In the past few months and years, President Obama has castigated Super PACs. Obama has said “you can’t be against Super PACs one day and for them the next,” and he’s referred to 527s as a “threat to democracy.”

Fortunately, Nancy Pelosi is here to help explain why these same threats to democracy, when reluctantly utilized by the pure of heart in emergency situations, can also be used to help preserve democracy.

Here’s a brief transcript of Pelosi’s explanation by way of The Right Scoop:

The president made a decision which I think was a wise one that he was not going to unilaterally disarm and leave the field to the Koch brothers to decide who would be POTUS and who would control the Congress.

Maybe Pelosi’s right — it’s straight from Sun Tzu: “To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.” Of course, they didn’t have Super PACs in Sun Tzu’s day, which might explain why the book isn’t called “The Art of Hypocrisy”:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Super PAC-men: Obama’s bundlers gone wild!
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012

The White House didn’t blow a dog whistle for deep-pocketed liberal donors on Monday. No, the administration whipped out a supersized vuvuzela. Blaring message: Let loose the campaign finance-bundling hounds of super PAC war!

President Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, who served as White House deputy chief of staff for operations before assuming 2012 re-election duties, announced the super PAC super-flip-flop in a mass e-mail to supporters and a blog post published on the left-wing Huffington Post website. In a related conference call to major campaign finance bundlers, Messina encouraged these high-dollar donors to start funding Priorities USA Action. That’s the Democratic super PAC founded by former White House staffers Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney.

Super PACs and campaigns are barred from coordinating with each other. Nevertheless, Messina said that “senior campaign officials as well as some White House and Cabinet officials will attend and speak at Priorities USA fundraising events.” Of course, they “won’t be soliciting contributions.” Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

This brazen about-face for Team Obama is a goldmine of campaign lies, contortions and epic hypocrisy. Let us count the ways.

– A bundle of contradictions. “Bundling” is the rustling up of aggregate contributions from friends, business associates and employees, a practice to circumvent individual donation limits that Obama has long condemned. When he announced his presidential intentions in 2007, candidate Obama decried “the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests who’ve turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.” He indignantly singled out “the best bundlers” who get the “greatest access” to power.

Last week, Obama acknowledged raising at least $74 million through his team of big-time bundlers who have been showered with access, tax dollars and plum patronage positions. This elite group of Hollywood celebrities (such as open-borders actress Eva Longoria), political cronies (such as Chicago bagman Louis “The Vacuum” Susman) and politically correct businessmen (such as bankrupt Solyndra investor George Kaiser) now totals a whopping 445 gold-card members.

– The roar of the revolving door. In his Monday announcement, Messina bragged about how the White House has enacted “sweeping” reforms to “close the revolving door between government and lobbyists.” In truth, the administration has widened the carousel and removed the brakes. The Obama-cheerleading Fishwrap of Record (The New York Times) itself identified at least 15 bundlers “involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies.”

Moreover, “at least 68 of 350 Obama bundlers for the 2012 election or their spouses have served in the administration in some capacity; at least 250 of the bundlers visited the White House, and another 30 have ties to companies that conduct business with federal agencies or hope to do so in the future,” according to a recent iWatch News report. Several first-time 2012 bundlers already have snagged administration posts:

– Norma Lee Funger, of Potomac, Md., who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama, was appointed last month to the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

– Glenn S. Gerstell, of Washington, D.C., who bundled the same amount, was appointed to the National Infrastructure Advisory Commission last fall.

– Richard Binder, of Bethesda, Md., another $50,000 to $100,000 bundler, was appointed to the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health last spring.

And note: The most transparent administration ever still refuses to disclose recusal orders involving the nearly 100 lobbyists and ex-lobbyists on its payroll.

– Super PAC super-hypocrisy. “Super PACs” are federal political action committees that only make independent expenditures in support of, or in opposition to, candidates. Their birth and growth were fueled indirectly by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruling in 2010. The decision overturned severe campaign finance restrictions that essentially criminalized certain forms of political speech. As Chief Justice John Roberts put it during oral arguments: “We don’t put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats.”

Until this week, the Obama administration vehemently condemned the Citizens United decision and vowed to eschew super PACs. The entities are a “threat to our democracy,” Obama railed two years ago. The ruling would “open the floodgates for special interests,” he warned. And last July, Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt kept talking the anti-super PAC talk. “Neither the president nor his campaign staff or aides will fundraise for super PACs,” he asserted. Now? President Obama and his wife won’t fundraise for the democracy-undermining super PACs. But countless other Cabinet members and advisers, partying with Obama bundlers gone wild, will.

In 2007, Obama lambasted rival Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards for criticizing independent expenditures while raking in big PAC bucks: “So you can’t say yesterday you don’t believe in them, and today you have three quarters of a million dollars being spent on you. You can’t just talk the talk.”

Obama 2012 campaign motto: Empty talk? Yes, we can!

The People’s President is raising money any way he can — and the fashion world’s 1 percent-ers have stepped up to the plate to help.

Via the WSJ:

At a New York fund-raising event Tuesday called “Runway to Win,” President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign plans to begin selling campaign-themed tote bags, T-shirts and accessories designed by more than two dozen famous designers.

Attendees can purchase a tote bag designed by Derek Lam for $75. A collectible makeup bag created by Richard Blanch with nail polish in Red-y To Win Red, Victory White and Bo Blue is going for $40. And a silk scarf featuring Mr. Obama’s likeness by Thakoon Panichgul is $95. Profits from the sales will go to Mr. Obama’s campaign chest.

Republicans are rightly raising campaign finance questions about the haute couture deals:

“This raises serious questions about whether corporate money, property and employees were improperly used in the design and production of these items without reimbursement,” said Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.

Jan Baran, an election lawyer with Wiley Rein LLP, said designers can’t ask employees to work on political projects unless they willingly volunteered their time. “Someone who is paid to do campaign work is not a volunteer,” he said. If the designer or staff are paid by anyone other than the campaign, it would be considered a campaign contribution from a company to a candidate.

The Obama campaign said the gear complies with campaign-finance rules.

