The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party

Becky wrote: I got your point PrintSmith.

I didn't think it was a subtle one either. When we are equally upset regardless of whether or not a particular billionaire happens to share our outlook in politics I think we will have made some progress.

I am personally happy to see that both sides of the argument are well funded by the billionaires who support that ideology - it levels the playing field. FWIW, if I were a billionaire I would be doing all I could to make sure that I, and not the federal government, was in charge of deciding which charitable causes received the capital that I had realized through my hard work or my dumb luck of bringing the right product to the market at the right time. Heck, even if I was the inheritor of a relatives billions that they had earned I would feel the same way. I'm not sure which bozo first came up with the idea of transforming the federal government into the worlds largest charity network, but I think the nation would be a lot lot less in the red if he'd kept that idea to himself.

Just because you bankroll something doesn't mean you have control of it. I am sure the billionaires wanted both Sharon Angle & Rand Paul to lose their primaries.

The problem is that NO ONE is bankrolling our Tea Party Group. We are possibly not a part of any larger group, but just a bunch of local people who seem to want most of what the other Tea Party Groups want, less Government, people in government service that work for us, not figuring out ways to have us work for them. Wayne maybe you can have these Billionaires send some of their money our way, since you are so sure they are bankrolling the Tea Parties, maybe you know them.

All I did was post a link from a New York Times article, which I thought was interesting.

If you guys want to affect any change, you're going to to have to band together, I would think.

As I said before, every party seems to preach less government, but when it comes right down to deciding what programs to cut, you run into a problem.

Do you want to go and tell the people working on 285 they are out of a job because you don't want to spend money on the recovery and reinvestment program to fund the road projects? Do you want to tell a widow you're cutting her Social Security?

Nmysys wrote: The problem is that NO ONE is bankrolling our Tea Party Group. We are possibly not a part of any larger group, but just a bunch of local people who seem to want most of what the other Tea Party Groups want, less Government, people in government service that work for us, not figuring out ways to have us work for them. Wayne maybe you can have these Billionaires send some of their money our way, since you are so sure they are bankrolling the Tea Parties, maybe you know them.

You can't possibly be that naive... (well, yes, you could...)

Washington Post Links FreedomWorks, Tea Party, Koch Family, Only 5 Months After Ames & Levine
by Mark Ames
8/16/2009


News Flash! Five months after Yasha Levine and I broke the story linking the rightwing billionaire-PR nexus between FreedomWorks, the Koch family, CNBC, Eric Odom and the Tea Party movement, the Washington Post finally caught up with us. In an article in today’s Sunday edition, the WaPo repeats our allegation that billionaires are posing as “grassroots” groups to oppose anything that isn’t in the billionaires’ interests, including health care reform and mortgage relief for homeowners:

Several of the biggest efforts are led by established veterans in the conservative movement, whose organizations receive heavy funding from industry groups and sympathetic billionaires.

First, there’s our old pals FreedomWorks, whose role in setting up the Tea Party protests we broke in late February. Here is the WaPo’s account of FreedomWorks’ role in the anti-healthcare reform attacks:

"One of the most prominent organizers is FreedomWorks, a Washington-based advocacy group headed by former House majority leader Richard Armey (R-Tex.) that is also pushing to defeat Democratic climate-change legislation. FreedomWorks’s major financial backers have included MetLife, Philip Morris and foundations controlled by the archconservative Scaife family, according to tax filings and other records."

Then, there’s Eric Odom, the rightwing TwitterTurf organizer of fake grassroots protests via Twitter and other social networks. We exposed Odom’s ties to FreedomWorks and his dubious role setting up fake-grassroots Tea Party web sites on behalf of billionaires who didn’t want to extend the banking bailout to American homeowners. Here’s the WaPo report:

“I think what we’ve been able to do is reach out to an audience that no one has spoken with before, people who have never been involved,” said Eric Odom, 29, a Chicago Web developer who heads a fledgling protest group called the American Liberty Alliance. “They’ve been pushed to the edge and feel they can no longer stay at home.”

