Writing in *#TheAmericanProspect*, #LukeGoldstein unpacks an #astroturf campaign to save the endangered swipe fee from woke competition advocates:
https://prospect.org/power/2023-08-04-wall-street-culture-war-swipe-fee-reform/
Now, this campaign isn't particularly sophisticated. It goes like this: #Target is a big business that runs a lot of transactions through Visa/Mastercard, so it stands to benefit from competition in payment routing.
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And Target did a mean woke by selling #Pride merch, which makes them #groomers. So by fighting swipe fees, Congress is giving woke groomers a government bailout!
It's literally that stupid. It's being pushed by a dark money group based in Kansas, which is targeting Senator Marshalls constituents with mailers that warns voters they'll "lose their credit card points" because he's thrown his lot in with "liberal politicians":
https://punchbowl.news/caf-marshall-mailer-kansas/
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The fliers also warn that competition could result in "your financial data could be processed by partners of the Chinese Communist Party" (the bill bans foreign companies from routing transactions, and bans #ChinaUnionPay by name).
The fliers are anonymous. The only ghoul shameless enough to put his name on the campaign is #GroverNordquist, whose #AmericansForTaxReform tells its Christmas-voting-turkeys to "side with consumers, not woke retailers."
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