“All of the designers volunteered their personal time to create these great designs,” the campaign said, and were “not underwritten with any corporate funds.”

Rap mogul and designer Russell Simmons is defending Obama’s By Any Technically Legal Means Necessary strategy:

Asked on CNN whether selling designer products could violate campaign finance rules – as some Republicans have suggested – Simmons said, “I think the president should use whatever resources he has within the law.”

“The problem is the law the problem is that we allow so much money in politics and there are so many people funding these super PACs that are out of control,” he added. “Until the laws are changed, the president should play by any rules available.”

Question: How much would you pay for this???

***

I’ll have pleeenty to say about Obama’s SuperPAC super-hypocrisy tomorrow.

Wednesday night was the lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. President Obama’s people either forgot to check the City’s schedule or didn’t care, because they booked three fundraisers there for the same night.

Fortunately, it’s the holiday season, and the good cheer that was resonating around the Big Apple resulted in everybody taking the extra traffic snarls in stride:

“This really sucks, it’s aggravating,” griped Rob Bam, 49, who got jammed while trying to cross from Fifth to Sixth Avenue. “Keep the President out of the city.”

Obama’s ill-timed trip turned Midtown into a parking lot for hours, and ticked off New Yorkers simply looking to get around as the President glad-handed fat cats from the Upper East Side to the East Village to the Sheraton New York.
[...]
“Every time Obama comes to New York, it’s a nightmare,” said Tom Hall, 52, who was trying to get home to the Upper West Side from Midtown. “It probably wasn’t a good idea to have both of these events the same night.”

Obama touched down at JFK at 5:14 p.m., zooming into Manhattan for a three-stop fund-raising blitz that wreaked havoc on Midtown streets and bus routes while aggravating commuters.

“I’m totally screwed getting home,” fumed Celeste Gold, 30, a who was struggling to walk home to Hells Kitchen. “I’ll be directed the whole way by police.”

At Gotham Bar and Grill on East 12th St., fans of the President paid more than $35,000 for an exclusive sitdown. On the Upper East Side, the price was $10,000 a head.

I’d be more inclined to feel the pain of the frustrated area residents if they hadn’t overwhelmingly supported Obama in 2008 (where there was 80% support there will be return visits for coffer re-loading, tree lightings be damned). That said, maybe next time New Yorkers should request another low-level Air Force One fly-by instead and still promise to deliver the same $2.4 million campaign haul. It would save a good amount of ground traffic.

Lest we think the Occupiers were lost in the mass of humanity Wednesday night, at one Obama fundraiser, the crowds weren’t enough to keep away some dedicated protesters:

The OWS bunch were there to show Obama that they’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore:

Organizer Ben Campbell says he’ll likely vote for Obama next year, but the movement has to call out Republicans and Democrats to be credible.

Voting for Obama again… that’ll teach him to fraternize with Wall Street!

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

After I blogged last week about Barack Obama’s burgeoning LightSquared scandal, I received a miffed e-mail from billionaire hedge fund manager/Obama donor/LightSquared principal backer Philip Falcone under the subject line “Tip.” Falcone defended the Obama administration and noted that the predecessor to LightSquared, called Skyterra, had benefited from some previous regulatory approvals under the Bush administration. (Sound familiar? It’s the same “Blame Bush” defense the White House and its allies are using to try and deflect the Solyndra debacle.)

Falcone then fumed at me: “I really wish someone would take 5 freaking minutes to do some diligence and get the chronology straight! I’d be glad to point you in the right direction if you so choose. You may even find some dirt on AT&T, the GPS guys and they (sic) money they are spending on this campaign. Do you know that your tax dollar goes to build satellites that the GPS manufacturers use, for free?? Billions….Billions…..Billions…And a few of these companies are foreign companies….that do not pay taxes. I really truly wish someone would spend some time to get the facts straight.”

While Falcone and his P.R. team take to the airwaves, I took more than “5 freaking minutes to do some diligence” and did a little more digging. My syndicated column below goes over the latest developments and basic facts since The Daily Beat’s Eli Lake first reported Gen. Shelton’s bombshell disclosures about the White House’s testimony-meddling.

But there’s much more.

As the House prepares to launch official investigations of both Solyndra and LightSquared, investigators need to look closely at exactly how the Obama FCC’s unusual January 2011 waiver for LightSquared promised the politically-connected company a stunning corporate windfall. The waiver gave the company a green light to use its initial satellite bandwidth license for “exclusive terrestrial purposes.” As the Telecom, Media and Finance Associates, Inc. blog explains, this meant that “the spectrum rights would be considered (and valued) as equivalent to terrestrial spectrum, allowing LightSquared to raise additional funds to build out its network. In fact that is exactly what LightSquared then proceeded to do, by raising $586M, secured against its spectrum assets, in February 2011.”

By the company’s own internal estimates and comparisons with other satellite spectrum transactions, the January 2011 waiver boosted the value of LightSquared’s spectrum assets by $10 billion more than two similarly situated mobile satellite service providers that had gone bankrupt. TMF Associates notes:

Once this $10B windfall is more widely recognized, I think it is going to represent an enormous political problem for both LightSquared and the FCC Chairman during the upcoming Congressional hearings, making Solyndra’s $535M loan look like small beer [emphasis added]. After all in July 2010 current FCC Commissioner Copps noted in conjunction with the MSS NPRM/NOI that he “appreciate[d] the willingness of my colleagues to raise questions regarding the need for any mechanisms—such as spectrum fees—to compensate the American people for the terrestrial use of the public spectrum resource”, which is exactly why January’s action (which was not even brought before the full Commission) was such “an unprecedented and surprising development”.

A few more tidbits:

*Soros Fund Management — surprise, surprise — is a “signficant investor” in Falcone’s enterprise.

*Debunking of LightSquared’s spin that it “has never taken one dollar in taxpayer money:”

…[A]pparently forgetting Mr Carlisle’s testimony to Congress that LightSquared has received over $2M from the FBI for providing satellite services and equipment in the current fiscal year, not to mention its own estimate that the January 2011 FCC waiver was worth over $10 billion in incremental spectrum value to the company. And did he really just say that they will only be investing $8B rather than the $14B number they have used previously?

