It is a beautiful day, and I am behind on a writing project, so I will bring you an observation from the dim past (1944 to be exact) -
. . .present day pressure groups show a growing tendency to participate in political campaigns indirectly through striving to inculcate “broad sociopolitical attitudes which, while invariably indentifiable as favorable to one set of candidates rather than the other in any given campaign, and understood as such by those whose opinions are affected, nevertheless profess to be nonpartisan and in that sense nonpolitical.”
Want more? The quote is from the House Special Committee to Investigate Campaign Expenditures, Rep. No. 2093 (78th Cong. 2d Sess. January 2, 1945), also knows as the Anderson Committee Report. The passage is found in Louise Overacker’s Presidential Campaign Funds (1946). Overacker’s preferred remedy was “publicity” i.e. disclosure, which had been the reform embraced by Democrats early on as a means to drive corporate funds from political campaigns. Publicity was also the preferred alternative (to a ban on expenditures) in the labor organization context, which was the debate at the time of this publication.
I wonder what Overacker would make of the revised LM-2, filed annually by unions, and available here.
. . . then it must be an occasion for the Skeptic’s Index from Saturday evening:
Number of dinner guests (including hosts): 8 adults (and 3 children who sensibly opted out of the menu).
Number of bottles of wine consumed: about 8.
Duration (in hours): about 4
Pounds of beef rib roast barbecued and consumed (weight pre-cooked): about 7
Trays of pop-overs consumed: 2
Conversations involving “tatoos”: 1 (that I know about)
Conversations involving Yiddish: at least 6
Reidel glassware sacrificed in the endeavor: 2
Lent is over. Indeed, Lent is over.
Is allocation the new sexy issue on the tip of everyone’s tongue?
. . . after all, allocation rules were at the center of the now-completed trial of David Rosen for underreporting in-kind contributions made in connection with a Y2K Hillary Clinton fundraising event . . . and are at the center of the controversy over 527-exempt groups . . . and are at the center of Byron York’s recent book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (technically, his allocation material is in the first half of the book, but its close to the center).
Allocation. It’s dope, or whatever. This development requires a theme song. And I found one. After exhaustive research in a least three on-line song lyric databases (don’t try it without a pop-up blocker) I found the lyrics from a Cake song (a good Sacramento band), Short Skirt/Long Jacket, from the album Comfort Eagle. It is the only song mentioning allocation I could find. It goes, in part:
I want a girl with the right allocations
who’s fast and thorough
And sharp as a tack . . .
I want a girl who gets up early
I want a girl who stays up late
I want a girl with uninterrupted prosperity
Who used a machete to cut through red tape
With fingernails that shine like justice
And a voice that is dark like tinted glass . . .
Something to aspire to.
Terry Teachout has an interesting essay in the June 2005 issue of Commentary (unfortunately it isn’t up on their webpage yet) titled “Culture in the Age of Blogging” where he discusses the demise of common American culture and the rise of blogging. Teachout has a blog (on the arts) called ArtsJournal: About Last Night and writes sympathetically about the blogging process and the world of blogs. But, he also writes:
One thing of which I am sure is that the common culture of my youth is gone for good. It was hollowed out by the rise of ethnic “identity politics” then splintered beyond hope of repair by the emergence of the web-based technologies that so maximized and facilitated cultural choice as to make the broad-based offerings of the old mass media look bland and unchallenging by comparison.
One thing of which I am sure is that Teachout has probably though more deeply and with greater care than I about this. Yet, I can’t help but feel that the premise of a truly common culture might be a bit overstated, especially for people raised outside the major cities in the east. It seems to me there was a consensus elite culture, to which knowledgable people strived, but that’s the rub - it was much more difficult to be one of those “people.” Academic consensus or expert consensus and overall cultural consensus aren’t really the same thing, are they? One of the most powerful cultural influences outside the major cities has been church - and I can say there isn’t - and hasn’t been - a cultural consensus even within certain mainline churches. (Don’t take it from me, read Florence King). But today, if I don’t like my pastor, or the offerings at my local newsstand, I can sit in my house and find something better. So can others. Finding better cultural experiences has never been easier for people in “fly over” country.
