Not Elegantly Stated

[ihpguy]

Who says something like this in response to an f-up? Is this one of the first of many aftershocks as the R Money campaign implodes?

His defense includes the request to view the entire tape of which Mother Jones has so far released just a few segments.

Although I much prefer a delicious blowfront, I am waiting and watching for future blowback.

And here is the story of the Eastwooding and Romney acceptance speeches:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81280.html

[MsGuy]

Ahahahahaha...I guess Romney means he's standing by what he said but wishes he had found some way to say it w/o getting the peasants in an uproar.

PS Yesterday I read that article you linked, IHP. It was the best schadenfreude orgasm I've had in a long time. Was it good for you too?

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Netanyahu delenda est!

[Guest hitoallusa]

Please give him some break... I think it's the media making it out of proportion...

[JKane]

Please give him some break... I think it's the media making it out of proportion...

No, I don't think so. Republicans have an entire network that would gladly spend 24 hours a day even on manufactured untrue BS against Democrats / the President. Remember the asshat with the hidden camera at Acorn?

The Republicans and say-anything Romney deserve every fucking minute of this, my only regret in the matter is that Dems may get overconfident and get blindsided by a long-planned dirty trick or that the feeling Obama's already won combined with evil voter suppression efforts actually endanger the outcome.

Not to mention, the Republicans have made it clear they will not allow the president to get a god damned thing done as long as they control the house of even a "superminority" of senators. So a massive route is the only path to the change Americans are finally starting to demand!

[AdamSmith]

Dems may get overconfident and get blindsided by a long-planned dirty trick

With you that the party as a whole may get overconfident. Already some noises out of Obama HQ seem to have been cautioning against this.

But one thing I don't too much fear is that Alexrod and the Chicago machine will not be spending considerable time thinking about just this danger of being blindsided, and how to outfox anything that may be thrown up.

(As, in the Manhattan Project, Oppie specifically put Edward Teller in charge of the, as Richard Rhodes says, "deliciously Tellerian" task of trying to figure out if there was any way the chain reaction could run out of control and ignite the atmosphere.)

[lookin]

So a massive route is the only path to the change Americans are finally starting to demand!

Agree completely, and will add the Supreme Court to the rout necessary to begin bringing the federal government back into the hands of the people. Not "persons", which the Court has redefined to include corporations, but actual people - the 'government by, for, and of' kind of people who used to be the ones who got to decide elections.

If you can spare a half-hour or so, watch the recent Bill Moyers segment on 'The 1% Court' and/or read the article of the same name in The Nation.

If Moyers' opening lines don't concern us, the war may already be lost:

When five conservative members of the Supreme Court handed corporations and the super-rich the right to overwhelm our elections with tsunamis of cash, they moved America further from representative government toward outright plutocracy, where political power derived from wealth is devoted to protecting wealth.

We saw it first in the mid-term elections of 2010, and we’re seeing it in spades in this year’s elections – organized money, much of it dark money, given secretly So it can’t be traced, enveloping the campaign for president, Congressional campaigns, and state legislative and judicial races. There’s never been anything like it in our history – not on this scale, and not this sinister.

[MsGuy]

We saw it first in the mid-term elections of 2010, and we’re seeing it in spades in this year’s elections – organized money, much of it dark money, given secretly So it can’t be traced, enveloping the campaign for president, Congressional campaigns, and state legislative and judicial races. There’s never been anything like it in our history – not on this scale, and not this sinister.

Only thing I disagree with there is the we're seeing it in spades part.

It's early days yet for the corporate plutocracy. They're still cautiously feeling out the new avenues that the Citizens United decision opened for them. They're experimenting with the best, most effective way to organize their spending. They're still leery of possible backlash if they're caught stuffing the ballot box with benjamins. They've yet to move decisively to take control of state legislatures (like Long said, you can buy 'em and sell 'em like sacks of potatoes).

For instance, it's still a rarety for an industry to set up well funded false fronts and go after individual congresscritters and senators that persist in aggravating them. Wait until (say) the Bituminous Coal Association ponies up $30 million & has a flock of sock puppets take down some enviromentalist congresscritter from Delaware on locally controversial issues like ear-marking, abortion, gay marriage, the location of an interstate interchange, any old thing will do; BCA doesn't have to care one whit about the specific issues or be identified with the sock puppets any any way; they can just use material supplied by high end political consultants to get rid of the guy.

How many other c-critters will be terrorised into silence after seeing good ole Joe go down in flames? LOL, the halo effect is a freebie! You and I may never know what the BCA was up to but Joe's surviving buddies in congress will sure as hell know who put the bullet through his skull..

Remember we're talking direct payments from the corporate treasury here; the executives don't even need to use their own money. $30 mil is chump change to a Fortune Five Hundred corporation. It's lost in the rounding off process in the P&L statement.

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And Netanyahu delenda est!

[lookin]

They may not be as far behind as you think. While direct corporate donations to Super PACs can be spotted through timely disclosure rules, such rules do not apply to trade associations which must identify contributions only once a year, long after their influence has been felt. The disclosure rules do apply to trade unions, however, so the trade associations enjoy a level of opacity available to few U. S. citizens or organizations. So much for free and fair elections.

If you have the stomach for another article, try this one. It documents how the American Petroleum Institute scuttled any hope of passing climate legislation, even as the world endured unprecedented weather events. The API, only one of many trade groups flexing its muscle across the country, represents not only U. S. corporations but also outside interests like Saudi Arabia, whose Saudi Refining Inc. chief executive sat on the Board of the API as it was funneling money into Washington in 2010.

In fact, 2010 was the first year in which spending by outside interests overshadowed spending by all political parties combined. The sources of the trade-group spending did not become apparent until well after the 2010 elections and legislative actions, just as we will not see who contributed to this year's elections and legislation until 2013.

Another article in The Nation estimates that, since the Citizens United ruling, these 'trade associations' have increased their spending ten-fold and will reach nearly $800 million this year.

And, as you say, these are the early days of the shift to a corporate plutocracy. What Bill Moyers characterizes as 'seeing it in spades' is not inconsistent, in my opinion, with the likelihood that we will be seeing it in steam-shovelfuls if we don't find a way to intercede.

[AdamSmith]

I wonder how difficult it is to reach the roof vents for the Justices' conference room.

Or, rather, certain specific chambers.

[MsGuy]

If you have the stomach for another article, try this one.

If you can link it, I can stomach it, lookin.

Please note, however, however sneaky and anonymously the API operated, at least it utilized attack ads featuring issues connected to the interests it sought to advance.

I foresee, in the not too distant future, corporations will discard this artificial constraint. The ultimate stealth campaign: survey the target's district for random hot wire local issues and fire away from a multitude of false fronts. No way to connect 'Citizens Against the I10 Interchange' to Merc Pharmaceutical but another vote for generic drugs goes down all the same.

Come to think about it, that's not all that much different from those 'independant' expenditures echoing Romney's "Times are hard and Obama, bless his heart, aint up to the job." Don't talk about what you'll be wanting from Romney, just take whacks at Obama.

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Netanyahu delenda est!

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Maybe I should change that to Citizens United delenda est! At least Netanyahu is out in the open about his goals.