Montana to Probe Dark Money Group’s Link to Campaigns

Watch Big Sky, Big Money on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

by Sarah Childress and Emma Schwartz
 
Two Republican state legislators in Montana have filed complaints against Western Tradition Partnership, an issue-advocacy group central to the Supreme Court decision reaffirming Citizens United.

They allege that the group, now known as American Tradition Partnership, coordinated inappropriately with the campaigns of Republican candidates in Montana. Groups registered as 501(c)(4)s are allowed to lobby on issues, and participate in elections by running ads in support of a candidate or critical of their opponent. But they cannot be primarily engaged in political campaigns and cannot coordinate, or work directly, with candidates.

FRONTLINE obtained boxes of documents that appeared to link WTP to the campaigns of 23 Republican candidates. The boxes included detailed candidate surveys, campaign mailings and letters written on behalf of the candidates’ wives and the candidates themselves. The documents were initially received by Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices, or COPP, a state organization that oversees campaign finance laws.

“My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that WTP was running a lot of these campaigns,” COPP investigator Julie Steab previously told FRONTLINE.

But the state investigative body didn’t have the authority to investigate possible coordination by WTP without specific complaints filed against the group.

Steab said Thursday that, with specific complaints by two legislators filed and a third being processed, COPP will begin an investigation into those allegations.

The documents obtained by FRONTLINE reference a man named Christian LeFer, who was a key player in WTP between 2008 and 2010. His wife, Allison LeFer, signed many of the checks paid out by WTP from April 2008 to October 2010. LeFer and his wife have said that the documents were theirs, but that the appearance of coordination is the result of the co-mingling of separate files from his political consulting business and her printing business.
In a complaint filed to COPP on Dec. 3 against WTP and Allison LeFer’s company DirectMail, State Representative John Esp alleges that at a campaign event ahead of the 2010 primary election, he saw Allison LeFer with with Ed Soddy, the campaign manager for Esp’s opponent, Rep. Joel Boniek, and “a young lady from Colorado who was introduced to me by Allison as ‘working for Christian.’” Allison LeFer’s company was working with Boniek’s campaign. But LeFer had also signed checks for WTP at the time, Esp said, citing some of the documents that FRONTLINE uncovered. “I believe there may have been a violation” of campaign finance law, he wrote.

Esp also filed a complaint against Doug Lair, the state coordinator for ATP, and two others, alleging that they violated campaign finance laws.

In another complaint filed the same day, Sen. Bruce Tutvedt alleged that his opponent in this year’s Republican primary, Rollan Roberts II, coordinated with American Tradition Partnership, Taxpayers for Liberty, and the National Association of Gun Rights. “Rollan Roberts campaign mailed pink wife letter as per Christian Lafer (sic) paid for by Roberts campaign,” Tutvedt wrote.

“Their complaints are phony and meritless,” said Donny Ferguson, a spokesman for ATP, in an email to FRONTLINE. “These are two corrupt politicians trying to use smears and threats to cover up their own unethical activities and woeful voting records. It’s typical of the corrupt Helena establishment they represent.”

He added: “ATP always has and always will obey every letter of every applicable law.”
Christian LeFer said in an email that the complaints “had no merit”: “I speak only for myself here when I say the developments of the past few days are simply the last desperate attempts of a defeated Helena political establishment to slander the strides I and others have made on behalf of freedom for all Montanans.”

He added, “Esp and Tutvedt are simply trying to retaliate for exposure of their own extreme anti-liberty voting record, and cover up their unethical history of political intimidation. They failed in their bid for liberal control of the Legislature, and ultimately these baseless complaints will fail as well.”

Allison LeFer didn’t respond to an email seeking a comment.
WTP and those cited will have an opportunity to respond to the COPP complaints before the investigation proceeds, Steab said in an email on Friday. COPP can interview witnesses and gather documentation. The commissioner then reviews the findings and determines whether a violation occurred and if so, to hand down a penalty, typically a fine for as much as three times the value of the violation.

