In June of this year, AlterNet quietly published an article about Herman Cain's deep ties to Americans for Prosperity. At the time, no one paid close attention because most people had no idea who Herman Cain was or why they should care. But now that Cain is the current frontrunner of the day in the Republican primaries, it's worth revisiting and re-examining Cain's close relationship to the Koch brothers and Americans for Prosperity.

From the AlterNet article:

Not only is Cain a frequent speaker at AFP Foundation events, he was also, by his own account, tapped by [Mark] Block to be one of the faces of Prosperity 101, a workplace seminar program, designed for employers to present to their employees at "voluntary" workplace gatherings where they are told that the legislative initiatives typically embraced by Democrats -- health-care reform, energy reform, higher taxes for the wealthiest Americans -- could so hurt their employers as to force layoffs. The program was set in motion during the lead-up to the 2010 elections. (AlterNet, working in collaboration with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute, published an expose on Prosperity 101 last week.)

Mark Block is Herman Cain's campaign manager now. And about Prosperity 101? Here's an excerpt from that expose published in June:

The idea behind Prosperity 101 is simple: Employers gather employees for a "voluntary" seminar where nervous workers, already sweating in an economy that is shedding jobs, are told that government regulation, unions and tax increases -- even if only on the wealthy -- are bad for their employers, thereby threatening the workers' own livelihoods. Then they're reminded to vote -- for example, in last year's midterm elections. (The Prosperity 101 textbook includes a sample voter registration form from the State of Wisconsin.) And in the program textbook, employee participants are urged to join Americans for Prosperity, which has a history of alliances with GOP candidates.

In the textbook's introduction, Hansen, Prosperity 101's creator, plays on workers' fears of economic insecurity, stirred up by the lingering recession:

'You go to work every day, giving your best efforts in hopes of keeping your job through every economic cycle and every corporate downsizing…Will you be included in the next round of layoffs?… Do you know your job security is not just dependent on your performance?...Prosperity 101(TM) is designed to empower you, the employee, to go beyond your paradigms and look at job protection in a new way.'

It isn't just Herman Cain involved in Prosperity 101, either. The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore and John Fund were also involved.

In addition to workplace "education", Prosperity 101 is actively involved in voter registration drives in the workplace. From The Nation Institute:

"A key component of Prosperity 101 is working with employers to help them encourage voter registration among their employees," Hansen, trim and stylish at 52, explained to the crowd. "So when Herman [Cain] first heard the concept here, he said, 'You've come up with the answer to ACORN!'"

Hansen then played the Prosperity 101 promotional video, which features Cain and the Journal's Stephen Moore.

Moore's segment confers a crucial air of legitimacy upon Prosperity 101 by virtue of his post at the world's premier financial newspaper, an affiliation that is highlighted both in the video and in the program's other promotional materials. "Washington is working against employers," Moore tells viewers. "It's working against people who are trying to create wealth and are trying to employ workers."

Each audience member received a copy of the program's textbook, a slender paperback that features material by Cain and Moore, among others.

Suddenly Herman Cain's "surge" begins to fall into place. The combination of workplace indoctrination and voter registration last year means many workers have a clear idea of who he is, as compared to others. At this point, he may be the single candidate with name recognition.

There's an even larger strategy at work here, coordinated with tea party groups and others who seek to drive a wedge into the African-American community and shave away some of Barack Obama's popularity. They do this by playing the "Cain would be the first 'REAL' black President" card. That initiative has begun and is spreading via conservative radio talkers and tea party groups, who see it as an opportunity to push back on the perception that they're racists.

Think Progress:

That notion, however, spurred Ingraham to contemplate the GOP’s African-American presidential candidate Herman Cain. In comparing the “blackness” of the two African American politicians, Ingraham wondered whether Cain would actually be 'the first black president' because he doesn’t 'have a white mother, white father.' Therefore,isn’t he the real black candidate?:

INGRAHAM: And what happened with Obama is that he gets this job that he’s not qualified for… OK, so [Obama is] Constitutionally qualified for but he’s not really qualified for. And guess who pays the price? All of us. Because we had such a yearning for history.Well I have a question. Herman Cain, if he became president, he would be the first black president, when you measure it by — because he doesn’t — does he have a white mother, white father, grandparents, no, right? So Herman Cain, he could say that he’s — he’s — he’s the first, uh — he could make the claim to be the first — yeah, the first Main Street black Republican to be the president of the United States. Right? He’s historic too.

Listen to it here:

By the way, this really is an issue in the African-American community. Mixed race is another layer to the already-complicated race issue, which is why the Kochs hope it will effectively divide them.

