"... energy efficiency is cheaper than dirty fossil fuels ..." and we know the Koch brothers provide "dirty fossil fuels"!

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Koch Empire Attacks Energy Efficiency
By Taylor Allred, October 1, 2014

Right-wing organizations, many of which are connected to Charles and David Koch, have now turned to attacking the cheapest, most modular, reliable, and zero-carbon resource – energy efficiency. One would think that conservation is conservative, but they would have us think again.


The Koch Empire, with its vested interest in fossil fuels and the energy status quo, has continued peddling its anti-clean energy scare tactics, most recently by criticizing energy efficiency through online media. On Sept. 29, staffers from think tanks tied to the Koch brothers published two separate entries in the Wall Street Journal’s “The Experts” blog. Both use vague, misleading language to attack energy efficiency as a waste of time and money.

First among the Sept. 29 Koch-backed blogs, we have Ariel Cohen’s “Don’t Get Caught Up in the Energy-Savings Hype.” While he correctly points out that energy audits help to identify the most cost-effective investments, his overarching message is that efficiency is mostly hype, and you should be afraid that you will waste money (so why even bother?).

About an hour later, Todd Myers published “How We Misjudge Costs and Benefits With Energy Efficiency.” Myers argues that efficiency doesn’t make sense in the U.S. because we have cheap electric rates, and he speculates that “if our goal is to help the environment by saving energy, we can afford to be less picky, but it would probably be better simply to buy renewable energy credits or invest in carbon-reduction projects.” It’s hard to see on what basis he thinks carbon-reduction projects are a better investment for average consumers than home efficiency upgrades (or what exactly those projects are), but we can assume it is not cost-effectiveness.

It’s a good thing the Koch brothers are there to look out for the little guy; we were almost duped by the closely scrutinized cost-effectiveness findings from basically every electric utility, efficiency consultant and energy auditor in the world (the real experts).

Ariel Cohen is a senior research fellow at the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation. Todd Myers is environmental director at the Washington Policy Center. Here are a couple more links on Todd Myers and the Washington Policy Center, which Jack Kemp apparently referred to as the “Heritage Foundation of the Northwest.”

As usual, the facts don’t align with the Koch brothers’ agenda. Energy efficiency is gaining momentum because it makes financial sense. Utility-run energy efficiency programs lower bills for participating customers by reducing their energy usage, and they also keep rates low for all customers by reducing power plant fuel costs and mitigating the need for expensive new generating capacity. The utilities’ efficiency programs are overseen by state regulatory commissions and are subject to independent cost-effectiveness calculations for ensuring that the value provided to the utility system as a whole exceeds the cost (in other words, energy efficiency is cheaper than dirty fossil fuels). Many of the programs available to residential customers center around professional energy audits that provide customized reports on the most cost-effective efficiency upgrades for your home and the time it will take to recoup the cost of each recommended investment through energy savings.

The energy savings can be substantial, and there are increasing opportunities all across the country, even for those on a tight budget, to get in on the action. For example, through the Help My House on-bill financing program offered by rural cooperatives in South Carolina, participating customers have reduced their energy usage by an average of 34%. The program offers 10-year, 2.5% interest-rate loans for efficiency upgrades, and results in immediate net savings on utility bills. Factoring in the monthly cost of financing the efficiency upgrades, participants receive initial net savings of about $288 per year and are expected to save roughly $8,500 over 15 years, on average.

When people save energy, nearly everyone benefits. Reducing energy usage is the best way to avoid pricey rate increases to pay for new power plants, and a recent study by the financial advisory firm Lazard confirmed that no generating technology can rival the cost-effectiveness of energy efficiency as a system resource. In addition to keeping rates low, energy efficiency creates a lot of local jobs. A report published by Southface, a Georgia-based building services organization, indicates that the energy efficiency and building sciences sector employed more than 4,100 Georgians full-time in 2013 and generated $1.3 billion in revenue in 2012. On top of that, the money people save on their utility bills is often reinvested in the local economy, fueling further job growth.

Energy efficiency not only yields economic benefits but also reduces our carbon footprint in the most cost-effective way possible. Thanks to the role of energy efficiency, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that its draft Clean Power Plan for reducing carbon emissions will save Americans about 8% on their residential electric bills compared to what they would pay without the plan. The savings don’t stop there. EPA also projects that every dollar invested through the Clean Power Plan will yield up to $7 in health benefits by reducing soot and smog.

As we noted previously on our blog, the Koch brothers-sponsored organization Americans for Prosperity recently released an ad taking aim at SACE and claiming we want to “outlaw cheap energy.” That couldn’t be farther from the truth, but the truth rarely gets in the way of a sensational attack ad.

In today’s world of heavily money-influenced politics and media, it’s more essential than ever to research the sources of any information you find.

Despite the efforts of right-wing think tanks, energy efficiency is here to stay. If you have not taken advantage of energy efficiency opportunities available in your area, I highly encourage you to visit your utility’s website (a partial list of SE utilities here) for details on how to take charge of your utility bill.
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"... the doctors treating Ebola should be commended and not ridiculed for [Coulter's] next paycheck."

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COMMENTS:  
* Hummmm. Can an idiot accurately call someone else an idiot and be taken seriously?
* And that folks is why they are doctors and Ann is a political prostitute!
* Ann Coulter calling someone else an idiot? And to prove her "point" she says one of the dumbest things ever. I'd tell her to look in the mirror if I thought she actually cast a reflection.
* Just another media whore who's desperate for attention. I quit paying any attention to her years ago, everyone else who despises her should do the same.
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Ann Coulter Calls Doctor Treating Ebola 'Idiotic'
By Anonymous, August 7, 2014

The Coultergeist finally weighed in on the brave "idiotic" doctors treating the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and her analysis is exactly what you'd expect.

Ann is concerned over the costs to a Christian charity.

Dollars over people:

Whatever good Dr. Kent Brantly did in Liberia has now been overwhelmed by the more than $2 million already paid by the Christian charities Samaritan's Purse and SIM USA just to fly him and his nurse home in separate Gulfstream jets, specially equipped with medical tents, and to care for them at one of America's premier hospitals. (This trip may be the first real-world demonstration of the economics of Obamacare.)

Coulter actually asked, "Can't anyone serve Christ in America anymore?"

Because people die in America, Ann believes there's "nothing for a Christian to do here." (with snark added, hopefully, but who knows).

If Dr. Brantly had practiced at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and turned one single Hollywood power-broker to Christ, he would have done more good for the entire world than anything he could accomplish in a century spent in Liberia. Ebola kills only the body; the virus of spiritual bankruptcy and moral decadence spread by so many Hollywood movies infects the world.

It's almost as if Ann is touting universal health care:

If he had provided health care for the uninsured editors, writers, videographers and pundits in Gotham and managed to open one set of eyes, he would have done more good than marinating himself in medieval diseases of the Third World.

Travelling to those "disease ridden cesspools" is something Jesus would never do, apparently.

Which explains why American Christians go on "mission trips" to disease-ridden cesspools. They're tired of fighting the culture war in the U.S., tired of being called homophobes, racists, sexists and bigots. So they slink off to Third World countries, away from American culture to do good works, forgetting that the first rule of life on a riverbank is that any good that one attempts downstream is quickly overtaken by what happens upstream.

But, Ann says America is "in desperate need of God at the moment." She acts as if the good doctor intentionally caught Ebola.

