Crane, Ed
===
oops eli not ed
an 5 23
:{
}:
no lnx
arizona Senate Republicans began a two-day convening of hearings Thursday morning centered around "supposed 'atrocities' committed by public health officials in response to the Covid-19 pandemic," Rolling Stone reports.
Planned by the newly formed Novel Coronavirus South Western Intergovernmental Committee (NCSWIC), "the QAnon-inflected, anti-vaccine circus" according to Rolling Stone, will involve "appearances from a murderers' row of hard-right federal congressmen, including Reps. Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and Eli Crane."
Additionally, the publication reports "The NCSWIC committee will take testimony from a panel of notorious doctors who have touted unproven and discredited treatments for Covid — includingone doc who preaches that Covid public-health restrictions were, in fact, 'Satan's Wholistic Health Care Plan.'"
READ MORE: 'Duct tape people to a tree!' Arizona GOP goes further off the rails
In 2021, according to AZCentral, Arizona State GOP Senator Ron Johnson tweeted a false claim saying, "in England, more vaccinated than unvaccinated individuals are succumbing to the disease."
Additionally, Arizona Republican Party Chair Dr. Kelli Ward retweeted the claim.
AZCentral reported, "According to the latest studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention individuals who are unvaccinated are 11 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than those who are vaccinated," adding, "Likewise, vaccinated individuals are five times less likely to get infected and 10 less likely to end up in the hospital if they do."
Furthermore, the publication added "As factcheckers at Reuters concluded, 'Suggestions that higher numbers vaccinated individuals are dying in England than unvaccinated omits context that most of the population has been vaccinated. Evidence shows that COVID-19 vaccines reduce the risk of serious illness, hospitalization and death.'"
Per Rolling Stone, State Senate president pro tempore T.J. Shope insisted in a "teaser video" for the hearings, he and fellow state GOP leaders would "expose all the atrocities committed during the pandemic response, and Senator Janae Shamp added "she lost her" nursing "job for refusing to take the 'jab,'" claiming "lives and livelihoods were lost for no other reason than horrific government overreach."
READ MORE: How far-right MAGA conspiracy theorists are causing a 'near-civil war within the Arizona GOP': report
Refusing to elaborate further on the "atrocities" claim, Shope said, "Many of our citizens have had an evolution of thought on the pandemic — myself included. And that is why I believe it's so important for those of you feeling this way to tune in. You're not alone."
"Appealing directly to the mindset of conspiracy theorists," according to Rolling Stone, "the NCSWIC hearings promise to reveal hidden truths about the dark reality of the medical establishment, and implore viewers to trust their guts over mainstream scientific evidence."
Furthermore, Rolling Stone reports:
A look at the 'expert panelists' engaged by the committee does not reveal a lineup of overt QAnon proponents. But it shows the NCSWIC committee’s abiding interest in unproven cures and treatments for Covid, as well as the unhinged belief that public health interventions to curb the pandemic were more harmful than the disease itself, which has killed more than a million Americans.
Rolling Stone also notes:
In recent years, QAnon has transcended its origin story, and now lives on as a belief system for nearly anyone who believes that the world is run by nefarious, powerful forces who pose as virtuous, but are actually pure evil, whether they be in government, Big Tech or, specifically, Big Pharma.
READ MORE: 'Unqualified handover': Arizona AG sues Republican county for giving GOP recorder election power
Rolling Stone's full report is available at this link (subscription required).AZCentral's report is here. no lnx
Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona Republican Party and (according to her website) still a practicing physician, has joined fellow high profile Republicans whose aim, it seems, is to put as many members of the GOP as possible in…the morgue.
Over the weekend Ward retweeted something from Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the most ardent anti-vaccine misinformation spreaders in the land.
Here is the bottom line.
According to the latest studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention individuals who are unvaccinated are 11 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than those who are vaccinated. Likewise, vaccinated individuals are five times less likely to get infected and 10 less likely to end up in the hospital if they do.
The science is clear. The numbers don’t lie.
What about 'first do no harm'?
Given that, you’d think that high ranking members of a political party would do everything in their power to protect their voters by encouraging them to get vaccinated.
