“Good day my friend! I must say, you certainly look like a smart and discerning voter! Have you lost weight recently? Hey, don’t those folks in Washington DC just make ya mad? Sayin’ they’ve just got your interest in mind while takin’ all that money from special interests and doin’ what’s best for them…when they’re not fightin’ with each other like stubborn brats, am I right? Don’t ya wish we could just get rid of both parties and just elect good people who’ll do everything we all want?

Well, my friend, it’s a good thing I ran into you. Ya see, just by chance I’ve got millions of dollars behind me just to make all your dreams come true. I can’t tell ya who the money’s from or who’s behind all of this, you’re just gonna have to trust me that I’ve only got your best interests in mind and I’m only doing this for you. Er, what’s your name again, friend?”

Basing a new, allegedly populist party on the old movie, “The Music Man” might work to fool some of the people in the short term but it wouldn’t seem to be sustainable. Especially when those trying to hide their involvement in such a venture are eventually exposed…which intrepid souls out there already have accomplished on the web though not really in the MSM yet. The fruits of their valuable labors (huge props are owed to Jim Cook at Irregular Times and Stephen Gowens’ “What’s Left”  among others for being way ahead on this story and reporting many of the details provided below) will be shared later on and the picture that is painted is deserving of concern.

Americans Elect’s website (http://www.americanselect.org) is astoundingly devoid of meaningful information about who is financing their “populist” organization and the names of all those managing and overseeing it behind the scenes. In fact, they have openly stated that they have no obligation to inform the public as to who’s financing them…while also claiming “the people” are financing them…the latter will shortly be proven to be a gross misrepresentation.

They use the Get Satisfaction service for blog purposes, here are excerpts of the comments currently on the “Who’s Behind This” thread for Americans Elect (you can read the rest of the  comments here):

  • Americans Elect has blocked the viewing of the vast majority of responses by individuals to this thread with the line “Due to volume, only the 15 most recent replies are being displayed.”
  • Mr. Levine, please stop the BS. It would take about 10 minutes and ZERO dollars to code an html page listing WHO is behind this organization and ftp it to your website. If you honestly don’t have ANYONE with those very minimal capabilities, please post your e-mail and I will spend the 10 minutes needed to code it and send it to you.
  • Dimple B.’s initial answer is a non-answer. Joshua Levine asks us to “keep in mind that we have limited funds and resources to work on all this and we’re doing the best we can.” But Thomas Friedman tells us Americans Elect is funded by serious hedge fund money, and we’re informed that they’ve already spent enough to collect 1,600,000 signatures in California. They have enough money to gather over a million signatures, but not enough to type out the names of their Board of Directors and post it to their website? That just doesn’t make sense.
  • The idea is good. But the fact that the organization is deliberately not mentioning the founders, shows bad faith. Transparency should be paramount for an internet based initiative.
  • I have a very strong feeling that we are being played for chumps for someone with an vested interest in influencing the upcoming 2012 election towards one party or another. Without transparency, it is a reasonable assumption.
  • I just don’t want another Tea Party/Koch brothers repeat, which is why it’s important to me to know who is behind the curtain funding/running this movement. I’d really hate to find out that “if it seems too good to be true, it usually is” applies here.
  • Actually what I have found out is that those behind this are hedge fund managers. So if anything this is yet another faux grass roots effort funded by the same corporatists.

It is encouraging that people are seeing the disingenuous nature of an organization claiming to serve the public while keeping much of its organizational, operational and financing information as secret as possible.

We’ll get to the initial and central financier of Americans Elect shortly but thanks to the detective work of Jim Cook at Irregular Times, we are aware of at least one hedge fund manager who’s helping to finance this group:

Here’s the name of another Americans Elect contributor with special interests, plucked from the Piryx giving stream: Kirk T. Rostron of Alexandria, VA. Kirk Rostron is a co-founder and managing partner of The Mt. Vernon Group, a private capital investment firm situated in a choice spot just four blocks from the White House at 1101 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington DC. Rostron specializes in managing hedge funds, having done so previously at Merrill Lynch, Hovde Capital Advisors and HedgeCall.

