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Những điều này đang khiến cả chính trường Mỹ lâm nguy
Subject: ***_Cả_chính_trường_ Mỹ_đang_lâm_nguy_!!!
From: Mike Wilson
Date: Sat, July 21, 2018 5:30 pm
Những điều này đang khiến cả chính trường Mỹ lâm nguy :
1. Tiền là tự do ngôn luận, có thể tuôn vào các hoạt động "độc lập", nghĩa là (ngoài hình thức) không dính trực tiếp đến đảng nào.
2. Doanh nghiệp là thực thể cá nhân, có tư cách pháp lý để dùng tiền tham gia chính trị
3. Giới có tiền lập các PAC (Political Action Committee) hay super PAC để tung tiền vào các cuộc tranh cử
4. Người ngoại quốc, không phải công dân Mỹ, có quyền quyên góp tiền để tranh đấu cho các vấn đề tranh cử (political issues, election isues), mặc dù họ không được quyền ủng hộ hay đả phá ứng cử viên nào
5. Người ngoại quốc không biết luật tranh cử của Mỹ không thể bị truy tố và xét xử theo luật pháp Mỹ!
6. Những lỗ hổng trên đây của luật bầu cử Mỹ đã bị người Nga lợi dụng, tung tiền (giả dạng dân Mỹ) mua các quảng cáo trong các kênh truyền thông để giúp Donald Trump và làm hại bà Clinton.
7. Việc đánh cắp được tài liệu chiến lược tranh cử của đảng Dân Chủ đã giúp người Nga phân bố thông tin tuyên truyền- đúng chỗ và có hiệu quả-để giúp Donald Trump thắng những chỗ y cần thắng.
8. Dựa trên điều 1 đến điều 6, những cá nhân và tổ chức Nga bị truy tố dan díu đến bầu cử TT Mỹ, đã mướn chính luật sư Mỹ, để cãi cho họ được trắng án !!!
9. Ông Brett Cavanaugh ủng hộ hai điều 5 và 6, đồng thời có quan điểm rằng TT Mỹ không thể bị truy tố trong lúc đương nhiệm, mà phải chờ sau khi hết nhiệm kỳ !
Brett Cavanaugh
10. Chính vì lí do trên mà ông đã được TT Trump chọn, đề cử vào ghế thẩm phán của Tòa Án Tối Cao - nhân đấy làm tăng khả năng Donald Trump sẽ không bị truy tố DÙ NẾU Y CÓ THÔNG GIAN VỚI NGA, RỬA TIỀN CHO NGƯỜI NGA, HAY PHẠM TỘI PHẢN QUỐC !!!
Tổng kết những điều trên cho thấy, chính trị Mỹ rất dễ bị các thế lực đồng tiền, trong và NGOÀI NƯỚC thao túng, chi phối, gây ảnh hưởng !
Khi nhìn thấy cảnh chia rẽ chao đảo nội bộ Mỹ, ai dám bảo người Nga ngu ... Họ "nhỏ mà có võ" !!!
Họ dùng chính luật Mỹ để phá hoại bầu cử Mỹ !!!
nth-fl
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Russian firm indicted in special counsel probe cites Kavanaugh decision to argue that charge should be dismissed
Russian firm indicted in special counsel probe cites Kavanaugh decision to argue that charge should be dismissed
by Robert Barnes July 20 at 7:00 AM Email the author
A Russian company accused by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III of being part of an online operation to disrupt the 2016 presidential campaign is leaning in part on a decision by Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh to argue that the charge against it should be thrown out.
The 2011 decision by Kavanaugh, writing for a three-judge panel, concerned the role that foreign nationals may play in U.S. elections. It upheld a federal law that said foreigners temporarily in the country may not donate money to candidates, contribute to political parties and groups, or spend money advocating for or against candidates. But it did not rule out letting foreigners spend money on independent advocacy campaigns.
Kavanaugh “went out of his way to limit the decision,” said Daniel A. Petalas, a Washington lawyer and former interim general counsel for the Federal Election Commission.
A motion filed by the Russian company this week repeatedly cites Kavanaugh’s decision, bringing new attention to his rulings on campaign finance laws and regulations during his tenure on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Legal experts who have analyzed his work say he appears to fit comfortably within the high (Supreme) court’s conservative majority, which has found that restrictions on campaign-related spending conflict with the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. That argument underpinned the seminal 2010 Citizens United case, which allowed corporations and other organizations to spend unlimited sums on independent (non-party, non-democrat, non-republican) political activity.
In the case of the foreign national decision, Kavanaugh said the government would have to prove that foreign nationals had knowledge of the law’s restrictions before seeking criminal charges. And he said the ban did not include foreign spending on “issue advocacy and speaking out on issues of public policy.”
