Welcome! "What's Happenin'?" is a casual community diary (a daily series, 8:30 AM Eastern on weekdays, 10 AM on weekends and holidays) where we hang out and talk about the goings on here and everywhere.
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Good Morning!
(Photo by joanneleon. October, 2012)
“A handful of billionaires own a significant part of the wealth of America and have enormous control over our economy. What the Supreme Court did in Citizens United is to say to these same billionaires: “You own and control the economy, you own Wall Street, you own the coal companies, you own the oil companies. Now, for a very small percentage of your wealth, we’re going to give you the opportunity to own the United States government.” That is the essence of what Citizens United is all about – and that’s why it must be overturned.”
—Sen. Bernie Sanders, at a Senate hearing on July 24.
I Swung the Election by Jack Teagarden |
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News and Opinion
Super PACs
Totals for 2011-2012 Cycle
Independent Expenditures: $619,672,795.93
Total Receipts: $659,126,569.65
Negative spending (opposes a candidate): 75%
Positive spending (supports a candidate): 24%
This table shows all independent expenditure-only committees--better known as super PACs--that have raised or spent at least $10,000 since the beginning of 2011. The totals, listed above, are for all super PACs. Many groups that aren't super PACs are also making independent expenditures--for a more complete listing see the biggest outside spending groups. Click on the 'FEC filings' links to see the original filings on the Federal Election Commission's web site.
2012 Election Spending Will Reach $6 Billion, Center for Responsive Politics Predicts
Earlier this year, the Center for Responsive Politicsestimated that the 2012 election would cost $5.8 billion -- an estimate that already made it the most expensive in history -- but with less than a week to go before the election, CRP is revising the estimate upwards. According to CRP’s new analysis of Federal Election Commission data, this election will likely cost $6 billion.
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"In the new campaign finance landscape post-Citizens United, we're seeing historic spending levels spurred by outside groups dominated by a small number of individuals and organizations making exceptional contributions," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.
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Together, all candidates for Congress have raised more than $1.7 billion, based on data available from the FEC as of October 30, 2012. Incumbents have a sizable advantage, the Center found, with the average incumbent senator raising $11 million over his or her six-year term, compared to $1.2 million for the average challenger, an advantage of nearly 10-to-1. Candidates in open seats raised more than $2.5 million on average. In the House, the average incumbent raised $1.5 million compared to just $245,000 for average challenger. Candidates vying for open seats in the House raised, on average, more than $453,000. Self-funding candidates have spent more than $200 million of their own money to run for office in 2012.
Total Cost of Election Could Be $6 Billion
But even that increase could substantially understate the total. While super PACs — political committees that sprang into being after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling — spent at least $539.4 million through Oct. 31, hundreds of millions of dollars more are being spent below the radar by groups that do not register with the Federal Election Commission and purport to focus on educational, not political, activities. Such groups spent at least $203 million in the last two months, a window during which federal law requires formal disclosure of any expenditures that mention a candidate, and they spent even more earlier in the campaign cycle, on “issue ads” that are not subject to disclosure. Measured merely by the spending that is disclosed, three of the top six outside groups in 2012 are issue groups that are not required to publicly reveal their donors.
The Weekend Word: Fallout
- The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy is threatening to create Election Day chaos in some places, but the expected disruptions are considered unlikely to change the outcome of the presidential election, Michael Cooper reports. The biggest impact is likely to be on state and local races.
- Campaigns are now using a strategy that targets a little-scrutinized variable of election results: the influence that spouses can have on each other’s voting decisions, John Harwood writes. In a skin-tight presidential race, pillow talk and kitchen-table discussions could make a difference to each party’s bid to close its gender gap in battleground states.
- The commander in chief who was comforting the nation a few days ago has been replaced by a political warrior, accusing Mitt Romney at every stop of dishonesty for claiming that the president’s auto industry bailout resulted in jobs moving to China, Mark Landler reports.
$2B fundraising for U.S. presidential race raises concern
Hundreds of millions raised and spent without disclosure
That total, which is roughly the equivalent of Greenland's GDP, will represent the highest amount of money gathered during a presidential campaign.
According to reports, U.S. President Barack Obama has raised a little over $1 billion with Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney not far behind. Just for the first 15 days of October, the Obama team pulled in $88.8 million compared with $111.8 million for Romney. While Obama has an advantage with direct contributions, Romney has a huge lead in SuperPAC money.
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"Every national election in this country sets a record [for spending], but this one will far exceed anything that has happened in the past," said Fred Wertheimer, founder and president of Democracy 21, an advocate of campaign finance reform. "The major reason is the misguided Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case that has changed the landscape of American politics and has wreaked havoc in the 2012 elections."
