I want to connect some dots too!!!
Move Along...Nothing to see here.......
ABC News executive producer Ian Cameron is married to Susan Rice, National Security Adviser.
CBS President David Rhodes is the brother of Ben Rhodes, Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications.
ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman is married to Whitehouse Press Secretary Jay Carney
ABC News and Univision reporter Matthew Jaffe is married to Katie Hogan, Obama’s Deputy Press Secretary
ABC President Ben Sherwood is the brother of Obama’s Special adviser Elizabeth Sherwood
CNN President Virginia Moseley is married to former Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Secretary Tom Nides.
And now you know why it is no surprise that the media is in Obama's pocket!
CBS President David Rhodes is the brother of Ben Rhodes, Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications.
ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman is married to Whitehouse Press Secretary Jay Carney
ABC News and Univision reporter Matthew Jaffe is married to Katie Hogan, Obama’s Deputy Press Secretary
ABC President Ben Sherwood is the brother of Obama’s Special adviser Elizabeth Sherwood
CNN President Virginia Moseley is married to former Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Secretary Tom Nides.
And now you know why it is no surprise that the media is in Obama's pocket!
REFERENCES
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/05/11/fox-abc-and-cbs-news-presidents-have-siblings-working-white-house-tie
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/media-administration-deal-with-conflicts/2013/06/12/e6f98314-ca2e-11e2-8da7-d274bc611a47_story.html
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/w/White-House-Media-Relations-052013.htm#.U-AxUMJMvX4
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/05/11/fox-abc-and-cbs-news-presidents-have-siblings-working-white-house-tie
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/media-administration-deal-with-conflicts/2013/06/12/e6f98314-ca2e-11e2-8da7-d274bc611a47_story.html
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/w/White-House-Media-Relations-052013.htm#.U-AxUMJMvX4
Move Along...Nothing to see here.......
[h=2]Dem Congressman Attacked Kochs While Wife Invested in Koch Company[/h]Share
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Brad Schneider / Wikimedia Commons
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
August 6, 2014 4:46 pm
A Democratic congressman’s wife owned stock in a major subsidiary of Koch Industries while he and a leading Democratic Super PAC supporting his reelection railed on Charles and David Koch, the company’s owners.
“The Koch brothers are trying to buy our elections,” warned Rep. Brad Schneider (D., Ill.) in a February Facebook post.
He did not mention in the post that his wife owned a stake worth between $1,000 and $15,000 in Koch subsidiary Georgia Pacific.
In mid-April, Democratic Super PAC House Majority PAC reserved nearly $230,000 in airtime backing Schneider’s reelection. Like the congressman, the PAC frequently rails against “the Koch Brothers,” and did so in press reports noting the ad buy.
Two weeks later, possibly realizing that the congressman was profiting from a company while maligning its owners, Schneider’s wife sold her stake in Georgia Pacific.
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Brad Schneider / Wikimedia Commons
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
August 6, 2014 4:46 pm
A Democratic congressman’s wife owned stock in a major subsidiary of Koch Industries while he and a leading Democratic Super PAC supporting his reelection railed on Charles and David Koch, the company’s owners.
“The Koch brothers are trying to buy our elections,” warned Rep. Brad Schneider (D., Ill.) in a February Facebook post.
He did not mention in the post that his wife owned a stake worth between $1,000 and $15,000 in Koch subsidiary Georgia Pacific.
In mid-April, Democratic Super PAC House Majority PAC reserved nearly $230,000 in airtime backing Schneider’s reelection. Like the congressman, the PAC frequently rails against “the Koch Brothers,” and did so in press reports noting the ad buy.
Two weeks later, possibly realizing that the congressman was profiting from a company while maligning its owners, Schneider’s wife sold her stake in Georgia Pacific.
[h=1]Koch brothers reach out to Hispanics[/h]
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AP 8/11/2014 7:48:15 AM
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Looking to make inroads with the rising number of Hispanic voters, conservative activists are offering English classes, health checkups and courses to help Spanish-speakers earn high school diplomas. Picking up part of the tab: Charles and David Koch.
The billionaire industrialists are working to patch a gaping hole in the GOP coalition that could spell a generation of irrelevance if Republicans cannot build some credibility with Hispanic voters, who typically shun the GOP. The fast-growing group could have tremendous sway in American politics for years to come. Party elders have acknowledged their struggles to win over Hispanic voters, who as recently as 2004 were roughly split in party preference.
Enter the Libre Initiative, an organization that has collected millions from the Kochs' political network. Libre, which is pronounced LEE'-bray and means "free," pushes a message of limited government and economic freedom between lessons on how to build family-run businesses and prayer breakfasts with Hispanic pastors.
Its organizers pitch conservative ideals while offering tutorials on U.S. immigration law, support for overhauling the broken immigration system that stops short of campaigning for the Senate's bipartisan bill and collecting donations for the unaccompanied children crossing the United States-Mexico border illegally.
In effect, it is a shadow GOP — one with a gentle emphasis on social services and assimilation over a central party often seen as hostile to immigrants and minorities.
"We've gone to areas that other conservative organizations don't typically go," said Libre's Texas director Rafael Bejar, who helped distribute candy-packed Easter baskets at a San Antonio elementary school. Tucked in with the sweets: a pamphlet in English and Spanish noting that the national debt is approaching $17 trillion.
It's a subtle approach, for sure, when compared to other groups' sometimes angry rhetoric. While some conservatives are staging protests over the waves of immigrant children pouring into the United States, Libre is working with a Tucson, Arizona, church to collect donations for the children being held at federal sites. A similar effort in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, the epicenter for the immigration surge, is on deck.
It's merely the latest effort of the Koch-backed pitch to Hispanic voters and the effort to shape the future of the Republican Party and American politics. In June the United Negro College Fund, which provides scholarships to students attending historically black colleges, announced a $25 million donation from Koch Industries and the Charles Koch Foundation.
Libre now has operations in eight states in the hope Hispanics will repay conservatives with their votes. Organizers already have 3,000 Texas volunteers, and similar undertakings in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia.
Libre is but one piece of the Koch brothers' sprawling and effective network of conservative groups. Alongside the grassroots-focused Americans for Prosperity and the youth-oriented Generation Opportunity, Libre began courting Hispanic voters in 2011.
On a recent, sweltering Thursday, Pastor Marcus Burgos wore a blue T-shirt stenciled with #BeLibre as he helped distribute food in a rough corner of northwest San Antonio. Needy families picked up cartloads of tortillas, watermelons and frozen pizzas — along with bilingual Libre pamphlets.
"My belief is that their prosperity, when it comes, will benefit the entire community," said Burgos, whose Abundant Life Church of God offers services in English and Spanish and occupies a former supermarket inside a strip mall.
One of those taking home food was 45-year-old Elda Guevara, a mother of three and a loyal Democrat. She said she wasn't ready to switch parties — but some of what she saw made sense.
"If they support immigration changes so that more people can get their papers in order, then I'm with them," said Guevara, on medical leave from her job as a cook.
In 2004, Hispanic voters were 8 percent of the electorate. By 2012, they represented 10 percent of all voters. At the same time, they became friendlier to Democrats. Republican President George W. Bush's re-election bid captured 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, while Democrat Barack Obama won 71 percent eight years later.
An internal Republican National Committee report after the 2012 elections urged the party to consider more inclusive language about immigrants and Hispanics. The RNC paid for Hispanic operatives in California, Florida, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.
In Texas, that means $50,000 per month to the state party, allowing it to hire seven organizers focused on finding and recruiting Hispanics, especially those registered to vote. But progress is slow and frustration is growing, especially with the influx of unaccompanied children, mostly from Central America, crossing the border.
"People, they tell me that, 'I see Republicans as rich old men handling everything,'" said 23-year-old Crystal Rodriguez, who represents the Texas GOP in heavily Democratic El Paso. "But then they meet me, and they learn that's not true."
Meanwhile, Libre is trying to turn the conversation to Democrats' health care law. Hispanics historically lack health insurance but haven't enrolled under new programs.
Looking to capitalize on the skepticism toward what critics call "Obamacare," Libre has run ads against Rep. Pete Gallego, a Texas Democrat who represents the San Antonio and El Paso suburbs and whose district is 71 percent Hispanic. In Arizona, Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick is being criticized for voting in favor of the health care law, and Libre has similarly blasted Rep. Joe Garcia of Florida with Spanish-language television ads.
Not everyone is convinced.
Abundant Life Church of God volunteer Dora Cantu was wearing a Libre T-shirt as she handed out food and clothing — but said she had no use for its conservative ideology.
"If you put God first," Cantu said, "there's little room for politics."
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AP 8/11/2014 7:48:15 AM
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Looking to make inroads with the rising number of Hispanic voters, conservative activists are offering English classes, health checkups and courses to help Spanish-speakers earn high school diplomas. Picking up part of the tab: Charles and David Koch.
The billionaire industrialists are working to patch a gaping hole in the GOP coalition that could spell a generation of irrelevance if Republicans cannot build some credibility with Hispanic voters, who typically shun the GOP. The fast-growing group could have tremendous sway in American politics for years to come. Party elders have acknowledged their struggles to win over Hispanic voters, who as recently as 2004 were roughly split in party preference.
Enter the Libre Initiative, an organization that has collected millions from the Kochs' political network. Libre, which is pronounced LEE'-bray and means "free," pushes a message of limited government and economic freedom between lessons on how to build family-run businesses and prayer breakfasts with Hispanic pastors.
Its organizers pitch conservative ideals while offering tutorials on U.S. immigration law, support for overhauling the broken immigration system that stops short of campaigning for the Senate's bipartisan bill and collecting donations for the unaccompanied children crossing the United States-Mexico border illegally.
In effect, it is a shadow GOP — one with a gentle emphasis on social services and assimilation over a central party often seen as hostile to immigrants and minorities.
"We've gone to areas that other conservative organizations don't typically go," said Libre's Texas director Rafael Bejar, who helped distribute candy-packed Easter baskets at a San Antonio elementary school. Tucked in with the sweets: a pamphlet in English and Spanish noting that the national debt is approaching $17 trillion.
It's a subtle approach, for sure, when compared to other groups' sometimes angry rhetoric. While some conservatives are staging protests over the waves of immigrant children pouring into the United States, Libre is working with a Tucson, Arizona, church to collect donations for the children being held at federal sites. A similar effort in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, the epicenter for the immigration surge, is on deck.
It's merely the latest effort of the Koch-backed pitch to Hispanic voters and the effort to shape the future of the Republican Party and American politics. In June the United Negro College Fund, which provides scholarships to students attending historically black colleges, announced a $25 million donation from Koch Industries and the Charles Koch Foundation.
Libre now has operations in eight states in the hope Hispanics will repay conservatives with their votes. Organizers already have 3,000 Texas volunteers, and similar undertakings in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia.
Libre is but one piece of the Koch brothers' sprawling and effective network of conservative groups. Alongside the grassroots-focused Americans for Prosperity and the youth-oriented Generation Opportunity, Libre began courting Hispanic voters in 2011.
On a recent, sweltering Thursday, Pastor Marcus Burgos wore a blue T-shirt stenciled with #BeLibre as he helped distribute food in a rough corner of northwest San Antonio. Needy families picked up cartloads of tortillas, watermelons and frozen pizzas — along with bilingual Libre pamphlets.
"My belief is that their prosperity, when it comes, will benefit the entire community," said Burgos, whose Abundant Life Church of God offers services in English and Spanish and occupies a former supermarket inside a strip mall.
One of those taking home food was 45-year-old Elda Guevara, a mother of three and a loyal Democrat. She said she wasn't ready to switch parties — but some of what she saw made sense.
"If they support immigration changes so that more people can get their papers in order, then I'm with them," said Guevara, on medical leave from her job as a cook.
In 2004, Hispanic voters were 8 percent of the electorate. By 2012, they represented 10 percent of all voters. At the same time, they became friendlier to Democrats. Republican President George W. Bush's re-election bid captured 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, while Democrat Barack Obama won 71 percent eight years later.
An internal Republican National Committee report after the 2012 elections urged the party to consider more inclusive language about immigrants and Hispanics. The RNC paid for Hispanic operatives in California, Florida, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.
In Texas, that means $50,000 per month to the state party, allowing it to hire seven organizers focused on finding and recruiting Hispanics, especially those registered to vote. But progress is slow and frustration is growing, especially with the influx of unaccompanied children, mostly from Central America, crossing the border.
"People, they tell me that, 'I see Republicans as rich old men handling everything,'" said 23-year-old Crystal Rodriguez, who represents the Texas GOP in heavily Democratic El Paso. "But then they meet me, and they learn that's not true."
Meanwhile, Libre is trying to turn the conversation to Democrats' health care law. Hispanics historically lack health insurance but haven't enrolled under new programs.
Looking to capitalize on the skepticism toward what critics call "Obamacare," Libre has run ads against Rep. Pete Gallego, a Texas Democrat who represents the San Antonio and El Paso suburbs and whose district is 71 percent Hispanic. In Arizona, Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick is being criticized for voting in favor of the health care law, and Libre has similarly blasted Rep. Joe Garcia of Florida with Spanish-language television ads.
Not everyone is convinced.
Abundant Life Church of God volunteer Dora Cantu was wearing a Libre T-shirt as she handed out food and clothing — but said she had no use for its conservative ideology.
"If you put God first," Cantu said, "there's little room for politics."
Democrat billionaire Tom Steyer has donated more than $20 million to candidates and outside groups to influence this year’s election, making him the top individual contributor in 2014. And that’s just a fraction of the $50 million Steyer has said he’s willing to spend.
The San Francisco-based environmental activist built his fortune through the Farallon Capital hedge fund he founded in 1986. As he was amassing his warchest, Steyer enjoyed close ties to the Democratic Party and one particular influential Californian: Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi, the former House speaker who currently serves as Democratic leader, has used her Washington perch to boost some of Steyer’s projects with government aid.