The Supreme Court affirmed the decision in 2012 in a one-sentence order, without noted dissent or scheduling the case for a hearing. The Obama administration had asked the opinion be affirmed, arguing in a brief that the federal law was narrowly tailored to respect the speech rights of foreigners.
Neither the law in question “nor any other provision of federal law prohibits foreign nationals from speaking out on issues of public policy,” wrote Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli. “The statute thus leaves open . . . a broad range of expressive activity, from contributing to issue groups, to creating advocacy websites, to funding mass television advertising.”
The exceptions, said Richard Hasen, an election-law expert at the University of California at Irvine, create “potentially a huge loophole for foreign and undisclosed issue ads on federal elections.”
Kavanaugh’s decision has been embraced by Concord Management and Consulting, one of 16 Russian individuals or companies indicted by a federal grand jury in February in connection with allegedly taking part in an “information warfare” campaign aimed at swaying American voters.
[Russian firm says it has not broken any federal laws]
The indictment alleged that Concord paid $1.25 million a month to the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency for projects such as setting up rallies for President Trump or various advocacy groups in the United States, creating Twitter and Facebook accounts to spread false information and “to interfere in U.S. political and electoral processes without detection of their Russian affiliation.” The company was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Concord is alleged to be controlled by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a Russian catering magnate known as “Putin’s chef” for his longtime associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is the only one of those charged to have responded to the indictments.
In Concord’s motion to dismiss the charge, its attorneys frequently cited Kavanaugh and his 2011 decision in Bluman v. Federal Election Commission .
The lawyers noted that Kavanaugh distinguished between explicitly political ads — those that urge the public to vote for or against a candidate — and so-called issue ads.
“Foreign nationals are not barred from issue advocacy through political speech such as what is described in the indictment — they are only precluded from willfully making expenditures that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a particular candidate,” wrote Washington lawyers Eric A. Dubelier and Katherine J. Seikaly, who are defending the company, citing the Bluman decision.
It is the second issue related to Mueller’s investigation that is sure to receive attention at Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing. He said in a 2009 law review article that presidents should not be distracted by civil lawsuits and criminal investigations and that Congress might be “wise” to provide such protection until they are no longer in office.
Like Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who also was a Trump nominee, Kavanaugh appears to fit the mold of Justice Antonin Scalia, who joined the court’s conservatives — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — as skeptics of the constitutionality of many campaign finance restrictions.
“Based on his opinions and public statements, as a Supreme Court justice Kavanaugh would almost certainly be a reliable vote to overturn campaign finance restrictions in the Scalia/Alito/Roberts mold,” said Andrew D. Herman, a Washington lawyer who practices campaign finance law.
Kavanaugh joined the rest of the circuit in ruling in 2010’s SpeechNow.org v. FEC that federal contribution limits cannot be applied to “independent expenditure committees,” finding that the Supreme Court’s analysis in Citizens United required it. That decision gave rise to super PACs, which can collect unlimited sums from individuals and companies.
Even before the Supreme Court decided Citizens United, Kavanaugh wrote for his court in a 2009 case called Emily’s List v. FEC , ruling against regulations that required independent nonprofit organizations to comply with federal contribution limits.
The rules “do not pass muster under the Supreme Court’s First Amendment precedents,” Kavanaugh wrote. “The regulations are not closely drawn to serve a cognizable anti-corruption interest. Donations to and spending by a non-profit cannot corrupt a candidate or officeholder.”
A year later, he affirmed rules limiting how much money can flow to political parties — noting that Supreme Court precedent gave him no choice.
In Republican National Committee v. FEC in 2010, Kavanaugh wrote for a three-judge panel in upholding contribution limits on federal candidates and parties. He cited the Supreme Court’s rulings that such limitations are warranted because of the potential for corruption or the appearance of corruption.
In the wake of Citizens United and the advent of super PACs, the RNC said the restrictions left political parties hamstrung.
The RNC position was logical, Kavanaugh agreed. “As a lower court, however, we do not believe we possess authority to clarify or refine [Supreme Court precedent] in the fashion advocated by the RNC, or to otherwise get ahead of the Supreme Court,” he wrote.
Hasen said a big question will be whether Kavanaugh would be skeptical of restrictions on contributions to political parties and candidates on the high court. “I think that we don’t know,” he said.
The Bluman ruling is likely to receive outsize attention in Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings because it is now being cited in an active case about Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.
[Russian troll farm, 13 suspects indicted in 2016 election interference]
As a test case, its facts were rather benign. Benjamin Bluman and Asenath Steiman were foreign nationals living legally and temporarily in the United States.
Bluman, a Canadian, said he wanted to contribute to Democrats running for office, and print and distribute fliers in Central Park supporting President Barack Obama’s reelection. Steiman, a dual citizen of Canada and Israel, said she wanted to contribute to Obama’s eventual Republican opponent and to an independent organization that supports conservative candidates.
