Who decides elections?

Somebody out-of-state spending millions on attack ads,

Or millions of in-state voters spending a few minutes to vote for what they believe.

Dollars don’t vote.  People who show up do!

Cartoon of the day: elections and ID

See "Clarifying Recent Changes to Our Electoral System", Matt Wuerker, Politico, May 2012, reposted by The Coffee Party on Facebook, 2013-03-16.  Wuerker points out the inconsistencies for photo ID on voting in an election and buying an election.

If corporations are people, tax them like people

When I lived in Europe, as a U.S. citizen I had to file and pay U.S. income taxes.  I received credit for any foreign taxes I paid.  If I paid more foreign taxes than I would have paid for the same salary in the U.S., Univac reimbursed me for the difference.  Of course, that reimbursement was also taxable in the U.S.

I think this still holds.

However, a U.S. company doesn't pay any taxes on its foreign earnings unless it brings the money back to the U.S.

If a corporation is a person, then it should pay taxes like a person.  If a corporation is not a person, then it should not be able to indulge in "political speech".

But if this leads to justification for not paying taxes, then consider that the corporation uses a lot of infra-structure paid for by taxes.  Should not a corporation pay for the roads that it depends on for moving goods and people?  Should not a corporation pay for the court system that it uses to sue others: corporations and people?  Should not a corporation pay for the military that protects its interests around the world?

Is this effort to avoid corporate taxes another instance of the deception and oppression of the public that Adam Smith warned about?  See "The Invisible Adam Smith".

Illegal political contributions from multi-national corporations?

This little note was inspired by "Corporations can't pledge allegiance", Frances Moore Lappe, Huffington Post, 2012-08-16.

The Supreme Court "issued an order upholding prohibitions against foreigners making contributions to influence American elections", "Supreme Court Retains Ban on Foreign Campaign Donations", John H. Cushman Jr., New York Times, 2012-01-09.

This decision was against two individuals who were working temporarily in the United States.  Foreign nationals may not make contributions to candidates or parties and may not make independent expenditures in elections.

If corporations are people, then shouldn't this same ruling apply to many large corporations.  Corporations also have foreign nationals on their boards.  For example, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman of the Board of Nestlé, a Swiss corporation, sits on the board of Exxon.

In 2011 Exxon gave $226,700 to candidates and caucuses and its employee/retiree PAC gave more than $747,000.  See http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/about_issues_political.aspx.  Before "liberals" get too smug, Exxon donated $117,946 to Obama's 2008 campaign and a lesser amount to McCain.  I guess they believed in equal bribery, er, covering all the bases.  See "Exxon, Chevron, BP Greased Obama's Campaign", Paul Bedard and Danielle Kurtzleben, US News, 2011-03-14.

So, if the Chairman of Nestlé, an Austrian citizen, is on the board of Exxon, wouldn't he have some say in how Exxon makes its political contributions?  If so, isn't that a foreigner "making contributions to influence American elections"?

Foreign money in U.S. politics? Wait a minute!

John McCain has claimed that foreign money is slipping into the presidential campaign, mainly through Sheldon Adelson's SuperPAC.  McCain's argument is that Adelson owns three casinos in Macau and that profits from these casinos are going into his SuperPAC.  See "McCain says foreign money influencing US elections, sneaking in through SuperPACs", Associated Press, 2012-06-15.

Let's see, if I owned thousands of shares of Nokia, the Finnish cell phone maker, and thousands of shares of CTRIP, the Chinese online travel company (don't I wish), and donated to a campaign the equivalent of the dividends from these companies (if they were paying dividends), would that be Finnish or Chinese money influencing the campaign?  I don't think so.

Since Adelson's SuperPAC promotes Romney and attacks Obama, I would doubt that the Chinese government is telling Adelson where his Macau profits should go.  After all, Romney wants to have the "strongest defense" in the world.  Is it in the interest of the Chinese government to enter into an escalating arms race?  Maybe the interest of the Chinese military.  But does the Chinese military have that much control that it can direct where the profits of a foreign country go?

No, I think it is just a question of the absurdity of the "Citizens United" decision, which McCain doesn't like, and of the wish of Sheldon Adelson to defeat President Obama.

Maybe we should just call Sheldon Adelson the drunken sailor of politics.

Freedom of anonymous speech?

I was inspired to write the following by "How I Became Stephen Colbert's Lawyer -- And Joined the Fight to Rescue Our Democracy from Citizens United", Trevor Potter, 2012-05-23, speech at the Annual Meeting of th American Law Institute.

I wonder what the writers of Bill of Rights would think of the Supreme Court interpreting the first amendment as "freedom of anonymous speech".  Speech is meant to be heard.  If it is heard, those hearing it know who said it.

Second, if someone started a whisper campaign that disparaged you or your business and you found out who and were able to afford the right lawyer, wouldn't you probably win a defamation case?

If you started a campaign making false (or even damagingly true) accusations against a large corporation, wouldn't its lawyers be doing their best to get you into court?

So, why do large corporations or wealthy donors get to make scurrilous, misleading statements without identifying themselves or being held accountable for libel?

Oh, I forgot.  Although corporations are people, they are super-people who are above the law.

Senate blames the cops, not the criminals

I left the following comment on Facebook on the Coffee Party's link to "Senators put federal regulators, not JPMorgan, on the hot seat", Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 2012-05-22.

What are all the complaints about?  We have the best government money can buy.

The 1 percent may have the money, but the 99 percent have the vote.  The problem is that too many of the 99 percent blame the money but never bother to show up.  Election after election has gone to Republicans because too many "Democrats" didn't even bother to show up - Florida, 2000; Wisconsin, 2010; New York Ninth District, 2011.  This last has 3-1 Democratic registration!

And money doesn't always win elections.  Meg Whitman outspent Jerry Brown by a wide margin, but Brown won the Governorship of California.

Whatever else you do, show up to vote, each and every time.  Vote Republican, Vote Democrat, Vote Third Party, Write somebody in, but vote.  The only votes that don't count are the votes not cast.

Lack of transparency of corporate political donations

A mutual fund recently asked its clients to petition the Securities and Exchange Commission for transparency in political contributions.  The fund included a website to do so.  The suggested message was long-winded and so I wrote my own very brief statement:

If corporations do not have the right to vote, then why do they have the right to contribute to political campaigns?

If corporations claim it is their right in a democracy, then why do they only present a single slate of candidates for their boards, pre-selected by who else but the current board?

If you haven't received a similar request through a mutual fund, you can send your own comment to chairmanoffice@sec.gov.