But it’s unclear how long the process will take. “Each case is different and a lot depends on how cooperative all of the parties are in terms of providing information,” Steab said. She declined to comment on the specifics of these cases because the investigations are confidential.
Separately, a Montana district court issued an order this week in a case filed by WTP against the Commissioner of Political Practices and the state of Montana. WTP had claimed that the state’s political disclosure rules don’t apply to the group for the election years of 2008 and 2010 because it’s a nonprofit educational organization and not a political committee.

In the Dec. 10 order, Judge Jeffrey Sherlock said that WTP had refused to comply with discovery requests that the court ordered to ascertain WTP’s status. “The Court noted that the Plaintiffs themselves (WTP) have placed their private information into dispute by bringing this lawsuit; obviously suggesting that full discovery is required,” Sherlock wrote, adding that the answers were still incomplete. “Never in this author’s 24 years on the bench has he had a litigant flatly refuse to comply with two discovery orders,” he wrote.

Sherlock said that WTP would be required to pay for the attorney fees and costs to the state for requesting discovery and asking for WTP to be sanctioned for noncompliance. He said WTP would have to comply with the court’s request for additional information within 10 days — by Dec. 21 — or be declared a political committee and have to disclose its donors.

“The Court is no longer interested in hearing WTP’s objections,” the judge concluded. “All the Court wants is answers to the questions that have been propounded.”

President Barack Obama Weekly Address, December 15, 2012 (Video/Transcript)

On Friday, we learned that more than two dozen people were killed when a gunman opened fire in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

Most of those who died were just young children with their whole lives ahead of them. And every parent in America has a heart heavy with hurt.

Among the fallen were also teachers – men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams.

So our hearts are broken today. We grieve for the families of those we lost. And we keep in our prayers the parents of those who survived.  Because as blessed as they are to have their children home, they know that their child’s innocence has been torn away far too early.

As a nation, we have endured far too many of these tragedies in the last few years. An elementary school in Newtown. A shopping mall in Oregon. A house of worship in Wisconsin. A movie theater in Colorado. Countless street corners in places like Chicago and Philadelphia.

Any of these neighborhoods could be our own. So we have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this. Regardless of the politics. 

This weekend, Michelle and I are doing what I know every parent is doing – holding our children as close as we can and reminding them how much we love them. 

There are families in Connecticut who can’t do that today. And they need all of us now. Because while nothing can take the place of a lost child or loved one, all of us can extend a hand to those in need – to remind them that we are there for them; that we are praying for them; and that the love they felt for those they lost endures not just in their own memories, but also in their community, and their country. 

Thank you.

Don’t talk about gun control!

Gun rights advocates tout "political correctness" to shut down talk of gun restrictions. We can't let them continue

By David Sirota

How many right-wing media voices were citing the shooting in Portland, Ore., this morning to trumpet the sanctity of gun rights and say we shouldn’t even talk about gun control? How many of them were making this perverse argument at the very moment the Newtown, Conn., shooting was taking place? And how many of those voices are the same ones who, when it comes to other issues, decry “political correctness”?

The answers to these questions should be obvious: almost certainly, a lot of them. And that is a sign that for all the conservative histrionics decrying liberal “political correctness,” the most powerful and most committed “p.c. police” in America are on the right — specifically, those on the right who claim that any critical discussion of the limits of the Second Amendment must be suppressed because they insult the political ideology of conservatives.

This form of “political correctness” is so routinized that we barely recognize it as the censorship system that it truly is. And as mass shootings become a staple of American life, this system is now ubiquitous.

