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Who wins and who loses under campaign finance bill
CNN.com ^ | March 20, 2002 | CNN Staff

Posted on 03/22/2002 10:32:00 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez

Edited on 04/29/2004 2:00:18 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

National parties: Opponents argue that the national parties will be the big losers because they will be deprived of unregulated "soft money" contributions, which amounted to $500 million in the 2000 presidential election. Candidates would have to look elsewhere for support, probably reducing the party's influence. Supporters say the law would force the parties to reach out to less affluent donors and expand grass-roots activities, eventually making the parties stronger.


(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Free Republic; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bush; cfr
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To: Luis Gonzalez
Boo McCAIN! Boo JEFFORDS!

I'm with JohnHuang2.

181 posted on 03/22/2002 9:17:26 PM PST by patriciaruth
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To: patriciaruth
Patricia, this quest by McCain is really strange and surreal. The commonly accepted wisdom is that McCain's earnest, but unfortunate, judgement in his dalliances with Charles Keating has been the defining event for this plucky independent, and that the stench of his involvement in the S&L debacle has provided the inspiration driving him incessantly. Driving him to an almost rapturous, divine mission from God to singularly revive political integrity and the public trust. And to get on every Sunday talk show, every friendly cable ally, and to own big ink in every news magazine. Letterman and Leno .... the iron's hot.

No sale Crash. This man is so empty, so phony and so sanctimonious ... and lookee here, the media queue up to provide him a platform as sweet as pumpkin pie. The guy is a loose, profane and dislikable bully, and everyone in the Senate knows it well. McCain and Lieberman. Whores using whores to whore around in a whorelike manner.

One can't help but sense, however, that there's something deeper, something darker and profoundly powerful at work in McCain's manic and vainglorious agenda. Col. David Hackworth has directly offered an unequivocal, direct, and accusatory account of John McCain's actions and dishonor to duty in the events surrounding his capture, identification and transfer for immediate and extraordinary medical care upon his disclosure of his father's rank and command. Hack pulls no punches, he considers McCain's original disclosure to his captors - that he was the son of an Admiral and the Senior Command officer for the Pacific fleet - an unforgivable appeasement, breach of duty and a betrayal to get the medical care he needed to save his life. He got special medical attention. Many pilots who didn't have his connections died of their injuries at the scene. The RNV guys couldn't care one way or the other. Having the son of a senior Naval command officer, hmmm ... there's a valuable little negotiating asset and leverage monster. Ya think? The offensive truth is, that to secure McCain's cooperation, his POW bretheren COULD be used as targeted and disposable hostages. "OK Lt. McCain, Captain Miller will be killed immediately if you don't cooperate. Lieutenant Barnes will be the next in line. What are the particulars, numbers location mission, of the Army forward divison you were sent to support? What do you know about submarine fleet numbers, weaponry and recent deployments? Where are your B-52s based? Who are the officers under your father's command? What is the address of your family home in Maryland? What is the phone number to contact your father in his quarters, discreetly?" McCain's disclosure compromised every American airman and naval aviator in that hole, and some may have been beaten or killed to elicit his involvement. Who knows what his old man did or didn't do to save his son's life. Can you imagine a scenario where McCain has to divulge the address of his mother and sister, the wife and daughter of the Pacific Fleet Commander, or by refusing sentencing several of his fellow American aviators to a prisoner "transfer" ... i.e. systematic execution? Or, his cooperation earns one of his deathly sick comrades medical care. I don't know, but Hackworth knows the score. Bah, the media has never touched this issue even though David Hackworth, a man with considerable standing and credentials, made these charges openly and unabashedly during the primary. The media is corrupt beyond belief.

