Blog - Are Foreign Interests Funding Political Ads in the U.S.? Who Knows!

Come on! Although you are factually accurate, the presentation of those facts infer that there is real validity in the President’s argument, and that it is primarily a “problem” on the right.

As I am sure you already know, Just like the American Chamber of Commerce, many organizations, of all persuasions including the organization that began this whole thing, the Center For American Progress, spend money on political activity, receive money from foreign entities, and do not open their books to the public, and has for a long time. To only tepidly admit that as though that doesn’t have a huge direct impact on this whole argument is entirely disingenuous.

I can claim many things that cannot be known. That doesn’t mean they can be used as valid arguments against someone only because there is no evidence against it. As any statistics student knows, you cannot prove a negative. Can anyone show any evedince at all that ACoC is doing anything other than waging an effective political battle?

@UniqName – What difference does it really make who brings it to our attention that it is possible that foreign money is influencing our elections or even why this is being brought to our attention? What’s more significant is that this is why transparency in government is important. Why bury your head in the sand and refuse to seek truth? What’s more important – knowing the truth about if foreign money is influencing our elections or just taking every opportunity to announce hatred for a politician? Seriously, what matters more? It’s not like Obama is a king who will rule forever… but if foreign money is influencing our elections that could be dangerous.

I’m all for transparency in government. Transparency of those who are accountable to the people directly. But transparency of accounting books for private citizens and organizations engaged in political speech, which the Supreme Court has ruled money and donations constitute political speech, must be weighed against potential for chilling of that speech.

Also, to apply “transparency” to only one political ideology and not another is not transparency at all. It is merely a tactic to demonize the opposition. It is the height of hypocrisy for an institution engaged in exactly the same practices, and following exactly to the same laws as another, to call for opening their financial records when they themselves will not. There are valid, legal reasons for ACoC to keep their books closed, which one must assume are exactly the same reasons Center for American Progress chooses to keep theirs closed.

I’m fairly certain, I can’t find the article right now, that over 90% of the democrats funds have a name attached. While 75% of Republican funds are secret.

>>>>>>CAP doesn’t “electioneer or run candidate campaign ads”<<<<<<<<<
http://mediamatters.org/research/201010130030

SEUI receives funds from foreign sources including to some of its PACs (http://biggovernment.com/kolson/2010/10/11/seiu-solicited-contributions-from-foreign-nationals/) which do

If Congress wasn’t broken, the Disclose Act would be passed via unanimous consent. This Act is great for both sides of the fence which should be obeying the law.

The fact of the matter is that The People are the best form of checks and balances this country has at its disposal. Keeping information from us like this only weakens those checks and balances which can be devastating to everyone in the long run.

For the Republicans out there, think about how much you would wish your party supported this Act if some day the Democrats start being funded heavily by foreign entities…or worse…perhaps some are already being funded by them? Don’t you wish you could at least be able to find out?

Despite what President Obama continues to affirm, it is still illegal to use money from foreign organizations to fund political activity domestically. Even after the Citizens United case. If they have it, bring out the evidence and let’s have a lawsuit. They won’t because there isn’t any.

: The Chamber receives funding from three foreign sources: 1) Foreign-based corporations, 2) Business Councils that operate out of the Chamber’s Washington, DC headquarters to solicit foreign donations, and 3) independently-run AmChams that are based overseas. Most of the Chamber’s foreign sources of funding come from large multi-national corporations which are headquartered abroad, like BP and Siemens. Business Councils in Bahrain and India have raised at least $300,000 in direct contributions to the Chamber’s 501©(6) account. .

All of which are in segregated accounts only used for activities within those individual chapters, none of which is used in any of the domestic activities, political or otherwise. Admittedly, one must take AmCham’s word on this, but to this date, there is no credible evidence to suppose otherwise.

How would we like to wake up one morning, and find out that Victor Chavez, through his US Corp, CITGO, is funding one Party or one candidate in order to influence Government? I don’t care WHICH party, we MUST look into this and demand that they give the names and who and where the foreign funds are coming from. If there was not something very wrong with this, there would be no problem with COC and Karl Rove releasing names !

You missed four VERY IMPORTANT things!

1. What is the Chambers record for supporting bills that outsourced jobs?
2. The Chamber has publicly endorsed outsourcing.
3. One of the Foreign companies in Bahrain came to DC 3 days after the allegations.
http://www.uschamber.com/events/bahrain-banks-association-reception
4. The Chamber was also accused of misappropriating charity money in September
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/us/politics/11chamber.html

It is to believed because it is absurd.

Or if you don`t drink and type " It is to BE believed because it is absurd "

Its not absurd, and it is a rather easy conclusion to come to as well.

It is because money is fungible as said in the story above, I will illustrate.

We have 3 people, one holding a hat, Mao Zedong, and any random American(could be you =p). Now you and Mao are holding $100 dollar bills and you each place your $100 dollar bills in the hat. The guy holding the hat shakes it a bit, twirls it around a bit, says some magical words, and presto pulls out a $100 dollar bill, now is that your $100 dollar bill or is that Mao’s $100 dollar bill who the hell knows.

Of course if the guy holding the hat pulls out both $100 dollar bills we will know for a fact that one of them is Mao’s. The more investigation of the chamber that is done the larger the amount of foreign dollars we know about becomes, currently we know of about $880,000~ dollars of foreign money that made its way into that account. And with 75% of their donations being secret we may never know the full total.

After watching Karl Rove deny any ties to foreign money on Fox News, I realized that to Karl lying is the most sacred of duties.

Here`s the way I see it, and it`s pretty simple the republicans lie, cheat, steal, and run in a pack " Group Think " and nothing is beneath them, on the other hand the democrats can`t agree on what color to paint the wall that`s in their way,and while they discuss it, they loose it. So what do we do ?

It’s easy to believe your opponent is wrong without actually considering their arguments when you have already concluded that they are evil.

You realize you have accused nearly half this country of mal-intent. That doesn’t strike you as a bit of an overgeneralization?

There is but one truth. And my judgment has reference to self evident truths deductively. I raised no opponent, nor did I call the self serving in Washington evil. I suppose that I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding, since it was the republican party that gave us an economic melt down and a couple of wars, yea good times. I think I`ll finish here and boost my opinion by watching Fox News Corp.

I agree you have news for video

( http://tutkuvideo.com )

“Are Foreign Interests Funding Political Ads in the U.S.? Who Knows!”

Who cares? The last time I checked, individuals vote. Is any amount of campaign funding by some foreign entity going to change this fact? What you should really be worried about are the domestic political candidates buying votes by promising endless entitlement programs and other forms of government looting.

Could you be specific as to what you consider endless entitlement programs that you`v deemed government looting, personally I`m against income tax since there is no law that states I have to pay it, but that`s an entitlement to the federal reserve, that the government enforces to pay the interest rate for borrowing monies from the fed.

This is why we should care:

1. Money influences elections.
2. Elections influence power.
3. Power influences us all.
4. Foreigners don’t live here and shouldn’t be provided with any of that power during elections.
5. It is illegal and for very good reasons.

It is idealistically foolish to believe the freedom to vote has left this country completely absent of outside influences, deception, manipulation, widespread misinformation, etc. These days, you have to be a skilled full time journalist to get even close to the whole truth with all of BS that is out there.

It is bad enough that the wealthiest of corporations have a louder voice than the voting citizens in this country. Now people like yourself are willing to open the gates for foreign powers to take a large slice of that pie too? Do you have any clue how much of our freedoms you are handing over by supporting such a thing?

Okay, lets look at tax`s:Accounts receivable TAX, automobile registration TAX, building permit TAX, capital gains TAX, CDL license TAX, cigarette TAX, corporate income TAX, court fines(indirect TAXES), dog license TAX, estate TAX, Fed. unemployment TAX (FUTA), fishing license TAX, food license TAX, fuel permit TAX, gasoline TAX, hunting license TAX, inheritance TAX & interest expense(tax on the money), inventory TAX, IRS interest charges (tax on top of tax), IRS penalties (tax on top of tax), liquor TAX, local income TAX, luxury TAX, marriage license TAX, medicare TAX, parking meters, property TAX, real estate TAX, septic TAX, service charge TAXES, social security TAX, road usage TAXES (truckers), sales TAX, recreational vehicle TAX, road toll booth TAX, toll bridge TAX, toll tunnel TAX, school TAX, state income TAX, state unemployment TAX, telephone FED. excise TAX, telephone FED. universal service fee TAX, telephone FED. & state local surcharge TAXES,

telephone minimum usage surcharge TAX, telephone recurring & non- recurring charges TAX, telephone state & local TAX, telephone usage charge TAX, utility TAXES, workers comp. TAX, well permit TAX, vehicle license registration TAX, vehicle sales TAX, water craft registration TAX, trailer registration TAX, traffic fines, and last but not the least Federal income TAX which goes directly to pay the interest on the debt to the federal reserve bank. P.S. there is no law that states you HAVE to pay income tax, it is unconstitutional and up held by the Supreme Court, to which the lower courts ignore, and to date can not produce a law that says YOU HAVE TO FILE A INCOME TAX RETURN. When the courts break the law, there is no law, just fear and intimidation, as George Bush said in `04 the constitution is just a piece of paper. Good luck and good night.

Hi,
I am new user for this site. But i read this site. This site is very well. I like it.
Thank you
_______________________________________________________________________________
Uk Debt

With all due respect to Mr. Shaw, I would like him to write an article on how the Obama campaign contributions amounted to about 740 million dollars, the most in American history, in a time of recession. From my recollection during the final 2 months or so of the campaign he got millions of dollars. No one has ever question the origins of that amount of money.