Stupid and baseless comments on the Ron Paul Blimp

Courtesy of the resident blogosphere gossip,

What's hilariously idiotic is that you know absolutely nothing about this, and you're spreading a lot of speculation.

1. To date, the FEC has not ruled or even heard a violation case.

2. The private company was started specifically for the Blimp. Full disclosure is available. Two of the salaried employees are high profile Ron Paul fund raisers. The salaries are necessary to prove the existence of a "for profit" entity.

3. Again full disclosure, and the team is being led on the legal side by a former FEC Chairman.

4. There is nothing meaningless about a blimp sailing for 30 days up and down the East Coast, nor all of the press it has received in advance of the blimp launching. Hell, the earned media alone thus far has probably reimbursed half of the cost.

 

dumb people love to spread unintelligent rumors, what can i say..

 

*cough*

http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2007/12/could_mccainfeingold_ground_th.html

 

Just when I think I like Lorien, he writes something incredibly uninformed and deceitful.

He was also the poster crying about Alex Jones getting paid by Ron Paul, when it was a neocon blog he got his info from, a blog that was run by people too ignorant to understand a Federal Elections Committee filing.

Trust me, this blimp is going to make campaign finance law history. It challenges all of the rules, without clearly breaking any.

Leave it to the Paulunteers to find a way to level the playing field with the corporate sponsored candidates.

 

Ron Paul is the devil and we should burn him at the steak !

(Just to save some of yall the trouble )

 

Getting your information from blogs again Lorien? Worse, it's a blog of an article, with only an excerpt.

Do some research before making yourself looking like a fool (again) for believing a blog with limited facts and a casual opinion from an outsider.

 

I know. By finding creative ways to inject even more "unlimited" donations into campaigns through similar corporations. And here I thought people were trying to get corporate money out of campaigns. I guess you have to get theoretically unlimited donations through corporations to get corporate money out of campaigns. Makes sense, as usual.

Resorting to personal attacks already?

As everyone says, less money in politics - unless it's supporting my candidate. I'm surprised the trilateral commission allows such flagrant violations of their attempts to rule the world.

 

http://www.ronpaulblimp.com/Transparency.php

I don't know how anyone can read that ^^ and not be impressed by the creativity and short notice organization of such an impressive endeavor.

That they are able to retain one of the most prominent Campaign Election lawyers in the country, a former FEC chairman, just goes to show powerful the Ron Paul grassroots is. How many other campaigns are challenging Campaign Finance laws with a First Amendment defense?

And the best part is, the Blimp concept was organized and refined on a forum, just like this one, but with less neocons.

 

It's not corporate sponsored. It is sponsored by private citizens, with full income and expense disclosure. Not like a 527. Or Huckabee's shady use of 501(3)c charities.

It's not a personal attack. You did make a fool of yourself, posting information that was incorrect, because you read it on a neocon blog. So anxious you were to post something negative, you didn't bother with any fact checking.

Dude, we raise more money without corporate sponsorship than any of the other candidates. Since you understand how to read FEC filings now, maybe you can look that up and confirm it.

Once again, you inform yourself from blogs, with excerpts of articles, without any background on the subject matter, and then declare things nefarious or "hilariously idiotic" (a personal attack against me).

Frankly, you look pretty silly for posting half truths and conjecture. But then I think we all know that now.

 

and..

*** Yawn ***

 

What's the difference? So you'd be in favor of some random company or *cough*individual*cough* making a fake company, pumping a billion dollars into it to prop up some random candidate of choice? It's the same thing. A private company getting donations that skirt current laws to support a candidate. In favor for one, in favor for all, right?

Yep. Time. and Wired. Hotbeds of neoconism.

 

No laws have been broken. Care to dispute that?

It's not a random company or individual. A supporter purchased an $85,000 ad in USA Today right at Thanksgiving. Private citizens are able to do this as a part of their First Amendment rights.

No it isn't.

They aren't getting donations. They are selling advertising time. Big difference. It is a for profit company with nearly full transparency. All purchasers and expenses will be shown.

Absolutely. This is about unconstitutional campaign reform law, first amendment rights, and if the FEC doesn't knock it down, any citizen will be able to establish something similar.

Of course, I doubt the other campaigns have enough small citizen donors motivated enough to pull off something like this.

Time was just blogging Wired. It's meaningless.

The author at Wired has written numerous articles criticizing the Ron Paul grassroots, including the now debunked email spam issue. That said, I thought this was her best article yet. Maybe you should read it. It's one guys opinion against the opinion of a former FEC chairman, and a reputable First Amendment lawyer.

To make this sound like it was something casual, and that the Paulunteers were duped is disingenuous. Of course, you've set a precedent for posts like that. I've been reading and commenting on the Blimp process since it began, when it was going to be organized as a PAC. I know the criticisms, the legal issues, and the decision making process, as well as the organizers.

