Friday, April 9, 2021

Tim Eyman sets example for Stephen Miller on how to "earn" a living the dishonest way

 

In the state of Washington, Tim Eyman is someone you “love” to hate. Eyman has never really had a “real” job; coming out of Washington State University he used his business degree to set-up a home mail order “business” engraving Greek letters into wristwatches for college organizations (like fraternities). He supposedly made a living from something that was nothing more than a vanity item for a few years until—“inspired” by local right-wing curmudgeon Dave Ross—he got involved in signature collecting for a referendum opposing a $250 million public funding proposal to replace the old and ugly King Dome for Mariners baseball team. The “no” vote won, but with the Japanese owners threatening to sell the team, then Gov. Mike Lowry pushed through a bond levy that taxed restaurants and car rentals to pay for a new stadium.

This upset Eyman so much that he decided to become a one-man wrecking crew for anything he didn’t like. Eyman occasionally got himself involved in social issues—he was behind the anti-affirmative action I-200, and he tried and failed to gather enough signatures for a referendum to strike sexual orientation from the discriminated class—but mainly he was an anti-tax guy. He won some victories here and there, notably on car tabs and the requirement of a two-thirds supermajority in the state legislature to pass taxes, although the latter was ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court.

Eyman basically made his “living” being what one “tongue-in-cheek” initiative proposal sought to do, to declare him officially a “horse’s ass.” There were always questions about how Eyman was using money to pay for his referendum and initiative scams; following a 2002 Seattle Post-Intelligencer expose, state investigators discovered that Eyman had  paid himself almost a quarter-million dollars after claiming that he took no money for personal use from contributors to his “Permanent Offense” campaign. At the time, Eyman confessed to being a hypocrite to pretend to be morally “superior” to his opponents, but promised to be “upfront” about his expectation to be paid for his “work.”

But Eyman is as corrupt as he was a liar. In 2019, his “associates” in his signature gathering campaigns were fined $1 million for “secretly” funneling money into Eyman’s personal accounts, and this past February the Associated Press reported he was ordered to pay $2.6 million in penalties and banned from any financial dealings with PACS, his or anyone else’s. Eyman was accused of “soliciting kickbacks, laundering donations and flouting campaign finance law in a long-running scheme to enrich himself.” The problem wasn’t so much that Eyman took the money for personal use, but his failure to disclose to donors how much he was enriching himself with their money was, and knowing how much of their money was going into Eyman’s pockets would likely have soured many people on contributing to his initiative campaigns at all—most of them which have been either wholly or partially struck-down in the courts anyways.

Of course, Eyman isn’t the only thief in town trying to earn something less than an honest buck. Take for instance anyone who associated themselves with Trump. Vanity Fair noted that former graduates of Trump’s administration have found homes on Fox News; Kayleigh McEnany has a seat on the oddly-named Outnumbered, which is the right-wing version of The View. Chris Wallace is one of the few at Fox who actually qualifies as being “outnumbered.”  Sarah Sanders was a “contributor” until she decided to run for governor in Arkansas, while that frequent Trump “explainer” on Fox, Kellyanne Conway, appears to be heading in a different direction, not surprising since her husband was one of the founders of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project (and there was that insurrection thing). Conway is currently writing a “tell-all” book that has been suggested by “insiders” will not be particularly flattering to Trump and his minions.

Mike Pompeo is hanging out with a right-wing “think-tank” while he contemplates a presidential run in 2024; if it is based on his “accomplishments” as Secretary of State, he will have even less credibility than Hillary Clinton. Ben Carson, whose tenure at HUD could be described as turning it into a homeless shelter for policy vagrants, is supposedly seeking to set-up a youth organization which is supposed to be even more right-wing than the old Boy Scouts—something called the “Little Patriots,” which wants to instill the spirit of the “real history of America,” presumably “history” that leaves out the parts about how white “settlers” created a country stealing the lands of Native Americans, used slave labor, and imposed imperialism in this hemisphere and elsewhere.

But out of all of Trump’s minions, who could be more radioactive than Stephen Miller? On occasion he shows up on Fox News, but as a “guest” for which he isn’t supposed to be paid a dime. It isn’t clear that his wife Katie has a job either, and the Millers have had to sell their luxury condo in Washington D.C., for a somewhat lesser habitat nearby. What hasn’t “moved” is Miller’s taste for evil (he even looks evil), and so let’s dispense with the bullshit—Miller is a pure and unadulterated racist, and you can throw the “legal” and “illegal” crap out the window, because Miller has made clear that if he had his way, this country would be populated by people with pallid complexions only. If the people crossing the border were white, he’d be trying to find ways to make it easier for them immigrate “legally.”

But talk is cheap and it doesn’t pay the bills, and organizations that deny that they are hate groups don’t seem eager to invite—let alone pay—for a Miller travelling road show making racist speeches. So what is an unemployable white supremacist to do to make money? Miller has come-up with an Eyman-like scheme to both get stoned on his Nietzschean Kool-Aid—which one of his “mentors,” neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, claimed was his own principle “inspiration”—and find a way to make it pay the bills too. Miller—along with former “Freedom Caucus” legislative terrorist and Trump chief-of-staff, Mark Meadows—has come up with something called  American First Legal, a front for conning people out of their money to finance efforts to blow-up Biden administration policies in the courts. Here is a screen capture of the white nationalist agenda Miller wants to “fight” for:



Like the Republican health care “plan” website, it links to nowhere, doesn’t provide any details about what they mean by such things as “equal rights under the law,”  and the “join the fight” only asks for an email address, so someone can get in touch with you to “ask” for money—and lots of it. Frankly, I wonder if there are many people dumb enough to give Miller their money, especially after reports of how Trump was forced to refund $122 million in campaign contributions to trusting folks who were tricked into making repeat donations without their knowledge. In a Wall Street Journal report, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero pointed out that many Trump policies that Miller was behind were “overreach” and “disregarded the plain language of statutes and legal precedent,” and thus just begging to be disputed.

Like the numerous lawsuits Trump’s stooges brought to overturn the 2020 election, it is to be expected that Miller’s “legal” activities will have little success, although he may initially forestall the inevitable by putting cases before judges installed by Trump who place partisan politics above the law. If Miller piles-up a secession of defeats, then one may expect donations from even the most rabid believers in the “war on whites” to dry-up, and Miller will have to find a real “job,” and that would surely be a serious come-down for a fanatical racist who no one but another fascist like Trump would have given the time of day to, instead of being told to leave the room, and not to come back, ever.

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