It appears that the US attorney scandal is bearing bitter fruit, and that the defense’s suggestions that this was a politically motivated prosecution found favor with the jury as a result. Feiger was found not guilty of felony campaign finance violations.
Unfortunately, once destroyed, faith in the Department of Justice will not come back simply through regime change, so public corruption charges will be difficult to prosecute for many years to come.
You have to love it when in John McCain’s home state, a fund raiser with George W. Bush does not generate enough ticket sales to fill the Phoenix Convention Center:
Sources familiar with the situation said the Bush-McCain event was not selling enough tickets to fill the Convention Center space, and that there were concerns about more anti-war protesters showing up outside the venue than attending the fundraiser inside.
Another source said there were concerns about the media covering the event.
Bush’s Arizona fundraising effort for McCain is being moved to private residences in the Phoenix area……
Hey, my dad has a barn, let’s put on a musical!!!!
Not!!!! Heh!!!
With changes to lobbying rules at the beginning of this yearmaking revolving door payoffs more difficult, the unpleasantness of being the minority party, and the prospect of losing a seat in what was once a safe election, Republican incumbents are retiring in droves, and now it’s reported that this is crippling their fund raising apparatus:
Of the 32 Republicans who have resigned or announced plans to retire, 26 have political action committees known as leadership PACs — which members of Congress typically use to make donations to colleagues facing tough campaigns. Those 26 PACs raised $17 million in the last campaign cycle, but only $5.3 million for this election, a USA TODAY analysis of the latest campaign reports filed in March and April shows.
The bigger picture is that when your fund raising is based on bribery and extortion, which is what Tom Delay’s “K Street Project” was, you can no longer raise money if you lack the power to deliver.
Fee for service also means no fee for no service.
So it looks like he will be relying heavily on party money to make up the difference.
Of course, that means less for Republicans at every level down the chain.
I’m so not crushed by this.
Here’s hoping that Obama does not opt into public financing in the general. He should not, McCain has already shown that he will break the campaign finance law that he wrote without a 2nd thought, so he simply can’t be trusted.
Bush’s voter suppression guru withdraws his nomination to FEC.
This means that the FEC board nominations will likely proceed, and that there will be a quorum for actions to be taken once again.
My guess is that they are increasingly worried that the (completely accurate) accusation that John McCain is in felony violation of the law that defines his “Maverick” status will hit the main stream, so they finally decided to cut him loose, so they can sign off on McCain’s “bungee move” that he used early in the primaries to get a loan for his campaign.
Additionally, it would mean that McCain could not sign up for public financing in the general, and the board would need to sign off that too.
FWIW, the story is starting to bubble up, and he’s not doing well in fund raising anyway, so I think that the Dems should “stand on politics principal” and insist on separate votes for the FEC board members anyway…or at least drag their feet a little bit.
This is interesting. McConnell is still wants the FEC nominations voted on all at once, as opposed to individually, which effectively kills the new nominations by Bush.
Anyone have a clue as to what the heck is going on here? Why is Mitch McConnell dissing the White House and putting McCain in a bind over this?
As long as there are no new nominees, then David Mason stays head of the FEC, and he has been harshing on McCain something fierce, so there are two reasons that I he’s doing this, he hates McCain, or that van Spakovsky has some sort of hold on him.
About 3 months ago, I noted that the NAHB was putting a moratorium on political donations to punish Congress for inaction.
Well, it looks like they are back in the bribe campaign donation business again.
They are claiming that it is because they have a tax credit to lobby on, but in reality I think that it’s because no one in Congress really cared that much.
The lesson to be learned is that members of Congress are less concerned about your donations to them than they about the potential of you donating to their opponent.
First, we have Clinton raising $10 million in the day after the Pennsylvania, and from a few days before, we have reports of significant indebtedness to her coterie of advisors.
This picture is just the amount owed to Penn’s firm, which is money that has been supremely poorly spent.
I think that it is highly unlikely that Clinton will outraise Obama through the rest of the primaries, and so this sh$# needs to stop for her to be viable.
Truth to be told this this sh$# needs to stop for all Democrats.
There is a professional parasite class inside the beltway, and it is paid on commission, so we get too much advertising, not enough ground game, and no interest in being more efficient, since increases in efficiency reduce their paycheck.
Their names are Penn, Shrum, Brazile, Begala, Grunwald, Trippi, etc.
They go on press shows where they puff themselves, and their overpriced consultancies, up and do little for candidates.
They don’t have faces for TV. Mark Penn looks like a bloody poster child for sex without partners.
If there is one good thing about Karl Rove, it’s that when he worked for Bush and His Evil Minions™, he stayed in the background.
These people are part of the corrupt, venal, self serving, elitist, and incompetent DC beltway community, and the elected leaders Democratic party need to put a leash on these idiots.
The Republicans have done so for some time, starting well before Ed Rendell got purged for his walking around money comments.
It’s time for Democrats to start winning because of their senior campaign staff, not in spite of their senior campaign staff.
They are trying to force the Federal Elections Commision to take actions against John McCain for ignoring the campaign finance laws that he opted into in late 2007.
McCain and his campaign are engaging in a felony, and any thought of negotiations with him over public financing are premature until he stops breaking the law.
