You may not be able to buy justice, but you can buy a few justices. One of the things overlooked in most of the reporting about the Supreme Court’s decision on ObamaCare is that the lead plantiff (and sole source of legal funds) in the case was the National Federation for Independent Businesses (NFIB), which purports to be the “nation’s leading small business association” and “the voice of small business”.
But as they say, follow the money. Where does the NFIB get its funding? According to an analysis of their IRS filings, they received more than $10 million in funding from just ten contributions (and $8.5 million of that came from just four contributions, each more than $1 million). I don’t know many small businesses who make million dollar contributions. Indeed, although non-profits are not required to reveal their contributors, we do know from other IRS filings that NFIB received a contribution of $3.7 million from Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS in 2010, and likely a similar amount in 2011.
Compare this to how much they received in membership dues from actual small businesses — $230. I’m not kidding.
NFIB claims to represent small businesses, but a recent poll shows that half of small business owners want ObamaCare to remain intact, either as is or with minor changes, while only a third of them want it overturned.
Even more interesting is that after small business owners hear more about the law, the number of people supporting it goes up to 56%, while the number opposing it goes down to 28%. So with additional information, twice as many small businesses support ObamaCare than oppose it.
Maybe NFIB should be spending money on educating small businesses on ObamaCare, rather than on expensive legal challenges.
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I’m sort of amazed at how brazen the right is about this sort of thing. I mean, it’s kind of obvious that even their name “NF for Independent Businesses” is just an outright lie. Don’t good people dislike liars? Shouldn’t an organization at least try to hide the fact that even their name is a lie? Exactly how does the “conservative” mind process this information when faced with it?
Outright lying to deceive the voting public and the citizens of the United States, in court cases or elections, should be illegal and punishable.
They lie and they lie because they know that the general public doesn’t pay close attention to these things, and even when they do they forget by election time.
They lie because they know they can get away with it every time.
As I’ve said before, politicians and political organizations that lie should be required to spend just as much time and money publicly apologizing for the lie as they did on the lie.
Republicans should be happy to do this, since even Reagan apologized for lying.
Welcome to 1984
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