no biggie.:upsidedow

now is it making sense?

So where are the links to the stories?

did you read this thread fully, and my reply? :winkwink:

Nevermind, had to refresh thread.

Gfy ;)))))

It's a slippery slope. Do you really want to regulate what citizens can say about candidates?

I think groups telling lies need to be held accountable in court. Those behind the Swiftboat campaign that destroyed Kerry should have been held responsible for their deception.

citizens: no
corporations and companies: yes

You are right, it is a slippery slope. Still, you can't run into a crowded theater and yell fire and not be held accountable. The problem is that suing these guys doesn't always help. Sure you can get some damages and demand an apology etc, but by then the damage is done and what they said may have cost you the election.

Take this as an example. Say you and I are running against each other and I once gave a speech about violence in a 3rd world country where I said, " there are some people that think killing kids is good because it controls the population. We are not those people." That is a pretty clear statement. But you hate me so your group gets together several million and you launch a campaign against me and in it the commercials have me quoted as saying, "...killing kids is good because it controls the population." Now I have to spend the time and money to defend myself. Since it wasn't you that said I can't confront you about it and you can deny any involvement. Many people won't ever see my defense or any apology that might be made and something like that could cost me a lot of votes. It is irresponsible speech.

I think there should be some kind of a committee that pre-screens all political ads and commercials of any type and approves them. The only criteria that must be met is that everything in them is truthful and if you take something out of context you must explain where it came from. People could still spend their money and say what they wanted, they would just have to have make sure they spoke the truth.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Scary - Wonder if the baby pooped when she/he saw Hillary?

Why should everyone else get to but they can't? Because they spent more? I don't get it.

The aren't either. What's the gripe?

The fact that Obama's contributors are limited to the federal maximum of $2300 per person, and that the 527 group that the Clinton supporters are forming could literally raise all $10 million from just one person.

The 527 thing is a loophole in the campaign finance law. McCain-Feingold was passed to ban the unlimited soft money contributions people made directly to political parties so they could run "issue ads"
This new loophole is actually worse than the old soft money, because a 527 group can run an ad specifically for a certain candidate. That was something you couldn't do with soft money.

Anyways...as an Obama supporter, I'm not outraged by this or anything. I kind of expected it....The Clintons never expected the campaign to last this long and they're broke, all of their major donors are maxed out and aren't allowed to donate anymore. This is a way for them to try to keep her in the game.

That being said....here's the problem I have with these groups.
I believe in free speech, but I don't believe in anonymous speech.

I think the American people have the right to know who is paying for these ads. I'm sick of seeing ads on TV against something like a communications deregulation bill and it's paid for by "citizens for telephone truth"....when in fact it's paid for by AT&T or Verizon.

I doubt that anyone involved in organizing the "Swift boat veterans for truth" was actually ever on a swift boat. I also think the people who were vietnam vets who appeared in the commercials were paid to say what they said. (And if we knew that when the ads aired, people wouldn't have paid any attention to them)

When you donate directly to a candidate your name goes on a publicly disclosed donor list. That's not the case with 527's.
Do you think someone out there will actually spend $10 million to get a candidate elected and not want something HUGE in return? We, the voting public, should have a right to know who is indeed those checks.

The first part made so much sense, then you had to go back to being obsessed that someone might do something.

Did I miss something? Is it rumored that one private person is offering $10 million? Did you ever think that maybe they figured it was worth the investment in keeping Obama out of the white house, screw any favors?

All email is valid and cannot be faked by anyone. :1orglaugh

No that hasn't been rumored, and as I said, I'm not outraged by this or anything.

I was making a larger point about very large anonymous donations. The potential for corruption is too great.

If people who gave these ridiculously large sums of money were forced to do so publicly, then it would be almost impossible for the President to "repay the favor" so to speak, because any legislation or regulation which benefited the parties who made the large donations would be heavily scrutinized by the media.

In this case, (and in most cases) sunlight is the best disinfectant. :2 cents:

I guess to me because the lies could effect the election. If a candidate wants to lie, there is no way to stop them other than not voting for them. If they get elected and then we find out they lied, they will usually end up paying the price in the end. Look at the first George Bush. He swore he would not create any new taxes, then he did just that and was tossed out during the next election.

If a group of people want to spend a bunch of money to buy up air time and run commercials supporting their candidate, I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with it if those commercials are going to be full of lies.

Should I just be able to buy a commercial during American Idol that says Hillary Clinton will mandate that every American family only have 1 child and all other pregnancies will be handled by forced abortion? It is a bold face lie, why should that be allowed?

it isn't fair. that's the gripe. like snake said, why can 100 people only give $230,000 to obama's campaign and these 100 give $10,000,000 to clintons (albeit indirectly, but if you don't see the connection here you're blissfully ignorant) it is about fairness and ethics. you seem to be lacking them since you can't wrap your head around this to see why it's not a good idea..

i strongly agree with this. we need more transparency. i would like to see this information listed publicly on a new government campaign finance website - full disclosure. i would also like to see earmarks public, and on the internet, so you can see who asked for money and what it's for. obama is pushing the latter :thumbsup now if he'll support and work to achieve the former, that'd be great.

of course. no one would drop that type of money unless they have a political agenda or want favors returned.

