The Ironic Cherry Reads...

Dark Money

by Jane Mayer

The great Jane Mayer, who wrote Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas, and The Dark Side, about the abuses that occurred during our "war on terror," has written another timely and gripping book of America and politics.  Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Radical Right is about as nail-biting as any work of political espionage.  It is a much needed expose of Charles and David Koch, who have been on a path to control politics and government since 1970, as well as a not-too-long list of the wealthiest few with the most power.

On that list, in a chapter on gaining control of the states, is Art Pope, who has engineered the demise of North Carolina through large donations to private and anonymous -- and untaxed non-profit -- organizations, which he controls.  Here I am in South Carolina well awash in right wingnuts with an anti-tax, pro-gun, anti-EPA, anti-Obamacare, anti-education agenda, and as I read about the gutting of North Carolina by Art Pope, my heart was breaking.

The "Kochtopus" as Mayer says this multi-layered secretive organization has been called, may have been incubating for a few decades, but it came into full flower with the first semi-annual donors' conference a week after the inauguration of Barack Obama in January, 2009.  It is this event that begins the book, because it was the election of an African American Democratic president that spurred these corporate giants to join forces to do everything in their power to, as the popular saying goes, "Take back the country."

In fact, when Donald Trump and Sarah Palin talk about taking back the country, the fans in the audience are unlikely to realize the true meaning.  It is in fact the goal of the Kochs to take the country back from anyone who believes that the government belongs to the people, and not just the wealthy.  Their fight has been, from the beginning, a fight against paying taxes, against environmental and worker safety regulation, against anything or anyone who would get in the way of profit.

Their means evolve over time, as Mayer describes in well-documented detail.  You may have heard that the Kochs are generous philanthropists, giving to The Kennedy Center, National Public Radio, The Smithsonian, and a mind-blowing number of educational institutes.  And all that generosity is not for nothing.

The Kochs have managed to fund programs in secondary schools as well as universities to influence and develop libertarian courses throughout the country, including our own College of Charleston, where, according to the Center for Public Integrity:

At the College of Charleston, the Charles Koch Foundation sought names and email addresses of any student participating in a Koch-sponsored class, and to be notified in advance of media outreach related to the school.

Textbooks in courses influenced by Koch generosity describe the New Deal as a failure and free market philosophies as the true path to success.   The David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, opened in 2010, promotes the position that humans will be better off by adapting to climate change rather than fighting it; for example, we might "build 'underground cities' and develop 'short, compact bodies' or 'curved spines' so that 'moving around in tight spaces will be no problem.' "

With plenty of aforethought and great stealth, in 2011, before census results had been released, the plan to take over the country through redistricting began to be implemented.  In North Carolina, public meetings were held and public testimony obtained but ignored.  When the state supreme court was about to hear the suit claiming the maps violated the Voting Rights Act, outside cash wisely spent during the 2012 judicial race kept the court conservative, and in line.

After the 2012 election, the Kochs and their icky partners decided that the republican party could not be trusted to take the country back, so they redoubled their funding and their plans.  We may chuckle about how the republican party continues to try to rewrite their agenda to effect voters' feelings about them without changing their pro-corporate power anti-everything-else agenda.  But it has worked.

It worked dramatically in North Carolina, in states like Wisconsin and Kansas.  It worked to turn Congress not just red but Tea Party red.  And it has been courting and winning over our justices for decades.  They won't stop until they also can cut a notch into their belts for the presidency.

All those fear mongering right-wing ads that are carpet-bombing our state are being brought to us by the Kochtopus.  It is no surprise Marco Rubio has moved up in the polls, because there is a lot of dark money betting on that horse.  And it may be that nobody likes Ted Cruz, but he toes the Koch party line, and in return they will keep him well fed.  Follow the money.  As Mayer documents, most of it goes back to the Kochs.

I could go on.  This is a nearly 400 page book, and I wish there were an additional 400 pages.  It is horrifying, and it is hard to walk away from.  As it should be.

The Charleston County Public Library in an all-too-rare flash of wisdom, has purchased eight copies in hardback, as well as audio and eBook format.  I hope you will give this really important book a read.

Getting Away with Lies

Yesterday, the Post & Courier had an opinion piece by Dave Schwartz.  You may not know him; he doesn't even have a wikipedia page.  But this is just the way his employer, David Koch, of the Americans for Prosperity, likes it.  Anonymity allowed him and his brother, the other Koch, to get away with years of control of our legislators, until investigative journalists like Rachel Maddow forced them out of the shadows.

