Republican Party Against Democracy

The political right has always had a problem with democracy. Obviously a party representing the interests of 1% of the population-- or even 5 or 10%-- will have a problem with elections. So conservatives have always done whatever they could to change the subject and make elections about divisiveness or xenophobia. And then there's the whole anti-democarcy crusade that's always part of any right-wing political party-- especially limiting the franchise-- and, of course, there's the money aspect, basically buying votes. This isn't just about our times or our country.

But there are a few ways Republicans here in the U.S. have tried to win elections in ways that have nothing to do with persuading voters that their ideas are better-- or that they even matter. We won't even bother rehashing electronic vote theft-- from Katherine Harris in Florida to Ken Blackwell in Ohio and Kathy Nickolaus in Waukesha County, Wisconsin-- but let's take a look at a more tried and true conservative tactic-- limiting voter participation by taking away voting rights from people who might vote against their party. In every state the Republicans took over in 2010 they've either instituted or are trying to institute drastic voter ID laws that will disenfranchise large numbers of African-American, Latino, young and poor voters... all constituencies that tend to vote Democratic.

Their latest blow against democracy was in Pennsylvania, a state Obama won in a landslide in 2008, but where the GOP hopes to win for him in November... if they can prevent close to 800,000 people from voting. That's close to 10% of the state's registered voters-- and around 18% in Philadelphia, a Democratic stronghold where many people use public transportation and don't have drivers licenses.

Watch the video above where you're hear Republican state House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, a well-known dirtbag, bragging how the GOP legislation to prevent hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania registered voters from being able to cast their ballots "is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania."

[F]or most voters, the Pennsylvania driver's license is the standard photo ID. The disclosure that 9 percent of the state's registered voters don't have one - or an alternative, nondriver PennDot photo ID-- provides a clearer picture of the hurdle set up by the state's new voter ID requirement.

Republican lawmakers pushed the bill through the legislature in March and it was signed into law by Gov. Corbett, over protests from Democrats that the measure would disenfranchise thousands of voters, disproportionately affecting those without driver's licenses-- the poor, the elderly, and the young.

House Republican leader Mike Turzai acknowledged the law's political implications at a Republican State Committee meeting last month.

...The law still faces a legal challenge as a possible violation of the state constitution. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson scheduled a July 25 hearing and his decision is likely to reach the state Supreme Court before November.

...Philadelphia's top election official, City Commission Chair Stephanie Singer, said the figures reinforced her view that the state's new law was designed to suppress voter turnout in the predominantly Democratic city.

With 18 percent of voters not having PennDot ID, she said, "Philadelphia is hit much harder by this than any of the other counties."

Singer had sought to obtain PennDot's data directly and set up a telephone call last month to speak to PennDot Secretary Barry J. Schoch.

But Aichele's office found out about the call and canceled it on the ground that the Department of State was supposed to be the point agency for all matters involving voter ID.

Singer said she now was anxious to receive the state data including names and addresses for those without PennDot ID - data that the state initially promised to send her office in May, Singer said.

Ruman said the state planned to distribute the lists to county election boards by next week. In addition, he said, the state intends to send letters this summer to all voters without PennDot ID telling them of the new law, the types of ID that will be necessary to vote in November, and how to obtain suitable ID if they need it.

Behind Philadelphia's 18 percent, nine other counties-- Allegheny, Cameron, Centre, Cumberland, Delaware, Lackawanna, Lawrence, Montour, and Union-- were reported to have 10 percent to 12 percent of their voters without PennDot ID. In the other 57 counties, more than 90 percent of voters reportedly had driver's licenses or nondriver ID, according to the state data.

And then there's the financial shenanigans-- many given the green light (Citizens United) by the 5 corporate whores the GOP managed to get onto the Supreme Court. Over the weekend Romney partied at the Koch mansion in tony East Hampton with the parasites of American society.

A woman in a blue chiffon dress poked her head out of a black Range Rover here on Sunday afternoon and yelled to an aide to Mitt Romney, “Is there a V.I.P. entrance. We are V.I.P.”