As a hedge fund manager and managing partner of a private capital investment firm, Kirk Rostron has special interests in various aspects of American economic policy, from regulation to privatization to transparency to taxation. Curiously enough, of the seven areas of policy Americans Elect identifies as relevant, it overwhelmingly focuses on economic policy in its delegate process. Within the 64 policy questions Americans Elect has deployed to shape the selection of its 2012 presidential candidate, the largest subset — a full 17 questions — has to do with privatization, deregulation and taxes, fixating on policy issues in a manner highly compatible with the special interests of well-to-do private capital financiers like Kirk Rostron.

And yet, Americans Elect shamelessly states in interviews and on its website, “None of our funding comes from special interests or lobbyists. ” So hedge fund managers located a stone’s throw from the White House and Congress aren’t classified as “special interests” or “lobbyists”? This is very telling when it comes to considering Americans Elect’s true motives and veracity, no wonder they have withheld and tried to hide the identity of those financing this venture…hard to promote this as a grass roots group when most of its funding comes from the wealthiest Americans.

The Americans Elect process for nominating and running a candidate works hard to appear populist, the gimmick is that people who sign up with them become delegates and can nominate potential candidates but there is a sneaky little asterisk on that offer:

Americans Elect is the first truly open nominating process. Any constitutionally-eligible, qualified citizen—no matter their party—can seek the nomination, or be drafted by our delegates. We will never promote any candidate of our own—and the ultimate winner is decided only by American voters. To ensure the integrity of the process, all potential candidates must be certified by an independent committee and meet a set of standard qualification criteria such as background checks.

An independent committee will choose which candidates meet a set of standard qualifications. A red herring is thrown out by only naming background checks as one of the criteria but they also say elsewhere that a candidate must be considered someone of similar stature to our previous presidents. How many “real” people will fit that description and how subjective is a determination on this requirement? It appears to be just a facade of populism with mechanics that insure that only candidates who satisfy the management’s sensibilities will be qualified.

And who chooses the people who will make up this independent committee? Won’t that be a pivotal factor in which potential candidates are deemed “presidential enough”? Might that again be Americans Elect’s management who can stack the committee deck to get the deal they want?

It’s a neat trick to make up one’s own mandates and handpick one’s own “independent” panel that is required to follow those mandates then declare their decision to be “independent”.

BTW, Americans Elect isn’t a political party…unless they are a political party, it all depends on which interview, documentation or press release of theirs you happen to listen to. If you watched Elliot Ackerman on PBS’ Newshour this week, you would have heard him definitively stating that Americans Elect is not a third party. However, if you checked public records in Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Kansas, Michigan and Nevada, you would find that they have either registered themselves or have been classified by the state as a political party. Or you could have read a letter by their legal counsel in which they declared that Americans Elect is “qualified for ballot access as a ‘national party’”.

http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2011/08/23/americans-elect-fibs-about-not-being-a-political-party-again/

Why the deception about this? Well, when an organization is doing something that they aren’t legally allowed to do, they have to publicly say they’re not doing it.

Americans Elect is a 501 c4 which is a tax-exempt, nonprofit corporation classified under Civic Leagues, Social Welfare Organizations, and Local Associations of Employees.

One key provision of a 501 c4 is that they may lobby for legislation and may also participate in political campaigns and elections, as long as campaigning is not the organization’s primary purpose.

Which works just peachy for Americans Elect because…er…all they’re focused on doing is promoting, nominating and campaigning for a presidential candidate.

Lately, Americans Elect has been making the PR rounds on cable news and even Colbert’s show (readers of this article are invited to tweet or email Colbert to alert him to having unknowingly promoted this suspect group). Elliot Ackerman, young and fresh faced, has been doing the chores and makes a perfect front man. Who’s going to ask tough questions of a medal winning vet and risk appearing disrespectful of his service?

To try and get a handle on this slippery organization, let’s begin with the information they do provide.