Right there in Texas, near where Dr. Brantly left his wife and children to fly to Liberia and get Ebola, is one of the poorest counties in the nation, Zavala County - where he wouldn't have risked making his wife a widow and his children fatherless.

According to Ann, he did it to appear heroic, which is something she will never have to worry about herself:

But serving the needy in some deadbeat town in Texas wouldn't have been "heroic." We wouldn't hear all the superlatives about Dr. Brantly's "unusual drive to help the less fortunate" or his membership in the "Gold Humanism Honor Society." Leaving his family behind in Texas to help the poor 6,000 miles away - that's the ticket.

Jesus weeps.

As for the health workers who are dying, surviving colleagues have taken on longer shifts, working in deteriorating conditions without overtime or hazard pay, because they care.

What would Jesus do? It's not as if we (Democrats) aren't aware that Ann Coulter makes a healthy living off of feeding red meat to the Republican base, but dammit, the doctors treating Ebola should be commended and not ridiculed for her next paycheck.
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"Health care after the fact by gun. How Texan, how GOP, how NRA."

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Will the Tea Party/Koch/Brothers/GOP Defend Us From Ebola or Do We Need Government Involved in Healthcare After All?
By Frank Schaeffer, October 3, 2014

Will the Tea Party/Koch/Brothers/GOP defend us from Ebola or do we need government involved in healthcare after all?

I mean it would be in we-hate-government-Texas that authorities couldn't even figure out how to clean up the contaminated bed-sheets of a man with Ebola-- wouldn't it?

Did Rick Perry see this coming when, the Texas Gov. lit up the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in March of 2014, with an impassioned anti-Democratic Party speech.

"Washington [must] focus on the few things the Constitution establishes as the federal government's role... defense, a cogent foreign policy. And what the heck, deliver the mail. Preferably on time and on Saturdays... The government should get out of the health care business," Perry said.

Right. So now Texas has armed guards outside the homes of family and friends of the Ebola victim. Health care after the fact by gun. How Texan, how GOP, how NRA.
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"Our democracy cannot function well unless its participants have deeply felt ethical commitments that get them beyond their own self-interest. And I don't care where they get them."

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Can 'openly atheist' politicians be elected?
Candidates often feel pressure to feign religiosity. But it's time that changed.
By Tom Krattenmaker, October 4, 2014

Guess how many of the major-party candidates in next month's congressional elections are openly atheist. Hint: You can count them on one finger.

It tells you something that in a time when "no religion" is the category of roughly 20 percent of Americans, virtually none of the hundreds of Democrats and Republicans vying for congressional seats identify as a religious "none."

Whether it's because some consider their atheism, agnosticism or indifference a deal-breaker and don't even try for office, or whether it's because some non-religious candidates fudge the truth for political viability, this much seems clear: Candidates have to at least feign some religiosity to qualify for prominent political office, despite our Constitution forbidding religion tests of this sort. And atheism and related forms of non-belief are about the worst thing a candidate can be associated with.

This situation should not, and will not, hold for long.

Just in time for the "silly season," otherwise known as the elections, a coalition of secular organizations is launching a campaign to destigmatize non-belief in the public square. It's called Openly Secular, and if that brings to mind people coming out of closets as we saw with the gay-rights movement, well, that's the idea.

Secular vs. adulterer

Explaining the need for the campaign, Carolyn Becker, spokesperson for Openly Secular, points to polling data showing that 53 percent of Americans think it's necessary to believe in God to be moral. Other survey data show that being an atheist is more injurious to one's shot at political office than being an adulterer.

These trends would likely bend if more Americans got to know people who were openly non-religious and saw them working hard, taking care of their kids and neighborhoods, and being generally kind and honest in their dealings with other people.

In other words, seeing them do what most everyone does, whatever our ideas about God. (It's useful to remind ourselves, too, that the ranks of rogues and miscreants include plenty of people who tout their religious bona fides.)

Not all the leading atheist voices agree it's a good idea for secular candidates to show their non-believer stripes explicitly in politics.

Sam Harris — author of the best-selling atheist anthem "The End of Faith," as well as a new book called "Waking Up," which explores the benefits of non-religious spirituality — says these candidates should be "rigorously secular." They should challenge dubious religious ideas when they intrude in public life and protect church-state separation.

"I'm not recommending that anyone go soft on religion," Harris says. "I just don't think we need to identify as a victim group."

De facto religion test

That might be smart for the short term, but victimhood aside, will it do enough to change the climate and address the de facto religion test we seem to have in our high-level politics?

These days, candidates often rush to outdo one another in showing how religious they are. Those who are quieter about such matters are frequently asked where they stand on matters of faith. Non-believers — and you know they're out there — should not have to lie to remain viable.

Get this: Even some conservatives don't believe in God. The prominent columnist George Will, for instance, recently revealed that he is an atheist — albeit an "amiable, low-voltage" one, as Will put it. Low voltage or high, Will has come out.

So has his conservative column-writing compatriot Charles Krauthammer, who recently distanced himself from conventional belief in God by saying that reverence for the mystery and awesomeness of the universe was as far as he could go.

These are neither laudable nor lamentable. They are simply examples of overdue candor and, I suspect, a sign of things to come.

Decades ago, President Eisenhower articulated a principle that still holds sway today. "Our form of government," the World War II hero and 34th president declared, makes "no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don't care what it is."

Our new, more secular century calls for an update to Eisenhower's idea: Our democracy cannot function well unless its participants have deeply felt ethical commitments that get them beyond their own self-interest. And I don't care where they get them.
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Keep digging.... maybe you'll find something else to throw at the candidate, hoping it will stick.

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The silly season of politics is upon us
By U-T San Diego Editorial Board, October 3, 2014

There are just 31 more days before the Nov. 4 elections. It’s the silly season and candidates, nervous if not desperate, are doing silly things.

Like San Diego City Council candidate Carol Kim, who staged a news conference this week to in essence denounce her opponent, Chris Cate, as a criminal. The basis for the allegation was that Cate was still receiving a yearly $75 discount on his property tax bill for a condo in Carlsbad that he once claimed as his primary residence and where he previously lived. Since the law requires candidates to live in the district they seek to serve, and Carlsbad obviously is not in the San Diego council’s 6th District, Cate must either be committing tax fraud or election fraud. That was Kim's argument.

Powerful stuff, eh? Not really. Turned out Cate had submitted a form to the county assessor’s office more than a year ago declaring his new residency in Mira Mesa, safely inside the council district. County officials noted the new address but failed to delete the discount. A top official in the assessor’s office acknowledged his office’s mistake and said Cate would not be fined. The candidate is not a crook.

Voters beware: It’s the silly season.
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Not two-year term limits, but six years for Representatives and twelve years for Senators seem to be reasonable.

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Should politicians have two-year term limits? Ask USA TODAY
October 3, 2014

In an election year, it seems voters express one general concern about politicians in Washington more than any other: Have career politicians, those who have been in office for decades, lost touch with the people they are meant to represent? And, ultimately, are term limits the answer?

Paul Singer, USA TODAY's politics editor, answers this reader question in a way that might surprise you. If term limits were enacted in Washington, staffers, who aren't elected, may become too powerful.

Take a look at the rest of his answer in the video below.
Video.

New! Audio version
No time to watch the video but still want to hear Paul Singer's thoughts on term limits? Listen to the audio version instead!


