Proving Machine
I wonder why Maria Pappas is tied in so closely to the scum at the Heartland Insitute? I’ve voted for her in the past, but would have to reconsider that in the future. She’s probably about to switch parties in any case, and join the Tea Baggers.
Heartland also planned to spend $210,000 to help Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas tour the nation to speak about municipal debt, according to one document. Pappas lost to Barack Obama in the 2004 Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat. Pappas confirmed this in a phone interview, saying what Heartland was doing was exposing a “financial tsunami” of municipal debt.
(click here to continue reading INFLUENCE GAME: Leaks show group’s climate efforts.)
Embers
from the DeSmogBlog documents:
We [Heartland Institute] have tried in the past to host half-day (or shorter) programs in state capitals, with mixed success. We plan for eight such events in 2012, with some of them perhaps using Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas as a draw…
Maria Pappas, Cook County (IL) Treasurer, has discovered that municipalities and other taxing districts in Cook County are much deeper in debt than is widely understood, or even understood by elected officials in Cook County. She has documented a looming financial crisis, driven largely by employee pension and health care promises, that could have catastrophic results for residents and businesses in the county. She warns that other counties in the U.S. are probably facing similar disasters. She’s eager to speak out on the issue not only in Illinois, but nationwide.
Heartland has agreed to work with Treasurer Pappas’s staff and other allies on three things:
(a) a research and publishing effort that results in one or more Heartland Policy Studies that factcheck, report, and interpret the Treasurers’ findings,
(b) a national communications campaign consisting of distribution of the studies, news releases, op-eds, and other promotional activities, and
(c) a national speaking tour featuring Treasurer Pappas, perhaps with events in state capitals held in conjunction with our allies in a dozen or half-dozen states. We anticipate that this project will cost about $210,000. The anonymous donor has pledged $105,000 toward this project. We are circulating a proposal to potential donors.
We don’t yet know exactly what Ms. Pappas and her buddies were going to say, but odds are it won’t be a liberal position. In the same document (PDF), Heartland also plans to:
- circumvent the FDA and get drugs approved without study
- continue to spread lies about climate change, and fund scientists without morals to do so
- Operation Angry Beaver – support incumbent Governor Scott Walker in his bid to avoid recall in Wisconsin
- Push for more “Charter” schools
- Outreach to the 1 Percenters in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and other bankers, and libertarian-friendly financiers
- Get their anti-climate change agenda taught in K-12 school systems
- Push for more hydraulic Fracking
and others. None of these projects are for the betterment of humanity, just for enrichment of the few. Sad to note that a member of the Democratic Party and the current Cook County Treasurer is a fellow traveller with the Heartland Institute.