Elliot Ackerman is the COO of Americans Elect, whose only biographical information that can be reasonably found is that he is an Iraq war veteran with a Silver Star (for some reason, the Medal of Honor awarded Sergeant Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate came to mind). Aside from providing a Hollywood-casting, tailor made populist image for this organization, how did that background alone qualify or position him to be the COO of a million dollar, rabidly ambitious, political organization?

Well…let’s ask his dad.

Elliot Ackerman’s father is Peter Ackerman who, in the 1980’s was Michael Milken’s top collaborator at Drexel Burnham Lambert.  In 1988 for example, Ackerman received $165 million in salary and $38 million in bonuses while being an accomplice in Milken’s junk bond schemes that destroyed and bankrupted many financial institutions, investors and businesses…not to mention helping to crash the US economy which brought about a recession.

Milken of course was found guilty for securities fraud and sentenced to 10 years for what he was engaged in at that time. Ackerman was able to escape prosecution despite his direct involvement in many of the same junk bond deals Milken went to prison for and he walked away from the world of finance with his hundreds of millions while Milken went behind bars.

And so, the highly secretive and private Peter Ackerman, bailed out with his ill gotten gains from Wall Street, jumping from DBL just before it crashed into bankruptcy in 1990 and parachuting into academia, hoping to start anew and erase his past (though he has continued his dealings in the world of finance).

http://www.businessweek.com/archives/1992/b326978.arc.htm

Perhaps he realized that he could use his experience in takeovers in the political world.

After leaving DBL, Peter Ackerman soon co-founded The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict which claims “to promote the study and utilization of nonmilitary strategies by civilian-based movements to establish and defend human rights, social justice and democracy.”

There are some who view the ICNC far differently than the altruistic description above would portray:

…it rejects overt CIA sponsorship to escape the taint of being associated with the CIA. Instead, it relies on funding channeled openly through Western government and ruling class foundations. Ackerman defines the technique as: “the shrewd use of strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience” [1] in addition to mass protests [2] and even nonviolent sabotage, to disrupt the functioning of government [3] and make “a country ungovernable.” [4] NVR (non-violent resistance), then, is equivalent to the CIA-engineered destabilization used to help overthrow Chile’s leftist president, Salvador Allende.

(Peter) Ackerman, Helvey and Sharp are involved in some capacity in deploying Sharp’s destabilization techniques to countries the US government pressures diplomatically, militarily and economically: Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Myanmar, Iran, and formerly Georgia, Ukraine and Yugoslavia.

http://gowans.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/overthrow-inc-peter-ackerman%E2%80%99s-quest-to-do-what-the-cia-used-to-so-and-make-it-seem-progressive/

One thing that would not appear to be disputed is that the ICNC and Peter Ackerman are actively involved in undermining and changing the governments of which they disapprove.

Peter Ackerman was also a board member of Freedom House, described in “Manufacturing Dissent”  by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky:

Freedom House, which dates back to the early 1940s, has had interlocks with AIM (Accuracy in Media), the World Anticommunist League, Resistance International, and U.S. government bodies such as Radio Free Europe and the CIA, and has long served as a virtual propaganda arm of the government and international right wing. It sent election monitors to the Rhodesian elections staged by Ian Smith in I979 and found them “fair,” whereas the I980 elections won by Mugabe under British supervision it found dubious. Its election monitors also found the Salvadoran elections of I982 admirable.

It has expended substantial resources in criticizing the media for insufficient sympathy with U.S. foreign-policy ventures and excessively harsh criticism of U.S. client states. Its most notable publication of this genre was Peter Braestrup’s Big Story, which contended that the media’s negative portrayal of the Tet offensive helped lose the war.

The work is a travesty of scholarship, but more interesting is its premise: that the mass media not only should support any national venture abroad, but should do so with enthusiasm, such enterprises being by definition noble. In I982, when the Reagan administration was having trouble containing media reporting of the systematic killing of civilians by the Salvadoran army, Freedom House came through with a denunciation of the “imbalance” in media reporting from El Salvador.

