NHow campaign finance reforms can help make NASA far less corrupt and inefficient.ASA ,

NASA Watch .INFO

Relevant articles (and occasional commentary) on this subject...
(along with commentary from NASAWatch.INFO, and occasionally what we think
NASAWatch.COM's reaction would be if injected with a healthy dose of truth serum)

Remember,  if you want to understand what's REALLY causing the space industry to underperform even as some folks opportunistically pretend to praise its "progress," just follow the money!

To see who contributes to whom, or receives what from whom in terms of campaign financing,
please feel free to consult the following free source:  

http://www.fec.gov/finance/disclosure/disclosure_data_search.shtml

For a guide to our federal government, feel free to click  here.

Here are some additional related links:  Campaign Finance Institute & the Federal Electoral Commission.

Politico.com article:  "The Supreme Court on Thursday (Jan. 21st, 2010) opened wide new avenues for big-moneyed interests to pour money into politics....The long-awaited decision overruled a 1990 ruling by the court that allowed the government to bar corporations and unions from spending on ads expressly urging a candidate’s election or defeat."

Wall Street Journal article: U.S. Representative Chris Van Hollen has reported that there is "an effort to bar companies that received federal bailouts and big government contractors from electioneering, similar to rules affecting federal employees."

NASAWatch.INFO:  Bureaucrats' unions may nevertheless purchase such campaign ads now.  Money talks...even as our elected officials lead the U.S.A. deeper into bankruptcy...

Previously...

TheHill.com article:  Senator John McCain said in the wake of the June 2007 ruling that “[i]t is regrettable that a split Supreme Court has carved out a narrow exception by which some corporate and labor expenditures can be used to target a federal candidate in the days and weeks before an election,” McCain said. “It is important to recognize, however, that the Court’s decision does not affect the principal provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which bans federal officeholders from soliciting soft money contributions for their parties to spend on their campaigns.”
     The court weakened a provision in the law that strictly limited ads paid for with corporate and union money within 30 days of a primary and 60 days of a general election. It ruled that the law violated the First Amendment rights of Wisconsin Right to Life, which was prevented from running ads urging voters to contact Democratic Sens. Herb Kohl (Wis.) and Russ Feingold (Wis.) about a filibuster of judicial nominees."

NASAWatch.INFO: Hmmm........

WashingtonPost.com article: "Federal regulators on Thursday refused to impose new restrictions on political groups that are spending millions on the presidential election..."

Previously...

Individual voters prevail with the final ruling from the Supreme Court on campaign finance reform.

NASAWatch.INFO: The May 2004  527 groups-related ruling is a source of legitimate concern...

Washington Post article, "In the United States, the top 10 percent owns 70 percent of the wealth”…."the top one percent have 40 percent of the wealth.”

CNN.com article: "The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the government can ban campaign contributions from advocacy groups, a warm-up decision to the showdown over the broader new campaign finance law. Justices rejected a constitutional challenge to the 32-year-old federal donation ban, which applies to groups with a point of view on issues..."

WashingtonTimes.com article: The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the campaign finance reform case on September 8th, 2003.

WashingtonPost.com article: "A federal court Monday temporarily restored limits on political donations and advertising that it had struck down as unconstitutional, making 2004 candidates operate under the law passed by Congress last year until the Supreme Court settles the matter."

WashingtonPost.com article: "While RNC officials testified that they had no formal policy of connecting donors with lawmakers, several documents suggest that they tried to do so."

WashingtonPost.com article: "Although most politicians will wait to see if the Supreme Court acts [on campaign finance reform law], Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said he will begin raising soft money immediately. One top GOP strategist said other officials will "line up" big donations but will not demand the checks until the nine justices send a signal."

USAToday.com article: After mixed reviews from the federal appeals court, the campaign finance reform law is now headed for the U.S. Supreme Court. "While others have argued that new political spending restrictions in the law violate free speech, those challenging the higher hard money limits say it impinges on speech rights by giving wealthy donors too loud a voice in elections." 

(NASAWatch.COM: "This delay is great!  With this delay, campaign finance reform won't be enough of an issue to compel John McCain to revive a presidential bid at least until electoral season is already too far underway.  And then if the U.S. Supreme Court rules unfavorably, we'll get to have a plutocracy! This is great news for my business affiliate's Space Transportation Association! Money talks in Beltway Banditland, and it's what the monopolistic contractors have a lot of (relatively speaking at least).  Did space entrepreneurs ever really think they'd stand a chance of reforming our space program?!? Ha!   They'll have to settle for mere sub-contracts from NASA, if they're lucky. Ah but STA can help "set them free" in that respect.   I gotta get paid somehow, you know.")