The FCC Chairman’s refusal to attend the hearing comes in the wake of allegations that the White House pressured Gen. Shelton to change his testimony to the Committee, and while Sen. Grassley is still pursuing the FCC Chairman for details of FCC communications with and about LightSquared in the run up to approval of the January 2011 waiver. My guess is that there must have been some reason for LightSquared to submit its waiver request on the Thursday before Thanksgiving and it would be reasonable to assume that they must therefore have been told by the FCC that the application would be placed immediately on public notice with an accelerated (10 day) comment period over the holiday, in the hope that no-one would notice. If that was the case then it would be quite surprising if there was no email evidence of such communications.

Unfortunately for the White House, the over-worn “Blame Bush” card does not explain the Obama FCC’s actions, the Obama FCC’s refusal to attend the hearing, or President Obama’s own eyebrow-raising financial entanglements (more on that below) with LightSquared’s predecessor and his ties to several of the shady investors and promoters of the racket.

***

LightSquared: Obama’s Dangerous Broadband Boondoggle
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2011

If you thought the half-billion-dollar, stimulus-funded Solyndra solar company bust was a taxpayer nightmare, just wait. If you thought the botched Fast and Furious border gun-smuggling surveillance operation was a national security nightmare, hold on. Right on the heels of those two blood-boilers comes yet another alleged pay-for-play racket from the most ethical administration ever.

Welcome to LightSquared. It’s a toxic mix of venture socialism (to borrow GOP Sen. Jim DeMint’s apt phrase), campaign finance influence-peddling and perilous corner-cutting all rolled into one.

The company is building “a state-of-the-art open wireless broadband network.” Competition in the industry is a good thing, of course. But military, government and civilian aviation experts have long objected to LightSquared’s potential to interfere with the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite network. As the government’s own Positioning, Navigation and Timing agency explained:

“The GPS community is concerned because testing has shown that LightSquared’s ground-based transmissions overpower the relatively weak GPS signal from space. Although LightSquared will operate in its own radio band, that band is so close to the GPS signals that most GPS devices pick up the stronger LightSquared signal and become overloaded or jammed.”

Two high-ranking witnesses — Air Force Space Command four-star Gen. William Shelton and National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Director Anthony Russo — have now blown the whistle on how the White House pressured them to alter their congressional testimony and play down concerns about LightSquared’s threat to military communications. According to Eli Lake of The Daily Beast, both officials were urged to express confidence in the company and endorse its promise to address any technical concerns “within 90 days.”

Gen. Shelton had noted earlier this year: “Within three to five miles on the ground and within 12 miles in the air, GPS is jammed by (LightSquared’s) towers. … If we allow that system to be fielded and it does indeed jam GPS, think about the impact. We’re hopeful we can find a solution, but physics being physics, we don’t see a solution right now.”

Despite industry-wide protests, the firm somehow received fast-track approval for a special FCC waiver that grants LightSquared the right to use wireless spectrum to build out a national 4G wireless network on the cheap. Ken Boehm, of the conservative watchdog National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) in Washington, D.C., summed up the deal earlier this year: “LightSquared will get the spectrum for a song, while its competitors (e.g., AT&T and Verizon) have to spend billions.”

The current “fix” LightSquared proposes to address the interference problems is a costly, conceptual pipe dream that could require massive retrofitting of millions of handheld GPS devices. GPS expert Eric Gakstatter scoffs: “I’ve been pretty open-minded about LightSquared proposing a solution, but this really insults our intelligence. (A)s we’ve seen previously with LightSquared, it’s not about finding a practical solution for the GPS user community; it’s all about selling an idea to the FCC. The problem is that the FCC doesn’t have to live with LightSquared’s half-baked ‘solution’; we do.”

So, what’s greasing LightSquared’s skids? Hint: It used to be known as “Skyterra.” In 2005, Obama put $50,000 into the speculative firm — raising eyebrows even among his water-carriers at The New York Times. The paper noted that Skyterra’s principal backers at the time of the investment included four Obama “friends and donors who had raised more than $150,000 for his political committees.”

One of those pals who urged him to buy stock in Skyterra was George Haywood, a major Skyterra investor and campaign donor who chipped in nearly $50,000 to Obama’s campaigns and to his political action committee along with his wife.

Coincidentally, Obama bought his Skyterra stock the very same day the FCC “ruled in favor of the company’s effort to create a nationwide wireless network by combining satellites and land-based communications systems.” One industry expert tells me it strains credulity to believe the timing wasn’t dictated by inside information. Indeed, the Times reported that immediately after that morning ruling, “Tejas Securities, a regional brokerage in Texas that handled investment banking for Skyterra, issued a research report speculating that Skyterra stock could triple in value.”

Coincidentally, Tejas and its chairman, John J. Gorman, were also major backers of Obama — flying him in a private plane for political rallies and pitching in more than $150,000 for his campaign coffers since 2004. Obama sold his stock at a loss in November 2005 — just as Skyterra was locked in a messy proxy fight over a failed roll-up — but his political relationship with the company was cemented.

In 2009, shady billionaire hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone — whose firm Harbinger Capital Partners is reportedly under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for market manipulation abuses — acquired Skyterra.

Coincidentally, Falcone, his wife and LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja have contributed nearly $100,000 between them to the Democratic Party during critical White House meeting periods and negotiations over LightSquared’s regulatory fate.

Oh, and coincidentally, there’s $6 billion earmarked for a “public safety broadband corporation” buried in the Obama jobs proposal just as LightSquared pushes into that market, too.

It’s all just one strange quirk of timing, Team Obama shrugs. Except, as we all should know by now: There are no coincidences in Chicago on the Potomac. Just an endless avalanche of quids, quos and taxpayer woes.

***

Shady birds of a feather flock together. Here’s more background on Obama’s broadband boondoggle pals.