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OK, GOP, are you also concerned about your own "voter fraud"?

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GOP eyes voter rolls amid close Illinois campaign
By Sophia Tareen, October 3, 2014

In a sign of how close the contest for control of President Barack Obama's home state is expected to be, Illinois Republicans are mounting what they call an unprecedented and costly campaign to have ineligible people purged from voter lists and recruit their own election judges before November.

With their sights on unseating a Democratic governor and winning back several congressional seats, Republicans have allocated $1 million in Cook County alone — from fundraising and the Republican Governors Association — to examine voter rolls and recruit 5,000 GOP election judges to watch over polling places in Democrat-heavy Chicago.

In two counties east of St. Louis, the party is examining obituaries to ensure the deceased are removed from the rolls and tracking down death certificates. They're looking for addresses where utility service has been cut off to determine if registered voters have moved. And they're checking to see whether people are voting from addresses for vacant lots or commercial properties. Similar efforts are planned for Cook County.

State election officials say they also have noticed an uptick of GOP inquiries about voter registrations in at least two other counties in central Illinois.

Republicans say they're guarding against voter fraud and responding to Democratic maneuvering to boost their side's turnout, including adopting same-day registration and putting several non-binding questions on the ballot to appeal to liberal and working-class voters, such as whether Illinois should tax millionaires. The GOP fears outdated voter rolls and a last-minute Democratic push to the polling stations will allow ineligible votes.

"We're not trying to silence anyone's vote," said Aaron Del Mar, chairman of the Cook County Republican Party, noting Chicago's " vote early, vote often" reputation for past fraud. "Everyone should vote. It should only be once though."

Illinois Democrats, in turn, fear the GOP "voter integrity" campaign could echo initiatives elsewhere aimed, they say, at making it difficult for minorities and other traditional Democrats to vote if they don't have required identification or there's any question about eligibility.

"We don't interpret these efforts as anything other than voter suppression," said Rikeesha Phelon, a spokeswoman in Illinois for the Democratic Governors Association.

Republicans nationwide have devoted substantial energy to initiatives aimed at combatting voter fraud — including passing laws in nearly three dozen states requiring voters to show photo ID at polling places. Critics note repeated studies showing little evidence of widespread fraud.

Illinois does not require a photo ID to vote. At the polls, election authorities compare a voter's signature to one on file in a registration book.

Matthew Walter, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, which helps elect Republicans at the state level nationwide, said the Illinois initiative is "not singularly unique" for a party focused on ensuring "fair and accurate elections." But he said Illinois' past reputation "gives a greater level of concern and urgency than many states."

The Illinois effort could have an important impact in one of the nation's hardest fought governor's races — between Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn and the wealthy Republican challenging him, Bruce Rauner. Quinn won election in 2010 by less than 32,000 of 3.7 million total votes for governor, relying on heavy Cook County turnout.

The November count could be even closer, and both sides expect the race to be decided once again in Chicago area, where each party is appealing to minorities and moderate voters. Nationally, Republicans see the race as a prime opportunity to wrest away a Democratic governorship.

Combing through voter registrations is standard procedure for campaigns of both parties ahead of elections, as is county clerks' systematic purging of rolls. But Illinois' Republicans boast that this year they're going well beyond past efforts.

State party officials wouldn't comment on details of the initiative, saying only that they have contacted state officials and county clerks to ensure the election process is "transparent and adheres to the law." But Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider told The (Bloomington) Pantagraph that GOP efforts will "blow your mind" and be "something you've never seen."

Rauner told The Associated Press he has been told about the initiative but that the state party, not his campaign, is overseeing it and raising funds. State Sen. Jim Oberweis, a Republican dairy magnate challenging Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, said his campaign was working on it with Rauner's campaign.

Oberweis told AP that Republicans believed they could find up to 60,000 ineligible voters in Chicago. But a campaign spokesman later said that information was "essentially third hand" and "possibly incorrect," and referred all questions to a state party spokesman.

A Chicago Board of Election Commissioners spokesman said the agency's cleanup identified about 50,000 "inactive" voters this year, a comparable number to previous years. They most likely represent people who've moved, but they can still vote if they show up with proof of address or by provisional ballot.

State Rep. Dwight Kay, a Republican facing re-election in the area east of St. Louis, said he's working with the party on the voter initiatives because, he alleged, "there's a potential here for wrongdoing" by Democrats.

"And we know Illinois doesn't have the best record when it comes to fraud and corruption."
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"... a dollar contributed anonymously may be becoming less influential than a dollar contributed by a real person." Let's hope so.

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'Dark money' begins to sully campaigns
Our View: Anonymous donations are now starting to hurt the campaigns they're supposed to help.
By Editorial Board, The Republic, October 3, 2014

American elections now are four years into the Citizens United era, which, depending on your point of view, either unleashed corporations to spend countless millions in "dark money" on an unprepared political system, or freed the First Amendment from 35 years of artificial, post-Watergate bondage.

Take your pick. Like it or not, a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions culminating in 2010's Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission, has altered the terrain of campaign financing.

But there is another effect on our elections prompted by the growth of so-called "dark money," and it is one that contributors who wish to remain anonymous ought to consider:

Efforts to influence elections anonymously are fast becoming the issue itself. They are coming to dominate the debate landscape.

In a cost-benefit analysis of the value of a dollar — or a million dollars — contributed to an anonymous, independent-expenditure campaign, dark-money contributors may no longer be getting the bang for the buck that they once thought they'd get.

From the start, the most contentious impact of Citizens United has been to permit unions and corporations to make virtually unlimited contributions to non-profit, independent campaign organizations. Limitations on contributions flowing to individual candidates remain in effect, but the net consequence of Citizens United has been to enable organizations whose sources of funding often are veiled to spend heavily on many of our most important elections.

Thus, the rise of dark money. The debate over dark money in American elections has become so compelling, so controversial, that its presence often overwhelms the issues and the candidates themselves.

A mere glance at the top Arizona political story of the day — a burgeoning controversy surrounding Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Ducey and his contributions from the billionaire Koch brothers, as well as from at least two dark-money non-profit organizations — tells that tale.

On Friday, The Arizona Republic reported on Ducey's connection to the largely libertarian Koch brothers, including his attendance at an event in California hosted by the brothers.

Is all that attention paid to people who, when all is said and done are merely exercising their right to free speech as the law allows, fair? Perhaps not entirely.

According to the campaign-finance website Open Secrets, Koch Industries dwells far down on the list of known political contributors — at No. 59 — over the past 25 years. And, for that matter, of the top 20 organizations contributing to political campaigns over that period, 15 of them contribute overwhelmingly to Democratic candidates and liberal causes. With more than $121 million contributed from 1989 to 2014, the liberal Act Blue political-action committee is the nation's most well-heeled contributor.

But the accent is on the word "known." Since Citizens United, the influence of unknown political contributors has burgeoned. And, commensurately, so has the admittedly cynical suspicion among voters that murky and powerful special interests are playing puppeteer with the American political process.

That dampens the influence of anonymous contributions. In short, a dollar contributed anonymously may be becoming less influential than a dollar contributed by a real person.
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Hmmmm, if I were one of her patients, I would wonder about the validity of her degree-- any plagiarism involved there?