So we have this new guy who comes into town and spreads lies about bad government and good corporations, bad taxes and good job creators, and then moves on.  He has been State Director for AFP in Maryland, then Virginia, and now South Carolina.

The opinion piece in the Post and Courier is an example of the dirtiest of dirty work, full of blatant and absurd lies, like calling the American Legislative Exchange Council "non-partisan."  He argues, predictably, that it is our high state taxes that is the cause of all our ills.  If only we had low taxes like Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, we would have -- that's right -- job growth and prosperity.  And he sites that other "non-partisan" group, the Civitas Institute, for research that states that SC has the highest tax rate and the "lowest take-home pay in the region."  The Civitas Institute, for those of you who aren't aware, is that North Carolina group of right wing-nuts who, despite Schwartz claim that they are non-partisan, describes themselves as "North Carolina's conservative voice."  A voice that is funded by Art Pope, who as NC budget director engineered the cutbacks that have devastated North Carolina in recent years.  He has just resigned; we might want to keep an eye on him to see where he will be going to spread his dysentery next.

Anyway, to get back to Dave Schwartz and the Post & Courier.  He has made claims in that piece that are totally fabricated, made to scare and anger readers.  We know he is disseminating lies.  We know that our governor bribes businesses to our state with tax giveaways, that our education system suffers as a result, that too many of our workers are not paid a living wage.  We know that the reason our economic growth in SC is lower than much of the rest of the country is that our yahoos in the legislature and our governor are wasting our resources working to cut services to the poor, deny voting rights to seniors and minorities, and ensure that workers are not allowed to fight for a living wage.  We also know that big corporations are favored over small businesses, and that because the wealthy who profit in our state are not made to contribute, our education, health care and infrastructure resembles that of a third world country, where the lines are clearly drawn between the rich and the poor, and those in the shrinking middle struggle every day to access the American dream.

We should not allow Dave Schwartz and other Koch and Pope minions to get away with disseminating lies without fear of contradiction.  When we see an article online, let's quickly comment.  Let's write letters to the editor pointing out the fallacies and distortions, and correcting the misinformation.  Let's not complain among ourselves, or ignore these outrages.  They will not go away.  They will invade and erode, so that truth becomes fiction.  They snuck into North Carolina like body snatchers and left its government wasted and its people devastated.

It is hard to believe that we have elections coming up in a few months.  Interest has been pretty lackadaisical, considering all we have at stake.  Our Democratic politicians and candidates aren't screaming loud enough, they aren't showing enough outrage.  Shouldn't one of those candidates be writing an Op Ed in the Post and Courier denouncing Dave Schwartz's ridiculous claims?

Somebody, anybody, everybody, please, speak out.  And let's start with the fact that he is misrepresenting who he is and what his organizations stand for. 

Education - Corporate America's Biggest Victory

Ted Cruz is coming to town tomorrow.  He's going to be speaking at the 8th Annual Free Enterprise Foundation Dinner.  If that's not enough to get you to drop what you're doing and head out to the Citadel, Rick Santorum is also going to be there.  And Nikki Haley will be smiling her Miss Right-Wing South Carolina smile, soaking in the publicity.

To my astonishment, the Free Enterprise Foundation is tax-deductible.  As far as I can tell, they get away with this by pretending they are educational, as opposed to indoctrinational.  And I'm not just saying that based on the number of times they use the word "freedom."  Although if you click on the button called "Freedomville" on their website, it offers to take you to their "Financial Literacy Curriculum."

Except that when I tried to get to Freedomville I got an error message.

And more mysterious, there is no Free Enterprise Foundation listed on Wikipedia.

If not for the Washington Post article about tomorrow's big dinner, I would have no idea that they are brought to us by Americans for Prosperity and Citizens United.  Now, Americans for Prosperity calls itself an "organization of grassroots leaders," the leader of which is that old grassroots guy, David Koch, seen not too long ago on the board of Boston's PBS station, WGBH.  Apparently, if you can't kill public broadcasting, you just buy a position on the board.

This bizarre situation that finds David Koch running PBS, is I suppose the other reason these folks are allowed to be considered non-partisan, tax-exempt, and grassroots --  because they claim to be educational.  In fact, this Free Enterprise Foundation is not only based at The Citadel, but:

We have a close working relationship with faculty at the Citadel, the College of Charleston, and the Medical University of South Carolina.

