Category: Campaign Finance

Sotomayor Challenges the Idea that Corporations are People

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One day, I want to have a WSJ type picture of me published

When Obama nominated her, I figured that she would be a standard Democratic weasel choice, like Ruth Bader Ginsberg, in rock ribbed support of Roe v. Wade, but otherwise, not inclined to rock the boat.

Well, Jess Bravin saw some indications that she may be rather more inclined to change things than I had anticipated:

But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong — and that instead the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights flesh-and-blood people have.

Judges “created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons,” she said. “There could be an argument made that that was the court’s error to start with…[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics.”

In challenging the opinion, or more accurate clerks notes, in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporations are legal persons with constitutional rights, she is making a big statement on her position on corporate law, and it is significantly to the left of the court, and IMHO, the right position.

It could be that she feels that extending the idea of corporate civil rights to unlimited political donations crosses a line, but hopefully, it means more than that.

Economics Update

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If This Doesn’t Make You Feel Like a Chump, then You are forgetting the “Ownership Economy” Hype
H/t Calculated Risk

Well, it’s Thursday, and that means that it’s new jobless claims day.

We are actually in a place where we can see the seasonally adjusted statistics have meaning, because we are past the auto plant shutdown in the dog days of Summer that actually happened in the spring.

Initial claims were 545,000, down 12,000 from last week’s upwardly revised 557,000, a drop of 12,000, but remember that if we compare initial numbers to initial numbers, we were at 550,000 last week, so the drop is only 5,000, not 12,000…..Anyone see a pattern?

The 4 week moving average, which is a less noisy metric, fell from 8,750 to 563,000, but note that anything at 400K or above is still bad news territory.

Continuing claims rose by 129K to 6.2 million, and that does not account for people who are exhausting their benefits.

As CR notes (link on graph pr0n) the fed has reported that household net worth has fallen $12.2 trillion, or about $40,000.00 for every man woman and child in the United States.

Of course the financial journalist are reporting that household net worth is up for the first time since Q3 of 2007, but this is almost entirely the recent bump in stock prices, which primarily benefits the top decile.

Still, we are seeing good news, with housing starts and the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index both showing improvement.

Of course, part of this has to do with the fact that mortgage rates are way down, because the Federal Reserve is buying mortgage backed securities like they are going out of style, in order to keep those rates low.

I would also note that there just are not that many consumers out there. The UK again being a case in point. Yesterday, I mentioned that their unemployment had spiked, and today we discover that their retail sales fell 0.2%, as opposed to the forecast increase of o.1%.

People without jobs cannot buy stuff.

That’s why the Bank of Japan decided to keep its benchmark rate at essentially 0%, actually 0.1%, but that’s a f%$#ing rounding error.

In energy, oil fell slightly, to 72.47/bbl.

In currency, the dollar took a hit today, falling against both the Euro and yen, and the Canadian dollar rose to an 11 month high.

Economics Update

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Home Builder Confidence

Industrial Production Utilization

Well, we got the inflation numbers in, the CPI rose 0.4% in August and fell 1.5% year over year.

I’m not sure whether to call this a sign of recovery (mild inflation) or of further problems (deflation).

I’d be tempted to go with the former, as both builder confidence and industrial production capacity utilization increased this past month (see pics), but that is from horribly low levels, and objectively, the levels are still horrible.

With UK unemployment hitting the highest level since 1996, would appear to cut the on the down side.

Mortgage applications fell last week, though some of that may come from the 4 day week because of labor day, and they are still well above the trough, though one wonders how long that will last once the tax credit for first time home buyers expires. (More on that later)

In energy, oil rose above $72/bbl on falling inventories.

Currency is getting interesting though, with the dollar falling to a 1 year low, largely on increases in optimism on the economy, but gold hit the highest level since March, 2008 $1,017.65/oz (Troy), and gold generally rises in times of pessimism and uncertainty?