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COMMENT:  ... If she is running on her health care expertise, then she shouldn't need to copy anyone else's works. If she can't formulate her own polices, then what does she bring to the table? 
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Wehby accused of plagiarizing health plan again
By Jonathan J. Cooper, October 3, 2014

Two weeks after she took down part of her website to scrub it of plagiarized material, Oregon Senate candidate Monica Wehby is in hot water again after a news organization discovered Friday that the website still contains sentences taken from others.

BuzzFeed reported that the health care section of Wehby's website included phrases from the website of her former rival in the Republican primary, state Rep. Jason Conger. BuzzFeed had previously reported that Wehby's original health care proposals were taken from a poll conducted by a super PAC led by Republican strategist Karl Rove, and that her economic policy included passages cribbed from Republican candidates in Ohio and California.

Wehby, a doctor, has run on her expertise on health care as she tries to unseat Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley. The revelation that her health proposals are not original has been damaging.

Wehby used sentences from Conger's health care plan in an oped that was published under her byline in the Eugene Register-Guard on July 31. Much of the language from the oped appeared days later in the health care section of her website, according to Internet archives.

Wehby removed the entire issues section of her website Sept. 17 after BuzzFeed's original plagiarism reports and only recently put it back online. Some phrases were changed, but several sentences still closely matched phrases from Conger's website as of Friday afternoon.

"The campaign has already addressed this issue and taken the necessary steps to correct it," Wehby spokesman Dean Petrone said in an emailed statement. "Dr. Wehby stands by the concepts and principles that are shared by a majority of Americans who recognize the need for reform of our broken health care system."

Wehby has maintained that she's expressing common Republican suggestions for fixing the health care system.

The persistent plagiarism stories have played into the hands of Merkley, who has tried hard to tie Wehby to the national Republican Party in a state dominated by Democrats.

"You would think a self-described health policy expert would bring something new to the table," Merkley spokeswoman Lindsey O'Brien said in a statement.
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Seems we have a rift between two different bunches of conservative Republicans over voter registration.

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VIDEO: College Republican Chairwoman suppresses voter registration
By Caleb Bonham, October 3, 2014

North Carolina College Republican Chairwoman was caught on camera allegedly suppressing the voter registration efforts of a non-profit, conservative student group Wednesday afternoon.

The video, obtained by Campus Reform, captures the interaction between Turning Point USA representative Bree Binder and the Chairwoman of the High Point University College Republicans, Leigh Thomas.

Binder asks Thomas for permission to enter the private liberal arts campus in North Carolina, to conduct a routine voter registration drive.

“We’re just registering people to vote,” Binder says. “I can show you all the forms and everything.”

"I understand the registration process,” the College Republican Chairwoman responded, “I'm just not sure if this is something I would want to have on this High Point University campus, the registration of voting [sic]."

When asked why, Thomas clarified that she does not approve of registering students to vote on campus.

“I don’t want to have any voting registration happening on this campus with students,” Thomas says.

Watch the video here:



“[T]he registering students, it’s just...if it’s not done the way that we did it back in 2012, I’m not—I’m not good with it,” Thomas says.

“I understand the forms, I’ve seen the forms before, it’s not about that. I just do not want to have people being registered to vote whatsoever,” Thomas tells Binder.

In an interview with Campus Reform, Turning Points USA founder Charlie Kirk said he was disappointed in the College Republicans' response to his group’s grassroots activism.

“Voter registration is an integral part of getting more young people involved, informed, and engaged,” Kirk said. "Nobody should have a monopoly on registering college students to vote or try to prevent college students from voting." 

“An important part of outreach is civic engagement—we have previously worked very well with College Republicans and are disappointed that, at High Point University, our registration efforts were thwarted by the leader of College Republicans.”

Leigh Thomas refused to comment for this article. The College Republican National Committee did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
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Faux News doesn't like it when the shoe is on the other foot!

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COMMENT: Aw... poor widdle Fox News. Did the bad Pwesident hurt your widdle feelings? Maybe you should hold your breath until he resigns. Go ahead, we'll wait.  
Fox News is just a cancer to America.
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Fox News Hosts Are Furious Over Obama Dig
By Jack Mirkinson, October 3, 2014

The folks over at Fox News were shocked—shocked!—to hear President Obama taking a dig at them on Thursday.

The full joke went, "While good, affordable health care might seem like a fanged threat to the freedom of the American people on Fox News, it’s working pretty well in the real world."

Granted, Obama takes digs at Fox News all the time, but no matter: multiple shows took the time to hit back at the president.

There was Greta Van Susteren, who opined that Obama was not acting "presidential" and needed to be "tougher" and stop blaming Fox News for his problems.

On Bill O'Reilly's show, Laura Ingraham fumed that Obama was employing a "classic Alinskyite tactic" because "liberalism, Obama-style, is failing."

"The Five" was also ticked off. "He bashes FNC more than ISIS, and we don't behead anybody!" Greg Gutfeld said.
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Now will people realize that at least some Republicans are totally unethical?

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COMMENT:  This is criminal, pure and simple. Even if they claim it was unintentional, who would ever believe they 'accidentally' came up with his mother's phone number? This is the dirtiest of dirty politics, but it will still not stop them from claiming to be morally superior.
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Michigan GOP mailer encouraged supporters to harass Democrat's 91-year-old mother
Candidate whose elderly mother was targeted calls on citizens to realize "what and who the Republican Party stands for."
By Matt Bradwell, October 2, 2014

A Democratic candidate for Michigan state office offered harsh words for the local GOP after the statewide party sent a mailer urging supporters to harass the Democrat's elderly mother and provided her phone number.

A set of flyers, paid for and sent by the Michigan Republican Party, called on sympathizers to regurgitate broad and nonspecific opposition talking points to 61st state House District Candidate John Fisher.

"Tell him hard-working Michiganders are being hurt by Obamacare and the health care policies [Democrats] support," the mailer commands. Unfortunately for Fisher and his family, rather than list a number at which the politicians could be reached, the Michigan GOP printed the number for Fisher's mother's room at Tendercare Portage, a hospice facility where the 91-year-old is receiving hospice care for congestive heart failure.

"To direct people to call a suffering woman who deserves peace and comfort is beyond the pale," Fisher said in a statement.

"Their lack of ethics and contempt for personal privacy is just another reason for people to question what -- or better, who -- the Republican Party stands for, so that they can make a wise decision at the ballot box on Nov. 4."

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"... a potential sign that conservatives are worried about Republicans' chances of winning the Senate majority."

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Koch-backed group plans direct attacks in Senate races
By Fredreka Schouten, October 2, 2014

A non-profit group affiliated with the Koch brothers has shifted tactics during the final weeks of the midterm campaign and will call directly for the defeat of Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate in its advertising and door-to-door outreach to voters.

Americans for Prosperity's decision to move to pointed attacks is significant because it shifts the group into more direct political activity — something tax-exempt organizations are required to limit. It also means the group must disclose its election-related activity — though not its donors — to federal regulators.

It's a potential sign that conservatives are worried about Republicans' chances of winning the Senate majority. GOP-aligned outside groups have stepped up in their advertising in recent weeks in several key battlegrounds, including Iowa where Republican Joni Ernst and Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley are fighting for an open Democratic post.

The GOP needs to net six seats to seize control of the Senate.

"We feel this course of action is necessary to take," AFP President Tim Phillips said. "We think it's time for this Harry Reid big government majority to go," he said, referring to the Nevada Democrat who serves as the Senate's majority leader.

Phillips would not say how much the group will spend in the coming weeks, but "it will be significant, and it will be millions of dollars."

