Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The new Watergaters: Spooks and bucks (Updated)

Young political hitman James O'Keefe has been charged in his attempt to bug the office of Democratic Mary Landrieu. When I briefly mentioned this matter earlier, I told everyone to recall the message of Watergate I: Follow the money.

In a direct sense, O'Keefe gets paid by Big Asshole Andrew Brietbart, subject of an earlier post. Brad Friedman (who has received a death threat from the vile Brietbart) has done some investigating. O'Keefe receives a nice salary from Brietbart, even though Andy now claims that he is "out of the loop" on the wiretapping. Surrrre he is.

Brietbart repeated the don't-know-nuthin'-'bout-wiretapping mantra in an interview with Hugh Hewitt, although he admitted that he pays O'Keefe a "fair salary" for what he calls his "life rights."

Update: Brad Friedman makes an excellent point. Breitbart and the Republicans insisted that ACORN as a whole be held responsible for something done by individual employees. (Remember, O'Keefe is the guy who stung ACORN.) O'Keefe is a Brietbart employee: You can't receive a "salary" without being an employee. Therefore, by Brietbart's own logic, Brietbart is responsible. Brietbart may attempt to argue that he never paid his hireling to break the law, but ACORN can make the exact same claim. I'll be very amused to watch Andy try to worm his way out of this hypocrisy: Rationalization is my favorite form of humor.

In a sense, this current debacle was predictable. One thing I've learned about guys like Brietbart and O'Keefe: They have poor impulse control. That's why Brietbart is stupid enough to convey death threats via email. People with poor impulse control take unnecessary chances. They screw up.

(Will O'Keefe rat out his funders? Hard to say. He doesn't strike me as a calm, rational take-the-long-view kind of thinker. And yet -- who knows? I remember how Liddy went to jail for Nixon, even though Nixon held the fanatical Liddy in contempt. O'Keefe's "veritas" remark reminds me of Liddy in his nuttier moments.)

Okay, so where does Andy's money come from? As I asked earlier:
Anyone can maintain a blog -- hell, even I can do it. But making money at this game is a very different matter. It takes a large amount of capital to set up a high-profile website with paid staff and "name" writers and an advertising budget and all the rest. So where is Breitbart getting his dough?
If I recall correctly, Andy may be operating out of Brentwood, not far from his allegedly "progressive" mentor, Zsa-Zsa Huffington. A full-time blogger who can afford that kind of lifestyle? A blogger who can pay the salary of a team? Unheard of. Unless....

Unless there's a sugar daddy.

Blogging makes a perfect cover. The sugar daddy's funding of the site can come in the form of paid ads. Normally, ads on websites fetch less money than some readers seem to think, but nothing stops a "secret admirer" from over-paying by, say, a factor of ten or twenty. All perfectly legal. Andy's sites are big on Israelotry, so that's one potential source of revenue worthy of investigation.

Let's look at O'Keefe's compatriots in crime. To be specific, let's look at Stan Dai, also arrested for trying to bug Landrieu. Majikthise has done some superb research. Not long ago, Stannikins was a political science major at George Washington University, and an up-and-coming right-wing star.
He is editor-in-chief of The GW Patriot, an alternative conservative student newspaper, a Club 100 Activist of Young America’s Foundation, and an Undergraduate Fellow on Terrorism of the Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies. He is co-founder of GW’s Students Defending Democracy, a volunteer on several political campaigns, and active in the GW College Republicans and GW Colonials for Life.
Not only that:
One Stan Dai was listed as the Assistant Director of the The Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence (ICCAE) at Trinity (Washington) University. The ICCAE says it prepares young people for careers in intelligence.

(Original reporting, please credit Lindsay Beyerstein.)
Okay. I just did.
Stan Dai spoke about torture and terrorism last June at a "CIA day" organized by the Junior Statesmen Summer School at Georgetown. The program included a field trip to the CIA and lectures at Georgetown, according this event program I found online. As we know, Dai served as the assistant director of a program dedicated to steering young people into careers in intelligence.
By the way, Politico's David Mark was also a featured speaker at this event -- an event which, we might say, marked the nexus between "new" journalism and spook-world. Politico's Laura Rozen, without mentioning this potential conflict, has been doing some research into Dai.
In 2008, he was assistant director of an intelligence community "center for academic excellence" at Trinity Washington University.

