LeBron endorses Obama....

[buckeye319]

with $20 K.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/07/lebron-james-ob.html

He gets compared to Jordan a lot in terms of his apolitical stances, but this is noteworthy.

[Ziner]

LeBron has always been his own man and doesnt want to be Michael. I commend him for caring (even though I personally disagree with his tastes).

However I dont have a problem with this "endorsement" he has the means and is donating to his prefered canidate. I will change my stance in a second though the first time he comes out and attempts to tell people who to vote for. I respect his opinion and think he handled it in the right way. He is an american like everyone else and has a vote like everyone else.

On a side note am I missing something here but I though individuals were limited to giving $2,000. I thought that was something that was included in McCain-Feingold. On an even farther side note anyone think it is strange that Obama, in a "horrible" economy, is setting a ton of fundraising records? I get the feeling George Soros is pumping a TON of money in to that campaign, legit or not. Call it a hunch. Sorry for making this too political, but hell this is the reason it wasnt posted under NBA news

[buckeye319]

Ziner - I could be wrong but I believe that if one donates more than $2,500 (or something in that area) that it has to be made public. All sorts of other athletes - Elway, Nicklaus, among many others have donated to McCain, and Staubach gave $40 K to the Arizona senator.

Here is a list of celebrities who have donated to the presidential election if you're interested, many of whom are famous athletes. Jordan actually gave about $2K to Obama.

http://www.newsmeat.com/2008a-list.php

Sorry, here is one with only famous sports personalities.

http://www.newsmeat.com/sports_political_donations/

[Ziner]

That list is great, you can go down the list and pretty much guess correctly who is putting money for who.

p.s. Jordan donated towards Obama, his just isnt news anymore I guess

[Ziner]

the ones that shocked me

Jerry Bruckheimer - McCain
Lorne Micheals - McCain
Magic Johnson - more to Hillary than Obama
Joe Paterno - Obama? Seems like a GOP'er to me for some reason
Donald Trump - McCain - always thought he hated Bush and the GOP

[skatingtripods]

Who gives a shit?

I hope Lebron likes high taxes on all of his money.

[BDFD]

Who gives a shit?

I hope Lebron likes high taxes on all of his money.

I concur. Guys like that couldn't care less about how much they pay in taxes. Just as they do not complain about high gas prices or $4 gallons of milk.

Somewhat politically incorrect post of the day #2: Can anyone show me a famous African American that doesn't endorse Obama?

It's part of his quest to become a global icon. Donate to the trendy American Presidential candidate days after he comes back from his well-covered world tour.

[jfiling]

Somewhat politically incorrect post of the day #2: Can anyone show me a famous African American that doesn't endorse Obama?

Well, it depends on your definition of famous, but I can name a few:

Ward Connerly
Ken Blackwell
Clarence Thomas
Alan Keyes
Don King
Yaphet Kotto
Karl Malone
Condoleeza Rice
Thomas Sowell
Lynn Swann

I might be wrong on one or two of those, but they are all Republicans and I haven't heard anything about them switching loyalties. I could also add Cynthia McKinney, who is running for president on the Green Party ticket and obviously wouldn't be endorsing Obama.

[Mr. MacPhisto]

Ziner - I could be wrong but I believe that if one donates more than $2,500 (or something in that area) that it has to be made public. All sorts of other athletes - Elway, Nicklaus, among many others have donated to McCain, and Staubach gave $40 K to the Arizona senator.

No, there's a limit of $2400 that you can give directly to the candidate.

The report said that he gave the money to a committee that was set up to elect Obama. This is one of the loopholes in the campaign law. The money was not given directly to Obama, just as those $40K donations were not given to McCain but were given to entities that support McCain. There are various numerical designations for these things with the 527s being the most well known.