Cruising Wiki For Information on South Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District

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Just in case you want to get the lay of the land of SC’s 2nd Congressional district, I checked out recent electoral history for the district.

Truth be told, it’s a tough row to hoe:

Year Democrat Votes Pct Republican Votes Pct
2000 Jane Frederick 110,672 41% Floyd Spence 154,338 57%
2001 Brent Weaver 14,034 25% Joe Wilson 40,355 73% <Special Election
2002 (no candidate) Joe Wilson 144,149 84%
2004 Michael Ellisor 93,249 33% Joe Wilson 181,862 65%
2006 Michael Ellisor 76,090 37% Joe Wilson 127,811 63%
2008 Rob Miller 158,627 46% Joe Wilson 184,583 54%

Though the best performance against Wilson to date was Rob Miller’s loss by 8%, so it is entirely reasonable to consider this race to be competitive, particularly since Miller has raised about $¾ million, $733,608.00 on Act Blue alone at the time of this post (below break), and Mr. Miller has name recognition from his last run, and he has generated a lot of buzz in the past 36 hours or so.

It Looks Like Campaign Finance Limits Are Dead

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At least, that is my take on reading Dahlia Lithwick’s observations in court.

We will be seeing corporate sponsored electioneering in 2010, but I expect the 5-4 decision to add a twist which will allow labor unions, which are outspent under today’s rules, to continue to remain in their straight jacket.

We have some profoundly deceitful and venal men on the bench.

This will likely be the 2nd most disgraceful decision in the past 9 years.

An Endorsement

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I have added Rob Miller to Matthew Saroff’s Act Blue Page.

You may not know who he is, but he is running for Congress in SC-02 against incombent Joe Wilson (R). Joe Wilson is the guy who shouted, “You Lie” during Obama’s speech.

The ironic part is that if he had said that in response one of the most objectively true assertions during the whole speech.

Miller appears to have raised something like $100K in the past 12 almost 300K in the past 16 hours over $300K in the past 18 hours.

Aw hell…Is there a way to dynamically embed this data?

Ahhh, here we go:


Had to use the depreciated “iframe” tag to make it work in IE.

Any hints on how to make the “embed” tag, aka proper HTML, work in MicroFlaccid’s browser?

This Looks Bad

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So, the Supreme Court will be looking at overturning the bans on corporate campaign contributions.

The last time this hit, it was 6-3 supporting the bans, but 2 of those 6 votes are now Roberts and Alito, whose jurisprudence is politically motivated hypocrisy rather results oriented, which makes it a 5-4 decision which will overturn the most basic campaign finance regulations.

So much for stare decisis. They explicitly lied to congress during their confirmation hearings, but you won’t be able to get a conviction.

I’m just waiting for the first case where a Chinese owned firm uses funds to aid a political campaign.

Economics Update

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Image Courtesy Calculated Risk

We have the new unemployment claims numbers, and according to USA Today and Reuters, the numbers are down, though as Bloomberg notes, the numbers are still 570K, more than the 564K expected.

Only, in a bit of flagrant journamalism, they ignore the fact that, the initial numbers for last week were 570K, and this week’s numbers are 570K, but since last week’s numbers have been revised up to 574K, they claim a small drop in initial Filings. (H/t Dean Baker, as well as CNN, normally the Cheer-leaders News Network, out there, for the catch)

Note that if the number is much above 400K, we are still losing jobs, that the 4 week moving average rose to 571,250, and that continuing claims rose by 92K to 6.23m.

The Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) NMI (Non-Manufacturing Index) is at 48.4%, indicating further contraction, but this is an improvement.

As Atrios puts it, “Hurray, the 2nd derivative is positive.”

In retail, same store sales fell 2.9% year over year in August, the back to school season, so the consumer is not yet ready to put the economy back on their shoulders.

