Trump

bootlegger10 said:

As a private citizen I am limited to contributing $2,700 to Clinton's campaign.

Bruce Springsteen would normally charge $500k (estimating low) for a concert appearance.

It doesn't seem right that Springsteen can donate $500,000 of free time to Hillary. Does she pay Springsteen a nominal amount?

What does Nugent charge? Bus fare?

I'm assuming it's considered an in-kind contribution. I'm not sure how the FEC looks at those.

rgambs said:

bootlegger10 said:

dignin said:

bootlegger10 said:

As a private citizen I am limited to contributing $2,700 to Clinton's campaign.

Bruce Springsteen would normally charge $500k (estimating low) for a concert appearance.

It doesn't seem right that Springsteen can donate $500,000 of free time to Hillary. Does she pay Springsteen a nominal amount?

Really?

What? I think it is a fair question. It is illegal for me to give Hillary, Trump or any other politician $4,000, but if I were a famous person I could put on a free concert at a rally for Hillary or Trump when I would normally charge $500k to a promoter for and it is perfectly fine? Does that not seem backward to you? I understand that is a donation of time, and volunteers on the ground for politicians definitely put in hours and hours of free time. It just doesn't seem right that Springsteen, Vedder, Nugent or whoever can have so much influence and I can only donate $2,700. Look at the crowds and excitement that these concerts generate, but if bootlegger10 slips Hillary $2,800 the FEC will be all over me.

I see where you are coming from, but how would you legislate regulation? Would all celebrity appearances and endorsements have to be monetized?

I don't know. Any simple regulation would provide many loopholes. In a situation like this though the campaign should pay some sort of FMV to Springsteen for his time. But then the unpaid volunteers who work 16 hours a week for 10 months are providing more than 2,700 of value too. It would take too much time to write out all the ideas and pros and cons.

PJfanwillneverleave1 said:

ledvedderman said:

I'm assuming it's considered an in-kind contribution. I'm not sure how the FEC looks at those.

What in-kind contributions does Trump have?

Well, someone mentioned Ted Nugent. I'm assuming both candidates have countless in kind contributors.

Donald Trump Cannot Be President of the United States
The time has come for voters to decide what it truly means to be an American

It's easy to make fun of the hats.
It's not so easy to contemplate what makes so many people think America's greatness is in desperate need of reformation, or what would make them turn to someone like Donald Trump to make it a reality.

America has flaws as deep as its founding, when the men who laid down basic principles of human rights – principles that have endured 240 years – were fed and clothed by human beings they owned. That paradox still defines the fault lines of our nation, and it's along those lines we are drawing the ugliest election in modern history.

It isn't just economic anxiety or trade deals or the opioid epidemic driving the mostly white, mostly male movement behind Trump's campaign. It is the existential fear of displacement from a world that has slowly – too slowly, for too long – been chipping away at white male supremacy.

The "grab 'em by the pussy" moment was disastrous for Trump's campaign; it reinforced the defining narrative of his sexism. But it drew his strongest supporters even closer to him, because it reminded them of the world they're losing. They want to live in an America where they can grab women by the pussy and brag about it to their friends. They want to casually use the n-word – just for the bad ones; they're not racist! – without being set upon by the PC police. They want what's coming to them, what's owed them.

And they are willing to burn down the world to get it.

Donald Trump is the worst major-party candidate for president in American history. This is not a close call. By virtually any measure, he is unfit to lead a Cub Scout troop, let alone the nation with the world's most powerful military.

It's worth going back and reading the transcripts of his debates with Hillary Clinton just to remember how he speaks when he's answering questions off the cuff. It's breathtaking how incapable he is of forming a single coherent thought. The expectations for him were so low that there was little to no coverage of his failure over four-and-a-half hours to say anything intelligent about any issue important to the American people. He meanders, he interrupts, and he whines. He is uninformed and unprepared.

Trump's values are, in a word, deplorable. He launched his campaign calling Mexican immigrants rapists, issued a call for a ban on immigration by Muslims, and said women should be punished for getting an abortion. He lies, constantly, about everything. He stokes anger and fear and even violence among his supporters. He nurtures their very worst instincts.

He brags he has the best temperament, but that's nonsense. He's lashed out and punched down, attacking the parents of a dead soldier, a former beauty pageant winner who gained weight, countless reporters and anyone he perceives as insulting him.

