Buchanan: The Sea Island conspiracy
Published: Sunday, March 13, 2016 at 12:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, March 11, 2016 at 12:52 p.m.
Over the long weekend before the Mississippi and Michigan primaries, the sky above Sea Island was black with corporate jets.
Apple’s Tim Cook, Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, Napster's Sean Parker, Tesla Motors' Elon Musk, and other members of the super-rich were jetting in to the exclusive Georgia resort, ostensibly to participate in the annual World Forum of the American Enterprise Institute.
Among the advertised topics of discussion: “Millennials: How Much Do They Matter and What Do They Want?"
That was the cover story.
As revealed by the Huffington Post, Sea Island last weekend was host to a secret conclave at the Cloisters where oligarchs colluded with Beltway elites to reverse the democratic decisions of millions of voters and abort the candidacy of Donald Trump.
Among the journalists at Sea Island were Rich Lowry of National Review, which just devoted an entire issue to the topic: “Against Trump," and Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the Trumphobic New York Times.
Bush guru Karl Rove of Fox News was on hand, as were Speaker Paul Ryan, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Lindsey Graham, dispatched by Trump in New Hampshire and a berserker on the subject of the Donald.
So, too, was William Kristol, editor of the rabidly anti-Trump Weekly Standard, who reported back to comrades: “The key task now, to ... paraphrase Karl Marx, is less to understand Trump than to stop him."
Kristol earlier tweeted that the Sea Island conclave is “off the record, so please do consider my tweets from there off the record."
Redeeming itself for relegating Trump to its entertainment pages, the Huffington Post did the nation a service in lifting the rug on "something rotten in the state."
What we see at Sea Island is that, despite all their babble about bringing the blessings of “democracy" to the world's benighted, AEI, Neocon Central, believes less in democracy than in perpetual control of the American nation by the ruling Beltway elites.
If an outsider like Trump imperils that control, democracy be damned. The elites will come together to bring him down, because, behind party ties, they are soul brothers in the pursuit of power.
Something else was revealed by the Huffington Post -- a deeply embedded corruption that permeates this capital city.
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a 501(c)(3) under IRS rules, an organization exempt from U.S. taxation.
Million-dollar corporate contributions to AEI are tax-deductible.
This special privilege, this freedom from taxation, is accorded to organizations established for purposes such as “religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary ... or the prevention of cruelty to children or animals."
What the co-conspirators of Sea Island were up at the Cloisters was about as religious as what the Bolsheviks at that girls school known as the Smolny Institute were up to in Petrograd in 1917.
From what has been reported, it would not be extreme to say this was a conspiracy of oligarchs, War Party neocons, and face-card Republicans to reverse the results of the primaries and impose upon the party, against its expressed will, a nominee responsive to the elites’ agenda.
And this taxpayer-subsidized "Dump Trump" camarilla raises even larger issues.
Now America is not Russia or Egypt or China.
But all those countries are now moving purposefully to expose U.S. ties to nongovernmental organizations set up and operating in their capital cities.
Many of those NGOs have had funds funneled to them from U.S. agencies such as the National Endowment for Democracy, which has backed "color-coded revolutions" credited with dumping over regimes in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia.
In the early 1950s, in Iran and Guatemala, the CIA of the Dulles brothers did this work.
Whatever ones thinks of Vladimir Putin, can anyone blame him for not wanting U.S. agencies backing NGOs in Moscow, whose unstated goal is to see him and his regime overthrown?
And whatever one thinks of NED and its subsidiaries, it is time Americans took a hard look at the tax-exempt foundations, think tanks and public policy institutes operating in our capital city.
How many are like AEI, scheming to predetermine the outcome of presidential elections while enjoying tax exemptions and posturing as benign assemblages of disinterested scholars and seekers of truth?
How many of these tax-exempt think tanks are fronts and propaganda organs of transnational corporations that are sustained with tax-deductible dollars, until their “resident scholars" can move into government offices and do the work for which they have been paid handsomely in advance?
How many of these think tanks take foreign money to advance the interests of foreign regimes in America’s capital?
We talk about the “deep state" in Turkey and Egypt, the unseen regimes that exist beneath the public regime and rule the nation no matter the president or prime minister.
What about the “deep state” that rules us, of which we caught a glimpse at Sea Island?
A diligent legislature of a democratic republic would have long since dragged America’s deep state out into the sunlight.
Pat Buchanan (contact: LindaMuller@Buchanan.org) is an author, cable news political analyst and former presidential adviser and candidate. He writes for Creators Syndicate.
CASE IN POINT
ReplyDeleteFrom ALEC’s web site:
Sunshine Week Spotlight: Public Employee Bargaining Transparency Act
Celebrate Sunshine Week with ALEC Ideas!
BEN WILTERDINK/MARCH 14, 2016
Government transparency is absolutely critical for government accountability. The government that works best is the government that is accountable to the people. But, there can only be accountability when the public is aware of what the government does. Government transparency comes in many different forms, from making bills in the legislature easier to access to listing government expenditures. An often overlooked part of government transparency, however, is the process by which the actual agreements that the government makes with its own employees are determined.
The primary purpose of ALEC and its sister organization, the Jeffersonian Project, is to move a legislative agenda in the states through the promotion of “model” legislation approved by ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interests vote as equals with state legislators. ALEC has claimed that more than 1,000 of its bills are introduced each year.
In one mailing to its corporate funders, and echoed in public materials from 2011, ALEC boasted: "With our success rate at more than 20 percent, I would say that ALEC is a good investment. Nowhere else can you get a return that high."