Here’s a very interesting graphic which is represented as a flow chart of Peter Ackerman’s involvements and entanglements, courtesy of AP’s blog at Quotha.net (yep, the Koch Brothers and Rand Corporation made the chart):

ackerman

So why does Peter Ackerman matter when it comes to Americans Elect when it is his son, Elliot who is its COO?

Well…before gaining 501 c4 status, the finances of Americans Elect required disclosure and guess who not only fully financed Americans Elect to the tune of $1.55 million but also originally anointed himself as Director, President and Chairman of Americans Elect…yep, Peter Ackerman. Only after changing it to a 501 c4 did the current obfuscation become legal.

Peter Ackerman is nothing if not persistent. Prior to founding Americans Elect, he co-founded and co-chaired, Unity08, another alleged populist, non-partisan organization, described here by Jim Cook at Irregular Times:

New York Magazine’s John Heilemann spoke to Michael Bloomberg aide Kevin Sheekey in October and reports that the New York City mayor’s office has strong interest in using an Americans Elect presidential ballot line to run for President in 2012.

“One key factor, now as three years ago, is Bloomberg’s ability to get onto the ballot nationwide. Thus are Sheekey and others eagerly monitoring a new outfit called Americans Elect, which plans to launch early next year. Backed by a wealthy private investor, Peter Ackerman, the group says on its single-page website that it intends to hold a web-based convention to nominate a “balanced presidential ticket that will bridge the vital center of American public opinion” and place it “on the ballot in all 50 states.” Ackerman has already put $1.55 million into the project, with more to come.”

Americans Elect is in fact backed solely by Peter Ackerman’s contributions of $1.55 million in the second and 3rd quarters of 2010. Moreover, a dance between Bloomberg and Americans Elect would not be new. Americans Elect is, after all, the new incarnation of Unity08 — the two groups shared the same business address for a time. Before that, Unity08 shared its business address with the Draft Bloomberg Committee. Indeed, the founders of Unity08 registered the domain name draftmichaelbloomberg.com in June 2007, at a time when Unity08 was insisting that it had no candidates in mind, that the people would choose, and also at a time when Unity08 leaders were holding secret talks with the Bloomberg camp.

Okay…so let’s put some of these pieces together and see what the puzzle image here really is.

1. Peter Ackerman is a Wall Street exec who worked for and with Michael Milken while criminal frauds were conducted, that did severe harm to Americans and the American economy.

2. The altruistically-named International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, which Peter Ackerman founded, is accused of using CIA-type tactics to undermine foreign governments albeit through nonviolent means, to put in power the government it wants.

3. Freedom House which for which Peter Ackerman served as a board member, is described as being intertwined with the US government and the right wing establishment, acting as their propaganda tool on matters of internal politics in other countries.

4. Peter Ackerman co-founded and co-chaired Unity08 which claimed the same goals as Americans Elect but stealthily prepared itself to be a vehicle for Michael Bloomberg to run as an independent for President.

5. Peter Ackerman invested $1.55  million to start up and was originally the sole executive of Americans Elect, later installing his son in that role and obscuring his involvement. Like Unity08, Americans Elect is positioned as an ideal vehicle for someone such as Michael Bloomberg to run as an independent, only allowing a candidate who is considered to be someone of similar stature to our previous presidents, to be their candidate.

Think about it, how many potential candidates that the well meaning, regular members of this enterprise support will be of similar stature to past presidents? Stature…a threshold that only a Michael Bloomberg, Jon Huntsman, other established pols or Wall Street/corporate CEOs could satisfy. Is that what they’re advertising? Do people joining up know that the eventual candidate will be just another professional politician or a millionaire/billionaire businessman?

As may not be surprising, the bulk of those attracted to Americans Elect are more on the Progressive and Indie side. If Americans Elect was to run a candidate that appeals to such folks and would attract their votes, who would that hurt most and who would it help?