And you’d particularly think that of a physician.
But, no.
Sen. Johnson published a tweet speaking about how, in England, more vaccinated than unvaccinated individuals are succumbing to the disease.
What he doesn’t point out is that a vast majority of that country has been vaccinated, so such a statistic shouldn’t be surprising. He also doesn’t point out that many more individuals would be dying if so many of England’s citizens weren’t vaccinated.
As factcheckers at Reuters concluded, “Suggestions that higher numbers vaccinated individuals are dying in England than unvaccinated omits context that most of the population has been vaccinated. Evidence shows that COVID-19 vaccines reduce the risk of serious illness, hospitalization and death.”
Still, Johnson published his tweet and Ward retweeted it.
As a result of conspiracy-driven misinformation like this there is an excellent chance that more Republicans will follow the apparent guidance of their leaders and…die.
Polls already show that the most unvaccinated group of individuals in the United States are members of the GOP, particularly those who were big supporters of former President Donald Trump.
I thought Kelli Ward liked those people.
Unvaccinated encourage new mutation
As for those who say we shouldn’t care if Dr. Ward transforms herself into Dr. Death, that we shouldn’t care about the unvaccinated, or who say the unvaccinated are only hurting themselves, I would defer to Patrick Remington, a former epidemiologist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's preventive medicine residency program.
He said, "There’s no question that people who are unvaccinated are the main contributor to the continued transmission of COVID-19 and every transmission presents an opportunity for the virus to mutate to a more contagious and more lethal variant."
Not politics. Science.
Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.
dem in chains
b/c can't win democ, hired Rothbard, M fan of lenin, need movement, so cadre; Crane also rad; on surface ref to cato's lts FF, but also Cato elder; Carthage must be destroyed"[scife fdn?]; overthrow unions, corps that want gov't $ and intellectuals who support gov't action 141 parasites; shocked conserv when called for no foreign war, weed, prostitution;
Reason fdn: pvtize all Poole YAF; pvtize bit by bit
==
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Edward_H._Crane
Edward H. Crane is the former President and CEO of the Cato Institute, a Washington D.C.-headquartered libertarian think tank, which he founded in Wichita Kansas with financial backing from Charles Koch in 1974.[1][2]. Crane was chairman of the Southern California Libertarian Party in 1972 and became chairman of the National Libertarian Party in 1974.[3] In 1980, Crane served as the Communications Director for the Ed Clark/David Koch Presidential Campaign.[4]
Crane has been referred to as one of the "leaders of the libertarian movement" by the Wall Street Journal.[5] Crane is the coeditor of several books, has been the publisher of Regulation Magazine, serves on the Board of U.S. Term Limits, and is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society. He is a chartered financial analyst and former vice president at Alliance Capital Management Corp.[6]
| Koch Wiki |
|---|
| The Koch brothers -- David and Charles -- are the right-wing billionaire co-owners of Koch Industries. As two of the richest people in the world, they are key funders of the right-wing infrastructure, including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN). In SourceWatch, key articles on the Kochs include: Koch Brothers, Koch Industries, Americans for Prosperity, American Encore, and Freedom Partners. |
Contents
Background
Crane was born in View Park, California, where his father was a doctor and his mother a homemaker. In college, he attended the University of Redlands for a year, transferring to the University of California, Berkeley in 1963. He then earned an MBA from the University of Southern California and began working as a money manager.[3]
As reported by the Washington Post, Crane became active in the California state Libertarian Party in the early 1970s. In 1972 he attended the founding convention of the national Libertarian Party in Denver and became chairman of the Southern California Libertarian Party, then became national chairman of the party in 1974. In 1980, Crane worked on Ed Clark's campaign for president, with David Koch running as the vice presidential candidate and providing a significant amount of campaign funding from his personal fortune.[3]
Together with and largely bankrolled by Charles Koch, Crane helped found the Cato Institute (formerly the Charles Koch Foundation0 in 1974 in Wichita Kansas, the home of the Koch Brothers.[7] The Cato institute relocated to San Francisco in 1977. Crane came to believe that the new think tank would not be taken seriously if it was based there, and so he moved Cato to Washington, DC in 1981.[3]
According to the Washington Post, Crane and Charles Koch had a falling out in the early 1990s when
"a management dispute with co-founder Koch veered out of control. Koch resigned from the board and withdrew his generous financial support.“I broke one of the cardinal rules of fundraising: Never [tick] off a billionaire,” Crane admits."[3]
Describing Crane as a "genetic libertarian," the Cato Policy Report wrote that
"Crane has dedicated his life to guiding the Cato Institute from a three-person outfit in San Francisco to one of the most prominent public policy research organizations in the country… From the beginning he insisted that Cato stick to firm libertarian principles and take on the big issues."[8]
The Policy Report also credits Crane's leadership for Cato supporting the privatization of Social Security as early as 1979.[8] According to the Wall Street Journal, "Under Mr. Crane, Cato held the first conferences on free markets and the rule of law in China (1988) and Russia (1990)."[5]
Influence on Campaign Finance Law
Crane was a plaintiff in two major Supreme Court cases related to campaign finance law, Buckley v. Valeo and SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission.[9]
Ties to Koch brothers
Cato Institute Founding
Crane took on the Cato Institute with financial backing from Charles Koch in 1977.[5] The New Yorker reports that Crane recounted the decision as follows:
“Charles said what would it take to keep me in the libertarian movement. He was very impressed. I said, My bank account is empty. He said, How much do you need? I’d been impressed with Brookings and A.E.I., and told him it would be good to have a libertarian think tank. Charles said, I’ll give it to you.”[10]
Conflict with the Kochs over Cato
By 2010, the New Yorker was reporting on what seemed to be a growing distance between Crane and the Kochs:
Richard Fink "appears to have supplanted Ed Crane, the head of the Cato Institute, as the brothers’ main political lieutenant. Though David remains on the board at Cato, Charles Koch has fallen out with Crane. Associates suggested…that Crane had been insufficiently respectful of Charles's management philosophy."[11]
Whatever its source, the conflict between Crane and the Kochs took a public turn in late 2011, when one of the four shareholders in the Cato Institute, William Niskanen, passed away. The Koch brothers filed a lawsuit in March 2012 seeking control of Cato. As the Washington Post reported, the brothers "believe[d] that they have the option to buy Niskanen’s shares, while Cato officials believe[d] that the shares belong to Niskanen’s widow, Kathryn Washburn."[12]
In response, Crane released a statement arguing that Charles Koch's decision to file a suit
"represents an effort by him to transform Cato from an independent, nonpartisan research organization into a political entity that might better support his partisan agenda."[12]
In an interview with Slate, Crane suggested that the Kochs were trying to fill Cato's board with "Koch Industries supplicants" and claimed that "Charles likes to create his own reality, build a bubble around him […] David Koch was a friend of mine until Charles said, not anymore."[13]
The dispute was settled in June 2012 with an agreement to dissolve the Cato Institute's stockholder structure, replacing it with a 12-member board. In return, Crane agreed to step down as president. A press release stated, "For a majority of Cato’s directors, the agreement confirms Cato’s independence and ensures that Cato is not viewed as controlled by the Kochs."[14] David Koch continues to serve as a member of the Cato Institute's board, while Crane is still listed on Cato's website as "founder and president emeritus."[15]
Articles and Resources
Sources
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ "The Cato Institute", 25 Years at the Cato Institute, The 2001 Annual Report, Accessed July 7, 2014.
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Jim Powell, "The Cato Institute Controversy, Forbes, March 11, 2012
- ↑ ^Jump ^up to:3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Richard Morin, "Free Radical; Libertarian — and Contrarian — Ed Crane Has Run the Cato Institute for 25 Years. His Way.," Washington Post (archived by the Cato Institute) May 9, 2002. Accessed June 12, 2014.
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Karen Jakovich, "Ed Clark Is the Libertarian Party's Headstrong Candidate for the White House," People, September 22, 1980. Accessed June 12, 2014.
- ↑ ^Jump ^up to:5.0 5.1 5.2 Ed Crane's Freedom Legacy," Wall Street Journal, October 23, 2012. Accessed June 12, 2014.
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Cato Institute, "Edward H. Crane: Founder and President", organizational website, accessed March 2008.
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ "The Cato Institute", 25 Years at the Cato Institute, The 2001 Annual Report, Accessed July 7, 2014.
- ↑ ^Jump ^up to:8.0 8.1 Cato Institute, "The Legacy of Edward H. Crane," Cato Policy Report, January/February 2013. Accessed June 12, 2014.
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ David Keating and Edward H. Crane, "Meet the Parents of the Super PACs," Wall Street Journal, Opinion, February 10, 2012. Accessed June 12, 2014.
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Jane Mayer, "The Kochs vs. Cato," New Yorker, March 1, 2012. Accessed June 11, 2014.
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Jane Mayer, "Covert Operations," New Yorker, August 30, 2010. Accessed June 11, 2014.
- ↑ ^Jump ^up to:12.0 12.1 Allen McDuffee and T. W. Farnam, "Koch Brothers sue Cato Institute, president," Washington Post, March 1, 2012. Accessed June 11, 2014.
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Dave Weigel, ""Who the Hell is Going to Take a Think Tank Seriously If It's Controlled by Billionaire Oil Guys?" Cato's President Speaks.", Slate, March 22, 2012. Accessed June 11, 2014.
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Allen McDuffee, "Koch brothers, Cato Institute announce terms of settlement," Washington Post, June 25, 2012. Accessed June 11, 2014.
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Cato Institute, Edward H. Crane, organizational website, accessed June 11, 2014.
Related SourceWatch Articles
External links
- Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, "Private-Account Concept Grew From Obscure Roots," Washington Post, February 23, 2005.
===
The Center for Competitive Politics? Here’s their Board of Directors:
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Board of Directors
Edward H. Crane
President, Cato Institute
Allison R. Hayward
Vice President of Policy, Center for Competitive Politics
Stephen M. Hoersting
Vice President and co-founder, Center for Competitive Politics
Eric O’Keefe
Chairman and CEO, Sam Adams Alliance
Sean Parnell
President, Center for Competitive Politics
Bradley A. Smith
Chairman and Co-Founder, Center for Competitive Politics Blackmore-Naught Professor of Law, Capital University Law School
John Snider
Shareholder, Financial Controllers, Inc.
And that Institute for Humane Studies? Greenpeace tells us [emphasis added]:
Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) – Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group
On this page
$1,967,000 received from Koch foundations 2005-2008[Total Koch foundation grants 1997-2008: $3,923,457]
The Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason Universityoffers scholarships and career training to libertarianstudents. Charles Koch is the:{Chairman of the IHS board of directors:(style="border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline"):}:.
In a recent article, Mother Jones called the Institute for Human Studies a “haven for climate change deniers.” Several climate deniershave prominent positions at IHS, including: **Robert Bradley**, member of the Academic Review Committee and author of ***Climate Alarmism Reconsidered*** (2003); and Fred Singer, Research Professor at IHS.
A number of climate deniers are guest lecturers for IHS, such as Bruce Yandle, Senior Associate with Political Economy Research Center; and Kenneth Green, Resident Scholar with American Enterprise Institute.
Cozy.
They don’t call it the “Kochtopus” for nothing, kiddies. It’s MEANT to confuse you. But, like Theseus in the labyrinth, you can find the Minotaur and find your way out if you have a thread to lead you. In Wisconsin, the thread is named “Eric O’Keefe.”
It’s all so cozy. Eric is the “strategist” of :{the old “Crane Machine:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}:” that**walked out of the Libertarian Party en masse in 1983**. He was also a founding board member of US Term Limits, and is acknowledged as the architect of their “term limits” ballot drives of the 1990s. Here, in his own words, from Eric O’Keefe dot com:
Eric O’Keefe is chairman and CEO of Sam Adams Alliance (SAM), a Chicago‐based organization that promotes citizen activism and government accountability. Eric was a founding board member of U.S. Term Limits, host of the podcast series, Engaging Democracy; and author of the book Who Rules America about the Founders’ view of representative government and the case for term limits. When not promoting political reform, Eric is a private investor residing in rural Wisconsin with his wife Leslie Graves.
