Let's be serious here–the single greatest political problem in this country is the legalized corruption we call campaign contributions. Ever since the Buckley v. Valeo decision by the Supreme Court which said that MONEY = SPEECH, campaign finance reform has been totally lame, in the traditional sense of the word.

Any serious attempts at reform are retarded by the fact political contributions are considered protected under the First Amendment according to Buckley v. Valeo. The latest stab at reform was the good old McCain-Feingold Act, through whose loopholes were birthed the "527" organization. This allows for independent partisan groups to advertise on behalf of a candidate as long as those efforts are not coordinated.

Prime example of the 527:
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose lawyer, Benjamin Ginsburg, was also a lawyer for the Bush campaign until the press figured this out, causing Ginsburg's resignation from the Bush campaign.

block| Federal election rules bar organizations that take unrestricted donations from coordinating their activities with campaigns or political parties.

Stanzel said the law does not impose restrictions on lawyers, adding: "There has been no coordination at any time" between the campaign and the Swift Boat group.

Likewise, Mike Russell, spokesman for the Swift Boat group, denied any coordination with the Bush campaign, and said Ginsberg had agreed to continue advising the group.

"I was at the nexus of making sure (coordination) didn't happen. To suggest otherwise is flat wrong," Ginsberg said.
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What the fuck does that mean? How can one be at the "nexus" of coordinating non-coordination? It's this exact coordination that's illegal, dipshit.

You know, I don't think Ginsburg left the Bush campaign because of the press attention; he probably got into a drunken bar fight with one of the scores of lawyers the Bush campaign retains to "make sure (coordination) didn't happen" with MoveOn.org or the Teamsters.

Of course Ginsburg was the second Bush campaign staffer to quit over connections to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which shares major backers with the Bush campaign.

I know it must seem shocking that the very president who signed the McCain-Feingold bill is at the forefront of exploiting its loopholes. What's actually much more shocking is the fact that all of the claims made by the Swift Boat Veterans are COMPLETE AND TOTAL BULLSHIT. The link over there will take you to a page which documents in excruciating detail exactly how the lies have been constructed. For example, consider their strongest charge, that Kerry was never in Cambodia on Christmas Day, 1968. To wit:

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