Under Donohue’s leadership, the Chamber has forged a tight relationship with the Republican Party, even adopting a de facto “Waterloo” strategy to kill key proposals of President Obama’s agenda to thwart the momentum of progressive reforms overall. But by quietly bringing Fox News into his business strategy, Donohue and the executives at Fox News are blurring the lines between media and lobbying. While it is unclear exactly how long Fox News has been a business partner to the Chamber, Fox News has aggressively defended the Chamber during the Obama presidency:
MORT KONDRAKE: “Now, they’re attacking what they think are, you know, demons — the
insurance companies are unpopular, FOX News is right-wing, allegedly, and now the Chamber of Commerce is a big bad big business lobby, but who is next? They look for any enemy everywhere.” [Fox News, 10/20/09]BILL O’REILLY: “I didn’t even know this. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, pro-business organization, obviously, Chamber of Commerce wants commerce. And they say, look, the cap and trade stuff is going to lose jobs. You know, higher taxes on business is going to be crazy. Health care, way too expensive. We don’t need government run health care. Private industry can do it better. So the Obama administration says okay, we’re going to get these guys?” [Fox News, 10/21/09]
ANDREW NAPOLITANO: “Let’s see. The Chamber of Commerce represents enough businesses to employ, correct me if I’m wrong, about 115 million Americans, well more than half the workforce. Question: Why were you guys not invited to the White House today?” [12/3/09]
NEIL CAVUTO: “All right, well, better, but still bad, and American business leader still worried that this health-care thing could be the death of them. Now first on FOX, reaction of the guy whose group represents, get this, 3 million American businesses. Tom Donohue is the CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and he joins me right now from the roof of his fine building in Washington, overlooks that thing called the White House.” [9/17/09]
In the last quote, Fox News’ Neil Cavuto introduced Donohue (a frequent guest of his show) by falsely declaring that the Chamber represents 3 million businesses. In reality, about 300,000 businesses have some level of membership to the Chamber.
The main purpose of the Chamber is to launder money from large industries and multinational corporations to affect public policy. For instance, large
No comments:
Post a Comment