Whatever,Obama will win one way or another.Hillary cannot match Obama anymore.Plus it's better for america to have young president instead old thing like Hillary or Mccain.

Bill Maher was hilarious last night...he said Obama vs McCain is like YouTube vs Feeding Tube. :1orglaugh

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I'm sure it's a waste of time to point out that it's supposed supporters, not Clinton herself.. But be that as it may..

The thing is that if this group is being formed, and even if we go on the limb before the fact and say that they will only support one candidate.. we are left with the undeniable fact that the first person to *use* the group is...... drum roll... Obama. Thats already laid out in the email itself, it's not maybe, or might, or looks like, or sources say.. it's right there in your inbox. They're using it to get support and shine negative light on Clinton.

Now if you dont see the hypocrisy of it all, then I would humbly suggest that maybe you should consider your own objectivity. I see some people get it, supporters of Obama's, supporters of Clinton, McCain, Paul, whoever. Thats healthy!

But you can not get up there and talk about being against politics as usual when your campaign and own record show politics as usual. It's not smart to continue on with playing the voters for stupid chumps. He'll swift boat himself and that'd be a disaster for the general election.

His "present" vote on the bill that would have banned adult stores near schools was politics as usual. His reasoning was perfect; local zoning laws are the proper place to limit or restrict what type of businesses or residences can be erected in a given area. Thats why normally a person would vote "No" on a bill. But he voted "present" and here's why.. Imagine for a second that he'd voted "no".. Clinton or McCain or someone could then come back and say "Obama voted against protecting our children from being exposed to seedy adult bookstores near their school!". So his "present" vote was absolutely politcally savvy, geared entirely for damage control in the future. That my good friends is classic politics at it's finest.

The whole stupid "plagiarism" thing was stupid. But that wasn't the real point. If you saw any pundits talking about it, they were all saying "hey it's normal and commonplace for politicians to borrow lines and talking points all the time!", Yet none of those same pundits actually listened to themselves enough to realise that what they were saying was it's politics-as-usual in the Obama camp!

Supporting someone with zeal and passion is great! But dont be blinded by them to the point where you aren't seeing them. I dont love Clinton or Obama or McCain or Huckabee. But I know bullshit when I see it, and I dont care how much charisma it has or how it looks in a pant suit.. it still stinks. So just do yourself a favor and think independant before you throw everlasting support behind any one of these career politicians.

Wrong. The group (American Leadership Project) was formed on Feb.15 and aired an ad in Ohio on Feb. 20, a day before this email was sent. More have been aired since then. And they OPENLY have declared that they have formed solely to promote Clinton.

That ain't the point. There's no way in hell I will believe that these 100 people just somehow know each other and one day decided they'd get together, throw in a hundred grand apiece, and start filming commercials. That took some organization from someone. Where exactly do you think that someone came from?

I think we have a different definition of "politics as usual". This is still a political contest, after all. What I am against, specifically, is the corruption and quid-pro-quo backroom deals (political favors for large donors) and special interest groups. And to me, the formation of this group is very suspect in those areas.

Why are you so angry? I don't get it...

Because there are no rich Democrats supporting Obama I guess.

Since you seem to be so interested in being objective and seeing all sides of the issue, can you agree that it's ridiculous to expect Obama to do "everything" differently than how any other candidate has done it in the past?

When Obama speaks of ending politics as usual, that doesn't mean you don't use an attack from your opponent or a supposedly shady move by your opponent to motivate your supporters and contributors. He has to raise money to play the game, that's just the way it is.

What Obama means (and has said) about changing politics as usual is not distorting your opponents position. We've all seen that before, a Senator on the ways and means committee votes against eliminating the estate tax on the dozens of different bills introduced every year in his committee, and then his opponent comes out with a TV ad that says "So and so voted for higher taxes 157 times".

He also means changing politics as usual by not demonizing your opponent. That means republicans stop saying democrats hate the military, or support terrorists...and the democrats stop telling old people that the republicans want to steal your social security checks.
Instead of using issues to play gotcha and score cheap points against the other side, he wants to compromise with the other side so things can get done.

THAT, is something I think all of us would like to see in Washington. :2 cents:

Oh hell, just elect me and get it over with.

I'll vote for you!
:thumbsup

Yet what? He sent out a mailer that ruffled her feathers because he told the truth?

Tell me how what was printed in that mailer was false or a distortion of her position.

I don't even know why you bother to read these threads. You obviously don't like either one of the democratic candidates, because at best you're a republican, or at worst you're a racist and sexist and have said repeatedly that neither can win because they're black or a woman, respectively.

Why do you even bother?