Following up on her reporting from last week where Rachel Maddow called Herman Cain a "performance artist and "the practical joke no one is getting", Maddow took us for a little walk down memory lane on the scandal ridden Tim Phillips, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist who all have ties to the Koch brothers and Herman Cain's campaign manager, Mark Block.
Cain's headaches with these charges of sexual harassment or possibly sexual assault after the accusations made today are not the only troubles his campaign is facing by far.
As Rachel reminded us, we recently had Cain the complaints filed against his campaign by CREW, calling himself "the Koch brothers' brother from another mother.":
On Friday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over allegations that Prosperity USA had illegally funneled donations to the Cain's campaign through Americans for Prosperity. At the time, Prosperity USA, the Wisconsin arm of Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, was operated by Cain campaign manager Mark Block.
"It is not sufficient for the Cain campaign to investigate itself," CREW executive director Melanie Sloan said in a media advisory. "Rather, the FEC -- the federal agency charged with enforcing campaign finance laws -- must look into the matter."
Cain first met Block while working as a speaker for Americans for Prosperity in 2005.
The New York Times has more on the allegations against the Cain campaign here -- Cain to Review Links to a Nonprofit.
With the news that convicted lobbyist just got out of prison and is now out there trying to sell his new book as we just saw during the 60 Minutes interview this weekend, it was nice to see all of them called out properly for just how big of crooks they are.
Rachel reported on Tim Phillips and his ties to Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed back in March of this year and she did a nice job of going back through some of that material in the segment above.
Just go read the post above for a reminder of the scams they were running on conservative Christian voters and workers in the Northern Mariana Islands and basically managing to dupe those church goers into voting for laws that would get the "Made in U.S.A. label on clothing made in sweat shops where women were forced into prostitution and were forced to have abortions if they got pregnant. And then there's the other scam they were running pitting these church goers against American Indians who were wanting to open casinos and taking both sides for a ride.
Although we never got to see Ralph Reed or Tim Phillips or Grover Norquist wind up in jail as well as Rachel noted here, it doesn't mean they're not still out there running the same kind of scams on Christian conservatives to this day.
Case in point, here's the latest scam from Ralph Reed -- Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition partners with Big Oil:
The Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Presidential Forum was supposed to offer a platform where the Republican presidential candidates could share their views on conservative social values.
So why did the candidates spend so much time talking about energy?
It turns out the event was sponsored by the Iowa Energy Forum. A little online digging reveals the group, which most voters have probably never heard of, is an arm of America's Energy Forum, an organization sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute. Read on....
She wrapped things up by showing the viewers a bit of Herman Cain's performance over the weekend with Newt Gingrich where during their "debate", he had a little trouble with a question on whether he would favor either a “defined benefit plan” or “premium support” for Medicare and told Gingrich, "You go first."
And she ended with a little reminder to those so-called "values voters" who might have some remorse over voting for those laws they were duped into back when Abramoff was running his scams... it's the same old team reassembling itself with the Herman Cain campaign.
