According to the Washington Post, an official in the Dominican Republic is claiming he was paid by The Daily Caller to get three prostitutes on the record claiming they were with Senator Robert Menendez.

The local lawyer told Dominican investigators that a foreign man, who identified himself as “Carlos,” had offered him $5,000 to find and pay women in the Caribbean nation willing to make the claims about Menendez, according to Jose Antonio Polanco, district attorney for the La Romana region, where the investigation is being conducted.

The videotaped claims of two women, made with their faces obscured, were posted last fall on the Daily Caller. The site reported that “the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000-acre resort in the Dominican Republic. . . . They claimed Menendez agreed to pay them $500 for sex acts, but in the end they each received only $100.”

The Daily Caller issued a statement Friday saying that the information allegedly provided by the Dominican lawyer, Melanio Figueroa, was false.

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Buzzfeed has published the most bizarre set of emails between right wing operatives freaking out during the Scott Brown/Martha Coakley race in January of 2010 that I've ever seen.

The plot, hatched by a strange alliance of high-profile conservatives, was to have James O'Keefe and his "crew" catch the SEIU in some kind of voter fraud similar to what O'Keefe has tried to commit in various states around the nation in order to claim that voter ID laws are necessary.

Let's note for the record that the entire right wing has been curiously silent about the voter registration fraud schemes bought and paid for by the Republican National Committee. You would think concerned conservatives like Fund, Fox and Friess would be very, very concerned, but instead, silence fills the hole where outrage should be.

The Players
John Fund is a conservative champion of Voter ID laws, and senior editor for The American Spectator. Fund also writes for the Wall Street Journal.. Steve Friess is the son of right-wing moneybags Foster Friess, of "aspirin between her knees" fame. And of course, James O'Keefe is the Breitbart disciple who loves to edit video to make it look like people are doing things they aren't in order to destroy organizations like ACORN.

Others involved include Heather Higgins, pundit and president of Independent Women's Voices. Higgins is also affiliated with the Hoover Institution.

The Plot

It begins with a tip that appears to have come via neocon radio host John Batchelor. The tip says that the SEIU is contracting for buses to take voters to the polls, asserting that "if you're black or brown they'll rope you in and take you to the polls, registration can be worked out."

That tip went to John Fund, who then forwarded it to Heather Higgins, who forwarded it to Foster Friess. Out of this, comes the plan from Steve Friess to make an "ACORN sting video." Oh, the paranoia just shines through. Also the racism.

Some black /Latina conservatives could be wired for video, and get picked up on one of these busses, and show what goes on. My guess -they are offering cash, (which I am pretty sure is illegal), and I also would wager that at least some of these busses are making more than one stop with the same people - ie getting them to vote twice -though I don't know the mechanics of that.

Perhaps some private detective types would be needed to help track down the busses, and a block or two ahead of them to drop our cameramen off...

Too much to dream? Imagine pulling this off - legal / image problems for SEIU would be a good thing... think there's upside to this?

Brietbart would know, and Fund would know - 'if we catch them doing X, it could mean Y' - I just don't know what the stakes are...

The most interesting part of the Steve Friess email was right at the end, where he asks his dad to 'bounce this off Breitbart.' At the time, O'Keefe hadn't been arrested for his attempted bugging of Mary Landrieu's office and was still widely hailed as a conservative hero. Evidently O'Keefe was also still part of the Breitbart inner circle, too.

O'Keefe forwarded on the email to Nadia Naffe, who worked for O'Keefe for awhile before there was a break and she accused him of harassment.

The End

Evidently they did try to get something, but never used it. Buzzfeed reports:

Reached by email, Naffe said the emails were authentic: "Fund and Steve Friess, the son of billionaire Foster Friess, introduced the idea to O'keefe that SEIU would fraudulently register anyone with brown skin to vote."

"James flew me out to Boston to find the SEIU busses, just days after that email was sent," Naffe said. She claimed that "Congressman Steve King from Iowa was waiting at the hotel when we arrived to take us to dinner. He gave us a pep talk about illegal voting."

"O'keefe has the footage, though I'm doubtful he would share any of it. Since, he was arrested a week later in New Orleans while attempting to wire tap Senator Mary Landrieu," Naffe said.

This may not rise to the level of blockbuster reporting, but I did think it was interesting to see how intertwined the networks are. John Fund, Andrew Breitbart and Foster Friess, all huddled together to make sure those nasty black and brown people didn't vote in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile in other pockets of RepublicanLand, they're fraudulently changing voter registrations, tossing Democratic registrations in the trash, and otherwise working on rigging elections. What a bunch of poseurs.

