Bits and pieces
Aug. 30th, 2006 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI'd like an almost half a billion dollar slush fund.
Which is what it looks like George W. Bush is getting today.
It' complicated, in that way which is only possible when obfuscating simple facts is the best defense against prying eyes.
It goes back to the Canadians being, rightfully pissed at us for NAFTA related issues about the felling of trees and selling of lumber. To patch all that up there were court battles. The US lost, but the Harper gov't decided to pay out $1 billion (which most people think to be bigger than a million, which it is, but they lose the scope of that bigness. 1,000,000, is a fair chunk o' change. It's an order of magnitude larger than 1,000. Most people, however, seem to think that 1 billion is to one million as 100,000 is to 1,000,000. It ain't buy I digress), to appease the lumber barons, and the US Gov't.
While I may think it less than savory that Harper's gov't is paying a bunch of rich companies, that's not what concerns me.
CorrenteWire has a detailed takedown so I shan't try to go into exquisite detail, as plagiarism would be far too likely. Go read it there, or here (a Canadian view) for explication of the nitty-gritty details.
The bottom line is that, should this pass today, Bush gets $450,000,000 to do with as he sees fit. No Congressional oversight, no public accounting, no nothing. So long as the people he appoints think the things the money is spent on are, meritorious all is legal.
Money = power. Money also, per the courts, = speech. Half-a-billion dollars buys a lot of speech.
There are companies who make their money selling the appearance of free speech (and a tip of the hat to Making Light for those links. I wish I could recall the account I read of someone who took a couple of days work for Netvocates, or some firm of its ilk, but I didn't keep the link. If I kept every story which might someday be useful I wouldn't be able to find it without googling, and that's what I have to do anyway).
It could also buy a lot of dirty tricks, plain old; everyday ads (does Joe Lieberman need money?, what about DeWine?, or Bilbray, or the race in Eastern Wash. which is getting competitive?) and all the other things a campaign needs to keep itself alive.
That, however, isn't what bothers me, per se. It's that this is not only a slush fund, but one which is being provided by a foreign power.
Ponder that; the President of the United States is being given a huge pile of money by the gov't of another country. How would it look if Harry Reid got a mere (mere?) 45 million dollars from the Gov't of Mexico. Now imagine him getting 100 times that, and all of it out of sight. Able to be spent in any way he sees fit.
Which is what it looks like George W. Bush is getting today.
It' complicated, in that way which is only possible when obfuscating simple facts is the best defense against prying eyes.
It goes back to the Canadians being, rightfully pissed at us for NAFTA related issues about the felling of trees and selling of lumber. To patch all that up there were court battles. The US lost, but the Harper gov't decided to pay out $1 billion (which most people think to be bigger than a million, which it is, but they lose the scope of that bigness. 1,000,000, is a fair chunk o' change. It's an order of magnitude larger than 1,000. Most people, however, seem to think that 1 billion is to one million as 100,000 is to 1,000,000. It ain't buy I digress), to appease the lumber barons, and the US Gov't.
While I may think it less than savory that Harper's gov't is paying a bunch of rich companies, that's not what concerns me.
CorrenteWire has a detailed takedown so I shan't try to go into exquisite detail, as plagiarism would be far too likely. Go read it there, or here (a Canadian view) for explication of the nitty-gritty details.
The bottom line is that, should this pass today, Bush gets $450,000,000 to do with as he sees fit. No Congressional oversight, no public accounting, no nothing. So long as the people he appoints think the things the money is spent on are, meritorious all is legal.
Money = power. Money also, per the courts, = speech. Half-a-billion dollars buys a lot of speech.
There are companies who make their money selling the appearance of free speech (and a tip of the hat to Making Light for those links. I wish I could recall the account I read of someone who took a couple of days work for Netvocates, or some firm of its ilk, but I didn't keep the link. If I kept every story which might someday be useful I wouldn't be able to find it without googling, and that's what I have to do anyway).
It could also buy a lot of dirty tricks, plain old; everyday ads (does Joe Lieberman need money?, what about DeWine?, or Bilbray, or the race in Eastern Wash. which is getting competitive?) and all the other things a campaign needs to keep itself alive.
That, however, isn't what bothers me, per se. It's that this is not only a slush fund, but one which is being provided by a foreign power.
Ponder that; the President of the United States is being given a huge pile of money by the gov't of another country. How would it look if Harry Reid got a mere (mere?) 45 million dollars from the Gov't of Mexico. Now imagine him getting 100 times that, and all of it out of sight. Able to be spent in any way he sees fit.
