[LANMaster]

Sent 28 letters on behalf of defense contractor who pleaded guilty

Link

Democratic front-runner John Kerry, who claims he is not beholden to campaign contributors, wrote 28 letters on behalf of a San Diego defense contractor who has pleaded guilty to illegally funneling cash to the senator's campaign.

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Kerry tried to free up federal funds for a missile system Parthasarathi "Bob" Majumder was trying to build for U.S. warplanes.

The letters, sent from 1996 through 1998, went to members of Congress and Pentagon officials during a period when both Majumder and employees of his Science and Applied Technology Inc. were donating to Kerry's campaign, the Times reported. Dwight L. Morris and Associates, which tracks campaign donations, says Kerry took in about $25,000 from the contractor and his employees during a three-year period.

The paper reports court documents show Majumder told employees they needed to make contributions to members of Congress and later reimbursed his workers with proceeds from government contracts. Majumder's guilty plea was entered last week.

Near all the $25,000 was reimbursed by Majumder, though federal prosecutors say there is no evidence Kerry or four congressmen who also received donations knew of the scheme.

A company in Kerry's state, Millitech, based in Northampton, Mass., had teamed up with Science and Applied Technology Inc. to work on government contracts. The Times reports in the mid-1990s, Kerry visited the San Diego company, and some employees at Science and Applied Technology attended a fund-raiser for Kerry.

"It obviously raises questions about whether the campaign contributions bought action from Kerry," Steven Weiss, communications director of the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, told the paper.

[LANMaster]

[SIZE=]Complaint Filed Against John Kerry with Federal Election Commission over loans and reporting violations[/size]

Judicial Watch
March 1, 2004

Excerpt:

John Kerry for President, Inc. Failed to Report Contribution of Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against John Kerry for President, Inc. for failing to report a campaign contribution that appears to be in excess of legal limits.

A review of the reports John Kerry for President, Inc. (“the Committee”) submitted to the FEC indicates that the Committee received $850,000 in unsecured loans from the candidate, including $100,000 identified as “personal funds.” The Committee also reports receiving $5,539,965.80 from the candidate in proceeds from secured loans.

A loan guarantor is considered a contributor, subject to campaign contribution limits, until the loan is repaid. (See: 11 C.F.R. § 100.52.) This regulation applies to a spouse as well as any other related or unrelated individual. A Boston Herald news article published on February 25, 2004, reports that the official City of Boston property assessment value of the home John Kerry shares with his wife is $6.6 million as of January 1, 2003. The Committee received $5,539,965.80 in loans secured at least in part by the value of the Kerry family home, of which Mr. Kerry could at best have an undivided interest of approximately $3.3 million, depending on the form in which the property is held.

This evidence suggests the Committee failed to report a campaign contribution from Mr. Kerry’s spouse, Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry, to the extent that her property rights in the Kerry family home or any other jointly held property are pledged as collateral for any or all of the secured loans received by the Committee. It also suggests that her contribution is in excess of the $2,000 maximum aggregate campaign allowed by law.


Short Story



Complaint Letter

[eggplant43]

March 3, 2004

Bush Campaign Ads Brought to You by Special Interests; Industries That Give to Bush Get Their Money’s Worth

Public Citizen Report Outlines the Many Favors Bush Has Given Industries That Bundle Money for Campaign

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As President Bush prepares to launch a multimillion-dollar campaign ad blitz, Public Citizen today released a report outlining who helped pay for the campaign ads and what favors they have received during his presidency.

In the report, Bush Campaign Ads: Brought to You by . . . Special Interests, Public Citizen details how much money representatives from key industries – including finance, real estate, communications, energy, health care, and insurance – have helped raise and lists the tax breaks, regulatory changes, legislative favors and plum appointments Bush has given his backers. Many of the beneficiaries of his policies are Rangers and Pioneers, terms Bush gives donors who bundle contributions that total at least $200,000 and $100,000 respectively.

The ads will run on cable networks and will target voters in 17 battleground states. Bush had spent at least $41 million of his campaign money by the end of January; his war chest holds another $110 million. He is expected to raise another $50 million before September’s nominating convention and accept $75 million in public financing for the two months before Election Day.

