DeVos, John Birch, CNP, Mackinac, tRump Repuglinazis

[Mc Mike]

(Re: dRumpf's Ed Secretary pick)

The DeVos family are Birchers, and Birchers founded the CNP:

"I write about DeVos’s own history as a founding member of an organization called the Council for National Policy (CNP). The CNP is a secret organization that makes the Masons look like paparazzi-hungry starlets. Formed and launched by the elite of the John Birch society, Dick DeVos is a two-time CNP President. Another leading member of the CNP was a fellow Michigan-based billionaire by the name of Edgar Prince. In what can only be described as a royal coupling, Edgar Prince’s daughter, Betsy, married Dick’s son, Dick Jr. Edgar Prince’s son, Erik Prince, would become CEO of the infamous Blackwater corporation. Blackwater is the company of private mercenaries, hired to help occupy Iraq, Afghanistan, and even post-Katrina New Orleans. Famous for rolling through Baghdad in black SUVs, rock music blaring, and making 100 times the pay of a US soldier, they are the outsourced army as rampaging fraternity. Since 2000, Blackwater had received $505 million in government contracts, two-thirds of which came in no-bid contracts. This isn’t a vast right-wing conspiracy: it’s been an openly incestuous and highly beneficial coupling between the DeVos/Prince clan and the Republican Party."

https://www.thenation.com/article/devos-ed-reality-why-i-was-booted-pat-williams-show/



Both Kellyanne Conaway and Steve Bannon were CNP members, (and both worked for trump's biggest contributor, hedge fund vulture Robert Mercer, before moving into drump's campaign):

" Now, the dominionists are running Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

As it happens, Donald Trump has just appointed Stephen K. Bannon and Kellyanne Conway to head his faltering presidential campaign.

Both are listed 2014 members of the most powerful and influential dominionist organization in America, the Council For National Policy.

We know this because, conveniently (for secular America at least ), last May 2016 the Southern Poverty Law Center made public an official 2014 membership directory of the secretive, far right, dominionist Council For National Policy.

It was a startling intelligence coup — for years, fragmentary lists of the CNP had sporadically emerged. Now, here it was — the official CNP handbook.

While Bannon was just a CNP member, Conway was listed as being a member of the CNP Executive Committee.

Joining her in that august group were Kenneth Blackwell, Tony Perkins of the (virulently antigay) Family Research Council and reigning matriarch of the religious right Phyllis Schafly — who helped kick start the movement in the early 1970s with her scorched-earth campaign to stop the Equal Rights Amendment.

As the SPLC describes of the CNP membership list featured in the booklet,

“The list is surprising, not so much for the conservatives who dominate it — activists of the religious right and the so-called “culture wars,” along with a smattering of wealthy financiers, Congressional operatives, right-wing consultants and Tea Party enthusiasts — but for the many real extremists who are included.” "

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/8/18/1561450/-Theocratic-Right-Now-Heads-Trump-s-Campaign-Bannon-and-Conway-are-in-the-CNP



The DeVos family founded the Mackinac Center in Michigan, which invented the right wing "Overton Window" concept that Glen Beck pretends is a leftist tool, in a standard exhibition of repuglinazi projection:

"The Overton Window: Moving Policies from "Unthinkable" to Enacted
The Overton Window is a tool used to visualize policy positions along the political spectrum. It was invented by Joseph P. Overton, a Mackinac Center scholar and Vice President, in the mid-1990's and has "gained national currency" since 2003.[62] In the Center's own description, it is designed to provide a spectrum which visualizes policies acceptable to the public with the various ends of the spectrum representing 'unthinkable' policies and the middle representing a policy that would be widely well received by the public. Any policy which would be deemed acceptable or desirable by the public is "in the window". The concept also holds that legislators can only act within the window out of their duty to constituents. According to the Center, the window is also finite and can be moved. The Center advocates action by think tanks and other non-political figures which would "shift the window", bringing policies that would once be thought of as radical or unthinkable into the realm of possibility, allowing legislators to enact them. Consequently, policies once looked upon acceptable or desirable would move out of favor with the public.[63]"

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mackinac_Center_for_Public_Policy#The_Overton_Window:_Moving_Policies_from_.22Unthinkable.22_to_Enacted



And, the current progression of events -- the wildly unpredicted and bizarre flipping of a large number of states all in favor of the repuglinazi candidate; the scattered and disorganized response by different Dems and progressive groups all pursuing and advocating different tactics; the last second haphazard attempts to get a recount; the delay in action and confusion about states' "passed election deadlines"; the court cases stalling the recounts; the continued dueling news reports, that intersperse details on the one hand about the repug "victor's" unfitness for office and criminality, with his pronouncements on the other hand about which bircher / CNPer / Mackinac member / rightie repuglinazi mutant he's tapping for his administration -- those events mirror the "Overton Window" strategy perfectly.