"Stan Dai was a junior program administrator for one year in a grant-funded program at Trinity Washington University," Ann Pauley, media relations director at Trinity Washington University. "The program was called the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence (ICCAE) and was one of several similar programs created with federal funding through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence following the September 11 attacks..."
We're also told that Dai never worked for the CIA. I'm sure that's true. He just ran an organization which recruited young people into the CIA. Well, that could happen to anyone. You'd be silly to draw the conclusion that Dai himself had something to do with the CIA.

Yesterday, I said that liberals have to establish an intellectual infrastructure in this country. The right-wingers have done just that, and the O'Keefe team was part of it. Two of the wiretappers belonged to something called the Leadership Institute, which
"prepares conservatives for success in politics, government and the news media." It's trained more than 79,000 students over the years, and employs 58 people. The group is led by longtime Republican player Morton Blackwell, who was elected to the RNC's executive committee in 2004.
And that's one reason why the mainstream media never treated single-payer as a permitted topic of discussion, even though the majority of the American citizenry want such a system. The sources of the Leadership Institute's funding remain somewhat mysterious. But we do know that Morton Blackwell trained Karl Rove:
In 1979, Rove trained at Morton Blackwell’s Leadership Institute. Its slogan: “For conservatives who want to win.” Blackwell helped co-found the influential Christian Right Moral Majority as well as the highly secretive and far-right Council for National Policy.
CNP membership is a conspiratorial who's who: Ollie North, John Singlaub, Pat Robertson, J. Peter Grace, and so on. (Erik Prince's mom is also on board.) The CNP receives a lot of its money from the Moonies, and also appears to have ties to the Scientologists. Along with Blackwell, CNP co-founders included some bona-fide kooks -- Illuminati-spotter Tim LaHaye and Glenn Beck's spirit guide, Cleon Skousen. (Skousen thought that Wall Streeters are commies.)

Just as Watergate allowed us a glimpse at things that were far more important than a third-rate burglary, the Landrieu incident allows us to peek in on a phenomenon which is much more important than the attempt to bug a senator. The far-right networks which achieved such astonishing success in the 1980s understand the need for new blood. The superstars of the Reagan era have aged; many are downright ancient. And so the gray-haired eminences are hiring 20-somethings to do some dirty work. If those jobs are done well, the 20-somethings will rise within the system.

Wiretappers O'Keefe and Robert Flanagan also work for another right-wing pressure group called the Pelican Institute, which wants to replace Medicaid with vouchers for private insurance. Again, the funding is mysterious. From the Times-Picayune:
Flanagan was paid on an hourly basis by the New Orleans-based Pelican Institute for Public Policy to assist with its blog, said Kevin Kane, the president of the libertarian group.
Let that sink in. Paid? On an hourly basis? To....blog?

Let's step back and take in the larger picture.

Someone is pouring a lot of money into blogworld.

I sure as hell ain't getting any. But others are. The money is pouring in through a network of mysterious "institutes," which have links to the most ultra-reactionary players within the American ruling class.

Throughout 2008, many of us thought that we could hear the Devil's bag of gold chink-a-chinking away in the background as Obotmania took over the A-list prog-blogs. (Frankly, I've cited one such site -- TPM -- above.) But the Devil has a march larger bag than we realized. Now that a sure-to-fail Democrat is presiding over this country's economic downfall, most of the lucre is a-heading right. The ludicrous "Obama-as-socialist" meme will be mainstream. Ann Coulter may make another stab at rehabilitating McCarthy. Hell, maybe Skousen will be taught in school.

Within two years -- maybe one -- the blogosphere will be a very different place. The Kossacks will be (already are) dispirited and deflated. Most of the energy and all of the money will be with the resurgent reactionaries. The Kook Right will become the new center.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have long suspected that the people who control the GOP knew they were going to lose in 2008 and that the economy was headed for the crapper.