We saw it after the mass shooting in Aurora, Colo., when conservatives rolled out their hallowed Now Is Not the Time talking point to insist that it was inappropriate to even discuss limits to assault-style weapons and ammunition magazines. We saw it last week with the over-the-top reaction to Bob Costas daring to suggest that America have a tempered discussion about gun control in the wake of the Kansas City Chiefs murder-suicide. We see it once again here in Colorado, where Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper is today facing withering criticism for merely floating the idea that his Legislature debate gun control in the upcoming session. And, no doubt, we will see it in the wake of the Newtown shooting, when the right will inevitably insist nobody has any right to criticize existing gun policies in America (except, of course, to criticize them as somehow too restrictive).

The message here is simple: to even raise tempered questions about gun regulations is to risk not merely being exposed to a barrage of substantively misguided pro-gun rhetoric — but to almost guarantee that you will be told you have no inherent right to make the queries in the first place.

Thanks to that sad reality, there’s been an Orwellian redefinition of the epithet “political correctness” itself. Whereas it used to mean having to temper or censor one’s language to comport to the political sensibilities of anyone, now it means having to temper or censor one’s language to comport specifically to the political sensibilities of the American right.
According to this redefinition, conservatives should be free to, for example, use dehumanizing phrases like “illegal immigrant” or “anchor baby” without fear of any criticism whatsoever, and they somehow have credibility in deriding the critics of such language as the “p.c. police.” Meanwhile, if anyone tries to even start a discussion of gun control in the wake of gun violence, these very same conservative voices deploy their p.c. swat team to say that such a notion must be promptly removed from the public arena — that, in essence, any mere conversation about gun control, much less passage of new gun control legislation, is wholly unacceptable.

What’s unacceptable, of course, is this censorship-via-intimidation scheme. After all, in a democratic society, nobody has a right to have their questions go unchallenged, but everybody has the right to ask questions, no matter whom those questions offend.
Regardless of where you come down on the gun control question, that truism shouldn’t be debatable — that is, unless you are somehow so afraid of a mere conversation about gun regulations that you have joined the right’s p.c. police.

Jason Alexander’s amazing gun rant

Jason Alexander, the actor famous for playing George on “Seinfeld,” posted a long argument for a ban on assault-style weapons on Twitter after the Auroro, Colo., shooting:

I’d like to preface this long tweet by saying that my passion comes from my deepest sympathy and shared sorrow with yesterday’s victims and with the utmost respect for the people and the police/fire/medical/political forces of Aurora and all who seek to comfort and aid these victims.

This morning, I made a comment about how I do not understand people who support public ownership of assault style weapons like the AR-15 used in the Colorado massacre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AR-15

That comment has, of course, inspired a lot of feedback. There have been many tweets of agreement and sympathy but many, many more that have been challenging at the least, hostile and vitriolic at the worst.

Clearly, the angry, threatened and threatening, hostile comments are coming from gun owners and gun advocates. Despite these massacres recurring and despite the 100,000 Americans that die every year due to domestic gun violence, these people see no value to even considering some kind of control as to what kinds of weapons are put in civilian hands.

Many of them cite patriotism as their reason — true patriots support the Constitution adamantly and wholly. Constitution says citizens have the right to bear arms in order to maintain organized militias. I’m no constitutional scholar, so here it is from the document itself:

As passed by the Congress:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

So the patriots are correct, gun ownership is in the constitution — if you’re in a well-regulated militia. Let’s see what no less a statesman than Alexander Hamilton had to say about a militia

“A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss.”

Or from Merriam-Webster dictionary:
Definition of MILITIA
1  a : a part of the organized armed forces of a country liable to call only in emergency
   b : a body of citizens organized for military service
2:  the whole body of able-bodied male citizens declared by law as being subject to call to military service

The advocates of guns who claim patriotism and the rights of the 2nd Amendment – are they in well-regulated militias? For the vast majority — the answer is no.
Then I get messages from seemingly decent and intelligent people who offer things like: @BrooklynAvi: Guns should only be banned if violent crimes committed with tomatoes means we should ban tomatoes. OR @nysportsguys1: Drunk drivers kill, should we ban fast cars?

