Month: March 2015

The Koch Brothers’ It Boy

by digby

I wrote a piece at Salon this morning about the guy I think the Big Money Boyz think is their best bet to beat Clinton in 2016. And it makes sense, at least on paper, even though he’s a bit of a boob:

And that brings us to Marco Rubio. The beltway wags have dubbed this current period in the presidential cycle the “donor primary” with the GOP candidates all rushing to kiss the rings of the big money boyz in the party. It’s widely assumed that Jeb Bush is their guy. (After all, brother Dubya may have screwed up the world in flamboyant fashion but he damned sure got those tax cuts for the rich passed first thing.) And for reasons that continue to be obscure, a lot of pundits think Scott Walker is a formidable force despite the fact that he can hardly go a day without saying something that further proves he’s anything but. And yet, for all the talk about these two being the billionaires’ favorite toys, it was Rubio who made the big splash at the Koch Summit a few weeks back.

Ken Vogel at Politico reported at the time:

The Koch brothers’ conservative network is still debating whether it will spend any of its massive $889 million budget in the Republican presidential primaries, but the prospect of choosing a GOP nominee loomed over the network’s just-concluded donor conference in the California desert. In an informal straw poll of some conference donors, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida came out ahead of four other would-be GOP presidential candidates who had been invited, according to an attendee familiar with the results. The poll was conducted by Frank Luntz, a veteran GOP pollster, during a break-out session of the conference, which wrapped up Tuesday after a long weekend of presentations and discussions at the Ritz-Carlton in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

The Koch network isn’t the only game in town, of course, but it’s certainly the biggest player. And they liked the Senator from Florida very much. Why? Because they want to win. And Rubio, as rough around the edges as he certainly is, is the one hopeful they can conceivably contrast with an older, white woman as a “first” of equal importance. He’s young, he’s Hispanic and he’s good looking. He’s the anti-Hillary whom they believe might be able to siphon off enough of those Latinos who are going to be necessary to get the GOP over the line.

Up until now the beltway handicappers have barely mentioned him. But he’s starting to make his move. National Review reports that the buzz is starting …

read on …

Drudge the comedian

by digby

Oranges vs Oranges

by digby

So, Florida Governor Rick Scott tweeted this out yesterday:

Funny thing. This piece in Bloomberg came out yesterday too:

There are plenty of reasons to presume that California must be a bad place to do business. The Tax Foundation says the state’s tax structure is the third worst for business in the U.S. Forbes ranks California’s business costs fifth highest among the 50 states and its regulatory environment the eighth most burdensome.

Why then does the market, where buyers and sellers determine relative value, show otherwise? California-based companies surpass their competitors in the U.S. by most measures of performance favored by investors.

Since January 2011, when Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr., became governor for the third time, the 63 publicly traded California companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 produced the best total return among the five states with the largest populations. California companies in the S&P 500 delivered returns of 134 percent; the closest big-state challenger was Florida, whose S&P companies had an 82 percent return, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Texas-based companies delivered 52 percent during the period.

Companies domiciled in California also outperformed the S&P 500 during the past four years by a margin of 23 percent. Among the California industries making the state No. 1 in business are health care, returning 267 percent, consumer staples (302 percent), specialty pharma (235 percent), energy (30 percent) and biotech (333 percent).

Maybe high taxes and strong regulations don’t daunt business leaders if well spent and well aimed. Places that prepare for big 21st-century challenges such as urbanization, climate change and globalization are likely to be the most successful. California companies lead the U.S. in confronting these risks with superior results for shareholders and bondholders. The corporate performance coincides with growing confidence in the state under Governor Brown, now in his fourth term. That’s shown by the biggest four-year drop in the cost of state credit default swaps, a kind of insurance against bondholders’ losses and a way to speculate on creditworthiness.

The revenue from technology companies may be the most revealing measure of how successfully California business deals with disruption. As of this month, the trailing 12-month revenue of technology companies in the state was $715 billion, or 52 percent of technology company sales in the U.S. New York was No. 2 with 11 percent, followed by Washington’s 7 percent, Massachusetts’ 4 percent and Virginia’s 3 percent.

