32 Comments

1. Canucklehead:

If there are any FEC rules developed, Patterico’s pledge is the appropriate way to “Fisk” the rules and determine just what those rules mean… I mean interpreted… I mean enforced… I mean amended… I mean swept away like prohibition.

Mar 17, 2005 - 8:13 am 2. TigerHawk:

If Iraqis can stand and defend their freedom in the face of suicide bombers, the least we can do is risk prosecution. I doubt it will come to that, but there may come a time when a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do: litigate.

Mar 17, 2005 - 9:18 am 3. ambisinistral:

If that stupid law passes I’ll start a blog and pack it full of political comment to so my contenmpt for the effort to suppress speech.

Of course, in all honesty, that wouldn’t really much of a sacrifice on my part since nobody in their right mind would ever visit a political blog by me, but hey… it is the thought that counts.

Stupid, stupid, stupid notion by the FEC.

Mar 17, 2005 - 9:24 am 4. ambisinistral:

Err… should be “show my contempt” in the above post.

Cruddy typing and proof-reading is my forte.

Mar 17, 2005 - 9:26 am 5. Robert Schwartz:

Roger: to get you, they have to take me down first.

Mar 17, 2005 - 9:36 am 6. Knucklehead:

Ambi,

Excellent idea. Create a blogswarm on amphetimines for the dimwits to deal with. Anyone know what color the blogoshpere is? How do we get photos of some hot blogospheroids of the appropriate hormonal persuasion? Can’t have a popular uprising anymore without a color and some babe photos.

Mar 17, 2005 - 9:41 am 7. Carol_Herman:

Me,too!

Funny, the stupid politicians would give all of us old authority busters yet another cause to March on Washington for. You’d think they’d be scared silly of LBJ’s ghost. But, noo-o-o. They’re ripe for another SWARMING. Count me in!

Besides, I want to be cuffed to Beldar when the police come looking for the weak links in the chain; to drag off to prison. I’ll be in my jammies. And, slippers. And, I’ll be real easy to take. (Heck, I was at Woodstock. I know what to expect.) Heck, this scoots up to the top of my list in importance!

Mar 17, 2005 - 9:44 am 8. ambisinistral:

knucklehead,

Hotness will not be a problem. This is the internet… anybody can be a hot 18 year old female lingerie model.

Mar 17, 2005 - 9:49 am 9. Rick Ballard:

I would urge anyone with an interest in this matter – the FEC and McCain/Feingold – to read this New York Post article (via Powerline). I find the fact that Treglia made these statements to a group that included many journalists to be of particular interest. Gramsci would be particularly pleased.

Has anyone ever seen McCain walk and chew gum at the same time? A “reform movement” designed to throttle free speech, how lovely. This admission by Treglia needs to be trumpeted and the tape needs to be available netwide.

I’m going back to my “support freedom – punch a journo” mode. What vile slime.

Mar 17, 2005 - 10:06 am 10. Knucklehead:

Rick,

Thanks a mil for pointing to that article. Astonishing stuff in there.

Treglia’s revelations help put in context a report just out from a group called Political Money Line, “Campaign Finance Lobby: 1994-2004,” which follows the money behind campaign-finance reform.

That cash, it turns out, was the one thing about the “movement” that was masssive: From 1994 to 2004, almost $140 million was spent to lobby for changes to our country’s campaign-finance laws.

But this money didn’t come from little old ladies making do with cat food so they could send a $20 check to Common Cause. The vast majority of this money ó $123 million, 88 percent of the total ó came from just eight liberal foundations.

These foundations were: the Pew Charitable Trusts ($40.1 million), the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy ($17.6 million), the Carnegie Corporation of New York ($14.1 million), the Joyce Foundation ($13.5 million), George Soros’ Open Society Institute ($12.6 million), the Jerome Kohlberg Trust ($11.3 million), the Ford Foundation ($8.8 million) and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($5.2 million).

So, why on earth was CFR so darned important to these “foundations”? Oh, yeah, how could I forget – its for the good of the unwashed masses.

But where was the brilliant, well trained Fourth Estate looking out for the interests of the ignorant unwashed masses? Oh, I forgot, they sideline as the Fifth Column.

The press as a whole, of course, wasn’t bought off. But most journalists were either too ill-informed or too unconcerned to figure out the fraud.

Back to the videotape, where an unidentified (but apparently sympathetic) individual asks Treglia: “What would have happened had a major news organization gotten a hold of this at the wrong time?”

“We had a scare,” Treglia says. “As the debate was progressing and getting pretty close, George Will stumbled across a report that we had done and attacked it in his column. And a lot of his partisans were becoming aware of Pew’s role and were feeding him information. And he started to reference the fact that Pew had played a large role in this ó that this was a liberal attempt to hoodwink Congress.”