I’m hoping that right after they hit send, they take a deep breath and realize that those arguments are completely specious. I believe tomatoes and cars have purposes other than killing. What purpose does an AR-15 serve to a sportsman that a more standard hunting rifle does not serve? Let’s see — does it fire more rounds without reload? Yes. Does it fire farther and more accurately? Yes. Does it accommodate a more lethal payload? Yes. So basically, the purpose of an assault style weapon is to kill more stuff, more fully, faster and from further away. To achieve maximum lethality. Hardly the primary purpose of tomatoes and sports cars.

Then there are the tweets from the extreme right — these are the folk who believe our government has been corrupted and stolen and that the forces of evil are at play, planning to take over this nation, and these folk are going to fight back and take a stand. And any moron like me who doesn’t see it should…

a. be labeled a moron

b. shut the fuck up

c. be removed

And amazingly, I have some minor agreement with these folks. I believe there are evil forces at play in our government. But I call them corporatists. I call them absolutists. I call them the kind of ideologues from both sides, but mostly from the far right, who swear allegiance to unelected officials that, regardless of national need or global conditions, are never to levy a tax. That they are never to compromise or seek solutions with the other side. That are to obstruct every possible act of governance, even the ones they support or initiate. Whose political and social goal is to marginalize the other side, to vilify and isolate them with the hope that they will surrender, go away or die out.

These people believe that the U.S. government is eventually going to go street by street and enslave our citizens. Now as long as that is only happening to liberals, homosexuals and democrats — no problem. But if they try it with anyone else – it’s going to be arms-ageddon and these committed, God-fearing, brave souls will then use their military-esque arsenal to show the forces of our corrupt government what’s what. These people think they meet the definition of a “militia.” They don’t.

At least not the constitutional one. And, if it should actually come to such an unthinkable reality, these people believe they would win. That’s why they have to “take our country back.” From who? From anyone who doesn’t think like them or see the world like them. They hold the only truth, everyone else is dangerous. Ever meet a terrorist that doesn’t believe that? Just asking.

Then there are the folks who write that if everyone in Colorado had a weapon, this maniac would have been stopped. Perhaps. But I do believe that the element of surprise, tear gas and head-to-toe kevlar protection might have given him a distinct edge. Not only that, but a crowd of people firing away in a chaotic arena without training or planning — I tend to think that scenario could produce even more victims.

Lastly, there are these well-intended realists that say that people like this evil animal would get these weapons even if we regulated them. And they may be right. But he wouldn’t have strolled down the road to Kmart and picked them up. Regulated, he would have had to go to illegal sources — sources that could possibly be traced, watched, overseen. Or he would have to go deeper online, and those transactions could be monitored. “Hm, some guy in Aurora is buying guns, tons of ammo and kevlar – plus bomb-making ingredients and tear gas. Maybe we should check that out.”

But that won’t happen as long as all that activity is legal and unrestricted.
I have been reading on and off as advocates for these weapons make their excuses all day long. Guns don’t kill — people do. Well if that’s correct, I go with @BrooklynAvi, let them kill with tomatoes. Let them bring baseball bats, knives, even machetes — a mob can deal with that.

There is no excuse for the propagation of these weapons. They are not guaranteed or protected by our constitution. If they were, then we could all run out and purchase a tank, a grenade launcher, a bazooka, a SCUD missile and a nuclear warhead. We could stockpile napalm and chemical weapons and bomb-making materials in our cellars under our guise of being a militia.

These weapons are military weapons. They belong in accountable hands, controlled hands and trained hands. They should not be in the hands of private citizens to be used against police, neighborhood intruders or people who don’t agree with you. These are the weapons that maniacs acquire to wreak murder and mayhem on innocents. They are not the same as handguns to help homeowners protect themselves from intruders. They are not the same as hunting rifles or sporting rifles. These weapons are designed for harm and death on big scales.