Oh, and by the way, Fuck Glen Beck.

[Achilleaze]

1. That Overton Window thing is some badass Black Magic

Make no mistake. These clowns act like they are auditioning to be minions of the AntiChrist.

[Mc Mike]

3. I like the pic, looks like a meeting in dRumpf's campaign H.Q.

I don't think they're brilliant geniuses, or super powerful, though they are evil.

They just have a ton of free time on their hands, a media that is compliant and accepts the repug framing on the issues, and a huge amount of money that they made by stealing from taxpayers and screwing the American public. Their ideas are pablum and suck-y, fonky assed and stupid. And so are the techniques they use to relay those ideas.

[Useless in FL]

2. OMG!

[Mc Mike]

4. Yeah. nt.

[Mc Mike]

5. Mackinac Center for Public Policy funded by DeVos, Kochs:

" In March 2011, as protests over Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's proposal to effectively end public sector collective bargaining continued to grow in Wisconsin, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy issued Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for three Michigan Universities, the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Michigan State University. The request targeted any emails containing: “collective bargaining,” “Wisconsin,” “Madison,” “Scott Walker” or “Maddow.” The requests target labor studies faculty at each school. USA Today wrote that Mackinac's "demands for professors' e-mails about Wisconsin's public employee labor strife is causing an uproar among some who suggest the Freedom of Information Act requests aim to intimidate pro-labor dissenters and stifle academic freedom."

The FOIA request was very similar to one submitted by the Republican Party of Wisconsin to University of Wisconsin-Madison historian William J. Cronon during the same week, after the professor had published a blog post questioning the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council in Governor Walker's anti-union legislation. Paul Krugman of the New York Times wrote " there’s a clear chilling effect when scholars know that they may face witch hunts whenever they say things the G.O.P. doesn’t like."

Like the Wisconsin GOP's request for Cronon's emails, Mackinac's request posed some concerns for university professors because the request could be an attempt to quell political opposition. In a New York Times article, Director of Academic Freedom for the American Association of University Professors, Greg Scholtz, said, “We think all this will have a chilling effect on academic freedom. We’ve never seen FOIA requests used like this before.” "

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mackinac_Center_for_Public_Policy#Chilling_Academic_Freedom.3F

[superpatriotman]

6. K&R

This should scare the hell out of you.

[Hortensis]

7. Recommend Jane Mayer's "Dark Money," which

goes into this in great depth. This IS one of two vast (in terms of money and power) far-right conspiracies--one secular and one religious, but both with common goals of gaining control of our national and state government and reinterpreting our Constitution--who find each other a lot more useful than not.

They both have worked very hard and very long to corrupt American culture into regarding their extremist views--once rejected as immoral and unworkable--as acceptable and mainstream.

[Mc Mike]

8. Thanks for the Jane Mayer info. I'll get Dark Money. Nt.

[Hortensis]

9. There are various people and factions, but these days they seem

mostly allied to achieve their common goals, like the DeVos's and Kochs. Later, of course, would be a different matter. What is shocking is just how many decades they have been working clandestinely and the frightening and appalling advances they've made.

[Mc Mike]

10. Birch was created by the repug money people who backed Hitler. After

Last edited Mon Dec 5, 2016, 08:14 AM - Edit history (1)

the nazis lost the war, those right wing repugs needed to repackage the same ideas. The JBS is a rebranding effort.

Like the teabags are a repug party rebranding effort, after their crushing election losses in '06 and '08.

The Dallas Hunt family used to be point men for all the birchers nazi initiatives, then they faded in the '80's and the Kochs took point.

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I remember the Kochs going after Mayer, falsely trying to smear her to silence her reporting on them. Dug up this old Dem Now! story:
https://www.democracynow.org/2016/1/20/how_the_kochs_tried_and_failed

So many of the crazy far right religious movements come from the JBS, like so many of the other orgs like CNP and Mackinac. Tim LaHaye, the apocalyptic whack job who wrote the Left Behind series, was a trainer for JBS in California.

Dobson's Focus on the Family is a Colorado Springs outfit. He uses Blackwater mercs as private security. Here's a piece on Dave Koch and Colorado Springs, from the Dem Now interview with Jane Mayer:

"JUAN GONZÁLEZ: You mentioned this phrase that Buckley used, "anarcho-totalitarianism." Talk about the Freedom School and how David Koch was involved with this little-known operation—in Colorado, was it?

JANE MAYER: It is. It was in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Even before he ran as vice president on the Libertarian Party, he was, I guess, a young man in his thirties and was very attracted to this school called the Freedom School that was run by a man named [Robert] LeFevre, who had had a very odd background. He had had a lot of legal brushes. And they taught a kind of a fanatical libertarianism that was almost anarchism. "

https://www.democracynow.org/2016/1/20/dark_money_jane_mayer_on_how

That crap about autarchism, anarcho-totalitarianism, anarchist libertarianism, etc., is all fake quibbling. Those are all just different names that really mean "Bircher repug social darwinist fascism".

