Rebekah Mercer is "one of the chief financiers of the fascist movement," says longtime GOP insider S

[riversedge]

I have not heard one word about money in elections yet. So so so many problems to fix

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How one billionaire family bankrolled election lies, white nationalism — and the Capitol riot
Rebekah Mercer is “one of the chief financiers of the fascist movement,” says longtime GOP insider Steve Schmidt


https://www.salon.com/2021/02/04/how-one-billionaire-family-bankrolled-election-lies-white-nationalism--and-the-capitol-riot/



By Igor Derysh February 4, 2021 11:00AM (UTC)

Bob Mercer and Rebekah Mercer (Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

29

Four years before Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., pumped his fist to a supportive mob that would soon overrun the Capitol Police and hunt lawmakers through the halls of Congress, the former Missouri attorney general needed a deep-pocketed patron. Naturally, he called on the man who helped bankroll former President Donald Trump's rise: hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, whom he would soon describe as a friend while name-dropping him to court support from far-right figures like Steve Bannon, a longtime Mercer ally. It's unclear what came of Hawley's meeting with Mercer, but the Club for Growth, which has received millions from the Mercer family, and the Senate Conservatives Fund, which also got Mercer donations, quickly became Hawley's biggest financial backers, by far. Mercer's daughter Rebekah kicked in a near-maximum donation to his 2018 Senate campaign for good measure.

While Charles Koch and his late brother David have dominated Republican fundraising in recent decades, the Mercers' recent strategic investments in far-right candidates bought them a disproportionate level of influence in the Republican Party before culminating in an effort to subvert the election that fueled the deadly Capitol siege.


"The Mercers laid the groundwork for the Trump revolution," Bannon told The New Yorker in 2017. "Irrefutably, when you look at donors during the past four years, they have had the single biggest impact of anybody, including the Kochs." Steve Schmidt, a former Republican strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, sees it differently. Rebekah Mercer, he said in an interview with Salon, is the "chief financier or one of the chief financiers of the fascist movement, and that's what it is."

Hours after the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, killing five people and injuring dozens of police officers in a futile bid to stop the counting of electoral votes, Hawley joined with top Mercer beneficiaries in objecting to the results to back Trump's "big lie" that the election was somehow stolen. There was Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, whose super PAC got $13.5 million from the Mercers during the 2016 presidential campaign — before the family dropped another $15.5 million to back Trump. There was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., defending the majority of the GOP House caucus voting to overturn legal election results after his Congressional Leadership Fund received $1.5 million from the Mercers. And there was Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., who received $21,600 from the Mercers before speaking at the rally that preceded the riot and objecting to the results. Brooks was later named by "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander as having helped orchestrate the event, though his office said he has "no recollection communicating in any way with whoever Ali Alexander is."

Alexander himself may have benefited from the Mercers' millions while working for the Black Conservative Fund, a small and mysterious group that received $60,000 from Robert Mercer in 2016. Though the group did not raise any money in 2020, it promoted the White House rally to tens of thousands of followers, according to CNBC.....................................

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Ahh, the Mercers. Could it be them, and not Trump, who the congresscritters really fear? It...

would explain a lot.

[underpants]

2. It could very well be.

[orangecrush]

14. Word

[usaf-vet]

23. Here are the only words that will help change this to equal fair elections PUBLIC financed elections

And of course, killing Citizens United. Corporations are not persons. One Person One Vote.

In my opinion, if you can't hook a corporation to an EKG to see heart activity and an EEG to see brain activity. They need their plug pulled!

[orangecrush]

30. 100% TRUE

Perhaps now we will see some real action on this.

[Lonestarblue]

18. Light bulb moment!

I think you’re right. All it takes is a threat of withholding donations, and Republicans will lick the floor if told to do so.

[calguy]

3. Is it just me?

Am I the only one who thinks Rebekah Mercer is one very ugly woman?

[dalton99a]

12. Inside and out, like Greene

[Escurumbele]

16. Nope, I was thinking the same, her soul comes through her face

I should say her rotten soul comes though her face...She should use the money for plastic surgery instead, although that can not cude a dark soul.

She has about six fingers of forehead, maybe more. Reminded me of SNL's the Coneheads.

[Grokenstein]

19. Both of 'em look like they went to a head-stretching service.

"We want to look like the reflection in a funhouse mirror, can you do that?"

[Polly Hennessey]

24. My first thought, too.

[usaf-vet]

25. No you are not!

[Zorro]

29. Is she related to Matt Gaetz?

[colsohlibgal]

4. Disgusting People

The Mercers, the Kochs, etc.

