Wednesday, September 29, 2010
My amicus in nom v mckee, a maine case about disclosure and disclaimers, went in the mail today. At some point I'll update the post below that had an earlier draft.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Recently I wrote a blog post about how to defeat the proposed public financing of congressional elections, FENA, HR 6116, by having a bunch of people run and collect the funds, in order to show it as being a scam. I was thinking out loud at the time and the post was kind of rambling. Today the bill passed out of committee. I think it's time for a slightly simpler version of the scheme.
Do you live in New York or California? Would you be willing to invest $50,000, for a return of $150,000 to your campaign account, a slush fund that you can use to hire your friends and relatives? Send no money now, all I need is your pledge.
I'm looking for 500 people in each of California and New York to run for, or pretend to run for, Congress, when and if the bill passes, simply to take advantage of all this free money. (Additional states might be added later once the pilot project is off and running.) My goal is to run the program into the ground and make a mockery of it.
But your goal could be to just cash the checks.
How it works: Once we have 500 people committed in your state, you write a $100 check to each of the 500, and they each write a $100 check to you. You are out $50,000, but your campaign account now has $50,000, and the government will match it 4-1 with $200,000. ($200K x 500 = 100 million - the government wastes that much every day.) Oh, and you're going to be writing me a check for 15%, $30,000. Because it was my idea, and I can help you make this work.
(We are also going to need 1000 people to write 500 checks for $1 [edit: $5?] each - go recruit a couple of cronies.)
I don't care if you run as a socialist, a Republican, a Green, a Libertarian, or sit back and do nothing. I suggest you pair up and hire somebody as your campaign manager for $50,000, and have them hire you for $50,000, so you've now gotten back your initial investment. Specific details of what is allowed or not will come after the bill becomes law, if ever. Standard disclaimers apply.
Make sure they spell your name right for the primary, which you will lose.
It costs you nothing to sign up now.
What's that, you say you don't have $50,000 to ante up? Don't worry. You look trustworthy. I have some friends you can talk to about a short term high interest loan. Get on the bandwagon now while there's still time - supplies are limited.
Now some people may be offended at my crass and overtly greedy approach. But what I'm doing is more or less the same thing the D's and R's will be doing if this welfare-for-politicians bill passes.
Do you live in New York or California? Would you be willing to invest $50,000, for a return of $150,000 to your campaign account, a slush fund that you can use to hire your friends and relatives? Send no money now, all I need is your pledge.
I'm looking for 500 people in each of California and New York to run for, or pretend to run for, Congress, when and if the bill passes, simply to take advantage of all this free money. (Additional states might be added later once the pilot project is off and running.) My goal is to run the program into the ground and make a mockery of it.
But your goal could be to just cash the checks.
How it works: Once we have 500 people committed in your state, you write a $100 check to each of the 500, and they each write a $100 check to you. You are out $50,000, but your campaign account now has $50,000, and the government will match it 4-1 with $200,000. ($200K x 500 = 100 million - the government wastes that much every day.) Oh, and you're going to be writing me a check for 15%, $30,000. Because it was my idea, and I can help you make this work.
(We are also going to need 1000 people to write 500 checks for $1 [edit: $5?] each - go recruit a couple of cronies.)
I don't care if you run as a socialist, a Republican, a Green, a Libertarian, or sit back and do nothing. I suggest you pair up and hire somebody as your campaign manager for $50,000, and have them hire you for $50,000, so you've now gotten back your initial investment. Specific details of what is allowed or not will come after the bill becomes law, if ever. Standard disclaimers apply.
Make sure they spell your name right for the primary, which you will lose.
It costs you nothing to sign up now.
What's that, you say you don't have $50,000 to ante up? Don't worry. You look trustworthy. I have some friends you can talk to about a short term high interest loan. Get on the bandwagon now while there's still time - supplies are limited.
Now some people may be offended at my crass and overtly greedy approach. But what I'm doing is more or less the same thing the D's and R's will be doing if this welfare-for-politicians bill passes.
Monday, September 20, 2010
An old friend of mine is in the news today; it's both good news and bad news.
Tom Carnahan's been given 100 million dollars in stimulus money for his wind energy company. I haven't seen Tom since law school, where we studied crim pro together and went dancing a few times. I was excited to learn about a year ago of his wind energy company,and he was on my list of people to write to about some kind of job interview, but that's out the window now; you can't write for a job to a guy who just got 100 million.
