by Robert Hunziker / July 5th, 2012
The thirty-year bloodless coup, taking over America, conducted by the political, academic, and financial elite is a
fait accompli
as evidenced by the failure to charge anybody for the horrendous, and
well documented, criminality behind America’s housing/financial bust of
2008 as described in “The Elite Coup is Complete,” June 27th, 2012.
Now, for the next step, a leader is needed to implement the final
stages of the coup, and all signs point directly at the U.S.
presidential election scheduled for November 6th. This election will
likely be the crowning stroke for plutocratic America.
Aside from known political leaders, like President Reagan and
Majority Leader Tom “The Hammer” DeLay, for over three decades now, the
elites have been led by shadowy, amorphous figureheads that are as
perplexing to understand as the
Smoking Man in
The X-Files
TV series, meaning: Things happen to advance the elite’s interests,
but, often times, nobody knows how, or by whom. However, now that the
elites have completed their coup, they need to elect a leader who
understands the business culture of High Net Worth Individuals, which is
defined by
Forbes Magazine as somebody worth over $30 million,
and Mitt Romney qualifies eight times over. This article intends to
explore the workings behind the scenes to assure his victory.
There are approximately 300 million television sets in U.S.
households and, on average, people watch TV four hours per day; it is a
way of life in America, and repetitively, it reinforces messages with
images and sound bites. In that regard, and with unlimited amounts of
money for political advertising now available, America is about to
experience its first-ever presidential election competing for airtime
with televangelists.
The question is: Will the political tide turn to a new presidency in
2012 based upon television ads? If the recent Wisconsin recall vote is a
prognosticator, which vote included a flawed candidate (Republican Gov.
Scott Walker) who overcame a 10-point deficit in the polls as the first
governor in U.S. history to withstand a recall vote, the answer is a
resounding yes, without a doubt. The Wisconsin experience is proof
positive.
Henceforward, ever since the
Citizens United decision, the
august Supreme Court justices have done more than toss a bone (a very
big bone indeed) to wealthy political interests; they have ‘branded’
media as the Tammany Hall of America’s political future. No doubt,
Charles Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity and author, or
co-author, of 11 books, including
The Buying of the President series, will now write a new book, but his research efforts will be a real pain in the
gluteus maximus because the
Citizens United
decision forces him to wear a miner’s hard hat with an attached lamp
now that politics have gone deep underground within labyrinthine tunnels
that are almost impossible to navigate, thus, bringing forth a new
democracy for a new age, redefining democracy, the institution, as
purely a tool of ‘who has the most money’ like never before. Henceforth,
elections are won as reliably as “throwing a fight” in Las Vegas, circa
the1950s.
To understand the challenge for Lewis’ new book, consider the struggle as described by
OpenSecrets,
which is the database for the pre-eminent investigative body, Center
for Responsive Politics, Washington, D.C., that follows money in
politics. They have an on-going strategy; i.e., “Shadow Money Trail,” to
locate and catalog contributions to politically active nonprofit
organizations that are not required to disclose their donors to the
public. Since the
Citizens United ruling, OpenSecrets’
experience in discovering information has been similar to traveling in a
maze that leads from one dead end to another.
Nevertheless, the Shadow Money Trail has already unearthed some juicy
information, but trying to understand the serpentine flow of the
various relationships they uncovered gives rise to a migraine headache
because: One 501(c)(4) gives funds to another 501(c)(4) and, in turn, to
others, and others, and to others to the point where the layers make it
nearly impossible to connect the dots {501(c)(4)s are tax-exempt
“social welfare” organizations that must operate exclusively to promote
social welfare in order to retain their special IRS status and not
violate the law.}* An example of a registered 501(c)(4) is Center to
Protect
Patient’s Rights (“CPPR”) out of Arizona, a secretive well-funded group
that masquerades as an organization concerned about health care but
which, in reality, funnels money to other secretive groups that spend
millions on TV adds attacking Democrats running for the House and
Senate. It is entirely possible, and probable, the only patients they
protect are right-wing-leaning politicians.
* In 2010, Senate Republicans filibustered, and prevented, a vote on a
bill, the DISCLOSE ACT, passed by the House that addressed
identification of donors of 501(c) (4) s.
CPPR provides grants to clusters of well-known conservative groups
that also operate under 501(c)(4)s classified as “social welfare” groups
like American Future Fund, which is based in Iowa. They run
hard-hitting ads against Democrats across the country. In turn, American
Future Fund funds other hard-hitting 501(c)(4)s, and those recipients
fund other funds. You get the picture; however, organizations that have
nothing to hide do not need to funnel money from one shadowy group to
another to another, leaving “social welfare” in the dust and creating a
daisy chain whereby it is impossible to connect the dots. Somehow, this
interminable
Alice in Wonderland fable never reveals who’s
behind the curtain. On the surface, the whole affaire appears so
blatantly contrived it stinks like putrid fish in the hot sun! These are
grownups playing
Ring Around the Rosie.
The executive director of CPPR is Sean Noble of Arizona, a
PR/Political consultant and former GOP chief of staff to former
Republican Rep. John Shadegg (AR). Noble takes no salary from CPPR, but
his firm, Noble Associates, is paid $340,000 for management services.
Wow! These people cannot get past the concept of shuffling money from
one fund to another fund; everything is shifty! Sean is also director
of a robo-calling service (talk about symbiotic businesses!) called DC
London Inc., probably referencing a direct connection to Rebekah Brooks.
According to
Politico, Noble is a Koch operative. CPPR’s
stated mandate is: “…educating the public on issues related to health
care with an emphasis on patient’s rights.” Ahem!