This McCain campaign to acquire an almost spiritual sanctification and redemption is really annoying to me, especially in light of the Hackworth charges. I almost expect him to appear at a press conference with Diogenes -"Athens was dry, but after wandering 3400 years I've finally found the only honest man and it's John McCain!" Sorry, he's got some deep, dark nightmares and shame he's trying to exorcise, IMO. That's my psychic consultation for today ... and yeah, I was born in the Carribean and I could be Dionne Warwick, the queen of pop. A psychic revelation? Your co-worker ...let's call her Sandy or Julie or Mary.. is stealing your paper clips instead of walking to the supply cabinet and getting her own . Master Arne hates to be the bearer of bad news, but he is never wrong. That'll be $5.97 please.

I predict this McCain scheme for glory and cleansing will become increasingly painful, angering and ultimately sad to watch. The guy is obviously suffering from cancer (no network will show his left profile though), and he has the burden of being the last virtuous and honest politician on Earth. It's gonna get ugly, and the media bilge will build pedestals and create shrines for the man, as long as he's carrying their ball. Patient's bill of rights, folks, that's the next one to be jammed down our throats. McCain's demons and selfishness will once again position his Republican colleagues in a disadvantageous and needlessly vulnerable position. Can you imagine the loopholes and openings and mandates that a hurried and demagouged Patient's Bill of Rights will provide for Trial Attorney's and State AGs to wage class action suits against HMOs and their physicians? It'll be the end of private medicine in this nation. All doctors will become research scientists, they'll quit practicing medicine. If HMO's start getting sued, there's no doctor that can afford to defend himself from legal vipers with 1/10 of the skill, talent, training and dedication that doctors embody and live. Until, of course, the governments steps in, takes control of the entire Medical and Health care delivery industry, and then the doctors can be hired back with no vulnerability to malpractice suits. They'll be paid $60 grand a year. How about that, sue the HMOs into oblivion, and the feds will pick up the pieces. That's an otherworldly wet dream for all the liberal elves. National health care ... $trillions coming through the DC spigot, yee hah! That's the end game, I guarantee you. Open the legal door, let the trial attorneys run amok and get rich, destroy the physicians and the operators and insurers of our private system and then amidst the rubble ... here comes Hillary and McCain and Kenendy and the rest to propose a Marshall Plan to rebuild a government financed and operated system straight from their most vile socialist dream. 30% of our private economy just went poof, the Dems just got another $trillion to pass around the Government industry. Go John Go, you stink, and it's past time for your colleagues to stuff your hubris.

I trust Hack's gut feeling about McCain, he had no doubts or hesitation about his take. That sucks. Bush needs to start some Alpha Male pack discipline and McCain is the very first to be mock mounted. It's not going to be on C-SPAN, but Animal Planet is planning coverage. Boo McCain indeed!

182 posted on 03/23/2002 1:33:47 AM PST by ArneFufkin
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To: ArneFufkin
Well, McCain certainly didn't have a life changing event in Hanoi, just a body changing event. He came back the same selfish jerk he was when he left, and proceeded to cheat on his wife big time.

He dumped her, then he marries a trophy wife with mob and money ties via her father's Anhauser Busch franchise in Arizona, a wife who stole narcotics from a private charity and is rumored to have been making it with an major airline pilot while McCain was running for President in 2000. Two peas in a pod, like Hitlery and Bill, when it comes to ethics and morality.

Now he's got melanoma roaming around in his brain, and who knows how that has affected his thinking? I agree, the man is a walking psycho.

183 posted on 03/23/2002 3:39:36 AM PST by patriciaruth
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To: PRND21
LOL, you never addressed a question to me, period. Getting old or getting stupid?
184 posted on 03/23/2002 3:42:03 AM PST by jwalsh07
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To: McGavin999
Actually, the "media" is composed of Corporations. Seems to me that if they express an opinion or refer to a candidate 60 days prior to an election, the heads of those corporations can be put in jail. Anyone want to get together to file charges?

That would be good for a laugh, if nothing else. You don't think the people advancing CFR's agenda expect it to be applied to them, do you?