Among the 122 U.S. companies in the Bloomberg Americas Clean Technology Index, 26 are based in California. These publicly traded companies spent an average of $118 million, or 25 percent of their sales, in research and development. That was the most in U.S. industry last year, when 9.4 percent was the average. California’s greater commitment to clean technology is resulting in more jobs, with a median rate of employee growth in clean tech jobs during the past 2 years of 7.5 percent compared with 2.3 percent for similar U.S. companies. Analysts also forecast a 70 percent gain for the California clean tech companies in the next 12 months, compared with 33 percent for the industry. The lead in innovation makes analysts more bullish on companies domiciled in California, as reflected in their average 12 month forecast of 24 percent return potential compared with 19 percent for the Russell 3000.

The exceptional performance of California companies helps explain why (with no official gross domestic product data available yet) the state would have the world’s seventh largest economy if it were a country, bigger than Brazil’s, which saw its GDP decline in 2014. Here’s the rough calculation: Companies based in California grew 4.7 percent during the first three quarters of last year. Using 4.7 percent as a proxy for the growth of the market capitalization of California, the total market cap of the state grew to $2.3 trillion from $2.2 trillion in 2013. (Brazil’s GDP declined 1 percent from $2.25 trillion in the first three quarters of 2014 as its exports of raw materials fell.) As of March 10, 33 California companies are included in the 500 largest companies in the world. At the end of 2009, when the U.S. was recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression, there were only 24 California companies in the Global 500, according to Bloomberg data.

As unemployment declined to 7 percent in December from a peak of 12.4 percent in 2011, California’s growth was substantial enough that during the 24-month period ended Sept. 30, 2014, the jobless rate fell the most of any state. This helps explain why California remains the No. 1 state for manufacturing, producing $239 billion, or 12 percent of all manufacturing in the U.S., according to Bloomberg data. Texas is No. 2 with $233 billion.

If taxes are really the bane of California existence, why aren’t they preventing rich people from making the state their primary residence? Some 123 of the world’s wealthiest 400 people live in the U.S., and 28 of them, or 23 percent, are California residents, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. New York is No. 2 with 22 billionaires, or 18 percent, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index.

Go figure.

I happen to think that Florida is still a nice place. But if they keep electing right wing monsters like Rick Scott it won’t be for long.

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Behold, the relativist wasteland
by Tom Sullivan

A number of people have taken shots at David Brooks this week for his essential cluelessness about people who are not David Brooks. Over at Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi calls Brooks’ “The Cost of Relativism” his “10 thousandth odious article about how rich people are better parents than the poor.” Taibbi writes:

Brooks then goes on to relate some of the horrific case studies from the book – more on those in a moment – before coming to his inevitable conclusion, which is that poor people need to get off the couch, stop giving in to every self-indulgent whim, and discipline their wild offspring before they end up leaving their own illegitimate babies on our lawns:

Next it will require holding people responsible. People born into the most chaotic situations can still be asked the same questions: Are you living for short-term pleasure or long-term good? Are you living for yourself or for your children? Do you have the freedom of self-control or are you in bondage to your desires?

Yes, improving your station is a simple matter self-discipline and of pulling yourself up by those bootstraps, if you have the boots. Can’t find a job? Pull together some investors and start your own business. Personal responsibility … yadda, yadda, yadda … achieve the American Dream.

The conservative cant about “personal responsibility” has long been a dog whistle for race. Not always, just mostly. It’s “a hell of a lot more abstract than” … well, you know what Lee Atwater said.

But it was another Rollineg Stone writer, Jeff Tietz, who provided in 2012 perhaps the most accessible portrait of the poor in “The Sharp, Sudden Decline of America’s Middle Class.” Set in Santa Barbara, CA, the piece profiles the nuevo homeless living out of cars in a church parking lot. They are “there, but for the grace of God” stories writ large. Maybe that setting is a tad less threatening than the inner-city images evoked when secure, well-off, white people write about poor people in the New York Times.

Aljazeera has a 2014 photo series on poverty entitled “Getting By” that gives a glimpse into just what living hand-to-mouth is like outside the imaginings of Fox News and David Brooks. They invite people to write in with their stories:

Sometimes I’m convinced that the stigma of poverty is worse than the actual conditions. In this country it’s assumed that if you’re poor, you’ve somehow earned it/deserve it … Living in poverty has been and continues to be, an intense as well as an invaluable education. My life is rich and happy.