As much as I'd like to shrug Herman Cain off as the newest Republican shiny thing, it's difficult to do when he enjoys the corporate backing of Rupert Murdoch, Charles Koch and David Koch. I expect they will throw as much mud and money as need be to get their guy in the front of the pack. The Wall Street Journal is moving full-tilt boogie to attack the President on as many fronts as possible, including this ridiculous editorial published yesterday, which once again begins with the even more ridiculous premise that President Obama is a "loner." Ann Althouse joined the echo chamber with her own laudatory review of Cain's Meet the Press appearance yesterday, practically falling over herself in adoration of his heritage:

Notice how simply and vividly he struck a chord — the classic black American experience — and made it resonate for anyone who works for living. There is a quality of nobility, that fits with the idea of heritage.

The bottom line here is that Charles and David Koch are patient men with a lot of money. Cynical patient men. They will stop at nothing to enrich themselves at the expense of every citizen in this country, including grooming and backing a completely unqualified candidate, extolling his heritage as being "authentic African-American," and positioning him as the guy with the awesome tax plan that will cripple the working poor in this country more than they already are, even as they clamor for it.

David Axelrod may think Cain isn't a top-tier candidate, but David and Charles Koch see that differently. As long as they have the money and resources to pour into his campaign, my suspicion is that he will continue to 'surge', at least until he implodes like the rest of them seem to do.

In the meantime, I expect we will be hearing and seeing a lot more of Herman Cain.

At the very end of Fox and Friends yesterday, Brian Kilmeade and Fox "legal analyst" Peter Johnson Jr. go ballistic over funding public television and radio, saying it should be "privatized", calling it "welfare for broadcasting" and suggesting in their not-so-subtle way that public broadcasting is a government propaganda channel.

Why does this not surprise me in the least? After all, why would we possibly need public broadcasting when we have such stellar, unbiased sources as Fox News? Who would be there to tell us how the Muslims are going to impose Sharia Law on us (without explaining exactly what that is), or inflict Glenn Beck on the planet daily?

James Fallows wrote a terrific column on why NPR matters and should matter to everyone. After extolling Fox News' excellence (hey, he said it, not me) at what they do, he says this:

"News" in the normal sense is a means for Fox's personalities, not an end in itself. It provides occasions for the ongoing development of its political narrative -- the war on American values, the out-of-touchness of Democrats -- much as current events give preachers material for sermons. This is why Fox's emphasis goes to its star interpreters -- Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, the "Fox and Friends" crew -- more than to expanding bureaus around the country or the world, investing in scientific, economic, or international expertise, or generally trying harder to place primary observers wherever it can.**

Isn't NPR just the same thing, from an different political perspective? No, and the difference matters.

NPR, whatever its failings, is one of the few current inheritors of the tradition of the ambitious, first-rate news organization. When people talk about the "decline of the press," in practice they mean that fewer and fewer newspapers, news magazine, and broadcast networks can afford to try to gather information. The LA Times, the Washington Post, CBS News -- they once had people stationed all around the world. Now they work mainly from headquarters -- last year the Post closed all its domestic bureaus outside Washington -- and let's not even think about poor Newsweek and US News.

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Hey, Steve Jobs! It would be excellent for you to absolutely deny this rumor now before any unsuspecting consumers buy iPads for their relatives for Christmas. Granted, it's still being reported as rumor, but the idea of any kind of native iPad app running News Corp content 24/7 makes me want to go out and buy a dozen Android devices just to punish you. Right. now.

Rumors are circling that News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch is teaming up with Apple CEO Steve Jobs to launch a new digital-only newspaper. Dubbed, "The Daily," the iPad project will allegedly stream right a user's device seven days a week for the fairly low price of $0.99 per week, or roughly $4.25 monthly.

[...]

"Several sources said Apple chief Steve Jobs and Murdoch have been in conversations about the project for a while," writes Women's Wear Daily's John Koblin. "When the project is announced, don't be surprised if you see Steve Jobs onstage with Rupert Murdoch, welcoming The Daily to the app world."

The day that happens, John Lennon will rise from the dead and haunt Steve Jobs for his remaining days on this earth. And every Apple device in this house and in the possession of relatives will be sent to exile, forever.

In typical techie journalism style, Mashable says "we've gotta give Murdoch credit." Yeah, he gets a ton of credit from me for promoting fools like Sarah Palin and turning lies into commodities that trade on Twitter and Facebook exchanges for friend requests and high-dollar donations to right-wing lunatics.

While I may not like some of Murdoch’s ideas, (see Murdoch: Take Your Google Ball and Go Home), I give credit where it’s due. Murdoch’s commitment to a digital future for journalism is commendable and forward-thinking. He realizes more than his competitors that the future of news isn’t in propping up print publications, but creating truly immersive digital experiences. He may very be creating the template that brings other newspapers into a profitable digital age.

