Good news: Matt Lewis finally feels liberated and admits that Sarah Palin is an idiot - Bad news: Matt Lewis now promotes other right-wing idiots, and the Koch Brothers are in charge

By Patrick

Good news on Sunday: After writing his "mea culpa" article at the Daily Caller, the conservative journalist Matt Lewis also admitted on MSNBC that he finally feels free to say in public that Sarah Palin is an idiot, that he is not shackled any more, as Sarah Palin would say it:

"Mea culpa", another latin word, and it means: Man, the Republican party has really been taken for a ride.

So, we have good news on a Sunday, and now we can all hope that the world will be a better place again.

It took Matt Lewis 6 1/2 years to realize what most people realized immediately when they first encountered Sarah Palin, but better late than never.

The above interview is very interesting indeed. Matt Lewis admits that a conservative who criticized Sarah Palin in the past was "in trouble", was in danger to get "beaten up". I also find it sweet that he uses the phrase "Palin fatigue", a phrase which is only too familiar to all of us.

In his article and his interview on MSNBC, Matt Lewis pulls no punches. The love affair is over, and from his remarks, it is more than obvious that Matt has been "disenchanted" for a very long time, probably for years. He also mentions Palin's famous bus tour from 2011, when the media was "chasing her bus caravan around the country", and Matt concludes that Palin now is just interested in "attention" and "fame".

But what is the alternative to Sarah Palin? That's where the harsh reality kicks in. The Republican party is now being ruled by nutjobs, and the Koch Brothers are the paymasters in the background. They seem to be in full control of the GOP these days.

Matt Lewis, naturally, has connections to the Koch groups as well - from an article from 2010, in which he defended the Koch Brothers:

"Disclosure: Matt Lewis has previously spoken for Americans for Prosperity, 

an organization founded by David Koch."

Also, taking into account that the Koch Brothers are notorious for their secrecy, we can probably assume that the above "disclosure" is only scratching the surface, as far as the connections of Matt Lewis to the "Koch empire" is concerned...but please correct us if we are wrong, Matt.

Just today, Matt Lewis published a new article in defense of the Koch Brothers, in the UK Telegraph - and don't even search for a disclaimer:

So, who are the other contenders? Matt Lewis names them (from 1:45 in the clip): Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Joni Ernst. At the end of the clip, from 4:00, he also mentions that people should "now focus on Scott Walker and Marco Rubio."

One really does not know whether to feel sorry, or whether to be angry. The new line-up of the Republican Party, these "fresh faces", as Matt Lewis calls them, is a joke. If any of these people that he mentioned became President, the happy days would be over.

People like Ted Cruz and Joni Ernst are simply dangerous extremists, who surely would in Europe be members of some right-wing fringe party, far removed from the "mainstream". But even worse: All of the people that Matt Lewis mentions in this interviews are just "puppets" of the Koch Brothers, they are all "Koch Suckers", short and simple.

This is not a  secret. As the San Francisco Chronicle wrote two days ago:

Now, any outside group — with unlimited donations from corporations, labor or wealthy individuals — can make a direct pitch to voters right up until election day. The only caveat with these “independent” expenditures is they cannot work in collaboration with a candidate’s campaign.

But make no mistake: The campaigns are well aware of the potency of this outside help. The Koch brothers’ annual winter retreat at Palm Springs attracted aspiring Republican presidential candidates Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas.

So who are these Koch brothers, who stir so much fear and ire among Democrats, and what is their agenda?

Charles, 78, and David, 74, own the Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries, the nation’s second-largest privately held company. They are worth an estimated $41 billion each.

Their overriding philosophy is promotion of deregulation, tax cuts and smaller government. Among their specific targets are opposition to climate change — they are heavily invested in energy — and repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

The Los Angeles Daily News wrote also on January 30 regards the power of the Koch Brothers as a threat for both political parties:

The notion that two individuals with no qualification or popular mandate beyond a fat checkbook now are free to make an entire party apparatus essentially irrelevant ought to trouble both Republicans and Democrats. Since the widespread adoption of direct primaries for state and national offices, the parties have become much more democratic institutions, subject to major course corrections at the ballot box. If ultra-rich industrialists and financiers, like the Koch brothers, are now free to buy a pass that circumvents the modern parties, we’re back to the days of Mark Hanna and his ilk, when both parties essentially were run by secretive back-room arbiters subject to the influence of self-seeking special interests.

In short: We can stop worrying about an imbecile like Sarah Palin, although her legacy as the "folksy demagogue" of the Republicans will last for much longer.

But we really have to worry about the Koch Brothers and their band of puppets, aka "Republican presidential candidates."

The intentions of the Koch Brothers have been known for years. They want to buy themselves a president, and they are deadly serious about it.

Already in 2011, secret recordings from the super-secret Koch meetings were published, which revealed that the Koch's form a coalition of ultra-rich donors, in order to buy themselves a president. In 2012, they failed, but in 2016, their funds seem to have no limits.

Watch:

If the Koch Brothers achieve their goal, to buy themselves a president, then you can say good-bye for example to environmental regulations and effective health insurance. The progress of several decades will be reversed.

The Koch Brothers might be billionaires, but their greed seems to have no limits.

Just a few days ago, I watched on German TV an excellent documentary about the early US industrialists, the "Men who built America." I only found out just now that this documentary by the History Channel won two Emmys, well deserved in my opinion. You should all definitely watch it!

The documentary also tells the story about how the industrialist bought their own presidential candidate in 1896, who finally managed to win the election, through excessive donations and bribes to the media: William McKinley.

