WFB wa free Beacon / ctr am frdm

note K str addr

see WFB 2 6/18

SEE STEELE DOSSIER

see escalator/echo

attacked color of change

===

WIKI

History

Two research operations and confusion between them

The opposition research conducted by Fusion GPS on Donald Trump occurred in two distinct phases, each with different clients:

The client for the first phase was The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet, which funded research into multiple Republican candidates, including Trump. This phase, from October 2015 to May 2016, was focused on Trump's domestic business and entertainment activities; was performed by Fusion GPS and used public sources and investigative reporter Wayne Barrett's files.

Immediately after the publication of the dossier, the media sometimes falsely assumed that the dossier started as a product of this research, so the Free Beacon released this statement: "none of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier".^[45][46] what did they get and what did they do with it?

The clients for the second phase were the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign. This phase, from April to December 2016, was focused on Trump's Russian connections; it was subcontracted by Fusion GPS to Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence and used Steele's own source network and public sources. Only this second phase produced the dossier.^[47][48]

From April to early May 2016, The Washington Free Beacon and the DNC/Clinton Campaign were independently both clients of Fusion GPS. This overlap contributed to the media's confusion.

The Washington Free Beacon operation does not produce the dossier

In October 2015, before the official start of the 2016 Republican primary campaign, the founders of Fusion GPS were seeking political work and wrote an email to "a big conservative donor they knew who disliked Trump, [and] they were hired". He arranged for them to use The Washington Free Beacon, an American conservative political journalism website, for their general opposition research on several Republican presidential candidates, including Trump.^[49][50] It is primarily funded by Republican donor Paul Singer.^[50] The Free Beacon and Singer were "part of the conservative never-Trump movement".^[51] Although Singer was a big supporter of Marco Rubio, Rubio denied any involvement in Fusion GPS's initial research and hiring.^[45]

This phase used public sources, but early in their investigation, they also received help from Wayne Barrett who gave them his files on Trump. They contained findings about "Trump's past dealings, including tax and bankruptcy problems, potential ties to organized crime, and numerous legal entanglements. They also revealed that Trump had an unusually high number of connections to Russians with questionable backgrounds."^[49]

For months, Fusion GPS gathered information about Trump, focusing on his business and entertainment activities. When Trump became the presumptive nominee on May 3, 2016,^[52] the conservative donor stopped funding the research on him.^[24][53]

Due to media confusion over who produced the dossier, the Free Beacon issued a statement in October 2017 to debunk some false assumptions:^[45]

All of the work that Fusion GPS provided to the Free Beacon was based on public sources, and none of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier. The Free Beacon had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele. Nor did we have any knowledge of the relationship between Fusion GPS and the Democratic National Committee, Perkins Coie, and the Clinton campaign.

Although the source of the Steele dossier's funding had already been reported correctly over a year before,^[24][53][54] and the Free Beacon had issued a statement to this effect in October 2017,^[45] a February 2, 2018, story by the Associated Press (AP) contributed to confusion about its funding by stating that the dossier "was initially funded" by The Washington Free Beacon, so the AP posted a correction the next day: "Though the former spy, Christopher Steele, was hired by a firm that was initially funded by the Washington Free Beacon, he did not begin work on the project until after Democratic groups had begun funding it."^[55]

By the spring of 2016, researchers at Fusion GPS had become so alarmed by what they had already learned about Trump that they felt the need "to do what they could to keep Trump out of the White House".^[56]

Democratic Party operation produces dossier

ef 2

Secret Coordination Against ExxonMobil by Climate Activists

alana Goodman](https://freebeacon.com/author/alana-goodman/)

April 14, 2016

A small coalition of prominent climate change activists and political operatives huddled on Jan. 8 for a closed-door meeting at the Rockefeller Family Fund in Manhattan. Their agenda: taking down oil giant ExxonMobil through a coordinated campaign of legal action, divestment efforts, and political pressure.

The meeting—which included top officials at GreenPeace, the Working Families Party, and the Rockefeller Family Fund—took place as climate change groups have pushed for a federal criminal probe of ExxonMobil’s environmental impact, similar to the 1990s racketeering case against Big Tobacco.

A copy of the meeting’s agenda, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, provides a rare glimpse inside the anti-ExxonMobil crusade, which has already spurred investigations into the oil giant by Democratic attorneys general in several states.

According to the memo, the coalition’s goals are to "delegitimize [ExxonMobil] as a political actor," "force officials to disassociate themselves from Exxon," and "drive divestment from Exxon." The memo also proposed "creating scandal" by using lawsuits and state prosecutors to obtain internal documents from ExxonMobil through judicial discovery.

The secret meeting was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, but the group’s agenda was not posted in full until now.

The agenda was drafted by Kenny Bruno, an activist with the New Venture Fund. Bruno emailed the memo to a small group of around a dozen attendees, including Naomi Ages at GreenPeace; Dan Cantor, executive director of the New York Working Families Party; Jamie Henn, co-founder at 350.org; and Rob Weissman, president at Public Citizen.

According to the agenda, the meeting would be opened by Lee Wasserman, director of the Rockefeller Family Fund. The organization funds many environmental groups and hosted the meeting at its Manhattan office.

"If you are receiving this message then we believe you are attending the meeting this coming Friday Jan 8 regarding Exxon," wrote Bruno. "The meeting will take place at: Rockefeller Family Fund."

The email included a "DRAFT Agenda" for "Exxon: Revelations & Opportunities."

Under a section headlined "goals," the agenda listed: "To establish in the public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution"; "To delegitimize them as a political actor; and "To drive Exxon & climate into center of 2016 election."

The agenda also outlined "the main avenues for legal actions & related campaigns," including state attorneys general, the Department of Justice, international litigation, and tort lawsuits.

"Which of these has the best prospects for successful action? For getting discovery? For creating scandal?" said the memo.

The Rockefeller Family Fund did not immediately return request for comment.

California announced an investigation into ExxonMobil’s statements on climate change in January, shortly after the meeting took place.

Several other states attorneys general, including New York’s Eric Schneiderman and Massachusetts’ Maura Healey, have also launched investigations into whether ExxonMobil broke the law by allegedly covering up internal conclusions on climate change and misleading investors.

ExxonMobil filed court papers on Wednesday challenging another investigation by the U.S. Virgin Island’s attorney general’s office, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In the filing, the oil company denounced the "chilling effect of this inquiry, which discriminates based on viewpoint to target one side of an ongoing policy debate" and "strikes at protected speech at the core of the First Amendment."

Published under: Climate Change

---

ref 3

mma

Right-wing media outlets The Daily Caller and the Washington Free Beacon have often acted as de facto press offices for Scott Pruitt's Environmental Protection Agency. Media Matters has documented how the two publications have defended Pruitt in the face of his many scandals and tried to discredit sources of information about his misdeeds. Now we learn from Washington Examiner reporter John Siciliano, who covers energy and environment for the conservative-leaning newspaper, that the EPA's press office tried to strong-arm him into writing flattering pieces about the agency and complained to his editors when he refused.

Speaking on June 11 on a panel about media coverage at a conference organized by Citizens' Climate Lobby, a nonpartisan climate activist group, Siciliano recounted the EPA’s attempts to coerce him and his paper to print favorable stories, which he described as “a really bizarre pressure play on their part that I’ve never experienced from an agency, a cabinet-level agency, to enforce an agenda on a journalist.” Siciliano also discussed how the agency referred to him in pejorative terms and pitted him against other journalists -- practices the agency has used against other environmental journalists.

From the June 11 panel titled “Covering Climate Change in the Current Political Landscape”:

....

Though Hunter has been vocal about his personal desire to quit smoking, he has also given support to more traditional tobacco products.

In 2014, Hunter authored an amendment to the defense funding bill that seeking to overturn a proposed military smoking ban. The Pentagon was planning to ban tobacco sales on Navy bases and ships, though it would not necessarily have prohibited sailors from smoking.

At the time, Hunter defended soldiers’ right to smoke.

“We sleep in the dirt for this country,” he told theWashington Free Beacon. “We get shot at for this country. But we can’t have a cigarette if we want to for this country, because that’s unhealthy.”

The tobacco industry has opened its coffers to help Hunter. Since 2010, he’s received more than $38,000 in campaign contributions from companies that make both traditional and electronic cigarettes, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

In the current election cycle, Altria Group, Inc., which has ties to Philip Morris, and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company have each contributed $5,000 to Hunter. Lorillard Tobacco Company, which later merged with Reynolds, donated $5,000 to the congressman in 2014.

wfb spoof

http://freebeacon.com/blog/meet-new-harvard-iop-fellows/

...

She has also broken stories about how the Russians murdered Andrew Breitbart, how the U.S. government was considering the death penalty for Steve Bannon, and how Trump could face the death penalty himself. MSNBC has recognized Mensch's valuable reporting and.

Luiz Gutiérrez is the Democratic Congressman from Illinois's fourth district. Gutiérrez has been a champion for immigrants and has been arrested several times for his advocacy. He also has no problem lecturing retired marine generals about the importance of honesty.

These individuals join previously announced Visiting Fellows Sean Spicer, Chelsea Manning, Robby Mook, and Mayor Sylvester "Sly" James, Jr.

"This expanded group of Visiting Fellows will be able to fulfill the Institute's mission of engaging students in discourse on topical issues of today, including conflict mediation with Bashar al-Assad, grassroots advocacy with Ayman al-Zawahiri, Muggle Studies with Voldemort, in-depth journalism with Louise Mensch, the value of military service with Luiz Gutiérrez, and issues of LGBTQ identity with Lady Gaga. This unique opportunity to closely engage with our Visiting Fellows will surely shape the semester, and we hope many students will participate in the upcoming events and discussions," said Emily Hall and Jason Ge, co-chairs of the IOP Fellows and Study Groups Program.

The Visiting Fellows program brings distinguished veterans of public life to campus for a limited, yet comprehensive number of events. The program is designed to provide short-term engagement with the student community, particularly undergraduate students.

no lnx many pix twt

https://www.globalwitness.org/en/blog/behind-trumps-border-wall-political-operatives-a-controversial-pr-firm-and-an-alleged-fake-news-site/

Global Witness exposes the link between a controversial right-leaning public affairs firm and President Trump’s reportedly favored company to build the southern border wall.

Summary

President Trump is boosting a particular firm, Fisher Sand & Gravel, whose owner is a donor to the Republican party, to build the border wall, which seems to go against the spirit of US federal procurement rules;

Fisher Sand & Gravel have a previously unreported link with Definers Public Affairs, a DC communications firm which employs controversial tactics such as setting up anonymous attack websites on behalf of their commercial and political clients;

Definers Public Affairs shares offices and staff with America Rising Corp and the America Rising PAC, Republican attack vehicles;

Definers Public Affairs are known for paid-for attacks on environmentalists and commercial opponents of their clients – which led to Facebook severing its contract with them;

Individuals inDefiners Public Affairs have recently launched a new company, Crier Media Group, active in ‘media monitoring’ in both the US and the UK.

United States President Donald Trump is accused of attempting to influence the procurement process for building the controversial border wall between Mexico and the US. According to the Washington Post, Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have repeatedly pushed the option of awarding the contract to Fisher Sand & Gravel, a family-owned construction firm from North Dakota that has a checkered past.

WaPo_Fisher_headline_cropped.png

The story of how Fisher Sand & Gravel Co, and its subsidiary, Fisher Industries, grabbed the President’s attention is partly a very modern one of publicity stunts and media frenzies, and partly an old tale of money and politics. Recent reporting has revealed Fisher Sand & Gravel’s past environmental violations and legal problems – although the company points out that these matters were resolved years ago.

Global Witness exposes a previously unreported link between Fisher Sand & Gravel and Definers Public Affairs, a controversial communications firm linked to Republican political operatives. From alleged smear campaigns to attack ads, Definers has been accused of devious and questionable methods to support their clients and negatively influence public opinion.

The best way to reach the President

Tommy Fisher, the CEO of Fisher Industries, has repeatedly appeared on Fox News, trumpeting his plans for a wall that he claims is faster and cheaper to build than rival designs by other companies. When interviewed by the Washington Post for his thoughts on why Trump supports the Fisher bid, the Republican Senator for North Dakota, Kevin Cramer, said of Tommy Fisher “He’s been very aggressive on TV,” and then asked “You know who else watches Fox News?”