I was raised in the middle class but have raised my own children in poverty, albeit American style. Sometimes I’m convinced that the stigma of poverty is worse than the actual conditions. In this country it’s assumed that if you’re poor, you’ve somehow earned it/deserve it — That you’re lazy, lacking intelligence or savvy,or simply doing something wrong. Or perhaps just “a loser,” reaping what you’ve sown. Living in poverty has been and continues to be, an intense as well as an invaluable education. My life is rich and happy, for the most part. Despite having left the consumer class two decades ago.

— Lisa Anthony, Iowa City, Iowa

Behold, the relativist wasteland.

Is government really America’s most important problem?

by digby

According to Politico that’s what Americans believe:

Except, check out how many Americans actually believe that:

In a Gallup poll released Thursday, 18 percent of Americans named government as the biggest problem facing the U.S.

So every wingnut in America  — 18 % or so — names that as the most important problem and it’s touted as “America’s most important problem.”

The fact that this fits the beltway narrative that the entire country hates “government” is a coincidence I’m sure …

Tom Cotton’s tough love: rolling back the clock on child labor laws 

by digby

So I hear Arkansas is trying to clear the way for Tom Cotton to run for president in 2020. No, I’m not kidding. I’m just surprised they aren’t drafting him for 2016.  He’s their new leader. He’s been to Iraq and Afghanistan.  What more do we need?

True, he is a little bit confused about some things, but so what? So was Sarah Palin and they put her on the ticket. Like this, for instance, from when he was first running for congress three years ago (for the one term he served before becoming a Senator and taking over the foreign policy and national security leadership of the Republican Party.)

WASHINGTON — Tom Cotton, a GOP candidate for Congress, says he would like to see more children working long hours out in America’s agricultural fields. The Republican from Arkansas’ fourth district apparently isn’t a big fan of child-labor laws pertaining to farms.

“We need more young people who’ve worked all day in the fields, not less,” the Army reservist and Harvard grad fumed in a recent post on his 2012 campaign website (his italics). “It’s time to tell Washington to get off our land.”

The swipe at Washington is apparently a reference to some pending federal regulations pertaining to minors working on farms. The Labor Department has proposed a rule that would bar children under age 16 from performing certain agricultural duties deemed dangerous, such as driving tractors, operating power equipment, or castrating bulls. Although farm-worker advocates say the rules are decades overdue, some farmers have argued that bureaucrats are meddling needlessly in their industry.

Cotton is running for the seat that will be left wide open when Democratic Rep. Mike Ross retires next year, and he seems intent on making the new rules a campaign issue. His blog post urges visitors to sign a petition denouncing the child-labor regulations, calling them “just another example of how Washington regulates our state’s farmers without understanding us or our way of life.” (Again, his italics.)

But Cotton’s post also appears to promote some misinformation about the rules, saying they would “forbid our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews from working their family farms.”

Children working on their parents’ farms would be exempt from the rule and permitted to do any chore their parents see fit. As a Labor Department fact sheet on the rule explains, “A child of any age may perform any job, even hazardous work, at any age at any time on a farm owned by his or her parent.” And nephews, nieces and grandchildren could still perform grown-up duties on relatives’ farms, so long as they’re not formal, paid employees, notes a Labor Department spokesperson.

This is a pattern with him. How can I put this delicately? Uhm, he lies. But he knows that the truth is irrelevant in Wingnuttia (Bill O’Reilly, call your office) and that all that matters is to play into their peculiar paranoia.

Seriously, he believes that child labor should be allowed and that employers should be allowed to have kids using dangerous equipment. I guess if they lose a few fingers or a leg they’ll learn their lesson.

You remember the good old days, right? When children did what they were told and knew the value of hard work?

This

Can we ever really *know* if a conservative is really conservative? 

by digby

The National Review, everybody: pic.twitter.com/1V62IhFjxP
— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) March 12, 2015

Sheesh.  I guess everybody just assumes that his going for years to that famous Christian Church in Chicago isn’t a good enough hint.  Or the fact that he says he is a Christian.  I understand a lot of people think this is some sort of epistemological mystery since we can’t really “know” another person’s belief, but seriously this is just dumb. As far as we know, the Pope is a total fraud in his heart of hearts. But being the Pope and all, I’m going to take him at his word that he really believes what he says.   If a person says he’s Christian that should be good enough for anyone.