The watchdog group then called on ALEC and its state chairs to release:
Details and amounts of payments made to the ALEC scholarship fund in each state, from which gifts of travel related expenses are provided to legislators to attend ALEC conferences. Typically these payments are solicited by you from lobbyists, corporations and others in your role as ALEC state chair, but are reported by legislators simply as being gifts from "ALEC."
A full and complete membership list of ALEC legislators and private sector funders.
A record of which legislators from each state have attended ALEC conferences and other events, and the amount of any "scholarships" they received for that purpose.
A list of ALEC "model" bills, or legislation based on ALEC "model" bills, introduced in each state.
CMD asked ALEC to provide that information for the past five years, and to make the information public on a regular and timely basis each year moving forward.
"ALEC is a tool for global corporations to secretly influence state legislators and turn their corporate wish lists into legislation," Graves said. "The public has a right to know who is trying to re-write their state laws, and what special interests are the real underwriters paying to fly their elected officials around the country for ALEC junkets."
- See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/03/13061/cmd-calls-alec-disclose-information-during-sunshine-week#sthash.jXhjVwSl.dpuf
WHAT IS ALEC?
ReplyDeleteAlmost 98% of ALEC's funding comes from corporations like Exxon Mobil, corporate "foundations" like the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, or trade associations like the pharmaceutical industry's PhRMA and sources other than "legislative dues." Those funds help subsidize legislators' trips to ALEC meetings, where they are wined, dined, and handed "model" legislation to make law in their state. Through ALEC, corporations vote on "model" legislation with politicians behind closed doors. -
Through the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights. These so-called “model bills" reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations.
In ALEC's own words, corporations have "a VOICE and a VOTE" on specific changes to the law that are then proposed in your state. DO YOU? Numerous resources to help us expose ALEC are provided below. We have also created links to detailed discussions of key issues, which are available on the left.
See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/10887/cmd-special-report-alecs-funding-and-spending#sthash.HdUfDWb6.dpuf
WHO ARE THE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Non-Profits
YOU NEVER HEARD OF ALEC
ReplyDeleteWho Is ALEC? – Why Should We all Be Screaming? Why are we gunning for them?
The so called moderate in the Stupidparty presidential clown fest is John Kasich—who seemed just so reasonable (actually way too reasonable for the Stupidparty voters) as he made his pitches in New Hampshire town halls and deli’s. So how do we know that John Kasich is all talk and just feigning his moderation -well because he is a member of ALEC. At a lunch event, the creepy one time member Ted Cruz said “My advice to ALEC is very, very simple: stand your ground.” Chris Christie and other New Jersey lawmakers have apparently adopted ALEC 22 times since 2010. Jeb Bush and ALEC have teamed up. Marco Rubio: he is the Man from ALEC.
So ALEC is still not ringing a bell?
Let us look at some more members, alumni or award winners. See if you can see a pattern. Well obviously this is an organization beloved by Stupidparty—but that is not really the pattern we are looking for. As ALEC has grown more powerful it is becoming ever more insidious, ever more adept at attracting the more extreme elements and ever more adept in empowering these people. First look at the governors, prominent alumni, and ALEC award winners—most not exactly the sharpest tools in shed, but they do not need to be, because ALEC does all the thinking, all the work for them.
http://stupidpartymathvmyth.com/1/post/2016/03/who-is-alec-and-why-should-we-all-be-screaming.html
Still think that this country is for the people and by the people?
ReplyDeleteIf you need a clearer example, look at the latest Republican claim on Trump:
ReplyDeletePrimary elections aren’t really what people think. A vote is not really a vote. It is up to the party to decide and then you ask yourself who decides for the party?
All of this is conducted and subsidized by tax exempt corporations that dictate to the “peoples legislatures” and you and all of us are only puppets.
Friends, it is all bullshit, smoke, mirrors and lies, corrupt to the core.
BEN WILTERDINK ?
ReplyDeleteLimbaugh has been excellent the last two days describing how it is perfectly understandable that establishment Republicans would rather lose a presidential election and maintain their position in the corrupt DC Power Structure.
ReplyDeleteA Fetid Swamp of Corrupt, Self-Serving, Immoral Scumbags if ever there was one.
This is all very good but it leaves the Grand Jury out of the loop -
ReplyDeleteHow we now know that Hillary Clinton will not be prosecuted for anything
posted at 8:01 am on March 18, 2016 by Jazz Shaw
John wrote yesterday about how Barack Obama has been working behind the scenes to move large dollar Democratic donors away from Bernie Sanders and towards Hillary Clinton. This, combined with various attacks from his bully pulpit on Donald Trump, have led to the correct conclusion that Obama will wind up being one of the most active presidents in modern history in terms of the election of his successor. This was a point made this week by Juliet Eilperin at the Washington Post. Traditionally, Presidents have bent over backward to at least lend the patina of non-involvement in such an election, allowing the voters to make their own choice, but not so in this case.
But we learned something else from this episode if you’re willing to look into the tea leaves closely enough. Michelle Jesse came to the same conclusion I did yesterday.
But the bigger point is, why would President Obama tell his party to unite around a candidate at serious risk of criminal indictment — when all signs from the FBI would indicate a very good chance, if not a certainty, that indictment will be recommended based on the investigation? Of course, he would only do such a thing if he knew — was determined — that, no matter what, the chosen candidate would not be charged.
Hillary Clinton herself has appeared to think she’s untouchable — even declaring with certainty that she will not be indicted. “Oh, for goodness, it’s not going to happen. I’m not even answering that question,” Clinton said recently in Miami.
There’s a reason that these two stories are so closely interwoven......
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/03/18/how-we-now-know-that-hillary-clinton-will-not-be-prosecuted-for-anything/
Delete