Bluman and Steiman said the federal ban on those activities was unconstitutional.
But Kavanaugh and his fellow judges on the panel said the Supreme Court had made it clear that the government may exclude foreign nationals from activities “intimately related to the process of democratic self-government,” quoting a precedent. Contributing to a political party and spending money to advocate for or against a specific candidate are easily included, he wrote.
But he also articulated “three important limits.”
He said the ban might not be applicable to permanent legal residents. Nor should the ruling be read to support bans on foreign nationals spending money to express their views on issues, as opposed to advocating for the election or defeat of specific candidates.
He said that to bring criminal prosecutions, the government must show that the defendant acted willfully in defiance of the law. “There are many aliens in this country who no doubt are unaware of the statutory ban on foreign expenditures, in particular,” he wrote.
Herman said Kavanaugh’s carve-outs show “that he is both being a careful jurist but also indicating to Congress that he would be more skeptical of the types of restrictions referenced in that paragraph. For example, permanent residents’ First Amendment rights might take precedence over more general security concerns.”
Hasen said that Kavanaugh’s decision provides a road map of how he might decide such an issue — finding it improper for a foreign national to finance an ad that says, “Vote against Hillary,” for example, but not one that says, “Hillary is Satan.”
Tom Jackman contributed to this report.
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COMMENTS :
11 hours ago
since when is ignorance of the law ever a defense ???
13 hours ago
Kavanaugh's opinion that ignorance of the law makes it OK (to commit a crime) is frightening news.
Never ever ever has it been all right for a foreign government/agent/company, etc. to insert itself into the elections of another country.
18 hours ago
1. There is no modern nation where foreigners have any legal say in elections. It is a serious crime in most.
2. If the GOP wants to make it legal to claim ignorance of the law as an excuse for breaking it, of course no one will be surprised - least of all law-abiding citizens watching this fiasco. I cannot imagine any serious jurist going down that rabbit-hole.
3. Speaking as a citizen of the USA, let me make it plain to Brett Kavanaugh and the rest of the leadership- I don't want foreigners having any say whatsoever in our elections - peripheral or otherwise. Lawyers may love splitting hairs, but this is a no-brainer. The government is inviting serious social (and political) disruption here. Is that trump's intent?
10 hours ago
With the possibility that this unsuitable (Brett Cavanaugh) could sadly ascend to the Supreme Court, I hope the Congress asks him to recite this quote of his, "Donations and spending by a non-profit (corporations, associations, erc.) cannot corrupt a candidate or officeholder." This was his view on the asinine Citizens United ruling under the tainted Scalia that opened the floodgates of.millions of dollars in hidden bribes to candidates and office holders to do their bidding. Money is not speech and corporations are not citizens. After the laughter subsides from Kavanaugh's stupid opinion and quote, he should be then summarily led out of the building and removed from any public service.
23 hours ago
The American system of governance has shown itself, in this day and age, to be deeply flawed.
1 day ago
This is BULL.(bullshit, nonsense)
The Russians are citing the writings of a yet to be confirmed Supreme Court Justice?
I guess we know now why Trump nominated him.
Money is not speech. money is money.
And speech is not freedom of speech when the "speaker" is unknown.
And dark money is nothing short of slander and liable when levied against an issue of public interest.
In court, a defendant has the right to confront the speech of his accuser.
If people or groups have an opinion on an issue then we have the right to know who they are and why they hold their opinion.
And there must be a semblance of an opportunity to rebut their assertions.
Propaganda and Disinformation and Lies are not free speech.
And foreigners, whether they support our position or not, need to stay the hell out of our due process and our elections!
11 hours ago
Makes you wonder if the judge has ties to Russia in any way. Be it business, friends or family.
13 hours ago
(Edited)
How come that everyone Trump nominates has connections with Russia...?
11 hours ago
Bingo! I AM THINKING THE SAME THING!
14 hours ago
Something smells fishy. ... So many things smell (fishy) that somebody has to stand up to stop the bleeding. The southern men getting their revenge for liberals who would vote for a black man (Obama). Putin's puppet doesn't process (profess ?) his own collusion and lack of integrity. GOP sitting down and deferring to the stable genius who isn't (a genius).
17 hours ago
Money talks. Therefore, ruled the US Supreme Court, money in politics is protected by the First Amendment. : )
15 hours ago
Money talks and democracy walks (away).
1 day ago
(Edited)
Citizens United is the basic reason we are where we are (in this horrible situation) this very day.
SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the US) has become totally political and therefore cannot proceed with its mission to be non-partisan.
Thank you, Republican scum, for yet another reason this country is dying a slow death.
20 hours ago
I can’t help but think: Kavanaugh hasn’t even been confirmed—and hopefully never will be—and he already is helping to undermine our democracy (by his legal writings).