On Wednesday, Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article about recent charges by the Democrats that the United States Chamber of Commerce was using foreign money to fund Republican election campaigns. Apart from the obvious hypocrisy of the charge (some us remember Al Gore at the Buddhist temple, Charlie Trie, and Johnny Chung), there is absolutely no evidence to back up the accusation.
Paul Mirengoff notes:
"Journolist, or its functional equivalent, must be alive, well, and working overtime somewhere in cyberspace. At least that's my explanation for how accusations of impropriety and illegality against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spread in about a day's time, from the lefty Think Progress blog, to Huffington Post left-winger Sam Stein, to MSNBC, and then to editorial pages of the New York Times and, via funnyman Al Franken, to the U.S. Senate."
Mr. Mirengoff makes three good points about the allegations:
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First, there is no evidence to support the charges. The United States Chamber of Commerce has stated that it has a process in place to make sure foreign money is not spent on American elections.
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Second, "there is a serious tension between the claim of Think Progress and other leftists that the Chamber's alleged conduct violates the law and the standard leftist talking point that the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United opened the floodgates to foreign spending in U.S. elections. In reality, as Think Progress' allegations of illegality against the Chamber acknowledge, foreign spending in U.S. elections remains illegal."
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Think Progess is saying that even if the Chamber of Commerce is not putting foreign money into American campaigns, foreign money has the effect of freeing up other money for campaign use.
This is an amazing statement from any Democrat operative. The AFL-CIO has a robust foreign program. The SEIU has a Canadian division. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers has members not just in Canada but also in Panama and several Caribbean nations. All of these unions collect dues. Don't their dues free up money for American election campaigns?
This is another example of an attempt to sidetrack voters. It's not good enough to qualify as an October surprise. Mostly it just qualifies as a waste of everyone's time and energy!
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