 NASAWatch.INFO: Senate Science, Commerce & Transportation Committee ranking member Senator McCain  told Sean O'Keefe during his confirmation hearings that NASA seems to stand for "never a straight answer" (perhaps to be contrasted with Robert Bigelow's "no access to space for Americans").   Our report on NASA's pork-barrel spending is largely based on Senator McCain's work, by the way.  His Senate bid's up for renewal in 2004, just as Joe Lieberman's was in 2000...  Feel free to subscribe to his e-mail newsletter at his StraightTalkAmerica.com website.

WashingtonPost.com article:  "A report issued by U.S. PIRG details how the size of a campaign war chest influences elections. According to the study, 93.4 percent of the House and Senate candidates who outraised their opponents won. It also looks at 50 congressional candidates who were locked out of contention because of financial constraints. "This report examines the flip side of that coin -- all average Americans who are shut out of the process by big money," said Adam Lioz, the report's author. "Unfortunately, we might as well hang a sign on the U.S. Capitol that says only the rich -- or those that will serve them -- need apply. Not many ordinary Americans are willing to put their hats in the ring any more.""
WashingtonPost.com article: "Under the old law, congressional candidates could count on a handful of corporations, unions and individuals to give hundreds of thousands of dollars for such fetes. Now such unlimited "soft money" gifts to federal candidates and parties are banned. Mega-donors who might have given $500,000 or even $1 million after a single phone call are no longer free to do so. Executives can't simply cut a check for $250,000 from their company's coffers. So lawmakers are investing more time in reaching out to men and women who can give tens of thousands of dollars each. Companies, which now can donate no more than $15,000 per year through their political action committees, are a lower priority."

NASAWatch.INFO: So much for multi-million dollar donors' still being able to tilt the playing fields as they see fit, then?  Maybe now that campaign finance reform is finally underway, our politicians can be more free to do what's best for the country as opposed to what a few hundred thousand wealthy donors / misers angrily demand?   Think of all the languishing potential reforms that could help the space industry. 
  Meanwhile, to see who contributes to whom, or receives what from whom in terms of campaign financing,
please feel free to consult the following free source:  

http://www.fec.gov/finance/disclosure/disclosure_data_search.shtml

Previously...

WashingtonPost.com article:  Campaign finance reform is the subject of a federal court case that will likely wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court.  At least until then, major government contractors and labor unions have a significantly diminished ability to "buy" our elected officials.   Here are more details on what such reforms entail.

Washington Times article: "While ostensibly banning soft money, the new campaign-finance law also doubles the hard-money limit from $1,000 to $2,000 that individuals can contribute to federal candidates per election. In addition, the aggregate hard-money contribution limit for an individual donor over a two-year election cycle will virtually double, rising from $50,000 to $95,000. Of this new amount, a maximum of $37,500 may be distributed among candidates; and $57,500 may be given to political action committees and political parties (PACs), of which PACs may receive a maximum of $37,500."

(NASAWatch.COM: "Aerospace contractors have donated a lot, and for the first time (apparently ever)...I briefly exposed (some of) it in early November of 2002.  I offered a laundry list that's basically limited to the following: Alliant, Ball, Boeing, Fairchild, Lockheed, Northrup, Loral, Orbital, Raytheon, Thiokol, TRW & USA.")

NASAWatch.INFO: That's a pretty good start Keith, but is there any particular reason why you overlooked the bureaucrats' beloved civil service unions' contributions?   Why continue to ignore the parasitic mischief that the self-perpetuating bureaucrats are politically working behind the scenes through entities such as the American Federation of Government Employees, as we have documented here?   By the way, some contributions from that union are specifically documented here.  And here's a link that shows how much of a soft money force other labor unions have been, too.    Meanwhile, here's an article that's highly relevant and seemingly quite scandalous, to which you predictably never linked:


