My friends – are you as weary, worn and woeful as I have been watching the news of the run-up to the 2024 presidential vote? After a few seconds of the news, I get that itch to switch. I compare the current political news to gavage, the term used to describe the force-feeding of ducks and geese to achieve a ten-times normal sized fatty liver. The end product is a delicacy for humans; not so much for the sequestered and fattened water fowl.
We are drawn like those cliched moths. We moan and complain about the one hundredth view of a politician’s speculation about whether it is better to be eaten by a shark or to be fried by an electric boat. We are flummoxed by the idea of childless cat ladies as an inducement to vote. And we cannot sync the rationale for whining about rally crowd from someone who would be leader of the free world.
Then there’s the guy from one of the richest families in the country scraping roadkill to eat and who later abandons the carcass in Central Park. And how about the female candidate who “turned black.” How in the heck does one do that I think to myself. How would Darwin explain this?
Unnerving and undeserving of our attention is what I say. So how do we counter with something to restore our own mental health with the promise of something uplifting, something hopeful, something just plain more, well, normal.
I submit we should take smaller glimpses of that “must see” political tv and go for the gold. Do it for the sake of your sanity and emotional wellbeing. While we’re not Coneheads, let’s go to France and the Olympic Games.
Ok, I’ll cede you the weird opening ceremonies with a hooded runner carrying the torch, a bizarre rendition of “The Last Supper” and Marie Antoinette, grasping her own severed head. BUT -Celine Dion singing “Hymne à l’amour” at the Eiffel tower sent shivers across the world.
We are able to see Katie Ledecky in performances of a lifetime in women’s swimming. In that same greatest-of-all-time vein, Simone Biles wowed with perfection through the gymnastics moves that only she can perform. We watched a hopeful and sometimes flawed men’s gymnastics lifted to the medal stand by Michael Nedoroscik, the University of Michigan unicorn who rose to the moment on the pommel horse. I was so happy for the women’s high jumper, Yaroslava Mahuchikh, who will carry the gold back to her war-torn Ukraine, that I cried. And can you not be moved by Julien Alfred and Saint Lucia’s only Olympic medal in history, a gold?
We needed this Olympics, dirty Seine or not! Like oxygen, we need to see there is beauty and grace in the humanity who populate this orb with us. We need to see that hate does not make us strong or good at our chosen field. We will not believe that grievance will drive us to win because we are witness to the camaraderie among Olympic competitors, the support of one for another, countryman or not. And we will not go back to any time where fear dominates and freedom to be is stripped to leave us empty and wanting.
In this country we stand at a crossroad and we look for a way forward. We will choose a right path and we will not look back.
In Driven: A Rita Mars Thriller, Rita spends time wading through corporate records, social media and online sources in her quest to identify the killer of her reporter friend, Bobby Ellis.
Why is this such a slavish task when we believe the Federal Election Commission (FEC) requires periodic reports that disclose the total amount of all contributions they receive, and the identity, address, occupation, and employer of any person who contributes more than $200 during a calendar year?
Secret contributions and dark money took on new freedoms in 1976 with the Buckley v. Valeo, landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on campaign finance. The justices held that limits on election spending in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 were unconstitutional.
The Court ruled that expenditure limits contravened the First Amendment provision on freedom of speech because a restriction on spending for political communication necessarily reduces the quantity of expression. It limited disclosure provisions and limited the Federal Election Commission‘s power.
At the heart of this ruling and subsequent gaming of the system, is the shielding of donations via non-profits. These are the organizations given free rein: 501(c)(4) (“social welfare”), 501(c)(5) (unions) and 501(c)(6) (trade association) groups not to disclose donors. These groups receive unlimited donations from corporations, individuals and unions and not discloses to voters where the money came from.
Examples of 501(c)(4) are National Rifle Association, Planned Parenthood, Majority Forward, One Nation. 501(c)(5) examples are Service Employees International Union (SEIU), American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Examples of
Beyond the nondisclosure provision, Political Action Committees (PACs) frequently employ LLCs to disguise the identity of a donor or source of money spent on behalf of a political candidate.
LLCs are governed by state law but minimal information is necessary to file the required articles of incorporation. In states such as Delaware, New Mexico, Nevada and Wyoming, LLCs may be incorporated without reporting names of members or managers.
The lack of transparency helps disguise the source of millions of dollars in political spending. Shell LLC companies make major contributions to super PACs each election cycle, leaving voters in the dark while the recipient often knows the donor’s true identity. The influx of dark money jumped from around $5M in 2012 election to over $1B in the 2020 cycle.
So how can anyone like a Rita Mars get to the truth of backers/donors from these organizations when there is no comprehensive federal finance accountability legislation in place?There are some methods to put names to these mystery donors. Here is a list of tactics to track dark money expenditures:
Issue One, OpenSecrets, and PBS are all organizations that have conducted extensive research into dark money but they have only modest access to reveal the biggest spenders.
Ava Barry, A 1948 Unsolved Murder and A First Novel
Ava Barry has been a script reader for Bold Films and Intrigue Entertainment. She was also an editorial assistant for Zoetrope: All-Story, Francis Ford Coppola’s literary magazine.
Windfall is her first novel. Ava lives in Australia.
In these thrill matches, the sharp protagonists, Lee Coburn, Joe Pickett, and Jack Reacher—naming only a few—team up to pit their skills for thriller fans.
All contributors are International Thriller Writers (ITW) members. The project is edited by ITW member and #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child.
The lineup includes: Sandra Brown’s Lee Coburn vs. C. J. Box’s Joe Pickett Val McDermid’s Tony Hill vs. Peter James’s Roy Grace Kathy Reichs’s Temperance Brennan vs. Lee Child’s Jack Reacher Diana Gabaldon’s Jamie Fraser vs. Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone Gayle Lynds’s Liz Sansborough vs. David Morrell’s Rambo Karin Slaughter’s Jeffrey Tolliver vs. Michael Koryta’s Joe Pritchard Charlaine Harris’s Harper Connelly vs. Andrew Gross’s Ty Hauck Lisa Jackson’s Regan Pescoli vs. John Sandford’s Virgil Flower Lara Adrian’s Lucan Thorne vs. Christopher Rice’s Lilliane Lisa Scottoline’s Bennie Rosato vs. Nelson DeMille’s John Corey J.A. Jance’s Ali Reynolds vs. Eric Van Lustbader’s Bravo Shaw
Valerie Webster and Driven: A Rita Mars Thriller in the spotlight via Author of the Day interview.
Make your next book club event an author event with a writer who’s lived the cases, developed the crime fighting technologies. Contact Valerie Webster today.