The new tactic, first reported by The New York Times, is a departure from the organization's normal mode of operation, which has included running ads that denounce Senate Democrats for their votes on issues such as the Affordable Care Act without specifically calling for the election or defeat of any candidate.

"Instead of saying, 'Hold Kay Hagan accountable for Obamacare,' we'll now say, 'We need to get Kay Hagan out of office,' " AFP spokesman Levi Russell said, referring to North Carolina's first-term Democratic senator.

The more pointed attacks will come in key Senate battlegrounds such as Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, Alaska and Louisiana, Phillips said. The group will not endorse any Republican candidates.

Americans for Prosperity is one of the most active groups in the conservative political network organized by industrialists Charles and David Koch and employs 500 field staff in 35 states.
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More and more Republicans do not support the Tea Party. Hallelujah, the GOP has begun to wake up.

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Americans' opposition to tea party hits all-time high
By Chad Merda, October 2, 2014

While the percentage of people who say they support the tea party is holding steady, those who say they oppose it has hit an all-time high.

The data, released by Gallup, reflects the more limited impact it had on the primary elections this year, compared to 2010. Of those surveyed, 31 percent say they oppose it, compared to 21 percent who say they support the tea party.



Those who oppose the tea party are stronger in their opposition when compared to how passionately supporters say they support it.


From Gallup:

"Gallup has asked about Tea Party support in five surveys conducted over the past year, consisting of more than 6,000 interviews, with 18% of adults in that large sample saying they are Tea Party Republicans, 25% who are Republicans who do not support the Tea Party, and 58% who are not Republicans.

"Overall, 77% of Tea Party Republicans are conservative, including 28% who say they are very conservative. That presents a sharp contrast with the 52% of non-Tea Party Republicans who are conservative, including only 10% who classify themselves as very conservative."

Video.
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"... Michele Bachmann ... represents the problem that the Republican party has in gaining affinity with most Americans that is she is a right-wing extremist."

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COMMENT: That this dumb, barely literate religious zealot rose as high as she did in American government is a sad comment on the intelligence of the American voter.
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The opposite of thinking: Michele Bachmann
By James George, October 2, 2014

Thinking about Michele Bachmann and why she remains in the news, consider the opposite of thinking. Foreign Policy Magazine published an article a couple of years ago titled “The Opposite of Thinking, The key ingredient missing in our policymaking these days? Creativity.” Checking for opposites, one might contrast “thinker” with a “doer”. Neither of these definitions fits when considering Michele Bachmann.

Politico has her in the news today and it is because she won’t go away. She departs office in January. She is the Congresswoman from Minnesota who had so many children she didn’t know what to do.

“Bachmann and her husband have also provided foster care for 23 other children,[30][31] all teenage girls.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Bachmann

How is that accomplished responsibly?

“In 1979, Bachmann was a member of the first class of the O. W. Coburn School of Law, then a part of Oral Roberts University (ORU).[15] While there, Bachmann studied with John Eidsmoe, whom she described in 2011 as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me".[17][18] Bachmann worked as a research assistant on Eidsmoe's 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy, and should become one again.[15][17][18] In 1986 Bachmann received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University.[1] She was a member of the final graduating class of the law school at ORU, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school library to what is now Regent University.[19]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Bachmann

One thing that jumps out is her belief that the American government should become a Christian theocracy. That puts her in the same basket of Iran that has a Shiite Islamic theocracy and ISIS who are in pursuit of a Sunni theocracy. That is not an exaggeration, and it shows what a radical extremist she is.

Michele Bachmann is not mentally ignorant, however socially misguided she may be. Examining the motivation for her husband and her childcare aspirations, it was all about money from professional services. It was her business.

Her affinity with evangelical Christianity comes from having attended Oral Roberts University.

“Christian right
Main article: Christian right 

Evangelical political influence in America was first evident in the 1830s with movements such as abolition of slavery and the prohibition movement, which closed saloons and taverns in state after state until it succeeded nationally in 1919.[87] The Christian right is a coalition of numerous groups of traditionalist and observant church-goers of every kind: especially Catholics on issues such as birth control and abortion, Southern Baptists, Missouri Synod Lutherans and others.[88] 

Evangelical political activists are not all on the right. There is a small group of liberal white Evangelicals.[89] Most African Americans belong to Baptist, Methodist or other denominations that share Evangelical beliefs; they are firmly in the Democratic coalition and (except for gay and abortion issues) are generally liberal in politics.[90]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism

The fact that she doesn’t like Hillary Clinton is inconsequential because so many more Americans probably don’t like Michele Bachmann. She represents the problem that the Republican party has in gaining affinity with most Americans that is she is a right-wing extremist. America isn’t right-wing extremist.

“Michele Bachmann strives to be the ‘anti-Hillary’

By LAUREN FRENCH and JOHN BRESNAHAN | 10/2/14 5:06 AM EDT

Michele Bachmann will not go gently into the night.

The divisive four-term congresswoman is leaving Capitol Hill in January, but she has no intention of fading into post-congressional irrelevance.

Instead, the Minnesota Republican is fiercely courting media and speaking opportunities, likely in Washington, New York or Los Angeles, and looking to burnish her credentials as a foreign policy expert ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Her hope is to emerge as the “anti-Hillary,” a female conservative foil to likely Democratic presidential contender and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“I don’t know how you’ll see me, but I would like to be in a situation where I can offer an opposing viewpoint to Hillary Clinton,” Bachmann said during a recent interview in her Capitol Hill office.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/michele-bachmann-hillary-clinton-111535.html#ixzz3EztVa8k9

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"... one of the leading attorneys ... recently told a reporter that he believes he is going to win because he does not expect to 'lose any Republican-appointed judges’ votes.'" Whatever happened to judicial impartiality?

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BREAKING: Republican Judge Orders Obamacare Defunded
By Ian Millhiser, September 30, 2014

Much of the Affordable Care Act must be defunded and millions of Americans must lose their health insurance, according to an opinion issued Tuesday by Judge Ronald A. White, an Oklahoma federal judge appointed to the bench by George W. Bush. White’s opinion reaches the same result reached by two Republican appeals court judges in a similar case, although that decision was later withdrawn by the full appeals court. To date, nine federal judges have considered this question of whether much of the law should be defunded. Only three — all of whom are Republicans — have agreed that it should be.

The theory behind this lawsuit, Pruitt v. Burwell, is that although the Affordable Care Act gives states a choice between setting up their own health insurance marketplaces or permitting the federal government to do it for them, health exchanges run by the federal government cannot provide subsidies to help insurance customers pay for their insurance. Should this theory ultimately be embraced by the courts, it will likely trigger a “death spiral” of premium spikes that will drive more and more consumers out of the insurance market, until the markets eventually collapse. As ThinkProgress previously explained, the thrust of the plaintiffs legal argument in this and similar cases is that Obamacare “is supposed to create barren health exchanges where little or no health insurers offer exorbitantly priced insurance that hardly anyone can afford,” and that it was supposed to create these useless exchanges despite the fact that the law explicitly states that it will achieve “near-universal coverage by building upon and strengthening the private employer-based health insurance system.”

There are many flaws in this legal theory, and we lay out several of them here and here. Nevertheless, it is worth noting a few flaws in Judge White’s legal reasoning that appear unique to his own opinion.