Luckily, this excerpt from the documentary is available as a free clip on the website of the History Channel:

Then of course it struck me immediately: The Koch Brothers try to replicate the success from 1896. This is more than obvious, and this should worry us all, A LOT.

It is a shame that intelligent people like Matt Lewis are caught in their conservative bubble and cannot see this danger. It took him 6 1/2 years to finally speak out openly against Sarah Palin. Taking his pace into account, it will probably take decades until he finally admits that the Koch Brothers posed a huge threat to Democracy, and to the welfare and well-being of the "common people" in the USA.

It's a tragedy, and we can only all hope that the Democrats learn from 2014 and get their act together in 2016.

Hopefully the "sub-standard" line-up of the GOP will help the Democrats (h/t ScoutandAbout):

Have a nice Sunday, everybody!

+++

UPDATE:

Excellent new article by Politico, very detailed, worth reading (h/t again ScoutandAbout):

The poll is by no means a definitive assessment of the feelings of the hundreds of wealthy business leaders who comprise the vaunted network created by billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch. But it does provide an early glimpse into the leanings of a pool of megadonors who are being hotly courted by the field of would-be candidates, and whose checkbooks could go a long way toward determining who emerges with the GOP nomination — regardless of whether the Koch network decides to formally back a candidate.

The network has thus far steered clear of endorsing specific candidates in primaries, but it is coming under internal and external pressures to do so. It hopes to raise $889 million from wealthy backers like those who gathered in Rancho Mirage to push its agenda in 2015 and 2016, more than double what it spent in the 2012 election cycle.

In addition to Cruz, Paul and Rubio, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker paid a visit to the Ritz meeting, though he was not present for the forum. The three-day conference was organized by Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit outfit that oversees the vast political and policy network created by the Koch brothers.

Particularly interesting is this excerpt:

The meeting — part of an ongoing series of twice-a-year “seminars” as they’re called in the Kochs’ orbit — featured a mix of presentations on policy, politics and business. This winter’s session included a discussion moderated by conservative journalist Stephen F. Hayes on principled corporate citizenship and a luncheon discussion featuring MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, according to an attendee.

Yes, the famous hosts on the supposedly "left" cable-channel MSNBC now turned into Koch-Suckers as well.

To their credit, Joe and Mika talked openly about this appearance on their show, and they clearly are impressed and actually seem to believe that the Koch Brothers are good people, believe it or not:

You really don't know what is more terrifying: Industrialists who try to buy a Democracy, or a mediocre line-up of candidates, or incredibly naive journalists who apparently lack any political education. In any case: The Koch Brothers need to be defeated, or Americans will be in real trouble.

+++

UPDATE 2:

There are two more clips which I would like to add to this post.

First: In a new segment with Howard Kurtz on Fox News, he and his three female guests now conclude that Sarah Palin was never relevant again after 2008!

The conservatives now basically try to "erase" the memory of the GOP politician Sarah Palin, who was highly regarded within the GOP as long as she was a useful idiot for relentlessly attacking President Obama.

Watch:

Second, Howard Stern did a brilliant new segment about the GOP, who in his opinion has been "hijacked by idiots like Sarah Palin":

Today's GOP: The Inmates are Still Running the Asylum - UPDATE: Daniel Schulman's book on the Koch Brothers

by Sunnyjane

The Republican Tea Party is in disarray, and oddly enough, that's a good thing.  It's a little late in coming, but hey, at least the moderate Republicans have become frustrated with the Baggers and the Democrats are becoming bolder in calling them out on it.  More citizens who have always proudly aligned themselves with conservatives are stepping out of that dark hole and seeing the light of liberal policies.

We constantly fight that battle here at Politicalgates.  Let's see what others are saying on the issues in succinct and sometimes humorous ways -- ways that make you nod and think, That's right!

Gun Control

As governor, Ronald Reagan was all for gun control when the Black Panthers were making uncomfortable noises about armed revolution for social change in the 1970s.  Then Reagan decided to run for president in 1980 and reversed course and said citizens should be well-armed.  The NRA endorsed him.  He was shot by John Hinkley two months after his inauguration.  A lesson learned?  Unfortunately, NO.

See Ronald Reagan, above.

Energy Independence

One of the biggest Drill, Baby, Drill fallacies in this country is that by sucking oil out of every available piece of land in North America that we will decrease our dependence on foreign oil by standing next to the rigs and pumping it directly into American gas tanks.

Canada is particularly keen to run the XL Pipeline right smack-dab through America's heartland.  You get that, right?  Americans assume all the risk, Canada and the Kochs get all the money   From the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska through Native American sacred tribal lands, somewhere that sucker is going to spring a devastating leak; it's too late then.  And Americans benefiting from the pipeline?   Really?  Here's the truth...

Let's sail, boys, before these idiots figure out they've been lied to!

Immigration Reform -- or the Lack Thereof

One Montana county Tea Party group wants absolutely nothing to do with candidate Drew Turiano.  It seems Mr. T has gotten into a lot of trouble with this bunch for slinging around a heap of racial slurs, aimed primarily at Hispanics.  It is his contention that the U.S. should not just adopt a pathway to citizenship, but should also just send undocumented immigrants -- and their American-born children -- back to where they came from, via Operation Wetback.  [Note to Mr. Turiano: It's illegal to do that, you ignorant creep.] 

Of course, he's not the only GOP asshole to use the term wetback.  So have Don Young in Alaska and Chris Mapp in Texas because in both cases, it's perfectly normal.  Does this sound like your teenager saying, But Mom, everybody says it! 

