Yesterday’s primary “results” have resulted in endless blather about a GOP race that has been, in the end, entirely predictable. Romney rolls on, with little “surprises” here and there, and ZERO discussion of the issues that the USA actually faces. The Republican field has been singularly debating a rhetorical world of their own devising, without bothering to actually offer solutions or a vision for the problem that We the People actually face.

Inside the Kochtopus
Hour One 

Fine for them. Weasels are expected to behave like weasels.

But not so much for the media and their alleged skills and scurrilously imputed “minds.”

Tonight on Countdown with Keith Olbermann — David Schuster substituting — Schuster (and the Countdown staff) revealed that the “Koch Brothers” had dumped $700K into Rick Walker’s anti-recall campaign in Wisconsin.

Then he explained that as a “501(c)3″ charity, they couldn’t openly politic for or against a candidate, which was almost right, except that the Americans for Prosperity twin 501(c)4 was actually doing the spending, and is NOT a “charity.”

I’ve explained too many times how the twinned C3 and C4 organizations are used to politic either on your dime or anonymously. Sad that Countdown STILL hasn’t figured out this fundamental distinction. Why?

Because they were too busy jerking off to the “upsets” of Santorum yesterday in three contests that allocate NOT A SINGLE DELEGATE.

Little better than straw polls for the Festival of the Inane that the GOP field is.

But while the “experts” crowed and cogitated and  arrogated, the actual “in the weeds” is jettisoned in favor of endless blather.

You see, all the cable news channels have the need to fill endless hours of space, and how they do that is with “experts” opining endlessly on the non-news of the non-horserace, while the REAL PRESENT AND DANGEROUS news is ignored.

Because it’s just TOO HARD, I guess.

Above and here is hour one of my interview yesterday. I’ve cleaned it up and taken out the commercials. (In the first hour, their phone feed kept dropping me. It pretty much goes away in the second and third hours. Apologies, but there’s nothing that I could do about it.)

And you’ll learn MORE about how the Kochs work than you will from months of the same old electoral blather.

You see, as long as they’re bloviating about the GOP race and all its moronic nuances, they don’t have to cover ACTUAL news.

Friess literally has Santorum’s back

Like the New Republic, who published this (behind their pay firewall) about Foster Friess dated today. (I found a back door, and here’s the whole thing):

Meanwhile, Friess had also been donating hundreds of thousands to conservative causes. In 1994, he helped finance Santorum’s narrow Senate victory, launching him to national prominence. Since 1989, Friess has contributed nearly $1.6 million to Republican campaigns—plus a few other massive donations, including $3 million to help start the conservative website The Daily Caller. Currently, he is considering a six- or seven-figure donation to the conservative Super PAC American Crossroads or its sister organization, Crossroads GPS.

Uh, that brings them right up to date … TO MY 2010 series on Foster Friess, without getting into the Council for National Policy (which was probably the group that met in Texas a few weeks ago and which infamously met in Salt Lake City, with then-Vice President Cheney and Mitt Romney and others addressing the ultra-secret Dominionist group) or the Biggest Foundation You Never Heard Of, which kicked back six figures to Foster’s son for “investment services” as I reported.

The New York Times similarly drops the ball today. No mention WHATSOEVER of his financial backing of The Daily Caller, and Tucker Carlson. (Gee. Might that have been important? Naw.)

I have been RIGHT, folks. I was on Friess two years ago. I was on the Kochs SIX years ago, and time has only proven me correct.

I have FREELY given my work and my research to you, the People, without hiding it behind a firewall for telling you NOTHING.

So: to the media, if you need an expert, here I am. I am available at your convenience.

Hart Williams (l) and Art Kunkin (founder of the
Los Angeles Free Press , taken in 1980) 

To the people, don’t bother with a bunch of jokers who aren’t even up to speed on a two-year old story.

I don’t mean to disparage you, or denigrate the great job you’re doing keeping us informed about stuff that’s literally in our FACES every day, media, when I call you SELF-ENTITLED PRETENTIOUS [expletive deleted] MORONS.

I say it with love.

Here’s Foster Friess:

• Koch Dominionists for Santorum (January 6, or A MONTH AGO, New Republic)

And …

The Foster Friess Series (all photos are linked and explained there,including Foster and the Ayatollahs, which is in “More Fake Cowboys”):

• Tucker Carlson is Keith Olbermann; I am Glenn Beck (18 July)
• More Fake Cowboys (23 July)
• The Biggest Foundation That You’ve Never Heard Of (1 Aug. )
• Following Foster’s Buddies’ Money (10 Aug.)
• Foster’s Dominionist Pals (13 Aug.)
• Rubber Baby Buggy Bunglers (18 Aug.)
• Tucker Carlson – Profeshunel Jurnuhlizzum Strikes Agin! (12 Nov.)
• How Friess Fosters Tuckers Out – Conclusion (Dec. 31, 2010)

Jeebus.

The public they’re serving isn’t any public that I have seen. Hell, I’d almost ascribe it to evil, save for this Occam’s Razor for Perfidy: Never presume malice where ignorance explains it just as well.

Courage.

=====================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.

Punxatawney Phil saw his shadow in the eponymous Pennsylvania town that feeds the rodent. And Donald Trump has endorsed (wait for it …) NEWT GINGRICH!

Uh, whoops. They reported FUTURE news, and The Donald, being such a model of consistency, changed his notion at the last minute and endorsed Romney.

And so, we finally know what that creature on top of his head is. Turns out, it was a groundhog all along, and, attached to “the Donald,” it couldn’t STAND for any other groundhog to upstage it.

Mystery solved. Case closed. What else?

Courage.

Donald Trump certainly enjoys keeping the media spinning. If he’s considering running for president on the independent ticket, as he has hinted at frequently of late, he’s hedging bets on whether to endorse Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney. It’s a freakin’ endorsement circus…

Newt Gingrich’s campaign is reported to be in “serious disarray,” while the Las Vegas Review Journal reports today that a “new poll shows Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney headed for a blowout victory Saturday in Nevada’s GOP caucuses.”

Honestly this primary season has been like watching a very bad sitcom… And I don’t like to watch TV.

In a move that has instantly infuriated feminists, it was announced today that “Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s leading breast-cancer charity, will cut off its funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates, where the foundation has traditionally paid for preventive screening services.”

Planned Parenthood has been at the center of a lot of heated political battles lately. Most center on whether the group, as an abortion provider, should receive government funds for other services it provides, such as offering contraceptives and preventive screenings.

The move by the Komen fund was immediately decried as a cowardly attempt by the Komen fund to bow to conservative pressure.

Twitter has been aflutter with the news for a couple of hours now… Tweet of the Day on the topic:

@kelly_carlin Hey Susan G. Komen, we’ve shown you our tits, now show us your balls. #FightRWNJAgendas

It’s a sad day for womens rights and the cure for breast cancer. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America said today, “We are alarmed and saddened that the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation appears to have succumbed to political pressure. Our greatest desire is for Komen to reconsider this policy and recommit to the partnership on which so many women count.” 

Read more here, about how Planned Parenthood is fighting back and their new fund to keep breast exams covered at their facilities.

The Susan G Komen fund has been recently running TV advertisements to brings in participants and donors for upcoming 2012 3-day walks. It will be interesting to see how that pans out for Komen in the wake of today’s news.

Senator John Kerry tonight released a statement following President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address:

“If Members of Congress are going to be honest about it, there was a lot of common sense and even more common ground in tonight’s address. We shouldn’t have to wait for another year or another election to act like it. Tax reform, energy security, infrastructure, and jobs matter to all of us and we’re so much closer on these issues than the shrillness of our politics pretends we are. We ought to prove peoples’ suspicions wrong and prove that Congress can actually get something done even in an election year. Dysfunction isn’t defensible.”

The full text of President Obama’s State of the Union is available here.

Senator Kerry was seen earlier today at an event at the White House, for the Boston Bruins,  sporting a couple of black eyes from a hockey game accident. Get well soon JK…

Via MSNBC:

Newt Gingrich has won the South Carolina Republican primary, capping off a remarkable comeback for his presidential bid that reshapes the trajectory of the battle for the GOP nomination…

[...] The results mark the end of a tumultuous week in politics that saw Gingrich erase and then overcome the lead Romney had in the Palmetto State following his victory in the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary. Gingrich came on strong in the closing days of the campaign, looking to rally under his banner the many conservatives unwilling to get behind Romney, who had sought to posture himself as the eventual nominee.

