[Blellurgews]

In reading the coverage on the possible overturning of Obamacare on the Drudge Report the other day, I came across an article that referred to a group named the "Small Business Majority" that was used as a counterpoint to the idea that small businesses want to see Obamacare go away.

http://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/su...-decision.html

Having to turn back the clock to the day before the health-care reform law was enacted is the option most feared by entrepreneurs, according to the Small Business Majority, a lobbying group, which released a poll this month showing 56 percent of business owners surveyed wanted the act upheld. In looking in to this group, their sole mission in life seems to be to shill for Obamacare and government energy regulation. They allege to be a group that represents small businesses that believe that Obamacare and EPA regulation on emissions can actually be good for small businesses. Doing a Google search, you can see them used as a reference in Huffington Post articles, Think Progress, and a host of other left-wing press organs.

Check out their website, you'll get a laugh: http://www.smallbusinessmajority.org/

The existence of this group is rather disturbing. First, they commission push-polls that give them the results they are looking for. Then various news organizations write stories about these polls to muddy the waters of public opinion regarding health care and environmental laws. Then when a true pro-small business group (made up of actual small business owners) is quoted in an article as coming out against some regulation/law that will hurt their chances to make a profit (as most regulation does), this group is trotted out to offer a counterpoint. Devious. Extremely devious.

Of course, the Obama administration and the once Democrat-controlled congress used this group to full effect. When Obamacare was being worked out, the CEO, John Arensmeyer testified before congress and was brought in by the administration to check the "We're working with Small Businesses" box. Devious.

In the course of my research, I found a questioning blog post about this group in, of all places, the New York Times:

http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...ness-majority/

The group has been around since 2004, founded by a tech entrepreneur named John Arensmeyer. “We really felt there needed to be a more sort of measured, pragmatic voice that was not ideological in the public policy discussions around small-business issues,” he says. Chief among its positions is that bearing the cost for effective health care reform is a “shared responsibility” — shared among government, individuals and employers.

Small Business Majority has no membership — if it did, Mr. Arensmeyer says, it could no longer objectively represent all of small business, since memberships are by definition self-selecting. Nor is it funded by small businesses; instead the organization depends almost entirely on foundation grants. (A related political action committee, which Mr. Arensmeyer describes as all but defunct now, raised much of its money in 2005 and 2006 from lawyers and investment fund managers, according to Federal Election Commission records available from the Center for Responsive Politics.) WTF? No membership? Yet they are used as the "voice of small business" by the administration and the former Democrat-controlled congress? Devious.

It's nice to see an expose` on the group that questions their motives, funding, and purpose, but it's not enough. That blog post came out in 2009 (you'll notice in the comments section that the group sent out its fellow travelers, and the CEO himself, to immediately rebut the post). Just last week this group was used again to counter a very big small-business organization that represents actual businesses.

This is what we are up against. This is what George Soros is doing in the background. This is why you pretty much waste your money when you subscribe to a newspaper. This is why you have to question absolutely everything that is presented to you as fact - and be even more questioning when somebody presents himself as a "fact checker." People trust the news so much that they think it is enough to see it in an article. It must be true, right? Devious. Extremely devious.