http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/behind-the-curtain-the-hell-no-caucus-85872.html
Cotton was down 40% in the polls before the unregulated Superpac,
Club for Growth, decided to make him a star with $300,000 in donations. The
article focuses on process issues such as the fact that this is the way these
groups work now, picking candidates early in the primaries and riding
them to electoral victory. It goes onto explain this is where the tires hit
pavement when it comes to getting anything through this recently installed (elected
is perhaps too strong a word) Congress. Nowhere do they address the absurdity
of the election, or why a small group of billionaires would chose to anoint and
elect their very own congressman, legally and on the up and up of course.
The Club for Growth was started by WSJ Economist Stephen
Moore, and a couple of Wall Street bankers. PayPal founder, Facebook investment billionaire,
and Hedge Fund Manager, Peter Theil, is
the Club’s biggest contributor this year. The gay and socially liberal philanthropist
plucked down nearly $1 million of the $20 million raised in this election cycle
to support a raft of conservative candidates including Ted Cruz, Richard Mourdock,
and Steven King who famously said that “Gays wouldn’t face discrimination if
they didn’t wear their sexuality on their sleeves” and “Gay Marriage is
Socialism”. The story in Politico and its subsequent coverage on Morning Joe piqued
my interest because both stated that Mr. Cotton was down 40% in the polls
before Club for Growth came along. In electoral terms that's sort of
non-existent. Surprisingly missing was any context or understanding about where
Club for Growth got its money and why they would want to fund such an obscure candidate.
Nor did MJ or Politico mention that the gay rainmaker-- through Club for Growth-- supported
a slew of homophobic candidates, who nonetheless align with his desire to keep
more of his money.
I thought how nice? Mr. Thiel has a personal butler, maid, masseuse,
and Congressman. 27% of the children in Mr. Cotton’s CD are living lives of poverty.
We can only assume that their families share Mr. Thiel’s main concerns and
those of his rich friends for lower taxes (especially and specifically for the
rich), smaller government (which provides services on which the poor survive),
and a shrinking deficit. Mr. Cotton has stated he would have voted against Plan
B, Boehner’s ill-conceived plan to raise taxes on billionaires like Thiel. Cotton,
we are told, stands four-square against gun control of any kind. In fairness it
was reported so does 90% of his district. He wants the path to citizenship for
undocumented immigrant workers to stretch as many miles as possible, and plans
to vote against the debt ceiling increase unless there is adequate evidence
that substantial numbers of poor people in his district will lose their healthcare,
food support & school lunches, and Pell Grant access to college. There are
70 Congressional districts, out of 435, with a higher percentage of people in Poverty
than the Arkansas 4th, but his election really did makes me wonder, anew, why
poor people in the South so consistently vote against their economic interest. Enter Mr. Thiel, the Club for Growth, and now Citizen’s
United. Hooray for democracy!
The twitterverse is awash in comments regarding the
over-the-top-finger-pointing-in-your-face-threatening-batshit-crazy interview gun
nut and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones gave to Piers Morgan.
It was inescapable
and mesmerizing. But that is just carnival distraction. The real action is the Arkansas
4th where a couple of billionaire’s invested lunch money in buying a
congressman who will actually see that the crazy conspiracies espoused by wing-nut
Jones find a voice in what John Boehner called in his Speaker’s acceptance
speech, “The People’s House”. What a hoot! He cries all the time. How did he deliver
that line without laughing? It’s all sort of depressing, the money talk as
backdrop as to whether the president should be taking millions from private donors
and large corporations to fund the people’s inauguration of the President. There
is a lot of buying and selling going on and neither side is clean or even close.
Then my friend, Pete, brought this little nugget to my attention.
Tom Cotton is of that particular right wing “club” that still will not accept
that Iraq was NOT the cause of 9-11, a fact so well documented as being false
it's amazing it still warrants a ¼” of type face. Here’s the exchange… From Monday [!]:
BLITZER: But you don’t believe that Iraq had anything to
do with al Qaeda or the attack on 9/11?
COTTON: The
evidence is inconclusive there, but I know that Saddam Hussein was widely
believed by all western intelligence agencies, not just the United States, but
western European countries not in a rush to war, to have weapons of mass
destruction. Our sanctions regime was beginning to crumble and we couldn’t be
able to contain Saddam Hussein if we hadn’t confronted him at the time.
Cotton is an Iraqi vet (Support the Troops!) and described in
the Politico piece as one of the new freshman who sees compromise as dirty word
and he has the financial wherewithal to believe that despite what those in his
district may think, all thanks to Mr. Thiel and his rich friends. Do you have to be a friggin' moron to line up for that hard right money? Herman “999, and what was the question?” Cain, Rick (Snobs want college for their children) Santorum, Murdock (rape theologian), Akin (rape scientist), West (80 congressman are commies), the unfortunately named Joe Walsh, Steve King, this fool??? The list goes on and on and on and on. Even Dick Armey is not right enough for the group he founded, Freedomworks. Then beyond that the papers and net are filled with stories about how all these right wing talkers are living off the skim. That includes Beck, Limbaugh, Dick Morris, and that is before you get to the rest who just live off the books, radio and TV shows they market to a fearful angry white male mass audience that follows them and which would be utterly destroyed if any shred of truth reached them.
If this is what democracy looks like, holy shit are we in
trouble! Holy shit are we in trouble!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment