corrente

One of the nice things about using a library terminal is that you can read library books. Here is the definition of confidence tricks from Sharon Beder's Power Play:

A confidence trick has three elements. First, it involves deception (the trick); second, it involves gaining the trust or confidence of the victim; and third, if successful, it results in the transfer of assets or property from the victim to the con artist.

Of course, the Iraqi War is a good example: the trick was all the lies about WMDs; the trust was winning over the public and the vote for war (the "blank check"); the transfer is to Halliburton, Brown and Root, military and reconstruction contractors generally, and the coffers of the Republican regime. (Not to mention the oil...)

We can also see the same "TTT" pattern at work in the Republican efforts to "reform" Medicare ("reform" is generally a euphemism for the transfer phase of the con) and Social Security.

In general, the goal of the think-tank and MW components of the VWRC is to provide an arsenal of tricks that the Republicans can use in the trust phase. That is why one-liners like Dean's "The Republicans can't handle money" are not only true, but important strategically: they innoculate citizens against trick memes when the con artists try to move to the trust phrase, thus preventing more bad ideas from infecting the body politic.