This disgusting new commercial is from the Stop Hillary PAC, with Dan Backer as treasurer. (Imagine if one of these people was your family member, how gut-wrenching it would be to see them used this way.) And here's the funny thing: Backer and his buddies are getting rich from this, and all the dozens of other PACs he oversees:
Dan Backer is the treasurer of about 40 political hybrid PACs that have popped up recently. According to The Washington Post, he is an attorney who came up with the concept of hybrid PACs and was the lead attorney responsible for getting them legalized. His PACs, which include the Stop Hillary PAC, have raised millions of dollars, but very little of it has gone to benefit candidates.
A look at the Stop Hillary PAC’s financial reports reveals that a hefty amount of the money raised is going to consultants. During the initial part of the 2014 election cycle, the PAC raised $250,500. Of that amount, $151,413 went to consultants. An organization called Campaign Solutions has received $144,435, and another one, Strategic Fundraising, received $141,618.
As of May, Stop Hillary PAC had raised half a million dollars, more than any other anti-Hillary PAC.
Meanwhile, its contributions to candidates have been measly. According to The Washington Post, the PAC has only given $25 each to five federal candidates (the maximum allowed contribution to a federal candidate is $5,000 in the primary and $5,000 in the general election).
So this isn't even some sincere expression of concern. It's a shameless attempt to gin up the outrage machine -- and ring up the cash register. KA-CHING!!! But that's not all, because these guys are also part of Groundswell, the shadowy org where Ginni Thomas, Clarence Thomas's wife, works behind the scenes. This is all part of their "30 front" assault to make over the country to fit their own insane vision.
As many of us already know, the Republicans knew there was a security problem at Benghazi. They just didn't want to give the administration the funding they needed to secure the compound:
But hidden beneath the GOP campaign is the fact that House Republicans voted to cut nearly $300 million from the U.S. embassy security budget. When asked if he voted to cut the funds this morning on CNN, Chaffetz said, “Absolutely“:
O’BRIEN: Is it true that you voted to cut the funding for embassy security?CHAFFETZ: Absolutely. Look, we have to make priorities and choices in this country. We have — think about this — 15,000 contractors in Iraq. We have more than 6,000 contractors, private army there for President Obama in Baghdad.
And we’re talking about can we get two dozen or so people into Libya to help protect our forces? When you’re in tough economic times, you have to make difficult choices how to prioritize this.
When you're in the throes of self-imposed austerity, "What difference does it make?"
You'd almost think they wanted those people to die.
Amirite?
