Just to give an idea of the timeline for this. Just about every government regulatory action requires a comment period. After the proposed rule comment period ends, the government generally responds to those comments in aggregate which can take a few months. Let's say September, since August is when everyone in Washington takes a vacation; seriously.
Then there is often an interim rule, basically saying ok, we've heard your concerns, and here's the final rule we're putting forth. That will be followed by a comment period of up to 45 days, or longer. The Administrative Procedures Act (1) requires a minimum 45-day period for the public to comment to the agency in writing on the proposed regulation.
Now we're probably into November if everything goes perfectly.
Then the final rule is published in the federal register, followed by another 45+ days comment period, with some date set for implementation and enforcement.
Best case scenario, if I read the law correctly, this will not get finalized and promulgated until after the election, possibly not until next year.
Government very, very rarely moves with great alacrity, especially in regulations; unless a government party fears they will lose the election, or has lost and is between legislative sessions.
The administration seems to be moving as fast as they can since this was announced, and a proposed rule published very quickly - no hearings, stakeholder input, etc., and the limit on comments are the statutory minimum.
It actually mentioned this in the article but it was kind of buried.
"These findings highlight the pervasive presence of microplastics in the male reproductive system in both canine and human testes, with potential consequences on male fertility."
This terrifies me. How are we supposed to avoid plastic when it's literally EVERYWHERE and in EVERYTHING?!??!?!
> This terrifies me. How are we supposed to avoid plastic when it's literally EVERYWHERE and in EVERYTHING?!??!?!
You can always reduce the intake and your microplastic footprint. Avoid buying food in plastic packaging, use glass or steel containers for food at home, drink tap water with a good filter. Do not buy cheap clothes with synthetic fibers, install filter for your washing machine to reduce the release of microplastic. Shift your lifestyle to minimalism, reduce unnecessary consumption, maximize use of things, choose wood, glass or metals over plastic in things you buy. Smaller houses or apartments will also result in less consumption and plastic contamination.
All very good ideas, but I think plastic pollution has become inescapable. The plastic is not just in the products we may use, but it's in the water we drink, the food we eat and, according to this study, in the air we breathe. It's like radiation...
Go further in this analysis. How, precisely? Congress is so beholden to special interest groups with a stake in plastic, from petrochemicals to bottling industries, that it seems paralyzed to do anything about it. Does the American government have the regulatory authority to halt plastics absent legislation? It does not seem to be so.
What other ways aside from depending on government?
Consider a billionaire that doesn’t work but has passive investments that pull in about $100M per year.
They can borrow against the assets for close to 0%, or they could donate the gains to their own charities, keep the assets in shell companies that own hotels they live in, etc, etc.
This 4% millionaire’s income tax won’t touch any of that.
Dark money is such a weird phrase and a mischaracterized label. The practice is not unique to any one group or issue. "Dark money" - defined as funds raised for the purpose of influencing elections by nonprofit organizations that are not required to disclose the identities of their donors - is used by all interest groups, good and bad.
What's the reasoning here? How is that always bad?
There seems to be a lot of potential for abuse in forcing everyone supporting any cause to publicly disclose their identity -- supporters of a given cause could be individually targeted by opponents; people could be intimidated into supporting causes they don't actually favor.
There's a reason we cast secret ballots in elections, and I don't see much of a difference in the risk/reward equation when it comes to donations to nonprofits and social causes, whether political or not.
And what benefit do you get from knowing the identities of everyone donating to a specific cause? Are you going to oppose something you already reject on its merits even more because someone you don't like is donating to it, or change your mind and start supporting it because someone you like does?
People being able to donate anonymously to an effort to shape public opinion feels fundamentally wrong to me. If they believe in the position being pushed they should be happy to be publicly associated with it. If they aren’t then I’m very suspicious about why.
EDIT: the post I replied to was edited after my reply to add a lot of context that it now looks like I’m ignoring. Sadly I don’t have the time to address it point by point, so to clarify: this comment is a reply to the first line of the parent comment only.
