"The Supreme Court reentered the controversial field of campaign finance Tuesday, agreeing to consider a Republican challenge..."

"... to decades-old limits on the total amount a person can contribute to candidates, political parties and political action committees."

"A lot of politicians use political donations as lifestyle enhancements—getting work done on their homes, taking fancy vacations, etc."

Says Andy Shaw of the Better Government Association, a Chicago-based good-government group.

“At the very least they’re bending the rules of campaign finance and sometimes they violate them blatantly. Unfortunately the IRS and state election boards are stretched too thin to investigate. But if you end up under the microscope of the U.S. Attorney that all changes … Jesse Jackson Jr. is not an outlier here, but he’s the one who got caught. There are a lot of politicians who are probably saying ‘there but for the grace of God go I.’”

Chicago politics... another federal prosecutor persecuting somebody... what angle do you want to take here?

A slice of Wisconsin politics.

I framed this screenshot from the lead article at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel webpage:



Meade sent me that link and highlighted the quote: "A few dozen protesters gathered in the rotunda, and their shouts were at times barely audible inside the Assembly chamber during the address."

Wistful echoes of 2 years ago, when thousands of protesters jammed the Capitol and banged drums and chanted for weeks on end.

Meanwhile, in the sidebar over there:

Feingold calls for legislation to rid election campaigns of corruption

And I call for peace on earth and goodwill toward men.

That second sidebar link — "Man arrested at Capitol had earlier run-in with police" — refers to something that is also in the Scott Walker article: "In one surprise at the Capitol Tuesday, police arrested a 20-year-old Milwaukee man for entering the building with what he claimed were Molotov cocktails in his backpack.... So far, however, no evidence has turned up that Smith knew about Walker's speech or was targeting it specifically."

Random Molotov-cockery, not necessarily Scott-Walker-related.

"Time honors Sandra Fluke as 'Person of the Year' finalist."

That's the Breitbart headline for an item that begins "Just when you think Time magazine can’t make any more of a mockery of itself...." But there are 40 individuals on Time's "Who Should Be TIME's Person of the Year 2012?" which gives readers a chance to vote. Included on this list are many minor newsworthy figures and many whose contributions were not clearly positive. Bashar Assad and Kim Jong Un are on the list — "honored." Nice by not really world-changing figures like gymnast Gabrielle Douglas are included.  The click-through gallery is in alphabetical order, and the first picture that hits you is a conservative old white guy, Sheldon Adelson. Now, he's not presented in a positive light:

In the post-Citizens United era, Sheldon Adelson became the public face of what critics cast as a plutocrat class trying to buy U.S. elections. But it's not clear how much the conservative casino magnate got for his money — other than a heap of bad press.

Time's perspective is obviously liberal, but within that perspective, it's quite a concession to say that Citizens United hasn't been a horror show.

Anyway, Time made an effort to amass an interesting list of people who made the news for different reasons or who represent different cultural and demographic sectors. There's E.L. James and Jay-Z and Psy. Did they "influence the news" (Time's stated standard)? The real problem here is that it seems that Barack Obama is the necessary choice for 2012, and that's simply too boring.

And in fact, he is not winning in the readers poll. The readers have decisively chosen Malala Yousafzai. She has the least negative votes ("no way") and is coming in 3d on positive votes ("definitely"). Ahead of her on the positive list are Mohamed Morsy and — I guess the vote-for-the-worst crowd is out in force — Kim Jong Un. Malala Yousafzai is the face in the gallery that makes your heart zing. I clicked through the whole thing without feeling like hitting a definitely/no way button until I got to her. I still didn't vote, of course. (My female heart is well-defended against the outreached arms of commercial media.)

Sandra Fluke's no votes far exceed yes votes —  24,809/9,356  — but I would guess that outrage from the Breitbart crowd will now skew the vote. I don't know which way, but for Time, traffic is traffic and it will experience a nice boost from the inclusion of Fluke. The "Person of the Year" event — and this post gets my "annual nonsense" tag — is a nice commercial gambit for Time. So:

Who made a mockery of itself?
	Time
	Breitbart.com
	Both
	Neither
pollcode.com free polls

Isn't it heartening that $3 billion was spent on the presidential election?

