Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Center for Patients Rights, a Koch Brothers funded front group run by GOP consultant Sean Noble, is back in the news again.
Just a few weeks ago, Center for Patients Rights was in the middle of the "dark money" campaign funds money laundering scandal in California. Controversial Arizona nonprofit releases name of contributors — more nonprofits – latimes.com:
In a stunning reversal, an obscure
Arizona nonprofit at the center of a legal battle over secret political
contributions released on Monday morning the identity of its
contributors, which it had been fighting tooth and nail to keep secret.
But the disclosure did little to shed light on who was behind the $11-million donation to a California campaign fund. The Arizona group, Americans for Responsible Leadership, identified its contributors only as other nonprofits.
The money was passed from Americans for Job Security to the Center to Protect Patient Rights to Americans for Responsible Leadership,
according to state authorities. From there, the money was sent to a
California campaign committee fighting Gov. Jerry Brown's tax-hike plan,
Proposition 30, and pushing a separate ballot measure to curb unions'
political influence, Proposition 32.
California described this as illegal "money laundering." Something at which they are experienced.
I have previously posted about Sean Noble and his Center to Protect Patients Rights. The state of Maricopa appears to be the hub of the wingnut operations of the Koch brothers.
It turms out that Center for Patient Rights is also a conduit for the billionaires who fund Grover Norquist at Americans for Tax Reform. Lee Fang at The Nation reports Grover Norquist's Budget Is Largely Financed by Just Two Billionaire-Backed Nonprofits:
Grover Norquist’s iron grip over much of the Republican Party is
somewhat puzzling. Why should Senators and other lawmakers listen to a
guy caught laundering money for Jack Abramoff?
But consider Norquist’s tax pledge and political power another way:
that he’s just a proxy for the powerful interest groups that finance
him. In the nineties, it was big tobacco
that used Norquist’s tax pledge as a cover to lobby lawmakers against
cigarette taxes (Norquist still uses an e-mail system donated to him by
Altria to send out Tea Party action alerts against tobacco taxes). Now, big PhRMA and other industry groups
provide grants to Norquist while his foundation endorses other
giveaways, like protectionist support against importing cheaper drugs
from Canada and the classification of tax subsidies to refineries as
“tax cuts” that must not be cut.
I took a look at the last available budget numbers
for Americans for Tax Reform, Norquist’s group. Though they do not
reveal their donors, we can cobble together much of Norquist’s donors
using foundations and other nonprofits that donate money to him.
The disclosures show that only two billionaire-backed groups have provided over 66 percent of Norquist’s funding:
• The Center to Protect Patients Rights donated $4,189,000 to Americans for Tax Reform in 2010, 34 percent of the group’s budget that year.
• Crossroads GPS donated $4,000,000 to Americans for Tax Reform in 2010, 32.46 percent of the group’s budget that year.
The Center to Protect Patients Rights is the foundation used by the billionaire clique led by the Koch brothers to distribute grants to allied groups.
* * *
Crossroads GPS is the undisclosed group run by Karl Rove. The only known donors are folks like
Paul Singer, the “vulture” hedge fund king who benefits enormously from
tax strategies like the carried interest loophole. Norquist’s pledge
largely benefits billionaires like Singer and Schwarzman, who pay almost
nothing in payroll taxes and likely pay a lower rate than their
secretaries.
The billionaire bastard Koch brothers and Karl Rove are the rot in American politics.