In total, Steyer has benefited from more than $1 billion in taxpayer money. According to her own press releases,
http://dailysignal.com/2014/08/11/n...p-democrat-donor-nab-millions-taxpayer-money/
The San Francisco-based environmental activist built his fortune through the Farallon Capital hedge fund he founded in 1986. As he was amassing his warchest, Steyer enjoyed close ties to the Democratic Party and one particular influential Californian: Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi, the former House speaker who currently serves as Democratic leader, has used her Washington perch to boost some of Steyer’s projects with government aid.
In total, Steyer has benefited from more than $1 billion in taxpayer money. According to her own press releases,
http://dailysignal.com/2014/08/11/n...p-democrat-donor-nab-millions-taxpayer-money/
The dream of an all world government goes back to his dad. At this point he has nothing to lose. You can't take it with ya. The biggest hurdle in creating an all world government is bring down the USA as it exists and that includes creating division and reducing the role of the USA in world affairs. It also involves controlling the press and media. My is that what is going on right now. Creating media matters gave it all away as they attempted to bring down Fox. Funny how Fox continues to prosper.
[h=2]Despite Dem Frenzy, Numbers Show Koch Brothers Lag Far Behind Big Money on Left[/h]Share
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Koch brothers / grist.org
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
August 13, 2014 3:18 pm
“No political contributors are as widely vilified as the Koch brothers,” but a look at recent contribution figures show that they are far from the biggest spenders in politics and that left-wing groups are leaving them in the dust, according to a Las Vegas *************** editorial.
Despite the frequent finger-pointing by Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nev.) at the Kochs, the real big money in politics is shifting towards the Democrats.
“The fact of the matter is Democrats love big money if it’s being spent on them,” says the ***************. “And is it ever.”
And they have the numbers to prove it.
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Koch brothers / grist.org
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
August 13, 2014 3:18 pm
“No political contributors are as widely vilified as the Koch brothers,” but a look at recent contribution figures show that they are far from the biggest spenders in politics and that left-wing groups are leaving them in the dust, according to a Las Vegas *************** editorial.
Despite the frequent finger-pointing by Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nev.) at the Kochs, the real big money in politics is shifting towards the Democrats.
“The fact of the matter is Democrats love big money if it’s being spent on them,” says the ***************. “And is it ever.”
And they have the numbers to prove it.
In the 2012 election cycle, seven of the top 20 donors favored conservatives. Of this year’s top 20 organizations, only two favor Republicans. The other 18, with the exception of a lone, “on the fence” trade association, strongly favor liberal policies and Democratic candidates. Topping the list of organizations is ActBlue, a longtime Democratic fundraising organization. Eleven of the top 20 organizations are unions, including the country’s two largest teacher unions.
While 11 of the top 20 individual donors favor right-leaning causes, the top three lean left, and their total giving to liberals and Democrats exceeds the total of all 11 right-leaning individuals. Tom Steyer is in first place with more than $20 million (all to Democrats and liberals), former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is in second place with $9.5 million (95 percent to Democrats and liberals), and Fred Eychaner is in third place with $5.8 million (none to Republicans or conservatives).
And what about Charles and David Koch — the two men whose right-leaning philanthropy is supposedly single-handedly destroying the political process? Where does their company, Koch Industries, rank? Number 36, with $2.66 million, well below AT&T, Comcast, Goldman Sachs and General Electric.
Among individual donors, David Koch ranks 90th with $382,000, below a pair of Las Vegas figures. Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, rank 83rd with $391,000, and Wynn Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn ranks 84th with $390,000.
“The numbers tell the story—all Democratic Party distractions to the contrary,” concludes the ***************.While 11 of the top 20 individual donors favor right-leaning causes, the top three lean left, and their total giving to liberals and Democrats exceeds the total of all 11 right-leaning individuals. Tom Steyer is in first place with more than $20 million (all to Democrats and liberals), former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is in second place with $9.5 million (95 percent to Democrats and liberals), and Fred Eychaner is in third place with $5.8 million (none to Republicans or conservatives).
And what about Charles and David Koch — the two men whose right-leaning philanthropy is supposedly single-handedly destroying the political process? Where does their company, Koch Industries, rank? Number 36, with $2.66 million, well below AT&T, Comcast, Goldman Sachs and General Electric.
Among individual donors, David Koch ranks 90th with $382,000, below a pair of Las Vegas figures. Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, rank 83rd with $391,000, and Wynn Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn ranks 84th with $390,000.
[h=2]Tom Steyer Push for Green Agenda in Midterms Not Working as Planned[/h]Share
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Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer / AP
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
August 15, 2014 9:34 am
Liberal billionaire Tom Steyer vowed in February to give $100 million to political candidates to push a green agenda, but his plans to enact climate change measures are not working, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Additionally, Steyer has come nowhere near his goal of $100 million. He claimed in February that he would match $50 million of his money to $50 million raised from donors. In July, donors had only contributed $1.2 million to Steyer’s effort.
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Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer / AP
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
August 15, 2014 9:34 am
Liberal billionaire Tom Steyer vowed in February to give $100 million to political candidates to push a green agenda, but his plans to enact climate change measures are not working, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Mr. Steyer at an Aspen conference this week revealed that little if any of this is happening. The left is as split over energy as it has ever been; the public isn’t buying the climate line; and the hedge-fund-manager-turned-activist looks to be regrouping.
The Steyer grand plan began unraveling from the start, when stories about his pledge noted that he might target Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu for her support of the Keystone XL pipeline. Mr. Steyer and his NextGen Climate Action PAC had in 2013 won activist praise for defeating a pro-pipeline Democrat in a Massachusetts primary, and the Louisiana idea was to start his midterm strategy with a similar litmus-test bang. A Landrieu attack would send a message: Democrats who bucked the climate agenda would get beaten, whereas those who embraced it would be rewarded with Mr. Steyer’s campaign cash.
Democratic leaders instead flipped out, and quickly schooled Mr. Steyer in the political realities of red states and the magic Senate number of “51.” Within days of the pledge, Steyer operative Chris Lehane was tamping down the Landrieu story, insisting Mr. Steyer did not plan to “tea party” Democrats. “We do think it’s really, really, really important from a climate perspective that we maintain control of the Senate for Democrats,” he explained.
The article goes on to explain that few Democrats are actually seeing benefits from Steyer’s money.The Steyer grand plan began unraveling from the start, when stories about his pledge noted that he might target Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu for her support of the Keystone XL pipeline. Mr. Steyer and his NextGen Climate Action PAC had in 2013 won activist praise for defeating a pro-pipeline Democrat in a Massachusetts primary, and the Louisiana idea was to start his midterm strategy with a similar litmus-test bang. A Landrieu attack would send a message: Democrats who bucked the climate agenda would get beaten, whereas those who embraced it would be rewarded with Mr. Steyer’s campaign cash.
Democratic leaders instead flipped out, and quickly schooled Mr. Steyer in the political realities of red states and the magic Senate number of “51.” Within days of the pledge, Steyer operative Chris Lehane was tamping down the Landrieu story, insisting Mr. Steyer did not plan to “tea party” Democrats. “We do think it’s really, really, really important from a climate perspective that we maintain control of the Senate for Democrats,” he explained.