Mashable dude, wake up. Murdoch realizes more than his competitors that if he controls the flow and editorial content, no matter what the device, he wins. But wait, there's a consolation prize:

Let’s be clear, though: while The Daily could very well take off and become the must-have publication on the iPad, it will never be the only player on the block. People won’t stop reading blogs or newspaper websites in favor of the iPad. Instead, they’ll add The Daily to their many sources of news. Some days, they’ll make the $0.99 purchase, and on others they’ll be reading through the archives of Mashable or Perez Hilton.

If you want to see what journalism will become, have a look at Facebook, particularly the discussions on Sarah Palin's facebook page.

Rupert Murdoch has destroyed news and most particularly political reporting. If Steve Jobs thinks dancing with the devil is profitable, he can contend with the demons that haunt him as a result.

In what some would probably view as a self-deprecatory look at the symbiosis between right wing memes, ads, and radio hosts, the Wall Street Journal pretends to take an oh-so serious look at how the lines between political commentary, paid ads, and the right wing have blurred so as to be indistinguishable.

First, the confession:

In radio, a lot of money is already flowing in the other direction. A handful of the top talk-radio hosts in the U.S.—including Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity—are being paid to use their voices and faces to promote politically motivated groups. Messrs. Beck and Hannity also have highly rated television programs on Fox News.

Mr. Beck, whose radio program averages 10 million weekly listeners, has given paid endorsements on the show since May for FreedomWorks, a Washington, D.C.-based libertarian advocacy group that worked closely with tea party groups to support dozens of conservative candidates in last Tuesday's election. As part of what are called "live-read" advertisements, Mr. Beck has urged listeners to join FreedomWorks—a group he also had expressed support for prior to the commercial advertising arrangement.

Oh, noes! Glenn Beck was PAID for those FreedomWorks promos? You mean -- you mean -- he doesn't really BELIEVE all the crap he spews? How can it be?

Not to worry, WSJ readers, because in the interests of "fair and balanced" journalism, the WSJ rushes to let you know that progressive groups like MoveOn and unions have considered paying for embedded ads, and still won't rule it out, while others have done so 'in the past'.

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Until Murdoch acquired it, the Wall Street Journal was pro-business, but not overtly partisan. Despite his promise of 'journalistic integrity', he's using it as a bully pulpit to get Republicans elected. Evidently his message is being diluted to the point that he can't seem to get his message across through Fox News, the radio stations he owns, and the New York Post, so he's taken to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal.

Of course, Murdoch didn't sign this, but it has his right-wing paw prints all over it. Framed in the guise of advice to the Republican party, it is a head-on attack on Democrats and health care reform.

The danger is that if the [Republican] party doesn't use the campaign to create a mandate, it won't be strategically positioned to repeal, let alone replace. That fight will be hard enough as Republicans vie with President Obama's veto merely to chip away at the edges. And unless the GOP pours the political foundations now for more lasting health reforms, they won't have anything to build on going into 2012.

In other words, Republicans ought to be using the 2010 campaign to build opposition to ObamaCare and educate voters about the differences between private and government health care. They could also begin persuading the public—and maybe even themselves—of the virtues of an alternative system based on market principles and more consumer choice.

In two paragraphs, we have every right-wing meme about health care reform packed in. The idea that it's government-run, that somehow health care should be foundationally based upon market principles, and of course, the 'repeal and replace' maxim.

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CNN has taken pains to give Murdoch some PR cover with their not-so-subtle list of donors to both parties.

General Electric, which owns NBC, has also made substantial political contributions in the 2010 election cycle. For example, GE donated
$688,900 to Democrats through its PAC this election cycle compared to $410,100 to Republicans. The company has also given $75,500 to Democratic-affiliated leadership PACs and $74,500 to Republican-affiliated leadership PACs.

Meanwhile, GE has donated $237,000 to the Democratic Governors Association and $205,000 to the Republican Governors Association.

Time Warner, the parent company of CNN, has given $60,000 to the Democratic Governors Association in the 2010 election cycle, according to CQ Moneyline. Meanwhile, Time Warner Cable, a former subsidiary of Time Warner, donated $50,000 to the RGA this election cycle.

There are more, too. On the other hand, it's worth noting that News Corporation donated one million dollars to one party only, unlike the others CNN mentions.

Beyond the way it appears, News Corp. may have another problem, too.

Another day and another Republican jackass trying to smear President Obama and his administration on issues of our national security. The newest member of the Peter King Fan Club style is Republican asswipe Congressman Mike Rogers from Michigan, who wrote an op-ed in the NY (f'n) Post yesterday where he attacked Eric Holder for doing the job he's actually supposed to be doing after the NYC bombing failed. Holder is the Attorney General and prosecution is his game, right? We have laws and he follows them, even if jerks like Rogers want to disregard the Constitution and our legal system. Faisal Shahzad is an American citizen.