The money comes at a bad time; his sister Robin is down 6 points in the polls against LeRoy Blunt in the Missouri senate race. His brother Russ is running to keep his house seat in St. Louis (St. Louis County?) I haven't checked his poll numbers.
Around the same time Tom and I were studying together, I was suing LeRoy after he illegally kept my friends Laura and Tony off the ballot. Laura was running for sheriff and had turned in her 60,000 signatures and everything was in order.
By the time we won the case, the election had already passed. Tony later ran for Lt. Governor of Texas. The experience of winning that case, Missouri ex rel Coker-Garcia v Blunt, was what started me on this long dead end of trying to be an election lawyer, at which I have not been very successful.
I am no fan of the "stimulus"; I support markets rather than government projects.
And I'm running as Republican this year (in a safe D seat, so I expect to lose.)
But what Tom's company is doing is important for the nation's economy, balance of trade, and defense. Wind power isn't quite there yet economically, although it's getting there. The kind of turbines Tom puts up are like rolls royces where what we need is a model A; a cheap mass-produced (in India or China) wind turbine that could generate electricity at about 60% of the costs of the current models.
But the positive externalities of offsetting coal and mideast oil make this project at least as feasible as any of the other "stimulus" programs. I do not know if politics were a factor in the grant. If so, the timing is bad. But there are non-political reasons why the grant was a good idea, from the perspective of the people who made it. Tom, I guess, saw his opportunities and he took 'em, as George Washington Plunkett used to say. Wind power, which I've been fascinated about for years, is at least somewhat viable now,and Tom moved to get in at the right time, and has installed capacity, not just plans on paper. Given enough capital, he could make it big, bigger than my grandfather did in Texas oil.
I'm off to go look up Russ Carnahan's numbers. One poll shows him up 16 points, another says he's about tied. Looks safe, so if Russ wins anyway and Robin loses anyway, the 100 million won't change that. Let's see how Russ polls next week.
Tom Carnahan's been given 100 million dollars in stimulus money for his wind energy company. I haven't seen Tom since law school, where we studied crim pro together and went dancing a few times. I was excited to learn about a year ago of his wind energy company,and he was on my list of people to write to about some kind of job interview, but that's out the window now; you can't write for a job to a guy who just got 100 million.
The money comes at a bad time; his sister Robin is down 6 points in the polls against LeRoy Blunt in the Missouri senate race. His brother Russ is running to keep his house seat in St. Louis (St. Louis County?) I haven't checked his poll numbers.
Around the same time Tom and I were studying together, I was suing LeRoy after he illegally kept my friends Laura and Tony off the ballot. Laura was running for sheriff and had turned in her 60,000 signatures and everything was in order.
By the time we won the case, the election had already passed. Tony later ran for Lt. Governor of Texas. The experience of winning that case, Missouri ex rel Coker-Garcia v Blunt, was what started me on this long dead end of trying to be an election lawyer, at which I have not been very successful.
I am no fan of the "stimulus"; I support markets rather than government projects.
And I'm running as Republican this year (in a safe D seat, so I expect to lose.)
But what Tom's company is doing is important for the nation's economy, balance of trade, and defense. Wind power isn't quite there yet economically, although it's getting there. The kind of turbines Tom puts up are like rolls royces where what we need is a model A; a cheap mass-produced (in India or China) wind turbine that could generate electricity at about 60% of the costs of the current models.
But the positive externalities of offsetting coal and mideast oil make this project at least as feasible as any of the other "stimulus" programs. I do not know if politics were a factor in the grant. If so, the timing is bad. But there are non-political reasons why the grant was a good idea, from the perspective of the people who made it. Tom, I guess, saw his opportunities and he took 'em, as George Washington Plunkett used to say. Wind power, which I've been fascinated about for years, is at least somewhat viable now,and Tom moved to get in at the right time, and has installed capacity, not just plans on paper. Given enough capital, he could make it big, bigger than my grandfather did in Texas oil.
I'm off to go look up Russ Carnahan's numbers. One poll shows him up 16 points, another says he's about tied. Looks safe, so if Russ wins anyway and Robin loses anyway, the 100 million won't change that. Let's see how Russ polls next week.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
The house is about to vote on a bill for public funding for congressional campaigns.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/spending-to-overhaul-campaign-spending/?hp
I've been hearing about this from the coffee party and other liberal fronts.
