32, the Commission concluded that although foreign nationals could make disbursements solely to influence ballot issues, a foreign national could not contribute to a ballot committee that had coordinated its efforts with a nonfederal candidate's re-election campaign.

On the other hand, I was surprised to find that PAC activity (except volunteering) of pretty much any kind was forbidden in fairly specific terms, as well as trying to end-run the rules.

The legislation in question, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, was not concerned with "granting free speech to some corporations and not to others", which is the way you are trying to frame it. It was concerned generally with campaign finance reform, and specifically with putting limits on how much and what types of contributions corporations are allowed to make to political campaigns and what must be disclosed when they do so. The part of the legislation that made it vulnerable to the Supreme Court decision was its effort to regulate issue advocacy ads, or so-called "soft money" influences on political campaigns. The legislation had some issues, but it was more or less reasonable: it defined "electioneering communications" as broadcast ads that name a federal candidate within 30 days of a primary or caucus or 60 days of a general election, and it prohibited corporations and unions from paying for such ads. That's really it. Fairly narrow in scope, not a blanket ban on free speech or talking about politics or any such thing.

Regulating corporate influence on our political campaigns has a long history. It is not a new idea invented by liberals to suppress conservatives. In addition to the BCRA, there is the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which has been amended several times and regulates contributions to political campaigns, parties, and PACs. It also implements disclosure rules. Before that there were several smaller bills, including the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1910. What I'm trying to say is, the influence of money on the political system has been recognized as a problem for more than 100 years and there have been many efforts by both major parties to regulate it.

Before the Citizens United decision, campaign finance reform was not considered an issue of free speech, and it did not specifically favor one corporation over another. It targeted all corporations. It prevented a specific narrow type of political ad from being distributed in broadcast media channels during specific time frames leading up to major federal elections. It being 2002, the Internet was not a medium of much concern (so anything on the web would have been exempted, including political blogs). The Act in effect only targeted TV and radio. The FEC has a nice summary of the bill posted.

Electioneering Communications

An electioneering communication is any broadcast, cable or satellite communication that fulfills each of the following conditions:

The communication refers to a clearly identified candidate for federal office;
The communication is publicly distributed shortly before an election for the office that candidate is seeking; and
The communication is targeted to the relevant electorate (U.S. House and Senate candidates only).

Exemptions

The regulations at 11 CFR 100.29(c)(1) through (5) exempt certain communications from the definition of "electioneering communication":
A communication that is disseminated through a means other than a broadcast station, radio station, cable television system or satellite system. For example, neither printed media-including newspapers, magazines, bumper stickers, yard signs and billboards-nor communications over the internet, e-mail or the telephone are included;

The Supreme Court decided to overturn all of this, not just with Citizens United, but several other similar decisions as well. The advocates say "hey, free speech is free speech", and the detractors say "hey, this is opening the flood gates to unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns". However you choose to see it, it is not a simple problem with an easy solution.

So to answer your question,

Just in general, if you give the government the power to decide which corporation

> Your original source is a video by a guy who is famous for dishonestly editing videos... and yet you keep going back to him as a primary source.

There's a bunch of evidence that corroborates it, unless you don't believe the FEC pay stubs or the independent YouTube videos of her lying to the cops?

You don't believe the DC police arrest records?

The evidence speaks for itself. I don't need to consider them credible.

So what? Even if the evidence is right all it means is someone who is passionate about politics to work for a PAC is also passionate enough to engage in underhanded tactics.

As I said, even if your evidence is true, it's irrelevant.

> Your original source is a video by a guy who is famous for dishonestly editing videos... and yet you keep going back to him as a primary source.

There's a bunch of evidence that corroborates it, unless you don't believe the FEC pay stubs or the independent YouTube videos of her lying to the cops?

You don't believe the DC police arrest records?

The evidence speaks for itself. I don't need to consider them credible.