Via Business Week 2005, here’s what was going down with key Skyterra/LightSquared investors after Obama sold his stock. According to public SEC filings, Motient Corporation in September 2005 “entered into a non-binding letter of intent with Skyterra Communications Inc. and TMI Communications and Company (and others) to consolidate ownership” of two mobile satellite service providers — MSV and TerreStar — within Motient. Motient’s largest shareholder at the time was Dallas-based hedge fund Highland Capital Management. Shady pandemonium ensued:

In August, Highland sued Motient’s officers and directors in Chancery Court of Delaware, claiming the defendants tried to line their pockets with Motient’s cash by paying exorbitant fees to firms in which they held interests. The suit focuses especially on Motient chairman Steven G. Singer, his brother and convicted felon Gary A. Singer, and former Motient director Jared E. Abbruzzese.

According to the complaint, Motient hired Abbruzzese’s Albany (NY)-based consultancy Communication Technology Advisors (CTA) in May 2002 to provide financial advice while Abbruzzese was still a director at Motient. At the time, two other CTA employees, Peter D. Aquino and Gerald S. Kittner, were also Motient directors. Since then, CTA has functioned as Motient’s de facto executive management and has received over $3 million in fees and tens of millions of dollars worth of warrants to buy Motient stock, Highland’s complaint says.

The complaint further claims that Abbruzzese and CTA in 2004 pressured Motient’s board to hire a small Austin (Tex.)-based investment bank, Tejas Inc., to raise money for Motient. However, Abbruzzese allegedly failed to disclose that he owned options to buy 100,000 shares of Tejas. As a result of fees and warrants paid by Motient, Tejas’ annual profit increased over 2,600%, and the Tejas shares underlying Abbruzzese’s options appreciated 900% in one year. In March 2005, Motient appointed Barry A. Williamson to its board, a Tejas director who owns over 51,000 Tejas shares. In May 2005, Tejas announced it would acquire CTA for $65 million. Abbruzzese was appointed vice chairman of Tejas and granted a generous employment agreement and stock-option package.

Abbruzzese’s alleged conflicts run deeper. In fiscal year 2004, Motient lost $72 million on revenues of $36.9 million. What, then, accounts for its $1.3 billion market cap? The company has a 40% stake in Mobile Satellite Ventures (MSV), a Reston (Va.)-based provider of mobile satellite communications that owns valuable spectrum licenses. MSV is a limited partnership, and its general partner is Motient Satellite Ventures GP, Inc., whose managers are Abbruzzese and Kittner of CTA. “Motient’s purchases of MSV units in 2004 at prices that reflected ever increasing valuations of MSV enriched Kittner, Abbruzzese and CTA through their ownership of MSV units,” Highland’s complaint says.

…Hovering in the background of this power struggle is Steven Singer’s brother, Gary Singer, who in the mid-1990s spent nearly two years in federal prison for fraud, money laundering, and racketeering as part of a junk-bond insider trading scheme while he was co-chairman and CEO at Cooper Companies, Inc., a healthcare products maker in Pleasanton (Calif.). At the time of the crime, Steven Singer and a third brother, Brad Singer, were also executives at Cooper and were later sued on civil charges related to the trading scheme.

The SEC has permanently barred Gary Singer from acting as an officer or director of any public company. Nevertheless, Highland’s complaint says that he “shares an office with Steven Singer, has participated in many Motient board meetings and conference calls, and even acted in a managerial role on behalf of the company.” Gary Singer has allegedly pressured Motient’s board for compensation and owns warrants to acquire Motient shares.

Here’s a summary of the “conflicts of interests and board self-dealings” related to Terrestar.

Note also from the SEC documents that the interference issues that are at the heart of the regulatory battle now were raised at least six years ago. LightSquared continues to downplay those problems with pie-in-the-sky fixes.

House GOP investigators have their work cut out for them.

The latest on their quest for documents:

House Republicans asked for records of contacts between the White House and Philip Falcone, citing concerns about possible political pressure on U.S. agencies over the billionaire’s proposed LightSquared wireless venture.

LightSquared is seeking to allay fears its planned $14 billion network may disrupt military and civilian uses of the global-positioning system. The company needs clearance from the Federal Communications Commission to proceed. The request yesterday from House Republicans adds political static to a debate that has centered on radio interference.

Some U.S. officials have been reluctant to testify on GPS interference and agencies haven’t provided information, Representative Ralph Hall, of Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, wrote in a letter yesterday. That “does nothing to promote the case for LightSquared, nor does it put our minds at ease about the possibility that this administration may be providing special favors to high-level financial donors,” Hall wrote.

The Obama administration should turn over “all records” of contacts by Falcone, LightSquared and his Harbinger Capital Partners hedge fund, according to the letter. Six other Republicans on the panel signed the letter, which was distributed by e-mail.

Events surrounding solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC, which failed after receiving U.S. loan guarantees, “further emphasize our concern about a pattern by this administration to grant preferential treatment toward donors,” Hall and his colleagues wrote. “As with Solyndra, the lack of scrutiny of the LightSquared project is disturbing.”

At his latest in a series of pointless press conferences decrying talk over action, President Obama this morning trotted out his worn old class-warfare line about the need for millionaires, billionaires, and corporate jet owners to share in the “sacrifice.”

Whenever you hear him use that line, substitute “Obama bundlers.”

Perhaps someone can slip it into the Teleprompter of the United States one of these days.

Obama fundraising breakdowns are out today.

iWatch reports on the latest activities of Obama’s elite campaign finance bundlers. You can bet the bagman-in-chief isn’t telling them to eat their peas. Wagyu beef and caviar, maybe.

The Obama campaign, in a joint effort with the Democratic National Committee, earlier this year asked about 450 leading fundraisers to bring in $350,000 each by the end of this year. iWatch News has learned that the bundlers were also told they were expected to pull in the same amount next year— an extraordinary $700,000 per bundler over the course of the president’s re-election effort.

And the bundlers have responded. Two fundraisers confirmed to iWatch News that when the Obama campaign releases its list of bundlers on Friday, a number of individuals will be listed as having already raised more than $500,000.

Some of these bundlers are going even further. At least two fundraisers, Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and hedge fund executive Orin Kramer, who raised over $500,000 each in 2008, have also been working to raise unlimited donations for two outside groups that were created earlier this year by a pair of ex-White House aides to help the President win re-election. (The outside groups are Priorities USA and Priorities USA Action which raised between $4 million and $5 million in their first two months of operation enroute to a goal of $100 million).

