Intermission

There has been some confusion about the story (Part VII) that has been run this weekend. A lot of people 'got' it, but a number of readers didn't, so while I'm working on the story that's upcoming (hint: a lot of major dots are going to connect, and perhaps there is even evidence of an interstate conspiracy to commit fraud and other criminal mischief) I thought I'd explain it for those that were at sea.

So far, I've been concentrating on the small ex/quasi/crypto-libertarian cabal that's been running a 'secret legislature' all over the country since at least 1992. Unhappy with politicians, and unwilling to work through normal channels, they have used the initiative and referendum process that's available in 27 states to legislate THEIR agenda, all the while pretending that it's 'grass roots' democracy and the 'will of the people.'

Ironically, virtually every one that I've tracked down lives within a few blocks of a golf course, so there are definitely grass roots involved. Just not the kind we normally think of.

Part VII was meant to show you how their communications arm works, by tracking one story that the astroturf group "Americans for Limited Government" whipped into a mild media firestorm as PR for their "Kelo" initiatives throughout the country.

In Idaho, it's "This House is MY House," in Arizona, it's H.O.P.E., in California it's Prop. 90, in Washington state, it's i-933 ('i' = 'initiative'), etc.

I traced the whole Phillips Foundation scam, wherein, using their 501(c)3 status, the Phillips publishing empire gets to 'develop' young working journalists through completely tax-deductible grants topping off at $50,000 a year, to write ideologically slanted pieces that fit in well with the Regnery Publishing/Human Events/American Spectator agenda.

(One wonders where the 'suitable for publication' pieces so written are published.)

(One doesn't have to wonder that hard.)

And, finally, we see one of the recipients of that 'largesse' working for the Friends of Howie Rich and putting her 'journalistic' skills to good use in foisting off -- in the National Review Online -- as factual a bit of blatant propaganda specifically meant to whip voters into a frenzy that conveniently coincides with one of their petition drives in Oklahoma.

All the stops are pulled out, and no cheap spectacle is too vile to use. Still, one wonders how the former editor of a wine magazine who has written articles sneering at her adopted Chicago (because they're not brave like the New Yorkers she identifies herself with, coming from and being in New York, during 9/11) suddenly becomes a tearful advocate of poor black churches in Oklahoma.

Well, the wine stuff isn't her whole journalistic output: she's written astonishing "me" journalism pieces about how the French aren't to be worried about, since SHE had to visit old friends in France (between wine tastings, one presumes), and saw enough of Paris on the side to safely gauge their politics vis a vis ours. And articles on what stocks would make great graduation gifts in The Motley Fool, conveniently coinciding with HER graduation from the University of Chicago.

In 2004, she got her first fifteen minutes of fame when Michelle Malkin pumped her piece about a Syrian musician who'd been detained and released by Homeland Security, because one of the songs on his CD was about the "Mother of a MARTYR"!!!!

At press time, the Syrian musician was still playing Holiday Inns, and hadn't blown up any skyscrapers, bridges, dams or stadia, nor had he and his band hijacked any aircraft. But they WERE Arabs, after all, and one can't be too careful.

But, to serve the wishes of her millionaire employer, she is more than willing to suddenly flog the Martin Luther King cliche, to advance a property rights agenda that was written of, by and for millionaires.

Did I mention that her employer's wealth is in real estate and development?

I wanted to show you ALG in 'action' manipulating the media, all the way to conning yet another clueless New Yorker (in the NY TIMES) into writing about "bulldozers" sitting right outside the door of what is, in essence, a converted steel barn in a blighted area of the Tulsa, Oklahoma suburbs.

An Oklahoman friend of mine sent me a note that "eminent domain" was still a big issue in Oklahoma and that I didn't "get it."

Yes, I know that OSU in Stillwater is doing a lot of eminent domain takings to expand. My piano teacher in Laramie, Wyoming explained it all to me before she lost her house to University of Wyoming expansion in the mid-1960s.

But this isn't about emininant domain. This is about carpetbagging. This is about a vicious cadre of selfish (selfishness is literally a virtue to them -- if you don't believe me, read Ayn Rand. They all have.) millionaires legislating for their own pleasure, by using a process that was originally designed to CHECK this very sort of oligarchic abuse through their bribery and extortion of key legislators. The "people" of the states could pass laws, therefore, that the millionaires were blocking in the statehouses.

That they would hire a young right wing journalist on the make, with Ann Coulter stars in her eyes to assist them in doing it is entirely consistent and probably not even noteworthy.

But it doesn't have jack to do with OSU in Stillwater.

And I'm sorry if I've confused anyone.

When the next piece comes out, I shall endeavor to forge the chain of willful deception and political manipulation link by link so that it's VERY clear for all to see.

Now: back to the grindstone for me.

For you: have a smoke, buy some Raisinettes. We'll dim the house lights before the next act.

Courage.
.