No such entrance existed. The line of cars waiting to enter a Romney event at a waterfront estate here had reached 30 deep, testament to the Republican candidate’s fund-raising might on a weekend when he is expected to haul in $3 million in the Hamptons.

Mr. Romney’s aides apologized for the wait: each donor had to be checked off a guest list in the driveway, leading to a major backup. “We are doing our best,” an aide carrying a clipboard said, sweat dripping down her cheeks.

Mr. Romney arrived in this town of outsized homes and conspicuous consumption for the first of three major fund-raisers on Sunday afternoon, his motorcade of Chevrolet Suburbans passing a gleaming line of Bentleys, Porsches and a Mercedes Benzes waiting to deposit guests who paid up to $25,000 a head to hear him speak.

A luncheon fund-raiser was held at the sprawling home of Ronald O. Perelman, the billionaire financier and chairman of Revlon. Widely described as the largest estate in East Hampton, it has 40 rooms, nine fireplaces and takes up mile along Georgica Pond.

After that, Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, was also scheduled to attend fund-raisers at the Hamptons homes of Clifford Sobel, the former United States ambassador to Brazil, and the billionaire industrialist David H. Koch, a major donor to conservative causes.

The event at Mr. Koch’s home, the biggest of the day, was expected to attract a sizable crowd of protesters, who, in brochures promoting the demonstration, said they opposed “the ever-growing and pervasive influence of Koch Industries,” the company controlled by Mr. Koch and his brother, Charles.

At Mr. Perelman’s house, a handful of guests stuck in the line outside rolled down their tinted windows to chat or simply shouted from their convertibles of their enthusiasm for Mr. Romney and disdain for President Obama.

Laura R. Schwartz of New Jersey, the woman inside the Range Rover, complained that Mr. Obama had not visited Israel as president, a slight to the country, in her eyes. “I don’t think he is good for Israel,” she said. Mr. Romney, she said, “is a fresh face.”

A few cars back, Ted Conklin, the owner of the American Hotel in Sag Harbor, N.Y., long a favorite of the well-off and well-known in the Hamptons, could barely contain his displeasure with Mr. Obama. “He is a socialist. His idea is find a problem that doesn’t exist and get government to intervene,” Mr. Conklin said from inside a gold-colored Mercedes as his wife, Carol Simmons, nodded in agreement.

Ms. Simmons paused to highlight what she said was her husband’s generous spirit: “Tell them who’s on your yacht this weekend! Tell him!”

Over Mr. Conklin’s objections, Ms. Simmons disclosed that a major executive from Miramax, the movie company, was on the 75-foot yacht, because, she said, there were no rooms left at the hotel.

In Southampton, where Mr. Koch lives, the local police spent much of Sunday gearing up for as many as 200 protesters, a rare sight in these precincts. It would be “the first large-scale protest” the village has ever had, Chief Tom Cummings said.

The packed schedule of fund-raisers seemed to create some confusion among the guests. As he pulled up outside Mr. Perelman’s estate, Ms. Schwartz’s companion initially wondered if he was the home of the Koch brothers.

Oh, he said, not yet.

“We are going to all of them,” Ms. Schwartz explained.

As I may have mentioned a few times this week-- and last week and the week before-- the only way to solve this country's growing economic problems is by eradicating billionaires-- all of them. Now I'm not advocating hanging or shooting or anything like that. I'm advocating sensible tax policies from times when the country's economy was most robust and grew at the fastest pace-- grew for everyone, not just a few assholes in golden Mercedes and yachts. Like in the Eisenhower days, when the top rate was 91%. That isn't quite as high as it should be now, but it's a start. So where does the cheating come in? Ah... to me it's very clear, but if you have to ask, the NY Times had another fine example Saturday: corporations disguising their political contributions behind fake non-profits.

The giant insurer Aetna directed more than $3 million last year to the American Action Network, a Republican-leaning nonprofit organization that has spent millions of dollars attacking lawmakers who voted for President Obama’s health care bill — even as Aetna’s president publicly voiced support for the legislation.