This is where the IRS enters the picture because, according to
Reuters as of June 29, 2012, the IRS is investigating such groups to
determine whether their fundraising or advertising runs afoul of tax
law. Here’s the issue in a nutshell: Super PACs, which must disclose
their donors, operate independently from campaigns but may release ads
that boost or attack specific candidates. Whereas tax-exempt groups
qualifying under the U.S. tax code as, for example, “social welfare”
groups, which are 501(c)(4)s, are allowed to keep their donors private
(secretive) as long as most of their money is spent on so-called “issue
ads.” Unlike regular political ads, such ads cannot use a candidate’s
name or likeness and are supposed to be used to educate the public on
broad issues or positions. There’s a lot of gray area within that
mandate, and here’s guessing the law may be violated via convoluted
relationships! But, nobody will know for sure until the IRS
investigations are completed after the upcoming elections.
Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform
(America’s most powerful Republican political force) is another beneficiary of CPPR. The names of these groups that play
Ring Around the Rosie
are always couched in patriotism or social welfare; e.g., 60 Plus
Association, Americans for Job Security, US Health Freedom Coalition,
Americans United for Life Action (who came up with this one?),
Freedom Vote
, and
Concerned Women 4 America (honestly, these are not fictitious names).
The list goes on, and on, with rah-rah all-American-sounding names for
organizations that, in reality, conduct operations like 1930s Brown
Shirt cells opaquely operating in dark shadows. One has to wonder who
they think they are fooling (hopefully, not the IRS), but yet, this is
the problem; they are fooling a lot of people! The entire affaire has
the odor of impish pranksters, and oh, please… the names of the groups
are so embarrassingly phony, trite, spurious, and juvenile, but
regardless, and herein lay the ugly truth: Their efforts do influence
voters in a very profound way. Just ask Governor Scott Walker of
Wisconsin, whose transparent (“legal”) funding groups outspent his
Democratic challenger 2-to-1. But, the tentacled non-reporting groups
attached to CPPR spent who knows how much? Nobody will ever know, but
according to Mike McCabe of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, “We have a
level of outside interference in this election that the state has never
seen before.” (Sources claim Walker outspent his opponent 7-to-1.)
This type of stealthy underground, behind-the-curtain politicking
carries a particular stench unique to weak-kneed minions that grovel at
the feet of insipid moguls. Herein one sees the unseemly underbelly of
this upcoming political campaign. One would think the disgust amongst
voters would register a strong backlash, but then again, the voters do
not know who is behind which curtain… connecting the dots is such a
problem. Governor Scott Walker’s victory in Wisconsin proves this in
spades.
According to the Center for Media and Democracy: One year ago, 54% of
Wisconsinites disapproved of Walker’s job performance. Over the
following months, “Walker spent unprecedented sums on a seamless
eight-month public relations campaign that dwarfed the television
expenditures of his opponent.”
Here’s how Walker did it, as one example: Walker went on air in
November 2011 (seven months before the June 2012 recall) with an ad
featuring “Kristi,” a high school teacher who effectively frames the
issue. “In my opinion, it feels a little bit like sour grapes,” says
Kristi with a killer Wisconsin accent, “It feels like — we didn’t get
our way, we want to change the outcome.” This message was hammered, and
hammered, again, and again, with dark money ads in the final weeks of
the election by an unknown group with unknown donors called
Coalition for American Values
(here we go again with another immature name), featuring actors who
“did not vote for Walker,” but brought the message that recalls “are not
the Wisconsin way.” Since Coalition for American Values files as a
501(c)(4), the question for the IRS is: Does Kristi’s ad represent money
spent for “social welfare” purposes and/or was spending for her ad
disproportionate to spending on actual “social welfare” campaigns
conducted by Coalition for American Values?
The Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity
(here’s
another one of those infantile-sounding organizational names,
transparently phony and stupid… oh please!) also spent serious money
with an intensive ad campaign attempting to convince Wisconsinites that
Walker’s budget cuts were working…not! (See: “
Will Gov. Scott Walker Ever Come Clean on Wisconsin’s Budget Deficit?”) Eventually, the Koch’s alone would outspend the democratic candidate
$10 million to
$3.9 million, or over 2:1.
Well… now that the Walker test case was so unbelievably successful,
there’s no guessing what happens in the general election coming up in
four short months, but the writing is on the wall. If a flawed candidate
like Walker can win by coming back from 10 points down in seven months,
then just imagine what the underground propagandists can do for
Governor Romney, whose race against President Obama is already looking
like a photo finish!
With Romney in control, one day it’ll be repeal of Obama’s health
care plan, the next day putting people to work on the Keystone XL
Pipeline (to read about America’s most under-reported oil spill, Google:
“Observer Michigan oil spill”), and followed the next day with
carte blanche
fracking all across the land to achieve energy independence by
forcing/blasting carcinogens deep underground to pressure the release of
oil or gas from centuries-old tight formations in the general vicinity
of America’s underground fresh water aquifers.
All of this begs the question: What safeguards will be exercised or
will the Romney team follow the path of least resistance so
characteristic of the Right, eliminating federal governmental
regulations, a 100%
laissez faire economy with self-regulating
private enterprise. This is the mantra of all of the above-mentioned
funding groups, but look at what happens when they are regulated…
BP/Gulf of Mexico!
• Read Part 1
here.
Robert Hunziker, a former hedge fund manager, is a
professional independent negotiator for worldwide commodity actual
transactions and a freelance writer for progressive publications as well
as business journals. Mr. Hunziker earned an MA degree in economic
history at DePaul University/Chicago, and he resides in Los Angeles. He
can be contacted at:
rlhunziker@gmail.com.
Read other articles by Robert.
