The Truth About Super PACs

16 Feb

By Shine Cho

A huge attribute to a presidential candidate’s success now, is also the subject of a roaring debate that challenges the fairness of the elections.

In the early 1900′s, corporate contributions to federal candidates were banned by Congress. Fast forward a few decades and in 1974, following the Watergate scandal, individual contributions were limited by Congress as well.

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court in the Citizens United case ruled that:

-independent expenditures can’t be constitutionally limited in federal elections

-corporations were allowed to give unlimited amounts to other groups to spend, as long as the expenditures are spent independently from the supported candidate

Thereafter, the Speechnow case found that the law of a limit on individual contributions are unconstitutional.

And with this, super PACs were born.

The term, super PACs, is short for super political action committees. These committees are federally registered and raise unlimited amounts of contributions mainly from corporations, labor unions, and the super-rich. Demos and the U.S. Public Interest Group did a recent study that found that 93% of the funds raised by super PACs came in contributions of $10,000 or more. Half of this money came from just 37 people giving at least $500,000.

In 2012, the super PACs turned candidate specific. Currently, each GOP candidate has their own designated super PAC. These super PACs are lawfully independent from the candidate, but they are created and run by close colleagues of the candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul). The committees then raise unlimited amounts of contributions to spend… mostly on negative ads. You know how I feel about that if you’ve read here.

Though technically, super PACs don’t belong to the candidate, we all know the strongest advocates.

Mitt Romney’s which is “Restore Our Future” that actually has raised the most amount out of all of the candidates, Newt Gingrich with “Winning Our Future”, “Endorse Liberty” for Ron Paul, and finally “Red, White, and Blue Fund” for Rick Santorum.

Some say super PACs are effective and some say they have too much influence on the elections and even government decisions. Regardless, thanks to the super PACs, millions and millions of dollars are being poured into the advocacy of the candidates.

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Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-glickman/lessons-not-learned-super_b_1279041.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-republican-candidates-and-their-super-pac-benefactors/2012/01/16/gIQADasB4P_graphic.html

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/15/opinion/wertheimer-super-pacs/index.html

http://www.news-leader.com/article/20120201/OPINIONS/302010013/donald-kaul-super-PAC

Image:

http://politicalscene.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/super-pac-illus-ps-350×350.jpg

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The SOPA Opera

17 Jan

By Shine Cho

SOPA, also known as the “Stop Online Piracy Act” and “Protect IP” (PIPA)  are two bills that have been gaining more attention than ever in these last few days. To be honest, all I knew about these bills were that they had something to deal with internet censorship. Though that’s true, my vague explanation doesn’t even begin to cover it.

SOPA and PIPA are two versions of the same anti-piracy bill, but SOPA is the House of Representatives version and PIPA is the Senate’s. There really isn’t much of a difference between them except for some wording and a few provisions.

Watch this REALLY helpful Vimeo to know what would actually happen if either one of these were enacted:

So now what?

To raise awareness of the potential impact of SOPA/PIPA, Wednesday, January 18th is an internet blackout day. Major online websites are protesting by shutting down or censoring their content for 24 hours. Such participants include Wikipedia and Reddit. Is it inconvenient? Well yes, in more ways than one- but that’s the point. These websites are trying to prove that if these bills were passed, the sites wouldn’t be half of what they are now or even exist.

Citizens are taking action by calling their legislators and you can even do your part by signing Google’s petition here.

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Be a good sport!- The Shine Side

6 Jan

By Shine Cho

One of my biggest pet peeves are negative campaign ads, and I think most of you can relate. I’ll just be chilling, watching TV, and then all of a sudden… BAM! A commercial from a candidate comes on attacking their opponent. An entire 30 seconds of criticism and dirt. With the only exception of the Super Bowl, I don’t generally like commercials. Now when it’s politically motivated and spiteful, that’s when I despise them and change the channel.

With any sort of election, malicious things such as these are involved. If a candidate wants to talk crap about the other, now- with caucuses and everything- is the time to do it. This is called “mudslinging” because it’s just as dirty as it sounds. If you open up the “Politics” tab on any news site, it appears to be a “he said/she said” game at the moment.

It’s really almost too simple and predictable. Fingers are pointed and every potential damaging detail or rumor about a candidate is revealed in this process.

Now if the world was perfect and went along my belief, this wouldn’t happen. I thought political candidates left high school long ago and grew up to be mature leaders who would look past taking unnecessary measures. But no, the drama still exists-  in suits and at podiums.

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Caucuses and Carcasses- Quick Recap!

6 Jan

By Shine Cho

Held on Tuesday until the early hours of Wednesday, the 2012 Iowa caucus hit a pitch of surprise for some and a new record for itself.

