Tropical Storm Isaac isn’t the only force threatening to rain on the Republican National Convention next week.
Democrats are planning to break from the tradition of keeping a low profile during the rival party’s convention, dispatching Vice President Biden to the host city and putting other A-list surrogates on the campaign trail to perhaps steal some of the spotlight.
This tells us that, though Biden had changed his anticipated travel plans to Tampa, he decided to cancel them altogether in light of Tropical Storm Isaac.
Also, I don’t know what this double-secret unwritten rule about the other party supposedly lying low or something during the other party’s convention is all about.
Well, maybe I should clarify that a bit; the Repugs did indeed keep a low profile during the 2004 Democratic Party Convention in which the Kerry/Edwards ticket was nominated (as I recall), but as noted here, that didn’t mean that they weren’t busy gathering material to attack the Democratic ticket (and let’s not forget that the 2004 smear-fest included the disgusting mockery of Kerry’s purple heart citations, as noted here, with that imbecile from Texas with the Band-Aid on her chin forever enshrined as one of the worst practitioners).
And as noted here, Patrick Buchanan put together a fairly detailed blueprint to help the Nixon White House spy on the Democrats during their convention in 1972 (and as noted here, Willard Mitt himself was responsible for mischief in Maine, co-starring the odious Ben Ginsberg of Florida 2000 infamy, and here in Nevada during the recent primary season).
As long as I’m on the subject, though, this provides some links to convention-related material (including the Repugs outlawing abortion under any circumstances as one of the “planks” in their platform, as noted here – a shame some of these nitwits can’t be hit over the head with it), and this provides a bit of a lesson in unintended consequences (seriously, I hope no one gets hurt from that or weather-related misery).
And I think it’s waay beyond hilarious that Willard Mitt Romney and his people won’t even allow this guy the chance to speak a single word.
Three Republican Federal Election Commissioners have found that unions or corporations can compel employees to campaign for political candidates in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.
In a Statement of Reasons memorandum signed on August 21, 2012, the commissioners contend that the United Public Workers union (UPW) was within its legal right to require employees to “provide support for Hawaii Fist Congressional District candidate Colleen Hanabusa’s candidacy in a special congressional election on May 22, 2010.” The case stemmed from a complaint in which two employees alleged that they were fired after refusing “to comply with a UPW request to sign-wave, phone bank, canvass, and contribute to Hanabusa’s campaign.” The GOP commissioners found that current law and regulations do not prohibit employers from requiring participation…
Maybe I’m supposed to say this is OK because Hanabusa is a Democrat, but there’s a larger principle involved here; namely, it is that no union or corporate entity should have the legal right to compel anyone on its membership or payroll to vote in a way that is in opposition to their interests or political opinion.
The three commissioners who said what the UPW did was OK, by the way, are Caroline C. Hunter, Donald F. McGahn II and Matthew S. Petersen. And is it any surprise at all that all three were nominated by George W. Bush?
And as you might expect, this isn’t the first time that the FEC commissioners in question have run afoul on the issue of free speech, IMHO. Here, Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21 criticized Hunter and Petersen for voting not to pursue an investigation against the so-called Economic Freedom Fund. Wertheimer and the Campaign Legal Center alleged that the EFF, a 527 group, “violated the law by failing to register as a political committee and failing to abide by the disclosure requirements and contribution limits that apply to such committees, notwithstanding EFF’s extensive election-related activities immediately prior to the 2006 election.”
In addition, CREW alleged here that McGahn, Petersen and Hunter were “working in concert with Republican campaign finance attorneys and outside groups to undermine election laws and thwart enforcement of what laws remain after the Citizens United decision.”
And as noted here…
In April, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) asked the FEC to close the loophole (by which the identities of Super PAC donors did not have to be identified) for “independent expenditures” (versus “political” expenditures) and filed a lawsuit challenging the loophole for “electioneering communications.”
Last month the six FEC commissioners killed — on a 3-3 vote — a motion to begin consideration of Van Hollen’s suggestions. By law, the agency may have only three members of any political party. By tradition, the president chooses three commissioners and the other party’s Senate leader chooses three. The three Republican appointees — Commissioners Caroline Hunter, Donald McGahn II and Matthew Petersen — were the three “no” votes. The same trio also made headlines last month when they took the view that even coordination between Super PACs and candidates might not qualify as coordination between Super PACs and candidates.
The lawsuit is still pending.
Because of these loopholes, virtually none of the funders behind the Super PAC attack ads in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina will be disclosed until well after the voters there have cast their ballots. And the funders behind 501(c)(4) attack ads may never be known.
So while it was the Supreme Court’s majority that opened the floodgates for corporate money in our elections, it is the deadlocked FEC that is keeping voters from even knowing where that money comes from.
Someday, the legacy of this assclown will truly be dead, buried, and long forgotten. And that day can’t come soon enough.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) began resurrecting some of President Obama’s most famous gaffes on the campaign trail Tuesday, reminding a crowd assembled at a Pennsylvania steel plant of the president’s remark four years ago that some voters are “clinging to their guns and religion.”
“Remember this other time when he said people want to cling to their guns and religion?” Ryan said. “Hey, I’m a Catholic deer hunter, I’m happy to be clinging to my guns and religion.”
Ryan has repeatedly cited his Catholic faith while campaigning in swing states in recent days.
Well, putting aside this concerning Ryan and how he allegedly practices his “faith,” as noted here, I’m beginning to wonder now if what Obama originally said was a “gaffe” after all.
I mean, Ryan just validated Obama’s point, didn’t he?
Does that mean that we’ll now hear an apology from William Kristol and John McCain for their allegations of Obama’s supposed elitism for stating what is plainly obvious (and what Ryan, in a rare moment of candor for him, just admitted – noted here)? Or an apology from Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, George Will, Kevin Ferris or J.D. Mullane, among many others (with the latter claiming that Obama expressed “bigotry” in his remarks, as noted here)?
Or from “Joe Scar,” as noted here?
(Yes, I know – cue the sound of crickets…)
In ’08, then-candidate Obama stepped on a “third rail,” if you will, because, as an African American politician (and, Heaven forbid, a Democrat), you just aren’t supposed to talk about “cultural” issues affecting white people. You…just…aren’t.
Given this, it is a tribute to his consummate political skill (as well as the craven cluelessness of his opposition) that he was subsequently elected to anything whatsoever.
Posted by doomsy 
The Liberal Doomsayer 