Two great books who detail how entitled, depraved etc those people are......”Dark Money” by Jane Mayer and “Democracy In Chains by Nancy Maclean.

You can read, for example, how the Kochs were sued because chemicals dripping out of one of their plants was causing a big uptick in childhood cancer. They fought it basically saying a few kids dying was worth it because they were raking in money.

We need to deep six “Citizens United” ASAP.

[Hortensis]

32. Good books, all right. As Speaker Pelosi says below.

We also need new laws for new realities where people like the Mercers can create university-to-positions-of-influence tracks to embed RW hardliners and extremists and use modern communications to turn previously adequately socialized people into destructive barbarians.

[Hortensis]

33. Good books, all right. As Speaker Pelosi says below.

We also need new laws for new realities where people like the Mercers can create university-to-positions-of-influence tracks to embed RW hardliners and extremists and use modern communications to turn previously adequately socialized people into destructive barbarians. '

Laws that stop and punish.

[Botany]

5. "The Mercers laid the groundwork for the Trump revolution," Bannon

Last edited Sat Feb 6, 2021, 01:48 PM - Edit history (5)

"Laid the groundwork." If by that does Bannon mean massive electronic and propaganda manipulation
by Cambridge Analyitca in 2016?

We are soon going to be @ 1/2 a million American dead from C-19 if we are not there already thanx
to the Mercers putting Trump into office.

Bad enough they installed Trump in 2016 along with the Russians but to pay for the Capitol Riot/Coup
too really should piss off all true Americans.


This box with the remains of Officer Sicknick and his memorial service is brought to you by the Mercers.

Those mother fuckers need to be in jail. I hope Officer Sicknick's famikly sues the shit out of the Mercers.

[Maraya1969]

6. Is there anything congress can do to whittle down Citizens United?

Like how the GOPQ has whittled down abortion rights?

[Escurumbele]

17. Yes, they can repeal it, and they should do the same with the Electoral College

These are things that undermine true Democracy.

[Snarkoleptic]

7. Billionaires are why we can't have nice things.

https://www.salon.com/2017/05/01/trumps-biggest-donor-wages-war-against-the-irs-billionaire-robert-mercers-fighting-nearly-7-billion-in-back-taxes/

Rebekah Mercer began redirecting the family's philanthropy after her father's primary company, Renaissance Technologies, became the subject of an IRS inquiry into its practice of temporarily storing investment income in bank accounts as a method of avoiding higher tax rates. In 2010 the agency ruled that firms utilizing "basket options" were engaged in illegal tax avoidance and warned Renaissance Technologies, the world’s most profitable hedge fund, to discontinue the practice.

Renaissance declined to do so, and in the intervening years the agency has been collecting evidence apparently in preparation for a future court case. According to a 2014 Senate report reviewing some of the allegations, the company could owe at least $6.8 billion in back taxes.

Since the 2010 IRS ruling, the Mercers have dramatically stepped up their giving to conservative groups, particularly to those engaging in full-on attacks against the IRS and the agency's commissioner, John Koskinen.

[gibraltar72]

8. I have said for years. When we punish the Mercers

we get our country back.

[orangecrush]

15. Yes, but how?

[Hekate]

9. KnR

[bucolic_frolic]

10. Mercer once partnereed in a hedge fund with Jim Simons

Hope I've got the spelling correct. They pioneered the mathematics of trading, and split over politics. Simons was a lib. He founded 3 funds in his life as I recall.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Simons_(mathematician)

[Jon King]

11. Also the Russian connection...

The CEO of Parler just happened to marry a young Russian girl with a suspect background...and just happened to get bankrolled by the Mercers a short time later. Lots more to uncover about how these circumstances happened in a short time and all to benefit Trump who is knee deep into Russia.

[nwliberalkiwi]

13. What she looks like

Bride of Frankenstein

[RainCaster]

20. She looks like a bad version of Ru Paul

[eallen]

21. What a poverty of soul...

To have the means to influence the world, yet her highest dream is to create a fascist nation.

[Oldem]

22. This is so disturbing that I did a little research.

I Googled "how to reverse Citizens United." Most of what I found was from one to five years old: discouraging. Several, like Bill Moyers, think a Constitutional amendment is the best way. That's unlikely when two of the biggest recipients of Mercer money are McConnell and McCarthy. One, which seemed more realistic to me, was a 2016 article in The Atlantic. It showed how the NRA got us to where we are on an individual's right to carry a gun, when in 1991 Warren Berger dismissed such an interpretation of the 2nd Amendment as fraudulent. The NRA began its campaign in Florida. When it achieved its goal there, it expanded to other states. Similarly, marriage equality supporters began their push in Vermont and Massachusetts and exported from those states. Now, SCOTUS has recognized marriage rights, but only after thirty-seven states did it first. So "The place to start the fight against Citizens United is not the Supreme Court, or even Washington, D.C., but the hinterlands."