In the early 1990s Eric began U.S. Term Limits. Over the course of several years the group helped usher 23 states through the initiative process to limit the terms of their congressional delegation. These states were eventually thwarted by 5 Justices on the Supreme Court who ruled that Congress was exempt from term limits under the Constitution. O’Keefe often notes that politicians became less accountable and less responsible when state governments took over printing and distribution of ballots from private political parties. This resulted in lower turnover rates.
In 2008, Eric, working to advance limitations on the size and power of government, began advocating that Americans should adopt approaches to achieving accountability and limits on government by being involved in the primary process.
The “tea parties” started at Eric’s doorstep as has been reported on *Huffington Post* by Alex Brandt-Zawadsky and Dawn Te0 (among others); and the Sam Adams Alliance produced a widely-distributed “report” on the “tea party” that was widely quoted by the clueless media:
More recently, the Sam Adams Alliance reports that significant numbers of newcomers to the tea party movement are dropping their affiliation with the GOP: Forty-seven percent changed their political affiliation to “Independent/unaffiliated,” 20 percent changed to “other,” 20 percent to “Tea Party,” and 13 percent to “Libertarian.” [*Christian Science Monitor*, Sept. 15, 2010]
I have covered this at length as well.
Let’s focus on Wisconsin, then, shall we? I mean, Eric O’Keefe is on the board of and a Director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth (and was an attendee at the infamous Koch brothers soirée in Aspen, Colorado, as reported in theNew York Times).And he’s a featured speaker at Tea Party Events.
- Chairman, Club for Growth, State Action: Howard Rich (and see **HERE**, and HERE.)
- Director, Club for Growth, Wisconsin: Eric O’Keefe (one of only threeboard members in 2008, corrected 2-26)
He still serves on the CFG Board of Directors, as noted on Wisconsin CFG’s web site in September 2010:
Yesterday the Wisconsin Club for Growth won a huge victory for free and open political speech. A panel of retired judges agreed not to enforce their new rule prohibiting groups like ours from conducting issue advocacy which mentions the name of a candidate on the September or November ballot within 30 or 60 days of the election.
On August 2, 2010, the Wisconsin Club for Growth and the liberal One Wisconsin filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court Western District of Wisconsin, seeking a declaratory judgment and preliminary injunctive relief from Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) rule 1.28.
The stipulation means that the Government Accountability Board does not have the ability to regulate issue advocacy communications under Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws.
Club for Growth Board member Eric O’Keefe said, “Individuals and organizations need to be free to comment on public policy and the records of public officials, regardless of the time of year. That is not just our long-held position; it is the U.S. Supreme Court’s long-held position, applying the First Amendment.”
[image]
*Chairman of Club for Growth State Action*
This isn’t O’Keefe’s first dustup with the state for playing fast and loose with election law. From the incredibly ‘friendly’ piece in *Reason Magazine* (Koch money founded and supported Reason Foundation, which publishes Reason.David Koch sits on the Foundation’s board of Trustees):
A Morning at the Ministry of Speech
Jonathan Rauch | May 29, 1999
Early in the morning of Dec. 11, a few days before his 44th birthday, a political activist named Eric O’Keefe put on business trousers and a sports jacket, but decided not to wear a necktie. This was his small gesture of protest against the proceedings he was about to attend. He and his attorney breakfasted together, went over his testimony, and then drove to a state building in downtown Madison, Wis. In an undecorated and viewless conference room, O’Keefe swore an oath to tell the truth, and then submitted himself to 80 minutes of questioning by an assistant state attorney general who was seeking to determine whether O’Keefe was a lawbreaker. …
I’m only including the “pro” O’Keefe articles and citations written BY O’Keefe and his minions to let you know that I’m not making this stuff up. If you want to hear the alternate point of view, you’ll have to look it up on your own. The point being, if what they’re saying is this damning, consider what the actual state of things, unfiltered by the Kochtopus propaganda machine, actually looks like.
