Last evening, delver rootnose had a short post last evening that asked who was behind an attack ad against Bernie Sanders. One of the first commenters mentioned that Ken Griffin, the richest resident of the state of Illinois, was one of the main principals of the SuperPAC behind the ad. Zaid Jilani of the Intercept has published a piece in The Intecept entitled “Hedge Fund Billionaires Fund Super PAC Ad Against Bernie Sanders and the Minimum Wage Hike” In this article, Jilani details just who is behind this Super PAC.
Progressives and others interested in good government should learn Ken Griffin and his record. He doesn’t have as high of a profile as the Koch brothers, but he is just as dangerous to the progressive agenda. Perhaps you know that billionaire Ken Griffin made a $2.5 million dollar donation to fellow billionaire Bruce Rauner which an Illinois newspaper termed the largest single donation in an Illinois governor’s race in the post-Watergate era. Perhaps you’ve heard about how he provided his private jet for candidate Bruce Rauner to use in his gubernatorial campaign in 2014. Don’t believe for a moment that he did this out of the goodness of his heart. Ken Griffin stands to make lots of money if Rauner’s right to work “reforms” get passed. Ken Griffin is also one of the billionaires behind Karl Rove’s American Crossroads Super PAC.
Clearly Ken Griffin is a plutocrat interested in thwarting democracy. As a hedge fund owner he stands to lose some of his profits if Bernie Sanders’ 0.5% speculation fee is passed to make public colleges and universities tuition free. Take the time to read Zaid Jilani's piece it’s a short piece and worth the effort. But I want to direct you to a 2012 interview that Ken Griffin gave to the Chicago Tribune’s Melissa Harris which shows just how much our democracy has been corrupted by money.
This interview gained a certain amount of notoriety in Illinois because people are not used to reading that “the ultrawealthy have 'insufficient influence.'” It is not for me to pillory an insulated billionaire for being the most tone deaf speaker since Leona Helmsley famously stated “only little people” pay taxes. I want to direct you to a couple of juicy paragraphs which shows just how pervasive corruption is in government.
Q. What about the amounts? Is it based on what the candidate asks you for? They vary a lot. You and Anne gave $200,000 to (Mayor) Rahm (Emanuel), for instance.
A. I was really proud to support Rahm. He is really one of the brightest men I've ever spent time with. And I've known Rahm for maybe 15 years. I believe our city and our state has some real challenges ahead of it, whether it's educating our children, whether it's dealing with the fiscal irresponsibility of past leaders. And I don't want to cast aspersions on anyone in particular. It's just where we are today. We're going to need to make some very important decisions about how to put our fiscal house back in order. And I think Rahm has the intellectual capacity to understand the issues and to make trade-offs and decisions that are going to have to be made. He and I are not on the same side of the aisle per se. We're not on the same side of a couple of different things. But the insights that he has and the determination he has are really important to solving the problems we face as a city.
Q. Where are you on the same page? Where are you not on the same page?
A. I actually spent some time with Rahm in the last couple weeks. He showed me around his new office. There were two photographs that he had on his wall. One was of him with Bill Clinton when he signed NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). That was a really bold thing for a Democratic president to do. And, if you think about the North American trade bloc, the United States, Canada and Mexico could not be more close, more cooperative, more unified. You don't even think about. You take it for granted every day. It's really one of the great accomplishments of post-World War II North American relationships.
The other photograph he had on the wall was when he was in the room when Bill Clinton signed a balanced budget for the U.S. government. Unemployment was 4 percent at the time. It was a great day in American history. I think Rahm and I share a lot of common interests in those accomplishments. I much prefer to sort of think about those moments than to find things to differ over. (Emphasis Mine.)
Now Rahm Emanuel is just not any politician. Whatever your opinion is of his politics, he is no hack. He is the epitome of the Democratic establishment. He was the national campaign director of the DCCC in 1988. In 1989 he was Richard Daley’s chief fund raiser. He was Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign finance director, and on the Goldman Sachs' payroll for $3,000.00 a month. After Bill Clinton’s victory, he joined the administration. His first appointment was as an Assistant to the President for Political Affairs and then as the Senior Advisor to the President for Policy and Strategy before resigning in 1998 to pursue a career on Wall St.
In 2002, Rahm Emanuel returned to the public sector as a Congressman succeeding future felon Governor Rod Blagojevich. Emanuel was chair of the DCCC from 2005 to 2007, and then chair of the House Democratic caucus. After the 2008 presidential election, Rahm Emanuel became President Obama’s Chief of Staff until resigning in October 2010 to run for the office of Mayor for the city of Chicago.
Now I could go on and on about how Rahm called liberal activists as being "f**king retarded, or how he and the Democratic establishment in Illinois sabotage progressive candidates in primaries. We could talk about how the “Democratic” Mayor of Chicago and the billionaire GOP Governor of Illinois are both members of the same exclusive Napa Valley wine club that costs $150,000 just to join.
But why would a billionaire who funds Karl Rove’s Super PAC fund a career Democrat?
Remember the two paragraphs where Ken Griffin listed Rahm’s accomplishments? Griffin rewarded Rahm Emanuel for his role in betraying the Democratic base. It is lucrative to betray the very people who elected you to office. It is still lucrative today as Ken Griffin dumped money to prop up Emanuel’s campaign against progressive insurgent candidate for mayor Jesus "Chuy" Garcia.
Earlier today Doug Henwood, wrote a piece examining the records of some of the left leaning economists who have been providing information to the New York Times buttressing the latest narrative from the Clinton campaign concerning the cost of Bernie Sanders’ “Big Goverment” utopian plans. My favorite is Henwood’s take down of Austan Goolsbee:
The “Mr. Goolsbee” quoted in the story is Austan Goolsbee, who was a long-time adviser to Barack Obama before he became president, and then served on Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. (During the 2008 campaign, Goolsbee was reported as having assured the Canadian government that Obama’s anti-NAFTA talk was “more reflective of political maneuvering than policy”—New York Times, 3/4/08.) Now Goolsbee teaches economics at the University of Chicago’s business school and is a consultant to hedge funds. A very left-leaning resume there.
Partisans view political conflict as being simply binary. Progressives too often have to fight a two front war. One front is against the crackpot conservatives and the other is against corrupted neoliberal establishment. The last thing the plutocrats and neoliberals want is for Bernie Sanders to clean out the culture of corruption. (Lobbyist Superdelegates, etc)