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This morning the Washington Post writes that the US Chamber of Commerce sought to pay a "respected economist" $50,000 to author a study attacking health care reform. The Chamber planned to use the paid-for study in its anti-health care campaign:
Step two, according to the e-mail, appears to assume the outcome of the economic review: "The economist will then circulate a sign-on letter to hundreds of other economists saying that the bill will kill jobs and hurt the economy. We will then be able to use this open letter to produce advertisements, and as a powerful lobbying and grass-roots document."
That’s a questionable definition of a "grass-roots document." But it turns out this isn’t the first time the US Chamber has had that idea.
Earlier this year, an organization funded by the US Chamber of Commerce, "The Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs," released two reports by "noted economist" Anne Layne-Farrar and "respected Professor" Richard Epstein attacking the Employee Free Choice Act. The Chamber went on to use the studies in its campaign against the bill and produce advertisements for the same. Art Levine tells us how:
Yet business interests have used Layne-Farrar’s study and that of prolific legal scholar Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago to tell a different story. Ads citing the “600,000” statistic appeared on Politico and other political insider publications aimed at buttressing anti-union lobbying that targets moderate senators such as Arlen Specter and Blanche Lincoln, who subsequently backed away from the EFCA legislation.
Epstein, by some measures the third-most cited law professor in the country, has issued two major reports and five op-eds for the Wall Street Journal and other publications denouncing EFCA as a job-killing, unconstitutional “regime.” His wide-ranging attack on the pro-union bill for Stanford University’s Hoover Institution was paid for by the same Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs that subsidized Layne-Farrar’s work.
The news here isn’t that the US Chamber wants to buy off economists to sabotage legislation. It’s that they got caught this time.
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The US Chamber also announced a huge $100 million propaganda campaign this summer to combat “anti-business” ideas among the general public. I haven’t seen much attention given to this but the scale of it is enormous, on a different order of magnitude than even the Chamber’s health care effort.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/16/767410/-US-Chamber-of-Commerce-Launches-Sweeping-Campaign-of-Propaganda
It got attention in the DC press, which is where it’s supposed to play for the Chamber. Besides, they tried launching it twice – the initial idea was launched this summer, and they had what amounted to a re-launch this fall in the beginning of the shitstorm surrounding the Chamber.
It’s essentially an entity which the Chamber can use to hold politicians and legislation hostage… the consumer financial protection agency is one of its early targets.
But it has got play where it counts for the Chamber. CNBC tried to argue otherwise but got smacked down at Think Progress:
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/06/12/cnbc-and-the-chamber/
For all things psuedo-grassroots, the place to be is the Rachel Maddow Show. No one has even come close to exposing this sham in corporate America.
And she has the guts to invite the bastards right on her show and witheringly deconstruct them before a national audience. I cannot help but ominously wonder though: how long is NBC [Bilderberg down to the bone] going to let her do this? She is on the air night after night screaming, the emperor is stark fucking naked! Emperor Obama, for example.
But more pressing still, how do we go about convincing the American voters this is something they should be out on the streets in Washington protesting? Why do the reactionaries on talk radio and Fox News always nab them first? The left better come up with a new plan to change this or things could really start getting ugly out there.
WTF are you saying?
Esperanto?
Damn, yer out there . . . lemme know when ya publish a guide to read thru what ya said.
I swear, Monty Python couldn’t write such gibberish about reality if ya paid them.
At least Monty Python had credibility.
Sigh.
Are they Tax Exempt like the right wing and WHY?
jo6pac
Who? What? When? Why? Where?
Ya elude me.
Gibberish, you say.
An ad hominem? Nope, I will not bite. Did that over at The New Republic and the free speech liberals there blocked my posts. They censored me, kicked me out. Called me an anti-semitic Jew hating Nazi in The Spine. Really.
Made a resolution: When someone makes me the argument, move on.
On the other hand, what reference threw you—Bilderberg?
No referents.
Just the rhetoric.
Still throws me.
Pure paid for corporate shit speak.
Inane, insane.
Wish I knew more I words.
Elliott, if that’s you, stop teasin.
*G*
US Chamber’s been crap for decades, and you know it.
Hell, all the local Chambers I’ve ever been exposed to since the mid 70′s were all about funding and revenue for the Chamber, before they were for the issues.
Yer killin me, Elliott . . . ;-)
But the snark is strong within ya.
The reason I read ya.
*G*
You say: Pure paid for corporate shit speak
I say:
hmm…
I’m Rachel Maddow’s biggest booster and you accuse me of being a corporate shill?
I don’t get it.
Or is that the point? ; o )
Michael thanks for the read.
The US Chamber continues to out itself, and do injustice for the employees, unemployed and the masses it purports to represent.
Thanks again for keeping the pressure on this useless org, and thanks FDL and Mz. Hamsher for enabling this critique on going of Teh Chamber Of Death. Er. Commerce.
So many fronts, so many battles, so many adversaries to duel to save the nation, to save the working class, which is the HEART of the nation (yes, I still believe that).
*G*
Is Thomas J. Donohue to blame for the Chamber’s regression to wingnuttia?
watertiger is upstairs!
Late Night: The Grifters II – It Takes One to Know One
Anti-employee? Give me a break. There is a reason less than 8% of the private sector is in unions. This would seem to indicate most people feel it is the unions who are anti-employee.
I challenge one person on here to find a poll, in which the respondents were told about eliminating the secret ballot, showing majority support for EFCA. No one here can do it, because no such poll exists.
And the sarcastic tone and the use of scare quotes when describing Richard Epstein shows how fucking clueless those on this site are. He is perhaps the most famous and respected expert in the entire country when it comes to workplace and labor laws and the effects on the economy. This is from the Wikipedia article on him:
“Epstein is considered one of the most influential legal thinkers of modern times.”
That this site seems to not know who he is, and is actually denigrating him, is a stunning testament to how fucking ignorant those who run this site are. Hey, get out of your fucking echo chambers.
I wonder, will this site be doing the same thing when the AFL-CIO commissions a study? Evidently the morons who run this site believe these organizatiions work for free.
The Obama Record: Record unemployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments.