American_Jihad
Flaming Libs/Koranimals
- May 1, 2012
- 11,534
- 3,717
Just so ya know...
Fat Cats and Democrats
February 25, 2014 by Bruce Thornton
The progressive mind functions by means of mythic narratives that have tenuous connections to reality. Cops shoot a black man, and Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post begs please dont shoot me, indulging the myth of a lethal American racism endangering black peoples lives, even though black offenders kill 90% of black murder victims, and 85% of interracial crime is perpetuated by blacks against whites.
...
Consider the Center for Responsive Politics recently released list of Heavy Hitters, the biggest donors among political organizations from 1989 to 2014. Number 1 is ActBlue, the online clearinghouse for Democratic action, as it styles itself, that bundles individual contributions for distribution to Democratic candidates. ActBlue has already raised $12 million for the 2014 election cycle. In 2012 it tallied $33 million. All but 4 of the top 16 heavy hitters give the overwhelming majority of their funds to the Democrats. Only 2 of the top 20 give to Republicans. As FrontPages Arnold Ahlert points out, the progressives favorite big-money bogeymen, the Koch brothers, didnt even make the top 50. These data are consistent with the research of David Horowitz and Jacob Laskin in their book The New Leviathan, which counts 122 left-wing foundations worth $104 billion, compared to 86 conservative ones worth around $10 billion.
This blatant hypocrisy and disregard for fact, of course, is nothing new, and reflects a long history of wealthy elites promoting progressive causes and policies from their privileged enclaves. In 2005 Hoover fellow Peter Schweitzer profiled some of these Potemkin populists whose lives have nothing to do with their principles, and who never have to live with the consequences of their policies. MIT professor Noam Chomsky, for example, the most prominent left-wing critics of America, has called capitalism a grotesque catastrophe, one crafted to induce hopelessness, resignation, and despair. Yet Chomsky, Schweitzer writes, is himself a shrew capitalist, worth millions, with money in the dreaded and evil stock market, and at least one tax haven to cut down on those pesky inheritance taxes that he says are so important. Chomsky has set up an irrevocable trust to shelter his money, with his tax attorney and his daughter as trustees. Fans of redistributing wealth via the income tax like Chomsky are careful to make sure that somebody else pays for their political idealism.
Or take progressive filmmaker Michael Moore, who boasted about not owning stock but then set up a private foundation that in 2005 owned nearly $400,000 in corporate stocks and bonds, including pharmaceutical and medical companies like Pfizer, Merck, and Eli Lilly, the targets of his documentary Sicko, which attacked the American health-care system. Moores foundation, however, doesnt lavish funds on activist causes: For a man who by 2002 had a net worth in eight figures, Schweitzer writes, he gave away a modest $36,000 through the foundation, much of it to his friends in the film business or tony cultural organizations that later provided him with venues to promote his books and films. John Kerry, George Soros, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Ralph Naderas Schweitzer documents, all these scolds of capitalist greed and champions of the oppressed have done very well manipulating the system to increase their own power and privilege, and ensuring that their money doesnt end up in the governments hands to finance the social justice policies they loudly champion.
...
Read: Fat Cats and Democrats | FrontPage Magazine
Fat Cats and Democrats
February 25, 2014 by Bruce Thornton
The progressive mind functions by means of mythic narratives that have tenuous connections to reality. Cops shoot a black man, and Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post begs please dont shoot me, indulging the myth of a lethal American racism endangering black peoples lives, even though black offenders kill 90% of black murder victims, and 85% of interracial crime is perpetuated by blacks against whites.
...
Consider the Center for Responsive Politics recently released list of Heavy Hitters, the biggest donors among political organizations from 1989 to 2014. Number 1 is ActBlue, the online clearinghouse for Democratic action, as it styles itself, that bundles individual contributions for distribution to Democratic candidates. ActBlue has already raised $12 million for the 2014 election cycle. In 2012 it tallied $33 million. All but 4 of the top 16 heavy hitters give the overwhelming majority of their funds to the Democrats. Only 2 of the top 20 give to Republicans. As FrontPages Arnold Ahlert points out, the progressives favorite big-money bogeymen, the Koch brothers, didnt even make the top 50. These data are consistent with the research of David Horowitz and Jacob Laskin in their book The New Leviathan, which counts 122 left-wing foundations worth $104 billion, compared to 86 conservative ones worth around $10 billion.
This blatant hypocrisy and disregard for fact, of course, is nothing new, and reflects a long history of wealthy elites promoting progressive causes and policies from their privileged enclaves. In 2005 Hoover fellow Peter Schweitzer profiled some of these Potemkin populists whose lives have nothing to do with their principles, and who never have to live with the consequences of their policies. MIT professor Noam Chomsky, for example, the most prominent left-wing critics of America, has called capitalism a grotesque catastrophe, one crafted to induce hopelessness, resignation, and despair. Yet Chomsky, Schweitzer writes, is himself a shrew capitalist, worth millions, with money in the dreaded and evil stock market, and at least one tax haven to cut down on those pesky inheritance taxes that he says are so important. Chomsky has set up an irrevocable trust to shelter his money, with his tax attorney and his daughter as trustees. Fans of redistributing wealth via the income tax like Chomsky are careful to make sure that somebody else pays for their political idealism.
Or take progressive filmmaker Michael Moore, who boasted about not owning stock but then set up a private foundation that in 2005 owned nearly $400,000 in corporate stocks and bonds, including pharmaceutical and medical companies like Pfizer, Merck, and Eli Lilly, the targets of his documentary Sicko, which attacked the American health-care system. Moores foundation, however, doesnt lavish funds on activist causes: For a man who by 2002 had a net worth in eight figures, Schweitzer writes, he gave away a modest $36,000 through the foundation, much of it to his friends in the film business or tony cultural organizations that later provided him with venues to promote his books and films. John Kerry, George Soros, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Ralph Naderas Schweitzer documents, all these scolds of capitalist greed and champions of the oppressed have done very well manipulating the system to increase their own power and privilege, and ensuring that their money doesnt end up in the governments hands to finance the social justice policies they loudly champion.
...
Read: Fat Cats and Democrats | FrontPage Magazine
