Hope the Hess Co. gave them a truck and not a cheap toy one.Follow

Let's be prefectly clear here. It's only wrong and corrupt when Republicans receive large contributions.

No, it's just funny when the receive them as a quid pro quo for reversing their decades long held positions.

Maybe these jamokes will send Obama $60,000 now since he's in favor of drilling. I can't imagine they don't have billions saved up from their high school diploma requiring jobs.

It's probably not mentioned because it's not true.

It's absolutely true. Sorry :(

Research it, ace.


Do you really believe the obama media machine would keep something like that on the downlow?

The don't need it now, because they're winning by such a massive margin. If they do, they'll hype it more, I'm sure. The economy is the issue that matters in this election, not what Sargent Jones of the 3rdID does with his cash.

What's the word you guys like to use....cite

We use that when something's in dispute. No one asks for cites of the sky being blue or other known to be true things.

You assuming something can't be true based on absolutely nothing, doesn't motivate me to search AP for a cite for you.

Go enter "obama military donations" into google yourself. Maybe you can find a right wing whackjob blog that will insist it's a conspiracy.

Remember. You were the one who said that they donated "half their net worth". A figure you apparently just made up on the spot.

Sure. I'm not privy to their actual net worth. Perhaps they're eccentric billionaires.

Let's examine what we do know, though:

They rent. This makes the likelihood of them owning a home somewhere else and not living it extremely low. While, again, it's possible they winter in La Jolla in a $12M bungalo, let's agree that it's unlikely in the extreme that they posses a real estate asset.

You're arguing that they have assets in excess of $120,000 while owning no home, which they could liquidate to put towards a home, but instead choose to rent a place in Queens.

This is your analysis?

LA Times covered the story yesterday.

Seems we should have check our calenders before a few of us posted. The checks from Hess Family and C.E.O's, Alice Rocchio and her husband, were given to McCain June 10th, one week before McCain account that he supported off shore drilling

Lol. So. Transplanted Arizona natives, renting a home in NY while working in that area, maintaining their home in AZ and supporting their home state candidate.

Not so suspicious anymore, is it?

Yes. Hence my statement that we were "both wrong". Smash first claimed that they donated "half their net worth" (a number he just made up since we don't know what their net worth is). I responded with a relevant number (income). I missed the "household" in the median income statistic and assumed that was "per person", and thus said that they donated "half the average income" (also swapped median for average, something I usually berate others for. Oops!). I was wrong, but only because I missed the "household" bit. Their total donations are roughly equal to the median household income. If the average income "per person" was 58k, my statement would have been spot on, and that's what I based my statement on. I assumed that the statistic meant that each of the the two people donating money made about 58k. We can either compare that to their individual donations (30kish), or we can add the incomes and compare to 60k. In either case, the total donation would be about half the total income between the two of them.



Smash, on the other hand, just continued to make numbers up by saying that the median income was under 30k. Again. Just plain wrong. Just randomly pulled out of his butt I suppose.


Let me also point out that median "household income" is likely to be a primarily single income. If we assume that more then half of the people living in a given area are either single, or are married with a single primary income, this is a reasonable likelihood. Of course, without knowing the demographic of the area with more detail, there's no way to be sure. It's possible that a whole bunch of married, dual income blue collar families live there. Unlikely in an area with an average home value of 400-500k, but I suppose it's possible.

If that's the case, it's likely that their combined incomes are quite a bit higher then that 58k figure. Possibly much higher. What we do know is that both of them work. And I'll go out on a limb and guess that a typical Amtrak foreman makes more then 30k, as does a typical office manager working for an international oil company. At a reasonable estimate, I'd say that both of those positions likely start in the 40-50k range, with the foreman position possibly pulling down 80-100k all by itself.


The bigger point here is that while we can speculate wildly that there might have been some funneling going on here, it's incorrect to assume that it did, much less demand some sort of action based on the incredibly sketchy "facts" presented here. There are some 1st amendment issues as stake here. Donating to a political campaign is a protected form of speech. Targeting people in the media like this can have a chilling effect on that freedom. If I'm worried that my name might be in the paper as a "this guys title doesn't match his donation", I'll be less likely to donate. If that's done selectively (like say only focusing on McCain donations), then it's a real problem.


Think about it. They put private citizen's names (and ultimately home addresses) in a news article speculating that they may have been involved in some kind of campaign scam, with no proof other then where one of them works, and wild speculation as to their income and wealth. So if I work for a corporation with an interest in federal laws, trade regulations, etc (which I and almost all corporate employees do), I can't donate to the candidate of my choice without risking some possibility that someone might speculate that my employer was somehow involved in my donation illegally?


How convenient for the side that doesn't like corporations, huh?

They put private citizen's names (and ultimately home addresses)

As soon as you make the contribution, it's no longer private. In fact, it's on a website where anyone in the world can see your name and zip code.

r even worse...you outed your own wife in an attempt to attack your political adversaries.

This would be who?

The secret being to never donate more than $199 at a shot!