I understand that the business community is fed up with the Tea Party’s brinkmanship on the debt ceiling, and I welcome their efforts to primary some of the extremists. However, I think it’s unfortunate that they are focusing, at least at the outset, on representatives like Justin Amash of Michigan and Walter Jones of North Carolina. While both of these candidates are iconoclasts who have revolted against the Republican leadership in the House, they also are willing to question the GOP’s love affair with the National Security state. I’d like to see the business community focus on representatives who are the worst of all worlds, rather than ones that have something to recommend them.
You might think that the business community is so heavily invested in the national security state that it makes sense for them to purge any outliers in the Republican Party, but if your issue is solving the Tea Party absolutism that is causing gridlock in Washington, Amash and Jones are not the most logical targets. Both of them are more willing to work across the aisle on at least some issues than most of their compatriots.
Having said that, it is interesting to see this split on the right open up in plain view. For now, the business leaders are investigating their ability to put the Tea Party genie back in the bottle, but if they fail in their efforts, where will they turn?
Good observation. But, seriously, you think it’s unfortunate rather than reprehensible? This is no accident. Any vaguely decent person significantly involved in politics deserted the Republicans years ago.
I acknowledge that in a normal world in which only two parties are really permitted, that one will focus mainly on workers and the other mainly on employers. I also acknowledge that the employer party, being always outnumbered, will have to resort to some reprehensible tactics to have a prayer of competing. That doesn’t mean that I think employers don’t have a legitimate stake in setting policy. Right now, the employer party is badly broken. I don’t mind if they fix it.
Booman, down thread I have posted most of the biggest donors to the Club for Growth, one of the major supporters of the shutdown and debt ceiling extortion.
The other, of course (they literally organized it) is Heritage Action, of Jim DeMint’s Heritage Foundation.
Here we get into something a little different, because Heritage Action is funded by “dark money” 501 (c)(4) and does not disclose their donors to the FEC. However, thanks to research by the Center for Responsive Politics, we do know that ONE of their donors in 2012 ($271,000) was something called Free Enterprise America.
In 2011, Free Enterprise America received donations from:
60 Plus Assn c4 $840,000
American Commitment c4 $103,000
Americans for Tax Reform c4 $813,000
Concerned Women for America c4 $30,000
Heritage Action for America c4 $271,000
National Assn of Manufacturers c6 $2,500,000
National Fedn of Independent Business c6 $500,000
Americans for Tax Reform is Grover Norquist, who does not appear to have been directly involved in the present barn-burning.
National Association of Manufacturers, by far the largest donor, fought against the ACA all the way up to the Supreme Court; but even they do not support the shutdown:
http://www.nam.org/Communications/Articles/2013/10/Manufacturers-Shutdown-Prioritizes-Gridlock-Over-
Competitiveness.aspx
The others, American Commitment, Concerned Women for America, Heritage Action for America, and National Federation of Independent Businesses, are all Koch fronts and all part of the “dark money” network that until recently had been run by Koch right-hand man Sean Noble out of Phoenix, AZ. Important elements of this network are Freedom Partners, a money-laundering “bank” whose very existence was not known until recently, and the Center to Protect Patient Rights.
On Sean Noble:
http://www.blogforarizona.com/blog/2012/12/sean-noble-and-campaign-money-laundering-by-the-kochtopus
.html
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/12/center-to-protect-patient-rights-ga.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/02/sean-noble-koch-brothers_n_4017578.html
On Center to Protect Patient Rights and other Koch fronts:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/arizona-dark-money-group-gave-lavishly-to-other-groups
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_to_Protect_Patient_Rights
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/12/center-to-protect-patient-rights-ga.html
On American Commitment:
http://chasvoice.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/open-secrets-american-commitments-missing-millions/
On the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which pretends to be an organization of small business but is actually an organization of big businesses:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/nfib-koch-brothers_n_3943225.html
It appears that this coup attempt has been engineered mainly by the “Kochtopus” and the Club for Growth, representing a small but virulent sector of the business sector, but also who knows what else? It is a real rabbit hole.
I’m sure there are other components but this is a good start. I would look very closely at the career and connections of Jim De Mint.
More on Club for Growth funders, etc. The tax info is from 2010 so may be a little out of date, but provides lots of leads …
http://truth-2-power.com/2011/07/29/who-is-behind-the-union-busting-club-for-growth-pushing-the-tea-
party-into-a-phony-debt-crisis/
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/club-for-growth-gop-94283.html
and yes, turns out there IS an anti-Tea Party republican organization:
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/311339-centrist-group-promises-to-fight-club-for-gro
wth-dollar-for-dollar
http://www.mainstreetadvocacy.com/
Interesting that their leader Steve LaTourette is described as “a close ally of speaker John Boehner”.
