Here we are deep into the Year of Republican Malaise, and in this year when the Gerrymandered Old Party loses on nearly every issue and has failed the nation, they have nothing better to do but bully the opposition. Bereft of ideas, results or success, the Republican party is now reduced to nothing but bullying thuggery of the worst sort. We saw it in George Felix Allen's "M-Word" meltdown, and now his minions are getting in to the act.
Case in point, Riley.
Tuesday, Riley posted a blog entry, not claiming, but erroneously asserting, that Raising Kaine is in violation of federal election law. For numerous reasons, the lawyers among you will note that this is factually wrong.
Wrong it is. Raising Kaine has made no contribution to the Jim Webb for US Senate campaign: zip, zilch, nada. Nonetheless, Riley considers himself such an expert that he knows better than the FEC or the VA SBE what constitutes election fraud. This isn't an opinion, it's thuggery of the worst sort seeking to use fear to drive Raising Kaine and its supporters away from our freedom to express our support of the candidate we helped to Draft, the candidate we supported through the primary, the candidate we will fight to elect to the US Senate, Jim Webb.
All of this begs the question, "Has Riley gone off the deep end?" Will others follow?
Back in June, Riley alleged that the Not Larry Sabato blog was in danger of a voter intimidation suit, because of a post related to the primary.
Later, the Allen campaign was busted when they emailed partisans to encourage a trumped up discussion of supposed racism at the NLS blog. Mere moments after the suggestion was made, Riley went ahead with this little gem. He's about as independent of Allen campaign tactics as George Felix Allen Jr. or Thelma Drake are independent of the Bush Administration.
Riley is also calling for Lowell to be fired by the Webb campaign, further proof that Lowell is kicking butt and taking names. What a crybaby this Riley guy is.
Clearly, Riley, who in real life is either an attorney or a lobbyist, has a track record of threatening bloggers who don't share his particular brand of politics.
How much are attorneys allowed to threaten people before they can be held accountable? Can they just publicly deride the opposition or should they be held accountable for their ill-conceived political hamfistedness?
Riley is a disgrace.
After speaking with the FEC, it's clear that Riley's latest assertion is just plain ignorant, and just plain wrong.
According to the FEC, if we are not spending money, we (RK PAC) can do anything we want. (http://www.fec.gov/p...)
If we decide we do want to spend money on behalf of Webb, then we have to look at two things:
1) Is it a coordinated effort
2) The amount of money
The amount threshold is set in stone. We can spend $1,000.00 for Webb, but not a penny more, without filing as a federal committee. If we spend over the $1k, then we have to register as a Fed. PAC.
The coordination question is more complicated, but totally irrelevant. If we are coordinating, then Webb has to report it as an in-kind contribution. If we are not coordinating, we are still capped at $1k, but Webb does not have to report it. (http://www.fec.gov/p...)
So, in sum, we are not doing anything wrong because we have not spent a dime on Webb's behalf. If we decide to do that (i.e., Flyers), we can, as long as its not over $1,000. And, since there is obvious coordination, it would be up to Webb to report it as an in-kind contribution. All we have to do is tell them.
The FEC will consider issuing an advisory opinion, but our contact thought it would be silly to ask for one when the rules are so clear.
If the rules are so clear, how is it possible that a Virginia attorney like Riley couldn't understand them? Is this an issue of competence? Is this an issue of malace? Is Riley taking direction from right-wing smearmeisters like Allen Campaign Manager, Dick Wadhams?
Here's some interesting information from one of our most excellent commentors lwumom:
Mr. Riley is certainly not unbiased in his "opinion". After all he is a lobbyist with an organization that is favored by you-know-who.
From Project Vote Smart:2006 Senator Allen supported the interests of the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association 100 percent in 2006.
2004 Senator Allen supported the interests of the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association 100 percent in 2004.2002 Senator Allen supported the interests of the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association 100 percent in 2002.
2001 On the votes that the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association considered to be the most important in 2001, Senator Allen voted their preferred position 100 percent of the time.
National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association also makes campaign contributions...$8000 in the 2005-2006 cycle.
Gandhi said, "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win." Here we are in the third quarter, and I can't wait for the final result.
Well, according to Ghandi, there's only one thing left for us to do.
Sorry if this appears a bit snarky, but if we are going to pick at someone else because of his inaccuracies, don't we need to be sure we are not making mistakes of our own?
thanks ken, it's been a long day.
I googled "Pamela Whitted & NSSGA" and found a couple of pdf documents of her testimony before some House subcommittees. Pamela Whitted is the Vice President of Government Affairs for the NSSGA. I tried to copy the addresses to post here but couldn't. If you want to search, an especially interesting document was titled "(pdf) Statement of...."
Her comments seem to reflect the opinion that the mining industry, which includes rock quarries and such, is suffering from a lack of hourly workers, and from a few overly-paid engineers. She thinks that the government should help to fund the education of mining engineers so that there will be an influx of them and their wages will decrease. But she also states that the educational system, K-12, is more focused on an academic curriculum that encourages college education, which hurts their prospects for workers who will work for next to nothing....my words, not hers, but the sentiment is the same.So, in this one "pro-business" organization, we see an attempt to create more educated workers to drive professional wages down, and to create a less educated hourly work force that will be happy to earn whatever they can get.
This is the organization that George Allen supports 100% of the time.
Thanks for the "excellent" comment, Josh!
what a mess.
Oh, and btw, you are excellent. What an amazing group of commenters we've put together here.
Hats off to our group!
Here's a sketch of part of this network. First to backtrack, I was interested in Paul Bisaro, Barr Labs exec who makes close to a million a year. Remember that Gilmore is also on that board. Bisaro and his wife gave the max to Allen this cycle. They also gave to Virgil Goode and Bob Goodlatte. OK.. so all of these because of a lab in VA.
What drew my attention to Bisaro in particular was that though not all during his tenure, over the years Bisaro has been employed by THREE corporations that have been involved in some scandal or controversy involving ethics or conflict of interest: Arthur Andersen, Winston & Stern, and Barr. AA was the auditor in Enron, W&S just made the news for "pro bono" work to the tune of $20 million for George Ryan.
The point there is not about Bisaro but about the virtually de rigueur ethos in the corporate environment of pushing the legal envelope and perpetually treading its boundaries.
Bisaro also contributed to Norman Semanko. Semanko ran and lost the primary in Idaho. George Allen was an active Semanko supporter and Allen's PAC contributed $3000 (at least) to the race. Semanko was a legislative aide to Craig who along with Allen is on the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
What would motivate George Allen to direct so much attention to that race, and in particular, to Semanko who did not do very well? There's still something missing I think.
Looks like Semanko was in cahoots with big business and the big energy companies to develop energy sources on the Snake River and were looking to reverse the environmental restrictions in order to do it.
No surprise for George Allen...he's always for big business over the environment.
We need to do more research in this area. You're on the right track!
If you look closely, I think it's even possible to make out our own I.Publius.
Note the URL name.
Here's the direct link to the blog--
http://publiusleurop...
So maybe Pubes is actually French-speaking George Allen? Just a theory.
:-)