Each major-party candidate's campaign spent $1 billion and there were also over $1 billion spent by outsiders to the campaigns. But I'm looking at the bright side, which is hinted at by the headline for the NYT article on the subject: "Little to Show for Cash Flood by Big Donors."

So much money is spent that no one is big enough to be big. Everyone — all the way up to Sheldon Adelson, who dumped $300 million into the ocean of money — is diluted into smallness.

More speech is the classic remedy for whatever is considered the bad speech in the marketplace of ideas. Think about whether more money can work as the remedy for whatever you're thinking is the bad money in campaign finance.

"Mitt Romney and the Republicans began October with a $34 million advantage over President Obama and the Democrats..."

"... according to disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday and Saturday, as heavy spending by Mr. Obama offset his stronger fund-raising in the past two months."

The "and the Republicans/Democrats" language is important. The Obama campaign, specifically, has much more money than the Romney campaign. The filings show $99 million for Obama and $62 million for Romney. But that doesn't stop the Obama campaign from emailing me today to try to scare me about the other side's "$34 million cash advantage." No mention of Obama's $37 million advantage.

ADDED: The Obama campaign's advantage over the Romney campaign — calculated as a percentage — is far greater than the Republican Party's advantage over the Democrats. The Republicans had $183 million, compared to the Democrats' $149 million. The Republicans began October with 23% more money than the Democrats, but Obama began October with 60% more than Romney.

"Ann, I'll be blunt."

Emails David Axelrod.

They are trying to buy this election, and we're the only ones who are standing in their way. Don't wait any longer to take ownership of this campaign.

I.e., send them money. Because they want to outbid the others who are trying to buy the election.

"Bombshell: Obama.com Owned by Bundler in Shanghai with Business Ties to Chinese Government."

"In an explosive report set to send shockwaves through official Washington, the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) released a 108-page GAI investigation into the threat of foreign and fraudulent Internet campaign donations in U.S. federal elections...."

The unusual Obama.com website redirects traffic directly to a donation page on the Obama campaign’s official website, my.barackobama.com, which does not require donors [to] enter their credit card security code (known as the CVV code), thereby increasing the likelihood of foreign or fraudulent donations. The website is managed by a small web development firm, Wicked Global, in Maine. One of Wicked Global’s employees, Greg Dorr, lists on his LinkedIn page his additional employment with Peace Action Maine and Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights. According to the GAI report, 68 percent of all Internet traffic to Obama.com comes from foreign visitors.

 ADDED: "By the way, Obama’s incredible $181 million take in September was especially notable because only 2% of it was reportable...."

"France to close embassies in fear of cartoon backlash."

In 20 Muslim countries. The cartoons, published today in a satirical French publication called Charlie Hebdo, "show the Prophet Mohammed naked and refer to the incendiary US-made film which has been fueling deadly unrest among Muslim communities for over a week."

ADDED: This post and the earlier post today about David Letterman saying "You haven't seen me naked" to Barack Obama make me want to quote this verse from an old Bob Dylan song:

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

Hundred dollar plates? Man, that really is an old song. After the Letterman interview, Obama attended a $40,000-per-plate dinner!

Letterman says to Obama "You haven’t seen me naked," and Obama responds "We’re going to keep it that way."

They also talked about how "great" Obama looks, how "good" he feels, how much he weighs, and how "sharp" he looks. The 2 guys had to talk a lot to fill up the entire show. They talked about the 47% thing of Mitt's...

“If you want to be President, you have to work for everyone,” Obama said. “This is a big country. And people disagree a lot. But one thing I’ve never tried to do and I think none of us can do in public office is suggest that because someone doesn’t agree with me that they’re victims or they’re unpatriotic.”

Did Mitt say anybody's unpatriotic? No. Here's the full transcript of the "secret" Romney speech to donors. The word "unpatriotic" (or "patriotism" or "-patriot-" anything doesn't appear.) Did Romney call people "victims" because they "don't agree" with him? No. The word "victim" appears like this:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. 

