ECI PAC Gives Freshman Senator Cotton a Million Dollars

Digging up those Facts ... for over 10 years.

ECI PAC Gives Freshman Senator Cotton a Million Dollars

By jamess

Wednesday Mar 11, 2015 · 7:29 PM PDT

2015/03/11 · 19:29

The Freshman Senator: Tom Cotton R-AR, and primary sponsor to that "just kidding" Letter to Iran.

EIC: Right Wing PAC devoted to keeping the Middle East a powder keg of turmoil.

Emergency Committee for Israel

on Right Web -- Tracking militarists’ efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy -- Feb 10, 2014

The Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) is a neoconservative pressure group launched in July 2010 to promote militarist, "pro-Israel" U.S. policies. A frequent ECI tactic is to publish advertisements that attack politicians who question one-sided U.S. support for Israel. It also publishes open letters to political figures and hosts a website that provides information about political races and highlights ECI's concerns regarding Israel's security.
[...]
On Iran

Like most members of the "Israel Lobby" in the United States, ECI has promoted a hardline U.S. stance on Iran's nuclear program. In late 2013, the group released a video entitled "Obama's March to War" that selectively incorporated apparently contradictory statements by President Obama on a host of issues. The video then ended with Obama stating during a presidential debate with Mitt Romney that Iran will not get a nuclear weapon during his presidency, which was immediately followed by a nuclear detonation and a mushroom cloud.[3]
[...]

Ad Campaigns

ECI has targeted a number of political figures and liberal groups. In early 2013, for instance, the group emerged at the forefront of a neoconservative effort, which was orchestrated in part by Kristol, to sink Barack Obama's nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) to head the Department of Defense in early 2013. Using language similar to an op-ed published by Kristol, ECI launched advertisements accusing the Vietnam veteran Hagel of being weak on Iran and hostile towards Israel.[8]

You know, Bill Kristol the perpetual fixture of Sunday Morning News shows, who grinningly told us, time and time again:

[The war in Iraq] "could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East"

Well, apparently talking us into foreign wars, was not enough for this guy -- he had to channel his American Domination ideology into a 'Dialing for Senators' ~~prank~~ operation:

Senator who spearheaded letter to Iran got $1 million from Kristol’s ‘Emergency C’tee for Israel’

by Philip Weiss, mondoweiss.net -- The War of Ideas in the Middle East -- Mar 10, 2015

The U.S. media have been sadly incurious about the origins of yesterday’s unprecedented Open Letter of 47 Republicans to the Iranian leadership seeking to block the president’s likely deal with Iran. The press has portrayed the letter as the work of Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, a 37-year-old freshman senator so new to the limelight that the New York Times got his name wrong on first impression.
[...]
Like Bill Kristol of the Emergency Committee for Israel:

Cotton open letter: “Just so you know, we’re a constitutional democracy. Congress (or next president) has a say.” Dem response: Hysteria.
[...]
There’s a reason for Williams’s suspicion. Kristol’s Emergency Committee for Israel gave Tom Cotton nearly $1 million in his race for the Senate just five months ago, Eli Clifton reported. “Cotton received $960,250 in supportive campaign advertising in the last month.”

If you want to know how or why ... "Just follow the money" ...

And Freshman Senator Cotton's "interest" in being the bold new face for this latest round of Republican buffoonery?

Well, that was just a bit south of a Million Bucks. Not a bad payday, if you endure the not-so-grin-worthy fallout. Hoping it will fade, by the time that next Election Cycle rolls around ...

Emergency Cmte for Israel -- opensecrets.org

2014:
Cotton, Tom R AR Senate $960,250 $960,250 $0 Winner

[H/T to Glen the Plumber, for the lead and some links.]

Here's a bit more about the "brain-trust" behind Bill Kristol and his EIC Money-changing, foreign-policy scuttling machine ...

The Emergency Committee for Israel Cries Wolf

by Connie Bruck, NewYorker.com -- March 5, 2012

In the last few days, [...] the Emergency Committee for Israel moved into high gear. E.C.I., which aims to be the most pro-Israel of all pro-Israel groups—and is the brainchild of Bill Kristol, a leading neoconservative -- has a Super PAC, and it has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this most recent advocacy, in what is surely a kickoff for the coming campaign months. In a two-pronged maneuver, E.C.I. sought to intimidate critics of Netanyahu, and of Israel’s most powerful American backers, for the escalating drive to war with Iran, and to damage Obama.
[...]
The other E.C.I. board members are Gary Bauer, a Christian Zionist who heads the lobby group American Values, and is a member of the executive board of evangelical pastor John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel, and Rachel Abrams, the wife of Elliott Abrams, who in 1991 pleaded guilty to criminal charges of having withheld information from Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal, and was Deputy National Security Adviser under President George W. Bush.
[...]

[Anti-Defamation League Abraham] Foxman went on to say that his clash with E.C.I. is not new. “The last time we had to correct them, it was on the issue of Occupy Wall Street. They said it was permeated, controlled, by anti-Semites and anti-Israel people, and we said, no, they’re there, but it’s not controlled, it’s not permeated! They happen to be there, but that is not what the movement is about.”

Money may not be able to 'buy you Love' -- but it sure can buy you a few dozen News Cycles and some sizable International waves too.

And perhaps a Boatload of Grief too, if it turns out your adversary is much more politically savvy than you are.

Just ask Kristol if he has anymore 'lead balloons' like that one, that he wants to float anytime soon. Perhaps, the next one can pre-emptively terminate, his not so "terrific" war-monging career?

Comments are closed on this story.