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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday May 05 2015, @07:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the bureaucracy-at-its-finest dept.

The leader of the US Federal Election Commission, the agency charged with regulating the way political money is raised and spent, says she has largely given up hope of reining in abuses in the 2016 US presidential campaign, which could generate a record $10 billion in spending.

“The likelihood of the laws being enforced is slim,” Ann M. Ravel, the chairwoman, said in an interview. “I never want to give up, but I’m not under any illusions. People think the F.E.C. is dysfunctional. It’s worse than dysfunctional.”

Her unusually frank assessment reflects a worsening stalemate among the agency’s six commissioners. They are perpetually locked in 3-to-3 ties along party lines on key votes because of a fundamental disagreement over the mandate of the commission, which was created 40 years ago in response to the political corruption of Watergate.

 
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by K_benzoate on Tuesday May 05 2015, @07:37PM

    by K_benzoate (5036) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @07:37PM (#179218)

    The first step is admitting you have a problem. At least they're honest about the hopelessness and futility of their situation. It would be worse if they continued to reassure people they would be able to run a clean and proper election despite having given up hope.

    I changed my voter registration back to Democrat just so I can vote for Bernie Sanders in the primary. He actually understands the problems with campaign finances and would work to fix them. We won't make any progress in this country until we cut off the tap of freely flowing money from the private sector into politics. Campaigns should be 100% publicly financed and all donations, fundraising, and 3rd party advocacy above the individual level strictly curtailed. If the Koch brothers want to influence another election they can go door-to-door like the rest of us.

    We need one vote per man, not one vote per dollar.

    --
    Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
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  • (Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Tuesday May 05 2015, @07:52PM

    by Mr Big in the Pants (4956) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @07:52PM (#179229)

    Who is "they"?

    This is on of 6 (albeit the leader) in a stalemate and there will be a reason she has come out "on the side of good". Most likely she will be sidelined and fired in the near future. If she is telling you something you don't already know then you have been asleep at the wheel.

    At best this at least more evidence of the corruption that may (but probably wont) make a few of the cattle stop chewing their cud for 5 secs and pay attention...

  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Adamsjas on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:08PM

    by Adamsjas (4507) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:08PM (#179237)

    So Koch Brothers bad but Soros brothers good?
    I see where you're coming from.
    Shoe doesn't feel so good when its on the other foot, does it....

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by K_benzoate on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:11PM

      by K_benzoate (5036) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:11PM (#179240)

      You haven't caught me out, mate. I don't want any of their money in politics. I don't care what "side" they're on, although I don't hide the fact that I think the extreme Right is more pernicious to society currently because they enjoy a natural economic advantage and are incumbent.

      --
      Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
      • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:32AM

        by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:32AM (#179369)

        The US doesn't really have a left/right divide like other western democracies do.
        Both of your political parties are extremely right wing (economically anyway) compared to the civilized world.

        • (Score: 2) by K_benzoate on Wednesday May 06 2015, @04:31AM

          by K_benzoate (5036) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @04:31AM (#179387)

          I absolutely agree, and nothing I said contradicts that. The Democratic Party is (largely) a centre-right party. The Republican Party is a far-right party. Most Americans are so warped in their understanding of politics that they think the minute differences between the D's and the R's constitute the entire Right-Left divide, instead of a small slice of it on the right.

          --
          Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:15PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:15PM (#179244)

      So Koch Brothers bad but Soros brothers good?

      1. George Soros, last I checked, didn't have a rich brother.
      2. Bernie Sanders is not taking big donations from anybody, including George Soros. If I had to hazard a guess, Soros would by much more likely to be backing Hillary Clinton.

      So nice try, but that line of attack just doesn't apply to Bernie Sanders.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:28PM

        by frojack (1554) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:28PM (#179253) Journal

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Soros [wikipedia.org]

        His rich older brother Paul died in 2013. He too, was something of a Philanthropist, although is public acts of philanthropy amounted to providing graduate scholarships. How he spent his private money was a secret guarded almost as closely as George guards his private spending.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @09:35PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @09:35PM (#179269)

          Well if he is dead then I don't think we need to worry about him contributing too much money now do we.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @07:33PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @07:33PM (#179636)

            Well if he is dead then I don't think we need to worry about him contributing too much money now do we.

            Well, the right will still insist he's voting.

        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday May 05 2015, @09:54PM

          by frojack (1554) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @09:54PM (#179274) Journal

          Didn't read the link did you.