Priorities, priorities, priorities.

Equal Pay for Women

   

     














  

Now, About the IRS Targeting the Republican Groups

Oh, and that Imperial President and His Executive Orders?

The Far-Right and Voting Rights

It's always dangerous when Tea Partiers start using big words.  You  know, like constitution and sovereignty, for example.  Rep. Ted Yahoo Yoho of Florida is no exception.  He loves his pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution, but has obviously never read it.  He cares about the sovereignty of this country, but has no idea that it necessitates a moral imperative to do right by its citizens.  Yoho was recently heard opining that only property owners should be allowed to vote.  Um, I recommend checking out the 15th Amendment, Congressman.  Oh, and he's awfully fond of voter ID laws.

Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi

And we'll take it all the way to 2016, if necessary!

Climate Change?  No Such Thing!

They don't know where babies come from, either.

Raising the Minimum Wage?  No, No, NO!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

End Note

+++

UPDATE (by Patrick):

I received an email-message by Daniel Schulman, a senior editor in the Washington bureau of "Mother Jones", in which he promotes his new book about the Koch brothers which was published yesterday, called "Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America's Most Powerful and Private Dynasty", and it is my great pleasure to bring this email-message to your attention:

Hi everyone,

Excuse the email blast, but I wanted to alert you that my biography of the Koch brothers, Sons of Wichita, hit book stores this week. I poured the past (almost) three years of my life into this project, so needless to say I'm pretty excited to see this book leave my computer's hard drive for the real world. The early reviews have been great. Vanity Fair calls Sons of Wichita "never less than engrossing" and "a stylishly written saga." The American Prospect says "despite Schulman’s often-superb eye for the revealing and/or juicy detail…he never stoops to caricaturing his subjects as the Koch Ness Monsters of popular lore." If you'd like a preview, Vanity Fair published a short excerpt on Monday that chronicles my surreal visit with the elegant, elusive, eldest Koch brother, Frederick. Mother Jones published a longer excerpt Tuesday that covers the brutal legal battles among the four Koch brothers. (You can also catch me on NPR's Fresh Air today chatting about the book with Terry Gross. See here for air times in your neck of the woods.)

It takes a village to launch a book, so I'd certainly appreciate your help in spreading the word. Tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. Talk loudly about it at crowded places where strangers will overhear you. Tweet it. Tumble it. Facebook it. Forward this email to anyone you can think of. Anything helps. And, if you're so inclined, buy a copy of the book. You can purchase it online from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or via iBooks. It should also be available at your local book store (and if it isn't, ask them why not!). If you do buy the book, please make sure to let me know what you think.

Best regards—and thanks,

Dan Schulman

I also want to use this opportunity to promote my video-clip about the Koch Brothers from 2011, which features the secret recording of one of their super-secret meetings:

Stratfor-founder George Friedman slams Tea Party in leaked emails from March 2010: "I'm pretty hard right and I'm offended", "You are living in a country where disagreements degenerate into massively uncivil behavior", "Physical attacks on people and places you don't agree with has become acceptable" - Friedman compares Tea Party to "Hitler and Lenin", other analysts also make comparisons to Nazi-movement

By Patrick

On March 20, 2010, Fox News reported that the Tea Party is making a "last stand" at the Capital in Washington against the healthcare reform. On this day, ugly scenes happened: An angry and abusive crowd gathered around the Capitol when lawmakers, with surprisingly little protection, entered the building. The Washington Post reported:

"Members of the Congressional Black Caucus  said that racial epithets were hurled at them Saturday by angry protesters who had gathered at the Capitol to protest health-care legislation, and one congressman said he was spit upon. The most high-profile openly gay congressman, Rep. Barney Frank  (D-Mass.), was heckled with anti-gay chants."

Whether the protester intentionally or just accidentally spit on Congressman Emanuel Cleaver has since been subject to debate, but this question ultimately is not important. The video of this incident takes you back to the heated atmosphere on March 20, 2010 - when the Tea Party probably was at its "peak": 

A few days later, the Tea Party brought the protest to Harry Reid's hometown, with about 10,000 protesters  attending - including Sarah Palin as a featured speaker, giving one of her biggest "screeches" ever. "Don't retreat, reload" - yes, we remember.

So this happened 2 1/2 years ago, and although the big crowds are gone, the Tea Party is still there. Congress now is full of "Teabaggers", and the Republican VP-candidate Paul Ryan is clearly a Tea Party guy - bought and paid for by the Koch Brothers, the "financial engine" of the Tea Party movement. Also, don't forget all these new "Tea Party Governors."

Back in March 2010, it was not very popular to point in public that the teabaggers are mainly a bunch of extremists (which are being manipulated and exploited by the billionaires and their fake grassroots groups, as it later turned out). In March 2010, the Tea Party and their nasty protests were still quite a novelty.

Therefore it is fascinating to discover that in the leaked Stratfor-emails, to which Wikileaks granted us full access several weeks ago, not only the CEO of Stratfor, George Friedman, but also other analysts already had very strong views about the Tea Party in March 2010 and had no hesitation to compare them to "Hitler", "Stalin" or the Nazi movement - even quite directly comparing Sarah Palin to Hitler! And I thought we were the only ones at "Palingates" back in 2010 who did that...

As most of you already know, Stratfor is a controversial private global intelligence company. Their emails had been hacked by Anonymous and were then published by Wikileaks (just excerpts of it, in an ongoing process, apparently due to the sensitive nature of the material).