They DEPEND on running under the radar, and Eric O’Keefe is a case in point. How many political reporters in Wisconsin know who he is?
Last year, using the Citizens United decision, only the Wisconsin Club for Growth flouted the spirit of a public financing law in Wisconsin (from the *Pierce County [Wisc.] Herald,*Feb 16, 2011):
All the primary candidates but Stephens received $100,000 tax dollars for their campaigns, under a new law designed to keep special interests out of judicial races. Stephens only raised about $40,000 on her own. Prosser and Kloppenburg will each get $300,000 in tax money for the general election. But outside groups can still advertise on their own.The conservative Wisconsin Club for Growth had the only statewide TV ad in the primary, supporting Prosser.
I’m keeping this short, so that media might actually have the wherewithal to read it, and do their jobs by reporting on it. I’ve provided the links and the linkages, but in the Battle of Wisconsin, “We the People” need to know this stuff.
The governor of Wisconsin, Ste received TK in Club for Growth money. (TK = I leave it to Wisconsin journalists and bloggers to supply that number.)
Paul Ryan (congressman from Wisconsin, in charge of the House budget, as noted a few days ago) received TK bucks from Club for Growth. In the last election cycle, according to the Rachel Maddow Show graphic, Club for Growth was the Number 10 top money spender in the 2010 election. (TK = Ditto.)
They are getting what they paid for, evidently.
And Eric’s gang is particularly interested in taking over the Wisconsin Supreme Court. But they game the law:
That public support could increase if third-party groups run certain kinds of political advertising. Advertising earlier by the Club for Growth, however, was not found by state election officials to trigger distribution of extra public funds to Justice Prosser’s opponent, a Journal Sentinel article reported. The ad did not trigger additional funding because it stopped short of using such words as “vote for,” “support,” or “elect,” a state official told the newspaper.
“There’s a danger that outside interest groups could weigh in heavily in this race and leave the candidates not in a position to really respond to it,” Mike McCabe of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign told Gavel Grab. “I think the likelihood is that groups will weigh in. Which groups and to what extent, that is difficult to predict.”
Take a look at these blog posts while you’re at it:
- Because “Cudgel For Growth” Wouldn’t Sound as Warm and Fuzzy 14 Dec 2010
- Private Legislatures 27 Sept. 2007
- Disneyland Democracy, 28. Sept. 2007
- Breaking News Or Wind Or Something 29 Sept. 2007
- No Souls Day 1 November 2009
- Cheese Whizz, or The Empire Strikes Back 19 Feb. 2011
- Water, Tea or Koch? 20 Feb 2011
- and, for fun Love and Kisses from the Land of the Freed Balloons 3 November, 2007
(urging members to stuff the ballot box for the Weblog Awards)
- etc.
I’ve got lots more, but that’ll give you a week’s worth of research t0 chew over.
And, while you’re at it, take a look at the NNDB database page on Club for Growth and see Eric’s name with Howard Rich, Betsy DeVos, Paul Singer (who financed a 2008 California ballot measure a couple years ago from his Manhattan home), Lawrence Kudlow, Richard Gilder, Pete duPont, Richard Scaife (founder and funder of “The Arkansas Project” to dog President Clinton), Pat Toomey, Brent Bozell, David Boies, Arthur Laffer (whose cockamamie theories were used to justify “trickle down” economics) and other gold-plated members of what even Mike Huckabee calls the “Club for Greed.”
Here’s their current leadership lineup, according to their website.
Hey, wasn’t AFP the sponsor of the “counter-demonstration” in Madison Sunday?
I’ve been playing Paul Revere to a nation on Lunesta® for six years now, and it’s getting old. We really either need to wake up NOW, or kiss our non-plutocratic form of governance goodbye once and for all. But please don’t say that you weren’t clearly and explicitly warned.
The ball’s in your hands, readers.
Courage.
Click right on to the sequel, Things Go Badder With Koch™with photos and videos of persons named herein.
NOTE: 2-26-11. O’Keefe’s position with CFG, Wisconsin corrected and links to documentation added.