Mitt Romney indeed thought he had it in the bag… He didn’t. Newt Gingrich’s win in S.C. changes the game quite a bit for the GOP race for the presidential nomination. Stay tuned…

Rick Perry will be dropping out of the GOP race for the presidential nomination today, and sources say he “will make the announcement before the CNN debate in South Carolina” tonight.

South Carolina’s primary is to be held on Saturday. Sources have told Politico that Perry is “expected to endorse Newt Gingrich,” and ”Gingrich and Perry had a secret meeting to discuss a possible endorsement.”

Politico notes that Perry’s endorsement “gives the surging Gingrich a huge boost heading into the final debate tonight, and the South Carolina primary on Saturday, in which he’s already closing in on Mitt Romney.”

But wait… Last night Drudge broke the news that ABC News has an exclusive interview with Newt’s ex-wife Marianne Gingrich and “her explosive revelations are set to rock the trail.” The Gingrich campaign is now in full on damage control mode, before ABC airs the interview on Nightline tonight.

Perry’s endorsement could mean diddly to conservative Newt Gingrich at this point, despite Newt’s rise in the South Carolina polls.

Stay tuned…

Mitt Romney recently said that his tax rate is about 15% when pressed yet again about releasing his tax returns. Here’s a couple of must reads about Mitt and his money…

Romney Parks Millions in Offshore Tax Haven

Mitt Romney Sent Millions to Mormon Church…

Odds look good for Mitt to become the GOP nominee, although other candidates are holding on for dear life. One right wing blogger suggests Rick Perry should drop out now and become a “kingmaker.” Stay tuned…

Perhaps Mitt thinks he’ll just buy his way to the White House…

Video of the Day… via Politico:

“If the far right thought that Romney could win, they might be more enthusiastic about him,” Pelosi told POLITICO’s Mike Allen during Tuesday’s Playbook Breakfast. “But they question what he stands for and they don’t think he’s going to win. So what’s the sell? I’m not sure he knows what he stands for, and that makes it harder too.”

I have to say, I agree 100% with Nancy Pelosi… Romney can’t win and the GOP knows it!

Return with us to the thrilling days of yesteryear, where, astride his faithful steed Hedgefund, the fake cowboy/real gazillionaire from Wyoming spurred into the sunset and rode valiantly to Salt Lake City, Utah. The Salt Lake City Tribune takes up the tale [emphasis added]:

V.P. talks Iraq, borders in SLC

BY ROBERT GEHRKE
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 29, 2007 1:58 AM

Vice President Dick Cheney and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney addressed some of the most influential leaders of the conservative movement Friday in Salt Lake City, but their speeches, like the group itself, remain cloaked in secrecy.

The Council for National Policy is a shadowy group comprising leaders in the family values, national defense and ”decency” movements, dubbed “Sith Lords of the Ultra-Right” by the liberal blog DailyKos. Members are told not to discuss the group, reveal the topics discussed in the closed-door meetings, or even say whether or not they are members of the organization.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” said a grinning Foster Friess, who was pleasant but steadfast in his unwillingness to talk about the group….

Who is Foster Friess? I did an entire series on him, which revealed some chilling stuff, and you can read here* if you’re interested. So, let’s just cut to the chase. Freiss is a long-time member and former officer of the Council for National Policy. They were the secret bunch who met in Salt Lake City. Founded by Tim LeHaye when he was running The Moral Majority for Jerry Falwell, and before he hit paydirt with his “Left Behind” apocalypse novel series. (You know, “Twilight” in basic Revelation.)

[* see end of piece.]*

Another member Foster regularly rubs elbows with is Joseph Farah, who runs World Net Daily, makes money off of birther paraphernalia and ghost wrote Rush Limbaugh’s See, I Told You So.

Joseph Farah

Friess is also the guy who sat down over lunch, pulled out his Osmium Visa Card and bankrolled Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel’s The Daily Caller to the tune of $3 million bucks, reportedly.

Friess is cozy with the Goldwater Institute and Clint Bolick, down in Phoenix, Arizona.

And Foster was present at the infamous Koch Brothers secret meeting in Aspen, Colorado a story that the New York Times reported and ThinkProgress broke.