I caught Rogers on MSNBC earlier in the morning Thursday talking to Monica Novotny early in the 7am hour PDT, and he couldn't even articulate what he wrote in Murdoch's rag. Novotny tries to understand what he's saying and gets to the heart of it.

Novotny: Meanwhile, you've written an op-ed for the NY Post in which you say that Attorney General Eric Holder, that he's just too focused on gathering evidence for a court case going forward as opposed to what you say he should be doing, gathering intelligence to prevent future attacks.

Rogers: Absolutely, when you shift to a law enforcement centered rather than a counter terrorism centered approach to this, it has restrictions and it has consequences. We can talk about all the great thing our investigators are doing after the fact, but the problem is that when you go to a law enforcement approach somebody has to commit the crime first in order for them to be successful first.

Novotny: But the fact is Congressman, that this has happened already so don't they essentially have to wear two hats at the same time because while we want to gain as much intelligence on potential future attacks, we also don't want this guy walking free either.

...

Rogers: You don't want to get this guy when he's getting on the plane to Pakistan after he's left the bomb, you want to get him on the plane from Pakistan when he's on the way to the United States. Huge difference.

Novotny: You say that the government's role should be in prevention then, but do you believe they really aren't doing everything they can to prevent these attacks?

Rogers: I do know this. This administration have made changes that mean some collection activities that we used to do we no longer do and those are classified, but they've suspended certain collection activities. When you do that and they're doing as this notion of a law enforcement centered approach, when you do that you have consequences...

Novotny: You say they are gathering less intelligence and they've made choices to do that.

Rogers: I do think there are some gaps in there that I would love to fill back in so our intelligence can do what it does best.

Rogers is telling the world that the Obama administration is making a concerted effort to gather less intelligence to stop attacks which means the president doesn't care if we get hit again because he's just interested in putting them away. He cites the Ft. Hood shootings, underwear man and Path Finder bomber as his evidence that Obama just doesn't care. What a sad sack of a politician. That was the heart at what Novotny was getting at. Bush would go on TV telling the world of how many attacks he had thwarted. So WTF is he yapping on about?

Rogers said that the Obama administration had made serious changes in the way America collects intelligence on terrorists, but he didn't know what they were because they were classified. Huh? Top Secret, like very hush-hush. Is he trying to leak secrets to the media about the way we go about gathering intelligence?

Here's his moronic piece.

He almost made Rep. Peter King look somewhat coherent. Almost.

Here's a link to his email so if you have the chance, send him your thoughts.

Rupert Murdoch believes Fox News is handily winning the cable ratings wars because all the rest of the media are so liberal.

He was on Neil Cavuto's show to brag about his newest reports on quarterly profits, and explained his company's success can be explained thus:

Murdoch: Well, I think as far as Fox News goes, it's very simple. You know, ah, it's very powerful, it's very good, and it's very balanced. And everybody else, every newspaper other than ours, and every -- it may be an overgeneralization, but by far most newspapers -- and certainly the other television networks sort of are, um, on one side, the liberal side of things, we're -- I think the population of this country is pretty worried about its direction, and you know, they turn to Fox News.

But only a few breaths before this, Murdoch bragged about all the money being brought in to Fox by James Cameron's Avatar -- about $200 million this quarter alone, with more on the way (apparently the DVD/Blu-Ray release is really raking it in).

I dunno about you, but having watched Avatar a few times, one cannot describe its political POV as anything other than "liberal." Certainly there's no question that Cameron himself is one.

So if Fox News is winning because it's conservative, why are most of his company profit's actually being generated by a liberal movie?

I think a better explanation of Fox's success is equally simple: Murdoch has discovered that news sells better as entertainment, and partisan propaganda is infinitely more entertaining than straight news. But YMMV.

Feministe: Hey, anti-tax conservatives...

Mario Piperni: On Health Care and Motives

Instaputz: Bill Bennett, Liar

Vagabond Scholar: Hot For Teachers

Balkinization: Forced to choose between Tiger Woods and Billy Payne, the chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, my loyalties are with Tiger, who is by far the lesser threat to Americans children and grandchildren than the members of Augusta National Golf Club for whom Mr. Payne so sanctimoniously speaks.

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Media indifference to murder...Rupert Murdoch has lost it...NPR's gender balance...Journo enablers...Pedalling mob violence... Introducing The Broder-o-Matic!...Crackerjack reporting...Cover-up News Network...WaPo hack...Deficit fascination...Unreal American stories... Dear Networks...CNN Fail...Big wheel...Who covers this?

"Pay no attention to that Murdoch behind the curtain!"

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