He doesn't call them victims. He calls them "dependent" and says they "believe that they are victims." Obviously, Romney thinks they are wrong about that. And Romney's not calling them dependent because they don't agree with him. He's saying because they are dependent, they take the political position that says they are entitled to what they've become dependent on, and therefore they'll vote for Obama. I'm not saying Romney's right about all those things. Surely, some people accept government benefits that they qualify for — like unemployment compensation — but would prefer a government that doesn't provide such lavish benefits and might give conservatism a chance if they heard it explained well. I'm just saying Obama distorted what Romney said in the "secret" video. 

But as long as I'm being technical about rhetoric: Obama's distortion appeared in a statement about what he himself has "never tried to do" and that no one in public office should do. He doesn't say and this is what Romney did. So he has deniability. That was elegantly done, because you don't realize that he didn't directly say what it feels like he said. And yet he got the distorted accusation into your head. He made you feel that Romney said something he didn't say: Romney cruelly and falsely called the people who don't agree with him unpatriotic and victims.

After the Letterman taping:

Obama attended a cash grab at the Waldorf-Astoria, where about 200 deep-pocketed Dems paid at least $12,500 per family. Last stop was Jay-Z’s Chelsea hotspot, the 40/40 club, for a $40,000-per-plate affair that was expected to net $4 mil.

The President took the stage with “Jay-Z and Beyoncé, who wore a red dress....

He compared his upbringing to that of Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s.

“We remember what it was like not having anything,” he said. “We know people just as talented as us who didn’t get that same break.”

If you're successful, you got a "break." Plenty of people are "just as talented" — do they work hard? — but unlike Jay-Z and Beyoncé and Obama, they just didn't get lucky. That sounds a lot more like calling them victims than what Romney said.

If anybody's really listening.

Email from Beyonce Knowles: "I don't usually email you."

True!

Jay and I will be meeting up with President Obama for an evening in NYC sometime soon. And we want you to be there!

False!

Michelle Obama sends me email, saying "Ann, thank you."

That's the subject line. Inside, she continues this way:

Ann --

I know your life is full -- with work, or school, or family -- and yet you still find the time to help out when you can.

You may have a tight budget, but you give what you can afford.

A woman recently told the campaign her family skipped a pizza dinner at their favorite place so that they could make a difference in this election.

That is the commitment that drives this campaign.

If you can support Barack with a donation today, please know it makes a huge difference. If we win, it will be because of what you did at moments like this....

Thanks,

Michelle

P.S. -- It meant a lot to me to speak with you and everyone else last night. Thank you for everything you do.

Everything?

"We expect Mitt Romney and the Republicans to outspend us. What I will not abide..."

"... is getting outspent by a margin that negates all the hard work our volunteers are doing."

Email from Barack Obama. I read it out loud and repeat I will not abide. Meade says "The dude abides."

Here's a discussion from English Language & Usuage:

I'm unfamilar with the word "abide" which is famously used the the movie quote "The Dude abides" (The Big Lebowski).

Looking it up in a German/English dictionary makes me believe it's "The Dude lives on", but I heard the word used on a way that makes it seem to be a variant of "approve," as in "The Dude does not abide this behavior."

I hear it used as "to obey" a lot, as in "we must all abide by the rules".

Can someone shed some light into the meaning of "The Dude abides" in the context it's been used?

Here's the top-rated answer:

Some discussions of the movie reference a peaceful, almost zen acceptance, as well as the idea that

The Dude will always be around.

A discussion on Reddit of what "the Dude abides" means has some consensus that it's an

Intentionally vague phrase hinting at the fact that The Dude Lives, in his unperturbable state of dudeness, somewhere.

and that the definitions "accept" and "continue" make sense in this context.

As @wfaulk points out, today we usually use abide transitively to mean things like trusting in, accepting or obeying; so it doesn't mean The Dude accepts or endures a particular thing, but I agree that the phrase still can imply a sense of patience or toleration, even if it's just the way someone waits or continues.

If you look at the etymology of abide, you can see how some of these meanings emerge:

O.E. abidan, gebidan "remain, wait, delay, remain behind," from ge- completive prefix (denoting onward motion; see a- (1)) + bidan "bide, remain, wait, dwell" (see bide). ... Meaning "to put up with" (now usually negative) first recorded 1520s.

Biden!

and going back to bide:

O.E. bidan "to stay, continue, live, remain," also "to trust, rely" (cognate of O.N. biða, O.Fris. bidia, Goth. beidan "to wait"), apparently from PIE *bheidh-, an extended stem of one root of O.E. biddan (see bid), the original sense of which was "to command," and "to trust" (cf. Gk. peithein "to persuade," pistis "faith;" L. fidere "to trust," foedus "compact, treaty," O.C.S. mmi>beda "need"). Perhaps the sense evolved in prehistoric times through "endure," and "endure a wait," to "to wait."

I think you're right: The Dude endures; The Dude lives on.

But The Dude will not abide... or will he? And will he abide Biden?

Should I not call the President "The Dude"? Obama is famous for calling a little boy "dude" when he said "Touch it, dude." And Jon Stewart famously called him "dude." That was back in 2010. It was much debated at the time. Here's Parker and Spitzer — remember them? — batting it around. And here's a WSJ blog:

Was it disrespectful for Stewart to address the president using a term that’s more commonly exchanged between two college guys sharing a bong?

Chooming.

Since the days of George Washington, America’s top leader has been addressed as “Mr. President.” Even Martha Washington called her husband “Mr. President.” Congress at one point considered the loftier title of “His Highness the President of the United States of America and Protector of their Liberties.”...

Then again, Thomas Jefferson once said that he hoped that “the terms of excellency, honor, worship and esquire will forever disappear from among us.”

Yes, it's really not too American to worship the President.



Odd that "The Big Lebowski" has become our prime association with "abide." There was a time, not so long ago, when it would have been the great hymn — "Abide With Me":

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.....

"More email. 'Tell me something.' That's the subject line. He's like a stalker."

I say, and Meade says, "Who is he?" and I say, "He's a man named Barack Obama."

Here's the body of the message:

Millions of Americans are stepping up for this campaign right now.

I want to know if you're one of them:

http://my.barackobama.com/In

Barack

my.barackobama.com. My Barack Obama? If you click on the link, the URL turns into a normal barackobama.com, so that feeling of going to a special place with your email boyfriend/stalker is lost. But there is a social media effect — a little Facebook icon and next to it the notation "[2 names of actual Facebook friends of mine] and 27,600,417 others like this." Arrayed beneath that notation are little thumbnail photos of some of my Facebook friends — people I know — smiling for whatever reason and not because they anticipated their image being appropriated for a campaign fund-raising web page.

The email said "Millions of Americans are stepping up for this campaign right now," and then when I clicked, I saw people I know, snagged from Facebook. And the President of the United States wants to know if I'm "one of them" — which gives me a whole "Freaks" vibe. I picture all my Facebook friends going one of us, one of us, one of us...

Gooble gobble.

Fighting for reelection, Obama spent $58 million — $38 million on TV ads alone.

According to this L.A. Times article, which is illustrated, for some reason, with a photograph of Sheldon Adelson — a Romney donor — gesturing at some lit-up models of what are presumably models of casinos. (He's identified as a "casino mogul.")

A "mogul," which originally referred to "the successive heads of the Muslim dynasty founded by Zahīr-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Bābur (1483–1530), which ruled an empire covering a large part of South Asia from the 16th to the 19th centuries," now denotes "An important, influential, or dominant person; an autocrat," according to the OED, which gives the early example "I am the Sultan of this place: Mr. Limberham is the Mogol of the next Mansion" — a line spoken by a character named Brainsick, in the play "Limberham (or The Kind Keeper)," by John Dryden.

The photo of Adelson in the L.A. Times makes him seem capable of moving skyscrapers like big chess pieces. What a manipulative fellow! He gave $10 million in June to a Romney super PAC called Restore Our Future. ("Restore" means to bring back. Back to the future.) Restore Our Future raised $20.6 million in June. Meanwhile, Obama's super PAC, Priorities USA Action took in only $6 million.

Romney's campaign raised much more money than did Obama — $106 million to $70 million (in June). So Obama is lagging in the fundraising and also spending much more.

Heading into July, Romney and his party allies were left with nearly $170 million on hand, while Obama and the Democrats had $147 million.

That's not that huge of a difference, but Obama is such a big spender. And what did he get for all that spending? I think the idea was to frame Romney as an evil capitalist, and it hasn't worked out that well. 1. Despite the heavy attack on Romney, Obama hasn't moved up in the polls, and 2. The attack on capitalism went too far and touched off an effective counterattack. Not only has Obama depleted his funds, he's depleted his argument against Romney.