Additionally, Steyer has come nowhere near his goal of $100 million. He claimed in February that he would match $50 million of his money to $50 million raised from donors. In July, donors had only contributed $1.2 million to Steyer’s effort.
[h=2]Tom Steyer Endorses Planet-Killing Fuel Mandate[/h]Share
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Tom Steyer / AP
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
August 20, 2014 10:43 am
Billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer is attacking a Republican Senate candidate by claiming that she is opposed to a policy that environmentalists say is destructive to the earth’s climate.
Steyer himself has criticized the use of the biofuel ethanol. But in an effort to elect Senate Democrats, he is attacking Iowa hopeful Joni Ernst for supposedly opposing an ethanol mandate.
Ernst says she has taken no such position, National Journal noted on Tuesday.
More revealing than yet another dishonest attack ad from NextGen Climate Action, Steyer’s personal Super PAC, is the fact that the nation’s most prominent political environmentalist is backing a policy that environmentalists routinely criticize.
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Tom Steyer / APBY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
August 20, 2014 10:43 am
Billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer is attacking a Republican Senate candidate by claiming that she is opposed to a policy that environmentalists say is destructive to the earth’s climate.
Steyer himself has criticized the use of the biofuel ethanol. But in an effort to elect Senate Democrats, he is attacking Iowa hopeful Joni Ernst for supposedly opposing an ethanol mandate.
Ernst says she has taken no such position, National Journal noted on Tuesday.
More revealing than yet another dishonest attack ad from NextGen Climate Action, Steyer’s personal Super PAC, is the fact that the nation’s most prominent political environmentalist is backing a policy that environmentalists routinely criticize.
NextGen is trumpeting a policy that some environmentalists say is bad for the planet.
Assessing the overall, or “lifecycle,” climate footprint of growing and transforming crops into fuel and then burning them is tricky. But ethanol’s critics like Friends of the Earth and the Environmental Working Group believe traditional corn-based ethanol—which is a substantial share of the mandate—is actually worse for the climate than gasoline when its total lifecycle greenhouse-gas emissions are considered.
But while Steyer spoke critically of ethanol in a 2010 interview with Fortune, on Tuesday his NextGen Climate group praised the RFS. “The Renewable Fuel Standard is an important program that will help transform our carbon intensive oil-dependent transportation sector and increase the development and deployment of biofuels. The RFS supports 73,000 good-paying, clean energy jobs in Iowa and is helping us reduce our dependence on fossil fuels,” NextGen said.
Steyer’s critics have pointed to details of his political activities this year, such as his massive donations to a leading Democratic Super PAC, as evidence that he is a Democrat first and an environmentalist second.Assessing the overall, or “lifecycle,” climate footprint of growing and transforming crops into fuel and then burning them is tricky. But ethanol’s critics like Friends of the Earth and the Environmental Working Group believe traditional corn-based ethanol—which is a substantial share of the mandate—is actually worse for the climate than gasoline when its total lifecycle greenhouse-gas emissions are considered.
But while Steyer spoke critically of ethanol in a 2010 interview with Fortune, on Tuesday his NextGen Climate group praised the RFS. “The Renewable Fuel Standard is an important program that will help transform our carbon intensive oil-dependent transportation sector and increase the development and deployment of biofuels. The RFS supports 73,000 good-paying, clean energy jobs in Iowa and is helping us reduce our dependence on fossil fuels,” NextGen said.
[h=2]These 8 Rich Liberals Are Using Super PACs to Buy the 2014 Election[/h]Meet the billionaires backing Harry Reid
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AP
BY: Brent Scher
August 22, 2014 1:15 pm
The Democratic Party is in a “perilous position” for the 2014 election, but the rich liberal left is not giving up without a fight. Democrats have dominated the Super PAC game so far this summer, according to National Journal.
July was a big month for giving to Super PACs for many in the world of deep-pocketed liberal donors.
Here are the liberals who are trying to buy the 2014 election:
[h=3]Tom Steyer[/h]
Tom Steyer and his wife Kat Taylor with Paul and Nancy Pelosi at the Golden Gate Bridge 75th Anniversary celebration / Drew Altizer Photography
The hedge-fund manager turned environmentalist activist gave the biggest Super PAC donation of anybody in July: $7.5 million to his own NextGen Climate, according to National Journal.
NextGen Climate, however, has not had the best summer.
His $2.6 million ad buy to target Republican Joni Ernst in Iowa was derailed when fact-checkers rated his ads as completely “false.”
His multitude of ads this cycle have also been called “bizarre” and “not believable” by campaign advertising experts.
[h=3]George Soros[/h]
Splash News
Liberal billionaire George Soros has been battling throughout the summer with an ex-girlfriend who smacked him in the middle of a courtroom and called him an “asshole” and a “piece of shit.” But that has not distracted him from his liberal crusade.
Soros has directed more than a million dollars to Democratic Super PACs this summer, according to National Journal.
Amber and Steve Mostyn
Texas trial lawyer Steve Mostyn and his wife Amber, whose fortune comes largely from taking advantage of hurricane damage in Texas, are long-time donors to the Democratic Party.
They are also responsible for the funding of the widely criticized Super PAC ad that falsely accused Republican Mitt Romney of giving a woman cancer.
Amber gave another $250,000 to Planned Parenthood’s Super PAC this July, according to National Journal.
[h=3]Michael Bloomberg[/h]
Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks during a meeting with Greece’s Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in New York, Aug. 9, 2013. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Only Tom Steyer has contributed more to Super PACs this cycle than the wealthy former mayor of New York City.
His most recent big donation was the largest that the EMILY’s list Super PAC has ever received, according to National Journal.
Haim Saban / AP
Haim Saban, the wealthy mastermind behind the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, committed $250,000 to Senate Majority PAC in July, even as he “dreams” of a Hillary Clinton presidency.
Though Saban has been a supporter of the Obama administration, he used to be a major critic, describing the administration as “leftists, really left leftists, so far to the left there’s not much space left between them and the wall.”
Saban was also highly critical of Obama’s relationship with Israel during his first term, until he tried to mend his relationship with the president in a New York Times op-ed once election season came around.
Now Saban is using his wallet to help Democrats maintain control of the Senate as the country sputters through Obama’s second term.
Peter Angelos
The Balitmore Orioles: the Communist Party’s Favorite baseball team/AP
Billionaire owner of the Baltimore Orioles Peter Angelos also threw $100,000 at Senate Majority PAC.
Angelos once made the mistake of getting drunk with Democrat fundraiser extraordinaire turned Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe and ended up giving him a million dollar contribution.
It is unclear whether Angelos was sober for his July Super PAC donation.
[h=3]Eric Schmidt[/h]
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APBY: Brent Scher
August 22, 2014 1:15 pm
The Democratic Party is in a “perilous position” for the 2014 election, but the rich liberal left is not giving up without a fight. Democrats have dominated the Super PAC game so far this summer, according to National Journal.
July was a big month for giving to Super PACs for many in the world of deep-pocketed liberal donors.
Here are the liberals who are trying to buy the 2014 election:
[h=3]Tom Steyer[/h]
Tom Steyer and his wife Kat Taylor with Paul and Nancy Pelosi at the Golden Gate Bridge 75th Anniversary celebration / Drew Altizer PhotographyThe hedge-fund manager turned environmentalist activist gave the biggest Super PAC donation of anybody in July: $7.5 million to his own NextGen Climate, according to National Journal.