And that, dear friends, is my deep thought for the morning.
The Media Policy Program of the Campaign Legal Center . . . which once was called the Campaign and Media Legal Center . . . until Media obtained a TRO . . . but that was just ugly so nevermind. Anyhow, they have a new study, and these are their findings as described in their press release:
* Only 0.3% of digital programming focused on local public affairs – compared with 8.8% for reality shows, 6.9% for paid programming and 2.5% for celebrity news shows (such as Access Hollywood).
* Less than five percent (5%) of all programming aired by digital broadcasters is aired in high-definition (HD).
* Ninety eight percent (98%) of all HD programming is entertainment-oriented in nature.
* There is little evidence that broadcasters are using their multicasting capabilities to provide enhanced public interest service to the local communities to which they are licensed.
“Broadcasters have broken their many promises to the American people – the actual owners of our nation’s airwaves – when it comes to fulfilling their public interest obligations,” noted Meredith McGehee, Director of the Media Policy Program at the Campaign Legal Center.
I’m shocked to learn that broadcasters aren’t using their HD capabilities in their coverage of planning commission meetings. I hate to sound, I don’t know, skeptical, but compelling broadcasters to invest in television no one wants to watch is not going to improve the level of discourse, or civic involvement, or whatever it is we want people to be doing they aren’t.
And as we all know Access Hollywood is from time to time concerned with local public affairs.
OK, OK, in fairness, here’s the link to the study: Broken Promises.
Great trip, but happy to be home. In light of the large feature in today’s Washington Post: U.S. Border Security at a Crossroads (registration required) on border security, I thought I would describe my experience with security at Frankfurt International Airport.
Although I was transferring from a regional flight to an international one, and had already been through security to embark on that earlier flight, I was required to reenter security again. The lines were short — then I realized that each passenger spend some time with security talking. As did I. We talked about a lot of things - where I lived, what I did, why I was in Germany, my kids, their names and ages, and why my IPod dock required a second scan. The agent was never rude or pushy, but he was listening closely to my replies, as were several other security folk whose job apparently was to listen to the interviewing. From what I could tell, I had not been specially selected. Oh, and when I approached my gate there was yet another check - making a total of three for the trip. I was wanded and patted at each check, too.
The people in immigration and customs at Dulles didn’t ask me much of anything. In fact, I do not think I was required to say anything at all to the immigration agent. To be fair, my experience with passport control when entering Germany was not like yesterday’s security interview, either. But, they did talk to me -several sentences in fact - I assume in an effort to see whether I seemed to be the person who should be carrying my travel documents. I am not convinced that the slow security process I go through in the US allows agents to learn what they need to know about passengers, rather than learn more than they need to know about the personal grooming items passengers carry around.
Tonight I leave for a two-day conference with the lovely people at the Council on Public Policy. They feel moved to know more about campaign fiinance regulation in the U.S. We will actually be in Thurnau in a castle, or so I am told. I’m packing a sweater.
See:APEX Healthcare and Its President Agree to Pay $275,000 Civil Penalty. According to the release - and the FEC’s press office should know - this is the first closed enforcement matter post-BCRA involving a “knowing and willful” violation. The FEC and the Department of Justice share jurisdiction for “knowing and willful” violations of the Act, under a Memorandum of Understanding that is itself currently under review by those two agencies.
BCRA contained a new floor for such violations of 300% of the amount at issue, and a ceiling of 1000% of that amount. Before, there was no floor for penalties and the ceiling was 200% of the amount at issue.
This case involved the use of corporate money to refund donations made by employees to federal candidates and committees. If you click here you can look at the documents available for this case.
The real question is whether he can think whilst drinking: see Schramm’s Lunch.