Barack Obama is looking at opting out of the public financing system for the general election, as he already has in the primaries.
I think that this is a good idea. He’s out raising John McCain to a degree that boggles the mind, but his argument, that because he is raising so much in small dollar donations, he is basically sticking to the spirit of the law, is asinine.
There are a number of reasons that this is stupid. The first is that it’s hair splitting that will have people bringing up his “pledge” on public financing, and the second is that he is missing a line of attack that is useful.
His pledge was not to go onto public financing, it was to enter into negotiations with the Republican nominee on a “fund raising truce”.
What he should have said was, “I would like to negotiate with John McCain about a fund raising truce in good faith, but I find no good faith on his side. John McCain illegally withdrew from the public financing system that he sponsored, and has been committing an ongoing felony since then, using the inability of the FEC to make quorum as a dishonorable cover for his law breaking.”
John McCain and his campaign staff are knowingly committing a felony right now. That’s a fact, and they know it, because John McCain was the guy who wrote the law.
He has a post on the Group News Blog, where he asks the following question:
How come, the Feds didn’t have a clue that this GOP fella took $1 million out of the NRCC? But they busted Spitzer in less than a month.
My answer, because IOKIYAR.
The National Republican Campaign Committee’s treasurer, Chris Ward may have stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from this organization.
Not only did he take the money, but he gave reports showing that they had more money than they actually did, so now they are nearly broke, and involved in an investigation involving forensic accounting.
I’m so crushed.
This has been a time for Schadenfreude.
I may have my difference with Barack Obama, but damn his campaign can raise some serious money.
$55 Million in February.
Clinton outraised McCain in Feb by 3 to 1, Obama by around 5 to 1.
Once they had low taxes, but everyone now knows that the country will fall apart at their desired tax levels.
They had the levers of power, but they don’t any more.
Potential donors are waiting for the party to fix itself, which will not happen this cycle, because step 1 is repudiating Bush.
I might take a bullet for him.
This time, the object of my affection talks about John McCain’s integrety, and says, “He doesn’t seem to have any.”
He was talking about John McCain’s willful violation of campaign finance laws, and his embrace of bigot John Hagee.
Word up. Keep fighting the good fight.
Hillary is reported to have raised around $36 million, Obama somewhere around $50 million, and McCain, just $12 million in February.
This is not pretty for the Republicans. Even the Chamber of Commerce types are not opening their wallets.
It appears that David Boehner is less than impressed with the fund raising of the current Republican Congressional caucus.
You know, if you f*&^ up the country beyond belief, and create a financial meltdown, when you are out of power, business people won’t donate to you, because you are bad for business.
Funny that way…heh.
The Republicans are shocked that their efforts to cover-up illegal telco spying on Americans have gone unrewarded.
Despite their best efforts to get retroactive immunity to pass, they have not seen an increase in donation from phone and internet companies.
This isn’t surprising. The telcos know that immunity is to cover the collective asses of Bush and His Evil Minions™, and that the Republicans will cover his ass regardless of whether or not they donate to Republican campaigns.
You see, the telcos are trying to rent Democrats, because they know that the Republicans are already bought and paid for.
So, the FEC has said that McCain has opted in for the primary, and that unless the FEC approves his petion to pull out, which it cannot because it lacks quorum, he cannot opt out. (here and here)
The WaPo story has the money quote’
This is serious,’ agreed Republican election lawyer Jan Baran. Ignoring the matter on the grounds that the FEC lacks a quorum, Baran said, ‘is like saying you’re going to break into houses because the sheriff is out of town.’
As I’ve said before, if Barack Obama wants an out for the general election, all he has to do is explain that McCain is already violating campaign finance law.
In the matter of inappropriate dealings with lobbyists and their clients, we have broadcast station owner Lowell “Bud” Paxson directly contradicting McCains “no meetings’ statement, and we have letters from McCain threatening the FCC regarding a loophole in regulations that benefited Glencairn Ltd. and Sinclair communications. Glencairn’s lobbyist? Vicki Iseman.
I do not believe that John McCain screwed Vicki Iseman, but I do believe that McCain and Iseman did screw the American public.
Finally, we are starting to see coverage regarding how the national media is in the tank for McCain.
It’s only been 9 years for someone to recognize that.
Michael Isikoff has the goods: McCain’s claims of never talking to anyone from Paxson Communications is false:
A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist.
On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman’s clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station.
Just hours after the Times’s story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response……
But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. “I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue,” McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. “He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint.”
…
McCain’s subsequent letters to the FCC—coming around the same time that Paxson’s firm was flying the senator to campaign events aboard its corporate jet and contributing $20,000 to his campaign—first surfaced as an issue during his unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. William Kennard, the FCC chair at the time, described the sharply worded letters from McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, as “highly unusual.”
So, what we have here at best is what he did with Charles Keating, and now he is lying about it.
You have more details on his ties to lobbyists and wealthy pay-to-play campaign contributors here and here.
The Washington Post notes that McCain’s paid campaign staff is full of lobbyists, which kind of means that when AP Reporter Glen Johnson heckled Mitt Romney about not having lobbyist on staff, he was being unfair and unprofessional.