NextGen Climate, however, has not had the best summer.
His $2.6 million ad buy to target Republican Joni Ernst in Iowa was derailed when fact-checkers rated his ads as completely “false.”
His multitude of ads this cycle have also been called “bizarre” and “not believable” by campaign advertising experts.
[h=3]George Soros[/h]
Splash NewsLiberal billionaire George Soros has been battling throughout the summer with an ex-girlfriend who smacked him in the middle of a courtroom and called him an “asshole” and a “piece of shit.” But that has not distracted him from his liberal crusade.
Soros has directed more than a million dollars to Democratic Super PACs this summer, according to National Journal.
The prolific donor gave $500,000 apiece to House Majority PAC and the League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund. But that million dollars wasn’t his family’s only big outlay so far this summer. Soros’s daughter, Andrea Soros Colombel, gave $250,000 to Planned Parenthood Votes.
[h=3]Steve and Amber Mostyn[/h]
Amber and Steve MostynTexas trial lawyer Steve Mostyn and his wife Amber, whose fortune comes largely from taking advantage of hurricane damage in Texas, are long-time donors to the Democratic Party.
They are also responsible for the funding of the widely criticized Super PAC ad that falsely accused Republican Mitt Romney of giving a woman cancer.
Amber gave another $250,000 to Planned Parenthood’s Super PAC this July, according to National Journal.
[h=3]Michael Bloomberg[/h]
Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks during a meeting with Greece’s Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in New York, Aug. 9, 2013. REUTERS/Brendan McDermidOnly Tom Steyer has contributed more to Super PACs this cycle than the wealthy former mayor of New York City.
His most recent big donation was the largest that the EMILY’s list Super PAC has ever received, according to National Journal.
Most recently, the former New York City mayor donated $2 million to Women Vote!—the largest contribution the EMILY’s List Super PAC has ever received. Only Steyer has given more money to Super PACs this election season.
[h=3]Haim Saban[/h]
Haim Saban / APHaim Saban, the wealthy mastermind behind the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, committed $250,000 to Senate Majority PAC in July, even as he “dreams” of a Hillary Clinton presidency.
Though Saban has been a supporter of the Obama administration, he used to be a major critic, describing the administration as “leftists, really left leftists, so far to the left there’s not much space left between them and the wall.”
Saban was also highly critical of Obama’s relationship with Israel during his first term, until he tried to mend his relationship with the president in a New York Times op-ed once election season came around.
Now Saban is using his wallet to help Democrats maintain control of the Senate as the country sputters through Obama’s second term.
Peter Angelos
The Balitmore Orioles: the Communist Party’s Favorite baseball team/APBillionaire owner of the Baltimore Orioles Peter Angelos also threw $100,000 at Senate Majority PAC.
Angelos once made the mistake of getting drunk with Democrat fundraiser extraordinaire turned Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe and ended up giving him a million dollar contribution.
It is unclear whether Angelos was sober for his July Super PAC donation.
[h=3]Eric Schmidt[/h]
[h=2]Silent Coup[/h]Column: Harry Reid’s plan to hand America to liberal billionaires
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BY: Matthew Continetti
September 12, 2014 5:00 am
“The constitutional amendment before us,”Harry Reid said Tuesday, describing a proposal to give federal and state governments the authority to regulate political giving, “isn’t about limiting free speech.”
Harry Reid, may I present the American Civil Liberties Union. I am sure you two have met before.
Writing in June that the nonprofit “strongly opposes” the so-called Udall amendment, the ACLU’s Laura Murphy and Gabriel Rottman called the Democratic proposal “deceptively complex,” “unnecessary,” “redundant of existing law,” “dangerous for liberties,” “vague,” “overbroad,” “exceedingly dangerous to democratic processes,” and “the first time the amendatory process has been used to directly limit specifically enumerated rights and freedoms.” Reid’s baby, the ACLU said, would “‘break’ the Constitution” by “amending the First Amendment.”
Two levels of government would be permitted “to criminalize and censor all issue advocacy that mentions or refers to a candidate under the argument that it supports or opposes that candidate.” Recall that Citizens United, which the Udall amendment is supposed to address, was not about Tea Party Astroturf. It was about the FEC’s attempt to censor a film critical of her royal highness.
The mandarins at the FEC and IRS, as well as their counterparts at the state level, would be responsible for distinguishing political communications that “support or oppose” a candidate from those that do not. They would penalize the individuals and groups they subjectively deem violators of administrative diktat. If this is not about “limiting free speech,” what is?
I am not speaking abstractly. Want an image of a post-Udall world? Think Lois Lerner on Spring Break—after a bottle of tequila.
“My Democratic colleagues and I,” Reid says, “are trying to address the special interest money that threatens to create a government of elected officials who are beholden to a few wealthy individuals.” But we can dismiss this rationalization outright. It is an example of what the Freudians call projection: the denial of immoral urges by transferring them to another. Projection is a disorder.
Special interest money and super-wealthy individuals are two of the most prominent features of today’s bourgeois liberalism. The unions, the foundations, the colleges, the liberal-leaning or rent-seeking corporations, the residents of Manhattan and Silicon Valley and Beverly Hills and Ward 3,Warren Buffett, George Soros, Tom Steyer, Marc Lasry, Steve Mostyn, Michael Bloomberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Chris Hughes—these groups, these men, they are not misshapen appendages of the Democratic Party. They are its innards. Its guts.
Indeed, one of the reasons that Reid scheduled a vote on a measure that was sure to be defeated was, in the first place, to curry favor with, and solicit checks from, rich donors to progressive causes who have a sentimental and moralistic aversion to money in politics. It is part of Reid’s plan to smear Republican candidates as instruments of the wealthy brothers Charles and David Koch, and thereby prevent a GOP takeover of the Senate.
From a financial standpoint, Reid’s strategy is working. His Senate Majority PAC, which does not disclose its donors, has run more advertisements than the Koch-affiliated Americans for Prosperity, and has spent almost as much money. The fundraising of Democratic Senate candidates is competitive with that of their Republican counterparts. The top three individual contributors to federal elections this cycle are Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg and Fred Eychaner. They are not Republicans. The day that Reid opened debate over the Udall amendment, the DCCC issued a fundraising appeal tied to the vote. Ironic.
The scale of the progressive infrastructure is staggering. It is coordinated and funded by theDemocracy Alliance, a secretive group of millionaires and billionaires that plots strategy and giving at meetings in fancy resorts. Documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon reveal that there are at least 172 groups inside the Democracy Alliance network. “113 of them have attacked us,” Koch Industries general counsel Mark Holden said recently, noting that far fewer groups—31—make up Koch world. The Kochs may spend up to $290 million in the 2014 election. Sounds like a lot. But Holden says the progressives may spend “somewhere in the ballpark” of $2.2 billion.