"The problem here is the money going to outside groups is coming in the form of unlimited contributions, secret money and corporate funds which is the same kind of money that was at the heart of the Watergate scandals," he told CBC News. "So what you have here is massive amounts of potentially corrupting influence money, funding these outside expenditures."
Full service on trains may still be a month away for North Jersey
The region lurched haltingly toward normalcy Friday, with officials saying that gas lines could soon diminish. But wide swaths of North Jersey were likely to remain without power for another week, and it could be a month or more before train service to New York City is fully restored.
NJ Transit’s executive director, James Weinstein, said it will take four to five weeks to get the state’s entire rail system up and running — and even then service might not be back to 100 percent.
“It’s not going to be a couple of months,” Weinstein said. “We should have everything back in four or five weeks. Now, whether it will be back at the level of service before the storm, now that’s an issue.”
A day after Governor Christie called on utilities to “throw out whatever playbooks” they were using to restore power, 252,000 North Jersey utility customers remained without service on Friday. It remained unclear whether many schools would reopen on Monday, with many school officials delaying a decision. And the area was under the threat of yet another storm — a nor’easter predicted to come through the area on Tuesday.
N.J. announces ballot alternatives for storm-displaced voters
Registered voters who were displaced by Hurricane Sandy may be allowed to vote by email and fax, according to a directive issued to county election officials Saturday by the New Jersey Department of State.
The move also is intended to help first responders who are assisting with recovery efforts and may be away from home on Election Day, the Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno said in a statement.
“To help alleviate pressure on polling places, we encourage voters to either use electronic voting or the extended hours at county offices to cast their vote,” Guadagno said.
To vote electronically, voters must email or fax their mail-in ballot applications to their county clerk’s office. If the application is approved, the clerk will then send the ballot by fax or email to the voter. The ballots must be returned by fax or email by 8 p.m. on Nov. 6.
Cold hits storm victims ahead of election
(Reuters) - Victims of superstorm Sandy on the East Coast struggled against the cold on Sunday amid fuel shortages and power outages, two days ahead of an election that polls suggest is a dead heat between President Barack Obama and his Republican rival.
Fuel supplies were rumbling toward disaster zones and a million customers regained electricity as near-freezing temperatures descended on the U.S. Northeast overnight. But New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned the city that it would be days before power was fully restored and fuel shortages ended.
We Can't Afford the Silencing of the Voice of "We, the People"
We use the metaphor "herding cats" to describe a situation in which someone tries to govern the collective behavior of creatures who have only individual goals and agendas, and little interest in being governed.
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The metaphor might equally be "herding citizens." Like cats, "We the People" haven’t shown much in the way of collective goals recently. We don’t agree on where we are or where we want – or ought– to go in the next year or the next 20 years. Indeed, we don’t even agree on who "we" are. The present flap over abortion demonstrates this: women are not to be allowed to make decisions about their own pregnancies – the "We"of this issue is primarily males.
Charles Pierce observed: "There was no "we" in the final presidential debate this year.
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In the wider world "anarchy" is more often used in the classical sense of having no overarching government with coercive powers, nor any centralized political hierarchy driving public decision-making, but rather small, local self-determination and non-violent actions taken by stakeholders or individuals who will directly reap – or suffer– the consequences of their decisions and actions.
That sounds like democracy with a small ‘d’, and runs counter to the present top-down money & media-driven politics and religious and ideological mythologies, all of which require some kind of "archy" to control individual and social behaviors and herd the cats where they should go.
Big problems in Libya.
Attacks in Libya target security forces
Attacks in Benghazi and Tripoli leave at least eight wounded, including three policemen.
Grenade attacks targeting Libya's intelligence headquarters have led to a series of clashes between rival military groups in Tripoli.
Sunday's events left the building partially destroyed and at least five people injured.
Elsewhere on Sunday, a car exploded outside a police station in Libya's second largest city Benghazi, causing damage to the building and wounding three policemen, according to an AFP news agency photographer and witnesses.
The attacks came as the country's new authorities tried to empower the national army and police but struggle to rein in armed groups born out of the 2011 conflict that toppled long-time leader, Muammar Gaddafi.
Blog Posts and Tweets of Interest
The Evening Blues - 11-2-12
Cyndi Lauper & Homelessness
Chicago Beau - Be Careful How You Vote
Remember when progressive debate was about our values and not about a "progressive" candidate? Remember when progressive websites championed progressive values and didn't tell progressives to shut up about values so that "progressive" candidates can get elected?
Come to where the debate is not constrained by oaths of fealty to persons or parties.
Come to where the pie is served in a variety of flavors.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." ~ Noam Chomsky
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