To Liberals, GOP Donors are Public Enemy Number One
The White House attack on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce isn't about "disclosure." It's about disarmament. While posing as campaign finance champions, the ultimate goal of the Democratic offensive is to intimidate conservative donors, chill political free speech and drain Republican coffers.
Chamber of Commerce official Bruce Josten tried to educate the public. "(W)e know what the purpose here is," he told ABC News. "It's to harass and intimidate." Josten cited protests and threats against chamber members as retribution for ads the organization ran opposing the federal health care takeover.
But this isn't the first time liberal bullyboys have targeted right-leaning contributors. Far from it.
In August 2008, a former Washington director of MoveOn.org — the smear merchant group that branded Gen. David Petraeus a traitor for overseeing the successful troop surge in Iraq — announced a brazen witch hunt against Republican donors. Left-wing political operative Tom Matzzie told The New York Times he would send "warning" letters to 10,000 top GOP givers "hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions." Matzzie bragged of "going for the jugular" and said the warning letter would be just the first step, "alerting donors who might be considering giving to right-wing groups to a variety of potential dangers, including legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives."
Defenders of this brown-shirt initiative played the disclosure card — hey, they were just providing "information" — to rationalize the public humiliation of GOP donors.
Matzzie also put up a $100,000 bounty for dirt on conservative political groups "to create a sense of scandal around the groups" and dissuade donors from giving money. The effort was cheered by Accountable America adviser Judd Legum, founder of Think Progress — the same group leading the attack today on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Yet, Matzzie's group, Accountable America, is itself a 501(c)(4) nonprofit entity that shields the identity of its donors. (The group is required by law to remain nonpartisan, but has described itself as "dedicated to electing Democrats to the state legislature across America.") By targeting direct, hard-money contributors who are required to disclose their occupations, addresses and employers, Matzzie's assault simply created a sunshine-evading incentive to steer campaign donations to soft-money groups that protect donor identities. You know, like Accountable America does.
Piggybacking on the Accountable America foray, Obama's presidential campaign lawyers demanded that the Justice Department block TV stations from airing a documented, factual independent ad spotlighting Obama's longtime working relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. Obama summoned his followers to bombard stations, many of them owned by conservative-leaning Sinclair Communications, with 93,000 e-mails to squelch the commercial. Team Obama then tried — and failed — to convince the DOJ to investigate and prosecute the American Issues Project, the group that produced the Ayers ad, as well as Dallas billionaire and GOP donor Harold Simmons, who funded it.
Two Obama supporters — Democratic St. Louis County (Mo.) Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce — took the next step and threatened to bring criminal libel charges against anyone who sponsored objectionable criticisms of Obama.
In California, gay rights mau-mau-ers compiled black lists and harassment lists of citizens who contributed to the Proposition 8 initiative in defense of traditional marriage. A Los Angeles restaurant whose manager made a small donation to the Prop. 8 campaign was besieged nightly by hordes of protesters who disrupted the business, intimidated patrons and brought employees to tears. Terrified workers at El Coyote Mexican Cafe pooled together $500 to pay off the protesters. A theater director who donated $1,000 to Prop. 8 was forced to resign over the donation.
Anonymous mischief-makers created "Eight Maps," a detailed directory of Prop. 8 donors using Google Maps to pinpoint their residences and businesses. Death threats, enveloped with powdery substances, and boycotts ensued. "When I see those maps," admitted California Voter Foundation President Kim Alexander, "it does leave me with a bit of a sick feeling in my stomach."
It's the same feeling every American should be left with after witnessing the liberal thug-tested, White House-approved donor suppression campaign against fiscal and social conservatives. In the hands of leftist vigilantes, "disclosure" is a deadly bludgeon; political free speech is the casualty.
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.
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Comments
Wow! MM, I wish our
Submitted by d1carter on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 12:06am.
Wow! MM, I wish our conservative politicians had half the guts that you display every day in your writings. Keep up the good work and stay safe.
Keeping donors protected
Submitted by KC Mulville on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 12:54am.
If you have nothing to hide, they'll say, you'll come out. But [having nothing to hide] is different from [having no reason to hide]. The donors have nothing to hide, but they may have reason to hide -- namely fear of retaliation from the thugs who work for the White House.
We all know
Submitted by ripper58 on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 6:10am.
the tactics they use and they absolutely hate it when we use those tactics on them.The Liberals always want you to play by their rules which they do not follow themselves!
E545F564-6263-8914-13EE-60E5AFBA07B5 1.03.01Defenders of this brown-shirt
Submitted by motherbelt on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 7:00am.
Defenders of this brown-shirt initiative played the disclosure card — hey, they were just providing "information" — to rationalize the public humiliation of GOP donors.