In this post I'm going to outline how to manipulate bankrupt and embarrass the system into collapse, if it passes in something close to how it's been described.
In order to qualify for 5 to 1 matching funds, about $300,000, here's what you do.
You need to raise $50,000 in donations from your state from 1500 people, no more than $100 each.
In practice that's going to work out to ~500 (490) $100 contributions, and 1000 $1 contributions. This is going to be easier to pull off in a big state like california than a small state like north dakota.
Step 2: solicit pledges for $100 from everyone you can. give them a number.
Have this automated online with paypal and such to make it easier to go viral.
At this point you aren't collecting money from anyone, just pledges.
I haven't read the fine print of the bill; I don't know if it's ok to give them a ticket to a $100 fundraising dinner when they pledge.
Meanwhile, you can tell people that if the funds are available, you are going to be staffing your campaign with a large number of part time workers; basically volunteers who are getting a check for $100 to cover their expenses. You are hiring precinct captains for each precinct that has met its fundraising goal of $100.
Some of the people who pledge will sign on as workers, and be able to earn their pledges back. One of the simplest ways to earn it back is to be a bundler - get pledges from 3 or 5 friends .. let's say 4, and you get a $100 bonus, payable after the pledges are collected. Are you up to 490 yet?
Oh yeah, I forgot step 1. Step one is hire me, at 15%, to run this program for you. Trust me. If it doesn't work, 15% of zero is zero. Since the expected take from this scam is $300,000, 15% is $45,000. This will give me some walking around money to grease any bottlenecks we run into.
Now we still need the 1000 $1 contributions. Have a free picnic in the park, ask for $1 contributions, have a band. Document everything; get the names. Possibly this can all be done online with a tip jar.
Not at 1000 yet? Go back to your pledgers and bundlers, ask them to collect contributions of at least $1, maybe by emailing their contact lists or facebooking.
(blogger is freezing so posting part 1 now, will edit)
Step 3. Let's say by now you are close, you've got $1000 in small contributions and
400 pledgers. OK, let's try microfinance. Do a mailing to your $1 contributors, letting them know you know a guy who can loan them $99 to level up.
This is a real loan; it's not a pass-through illegal contribution. The lender takes a risk of loss; the borrower risks bad credit if they welsh. These guys get first dibs on jobs in the campaign, if that's legally allowed. That is, you might not be able to give them preference over other applicants, but you can affirmatively act to encourage them to apply.
Basically keep networking your donors contacts lists until you have both the $50,000 and the 1500 contributors.
Step 4. Now collect the pledges. You'll lose a few that are uncollectable, but the bump from having met the goal will bring in some bandwagoners.
Ok, step 5 is go pick up your check for $300,000. Minus my fee of $45,000, and assuming $5000 in expenses so far on stuff like picnic supplies, you now have... $300,000. You can now hire your $100 workers as precinct workers, pay off bundlers, etc. Set aside $50,000 for this, leaving $250,000.
Step 6. Throw a party. Whether your taste runs to string quartets or strippers and booze, spend $10,000 on a nice party and invite your 500 contributors.
A phone call and a card is a nice touch here too.
$240,000 left. You can buy the campaign a car, or hire your kids as office staff, or go on a fact-finding junket to bermuda, so long as it's all plausibly campaign expenses.
step 7. For appearances, spend $5000 on yard signs and brochures and balloons and such, so there's some appearance of an actual campaign. Your goal at this point is to lose the primary, make sure all your donors have had the chance to earn back their investment.
step 8. But wait, there's more. You can keep raising more funds and they'll keep matching it 5-1, up to some threshold.
step 9. OK, here's where it gets interesting.
By now you know how to do this, you've done it, you have a database of donors,
you know who your effective bundlers are. Sit down with them, and offer them a chance to be the next 9 candidates. Pick the first nine that say yes and seem qualified.
Now, you are going to back to each of your 500 $100 donors. You'll be asking them to write 9 $100 checks. They'll already know they have the chance to make that back by working for the campaign, if they want to. you won't get all 500, but you'll get a quick head start on the process. Meanwhile your nine have started at step 1.
Keep in mind you have $235,000 left to help jumpstart all this.
Plus, the 9 have contracted with me at $45,000 each, 15%. Which comes to 405,000.
Contact your 1000 $1 donors and ask them to make nine $1 contributions.
Have another picnic, with a better band. Or do another online thing, or both.
Viral marketing, direct mail, phone banking. Pretty soon one of your nine reaches the 490 pledges, moves into collection mode, and collects their 300,000.
This money is right away going to get reinvested in helping the other 8 level up.
Assume each nets $235K after expenses. 8x 235k = 1,850,000.
Time to start the next set of 10.
This has been the bootstrap method.
Now lets look at the mass production method.
Recruit 100 candidates. Each writes a $100 check to each candidate, $10,000 in seed money, and each finds 4 friends to do the same. These 4 get offered a job on the campaign at $10,000 or more. Each of the 100 now has 50,000. Oh we also need 1000 people to write checks for $1 to each of the 100. So each candidate need to find 4 people at $10,000 and 10 people at $100. Each now collects $300,000, which times 100 = 30 million. This can all be in one congressional district, in one state, say new york or california or chicago. New contributions are also matched $5 to $1, up to about another 30 million, no more than $100 per person.
Think about a group like acorn going door to door. It's grass roots democracy, but it's also a recipe for massive fraud.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/spending-to-overhaul-campaign-spending/?hp
I've been hearing about this from the coffee party and other liberal fronts.
In this post I'm going to outline how to manipulate bankrupt and embarrass the system into collapse, if it passes in something close to how it's been described.
In order to qualify for 5 to 1 matching funds, about $300,000, here's what you do.
You need to raise $50,000 in donations from your state from 1500 people, no more than $100 each.
In practice that's going to work out to ~500 (490) $100 contributions, and 1000 $1 contributions. This is going to be easier to pull off in a big state like california than a small state like north dakota.
Step 2: solicit pledges for $100 from everyone you can. give them a number.
Have this automated online with paypal and such to make it easier to go viral.
At this point you aren't collecting money from anyone, just pledges.
I haven't read the fine print of the bill; I don't know if it's ok to give them a ticket to a $100 fundraising dinner when they pledge.
Meanwhile, you can tell people that if the funds are available, you are going to be staffing your campaign with a large number of part time workers; basically volunteers who are getting a check for $100 to cover their expenses. You are hiring precinct captains for each precinct that has met its fundraising goal of $100.
Some of the people who pledge will sign on as workers, and be able to earn their pledges back. One of the simplest ways to earn it back is to be a bundler - get pledges from 3 or 5 friends .. let's say 4, and you get a $100 bonus, payable after the pledges are collected. Are you up to 490 yet?
Oh yeah, I forgot step 1. Step one is hire me, at 15%, to run this program for you. Trust me. If it doesn't work, 15% of zero is zero. Since the expected take from this scam is $300,000, 15% is $45,000. This will give me some walking around money to grease any bottlenecks we run into.
Now we still need the 1000 $1 contributions. Have a free picnic in the park, ask for $1 contributions, have a band. Document everything; get the names. Possibly this can all be done online with a tip jar.
Not at 1000 yet? Go back to your pledgers and bundlers, ask them to collect contributions of at least $1, maybe by emailing their contact lists or facebooking.
(blogger is freezing so posting part 1 now, will edit)
Step 3. Let's say by now you are close, you've got $1000 in small contributions and
400 pledgers. OK, let's try microfinance. Do a mailing to your $1 contributors, letting them know you know a guy who can loan them $99 to level up.
This is a real loan; it's not a pass-through illegal contribution. The lender takes a risk of loss; the borrower risks bad credit if they welsh. These guys get first dibs on jobs in the campaign, if that's legally allowed. That is, you might not be able to give them preference over other applicants, but you can affirmatively act to encourage them to apply.
Basically keep networking your donors contacts lists until you have both the $50,000 and the 1500 contributors.
Step 4. Now collect the pledges. You'll lose a few that are uncollectable, but the bump from having met the goal will bring in some bandwagoners.
Ok, step 5 is go pick up your check for $300,000. Minus my fee of $45,000, and assuming $5000 in expenses so far on stuff like picnic supplies, you now have... $300,000. You can now hire your $100 workers as precinct workers, pay off bundlers, etc. Set aside $50,000 for this, leaving $250,000.
Step 6. Throw a party. Whether your taste runs to string quartets or strippers and booze, spend $10,000 on a nice party and invite your 500 contributors.