These numbers make clear that the goal of Reid and Udall is not to expunge money from politics. Their goal is to expunge conservative money from politics—money that could be used against incumbents, money that could be used against them, money that could be used to organize and promote alternatives to the Hegelian god-state coming into being before our eyes. Their goal is no less than a silent coup, a renegotiation of the American social contract and the structure of the constitutional order, performed outside the public’s notice and without the public’s direct consent.
The Udall amendment subverts freedom in two ways. First, by exempting media from regulation, the government would determine who or what “the media” are. Certified institutions would become the few remaining outlets for free expression. Perhaps you have noticed that the press tends to favor a certain ideological standpoint. In a post-Udall world, the influence of press barons such as Buffett and Bloomberg and Mexican oligarch Carlos Slim would increase. Reinstating the Fairness Doctrinewould silence conservatives further.
There is only one Rupert Murdoch. If someone of like mind as the Koch brothers tried to build a press operation of their own, we know what would happen. The liberal media would revolt.
Second, by endowing governments with the power to ban anonymous political giving, the Udall amendment would usher in an era of witch-hunts and public shaming, with the media using their new powers to condemn and malign and stigmatize and penalize the advocates of unfashionable causes.
We have already seen that a years-old, small donation to a judicially overturned plebiscite can cost a man his job. But the fight over disclosure is about more than the same-sex marriage debate. “During the civil rights era,” the ACLU notes in its letter, “southern states often tried to use laws forcing groups exercising First Amendment rights to disclose their membership, in a bid to run them out of town.”
In a post-Udall world, legislative bodies would be arenas where members of one party criminalize the speech of the other. Religious liberty groups would be exiled from, say, New York; gun control groups from Texas. Says the ACLU: “Congress would, for instance, be free to pass laws targeting only ‘political’ speech by groups like ACORN.” Or like Americans for Prosperity.
Media power and disclosure work together to undermine the adversaries of the caste, the twenty-first century oligarchy of tech entrepreneurs and media executives, lawyers and administrators, professors and foundation officers, journalists and actors, studio executives and museum officials, heirs and heiresses and progressive and politically connected bankers and investors. This is the plutocracy that dominates the presidency and the Senate and the bureaucracy and the academy and philanthropy and print and electronic media, that determines the contours of elite opinion, that decides what is “reality-based” and “empirical,” what is “faith-based” and “ideological.” This is the educated class that writes our laws and newspapers and screenplays and late-night comedy routines, that fashions itself the guardian of equality and progress and diversity and all that is true and good even as it profits off the regulations it imposes, the industries it subsidizes, the cheap labor it imports, the racial and sexual controversies it sensationalizes.
What we saw in Harry Reid’s Senate this week, when the Udall amendment failed a cloture vote, when 54 Democrats voted to refashion the First Amendment to serve the interests of incumbency and power, was not a noble cause. It was not good government. It was not an example of altruistic intentions stifled by Wall Street.
What we saw in Harry Reid’s Senate this week was an attempt by the ascendant part of the elite, the part that makes its living from abstraction, to vanquish the declining part, the part that makes its living from extraction. And this sorry excuse for a legislative week did more than reveal, in real time, the structure and nature of class struggle in America today. It also occasioned a sentence I never thought I would write. If only Harry Reid listened to the ACLU.
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BY: Matthew Continetti
September 12, 2014 5:00 am
“The constitutional amendment before us,”Harry Reid said Tuesday, describing a proposal to give federal and state governments the authority to regulate political giving, “isn’t about limiting free speech.”
Harry Reid, may I present the American Civil Liberties Union. I am sure you two have met before.
Writing in June that the nonprofit “strongly opposes” the so-called Udall amendment, the ACLU’s Laura Murphy and Gabriel Rottman called the Democratic proposal “deceptively complex,” “unnecessary,” “redundant of existing law,” “dangerous for liberties,” “vague,” “overbroad,” “exceedingly dangerous to democratic processes,” and “the first time the amendatory process has been used to directly limit specifically enumerated rights and freedoms.” Reid’s baby, the ACLU said, would “‘break’ the Constitution” by “amending the First Amendment.”
Two levels of government would be permitted “to criminalize and censor all issue advocacy that mentions or refers to a candidate under the argument that it supports or opposes that candidate.” Recall that Citizens United, which the Udall amendment is supposed to address, was not about Tea Party Astroturf. It was about the FEC’s attempt to censor a film critical of her royal highness.
The mandarins at the FEC and IRS, as well as their counterparts at the state level, would be responsible for distinguishing political communications that “support or oppose” a candidate from those that do not. They would penalize the individuals and groups they subjectively deem violators of administrative diktat. If this is not about “limiting free speech,” what is?
I am not speaking abstractly. Want an image of a post-Udall world? Think Lois Lerner on Spring Break—after a bottle of tequila.
“My Democratic colleagues and I,” Reid says, “are trying to address the special interest money that threatens to create a government of elected officials who are beholden to a few wealthy individuals.” But we can dismiss this rationalization outright. It is an example of what the Freudians call projection: the denial of immoral urges by transferring them to another. Projection is a disorder.
Special interest money and super-wealthy individuals are two of the most prominent features of today’s bourgeois liberalism. The unions, the foundations, the colleges, the liberal-leaning or rent-seeking corporations, the residents of Manhattan and Silicon Valley and Beverly Hills and Ward 3,Warren Buffett, George Soros, Tom Steyer, Marc Lasry, Steve Mostyn, Michael Bloomberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Chris Hughes—these groups, these men, they are not misshapen appendages of the Democratic Party. They are its innards. Its guts.
Indeed, one of the reasons that Reid scheduled a vote on a measure that was sure to be defeated was, in the first place, to curry favor with, and solicit checks from, rich donors to progressive causes who have a sentimental and moralistic aversion to money in politics. It is part of Reid’s plan to smear Republican candidates as instruments of the wealthy brothers Charles and David Koch, and thereby prevent a GOP takeover of the Senate.
From a financial standpoint, Reid’s strategy is working. His Senate Majority PAC, which does not disclose its donors, has run more advertisements than the Koch-affiliated Americans for Prosperity, and has spent almost as much money. The fundraising of Democratic Senate candidates is competitive with that of their Republican counterparts. The top three individual contributors to federal elections this cycle are Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg and Fred Eychaner. They are not Republicans. The day that Reid opened debate over the Udall amendment, the DCCC issued a fundraising appeal tied to the vote. Ironic.
The scale of the progressive infrastructure is staggering. It is coordinated and funded by theDemocracy Alliance, a secretive group of millionaires and billionaires that plots strategy and giving at meetings in fancy resorts. Documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon reveal that there are at least 172 groups inside the Democracy Alliance network. “113 of them have attacked us,” Koch Industries general counsel Mark Holden said recently, noting that far fewer groups—31—make up Koch world. The Kochs may spend up to $290 million in the 2014 election. Sounds like a lot. But Holden says the progressives may spend “somewhere in the ballpark” of $2.2 billion.
These numbers make clear that the goal of Reid and Udall is not to expunge money from politics. Their goal is to expunge conservative money from politics—money that could be used against incumbents, money that could be used against them, money that could be used to organize and promote alternatives to the Hegelian god-state coming into being before our eyes. Their goal is no less than a silent coup, a renegotiation of the American social contract and the structure of the constitutional order, performed outside the public’s notice and without the public’s direct consent.