Stratfor CEO George Friedman in particular regarded the Tea Party as a threat to Democracy - despite being politically "pretty hard right", as he says about himself.

In a long email exchange from March 25, and 26, 2010 George Friedman and some of his analysts discuss the Tea Party in a way that has rarely been seen before. If the USA had a truly free media, such an email exchange would be not interesting at all. However, with the "Tea Party" being treated with "kid gloves", things look very different.

Chillingly, this email exchange proves that the Stratfor-analysts foresaw that a terrorist right-wing movement could emerge out of the Tea Party - and we already have more than enough evidence that this did in fact happen. 

Another episode from the series "What the corporate MSM won't tell you."

Read the full exchange - it starts from the bottom:

I highlighted some the quotes in bold which I find particularly revealing:

Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's house 3/27
Date 2010-03-26 14:01:55
From blackburn@stratfor.com
To analysts@stratfor.com
Others Listname: mailto:analysts@stratfor.com
MessageId: <1777543344.1084331269608515285.JavaMail.root@core.stratfor.com>
InReplyTo: 4BACAEE0.4000604@stratfor.com
Text
Besides the racial slurs & other epithets hurled at elected officials, and
the severed gas line at a congressman's brother's house, and bricks
through windows, there's this shining example of the kind of reasoning to
be found among the Tea Party people -- threatening voice mail messages for
Bart Stupak. He was one of the Democrats who got federal funding for
abortion cut out of the health care reform bill, and he's being called a
baby-killer. Also included are hopes that he bleeds out his ass and dies,
and one woman saying that bad things will happen to him simply because so
many people are *wishing* for them to happen.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6329647n

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marko Papic"
To: "Analyst List"
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 7:56:00 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's house
3/27

My gut is to say that Palin couldn't tie her shoes alone... but I am sure
that is probably very similar to what Von Papen and other German
conservatives said about Hitler, so I am just going to shut up.

Sean Noonan wrote:

Uh, Palin?

Nice use of the Godwin principle. David Frum just left AEI, I haven't
looked into the details, but if this is any indication of the
republicans replacing smart conservatives with teabaggers, that adds
weight to your argument.

Marko Papic wrote:

nother thing that I have gathered is that there is a decent percentage
that are ex-military such as Timothy McVeigh and that are mostly
recently returned from Iraq/Afghanistan, which ads an obvious
militaristic and skilled element to their capability and mindset.

This is really the key point and the reason I did not think that the
DHS report from early on in Obama's administration was ludicrous, the
one that said that there is an increased threat from ex-military
joining militias.

I agree with Stick and George that the Tea Party movement is something
new and scary. I did not want to use the Nazi Party example due to the
Godwin's principle, but since George did I will run with it.
Basically, the Nazi Party also had extremely real grievances and began
gathering support among the low-middle class conservatives. The Weimar
Conservatives led by von Papen and von Schelicher (and I guess
Hindenburg) thought that they could use the grassroots of the Nazis
and their "energy" to take out the Social Democrats and the rising
influence of the Communists. They looked at the followers of the Nazis
exactly how Republican elites look at the Tea Party today, with
contempt, but salivating because of political gains they thought they
could capture. They also thought Hitler was a stooge, an idiot, an
extremist and someone they could manipulate. Obviously they were
wrong. The danger for me is that the Republican Party makes the same
mistake. It gets desperate enough because of a loss in 2010 (which I
think is coming) to completely encapsulate a radical, anti-federalist,
movement and then gets eaten from the inside.

But there are two major differences. One is that there is no Hitler in
the Tea Party movement. There is no charismatic leader who is also a
brilliant political tactician.

The second is the fact that there are no "Brownshirts". One of the
reasons the Nazis were so effective is because the Sturmabteilung
would kick your ass in the street if you called them "Tea Baggers".
Eventually Hitler would turn on the "Brown Shirts" in the Night of the
Long Knives because he no longer neeeded a milita movement once he
controlled the state. But the point is that they were an extremely
important part of the Nazi power's rise to power.

This is why the mobilization and organization of ex-military elements
who are pissed off at the government and joining the Tea Party
movement is so central to this issue.

All that said, there is a third element in all of this and that's the
illegitimacy of the Weimar Republic and its internal weakness. The
Weimar had nowhere close to the security apparatus that the U.S.
federal government possesses. Nonetheless, a militia movement
associated with a wide-ranging popular front would be an explosive
situation. Interestingly, both the Nazi Party and the Tea Party had a
very important racial component. The Nazis associated the Jews with
Communist/Socialist movements since a lot of the prominent Communists
(in Russia and in Germany) were Jews. Similarly, the Tea Party is 99.9
percent white and it is beginning to associate the Democratic Party in
power with minorities (which again is not untrue, since it took the
mobilization of minorities and swinging of the Hispanic vote to the
Democrats for Obama to actually win).

Chris Farnham wrote:

I came across some of these whakos on a street art internet forum a
few years ago and have been discussing their political views with
them for a while. I'm getting the impression that they are only
fringe by belief, not particularly by number. Another thing that I
have gathered is that there is a decent percentage that are
ex-military such as Timothy McVeigh and that are mostly recently
returned from Iraq/Afghanistan, which ads an obvious militaristic
and skilled element to their capability and mindset. Unbending in
belief and unbending in nature.
As has been thrown around in this conversation already, the swelling
and visibility of the tea party movement is adding group think and
polarizing tendencies to these guys and they are becoming more
belicose and motivated in their discussions. I'm seeing slogans like
"We are the ones we have been waiting for" and other such stuff
coming up a lot more. The second anyone in the Dems starts talking
tighter gun controls the game is going to change.
As an outsider looking in on all of this constitutional,
libertarian, conservative craziness, I think you lot might have a
few roos running loose in the top paddock!!
----- Original Message -----
From: "scott stewart"
To: "Analyst List"
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 8:20:15 PM GMT +08:00 Beijing /
Chongqing / Hong Kong / Urumqi
Subject: RE: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

90.1 is not what scares me. They are a small fringe of whackos. The
tea bag people are pulling thousands to their rallies.