The early and aggressive fundraising by the Obama campaign, the DNC and outside groups underscores how the money chase for the next election is expected to far outpace the fundraising frenzy of 2010.

All that bundling muscle was instrumental in the ability of the Obama campaign and the DNC to collectively raise $86 million in the second quarter. The campaign keeps $47 million of it.

My previous reports on Obama bundlers:

No Bundler Left Behind

The other new Chicago crony chief of staff

For class-warfare Dems: A reminder about who “the rich” are; Update: Senate Dems’ demagoguery rejected

People in “fat cat”-infested houses shouldn’t throw stones

Donald Trump went off on Anthony Weiner today. HAP has the full video, but here’s a partial transcript I jotted down just to give you an idea:

Many people have been asking me about Anthony Weiner, the congressman from New York who had big ambitions and wanted to run for Mayor of New York City. The fact is, I know him very well. He’d call me all the time looking for campaign contributions and would never stop. He’d give me all sorts of phone numbers — fortunately I don’t think I ever called.

The fact is, Anthony Weiner is a bad guy. He’s a psycho. And when this came out, I was not surprised at all. I’d watch him on interviews, I’d watch him on television. I’d hear what he had to say, and he was like a boiler about to explode.
[...]
One thing good came out of Anthony’s mess… I’ll never have to give him campaign contributions, and that’s really wonderful.

For the most part I agree with Trump’s assessment — Weiner’s nuts and he was long before he was a creepy glimmer in the eye of yFrog — but as for “I don’t think I ever called him back when he asked for donations,” Donald might be mistaken:
*****

*****

Okay, so maybe Weiner wasn’t so psycho just over a year ago when Donald was a FoW.

Hey, if Trump gave Weiner money just to shut him up, I almost understand that… almost (if so, Trump was also trying to shut up a lot of other liberal Democrats). I’m guessing a good deal of Weiner’s fundraising cash came from people just trying to get him to close his mouth. This year it’ll come from people trying to get him to close his Blackberry.

As for Trump, he may have just had a “Weiner roast,” but a few thousand of his own dollars went towards fueling the fire.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Hollyweird, meet reality.

The WSJ has a must-read op-ed exposing how liberal comedian Stephen Colbert’s campaign finance gag blew up in his face. In an attempt to protest the Supreme Court’s ruling last year striking down major portions of the speech-stifling McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, Colbert set out to form a political action committee and show how massive gobs of unrestricted corporate cash could flood the system.

Except, well, it ain’t as easy as Colbert thought it would be.

Institute for Justice attorneys Steve Simpson and Paul Sherman expose the Comedy Central clown’s mockery gone awry:

Comedy Central funnyman Stephen Colbert, like most of his friends and allies on the left, thinks that last year’s Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC is, literally, ridiculous. To make his case that the ruling invites “unlimited corporate money” to dominate politics, Mr. Colbert decided to set up a political action committee (PAC) of his own. So far, though, the joke’s been on him.

The hilarity began last month, when Mr. Colbert began to have difficulty setting up his PAC, which is a group that can raise money to run political ads or make contributions to candidates. So he called in Trevor Potter, a former Federal Elections Commission (FEC) chairman who is now a high-powered Washington lawyer.

Mr. Potter delivered some unfunny news: Mr. Colbert couldn’t set up his PAC because his show airs on Comedy Central, which is owned by Viacom, and corporations like Viacom cannot make contributions to PACs that give money to candidates. As Mr. Potter pointed out, Mr. Colbert’s on-air discussions of the candidates he supports might count as an illegal “in-kind” contribution from Viacom to Mr. Colbert’s PAC.

All was not lost, however. As Mr. Potter explained, the comedian might still be able to set up a “Super PAC,” a group that can raise unlimited sums of money as long as it spends it only on independent ads, without donating at all to candidates. Super PACs exist because of another case that proponents of campaign-finance law despise, SpeechNow.org v. FEC.

So the newly dubbed “Colbert Super PAC” was off to the races. Mr. Colbert could finally show us how amusing it is to raise unlimited corporate dollars and spend them on political ads.

Or so it seemed. On May 11, Mr. Potter returned with more bad news: Viacom didn’t like Mr. Colbert’s plan because his on-air commentary might still amount to a contribution from Viacom to his Super PAC. It’s difficult to place a dollar value on airtime, so a reporting mistake could put both Viacom and Mr. Colbert in legal hot water. Isn’t campaign-finance law funny?

Human Events’ John Hayward gets the last laugh with his own lampoon of Colbert. Read it all.

As far as I’m concerned, a response to the White House’s desperate “foreign donations” accusations wasn’t entirely necessary, because the claims are merely intended to rattle the cage of a Democrat base feeling beaten down, hopeless, changeless and progressiveless, but the Chamber of Commerce responded anyway:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce responded emphatically Monday night to a direct challenge from Vice President Joe Biden to reveal how much of their funds donated to candidates comes from foreign sources.

The answer, according to an evening press release? None.

“Zero. As in, ‘Not a single cent,’” wrote Tom Collamore, senior vice president of Communications and Strategy from the Chamber of Commerce in an e-mail with “And the Answer Is …” as its subject line.

The Democrats wanting to know the source of Chamber of Commerce donations has that “Gary Busey demanding to see your MRI results so he can prove you’re unstable” feel to it.

How about the Dems lead by example and release donor details concerning who’s filling up the DCCC coffers?

I’d have preferred it if the Chamber had sent the accusers something I call the “Mardi Gras Response”: “You show us yours and we’ll show you ours.”

David Axelrod, who reminds me of a composite of every vermin I’ve ever refused to by a used car from, went so far as to call the US Chamber of Commerce “a threat to our Democracy.” Even Bob Schieffer, who is no Tea Partier, had to reply, “Is that the best you can do?”

Axelrod would be wise to take up smoking in order to distract Schieffer’s line of questioning in the future.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

The Obama White House has been an echo chamber for the Soros-funded Center for American Progress from Day One — from bashing Fox News, attacking talk radio, and pimping “media justice” and the Orwellian Fairness Doctrine, to crusading for the government health care takeover using Astroturfed doctors and taxpayer-funded operatives installed in the health care bureaucracy.