The Obama campaign’s attempt to portray Mitt Romney as the villainous Bane from “The Dark Knight Rises” appears to be a big flop. And the problem for Obama is, he really doesn’t have a Plan B.

 ADDED: The Obama campaign spent more than $2.6 on polling alone, just in June. What are they finding out? Why isn't that information giving them more useful ideas about how to win? Reminds me of the stimulus program, dumping huge amounts of money on things that done even pan out.

Whatever happened to the "Super-O-Rama"?

Announced and made fun of on May 16th, but I can't find any subsequent talk of it. Presumably, the mockery killed the name, but names are important in the world of internet searching.

"Romney and the Republicans announced yesterday that they brought in more than $100 million in June."

"For context, that's about what we raised in April and May combined. We're still tallying our own numbers, but this means their gap is getting wider, and if it continues at this pace, it could cost us the election."

Email, just now, from the Obama campaign.

"Gov. Walker has $1.6 million in the bank 'giving him a strong start toward a 2014 re-election race.'"

"Thanks a lot, recall suckers!"

Did the Democrats give up on class warfare?

Jonathan Martin (at Politico) says they did. He notes that Occupy Wall Street has evanesced and that Obama conspicuously avoided participating in the Wisconsin recall election.

Labor unions hoped to turn the Wisconsin recall election into a rallying cause for their ailing movement. But a Democratic president couldn’t be dragged off the sidelines for the fight.

And let me add that even the Democratic candidate in that election avoided talking about labor union matters. Tom Barrett talked — with stunning blandness — about a restoration of civility and working together.

When you get a few paragraphs into the long article, you'll see it's mostly complaints about the dynamics of campaign finance with lots of quotes from people Martin counts among the few "unapologetic populists" left in the party. But there's this nice summary:

*The political infrastructure doesn’t exist. Class-based partisan appeals by Democrats in the early and mid-20th century were typically supported by a robust and well-organized labor movement. That doesn’t exist in any similar form these days.

*Even populist politicians need money. Conspiracy theorists who believe campaign contributions drive the agenda aren’t altogether wrong. It is virtually impossible to be a successful national Democrat without relying heavily on business interests, including the financial industry, for campaign funds.

*The president, a man comfortable in elite circles, is not temperamentally inclined for the kind of sustained, rough-edged partisan combat that true populist politics requires. So, while he is tempted by populist appeals on some days, he often turns ambivalent and changes his message the next.

*Most important of all, lots of Democrats simply do not support populism, on either ideological or stylistic grounds. Many upscale Democrats believe that Washington needs less combat, not more, and populist messages strike them as irrelevant at best, demagogic at worst. Even some working-class voters have their assets in the stock market, because of their 401(k)s and IRAs, making even the most traditional of Democrats believe their interests are more in line with Wall Street than opposed.

"I will be the first president in modern history to be outspent in his re-election campaign, if things continue as they have so far."

Emails Barack Obama:

I'm not just talking about the super PACs and anonymous outside groups -- I'm talking about the Romney campaign itself. Those outside groups just add even more to the underlying problem.

ADDED: Here's the rest of the email:

The Romney campaign raises more than we do, and the math isn't hard to understand: Through the primaries, we raised almost three-quarters of our money from donors giving less than $1,000, while Mitt Romney's campaign raised more than three-quarters of its money from individuals giving $1,000 or more.

And, again, that's not including the massive outside spending by super PACs and front groups funneling up to an additional billion dollars into ads trashing me, you, and everything we believe in.

We can be outspent and still win -- but we can't be outspent 10 to 1 and still win.

More than 2.2 million Americans have already chipped in for us, and I'm so grateful for it. As we face this week's fundraising deadline, can you make a donation of $3 or more today?

Every donation you make today automatically enters you to join Michelle and me for one of the last grassroots dinners of this campaign -- today is your last chance to get your name in.

These dinners represent how we do things differently. My opponent spent this past weekend at a secretive retreat for the biggest donors to both his campaign and the super PACs that support him.

I've got other responsibilities I'm attending to.

Donate today to stand for our kind of politics:

https://donate.barackobama.com/June-Deadline

Thank you,

Barack