"Pension Plan"
capt 1217, bak 1119 wing-nut welfare
see 2 bak
this refers to lifetime guarantee of work via RWI
expand 6/17 to include zombie/pundit ability to be useful/paid even after outed eg happer, soon
note that some seem to be going for academia heads vs corp boards etc, maybe more prestige (also can attract funding, since feds cut aid to states? in Gt rec, sequester?)
eg Boren,(u okla, deny frack earthquake suppress) John Graham at Indiana Univ, starr pepperdine
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walker, pence pension: president of the Young America’s Foundation
aha 1/20 new pension tag:
RWI is a [target-] rich ecosystem [JOK seeks targets proxy?]; ideological entre look for niche; revolving door part of this system, also incubator which might expose young ppl to ideas and opportunities/funding otherwise not; pension plan also signals to ideol entre new incubator recruits that it's a hood/smart bet because fail does not matter, we got your back / gig; [fe given mktpklace meritocrisy BS]
https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/heres-why-cory-gardner-and-other-gop-senators-are-still-all-in-for-trump-even-if-it-costs-them-the-election/
alex h
recent polls have not been looking good for Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, who is trailing his Democratic opponent, former Gov. John Hickenlooper, by 9%, according to Morning Consult as well as Public Policy Polling. Trumpism is not serving Gardner well, begging the question: why is the Colorado Republican doubling down on his support of President Donald Trump even though it appears likely to cost him the election? Never Trump conservative journalist Jonathan V. Last answers that question in an article published in The Bulwark over Labor Day Weekend. And Last’s explanation applies not only to Gardner, but also, to Sen. Martha McSally of Arizona, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and other incumbent GOP senators in swing states who refuse to say a word against the president.
“Gardner is running behind Trump in a state that Trump is going to lose,” Last observes. “And yet, Gardner remains almost wholly beholden to Trump. Why is that?”
Last, citing polling data from Morning Consult, stresses that Gardner’s “political career is over” in Colorado — where “Democrats loathe him, independents are repelled by him, and Republicans see him as a cuck for not supporting Trump from the start.”
“He almost certainly realizes that there is no path forward for him in Colorado politics,” Last argues. “The state is changing, demographically and politically, and he’s on the wrong side of everything: he’s not where the main body of voters are, and he’s not where the party base are, either. He’s both too Trump and not QAnon enough…. So why is Gardner still all-in for Trump?'
the answer, according to Last: Gardner is putting “party over country.” Gardner, Last emphasizes, is the type of Republican who sees “the Republican Party as a higher priority than the country itself” — and when he loses to Hickenlooper, he “is going to have to make due with raking in the Benjamins in the private-sector sinecures reserved for washed-up politicos.”
Last doesn’t discuss McSally in his Bulwark article on Gardner. But taking the conservative journalist’s arguments a step further, one could say that Gardner is thinking long-term: even if he is “washed up” in Colorado, he could still have a place in Republican politics in general — perhaps as a pundit at Fox News, perhaps writing books, perhaps hosting a radio program. The same applies to McSally. Although poll after poll shows her losing to Democrat Mark Kelly in Arizona’s 2020 U.S. Senate race, she isn’t about to criticize Trump because she knows there could be money-making opportunities for her down the road in the right-wing media.
After being voted out of office in 2006, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was never elected to public office again yet remained a prominent figure in right-wing politics. CNN, in the Trump era, has often featured Santorum as a pro-Trump pundit. And former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the late Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, made millions of dollars as a pundit even though she never became vice president and never ran for political office again after 2008. Palin is an embarrassment, but in the right-wing media, she is taken seriously.
The “private-sector sinecures reserved for washed-up politicos,” as Last describes them, can be incredibly lucrative. Palin is the butt of jokes outside of the GOP/Fox News/AM talk radio bubble, but that hasn’t stopped her from making millions of dollars.
If recent polls are accurate, Trumpism will cause Gardner and McSally to be voted out of office in November — even if Trump himself manages to pull off a narrow victory in the Electoral College. But the right-wing media often find ways for wingnuts to prosper after they lose elections, from Fox News appearances and AM talk radio shows to book deals. And cable news viewers will probably be seeing a lot of Gardner and McSally in 2021 no matter how badly they lose in November.