From: analysts-bounces@stratfor.com
[mailto:analysts-bounces@stratfor.com] On Behalf Of Marko Papic
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 8:14 AM
To: Analyst List
Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

Please do... in fact, I think we all should start listening to 90.1
more often. I have been doing it for 2 years and it has gotten
progressively worse.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Noonan"
To: "Analyst List"
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 7:01:19 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

As I said in the previous email "a line has been crossed" ;-)

Austin may have been one of the first events, yes. But with the
healthcare bill passing, and a bunch of crackheads getting angry
again and mislabeling it 'obamacare,' the rhetoric, and chance for
horrible consequences has increased. My point was not about when
exactly the line was crossed, but when there is momentum for more
such attacks. That momentum seems pretty high right now.

Time to listen to 90.1 on my way in.

Marko Papic wrote:

If all it takes is one person, hasn't the line already been crossed
with the terrorist attack in Austin?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Noonan"
To: "Analyst List"
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 6:15:38 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

One point I want to add-- Marko and Matt are right that violence has
been limited--bricks through democratic offices. But someone did go
and cut the gas lines in what they thought was the house of a
Virginia Congressman--no one was hurt, but that could have been
bad.

But the thing here is that the rhetoric and ideology is the same
(and from the same people in many instances) before Timothy McVeigh
bombed the Federal Building. It is the risk of something like that
happening that I am deathly, deathly afraid of. A line has been
crossed- the principle of not using violence- now we must wonder
what happens next. All it takes is one person.

laura.jack@stratfor.com wrote:

There was an op-ed in the nyt a couple of weeks ago called "walmart
hippies" that drew a comparison between the tea partiers and the
radical left in the 60s and 70s.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: George Friedman

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:23:13 -0500

To: Analyst List

Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

When we look back on the south and the anti-war movement, a number
of stages existed. First, small groups of extremely passionate
people. Then the generation of substantial public demonstrations.
Then interference with daily life and intimidation of those who
disagreed with them, in some cases leading to violence. Along side
this, there developed a group of politicians seeking to cater to
their interests.

Neither movement (segregationists and anti-war) had a single,
coherent organization. And neither really could define what they
wanted in practical terms. Both focused on their hatred of the
government. But it was the combination of incoherent rage, with
smaller groups of thugs that created massive crises of confidence in
the country.

Politicians emerged to take advantage of this feeling. George
Wallace and George McGovern as examples. Interesting, the
politicians that arose all failed. The segregationist movement had
a lot to do with JFKs election. The anti-war movement elected and
re-elected Nixon. So the impact is not on who runs the country.
Neither every came close to national power. The impact is in the
destabilization.

Part of that destabilization came from the illusion that they
represented the majority, and the presentation of the government as
a rogue enemy that had to be bought down. So democratically elected
presidents like JFK, Johnson and Nixon were represented as if they
were somehow usurpers, and the segregationists and anti-war movement
represented the people.

It was this reversal that was weird. Kennedy and Nixon were both
treated as illegitimate in spite of the fact that they were
democratically elected and quite popular. The movements pretended
that they really spoke for the country.

It got ugly and it got weird. Tea Party's claims that it represents
the people, when none of them ever won an election, but that the
people who did win the election don't speak for the people reminds
me of them. Along with their tendency to shout down whoever
disagreed.

Churchill defined a fanatic as someone who can't change his mind and
can't change the subject. That was the segregationists, that was
the anti-war movement and Tea Party sound like that to me.

I really get uneasy with a movement that contains people who were
never elected and couldn't be elected, claiming political legitimacy
greater than those who do get elected. Speaking for the people
under those circumstance is what Lenin and Hitler did.

Marko Papic wrote:

I have actually brought this question up before the Tea Party
emerged... the anti-government rhetoric has been ratcheted up before
the Tea Party become a key movement. The question is when does this
coalesce into a threat and what is the breaking point.

----- Original Message -----
From: "George Friedman"
To: "Analyst List"
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 11:02:40 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada
Central
Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

But sometimes an economic argument, like healthcare, becomes a
political issue, as when it leads to massive civil strife. Apart
from my reaction to the Tea Party, and its swung from mild sympathy
to contempt--the real question is whether this will lead to the kind
of civil unrest we saw in the south in the 1950s, and in
Universities in the 1960s, when civil authority was seriously
challenged and at some points cracked. I can't imagine this going
further than that but those were pretty serious events. Both for
example led to the calling out of National Guard and troops to
control their behavior, massive resistance to democratically reached
decisions, and significant weakening of basic institutions. They
were no jokes.

Were this to happen in the United States this would have huge
geopolitical implications to the ability of the United States to
help. So this is a question of where we put our bandwidth. If you
want to beat a dead horse, go take another whack at health care.
That one is over and done with. The important question now--and
this is really important--is whether the Tea Party will evolve into
a decade long massive civil unrest movement. That's what we need to
answer now as an organization. That question just dwarfs the
healthcare question in importance.
Robert Reinfrank wrote:

To be fair though, my main thrust was about the political reaction
to an economic reality. And it's not that we're not students of
geopolitics, it's just that the question was whether, with
healthcare passed, Obama would have more bandwidth, although I agree
there are more geopolitically relevant aspects that we should be
discussing.

