Usually they call this money laundering.

Here's really where the truth comes bubbling out like so much shit from a leaking septic tank:

Moving money from a casino-operating Indian tribe to Ralph Reed, the Christian Coalition founder and professed gambling opponent, was a problem. Lobbyist Abramoff turned to his longtime friend Norquist, apparently to provide a buffer
for Reed.
The result, according to evidence gathered by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, was that Norquist's Americans for Tax Relief became a conduit for more than a million dollars from the Mississippi Choctaw to Reed's operation, while Norquist, a close White House ally, took a cut. [via CNN.com]

Norquist, who famously claimed he wanted to shrink government to the size where he could "drown it in the bathtub," like most libertarians, detests government except when it works to their benefit. That is to say, he liked government without all the rules and oversight and checks and balances. Sure, libertarian theory is all about competition and free markets, but libertarian practice is all about jobbing the game through backroom deals and old-boy networks that essentially make the so-called free market a joke.

Fortunately, every now and then their shenanigans come to light and the public gets to see the ethical bankruptcy of these self-styled freedom lovers. Unfortunately, the public rarely takes notice and at any rate has a notoriously short attention span and is easily distracted by bread and circuses (e.g. "defense of marriage," "cut and run," etc.). New York Times columnist Paul Krugman points this out in his June 19 column (you need NYT login to see it, so the link won't work otherwise...), "Class War Politics." An excerpt:

But if the real source of today's bitter partisanship is a Republican move to the right on economic issues, why have the last three elections been dominated by talk of terrorism, with a bit of religion on the side? Because a party whose economic policies favor a narrow elite needs to focus the public's attention elsewhere. And there's no better way to do that than accusing the other party of being unpatriotic and godless.

It's a classic bait and switch, and yes indeed it all comes down to economics. The Times actually has been beating this drum a bit lately, and I'm surprised, mainly because the mainstream media is very gunshy when it comes to evoking the bugaboo of "class warfare." Well, guess what? The war has long since started, and the Republicans* are the ones who started it.

*That's the short statement. The long statement acknowledges that the Republicans are simply the bagmen doing the bidding of the US elite who have always used whatever means necessary to maintain their advantages, whether it be the Pinkertons, Vigilance Committees, or Politicians.