WashingtonPost.com article: "Unions are raising the domino theory: If the White House can create a new personnel system for the Homeland Security department, eliminating long-standing work procedures, other federal departments could follow, including the biggest of them all, the Defense Department, with about 600,000 civilian employees.  By providing Democrats with both money and troops on the ground, unions serve as the party's single most important political ally, and lawmakers are loath to cross them just weeks before critical elections. Labor ranks near the top of the Democrats' list of contributors, with $50 million in donations in this cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. By contrast, unions gave just over $4 million to Republicans during the same period...  White House officials said it now takes an average of five months to hire a federal employee. They want to be able to bypass certain hiring rules and speed up the process. The White House said the current system rewards nearly all employees regardless of merit. Only 619 federal workers were denied pay increases last year because of their performance, they said. They want the ability to build in performance incentives. Bush wants the ability to move workers from one part of the department to another to meet rapidly changing needs. Labor leaders said that could open the door to arbitrary transfers on the whim of management. White House officials said that it often takes 18 months or longer to fire errant employees. Only 434 federal workers were dismissed for poor performance last year. Too many appeals prolong the process, they said. Congress has given some of the same flexibility to other departments but never on the scale now being sought. "

Washington Times article:  "Election regulators preparing to implement the nation's new campaign finance law are stepping into one of its thorniest issues: to what extent political parties, interest groups and candidates can legally coordinate their spending. Many of the key players, including the Democratic and Republican national committees, business lobbies and campaign watchdog groups, are offering their views at a two-day Federal Election Commission hearing that started yesterday. The commissioners, too, weighed in...
    The new law, due to take effect Nov. 6, the day after the election, will bar the national party committees from raising unlimited donations from businesses, unions and others. The parties spend such contributions, known as soft money, on general party activities such as get-out-the-vote drives and ads on party issues. The law also directs the FEC to write new rules on the degree to which interest groups, party committees and candidates can share information and strategize with each other about election activities without it counting against federal spending limits."

NASAWatch.INFO: Maybe NASA can finally become the voters' space agency, instead of the bloated & parasitically underachieving contractors' one?


USA Today article:   "A new law designed to wring the worst excesses out of America's political money system took effect last week. But already, the law is being undermined by the agency charged with enforcing it: the Federal Election Commission.  A close look by USA TODAY at the FEC's 27-year history reveals an agency that puts protecting the interests of the Democratic and Republican parties ahead of policing election laws or guarding public confidence in the integrity of campaigns and elections. A confidential draft audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1998 found that many Federal Electoral Commission employees saw their bosses as "inactive, unengaged and uninterested in enforcing the law." ...Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., calls the commission's majority "corrupt" for failing in its public-interest mission. McCain vows to remake the FEC into a more effective enforcement agency."

NASAWatch.INFO: To learn more about how campaign finance reform can help us take back NASA from corrupt special interests, feel free to click here.

WashingtonPost.com article:  Campaign finance reform is the subject of a federal court case that will likely wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court.  At least until then, major government contractors and labor unions have a significantly diminished ability to "buy" our elected officials.  
USA Today article:   "A new law designed to wring the worst excesses out of America's political money system took effect last week. But already, the law is being undermined by the agency charged with enforcing it: the Federal Election Commission.  A close look by USA TODAY at the FEC's 27-year history reveals an agency that puts protecting the interests of the Democratic and Republican parties ahead of policing election laws or guarding public confidence in the integrity of campaigns and elections. A confidential draft audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1998 found that many Federal Electoral Commission employees saw their bosses as "inactive, unengaged and uninterested in enforcing the law." ...Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., calls the commission's majority "corrupt" for failing in its public-interest mission. McCain vows to remake the FEC into a more effective enforcement agency."
Washington Times article: Campaign Finance Reforms have now gone into effect.
Washington Post article: FEC rules on soft money fought
Washington Times article: "Rep. Christopher Shays and other advocates of overhauling campaign finance laws filed suit recently, hoping to overturn the Federal Election Commission's new regulations implementing their law."
Washington Times article: "Advocates of overhauling campaign-finance rules will introduce a Senate measure today to try to overturn the Federal Election Commission's new campaign-finance regulations....Senator McCain will introduce a resolution that would invoke Congress' powers under the Congressional Review Act to overturn a federal agency's regulations, said Matt Keller, legislative director at Common Cause, one Mr. McCain's allies in the fight to revamp campaign-finance laws...Mr. Keller acknowledged a bill is unlikely to pass this year — even if it cleared the Senate, it would have a difficult time getting through the House before adjournment —but he said introducing the resolution now is important. "It's a signal of our intention... The last successful move to overturn an agency's regulations was last year, when Congress and Mr. Bush junked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's ergonomics rules issued during the Clinton administration."