George Friedman wrote:

yup.

Robert Reinfrank wrote:

who do you think

Marko Papic wrote:

Who was talking about economic repercussions? My point was purely
political.

----- Original Message -----
From: "George Friedman"
To: "Analyst List"
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:18:35 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada
Central
Subject: Re: [OS] US/CT/CALENDAR- Teabagger protest at Harry Reid's
house 3/27

The economics of this is far less important than the social and
political implications of the response. The lack of civility on TV
has now spilled over into the streets. Physical attacks on people
and places you don't agree with has become acceptable. The
fundamental and absolute principle of a democratic republic is that
while your position may be defeated, and you can continue to argue
your point, you do it without demonizing your opponents and without
ever threatening harm.

Whether this is a small fraction of the movement or large is
unimportant to me, as is the argument about healthcare. This
behavior is more frightening that the largest deficit I can
imagine. We use fascist and communist casually, but he definition
of each was that it did not absolutely abjure political
intimidation. I have not seen anything like this since the
segregationists in the south and the anti-war movement in the 1960s.

Both triggered massive political counteractions fortunately, and the
segregationists and anti-war movement was politically crushed. I
certainly hope that the Tea Party has the same fate.

You are both supposed to be students of geopolitics. Approach this
geopolitically. You are living in a country where disagreements
degenerate into massively uncivil behavior. Yet you are both still
arguing the issue. That issue is trivial compared to the way the
losers are responding. I find the language they use offensive in a
civilized polity, and the intimidation tactics of some of them is
monstrous.

You should both be far more worried about the political dimension
than the economic. We will survive the economic. We can't the
political. And as a practical matter, this is the best friend the
Democrats have. I'm pretty hard right and I'm offended. Imagine
how people more moderate than me look at this. These people are
guaranteeing Obama's re-election.

If this is not educational, I don't know what is!

It is interesting to note that it took several more months before the involvement of the Koch Brothers finally was revealed in greater detail - especially through Jane Mayer's ground-breaking article in the "New Yorker" from August 20, 2010.

George Friedman and his analysts focused on the "raw nature" of the Tea Party movement in this email exchange, and were not "distracted" by the fact that the billionaires more or less secretly finance the Tea Party. However, it would probably have strengthened the Nazi-comparisons, as the Nazi-movement was also infamously financed by industrialists.

At the end of the email exchange, a CBS-clip is being mentioned, with recordings of threats against Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak. I uploaded it to youtube for easier viewing:

Finally, I would like to add the documentary "The Billionaires' Tea Party" by Australian filmmaker Taki Oldham. Please buy the DVD! There is also a longer, previous version for sale: "(Astro) Turf Wars."

It's official: Paul Ryan will be Mitt Romney's running mate in the 2012 presidential election - It's the "billionaires' pick" for the GOP: Two "flip-floppers" fighting for the 1 percent! - Paul Ryan, the "Koch-Sucker" and Ayn Rand fan - UPDATE: Romney gaffe - "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

By Patrick

CNN just reported a few minutes ago that Paul Ryan will be Mitt Romney's running mate:

Richmond, Virginia (CNN) - Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will announce his running mate at the beginning of a four-day, four-state bus tour in Norfolk, Virginia, on Saturday at 9 a.m. ET, his campaign announced in a statement late Friday night.

Three Republican sources told CNN that Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin would be Romney’s running mate pick. GOP sources also told CNN that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman have all been told that they won’t be getting the nod.

Kathleen found this entertaining Democratic campaign clip which was first published in May this year - "Mitt Romney & Paul Ryan: That's Amore":

It is a boring, and very predictable pick by Mitt Romney. I is obviously designed to excite the Tea Party base, but it will also give the Obama campaign excellent possibilities for new attacks for example against the cuts in Medicare which Paul Ryan proposed.

But what I find particularly devastating is the fact that Paul Ryan is one of the "disciples" of GOP-hero Ayn Rand, a woman who famously declared that "altruism is evil", a notion which now seems to be preferred way of thinking by many people within the GOP. It is a terrible message.

See what Paul Ryan had to say about Ayn Rand in 2009:

She "built a moral base for capitalism?" 

Here is an even longer speech that Paul Ryan gave about Ayn Rand (it's not "secret", though, as the title says):

Paul Ryan: "I grew up on Ayn Rand."

This is quite a sentence (at the 1:43 mark): "You cannot find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand."

I am sure that many of you are familiar with Ayn Rand. This video gives a short introduction:

Here is a longer clip with interviews by Ayn Rand:

Ayn Rand was a radical, extremely narrow-minded person who was obsessed with the idea that people should not help each other. What a wonderful role model! Just what the USA needs right now. The billionaires will love it!

Paul Ryan only "disavowed" Ayn Rand this year when he suddenly found out the Ayn Rand was an atheist. I am not sure how he could have missed that. As he said, Ryan "grew up on Ayn Rand", and Ayn Rand herself was not shy about her views and gave many interviews about her atheism. This has to be the least convincing statement by Paul Ryan imaginable - but maybe he is a good running mate for Mitt Romney, because Paul Ryan also seems to be a die-hard "flip-flopper!" He tells people whatever they want to hear in the current given situation - the GOP's only change to success these days.