Are we outraged yet?  Where are those liberal attorneys who can pore through reams of legal documents and confront these partisan corporate critters?  Are we so under the thumb of the Kochs and groups like this and the American Enterprise Institute that we will let them lay claim to Charleston's proud educational institutions?

Close working relationship with faculty???

Well, that does it.  You won't find me at the fundraiser tomorrow night.  I'll just be here at home crying into a beer and wondering how we in Charleston have so easily sold out our institutions of learning.

He Said She Said They Said

I took the plunge and went to Mark Sanford's campaign website today.

Apparently, he can't find anything negative to say about anything Elizabeth Colbert Busch said.  So his strategy is to attack her through anyone she may have sat in the same room with, or who may have been mentioned in the same newspaper she may have read pretty much since the Clinton administration.

I know.  This is bizarre, but it really speaks of Sanford's desperation.  And his really weird reasoning processes.  Not to mention the lack of respect he has for the intelligence of his voting public.

For example, one of the two items on page one of the Sanford for Congress website claims that Colbert Busch is refusing to debate with Sanford despite the fact that a debate is scheduled for April 29th.  Apparently, the Sanford campaign made up a story that his opponent had agreed to a debate on the 17th and then claimed that she backed out. And then claims that she has "no time for debates."  And then, in case you hadn't yet got the point he adds:  "Since Colbert Busch won't debate...."  Even though she in fact, will.

The real point of this no-debate nonsense, though, is to highlight all those commie pinko left-wing liberals that she would rather be meeting with in DC on the day of that fictitious debate.  The point being that she is actually fund raising among people of her own party, while claiming that she will bring an independent mind to the issues facing Congress.  Which I guess means that Sanford will not.

I don't know.  I think when it comes to infamous people supporting your campaign, I would have to go with a few of Mark's big dollar donors.  You've probably heard of David Koch, of Americans for Prosperity fame, who while helping fund Mitt Romney's run for the White House, also released a letter to members of Congress warning them not to support aid to Hurricane Sandy victims.  Then there is perennial Rick Santorum fan Foster Friess, whose real claim to fame may not be so much his great wealth or bad judgment in backing candidates, but his cute comment about how back in his day, women used to put Bayer aspirin between their knees for cheap birth control.

Other donors to Sanford's campaign are billionaire and hedge fund manager extraordinaire, Richard Chilton, Jr., and the ever hilarious Fred Malek whose scandals just have to be enumerated, as did Elspeth Reeve in The Atlantic Wire last year:

Every year or so, poor old Fred Malek, the GOP fundraiser, has to suffer through a callback to his youthful indiscretions, like that one crazy time in his twenties that he and his friends were caught drunkenly barbecuing a dog on a spit, or the wacky moment in his thirties when he counted the Jews in the Bureau of Labor Statistics so President Nixon could demote them, or the hilarious time in his sixties when the Securities and Exchange Commissioned ordered him to personally pay a $100,000 fine for allegedly using taxpayer funds to reward a political supporter. *(Youth!)

Finally, let's not accuse Mark of just having out-of-town big name friends.  Thomas Ravenel, who Sanford was forced to suspend from his position as Treasurer in 2007 after indictment on federal charges of cocaine distribution, has no hard feelings.  He donated $500 to the campaign.

I think I'll take a liberal's support over that cast of characters any day.

The other item on the home page of the website features all that fear-mongering the-union-is-coming-to-take-your-jobs nonsense with regard to Boeing's move to North Charleston.  There is a strident cartoon that features how stupid we are here in South Carolina.  There are two notable things about this article:  first of all, it doesn't mention how many gazillion dollars our current governor and friend of Sanford gave out in tax breaks to the Boeing corporation, and secondly, it has absolutely nothing to do with Colbert Busch.

So Mark Sanford, whose lies put South Carolina in the national headlines more than once during his gubernatorial career, wants us to just trust him one more time.

But the best he can do on the front page of his website is spin more lies about his opponent.

Who will you trust?

Vote

Elizabeth Colbert Busch

May 7

Irony Abounds

Where to start?

First of all, immediately after announcing Paul Ryan as his running mate, both Mitt and his new sidekick proceeded to blast President Obama for cutting Medicare.  Welcome to Through the Looking Glass, GOP style.

If you recall way back a few months ago, or maybe it was years ago...

Anyway, for as long as I can recall, the republican party has been bashing President Obama for single-handedly increasing the debt.  According to the GOP, we poor folk, those who have lost our jobs, or our health, or our homes, have been living high off the hog here in the Democrats' U.S.A.  Entitlements, entitlements, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a republican on a soap-box talking about entitlements.

