Leftist uber-funder George Soros's group America Coming Together has been slapped with a $775,000 fine by the Federal Election Commission - the third largest fine in FEC history, but really only a minor fine considering the crime.
According to the FEC, ACT used tens of millions of dollars of unregulated cash to boost Democratic candidates during the 2004 elections. The Politico reports that, according to the FEC, ACT raised $137 million for its get-out-the-vote effort in 17 states in the 2004 elections, but the FEC found most of that cash came through contributions that violated federal limits or were otherwise barred by campaign rules.
Besides big money from Soros, ACT also got a lot of money from the Service Employees International Union.
A liberal activist merely alleges that Fred Thompson's breaking the rules by campaigning as a candidate while claiming merely "testing the waters" status with the FEC and it makes the news. Now we have a liberal organization hit with the third largest fine in FEC history for illegally raising and spending tens of millions of dollars to influence an American election. And ACT isn't the only group Soros funded to try to influence the election.
So ... do you think this story will be on the national news today or tonight?
Me neither.
As for the fine, it needed at least another zero before the decimal point.
My guess is Soros would happily pay a $775,000 fine as a routine cost of business in order to get away with spending $137 million in illegally raised dollars on partisan campaign activities in the future. This joke of a fine won't do diddly to stop the liberals from breaking the law again in the 2008 election cycle. In fact, the tiny size of the fine relative to the crime may encourage them to increase their breaking of campaign finance laws.
And when it does you probably won't see that story on the evening news either.