So they came up with a plan - throw the 2008 election while focusing on making sure the worst possible Democrat won. Then when the economy tanked they would blame the Democrats and stage a comeback in 2010 - 2012.

They wanted a Democratic nominee who could win the election (with money and media support) but who lacked the qualities needed to govern well.

They found an empty suit named Obama.

Anonymous said...

This Out of Control Situation has related even more out of control situations linked. Be preared for what else will surface. This is part of a huge sub-system that involves to much that it'll make your head will spin.

Marty Didier
Northbook, IL

Caro said...

You mean the Kook Right isn't already considered the center?

I'm old enough to remember when these kinds of people were relegated to the John Birch Society, and no one paid any attention to them, much less gave them a platform.

Myiq and I are on the same wavelength about 2008.

Meanwhile, the so-called left wanders around like lost lambs, wondering what keeps happening to them.

Former Air America CEO Danny Goldberg said it on Monday:

"I think that the New York Times got it exactly wrong this morning in declaring that 'the enduring legacy of Air America’s failure is that political media from either side of the aisle is more successful when run as a business instead of a crusade.'

"That very attitude is what has hobbled the growth of liberal talk radio but conservatives have never thought about media that way and they still don’t. The week before Air America shut its doors the Rev. James Dobson announced that he was starting a new radio show with his son Ryan, a thirty-nine year tattooed surfer who shares his father’s ultra-conservative views. On Dobson’s Facebook page he asked his supporters to fund the new show. 'Your participation will be greatly appreciated, especially during this time when startup costs will be very expensive. The budget for the first year, including the costs of radio airtime, will be about two million dollars.'

"Conservatives believe in doing whatever it takes to promote their ideas."

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

dakinikat said...

Have you looked at what's going on to the guy that used to be the right winger on Little Green Footballs? I bet there's a few of threads woven to the group that brought him to eminence and now seems hell bent on assigning him to some sane asylum in the hills of West Virginia some where.

Snowflake said...

I think it would be very interesting to know if various bloggers get paid.

What would interest me even more though is knowing why the press, particularly AP news is so unswerving in its loyalty to Obama. I never saw anything like it before.

I hope when Hillary runs in 2012 she vows to break up the media cartels. Just for kicks.

Anonymous said...

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce"

Karl Marx

XI

gary said...

If any of the blogger-payers are reading this, I am ready, willing and able to become a conservative blogger if the price is right.

Anonymous said...

Just do Google searches for James Dale Davidson on both the regular Google and on their Google blog search.He is the penny stock money launderer colleague of Steve Forbes and founded their NTU or National Taxpayers Union in Alexandria,Virginia no doubt to be close to SEC office and attorneys who he bribes(ex SEC Utah attorney Brent Baker who was strangely at the WTC on 9/11 and who removed all charges against Davidson for his Genemax and Endovasc pumps and dumps and whose price collapse he blamed on 'naked short selling which is a lie even the SEC WEBSITE PROMOTES AND CLAIMS THAT fANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC WERE 'NAKED SHORTED is one example of an SEC attorney who was rewareded by Patrick Byrne son of Geico billionare ansd CEO or Overstock.con who replaced Davidson'd NAANSS with NCANS!).
Davidson who founded NAANSS or National Association Against Naked Short Selling in 2002 AND admits to accepting Clinton's request help 'cook the books' of U.S. gov when he assumed the presidency in the early 1990's and was a financial doner to his campaign but later began rumor Clinton killed Vince Foster. Davidson and the British Lord William Rees-Mogg's book 'The Soveriegn Individual' describes their intent to use the internet for stock fraud and money laundering years ago.LOM of Bermuda was one of their big investments and they lured wealthy investors there without disclosing THE WERE OWNERS OF LOM.And although LOM was used in the Genemax fraud it was covered up by the SEC itself.
Davidson began touting the Israeli
U.S. incorporated Pluristem biotech fraud from his NTU office near the SEC office in 2007. Ex Carlyle CEO Frank Carlucci is a big shareholder with the Israeli mafia or Mossad or whatever running Pluristem that claimso use stem cells from placentas but is really just a stock fraud money laundering op.And Leumi Bank of Israel(that refusesto pay holocaust survivers money it owes them),is used in the Pluristem fraud as well.
But what Iam saying about Davidson is that he appears to have a methodical way of manipulating Google and only his propaganda about himself being a brilliant self made millionare is all lies.
And while newsmax was funded with this type of fraud so is Davidson's many other Agora Inc and other websites like thedailyreckoning funded by the money from stock fraud the U.S.SEC and traitors like SEC Chair Christopher Cox and now Mary Schapiro let him get away with.
THE RECENT SEC LITIGATION AGAINST LOM IS A COMPLETE SHAM AND COVER UP UP ITS STOCK MONEY LAUNDERING WITH SCHWAB AND Vfinance that aided international crimials and money launderers like James Dale Davidson.Google should take a good look at how Davidson is manipulating Google's search and burying the truth about Davidson.