The Udall amendment subverts freedom in two ways. First, by exempting media from regulation, the government would determine who or what “the media” are. Certified institutions would become the few remaining outlets for free expression. Perhaps you have noticed that the press tends to favor a certain ideological standpoint. In a post-Udall world, the influence of press barons such as Buffett and Bloomberg and Mexican oligarch Carlos Slim would increase. Reinstating the Fairness Doctrinewould silence conservatives further.
There is only one Rupert Murdoch. If someone of like mind as the Koch brothers tried to build a press operation of their own, we know what would happen. The liberal media would revolt.
Second, by endowing governments with the power to ban anonymous political giving, the Udall amendment would usher in an era of witch-hunts and public shaming, with the media using their new powers to condemn and malign and stigmatize and penalize the advocates of unfashionable causes.
We have already seen that a years-old, small donation to a judicially overturned plebiscite can cost a man his job. But the fight over disclosure is about more than the same-sex marriage debate. “During the civil rights era,” the ACLU notes in its letter, “southern states often tried to use laws forcing groups exercising First Amendment rights to disclose their membership, in a bid to run them out of town.”
In a post-Udall world, legislative bodies would be arenas where members of one party criminalize the speech of the other. Religious liberty groups would be exiled from, say, New York; gun control groups from Texas. Says the ACLU: “Congress would, for instance, be free to pass laws targeting only ‘political’ speech by groups like ACORN.” Or like Americans for Prosperity.
Media power and disclosure work together to undermine the adversaries of the caste, the twenty-first century oligarchy of tech entrepreneurs and media executives, lawyers and administrators, professors and foundation officers, journalists and actors, studio executives and museum officials, heirs and heiresses and progressive and politically connected bankers and investors. This is the plutocracy that dominates the presidency and the Senate and the bureaucracy and the academy and philanthropy and print and electronic media, that determines the contours of elite opinion, that decides what is “reality-based” and “empirical,” what is “faith-based” and “ideological.” This is the educated class that writes our laws and newspapers and screenplays and late-night comedy routines, that fashions itself the guardian of equality and progress and diversity and all that is true and good even as it profits off the regulations it imposes, the industries it subsidizes, the cheap labor it imports, the racial and sexual controversies it sensationalizes.
What we saw in Harry Reid’s Senate this week, when the Udall amendment failed a cloture vote, when 54 Democrats voted to refashion the First Amendment to serve the interests of incumbency and power, was not a noble cause. It was not good government. It was not an example of altruistic intentions stifled by Wall Street.
What we saw in Harry Reid’s Senate this week was an attempt by the ascendant part of the elite, the part that makes its living from abstraction, to vanquish the declining part, the part that makes its living from extraction. And this sorry excuse for a legislative week did more than reveal, in real time, the structure and nature of class struggle in America today. It also occasioned a sentence I never thought I would write. If only Harry Reid listened to the ACLU.
[h=2]Democrats Gather in New York City to Celebrate David Koch[/h]SHARE
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BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
September 15, 2014 1:08 pm
Democrats Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler appeared with none other than David Koch for the unveiling of the revamped fountains in front of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was funded by $65 million from the libertarian philanthropist and has been renamed the David H. Koch Plaza.
The New York members of Congress also attended a star-studded party following the ceremony in honor of Koch in the Met’s famed Temple of Dendur, according to the New York Post.
Koch earlier this year donated $100 million to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, which promptedmassive protests from unions and liberal groups in the city angry that the museum accepted the generous donation.
The billionaire philanthropist has unfortunately been called “un-American” and “against everything that’s good for America” by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.).
It is unclear if Reid is aware that Maloney and Nadler were present for the celebration of Koch’s generosity to the city.
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Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) join David Koch to celebrate his philanthropy / AP
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
September 15, 2014 1:08 pm
Democrats Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler appeared with none other than David Koch for the unveiling of the revamped fountains in front of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was funded by $65 million from the libertarian philanthropist and has been renamed the David H. Koch Plaza.
The New York members of Congress also attended a star-studded party following the ceremony in honor of Koch in the Met’s famed Temple of Dendur, according to the New York Post.
VIPs at an evening soiree following a ribbon-cutting included Pepe and Emilia Fanjul, Larry Gagosian, Martha Stewart, Dixon Boardman, Vito Schnabel, David Boies, Bob Colacello, Vera Wang, Lally Weymouth and Nacho Figueras (whom Koch was overheard telling inspired the name of his family dog).
After a dinner with 1920s club décor, guests grabbed Champagne and headed outside to admire the fountains. [...]
Spies said eagle-eyed MIT grad Koch noticed some lights that were slightly off and had them adjusted as Barbara Walters approached to inexplicably hand him a furry stuffed elephant as a gift.
The entire project to revamp the area in front of the Met was Koch’s idea and Koch surprised everybody involved when he offered to pay for everything, according to the Wichita Eagle.After a dinner with 1920s club décor, guests grabbed Champagne and headed outside to admire the fountains. [...]
Spies said eagle-eyed MIT grad Koch noticed some lights that were slightly off and had them adjusted as Barbara Walters approached to inexplicably hand him a furry stuffed elephant as a gift.
“The trees that were there were all old, broken and ugly,” [Koch] said “And the illumination of the facade overlooking Fifth Avenue was carried out by searchlights, harsh blue searchlights. It reminded me of when I went by a penitentiary once, at night, the purpose of the searchlights being to catch prisoners escaping.”
“I suggested the whole project,” he said of the Met’s plaza. “It took about two years of working with the final architect to come up with all these different designs. I suggested a number of things, too … and at the end of months and months of work … the chairman of the building committee said: ‘We’ve got this fantastic project, and the big question is, how do we pay for it?’
“And so I raised my hand, and said, ‘I’ve got a good idea. Why don’t I pay for everything, including all the extras?’
Koch is one of the biggest philanthropists in New York City’s art community. Across Central Park from the Met is the Natural History Museum, and its famous dinosaur hall received $35 million from Koch in 2012, who already funded the museum’s David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins.“I suggested the whole project,” he said of the Met’s plaza. “It took about two years of working with the final architect to come up with all these different designs. I suggested a number of things, too … and at the end of months and months of work … the chairman of the building committee said: ‘We’ve got this fantastic project, and the big question is, how do we pay for it?’
“And so I raised my hand, and said, ‘I’ve got a good idea. Why don’t I pay for everything, including all the extras?’
Koch earlier this year donated $100 million to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, which promptedmassive protests from unions and liberal groups in the city angry that the museum accepted the generous donation.
The billionaire philanthropist has unfortunately been called “un-American” and “against everything that’s good for America” by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.).
It is unclear if Reid is aware that Maloney and Nadler were present for the celebration of Koch’s generosity to the city.
