Ellen Weintraub: chill out, you say?
By krempasky Posted in FEC — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Ms. Weintraub happily tells us bloggers to "chill out" - after all, there's nothing to worry about. We're the FEC, you can trust us?
Really? Well, when the first paragraph has misleading statements like, "There's got to be some money involved, or it's out of our jurisdiction," call me a skeptic. There does not have to be "money" involved, and Ms. Weintraub well knows this. All that needs to be present for the FEC to get involved is something of perceived value to a federal election campaign. Perceived by whom? Why, Ms. Weintraub and her colleagues, of course.
"Context is important, and the context here has everything to do with paid advertising" - well, I feel better now. Except that the same opinion struck down an exemption for unpaid offline advertising.
Weintraub goes on to deride those issuing warnings about the potential rules as "clairvoyant" and that none of her colleagues want to crack down on bloggers. It's a shame she has to not only mischaracterize Brad Smith's comments, but then sidestep the entire issue as well. We know well that this is not an issue of want (we certainly haven't attached that motive to anyone) - but of what may become inevitable, the consequence of applying BCRA to internet activity.
And when it comes to the crusader-reformers - how much credibility do they really have when it comes to resisting regulations of political activity? How many times has Ms. Weintraub herself voted to relax instead of increase government oversight? For the record - Ms. Weintraub wasn't even on the commission when they approved the originial exemption for the Internet. But given her lack of alarm this time, I think we should at least be grateful for that.
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Ellen Weintraub: chill out, you say? 6 Comments (0 topical, 6 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
You expect clarity from the federal government. But it is in the lack of clarity that governments accrue more power. That's what's scary about campaign finance "reform." There is ambiguity, and it will almost always be resolved in favor of the government.
I'm sorry for being so cynical, but this is what happens after you've read books like The Handmaid's Tale.
diary at myDD by Anna that has lots of relevance here.
After you read books like that, you get on your knees and thank the Almighty that political screeds masquerading as fiction rarely have any popular appeal. Bad enough that they made a movie out of that garbage.
"It would be ironic indeed if, in the name of campaign finance reform, we were to try to squelch inexpensive online grassroots political rabble-rousing."
The condescension inherent in this sentence alone is enough to make me smell a rat. After all, we rabble-rousers took down the great Dan Rather. There's no knowing what we're capable of.
Ms. Weintraub uses some variation of "individual" at least twice, but she never refers to corporations whose main purpose is blogging, which would include Red State and, I believe, Daily Kos.
I'm no expert, but I think this is purposeful. If so, this is a problem for the larger blogs that might have incorporated.