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6/18 neo-cons geo shultz and yoo are back sd pundits b/c of contrast with disaster djt
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omfg
brownback get religious ambassador gig?
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omg
Tim Huelskamp served for three terms in Congress, representing the 1st District of Kansas. During his time in congress, he worked on the Veterans Affairs Committee where, according to his profile at the Heartland Institute, he “was a leader in exposing the corruption and failures at the VA and pushing through a historic health care choice option for veterans.” He also chaired the Elections and Local Government, Information Technology, and Medicaid Reform committees.[2]
He was elected for his first term in November 2010, and subsequently re-elected in 2012 and 2014. Huelskamp was chairman of the the Tea Party Caucus from February 2015. He ran for re-election in 2016 to be defeated in the Republican primary by Roger Marshall. His House term ended January 3, 2017. [3], [4]
“In Congress, Congressman Huelskamp is a leading conservative advocate for life, marriage, cutting spending, reducing taxes, lowering regulatory burdens, and repealing Obamacare,” his archived Congressional biography reads. He also proudly declares “He leading the battle to reduce government regulations, such as the intrusive Waters of the United States rule and the Endangered Species Act.” Among his stances, Huelskamp has alsostrongly supported defunding Planned Parenthood and is against gay marriage. [3], [2], [5], [6]
In June, 2017, theHeartland Instituteannounced that Huelskamp would replace Joe Bast as the Institute's president, beginning his work in July 2017.Huelskamp maintains alifetime score of 5% with the League of Conservation Voters, with a score of 0% in 2016. A full list oflegislation sponsored or cosponsored by Huelskamp is available at Congress.gov. According to his voting record tracked at *OnTheIssues*, Huelskamp has consistently voted against any legislation that would combat fossil fuel emissions or climate change. [7], [8], [9], [10]
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pension plan: Graham, Dudley, Bolten, ebharrison
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see public pension and Divestment
i thought i made up a metaphor, but: There is so much money in conservatism these days that Karl Rove rightly boasts, “We can now go to students at Harvard and say, ‘There is now a secure retirement plan for Republican operatives.’” The young people who, like Jack Abramoff before them, have answered conservatism’s call over the past three decades were obeying their conscience, perhaps, but they were also making a canny career move. wrecking crew
full:
For some in winger Washington this is an idealistic business, but what gives it power and longevity is that it is a profitable business. I mean this not as polemic but as a statement of fact. Washington swarms with conservative ideologues not because conservatives particularly like the place but because there isan entire industry here that supports these people—an industry subsidized by the nation’s largest corporations and its richest families, and the government too. We are all familiar with the flagship organizations—Cato, Heritage, AEI—but the industry extends far beyond these, encompassing numerous magazines and literally hundreds of lobbying firms. There is even adaily newspaper—the Washington Times—published strictly for the movement’s benefit, a propaganda sheet whose distortions are so obvious and so alien that it puts one in mind of those official party organs one encounters when traveling in authoritarian countries.
There are political strategists, pollsters, campaign managers, trainers of youth, image consultants, makers of TV commercials, revolutionaries-for-hire, and, of course, direct-mail specialists who still launch their million-letter raids on the mailboxes of the heartland. Remember the guy who wrote all those sputtering diatribes for your college newspaper? Chances are he’s in D.C. now, thinking big thoughts from an endowed chair, or churning out more of the brilliant usual for one of the movement’s many blogs. The campus wingnut whose fulminations on the Red Menace so amused my friends and me at the University of Virginia, for example, resurfaced here as a columnist for the Washington Times before transitioning inevitably into consultancy. A friend of mine who went to Georgetown recently recalled for me the capers of his campus wingnut, whom he had completely forgotten until the guy made headlines as the lead culprit in a minor 2004 scandal called “Memogate.” Later he worked for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, teaching democratic civics to Iraqi politicians.
There is so much money in conservatism these days that Karl Rove rightly boasts, “We can now go to students at Harvard and say, ‘There is now a secure retirement plan for Republican operatives.’” The young people who, like Jack Abramoff before them, have answered conservatism’s call over the past three decades were obeying their conscience, perhaps, but they were also making a canny career move.