> People being able to donate anonymously to an effort to shape public opinion feels fundamentally wrong to me.
Why?
And what does it mean to "shape public policy"? I see that terminology used frequently in a way that factors out the autonomy and decision-making agency of the actual individuals who constitute the "public", but isn't it up to them to decide whether to accept or reject persuasive discourse in the public sphere on their own terms?
I've worked in a statehouse and watched an industry representative (actually a single company representative) literally deliver corporate written legislation to a specific individual lawmakers offices which was then passed into law with zero input by that legislator. How's that work for your "shape public policy" question?
Depends on the position. Donating in favor of gay marriage was once seen as a very bad thing with many negative personal consequences. My parents gave money to stop Proposition 8, but I don't think they would have if they knew their names (at the time) would be made public.
It's only wrong to those who disagree with the opinion being shaped.
> There's a reason we cast secret ballots in elections,
You get one vote and the other people get one vote. With Dark Money, one side gets access to control a million votes and you get one vote. That's wrong.
> and I don't see much of a difference in the risk/reward equation when it comes to donations to nonprofits and social causes, whether political or not.
NonProfits and Social causes are about fixing issues directly. Giving money to a shelter that supports Runaway Gay Teens or a Pets or the Homeless is not the same. A single person giving millions of dollars to a single organization that is designed to influence the vote and lives of millions of people is not the same thing.
Also, corporations are not people, so a corporation giving to a cause (No matter the cause) should be known by everyone.
> You get one vote and the other people get one vote. With Dark Money, one side gets access to control a million votes and you get one vote. That's wrong.
No, that's not correct at all. "Dark money" doesn't control anything at all, and is usually just used for outreach and advocacy in an attempt to persuade people to make choices consistent with certain aims or principles.
The "million votes" you're referring latterly to are the aggregation of the "other people's" votes you mentioned formerly, and those people decide for themselves whether the arguments being made by advocacy groups are sufficiently persuasive to factor into how they are casting their votes.
> Also, corporations are not people, so a corporation giving to a cause (No matter the cause) should be known by everyone.
Corporations are just organizational models used by people instrumentally to pursue their goals. They have no concrete existence or any independent moral agency, and so factor out of the discussion entirely.
>Corporations are just organizational models used by people instrumentally to pursue their goals. They have no concrete existence or any independent moral agency, and so factor out of the discussion entirely.
This is incorrect. Corporations have a concrete existence nd extreme power fully controlled by a tiny board of directors, not by "people" but by "select people" and your attempts to suggest we all use corporations when it's really just a few elite rich people using those corporations is bullshit obfuscation popular among corporatists and plutocrats.
> There seems to be a lot of potential for abuse in forcing everyone supporting any cause to publicly disclose their identity
That’s not what’s on the table—the issue in question is whether paying others to magnify your views with a direct aim at affecting policy is something one should be able to do anonymously. Especially if we restrict this to “paying enough money to buy a substantial amount of an entire person’s time dedicated to promoting your interests” then this very much does not mean forcing everyone who supports a cause to abandon anonymity, but even without that carve-out for small time donors, it still doesn’t.
A simple solution would be to allow only private persons to remain anonymous. This could further be limited to donors under $X or % of total donations.
you get one vote. corporation boards and their representatives can hand write, hand deliver, and have unlimited laws enacted by lawmakers they have in their pockets. voters have no such equivalent. pretending that isn't the case is plain silly and makes you sound like a 7th grader exiting their first civics course.
At one point, whether it's to give blacks the right to vote, gay marriage, abortion, or other "unpopular-to-power opinions," were financed through anonymity. You're proving my point - it's only a negative term to those who dislike the issue it is supporting.
The implications of requiring disclosure are significant. Do we really want to pass a law that says books, pamphlets, blogs, etc. cannot be published anonymously? Do we want to limit the amount of pamphlets you can print because some people can afford to print a lot?