“But you know what the good news is from my perspective?” Treglia says to the stunned crowd. “Journalists didn’t care . . . So no one followed up on the story. And so there was a panic there for a couple of weeks because we thought the story was going to begin to gather steam, and no one picked it up.”

Treglia’s right. While he admits Pew specifically instructed groups receiving its grants “never to mention Pew,” all these connections were disclosed (as legally required) in various tax forms and annual reports. “If any reporter wanted to know, they could have sat down and connected the dots,” he said. “But they didn’t.”

So shame on Pew for undertaking a sustained campaign to mislead the public and Congress. And shame on all of the journalists who let them slide.

Above all else, looking ahead: Shame on any news organization that lets the campaign-finance-reform lobby keep on portraying itself as a “movement” now that the facts have come out.

Now we’ll see if sunlight is indeed the best disinfectant.

Indeed.

Mar 17, 2005 - 10:50 am 11. Rick Ballard:

Knuck,

Reynolds is now linking to Ryan Sager’s site where you can watch Treglia (via nicely arranged vid clips) explain how to drum up a “march through the institutions”. I applaud Sager’s courage in doing this. I don’t think the jschool profs are going to speak highly of his pulling back the curtain to let people see what “mainstream journalism” is really all about.

I’d like to see a list of the suckup sycophant journos who attended this conference. It would be nice to hear why they didn’t think that a phony lobbying campaign wasn’t worth an article or two.

Mar 17, 2005 - 11:02 am 12. Dishman:

Yea, I’d fire up my own blog…

and I’d be pretty nasty towards McCain.

McCain’s up in 2006, isn’t he?

He might have a rough time.

Mar 17, 2005 - 11:05 am 13. Knucklehead:

Rick,

I just discovered that a few moments ago. The sight feeding the video seems to be instalanched and I haven’t been able to see any of the video yet.

Mar 17, 2005 - 11:05 am 14. Rob:

OK, I have sworn.

Mar 17, 2005 - 11:07 am 15. Rick Ballard:

Knuck,

The NY Post has downloads as well as a partial transcript. I believe that we will see some Congressional hearings on this (once they realize what suckers they’ve been and determine who to blame). This may even lead to repeal.

Mar 17, 2005 - 11:41 am 16. ahem:

Rick: The word, ‘repeal’ has a nice sound to it. This may be the George Will column mentioned in Sager’s article.

Quote:

“Do you find the McCain-Feingold speech rules vague and confusing? There are two ways to be safe from criminal prosecution. Avoid mentioning a congressional candidate. Or seek an advisory opinion from the FEC about whether the speech you want to engage in is criminal.”

It’s time to press for repeal.

Mar 17, 2005 - 11:53 am 17. Brown Line:

In my youth in the 1960s, we had a slogan: “War is too important to be left to the generals.” If this is true (and I think it is), then it’s certainly true that information is too important to be left to the journalists.

That being said, many thanks to the journalists at the NY Post for this story. It’s in the finest tradition of their profession.

Mar 17, 2005 - 11:53 am 18. erp:

Must you have a blog in order to sign up?

I like reading and commenting on lots of different blogs and have no desire to start my own, but if necessary, I’ll set one up if only to affirm my intention to say and write whatever I want, whenever I want and to whomever I want.

Off subject, but no less mind-bloggling: McCain, the Despicable, voted against ANWR drilling. I hope there’s a real Republican in Arizona ready and willing to take him down at the next election.

Mar 17, 2005 - 12:02 pm 19. Knucklehead:

A question for those more familiar with the legal ins and outs of M-F and CFR in general…

Is the sort of financial “transparency” that folks like opensecrets.org can get at a result of M-F? If so, then at least it has what seems to me one good result. Is it possible to do away with M-F and still know who is givening how much money to whom to say what?

Mar 17, 2005 - 12:09 pm 20. Mark_Belt:

I’m firing up a “protected” blog: Nudedancingflagburner

Mar 17, 2005 - 12:11 pm 21. Carol_Herman:

I thought McCain just won in Arizona. As he ran unopposed. It seems the dems didn’t want to put up a candidate. Too bad, some ambitious fella doesn’t just go out and change his last name to “dog” … And, his first name to “Any.” If the guy has good grey hair he doesn’t even have to add: Old.

Guess what? Just fork over the money to run as an Independent. Do nothing else.

Wait for the ballots to be printed.

And, there ya go. McCain versus Any Dog. Where would you drop your vote, now?

By the way, as people get together and talk to each other on blogs; it may be a good thing to start noticing that the parties choose NOT TO OFFER competition.

