The Heritage Foundation is located right in the middle of the DC power corridor and well it should be, as arguably the most powerful right-wing think tank of them all. As I’ve pointed out before, Paul Weyrich, a co-founder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in 1973, also created the Heritage Foundation that same year.
Former South Carolina Senator, Jim DeMint has been the President of the Foundation since April, 2013 after leaving the U.S. Senate as its most right-wing member.
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Heritage activities are funded by the who’s who of radical foundations, including the infamous Koch brothers. At any given time, though I don’t know the exact numbers, Heritage can get their little red hands on 50 to possibly as much as $200 million dollars. Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, former Bush Labor Secretary, used to work for the Foundation. Virginia Thomas, wife of the strong, silent Supreme Court Justice, toiled in some capacity for Heritage as well.
In an apparent about-face in their fundraising strategy, OpenSecrets reported that Heritage claims to have 180’d their call for funds by concentrating on small donors. Only 11 contributors gave $100,000 or more as reflected in a tax filing examined by Open Secrets. ROTFLMAO!!! Of course, one such donation was a half-million from Charles and David. Heritage further claimed that 44% of overall contributions were less than $5,000. When’s the last time you laid five grand on the table for some political outfit? Small donor?
Last year, Heritage, itself, reported revenues totaling $85 million to be thrown into a kitty weighted down with an already existing couple of hundred million in net assets. This political wild child is swimming in dough. And still that’s not enough. They are indeed hitting up the “Little” guy and gal by forming a “Leaders Club.” Leaders Club? Your pet cat would have more say than a citizen-member of the “Leaders Club.”
Hell, they’ll take $10 of your minimum wage Dunkin’ Donuts money if you’re a naïve enough ‘Leader’ to give it to them. They’ve sent out a blast email to sympathizers with a plea to “Join today and help put our nation back on a long-term path to greatness.” Directly below were little donation boxes supporters could check for 10, 20, 50, 100 and (other). You should know, these are monthly, not one-time, donations. I’d save my money and merely change the “Join today” for “Vote Democrat” in order to trod the long-term path to greatness.
Victims of the email are encouraged to part with the kid’s food and new shoe money so Heritage can fight anything “the liberals throw at us.” Here’s the list of what the liberals are apparently throwing at us.
Promise me you won’t laugh. “Liberal lawmakers have created a massive government with over-reaching regulation, out-of-control spending, skyrocketing deficits and weakened national defense. Heritage then asserts that this is the liberal creed, ably aided by the left-wing drumbeat from their media allies, and makes the liberal stranglehold an uphill battle for conservatives.
Let’s start from the top. A massive government? As of late 2013, the number of federal employees was at a 47-year low. Republicans attacked federal employment with a vengeance and out-sourced to private contractors every chance they got. Ergo, the introduction of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) problems could mostly be laid at the doorstep of private contractors signed on during the George W. Bush era.
As for a weakened national defense, Republicans will make sure any cuts will come out of the pockets of the soldiers who put their lives on the line while the “war” budget will remain untouched. Even with troops being emptied out, corporate scavengers will move in to extract their pound of fiscal flesh from the blood of our young men and women.
Let’s combine out-of-control spending and skyrocketing deficits. Bush wars (one based on lies and deceit and resulting in huge revenues to the likes of Halliburton) has and will take trillions out of government coffers as will the two uncalled for Bush tax cuts mostly benefiting the wealthy. So, yes, there has been out of control spending and spiraling deficits. Multiple trillions tracked to Bush. Heritage will have to look to its irresponsible conservatives, not Democrats.
Over-reaching regulation? Credit Default Swaps (CDS), are the most dangerous and irresponsible financial instrument in all the land. There are tens of trillions of dollars in these pieces of speculative, hedged, UNREGULATED, over the counter derivative garbage. When that market collapses, and it will, it will take every world economy with it, for a generation.
Over-reaching regulation? The dismantling of the Glass-Steagall legislation, the small investment consumers’ friend for well over a half-century directly led to the financial crisis of the two-thousands. Then there’s the left-wing drumbeat from their (liberals) media allies. Again, misleading tripe from Heritage. Savaging the Telecommunications Act, Colin Powell’s kid, Michael, led the charge to allow a single media company to own as much as 45% of a markets media. Newspapers, TV, Cable, Radio, et al. That, of course, would leave the opposition so fragmented as to be totally irrelevant, while the anointed forty-five percenter could propagandize its way to total political domination.
So that’s what the bad guy money monopolists and destroyers of all things good and civil are doing with their emails. Do you suppose President DeMint kicked in? If his predecessor’s compensation is any guide, DeMint probably makes over a million annually.
This duplicitous email is another glaring example of the new civil war being fought nationwide. One side, driven by a lust for money is killing our planet and our people, whether through pollution or Dick Cheney wars, or refusing health care to the poor. This party totally disrespects women, minorities and the disadvantaged and, never to be overlooked, exhibits a palpable hatred of a black president for being black. That’s the truthful email that should be going out, not some pack of lies to lighten the wallets of those incredibly easy to fool.
Democratic Party members are cowering in their local districts, fearing boycotts of their businesses, sideways looks at church and the loss of worthless friends. Too many Democrats don’t even bother to vote, then yammer about how bad their local, state and national, Republican senators and representatives treat them.
I’m becoming much more frustrated with Democrats than Republicans. The latter can’t help it. Fellow Democrats, vote early, or by absentee or at the polling place, but VOTE!!!
Raised rural & small town, then lived in N.Y., Chicago & LA. Widely traveled. Returned from world wandering to pursue media life of anchorman/reporter and major, medium and small market talk radio. Highly active in politics. Once worked as orderly & security in Mens Lock Ward for the Criminally Insane at a state institution. Much more rational population than current Teapublicans. Great concern for country run by and for the extreme wealthy. The inhumane current running through this country has no precedent in modern history.
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