For instance, your very comment is published under a throwaway. Couldn't we say that your comment, being an attempt to influence us, shouldn't be anonymous? After all, perhaps you could stand to personally benefit in some way?
The argument I made is not that anonymity cannot serve a good purpose. It can.
However, anonymity has a cost proportional to its impact. That cost is that the impact of the anonymous act will have no retribution. A person is more likely to act in a negative-sum way with anonymity.
Still, anonymity is essential because it protects the underpowered in their expression. We as a society have said that, on balance, anonymity with speech is good. And I think that's reasonable.
With money as speech, this logic is broken. Money is the purest form of power within our society. Giving money is an expression of power. The more money, the more power to express.
We then get all the negatives of anonymity with none of the benefits. What's more, as those with money can express a lot more than those without, the negatives are amplified.
Another way to think of it is that freedom of expression as a sort of democratic value because it equalizes power. Speech as money removes the equality of it.
To be more concrete, I believe that I can post anonymously but it would be dubious for me anonymously fund a lot of people posting here.
> defined as funds raised for the purpose of influencing elections by nonprofit organizations that are not required to disclose the identities of their donor
"Dark money" is the alternate term most of the beltway prefers as it keeps them safe from RICO indictments and uncomfortable attention to the hypocritic duality of a country that practically river-dances to democracy.
This is just political bribery with more steps and ceremony.
I think it's a very fitting label? Money is being funnelled for or against a cause, but there is no visibility into who's behind it, same as in being left in the dark.
The article itself actually covers this point a bit:
> Cannon said use of the phrase "dark money groups" when referring to 501(c)(4) organizations "often reveals a stunning level of ignorance." Cannon pointed to the Supreme Court's 1958 ruling in NAACP v. Alabama, which held that the NAACP did not have to provide its membership lists to the state. The court decided that "compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute... a restraint on freedom of association."
>People paying for good (or more specifically, something generally popular) don't need to hide what they're doing
Is there numbers on this? Because of how "dark money" is defined (ie. any sort of 501(c) nonprofit), technically any 501(c) charity (eg. even something like NAACP) is "dark money".
What's your definition of "good" ? In the past, the right for women to vote, to get an abortion, for gays to be married, for blacks to vote without fear of harm, were all "unpopular-to-power opinions" and deemed "bad." It only becomes "good" when you personally believe it to be.
Ok, I understand, but the mores of the day can go in the wrong direction. We hope they are positive but there's no guarantee they will be today, or in the future. However your comment raises one major point about mores of the day: They were accepted then but found later to be awful.
People can be wrong and later realize their mistake, it's not something we think about when supporting a cause; how will I be viewed in the future for this? Maybe we should.. Until then, anonymity in donating allows someone to express their opinions as they see the mores of the day to be, now, without fear of retribution, and protected for the distant future when they've realized how wrong they were and changed.
There is an interesting episode about this in a 1985 British documentary called "End of Empire". If I am not mistaken, all episodes are on YouTube except one. It seems an agent gave an interview for the episode on Iran and accidentally (?) mentioned his employer's involvement in the 1953 coup. This was deleted from the final script.
More recently, an Iranian film maker made an another interesting documentary chasing up the details surrounding this edited script and what may have been deleted. It starred Ralph Fiennes as the agent being interviewed:
Probably the same place. Islamic theocratic was on the rise in that area in the 70s - it's likely Ayatollah Khomeini would come to power one way or another - possibly even via elections. Just like Islamists did elsewhere after the Arab spring.
Mosaddegh was a marxist, supported by Russia, who tried to play both sides to advance a personal agenda of Persian ascendancy. Had he not been overthrown, the Russians would have eventually lost patience and killed him; or the radical islamists would have eventually overthrown him with the assistance of regional Arab players not keen on an ascendant Iran, with Marxist leanings. They would've wrongly believed an Islamist Iran would be easier to align than a secular/marxist regime.
Just a little nitpick - US didn't finance Taliban. Taliban was formed after Russia stopped occupation in Afghanistan. Taliban was formed because US stopped paying attention.