--------

The above link says this, also:
" There’s a—and it begins long ago. In about 1976, there was a plan laid by Charles Koch to build what he called a radical movement to change the way that America voted and thought. And he said we need to, quote-unquote, "destroy" the statist paradigm and start a movement. And he modeled it on the John Birch Society. He loved the secrecy of the John Birch Society. And there’s a paper that is quoted in here that he wrote in 1976 about how he was going to found a movement and launch it. "

But Koch didn't "model his movement on the John Birch Society", he's a top person in the JBS, and his movement is part of the JBS.

--------

There is no split between William F Buckley's YAF and the JBS. That's a smokescreen. Check out YAF's alumni, and the groups they started:

" Below is a list of conservative or libertarian organizations YAFers founded or played an important contributing role:

American Conservative Union – founded in 1964 – William F. Buckley, David R. Jones & others.[10]
The Fund for American Studies – founded in 1966 – David R. Jones, Charles Edison, Dr. Walter Judd, Marvin Liebman and William F. Buckley Jr.[11]
The American Spectator – founded in 1967 – Publisher Alfred S. Regnery; Editor-in-Chief R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. (both YAF alumni)
Reason Foundation – founded in 1968 – Robert W. Poole Jr.[10]
Conservative Victory Fund – founded in 1969 – Congressman John Ashbrook & Tom Winter.[10]
Young Americas Foundation – founded in 1969 – Students at Vanderbilt University, Ron Robinson (YAF) & others
The Libertarian Party of America – founded in 1971 – David Nolan
American Legislative Exchange Council – founded in 1973 – Kathy King Rothschild, assisted by Connie Campanella.[10]
Conservative Political Action Conference – started in 1974 – Young Americans for Freedom, American Conservative Union, Human Events & National Review[10]
The Conservative Caucus – founded in 1974 – Howard Phillips[10]
The Second Amendment Foundation – founded in 1974 – Alan Gotlieb; Treasurer Sam Slom, Hawaii State Senator and YAF alumnus
The National Journalism Center – founded in 1977 — M. Stanton Evans[10]
Cato Institute – founded in 1977 – David Boaz[10] (Cato Institute founded by the Bircher Koch brothers)
The Lincoln Institute for Research and Education – founded in 1978 – Jay A. Parker[10]
The Leadership Institute – founded in 1979 – Morton Blackwell[12]
Young Conservatives of Texas – founded in 1980 – Steve Munisteri[13]
The Ludwig von Mises Institute – founded in 1982 – Lewellyn Rockwell[10]
The National Center for Public Policy Research – founded in 1982 – Amy Moritz Ridnour.[10]
The Institute for Policy Innovation – founded in 1987 – Peter Ferrara[10]
The Media Research Center – founded in 1987 – L. Brent Bozell III & Brent Baker[10]
Citizens United – founded in 1988 – Floyd Brown[10]
The American Policy Center – founded in 1988 – Tom DeWeese[10]
The Goldwater Institute – founded in 1988 – Dr. Michael Sanera
The National Legal and Policy Center – founded in 1991 – Kenneth Boehm [10]
Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute – founded in 1993 – Michelle Easton
The Thomas Jefferson Institute – founded in *** – Michael Thompson, Chris Braulich, Randal C. Teague & Robert Turner.
Grasstops USA – founded in 2004 – Christoper Carmouche[10]
Notable alumni[edit]Notable alumni in public office[edit]U.S. President Ronald Reagan, former YAF Honorary National Chairman
U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle
U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions
Former U.S. Senator and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge James Buckley
U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher
U.S. Representative Ed Royce
U.S. Representative James Sensenbrenner
U.S. Representative Ted Poe
U.S. Representative Peter King
U.S. Representative Chuck Fleischmann
U.S. Representative Jeb Hensarling
U.S. Representative Donald Manzullo
U.S. Representative Jimmy Duncan
U.S. Representative Robert E. Bauman, YAF Chairman, ACU founder and national chairman
Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox
U.S. Circuit Court Judges Daniel A. Manion, Alice Batchelder, Jerry Edwin Smith, David B. Sentelle, Danny Boggs, Randall Rader, Diarmuid O'Scannlain, and Paul V. Niemeyer
California legislator Pat Nolan, former California chairman "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Americans_for_Freedom

A large number of JBS members are on that YAF alumni list.

[Hortensis]

11. That's a rather horrifying list. I've come to suspect

that the Kochs' "libertarianism" is just a reaction to their father's vicious domination, something Mayer obviously wondered about also. I don't see Charles' pleasure in spitting at regulations, even to the point of causing deaths, as necessarily "anarchic," although it is certainly depraved.