One thing that immediately stands out in White’s opinion is just how thin his legal reasoning is. Despite the fact that this case concerns a matter of life and death for the millions of Americans he orders uninsured, his actual discussion of the merits of this case comprises less than 7 double-spaced pages of his opinion. In that brief analysis he quotes the two other Republican judges who ordered Obamacare defunded, claiming that “the government offers no textual basis” in the Affordable Care Act itself for treating federally-run exchanges the same as those run by states. In fact, the government has identified numerous provisions of the law which cut against the argument that only some exchanges should provide subsidies.

Even more significantly, White’s opinion does not at any point acknowledge the legal standard that applies when a statute contains language that is at odds with other provisions of the law. As the Supreme Court explained in 2007, “a reviewing court should not confine itself to examining a particular statutory provision in isolation” as the “meaning—or ambiguity—of certain words or phrases may only become evident when placed in context.” White, by contrast, relies entirely [on] a passage that supports the plaintiffs’ arguments while ignoring the much more prevalent statutory language that supports the government’s argument.

Instead of following Supreme Court precedent, White relies heavily on analysis from a very ideological law professor. Though White’s analysis is quite short, he devotes much of it to a lengthy quote by Professor Richard Epstein, a prominent conservative academic who agrees that Obamacare should be defunded. Epstein has also described Supreme Court opinions establishing the fact that Medicare is constitutional as “catastrophic, ignorant, and uninformed decisions.” So he is a very odd source for a federal judge to rely upon in assessing the correct state of the law.

Towards the end of his opinion, White claims that the reading he gives to the Affordable Care Act — a reading which assumes that the lawmakers who enacted this politically contentious law intended to give every Republican governor in the country the power to blow up one of its central functions in their state — is not “absurd” because “it could reflect the sort of compromise that attends legislative endeavor.” Yet the only evidence he provides that Congress may have intended to “compromise” by giving Rick Perry the power to destroy Obamacare in Texas is a now-infamous quote by Professor Jonathan Gruber. Gruber is an economist who consulted with Congress in designing the law. In 2012, nearly two years after the Affordable Care Act became law, Gruber was recorded giving a talk where he said that “if you’re a state and you don’t set up an Exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits.”

Yet, while Gruber did indeed utter these words and they may seem damning out of context — to the extent that a statement made by a non-lawmaker long after a statute becomes law is useful in assessing the lawmakers’ intent — Judge White probably should have watched the entire video where Gruber made this statement before he cited the statement as evidence of how Obamacare was supposed to function. Here is the Gruber quote in context:

Yes, so these health insurance exchanges . . . will be these new shopping places and they’ll be the place that people go to get their subsidies for health insurance. In the law it says if the states don’t provide them the federal backstop will. The federal government has been sort of slow in putting up its backstop, I think, partly because I think they want to sort of squeeze the states to do it.

I think what’s important to remember politically about this is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits — but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill. So you’re essentially saying [to] your citizens you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. I hope that that’s a blatant enough political reality that states will get their act together and realize there are billions of dollars at stake here in setting up these exchanges.

Read in context, Gruber’s infamous quote takes on an entirely different meaning. It suggests that he was concerned that some people may not get insurance subsid[i]es because “federal government has been sort of slow in putting up its backstop” not because the law forbids federally-run exchanges from providing subsidies. To the contrary, Gruber explains, “[i]n the law it says if the states don’t provide them the federal backstop will.”

So White’s opinion is poorly reasoned. It ignores binding Supreme Court precedent. And it engages in selective quotation to support his conclusion. If it is reviewed by a panel of judges interested in neutrally applying the law, White will be reversed.

There is no guarantee, however, that the judges who review White’s decision will be able to set aside their partisan preferences, whatever they may be. Indeed, one of the leading attorneys spearheading these attacks on the Affordable Care Act recently told a reporter that he believes he is going to win because he does not expect to “lose any Republican-appointed judges’ votes.”

White’s opinion suggests that this attorney may be correct that judges will vote their political party, rather than voting the law when they decide this and similar cases.
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"Because the Republicans are so controlled by the Kochs, Democrats across the country need to be spelling out what the Koch agenda is, and asking Republicans whether they support it."

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The Koch Agenda and the Republican Party: Why Won't They Answer the Question?
By Mike Lux, October 2, 2014

It is no wonder why the Koch brothers always hold their political retreats with their fellow billionaires and multimillionaires in highly secretive sessions, the things they say and the agenda they lay out, while "inspiring" to Mitch McConnell, is repulsive to most Americans. They believe the minimum wage leads to Nazi-ism, Stalinism, Maoism, and suicide bombers. They believe the homeless should be dismissed by telling them to get off their ass. They compare Democrats to the leaders of North Korea. They say they want to decrease regulations "because we can make more profit."

But even more importantly than these absurd and offensive individual beliefs, is their absurd and offensive overall agenda. The Kochs' VP for Policy and Research described an ideal society where the only government would be the military, police, and court system:

"Government is thus limited to a small, but absolutely critical number of tasks, basically keeping our neighborhoods and cities safe from crime, defending our country from those who might violate our national territories, our commerce at sea, and providing justice in a fair and apolitical -- political court system."

In this ideal system, there would be no C, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no food or water safety protections, no national park system, no public education or student loan programs, no public roads and bridges. They would not have taxes on corporate profits or the wealthy at all. There would be no consumer, homeowner, or worker protections from Wall Street banks, big energy companies, pharmaceutical giants, health insurance companies, fast food companies.

This is the Koch agenda, laid out clearly and unequivocally at the Koch secret meeting in June, the agenda that Mitch McConnell found so inspiring. This agenda is so stark that since the news of his attendance at the conference came out, McConnell has either downplayed the meeting, contradicted what he said at the meeting -- for example, here on the minimum wage, or just refused to answer the question here and here.

McConnell isn't the only Republican candidate refusing to answer questions about their allegiance to the Koch agenda. The issue came up twice in the Joni Ernst-Bruce Braley debate in Iowa on September 28, and Ernst avoided the topic entirely the first time, and defensively and immediately changed the subject the second time. And Congressman Jim Jordan, another speaker at the secretive Koch conference, simply refused to answer the question as well.

The Koch agenda, which is now on tape and in transcript form for anyone who wants to look, is devastating to Republicans if Democrats make it an issue. Democrats just have to pound it home -- keep asking the question Republicans refuse to answer, about whether they would repudiate the agenda laid out at the Kochs' secret conference. Because the Republicans are so controlled by the Kochs, Democrats across the country need to be spelling out what the Koch agenda is, and asking Republicans whether they support it. If the narrative of this election is the debate over whether we want the Koch agenda, Democrats will win this cycle going away.
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"Contrary to the narrative we often hear, most legislators care deeply about their constituents and the issues they champion."

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CAN POLITICIANS BE BOLDER WITHOUT LOSING VOTES?
By Gerry Everding, October 1, 2014

Politicians don’t need to hide their views on controversial issues. In fact, taking a stance may have the power to sway voters’ opinions in their favor, new research shows.

“This study highlights the special responsibility that public officials have to be leaders for issues and positions that they believe in,” says Daniel Butler, associate professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis and a lead author of the study.

“It suggests that politicians still hold a position of trust that allows them to reach people and produce change.”

OPINIONS IN THE MAIL

The research is based on an experiment designed to see if voters would change their opinions on a controversial issue after receiving a personal letter from their state legislator.