WashingtonPost.com article: "[Senate Science, Commerce & Transportation Committee ranking member] John McCain has come up with an insidious secret plan to wrest the presidency from George Bush: By being a heckuva lot funnier.   Live from New York, McCain is hosting Saturday Night Live....[In contrast, President Bush] couldn't even convince the major networks to carry his last performance (it was on Iraq or some such snoozer)."

MSNBC.com article:  The former chairperson of the Senate Science Committee, John McCain "said on Sunday he has not yet decided whether he will run for re-election when his third term in the Senate expires in 2004."  As for a possible run for the 2004 Republican nomination for the presidency, McCain's new book says “I did not get to be president of the United States. And I doubt I shall have reason or opportunity to try again.”
NASAWatch.INFO:   Senator McCain, a former prisoner of war in Viet Nam [for 5 years], told Sean O'Keefe during his confirmation hearing in December of 2001 that NASA often seems to stand for "never a straight answer."  Anyhow, on October 12th, 2002, John McCain hosted Saturday Night Live.  Perhaps the NASA clique is in for something of a surprise if its members think they can intimidate the Bush Administration into shelving NASA-reform issues that Senator McCain might nevertheless increasingly bring up whenever that potentially emboldened Senate Science Committee watchdog  politician periodically occupies the spotlight?

(NASAWatch.COM: "Well don't expect ME to do adequate watchdogging regarding NASA.  I've got too many conflicts of interest, even if I predictably deny it when doing so suits my financial preferences.")

Washington Times article: "The Federal Election Commission has freed tax-exempt charitable, educational and religious groups from political-ad restrictions imposed by the new campaign-finance law.  Sponsors of the law, including Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, and Rep. Christopher Shays, Connecticut Republican, contend the tax-exempt groups have used phony issue ads to evade the prohibition on the use of union or corporate money to influence federal elections.  Issue ads may mention federal candidates, but cannot directly call for their election or defeat."

NASAWatch.INFO: Hopefully the government really will avoid letting non-profits be further corrupted by government contractors, labor unions, and other people & corporations that desire impunity, or at least lots of tax-subsidized favors. 

(NASAWatch.COM: "Don't get started again on the Space Transportation Association [the new president of which is a business affiliate of mine] or ProSpace.  I mean, what in the heck does criticizing their contract-seeking activities have to do with space reform?!? We don't even need space reform. My bureaucrat and contractor allies are quite happy the way things are at NASA, in fact.  As long as folks have comfortable sinecures from which to leak national secrets to me, and download my sponsorship-seeking websites on tax-subsidized time, while assisting my contract-seeking allies, and somehow keeping access to my sites from being officially restricted, that's all I really care that much about.")

Washington Times article: "Federal spending in Republican congressional districts increased 50 percent faster than in Democratic districts following the 1994 GOP takeover of the House, an Associated Press analysis shows. After six years of GOP control, the average Republican district in 2000 was getting $612 million more in federal money than the average Democratic district, the computer analysis found. In 1995, the last year Democrats controlled the budget process in the House, the average Democratic district got $35 million more...Rather than pork-barrel projects for new GOP districts, however, the change was driven mostly by Republican policies that moved spending from poor rural and urban areas to the more affluent suburbs and GOP-leaning farm country, the computer analysis showed."

NASAWatch.INFO: For anyone who doesn't already believe that earmarks and pork barreling increased (especially where NASA's concerned) since 1994, please feel free to consult this McCain-inspired article on NASA pork.

WashingtonPost.com article: "Facing a legal deadline to rid themselves of all "soft money" in seven weeks, the Republican and Democratic parties are pouring millions of dollars into a relative handful of tight House and Senate races that will determine who controls Congress next year...The GOP has raised $180 million in soft money for this year's elections -- compared with $137 million for the same period in 2000, and $70 million in the election before that, according to Common Cause. The Democratic Party has collected $121 million in soft money for this year's elections, compared with $119 million for the comparable period in 2000, and $46 million in 1998."

NASAWatch.INFO: We have heard that the GOP lures in over twice as much in individual donations UNDER $25 as the Democrats do.   Regardless, would you like to see at least some of the substantial political campaign "donations" that the entrepreneurship-stifling companies and people you distrust the most recently made?   Search for individuals' or individual corporate donors' "gifts"  here.  Perhaps the abundance of "spacepork" documented  here makes more sense, now?

