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The Uncloaking the Koch Street Protest: The Kochs Vs. Soros
Photo from yesterday’s The Uncloacking the Kochs street protest
As Tim Carney aptly points out in his piece the Koch Conference street protest yesterday is really a fight between free markets and state coercion. A fight between the Koch brothers and George Soros sponsored LEFTIST organizations.At the front gates of the Rancho Las Palmas resort, a few hundred liberals rallied Sunday against “corporate greed” and polluters. They chanted for the arrest of billionaires Charles and David Koch, and their ire was also directed at the other free market-oriented businessmen invited here by the Koch brothers to discuss free markets and electoral strategies.
Billionaires poisoning our politics was the central theme of the protests. But nothing is quite as it seems in modern politics: The protest’s organizer, the nonprofit Common Cause, is funded by billionaire George Soros.
Common Cause has received $2 million from Soros’s Open Society Institute in the past eight years, according to grant data provided by Capital Research Center. Two panelists at Common Cause’s rival conference nearby — President Obama’s former green jobs czar, Van Jones, and blogger Lee Fang — work at the Center for American Progress, which was started and funded by Soros but, as a 501(c)4 nonprofit “think tank,” legally conceals the names of its donors.
In other words, money from billionaire George Soros and anonymous, well-heeled liberals was funding a protest against rich people’s influence on politics.
When Politico reporter Ken Vogel pointed out that Soros hosts similar “secret” confabs, CAP’s Fang responded on Twitter: “don’t you think there’s a very serious difference between donors who help the poor vs. donors who fund people to kill government, taxes on rich?”
In less than 140 characters, Fang had epitomized the myopic liberal view of money in politics: Conservative money is bad, and linked to greed, while liberal money is self-evidently philanthropic.
You can hear CAP’s Lee Fang in his own words try to explain the difference between the LEFT’S private fundraising confabs and those of the Koch’s here in last Thursdays Common Cause teleconference.So, Big Labor busses out its minions and the FAR LEFT (see some of the sponsoring organizations here) puts on an UNCIVIL display, 25 people are arrested.
According to an eye-witness who contacted me by e-mail, protesters shouted “traitors,” held signs that said “Koch Kills” and chanted “No justice, no peace” outside the hotel.
A Koch representative whom I contacted had this comment on the day’s events: “This is the kind of ‘civil debate’ the left wants to have after Tucson?” One additional note: Inside the same conference center as the conservatives was a conference of judges from the Ninth Circuit. The recent death of a federal judge in Arizona did not give the mob pause about the propriety of their actions.
All Saul Alinsky type symbolism over substance with FAR LEFT hypocrisy over flowing = #EPIC FAIL.
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Updated: The Uncloaking the Kochs Street Protest is On in Rancho Mirage; Arrests Made; 25 Arrested
Updated: The Uncloaking the Kochs Street Protest is On in Rancho Mirage; Arrests Made
Far-Left Hot Air Flying Above the Koch ConferenceWho is Sponsoring the “Uncloaking the Kochs” Protest?
The LEFT ala Saul Alinsky Protest Koch Brothers Conference
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Updated: The Uncloaking the Kochs Street Protest is On in Rancho Mirage; Arrests Made; 25 Arrested
The first photo from the Koch Conference Street protest this afternoon.
Will there by violence/arrests – like the LEFT is predicting?Rally will begin at 1:00pm in front of the Koch summit (at the entrance to Rancho Las Palmas Resort in Rancho Mirage). At 2:30pm, 2000 protesters will take an oath “To return our great nation to government of, by and for the people, not government of, bought and paid for by powerful corporate interests.” Then hundreds of protesters in HazMat suits and badges will try to encircle the summit with giant caution tape to “Quarantine the Kochs.” Scores of protesters are considering peaceful civil disobedience.
Update:
The answer is yes on the arrests:
Authorities in California say 25 protesters have been arrested for trespassing outside a strategy session of conservative political donors at a Palm Springs-area resort.
Riverside County Deputy Melissa Nieburger (NEE’-bur-gur) said Sunday that the protesters were being booked at Indio Jail and released.
Hundreds of people participated in the mostly peaceful demonstration that had been arranged with authorities, but some protesters crossed the street to the Rancho Las Palmas Resort.
Deputies in riot gear arrested them without incident when they refused to leave the area.
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Updated: The Uncloaking the Kochs Street Protest is On in Rancho Mirage; Arrests Made
The first photo from the Koch Conference Street protest this afternoon.
Will there by violence/arrests – like the LEFT is predicting?Rally will begin at 1:00pm in front of the Koch summit (at the entrance to Rancho Las Palmas Resort in Rancho Mirage). At 2:30pm, 2000 protesters will take an oath “To return our great nation to government of, by and for the people, not government of, bought and paid for by powerful corporate interests.” Then hundreds of protesters in HazMat suits and badges will try to encircle the summit with giant caution tape to “Quarantine the Kochs.” Scores of protesters are considering peaceful civil disobedience.