Of course they don't stop the counting. The ballots carry far more information than Hillary vs Trump so they have all to be counted in order to count all the other issues in the election. It's just that counting all these ballots takes time so the 100% final result will not be known for some time yet (they have until the 19th of December to count all ballots) at which point the complete result of _all_ ballots will be displayed on http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/elec...

> You really do just make shit up, don't you?

I just love these post-fact "refutations" where you don't actually bother to cite sources or anything, even though this information is stupidly easy to find online.

Let's look at the important factual claims here, shall we? There are basically two: that she raised more here than in her presidential campaign and that the vote totals were closer in other states that Hillary won and that she's challenging states that would help Hillary win. This leads people to form the opinion that it's Hillary & co. funding this because it benefits Hillary more than Jill Stein. If we just want more confidence in the final results, then all the close states should be recounted, not just those which benefit Hillary.

That said, feel free to suggest improvements to how we vote for the future. We really should prevent vote fraud of every kind. I still remember just a few months back when Tim Kaine was saying stuff like this:

That moment would not have been as big a moment last night had Donald Trump not spent the last few weeks going around saying that the election is rigged against him. And when Donald says that, he's basically, after a campaign of attacking virtually every group he can attack now, he's attacking a central pillar of our democracy — that we run fair elections, that we accept the outcome of elections and then that we have a peaceful transfer of power.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2016/10/20/498676187/vp-candidate-kaine-trump-is-attacking-central-pillar-of-our-democracy

Claim 1 - Jill Stein got more money for a recount than her campaign:

Here's an image for easy comparison, but $5M > $3M. How do we know she got over $5M for this campaign?

"Green Party Candidate Jill Stein Files for Recount in Wisconsin, Raises More Than $5M for Recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania"
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/Green-Party-Candidate-Jill-Stein-to-Seek-Recount-in-Battleground-States-402731286.html

Jill Stein, who ran for president as the Green Party candidate, has filed paperwork to request a recount of the votes in Wisconsin just under the deadline, and has raised more than $5 million to fund other recount efforts in the battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Now, how much did her presidential campaign raise? The FEC has that info here:
http://www.fec.gov/fecviewer/CandidateCommitteeDetail.do?candidateCommitteeId=P20003984&tabIndex=1

This currently gives us about $3 million dollars ('net contributions') as can be seen below:

Beginning Cash On Hand $73,681
Ending Cash On Hand $58,303
Net Contributions $3,013,441
Net Operating Expenditures $3,413,467
Debts/Loans Owed By $87,740
Debts/Loans Owed To $0

Claim 2 - The challenges are in favor of Hillary

States where we need recounts: WI, MI, and PA - source was quoted above. States NOT on the recount list NV, CO, MN, or NH - I can find no reports of recount requests here. Feel free to give sources if someone is recounting any of those.

NV is closer than PA & WI. MN is closer than PA. NH was won by just 2,732 votes - far less than any state on this list. CO had a pretty small margin too, but it was slightly larger than the three recount states.

I will also leave this here, because of all the #fakenews about "hacking" the election... never mind that MI (one of the recount states!) uses only paper ballots:

The FEC matches the first $250 of any contributions during the primary campaign AND completely pays for the nominating conventions.

Cite: http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers...

Just the convention funding is enough to bring many strings for any other group besides political parties.

> For example, he wrote a story that someone who was protesting a Donald Trump rally in Arizona was paid $3500 to protest. He thought that was satire.

Not sure which person they're talking about, but Zulema Rodriguez was paid over $30k all told, or $27.5k if you don't count travel expenses, etc. She's on this video starting at about 10:30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... as the person blocking the road and lying to the cops about it.

You can verify what she was paid by looking here: https://beta.fec.gov/data/disb...

As for how I know she was paid to be at the protest, etc., there's a full explanation here: https://slashdot.org/firehose....

To be fair, she claimed on video to have been at multiple protests. Anyhow, the broader point--that people should fact check things--is a good one. CNN and others have straight-up lied to us in recent memory. I can (and have) provided sources and video for that previously in my Slashdot comments.

> You don't have anything from the FEC, but your claim that you do...makes you unreliable.