As a quick glance at January's presidential fundraising numbers confirms, the unlimited cash flowing into SuperPACs is fundamentally distorting the 2012 election. The millions flowing into conservative SuperPAC coffers are not only far outpacing the GOP candidates' own campaigns, but continuing to overwhelm their Democratic counterparts. But for the likes of Charles and David Koch, the Walton family, Foster Friess, Sheldon Adelson, Meg Whitman, the Marriotts and the rest of the SuperPAC-Men, a multimillion dollar contribution isn't an eccentric hobby, but a wise investment. After all, if Republicans win in November, their plan to eliminate the estate and capital gains taxes would divert billions of dollars from the United States Treasury to the accounts of nation's richest families. Of course, that gaping hole would have to be filled by all other American taxpayers.

As Mother Jones reported last month, as of December 31, 2011 conservative SuperPACs reaped $60 million of now-unlimited contributions, compared to just $8 million for liberal groups. That tidal wave of corporate cash and play money from the wealthy has filled the coffers of Karl Rove's American Crossroads, Mitt Romney's Restore the Future, Rick Santorum's Red, White and Blue Fund, Newt Gingrich's Winning the Future and a litany of other right-wing SuperPACs. Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul worth an estimated $25 billion, said, "I might give $10 million or $100 million to Gingrich." And as Amanda Terkel detailed, the Koch brothers and their allies pledged to raise much more to defeat President Obama:

At a private three-day retreat in California last weekend, conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch and about 250 to 300 other individuals pledged approximately $100 million to defeat President Obama in the 2012 elections.

A source who was in the room when the pledges were made told The Huffington Post that, specifically, Charles Koch pledged $40 million and David pledged $20 million.

But that figure is chump change compared to the eye-popping return on investment the Kochs can expect if their side wins in November. Ending the estate tax, a policy endorsed by Mitt Romney and every other Republican presidential candidate, would literally be worth billions of dollars to the heirs of Charles and David Koch. As ThinkProgress explained last year:

According to a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, the Koch brothers' heirs' would save a combined $17.4 billion in estate taxes thanks to Romney's plan.

Each of the Koch brothers -- Charles and David -- is worth about $25 billion. They are each married, so they would receive an exemption on the first $10 million that they pass down, and then theirs heirs would pay a 35 percent tax, or $8.7 billion, on the rest of their vast fortunes.

Now, this is an exceedingly rough calculation, as it's almost certain that the Koch's have engaged in extensive estate planning and would pay nowhere near that amount. But 35 percent is the rate on the books, and Romney's plan to eliminate the estate tax entirely would undeniably save the Kochs a boatload of money.

Here's why. Despite Republican mythology about family farms and businesses being lost to the so-called "death tax," by 2009 only 0.24 percent of estates even paid the levy. And that was before the December 2010 compromise President Obama inked with Congressional Republicans extending the Bush tax cuts further slashed the estate tax. The reduced 35 percent tax is now applied only to couples with estates greater than $10 million, a change which will cost Uncle Sam roughly $15 billion a year. Now, the Tax Policy Center calculated, only 0.1 percent of estates are impacted. Only 50 family farms and small businesses will be affected, and they contribute "less than one tenth of 1 percent point of the total revenue the tax will collect." Who pays the estate tax?

TPC estimates that 8,600 individuals dying in 2011 will leave estates large enough to require filing an estate tax return (estates with a gross value under $5 million need not file a return in 2011). After allowing for deductions and credits, an estimated 3,270 estates will owe tax. Roughly 90 percent of these taxable estates will come from the top ten percent of income earners and nearly half will come from the top one percent alone.

Estate tax liability will total an estimated $10.6 billion in 2011. The top ten percent of income earners will pay 98 percent of this total. The richest 1 in 1,000 will pay $5.4 billion or 51 percent of the total.

Among that richest 1 in 1,000 are the Koch brothers and the family behind Walmart, the Walton clan.

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What do Foster Friess and Michelle Rhee have in common, indeed? At first, you might just think they were at a fundraiser for an education project or something, right? Wrong. Michelle Rhee and her new husband Kevin Johnson were honored, along with Gary Sinise and NRA President Wayne LaPierre by the Joe Foss Institute for being "outstanding Americans". Friess was the chairman of the event.

Who is the Joe Foss Institute?

The Joe Foss Institute was created to work with youth in schools and youth groups across America—with those who will defend our freedoms in the future—encouraging & teaching democracy, patriotism, integrity, and public service. We help our audiences understand—and stand up for—the ideals upon which this country was founded, as reflected in our Founding Documents: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.

We do this because somehow we—as a nation—have devalued the teaching of history, and have, according to our own Department of Education, done an alarmingly poor job of helping students gain a solid understanding of the historical and philosophical foundation upon which our nation was built.

Here. Let me translate that for you. What they meant to say was this: We have defunded our school systems in order to degrade the education children get. We did this because schoolchildren were not being taught sound conservative Christian values in our schools. Now we will indoctrinate them properly.