The business community’s bottom line is still no taxes and gutting regulation. The focus on Amash and Jones instead of, say, Yoho and Neuberger says that the business community hasn’t gotten serious yet but are playing with image.
Grand bargain = Revenues That is the part that the Republicans and Republican businesses keep wanting to avoid in their debt peacock strutting.
I understand that the business community is fed up with the Tea Party’s brinkmanship on the debt ceiling, ….
LOL!! Did you read the NYT yesterday? Did anyone know that the scumbag Ed Meese was still alive? The business community loves this. If they didn’t it would have been settled already. Besides, they have most of the Democrats in their back pocket already.
Do you ever read the links before you comment?
Of course I did. Because I read this:
“It’s a new dynamic, and we don’t know how far it’s going to go,” said Vin Weber, a former GOP congressman who is close to the House leadership. “All the energy in the Republican Party the last few years has come from the tea party. The notion that there might be some energy from the radical center, ..
Vin Weber? Seriously? Bill “William the Bloody” Kristol’s PNAC buddy talking NoLabels “radical center” garbage? We all know how well that’s going to fare in a GOP primary. It’s going to fail spectacularly.
I don’t think you can say it’s “the business community” that’s behind the Tea Party. It’s a segment of the business community.
You want proof? The US Chamber of Commerce, not exactly a bastion of liberalism, has come out against these morons (i.e. those who think govt shut down and debt ceiling brinkmanship is a great idea).
If you’re interested, I think it would not be hard to trace which businesses back the Tea Party, aside from the Koch Brothers, which we already know. Just look at the organizations that support the radicals, like the Heritage Foundation and Club for Growth. Then see what businesses fund them.
That is a very basic question, maybe I’ll do it myself.
Thanks for all that. I guess my point is that these guys have all usurped the “Rockefeller Republican” Wall Street crowd re: power in the GOP. And these clowns are willing to burn down the barn to save the horses, so to speak.
OK, let’s start with the Club for Growth.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/08/3677360/club-for-growth-deserves-part.html
According to Research by the Center for Responsive Politics, their ten top donors in 2012 were:
Rank Organization From Individuals From Organizations
1 JW Childs Assoc $1,125,000 $0
2 Exoxemis Inc $1,025,000 $0
3 Clarium Capital Management $1,000,000 $0
3 Perry Homes $1,000,000 $0
3 Thiel Capital $1,000,000 $0
6 Uline Inc $835,000 $0
7 Research Affiliates LLC $750,000 $0
8 Team Demint $0 $700,000
9 Renaissance Technologies $600,000 $0
10 Peacock Engineering $500,000 $0
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/09/25/club-for-growth-ted-cruz-top-donors-obamacare
-government-shutdown-health-care/2867561/
“[Peter] Thiel, a PayPal co-founder and early Facebook investor who has backed Libertarian-leaning candidates, donated $2 million to the Club for Growth super PAC, records filed with the Federal Election Commission show. Five others have contributed at least $1 million.
….
“Robert Arnott, the CEO of a California investment management firm, donated $1 million to the super PAC between March 2011 and the end of April, according to FEC records. In an interview this week, he seemed untroubled by the Republican infighting.
“I’m not a Republican or a Democrat. I’m a Libertarian,” he said. “I’m a believer in limited government.” He said the health care law creates a “massive bureaucracy.”
“Why screw up the economy to force into action something that’s so sloppily written and that will be such a drain on the macro-economy?”
Thiel, who spent substantially to aid former Texas GOP congressman Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign, did not respond to interview requests from USA TODAY.
Other donors who have contributed at least $1 million to the super PAC since Jan. 1, 2011, include:
None responded to interview requests. A fifth $1 million donor, Houston homebuilder and veteran GOP contributor Bob Perry, died earlier this year.
Asked about the group’s funders, Keller said: “Club members are champions for economic freedom, and we are honored to have their support.”
* * * *
The CEO of ExOxEmis, a Little Rock based pharmaceutical company, happens to be Jackson Stephens, Jr. director of the Club for Growth.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/club-for-growth-directors_n_3286332.html
The hard part for the corporatists isn’t shutting them down, which would be relatively easy. The hard part is getting them under tighter control and rebranding them again.
It makes a kind of sense to start the counterattack against the Tea Party’s fellow travelers instead of the true believers. The fellow travelers can be scared out of the TP fold. The true believers can’t be deterred; if you don’t defeat them in the primary it will only piss them off.
Sorry for the double post.
What RT said. Also, the point here isn’t necessarily to beat them – just running the challenge has the effect of providing equivalence to the primarying threat from the TP that has done so much to win fealty to Teh Crazee from people who may be reactionary assholes but at least are reality-based in their private moments – which, I suspect, is not an inconsequential part of their delegation.
Give people a choice: be reality-based and get a TP challenger, or be Crazee and get a challenger and get your money spigot turned off. With some folks, that might just work – it at least has to be tried.
Meanwhile, if you can expect a challenger no matter which way you lean, that sounds an awful lot like a third major party, doesn’t it?
I’m not sure that the GOP business types can be accurately called “reality-based”.
The failing that both Amash and Jones have is not their TP allegiance but their growing squishiness on national security and intelligence community support.
I don’t see this as more than a purge of those who might question national security expenditures and practices. In Jones’s case, that’s going to be interesting because he has worked hard to treat the rank-and-file at Camp Lejeune as a huge part of his base.
Precisely.
Thank you.
AG
I disagree. They have the priorities and values of psychopaths, but they’re not the ones saying climate change is a hoax because God would never allow it, or that women can’t make rape babies. They’re all about short-term self-interest, but they’re very, very clear what that means, especially in private. So long as it benefits them, everyone else can go fk themselves. It’s an ugly reality, but it is reality, and by comparison to the TP it almost – almost – looks sane.
At least you can have a negotiation with them based on their self-interest. The Teahadists haven’t been interested in negotiating because virtually by definition they can’t. The thing about alternate realities is that they’re not very flexible – once you’ve constructed one it’s that even that much more energy to change it. Nothing’s negotiable.
That, in fact, is how, absent any other information, you can tell which is which. The real world is constantly changing. Fantasy worlds – of any type – don’t.
“The business community,” eh Booman? As reported in the Washington Post? The Post is a newspaper/brand/media presence once owned by flagrant CIA assets and an equally flagrant employer of same (Bob Woodward, just for starters), now owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos…Amazon, undoubtedly one of the largest collectors of personal information (and controllers of printed information) in the digital age and also undoubtedly…on the evidence of being allowed to buy the Post if for no other reason (and there are plenty of other reasons as well)…well cozied-up to the surveillance state on any number of levels.
“The business community?” (As defined by said Washingtoon Post, of course.) Picking only upon so-called “Tea Partiers” who also oppose the surveillance state and our continuing efforts in militarily-enforced economic imperialism. Who woulda thought!!!???
Get real, Booman.
Get real.
A cursory search yielded this little tidbit from yet another most likely CIA-owned and operated set of sources.
From The Detroit News:
I repeat:
“… all the money he’ll need from “a group of people who can give at robust levels…Translation: The leading business and political names in Grand Rapids are backing Ellis’ bid, which he’s expected to announce formally next month.”
A translation, is it?
Here’s my translation.
The corporate-owned PermaGov has been and continues to pull every string it can manage to grab to get rid of any and every anti-PermaWar politician who dares to pokes up his or her head, from people like Ron Paul and Alan Grayson (You don’t much like Grayson either, right? Riiiiight…) on down through any “kinder/gentler”-style dogcatcher who makes the mistake of opposing the American Empire as it now stands.
Get real, Booman.
Get real.
You are using the Washingtoon Post as a serious source of “news?”
Wake the fuck up. The Grahams sold the newspaper down the river to the Dulles boys and Frank Wisner way back in in 1948.
Where you been!!!???
AG
P.S. Dave Trott!!!???
I got yer ” well-funded…mainstream Republican.” Right here!!!
Hey…this guy is so vicious even Jamie Dimon can’t deal with him.
So you support the PermaGov-approved financial hawks over people who are at least attempting to stop this ongoing American fiasco from getting any worse? Across the board?
Nice, Booman.
Very nice.
Wake the fuck up.
Or at least change your logo.
That whole tied-up-frog-who-looks-a-lot-like-Karl-Rove-headed-for-the-gallows thing?
It is so dated now. Today? Today you support people like David Trott. Anybody who provides shelter for your DemRats from the coming storm.
Wow!!!
Things sure have changed, haven’t they!!!
P.P.S. From my 1/25/13 article on this site, The Senate Dems Did Indeed Do Their “Duty,” Booman. To Their Senate Club.
Nuthin’ new here…been that way since 2004 and before.
One party, two names.
The UniParty.
Ain’tcha sick of the scam, yet?
I am.
Bet on that as well.
I repeat:
“… all the money he’ll need from “a group of people who can give at robust levels…Translation: The leading business and political names in Grand Rapids are backing Ellis’ bid, which he’s expected to announce formally next month.”
You do realize that Ellis is going to be facing Amway money(DeVos), right? So Ellis’ backers are going to have to dig very deep. If I had to put my money on anyone in that race, it would be Amash.
Maybe if they threatened to withhold funding entirely. Too radical an idea, apparently.
I’m sure they’re desperately seeking a solution where they can continue to have it both ways. It’s going to take a doomsday deadline to force them to choose.