Disrupting the Narrative of the New Left, its allies in Academia, Hollywood and the Establishment Media, and examining with honesty the goals of cultural Marxism and the dangers of reactionary and abusive political correctness.
THE NARRATIVE AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
“Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.”-George Orwell
On this episode of the Rundown, John Phillips, Scott Ott, and Stephen Kruiser discuss whether the Koch Brothers are supporting the Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in the Republican primary.
The Koch brothers plan on spending nearly $1 billion dollars in the 2016 election cycle. Will that be enough to help send a Republican to the White House? Plus, Hillary Clinton's poll numbers are fading.
The sordid truth at the heart of the campaign finance reform movement is that it has always been more about suppressing the free speech rights of individuals then about cleaning up government. There is no evidence the cap rules prevented corruption. But what they do accomplish is to make it harder to take down incumbents or to challenge the dominant voice of a mainstream media whose First Amendment rights to say what they like about candidates have rightly never been questioned.
Campaign finance laws never succeeded in driving money out of politics. But they have forced donors to resort to more indirect methods of financing candidates and causes they like, making the system less accountable. By removing such limits on donations to candidates and parties, the court will increase the influence of these institutions and allow more money to be put in the hands of those who are actually running the campaigns rather than outside groups. This will make elections more transparent and be good for democracy.
As they did with Citizens United, liberals will lament this ruling because it chips away further at the notion that government has a right to limit political speech. But, as Roberts said, "there is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our leaders." Political donations are no different from any other kind of protected political speech. Allowing more speech, whether from conservatives or liberals, corporations or unions, won't harm democracy; it enhances it. By ending the federal caps, the court has struck a blow for more freedom, not corruption.
Faith in Public Life, a group that has been funded by atheist billionaire George Soros,is behind an attack on The Catholic University of America (CUA) for accepting a $1 million donation from the Charles Koch Foundation, says Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
"The real story here is not the money being given to Catholic University by successful entrepreneurs; it is the source of the money being given to those who initiated the attack.
"To wit: Faith in Public Life spearheaded this highly politicized assault, and it is funded by left-wing zealot George Soros," said Donohue, who praised CUA President John Garvey for "wisely standing his ground."
"Soros is an atheist billionaire who is no friend of the Catholic community. In fact, he funds causes that the Catholic Church works hard to oppose: abortion, euthanasia, drug legalization, and many other radical initiatives," Donohue said.
These are the ads that liberal supporters of ObamaCare don't want you to see. The reason? They're effective!
The left is having a temper tantrum.
Reading a couple of liberal scribes over the past 24 hours, we can almost hear the huffing and puffing, the indignant stamping of feet; reading their tweets, we can nearly hear the feverish pitch of their whines. Oh, the outrage. Won’t somebody please think of the children? On and on.
The cause? These hysterically creepy ads Generation Opportunity released urging young people to opt out of Obamacare on Oct. 1.
Complaints have ranged from the mundane to the delusional, with the ever-reliable folks at MSNBC seeing racism in the ads’ diverse set of actors. But brushing aside the panicked innuendos the left brings to every waking moment, all the young folks over at Generation Opportunity are seeing are clicks. Awareness of their cause. Alertness to their message.
Because seriously, when is the last time an anti-Obamacare ad went viral?
And viral it went. Published on Thursday, the videos have already racked up over one million hits combined. In the first 24 hours, over 100 publications wrote them up.
Generation Opportunity, a Koch Foundation-funded anti-Obamacare group, plans a $750,000 campaign of "Opt Out" ads aimed at convincing college students to forego the Affordable Care Act's exchanges.
If conservative groups feel they have a valid financial argument against the Heritage Foundation's idea of the individual mandate Obamacare, then they should make it. But if "straight-to-video slasher flick meets tea party iconography" is the best vehicle for your message, it says a lot about the message itself.
If McMurry could be bothered to do a little actual research then he'd know that the serious arguments have and continue to be made regarding the looming disaster that is ObamaCare. Or he could just ask the unions what they think about it. And, of course, there's the usual Koch Bros derangement syndrome. Apparently only left-wingers are allowed to be funded by billionaires.
No, what really has the proggies panicking is the fact that they are now realizing that they don't have a monopoly on either talented young activists or the ability to produce viral messaging. McMurry himself recently was shocked to discover that Republicans actually know how to use GIFs to get a message out to young people.
"This is written for young people, by young people," Generation Opportunity president Evan Feinberg, 29, told The Daily Caller. "A lot of groups message to young people through traditional political ad campaigns because that's all they know how to do. We think these videos went viral because we put ourselves in the minds of our friends, classmates, coworkers, and asked what would we find creepy? Funny? What would get the message across for us?"
Well, it turns out the answer isn't some long-winded commentary on health-care policy in the United States. It's comedy. Dark comedy.
"That was always the goal: To use creepiness to get the buzz," one outside consultant who worked on the project told TheDC. "Otherwise it would have just another center-right ad — not 'holy shit,' which is what it was."
"Messaging from a 70-year-old, center-right perspective has not helped us reach young people," the consultant added.
The bottom line is this: The progs are in a tizzy because this is exactly the kind of stuff that they'd be praising...if their side had done something this clever.
Since March 12 there have been numerous news stories about Koch Industries' possible interest in the acquisition of a media company.
In mid-May we posted this piece on KochFacts that included our statements on the potential acquisition of Tribune Company. It set forth facts about our company. As expected, there have been coordinated protests by political and organizational activists in several cities, including one that took place in Los Angeles on May 29. Captured on this video are comments from some of the protesters, including this remark by a Greenpeace activist saying: "Here's the headline I want to see in the Los Angeles Times tomorrow: 'Los Angeles to Koch Brothers: Drop Dead.'"
The video provides unfortunate evidence that the protesters are ill-informed about Koch's beliefs and values as a company. Many of the attacks are personal, threatening, and unfounded. We hope these types of hate-filled demonstrations are a wake-up call for all who believe in civility, diversity, and respect, and who believe that free speech is a Constitutional right. For its part, Koch Industries does not and will never engage in hate speech. Koch will make investment decisions based on our own set of criteria and principles. In America, protesters have a right to protest; however we haven't been intimidated by past politically motivated attacks, and we won’t be intimidated by these protests. The demonstrations carry no weight and have no influence on investment decisions we make.