So, why don't we read my submission again? Here's a link to it for the lazy: https://slashdot.org/submissio...

Did you see the words the words "FEC records of disbursements to her"? Check where the link points to, it goes to here:

https://beta.fec.gov/data/disb...

See that FEC.GOV in the URL? Can you tell me who runs this site? Yeah, it's the FEC, who you said I "don't have anything from" just now.

That data shows this lady being on the MoveOn.org payroll. You know, the person who faked all that crap at the Trump protests (which is *on video*)? And who bragged about creating violence at the rallies? But that's "nothing" right? Just because a completely independent video shows her acting and blocking the rally with a rented Lexus, creating violence, etc. Normal people would call that "corroborating evidence" of whose payroll she's on.

By all means tell me how the FEC isn't the FEC, how this woman wasn't paid by the people the FEC says she was paid by, or how she's not clearly the same person in the videos. Go look at the FEC data and see who she works for. I'm not asking you to take my word for anything, just to look at the facts in front of your eyes.

There's actually a much less thoroughly linked or explained version of the story that beat mine. I wonder which one they'll post, if any? I guess I should've quoted the full story, though so it doesn't get burred.

Democrat Operatives Caused Violence at Trump Rallies, Framed Sanders Supporters

A new video has come out detailing how Democratic operatives created violence at Trump rallies. You may remember that they then framed Sanders supporters for those protests. This video is notable because one of the operatives, Zulema Rodriguez, can be identified in videos of the Arizona protests at 17:35 in this independent video as well as at 10:30 in the first video link. Furthermore, you look at the FEC records of disbursements to her and see that she was paid by MoveOn.org. Finally, this again can be corroborated with the Wikileaks dump, specifically this email. For those too lazy to browse all the links, you can see Zulema's appearance in both videos in this image and note that it's the same person down to the tiny mole on her chest.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - Confession caught on video for Zulema and others.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/san... - Old news report showing the 'split' between real & fake Sanders supporters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - Old video showing this lady at the AZ protests (and lying, etc.)
https://beta.fec.gov/data/disb... - FED disbursement data showing her payments from MoveOn.org
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-... - Wikileaks email regarding the strategy they were using.
https://i.sli.mg/dNBRek.png - A handy image to help you compare her appearance in the confession & the AZ protest videos. Note the same mole on her chest.

You base that on your own biases, not on evidence. This is because evidence says that Hillary's team has been inciting violence here. I mean, we have videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

And if you look up the woman in the video, well, you can see that she's on Hillary's payroll. I mean, unless you're going to say the FEC is lying now? Just look at how they paid her to be at the protests and what she did there:

https://beta.fec.gov/data/disb...

And here's the leak to tie it together: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-...

It's on video. We saw her in the Arizona protests, blocking the road. It was in the media. How, pray tell, are you going to make this one out to be a false flag?

Because saying "fuck you" by voting for the Libertarian or Green candidates is like saying "fuck you" while you're standing out in the middle of the woods with nobody listening. The vote is lost.

That's a gross oversimplification of the way presidential elections work in the USA.

If you live in a swing state, what you said is true. However, most American voters don't live in swing states, and indeed, they have no say in the contest between Democrats and Republicans. Their vote is effectively lost regardless of how they vote.

Unless they vote for a third party. You see, though the D/R contest is already settled in most states, there is another one in which these voters can still have a say: the fight for more money.

For your convenience:

Minor party candidates and new party candidates may become eligible for partial public funding of their general election campaigns. (A minor party candidate is the nominee of a party whose candidate received between 5 and 25 percent of the total popular vote in the preceding Presidential election. A new party candidate is the nominee of a party that is neither a major party nor a minor party.) The amount of public funding to which a minor party candidate is entitled is based on the ratio of the party's popular vote in the preceding Presidential election to the average popular vote of the two major party candidates in that election. A new party candidate receives partial public funding after the election if he/she receives 5 percent or more of the vote. The entitlement is based on the ratio of the new party candidate's popular vote in the current election to the average popular vote of the two major party candidates in the election.