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More on the neocon reunion tour

by digby

Yes, they’re back. Even the “dumbest fucking guy on the planet” Doug Feith. I wrote about it at Salon today starting off with a review of the ascent of the GOP’s new leader on foreign policy, Tom Cotton. Then this:

Other Republicans seem to just be confused. As Steve Benen pointed out, presumed presidential candidate, Senator Marco Rubio recently said, “the reason Obama hasn’t put in place a military strategy to defeat ISIS is because he doesn’t want to upset Iran,” seeming to be under the misimpression that Iran and ISIS are on the same side. Dr Ben Carson similarly commented that the U.S. needed to be just as militant toward “the Shia” who are based in Iran as we are of ISIS, apparently not realizing that the American Iraqi allies are mostly Shia Muslim.

But there’s another group of Republicans getting back in the saddle and supporting Tom Cotton and company, the Neocons. (I wrote about them here.) And none are as notorious as former Bush pentagon official Douglas Feith, known far and wide by General Tommy Franks’ famous quote that he is the “dumbest f**king guy on the planet.” From Abu Ghraib to the poor post-war planning to the stovepiped intelligence and everything else, Feith’s fingerprints can be found on each detail of the disaster that was the Iraq war. And yet the Wall Street Journal doesn’t see any of that as an impediment to publishing his “critiques” of the Obama foreign policy as if he actually maintains some credibility. For instance, his latest on the Iran negotiations from just this week:

The Obama administration has wedded itself to a cooperative policy toward Iran. The White House rejects the coercive approach as not viable. But if Iran violates its deal with us, won’t our response have to be coercive? President Obama insists that his policy is the only realistic one. In doing so, he is showing either that he is naive and uninformed about the relevant history or that he no longer considers an Iranian nuclear weapon “unacceptable.”

So Feith, sounding almost as thick as Rubio there, informs us that even though one enters into an agreement it’s possible that one of the parties might not fulfill its side of the bargain. Yes, that’s true. But he apparently thinks that since coercion might someday be necessary if Iran violates its agreement not to build a nuclear weapon, the agreement is useless. So we must use coercion. That’s so circular it gives you a headache. In any case, since it’s Feith saying it, perhaps we should ask how that “coercive policy” toward Iraq worked out for us? After all, it turned out that invading that country on the basis of its non-existent nuclear program was instrumental in the creation of ISIS — last week’s boogeyman.

Someone pointed out on twitter last night that Cotton is really something more than a neocon. He hasn’t said a thing about “promoting democracy” which was always the big inspirational, aspirational cover story. He’s pretty much just coming right out and saying “let’s kill ’em all and let God sort it out.” His honesty is refreshing. Also too: psycho.

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QOTD: Huckleberry (as usual)

by digby

You have to wonder how this fellow became a leading voice in the US Senate:

And here’s the first thing I would do if I were president of the United States. I wouldn’t let Congress leave town until we fix this. I would literally use the military to keep them in if I had to. We’re not leaving town until we restore these defense cuts. We are not leaving town until we restore the intel cuts.

This is the guy who is whining daily about the president being a tyrant.

And you’ll note he didn’t say, hold a vote. He said he’d keep the congress under military guard until they did what he wants, which is restore the military cuts. Military cuts he voted for, by the way.

*In case you have any questions about whether a president could actually do this thing, this explainer will fill you in. The answer is, no. Huckleberry is confusing the United States with a fictional banana republic.

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More on “270 Strategies” — Paid to Play the Insider Game

by Gaius Publius

I recently did a piece looking at the Democratic consulting shop “270 Strategies” — a group that’s been characterized as involved in “astroturfing” by the Daily Kos diarist Liberty Equality Fraternity and Trees. Her (or his) headline was:

Obama Campaign Alumni Form New Astroturf Group to Promote TPP

That’s accurate, but a little confusing. There are actually two groups involved. Obama campaign alumnae (or alumni) — Lynda Tran, Mitch Stewart and Jeremy Bird — are founding partners of the PR and digital consulting shop “270 Strategies.” And the “astroturf” group is their client (or brainchild), the “Progressive Coalition for American Jobs.”

Let’s continue our look at 270 Strategies, since their efforts on behalf of TPP have already borne fruit. From a news piece around the time 270 Strategies was created:

[Lynda Tran, the] communications director at the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is leaving to join a new
political firm founded by Obama campaign officials.

In an email to NHTSA staff on Friday, Administrator David Strickland announced spokeswoman Lynda Tran’s departure.

“For
the past couple of years, I have had the pleasure and honor to have
been befriended by, advised by and protected by one of the best
professionals in government service,” Strickland said.

