Crazed Right Wing Billionaire Joe Ricketts Found A Victim: Republican Congressman Walter Jones (NC)

Yesterday, consistent with his principles of non-interference in other countries, embattled North Carolina Republican Walter Jones was one of only 34 congressmen-- 32 Republicans + Alan Grayson of Orlando and Beto O'Rourke of El Paso-- to vote against the rush by the Establishment to spend a BILLION dollars in taxpayer money to prop up a Ukrainian government of dubious legitimacy. The banksters and IMF profiteers certainly wanted the bill to pass but the 32 congressmembers who wouldn't go along with it had, first and foremost, American citizens' best interests at heart.

Right after the vote, Alan Grayson told his supporters that "[a]s the committee debate on it showed, the bill reflects a Cold War mentality. Secretary Kerry testified unequivocally, in response to my question, that in a free and fair election, the Crimeans would have voted to join Russia. The United States has no strategic interest in whether Crimea is part of Russia or the Ukraine, as long as the result reflects Crimean self-determination. A bill like this robs us of our opportunity to work with the Russians on matters of very substantial strategic interest to us, like preventing nuclear proliferation in Iran and elsewhere, depriving Syria and countries like Syria of weapons of mass destruction, fighting terrorism in Central Asia, and winding down the war in Afghanistan."

Last week when Jones voted against a companion bill, the Ukraine Support Act, he told his constituents that “America must end our reckless cycle of spending money that we do not have and borrowing billions of dollars from foreign governments-- only  to funnel that borrowed money back overseas in the form of aid to countries like Ukraine. As of January 2014, the United States had borrowed over $131 billion from Russia, meaning that the aid we are sending to Ukraine is actually coming from the very country we claim to be opposing. This type of irresponsible fiscal policy only serves to burden future generations of American taxpayers with a crushing foreign debt.”

Monday, Emily Cahn of Roll Call asked if Walter Jones will be the first incumbent defeated by the teabaggers this cycle. TD Ameritrade Founder Joe Ricketts, who has funneled almost $15 million dollars of his own money into extreme right wing campaigns. He's put millions into his Ending Spending Fund. The only other big donors last cycle were Sheldon and Miriam Adelson ($1 million). Ricketts' PAC has already spent $156,000 smearing Jones as a "liberal." That's patently absurd-- and Jones' constituents know it.

[W]hile Republican strategists say the outside money may give Jones his most competitive challenge to date, they also downplay Jones’ chances for defeat in the May 6 primary.

“People see the money, people see the outside spending, they see who is spending from the outside-- you have Joe Ricketts’ PAC, which is a recognizable name-- and they see that and think [Jones] is vulnerable,” said one unaffiliated Republican operative. “But I just think Walter’s entrenched in that district. Walter’s father was a congressman from that district before him, and I just don’t see him as being vulnerable.”

Jones’ top primary challenger is Taylor Griffin, a former aide to President George W. Bush and operative at the communications firm Hamilton Place Strategies. He moved back to North Carolina to challenge the incumbent and has criticized Jones for his conservative credentials.

Jones entered the election year with $127,000 in cash on hand-- a meager war chest when compared to the might of the super PAC’s capabilities. The group spent $13 million last cycle, mostly to assist Republicans in the presidential and Senate races, according to Political MoneyLine. Jones’ first-quarter fundraising report, due April 15 to the Federal Election Commission, will shed light on whether he has picked up the pace in the wake of the primary challenge… [I]f the money keeps flowing into the district, Jones will have to quickly come up with the funds to defend himself in the six-week run-up to the primary.

…“It’s going to be a tough sell to say Walter Jones doesn’t have North Carolina values, but if they have money it will be real,” North Carolina Republican operative Carter Wrenn said… The incumbent’s votes over a 10-term career don’t put him squarely within any sortable group of members on Capitol Hill, something Republicans say could actually help him in a district with a strong libertarian lean.

“Walter Jones has been a household name for 50-plus years, so it’s a tall order in any stretch of imagination,” said another unaffiliated Republican operative in the state. “He’s been his own guy. If you ask about Walter Jones, people say he’s very much a social conservative and he does take stands sometimes that defy conventional political thinking. But people respect him for his reasons behind them all.”

It doesn't take more than a quick glance at Jones' official House website to see that he is a consistent mainstream conservative dedicated to rigid fiscal conservatism, far more so than the Republican Beltway Establishment. It's ironic that a PAC with the name Ending Spending Fund, financed by a lunatic fringe billionaire, would attack Jones, the Republican who stands far above most of his colleagues on actually ending spending. But as American Buddhist monk, Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, explained at Truthout Sunday, the kind of faux conservatism extremists like Rickets offer "is not so much a vision as an ideological cover for a rapacious collusion of corporate, military and state interests seeking to advance a predatory agenda. ...also gains wide traction with a naïve, mainly white, rural population by exploiting their biases and anxieties. ...the watchword of the conservative budget is austerity-- but for others only."