The Joe Foss Institute has some interesting directors, as seen on this cached page as well as the current one.

• Mike Ingram, Arizona real estate mogul who bought up lots of Arizona real estate in the early oughts with the goal of developing Arizona's desert. Most of those areas were hard-hit by the Great Recession.
• Renee Giltner, also treasurer of the Goldwater Institute.
• William G. Boykin, former Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence division and Muslim-hater. (More information)
• George Argyos, former Ambassador to Spain, real estate mogul, billionaire, and more. His Freddie Mac associations might disqualify him from running for President, but they're not as important when funding charities to indoctrinate children.

While it's important to note the right-wing bent of this group, it's more interesting to see what they do and why Michelle Rhee and Foster Friess might have a common interest in them.

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Rick Santorum's mega-million dollar donor Foster Friess made news yesterday when he shared his insane birth control beliefs with Andrea Mitchell :

Mitchell: Do you have any concerns with some of his comments on social issues, on contraception on women in combat and whether or not it would hurt his viability in a general election campaign were he to be the nominee?

Friess: Well I get such a chuckle when these things come out. Here we have millions of our fellow Americans unemployed, we have Jihadist camps set up in Latin America which Rick has been worried about and people seem to be so preoccupied with sex, I think it says something about our culture and maybe we need a massive therapy session so we can concentrate on the real issues are.

This contraceptive thing, my gosh, it's such inexpensive... back in my days we used Bayer aspirin for contraception, the gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly.

Mitchell: Um, excuse me I'm trying to catch my breath from that Mr. Friess, frankly....

It was pretty horrifying to hear. Diane Sweet, who runs our Occupy America Blog found this Dear Abby article from July18, 2007 which puts a chilling story to this anti-choice neanderthal's words and chuckles.

DEAR ABBY: Here's one for the books on parental stupidity. When my daughter, "Marissa" began to reach her teen years, her father — in an attempt to be funny — advised her that she could keep from becoming pregnant by putting an aspirin between her knees and keeping it there.

My stupidity was assuming that sex education and pregnancy prevention were taught in her school. I never broached the subject with her.

Larissa became pregnant at 15. The young man she was seeing told her she couldn't get pregnant in a swimming pool because the chlorine would kill the sperm. Have you heard that before? Needless to say. the inevitable result was a baby.

I love my grandson dearly. God did not make a mistake even though we adults were all dummies in the advice department. Please tell parents, children and adults to educate dummies in the advice department. Please tell parents, children and adults to educate themselves and learn all the facts and fictions about teen pregnancy and prevention.

What a joke it must have been to Foster and his pals after he left the set. He probably thought he set Andrea Mitchell straight on the idea of how silly birth control is when all you have to do is grab an aspirin and squeeze. Because for Freiss, contraception is all about slut-shaming women into closing their legs. Is it any wonder that the new poll by the Democracy Corp shows President Obama destroying Mitt Romney in the unmarried women category:

The respected Dem firm Democracy Corps has just published animportant polling memo that gets right to the heart of why the birth control battle could matter so much in this year’s elections.The firm’s poll finds that one of the most important factors powering Obama’s gains against likely GOP nominee Mitt Romney has been the President’s improving numbers among unmarried women, a key pillar of the present and future Democratic coalition.Among this group, Obama now leads Romney by 65-30 — and there’s been a net 18-point swing towards the President among them...read on

Andrea Mitchell had on Rick Santorum's Super PAC money man Foster Friess this morning during her MSNBC telecast. Mitchell asked him about the potential problems Santorum could have with women voters because of his stance on contraception and women in the military. Foster's response was so stunning that it froze Andrea in her tracks.

Mitchell: Do you have any concerns with some of his comments on social issues, on contraception on women in combat and whether or not it would hurt his viability in a general election campaign were he to be the nominee?

Freiss: Well I get such a chuckle when these things come out. Here we have millions of our fellow Americans unemployed, we have Jihadist camps set up in Latin America which Rick has been worried about and people seem to be so preoccupied with sex, I think it says something about our culture and maybe we need a massive therapy session so we can concentrate on the real issues are.

This contraceptive thing, my gosh it's such inexpensive, back in my days we used Bayer aspirin for contraception, the gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly.

Mitchell: Um, excuse me I'm trying to catch my breath from that Mr. Friess, frankly....< Friess chuckles> ...

I'm speechless too. Why was Friess chuckling? He could use a ton of therapy sessions, not the country. Women have been continually degraded in this Republican primary season and ever since the GOP took back the House. How has the national dialogue on women's reproductive rights get so degraded now that now GOP supporters bring up "aspirin-between-the-knees" as a real method of contraception?

It's a mad house.