Public Citizen’s report finds that the 416 Bush Rangers and Pioneers have bundled together at least $58.1 million for the 2004 campaign and that 90 percent of them (374) represent the special interests of America’s corporations.

Public Citizen’s report details how Bush has given tax breaks that benefit the finance industry, made it easier for real estate developers to build on wetlands and in the Florida Everglades, reneged on a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions (pleasing the electric utility and mining industries), increased the amount of public land available for oil and gas exploration and coal mining, filled top Interior Department positions with executives from the mining industry, and aided the pharmaceutical industry by pushing pro-industry Medicare drug legislation.

"When people watch TV this week and see the ads touting President Bush and his record, they should know that major corporations helped pay for those ads," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "More important, they should know that these industries got their money’s worth from Bush administration decisions worth billions of dollars."

Added Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, "This report shows the insidious influence of money in politics. The Bush campaign’s unprecedented fundraising has made this administration more indebted to special interests than any in recent times."

Among the industries highlighted in the report are:


The financial industry. Bankers, stockbrokers, venture capitalists and wealthy private investors have contributed at least $38.4 million to Bush’s campaign efforts in 2000 and 2004 and produced more Rangers and Pioneers than any other industry – 73 who have bundled at least $10.8 million this cycle. Bush’s tax cut dramatically reduced the "double taxation" of dividends, the securities industry’s No. 1 priority. His other major tax cuts benefited the securities industry and its CEOs, who personally will save hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in taxes a year. Social Security privatization, likely to be a top Bush priority in a second term, would shift trillions of dollars of retirement savings to private sector investment accounts.
Real estate developers. The real estate industry has donated $32.2 million to Bush campaign efforts in 2000 and 2004, and 37 real estate developers have qualified as Rangers or Pioneers in 2004, bundling at least $5.4 million. The Bush administration has made it easier for developers to build on wetlands, has attempted to narrow the Clean Water Act so that it no longer covers many ponds, streams and wetlands, and has appointed crusading opponents of the Endangered Species Act to key positions at the Interior Department.
Electric utilities. The electric utility industry has donated nearly $6 million to Bush campaign efforts in 2000 and 2004. In return, in 2000 three industry Pioneers got slots on the transition team at the U.S. Department of Energy. The administration also rewrote a key Clean Air Act rule to effectively neutralize existing government lawsuits against energy companies and prevent future challenges. Bush launched a "Clear Skies" initiative that would dramatically delay emissions reductions and do nothing to contend with carbon dioxide, and has proposed mercury regulations indistinguishable from industry proposals.
Oil and gas. Oil and gas companies gave $15.8 million to Bush campaign efforts in 2000 and 2004. Bush has opened federal land for oil and gas exploration and coal mining, targeted Wyoming’s Powder River Basin for coalbed methane drilling, and required federal agencies to consider how agency rules will affect energy supply, distribution and use.
Mining companies. The mining industry has contributed at least $3.1 million to Bush campaign efforts in the 2000 and 2004 cycles. Mining executives have been appointed to top posts in the Interior Department, and Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency has permitted mountaintop removal for coal mining, is trying to lift a Reagan-era regulation that banned mining within 100 feet of a stream and increased the amount of public land available for mining company waste dumping.

In addition, the administration-backed Medicare bill was a boon to the pharmaceutical and managed care industries, the insurance industry benefited by government agreeing to cover 80 percent of terrorism damages, and media conglomerates have gained from policies encouraging mega-mergers. Click here to view the report.

###

[Paquadez]

Since it costs (totally, i.e. in ALL ways!) millions to become Prez of the USA, howcome suddenly John Kerry is the bad guy and all the others were OK??

Your political history, since the 50s, is littered with illegalities of pols.

Corruption in US politics goes even further back, to the Tammanay Hall days!

So what's new?

Are you saying that Geo W and his Dad are/were whiter than white?

As I have posted, before, ALL presidents, are expected to payback their industrial supporters: viz, Geo W, Halliburton, Bechtel at al.

So why single out Kerry?

We all know that Washington DC is crawling with professional lobbyists, who swap favours for cash and push the special interest groups, defence, oil and gas industry, auto, etc.