Tran said
in a separate email to NHTSA staff that she will be a partner at 270
Strategies in Washington – a grassroots campaign firm named after the
number of electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

The new
firm is led by two former Obama for America officials, Mitch Stewart and
Jeremy Bird, and describes itself as “helping clients build
people-centered, data-driven and digitally sophisticated grassroots
campaigns that achieve their strategic goals and change the world.”

Their press release for this event and that news article are from January 2013, so Tran, Stewart and Bird et al have been at this a while. 270 Strategies is a digital campaign shop (as in, they do political campaigns) and media placement outfit (as in, they place stories in the media to drive a client’s narrative). For a successful example of the latter, read on.

270 Strategies Says It’s “Progressive” To Be Pro-TPP; Politico Agrees

We got onto this story originally because 270 Strategies is part of a new campaign to get TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership, the next NAFTA-style trade agreement) passed. Obama wants it (badly), Pelosi is iffy at best about it, and all of the corporate-bought (through campaign “contributions”) members of Congress are ready to vote for it.

But there’s opposition as well. Against TPP are real progressives, most or all labor unions, most citizens who know anything about it or about NAFTA (a surprisingly large group), and many Republicans who don’t want to cede more power to the “Kenyan” in the White House. (Why’s that an issue? Because to pass TPP, Congress first has to pass “Fast Track” legislation, which neuters Congress’s role in the process. That mean the “Kenyan” wins in the minds of Tea Party legislators.)

So it’s going to be a struggle, either to pass or defeat TPP. Which is where 270 Strategies comes in. These ex-Obama campaign staffers have been hired to paint the TPP deal as “progressive” as a way to divide the left-leaning opposition. As we wrote earlier (emphasis mine):

The TPP wars are heating up, and the lobbyist money is flowing.
The latest effort attempts to brand TPP as “progressive” instead of
“neoliberal” — “neoliberal” being an obvious-by-now offshoot of the kind
of pre-FDR “liberalism” that meant “privatized and controlled by the owners of wealth.”

Most people get that NAFTA was, to put it bluntly, a screw job for workers, that all the promises of new American jobs were lies, or at best, tales told by willing and well-rewarded dupes. That jury came in years ago. (If you don’t believe me, test it. Ask anyone you know, of any flavor of left or right, what they think of NAFTA.) It’s proponents needed a new angle, a new way to increase support and divide opposition. This, apparently, is that angle — “TPP, progressives support it too.”

TPP, 270 Strategies & Politico

Selling TPP as “progressive” is a stretch, but it’s an interesting move. It creates and leverages confusion on the left, and by dividing the left, attempts to finesse support for Fast Track, to sneak it past the finish line. Say “job killer” and the left is united against. Say “progressive” and “groundbreaking” and some on the left may be intrigued, may even be interested, may even be flattered enough to be tempted to agree.

This strategy may not work, but regardless, that’s the plan. 270 Strategies was hired to execute it — to put the confusion-sowing message bolded above, that TPP is a progressive treaty, into the mainstream press, to get that message mainsteam-blessed and make it part of “what everyone already knows.” As I said, a stretch, but that’s the job.

And just like magic, we suddenly see this in Politico (again, my emphasis):

RIFT AMONG PROGRESSIVES EMERGES ON TPP — Mitch
Stewart, the battleground states director for Obama’s 2012 re-election
campaign, and Lydia [actually Lynda] Tran, the former national press secretary for
Organizing for America, launched a campaign to encourage giving the
president fast-track authority over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the
Daily Kos reports.
In a press release announcing the launch of the Progressive Coalition
for American Jobs, Stewart said the campaign, which will start in Oregon
and Washington state, was “about ensuring America is competitive in the
global economy, about expanding the market for ‘Made in America’
goods, [and] about leveling the playing field to protect American
workers and jobs.”

Politico goes on to say that the AFL doesn’t agree, but note their headline at the top of the larger article:

“Progressives Split on TPP”

Nice — and excellent message placement by the newly formed “Coalition” and their helpmates, 270 Strategies. Was this Politico paragraph the result of a nice “catch” by Politico, whose writers naturally read the same Daily Kos non-front-page diaries we do? Or did someone at the media-connected “270 Strategies” whisper into Politico’s ear on behalf of the “Coalition” and get them to put their — as I said, confusion-sowing — frame and message in the headline and then to bury the criticism (“astroturf” operation) behind a link that few will click? If I had to put money on it, I’d say the latter.