So it's "the billionaires' pick" this year. Good luck, Republicans!

(h/t to JCos for the logo!)

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UPDATE:

Alternet reports that Paul Ryan is a huge "Koch-Sucker" - he has been very closely associated with the Koch Brothers for several years already:

In case anyone should miss the point that Ryan is a very Kochy guy, Romney is doing his big reveal of Ryan this morning aboard the U.S.S. Wisconsin, a decommisioned ship docked in the all-important swing state of Virginia. However important Virginia is to the electoral math, Wisconsin is a symbolic icon for the Tea Party. It's not only Ryan's home state; it's the poster state of right-wing triumph, the place where Gov. Scott Walker successfully fended off a recall attempt by progressives in response to a bill he rammed through the state legislature that all but ended collective bargaining for the state's public employees. Much of the credit for Wisconsin's right turn goes to Americans For Prosperity, which boasts a particularly aggressive Wisconsin chapter, which began building a network of activists there in 2005.

Ryan's association with the group goes back almost that far. In 2008, he was granted the Wisconsin AFP chapter's "Defending the American Dream" award, handed to him by a young county executive who served as emcee for those festivities -- a guy named Scott Walker. Since then, he has made countless appearances on the group's behalf, at anti-health-care reform rallies on Capitol Hill, on conference town halls across the country and at Americans For Prosperity and Americans For Prosperity Foundation events. (Just enter Ryan's name into the search engine on the Amerians For Prosperity Web site, and you'll come up with eight pages of citations.) In fact, Ryan was due to speak at last week's conference sponsored by the AFP Foundation in Washington, D.C., forcing increased speculation about his running-mate prospects when he failed to show .

So Romney/Ryan surely will make the activist billionaires happy, who last year promised the "mother of all wars" during the 2012 campaign in their fight against "Saddam Hussein" while speaking to their ultra-rich supporters at the secret meeting in June 2011:

+++

Please re-tweet:

https://twitter.com/politicalgates/status/234273914300272640

https://twitter.com/politicalgates/status/234273968826241025

https://twitter.com/politicalgates/status/234274920090193920

+++

UPDATE 2:

The first huge gaffe of Romney/Ryan!

Romney: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!

The clip is already up on youtube:

+++

 UPDATE 3:

That's Romney's man - Paul Ryan booed by citizens in Town Hall meeting in April 2011 during a discussion about the growing income inequality:

+++

UPDATE 4:

Paul Ryan speaks at a rally of Koch-funded "Americans for Prosperity" in March 2012 - he is a terribly boring and uninspiring speaker:

+++

UPDATE 5:

 Oh, sweet: 290 pages of opposition research on Paul Ryan! Published by progressive PAC "American Bridge."

Big h/t to Cheeriogirl!   American Bridge Paul Ryan Research Book

+++

 UPDATE 6:

Our reader AzureGhost found a new logo:

In addition, AzureGhost has her very own interpretation of the new GOP ticket:

The Ripple Effect: When Capitalistic Cannibals Come To Town

Guest post by KatieAnnieOakley

They were noticed right away – all the new people in formal business attire, walking around, asking questions, some being overly friendly – saccharine sweet, with a fake sincerity in the tone of their scripted words – and some whose faces were unreadable masks of stone. They moved about the offices silently. Immediately, the gossiping began. Who are they? “Productivity Managers.” Oh. OK – right. Your heart starts to beat faster through your shirt; your shoulders tighten with stress. OK. But, really – why are they here? The company is doing fine. Soon, you hear why they’re really here: they recently acquired the company… they’re an Investment Firm - and today they might fire everyone. Someone hisses behind you in one of the dozens of cubicles: “haven’t you heard about these kinds of people?” and you think: why would they do that? Because - that’s what they do.

WHAT? WHY?! We’re doing so well! Profits are up; bonuses were paid; the inventory is moving; our product is doing great – right? In fact, management was talking about expanding the company! Why would they want to fire us? You sit at your desk, paralyzed with fear. Your hands are clammy. Everything was going so great! Why would the company sell us off? “Haven’t you heard - that’s the way it works nowadays.”

Turns out, they did fire everybody. Last night. And today, you’re here to apply for your old job. Fill out this employment application. Everyone starts back at Square One. You. Your boss. His boss. His boss’ boss. Everyone. And, if you’re lucky, you’ll be rehired to be one of the lucky ones – the ones who’ll be closing the place down. But, you don’t know that – yet. So, you eagerly fill out the application… and hope. Because that’s all you’ve got right now – right? You have a family that depends on you. You leave, eagerly waiting for an answer, carrying a phone that doesn’t ring. For days at a time. Cause that’s what you do. That’s all you can do for now...

Turns out, you didn’t get the job. Few people are left, and not anyone that you know, probably because they brought in Their People. Just a Vice President and a few Field Directors are left – but mainly it’s Their People. So, you head down to the unemployment office – sure, you could have applied online, but it feels good to get out of the house. You walk in and see that you know most everyone in line. This company, your company has been in this town, your town, for decades. The company and the employees toughed out the good and the bad times – but this is the worst: you’ve been terminated… as well as everyone else in line at the unemployment office. So you wait… cause that’s all you’ve got to do now – right?

A couple of years go by; you’ve applied to what feels like hundreds of jobs, but – no one seems to be hiring. So, after the unemployment ran out a few months ago, you took a job at a convenience store near the interstate, at minimum wage. Cause that’s all there is now in your town, and you’re damned lucky and grateful for that – right?! The old company parking lot is nearly empty, but there’s a few people still working there. You heard on the news that the company is being sold again – what’s left of it anyway. And that one guy in the top floor office, the Vice President – he has bought a new home. How did he pull THAT off? Must be nice, right?