SO WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THEM? WHY DO YOU NOT, AT LEAST, AGREE TO SIT WITH REASONABLE PEOPLE FROM BOTH SIDES AND ASK HARD QUESTIONS AND LOOK AT HARD STATISTICS AND POSSIBLY MAKE SOME COMPROMISES FOR THE GREATER GOOD? SO THAT MOTHERS AND FATHERS AND CHILDREN ARE NOT SLAUGHTERED QUITE SO EASILY BY THESE MONSTERS? HOW CAN IT HURT TO STOP DEFENDING THESE THINGS AND AT LEAST CONSIDER HOW WE CAN ALL WORK TO TRY TO PREVENT ANOTHER DAY LIKE YESTERDAY?

We will not prevent every tragedy. We cannot stop every maniac. But we certainly have done ourselves no good by allowing these particular weapons to be acquired freely by just about anyone.

I’ll say it plainly — if someone wants these weapons, they intend to use them. And if they are willing to force others to “pry it from my cold, dead hands,” then they are probably planning on using them on people.

So, sorry those of you who tell me I’m an actor, or a has-been, or an idiot, or a commie or a liberal and that I should shut up. You can not watch my stuff, you can unfollow me and you can call me all the names you like. I may even share some of them with my global audience so everyone can get a little taste of who you are.

But this is not the time for reasonable people, on both sides of this issue, to be silent. We owe it to the people whose lives were ended and ruined yesterday to insist on a real discussion and hopefully on some real action.

In conclusion, whoever you are and wherever you stand on this issue, I hope you have the joy of family with you today. Hold on to them and love them as best you can. Tell them what they mean to you. Yesterday, a whole bunch of them went to the movies and tonight their families are without them. Every day is precious. Every life is precious. Take care. Be well. Be safe. God bless.

Jason Alexander

President Obama Makes a Statement on the Shooting in Newtown, Connecticut (video/transcript)

 James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

THE PRESIDENT:  This afternoon, I spoke with Governor Malloy and FBI Director Mueller.  I offered Governor Malloy my condolences on behalf of the nation, and made it clear he will have every single resource that he needs to investigate this heinous crime, care for the victims, counsel their families.

We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years.  And each time I learn the news I react not as a President, but as anybody else would -- as a parent.  And that was especially true today.  I know there’s not a parent in America who doesn’t feel the same overwhelming grief that I do.

The majority of those who died today were children -- beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old.  They had their entire lives ahead of them -- birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own.  Among the fallen were also teachers -- men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams.

So our hearts are broken today -- for the parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children, and for the families of the adults who were lost.  Our hearts are broken for the parents of the survivors as well, for as blessed as they are to have their children home tonight, they know that their children’s innocence has been torn away from them too early, and there are no words that will ease their pain.

As a country, we have been through this too many times.  Whether it’s an elementary school in Newtown, or a shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago -- these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children.  And we're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.

This evening, Michelle and I will do what I know every parent in America will do, which is hug our children a little tighter and we’ll tell them that we love them, and we’ll remind each other how deeply we love one another.  But there are families in Connecticut who cannot do that tonight.  And they need all of us right now.  In the hard days to come, that community needs us to be at our best as Americans.  And I will do everything in my power as President to help.
Because while nothing can fill the space of a lost child or loved one, all of us can extend a hand to those in need -- to remind them that we are there for them, that we are praying for them, that the love they felt for those they lost endures not just in their memories but also in ours.

May God bless the memory of the victims and, in the words of Scripture, heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds

Robots and Robber Barons

By PAUL KRUGMAN

The American economy is still, by most measures, deeply depressed. But corporate profits are at a record high. How is that possible? It’s simple: profits have surged as a share of national income, while wages and other labor compensation are down. The pie isn’t growing the way it should — but capital is doing fine by grabbing an ever-larger slice, at labor’s expense. 

Wait — are we really back to talking about capital versus labor? Isn’t that an old-fashioned, almost Marxist sort of discussion, out of date in our modern information economy? Well, that’s what many people thought; for the past generation discussions of inequality have focused overwhelmingly not on capital versus labor but on distributional issues between workers, either on the gap between more- and less-educated workers or on the soaring incomes of a handful of superstars in finance and other fields. But that may be yesterday’s story. 