Source.

So, in many ways, you're advocating for people to dutifully throw their votes away on statistically-impossible outcomes instead of actually casting them in a way that is considerably more likely to actually have a practical outcome. For a Californian, like it or not, their state is going for Clinton (99.9% probability as per Nate Silver's projections as of this writing), regardless of who they vote for. If their vote was somehow going to be the deciding factor in California, then virtually all other states would already be in the bag for Trump, and the contest would have already been decided anyway. The only way their vote can have any practical impact is by helping to push a third party past the 5% threshold, enabling the collection of partial public funding for the next election.

Emphasis added for people with short attention spans.

Donald Trump's name appeared in 169 times more spam emails than Hillary Clinton's.

Can't say I'm at all surprised by that. I've been getting a steady stream of what appear to be genuine emails from the Trump campaign (all the links are to legit Trump and GOP domains, plus a few MSM ones) asking for donations for a few weeks now. There's a whole bunch of problems with that, other than it being UBE - I'm a British citizen so I don't think Trump can legally accept my donation anyway; several of the domains involved are within the .uk ccTLD; and the addresses concerned are all (and always have been) spam traps. And yes, I have been forwarding them all to the FEC.

Seriously, Donald, if you're going to let your campaign team buy email lists from who-knows-where and spam the shit out of them, they could at least do some basic list washing first - it's starting to look like Hillary isn't the only one with an incompetent email admin team...

many ways to skin that cat
http://www.fec.gov/pages/broch...

I'm not seeing this here: http://www.fec.gov/pages/broch...
However, Buzzfeed is SAYING that the employees don't want the business but I doubt that every single one of them feels that way and they haven't documented that they do. I'd bet that there are employees who don't feel that way but feel that they can't speak their mind without fear of retribution. One could also argue that by not accepting ads for one party, they can't accept ad revenue for another. To do so would imply that they are endorsing one candidate over another.

Not very well if you're posting a dubious second hand source instead of the authoritative one.

McCain-Feingold does stop individual citizens from buying expensive TV ads

No, it doesn't.

Individuals and partnerships may make or finance electioneering communications [such as expensive TV ads], provided that certain conditions are met. Those that accept funds provided by corporations or labor organizations may neither use those funds to pay for electioneering communications, nor give them to another to defray the costs of making an electioneering communication.

They must be able to demonstrate through a reasonable accounting procedure that no prohibited funds were used to pay for the electioneering communication.

PACs do in fact have a limit. It is $2600, just like an individual's limit. The exception is that PACs that give to multiple candidates can give $5000, in aggregate, to those multiple candidates, as long as they do not exceed $2600 for any one candidate in an election cycle.

http://www.fec.gov/pages/broch...

These people who go running around saying PACs are donating millions are flat out lying to you. PACs in general cannot give any more than individuals can.

According to the FEC, contributions to Democrats so far total US$64.2 million, while contributions to Republicans total US$61.2 million. Hillary Clinton has received US$47.1 million, more than the top three Republican candidates combined. (Not surprising, given the fragmentation of the Republican field).

The summary's breathless implication that "rich Republican bankers are buying the Presidency" doesn't appear to reflect the facts.

Also on the form are some other very interesting names, including... http://www.fec.gov/press/resou... Harry Potter MLG Jesus Dog Lord Lord Freiza Jeffrey Dahmer Forrest Gump

Mayday PAC should support Bernie Sanders. He is very specifically for reform and even said if he wins the presidency he would require any potential supreme court nominee to be someone who openly wants to overturn Citizen's United.

Yes, nothing like an attempt to limit speech to win the votes for a Socialist politicians...

Money is speech. Any attempts to limit donations — or to ban anonymous ones — is tantamount to limiting speech or mandating, the speaker always identifies himself.

Whether donation is by a corporation, a labor union, or a person, it is still speech — if I can not donate $5000 to a candidate, then I shall not be allowed to talk on his behalf for more than 500 hours. And vice versa: if you can spend three months (roughly 500 work-hours) canvassing and otherwise promoting your candidate, then I must be allowed to donate the equivalent sum to mine. All existing limits are unconstitutional and must be abolished the soonest.

