FEC Claws Further Into Your Mouth
Bruce Kesler
The Federal Election Commission (See here for details from the FEC) announced
“major settlements in ‘527’ cases involving Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the League of Conservation Voters and Moveon.org. Civil penalties to be paid by the respondents exceed $600,000 in the aggregate, with the largest amount paid by Swift Boat Veterans ($229,500). As in its recent settlement with the Sierra Club, the FEC has signaled an aggressive use of the “part b” or second prong of the express advocacy standard, which provides that it includes public communications “taken as a whole” that “could only be interpreted by a reasonable person as containing the advocacy of the election or defeat” of a federal candidate. 11 CFR 100.22(b). …
Read the whole thing if you think your blood pressure can take it. I need to find something else to think about and take my mind off of it.
How Many Times Can I Post "What Is Wrong With This Picture?"
Dafydd ab Hugh
Is there a record I can break? Does Guiness keep track?
In the AP article (carried on the New York Times) about the Federal Election Commission (FEC) fining several 527 organizations for their political activities during the 2004 presidential election, we read this:
The group listed as Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth will pay $299,500. In the 2004 campaign, the group spent $20.4 million criticizing Kerry's military record in Vietnam. Much of the group's claims about Kerry's service were never substantiated. [I'm not even going to pretend to see if anyone can guess, since it's about as subtle as an Iranian president.]
MoveOn.org Voter Fund will pay $150,000. The liberal organization challenged President Bush on various issues in the campaign. The group spent $14.6 million on television ads attacking Bush's record.
The League of Conservation Voters will pay $180,000. The group ran ads against Bush and other federal candidates, criticizing their stands on environmental issues.
A few days ago, Patterico reminded me of an old Sesame Street song:
One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong...
There is one and only one group on this list whose veracity is characterized at all... and AP simply asserts, without evidence, that the Swift-Boat Vets' charges were "never substantiated." No such claim is made about MoveOn.org or the League of Conservation Voters (which is a radical environmentalist group).
Yet in reality, the SBVT claims were far more extensively documented, substantiated, and proven -- by eyewitness testimony as well as Navy documents -- than most of the charges hurled at the Bush administration by MoveOn.org or the League. It's useless to argue that out now; start with John O'Neill's book Unfit for Command, and come back when you've read it.
Many of the charges come down to he-said, he-said: eyewitnesses on both sides directly contradicting each other. But contrast that with the virtually indisputable charges leveled against Bush by MoveOn.org: ...