Did you ever think that Guiliani was pulled off his senate run against Hillary (in ‘00. Or as I call it: “uh oh”) And, the pretty boy Lazio got the shot. Either this was a stunt because some dang fool insider, in NY State’s republican party thought she would have lost to Guiliani … And, the knives when out for his back. Like in: “Rudy, Pataki doesn’t like you very much.” Or, somebody really dumb thought she’d lose under any and all circumstances; so they sent in the kid with the hairdo.

Any Dog, again, would win the race against dudes like John Edwards. And, Rick Lazio. Let me tell ya.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful it its real cheap to scare up enough signatures to apply for a ballot slot? Think of the Net. And, how signatures can be captured just by asking?

The other pet peeve I have is to see judges going up for re-election, without any comptetition at all. Why can’t we have a slot that says, “NO, TO THE ABOVE.” Yeah. I know. We’d throw too many races away from the incumbent. And, then someone would have to go out and fetch “any old dog.”

Mar 17, 2005 - 12:46 pm 22. Dishman:

Carol, you’re right, McCain’s term runs through 2011. We may be limited to scuttling his presidential ambitions.

Mar 17, 2005 - 1:05 pm 23. Rick Ballard:

“Is the sort of financial “transparency” that folks like opensecrets.org can get as a result of M-F?”

Umm, Knuck – take a look at the major funders of Open Secrets and compare it to the list in the Sager article. Amazing, isn’t it. Somehow my trust in foundations (what very little there ever was) has evaporated.

The fact that MF is now law is clear evidence of failure by all three branches of government. McCain got rolled by the libs and Dems, W suckered himself into thinking the Supremes would strike it down and the Supremes decided that free speech wasn’t that big a deal. What a collection of clowns. We could do better with the first 545 names in the Omaha phone book.

Mar 17, 2005 - 1:40 pm 24. Carol_Herman:

Dishman, McCain, if he’s still alive in ‘08, will aim his sites at the DEMOCRATIC presidential nomination slot. So, it’ll be interesting to watch McCain and Hillary now bounce around together. Fighting for who gets the top bunk. And, to whom falls the bottom.

Of course, as my mom would say, “man plans and God laughs.”

In the meantime anyone interested in being touted as running as Any Dog? We all have a dog in this race, no?

Mar 17, 2005 - 1:49 pm 25. lindenen:

Reading that NYPost article has made me nauseous.

Mar 17, 2005 - 2:04 pm 26. Knucklehead:

Rick,

I wish you hadn’t pointed that out to me. I suppose I should have wondered who the heck funded OpenSecrets (well, the Center for Responsive Politics or whatever they are) but I didn’t.

Dang. Those insidious moneyed moonbats have their slimey tentacles everywhere!

There’s another gang that tracks who gives what to whom but I’ve lost track of them. I think it was Terrye or one of the other fine ladies here at Roger’s place who pointed to them oh, so very, very long ago (that eternity since before November 2).

Mar 17, 2005 - 2:05 pm 27. lindenen:

Am I the only one confused by why more people aren’t talking about that NYPost article? Is there some place people are talking about? Any links?

Mar 17, 2005 - 7:01 pm 28. Les Nessman:

Rick :

“I believe that we will see some Congressional hearings on this (once they realize what suckers they’ve been and determine who to blame).”

Oh, I think they knew all along, or at least had a clue, as to who was pushing this fake ‘grass roots’ support for CFR. They just didn’t care, since it helps them stay in office.

That said, I hope that there are hearings on this fraud upon the American people. My jaw actually dropped while reading that NY Post article. It’s an explosive piece; or at least it should be.

Mar 17, 2005 - 7:02 pm 29. Les Nessman:

lindenen

Exactly. This Post article seems worthy of a major MSM investigation.

Anyone have a number for FOX News?

Perhaps Roger has some thoughts on this? (hint,hint)

Mar 17, 2005 - 7:10 pm 30. Rick Ballard:

Lindenen,

Bill Quick has a short piece up on it. Oddly enough, neither Jarvis nor Kaus nor Drezner nor Rosen nor Romenesko mention it. Must not be newsworthy, I guess. Or perhaps one needs to belong to the phylum Chordata.

Mar 17, 2005 - 7:40 pm 31. richard mcenroe:

I don’t recall being asked whether to turn the FEC into the Lord Chancellor’s office. I will give up political blogging when they pry my mouse from my cold dead fingers.

Mar 17, 2005 - 8:26 pm 32. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

As far as I can tell, John McCain will always win in Arizona. Our sizeable Democrat minority will vote for him, and enough republicans to put him way over the top.

Not only does he not understand the first amendment, he also seems to have a great amount of humility. Not.

[Pictures from his Phoenix Office, first floor of building where my office is on fourth (top) floor. Sorry 'bout the focus.]

Mar 18, 2005 - 12:47 am

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