Team Obama has gotten away with its left-wing myna bird routine. Until now.

Mimicking the Center for American Progress attacks on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Soros suck-up-in-chief himself accused Republicans last week of benefiting from “money from foreign corporations” — which liberals claim the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is funneling into political ads. Democrat clown prince Al Franken is leading a Senate inquisition against the Chamber. Endangered Democrat candidates across the country are dutifully parroting the line. From here in my home state of Colorado:

Democrats are swinging hard at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for potentially spending foreign money to support Republican campaigns across the country, including Ken Buck in Colorado’s U.S. Senate race.

The chamber has spent more than $400,000 in Colorado on ads attacking Sen. Michael Bennet, according to campaign-finance records.

Bennet spokesman Trevor Kincaid called on Buck’s campaign to reject the chamber’s help and disavow the ads allegedly made with “tainted foreign money.”

“Why won’t Ken Buck stand up against the practices of these shady special interests orchestrating attacks on his behalf?” Kincaid said.

It’s triple-snort-worthy to see the party that cries “RAAACISM” whenever conservatives question their shady foreign funny money suddenly sounding the alarm over non-U.S. campaign cash. Guess we are all “nativists” now, eh, President Obama?

But I digress. The Bennet campaign and every other endangered Democrat candidate preparing their CAP-approved attack press releases might want to get with the times. You see, a funny thing happened on the way to this desperate smear of American businesses exercising their political free speech: Liberal media outlets have called the Obama demagogues out. And now, Obama himself is backpedaling faster than high-wire clowns on a quadricycle.

The New York Times concluded on Friday that “there is little evidence that what the chamber does in collecting overseas dues is improper or even unusual, according to both liberal and conservative election-law lawyers and campaign finance documents. In fact, the controversy over the Chamber of Commerce financing may say more about the Washington spin cycle — where an Internet blog posting can be quickly picked up by like-minded groups and become political fodder for the president himself — than it does about the vagaries of campaign finance.”

And via Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters, liberal CBS journalist Bob Schieffer castigated White House senior adviser David Axelrod for the pathetic attack — which Schieffer derided as “peanuts:”

CBS’s Bob Schieffer on Sunday mocked President Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod for echoing last week’s unsubstantiated charge by a liberal website that the Chamber of Commerce is funneling foreign money to support Republican candidates.

“The New York Times looked into the Chamber specifically and said the Chamber really isn’t putting foreign money into the campaign,” said the Face the Nation host.

“This part about foreign money, that appears to be peanuts,” chided Schieffer.

When Axelrod continued to press the issue, Schieffer said almost laughing, “If the only charge, three weeks into the election that the Democrats can make is that there’s somehow this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign, is that the best you can do?”

Oh, I’m sure they’ll sink even lower. Three weeks is plennnnnty of time to get to the bottom of the barrel.

In the meantime, GOP candidates who face this ridiculous onslaught must remind voters of all the shady foreign cash that the Democrats and their deep-pocketed donors have pumped into the political system. Strike back twice as hard:

Remember Obama/Hillary/Democrat top fund-raiser and convicted fraudster/campaign finance crook Norman Hsu.

Remember Obama/Hillary/Democrat top fund-raiser and convicted fraudster/campaign finance crook Hasan Nemazee.

Remember soft-on-China Obama Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, shady Buddhist temple cash collector.

Remember Senate Democrats raising funds in Canada.

Remember Obama’s presidential campaign soliciting foreign donations on its website (via Doug Ross):

Remember: Obama’s Foreign Donors: The media averts its eyes.

More:

Obama’s campaign said it would refund the money to the foreign donors the AP identified.

One donor, Tom Sanderson of Canada, made clear his $500 contribution came from a foreign source. He included a note that said, “I am not a American citizen!” Obama’s campaign took the money anyway, even publishing Sanderson’s cautionary statement about his citizenship in its official finance reports.

Obama has raised at least $2 million abroad, far more than McCain’s total of at least $229,000, according to the AP’s review of campaign finance records…

…The AP analyzed 1.27 million campaign contributions to Obama and McCain to identify 6,948 contributions from people who appeared to live outside the United States and who were not obviously in the U.S. military. The AP contacted 123 donors in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain and Switzerland and interviewed them about their citizenship and donations.

Obama has far more overseas donors than McCain, and that was reflected in the number of interviews: the AP was able to reach 116 Obama supporters, six McCain backers and one donor who gave to both.

Australian Richard Watters gave Obama’s campaign $1,000 over the Internet, entering a fake U.S. passport number — a random jumble of numbers and letters — so the site would take his money. He said he also checked a box stating that he was an American living overseas, “because I could see it wasn’t going anywhere if I didn’t do that.”

Watters was surprised when a reporter told him it was illegal for foreigners to donate to U.S. presidential campaigns, but he said he was still glad he gave.

…Swiss citizen Gilles Massamba gave Obama at least $436 and received campaign souvenirs. He said the campaign didn’t ask whether he was a U.S. citizen.

Remember: FEC Issues Record Fines In Democrats’ Scandals; Commission Faults Players in 1996 Foreign Fundraising.

And don’t forget this fun fact: “The outrage over the Chamber is especially amusing considering the role of foreigners in U.S. labor unions. According to the Center for Competitive Politics, close to half of the unions that are members of the AFL-CIO are international.”

Distraction. Deflection. Projection. Yup, it’s the best they can do.

Thanks to all of you who helped with Operation Buck Up Maine and phoned Sens. Snowe and Collins to hold the line against the special interest, speech-squelching DISCLOSE Act.

The Senate is now voting on the do-over cloture motion. (It failed to muster 60 votes in July. Cloture vote 57-41.)

GOP Leader McConnell assailed the “pure politics” of this election-year stunt. “After a year and a half of passing things Americans don’t like, the Democrats want to silence voices of critics.”

Sen. Schumer yammered on about “transparency” while ignoring all the loopholes carved out for special interests, then proposed changes on the Senate floor to the bill to win over Sen. Snowe…after having drafted the bill behind closed doors with lobbyists.