In central bank news from across the pond, the European Central Bankleft its benchmark interest rate at 1%, and issued a statement that it sees no prospect of either rate hikes or its unwinding its support for their banks in the near future.

In the world of credit rating, Moody’s raised Ford’s debt rating to Caa1 from Caa3, but according to S&P, the default rate for junk bonds rose to 10.2% in August, up from July’s 9.4%, which does not bode well for the ability of companies to raise capital.

BTW, remember last week when I said that insider selling was beating insider buying by 30.6:1? Well, it’s up to 61.8:1.

The sucker’s rally is coming to an end.

Finally, something I generally pay very little attention to, but gold is getting awfully close to $1000.00/oz. (Troy)

The gold bugs will tell you that now is the time to buy gold, but I’ll say that gold approaching the 4 digit line means that it is time to dump gold and get the f%$# out of dodge.

In currency, the dollar was a bit stronger, largely on concern for Japan’s new government, and the statement by the ECB.

In energy, oil fell slightly, largely on the unemployment numbers.

Economics Update

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Well, the first set of numbers for August job losses have come out, and ADP forecasts a drop of 298K non-farm payroll jobs, the lowest number since last September, and the Dickensian-named Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, has reported that there were 76,456 jobs cut, well down from July, but about 2K more than June. (Note: these are apples and oranges. The 1st is the total delta in employment, and the 2nd is total layoffs.)=

These numbers are not good, they are still on the minus side, but they are better, as is the revised BLS numbers for productivity, which show a 6.6% annual rate of increase.

Still, we saw consumer bankruptcies up 24% YoY, and they are on a pace to hit 1.4 million this year.

In finance, Treasuries were up, and yields down, on the release of the Federal Reserve Board’s minutes, which show a bit more concern about the recovery, and the VIX (Volatility IndeX) is up, which would tend to indicate that the current rally is on its last legs.

In real estate, mortgage applications fell, even though rates were down.

ADP’s job loss numbers pushed both the dollar and crude oil down, largely because even though they were an improvement over the prior month, they were worse than forecast.

Meanwhile, Back in Bizarro world

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Guess who is going to hold a fundraiser for the first Virginia Congressman who takes the pledge not to vote for a health plan without a public option?

Terry McAuliffe….Yes, that Terry McAuliffe, a man who has been repeatedly excoriated by lefty bloggers like me as a corporate stooge, and little more than bagman for political contributions from wealthy people and special interests.

In fact, I did a happy dance when he lost the primary race for VA governor for this reason.

But he is sponsoring this initiative:

Terry McAuliffe thinks it is time to “insist” on the public option. We couldn’t agree more. Terry’s agreed to host a fundraiser with Virginia and national bloggers who are insisting on a public option for the first Virginia Congressman who will take our pledge! This will be an awesome event to highlight and honor any Virginia Congressman who shows leadership on this issue. If you would like to be a part of the host committee for this event, shoot me an email at notlarrysabato@hotmail.com. Lowell and I are already on board, and I’m sure there will be many others!

Good for Terry McAuliffe….I cannot believe that I just said that.

I would also be remiss in mentioning that Act Blue has a page to donate to Congressmen who take the pledge not to support any bill that lacks a real public option, and it’s already raised nearly $300K.

I’ve added the link to my Act Blue page too.

We Now Know Why Rattner Left the Auto Task Force

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It appears that he is more closely tied into the state pension plan pay for play scandal than had been previously indicated.

Big surprise. You hire a merger and acquisition scum bag specialist who maked his money on buying up companies, juicing the stocks by making draconian cuts, and then flipping them, and then you have to get rid of him because he turns out to be….well….a scum bag.

So shocked.

BTW, I realize why he got the job in the first place (from the Wiki), “Rattner is married to Maureen White, the former National Finance Chair for the Democratic Party,” which means that she specialized in raising lots of money from her rich friends, so there was an element of pay-for-play in his getting this assignment in the first place.

Pig Fight!!!!!!!

