Ok, Joe : this is the time.

[moniss]

47. Yes indeed and

as I've recently mentioned these "groups"/"stink tanks" have grown so outrageously entwined and in number that it makes tracking it a life's work. But just as an example is the John birch Society and it's founders/funders. They also formed other groups with names like Western goals Foundation etc. You quickly found these groups conducting spying operations, arms running etc. and supporting covert operations contrary to what was stated law and US policy. They would enlist, by political donations of course, Senators and Representatives into the fold to run cover and also put them in touch with even more people. This stuff was a natural place for the neo-Nazis, white supremacists etc. because in addition to the groups anti-Communism fervor they also were against the Civil Rights activists and claiming them to be Communists. This was a conscious strategy of branching out and forming groups with different positive sounding names in order to distance themselves from the baggage of being Birchers and tied to McCarthy etc. But when you look at the roster of those involved in these groups all the way from the JBS on up to the present day you find the Kochs, the Hunts and even Roy Cohn. Most people think he sort of faded after McCarthy and was just doing his local crooking around New York but that's not the case at all and we know how the current tyrant was tied to Cohn and worshiped him. So by the time these folks got to the Reagan years they were in full swing to be major players in Iran-Contra matters. Many of these groups actively recruit former intelligence/military people to do their dirty work and for their connections in DC. It also goes both ways with nefarious actors in DC using these groups for "independent" intelligence operations.

In our present day we have the Scaife family, the Mercers, the Kochs and foreign oligarchs from Russia, China etc. all pumping billions and billions of dollars into the coffers of these groups and it would be a huge mistake to think it is about ideologies etc. As you pointed out this is about crime, money, control and power. It was predictable from the beginning when this stuff started blossoming and many people did warn of this back in the '50's and '60's. But now here we are with a bought and paid for Supreme Court majority and any effort to reign any of this in is DOA at their door. They won't change the tax code to rid these people of their tax exempt status because the money flows and buys the politicians which equals protection.