If you don’t think campaign finance reform is long overdue, please read this post from Judd Legum on his Popular Information site. (Which, IMHO, is well worth the subscription, btw.) A few excerpts are below.
One of the most powerful groups in the 2022 midterm elections is the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), the Super PAC controlled by Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
But the largest donor, by far, to the SLF is One Nation. Through June 30, 2022, One Nation donated $33.5 million to the SLF. What is One Nation? Like the SLF, One Nation is run by Steven Law, a former Chief of Staff to McConnell. But unlike the SLF, One Nation is organized as a 501(c)4 non-profit organization. That allows One Nation to keep its donors secret. One Nation can collect unlimited donations from corporations and individuals, keep their identities secret, and then pass the money on to the SLF.
If the same corporations and individuals donated directly to the SLF, their identities would have to be disclosed. It seems that many supporters of the SLF’s efforts are interested in maintaining their anonymity. Donations to 501(c)4 groups are not tax deductible. The only benefit, from a donor perspective, is secrecy. [emphasis mine – DD]
Republicans have a similar structure to finance their efforts to retake control of the House of Representatives. The dominant Republican Super PAC running ads in House races is the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF). The top donor to the CLF, by far, is the American Action Network, a 501(c)4 non-profit run by the same people as the CLF. Through September 12, 2022, the American Action Network has donated $38.1 million to the CLF this cycle. The people or organizations that are donating to the American Action Network remain secret.
This tactic is not limited to Republicans. On the Democratic side, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)4 non-profit, donated $57 million to Super PACs supporting Democratic candidates, including Future Forward USA, American Bridge 21st Century, Priorities USA Action, and Unite the Country. The Sixteen Thirty Fund’s direct political involvement appears to have scaled back in 2022, donating about $6 million to date to political committees. The group says it supports legislation that would make political donations more transparent, including bills that would require the Sixteen Thirty Fund to disclose its donors. For now, however, the Sixteen Thirty Fund says it will use “the legal rulebook in place today.”
Let’s run those numbers again. $82 million. $38.1 million. $57 million. All “dark money.” All in secret. It’s a shell game. It’s three-card Monte, and Joe and Jane Citizen lose every time, because the cards are stacked against them.
Undue influence. Burning money on a surfeit of attack ads that fuel the fires of political polarization.
If the goals of these donors were noble, wouldn’t they want to be transparent about it?
One of the comments on the post has it exactly right:
Most people would not want to submit to being controlled by the extremely wealthy & corporations who almost always use their money and influence for their own benefit but not the benefit of the larger good… By basically equating money with free speech, Citizens United was a terrible blow to fairness and democracy in this country… It just keeps getting worse as both parties have to crank up the spending.
Campaign finance reform — and in particular getting rid of dark money — is long overdue. If these wealthy individuals and corporations want to keep pouring millions into political campaigns, they should at least have the guts to put their names to it.
It’s the five couples who spent a glorious (pre-Hurricane Ian) week at the Outer Banks, courtesy of the dude who is fourth from the left, Vinnie, and his wife Janine (to the right of Vinnie).
The “boys” in this photo — if you’ll indulge me for a moment and allow me to use the term “boys” for guys who are pushing 60 — met at college 40 years ago. D2, LJ, Thin Man, Ricky C and Donger (16 Candles reference). We’re all over the map now – Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Annapolis, West Palm. But we all managed to carve out a week together at the beach. And it was glorious. The weather was perfect, but the weather was inconsequential. It was about reconnecting, recollecting, laughing, dancing like the fools we are.
Vinnie on the left, Damian kneeling, LJ 4th from the left, Art at the far right. Circa 1985.
Got a glimmer in his eye, seems to say, “This is what I’ll miss after I die
And this is what I’ll miss about being alive…
Vinnie has offered up his vacation place nearly every September for the past dozen or so years, but there were few takers. Too many responsibilities, too many kids’ practices, not enough time. But this year was different. Most of us are empty nesters now, or pretty darn close. That’s part of the equation. The other part is realizing that time and tide wait for no man. Some of our peers from college have already passed away. Our good friend Ned had a stroke. Our buddy Art was scheduled to be on this OBX trip, but he had to have emergency surgery two weeks before.
Now time’s the undefeated, the heavyweight champ
Laughing in his face, as he dance likе Sugar Ray
Used to be “c’mon c’mon” but now “no mas, no mas”
The older we get, the more we treasure our time together. Pushing back against the tide may be a fool’s errand, but we’re just the fools for the job.
I like weird music. Well, “weird” to most people. Certainly the bands I love are well outside the mainstream. I’m good with that.
Because my tastes tend toward the obscure, most of the live concerts I attend have a small-but-mighty crowd. (I’ve been to gigs where the people on stage outnumbered the audience.)
Believe it or not, there are other folks who share my musical tastes. You start noticing the same faces at shows. And for a long stretch in the late 90s and early 2000s, it seemed like every show I went to — especially singer-songwriters shows– I’d see the same older dude with a ponytail. The Venn diagram of our musical tastes overlapped significantly.