185 posted on 03/23/2002 4:28:39 AM PST by NittanyLion
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To: eaglebeak
NL: What do you think media is, if not a collection of individuals who get together to provide news? Why can't other collections of individuals also get together and provide their viewpoint on events?

EB: Well they can! They should, gollydarnit! What is your point?

Why are you limiting your thinking as to what constitutes media? The 1st Amendment is there to protect open discourse of ALL kinds. That means me talking to you on this forum, talking to a friend over lunch, Brit Hume talking to millions each night, advertisers paying for time to tell people their views, etc. All these people have a right to express their views (for advertisers, provided the networks will sell them time) without government regulation.

You have limited your definition of "media" to the traditional talking heads on the alphabet channels, when in fact their speech is no more or less protected than any of ours. CFR essentially agrees with you: it protects the traditional media while damaging the ability of people like ourselves to communicate OUR views (whether by paying for an ad ourselves or donating to an org such as the NRA). IOW, the power to influence views will be further concentrated in the hands of a few, while everyone else will be moved further from the process.

186 posted on 03/23/2002 4:36:30 AM PST by NittanyLion
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To: Teacher317
"You have to have trust to lose it."

Amen!

187 posted on 03/23/2002 4:36:43 AM PST by Badray
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To: Luis Gonzalez
That's where you are wrong, you can buy all the ads that you wished denouncing "the anti-American socialists on the left running for (fill in the blank). Nothing stops you from doing that, as long as you are using hard money, and are willing to disclose the source of the ad.

I would direct you to SUSSA's reply, which does a much better job answering the above than I could. I think the NRA/NRLC letter jwalsh07 posted is also pretty revealing.

188 posted on 03/23/2002 4:40:14 AM PST by NittanyLion
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To: Snow Bunny;LadyX
Snowed under here with business, so will let you keep crew updated, if you will, please.
Plan to be in Hawaii area another week.
189 posted on 03/23/2002 4:40:32 AM PST by ofMagog
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To: RJayneJ
"Is post 33 for publication."

I think so, picked it up from a usenet discussion group on politics while doing some reading on the subject, it looks like some sort of press release from a pro-CFR group.

190 posted on 03/23/2002 4:47:32 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez
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To: NittanyLion
The truth is probably somewhere between everything posted on FR and all the pro-CFR propaganda, I don't think either party has a lock on the absolute truth at this point.

More than likely, the truth is actually a combination of the pro and con arguments that either side are promoting. That's why I participate in these discussions, and why I always try to bring up the points made by the opposing views.

Normally, whatever points remain unrequited after FReepers take the opposition propaganda apart, can be assumed to be true. Then I just add to them whatever I learned from others I respect in here, throw in a dash of instinct and my own knowledge on the subject, and voilá! My version of the truth develops!

191 posted on 03/23/2002 5:00:08 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez
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To: ofMagog
"Snowed under here..."

"Plan to be in Hawaii area another week."

I don't know, it just struck me as funny...

192 posted on 03/23/2002 5:01:47 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez
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To: ArneFufkin
I will second your analysis of McCain, and add to it.

I also think that he honestly thought (egged on by the media...no doubt about it) that he was going to win the nomination. The media would have loved that, of course, because as soon as he became the Republican nominee all the stuff that Hack talked about would have been front and center 24/7, guaranteeing a Gore victory.

Well, that plan fell by the wayside, and in the process McCain, already in weirdsville, totally became consumed with revenge. He hates George Bush. He hates Republicans. Heck, in my opinion , he hates POW's...look at how he has treated the POW/MIA people. He won't even admit that Iraq MIGHT be holding an American pilot...because then he would have to admit that Viet Nam MIGHT have some POW's, and we couldn't have THAT, now could we?

His mission, encouraged by Daschle, Clinton, and the rest, is to destroy George Bush and the Republican party. Everything he does is with that overriding mission. Because Kristol was such a supporter, I am suspicious of him as well. (Kristol's behavior makes me wonder who is pulling whose strings, by the way. I sometimes wonder if Kristol, who also is consumed with massive Bush hatred, is not poking McCain in his vulnerable places in order to keep McCain resentful. Iago in Othello comes to mind.)