Having the biggest turn out yet, 125,255 votes were casted. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney was the winner with 24.6% of the votes, just beating candidate Rick Santorum with an 8-vote lead who won a total of 24.5%.

The rest of the results are as followed: Ron Paul (21.4%), Newt Gingrich (13.3%), Rick Perry (10.3%), Michele Bachmann (5%), and Jon Huntsman (0.6%).

Michele Bachmann announced that she will be suspending her campaign.

The Washington Post reported that this caucus was the third-closest political contest in U.S. history. The first being a race for a U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire in 1974 and the second being a 1984 Indiana congressional district race.

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Sources:

Campaign suspension: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/04/reaction-to-bachmann-campaign-suspension/

Iowa caucus: http://www.politico.com/2012-election/iowa/

Closest races: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/the-2012-iowa-caucuses-and-the-10-closest-races-in-history/2012/01/04/gIQAloL4aP_blog.html

 

 

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That Awkward Moment When…- The Shine Side

11 Dec

By Shine Cho

With the recent announcement of GOP candidate, Herman Cain’s, campaign suspension, things have only been growing to get better since. I was sitting in the library just browsing through the HuffPost and CNN and I chuckled when I got to the “Politics” tab. It’s a great news day when candidates start attacking eachother and say things that will most likely haunt them later. You didn’t expect the drama to just stay at the podiums of the debates, did you? Well I hope not, because this is when things start picking up.

Recently, Michele Bachmann had her very own awkward moment at a booksigning in South Carolina. She was approached by an 8 year old boy named Elijah who said his mother is gay and doesn’t need fixing. This caught her completely off-guard, and sent the boy off with a startled look and shot his mother an icy stare. See for yourself below. This video’s gotten over 3 million views.

Furthermore, she commented that this was “reprehensible” on CNN’s “John King, USA” that someone would use a child to advance their political agenda. She also stated that Elijah was clearly put up to this by his mother, judging by how uncomfortable he first appeared.

Well, Congresswoman, this was not part of your political agenda, was it? Bachmann is opposed to same-sex marriage, and while I respect her opinion, I don’t respect her grace. Elijah’s mother is most likely responsible for his opinion than not, but he’s affected by Bachmann’s words. In fact, it is not only the young activist, but the entire LGBT community and those who are carefully watching the female candidate. By spreading her hatred and pointing more fingers, this doesn’t help Bachmann’s campaign.

On the same show she said, “I’m very unashamed, I believe that we should all be allowed to have our opinions respected, and I stand for marriage and marriage between a man and a woman.” So much for that.

Had she handled this unexpected encounter with grace instead of disrespect for contrasting opinions, she could have shed a different light on this situation.

It was not Elijah’s mother who was “reprehensible”, it was Bachmann’s response that was.

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http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/07/bookstore-episode-with-child-was-reprehensible-says-bachmann/

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Super Surprising?- The Shine Side

27 Nov

Congress is like an episode of “Keeping Up With the Kardashian’s”, painful to watch, yet hard to take your eyes off of this guilty pleasure. Just over this year, the government was on the verge of shutting down (not to mention, more than once), faced a downgrade by S&P, and our legislators displayed very questionable behavior when they couldn’t come together to agree… pretty much, like, ever. Due to all of this, they assembled the ‘super committee’. A committee made up of 12 members who would decide at least $1.2 trillion in cuts for the next 10 years. They had until November 23rd to propose a deal, and surprise-surprise, they failed to do so.

I say it’s not surprising because I wasn’t expecting much from the start. I don’t see how I could have expected a small committee to come up with a magical plan. I suppose there was a slight glimpse of hope because a committee is small and can communicate more effectively than a body of leadership, but still, I didn’t get my hopes up.

Now, I don’t blame the committee for our nation’s growing issues, and it’s not right for anyone to either. I blame our legislators as a whole.

Regardless of Republican, Democrat, Independent, red, blue, green, etc., they fall under the same category: Congress. Honestly, I could care less about each politician’s party or background, they’re all there to do the same thing… which is, to take care of the nation and its people. These politicians were elected by the nation’s people in order to make sure important matters were being taken care of. Of course, this requires communication, compromise, and sacrifice here and there among eachother, but this falls under their job description and requirement. It’s really quite a simple concept, so why hasn’t this been demonstrated by our legislators?

It’s time for Congress to wake up and smell the non-partisan coffee, open up the newspaper and see the polls.

Until they do, I’ll continue to compare watching them to watching “Keeping Up With The Kardashians”, which is not a good comparison at all.

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IMPORTANT:

18 Nov

Dear Yolitico’s,

For the past month I haven’t been able to log onto the account that controls this blog. All of the information was changed and it took awhile for WordPress to get back to me, but I’m back! OPINION PIECES ON THEIR WAY!

-Shine

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