Notice that the “Coalition”-friendly framing is threaded throughout the paragraph. And notice that the only goal of this piece — of this whole operation, in fact — is to brand TPP as “progressive” and the disagreement as a disagreement “among progressives.” They don’t care, at this point, if the disagreement is covered, so long as it’s framed as a left-on-left discussion.

Mission accomplished. If 270 Strategies tried to be successful, they succeeded. If they didn’t try to succeed, they got very very lucky. Your call on which way this went down.

Insiders Helping Insiders Help Their Paymasters Make Money

This is what professional message placement looks like, folks, from the mouths of paid PR professionals to pages like Politico’s to your ears and eyes. This is the game as it’s played. My subhead above, as usual with me these days, isn’t snark, but a simple statement of fact. 270 Strategies is a child (and a tool) of insiders — in this case, Obama campaign professionals Lynda Tran, Mitch Stewart and Jeremy Bird. They’re paid to pass pro–Big Money (in this case, pro-TPP) messaging to pro-insider media organizations, who pass it to you in a “here’s how to think about this” way. Just like the Sunday “news” shows, which are also “message placement” targets and operations.

Where’s the money alluded to in my subhead above? Easy. Politico has the position it does because it was clearly well financed as a start-up and has a decidedly insider point of view. Look into the histories of their mainstream-connected founding editors. 270 Strategies was created with start-up money as well. Was it money that came from only the founding partners, Tran, Stewart and Bird? Perhaps, but as financing stories go, not very likely. Most operations like this have seed money, and seed money comes from people who have money and want more of it. (I’m open to correction on this, by the way. 270 Strategies is free to contact me, and I’ll print what they send in this regard.)

Imagine how easy, for groups like 270 Strategies, seed money is to come by if you’re (a) Obama-connected and (b) exist to do stuff like take down Mike Honda, a real progressive, and to prop up people like Cory (“Don’t Be Mean to Bain“) Booker and longtime Clinton insider Terry McAuliffe (see their our-clients page for more). Work like that pays good money going forward as well, since attacks on progressive office-holders and defense of neoliberal (DLC and New Dem) types is very well financed by those whom I called above — and I still think, accurately — the “paymasters” of the entire insider protection and expansion racket that runs the country. Why won’t Eric Holder jail a banker? If he does, where’s his next job going to come from? Insiders protecting insiders, so the money keeps flowing … to them.

As I said once in conversation with David Dayen on a Virtually Speaking broadcast, the only real story in the country is the “flow of funds” story — the flow of all available money upward, from the pockets of the many to the pockets of the few. Every problem we have stems from that.

Here you see perfectly how that flow is greased at the rubber-meets-road level — insider PR shops (270 Strategies) doing insider (corporate, pro-TPP) bidding by feeding insider-created framing (“Progressive Coalition
for American Jobs”) to well-financed insider media like Politico.

Next stop for this messaging? All of the Sunday “news” shows, of course. But Morning Joe, nestled inside pro-Democratic MSNBC, would be my cable target. As near as I can tell, none of the evening MSNBC anchors are covering TPP, much less criticizing it, so there won’t even be an in-network counter-message.

More on This “Progressive Coalition”

I don’t want this piece to go too long, so I’ll leave you with one more note on TPP. Just as I’ve attempted to deconstruct the media “messaging” side, Dave Johnson, one of our go-to people on TPP, has dissected the group “Progressive Coalition for American Jobs.” I can do no better than to send you there. (Hint: It’s neither progressive, nor a coalition, nor about jobs, nor American. It’s a real “Four Pinocchio” operation.)

270 Strategies, a Bottom Line

We’ve had our eye on “270 Strategies” since they tried, and failed, to take out progressive House member Mike Honda. (Can you imagine Obama campaign alums targeting Honda? Talk about tagging yourself out of the gate as exactly what you are. It would be like targeting Alan Grayson or Keith Ellison — none are iffy progressives vulnerable from the left.)

Now they’re at it again, 270 Strategies, by working to pass TPP, one of Obama’s worst legacy wants and one of his most destructive initiatives. If he succeeds, we’ll have NAFTA–job loss on steroids, along with actually loss of sovereignty.

All so the people at 270 Strategies can cash an insider-financed paycheck. Not sure I like that trade.

GP

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