More specifically, while it’s true that the finance guys are still making out like bandits — in part because, as we now know, some of them actually are bandits — the wage gap between workers with a college education and those without, which grew a lot in the 1980s and early 1990s, hasn’t changed much since then. Indeed, recent college graduates had stagnant incomes even before the financial crisis struck. Increasingly, profits have been rising at the expense of workers in general, including workers with the skills that were supposed to lead to success in today’s economy. 

Why is this happening? As best as I can tell, there are two plausible explanations, both of which could be true to some extent. One is that technology has taken a turn that places labor at a disadvantage; the other is that we’re looking at the effects of a sharp increase in monopoly power. Think of these two stories as emphasizing robots on one side, robber barons on the other.

About the robots: there’s no question that in some high-profile industries, technology is displacing workers of all, or almost all, kinds. For example, one of the reasons some high-technology manufacturing has lately been moving back to the United States is that these days the most valuable piece of a computer, the motherboard, is basically made by robots, so cheap Asian labor is no longer a reason to produce them abroad. 

In a recent book, “Race Against the Machine,” M.I.T.’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argue that similar stories are playing out in many fields, including services like translation and legal research. What’s striking about their examples is that many of the jobs being displaced are high-skill and high-wage; the downside of technology isn’t limited to menial workers.

Still, can innovation and progress really hurt large numbers of workers, maybe even workers in general? I often encounter assertions that this can’t happen. But the truth is that it can, and serious economists have been aware of this possibility for almost two centuries. The early-19th-century economist David Ricardo is best known for the theory of comparative advantage, which makes the case for free trade; but the same 1817 book in which he presented that theory also included a chapter on how the new, capital-intensive technologies of the Industrial Revolution could actually make workers worse off, at least for a while — which modern scholarship suggests may indeed have happened for several decades. 

What about robber barons? We don’t talk much about monopoly power these days; antitrust enforcement largely collapsed during the Reagan years and has never really recovered. Yet Barry Lynn and Phillip Longman of the New America Foundation argue, persuasively in my view, that increasing business concentration could be an important factor in stagnating demand for labor, as corporations use their growing monopoly power to raise prices without passing the gains on to their employees. 

I don’t know how much of the devaluation of labor either technology or monopoly explains, in part because there has been so little discussion of what’s going on. I think it’s fair to say that the shift of income from labor to capital has not yet made it into our national discourse.

Yet that shift is happening — and it has major implications. For example, there is a big, lavishly financed push to reduce corporate tax rates; is this really what we want to be doing at a time when profits are surging at workers’ expense? Or what about the push to reduce or eliminate inheritance taxes; if we’re moving back to a world in which financial capital, not skill or education, determines income, do we really want to make it even easier to inherit wealth?

As I said, this is a discussion that has barely begun — but it’s time to get started, before the robots and the robber barons turn our society into something unrecognizable.

Source: The New York Times

The Battle for the Arctic

Fault Lines travels to the Arctic Circle to investigate the impact a resource rush might have on local communities.
Fault Lines

 

Fault Lines looks at the potential environmental impact of resource extraction in the Arctic, and what that might mean for the people who live there.

The UN has imposed a 2013 deadline for the submission of scientific claims to the Arctic seabed. It is the precursor to a resource boom which would see Canada, the US, Russia, Norway and Greenland all attempt to exploit the region's resources.

These Arctic countries are desperately mapping out their territories so they can tap into the fossil fuels and minerals locked beneath the fast melting ice.
And with global warming speeding up the melting of the Polar ice caps, potential shipping routes are opening up - raising concerns about oil spills, and control over these new passageways.

Fault Lines’ Josh Rushing heads to the Far North to see first-hand how Arctic countries are responding to the potential bonanza.

Source: Al Jazeera