Researchers surveyed targeted voters to benchmark individual attitudes on various hot-button issues, then surveyed them again after they received one of three official form letters, all of which were sent by the researchers, but appeared to come directly from the legislator.

The first version of the letter included only a broad, generic message with no policy statements, the second included a brief mention of the politician’s stance on a controversial policy issue, and the third offered a detailed discussion of why the legislator favored this position.

The research team’s analysis of the survey data uncovered strong evidence that legislators can significantly shape constituents’ views on issues by merely staking out their positions.

KEY FINDINGS INCLUDE:

• Citizens who received letters often adopted their representatives’ issue positions even when representatives offered little justification.
• Voters getting a letter laying out their legislator’s disagreements with them were about five percent more likely to change their opinion to agree with the legislator’s stance.
• Public officials faced little push back for taking a position that ran counter to constituents’ preferences, regardless of the extent to which legislators provided justifications for their positions. Citizens who received letters from their legislators taking positions that they disagreed with did not evaluate their legislators less favorably.
• The findings were surprising, Butler says, because the experiment was based on voter reactions to correspondence from state legislators who are often not well known by their constituencies.

“We would expect even larger effects for officials who are more prominent, such as the president or a member of the US Congress,” Butler says.

TAKING A RISK

What’s most encouraging, Butler says, is that eight state legislators chose to be part of a study in which they sent potentially inflammatory letters to constituents who might be voting for or against them in the future.

“The state legislators we worked with sent letters to the constituents who disagreed with them wherein they highlighted their own positions on the issue of disagreement. Why were they willing to do this?

“Contrary to the narrative we often hear, most legislators care deeply about their constituents and the issues they champion.

“This project was a natural outgrowth of the interest legislators have in building support for the issues they believe will benefit constituents,” Butler says.
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“Money really does make a difference ...”

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Political spending pays off
By Katie Huinker, October 1, 2014

Video

It’s campaign season, which means political ads are taking over television space. Volunteers are manning the phones and knocking on doors, not to mention signs of support are popping up in yards across the nation. To do all of this though, costs some major bucks.

“Money really does make a difference,” says political science instructor, Bennett Smith.

That’s because all of these tactics influence potential voters.

“I guess I really try not to let the ads sway me,” says first-time voter, Olivia Bisbee.

Being that it is her first time filling out a ballot, she is paying attention to one of the more costly methods of grabbing your vote, television ads.

“I’m a very busy college student, so it’s tough to be able to research a lot of that. So, I try to keep up on those ads,” says Bisbee.

That’s why one political analyst says, money talks.

“Money is very important, I will emphasize that, and it does make a real difference in elections,” says Smith.

However, he points out that it’s not all about air time.

“One of the keys to any campaign is what they call the ground war,” says Smith.

The ground war includes, volunteers on the phones, knocking on doors, and candidate appearances.

“That makes a huge difference because people get tuned out by the TV ads,” says Smith.

He advises voters to research multiple sources to find where candidates stand on issues you care about. Which is something Brisbee plans to make time for, before filling out her ballot.

“I also want to keep in my mind where this candidate stands on issues, so I make the best decision for what I believe,” says Brisbee.

Smith adds while it’s important, it’s obviously not a clear indicator of the election outcome. Speaking of money, this week, gubernatorial candidate, Jack Hatch withdrew his scheduled television ads. Branstad’s camp says, it’s a sign that his campaign is running dry, however, Hatch’s campaign officials comment that it is just a change of strategy. Smith comments that it’s not surprising that the Hatch campaign struggled with raising money, considering they are going up against such a long standing governor.

His struggle is very evident when looking at the numbers. Governor Terry Branstad has raised $2.2 million for television ads so far, while Hatch has spent just $129,000. In the senate race, Congressman Bruce Braley and State Senator Joni Ernst are closer in spending. Braley has coughed up $2 million, and Ernst has spent $1.4 million.

Political experts say to keep in mind, the majority of funding for these ads now comes from outside sources, like political action committees or super-pacs, rather than the campaign itself.
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"... lowly members of the public without thousands of dollars to donate are left wondering whom the politicians really represent."

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Political access for sale
Editorial, Philip Brownlee for The Wichita Eagle, October 2, 2014

The public has long suspected that corporations and other big donors pay for access to politicians. But documents mistakenly published on the Republican Governors Association’s website laid bare how crass and commercial the selling is – including a menu listing what access can be purchased at what price.

The documents showed that corporations have poured millions of dollars into the campaigns of Republican governors since 2008, the New York Times reported. One document also revealed the corporate “members” of the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee, which was set up as a 501(c)(4) organization in order to keep its donors secret.

One of the documents lists which companies attended the policy committee’s Carlsbad, Calif., meeting last year, as well as who represented the companies and what they contributed. Koch Companies Public Sector was at the highest giving level, whose members donated at least $250,000, and was represented by Allen Richardson, regional manager for government affairs, according to the document.

Gov. Sam Brownback’s senior staff was well-represented at the Carlsbad gathering. Those attending, according to the document, included Landon Fulmer, Brownback’s chief of staff; Jon Hummell, Brownback’s policy director; Eileen Hawley, Brownback’s press secretary; David Kensinger, a former Brownback chief of staff who directs a Brownback political action committee; and Mark Dugan, Lt. Gov. Jeff Coyler’s former chief of staff.

What’s most unseemly about the documents is that they also outline what the corporations receive for their donations. For example, one 2009 document states that a “Governors Board” membership – a $50,000 annual contribution or a one-time donation of $100,000 – “offers the ability to bring their particular expertise to the political process.” Board membership also included two tickets to “an exclusive breakfast with the Republican governors and members of their staff.”

The benefits increase at higher donation levels, much like a public television pledge drive (only for much, much larger donations). For example, “Cabinet Membership” – $100,000 annually or a single payment of $200,000 – included two invitations to an “intimate gathering with the Republican governors and special Republican VIP guests.”

“This is a classic example of how corporations are trying to use secret money, hidden from the American people, to buy influence, and how the governors association is selling it,” Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a group that advocates more transparency and controls over political money, told the Times.

It is not just Republicans selling access, of course. The Democratic Governors Association engages in similar selling, and several of the corporations contacted by the Times said they donate to both groups.

And these are only the governors associations. Many other groups also sell access.

Meanwhile, lowly members of the public without thousands of dollars to donate are left wondering whom the politicians really represent.
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"... the great Republican re-brand has been hampered by a series of embarrassing, offensive incidents." Too bad, Koch brothers!

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Inside The Koch Brothers’ Multi-Million Dollar Campaign To Win Over Latinos
By Alice Ollstein, September 30, 2014

On a sweltering summer afternoon in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, a small group of local Latino business owners and their families gathered in an upscale venue called Venue. Sitting at half-empty tables amidst faux western decor and flanked by banners reading “LIMITED GOVERNMENT, UNLIMITED OPPORTUNITIES,” they heard from a group of panelists and experts on the challenges of starting a family business.

Nowhere in the packets handed out to the attendees or in the presentations was it disclosed that the host organization, LIBRE, is a pet project of the Koch Brothers—the billionaire fossil fuel magnates currently bankrolling Republican candidates and conservative initiatives around the country. But hints were there: speakers heaping praise on Walmart as a successful “family business,” a video backed by dramatic music saying those who take welfare have “condemned their children to a life of mediocrity and subsistence,” a flyer listing the ways the Obama Administration has made life worse for Latinos over the past five years.