Yes, this means, that people with more money will have an advantage. No, I don't see, how this is automatically a bad thing.

Because nobody expects him to get the Republican nomination.

Also because this:
http://www.fec.gov/press/resou...
242 official candidates as of whenever they last updated that list at the FEC. Most of them are nobodies. Rand Paul isn't a nobody but he doesn't toe the line for a Republican Presidential candidate so he's not going to win the nomination. Smart money is on Jeb Bush. Dumb money is Ted Cruz or Rand Paul.

They can donate to PACs, which are a special animal in the American political system

Ummm... No. A PAC (Political Action Committee) is simply a funding mechanism for campaigns. Federal laws (since we are talking about Federal elections) prohibit corporations and labor unions from contributing to campaigns, PACs, or generally from spending money to influence federal elections.

You may be thinking of the ability of Corporations and labor unions to create PACs themselves. They can do that, and 501(c)(4) organizations can, too (most issue-advocacy groups do exactly that - MoveOn.org has a separate PAC, as does the AFL-CIO and many corporations like Best Buy, Amazon, and CVS. But they can't contribute their own funds to them). They can also (since Citizen United) do things like fund movies, books, or other media productions that criticize a political candidate, as long as it is not an endorsement or encouragement to vote or not vote for any specific candidate for election.

That may be a thin line - but unless you have a large war chest to defend yourself with expensive lawyers, you better make sure you follow the very specific relations closely, or you'll find yourself the target of an extremely well-funded and organized prosecution, as many have discovered.

Wait, first you say that the deductions are to make taxes 'fair'. But then you turn around and claim that the deductions are for 'improving society as a whole'? Well, which is it?

The purpose of government, funded by taxes, is to improve society. The purpose of deductions is to allow individuals to have some control over which causes they support (including ones they're directly involved with, such as higher education). The perception of fairness comes from having that control, rather than being penalized for supporting a cause the government doesn't like.

Let's consider a hypothetical scenario, wherein the government has heeded religious zealots' demands to stop funding abortion clinics and stem cell research. An individual, having control over his monetary support, can choose to privately donate to those causes through appropriate non-profit charities, and take a portion of that donated money out of what he'll give to government. Indirectly, that also acts as a monetary penalty for causes that have government, but not popular, support.

When you deduct your education bill from your taxes, how do you think that loss of taxes is made up?

What should happen, and occasionally does, is that any decrease in government revenue forces a budget cut and a review of spending policies. Programs without popular support take the loss. Today, that would likely mean the NSA and various standing military programs, though I'd expect lobbying would protect those.

As for education specifically, the loss (a few hundred dollars) from my taxes is overshadowed by the government-funded grant money (a few thousand dollars) that I did not need. From the government's point of view, higher education is a benefit to society. I chose to support that benefit directly, rather than letting the government decide which other benefits are more important.

For a more direct example, consider that there is an option on your 1040 to donate $3 to a federal matching fund for presidential campaigns. As I do not choose to support the already-too-expensive campaign circus, I do not contribute to that fund. The "loss" is not replaced.

If they want to be assholes about not giving out money, so be it.

Meanwhile, they benefit from all of the charities' work supported by the government and private donations. It is indeed their choice to provide the minimum of funding, but to do so means they also lose control over where their money goes.

If the only reason you are making charitable contributions is to reduce your tax bill, then how charitable are you REALLY being? Again, I think you just like paying less taxes than the guy next to you.

Honestly, who doesn't want to pay less tax? You should note, though, that only a portion of donations is removed from taxes. Deductions are removed from taxable income, so if your tax bracket is 25%, then your final tax amount will only drop by 25% of what you donated. It is not possible to actually profit from donating (unless you change tax brackets, but that leads into a longer and more mathematical discussion than I care for today). Rather, the primary benefit from deductions is that direct control over where money goes.

