Saturday, August 28, 2010

RON JOHNSON CPA? BRADLEY FOUNDATION FUNDS FREEDOM WORKS PAC

FREEDOM WORKS PAC,
FUNDED BY BRADLEY FOUNDATION,
ENHANCES JOHNSON'S RESUME
HE IS NOT A LICENSED WISCONSIN CPA

Special to the Readers of Plenty of Horne

By Michael Horne

And The Plenty of Horne Hound Dog Team

Ron Johnson's senate campaign website includes his endorsement from Freedom Works PAC, the right-wing Tea Party organization headed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

According to the endorsement:

Johnson is both a Certified Public Accountant, and the creator of hundreds of manufacturing jobs. Given the current record-breaking levels of both the unemployment rate and the federal deficit, these are two skill sets desperately needed in the Senate.

Johnson's own biography is more circumspect, noting merely that he had worked as an accountant in the past while he was creating hundreds of manufacturing jobs.

An examination of the records of the State of Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing shows that while there are loads of Johnsons serving as Certified Public Accountant, Ron Johnson is not one of them.

However, who's to complain if an outside group like Freedom Works engages in a little credential enhancement on behalf of a candidate like Johnson, whose resume is rather thin?

BRADLEY FOUNDATION GIVES $270,000 TO FREEDOM WORKS

An article in Politico this month entitled "Tea Party's Growing Money Problem" notes how Freedom Works receives considerable funding from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee ... but for "policy research and development."

"Likewise, the president of the Lynde and Henry [sic] Bradley Foundation, which grant reports show has contributed $195,000 to Americans for Prosperity and $270,000 to FreedomWorks between the time of their split and the end of last year, said his group’s focus will remain on policy research and development, rather than grass-roots mobilization.

“We are not directly funding their tea party activities,” foundation President Mike Grebe told POLITICO. “We’re funding public education programs run by Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, both of which are very active in the tea party movement, but our monitoring of that would be indirectly, as opposed to having direct contacts with tea party people.”

So, the Bradley folks will fund the ideology, but not soil their hands with "direct contacts with tea party people."

This tends to strengthen the argument of those who believe the Tea Party movement is a phony populist organization whose members are unwittingly advancing the agenda of the power elite they claim to disdain.

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