          His son is managing the foundation and the family fortune these days.

          --
          No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @11:34PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @11:34PM (#179291)

            Does it really matter?

            Of the two points that thexalon made, the issue of whether the big money is split between multiple family members is dwarfed by the fact that Sanders is explicitly opposed to taking big money.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @10:18PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @10:18PM (#179279)

        In the first 24 hours after Bernie's announcement, donations to his campaign topped $1.5M.
        The average donation was $43.54.

        Unlike the 4 Koch brothers (trust fund babies) who inherited millions, the working class wealth of the (ethnically Jewish) Soros family was destroyed by the Nazi occupation of Hungary.
        They each had to start from zero after WWII.

        -- gewg_

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Wednesday May 06 2015, @12:40AM

          by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @12:40AM (#179313)

          Soros family was destroyed by the Nazi occupation of Hungary.

          Oh no you didn't. You DO NOT get to play the victim card for George Soros without including that he was a goddamned NAZI collaborator. Google it, 60 Minutes even did a piece on it.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:22PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:22PM (#179551)

            Oh no you didn't. You DO NOT get to play the victim card for George Soros without including that he was a goddamned NAZI collaborator. Google it, 60 Minutes even did a piece on it.

            Thanks. I just did. It is not anything like you made it out to be. Given who you are, that should come as no surprise.

            He was 14 years old pretending to be the (christian) godson of a nazi in order to be protected from the other nazis. His nazi protector made him help confiscate property from jews. You call that collaboration, I call that child abuse.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:44AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 06 2015, @03:44AM (#179375) Journal

          In the first 24 hours after Bernie's announcement, donations to his campaign topped $1.5M. The average donation was $43.54.

          Who did they come from? I don't trust anything that doesn't have a documented source for the donation and a million undocumented small donations can more easily come from a single rich source than a million poor ones.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @01:26PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @01:26PM (#179486)

          gewg money has permeated all levels, to pretend 'your guy' is better than the other guy is ignoring facts at best and being outright dishonest at worst.

          You are a good example of a 'cheerleader'. Someone who does not have a lot of power but will vote party line. Because they have somehow* convinced themselves that 'the other team is a bunch of knuckle dragging twits' (which may be true) while ignoring your own 'knuckle dragging twits'. In fact you use childish name calling to belittle the other team.

          *usually by selectively reading particular things that tweak their pleasure centers in their brain and does not challenge them to say 'what if I am wrong'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc [youtube.com]

          To somehow pretend that ~2 billion per person to elect a president is somehow sane, is pitiful. Why do you think the 24/7 news stations are on about it all the time? Who do you think their customer is? It is the political class (we are the product 'eyeballs' being sold). They are the ones selling air time. It is classic marketing 101. See an opportunity, create demand, get paid. In this case they create demand by using their very stations to whip up into a frenzy the very people they should be informing. The frenzy allows them to sell an ad space time slot for 1.5 million instead of 10k. This is the news stations pay day. It is like the stores around Thanksgiving and black friday. It is basically 0.01%rs tossing 10%rs a bone.

          I have said it time and time again gewg. YOU CAN DO BETTER. You seem smart and sharp. But you take a very narrow view of the world. I am also sorry to tell you you have been tricked and manipulated into your opinions. I have the same issue with my party. It is very hard to tell the difference between opinion pieces and real news. Sometimes they are both. That is what they are using this money for. To trick and manipulate us. It all rolls back to money. Both sides have sugar daddies. To pretend otherwise is silly.

          The stalemate is designed in. Notice there is no other parties involved? Because the two major parties have gerrymandered (named after a democrat) the districts to make sure it stays that way.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @10:37PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2015, @10:37PM (#179692)

            you take a very narrow view of the world

            Nope. My view is the majority view.
            The supermajority view, in fact. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [firedoglake.com]
            (The latest numbers in these are from the Summer of 2011 but USAians have continued their embrace of and shift toward of those supermajority positions.)
            It's YOU who has the marginal views. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [popularresistance.org]

            I really shouldn't expect any more awareness out of someone who obviously gets his "information" from Lamestream Media.