I don't agree with ANY of the deductions given to people for their expenses (child care, health care, mortgage interest, etc.)

The society benefits from having parents available in the workforce. It benefits from having a healthy population. It benefits from everyone having a place to live... That said, there are some deductions with dubious direct or indirect benefit. You'll have to take those up with your representative.

I want them all gone so that the tax code is simplified

A silly endeavor, in my opinion. A simple tax code is effectively the government saying "we don't care what you do wi

I don't think I agree, but I admit I may be wrong. I'm very sure that it would be very bad to have to disclose how you vote. But with regards to monetary contributions to a Proposition ballot advocacy group, I'll have to think about it more. I do think it's proper to disclose contributions to nominees running for office, but I feel that way because it represents influence the donor has on the candidate, not because the candidate then spent money on advertising. And if PAC contributions weren't disclosed, that would just be a glaring loophole for candidate contributions through a middle-man.

But a $1000 donation to a Proposition group? I don't know. I agree there's a problem if someone wealthy can donate $1 Million, but a small monetary contribution feels more like a donate-to-your-cause type thing than try-to-influence-others type thing. On the other hand, you're right that ultimately it's spent on trying to influence other people, and that should not be done with secret backers. So maybe you're right and I'm wrong.

(I'm the AC you responded to)

Ballots are supposed to be secret, yes. However, campaign contributions are highly regulated (both federally via the Federal Elections Commission and in most states.

In California, campaign contributions (including donor names) are reported to the California Secretary of State. This link will take you directly to the reporting for Prop 8.

Yes: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it (Evelyn Beatrice Hall, regarding Voltaire's beliefs)"

The antidote to bad speech is more good speech.

I agree "chilling precedent" is a risk here. What could it be next? Using campaign finance disclosures against Progressive Democratic or Green voters? So, there is wisdom in the CA law on that.

From here about me BTW:
http://www.fec.gov/finance/dis...
"FERNHOUT, PAUL
KUCINICH, DENNIS J
VIA KUCINICH FOR PRESIDENT INC.
06/30/2003 500.00 26940295925
09/21/2003 250.00 26960140255
STEIN, JILL
VIA JILL STEIN FOR PRESIDENT
10/22/2012 250.00 13964633282
Total Contributions: 1000.00"

Yet I know in some sense that does foreclose some opportunities laws or not -- although it may also open others. There was also a time in the USA before the secret ballot when people would sometimes even have to fight their way through to the polls. It's not clear to me the secret ballot even is worth it if the cost is vote fraud via voting computers and also not being able to vote via the internet. Still, there was a chilling effect a bit in knowing any campaign donation would be a matter of record, it's true. I live in a very staunch Republican area. Although in looking at that record I do regret not donating to Cynthia McKinney's campaign as a matter of record (although I did vote for her against Obama). I think I was still a bit disillusioned supporting Kucinich where he seemed to cave on antiwar stuff at the Democratic Convention. Still, we homeschool which Republicans tend to support and Democrats tend to work against somewhat as Democrats push expanding compulsory prison-like public schooling. Republicans have tended to support digital rights a bit better than Democrats. Greens tend to be a bit anti-technology whereas I would like to see better technology. I feel Kucinich actually made more sense coherently given his stated beliefs and personal religion back when he was against abortion (even if preventing abortion in the USA may not be practical culturally or legally or politically). McKinney has her own anger management issues apparently like at an ID checkpoint (not saying sometimes anger is not justified though). Sometimes we don't have the combination of choices we might wish for -- or even know exactly what we might wish for. Possibly the deeper issue is that, compared to other Western democracies, the USA has only two parties -- far right (Republicans) and center right (Democrats). It's hard to make good choices with such a limited set of options. And even left/right is a little arbitrary, since there is no reason that, say, opposition to abortion should go with Republicans. Once could almost just as easily imagine the Democrat platform arguing for the sanctity of life from conception with collective responsibility for care and Republicans arguing for the individual right to choose with an individual responsibility for care. Same for many other arbitrary constellations of political alliances which differ in other countries.