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It looks like the primary campaign between Arlen Spector and Joe Sestak is heating up, with Specter calling Sestak a hypocrite for not registering as a Democrat until a few years back, and Sestak has responded that he felt that it was his obligation as a military officer not to declare party affiliation until he left the service.

Seeing as how the person making the initial attack about insufficient party loyalty is Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Democrat Specter, I’m inclined to go with Joe Sestak.

So it would seem are a fair number of campaign donors, as Sestak raised over a million dollars in this Spring.

Additionally, even if Specter were a better Senator than Sestak, and there are some issues where Spector is closer to me than he is to Sestak, Specter being challenged by Sestak is a better Senator than just Specter.

We are not hearing any more of the crap about how he won’t toe any party line, and he’s fallen into line on labor, healthcare, and climate change legislation as a result of this challenge.

How Barack Obama F%$#s the Progressive in Congress

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Case in point, freshman Representative Tom Perriello, who was aggressively lobbied to vote for the cap and trad bill, he thought that it was a sellout, and originally intended to vote against it, and is now being targeted by the GOP on this vote.

On the other hand, blue dogs, like Gene Taylor, were allowed to vote their campaign dollars “conscience”, and were not aggressively lobbied.

Perriello’s margin in his campaign, just 727 votes, while Gene Taylor, “He won 74.6% of the vote in 2008, and 79.8% in 2006.”

This is about campaign money. Rahm Emanuel and His Evil Minions™ think that the blue dogs are critical in getting big money campaign donations, and that if you have to sacrifice a few progressive Dems to secure that, they don’t raise the big bucks, so screw them.

This Whole Rep. Harman Thing is Going Very Weird

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First, we have a report that the “Israeli agent” that Jane Harman was having a phone conversation with was an Israeli-American named Haim Saban, if the name sounds familiar, it’s because you watch the credits for Mighty Morphin’ Power rangers.

He’s a producer who made much of his fortune by importing and redubbing the children’s show.

Then we have Ron Kampeas at the JTA noting that the phone call in question happened in the Summer of 2005, which is pre-Katrina, has her discussing becoming Intel committee chairman.

Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005. It was around a week before the scope of the incompetence hit, and began destroying whatever remained of Bush’s post 911, so the possibility of a Democratically controlled house was remote. People were still talking about a permanent Republican majority.

In any case, Keampeas points us toward

Laura Rozen at Foreign Policy magazine, who appears to have a line on the personalities, and the machinations therein within the intelligence establishment that might figure in this:

  • That Bush Era intel officials felt on the defensive about the recent torture and wiretap revelations, and might want to push back.
  • Porter Goss authorized the wire tap, and Goss has always, “intensely disliked,” each other. (It is claimed that FBI Chief Mueller was unavailable at the time the warrant was requested)
  • According to an interview with Goss, Harman was the only member of Congress briefed on water boarding whose reaction wasnot , “encouragement,” which included, “Reps Pelosi and Harman, and Sens Rockefeller and Sen. Pat Roberts.”

On the other side, the statement from the Neww York Times editor that Harman did not attempt to influence the publication of the illegal wiretap article may not be true, as Bill Keller has clarified his statements, and it appears that she contacted Washington Bureau Chief Phil Taubman regarding the matter, at the request of Michael Hayden, who keeps showing up in every bit of evil in the intelligence establishment like a demented Amway salesman.

It also means that Harman was actively working against the election of John Kerry, because if the Times had published before the election, it would likely have swung the race.

Finally, we have Jane Harman asking for the transcripts of her phone calls to be declassified and released.

Here is my older post on this, and try to figure this out.

It’s beginning to read like a John le Carré novel.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Jane Harman

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Let me start by saying that I’ve always thought that she was an anti-civil rights scumbag, so that colors my view of her, but this news is really big.