Paq

[eggplant43]

And it sickens some of us.

[bassetman]

Isn't there a limit of only 10-20 new threads per day in Random?

[LANMaster]

Yeah. Except for Bush-Bashing threads. You'll allowed a couple hundred of those per day.

[LANMaster]

Kerry Campaign Collected Info On Volunteers
Kerry Campaign Collected Info On Volunteers
Thu Mar 04 2004 10:53:35 ET

Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign used a controversial marketing practice offered by one of the country's three credit bureaus to collect additional information last year about people who, according to the campaign, indicated that they would like to help the candidate in the primaries and caucuses.

ROLL CALL reports on Thursday: The contracts with Equifax Marketing Services worth about $36,000 called for the company to find so-called 'appendages' in its massive consumer database. Appending is a practice that involves plugging bits of information into databases in order to collect e-mail addresses or flesh out consumer profiles. The practice has been widely attacked by consumer advocates, who consider it invasive.

Marketing experts believe Kerry's campaign is the first political committee to make use of the append, a relatively recent innovation that has emerged as retail commerce has increasingly moved online.

Developing....


Shocking!

[Paquadez]

Lan, now tell me that the Republicans won't copy cat!

Paq

[bassetman]

Hehe

[LANMaster]

Democrats exploit loophole to subvert campaign-finance law
Mike McKay
Seattle Times
4.12.04

When McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation was passed into law two years ago, the majority of Republicans and Democrats in Congress who voted for it, and President Bush who signed it, all thought the new law was going to keep unregulated, so-called "soft money" under control.

The bipartisan idea was to restrain wealthy individuals and Washington special-interest groups, with their seemingly bottomless deep pockets, from giving political parties unlimited donations to promote their candidates' campaigns or to tear down their opponents'.

But Democrats knew they would not be able to compete with Republicans in raising "hard money" — legal donations in small amounts from supporters — for the 2004 elections, so they looked for a loophole in McCain-Feingold that would keep their soft-money pipeline open and huge contributions flowing through it.

They thought they found one in the so-called "527s."

McCain-Feingold allows the creation of organizations — named "527s" after the tax code section that spawned them — that can accept soft money for voter registration, "get out the vote" drives and similar programs. These groups are not required by law to provide any information about their fund-raising activities or how they spend those dollars.

So, for the past two years, some Democrats have been setting up murky 527s and filling their coffers with millions upon millions of dollars in unlimited soft money collected from a very small number of special-interest and wealthy contributors. Media reports put the total at somewhere between $300 million to $400 million, with individuals contributing well over $1 million or more.

< full story >

[bassetman]

***************
Democrats exploit loophole to subvert campaign-finance law

Is that like Bush using tax payer dollars to put out "infomercials" about the Medicare Drug Care plan.
BTW he only lied about $150 billion dollars on the cost!

[bassetman]

Originally Posted by Paquadez

Since it costs (totally, i.e. in ALL ways!) millions to become Prez of the USA, howcome suddenly John Kerry is the bad guy and all the others were OK??

Your political history, since the 50s, is littered with illegalities of pols.

Corruption in US politics goes even further back, to the Tammanay Hall days!

So what's new?

Are you saying that Geo W and his Dad are/were whiter than white?

As I have posted, before, ALL presidents, are expected to payback their industrial supporters: viz, Geo W, Halliburton, Bechtel at al.

So why single out Kerry?

We all know that Washington DC is crawling with professional lobbyists, who swap favours for cash and push the special interest groups, defence, oil and gas industry, auto, etc.

Paq

Paq, when you sign up as a NeoCon they give you Rose colored glasses with mirrors so you can only see the past and it looks better!

[LANMaster]

Originally Posted by bassetman

Paq, when you sign up as a NeoCon they give you Rose colored glasses with mirrors so you can only see the past and it looks better!

I am offended by this term.
How dare you.

I expect an apology post-haste.

[Stoner]

Originally Posted by LANMaster

I am offended by this term.
How dare you.

I expect an apology post-haste.

I thought blinders, like used on horses, were the in fashon for followers of the neocon way