Orrin Hatch - Follow The Money

"Follow the money, always follow the money," was the best kept secret in Washington until "Deep Throat," the inside informant for what ultimately became known as Watergate, told Woodward and Bernstein in the movie, "All The Presidents Men." Following this advise, they eventually exposed illegal campaign activities and motivated the resignation of President Nixon.

On another note, I learned from a friend years ago, that the State Department has a policy that US dipolmats can only live in the country they are working for 3 years. At that time, the only options are re-assignment or retirement. It seems that after this time, their loyalties become clouded because of the depth of immersion they have experienced as part of their employment.

How do those 2 pieces of information correlate?

Point #1

Those who know me realize that I have felt Orrin Hatch, (R-UT) has been in Washington too long and needs to retire. He appears to have lost touch with the attitudes of his constituents here in Utah. He has also become so immersed in the culture of the Capital City, that all his closest friends seem to be Democrats, rather than Republicans. He claims this is so he can better influence the Senate and be more effective in working for us. I am afraid that he has scratched too many backs and owes too many favors, that it influences his choices more than him influencing the other members of the Upper House.

Point #2

After a little research, my son, Aaron, sent me a couple of interesting articles regarding Orrin Hatch and his money trail. This is an excerpt from his email.

Just browsing around today and came across this. It is pretty telling, 78% of Orrin Hatch’s campaign contributions are from out of state.

http://influenceexplorer.com/politician/orrin-g-hatch/e5aa63ec4a0746fbb9961b325ddb3627

He also is the only republican in the top 10 recipients from MPAA.

http://influenceexplorer.com/organization/motion-picture-assn-of-america/90b570b10c2b4483a1af69149521324a

So, Orrin Hatch receives 78% of his political contributions from people and companies that are outside the State of Utah. That leaves only 22% of his funding coming from his constituents. This begs 2 questions.

1. If he is that much more popular outside Utah than in, maybe he should leave Utah and represent them?

2. If he is receiving over 3/4 of his salary from people and companies outside Utah, where does his loyalties and allegiance lie, that is if he wants to keep his job? At least he says he wants to keep his job.

Regarding the MPAA or Motion Picture Association of America, these statistics are very interesting. Here is the list of the top 10 Congress people who have received contributions over the time the records were kept.

1. Max Baucus (D-NT) - $27,151

2. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) - $25,466

3. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) - $23,800

4. Howard Berman (D-CA) - $22,300

5. Harry Reid (D-NV) - $22,300

6. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) -$22,140

7. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) - $21,900

8. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) - 20,900

9. Jane Harman (D-CA) - $20,788

10. Gray Davis (D-CA) - $20,500

Now, if your remove those from California, which the MPAA should be giving money to, and consider those outside of California, Orrin is the 4th largest recipient of MPAA funds, ever. That is 4th place out of 485 Representatives and Senators in the entire Congress.

Normally I would consider 4th out of nearly 500 to be a commendable showing, but when it is being influenced to sponsor and support such bills as SOPA and PIPA, this puts Orrin Hatch on my naughty list. I already expounded my apprehension, no, it's not apprehension, it is simply fear of this legislation.

I have called his office and voiced my opinion about him as well as these bills. I was assured by a kind staffer, that he is not supporting PIPA in its present form and asked that it not be debated or voted on yet. Unfortunately, he was one of the original sponsors and didn't change his position until popular opinion overwhelmed his switchboard.

Too bad he didn't think to stop it before it was written, I might have supported him then.

Photo courtesy of Reddogreport.com

A Link to - The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas

In the not too distant future.

The U. S. Attorney General, back-lit in a dim room, shrouded with an Inquisition style hooded robe, solemnly declares, "You have been accused to be in suspected violation of vaguely stated copyright laws, wherein you presumably allowed to be uploaded, 1 copyrighted file to the 327,246,135,753 existing files on one of your servers, without making herculean efforts and/or spending tens of thousands of dollars, (USD) to ferret out such malicious activity; thereby providing the possibility that one or more rogue internet user(s) might download said file, bypassing the obligation of paying just and due compensation to the legal and legitimate copyright holders, namely; unnamed recording and/or motion picture and/or digital archives; consequently, stealing, defrauding or interfering with the due process of collection of revenue for copyrighted materials, as outlined in Congressional Edicts, SOPA and PIPA, respectively.

As a result of this flagrant violation of the sovereign right of compensation as out-lined in Congressional Edicts, SOPA and PIPA, respectively, for recording and/or motion picture and/or digital archives, this Internet Service Provider, Your Name Here , (ISP) is hereby and un-equivocally ordered to cease and desist operations, services and compensation to all clients, customers, and/or consumers, until a complete review of the above named site and files, as well as all SOPA and PIPA compliant protocols to prevent such actions, are completed by a Senate sub-committee under the direction and over-sight of a combined Senate and House committee on the Implementation and Voluntary Compliance of Protocols to Prevent the Mis-Appropriation of Funds Legally and Lawfully Awarded to Unnamed Recording, and/or Motion Picture, and/or Digital Archives, For Works They Own, But Didn't Produce.

He stops and surveys the crowd, as 666 security guards, surround him and escort him from the room. . .

_______________________

The United States Congress is considering legislation that will give control of Internet Service Providers (ISP) sites to the Attorney General in an effort to control internet piracy of copyrighted material. With this authority, the Attorney General could legally, upon "suspicion" of piracy, shut down suspected offending sites and then begin an investigation. This could happen regardless of whether the ISP had any knowledge of the alleged infraction.

While I don't know all the ins and outs of the proposed laws, the page, The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas, does. In this article, Mike Masnick elequantly describes what is in the laws, why they won't achieve the desired result and why the recording industry needs to embrace new technology for greater profits rather than spending millions of dollars fighting the advancements.

The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas

By Mike Masnick

There's been plenty of talk (and a ton of posts here on Techdirt) discussing both SOPA (originally E-PARASITE) and PROTECT IP (aka PIPA), but it seemed like it would be useful to create a single, "definitive" post to highlight why both of these bills are extremely problematic and won't do much (if anything) to deal with the issues they're supposed to deal with, but will have massive unintended consequences. I also think it's important to highlight how PIPA is almost as bad as SOPA. Tragically, because SOPA was so bad, some in the entertainment industry have seen it as an opportunity to present PIPA as a "compromise." It is not. Both bills have tremendous problems, and they start with the fact that neither bill will help deal with the actual issues being raised. . . . (read the rest of the article)

You can also read the text of the bill here.

I urge you to contact your elected representatives and the bill's sponsors to express your feelings regarding this. Remember, Senator Hatch, (R-Utah), proposed in 2003, that all computers that had pirated software be remotely destroyed, until it was discovered that his own web-site was running an unlicensed application. I voted against him in 2006 and will again in 2012.

*The image above is from: http://act2.freepress.net/call/pipa_call/?akid=3086.9828048.Ssc8mA&rd=1&t=1