Update:
The answer is yes on the arrests:
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The Uncloaking the Kochs Street Protest is On in Rancho Mirage
The first photo from the Koch Conference Street protest this afternoon.
Will there by violence/arrests – like the LEFT is predicting?Rally will begin at 1:00pm in front of the Koch summit (at the entrance to Rancho Las Palmas Resort in Rancho Mirage). At 2:30pm, 2000 protesters will take an oath “To return our great nation to government of, by and for the people, not government of, bought and paid for by powerful corporate interests.” Then hundreds of protesters in HazMat suits and badges will try to encircle the summit with giant caution tape to “Quarantine the Kochs.” Scores of protesters are considering peaceful civil disobedience.
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Far-Left Hot Air Flying Above the Koch Conference
Greenpeace is flying a blimp over Rancho Mirage, California this morningThe far left theater of the absurd continues today with the lead up to the Uncloaking the Kochs street protest on Sunday.Wonder how much this HOT AIR cost the radical environmental organization Greenpeace?
And, a better question is: who funded it?
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Audio: Common Cause Holds Teleconference to Bash Weekend Koch Sponsored Conference – Uncloaking the Kochs?
Common Cause Teleconference regarding the “Uncloak the Kochs” Protest, January 27, 2011The teleconference wasn’t much because the “Uncloaking Kochs” protest isn’t very much.
You remember the information on the Saul Alinsky type street protest which will protest the Koch brothers right to free speech and assembly this weekend in the Palm Springs area of California.So, you ask, what is the big deal?
Guess who’s holding a super secret, ill-intentioned meeting this weekend in Palm Springs, California? The nefarious Koch brothers – nefarious because they donate to conservative causes, of course.
Already, leftist groups are beginning to fulminate (against what, it’s not quite clear), insisting that there’s something inherently corrupt in the free assembly of the Koch brothers and their cohorts.
Take today’s conference call on the subject, conducted by Common Cause, featuring such liberal luminaries as former Clinton Labor secretary Robert Reich, disgraced former Obama official and Center for American Progress scholar Van Jones and his colleague Lee Fang, and DeAnn McKewan, co-president of California Nurses Association (yeah, I hadn’t heard of her either).
Reich sounded the Koch alarm: “their ongoing biannual meetings epitomize the problems that our democracy are facing right now,” he told the participants on the conference call. These meetings, he said, are a “perfect storm for democracy,” because the Koch brothers are rich and can participate in politics, “and we have secrecy – it’s all in secret.”
So, the Koch brothers hold private assemblies, participate in politics, and are, therefore, a threat to our democracy. Got it?
OK, I get it. The Koch brothers have a lot of money, donate to conservative causes, think tanks and candidates (all within the law) and the FAR LEFT and BIG LABOR don’t like it.
Listen to the entire audio above and smile as to how stupid and ridiculous the LEFT can be. They REALLY are.
This weekend conference is NO different than countless others that are held every weekend and with folks who meet to represent their industry or political ideology within the American political process. I have been to plenty through my career for organized dentistry, for example.
If you even listen hard enough to the audio above, you will hear two of the speakers try to answer the question as to why this conference is any different than any other?
The answer: The Kochs have more money.
Wow!
It is not any different, yet organized Labor will send its minions into the streets with idiotic signs to make asses out of themselves, protesting people in suits, listening to speakers talking about limited government. Real dangerous stuff here.
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Who is Sponsoring the “Uncloaking the Kochs” Protest?
The LEFT ala Saul Alinsky Protest Koch Brothers Conference -
Who is Sponsoring the “Uncloaking the Kochs” Protest?
Previous Koch Conference attendees conservatives include former Attorney General Edwin Meese, Rush Limbaugh, Senator Jim DeMint and Senator John Cornyn et. al.
Remember the flap and the Saul Alinsky style street protest which I mentioned yesterday?
This morning it has been picked up by Politico.This weekend, for the eighth straight year, the billionaire Koch brothers will convene a meeting of roughly 200 wealthy businessmen, Republican politicians and conservative activists for a semi-annual conference to raise millions of dollars for the institutions that form the intellectual foundation – and, increasingly, the leading political edge – of the conservative movement.
In the past, the meetings have drawn an A-list of participants – politicians like Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, leading free-market thinkers including American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks, talkers Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and even Supreme Court justices – to mingle with the wealthy donors who comprise the bulk of the invitees. The meetings adjourned after soliciting pledges of support from the donors – sometimes totaling as much as $50 million – to non-profit groups favored by the Kochs.
For the most part, the meetings, which are closed to the public and reporters, have attracted little attention outside conservative circles. But very different circumstances surround the Koch conference set to begin Saturday at an exclusive resort outside Palm Springs, Calif.
The Koch brothers – Charles and David – have come under intense scrutiny recently for their role in helping start and fund some of the deepest-pocketed groups involved in organizing the tea party movement such as Americans for Prosperity, and for steering cash towards efforts to target President Barack Obama, his healthcare overhaul, and congressional Democrats in the run-up to the 2010 election.