Although, it sounds like from what others write here that Eich was a controversial choice even before he took the position for various reasons, including both for management style and also on technology vs. marketing. And it sounds like some of the propaganda for Proposition 8 was essentially gay bashing. Things are so rarely black and white. If Eich been less controversial, and if Proposition 8 commercials had been less indirectly gay bashing, then it seems possible Mozilla might have said something like "Mozilla takes no position on the protected speech of employees; however Mozilla endorses inclusiveness and diversity" (or something like that).

Still, it is ironically interesting that 50 seconds into the third video here (pro-Proposition 8) the actor (?) says "It's already

Political committees are required to request employer information from larger donors; it does not suggest endorsement.

per the FEC: http://www.fec.gov/pages/broch...

If you contribute more than $200 to a committee, the committee is required to use its best efforts to collect and publicly disclose on a financial report your name, address, occupation and employer, as well as the date and amount of your contribution.

This case is a good demonstration as to why anonymous contributions should be allowed.

Or it's a good demonstration on why money should not equal speech.

Political committees are required to request employer information from larger donors; it does not suggest endorsement.

per the FEC: http://www.fec.gov/pages/broch...

If you contribute more than $200 to a committee, the committee is required to use its best efforts to collect and publicly disclose on a financial report your name, address, occupation and employer, as well as the date and amount of your contribution.

This case is a good demonstration as to why anonymous contributions should be allowed.

The FEC did NOT say that PACs can't accept Bitcoin. They pretty much unanimously agreed during the meeting (audio) that PACs *can* accept Bitcoin, and the Libertarians and some candidates already were and continue to do so.

They just couldn't decide *how* PACs should accept Bitcoin, and CAF (the requester) didn't ask about accounting standards or the like, so they didn't approve the request. FEC decisions are ternary: yes, no, and nil. This is nil, not no.

Full disclosure: my PAC's comments explaining a bunch of problems with the proposal were one of the primary reasons why they didn't rule on it, and we're intending to file a new request in the very near future. (Comments welcome on our draft of a new safe harbor policy.)

I'm having a hard time sorting out their methodology, but it looks as if the problem is that there just weren't any "anti-" groups opposing the measure, at least by their calculation. They totted up only $1.4 million spent by all the "anti-" groups, which is practically nothing compared to the billions spent on all of the Senate campaigns put together.

Neither, in fact, is that $55M spent by "pro-" groups all that large. This is the problem with the "campaign fund bribery" theory. These groups are heavily constrained in how much money they can give, just $10,000 to each candidate. These candidates need millions.

http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/contriblimits.shtml

Their contributions just aren't big enough to make a bribe. It's not even enough to get them to take a meeting with you. Rather, it's the other way around: they contribute to the candidates that they want to see win the election.

EVERYBODY on this list got more money from the "pro-" groups than from the "anti-" groups. Kelly Ayotte voted no; she got $326,335, compared to $31,751. Mike Crapo, $181,414 vs $15,020. Ted Cruz, $529,897 vs $19,050.

What this data indicates, if anything, is that there just weren't many groups who opposed this. The direct marketers, the catalog sales, and computer manufacturers. That's it. Weren't there any consumer groups? Consumers are the ones who pay the tax. None of the consumer groups took a stand? Or did their crappy methodology just miss them?

http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/candregis.shtml

Yes as an Australian who has newly also become a US citizen, I was rather shocked to see how shoddily US elections are run compared to ours. It seems so inconsistent from state to state and city to city. Made me appreciate what a damn fine job does the AEC does in Australia - I've never heard of any significant problems with ballot counting/machines/fraud etc. including in places where they use a lot of electronic voting, such as the recent ACT elections.

A quick Googling shows that the US has the Federal Election Commission, which sounded at first like it might be an equivalent to the Australian Electoral Commission, but really, it's not. The FEC's areas of responsibility are quite small compared to the AEC: http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers_general.shtml - seems to be more about regulating the funding of elections than actually enforcing the integrity of the ballot-box and vote-counting processes.