MY ADMITTEDLY SUBJECTIVE CONCLUSION:

A massively wealthy individual with a background of unprincipled greed for money and power, who has used seemingly altruistic organizations to quietly undermine existing governments and replace them with governments he would rather see in place, has created Americans Elect to do the same.

An independent run for president by a moderate of presidential stature would seem intended to undermine the more moderate major party candidate, President Obama, to the benefit of whomever the GOP was to run. The goal apparently being another 2000 result where Nader drained enough votes from Gore to allow Bush room to claim the presidency (despite, after his anointment by the SCOTUS, a recount proved Bush did lose in FL).

Americans Elect feels like a Koch-Brothers-type Tea Partying of the Left and Indies. Exploit the anger and frustration of the constituency and drive them together under a populist tent…that’s in fact owned by the wealthy…and use it to splinter the power of the majority so that the power and party of the minority, the wealthy and corporations, can continue to dominate.

What will Peter Ackerman’s income tax be on hundreds of millions of dollars under a tax cutting, corporate-loyal President Perry or President Romney, compared with a President Obama who reflects the popular sentiment of raising taxes on the wealthy? Is this Wall Street, junk bond mercenary really not interested in money and just an altruistic soul?

And who would be most powerful in shaping policy and tax laws under a Republican president as opposed to a Democratic president? Corporations and the uber-wealthy like Peter Ackerman or all those unemployed and under-employed Americans Elect voters?

Do such secretive, evasive and deceptive policies of Americans Elect truly support democracy and put it in more hands or end up accomplishing the exact opposite?

My answer to these questions is no doubt apparent. To those who feel similarly, I would urge you to link to this article elsewhere and to Irregular Times and What’s Left  to get the word out on what seems to be a new wolf in sheep’s clothing in our political system. In the current atmosphere of Purist Dems and Repubs-posing-as-Dems all attacking Obama as the enemy, such a fraud could gain a startling amount of traction.

Also, here is a link to the terrific archive of Irregular Times’ articles on Americans Elect, highly recommended and very enlightening.

Personally, I am supportive of having a more open and diverse democracy and a viable third party, as well as giving voters more of a voice in the nomination process so candidates are more reflective of what people want in their representatives.

All of these would be positive things for our democracy but Americans Elect seems to me to be using democratic empowerment as sheep’s clothing, under which, this wolf licks its chops as it sneaks up on its unsuspecting prey.

UPDATE: 3-28-2012

The good folks at Irregular Times have uncovered that one of the Chairs of their committee that will choose their candidate is a GOP Lobbyist and a major player in ALEC, the Koch Brothers financed organization that writes legislation and uses Republican stooges in government to get it passed:

Tom Sansonetti is currently Partner at Holland and Hart LLC, a major corporate law firm, representing “business entities of all sizes, including more than 100 of the Fortune 500 companies.” Tom Sansonetti is head of Holland and Hart’s Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Practice. He is a major contributorto the Holland and Hart Political Action Committee.

A search of the House Lobbying Disclosure database reveals that over the last election cycle of 2009-2010, Tom Sansonetti has been active as a lobbyist for Peabody Energy Corporation, which is the largest private coal corporation in the world and a chief participant in ALEC, a consortium of corporations that writes pro-business legislation that are introduced and passed by corporate-sponsored state legislators and members of Congress.

http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2011/09/22/chairs-of-americans-elect-rules-committee-a-coalcasino-gop-lobbyist-and-a-lieberman-democrat/

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escribacat
Member

Adlib — Americanselect has just gotten onto the 2012 Colorado ballot. I was thinking it’s a good thing if they’re right wing and will drain votes from Mitts (or whoever). They will have to really disguise their candidate as a leftie in order to drain votes from Obama. I can’t see how that would be possible. I agree it would be a refreshing change to get out of this seemingly pointless stalemate we’ve developed in this country between the two parties, but as your article here shows, these guys are seriously smelling rotten.