So I finally introduced myself to him, and every show after that, we’d compare notes on new albums we liked and upcoming shows on our radar. His name was Bob Gregory (I called him “Hippie Bob”), and he taught photography at Sycamore High School in suburban Cincinnati for decades before retiring to a life of going to sparsely-attended shows and being bothered by some music nerd (c’est moi!). He was a sweet dude, soft-spoken, funny, and kind.
The last time I saw Hippie Bob at a concert, several years ago, he was having some health issues and wasn’t able to attend as many shows as he’d like to.
I’m now at the age where I follow the Carl Reiner morning ritual:
“Every morning before having breakfast, I pick up my newspaper, get the obituary section, and see if I’m listed. If I’m not, I’ll have my breakfast.”.
Carl Reiner
Last Sunday I read that Hippie Bob had passed away earlier this month at the age of 82.
We weren’t exactly buddies. Just kindred spirits. But I always enjoyed catching up with Hippie Bob. The world could use more people like him, not fewer. R.I.P. my music friend.
Yesterday was National Voter Registration Day. (As usual, your ol’ pal Dubbatrubba is a day late and a dollar short… actually make that a day late and $10 million in “dark money” short, because corporations are people too!)
It’s not too late to get #VoteReady, by finding out who is on the ballot… and learning about the particular hoops you need to jump through in your state.
Make no mistake, there are folks who are trying to make it tougher and tougher for you to vote. Especially if you’re poor, or car-less, or disabled. Some of those folks are elected officials. Voting them right out of office will be extra satisfying.
Yes, the cards are stacked against you — gerrymandering is at an all-time high. (“If you can’t beat ’em, crack, pack and stack ’em” seems to be the official motto.) But don’t let them win by not voting.
Exercise is good for you.
Exercising your right to vote is good for the future of democracy.
When I was six, I wanted to be an astronaut. I mean, what boy didn’t during the height of the space race?
By the time I was 10, the dream had changed from outer space to airwaves: I wanted to be on the radio. Playing music. Cracking jokes. Writing theater-of-the-mind skits. Doing goofy character voices.
Radio was classy once…
It’s why I majored in Communications (with a concentration in Radio/TV) in college. It’s why I took an entry level job scheduling the commercials at a crappy AM station (R.I.P. “all oldies, all the time, 1230 AM WDJO”) – because it was a “foot in the door.”
So young… and so naïve
It’s why I worked weekend overnight shifts at a country station, where my assigned on-air name was “Cincinnati Redd” and I played music I didn’t really like in the wee small hours – because it was a chance to get some experience.
It’s why I made the hour-long drive from Cincinnati to Oxford, Ohio on the weekends, to play music I did like for an even smaller audience. It’s why I came back to that station a few years later, and worked the overnight shift, making less than minimum wage – because I was chasing the dream.
It’s why I left an on-air gig at the station in Oxford to be an errand boy at a group of stations in Cincinnati… because it too was a “foot in the door.” I wound up working for a radio legend, Gary Burbank, on a 50,000-watt clear channel station, on a show that was syndicated to dozens of other stations around the country . Cracking jokes. Writing theater-of-the-mind skits. Doing goofy character voices. The dream came true. But it happened 10 years too late.
This 60-second snippet from a great podcast called The Memory Palace sums up why the dream died:
When the corporations took over the mom and pop stations, they sucked all the fun out of it. And they killed a lot of dreams.
I still miss radio – but really I miss the idea of radio… radio as it was once, not radio as it is. Sure, there are podcasts, and there’s Spotify. It’s not the same. Never will be. Radio was ethereal… and that made it magical.
Please listen to the entire The Memory Palace episode from 2017. It’s a brilliant tribute to a lost station, and a loss of innocence. There are clear parallels to 97X, the station where I worked in Oxford, Ohio… which was bought out by a corporation and now is a Spanish language station.
The entire series is well-worth a listen – you’ll find all of The Memory Palace episodes here. Host Nate DiMeo has a gift for audio storytelling, and for uncovering hidden gems from history.
“The Memory Palace podcast is among the most potent pieces of audio being produced today; the show’s short tales are so emotionally concentrated that, upon listening, they bloom in the space between one’s ears, like a single drop of dye propagating through an entire glass of water. Nate DiMeo, the show’s sole creative force, often seems to be operating on a level wholly separate from that of other podcasts”
Kevin Sullivan on Warren piece: “Praise Warren. He also said, “You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long…” Jan 15, 08:48
Damian on Eternally Grateful… still: “Thanks for reading, and thanks for sharing that song, Chuck! You’re absolutely right that the Deadhead community is amazing.” Jan 15, 08:17
Chuck Wiggins on Eternally Grateful… still: “I’m ambivalent at best about the Grateful Dead’s music, but there’s no discounting the incredible community built around it. And…” Jan 14, 09:05
Kevin Sullivan on Spoken and Unspoken: “You lived the brotherhood Damian, and that is a full plate. Peace to you and peace to John.” Nov 18, 16:54
You done said…