Oh, I get it....it's another Public Awareness Campaign
Obama WILL Ensure Voter Fraud
Submitted by Retired Geek on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 7:15am.
Expect Voter Fraud to be Common Place in the 2010 and 2012 Elections and remember Barack Obama is an Expert in designing and implementing Voter Fraud.
We must remember that Barack Obama was instrumental in teaching voter fraud to ACORN.
Now Barack Obama is the Chief Executive of ALL of the Government Agencies who investigate and prosecute Voter Fraud.
Be careful here, very careful
Submitted by SparkyInVA on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 9:47am.
Wasn't there a reason to have private ballots? Seems we need some of the same protection here. We are getting caught between a rock and a hard place. We need the political discussion, but the Alinsky types take the civility out of the discussion. I believe those types would like nothing better than for us to over-react and pass a law to limit discussion. We need a more clever solution. If we limit disclosure to those over a certain limit, will the big cats just make many small donations aka Obama's credit card donations not being tracked or reported?
As a programmer, I know it was possible to write a program to automaticly make donations below the limit to Obama's website. There was no requirement for proof that there was a human filling in the blanks. So a computer could be making donations at the rate of 1 per second of say $200, you can pump $720,000 into a campaign every hour.
Back to our point, every game has rules. But in most games we have something called sportsmanship. Who was the first that suggested "the end justifies the means, anything goes"? It seems that sportsmanship is out the window. Al Gore's team wasn't the first to want to win at any cost.
The despicable left!
Submitted by Boudin on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 10:16am.
I suppose our resident libs will either avoid this thread, or suggest they are against it.
I have witness this kind of intimidation very closely, like from my front yard, and my car seat. My poor 100lbs wife has her car vandalized regularly. I have NO tolerance for this kind of intimidation. And I bet the intimidators will think again before coming to my house!
A message to those libs, you enable this nonsense when you support them. So I dont care!
Thanks MM
Its over Johnny
Submitted by sam12663 on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 11:08am.
Intimidation and threats are not going to work anymore.
America does many things better than most nations, with our best being the ability to rise up to a challenge. Right now we are being challenged by a group of people that do not have the country's best interests at heart. The goal of these people is to, as candidate Barack Obama exuberantly declared, "fundementally transform America".
The American people have been shaken from the celebrity stupor of the Obama campaign mystique; they've been awakened to the fact that this man has no actual governing skills whatsoever; and they have come to the realization that his main objective is to fulfill his campaign promise of 'fundemental transformation'. He will use any means necessary to acheive his ultimate goal, including threats, lies and intimidation.
The one thing Mr. Obama did not count on was the will of the American people to stand up to anyone trying to 'transform' our nation into something we wouldn't recognize.
Intimidation, threats, lies, bring 'em on. Mr. Obama, you picked this fight, and, as usual, you have underestimated your opponent.
In the immortal words of Admiral Yamamoto:
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
Where's the rest of the outrage?
Submitted by CO2Maker on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 11:54am.
The allegations against the CofC by the CinC are deplorable and desperate, and Axlegrease's reply that the Chamber should show us their donor list (in response to Shieffer's "show us your proof") is transprently disingenuous.
Michelle Malkin's list of Obama's and others' intimidation of donors to unpopular causes is troubling and reprehensible.
But why haven't we heard any more than a few mild peeps about the fundraising from the Chinese by President Bubba? Ann Coulter burst onto the national scene with High Crimes and Misdemeanors, an expose not only of Bubba's bjs but also of his other serious misdeeds, such as raking in beaucoup moolah from the Chinese via Johnny Chung and others.
CO2,
Submitted by UpNorth on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 12:00pm.
Don't forget Algore's wh**ing himself out to the Chinese for campaign cash too. And, not a peep about the Poser in Chief taking untold amounts of cash from, ahem, foreign donors.
secular fatwas
Submitted by ZuccoZoid on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 5:35pm.
0bama is a jihadist: using a position of massive influence to issue fatwas against us: he uses language such as 'hand to hand combat', 'if they bring a knife we bring a gun' and far more. And of course his mentor of 20 years who openly declared 'G0d damn America."
70,000 pages of tax law.... Guilty.....Pay fine..... next.
Submitted by upcountrywater on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 3:17pm.
Douglas Shulman, works for a known tax cheat...
here is his motto: ( kind of scary coming from this guy)
"One of my favorite quotes ... is from Will Rogers, the great colloquial legend of American history, who said, 'Even if you're on the right track, if you're standing still, you'll get run over.' That's how I like to think about running an institution, that you need to keep moving.Speech, National Press Club, April 13, 2009 (1)
You Didn't Build That.
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