Refresher:

…the loophole-ridden package exempts large nonprofits with 500,000 or more members. Behemoth labor unions get preferential treatment. Bradley Smith, former Federal Elections Commission chairman, noted that the law places radical speech-squelching restrictions on companies’ ability to run independent political ads: “(I)f you’re a company with a government contract of over $10 million (like more than half of the top 50 U.S. companies) or if you’re a company with more than 20 percent foreign shareholders, you can’t even mention a candidate in an ad for up to a full year before the election. … There are no similar prohibitions for unions representing government contractors or unions with foreign membership.”

Parting words from Schumer sure to be the emetic of the day: “We do not want to chill free speech.”

Like hell he doesn’t.

Stand by for the vote tally.

Update 2:33pm Eastern Snowe is a NO.

Phew…

Update 2:38pm Eastern Scott Brown and Colllins also NOs.

Democrats will fail to meet the 60-vote threshold.

Final roll call vote 59-39.

Harry Reid foiled again! What part of NO more union pay-off gag orders masquerading as “reform” doesn’t he understand?

On July 27, the Senate voted down the Democrats’ union-friendly, loophole-ridden, Orwellian-titled DISCLOSE Act. The bogus campaign finance reform bill was, as Sen. Mitch McConnell put it, a “transparent attempt to rig fall elections” that was written “behind closed doors” with help from lobbyists and riddled with political carve-outs for labor and other deep-pocketed organizations. Now, the hide-and-seek hypocrites on the Hill have resurrected their union pay-off.

Priorities, you know.

Hapless Harry Reid is leading the charge:

Democrats plan to rally their troops for the final stretch of the campaign season by bringing up a campaign-finance transparency bill.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) on Tuesday announced plans for a last-ditch vote on the measure, dubbed the Disclose Act. A vote on the bill is expected Thursday.

The legislation is intended to roll back a Supreme Court ruling from earlier this year that lifted spending restrictions on political advertisements by corporations and unions. The bill would require them to disclose the financial backers of a political advertisement within the message.

Other, more controversial provisions in the measure include prohibitions on political spending by companies with 20 percent or more foreign ownership and restrictions on ads by some government contractors.

The vote is designed to crank up the pressure on Maine GOP Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, two longtime champions of greater limits on campaign finance.

Collins and Snowe voted no in July. The Democrats have changed nothing in the bill to address their concerns.

FYI:

In the past week, Senate Democrats considered a bare-bones strategy for the measure that would involve stripping the bill down to just the disclosure requirements, effectively setting up a vote for or against transparency.

With time running out before Senate heads out of town, however, leaders have decided to begin debate with the bill they voted on before the August recess. That vote attracted 58 votes in the Senate, two shy of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) was absent the day of the vote and has told watchdogs he will vote in favor of the bill, so supporters need to flip just one of Maine’s senators to break the filibuster.

Time for Operation Buck Up Maine:

Sen. Collins of Maine 202-224-2523
207-945-0417

Sen. Snowe of Maine 202-224-5344
207-874-0883

***

Lookee here: DISCLOSE vote will wait for high-dollar fundraiser

University of Chicago Medical Center top executive Dr. Eric Whitaker is a busy, busy man.

Here’s a rundown of his schedule since his Chicago pal Barack Obama moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:

*Golfed with Obama on his December 2008 Hawaii vacation;

*Played hoops with Obama during a three-day getaway to Chicago in February 2009;

*Attended the Obamas’ first state dinner in November 2009;

*Traveled with Obama to Norway in December 2009 for Nobel Peace Prize ceremony;

*Golfed with Obama on his December 2009 Hawaii vacation;

*Golfed with Obama on his 2009 vacation to Martha’s Vineyard;

*Golfed with the prez at Andrews Air Force Base during his vacation two weeks ago;

*Golfed with Obama on his 2010 Martha’s Vineyard vacay this weekend.

When he does have time to actually do work related to the medical field, it’s to lobby on behalf of Obamacare, natch.

Perhaps Obama’s playmate should be paying more attention at home.

As the Sun-Times reported in May:

E-mails and other records of Dr. Eric Whitaker — one of President Obama’s best friends — have been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

The investigation involves “faith-based initiatives” and health-awareness campaigns funded by the Illinois Department of Public Health when Whitaker ran the agency for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, according to copies of subpoenas obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

Obama has said he recommended Whitaker for that job, which Whitaker landed in April 2003. The president’s friend resigned in October 2007 to join Obama’s wife, Michelle, as an executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

On Friday, Whitaker defended his work as the state’s former top health official, saying he developed “new methods” to help “African-American and other minority communities” get better medical care.

Longtime readers will recall that Whitaker took over First Lady Michelle Obama’s patient-dumping, crony-rewarding scheme at the University of Chicago Medical Center dressed up as a minority health initiative.

Background on the Obama-Whitaker-Rezko connection here. Refresher:

Whitaker’s agency also got caught up in scandal. He oversaw the budget of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, which approves medical construction projects. Rezko and his associates controlled that board, which they used to solicit kickbacks and payoffs, according to testimony at Rezko’s trial.

Rezko was convicted. Whitaker, who said he wasn’t involved in the board’s day-to-day operations, was never accused of any wrongdoing.

“During my time as director of IDPH, I received four or five calls from Tony Rezko seeking my support for and attendance at the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital charity event,” Whitaker said. “After my employment interview, I never had a conversation with Mr. Rezko about the” health department or the planning board.

Whitaker left the state payroll a year ago and joined Obama’s wife Michelle as a high-ranking executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center. When he was hired, U. of C. was seeking permission to expand its children’s hospital — one of five expansions the university sought from the state while Whitaker was health director. All were approved by the planning board. Whitaker and the U. of C. said he had nothing to do with those approvals.

“Whether and to what extent Dr. Whitaker had anything to do with the [approval] process while at IDPH was and is totally irrelevant to his hiring by or his work at the Medical Center,” wrote Susan S. Sher, a medical center attorney.

Sher is now Michelle Obama’s White House chief of staff.

Keeping it all in the Chicago family…

Always look under the Astroturf mat.