[h=2]How the Obama Stimulus Helped Kay Hagan’s Millionaire Husband Get Even Richer[/h]Husband's firm got $400,000 in grants and tax credits
BY: Andrew Stiles
September 26, 2014 12:28 pm
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Kay Hagan terrifies a small child. (AP)
As of 2012, Sen. Kay Hagan (D., N.C.) was the ninth-wealthiest member of the Senate, with anestimated net worth of $24 million. Much of that is tied to her husband, Chip, who is a partner at a Greensboro law firm and holds investments in a number of businesses. One of those businesses is JDC Manufacturing, which he co-owns with his two brothers.THE POLITICO reports that JDC Manufacturing received almost $400,000 in federal grants and tax credits for green energy projects as part of the 2009 stimulus package:
Financial disclosure statements show that the Hagans’ income from JDC Manufacturing increased from less than $201 in 2008 to nearly $134,000 in 2013. Company representatives said higher rental income account for the uptick, not the stimulus-funded projects that were completed during that span.
Asked to explain, Hagan did was she always does, and ran away. Her campaign later denied any wrongdoing in the matter.
Once she learned of her husband’s dealings, Hagan never involved herself in his efforts to obtain the stimulus grants, her campaign said. She consulted with veteran Democratic attorney Marc Elias over the matter, according to spokeswoman Sadie Weiner.
“Kay is not involved in her husband’s business and had no part in helping JDC apply for or receive these grants,” Weiner said. “Her only involvement was when she made sure that a respected ethics attorney was consulted to ensure that it was appropriate, and the attorney found that it was.”
Reporters are still waiting for Hagan, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to explain why she appears to have skipped a key briefing by intelligence officials on the threat posed by the terrorist group ISIL in order to attend a fundraiser in New York City.“Kay is not involved in her husband’s business and had no part in helping JDC apply for or receive these grants,” Weiner said. “Her only involvement was when she made sure that a respected ethics attorney was consulted to ensure that it was appropriate, and the attorney found that it was.”
Hagan loves to paint herself as the victim in her race against Republican Thom Tillis, emailing on a daily basis about the Koch brothers and outside groups spending money in North Carolina. Meanwhile, liberal groups have spent around $15 million in the state on ads attacking Tillis.
Anti-Steyer Ad Leads Left Wing Money-in-Politics Video Contest
Conservative group’s salvo against ‘America’s Biggest Hypocrite’ dominates voting
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'America’s Biggest Hypocrite' ad by American Committment
BY: Lachlan Markay
October 10, 2014 1:30 pm
A leading liberal campaign finance reform organization is running a contest for the best user-submitted video on the evils of money in politics. They probably didn’t expect a conservative group to be the contest’s front-runner.
An online advertisement created by the conservative nonprofit group American Commitment attacking the “hypocrisy” of Democratic mega-donor Tom Steyer has ten times as many votes as the next most popular video.
The contest is a project of liberal activist group MoveOn.org and MAYDAY PAC, a super PAC attempting to elect federal candidates who pledge to crack down on political speech.
The contest guidelines call for submissions that stress “the importance of money in politics, and why we need to fundamentally reform the way elections are funded.”
“Show us why the issue is important to you and your community, how it relates to other issues you care about, or why everyone should care,” its website says.
A panel of left-leaning judges will review the entries with the most votes. MAYDAY will feature the winner on its website, and may air the ad on television “if the data shows it makes sense for the campaigns.”
As of Friday afternoon, American Commitment’s video had 1,604 votes. The second-place entry had just 140.
The ad, titled “America’s Biggest Hypocrite,” attacks “Tom Steyer’s job-crushing, tax-hiking agenda,” and notes that despite being the largest donor to outside spending groups during the 2014 cycle—by a $30 million margin—Steyer has financed ads attacking “out-of-state billionaires.”
Steyer, a billionaire from California, funded one such ad backing Iowa Senate candidate Rep. Bruce Braley (D).
American Commitment president Phil Kerpen touted the promising vote tallies for his contest entry in a press release this week.
“We’ve looked at the other entries and are confident that if this is an honest contest and not a partisan charade, our entry will easily win,” Kerpen said.
While MAYDAY probably did not expect a conservative ad to dominate the contest, Kerpen said Steyer embodies the trend that the group is seeking to combat.
“The winning entry in this contest should be about America’s number one fatcat campaign contributor, Tom Steyer—and we have submitted an entry to shine a spotlight on him and on the role hypocritical liberal billionaire contributors play in stoking feigned outrage about conservative donors,” he said in his release.
Steyer has contributed more than $42 million to outside spending groups during the 2014 cycle, roughly as much as the top 33 Republican-leaning donors combined, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
MAYDAY couches its opposition to political spending in nonpartisan terms, and the group has backed some long-shot Republican candidates who share its concerns.
However, its leader, Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig, has admitted that he sees campaign finance reform as a means to kneecap political opposition to left-wing political goals such as carbon emission restrictions and Internet regulation.
Other leading campaign finance reform advocates, including congressional backers of a recent push to amend the Bill of Rights for the first time in American history, have also framed the effort as a means to facilitate key pillars of the Democratic Party’s policy agenda.
[h=2]Three Highest-Paid Executives in Entertainment are Dem Donors[/h]SHARE
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BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
October 9, 2014 11:35 am
Variety is out with its list of the highest paid CEOs in the entertainment industry. The top three on the list are all Democratic donors.
Sumner Redstone, executive chairman of CBS and Viacom, pulled in $93.4 million this past fiscal year. He refers to himself a “liberal Democrat” and has been an active donor to the party dating back to the 1970s.
Leslie Moonves came behind Redstone, making $66.9 million as the CEO of CBS. Moonves has not been a highly active political donor since the 1990s, when he contributed often and nearly exclusively to Democrats.
“I run a news division. I’ve given no money to any candidate,” said Moonves, as he waited in line to get into a Los Angeles event where President Barack Obama spoke in front of a crowd celebrating his change of heart on gay marriage.
Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer pulled in $66.3 million, and is actively spending it in support of Democratic candidates this cycle.
Democrats in crucial Senate races across the country, including Alison Lundergan Grimes (Ky.),Kay Hagan (N.C.), and Jeanne Shaheen (N.H), have received financial support from Feltheimer. He has also made multiple donations to both President Obama and Hillary Clinton.
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Wikimedia Commons
BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
October 9, 2014 11:35 am
Variety is out with its list of the highest paid CEOs in the entertainment industry. The top three on the list are all Democratic donors.
Sumner Redstone, executive chairman of CBS and Viacom, pulled in $93.4 million this past fiscal year. He refers to himself a “liberal Democrat” and has been an active donor to the party dating back to the 1970s.
Leslie Moonves came behind Redstone, making $66.9 million as the CEO of CBS. Moonves has not been a highly active political donor since the 1990s, when he contributed often and nearly exclusively to Democrats.
“I run a news division. I’ve given no money to any candidate,” said Moonves, as he waited in line to get into a Los Angeles event where President Barack Obama spoke in front of a crowd celebrating his change of heart on gay marriage.
Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer pulled in $66.3 million, and is actively spending it in support of Democratic candidates this cycle.
Democrats in crucial Senate races across the country, including Alison Lundergan Grimes (Ky.),Kay Hagan (N.C.), and Jeanne Shaheen (N.H), have received financial support from Feltheimer. He has also made multiple donations to both President Obama and Hillary Clinton.
