You read it here first, the story HA broke about the Washington State Republican Party’s illegal spending on behalf of Dino Rossi, and while the allegations were pooh-poohed at the time by the usual Rossi apologists, WA State Attorney General was left with no choice but to bring suit against his own party and former top aide, WSRP chair Luke Esser.
The Republicans spent “exempt” funds, for which there are no campaign contribution limits, on “non-exempt” activities, for which there are strict contribution limits, essentially laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal contributions on behalf of Rossi and his wealthy patrons like Rufus Lumry and Skip Rowley. And as I wrote at the time, the charges were “pretty cut and dry“:
This isn’t rocket science. It’s Campaign Finance 101. All the political candidates, consultants, committees and parties know damn well what is or is not allowed. And yet the WSRP chose to blatantly violate campaign expenditure laws that have been in place for the past 16 years.
The question now is not whether the WSRP will be penalized, but rather, will they be penalized enough to discourage future such violations, and whether the court will be willing to issue an injunction barring similar activities between now and the election. It appears that Rossi, the WSRP and the BIAW are willing to do whatever it takes to win this election, and have made the crass calculation that a Rossi victory is well worth any potential penalty, as long as it is incurred after the fact.
And as long as our media continues to withhold moral judgment of an obviously unethical and illegal strategy until the final court decision is issued months hence, then Rossi and his surrogates will have calculated correctly that crime does indeed pay.
mckenna the mav’rick.
not.
Did you all see how the market tanked after the Bailout passed?
Sure glad I sold that Apple & NOV earlier in the day!
Monday may be another golden buying opportunity. I’ll be closely watching the opening. Looking at Apple again.
Watch out for those wash rules, Cynical.
What a mess’o’morons.
Still, satan would be a better pick than
Gregoire.
Latest Rasmussen Poll numbers on the presidential and gubernatorial races: Read ’em on the Seattle P-I web site.
Damnitall
Goldy .. howsit that bloogers are not eligible for Pulitzers?
Didn’t McKenna drag his feet enough to assure that this thing isn’t going to go to trial until well after the election?
N in Seattle @ 3
The “wash sale rule” comes into play when you sell the stock and claim a loss…then buy it back right away.
The Charlie Rangel & the IRS love it when you sell stocks at a gain…especially ST Capital Gains because then Charlie Rangel can feel better about CHEATING HIS ASS OFF & not reporting income on his vacation home.
So if Charlie Rangel & the IRS are happy, we should all be happy. Right?
@3 “wash rules”
He has absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. The same goes with a stop loss order. I’m tired of his posts on the subject. They’re off topic and irrelevant to a political blog.
@9 Talk politics or shut the fuck up.
Dino’s too dumb to even figure out how to masturbate. He gets help from the BIAW.
While I’m encouraged that “something” is being done to enforce the campaign finance laws, it appears to be yet another example of “too little, too late”. The BIAW has funded almost a month’s worth of lies told by Rossi, with Gregoire having little opportunity to respond anywhere near the same extent. In this case, the media exposure is telling, because a lot of people are of the opinion that Gregoire hasn’t denied Rossi’s charges (she has, but just not in TV ads the same way Rossi has made the charges).
So it looks like the Republicans might well be on their way to buying another election.
But there is a solution … every one of us can canvas our neighborhoods and let people know that Rossi’s ads are just like the candidate – crock of Sh*t. Be prepared with the facts and let people know that Rossi and the BIAW are trying to buy this election and are counting on the voters being easily manipulated. We’ve still got four weeks to go, each of us could easily hit several hundred homes before then.
If only Rossi would have sold missle technology to China for campaign contributions
all this would go away.
Heck Goldy, Crime has been paying Rossi his whole life.