It is impossible to predict exactly how deep a disaster Donald Trump's presidency would be, but there's no limit to the potential for horror. Think how much we still don't know about Trump – how he hasn't released his taxes, how many women there likely are who haven't come forward – and you can imagine the scandals and corruption that lie in wait. Consider how thin his policy knowledge is and how impulsively he reacts to insults, and imagine his twitchy little fingers on the nuclear button.

Donald Trump cannot be president of the United States.

And while Trump has a considerable movement of supporters who see him as a great conquering hero, who believe every word of his lies, no matter how outlandish and easily disproven, there are many people, even at this late hour, who are torn about whether they can support him. Maybe they're deeply conservative Republicans who despise what they believe Clinton would do to the country. Maybe they're independents who see constant stories about her emails and have genuine fears about her judgment.

But now is the moment for every last American to decide what it truly means to be a citizen. You can be reluctant about Hillary Clinton. You don't even have to vote for her (though I did, without doubt or hesitation).

What you cannot do is vote for Donald Trump and pretend that this is just another election, and he is just another candidate. It is your minimum duty as a citizen not to support a racist, sexist, unqualified, dishonest, corrupt manchild who celebrates everything that's ugly about America and not a single thing that's great about it.

No matter how left out or left behind you feel, voting for Trump is nothing short of a moral failure. It's a vicious act against the human beings, mostly women and people of color, who would suffer miserably under his presidency.

It's an act of violence against America itself, whose greatness has always been about progressing from more oppression to less – slowly, sometimes haltingly, but forward.

The promise on those red hats is to turn back in the other direction. The greatness they sell is a lie.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/donald-trump-cannot-be-president-of-the-united-states-w448907

Well Bill Clinton charges for speeches. Are you saying there sound be regulation on that too?

mrussel1 said:

Well Bill Clinton charges for speeches. Are you saying there sound be regulation on that too?

It is a slippery slope when your spouse is a Secretary of State or President. If a president has to put their investments in a blind trust so that GE can't influence them, then I would expect GE can't pay the first spouse $500k for a speech. I would be certain there is a regulation against that.

A little surprised at some of the pushback from the people have the power crowd when I suggest there should be a fair playing field amongst the people.

bootlegger10 said:

dignin said:

bootlegger10 said:

As a private citizen I am limited to contributing $2,700 to Clinton's campaign.

Bruce Springsteen would normally charge $500k (estimating low) for a concert appearance.

It doesn't seem right that Springsteen can donate $500,000 of free time to Hillary. Does she pay Springsteen a nominal amount?

Really?

What? I think it is a fair question. It is illegal for me to give Hillary, Trump or any other politician $4,000, but if I were a famous person I could put on a free concert at a rally for Hillary or Trump when I would normally charge $500k to a promoter for and it is perfectly fine? Does that not seem backward to you? I understand that is a donation of time, and volunteers on the ground for politicians definitely put in hours and hours of free time. It just doesn't seem right that Springsteen, Vedder, Nugent or whoever can have so much influence and I can only donate $2,700. Look at the crowds and excitement that these concerts generate, but if bootlegger10 slips Hillary $2,800 the FEC will be all over me.

This is not anti-Hillary post. Just an observation.

It is an interesting question. I don't see how you can regulate someones speech, because that is what Bruce and others are doing. He's still just a dude with a guitar after all. We head down a bad road when we try and limit what one can say just because they have more sway than a regular Joe like you or I.

mrussel1 said:

bootlegger10 said:

mrussel1 said:

Well Bill Clinton charges for speeches. Are you saying there sound be regulation on that too?

It is a slippery slope when your spouse is a Secretary of State or President. If a president has to put their investments in a blind trust so that GE can't influence them, then I would expect GE can't pay the first spouse $500k for a speech. I would be certain there is a regulation against that.

A little surprised at some of the pushback from the people have the power crowd when I suggest there should be a fair playing field amongst the people.

It's a person's choice if they want to give a speech or sing a song without compensation. The campaign would pay all of the overhead.

Sure, but that person's choice is the difference between 15,000 people showing up and 3,000 people showing up.

dignin said:

Money isn't speech and speech isn't money. This all ties into why citizens united has to go.

But singing actually is speech. If you had to pay to get in and that money sent to the campaign, then that's a different story