Of course, they didn't mean corporate entitlements.  The big corporations -- Wall Street banks, ExxonMobil, big pharma, big agribusiness -- they need us to keep feeding them.  The fatter they get, the hungrier.  After all, we are told, they are the job creators.

But the rest of us poor slobs are just sapping the strength of this great land.

Now the way I remember it, peacemaker Obama agreed to begin to cut the waste out of Medicare, if only the republicans in Congress would agree to just a teensy-weensy tax increase for the wealthy.  Which, of course, left us with Medicare cuts and no increase in taxes.

Those Medicare cuts that Paul Ryan wants you to believe will kill his grandmother are actually to a large extent cuts to the private insurance companies -- Medicare Advantage -- that supplements regular Medicare benefits.  Another large piece of the savings is through lower reimbursement rates to hospitals that see more of the uninsured, which will be less necessary under Obamacare and the individual mandate.

Not exactly killing grandma, is it?

But then, if you can stand to listen further, Ryan (and Mitt) will tell you that you shouldn't worry, you old people.  Because apparently they are only going to screw people under 55.

Okay, so that's Part One of 2012 Madness.

Then there is the unveiling of David Koch.  You know, the gazillionaire that owns Mitt Romney, and unknown other large pieces of the country.  Apparently, it is time for Koch to come out from behind the curtain, especially since we all had caught on to the fact that it was him running things anyway.

Of course, if you have gotten caught red-handed, the smart thing to do is act like you've planned it that way.  So David Koch is actually going to be an official delegate to the Convention.  Even more special, he will be honored at a "Salute to Entrepreneurs," and we can all get tickets.  Well, actually, we can all get on the wait list.  You might be surprised to know that this event, sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, is actually funded by the Koch Brothers.  Well, maybe you won't be surprised.

And definitely not last, but all the irony-processing center in my brain can handle at one sitting, is the cornerstone of the convention.  No, I know you're thinking the anti-abortion plank, but that's the cornerstone behind the cornerstone.  The centerpiece of the convention, which is being "unveiled" today, is the "National Debt Clock".

Don't laugh.  It's true.

After creating laws that would chase down teens and women  trying to get birth control or abortions while shutting down the most cost-effective health care programs available to women...

After refusing to even consider the most modest tax hike for the wealthiest Americans...

After working exhaustively to kill Obamacare despite Congressional Budget Office and other expert opinions that savings will outweigh costs...

...these idiots are going to show us just how much debt we are accruing as they speak.

No, too much irony for me.  Need some air.

The Corporate/Government Union

I live in a "right-to-work cheap" state.  But I can guarantee you that I would be working for a lot less than my $11.00 per hour if unions had not raised wages and improved benefits and working conditions up north where them damn Yankees live.


The non-union workers who are bitter about the good deal the government workers in Wisconsin are trying to preserve should know that as their union's power gets whittled away, our working conditions here in South Carolina will continue to worsen.


Be advised that all those governors who have begun to enact bills similar to that that is getting rammed down the democrats' throats in Wisconsin are working together.  Their goal is not balancing the budget -- Governor Walker put in some tax cuts for his business buddies just before he noted that, oops, now we got a budget that's not balanced.  The goal is a conservative movement goal, taking power out of the hands of the people so that management (including Walker) can make more out of less -- more profit out of lower wages.


The prank call that was ostensibly by David Koch should have us all incensed, not that Walker said anything surprising, but that he has that kind of relationship with one of the biggest corporate entities in the country.  In fact, even though Governor Walker is concerned about his state's deficit, he included in the deadly bill an item that allows for no-bid contracts.  You may recall Halliburton and no-bid contracts in Iraq.  That is where, instead of getting the best deal for the taxpayer, the corporate bedfellow is able to steal huge amounts from the government because there is no competition.


Of course, Walker has some sweet rationalizations for why no-bid contracts, uniformly seen as bad, undemocratic, dishonest, sneaky, and, well, bad, are actually going to help balance the budget.  So that a few years down the road, Koch has pocketed a small fortune from the state of Wisconsin, Walker has pocketed favors and maybe even a nice new non-government job, and the media is able to act incensed that this has happened.


Well, just so you know, it is happening now.  In a few years, Wisconsin's schools will be the worse for this Macchiavellian deal, the budget deficit will indeed be large, and Walker will continue to contend that he tried to straighten things out, but those darned unions wouldn't just go away and die quietly.


And there will be those voters that will say, yeah, you know, it's those unions.