SueInCa
Member

Adlib
Don’t know if you are aware of this sight but you can look up registrants of domain names here…………….I find it sometimes a good place to start unwinding info

http://www.whois.net/whois/americanselect.com

The original site is whois.net

SueInCa
Member

Oh great Adlib, now you have given me another thing to stew on lol. i have to admit I can think of some pretty wild scenarios but this one never occured to me, ashamed to say. Thanks so much for bringing this to the forefront here. I faved the page so I can go back and do some digging when I have a day to do it.

KQµårk 死神
Member

Of course in the media Aryanna is the queen wolf in sheep’s clothing. There simply is not a word that describes the kind of sensationalism and intelectual dishonest that goes on over there anymore.

agrippa
Member
agrippa

It is mostly bolier plate.
I just glance at HuffPo once in a while when I think of it.

Artist50
Member
Artist50

Why do so many people with great wealth do so little good for mankind? Because power corrupts or perhaps the root of all evil is money? How much money is ever enough for say the Koch brothers? You can only spend so much in a lifetime, so people decide instead of good deeds to rule the world? In my heart of hearts I honestly don’t get it.

KQµårk 死神
Member

Tough questions until you realize people are just very intelligent animals still rooted in primitive drives add the learned behaviors of the late 20th century where greed is good and altruism is for suckers and that’s how we got where we are. Depending on which statistic you believe 1-10% of the population have stunted or no conscience. Human conscience is like any human trait that is molded from a combination of nature and nurture so like you have very empathetic people you have people with no empathy whatsoever.

Now the key is people without a conscience don’t get personal fulfillment like most people do. Where regular people care about friends, family and their fellow man, people without a conscience are only driven by their extreme narcissism. They have a hole in their souls and depending on their personal perceptions of what’s important they fill that hole with quests for money, power, sex, and even torture and murder in the case of killers. The reason they can never get enough is because their simply is no way to fill an empty soul, it’s similar to a black hole.

Of course like any generalization, I don’t mean to say all people that are rich have no conscience. Maybe even a relatively small percentage of people fit that category. Many rich people are just very talented, hard working, very intelligent, very lucky, very competitive, etc, for various normal psychological reasons. Money itself is probably the biggest corrupting influence on people in this category. But the people without a conscience who have a black hole in place of their souls are the most dangerous people in our society because they don’t even need money to corrupt them.

Of course the silver lining is if you ask these questions, you are probably like most people and can’t even fathom what life would be with without a soul. I can talk about sociopaths academically but I for one am happy I can’t really understand them on a personal level.

Emerald1943
Member

Adlib, absolutely great! This is a really good piece of work! I have been looking forward to it since you “let the cat out of the bag” last Friday night…and you didn’t disappoint! 🙂

I saw the MSNBC interview with Ackerman The Younger…just entirely too freshly washed, rosy cheeked and oh so politically correct, banging on about “engaging” the people and “hearing their voices”! It’s all clap-trap! A wolf for sure!

Thanks for a great read and some great information!

KillgoreTrout
Member

Busted for drunk driving! You have one phone call. I want to call the whitehouse! Too funny. I wonder if they let him make the call.

Emerald1943
Member

Hey KT! Glad to see you!

Police: “Who is your lawyer?”

Answer: “President Obama…can I borrow some coin for the pay phone?”

🙂

funksands
Member

Ad, whether your subjective assessment bears out or not, I think this is the best piece that you’ve written. (my subjective assessment :-))

Looking at the tree ring of organizations, I was reminded of the housing crisis and how banks and investment groups would hide the bad mortgages inside bundles of good mortgages and sell the whole kit to another investment firm as “AAA”. Not all of the mortgages were bad, but enough of them were to render the whole mess “FFF”.

What is really creepy about this organization and others is how smoothly and effortless it is now to establish a credible-looking and sounding organization with nothing more than a P.O. Box, a wealthy benefactor, and an i.t. guy. It is now cheaper and easier than ever to throw so much mis-information into the information stream how can everyday political-casual Americans ever tell the difference? This is very troubling.

What do we do? We can only absorb and sift through so much information before becoming overwhelmed. The MSM is no help at all, and in most cases is an enabler rather than a guardian. MORE information by good people and organizations is important but sort of exacerbates the existing problem.