            -- gewg_

    • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday May 05 2015, @09:10PM

      by LoRdTAW (3755) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @09:10PM (#179265) Journal

      Don't put words into other people's mouths.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday May 05 2015, @09:05PM

    by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday May 05 2015, @09:05PM (#179263) Journal

    Sorry friend but talking to women at the shop? You better get used to saying "President Hillary" as its gonna be for the women what it was for blacks and Obama. You won't believe how many women I've talked to that when I ask "So what is it about her policies that you support?" that all you get is blank stares and crickets, ALL they care about is that she has a vag, PERIOD. Sadly that was the exact same thing I saw talking to black folks about Obama in 08 and 12, with the exception that a few of them thought he was gonna "help the black folks" with rent relief or other free programs that of course he had never talked about or even hinted at.

    So folks shouldn't be trying to "get out the vote" this election because I have seen what happens when you get the masses to vote, you get millions who vote for skin color or race or even because they like their physical appearance, whether they would be a good leader? Well that would take actual research into their platform and would take more than 3 seconds, who has time for that?

    --
    ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
    • (Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Wednesday May 06 2015, @11:25AM

      by Magic Oddball (3847) on Wednesday May 06 2015, @11:25AM (#179457) Journal

      If merely being female magically got all kinds of other women to vote for the candidate, one of the female national third party candidates (like the Greens' Jill Stein) would've won by now.

      Conservative or libertarian Blacks largely didn't vote for Obama in 2008; likewise, conservative women won't vote for Hillary if she becomes the Democrat's candidate in '16 as they've disliked her for over 20 years.

      That Obama won the nomination in 2008 demonstrates that women didn't only care about gender. Black people only make up maybe 16% of the US population, so even if a large chunk of them weren't religious conservatives, non-Black (or even just White) women would've simply voted Hillary into the Democrat candidacy.

      In case you've forgotten, the deciding factor for Obama was a mix of his team's groundbreaking use of technology to win over voters, boosted by his own charismatic ability to make voters feel he was their personal ally. They turned potential voters into his personal army of "true believers" thrilled to volunteer to help spread the word or donate to his campaign. Combine that with national sentiment swinging sharply against the Republicans in 2008, and it's not remotely surprising that he won. That's actually well-established and has been studied to freaking death from pretty much every angle, so it's going to return a more trustworthy result than guessing at the motives of someone totally different from you. ;-)

      Right now, "supporting" any particular candidate is meaningless as we're so early in the proverbial game that we don't even know who most of the candidates are. A woman (or man) is likely to say that they favor Hillary simply because they recall liking her in '08; after 7 years, chances are they can't name details about her candidacy right off the top of their head, but they probably can't name five things Sarah Palin did that they'd thought were stupid at the time, either.

      Finally, keep in mind that the minority of people that do vote for her based on gender (or who voted for Obama due to his race) are effectively just counteracting some of the people out there who will (or did) vote against them for the same reasons.

      PS. You made a comment implying Black people voted for Obama due to being on support benefits; I just wanted to point out that according to our government's demographics tracking [statisticbrain.com] as of mid-April, White people take up 38.8% of the rolls and Black takes up only one more percentage point at 39.8%.

      • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday May 07 2015, @07:49AM

        by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday May 07 2015, @07:49AM (#179798) Journal

        Blacks have been outvoting whites since 2012 [cnn.com], and 96% of black voters voted Obama [politico.com], and again I get to actually talk to these people working retail....have YOU done any kind of "man on the street" style polling? I did with black folks in 08 and 12, and I've been doing the same for women and Hillary since she announced and in both its the same story, you ask "What are the policies of this person you like? What is it about them you support?"...crickets. HAND.

        --
        ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by captain normal on Tuesday May 05 2015, @09:17PM

    by captain normal (2205) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @09:17PM (#179266)

    "We need one vote per man, not one vote per dollar."
    Actually at that 10 Billion spending rate, it would be over $850.00 per vote. Of course none of that goes into the pocket of the average voter. It's the PACs, the Madison Ave folks, the media, and the politicians that are lugging bags to the banks. It's total anarchy cause "no cop, no law". The truth is we have the best government that money can buy. A country of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy.

    --
    When life isn't going right, go left.
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @10:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @10:01PM (#179276)

    If the Koch brothers want to influence another election they can go door-to-door like the rest of us.

    Or the voting machines can simply be hacked like when they were preloaded with negative votes for certain candidates. [snagfilms.com]

    Might as well just ask the NSA or FBI who they want to be president.

    Browsing at +1. I don't read/reply to ACs.

    Maybe that's why you're ignorant of the extent of voting manipulation, since you've chosen to allow your perception to be manipulated by social engineering companies and their down-mod brigades full of shills. [digitalnewsasia.com]