(NASAWatch.COM: "Hey!  Why must you call attention to facts like these while a longstanding business affiliate of mine presides over the donations-soliciting Space Transportation Association in Washington D.C.? Leave my allies or potential sponsors out of this! Why can't you just let MY NASA watchdog be the only one at which folks "might learn something?")

Washington Post article: "Some of the biggest names in Republican and Democratic circles are establishing new groups to collect and spend the unlimited political donations that are supposed to be curbed by the recent campaign finance law...  But supporters of the McCain-Feingold measure fear that these efforts might undermine the purpose of the law by creating new conduits for soft money that require less public disclosure than was required before the legislation was enacted. They contend that these activities are purposeful evasions of the law, encouraged by the weak enforcement regulations issued by the Federal Election Commission.  "To the extent the parties are planning a massive evasion scheme, they are planning massive illegal activity and they will be challenged," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21 and former president of Common Cause."

NASAWatch.INFO: Nobody said the battle to take back America from the pork-barrelers who ruined NASA was going to be easy.   But to paraphrase Morgan Freeman's concluding remarks in the movie Seven, America's got its problems but fighting to fix them is better than retiring.

(NASAWatch.COM: "What does this have to do with space, and especially with my surely noble endeavor to keep news-leaking, pageview-generating bureaucrats employed, and competing private space ventures out of contention, even as I do what I can to support the biggest contractors which in turn support my allies such as the new president of the pro status quo Space Transportation Association, not to mention the content-craving Discovery Channel which has frequently offered sponsorship for my web properties?  Why should I make waves for the public good as long as I'm currently being looked out for along with a small handful of [compromised] allies?"

Washington Post article: "In contrast to their campaign to crack down on crooked businessmen, lawmakers are increasingly choosing to overlook alleged transgressions by their own colleagues."

NASAWatch.INFO: How reassuring (not!).    As if former Congressperson Trafficant (now a convicted felon) was an isolated example?  Ironically, some here tend to call Mexico a 3rd world country.  At least there though, if 2 political parties sell out, the third one is still powerful enough to be able to spoil it for them. In the USA, however, we still won't even let a third party candidate participate in the presidential debates unless he or she ALREADY has 15% of the public support BEFORE the debate.   Even billionaires like Perot in '96 have a tough time making that happen, let alone comparatively well-respected pundits like Ralph Nader.
    Meanwhile, we wouldn't even enact anything resembling a post-Cold War campaign finance reform law here until 6 years after Mexico had already enacted a far more extensive reform regarding Mexican campaign finances.  And down there, such political reforms are actually enforced  nowadays, too.  Is it coincidental that voter abstention rates are now around 30% down there but are as high as 60% here?   Meanwhile our national debt's at a record high $6 trillion dollar level...

To get around upcoming campaign finance reforms, companies seeking government contracts are already increasingly pressuring white collar-level employees to contribute money to political action committees (PACs).   Corporate reimbursement is supposedly illegal, though. (Washington Post article). 
Extremely wealthy donors, special interests, political party officials, and even the Federal Electoral Commission have allegedly tried to undo campaign finance reform from behind the scenes, with the drafting of implementing legislation that's reportedly significantly unlike the reforms that Congress passed (Sources: Washington Times article; Washington Post article, update, more recent update,  update,  latest update).

NASAWatch.INFO:  And fellow Washingtonians wonder why others think we're merely a bunch of unprincipled & sneaky beltway bandits?   Why don't they want to give our nation's capital back to the voters and individual taxpayers?  Are their agendas that unpopular?   It would seem so...   

 USA Today article: "Cracking down on business abuses doesn't come easily to presidents and lawmakers who depend on corporate cash to underwrite their campaigns and to provide jobs for their family members [who can lobby governmental officials] and often for themselves after they leave office. A new law against corporate corruption won't change any of that....The influence of business on government is not new. Woodrow Wilson complained that "the government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy."

NASAWatch.INFO: Maybe campaign finance reform, which goes into effect starting in mid-November, will make a difference regarding the anti-entrepreneurial pork barrel spending that abounds within the NASA clique, and [of course] with the [at least] tacit approval of greedy, self-perpetuating bureaucrats?

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NASA Watch .INFO