At any rate, McCain is a dangerous person and his departure from the Senate will not be unwelcome to me.

193 posted on 03/23/2002 5:03:12 AM PST by Miss Marple
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To: Luis Gonzalez
More than likely, the truth is actually a combination of the pro and con arguments that either side are promoting. That's why I participate in these discussions, and why I always try to bring up the points made by the opposing views.

I'm sure you're right. I certainly can't claim to understand everything in the bill - I tried reading the Patriot Act and couldn't make any sense of it. This one isn't a whole lot better. I've enjoyed this thread, the tone has been respectful and a wealth of good info has seemed to come out. You did a nice job of "Thread Management", or whatever it's called.

194 posted on 03/23/2002 5:04:51 AM PST by NittanyLion
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To: Luis Gonzalez
Oh, I haven't read it yet but I copied it. I thought you wrote it. I'm glad that I asked first.
195 posted on 03/23/2002 5:16:44 AM PST by RJayneJ
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To: Luis Gonzalez
Oh, I haven't read it yet but I copied it. I thought you wrote it. I'm glad that I asked first.
196 posted on 03/23/2002 5:16:56 AM PST by RJayneJ
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To: PRND21
Answer the question or go smear someone else you can't answer to.

Your questions have been answered repeatedly on other threads. Your disruptive tactics have been exposed over, and over again.

Go back under the rock from which you and your type crawl from.

197 posted on 03/23/2002 6:02:37 AM PST by usconservative
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To: jwalsh07
LOL, you never addressed a question to me, period. Getting old or getting stupid?

In the case of PRND21, it's probably both. Somehow, he never sees the answers to his stupid question on various threads. He just keeps going to new threads and asking the same stupid question over, and over, and over.

It's a tried and true disruptor tactic here on FR. We've seen his type before. He'll be gone soon enough.

198 posted on 03/23/2002 6:04:27 AM PST by usconservative
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To: PRND21
It would appear you are violating my free speech. I've yet to see how CFR does.

Let's see PRND21 answers just how I'm violating his "free speech" by pointing out his disruptive tactics on other threads, where he poses this same question, refuses to acknoledge that he's been answered, then leaves for another thread to repeat the process.

He can't answer a question, much less read the answer to his own.

199 posted on 03/23/2002 6:07:15 AM PST by usconservative
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To: PRND21; ALL
Then there's freepmails like this from PRND21 to me:

From PRND21
Received 2002-03-22 22:30:46

You should be ashamed. If you can't answer the simplest of questions...shut up!

Poor PRND21. He's demonstrated repeatedly on multiple threads that he can't comprehend simple, concise answers to the same question that he's posted on at least 10 threads now. When he/she/IT is busted on their disruptive tactics, he/she/IT has to resort to sending an email telling someone to SHUT UP! Wow. I'm so not impressed by the "intelligence" and "wit" that is on display by this user.

So to answer your question for the last time, PRND21, CFR restricts *my* personal ability to take out an issue or candidate advocay ad within 60 days of an election. Whether that ad is radio, tv, or print, it will become ILLEGAL for me to spend MY OWN MONEY to speak out against a candidate in the media, 60 days prior to an election. It will also be illegal for advocacy groups such as the NRA/GOA and several Pro-LIFE groups that I belong to, to do the same. 60 Days before an election is *precisely* when the public needs to be made aware of a candidate's stand on the issues. But you continue to fail to see such a simple, basic point.

Why YOU continue to fail to comprehend these simple facts when presented, I guess only your Special Ed teacher knows.

Now, go back to DU where you belong. You've been fully exposed for the emotional, disruptive liberal poster that you are.

200 posted on 03/23/2002 6:47:03 AM PST by usconservative
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