Thanks again for a very interesting piece.

kesmarn
Admin

Thanks so much, AdLib, for a terrific piece of investigative reporting. This article really deserves the widest circulation we can possibly give it.

I checked out AE’s website and — maybe I’m naive, and just haven’t had enough encounters with the realllllly dark side — but this strikes me as one of the most subtle, devious undercover pieces of sabotage I’ve seen. Ever. I can see how even discerning people would be sucked in by this scheme. It looks so — so — “grass rooty.” It presents as so “impartial.” Kudos to the people who smelled a rat immediately. I don’t know if I would have been that sharp, had I not been tipped off before I looked at their site.

Like KQ, I have a grudging semi-admiration for the cunning of the right. They never run out of ideas. Or energy. They’re like addicts who are completely relentless in the pursuit of their drug. Money. There’s something about it that inspires a feeling like a very negative version of awe. They never give up. And each generation of them is succeeded by a next generation that is equally dedicated to their diabolically simple goal: More For Me — Less For You. Or maybe: All For Me — None For You?

I can only hope that there are more of us than there are of them. And that we have at least an equal amount of energy.

We’re going to need it. Because they are sly little bastards.

KQµårk 死神
Member

“Cunning” that’s the word I was looking for kes. 😯

Like Baldrick from Blackadder “I have a cunning plan”.

kesmarn
Admin

“Cunning” is such a useful word, isn’t it, KQ? Because it doesn’t necessarily imply intelligence. E.g., Dubya was not bright but he was remarkably cunning.

Emerald1943
Member

Hi kes! I certainly am as naive as a lot of people and I can claim no special insight, but I smelled something rotten on this one from the start! The political scheming that the rethugs have been doing has me on edge! I don’t trust anyone anymore! We have all these high-sounding names of organizations like “Americans for Prosperity” that we all know are nothing but corporate shills who will stop at nothing to defeat the President, no matter how LOW they have to go!

I think the American people don’t like subterfuge, no matter how “cunning” it may be. It is a turn-off to lots of people. It’s going to be hard enough for the President to win this next election. The last thing we need is this bunch of “sly little bastards”!

Chernynkaya
Member

Great post, AdLib! This is just so much crap. And when you look at what bloviators like Freidman–who in my opinion is a lazy, burping phony–say they’s like to see in a President, they’d be shocked to find out that Obama has already done or proposed. So it’s both a phony premise and as well as being either lazy or lying.

Steve Benen of The Washington Monthly did a good job of shredding Friedman’s stupidity today:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

I’ve come to this conclusion: If Barack Obama wasn’t already our President, everyone from Center-Right to the Left would be clamoring to draft him. He’d be the media darling and his name on everyone’s lips. I sincerely believe that.

ADONAI
Member

So, basically, it’s one of those situations where it’s a good idea but you can’t possibly trust the person supporting it?

I wonder how many steps it takes to get from Peter Ackerman to Kevin Bacon?

choicelady
Member

Kevin Bacon wouldn’t TOUCH Akerman, so – not even six degrees of separation. A universe.

Khirad
Member

1) Who was it who first said this reminded them of Unity08? *ahem*

I couldn’t have fathomed how my initial gut connection would be so correct. Apparently they were more strikingly similar than I had thought!

2) Like Unity08 via Sam Waterston, always dropping Bloomberg’s name, has anyone seen Elliot Ackerman on FOX? I don’t make a habit of watching much, so perhaps he has. But I have seen him on Colbert, PBS, and MSNBC.

What do all those outlets have in common?

This stunk to high heaven on first sniff. I’m glad we’ve got those sniffing for the truffles though.

Also, Elliot totally looks like corrupt banker’s son.

KQµårk 死神
Member

Phenomenal post Adlib. Way to put together all the pieces.

Greta42
Member
Greta42

Outstanding post, AdLib! I’m horrified at how easily these corporatists move into positions of potential harm to our electoral system. Thank you for doing the hard research on this and I have been forewarned.