It'd be better just to get rid of the campaign finance laws and come up with a simple solution. All donations over $1,000 must be reported by the campaign within 24 hours and listed for the general public to see online. Donations would aggregate, so if someone gave 40 donations of $1,000 each they would all be pooled under one listing. These large donations must include a name and occupation, like Johnny Johnson, CEO of BP Mobil. Something like that.

Businesses and unions would be free to donate money under this deal as well, but every penny would have to be reported in a different section.

This is what Virginia does for state elections and it works quite well. Democrats don't like it because it would expose that Big Oil donates more money to them than they do the Republicans. That's the case now when you look at the big execs from oil companies and take a look at the stocks that many of the Dems hold. They're deep into oil. No wonder they don't really want to lower the price, but they're damn good at making the other guys look like the ones in the corporate pockets even though guys like Gates, Buffet, and Turner are big time supporters of them.

[buckeye319]

It's part of his quest to become a global icon. Donate to the trendy American Presidential candidate days after he comes back from his well-covered world tour.

Yes, LeBron is so Machiavellian.

And Mac, while the oil industry donates heavily to both Dems and Republicans - and Obama to be sure - the vast majority of the money goes to the Republican Party. There's not even a debate.

[jfiling]

And Mac, while the oil industry donates heavily to both Dems and Republicans - and Obama to be sure - the vast majority of the money goes to the Republican Party. There's not even a debate.

Mac, you don't have the numbers on your side in this debate.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E01

Pretty clear where the oil money goes, although it is interesting how they hedge their bets.

[Mr. MacPhisto]

Mac, you don't have the numbers on your side in this debate.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E01

Pretty clear where the oil money goes, although it is interesting how they hedge their bets.

The data I looked at from the FEC recently told a very different story. Could've been wrong. That's hardly big money anyways.

Oil and Gas contributed over $18M this year. That's really pennies.

Guess who's in the trial lawyers' pockets?

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/i ... tt2=Submit

Over $118M given to the Dems and $44M to the Republicans. It's funny how people focus so much on how oil corrupts when it gave only a bit over 10% of what the lawyers paid out. Wonder why we can't get real tort reform? Wonder why medical malpractice insurance is so high?

Hell, people even talk about how bad the military industrial complex is.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/i ... tt2=Submit

Seems like the lawyers are the real problem. Maybe Shakespeare was right.

[jfiling]

Mac, you don't have the numbers on your side in this debate.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E01

Pretty clear where the oil money goes, although it is interesting how they hedge their bets.

The data I looked at from the FEC recently told a very different story. Could've been wrong. That's hardly big money anyways.

Oil and Gas contributed over $18M this year. That's really pennies.

Guess who's in the trial lawyers' pockets?

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/i ... tt2=Submit

Over $118M given to the Dems and $44M to the Republicans. It's funny how people focus so much on how oil corrupts when it gave only a bit over 10% of what the lawyers paid out. Wonder why we can't get real tort reform? Wonder why medical malpractice insurance is so high?

Hell, people even talk about how bad the military industrial complex is.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/i ... tt2=Submit

Seems like the lawyers are the real problem. Maybe Shakespeare was right.

No argument here on the lawyers. I firmly believe that the reason our tax code is so complicated is because if it were simple a hell of a lot of tax lawyers would be out of work. Same with a lot of other crappy and contradictory laws. The law should be simple enough for a person to represent himself in court for most matters, but that would make the lawyers very sad.

[scott]

with $20 K.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/07/lebron-james-ob.html

He gets compared to Jordan a lot in terms of his apolitical stances, but this is noteworthy.

Nice video on that page.

[Bayou Tribe]

Here is a list of celebrities who have donated to the presidential election if you're interested, many of whom are famous athletes. Jordan actually gave about $2K to Obama.

http://www.newsmeat.com/2008a-list.php

Sorry, here is one with only famous sports personalities.

http://www.newsmeat.com/sports_political_donations/

These websites are very cool. I've been looking through these constantly and it's amazing what you can pull from this. Thanks to whoever found this, it really passes the day.