Dad was a great admirer of the Third Reich's fascist economic model, leadership of Koch Industries is extremely centralized and authoritarian, and the Kochs have no problem with using government protectionism and corporate welfare when it suits them.

But most of all, a libertarian economic structure would give little protection to the vast wealth being passed on to younger generations, while a nice corporate-dominated fascistic model would. Something that has to be of concern to many currently posturing as libertarians.

As for the vast conspiracy, one of those I keep thinking of again and again is Lewis Powell and his memo. That man actually was appointed and spent 15 years on SCOTUS after writing that memo. And Scalia--why didn't even one person who witnessed his last day at that secret ranch gathering speak at this funeral or give an interview? All who attended are still anonymous. Of course, "Scalito" and Thomas are still on the court and attending secret meetings with people like the Kochs.

[Mc Mike]

12. They're not your standard anarchists, to be sure. Their anarchy is freedom from all regulatory laws

that would keep them from externalizing costs dangerously and cheating taxpaying citizens and consumers.

There is no rebellion in Charley and Dave's "libertarianism", it's just a front, a fake repackaging of the same old nazi bull hockey, though a lot of rank and file libertarians are just clueless. There's no rebellion from the Koch brothers, though, because daddy Fred was a bircher, too.

http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/07/187769/his-dad-charles-koch-was-bircher-new-documents

I agree about the Powell memo, and Scalia, Alito, Thomas. And Roberts. Kennedy definitely needs to do something massive to prove he's not one of those creeps.

[Hortensis]

13. Agree. Notably, the tea-partiers were just a new iteration

of bircherism. And, of course, we know that the Kochs created, funded, and directed the Tea Party movement.

I almost listed Roberts and probably should have--still hoping that he is not all in with them. His 2014 decision striking down overall donation caps (when the viciously disastrous effects of Citizens were already obvious), though, might well be a Comey-type unmasking.

“Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so too does much of what the First Amendment vigorously protects. If the First Amendment protects flag burning, funeral protests and Nazi parades – despite the profound offense such spectacles cause – it surely protects political campaign speech despite popular opinion.”

Picking and installing senators, and Supreme Court justices, is just a different version of flag burning?

[Mc Mike]

14. I agree. With your last line, especially.

And Roberts knew he was lying his ass off about money in politics being free speech, when the point was the donations would come from anonymous sources, impossible to tell who is speaking, they're just too bashful to admit they're the "speakers".

He knew the majority on the court were lying that the Voting Rights Act wasn't needed anymore.

Roberts lied in his confirmation hearings about being in the Federalist Society, White House flack Dana Perino said he "had no memory" of being in it:

"Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts was reported to have been a member of the Society, but Roberts's membership status was never definitively established. Deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino said Roberts "has no recollection of ever being a member."[35] The Washington Post later located the Federalist Society Lawyers' Division Leadership Directory, 1997–1998, which listed Roberts as a member of the Washington chapter steering committee.[36] Membership in the Society is not a necessary condition for being listed in the leadership directory.[36]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society

You can tell you're off to a bad start as Supreme Court Chief Justice when you perjure yourself in Senate confirmation hearings.

I think Alito lied about Federalist Society membership in his confirmation hearings, too. But I can't remember where I read that.

Bircher Kochs and their repug buddies funded the Federalist Society.
"...
The growing clout of the Society has been aided by millions of dollars from the likes of the John M. Olin, Lynde and Harry Bradley, Sarah Scaife, and Charles G. Koch foundations -- some of the largest funders of right-wing groups in the country. In 1998, all four of these foundations contributed at least $100,000 to the Federalist Society, gifts that placed them in an elite group of eight top Society contributors. [28]
...
The Koch Foundation is one of three family foundations established by Charles G. Koch, the heir to Koch Industries, an oil refining and petrochemical company based in Wichita, Kansas. Koch Industries began as Rock Island Oil and Refining, built a generation ago by Fred Koch, who was also one of the founders of the John Birch Society. [35] In addition to serving as chief executive officer of the company, Charles Koch is a co-founder of the Cato Institute, [36] a libertarian Washington, D.C.-based think-tank whose publications have downplayed the dangers of lead-based paint and asbestos, and proposed allowing states to choose "whether to accept any increase" in the minimum wage. [37]

The Koch Foundation supports right-wing causes at every level -- from academic research and the recruitment of young scholars to think tanks and "implementation" groups that attempt to turn these ideas into political realities. Among the other right-wing groups supported by the Koch Foundation are Citizens for a Sound Economy, the Institute for Justice, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Reason Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, the Landmark Legal Foundation and the Young America's Foundation. [38] "
https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/feddieSoc.html#fn38