What do you know? A blog entry about an article?

 

I don't know if MF has been broken or not. Nor do you. That'd take years to settle. That's not the point at all.

It's the same thing. You have a single company/individual supporting an individual candidate. Under current law, that company can only accept a given amount of donations from people. Not unlimited donations. This is a way around the law, totally - much like the 501s that are out there now. But don't try to hide behind a "we are just buying advertising" defense. It doesn't wash. It's advocating a single candidate pure and simple.

Or, better yet. In my example. We could have some rich person - Soros or others - set up similar companies. Get a billion dollars and put it in there. With unlimited donations and these "advertising" engines, you can very effectively cut out participation entirely in the campaign process. I'm glad you support this.

As I said. Hotbeds of neoconism!

I agree. I'm totally in support of someone making money off the brainless Ron Paul support. I think it's a great way to leech off it I figured it was all about the movement anyways; and not the guy. This really shows how accurate that is.

 

So then you admit you were only speculating that it "may have" violated campaign finance laws. Ok. I'm fine with that confession.

Who says they are only supporting one candidate? Again, you don't know enough about the project to comment on it.

And you just admitted that you didn't know if it broke any laws, so how can you say the defense doesn't wash? It's not a defense, it's a business model anyways. People are willing to pay a premium to purchase advertising.

Everyone rides Soros, not even aware that he isn't even one of the biggest donors to MoveOn. Nor was he an originator of that project.

As far as cutting out participation, would you be referring to the media blackout and slander that has been going on for months in the corporate owned media against the Ron Paul campaign?

Again, it's nonsense. This is going to provide the engine for citizens of modest means to bundle their purchases towards larger promotional endeavors. It actually helps the little guy, not hurt him. The large corporate donors can already bypass McCain-Feingold a dozen different ways.

If the movement is so brainless, how does it manage to generate so much cash? How does it manage to spontaneously organize to win straw polls? How does it send hundreds of supporters from around the country to Iowa and New Hampshire, while providing for their travel and housing expenses?

It is all about the movement. Campaign finance restrictions are unconstitutional. They limit First Amendment rights. Despite being an underdog, Ron Paul would like nothing better than to remove all restrictions on campaign finance. If you want to donate $10,000, you should be able to. The $2,300 cap doesn't affect the massive donors, only the middle class ones.

 

I can't wait till RP loses....then all these idiotic posts about blimps, conspiracy theories, nutjobs, etc. will stop....actually, then again they will probably continue and the argument will be something like "hanging chad"

 

If he loses, we might just encourage him to run 3rd party.

This could go on for almost another year.

 

You are pretty emotionally involved here. You donated to the blimp, didn't you guerilla? LOL

That's what I said from the beginning, I believe. I am speculating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_in_the_United_States#Corporate_and_Union_Activity

And I think it's a pretty good guess here.

I realize that the site "says" they are just "currently" doing ads for Ron Paul as a lame attempt to skirt finance laws; and that's a cool childish game. I grasp it quite well. Thanks

Irrelevant tangent. I know Hillary claims she started MoveOn. But it's irrelevant.

You are advocating the end of what is, essentially, a representative election system. This method of skirting the law would easily allow some super rich person (or persons) a foreign country, whatever from making a shell company (in the "advertising" business) put a ton of money into that, in an effort to get that candidate elected. *wink wink* the candidate would have nothing to do with it, but of course, are rather beholden to that party that got them elected. If you are proud of that; wonderful. I have problems with MF, but skirting the issues by having "transparency" that is done only at the whim of the for-profit company is a bad. Too bad you are too emotionally invested here to see that.

Isn't that what donating to candidates already does. If this was -really- about Paul, you could just simply donate directly to him. He's the guy you want to win, right? How does donating to a third party do anything, besides give some goofball a salary for a few months? Think a little harder, would ya?

We've discussed this. It's not difficult to get a bunch of random kids to vote in a meaningless straw poll. Actual polls done show no real support. Still can't face that, can you?

Even truthers have allowances from their moms. Raising money is easy. Dean did it in 2000 or whenever and didn't gain any support at all. You are confusing money with real support from real voters. Which your candidate won't get - in fact, he's setting the whole libertarian movement back 30 years and that should make you sad if you are truly for "small government"

So you are saying a middle class donor WANTS to donate 10,000 but can't? The average donation in this country is like $100. The campaign finance laws inhibit big money interests from having an overly participatory role in the platform. Don't a silly.

 

If RP loses, it is a conspiracy..

 

Exactly what i thought. RP supporters will go on about "an inside job", and tons of other conspiracy theories as to why RP didn't win

 

To me it appears those with the conspiracy theories or those who are already conspiring about what RP supporters would do when/if he does not win.