LIBRE’s executives insisted to ThinkProgress that since its founding in 2011 the group has been non-partisan. “We want to help Hispanics be prosperous,” said National Coalitions Director Michael Barrera, “and teach them the best way to be prosperous is through the free market.”

President Obama won about 67 percent of the Latino vote in 2008 and 71 percent in 2012. If all eligible Hispanic voters in Arizona had turned out in this past election, the state would have gone for Obama and Senate candidate Richard Carmona. Recent studies show most Latinos in every age group identify with the Democratic Party. The Kochs’ initiative is one of a flurry of conservative and Republican groups that have emerged to try to change that.

While LIBRE may not tell their members who to vote for, they have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into telling them in English and Spanish who not to vote for—specifically, four Democratic House members who support the Affordable Care Act.

Barrera is hoping an anti-Obamacare message will resonate with Latinos, telling ThinkProgress that panelists at events he has organized around the country have told him they’ve chosen to lay workers off rather than provide them with health care. He added that the Medicaid expansion was “not warranted,” and when asked how those with low-income should be covered, he answered simply: “Making government bigger is not the way,” and assured ThinkProgress: “You’ve got to realize, a lot of people who aren’t covered chose not to be covered.”

“They’re just not seeing the benefit [of health care reform],” Barrera said of Latino Americans. “And actually, support for it among Hispanics has dropped considerably.”

The data, however, suggests otherwise. A study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the Affordable Care Act has decreased the uninsured rate for working-age Latinos from 36 to 23 percent, with young and low-income people benefiting the most. And in states that chose to expand Medicaid, the uninsured rate for Latinos decreased from 35 to 17 percent. The study’s authors wrote: “The full implementation of the ACA…has the potential to be one of the most important developments affecting Latino health care.”

Barrera is correct, though, that the support for Obamacare has declined. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that just 42 percent of Latinos currently have a favorable view of the law, down from a high of 73 percent in 2010. But they remain much more supportive than non-Hispanic white Americans, only 29 percent of whom approve of the law. Furthermore, social scientists Matt Barreto and Gary Segura have found that the souring view of the law isn’t because it goes too far, as LIBRE claims, but because it doesn’t go far enough. 67 percent of Latinos they surveyed believed everyone should be eligible for coverage regardless of citizenship status, while 74 percent favored a public option.

Opposition to the President’s health care reform may be LIBRE’s signature issue, but it isn’t their only one. John Mendez, an Evangelical minister who serves as LIBRE’s Director of Faith Initiatives told ThinkProgress that it’s just one piece of their free market message. His job, he explained, is to put that message “in a theological context.”

“In Scripture it tells us of dependency on God, not dependency on Man,” Mendez said. “To whom you’re dependent on is who you belong to. So you should not be dependent on government. When government starts dictating to you how to spend your money, then our freedoms are starting to be chipped away at.”

When ThinkProgress asked how that philosophy squares with Biblical teachings on lifting up the poor and needy, Mendez answered: “Jesus said to always help the poor, so we always give a helping hand. Some people at one time or another need help, but that’s just for a season. We’re not advocating for those who have unfortunately made welfare a career.”

How have Latino audiences received this message? “There’s a lot of questions. It’s not always an easy subject for some of the first generation to comprehend,” Mendez said. “Much of the time the response we get is, ‘We didn’t know this!’ So we educate them on that, and you can almost see it on their faces when the lights go on.”

Mendez attributes the penchant for voting blue to Latinos being “not just uninformed, but misinformed” about both the Republican and Democratic Party, and lamented what he sees as their tendency to vote based on loyalty. “Whatever Mom was and Grandpa was I guess I’m going to be. Or, ‘He’s a Hispanic candidate? I’m going to vote for him’ without knowing the positions or values.”

As Latinos “realize how their values are aligned,” he predicted, their voting patterns will begin to shift.

As a 501(c)(4) non-profit, LIBRE is legally able to keep its donors’ identities secret. But founder Daniel Garza, a former staffer in George W. Bush’s Public Liaison Office, has disclosed that “representatives of the Koch family” are among the initiative’s main supporters.

Latino leaders and prominent Hispanic media outlets have characterized LIBRE as a “front group” designed to advance same agenda the Koch Brothers pursue through the other groups they fund: discouraging participation in the new health care marketplace, rolling back environmental regulations and opposing equal pay for women.

LIBRE operates around the country, but has focused its efforts most heavily, in the lead-up to the November midterms, in important swing states with sizable Latino populations: Texas, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada and Arizona. Their events often involve free social services, from tax preparation to English classes to a school supplies giveaway.

LIBRE is far from the first conservative initiative specifically aimed at Latinos. After Republicans failed to win back the White House in 2012, they commissioned an “autopsy report” that found, among other things, that “many minorities” believe “Republicans do not like them or want them in the country.” The changing demographics of the US, they acknowledged, tends to favor Democrats, and they warned that if the party fails to aggressively recruit Latino voters, they will be disadvantaged in all future elections.

But attempts to follow this advice have had mixed results. Groups like the Hispanic Leadership Network and the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles have sprung up over the past few years, but the great Republican re-brand has been hampered by a series of embarrassing, offensive incidents.

But the issue goes beyond isolated slip-ups. Key policy differences remain. Social scientists Barreto and Segura found, based on years of polling, that “Latinos prefer more government engagement in solving society’s challenges, not less. Despite their embrace of values based in self-reliance, they see a critical and decisive role for government in the lives of individuals. The result is a supermajority that votes Democrat.”

How this will square with LIBRE’s message of shrinking government and deregulating the economy remains to be seen.
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"Kansas, a state that traditionally skews Republican, has become one of the most interesting electoral battlegrounds in the country ..."

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Republicans Are On The Verge Of 2 Major Defeats In One Of The Reddest Of Red States
By Brett LoGiurato, October 1, 2014

Greg Orman has good reason to smile right now. Republicans are trailing in two races with national implications in Kansas, according to a new USA Today/Suffolk University poll released Wednesday.

Both US Sen. Pat Roberts, a Republican senator who has been in office since 1997, and Gov. Sam Brownback, a first-term governor running for re-election, are trailing their respective challengers in the poll. Roberts is 5 points behind Independent candidate and businessman Greg Orman, while Brownback sits 4 points behind Democrat Paul Davis.

Kansas, a state that traditionally skews Republican, has become one of the most interesting electoral battlegrounds in the country, with Orman's sudden rise and Brownback's stunning fall.

"Orman has dabbled in both Republican and Democratic politics over the years and says he will be a moderate in the tradition of Kansan Bob Dole, so it will be interesting to see whether this fresh face will prevail in the state that was the subject of a book examining 'How Conservatives Won the Heart of America,'"  said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston.

The poll was released on the same day Orman got more good news in his quest to unseat Roberts. A Kansas court ruled Democrats would not have to replace Chad Taylor on the ballot. Taylor dropped out of the race last month, something that helped boost Orman's chances at victory.

Orman has not said which party he will caucus with if he's elected, and many speculate his decision will hinge on which party ultimately controls the body.

Roberts' trouble comes from voters viewing him in an unfavorable light. Overall, 39% of voters view both Orman and Roberts favorably. But Roberts is viewed unfavorably by 47% of Kansans, compared with just 25% who say the same about Orman.

The Suffolk poll of 500 likely voters was conducted from Saturday through Tuesday, with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4%.
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