Other corporations, including Prudential Financial, Dow Chemical and the drugmaker Merck, have poured millions of dollars more into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a tax-exempt trade group that has pledged to spend at least $50 million on political advertising this election cycle.

Two years after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the door for corporate spending on elections, relatively little money has flowed from company treasuries into “super PACs,” which can accept unlimited contributions but must also disclose donors. Instead, there is growing evidence that large corporations are trying to influence campaigns by donating money to tax-exempt organizations that can spend millions of dollars without being subject to the disclosure requirements that apply to candidates, parties and PACs.

The secrecy shrouding these groups makes a full accounting of corporate influence on the electoral process impossible. But glimpses of their donors emerged in a New York Times review of corporate governance reports, tax returns of nonprofit organizations and regulatory filings by insurers and labor unions.

The review found that corporate donations-- many of them previously unreported-- went to groups large and small, dedicated to shaping public policy on the state and national levels. From a redistricting fight in Minnesota to the sprawling battleground of the 2012 presidential and Congressional elections, corporations are opening their wallets and altering the political world.

Some of the biggest recipients of corporate money are organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, the federal designation for “social welfare” groups dedicated to advancing broad community interests. Because they are not technically political organizations, they do not have to register with or disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission, potentially shielding corporate contributors from shareholders or others unhappy with their political positions.

“Companies want to be able to quietly push for their political agendas without being held accountable for it by their customers,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has filed complaints against issue groups. “I think the 501(c)(4)’s are likely to outweigh super PAC spending, because so many donors want to remain anonymous.”

Because social welfare groups are prohibited from devoting themselves primarily to political activity, many spend the bulk of their money on issue advertisements that purport to be educational, not political, in nature. In May, for example, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, a group co-founded by the Republican strategist Karl Rove, began a $25 million advertising campaign, carefully shaped with focus groups of undecided voters, that attacks Mr. Obama for increasing the federal deficit and urges him to cut spending.

The Internal Revenue Service has no clear test for determining what constitutes excessive political activity by a social welfare group. And tax-exempt groups are permitted to begin raising and spending money even before the I.R.S. formally recognizes them. Two years after helping Republicans win control of the House with millions of dollars in issue advertising, Crossroads GPS’s application for tax-exempt status is still pending.

During the 2010 midterm elections, tax-exempt groups outspent super PACs by a 3-to-2 margin, according to a recent study by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Center for Public Integrity, with most of that money devoted to attacking Democrats or defending Republicans. And such groups have accounted for two-thirds of the political advertising bought by the biggest outside spenders so far in the 2012 election cycle, according to Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, with close to $100 million in issue ads.

The growing role of issue groups has prompted a rash of complaints and lawsuits from watchdog organizations accusing groups like the American Action Network, Crossroads and the pro-Obama Priorities USA of operating as sham charities whose primary purpose is not the promotion of social welfare, but winning elections. Efforts in Congress to force more disclosure for politically active nonprofit organizations have been repeatedly stymied by Republicans, who have described the push as an assault on free speech.

“These groups are being used as a conduit to hide from voters the identity of people and corporations who are bankrolling these television ads, which are designed to influence the outcome of elections,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland.

UPDATE: A Last Word About Romney And Koch And Their Lovely Rich Friends

Reading the L.A. Times coverage of Mittens day in the Hamptons with his base is unhealthy, at least for me. I'm been spending a lot of time meditating on Jesus' message and reading this stuff shatters the inner peace I've been finding. The rich donors were happy to talk with reporters-- as long as they didn't have to give their names.

"I don't think the common person is getting it," she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits. "Nobody understands why Obama is hurting them.

"We've got the message," she added. "But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies -- everybody who's got the right to vote-- they don't understand what's going on. I just think if you're lower income-- one, you're not as educated, two, they don't understand how it works, they don't understand how the systems work, they don't understand the impact."