You can go to CQ politics for Jeff Klein’s story, but the short version is that Jane Harman wanted to be the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and in the process of lobbying various folks to get that position, which ultimately went to Silvestre Reyes, she talked to some member of the Israel lobby who was under a court authorized wiretap because they were under suspicion of being an Israeli intelligence operative, and she said that she would “waddle into” the AIPAC prosecution, and that she wanted them to intercede with Nancy Pelosi on her behalf regarding the Intel committee post.

According to sources who saw the transcript, she finished the discussion with the phrase, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

Certainly, the implication of “interceding with Pelosi,” is that campaign donations were involved, though the article does not make a specific claim of campaign donations for Harman’s action.

This gets more complex because Alberto Gonzalez quashed the investigation of Harman because he wanted her support of the Bush Administration’s illegal wiretap program, she had always been supportive of the program, and the New York Times was finally getting ready to release the story, and they wanted a Vichy Dem to speak for them.

Let’s be clear, there was no indication of a quid pro quo between Abu Gonzalez and Harman, but neither did there need to be one. She was always in the tank on this issue.

I would also note that while Klein suggests that Harman interceded to get the story spiked at the Times in 2004, the editors there have categorically denied this.

I’m not sure whether there was a crime or not. Law enforcement officials seem to think so, but law enforcement officials always think that, as the other Matt notes, “….how many politicians’ reputations could really stand up to serious surveillance? ….. we have a political system that’s substantially powered by a kind of systematic, quasi-legalized bribery.”

He also has the bigger point, which is that politics is messy business, and if you were to wire tap any political figure, you would end up with stuff that is just plain sleazy, because that is how political “sausage” is made.

His best point, however is this:

Thinking about that further reinforces the point that selective, unaccountable surveillance is very dangerous. A president could do a great deal to gin up pretexts to wiretap members of congress and blackmail them even without the members doing anything unusually egregious.

Which really is the big point on why we should all object to the surveillance society.

Meanwhile a friend of John Aravosis thinks that this is all a tempest in a teapot, noting, accurately, that the AIPAC “spies” are not charged with espionage, i.e. acting as an agent for a foreign power, but rather acquiring sensitive government data under the (never used in this circumstance in the past 90 years) 1919 Espionage act:

The heart of the CQ story is incorrect…because Harman wasn’t acting on behalf of Israel. Rosen and Weissman aren’t being accused for spying on behalf of Israel. The CQ story is trying to depict Rosen and Weissman as convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. What Rosen and Weiss did is nothing like what Pollard was convicted of. Rosen and Weissman met with the State Department official on their behalf, not at the behest of Israel or AIPAC. To suggest so is wrong and that’s what stinks about this story. The fact that Stein’s title of CQ’s “Spy Talk Columnist” shows the inherent bias of this story and shows that it is teetering on pure fantasy.

In any case, it’s clear that if she had a normal security clearance, it would be yanked pending an investigation, and that she should never be chairman of the Intel committee, and it appears that Pelosi was aware of this episode, and it may have contributed to her passing over Harman for the position.

A Democrat You Should Not Make Donations To

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Senator Blanche Lincoln (R-AR), who has come out against the Employee Free Choice Act (Card Check).

Not only that, she is clearly signaling that she will support a filibuster.

Not only is this bad policy, it’s also bad politics, since union members vote Democratic, but being from Arkansas, Wal-Mart owns her.

Put your money elsewhere, and give to individual candidates, not the DSCC, which will doubtlessly funnel money to her race in 2010.

Gillibrand Announces Big Fund Raising Quarter

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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) raised in excess of $2.3 million since her Senate appointment.

I think that she is doing this to fend off/scare off a primary challenge from Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY-04), who is now polling ahead of her 33%-29% in the latest polls, though she is still below the magic 50% safe number for incumbents against Peter King, leading 40%-28% in the general too.

I think that Gillibrand will end up moving to the left over the next few months in order to fend of McCarthy, but time will tell.