Hide-and-seek hypocrites on the Hill
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

You know when a politician starts a sentence with “frankly,” he’s about to lie to your face. The same principle applies to campaign finance legislation dubbed the “DISCLOSE Act.” The voter’s instinctive reaction should be: What are they trying to hide now? Drafted out of public view with left-wing lobbyists and rammed through Congress after bypassing committee hearings, this bum bill would have been better named the CLOSEDDOOR Act.

At a Rose Garden press conference on Monday, President Obama decried the influence of “shadow groups” on elections and urged the Senate to pass the “reform” sponsored by N.Y. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer. But the loophole-ridden package exempts large nonprofits with 500,000 or more members. Behemoth labor unions get preferential treatment. Bradley Smith, former Federal Elections Commission chairman, noted that the law places radical speech-squelching restrictions on companies’ ability to run independent political ads: “(I)f you’re a company with a government contract of over $10 million (like more than half of the top 50 U.S. companies) or if you’re a company with more than 20 percent foreign shareholders, you can’t even mention a candidate in an ad for up to a full year before the election. … There are no similar prohibitions for unions representing government contractors or unions with foreign membership.”

GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell put it more starkly during Tuesday’s debate before the Senate cloture vote on the bill: The DISCLOSE Act, he said, is a “transparent attempt to rig the fall elections.” At bottom, McConnell diagnosed correctly, this is a jobs-protection bill for entrenched incumbents more interested in protecting their hides than protecting the Constitution. While the cloture vote fell three votes short of the needed 60 on Tuesday, Schumer vowed to resurrect the issue “again and again and again until we pass it.”

In attacking Republicans who oppose this campaign finance Kabuki, Obama audaciously feigned alarm over the proliferation of fake grassroots groups with innocuous-sounding names. Special interests, he complained, “can hide behind a name like ‘Citizens for a Better Future,’ even if a more accurate name would be ‘Companies for Weaker Oversight.’” Let me supply some more examples that won’t appear on Obama’s teleprompter anytime soon:

How about “Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity”? That’s the front group White House senior adviser David Axelrod formed to shill for a massive utility tax hike championed by Commonwealth Edison in Chicago.

Or how about “Americans for Stable Quality Care”? That was the government health care takeover-promoting special interest coalition funded by Big Pharma, the AARP, AMA and the Service Employees International Union. The group pitched in $150 million for pro-Obama health care ads to create the illusion of grassroots support.

Or how about “Health Care for America Now”? That’s the 1825 K Street-based “grassroots” lobbying conglomerate funded by radical liberal sugar daddy George Soros and the brass-knuckled, purple-shirted bosses of the SEIU.

Or how about “American Rights at Work”? That’s the far-left, pro-Big Labor lobbying group that Obama’s labor secretary, Hilda Solis, served as treasurer for while a congresswoman — a position she failed to disclose while lobbying for the Big Labor card-check bill she was sponsoring at the same time.

Or how about the “American Public Policy Committee”? That’s the umbrella group for Beltway-based union and progressive lobbyists run by D.C. money-shuffler Craig Varoga, who is now harnessing Washington bucks to attack tea party activists.

It’s the president’s biggest donors and advisers who perfected the art of Astroturf. Don’t be so modest, man.

Team Obama and their allies on Capitol Hill have some nerve gnashing their teeth about transparency after two years of backdoor kickbacks, secret Big Labor deals, C-SPAN camera evasion, White House disclosure-ducking coffeehouse meetings, and sunlight-shirking holiday and midnight floor votes. And while they preached about America’s right to know and posed as crusaders for open access, Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate continued to stonewall on public hearings for health care rationing czar Donald Berwick — Obama’s recess-appointed head of Medicare and Medicaid.

A White House spokesman called the battle over the DISCLOSE Act a “defining moment for the public.” Nah. It’s just another example of the Democratic majority’s endless hide-and-seek hypocrisy.

It passed the House in June.

This is a relief: Squishy GOP Sen. Susan Collins announced she’s a no vote:

The legislation exempts some politically powerful, large membership groups like the NRA and the AARP, a move that Collins’ spokesman blasted, on behalf of the senator.

“Senator Collins also believes that it is ironic that a bill aimed at curtailing special interests in the election process provides so many carve outs and exemptions that favor some grassroots organizations over others. This too is simply unfair,” Kelly said.

Yesterday, Prince of Transparency-Underming Darkness Barack Obama had the chutzpah to complain about “shadow” groups holding sway over politics (video here).

Snort. Take your disclosure-evading complaints about Astroturfing to David Axelrod, Mr. President.

***

Background on DISCLOSE Act’s First Amendment assault here.

***

Update: The Hill’s Michael O’Brien reports via Twitter that squishy GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham will also oppose the bill.

Update: Snowe is a no, too. Lieberman is going to miss the vote, via Ed Morrissey.

Looks dead. For now.

***

Update 2:51pm – McConnell on Senate floor now blasting DISCLOSE as “transparent attempt to rig fall elections.” Written “behind closed doors” with help from lobbyists. “Unions don’t need carve-outs, because they got exemptions.”

“Unions are the ultimate victors under this bill.”

Mocks carve-outs for AARP, NRA, and other large non-profits.

There’s no asterisk by 1st Amendment only protecting favored special-interest speech, McConnell continues.

Great closing line from McConnell invoking Founding Fathers and fundamental duty of lawmakers: “We’re here to protect the Constitution, not our own hides.”

****

Update 3:55pm Eastern Cloture vote falls short, DISCLOSE Act fails 57-41.

Schumer won’t let go:

Sen. Charles Schumer, the sponsor of the stalled campaign finance bill, promised Tuesday that Democrats would hold round-after-round of votes on it until it passes.

Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke to reporters following the weekly caucus luncheons, slamming Republicans for holding up the response to the Citizens United Supreme Court case, which allowed unlimited political spending by corporations and unions.

“And we will go back at this bill again and again and again until we pass it,” he said. “It’s that vital, not to Democrats, not to Republicans, but to the future of people’s faith in the functioning of this government.”

Actually, the failure of this bogus bill went a long way toward restoring faith in the functiong of this government.