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Tag: political donations
Why Do Multi-level Marketing Companies Love Kyrsten Sinema?

Why Do Multi-level Marketing Companies Love Kyrsten Sinema?

Reprinted with permission from DailyKos

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has emerged as the favored candidate of multilevel marketing companies, and it's not because of her statement handbags and dresses, as easy as it would be to imagine her recruiting a group of coworkers or friendquaintances to aggressively pitch said handbags and dresses over a few glasses of red wine.
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'Scandalous' Violations Of Campaign Finance Law By Top GOP Funding Site

'Scandalous' Violations Of Campaign Finance Law By Top GOP Funding Site

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

In 2019, the Republican Party launched its fundraising platform, WinRed, a GOP counterpart to the Democratic fundrasing behemoth ActBlue. And in the 2020 election, according to Daily Beast reporter Roger Sollenberger, WinRed "raised more than $2.24 billion for GOP campaigns and committees." Sollenberger reports that according to campaign finance experts the Beast interviewed, WinRed "has not disclosed possibly tens of millions of dollars in PAC expenses" and "has kept secret the identities of the people and firms who work for it and provide its services."

"According to these experts, based on WinRed's disclosures, the PAC appears to have potentially crossed the blurry lines of federal campaign finance laws," Sollenberger reports.

One of the interviewees for Sollenberger's article was former Federal Election Commission Commissioner Ann Ravel, who described WinRed's filings as "nothing short of scandalous" and "absurd."

Ravel told the Beast, "I can't think of any mechanism or loophole that would permit this. Really. It has the appearance of being, if not outright fraudulent, at least not complying with the intent of disclosure laws. On its face, that's what any reasonable federal auditor would think."

Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, was equally critical of WinRed's filings and told the Beast, "This isn't like anything we've seen on this scale. With the publicly available information we have, it appears potentially illegal."

According to Sollenberger, WinRed hasn't reported many of the types of expenses that ActBlue has reported, such as "transaction fees, travel and meals, Uber rides, rent, administrative costs, communications, legal and accounting work, payroll taxes and bank fees."

"WinRed's PAC claims to pay for none of those things," Sollenberger reports. "Disclosure is the heart of campaign finance law. And if WinRed doesn't disclose its expenses, that means donors, campaigns, regulators and the public cannot see who the organization pays. But according to filings with the Federal Election Commission, the PAC paid a grand total of $1522.55 for the 2020 election. All of that meager amount went to its sister company, a for-profit corporation called WinRed Technical Services LLC, for 'merchandise.'"

Sollenberger adds, "Over the same period, ActBlue — a nonprofit — raised double that amount, $4.4 billion. It reported spending a little over $42 million on operating costs, about one percent of its total. To put that in perspective, WinRed PAC's $1502.55 budget was around 3.57 thousandths of one percent the size of ActBlue's. If WinRed expended one percent of its $2.24 billion — ActBlue's approximate rate — its operating budget would be $22.4 million."

Louis DeJoy

Postmaster DeJoy’s Revealing Reaction To Explosive Allegations Against Him

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Most years, the vast majority of Americans — and probably even political reporters — would be unable to name the postmaster general. But in 2020, Louis DeJoy has become a household name for overseeing a dramatic decline in the U.S. Postal Service's performance, the result of policies that many fear may intentionally or unintentionally interfere with the processing of mail-in ballots during the November election.

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Donors Are Poor Way To Measure Political Support

Donors Are Poor Way To Measure Political Support

To get onstage at the last Democratic debate, a candidate had to have received contributions from at least 225,000 donors. That disqualified Mike Bloomberg. He has only one donor: himself.

That rule sounded nice and democratic with a small “d,” but actually, it is a highly flawed way to measure a candidate’s ability to win a national election. The Democratic National Committee has wisely just removed that requirement from the next debate, scheduled for Feb. 19 in Nevada.

This will almost certainly give Bloomberg a place at the podium in Las Vegas. All he has to do is reach 10 percent in four national polls, and he’s almost there.

Some believe this change was made to help Bloomberg. They may be right. But there was something odd about keeping a Democrat who is obviously a top contender off the debate stage. Recent polls show Bloomberg — along with Joe Biden — best able among Democrats to defeat President Donald Trump.

It’s time to stop dismissing Bloomberg as nothing more than a gazillionaire trying to buy the election. He was a three-term mayor of New York City. That’s a bigger and harder job than any of the other candidates ever held. The borough of Brooklyn alone has four times the population of Bernie Sanders’ state of Vermont. And the differences between New York’s and Vermont’s ethnic, racial, religious and economic diversity can hardly be compared.

Money is money. If buying the election is the concern, then the sums spent should matter more than where funds came from. That would also apply to Sanders. He dropped an astounding $50 million in the last three months of 2019 on his campaign — at least $15 million more than Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg each spent.

Sanders and Warren boast that they take money only from small donors. That seems more democratic but mainly on the surface. Their claims are partly false. Both campaigns have tapped millions obtained from deeper pockets.

The argument that politicians relying on small donations can’t be bought by moneyed interests goes only so far. You could say the same of a multibillionaire who isn’t taking money from anybody.

Even less valid is the case that legions of small donors reflect electability. Sanders has a core of passionate supporters who have contributed nearly $60 million in donations less than $200 in the 2020 cycle. But passion does not necessarily win elections. Votes do. How come Biden, whose fundraising has been pathetic, still does better than Sanders in most national polls — among Democratic voters as well as the general electorate?

Like Sanders, Trump has a cultlike following and has amassed his own mountain of small checks. According to OpenSecrets, in the 2020 cycle, he has raised over $44 million from small donors. Warren raised slightly less.

But now the question must be asked: What about voters who don’t give money to any candidates? If you’re poor, you may have higher priorities for that $25 than a politician’s campaign.

And if you have two jobs and three kids running around, you’re probably not online on political websites hours a day. You’re not at rallies. And if you’re not engaged that way, you probably aren’t being solicited for campaign contributions. But there’s a good chance that you will vote.

Yes, Americans should address the role of big money in their politics. But now is not the time for the Democratic Party to unilaterally disarm. We don’t know how Bloomberg will fare in primaries to come. But there are reasons he currently belongs front and center among the top candidates — and they go beyond his vast fortune.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.