See “They’re Going After The Wisconsin Teachers”

Neil Patel is his Jackson Hole Neighbor and was Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. Oh, and Cheney’s a Jackson Hole neighbor, too.

Friess was the largest single donor ($300K) to the Latina Republican Tea Party governor’s race in New Mexico in 2010, as listeners of KVOT in Taos, New Mexico are well aware.

And Friess is one of the TOP donors to Scott Walker’s “Don’t Recall Me, Bro!” campaign in Wisconsin THIS year. ($100K so far.)

Walker’s Out-Of-State Supporters, Opponents
December 24, 2011 – 6:36pm | Bill Lueders

[...]

Nearly half of the $5.1 million raised by the embattled Republican governor since July 1 came from outside of Wisconsin. In all of 2010, when Walker won a hotly contested election that included a primary, just 8 percent of the more than $8 million he raised came from out of state.

[...]

The largest single contributor to Walker’s campaign was Bob J. Perry, a homebuilder in Houston, Texas, who gave $250,000. Perry is a prominent funder of conservative causes. He gave more than $4 million to Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, a group that helped torpedo 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. In 2010, he gave $7 million to American Crossroads, a Republican campaign fund.

The next biggest donors are Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein, who gave a total of $205,000. The couple lives in Lake Forest, Illinois, and own Uline Inc., a shipping and packaging business headquartered in Pleasant Prairie, Wis. (On Friday, Walker attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a new Uline plant set to open in Hudson, Wis.) Foster Friess, an investor in Jackson, Wyoming, also gave Walker $100,000.

Walker’s largest Wisconsin contributors were Thomas and Ruth Schuette of Wausau, who each gave $50,000

Friess is the fellow who spoke at the Tea Party Patriots’ Phoenix wingding last year.

And Friess is the fellow standing behind Rick Santorum for his  20-minute “Game On!” quasi-victory speech in Iowa.

Screencap from Fox News Latino Video is 19 min.

Oh, and he runs Santorum’s superPAC “Red, White and Blue” which just did a big ad buy in South Carolina.:

Pro-Santorum PAC in S.C. for $190k
Posted by CNN Senior Producer Kevin Bohn

UPDATE: Red, White and Blue will run ads in Greenville, Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina supported by $190,000 starting this weekend. The group says it spent a total of $537,000 in Iowa.

[...]

Conservative activist Foster Friess, a major Wyoming investment executive, confirmed to CNN he is one of the major supporters behind Red, White and Blue and vowed to CNN to help increase the group’s ability to put out a message supporting Santorum.

“I have been a fan since I met Rick Santorum in 1996,” Friess told CNN by telephone Thursday. He went to Iowa this week and campaigned alongside Santorum in a pickup truck along with a small group of others and spoke at one of the precinct caucuses on the former Senator’s behalf Tuesday night.

He refused to say how much he so far has donated to the group. “I don’t want my wife to find out,” he joked…

Always with the funny, that Foster.

My father was originally posted to the Jim Bridger National Forest when he entered the Forest Service — the National Forest around Jackson Hole, Teton National Park and Yellowstone — and he taught me something he learned in the forest, fresh from Kansas: if you want to know what’s going on, watch the animals.

If you want to know when a New York subway train is coming, watch the rats.

If you want to know where the odd admixture of Kochian and Dominionist interests is going, watch Foster Friess.

from his website: “Man Atop The Horse.” Friess grew up in Wisconsin
And made all his money in Delaware. But he is now rich enough to play “cowboy.” 

Courage.

Note: The J H Underground blog also caught this, and deserves your attention. Kudos.

The Foster Friess Series (all photos are linked and explained there)

• Tucker Carlson is Keith Olbermann; I am Glenn Beck (18 July)
• More Fake Cowboys (23 July)
• The Biggest Foundation That You’ve Never Heard Of (1 Aug. )
• Following Foster’s Buddies’ Money (10 Aug.)
• Foster’s Dominionist Pals (13 Aug.)
• Rubber Baby Buggy Bunglers (18 Aug.)
• Tucker Carlson – Profeshunel Jurnuhlizzum Strikes Agin! (12 Nov.)
• How Friess Fosters Tuckers Out – Conclusion (Dec. 31, 2010)