Category Archives: campaign financing

Former Lobbyist gets 27 months in prison.

From Jurist:

A federal judge in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday sentenced Paul Magliocchetti, founder of the now-defunct political lobbying firm PMA Group, to 27 months imprisonment for his involvement in campaign finance improprieties spanning over five years. Magliocchetti was indicted in August and the following month pleaded guilty to charges of making illegal conduit and corporate contributions and making false statements. Between 2003 and 2008, Magliocchetti circumvented campaign finance regulations governing individual and corporate contributions by instructing friends, family and associates to make personal donations to specified candidates and reimbursing their expenses. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) contends that Magliocchetti funneled over $1 million to campaigns and political action committees in this manner, though Magliocchetti’s confession admits to only $386,000 . In addition to confinement, US District Judge T.S. Ellis III also sentenced Magliocchetti to two years supervised release and ordered him to pay a fine of $75,000.

DOJ officials described Magliocchetti’s collective activities as one of the largest campaign finance crimes in history, though stressed that the recipients were unaware of the funds’ improper nature. Because of cases like Magliocchetti, pressure on politicians to be aware of where their campaign contributions come from has increased in recent years. In September 2009, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the constitutionality of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 (HLOGA), a law passed in 2007 that requires members of Congress to disclose more information about their fund-raising efforts and gifts they receive from lobbyists.

Why doesn’t this douchebag have to pay back all the money he funneled to his favorite congress critters?


Hey Big Spenders!

We all know that the recently held election, what I like to refer to as the silly season, was the record-breaking mutha of all muthas when it comes to cash the candidates spent in total and that which was spent outta their own off-shore bank accounts. OpenSecrets has the pdf breakdown here, but left me give you a few of the highlights or lowlights per vote, depending on your personal ideology.

Whitman’s self-financed spending total — $119 million and counting — utterly dwarfs that of any self-funded candidate who’s competed at the federal level, running either for a congressional seat or the presidency, a Center for Responsive Politics study indicates.

Meggy’s per vote personal payout is somewhere between $57 bucks and $47 bucks, depending on who’s math you use. Then, there is this guy. Poor Jeff Greene, the D candidate for Senate in Floriduuh, who spent $23,808,789 of his own dinero. Each of the 284,948 votes cast in his favor cost $83.55. Jeffy only had $4,000 coming from outside contributions btw.

Sure, he had to buy a shitload less voters than Meggy, but the result was the same in the end. Both lost but Greene lost in the primary to Kendrick Meek, not the general like good ole Meggy Whitman. Meek lost ugly in the general of course to Rubio’s tea party loving ass. Gawd help those people in Floriduuuh.

Oh, and Jerry Govenor Moonbeam Brown spent a paltry $6.34 per handle pulled for him. I just had to toss that in there, it warms the cockles of my little black heart every, single friggin time I read it.

Linda McMahon blew a cool $46,600,161 on her campaign. Her per vote total is somewhere around…wait for it….

A fucking whopping $100.07 per vote.Give or take a few bucks.

Everyone’s favorite NV wingtard Sharron Angle really screwed the pooch with $97 bucks per vote. But that includes the total amount raised by her and her teabagging friends, not her personal largess, spent trying to smear and beat her opponent. Speaking of which, Searchlight, NV’s Harry Reid spent quite a bit less @ $69 per vote to beat her fuckwitted ass.

All that money, all those female losers (all with R’s after their name), it’s a damn shame they had more money than brains, at least when it came to running for public office… ain’t it?  snicker…..snort.

Edwards campaign will accept public funding.

Which means its not going to well on the fund-raising front for him. TheHill has a short writeup on it here a short blurb below:

In a stunning move that was described by one expert as a “Hail Mary” play, John Edwards’s campaign said Thursday afternoon that the former North Carolina Democratic senator will accept public matching funds for the 2008 primary season.

A campaign official told The Hill that the campaign would take in about $7 million for the third quarter, which ends at midnight on Sunday. This would bring Edwards to about $30 million for the year, or about $10 million shy of the campaign’s $40 million goal to compete in the first four states. All of those totals are well below the record-breaking hauls of Edwards’s Democratic rivals, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.). At the end of the second quarter, Edwards had $13.5 million cash on hand. By accepting public funding, the campaign would cap its spending at a sum estimated to be $50 million for the primary.

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And from our WTF dept….

Hillary hauled in the largest amount of cash so far in the Presidential sweepstakes. In fact, her number was a record-breaking number for contributions. Not only is it breaking all records for a three month haul..this is twice as much as ol’ Hill herself thought she would raise. This might not be a surprise to some folks..she has one powerful political machine that woman. I know personally, I expected her to bring in the most cash..this woman is no shrinking violet when it comes to campaigning and raising the big money to get elected. But for the love of god..$26 Million in 3 lousy months and a year before the first votes will be cast? Amazing..simply amazing..and a woman did it.

What did come as a shock to my system was when she came out publicly the next day and stated she would back public funding of campaigns if elected presidentnext year.

Also bear in mind this woman was also the first to completely ‘opt out’ of the public funding system that has been in place for a long, long time.

This would seem to be a tad disingenuous at first blush. Upon further review… a hypocritical bunch of bullshit that our Hillary would be spouting regarding her commitment to public financing of elections.

In other words…Do as I say, not as I do.

Ain’t that some shit my dear reader? It reminds me of an old saying: How can you tell when a politician is being insincere? When their lips are moving….

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