Stacy Abrams began her voting rights movement in GA and is now expanding it to TX. Maybe that's Citizens United can be overturned, too: from the ground up.

Btw, has anybody else noticed that the very term "Citizens United" is double-speak? It suggests that there is a movement that wants this policy, also that it's good for the people. The reverse, of course, is true. Citizens United was a PAC that wanted to air and publish attacks on Hilary Clinton right up to election time, when such political activity was not allowed after a certain date.

[link:https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/how-to-reverse-citizens-united/471504/|

[PatrickforO]

26. The light finally shining on these lizards.

Yep, wouldn't want to offend that nice Rebekah...

https://giphy.com/gifs/werewolf-tiP6DWUdHhvck

[Sneederbunk]

27. Should have been brought up on charges after 2016 Election.

[ancianita]

28. They almost did it a month ago.

The Mercers are known investors in Big Divisive Lies. Brexit was their other project.

It's not just who they donate to, but the messaging demand they make of recipients, who don't back down or else the money's withdrawn.

Their most divisive messaging so far is to hold Democrats responsible for a "failure to unify."
It's a safe bet that their future messaging will be to have their trumpcult bag men blow up every little misstep & mistake, and run imperfection detection, so that they go on air to twist every Biden (administration) statement and action into failed leadership.

Because it doesn't matter if Republicans are in disarray.
What matters is the belief that right wing corporatist oligarchs are never in disarray.
They don't have to be smart, either, just invest in different take-down tactics, and like domestic terrorists, they only need one good hit to succeed. They almost did it a month ago.

Maybe some people don't think geography says much, but I do. When big donors can be facing surveillance of their communications, they return to face-to-face or proxies.
The Mercers are like Charles Koch. They don't donate with general goal instructions. As Koch has explicitly said, they give specific messaging instructions.

It's a 15 mile straight shot from the Robert Mercer home in Wellington, FL, to Mar-a-Lago.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Mar-a-Lago+Club,+1100+S+Ocean+Blvd,+Palm+Beach,+FL+33480/Wellington,+Florida/
A lot of face-to-face messaging can go on among Trump's Palm Beach oligarch supporters.
It's not just the money but the messaging that's been the Mercers' divisive goal. They were major funders of Brexit, too.

Might as well look at more maps, since larger contexts of proximity within states, imo, is also a factor in keeping communications secret.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_the_number_of_billionaires

Just a map of #1's per state (maybe I'll look up their party affiliation)


The Trump wing of donors don't want a re-forming of the Republican Party. They want corporate control through shrunk government; they don't care whether a two party system works for them or a dictatorship.
The larger Biden makes all branches of this government, and the more he funds it, the less control these corporatists have.

[DBoon]

31. Isn't financing terrorist organizations a federal crime?

The Holy Land Foundation was prosecuted for allegedly sending charitable donations to organizations lead by Hamas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Land_Foundation_for_Relief_and_Development )

There seems to be a more direct connection between Mercer and the armed terrorists at the Capitol. Why is she not charged?

[LessAspin]

34. Cambridge Analytica

Frontline had a segment reporting Mercer's backing of Cambridge Analytica and how it will just keep growing more insidious and sophisticated over time...

Brittany Kaiser’s work with Cambridge Analytica helped elect Donald Trump. She’s hoping the world will forgive her.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=
Brittany Kaiser first emerged in last year’s Cambridge Analytica scandal as a seemingly nefarious figure, an insider steeped in the dark secrets of a new kind of voter manipulation powered by Facebook data. To make matters worse, news reports also raised questions about Kaiser’s mysterious dealings with WikiLeaks mastermind Julian Assange at a time when he remained holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London.

For Kaiser — at the time a 30-year-old Democrat from Texas who’d become business development director for Cambridge Analytica, a firm created to elect Republicans — the massive wave of critical news reports about the company threatened to deliver catastrophic damage to her reputation and even made her fear possible arrest.

So she did something drastic: Kaiser fled to Thailand, and she let a crew of filmmakers tag along...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/02/brittany-kaisers-work-with-cambridge-analytica-helped-elect-donald-trump-shes-hoping-world-will-forgive-her/

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=242210

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