Israel writes: "The non-partisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed complaints Thursday with both the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alleging that Karl Rove and his secretive Crossroads GPS violated election law and may have engaged in a criminal conspiracy to do so."
Karl Rove. (photo: Getty Images)
Watchdog: Karl Rove and Crossroads GPS Broke Election Law
17 November 12
�
he non-partisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed complaints Thursday with both the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alleging that Karl Rove and his secretive Crossroads GPS violated election law and may have engaged in a criminal conspiracy to do so.
Under campaign finance law and FEC regulations, 501(c)(4) groups, like Crossroads GPS, can raise unlimited funds from wealthy individuals and corporations without having to disclose their donors. The only time donors to these secretive groups must be disclosed is when donors give more than $200 explicitly "for the purpose of furthering an independent expenditure."
According to CREW, Rove expressly asked for and received millions of dollars in contributions specifically to fund an independent expenditure effort in support of unsuccessful Republican Ohio Senate nominee Josh Mandel:
Federal law requires any outside group that makes an independent expenditure to disclose the donors who contributed to pay for such ads. Groups like Crossroads GPS normally evade this law by claiming none of their contributions were earmarked for a specific purpose. At an August 2012 fundraiser, however, Rove said an anonymous donor gave Crossroads GPS $3 million specifically for the Ohio Senate race, and told Rove it was a "matching challenge" dependent on the group raising another $3 million for the race. Crossroads GPS ended up spending $6.36 million on independent expenditures in the Ohio race, but did not disclose any donors in nine reports the group filed with the FEC.
CREW also notes that, in a 2011 letter to the FEC, Crossroads GPS said that it "understands the applicable reporting regulations" and that, should it receive "any contributions that are required to be reported," it would do so as required. Given this, CREW argues, the violations "were deliberate" and "are subject to criminal as well as civil penalties."
The Rove comment in question was reported in Bloomberg Businessweek in September. That article quoted Rove as saying a donor told him "I'll give ya' $3 million, matching challenge," and that "Bob Castellini, owner of the Cincinnati Reds, is helping raise the other $3 million for that one." Crossroads GPS would end up spending just over $6 million on the Ohio Senate race.
Tara Malloy, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, told ThinkProgress that if the allegations are true, it "seems reasonable to assume the main contributor gave for the purpose of furthering that expenditure or at least that these allegations warrant an FEC investigation." But, she notes, the three Republican appointees on the deadlocked six-member Federal Election Commission often block enforcement efforts of this type and have previously noted a difference between contributions furthering independent expenditures in general � and contributions specifically furthering a particular independent expenditure. Even if Rove raised the money to fund independent expenditures in the Ohio Senate race, that interpretation of the rule would require proof that he discussed with them the exact ads before the donation.
Still, she observed, "The allegations are troubling� One would hope the FEC might investigate this matter."
Crossroads GPS may also be in hot water for its apparent failure to register as a charity in Virginia, as required by law.
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That's a neat trick if you're going abroad.
Power corrupts... Czech this:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110920121608.htm
Too bad that we don't have any leaders in congress who would put a stop to the TSA by legislation and defunding. We don't need any TSA. As things exist now, any terrorist who really wanted to bomb a plane still could. TSA is only about harrassing, terrorizing, and intimidating ordinary americans or foreign travellers. A real terrorist could get around them with very little problem.
Why do our elected officials allow this to continue. They should all be voted out in 2012.
This woman is from my state and if it was my grand daughter, one of these fat ass TSA Employees would have ended up in a trash bin. We don't treat our children as terrorists in Montana. And we do not expect it from any other state.
The best thing we can do is boycott air travel. The airline industry can't survive on business travel alone.
I don't fly anywhere now, I drive if it takes me a week to get there...
but it has also been going on in the court systems now for years and there are no pat downs there!
The question for us, is all of this really making us safer? Are porno scanners useful when you can shove a weapon up a secret, undisclosed body cavity like drug runners do?
Americans are a complacent lot. Some like to rant and rave on blogs but don't get involved past that, but most are totally clueless or willfully ignorant.
Airports I've passed through in Europe don't do any of this. You put your stuff in the tray and pick it up after if goes through the xray thingy and that's it. And you don't have to remove your shoes and walk on filthy, unsanitary floors and then put the shoes back on.
Only in Amerika. Teaching people to line up, take orders and keep their mouths shut.
Get a good look at the attitude of the TSA jerk in the photo above. Wouldn't you love to slap this creep's face?
You might also read "1984" by George Orwell. I'm pretty sure that is the instruction book that has been used since at least 2000 here in Amerika.
So anytime an adult tries to control a child is that terrorizing the child too?
Come on RSN, you're better than this.
If I were Janet or one of her goons, I'd be busy planning my exile/political asylum in some country with no extradition agreements.
Customer service representative? A customer is one who VOLUNTARILY engages in a transaction, usually monetary, for a good or service. Fliers are not "customers", they are victims of TSA. More 1984 Speak from our fascist government.
(Note to NSA snoop reading this: Fuck you. Get a Life.)
I agree with other posts here. Drive,take the Amtrak, or take a Greyhound bus if you have to travel. Do not submit to these horrendous invasive, mind control, fear instilling practices.
One bit of good news is only the US likes football not soccer, so our football stadiums haven't been suggest to attack like a group of people watching a TV screen in Pakistan
Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, all wars in South America,current ly the Mid East, Libya, Sudan, Congo etc.....
Our infant mortality rate is nothing to brag about. Last I heard we were right next to Poland's. How about pedophilia running rampant as well as missing children and kids being sold into sexual slavery?
How about how we treat children with "behavior problems"?let's just drug them to death why don't we? Let's just dumb down all of those poor Black and Brown kids who attend public school by vaccinating them with toxic chemicals that ruin their developing brains. Let's feed them USDA food laced with MSG, hydrogenated fat, high fructose corn syrup & pink slime so they become obese and develop diabetes. Let's bring crack cocaine and heroine into our neighborhoods along with the guns so kids can kill each other and end up as part of the PIC. I hear private prisons are raking in the profits. Since there are no jobs lets have our kids join the MIC and come back in body bags after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Al Q v/s USA on how it treats children? I'd say they are both atrocious!
Adoregon,
I am glad you did some research . However research Al Qaeda trains children as young as five as suicide bombers, and also remotely designated suicide bombers that includes the mentally and physically challenge, Actually I was amazed by the number.
To exploit children like that is beyond imagining to most people. To screen for children packing explosives shouldn't be too difficult given the technology in use at U.S. airports. With their small body mass, any anomalies should show up.
However, the TSA needs to use some discretion as does Israeli security . Terrifying innocent children (in the name of security)is hardly better than corrupting innocent children to unwittingly perform hideous acts.
The crushing irony in all of this is how 9/11 and its fallout has resulted in an increase in fear and a loss of privacy and freedom. The fact that the actions of the (not "our") corporate controlled government has provoked peoples without sophisticated military technology to strike out at us as a society is never discussed. Creating and exacerbating a situation like this is a set-up to give free rein to global surveillance and repression.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism
or
http://essays.ssrc.org/10yearsafter911/the-psychology-of-terrorism/
Now think Dresden.
And so it goes.
Were the celebrants with knives and sticks celebrating a soccer match in Egypt al Qaeda in Disguise?