I’m not sure if you follow the Heather’s Homilies Facebook page Nicky, so I’ll put this here for you too. It’s an article about all the stuff SCOTUS has done in recent years to favour the GOP, including/esp. in elections. https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2019/02/15/sen-whitehouse-theres-a-crisis-of-credibility-at-the-u-s-supreme-court/?slreturn=20190118195506

I checked it on Fact-check, and it is true, 3.5 million US$.
What is not true is that it is the biggest contribution to Mr McConnel’s election chest (as had been contended), not in a long way (eg. the Adelsons contributed 25 million US$). Nor is it clear it was connected to his support for ‘re-allowing’ dealings with Mr Deripaska.

This is reasonable compromise and I prefer it to the present US rules but it is not perfect. It is easy enough to pool a dozen $9999 donations and tell the recipient but not the public.

Yes, a cap on anonymous donations. NZ$9999 is about 7000 US$?
That would mean that CAIR’s donation to Ms Omar would remain anonymous. Jerry showed that all of their contributions went to Ms Omar, but it was only 5000 US$. Did not many members of CAIR donate on an individual basis (I’m not sure)?
An organisation (not pointing at CAIR in particular here) must not be allowed to pay their members some fee or support for officially something else, on the understanding they will make their just under (say) 7000 US$ donations.
I agree with Curtis it is not a simple problem.
The state subsidising political parties appears a good idea, but how will the cake be divided? I’ll start my own political party tomorrow. 🙂

Thanks Nicky. The chair has made things much better. The reading thing has been an issue for years now, and I’ve learned to live with it. Of course, I miss reading; I used to be a voracious reader. Now, I’m a bit like Trump – I get a lot of my info from watching TV and news videos on my computer. However, I like to think I’m a bit better at evaluating what I see/hear than he is!

If I’m going to write about a topic, I do read and research stuff, but not as much as I should.

I’m so sorry Heather, if reading computer screens becomes physically difficult it is worse than I thought. I thought that with your new donated chair life would have become easier, but if reading becomes a burden it’s pretty bad.
I really hope your physical situation will improve.

I’m going to be lazy and wait until they’ve put this on SoundCloud. It sounds too interesting to miss but I find reading, especially computer screens, physically difficult these days.

It seems that not only Republicans are rotten to the core…
The swamp is there, but it appears that in Mr Trump you have invited an alligator to get rid of the lizards…
Interesting, but scary article on The Atlantic about Russian-style kleptocracy infiltrating the US:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-kleptocracy-came-to-america/580471/

Here I think the threshold for making an anonymous donation is NZ$9999. Once your donations go over that, they become public. I think that’s a pretty fair situation, though it would be up to the US to decided what the proper threshold for retaining anonymity is for them of course.

I do not have an answer. I would like donors to be identified for the reasons you have stated but I would like them to be protected for the reasons I have stated.