That’s a bit of a moot point. The actual human beings forming the military backbone of the “Taliban” were all fighters trained by the Pakistani ISI (at the behest of and sponsored by the United States) in order to fight Soviets. The US distributed a lot of brainwashing material to Taliban madarsas etc.
No the point is not obvious. We spent 25 years getting pictures of extremely isolated instances of afghans wearing western clothes as some justification for continued occupation. Exactly the same playbook tried with Iran.
Is the point to foster renewed interest in occupation by sharing misleading photos of isolated locations?
Operation cyclone led directly to the creation of the taliban.
These photos (how many of photos there are at all from that period in Afghanistan?) show that Afghan women were able to wear highly revealing clothing in public, like were Iranian women at the time. Something that this day is extremely unlikely in Afghanistan and Iran.
Different histories, same outcome - the point being - we really do not know what would have happened in Iran.
If you didn't know then Iranian revolution did not start as Islamic revolution. It started as popular revolution against shah but the other revolutionaries were eliminated by the Islamists.
Brazilians don't care because they largely live in poverty, and China is promising the country and its people economic salvation. It's an easy choice for Brazil against America, whom they see as an economic oppressor.
It's not that they are "bad guys for making good stuff cheaply" it's that every dollar sent to China is another dollar used to oppress and abuse innocent people. It is another dollar in favor of an inhumane dictatorship. Everyone who buys products made in China must certainly know this on some basic level. By the size of the American-Chinese trade deficit consumers are largely ok with this.
Some of us are not ok with supporting dictatorships.
I think the only answer to plastic is a gradual, increasing ban. It will be costly, complicated, and at best a pipe dream right now, but it will work. Just a ban on new plastics in packaging would tremendously cut down on plastic waste. In a short time I think the paper, glass, and metal producers will fill the need. A ban may seem extreme, costly, etc. but I see no other way to stop the creeping tidal wave of plastics in... everything.
This is bizarre but maybe I see the reason why. If it's to restrain foreign ownership of rental properties, I don't think it's going to have much impact. Renters who want to live there bad enough will pay it, and I would not be surprised if some foreign owners will help with that process.
On the other page.. If foreign landlords are suspected of not paying their full taxes, this is one way to increase a guarantee that the taxes will be paid.
It's more the CRA is too lazy and/or incompetent to successfully collect from foreigners and so they are forcing liability on the people paying (in this case the renter). I personally think this is bad precedent to set because it forces utterly excessive KYC requirements on renters. The government should be passing a law here to correct this to limit liability to a very narrow set of circumstances (In this case it would be something like if you pay rent via international money transfer out of the country you should have some responsibility to withhold a fixed percent here, otherwise it's not your problem) but they probably won't.
> This is bizarre but maybe I see the reason why. If it's to restrain foreign ownership of rental properties.
The reason is that the government wants its tax money. Since the cash flow is coming from the renter they are also responsible for it. There is a similar situation with employers who are responsible for remitting tax withholding even though it is the employee who owes the income tax.
How far does this extend? If a restaurant doesn't pay its taxes would the Canadian government go after the people who ate there for the money? They are the source of the restaurant's cash flow.
Then there is often an interim rule, basically saying ok, we've heard your concerns, and here's the final rule we're putting forth. That will be followed by a comment period of up to 45 days, or longer. The Administrative Procedures Act (1) requires a minimum 45-day period for the public to comment to the agency in writing on the proposed regulation.
Now we're probably into November if everything goes perfectly.
Then the final rule is published in the federal register, followed by another 45+ days comment period, with some date set for implementation and enforcement.
Best case scenario, if I read the law correctly, this will not get finalized and promulgated until after the election, possibly not until next year.
Government very, very rarely moves with great alacrity, especially in regulations; unless a government party fears they will lose the election, or has lost and is between legislative sessions.
The administration seems to be moving as fast as they can since this was announced, and a proposed rule published very quickly - no hearings, stakeholder input, etc., and the limit on comments are the statutory minimum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act
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