Odom’s fight began last summer with protests in favor of offshore oil drilling. Then came the “tea parties” earlier this year, featuring boisterous rallies against Obama’s stimulus package and automaker bailouts.

Now, drawing on more than 40,000 members via e-mail, Odom tracks hundreds of planned health-care protests by Zip code and uses Facebook and Twitter to link up activists. Earlier this month, he hosted a conference call with more than 200 participants."

And now our good billionaire friends, the Koch family, once again funding it all:

One of the most visible groups is Americans for Prosperity, an anti-tax and anti-regulation group known for opposing smoking restrictions and for trying to cast doubt on global warming. The group launched a project called “Patients First” in June and has been conducting bus tours around the country to drum up opposition to the health-care legislation. Public records show that the group is heavily funded by the Koch Family Foundations, a major contributor to conservative causes headed by two brothers who control Koch Industries, a Kansas-based oil-and-gas conglomerate. David H. Koch serves as board chairman of the Americans for Prosperity foundation.

What the crack WaPo team failed to do in this article was make the explicit link between FreedomWorks, Eric Odom, and the billionaire sponsors like the Kochs, Scaifes and the rest. Instead, the WaPo article merely hinted at the links using lawyer-approved language to indemnify themselves, calling them a “loose network of activists” in the headline, although if you look at the other WaPo headline to this article at the top of the internet browser bar, it makes the link more direct: “Conservative Mainstays And Fledgling Advocacy Groups Drive Health-Reform Opposition”. The fact is that these groups are all tightly linked but they hide their links using loopholes in advocacy group tax and reporting laws. Nonetheless, these direct links will be exposed again.

URL: Washington Post Links FreedomWorks, Tea Party, Koch Family, Only 5 Months After Ames & Levine


You know--"Koch family"--as in: John Birch Society...

Yeah, the TEA Party movement isn't funded by billionaires... Uh-huh... I've got some astroturf to sell you.

Yep, I know they are "liberal" sources. Yep, I know you'll dismiss them out of hand. And since every post of yours is nothing but regurgitated conservative-source tripe, you know I don't care. But let's don't kid ourselves that the Scaifes and the Kochs and other rightwing groups aren't behind the astroturf movement.

The billionaires might have blown their money funding a party that makes Maes & Buck their choices. I wonder how enthusiastic the funding will be in 2012 after seeing what little a bunch of inexperienced mavericks can actually accomplish in the Beltway.

Wayne:

I am on Social Security and we did not get a cost of living increase in 2010. My politics haven't changed. Great sign of progress you quote the road work on 285. How many jobs have been created, oh there were a bunch saved!!! Personally I think that the INS ought to check and see if all the people working there are legal citizens.

LJ: You and your attacks are not even bothering me any more. You can quote from the Washington Post all you like, the people who don't live in La LA land know it is a Liberal publication. You want to talk bankrolling. Then show me where we the 285 Corridor Tea Party Group have or will receive anything from anybody but the donations that the attendees throw in a can to cover the cost of our meeting hall? Do it or go back to your playpen little girl.

NM, you obviously have me confused with someone who gives a sh*t whether you believe the WaPost or not. Facts are pesky things...They won't go away. And the Kochs, and the Scaiffes are behind the whole astroturf movement. Deal with it.

Do they fund things down to the local meeting level. Nope. Y'all keep throwing your money in the hat. Are they behind the whole movement and the funding it takes to keep it going at the national level? LOL! You have to ask?

rofllol rofllol rofllol

LadyJazzer wrote: NM, you obviously have me confused with someone who gives a sh** whether you believe the WaPost or not. Facts are pesky things...They won't go away. And the Kochs, and the Scaiffes are behind the whole astroturf movement. Deal with it.

Geez LJ - you must go to bed every night with serious indigestion...

Nope. I sleep fine...