Friday, April 11, 2014

Political con artist's goal in RTW4Less exposed in one of greatest editorials ever

The St. Louis Post Dispatch exposes the greedy political con artists who deliberately sow nastiness and partisanship by pushing right-to-work-for-less in state legislatures.
Teamsters rallying against RTW4Less in Missouri recently

In a classic of editorial writing, the Post Dispatch explains what's really at work behind the right-to-work controversy in Missouri: Money.

Here's the short version: Missouri House Speaker Tim Jones is term limited. He needs money to run for statewide office. Political grifter Grover Norquist funnels dark money -- undisclosed contributions from billionaires and corporations -- to politicians like Jones. The Post-Dispatch explains:
Mr. Norquist uses ... his access to big money donors like the Koch brothers, and his ability — honed during his alliance with ex-lobbyist-turned-felon Jack Abramoff — to obscure the source of that money by running it through various shell organizations.
This is what will happen because Tim Jones brought right-to-work to a vote on the House floor last week, knowing it would fail because of strong bipartisan opposition:
Mr. Norquist and his friends now have the names of 30 Republicans who refused to do their bidding. They can ask their donors for money to target those Republicans with advertisements, to recruit future candidates for nasty primaries, to make Missouri even more divided than it already is. Eventually they hope to find 82 stooges who will pass legislation turning the state into their vision of an oligarchical utopia, a reverse Robin Hood society in which the rich take from the poor. 
There will now be Missouri political consultants — oxpeckers, we like to call them — lining up to take on those 30 members of the GOP. Many are from the St. Louis region, where they represent businesses and workers who care about middle-class jobs and wages. They will be under pressure to throw their constituents under the bus...
This is the Missouri Legislature that Grover Norquist, Washington insider, wants. It has nothing to do with Missouri and it has less than nothing to do with improving the state’s economy. 
It is about a hungry vulture looking for a carcass to feed his insatiable hunger.
Read the whole thing here.