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DESTROYS PENALTY FOR BAD CONDUCT; even nixon rehabbed? but also attractor // incubator: you can't fail ~ market dogma (irony) ; thus encourages more extreme behavior? (amply fdbk)
This is a somewhat ironic name for the phemomenon of all the different ways that an "ideological entrepreneur" can milk the RWI: a big part of this is the revolving door, another aspect is that the same output can be disseminated (and thus paid) over various media. The most important aspect, however, is that the right is the only ppl who have a lifetime guarantee for income, even if convicted of criminal offense, larry craig, scooter?
Related aspects: sometimes money is laundered by giving wife a sinecure (eg patrick henry college), see also nepotism
pvt intel corps also a retirement plan for retired military and gov't ppl? tho/and presumably huge homeland defense indisry (cf dana priest) and big data assure many lucrative gigs
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5/15
CRP’s revolving door data, which we will continue to update, shows that 42 of the 75 who left Capitol Hill at the end of the last Congress or sometime during that two-year term are currently employed — 18 of them by lobbying firms or law firms that also lobby.
They include, among others, former Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), who lost his bid for re-election and is now a “strategic advisor” at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck; Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.), one of only two incumbent GOP House members to lose his seat in the 2014 Republican wave and now a senior adviser at Kelley, Drye & Warren; and Reps. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) and Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who were both poached by powerhouse firm Squire Patton Boggs. Matheson retired, while Kingston lost his bid for a Senate seat to David Perdue (R).
kochtopus has its own HR:
As the Washington Post has put it, this is a "human resources hub" for the Koch network. It recruits job candidates and provides adminstrative services to Koch network affiliates.
Received money from: -
- Freedom Partners $6,738,000
- TC4 Trust $1,762,387
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rt nation PENSION 169: rw college? paper to intern fellow at aei, u chic, ctt, admin post (each strain of rw has its own places). columns, fox, speechs eg D'Souza (bio of falwell)
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In a third category are tactics and situations that will be very difficult for Democrats to emulate, and equally difficult to eliminate. The most important of these, well described in both books, is what Edsall calls “the merger between the Republican Party and business.” This is not just a matter of campaign contributions; that’s a very small part of it. There is, for example, the practice of getting businesses to hire Republican operatives and politicians, allowing Rove to exult, “We can now go to students at Harvard and say, ‘There is now a secure retirement plan for Republican operatives.’” one party to rule them all schmitt
leftover, but interesting contrast: [social sec the biggest prize for privatization, aside maybe from education?
AMY GOODMAN: You write, "Deregulation is one of the greatest triumphs of America’s ruling class, but [for] middle-class workers and their families the fallout has been devastating." What about retirement and pensions?
JAMES STEELE: One of the most astonishing statistics that we think we have in the book, because we were not aware of this statistic: since 1985, almost 85,000 pension plans have been killed. In the '50s, the ’60s, the ’70s, even into the early ’80s, more and more people were eligible for pensions, defined benefit plans where you got a specific benefit when you did retire.But since the mid-'80s, corporations, with the great assistance of Congress, have been shifting people out of pensions into 401(k) plans. Now, there’s nothing wrong with 401(k) plans, but originally they were viewed just as a supplement to a pension. They were not viewed as a pension. But corporations saw this would be a lot cheaper for them. It would shift the responsibility totally to the employees and the workers. But it would also not contribute enough to really take care of their retirement needs.
So, what’s happened in—this is one of the greatest title shifts in the country, because we were going in a certain direction for decades, middle-class people—I mean, not everybody had a pension. We know that. But more and more did over time. But since the '80s, this has now been totally reversed. And it raises all kinds of questions about what retirement is going to be like for people. The main question is, people are going to have to work forever, and yet what are those jobs going to be? What are they going to pay? And it also puts pressure then on people coming into the workforce. How are they going to get a job if people are having to work between 65 and 75 years old? That's going to put even more pressure on the jobs that are left.
DONALD BARLETT: And the other irony of this is—this is almost another Sandy Weill incident. You have the current head of AIG, who was not there during the collapse. He had nothing to do with it. He worked for another global insurance company. He was brought in after AIG collapsed, and the taxpayers bailed them out, and they still haven’t paid everything back yet. He was quoted as saying earlier this year that people are just going to have to get used to the idea of working until they are 70 or 80. Now, he made that pronouncement from his villa in Dubrovnik in Croatia.