Liberal critics have launched a campaign to highlight what they say is the systematic way in which the Kochs use their political giving to advance a conservative economic and regulatory agenda designed to further the interests of their oil, chemical and manufacturing empire.
So, who is behind the protest of this conference? The usual LEFT organizations but let’s take a close look.
1. Common Cause – sponsoring organization of the Uncloak the Kochs – The Billionaires Causcus and its Threat to Our Democracy.2. California Labor Federation
3. Courage Campaign
4. California Nurses Association
5. Code Pink
6. ACLU
7. Sierra Club
8. Greenpeace
9. AFSCME
10. MoveOn
There are others, but you get the point – The FAR LEFT and BIG LABOR.
What a shock.
And, Big Labor is helping organize the turnout and bus rides down to the Palm Springs area to protest on the streets. This is how they roll.
But, what is there to protest? Politics? Fundraising? Political Activism? Hobnobbing with the rich and famous?
While the Koch conferences have taken on an undeniably political edge – a June summit featured sessions on voter mobilization efforts for the 2010 midterms as well as solicitations for an ad campaign attacking Democratic lawmakers – those who have attended say the meetings say the critics have it all wrong.
“The main goal of the seminars appeared to me to be education on the challenges that face the American system of free enterprise and democracy, and what people can do about them,” said Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a conservative Republican who has attended at least seven of the meetings.
McDonnell, who is not attending this weekend’s conference, said he was introduced to the gatherings by “free market friends up in Northern Virginia, some in the Koch enterprises institution,” and he cast the conferences as playing an important role in the political process.
“Groups on the right, left and in the middle get together all over this great country to exercise their first amendment rights to talk about these issues – some of them are public. Some of them are closed meetings,” he said. “So, to the degree that some on the left may be trying to attack these Koch seminars is really ridiculous.”
Really ridiculous is correct. This is good government in action and the LEFT hypocritically runs the same type conferences and accepts money from large donors like George Soros – hello!
This entire protest is a Saul Alinsky type of exercise to ridicule/humiliate/demonize the RIGHT for the benefit of the LEFT – that is all.
I don’t think it will work.
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The LEFT ala Saul Alinsky Protest Koch Brothers Conference
Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries MIT-trained brothers turned family oil refining firm into America’s second largest private company. Koch Industries has stakes in pipelines, refineries, fertilizer, fibers and polymers, forest and consumer products, chemical technology. Sales in 2008: $110 billion. Brothers each own 42% of company. Employs 80,000 people and operates in 60 countries.
Looks like the LEFT Counter-Movement has returned to Southern California to Saul Alinsky protest conservative/libertarian activists Charles and David Koch.A broad coalition of consumer, community, labor, environmental, student, civil liberties, and faith-based groups are sponsoring a rally in Rancho Mirage (near Palm Springs, California) next Sunday, January 30 to protest and draw attention to a secret meeting of right-wing billionaires and millionaires who are the key funders of the Tea Party, conservative think tanks like Cato Institute, and the extreme right wing of the Republican Party.
The leaders of this group, the Koch brothers, oil billionaires, have invited like-minded big-money conservatives to a behind-closed-doors three-day summit at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort in Rancho Mirage to plot their strategy for the 2012 elections. Their agenda is simple: Roll back consumer and workplace protections everywhere, including the environment, health care, credit cards, banks, occupational safety, workers’ rights, and more. Thousands of progressives are mobilizing to peacefully and creatively call them out.
Yeah, the New York Times last Fall received a “leaked” invitation and the LEFT cannot resist getting down and Saul Alinsky dirty with the Kochs. Here is the nefarious invitation:
Real ominous, isn’t it?This is the eight time in the Palm Springs, California area that the confab will be held. But, this year, the LEFT WILL organize street protests – and for what? Raising money and discussing how to affect government policy which affect their businesses – oh and playing politics.
Hello, isn’t this the American political system?
But, it seems the LEFT, beaten badly in the November elections nationally wants to create a scene ala Saul Alinsky Crash the Tea Party “movement.”
I’ll have more later on who is behind this protest.
Hint: The usual LEFTY players
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Charles and David Koch: Covert Operations?
Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries MIT-trained brothers turned family oil refining firm into America’s second largest private company. Koch Industries has stakes in pipelines, refineries, fertilizer, fibers and polymers, forest and consumer products, chemical technology. Sales in 2008: $110 billion. Brothers each own 42% of company. Employs 80,000 people and operates in 60 countries.
The New Yorker does a hit piece against these billionaire titans of business and industry. Their company, Koch Industries, website is here.
As if earning and spending your OWN money in order to influence public opinion is a crime or something.And, the title is extremely misleading because the Kochs’ opposition to the Far Left Anti-Capitalism Agenda of the Democrats and specifically President Barack Obama is widely known.
Oh yeah and the writer had to mention that their father was a founding member of the John Birch Society. Well, Non-Reagan, I mean Ron Reagan’s father was a Republican President, too.