A phone call and a card is a nice touch here too.
$240,000 left. You can buy the campaign a car, or hire your kids as office staff, or go on a fact-finding junket to bermuda, so long as it's all plausibly campaign expenses.
step 7. For appearances, spend $5000 on yard signs and brochures and balloons and such, so there's some appearance of an actual campaign. Your goal at this point is to lose the primary, make sure all your donors have had the chance to earn back their investment.
step 8. But wait, there's more. You can keep raising more funds and they'll keep matching it 5-1, up to some threshold.
step 9. OK, here's where it gets interesting.
By now you know how to do this, you've done it, you have a database of donors,
you know who your effective bundlers are. Sit down with them, and offer them a chance to be the next 9 candidates. Pick the first nine that say yes and seem qualified.
Now, you are going to back to each of your 500 $100 donors. You'll be asking them to write 9 $100 checks. They'll already know they have the chance to make that back by working for the campaign, if they want to. you won't get all 500, but you'll get a quick head start on the process. Meanwhile your nine have started at step 1.
Keep in mind you have $235,000 left to help jumpstart all this.
Plus, the 9 have contracted with me at $45,000 each, 15%. Which comes to 405,000.
Contact your 1000 $1 donors and ask them to make nine $1 contributions.
Have another picnic, with a better band. Or do another online thing, or both.
Viral marketing, direct mail, phone banking. Pretty soon one of your nine reaches the 490 pledges, moves into collection mode, and collects their 300,000.
This money is right away going to get reinvested in helping the other 8 level up.
Assume each nets $235K after expenses. 8x 235k = 1,850,000.
Time to start the next set of 10.
This has been the bootstrap method.
Now lets look at the mass production method.
Recruit 100 candidates. Each writes a $100 check to each candidate, $10,000 in seed money, and each finds 4 friends to do the same. These 4 get offered a job on the campaign at $10,000 or more. Each of the 100 now has 50,000. Oh we also need 1000 people to write checks for $1 to each of the 100. So each candidate need to find 4 people at $10,000 and 10 people at $100. Each now collects $300,000, which times 100 = 30 million. This can all be in one congressional district, in one state, say new york or california or chicago. New contributions are also matched $5 to $1, up to about another 30 million, no more than $100 per person.
Think about a group like acorn going door to door. It's grass roots democracy, but it's also a recipe for massive fraud.
Friday, September 03, 2010
another disclaimer controversy
via instapundit, breitbart is reporting
http://biggovernment.com/bmccarty/2010/09/01/phil-hare-files-fec-complaint-against-veterans-group/
Veterans for the constitution, a small Illinois PAC opposing congressman Phil Hare, has been hit with an FEC complaint.
http://bobmccarty.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/DOC083010.pdf
Hare was in the news as saying he "doesn't care about the constitution", referring to his vote for the health care bill.
A group of veterans has put up a couple of billboards.
The complaint alleges a disclaimer violation, inadequate and late disclosure, coordination with a candidate,
and that FEC rules prohibit their use of "Veterans for Schilling."
I think that the billboard are free speech and legally protected,
and that Hare is probably going to wind up just giving free publicity to his opponents.
what i should do about it, but probably won't:
write the fec.
write some kind of an op-ed or press release to area newspapers (springfield il area)
with details of how the complaint violates the veteran's rights under McIntyre, Talley,and People v White.
via instapundit, breitbart is reporting
http://biggovernment.com/bmccarty/2010/09/01/phil-hare-files-fec-complaint-against-veterans-group/
Veterans for the constitution, a small Illinois PAC opposing congressman Phil Hare, has been hit with an FEC complaint.
http://bobmccarty.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/DOC083010.pdf
Hare was in the news as saying he "doesn't care about the constitution", referring to his vote for the health care bill.
A group of veterans has put up a couple of billboards.
The complaint alleges a disclaimer violation, inadequate and late disclosure, coordination with a candidate,
and that FEC rules prohibit their use of "Veterans for Schilling."
I think that the billboard are free speech and legally protected,
and that Hare is probably going to wind up just giving free publicity to his opponents.
what i should do about it, but probably won't:
write the fec.
write some kind of an op-ed or press release to area newspapers (springfield il area)
with details of how the complaint violates the veteran's rights under McIntyre, Talley,and People v White.