- Tony Ryals

Anonymous said...

I think there is more to learn about the Leadership Institute. Especially since MSM is only talking to Breitbart about this...when the fact is, these guys were paid to start their propaganda on campuses.
Furthermore, O'Keefe & Giles (who also went to the Leadership Institute) are now being sued by an ACORN employee for illegal wiretapping-which IS the crime they got away with.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/elections/20100123_ACORN_worker_files_suit_against_filmmakers_on_taping.html

Apparently the law only protects the powerful and wealthy.
k

Anonymous said...

Cleon Skousen apparently was a relative of Freedom Foundation and Hertitage Foundation scumbag Mark Skousen who 'teaches' at Columbia Univerity and holds an annual
'Freedom Fest' that I call Fraud Freedom Fest in Las Vegas with 'libertarians ' such as Ron Paul and James Dale Davidson.At a recent Fraud Freedom Fest attended by Ron Paul it was James Dale Davidson who devoted his entire lecture bragging about his marriage to a Miss Brazil.Shows you what stock fraud buys besides special treatment and protection from the SEC. No wonder Ron Paul wrote a letter to SEC decrying the supposed dangers of 'naked short selling' to cover up for the right wing fascists('LIBERTARIANS') who claim their worthless penny stock frauds were 'naked shorted' rather than pumped and dumped by themselves.
And it looks like the Skousens are originally Austrians and probably know Austrian Jewish billionaire Martin Schlaff who has used Bawag Bank for all his money laundering and penny stock frauds with the Israeli Grin brothers that the SEC has protected for years.(That bank has since been bought buy Cerberus hedge fund of ex Teasury Secretary John Snow,Dan Quayle,Stephen Feinberg et.al.,just as they bought Chryler with Senator Carl Levin's help and blessings and part of Leumi Bank Israel befotre the Madoff scandal forced them to sale.)The libertarians' economist heroe is another long dead Jewish Austrian economist named Ludwig von Mises.James Dale Davidson wrote a eulogy to Ezra Pound,poet accused of anti-semitism,on his death in 1973 that was printed by the Mises worshippers.Paradoxical
that Mises was Jewish and Davidson eulogized Pound in a publication of Mises fans while bashing all Rothschilds.But then again funny he used Leumi Bank(that refuses to pay holocaust survivors what they're owed),with Israeli far right to pump and dump and launder money from their Pluristem 'stem cells from placentas' biotech fraud .
- Tony Ryals

http://www.rightsidenews.com/201001248346/politics-and-economics/dr-mark-skousen-on-honest-money-austrian-economics-and-the-future-of-free-markets.html

Mark Skousen: My father, Leroy Skousen, was like his brother Cleon, involved in the conservative anti-communist movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and he had copies of books such as Human Action, by Ludwig von Mises on his shelf in our home in Portland, Oregon. I also read regularly National Review and The Freeman that referred to the writings of Austrian economists such as Mises and Friedrich Hayek.