Finally, you hear on the news that the company, your old company, the town’s main employer has filed for liquidation bankruptcy. What happened after the company was sold? It’s gone – decades of the company supporting the community and the community supporting the company.

You hear on the news that the new owners couldn’t “meet their debt obligations.” You know that really means that they couldn’t make the loan payments from the Investment Company’s distribution of “Management Fee’s”. They sold the company right after taking their exorbitant fees, leaving the company burdened with debt. They took out all that equity – the equity the company was going to expand with - and they paid themselves and the VP they kept on the Board obscene “Management Fees.” Soon, the line-of-credit from the bank was frozen on the company because they fell behind on their loan payments – the loans the Investment Company had taken out in the company’s name to pay their Investment Company Board of Directors huge bonuses. The bonus at your old corporate headquarters was so huge, you’ve heard that it’s in the 7 and 8 figures per person. Why did they DO that, when they could have kept the company running, earning more money and keeping everyone employed? Why did they put so many people out of work? Because – that’s what Capitalistic Cannibals do. They feed on the living of the business world, only to discard the barely-conscious-but-dying carcass to become someone else’s carrion. Because that’s what they do.

A customer comes in; you’ve seen him a few times before. Must be a Road Warrior. He starts complaining about that wreck of a car that’s always in the parking lot, pointing toward it: “does that thing actually run? It’s an eyesore, even if it is parked over there in front of the boarded-up dry cleaners…”.

And, you’ve had enough - You. Go. Off. On. Him… this has been building up inside of you for years…

“Yeah, I see it. THAT’S MY CAR – what’s left of it” you say to him in a controlled, yet angry tone. “I get it. You can’t tolerate others struggling.  You got, and still have YOURS.  Well, then You're OK, right?“ And you launch your diatribe – because Goddammit – that’s what you feel like you’ve gotta do! 

You’re on a roll now: “Everybody should be like you - right?  What could possibly happen to YOU and YOUR company town, over there in Wichita?“ 

“You of all people of course would understand WHY entire sections of a state can be decimated by the actions of an irresponsible entity coming in and just shutting down the main employer without notice - right?  I mean, because you live in a company town - right?“ 

“What IF Koch Industries wasn't there - hard to imagine, right?  Let's say someone bigger than Koch - I know, for you in your company town - its really difficult to imagine that, right? - comes in and closes YOUR plant, closes YOUR town’s MAIN EMPLOYER, and puts hundred or even thousands out of work - without Notice - and they all go on unemployment, right?”  

“Because that's exactly what happens.  Because that’s exactly what happened here. And we never saw it coming.”

There is no going back – you’re going for the gold at this point: “ALL of those hard workers who were being paid via private enterprise are now receiving state aid.  EVERYONE here was impacted - not just the workers.  Grocery stores. Clothing stores. Hardware stores. They didn't work for "that company" - BUT MOST of their customers DID. No warning - just BOOM - Mitt Romney and BainCapital came to town.”  

“It's called The TRICKLED-ON Effect. And NO, I don’t mean trickle-down – I mean TRICKLED ON.”  

And then you say, almost yelling: “Or is Koch "too big to fail" in your town?  That's exactly what everyone in our town thought. That's what Wall Street thought too. And then - it happened.  What used to be a thriving area with productive people is now a homestead of state and federal aid - and where did those jobs go?  CHINA: where steel is made cheaply, then imported through American companies "with an office" based in those countries, so no tariffs.”  

“The ONLY WINNER was Bain Capital – they basically closed down this town.  Because when a small town loses its largest employer, that deals a fatal blow to the economy. The losers are the tax payers of our nation: everyone else now supports this town and this region via unemployment payments, food stamps, MediCaid, Foreclosures…”.

“The rest of the nation that just so happens to think JUST LIKE YOU doesn't like that one little bit - because, why should they support those that can't help themselves - right? ‘They should pay their own way’ - right? They're a drain on society - right? Well, RIGHT??!”

OK, get ahold of yourself – you’re ranting now, you fool! “And yet – you’d support the man who’s THE Poster Child of corporate greed and lust, who took those jobs like a thief in the night, and left everyone else holding the bag... and paying his tax debt on top of it all too!”  

“MITT keeps HIS INCOME in off-shore accounts. MITT chooses to hide it - because he can. MITT doesn't pay HIS FAIR SHARE. MITT wants The Rest Of Us to pay HIS SHARE of taxes.“ 

“Because, after all - that's what they expect us to do – We’re The Little People - WE Pay Taxes so the rich don’t have to. Because that's what the rich expect us to do!!”

You’re breathing heavily now, shoulders heaving: “You think the Koch brothers feted the Romneys last night in Southhampton just for giggles? THINK AGAIN! They also want a return on their investments. Very Special Rates and Very Special Breaks for the Very Special Koch Brothers and their corporations.

“And you're probably OK with that - cause you got yours.  For now...” At this point, you’ve worn yourself out. You’re exhausted – but DAMN that felt GOOD to get all that out of your system!!

To which the guy at the register, now thoroughly cowed by your meltdown finally says to you:

“No man – I just wanted to let the person who owns it know their damn headlights were on!!”

+++

Note by Patrick:

Thank you KatieAnnieOakley for this great post! As some of our readers already know, KAO made personal, unpleasant experiences with Bain Capital in the past. So she certainly knows what she is writing about.