It may come as no surprise that both Tommy Fisher and his wife donated money to Senator Cramer’s Senate election campaign. The Senator has also boosted Fisher Industries on social media. CNN reported that:

“According to an administration official familiar with the situation, Cramer sent information about Fisher to the President's son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner, who then passed it along to the Army Corps of Engineers for their consideration. The source tells CNN that Kushner was not familiar with the company prior to getting information about them from Cramer.”

Senator Cramer denied in his interview with the Washington Post that the donation has influenced his actions, stating that his support had occurred before any donation and was because Tommy Fisher is “a constituent of mine”.

Other publicity grabbing moves have included Fisher Sand & Gravel building part of the border wall on private land, crowdfunded by a GoFundMe campaign for We Build The Wall, a non-profit organization that features well-known conservative personalities like Steve Bannon and Erik Prince on its advisory board.

Kyle Ehmke Tweet]

Tommy Fisher seems a capable self-publicist. But it is possible that Fishers also worked with a controversial communications firm based in Washington, D.C., Definers Public Affairs to grab the President’s attention.

The link between the two was spotted by Kyle Ehmke, a ‘threat intelligence researcher’ with ThreatConnect, a cybersecurity company.

When an individual or company sets up or is involved with several different websites, they sometimes use a common Google analytics account to monitor web traffic of the various sites. Each Google analytics account has a unique ID number which can be found in the coding of the website.

In this case, the person who set up and monitors web traffic at Definers Public Affairs also appears to have set up the website analytics for Fishers Sand & Gravel. Google analytics codes are unique – there cannot be two separate Google accounts that use the same code – nor can codes be added to a website by an outsider with no access to the source code of the website.

Therefore, since both sites use the same analytics code, it’s evident that, at a minimum, both the website analytics for the Definers’ website and the Fishers Sand & Gravel website were set up by the same person.

It is also possible that the relationship between the two companies went further than just website monitoring. As we will see below, the same tracking code was used for numerous other websites set up on behalf of Definers clients. These included an anonymous website attacking Qatar and another supporting the point of view of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

[Trump_Fisher_meeting.png

SOURCE: TWITTER, @SENKEVINCRAMER]

Foreign Agent Registration Act disclosures reveal that Definers staff members provided strategic communications guidance to theUAE, including one-on-one interactions with American news media. It is likely that the Qatar-related websites were part of the same package. While it is probable that Definers played some role in the new Fisher website, it is also possible that Definers provided a wider set of services to Fisher Sand & Gravel also.

Global Witness repeatedly approached both Fishers Sand & Gravel and its media representatives and Definers Public Affairs for comment on the extent of any relationship but did not receive a reply from either firm.

Fisher Industries already had an existing website at www.fisherind.com, but a new, professional looking website – specifically focused on the border wall (www.fishersandandgravel.com) was registered on January 4, 2018, around the same time that a new Twitter account was set up. Events then moved quickly. A new Facebook account was set up on January 5, the same day that Tommy Fisher was interviewed on Fox and Friends, a Fox News program known to be watched by President Trump.

By March 13, 2018 Tommy Fisher had met President Trump in person.

The controversy surrounding Definers Public Affairs

Definers Public Affairs is best known for having its contract cancelled by Facebook in late 2018 after revelations in the New York Times about its aggressive tactics.

The communications firm is closely related to America Rising Corp, a Republican opposition researchand attack firm which provides services to political clients, which has also set up America Rising PAC. America Rising PAC happily quotes a description of itself as “The rabid pit bull of the Republican Party.” Operatives associated with the groups follow Democratic Presidential candidates, filming all their public appearances. They also conduct background research on opponents. For example, their specialist lawyer, Allan Blutstein, submitted freedom of information (FOIA) requests for the military and NASA discharge papers for Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and potential candidate in the 2020 Arizona Senate elections.

Both Definers and America Rising are closely linked to NTK (Need to Know) Network, which claims to be a news website “without the liberal bias”.

All three entities share staff and office space in Arlington, Virginia. Joe Pounder, Chief Executive of America Rising Corp, also describes himself as a co-founder of Definers Corp, and NTK Network lists him as their Editor-in-Chief; while Allan Blutstein has submitted FOIA requests for Definers, America Rising, America Rising Squared, and the NTK Network.

Newly filed corporate documents in the United Kingdom show that Definers staff, including the CEO Joe Pounder, and the Definers’ Chief Financial Officer, have set up a new entity – Crier Media Group - in both the UK and the US. Similar to Definers, Crier Media provides media monitoring services. (Definers have also set up UK Policy Group in the UK - claiming it was “bringing campaign-style research to corporate clients”.) According to LinkedIn records several Definers and UK Policy Group staff moved simultaneously to Crier Media Group.

So, what’s the problem?

First, their working methods raise eyebrows, particularly in an era when Americans and others must wade through “fake news” infiltrating their social media feeds and news consumption on a daily basis. Starting with revelations of the Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-affiliated troll farm and fake news network, sowing discord and undermining faith in American democratic institutions in the 2016 elections, Americans, big tech, and US officials are now constantly battling the influx of misinformation campaigns.

[NTK_Network_Apple.png SOURCE: FACEBOOK, NEED TO KNOW NETWORK]

NTK Network purports to be a conservative news website. However, one former employee interviewed by NBC News described NTK as an “in-house fake news shop”. One pitch given to a potential client and leaked to the New York Times described NTK News as “a Digital Platform Echo Chamber.”

NTK also has articles written by America Rising and Definers staff, according a former employee interviewed by the New York Times. Articles attacking the commercial rivals of Definers’ clients appear on the NTK website without any declarations of potential conflicts of interest. For example, NTK News published dozens of articles attacking Apple, without declaring that a closely related party, Definers, reportedly had a contract with chipmaker Qualcomm, with whom Apple was engaged in a legal battle.

NTK also ran an extensive series of adverts on Facebook,without declaring whether commercial clients were behind them. This demonstrates a loophole in Facebook’s advert disclosure program, whereby intermediaries can potentially declare themselves, and not their end clients, as the funder of the advertisement.

Common Google analytics tracking codes suggest that Definers are linked to a series of astro-turf websites for their clients, sometimes without declaring who had set them up or was funding them. In one example, common Google analytics codes suggest that Definers had set up www.qatarcrisisnews.com and www.partnershipforpeace.org. The funder was later identified by K. Louise Neufeld, when Joe Pounder and other Definers staff registered as Foreign Agents to represent the United Arab Emirates, focusing in particular on “issues relating to client's termination of relations with Qatar and accuracy and transparency of Qatar government-owned media.”

In other examples, environmental causes have been attacked by astro-turf websites, linked to Definers Public Affairs by common Google analytics codes. The They Cap You Pay website attacked proposed cap and trade (climate change-related) legislation in Oregon.Meanwhile, the Power the Future website – which again shares the same tracking code and was also registered using a Definers email address – claims that “We are the voice of energy workers pushing back on radical green groups and the ideologues who fund them.” Power the Future is led by Daniel Turner, who hasn’t worked in the energy industry, but rather was a former Director of Strategic Communications at the Koch Institute.[posted bs on beacon?]

The second problem is that the shift from political mud-slinging to widely reported attacks on commercial targets and environmentalists raises questions about both propriety and the transparency of funding of those seeking to shape the public debate.

[Draft_Tim_Cook.jpg SOURCE: DRAFTTIMCOOK.ORG]

The aggressive political methods of the self-declared ‘rabid pit bulls’ of America Rising PAC are applied not only to declared candidates for public office. America Rising Squared, a not-for-profit entity, also apparently conducts media monitoring and attacks liberal and environmental causes. They followedBill McKibben, a prominent environmentalist, for months, filming his every move. They aim to “hold the Environmentalist Left accountable by highlighting their hypocrisy and exposing their extreme rhetoric and agenda.”

During the attacks on Apple, which featured frequently on NTK network in late 2017, a website appeared suggesting that Apple’s CEO Tim Cook should be drafted as a Presidential candidate for 2020. The website gave no clue as to who was behind the initiative. This was covered, albeit somewhat skeptically, in the Free Beacon, a conservative leaning news outlet. Kyle Ehmke, of the ThreatConnect cybersecurity firm, spotted that the website shared the same Google analytics code as that for Definers Public Affairs. Reporters guess that the purpose is to make Tim Cook appear like a potential rival to President Trump and thus, presumably, lessen Apple’s political influence with the White House. If true, this can only be described as a tactic which is both inspired – but also devious. As mentioned previously, Definers reportedly had a contract with chipmaker Qualcomm, a competitor of Apple with whom they were also engaged in a legal battle. There is no suggestion that Qualcomm knew of such methods being used on their behalf.

Definers also gained an apparent no-bid contract with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide media monitoring – or ‘news analysis’ – service. This came during a period of intense controversy after Scott Pruitt, who still describes himself as “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda”, was appointed by President Trump as EPA Administrator. However, Allan Blutstein, the Definers Public Affair’s FOIA specialist, seems to have gone further than ‘news analysis’. He began submitting FOIA requests about EPA employees suspected of being critical of Scott Pruitt and President Trump, requesting copies of emails which mentioned Pruitt or Trump. These FOIA requests were denounced by EPA staff as intimidation. When interviewed by the New York Times, Mr Blutstein said that the purpose of the FOIA requests were simply to find out if any of the EPA employees had used agency email inappropriately, or had violated agency rules in some other way.

When criticized in the past in relation to their work for Facebook, Definers have denied being partisan, and stated that they only do communications not lobbying. They also clarified that the nature of work for commercial clients is usually media monitoring services and that their opposition research forms a small part of work. Definers also state that, in any case, opposition research for commercial clients is entirely legitimate, usually drawing from public records. They vehemently deny smearing commercial opponents of their clients, and specifically say that it is wrong to suggest that NTK Network is used to attack commercial opponents.

Opacity

As both Definers and Fisher Sand & Gravel failed to respond to repeated requests to comment, it is impossible to determine the precise extent of their relationship. It could be that that they have an extensive relationship; including DC based communication and media booking services to get Tommy Fisher on conservative broadcast outlets like Fox and Friends. Or it could be that they have a minimal relationship – perhaps even just having had a shared Google analytics tracking account set up for them by a third party.

[NTK_wall_ad_cropped.png SOURCE: FACEBOOK: NEED TO KNOW NETWORK]

This opacity, however, is a problem. Take this Facebook advert ran by NTK Network in April 2019. Its main message chimes perfectly with the Fisher Sand & Gravel messaging that its proposed wall design is quicker and cheaper than its rivals. However, we don’t know whether it was run by NTK Network on behalf of a commercial client, or had nothing to do with Fisher and simply tapped into current conservative media priorities in order to drive traffic into its own website. The distinction is important if we’re to untangle the role of money in shaping the public sphere.

The activities of Definers and associated entities illustrate a wider challenge. The current blend of money, politics, ideology, the fragmentation of public discourse by social media, and the deliberate shaping of national debates through alleged fakes or shills is toxic to democracy. We do not pretend to know all of the answers, but a first step is greater transparency over who is paying who to publish what.

Disclosure:

Definers Public Affairs also faced criticism over an attempt to discredit campaigners asking for Facebook reforms by linking these campaigners to George Soros.A Definers consultant said that “Definers shared a narrow document about an anti-Facebook group's funding. It was entirely factual...” and clarified the nature of the work carried out for Facebook. Global Witness is an independent, non-partisan organization that works to expose corruption to protect human rights and the environment. No donor —large or small— has editorial control over our work or the choices we make regarding the subjects of our investigations or campaigns. George Soros does not fund Global Witness directly. Global Witness receives funding from the Open Society Foundation for our general funds.

Author Nick Donovan Campaign Director

dox

Andrew Stiles 806 Rhode Island Ave NW Washington DC 20001 Free Beacon #1 Trump Fan

mayer hit

Saturday, Jan 16, 2016 · 8:39:48 AM PST · WeAreKochs

It looks like we missed an article from The Washington Free Beacon entitled “Phalange-linked Paper Attacks Dead Father of Koch Brothers”. The article is attributed only to the “Washington Free Beacon Staff”.

According to a 2011 story by Ken Vogel in Politico, called “The Kochs Fight Back”:

The Kochs also took the Democratic attacks seriously, assembling a crisis communication team including consultants Michael Goldfarb...

Michael Goldfarb is the founder of The Washington Free Beacon—and, according to the site’s About page, remains its Chairman. Meanwhile, the Free Beacon’s current editor in chief, Matthew Continetti was the author of a 2011 “hagiography to Koch Brothers” while employed alongside Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard. ThinkProgress pointed out at the time:

In over 8,000 words of hagiography, Continetti did not find space to disclose that his fellow opinion editor at the Weekly Standard, Michael Goldfarb, is currently employed by Koch Industries to help improve the company’s political image. Or that the Weekly Standard’s reporters routinely attend Koch’s secret political strategy and fundraising meetings. Or that Continetti had received a fellowship funded by the Phillips Foundation, a nonprofit heavily reliant on Koch funds.

Monday, Jan 18, 2016 · 5:07:08 PM PST · WeAreKochs

Jane Mayer’s own 1/18/2016 article in Politico puts the multiple attacks from the Daily Caller and The Weekly Standard into context:

Two of the top donors in the Koch network owned their own news outlets. The oil tycoon Philip Anschutz owned the Washington Examiner and the Weekly Standard, and the mutual fund magnate Foster Friess was the largest shareholder of the Daily Caller.

It is a possible explanation for the source of many of the recent attacks being The Weekly Standard and the Daily Caller—and recent tweets like the ones below (Chuck Ross’ twitter bio states that he is a “Reporter at The Daily Caller”):

View image on Twitter

Chuck Ross @ChuckRossDC

Reminder that Sid Blumenthal and Jane Mayer (of Koch hit job fame) are good pals.

10:20 AM - 18 Jan 2016

5 5 Retweets 1 1 like

Tuesday, Jan 19, 2016 · 11:49:06 AM PST ·

Rush Limbaugh and the Washington Free Beaconlaunched a wild conspiracy theory: that President Obama was sending lesbian farmers to infiltrate the American heartland. Limbaugh, who has a lengthy history of opposing LGBT rights, angrily lashed out at people mocking him, saying that "leftists" and "young millenials" simply don't understand his brilliance. In a related story, news about Rush Limbaugh's latest contract doesn't mentionits price because he no longer draws a salary.

Free Beacon Writer Mocks Fact That Climate Change Increases Risk Of Asthma Attacks By Saying Everyone Who Breathes Is A "Child-Killer." Washington Free Beacon staff writer Lachlan Markay posted a series of tweets mocking and deriding the Clean Power Plan. He called "carbon pollution" an "Orwellian phrase" and mocked the fact that climate change increases the risk of asthma attacks by writing: "Every time you exhale you're giving a child asthma. I hope you're happy, child-killer":

"Carbon pollution" is right up there among the most Orwellian phrases of the Obama era.

-- Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) August 3, 2015

Every time you exhale you're giving a child asthma. I hope you're happy, child-killer. https://t.co/59YhrVNWRS

-- Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) August 3, 2015

[Twitter, 8/3/15; 8/3/15]

Free Beacon's Markay Compares Obama And EPA's McCarthy To Fictional Meth Dealers. In a tweet responding to a report that West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said "residents [are] turning to drugs because Obama is shutting down their coal plants," Markay compared Obama and McCarthy to Walter White and Jesse Pinkman -- fictional meth dealers from the TV show "Breaking Bad":

Barack Obama : Gina McCarthy :: Walter White : Jesse Pinkman https://t.co/B9lL0KSVhT

-- Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) August 3, 2015

[Twitter, 8/3/15]

The Wall Street Journal Characterized CPP As A Government Overthrow.The headline for a Wall Street Journal editorial described the CPP as a "Climate Change Putsch." The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "putsch" as "a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government." [The Wall Street Journal, 8/3/15; Merriam-Webster, accessed 8/3/15]

Tom Nelson: CPP Will Result In "0 Fewer Asthma Attacks & 0 Fewer Premature Deaths." Responding to a tweet by President Obama that said the CPP would lead to 90,000 fewer asthma attacks and prevent 3,600 premature deaths, blogger Tom Nelson tweeted: "This is ridiculous fraud. Real results of CO2-tweaking are 0 fewer asthma attacks & 0 fewer premature deaths in 2030."

Tom Nelson @tan123

This is ridiculous fraud. Real results of CO2-tweaking are 0 fewer asthma attacks & 0 fewer premature deaths in 2030 https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/628283831104237569 …

12:49 PM - 3 Aug 2015

27 27 Retweets 6 6 likes

[Twitter, 8/3/15]

Steve Milloy Disputes That Carbon Is Harmful: "Ask A Plant." Steve Milloy disputed that carbon is a harmful pollutant by tweeting: "Obama CO2 announcement: Calls CO2 'harmful carbon pollution.' Ask a plant."

...

http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/08/04/the-right-wing-medias-most-unhinged-reactions-t/204764

cites by von s nat rev ~ rico gw:

central to rico GW ctr attack:

han s http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435867/climate-change-rico-lawsuits-state-attorneys-generals-private-law-firms-vs-exxon

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/436163/climate-change-ever-chillier-free-speech

hans s

NS A. VON SPAKOVSKY & TIGER JOYCE

May 26, 2016 4:00 AM State attorneys general hire trial lawyers to stifle climate-science debate. ‘Progressive” government officials have launched an Orwellian effort to outlaw research that dares question the soundness of computer-predicted climate catastrophes or costly policy proposals aimed at mitigating climate change. Much has been written about how this attempt to criminalize inquiry and debate threatens fundamental First Amendment and due process rights. But how they are going about it is equally troubling. Some state attorneys general are hiring profit-seeking, private-sector personal-injury lawyers to do their legal dirty work. Moreover, any contingency fees collected by these lawyers through settlements arising from these cases could be used, in part, to fund the campaigns of allied politicians who embrace the “one, true belief” of man-made global warming. This is more than an attempt to suppress political and scientific dissent. Deputizing self-interested personal-injury lawyers with the awesome power of the state subverts the public interest.

We have seen this unseemly dynamic in action before. Two years ago, a Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times series focused on the business model of the class-action specialists at Cohen Milstein, a law firm that seeks to create “big paydays by coaxing attorneys general to sue” large, sometimes politically unpopular corporations or industries. The firm brags about being the “most effective law firm in the United States for lawsuits with a strong social and political component.” Deputizing self-interested personal-injury lawyers with the awesome power of the state subverts the public interest. By e-mail, a Cohen Milstein spokeswoman said the firm did not participate in a then-secret but now widely reported Manhattan meeting of climate-change activists and political operatives in January. But it certainly appears as though the class-action bar’s interests were well represented during the discussions.

A draft agenda for the meeting obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, [ i can not find this; it's actually in 1st apr 13 exxon knew story] shows a determination to use their powers to push a political agenda. Among their goals: “To establish in public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution that has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos,” and “To drive Exxon and climate into center of 2016 election cycle.” But money is a big motivator as well. Fox News reported that an e-mail from U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general Claude Earl Walker was most enthusiastic about “identifying other potential litigation targets” and ways to “increase our leverage.” An $800 million settlement from Hess Oil Company has apparently only whetted Walker’s appetite for squeezing money out of big oil. And the beauty of this win, he noted, was that the settlement money was used to create an “environmental response trust” — so that they can keep the lawsuits coming. On cue, at a March 29 news conference, New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman announced a newly formed cabal of state AGs that would investigate — and possibly prosecute — corporations that contribute to research organizations whose work expresses skepticism about man-made climate change and the multi-trillion-dollar policy “cures” prescribed by global-warming warriors. The “AGs United for Clean Power,” Schneiderman said, decided to “step into this battle with an unprecedented level of commitment and coordination” against “well-funded, highly aggressive and morally vacant forces that are trying to block every step by the federal government to take meaningful action” against climate change [emphasis ours].

Speaking of morally vacant, where on the moral spectrum might these inquisitors locate the shredding of the Constitution? Do they believe their power to hire political patrons, issue government subpoenas, and impose mounting legal expenses, fines, and settlements on inconvenient climate heretics is divinely derived? Which brings us back to Claude Walker and Cohen Milstein. One of the “AGs United,” Walker hired the firm to investigate possible violations of the Virgin Islands’ version of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) — the statute famously used to prosecute the Mafia in the 1970s. Cohen Milstein’s first act was to unleash subpoenas on ExxonMobil and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, seeking decades’ worth of climate-change research and communications with scores of third-party think tanks, foundations, universities, scientists, and others.

But ExxonMobil and CEI are fighting back. They argue that Walker’s delegation of prosecutorial power to profit-seeking private-sector lawyers and the burdensome subpoena demands violate their constitutional rights to free speech, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and due process of law. And they’ve gotten a governmental boost of their own. The attorneys general of Alabama and Texas are now seeking to intervene in the case on ExxonMobil’s behalf, arguing that Cohen Milstein’s “contingency fee arrangements [with Walker] cut against the duty of impartiality by giving the attorney that represents the government a financial stake in the outcome.” We can’t know how the courts will ultimately decide these issues. But we do know that pay-to-play relationships between state attorneys general and the plaintiffs’ lawyers they help enrich (and upon whom they then rely for campaign support) are inherently corrupting. Efforts to crush climate-change dissent for political and financial gain is a disgraceful assault on the Constitution — one that should offend every American who cherishes the freedoms enshrined within it. — Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at Th Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435867/climate-change-rico-lawsuits-state-attorneys-generals-private-law-firms-vs-exxon

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435867/climate-change-rico-lawsuits-state-attorneys-generals-private-law-firms-vs-exxon

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/21/1338204/-AR-Se-Washington-Free-Beacon-Gets-Busted-For-Lie-About-Pryor-D-Desegregation

baumann?

wapo makes 2 ref to thesis, but not desegr, not a factor as baumann suggests?

lost to cotton

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — While a student at the University of Arkansas in 1985, Sen. Mark Pryor (D) wrote his college thesis on the state of Arkansas’ two-party system.

“The state’s Republicans have traditionally failed to produce politicians that Arkansas would elect,” he wrote. “The Democratic party, as a result, has thrived on a sort of perpetual motion.”

That perpetual motion came to an end Tuesday night. Voters chose Republican Tom Cotton over Pryor, and for the first time in 141 years, there will be no Democrats in Arkansas’ congressional delegation. Republicans also won the gubernatorial race and every other statewide race.

“Twelve years ago, the people of Arkansas gave me the greatest privilege of my life,” Pryor said Tuesday at his campaign’s election night party at the DoubleTree Hotel in Little Rock. He said he had called Cotton to “wish him the very best.” “I want you to know he will be in my prayers,” Pryor said.

Cotton, a 37-year-old Harvard and Harvard law grad and Army veteran who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, tied Pryor to President Obama throughout the campaign, saying Pryor voted with Obama 93 percent of the time. He was disciplined about his message too, using everything from Ebola to President Bill Clinton’s visits to stump for Pryor to remind voters about Obama (“I’m not so worried about Bill Clinton’s support for Mark Pryor. I’m more worried for Mark Pryor’s support about Barack Obama,” he and his spokesman would say when asked whether they were concerned about the still-popular Clinton’s numerous campaign stops for Pryor in the campaign’s final weeks).

Pryor distanced himself from Obama, running ads highlighting differences he had with the president and presenting himself as a bipartisan more capable of working across the aisle than Cotton, who he said represented gridlock and supported the government shutdown.

But Obama is deeply unpopular in the state, with a 29 percent approval rating. Opposition to Obama energized Republicans, and even flipped some voters who’ve supported Pryor in the past

aug 2014

The Washington Free Beacon, which has operated under the auspices of the Center for American Freedom since its inception in 2012, announced Monday that it'sbreaking from the conservative think tank and "taking its talents to the free market."

In a post that was accompanied by a gif of a bikini-clad Kate Upton licking a popsicle, Free Beacon founder Michael Goldfarb and editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti laid out their lofty vision for the site.

Since its launch in February 2012, the Free Beacon has been a project of the Center for American Freedom, a nonprofit that has graciously supported our reporters, editors, and contributors. But we have large ambitions. And in order for the Free Beacon to grow, for it to take its rightful place alongside the New York Times and the Washington Post, it must become a newspaper like any other—online in our case, butmaking its way in the private sector, funded by investors, sustained by advertisers, and seeking out elusive Mexican oligarchs.

Goldfarb and Continetti also wrote that the Center for American Freedom "has been renamed and reconfigured as the Center for American Opportunity" and will be ushering in the new era with the launch of Opportunity Lives, which they described as "a news platform devoted to highlighting stories of success, entrepreneurship, and problem-solving across the United States."

Since its founding more than two years ago, the Free Beacon has relished its subversive role on the right, embracing a concept referred to as "combat journalism." Continetti described the idea in a 2012 dictum that heralded the site's launch.:

What would happen, though, if a website covered the left in the same way that the left covers the right? What picture of the world would one have in mind if the morning paper read like the New York Times—but with the subjects of the stories and the assumptions built into the text changed to reflect a conservative, not liberal, worldview? What would happen if the media wolf pack suddenly had to worry about an aerial hunting operation?

You are about to find out. The Washington Free Beacon is here to enter the arena of combat journalism. Our talented staff will add to the chorus of enterprising conservative reporters, publishing original stories, seeking out scoops, and focusing on the myriad connections between money and power in the progressive movement and Obama’s Washington. Our research and war room divisions will supplement that reporting with context, additional materials, and breaking video. At the Beacon, you will find the other half of the story, the half that the elite media have taken such pains to ignore: the inside deals, cronyism cloaked in the public interest, and far-out nostrums of contemporary progressivism and the Democratic Party. At the Beacon, all friends of freedom will find an alternative to the hackneyed spin, routine misstatements, paranoid hyperbole, and insipid folderol of Democratic officials and the liberal gasbags on MSNBC and talk radio. At the Beacon, we follow only one commandment: Do unto them.

In a 2013 interview with the New York Times, Goldfarb acknowledged the Free Beacon's cheeky side.

“We’re true believers, but we’re also troublemakers, and if you look at the work we do, a lot of it has a sense of humor,” Goldfarb said. Though he said The Beacon had made a serious investment in its journalism, nonetheless, “We get up every day and say, how do we cause trouble?”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Upton

Her uncle is U.S. Representative Fred Upton (R-MI).[9][10] Upton's great-grandfather, Frederick Upton, was co-founder of appliance manufacturer and marketer Whirlpool Corporation.[11] pix on IN xian

http://www.heritage.org/multimedia/video/2012/12/markay-cavuto-fracking

The Safety of Fracking: Lachlan Markay on Cavuto

Recorded on December 29, 2012

This video is no longer available online.

Investigative reporter Lachlan Markay debunks the myths surrounding the "unsafe conditions" and "environmental hazards" of fracking on Fox News' Cavuto.

http://freebeacon.com/

~ morocco climate pgm 8/16

cols often unsigned?

Matthew Continetti

May 27, 2016 5:00 am

Stephen Gutowski of The Washington Free Beacon had a great story Wednesday. You can read it here. He obtained audio that proves the filmmaker of Katie Couric’s latest politicized documentary, Under the Gun, deceptively edited an interview with gun rights activists to make them look ignorant and ashamed. The evidence he found is clear, it is direct, it is stunning, and it is embarrassing. But it is not nearly as embarrassing as the way in which the filmmaker, Couric, and the New York Times reacted to the Free Beacon’s reporting. They all need to spend some time alone in the corner and think about what they’ve done.

mojo

Washington Free Beacon Is Unapologetically Conservative. It's Also Kind of Good.

NICK BAUMANN

MARCH/APRIL 2015 ISSUE

On July 21, 2013, Sen. Rand Paul reluctantly accepted the resignation of Jack Hunter, a.k.a. the "Southern Avenger." Hunter had been one of the senator's closest aides and had coauthored the Kentucky Republican's 2011 book, The Tea Party Goes to Washington. But before that, a reporter revealed, he'd been a pro-secessionist shock jock who donned a Confederate-flag wrestling mask and annually toasted Abraham Lincoln's assassin. Why, Paul was asked a few weeks later by a National Public Radio host, would he have worked with someone like Hunter? "Many of the things he wrote were stupid and I don't agree with," the presidential contender answered. "I do think, though, that he was unfairly treated by the media."

The scoop that put Paul on the spot "and led him to blame the media" didn't come from the New York Times, a Kentucky paper, or even a Democratic opposition researcher. Credit belonged to Alana Goodman, a reporter at the Washington Free Beacon, an avowedly conservative website that had launched just a year and a half earlier.

In its short history, the Free Beacon's tiny staff of fewer than two dozen journalists has pulled off an almost unprecedented feat: Amid a conservative movement that has often evinced something between disinterest and disdain for the work of investigative reporters, it has built genuine muckraking success.

In May 2014, reporter Lachlan Markay obtained a secret list of donors' pledges to the progressive Democracy Alliance—something akin to getting the Koch brothers' political ledgers. A month later, Goodman posted previously unreleased audio of Hillary Clinton candidly discussing her vigorous defense, as a young court-appointed attorney, of an accused child rapist.In October, she uncovered Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor's college thesis, in which he described school desegregation as a "figurative invasion." Two weeks later, the Democrat lost his reelection race. Like the Southern Avenger expose, each of these stories was picked up by the mainstream media, a rare accomplishment for a conservative outlet. Taken together, the stories suggest that the Beacon may be poised to break out of the agitprop model of much conservative media to become a real player in hardcore news reporting.

The Beacon was initially inspired by ThinkProgress, the Center for American Progress' blog, which fills liberals' social-media feeds with quick-hit news and analysis. "There's been a real gap between the left and right on reporting and the quality of the people engaged in those efforts, and we thought we could help," says Michael Goldfarb, the Beacon's publisher. "Another objective was to have some fun going after people."

Conservative outlets from Fox News to Breitbart and the Daily Caller also offer alternatives to the perceived liberal bias of the mainstream media. But they have mostly emphasized opinion and aggregation over breaking news. David Brock scored some scoops in the Clinton-era American Spectator, but right-leaning outlets' record of hard reporting has since been spotty. While liberal sites like Talking Points Memo and the Huffington Post have been awarded the industry's highest honors (a Polk Award and a Pulitzer Prize, respectively), their conservative competitors have been notable mostly for overhyping and clinging to stories like Benghazi, Solyndra, or the IRS's targeting of right-wing groups, long after mainstream reporters have moved on.

And when the Beacon's contemporaries do try to break news, they often get it wrong: In 2012, the Daily Caller published a series of now thoroughly debunked reports that Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, had consorted with prostitutes in the Dominican Republic. And then there's conservative blogger Charles C. Johnson, who's demonstrated a knack for flinging dirt but not a sense of proportion. For years, Markay argues, many conservatives "thought all they needed to do was to point out bias" and satisfy a dedicated right-wing audience. The Beacon aims to pop that media bubble—to "break out of the insular conversation and report stuff that's compelling enough that other people pick up on it."

Part of the problem in producing smart conservative reporting, according to Goldfarb, is alack of training grounds for right-leaning journalists. Becoming a reporter has "not been a real career path on the right," says the former Weekly Standard writer and spokesman for Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. Take Rob Bluey, a mentor for many of DC's young conservative political journalists and the editor of the Daily Signal, a news site launched by the Heritage Foundation in 2014. When he graduated from college in 2001, Bluey says, "My dream job was at the Washington Post." But, he recalls, "I could probably count on one hand, maybe two, conservative places that had jobs for journalists. The circle was pretty tight." He took a job with the Media Research Center, and then moved to Human Events. He next headed to Heritage, where in 2011 he hired Markay as the think tank's first investigative reporter. A few conservatives have tried to establish reporting outlets over the decades, Bluey explains, but the institutional right has only recently started to appreciate the need to get beyond messaging. Now, he says, conservatives are playing catch-up.

The Beacon hasn't always steered clear of stories that please the base but don't really stand up. One article, noted The New Republic, reported that then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had called Obama's 2013 budget "unsustainable"; he'd actually been talking about future health care costs. Another article claimed NPR had carried water for a donor by publishing a "series" of anti-nuclear articles; one of the two examples was a reposted article from Foreign Policy. And the Beacon isn't above titillating for traffic. The site serves up regular "news" about bikini model Kate Upton along with short pieces that push conservatives' buttons ("Daniel Halper Explains How the Clintons Are Like the Mafia"), usually without a reporter's byline.

Nonetheless, the Beacon's goals have become increasingly ambitious. In August, Goldfarb and Matthew Continetti, the editor in chief, declared that the site would one day take "its rightful place alongside the New York Times and the Washington Post." That goal may not be so reality-based—those papers together employ some 1,800 journalists—but the Beacon has already proved its reporters can write the kind of stories it takes to shake things up. Conservatives "have better opinion journalism," Goldfarb says, "but that has not been sufficient to win the fights. You need facts, and facts are in short supply on the right.

http://thefederalist.com/author/lmarkay/

Republicans Should Take Credit For America’s Improving Job Market

For all the caterwauling about our ‘do-nothing Congress,’ the Republican majority’s refusal to go along with economically flawed proposals may have saved the job market.

In Defense Of “Game of Thrones”

Yes, Game of Thrones does have heroes among its characters. Don’t let the sex and violence put you off.

The Venture Corporatists

Despite its promise, the cleantech experiment has not been the boon that many of these investors expected.

Markay is a staff writer for the Washington Free Beacon. He comes to the Beacon from the Heritage Foundation, where he was the conservative think tank's first investigative reporter. He graduated from Hamilton College in 2009, and currently lives in Washington, D.C

lib arts college, elihu root house on canpus

http://www.heritage.org/about/staff/m/lachlan-markay

cites IER study actually ATI

About the Authors George Taylor, ATI Senior Fellow, is the executive director of Palmetto Energy Research, an educational non-profit which has focused on the cost and environmental impact of the leading alternatives for the generation of electricity. His previous career was in microprocessor and computer systems design, and he received a Ph.D. in computer architecture.

Tom Tanton, ATI Executive Director and Director of Science & Technology Assessment, has spent his career in energy technology and legislative interface, having been central to many of the legislative changes which enabled technology choice and economic development at the state and federal level. He has served as a Principal Policy Advisor to the California Energy Commission and General Manager at the Electric Power Research Institute.

The American Tradition Institute is a public policy research and educational foundation whose goal is to advance the national discussion about environmental issues, natural resource management and energy development.

http://www.atinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Hidden-Cost.pdf

http://dailysignal.com//2013/01/04/nations-largest-wind-utility-wind-energy-tax-credit-hurts-consumers/

The biggest wind energy purchaser in the country may sever ties with the industry’s largest trade group in the wake of a bitter fight to sustain subsidies for wind energy producers that, the company says, benefit producers at the expense of utilities and electricity consumers.

Xcel Energy, which had the largest wind energy capacity of any utility in the country in 2011, said it is “ reviewing our relationship” with the American Wind Energy Association, in the words of John O’Donnell, a company lobbyist.

“It’s our concern that they continue to represent the interests of developers to the exclusion of customers,” O’Donnell said.

AWEA was the driving force behind the reauthorization of the wind production tax credit (PTC), which was included in the recently-passed congressional deal to avert the fiscal cliff. The PTC extension was one of numerous special interest subsidies included in the legislation.

“Congress prolonged some of the worst energy policy” by including subsidies for the industry in the fiscal cliff deal, Heritage’s Nick Loris wrote on Thursday, noting that the PTC “distort[s] prices by disguising the costs of certain energy choices while exacerbating the costs of others.”

While the PTC benefits wind producers, it is expected to raise electricity rates for consumers and utilities that buy power from those producers.

“As the largest provider of wind to customers by far, we feel this action doesn’t do nearly enough for customers, and throws into immediate question any further plans we have to buy more wind on their behalf,” O’Donnell said.

Xcel was not entirely opposed to the PTC effort during the fight for its reauthorization. But its support was contingent on measures that would reward utilities for selling more electricity derived from renewable sources, a measure that was not included in the final legislation.

How much more are consumers and utilities expected to pay for wind energy under the PTC regime? TheInstitute for Energy Research estimates, “ratepayers are paying an extra $8.5 billion to $10 billion per year for using wind energy.”

According to an IER study released on Friday, those costs “will only grow as more capacity is added. Add to this the more than $12 billion that the American taxpayer is paying for the ‘one-year’ extension for the PTC, and one can see that the wind industry is getting a real boondoggle at the expense of taxpayers and ratepayers.”

Xcel would be the second company to cut ties with the AWEA due to its stance on the wind PTC. Energy company Exelon, one of the nation’s largest wind operators, was booted from the organization in September due to its vocal opposition to the measure.

The PTC, Exelon explained at the time, has “reached the tipping point where it’s distorting competitive markets that we operate in, … and it’s displacing other clean generation in the market.”

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you.donate

merch: gun fetish

A Free Beacon branded tactical vest. Poly/nylon mesh construction with universal pistol holster, 5 shotgun shell loops, 6 mag pouches, hidden cuff key pocket. Inside pouches, padded load-bearing shoulder straps. Padded right shoulder, hook & loop back ID panel attachment. 6 D-rings, ALICE clip webbing on back, adjustable belt straps.[clip is not ammo clip per ase]

One size fits all.

ALICE gear uses the metal clips that like to give you hot spots and become very uncomfortable. Thye also like to pop open so it is a good idea to wrap some 550 cord through the loops for added protection against losing a pouch. A good alternative to ALICE clips are MALICE clips. MALICE clips are basically plastic versions of ALICE clips and will allow attachment of ALICE pouches to ALICE webbing. I would still recommend wrapping some 550 cord for security.

MALICE clips are also used to secure some MOLLE pouches to MOLLE platforms but are much more secure than ALICE due to the way they weave themselves through the MOLLE webbing. You can also use the MALICE clips to attach older ALICE style pouches to a MOLLE vest. Some MOLLE pouches have their own attachment straps sewn to the back of them so MALICE clips are not needed.

Flexibility has to go to the MOLLE. You can take an empty vest loaded with rows and columns of webbing and place pouches just about anywhere and in any configuration you would like. If you need a certain pouch for a specific mission you can add it/move others around/repalce any existing pouch whatever is needed.

The down side is the MOLLE stuff is not cheap. By the time you get a paltform (vest, chest rig, etc) and begin buying pouches you will have spent much more $$ than going to the local surplus store and getting an h-harness, web belt and some pouches.

Good Luck

eggrolly Member

7/18/2006 8:11:51 AM EDT

MOLLE = Modular Load bearing equipment - Name of the pack / LCE "system" that was fielded by the Marines in the 97-98 timeframe. This reference has now been relegated as a CATCHALL term encompassing the VARIETY of systems that utilizes the 1" webbing matrix / ladder attachment method called PALS (Pocket[pouch] Attachment Ladder System]

ALICE is All Purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying Equipment - belt and suspender system. utilized a 2 1/4" metal clip as primary means of attachment. typically removed and replaced with loops of 550 cord as an attachment method.

MALICE clips is the proprietary attachment method patented by Tactical Tailor. These are 7/8" wide plastic clips that come in 3" and 5" lengths (when closed) used in LIEU of the Natick Snap straps that are typically associated with MOLLE / PALS based equipment. Was designed to offer an ALTERNATIVE to the snap straps. no these are not just "bigger" ALICE clips. I have yet to see/encounter a MALICE clip that has failed under typical and higher than typical equipment loadings.

A Free Beacon Truth Monkey! Complete with t-shirt. we don't monkey w/ truth on banana

Managing editors

Sonny Bunch, Aaron MacLean, Stephanie Wang

wiki stub

The Washington Free Beacon is an American politically conservative political journalism website that publishes news and opinion commentary. It states it is "dedicated to uncovering the stories that the powers that be hope will never see the light of day" and producing "in-depth investigative reporting on a wide range of issues, including public policy, government affairs, international security, and media."^[1]

The website was founded by Michael Goldfarb, Aaron Harrison, and Matthew Continetti, who remains its editor-in-chief, and launched in February 2012.

[hide]

History

The Free Beacon was founded by Michael Goldfarb, Aaron Harrison, and Matthew Continetti. It launched on February 7, 2012, as a project of the 501(c)4 organization Center for American Freedom.^[2] In August 2014, it announced it was becoming a for-profit news site.^[3]

The site is noted for its aggressive, ideologically driven reporting, modeled after liberal counterparts in the media such as Think Progress and Talking Points Memo, intended to publicize stories and influence the coverage of the mainstream media.^[2][4][5] Jack Hunter, a staff member of U.S. senator Rand Paul's office, resigned in 2013 after a Free Beacon report detailing his past as a radio shock jock known as the "Southern Avenger" who wore a luchador mask of the Confederate flag.^[6] The publication also broke several stories about former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's successful 1975 legal defense of an accused rapist that attracted national media attention.^[4][7]

Reception

The New York Times' Jim Rutenburg described the Free Beacon's reporting style as "gleeful evisceration."^[8] MotherJones magazine described the website as having, "built genuine muckraking success" for breaking significant news stories.^[9] Commenting on the Free Beacon's success at breaking news stories, The Washingtonian's Andrew Beaujon wrote that, "the Free Beacon regularly pounds out scoops any political reporter would envy. And many of its stories are difficult for their targets simply to dismiss, because they provide that rarest of internet wares: actual news."^[10]

Its tactics have also led to attacks from media critics and watchdog groups. The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf called the Free Beacon's mission "decadent and unethical."^[11] The progressive media watchdog group Media Matters for America's founder David Brock sent a letter to news organizations in 2014 saying, "If credible media outlets regard the unethical practices of The Free Beacon as valid, all of journalism will be debased."^[12]

References

:{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "About Us". Washington Free Beacon. Retrieved 8 September 2014.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Free_Beacon#cite_ref-Politico_2-1) Smith, Ben (5 January 2012). "How to fight liberals: Imitate them". Politico. Retrieved 8 September 2014.
:{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Rothstein, Betsy (4 August 2014). "Washington Free Beacon goes private". Daily Caller. Retrieved 8 September 2014.
^ :{Jump up to::(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a ^b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Free_Beacon#cite_ref-NewYorker_4-1) Auletta, Ken (2 June 2014). "The Hillary Show". The New Yorker. Retrieved 8 September 2014.
:{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Friedersdorf, Conor. "The Worst Mission Statement in the History of D.C. Journalism". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2016-05-29.
:{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Antle, Jim (21 July 2013). "Southern Avenger no more: Rand Paul aide Jack Hunter leaves staff, returns to punditry". Daily Caller. Retrieved 8 September 2014.
:{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Kreutz, Liz (20 June 2014). "Hillary Clinton’s Handling of 1975 Rape Case Emerges Again". ABC News. Retrieved 8 September 2014.
:{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Rutenberg, Jim (23 February 2014). "A Conservative Provocateur, Using a Blowtorch as His Pen". New York Times. Retrieved 8 September 2014.
:{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "Conservatives started a news website and it's actually kind of good". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2016-05-29.
:{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "The Problem With the Mainstream Media: It's Not More Like the Washington Free Beacon". Washingtonian. 2015-08-06. Retrieved 2016-05-29.
:{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Friedersdorf, Conor (8 January 2014). "The ascendant ‘smear wing’ of the conservative movement". The Atlantic. Retrieved 8 September 2014.
:{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "David Brock Advises Media Of The Washington Free Beacon's Unethical Practices". Media Matters for America. Retrieved 8 September 2014.

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kt msgr bk

Chapter 4 The Scandal Launderers p. 78

rw group is concentrated enough to support books that will not sell to mainstream (pimped by radio, fox help (grew big enough so normal houses stated imprint 79.

ed kline (TT "slime") had some cred as ed of nyt so 2005 sentinel (penguin) print hillary book w/ smoking gun revelation that pat moynihan did not address her by name when he endorsed her? 80

even Rush doubted quotes in later book

ex wapo Ronald Kessler, trump 2012, vince foster

1995 chris lehane 332 pp

escalator effect; 83 10 ideological entr and CTT start bs 2) Internet, either UK tabloids to US mainstream OR RW media --> Congress looks into it, thus it's a legit news story

Drudge (if you don't take bait, branded a clinton defender" 85

Hugh hewitt eclipse rush in infl if not #'s 87 harvard polish gives him cred;

D Caller foster friess more $ after 2012 election

WFB orig kristol Ctr Am Freedom (mirror CAP progress) beacon split off to be for profit co; ed is kristol son in law matt continetti but run by Michael Goldfarb koch provocateur 88 (paid oppo on BC)

breitbart started w/ dept of agr sherrod video? had to correct loretta lynch not whitewater lawyer

redstate erick erickson influential, TP old and new media

malkin twitchy to attack journalists via twitter

beck blaze and Indep Journal Review (paid?) much traffic

Breitbart ed at large Ben Shapiro wrote that Chuck Hagel candidate for sec of def (a Gop?) took money form Friends of Hamas (Slate's dave weigel traced path) redstate --> nat rev --> hugh h -->fox (huckabee), WT. origin NY Daily news fishing (also Jr League of Hezbollah"?) 91 shapiro after: "The story Breitbart News ran originally was accurate and clearly caveated" accused the reporter of lying about being source.

oppos res has to be true? well-sources or reporters won't use it for fear of getting burned

twitter makes media clubbier 97

gossip generates clicks and no real penalty for being wrong

web filters /bubble

david bossie origin hit book 1992

2008 hillary the movie congenital liar, euro socialist

WFB hired GOP oppo shop to go thru clinton papers in Ark

hit on staffer a new low?

busted? prev headline was blamed for crashing the economy?

Ex-Countrywide Exec Co-Wrote Mortgage Reform Bill

Posted April 10, 2014 by Investors Unite

The Washington Free Beacon

April 10, 2014

By Alana Goodman

Controversial housing finance reform legislation making its way through the Senate Banking Committee was co-written by a former mortgage trader for Countrywide Financial and Wachovia, two of the subprime mortgage behemoths at the center of the housing market crash in 2007.

Michael Bright, the senior financial adviser to Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), worked as a trader and member of the loan-pricing desk at Countrywide Financial from 2002 to 2006, and as a senior trader for Wachovia from 2006 to 2008.

Bright joined Corker’s office in 2010, and has been a key figure in crafting the Corker-Warner housing reform bill and the successive legislation spearheaded by Sens. Mike Crapo (R., Idaho) and Tim Johnson (D., S.D.).

“[Bright’s] running the show,” said Tim Pagliara, a top bundler for Corker who has taken an active stance against the bill. “And Corker listens to him.”

View full article: http://freebeacon.com/politics/banker-who-helped-crash-housing-market-helped-crafting-mortgage-reform/

FAIL

The 'exclusive' photos of 'Russian invasion in Ukraine' in 2014 turned out to be easily found in the Web, with at least one of them dating back to 2008. Now, US senator James Inhofe is furious with the Ukrainian delegation for setting him up with the 'evidence'.

Questions have been raised about the veracity of reports that claim Russian troops have invaded Ukraine after US Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofeconfessed that several photos of Russian convoys he obtained from a Ukrainian parliamentary group were taken during the 2008 Georgia conflict, the Washington Free Beacon said.

On Tuesday, the Washington Free Beacon ran a story that unveiled "exclusive" photos of victims of militia bombs and Russian armed vehicles seemingly rolling into Ukraine.

The photos were provided to Inhofe's office in print by an obscure Ukrainian delegation, led by a Georgetown professor, who said the images were taken at the height of Russia's alleged military incursion between August 24 and September 5, 2014.

Inhofe's spokeswoman Donelle Harder was cited as saying they had checked back with their sources - none of them high-level Ukrainian officials - before releasing the photos. She said they had been quite confident about their authenticity since the imagery allegedly matched reports about the Ukraine conflict.

But speaking to The Mirror on Thursday, Sen. Inhofe confessed he was "furious" to learn that at least one of the photos was taken by Associated Press during Russia's military operation in Georgia back in 2008. Several other images are readily available elsewhere online and can be found using a Google Images search.

Among the Ukrainian delegation was Semen Semenchenko, the commander of the "Donbas" volunteer battalion and a newly elected member of the Verkhovna Rada. Earlier, he was known as Konstantin Grishin and was reportedly suspected of fraud in Crimea.

...

http://www.sott.net/article/292559-US-Senator-furious-over-duped-photos-of-Russian-invasion-in-Ukraine-still-wont-change-his-mind

Mr. Goldfarbsaid he modeled The Free Beacon and its parent, the :{Center for American Freedom:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}:, on ThinkProgress and its related organization, the :{Center for American Progress:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}:. That group was co-founded by John Podesta, a former Clinton administration official, and has a reputation as a major policy production house for the Obama administration.

http://mediamatters.org/tags/the-washington-free-beacon tag

:{Free Beacon Admits:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{ Failure To Disclose Paid Partisan Origins Of Its Reporting Is "Standard Practice":(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:

Beacon Doubled Down On Unethical Practices, Compared Media Matters' David Brock To A Nazi

Media Matters chairman David Brock is cautioning the media against validating the journalistic legitimacy of The Washington Free Beacon for accurate information, particularly with regard to its recent reports on Hillary Clinton.

The Free Beacon has published several pieces in recent days that attack Clinton based on tapesobtained from the University of Arkansas (UA) archives that depict interviews Clinton gave in the early 1980s.

The method and substance of The Free Beacon's reporting have been called into question.

In a memo to news editors and reporters that was reported by Buzzfeed, Brock delineated unethical practices and methods of The Free Beacon, and urged credible media outlets to refrain from validating The Free Beacon's journalistic legitimacy. Among other concerns, Brock pointed to The Free Beacon's hidden reliance on an opposition research firm headed by GOP operatives to obtain the information relied on for its recent anti-Clinton stories.

Here is the full text of Brock's letter:

some:

From Brock's letter:

On June 21, Business Insider reported on how The Free Beacon obtained tapes from the University of Arkansas library, which The Free Beacon used to publish articles attacking Hillary Clinton, under the byline of Alana Goodman. According to Business Insider, it was not the reporter but one Shawn Reinschmiedt who requested and received the tapes on which The Free Beacon articles were based.

Goldfarb told Business Insider that Reinschmiedt "runs a firm that has been working with the Beacon since we launched." But Goldfarb did not explain the identity of that firm or its character.

In fact, Reinschmiedt, the former research director of the Republican National Committee,is a founding partner in the Republican opposition research firm M Street Insight. According to Form 990 disclosures filed by The Free Beacon's parent organization, The Center for American Freedom, The Center paid the firm M Street Insight $150,000 for "research consulting" in 2012.

The Free Beacon's "reporting" fails to disclose that The Free Beacon paid a Republican opposition research firm for the information it falsely published as its own journalistic work from the University of Arkansas tapes.

AlterNet [1] / By Thom Hartmann [2]

Rand Paul's Confederacy Scandal Is Not an Anomaly -- Libertarianism Papers Over Deep Racism in America

July 11, 2013 |

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul the guy who questioned the wisdom of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when he first ran for office, finds himself at the center of yet another race related controversy this week.

On Tuesday, theWashington Free Beacon published an article titled “Rebel Yell” detailing the previous career of Paul’s right-hand man co-author Jack Hunter.

While working as a radio host in South Carolina, Hunter appeared in public wearing a Confederate flag mask, openly called for secession, and even defended the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He called himself “The Southern Avenger” and was a chairman of the Charleston wing of the League of the South, a group, which, according to its own website, “advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern States from this forced union, and the formation of a Southern republic.” [3]

Rand Paul is now trying to disassociate himself from Hunter, but that will be a difficult task. The “Southern Avenger” isn’t just some random Senate staffer: he’s a close associate of Paul and helped him write his first book back in 2010.

It now looks like Senator Paul is continuing in a great family tradition. Even though he denies responsibility, his father Ron published a series of racist newsletters during a1996 Congressional campaign.

However, we shouldn’t really be that surprised by either of the Pauls’ connection to far-right racism. That’s because they’re libertarians and libertarianism is the velvet glove over the iron fist of racism.

Here’s how it works: when you have an entrenched racial and economic class that has ruled a continent for five centuries, they have well-established levers and levels of power and wealth. They will, generation after generation, do whatever is necessary to hang on to that wealth and power.

History shows, including the history of Reconstruction and the history of integration in the 1950s and 1960, that the only thing strong enough to challenge the political and economic power of a multi-century hereditary ruling class is the power of government.

It was government that made Alabama Governor George Wallace and Georgia Governor Lester Maddox integrate their states. And it was government that both passed and made the South finally accept the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

[4] is what George Wallace had to say about integration during his inaugural address in 1963: "In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."

But Wallace lost that fight because the power of government, when appropriately used, is greater than the power of wealth, class, or race.

It took government to break the stranglehold of white rule in the 1870s and 1880, but even that white power structure reasserted itself and fought to reclaim its power, leading to the Plessy v. Ferguson case in 1896 and a half century of segregation which kept in place the political and economic privileges of white people.

So now comes a political philosophy - libertarianism - that says everything is fine, everything is equal, and government should get the hell out of the way.

They say this when the average wealth of a white family when the median net worth of a white family is $110,729 and that of a black family is $4,955 [5].

They say this when in the entire history of the U.S. Senate there have only been three African-Americans elected to that body.

They say this when just twenty minutes after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the most populous state of the Old Confederacy, Texas, put into place discriminatory voter suppression laws and began gerrymandering.

So, in effect, when conservatives and libertarians say government should get out of the way, what they are really saying is “let’s lock into place white political power, white wealth, and white privilege.

Of course, not all libertarians think of themselves as racist, and most probably don’t see how their “get rid of government” policies prop up institutional bigotry, but the reality is that when you blast government as the root of all evil and neuter its power, you end weakening the one thing that can keep the ruling elite in check.

And when you do that, the rich and powerful race hangs onto its wealth and power and the poorer minorities lose even more of what little they have.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter whether Rand Paul agrees with Jack Hunter that the Confederacy was a good idea.

Because by going on and on about state’s rights and freedom from government tyranny, Senator Paul and his friends on the Libertarian right make sure that the values of Old Dixie – an entrenched racial elite and racial inequality – continue in America.

Libertarianism truly is the velvet glove of a nice-sounding “freedom” policy that covers the iron fist of five hundred years of genocide and apartheid in America.

See more stories tagged with:

libertarian [6]

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/libertarianism-covers-racism

Links:

[1] http://alternet.org

[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/thom-hartmann

[3] http://dixienet.org/rights/corebeliefs.shtml

[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLLDn7MjbF0

[5] http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/21/news/economy/wealth-gap-race/index.htm

[6] http://www.alternet.org/tags/libertarian-0

[7] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/libertarianism-covers-racism rand paul and TP

In May 2012, PRWeek reported that ALEC had hired the notorious global PR firm Edelman. Edelman is the firm of choice for big tobacco, big oil, and big pharma, all key sponsors of ALEC.ALEC also held a special meeting asking right-wing bloggers, such as the Breitbart operation,for help in "a very aggressive campaign to really spread the word about what we actually do," as CMD has reported.

An "aggressive campaign" is clearly underway.

ALEC's note to legislators claims that CMD's "top investigative reporter" has a "lengthy criminal background." It links to a attack-piece published by a newly created entity called The Washington Free Beacon (WFB),the online publication of the self-proclaimed "conservative advocacy group" the Center for American Freedom.

In that piece, recent college grad CJ Ciaramella focuses onBeau Hodai, a freelance reporter who has written for the Center for Media and Democracy,In These Times, Prison Legal News,Extra! (a publication of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), and the investigative news publication he founded, DBA Press.

Beau has been researching and reporting on ALEC since late 2009. His reporting has detailed the relationship between ALEC and private prison contractors in the dissemination of bills based on Arizona's SB 1070, and has identified ALEC as one of the key forces behind attempts to destroy public employee unions and privatize public services.

Notably, the WFB attack job does not find any material errors in any of Beau's extensively documented reports on ALEC, but focuses on misdemeanor court records. It dwells on the fact that his legal first name is Mohamad. Beau has been nicknamed "Beau" since birth. (It is worth noting that "CJ" is not Ciaramella's legal first name but the nickname he uses instead of "Carl.")

Beau recently stirred the pot with a special report detailing corruption in the Ohio General Assembly based on public records that raise questions as to whether the state's elected officials in ALEC are complying with Ohio's ethics laws regarding gifts.

Interestingly enough, Beau learned that exactly one week following the publication of the Ohio ALEC corruption story, a private investigation firm requested court records concerning a past arrest. Allegations from those same court records emerged as the centerpiece of the WFB attack article.

The Washington Free Beacon's "Aerial Hunting Operation"

WFB's Matthew Continetti (who previously was an opinion editor at the right-wing Weekly Standard, where he remains a contributing editor) outlined the WFB's strategy as part of its recent launch:

"What would happen if the media wolf pack suddenly had to worry about an aerial hunting operation? You are about to find out. The Washington Free Beacon is here to enter the arena of combat journalism. [...] At the Beacon, we follow only one commandment: Do unto them."

And this is the team ALEC is using to attempt to discredit CMD as an "attack-dog"?

This is not the first such piece to come out of WFB. In the past few months, Ciaramella has written three pieces personally attacking reporters and activists working to expose ALEC. In addition to the piece on Beau, he published a similar attack on Color of Changestaffer Gabriel Rey-Goodlatte, as well as The Nation reporterLee Fang. Fang has also written for Think Progress (blog of the Center for American Progress) and Republic Report, and who has reported critically on ALEC over the past year. Color of Change has been instrumental in the call for ALEC corporate members to sever ties with the organization.

The latest piece also takes a shot at George Soros by attempting to link Beau to the philanthropist through PRWatch. But CMD openly discloses on its website that the past grant it received from the Open Society Institute was focused on homeland security, not ALEC. Notably, neither the WFB nor CAF disclose to the public which corporations, organizations, or individuals bankroll their operations or smear campaigns.

The People Behind the "Center for American Freedom"

WFB is a creature of the Center for American Freedom (CAF), which was incorporated in Washington, D.C., on August 18, 2011, as a not-for-profit corporation. According to District of Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) records, CAF has two active trade names: "Free Bacon" [sic] and "Washington Free Beacon," both of which were formally effected in March 2012.

DCRA records list the names of two founding CAF "governors," Michael Goldfarb and Aaron Harison. CHENEY

Harison, currently CAF's president, previously served as director of communications for the Republican National Committee (RNC). Harison is joined at CAF by former RNC acting director of communications, and current CAF research director, Tim Killeen.

Harison is also the former executive director of Keep America Safe, an operation co-founded in 2009 by Dick Cheney's daughter, Liz Cheney. William Kristol, the founder and editor of the neoconservative Weekly Standard, is a founding board member of Keep America Safe. Kristol is currently listed as a board member of CAF, and is the former executive director of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neocon "think tank" that had strong ties to the American Enterprise Institute.

Michael Goldfarb, CAF's chairman, has reportedly worked as an advisor to Keep America Safe and the militaristic Emergency Committee for Israel. (Kristol is also a board member for the Emergency Committee for Israel). Goldfarb is also listed as a contributing editor to Weekly Standard.

In addition, Goldfarb is a partner in the lobby/PR firm, :{Orion Strategies:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: LLC. Not surprisingly, given Goldfarb and Kristol's warmongering predilections, Orion has lobbied on issues of arms sales and foreign relations for very special interests like defense contractors and foreign governments.

While these ties may explain some of the content on the WFB, what does any of this have to do with its efforts to defend ALEC by attacking its critics?

According to Politico, right-wing financiers Charles and David Koch also employ the services of Orion Strategies and, as CMD has documented, Koch Industries and/or the Koch family fortune have helped fund ALEC and numerous ALEC private sector members that help operationalize the brothers' ideological and financial agenda. There is no indication that the Kochs asked WFB to jump to the defense of ALEC. However, the right wing has been howling that the press and progressive groups have been too persuasive in exposing ALEC and in making the case about how ALEC helps make the corporate wish list into law through its members and operations.

CMD Wins Awards for ALEC Exposed and Investigative Breakthroughs...

http://www.prwatch.org/node/11717

Aaron Harison is the president of the Center for American Freedom and a former executive director of Keep America Safe. Both groups, which are closely associated with the neoconservative advocacy community, emerged during the Barack Obama presidency and were intended to wage ideological warfare with liberal organizations and promote militaristic U.S. foreign policies. Prior to his work with Keep America Safe, Harison was a research director at the Republican National Committee and later a staffer for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.[[1]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/harison_aaron#_edn1)

Although not as well known as colleagues like William Kristol and Liz Cheney, both principals of Keep America Safe, Harison has received some media attention for his efforts to promote controversial right-wing agendas. In 2009 and 2010, for example, Harison played a role in promoting conspiratorial rationales for opposing the Obama administration’s efforts to close the detention facility at Guantanamo and try terror suspects on U.S. soil.

Wrote Harison in December 2009: “The Obama administration’s ill-considered plan to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility coupled with Attorney General Eric Holder’s unilateral decision to try the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed along with four other 9/11 co-conspirators in a civilian court in New York City makes our responsibility to ensure justice is served very difficult, if not impossible. A slap in the face to those soldiers who risked their lives in the war on terror, these decisions have in fact played right into the hands of the detainees and given them exactly what they want.”[[2]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/harison_aaron#_edn2)

Although he provided no evidence for how the Obama proposals “played into the hands of detainees,” Harison and Keep America Safe doubled down on these claims several months later, leveling the wild accusation that some Justice Department officials who had defended terrorist suspects were not patriotic. Reported Main Justice in March 2010:

“Keep America Safe spokesman Aaron Harison said there was a distinction between Judge Advocate General (JAG) military lawyers who were doing their job and private lawyers working on a pro bono basis, who[m] he called ‘ideologues’ looking to ‘get these guys off the hook.’ …Harison said that private attorneys advocating for detainees raised a lot of questions because ‘sometimes you can’t make the distinction’ between representation and being ‘soft on terror.’ Harison also said the organization was more concerned that the DOJ lawyers are soft on terror than that they hold sympathetic views about al Qaeda. In contrast, JAG lawyers were assigned to cases, Harison said, unlike the pro bono lawyers who wanted Guantanamo cases to write a book or get media attention. Harison neglected to mention that some military officers did volunteer to take on the cases of Guantanamo detainees, including retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who served as the former chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo Bay military commissions and has since argued that they should be abandoned.”[[3]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/harison_aaron#_edn3)

Harison’s comments followed Keep America Safe’s release in February 2010 of a provocatively titled “Who Are the Al Qaeda Seven?” which questioned the loyalty of Justice Department lawyers who had defended terrorism suspects. Defending the video, Michael Goldfarb, an adviser to the group, claimed that the lawyers targeted in the ad “propagandized on behalf of our enemies, engaging in a worldwide smear campaign against the CIA, the U.S. military and the United States itself while we are at war.”[[4]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/harison_aaron#_edn4)

The video was roundly criticized by conservatives and liberals alike. A group of conservative lawyers issued a letter stating that such attacks were undermining the judicial system. “Whether one believes in trial by military commission or in federal court, detainees will have access to counsel. … To delegitimize the role detainee counsel play is to demand adjudications and policymaking stripped of a full record. Whatever systems America develops to handle difficult detention questions will rely, at least some of the time, on an aggressive defense bar; those who take up that function do a service to the system.”[[5]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/harison_aaron#_edn5)

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.

Aaron Harison Résumé

Affiliations

Center for American Freedom: President
Keep America Safe: Former executive director
John McCain Campaign:Former staffer
Republican National Committee:Former researcher

Aaron Harison News Feed

Property Transfers, April 21, 2013 - Columbia County News Times 4/9: Deaths in Central Florida - Orlando Sentinel

Right Web is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

The Right Web Mission

Right Web tracks militarists’ efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy.

Sources

[[1]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/harison_aaron#_ednref1) Citizendium, “Aaron Harison,” accessed February 10, 2012, http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Aaron_Harison.

[[2]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/harison_aaron#_ednref2) Aaron Harison, "Caving into 9/11 Terrorists," Voices of Tomorrow, December 2009, http://www.voicesoftomorrow.org/us/caving-in-to-911-terrorists/.

[[3]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/harison_aaron#_ednref3) Ryan Reilly, "Spokesman: Ad Only Questioning Pro Bono Lawyers,” Main Justice, March 3, 2010, http://www.mainjustice.com/2010/03/03/spokesman-ad-only-questioning-pro-bono-lawyers/print/.

[[4]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/harison_aaron#_ednref4) Ben Smith, “Cheney group questions loyalty of Justice lawyers,” Politico, March 2, 1010.

[[5]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/harison_aaron#_ednref5) Cited in “Conservative Lawyers Hit Keep America Safe,” The American Prospect Blog, March 8, 2010, http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?base_name=conservatives_ask_cheney_have&month=03&year=2010.

CJ Ciaramella

CJ Ciaramella is a staff writer for the Washington Free Beacon. Prior to joining the Beacon, he was a reporter for the Daily Caller. He was also a Collegiate Network year-long fellow at the San Diego Union-Tribune and has written articles for the Weekly Standard and Oregon Quarterly. Ciaramella attended the University of Oregon, where he edited the award-winning student magazine, the Oregon Commentator. He lives in Washington, D.C. His Twitter handle is @cjciaramella. His email address is ciaramella@freebeacon.com.

ALEC n May 2012, PRWeek reported that ALEC had hired the notorious global PR firm Edelman. Edelman is the firm of choice for big tobacco, big oil, and big pharma, all key sponsors of ALEC. ALEC also held a special meeting asking right-wing bloggers, such as the Breitbart operation,for help in "a very aggressive campaign to really spread the word about what we actually do," as CMD has reported.

An "aggressive campaign" is clearly underway.

ALEC's note to legislators claims that CMD's "top investigative reporter" has a "lengthy criminal background." It links to a attack-piece published by a newly created entity called The Washington Free Beacon (WFB), the online publication of the self-proclaimed "conservative advocacy group" the Center for American Freedom.

In that piece, recent college grad CJ Ciaramella focuses on Beau Hodai, a freelance reporter who has written for the Center for Media and Democracy,In These Times, Prison Legal News,Extra! (a publication of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), and the investigative news publication he founded, DBA Press.

Beau has been researching and reporting on ALEC since late 2009. His reporting has detailed the relationship between ALEC and private prison contractors in the dissemination of bills based on Arizona's SB 1070, and has identified ALEC as one of the key forces behind attempts to destroy public employee unions and privatize public services.

Interestingly enough, Beau learned that exactly one week following the publication of the Ohio ALEC corruption story, a private investigation firm requested court records concerning a past arrest. Allegations from those same court records emerged as the centerpiece of the WFB attack article.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/11717

The Washington Free Beacon is the online publication of the self proclaimed "conservative advocacy group" the Center for American Freedom. According to its website, the publication is "dedicated to uncovering the stories that the professional left hopes will never see the light of day."^[1]

Contents [hide]

Conservative 'Free Beacon' Fronts for Taiwan Lobby

The Free Beacon has multiple posts calling for more F-16 fighter jet sales to the island nation, and has branded skeptics of militarization as “pro-China” activists, according to The Nation. The site, however, fails to disclose the fact that its sponsor is a lobbyist for a firm dedicated to helping Taiwan advance its policy agenda. There is no disclosure on the Free Beacon website that its chairman, Michael Goldfarb, is paid to lobby for Taiwan and other interest groups.^[2]

History

Michael Goldfarb, who in addition to writing also worked as deputy communications director for the John McCain presidential bid,^[3] founded the Free Beacon with “several million dollars” in January of 2012, according to Politico.^[4] The Free Beacon began publication on February 7, 2012.^[5]

Personnel

Staff

Michael Goldfarb, Chairman
Matthew Continetti, Editor in Chief
Sonny Bunch, Managing Editor
Bill Gertz, Senior Editor

Contact

Email: comments@freebeacon.com

References

↑ About, The Washington Free Beacon, accessed July 30, 2012
↑ Lee Fang, Conservative 'Free Beacon' Fronts for Taiwan Lobby, The Nation, July 26, 2012
↑ William Kristol, (Bumped) Kristol: So long (for a while) to Michael Goldfarb,"Weekly Standard," June 2, 2008.
↑ Ben Smith, How to fight liberals: Imitate them, Politico, January 5, 2012
↑ Lee Fang, Conservative 'Free Beacon' Fronts for Taiwan Lobby, The Nation, July 26, 2012

This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

Categories:

ALEC Goes After the Center for Media and Democracy

by Lisa Graves [1] — August 29, 2012 - 7:26am

Topics: Activism [2], Corporations [3], Democracy [4]

Projects: ALEC Exposed [5]

Share this [6]

The American Legislative Exchange Council [7] (ALEC) sent a message to hundreds of legislators and corporations across the country attacking the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), the creator of ALECexposed.org [7]. Among other things ALEC claimed, "CMD is an attack-dog, not a watch-dog."

The error-filled missive, which was intended to buck up the ALEC faithful as more and more corporations flee the organization, has us here at CMD pondering the old adage, "First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they want to attack you and then you win."

ALEC Attempts to Spin Legislators about Corporate Exodus

ALEC's August 13 message claimed that CMD "continue[s] to spread half-truths and lies" about ALEC in order to "weaken [ALEC's] resolve" and "create the false impression that companies are departing from ALEC."

As CMD has reported [8], 38 corporations, four non-profit organizations, and 70 state legislators [9] have distanced themselves from ALEC by either dropping their funding or their membership or both. These major corporations include General Motors, Walgreens, Best Buy, Hewlett-Packard, MillerCoors, John Deere, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Wal-Mart, Amazon.com, Procter & Gamble, Mars, Wendy's, McDonald's, Kraft Foods, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola.

We reported on six new departures, including Sprint and GE, just days ago [10]. In every instance, CMD relied on a formal communication from the firm, a statement, letter, email, or conversation with staff.

Yet ALEC is attempting to make hay over whether some of the corporations that have said they are no longer funding ALEC are funders through paying membership dues and pay-to-play fees or whether they were funders of ALEC through sponsoring its meetings. Such distinctions among funders that have stopped funding ALEC are, to quote Shakespeare, "much ado about nothing."

Amgen: ALEC claims in its note to legislators that "Amgen is not severing ties with ALEC .... Amgen has informed us that it is letting its membership with us expire after this year." CMD reported on August 8th [8] that Amgen had "dropped" is membership with ALEC. CMD's article attached the letter [11] Amgen's assistant secretary and associate general counsel, Andrea A. Robinson, sent to Timothy Smith of Walden Asset Management which said, "After careful consideration, we have determined not to renew our membership in ALEC when our current membership expires this year." So Amgen is on the record dropping its membership after sustained pressure by community groups and shareholders [12].

As for ALEC's attempt to spin Amgen's public statement in August, the company's letter of departure speaks for itself.

Louis Dreyfus: ALEC claims, "Louis Dreyfus never had a membership in ALEC to drop.... ALEC has partnered with Louis Dreyfus in past programs and has counted Louis Dreyfus as a sponsor of past annual meetings." After a conversation with a spokesperson at the company, CMD originally mentioned [13], in a July 30th article about the 46 firms that had disappeared from ALEC's annual meeting brochure, that it looked as though Louis Dreyfus was no longer a member of ALEC. Later, in announcing the departure of the firm from ALEC's circle of sponsors, we clarified [8], "Louis Dreyfus confirmed to CMD that it had decided not to fund ALEC this year." CMD's website lists Louis Dreyfus [14] as a "Vice Chairman" level sponsor of the 2011 ALEC Annual Conference (in 2010, this level of sponsorship equated to $25,000).

The bottom-line is that Louis Dreyfus chose not to fund ALEC's annual meeting this year after sponsoring "past annual meetings."

And, despite ALEC's spin, neither Amgen nor Louis Dreyfus ever contacted CMD to request a correction about their decisions not to fund ALEC. However, some corporations have contacted CMD: firms anxious to distance themselves from ALEC [15] and asking CMD to remove documented references to their past funding of ALEC, requests which were declined.

ALEC Uses Edelman PR and Media Attack Dogs to Try to Discredit ALEC Critics

In May 2012, PRWeek reported [16] that ALEC had hired the notorious global PR firm Edelman [17]. Edelman is the firm of choice for big tobacco, big oil, and big pharma, all key sponsors of ALEC. ALEC also held a special meeting [18] asking right-wing bloggers, such as the Breitbart operation, for help in "a very aggressive campaign to really spread the word about what we actually do," as CMD has reported.

An "aggressive campaign" is clearly underway.

ALEC's recent note claims that CMD's "top investigative reporter" has a "lengthy criminal background." It links to a attack-piece published by a newly created entity called The Washington Free Beacon [19] (WFB), the online publication of the self-proclaimed "conservative advocacy group" the Center for American Freedom [20].

In that piece, recent college grad CJ Ciaramella focuses on Beau Hodai, a freelance reporter who has written for the Center for Media and Democracy, In These Times, Prison Legal News, Extra! (a publication of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), and the investigative news publication he founded, DBA Press.

Beau has been researching and reporting on ALEC since late 2009. His reporting has detailed the relationship between ALEC and private prison contractors in the dissemination of bills based on Arizona's SB 1070. And he has identified ALEC as one of the key forces behind attempts to destroy public employee unions and privatize public services.

Beau recently stirred the pot with a special report [21] detailing corruption in the Ohio General Assembly based on public records that raise questions as to whether the state's elected officials in ALEC are complying with Ohio's ethics laws regarding gifts.

The Washington Free Beacon's "Aerial Hunting Operation"

WFB's Matthew Continetti (who previously was an opinion editor at the right-wing Weekly Standard, where he remains a contributing editor) outlined [22] the WFB's strategy as part of its recent launch:

"What would happen if the media wolf pack suddenly had to worry about an aerial hunting operation? You are about to find out. The Washington Free Beacon is here to enter the arena of combat journalism. [...] At the Beacon, we follow only one commandment: Do unto them."

And this is the team ALEC is using to attempt to discredit CMD as an "attack-dog"?

This is not the first such piece to come out of WFB. In the past few months, Ciaramella has written three pieces personally attacking reporters and activists working to expose ALEC. In addition to the piece on Beau, he published a similar attack on Color of Change staffer Gabriel Rey-Goodlatte, as well as The Nation reporter Lee Fang. Fang has also written for Think Progress (the blog of the Center for American Progress) and Republic Report, and he has reported critically on ALEC over the past year. Color of Change has been instrumental in the call for ALEC corporate members to sever ties with the organization.

The People Behind the "Center for American Freedom"

WFB is a creature of the Center for American Freedom (CAF), which was incorporated in Washington, D.C., on August 18, 2011, as a not-for-profit corporation. According to [23] District of Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) records, CAF has two active trade names: "Free Bacon" [sic] and "Washington Free Beacon," both of which were formally effected in March 2012.

DCRA records list the names of two founding CAF "governors," Michael Goldfarb [24] and Aaron Harison.

Harison, currently CAF's president, previously served [25] as director of communications for the Republican National Committee (RNC). Harison is joined at CAF by former RNC acting director of communications [26], and current CAF research director, Tim Killeen.

Harison is also the former executive director [27] of Keep America Safe [28], an operation co-founded in 2009 by Dick Cheney's daughter, Liz Cheney. William Kristol [29], the founder and editor of the neoconservative Weekly Standard, is a founding board member [30] of Keep America Safe. Kristol is currently listed as a board member [31] of CAF, and is the former executive director of the Project for the New American Century [32] (PNAC), a neocon "think tank" that had strong ties to the American Enterprise Institute [33].

Michael Goldfarb, CAF's chairman, has reportedly worked [34] as an advisor to Keep America Safe and the militaristic Emergency Committee for Israel [35]. (Kristol is also a board member for the Emergency Committee for Israel). Goldfarb is also listed as a contributing editor [36] to Weekly Standard.

In addition, Goldfarb is a partner [37] in the lobby/PR firm, Orion Strategies LLC [38]. Not surprisingly, given Goldfarb and Kristol's warmongering predilections, Orion has lobbied on issues of arms sales and foreign relations for very special interests like defense contractors and foreign governments.

While these ties may explain some of the content on the WFB, what does any of this have to do with its efforts to defend ALEC by attacking the corporate bill mill's critics?

According to Politico, right-wing financiers Charles and David Koch also employ the services of Orion Strategies [39] and, as CMD has documented [40], Koch Industries and/or the Koch family fortune have helped fund ALEC and numerous ALEC private sector members that help operationalize the brothers' ideological and financial agenda. There is no indication that the Kochs asked WFB to jump to the defense of ALEC. However, the right wing has been howling that the press and progressive groups have been too persuasive in exposing ALEC and in making the case about how ALEC helps make the corporate wish list into law through its members and operations.

CMD Wins Awards for ALEC Exposed and Investigative Breakthroughs

In the letter to its members, ALEC also attempted to impugn CMD as a "highly partisan, fringe organization." The charge brings to mind pots and kettles. When CMD surveyed ALEC's political leadership in July 2011, it documented that 103 of the 104 legislators serving on ALEC's Board of Directors or holding the post of co-chair on its task forces or of a state were Republicans. It's difficult to imagine a more lopsided partisan make-up of a body of elected officials than that, other than in groups that are expressly described by their party label, such as the Republican Governors Association.

CMD is a non-partisan watchdog group that has taken heat for being highly critical of President Obama's financial policies and the Democrats' campaign financing practices. We have filed briefs challenging the Obama administration, including its detention powers under the recent National Defense Authorization Act, and have been critical of Democrats and Republicans who push the agenda of their corporate benefactors in dozens of areas.

CMD has been honored to receive several journalism awards for its work to expose ALEC: the "Sidney Award [41]" for Investigative Journalism, along with The Nation magazine, in September 2011; the "Izzy Award [42]" for outstanding achievement in independent media, along with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who covered the uprising in Egypt from the ground; and most recently, the "Professional Freedom and Responsibility award [43]" from the Cultural and Critical Studies Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication -- an honor that has previously been awarded to Bill Moyers, Molly Ivins, I.F. "Izzy" Stone, Noam Chomsky, Studs Terkel, and Bob McChesney. Earlier this year, CMD also recieved one of the Milwaukee Press Club's 2011 "Excellence in Journalism [44]" awards for its investigative work.

ALEC Ups the Ante But the Odds Are on More Defections and Inquiries

While ALEC is fighting CMD with misleading missives to its members and media smears, it is still shedding corporate board members, funders, and sponsors [10]. And it is still getting hammered in the press for its extreme agenda and its corrupting influence, for the fact that corporate lobbyists vote as equals with elected officials on templates to change the law, and its repeated claims it does not lobby despite proof to the contrary. ALEC has also received continued scrutiny for its corporate-funded scholarships. CMD has learned at least one state has had trouble maintaining corporate donors to cover the usual trips for legislators to attend ALEC events.

As calls for investigation of ALEC's lobbying activities and financing practices mount (with three complaints now filed before the IRS and other ethics investigations at the state level), it will take more than Edelman PR and "combat journalism" to rescue ALEC from the trouble it is in.

Center for Media and Democracy • 520 University Avenue, Suite 260 • Madison, Wisconsin 53703

Phone: 608-260-9713 • Fax: 608-260-9714

Source URL: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/08/11717/alec-goes-after-center-media-and-democracy

Links:

[1] http://www.prwatch.org/users/35268/lisa-graves

[2] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/activism

[3] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/corporations

[4] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/democracy

[5] http://www.prwatch.org/projects/alec-exposed

[6] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.prwatch.org%2Fnews%2F2012%2F08%2F11717%2Falec-goes-after-center-media-and-democracy&linkname=ALEC%20Goes%20After%20the%20Center%20for%20Media%20and%20Democracy

[7] http://alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed

[8] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/08/11682/amgen-drops-alec-number-32-ebay-comes-under-fire

[9] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Legislators_Who_Have_Cut_Ties_to_ALEC

[10] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/08/11724/six-more-corporations-dump-alec-38-companies-have-now-cut-ties-corporate-bill-mil

[11] http://alecexposed.org/w/images/f/f2/Amgen_Response_to_ALEC_-_Heartland_Letter_8-6-12.pdf

[12] http://alecexposed.org/w/images/f/fe/ALEC_Outreach_Letter_-_Amgen_Inc_.pdf

[13] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/07/11679/lot-white-space-firms-drop-alecs-meeting-brochure

[14] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Corporations#L

[15] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/04/11462/former-alec-supporters-now-find-connection-toxic

[16] http://www.prweekus.com/pages/under-fire-advocacy-group-alec-works-with-edelman/article/240419/

[17] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Edelman

[18] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/04/11458/alec-sends-out-sos-breibart-bloggers

[19] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/The_Washington_Free_Beacon

[20] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_for_American_Freedom

[21] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/05/11498/quid-pro-status-quo-alec-state-sanctioned-corruption-ohio

[22] http://freebeacon.com/combat-journalism

[23] http://dbapress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/DCRA-CAF.pdf

[24] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Michael_Goldfarb

[25] http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/harison_aaron

[26] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71099_Page3.html

[27] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28212.html#ixzz0Tqj4UEV7

[28] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Keep_America_Safe

[29] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/William_Kristol

[30] http://www.keepamericasafe.com/?page_id=215

[31] http://americanfreedom.com/staff/

[32] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

[33] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Enterprise_Institute

[34] http://www.weeklystandard.com/author/michael-goldfarb

[35] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Emergency_Committee_for_Israel

[36] http://www.weeklystandard.com/tws/aboutus/default.asp#Masthead

[37] http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/Conservative-advocacy-group-Center/2012/01/05/id/423196

[38] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Orion_Strategies_LLC

[39] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71099.html

[40] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/10904/alec-exposed-koch-connection

[41] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/09/11023/cmd-and-nation-magazine-win-sidney-award-investigative-journalism

[42] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/03/11327/cmd-receives-izzy-award-alec-exposed

[43] http://aejmc.net/ccs/CCSSpring2012.pdf

[44] http://www.milwaukeepressclub.org/honors/contest/2011-contest-awardees#pro

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.

The Center for American Freedom is a rightist advocacy group founded by neoconservative pundit Michael Goldfarb to serve as a counterweight to the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress. Its sole activity appears to be publishing the Washington Free Beacon, a news and commentary site fashioned as a conservative answer to progressive blogs like Think Progress and Talking Points Memo.[[1]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_edn1)

CAF’s website states: “The Center For American Freedom is a conservative not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through education, ideas, and action. We are creating a long-term, conservative vision for America—a vision that policy makers, thought-leaders, and activists can use to shape the national debate and pass laws that make a difference. Our mission is to transform conservative ideas into policy through rapid response communications, legislative action, organizing and advocacy, and partnerships with other conservative leaders throughout the country and the world.”[[2]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_edn2)

Hinting at its neoconservative bent, the website claims that “a conservative is someone who understands America has been the greatest force for good the world has ever known, and that in order to remain as such, we must guard against threats to liberty and freedom both at home and abroad.”[[3]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_edn3)

The Washington Free Beacon

Reflecting on the purported novelty of a conservative news site, editor in chief Matthew Continettidescribes the Washington Free Beacon as an attempt to present “the other half of the story, the half that the elite media have taken such pains to ignore: the inside deals, cronyism cloaked in the public interest, and far-out nostrums of contemporary progressivism and the Democratic Party. At the Beacon, all friends of freedom will find an alternative to the hackneyed spin, routine misstatements, paranoid hyperbole, and insipid folderol of Democratic officials and the liberal gasbags on MSNBC and talk radio. At the Beacon, we follow only one commandment: Do unto them.” Continetti summed up the journal’s work as “combat journalism.”[[4]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_edn4)

The Beacon's reporting has lived up to its combative mission. In late 2012 and early 2013, for example, the outlet ran a series of stories dedicated to bolstering the neoconservative-driven claim that then-Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel held anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic views, a campaign that was widely panned outside right-wing media. The Beacon's coverage of the Hagel nomination prompted Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo to lambast the publication as "a tabloid-style 'news' site specializing in smear jobs against neocon hate-objects." Raimondo added, "Half Breitbart.com, half college humor magazine, the Free Beacon is a down-market version of the Weekly Standard."[[5]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_edn5)

The Beacon also contributed to the conservative mythmaking over the Obama administration's handling of the 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Cairo, Egypt, andBenghazi,Libya. The publication was the source of a rumor that the State Department had banned U.S. Marines at the Cairo embassy from carrying live ammunition. Although the Marine Corps immediately discredited the claim, it nonetheless circulated widely in conservative media.[[6]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_edn6)

The publication has stoked controversy by passing off sensationalistic "jokes" as journalism. In February 2013, the site ran a story under the headline "Hughes Drops Jews" that suggested that the president of the New Republic magazine was "signal[ing] the publication’s continued drift away from a staunchly pro-Israel standpoint" by dropping "at least five prominent Jewish writers from its masthead." Critics pointed out that the publication's editor was Jewish and that half of the writers dropped were not. Goldfarb told the New York Times that story was meant to be a joke. "We're true believers, but we're also troublemakers," he said, "We get up every day and say, how do we cause trouble?"[[7]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_edn7)

A Daily Beast blogger called Goldfarb's remark "a stunning admission." Recalling the Beacon's repeated insinuations that Chuck Hagel held anti-Semitic views, the blogger mused: "Goldfarb concedes here that his group's accusations of anti-Semitism are just for laughs." Quipping that Goldfarb "represents Bill Kristol's worst instincts," the Daily Beast writer concluded, "This is what neoconservatism has become; even a critic can lament."[[8]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_edn8)

Commenting on the Beacon's sensationalistic and often lowbrow journalism, Think Progress editor Judd Legum rejected any comparison between his own publication and the Washington Free Beacon. “They are not an imitation of ThinkProgress," he told the New York Times. "They are a parody.”[[9]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_edn9)

Leadership and Funding

CAF’s founding chairman is Michael Goldfarb, a lobbyist and activist associated with several neoconservative groups, including the Emergency Committee for Israel, the Liz Cheney-led Keep America Safe, and the now-defunct Project for the New American Century. The editor of the Washington Free Beacon is Matthew Continetti, a contributor to the neocon Weekly Standard. Aaron Harison, the former executive director of Keep America Safe, is the group’s president.[[10]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_edn10)

Board members include the ubiquitous William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and a supporter of a passel of neoconservative pressure groups, as well as Weekly Standard contributors Jaime Sneider and Mary Katharine Ham, who is also conservative radio host and Fox News commentator.[[11]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_edn11)

Although he has declined to reveal the group’s donors, Goldfarb told reporter Ben Smith in early 2012 that CAF would have an annual budget of “several million dollars.” Reported Smith: “The group is currently structured as a 501(c)(4) advocacy group, Goldfarb said, mimicking CAP’s more combative media and research arm, the Center for American Progress Action Fund; it may add a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit, like CAP, for less overtly partisan work, he said. Goldfarb said he’s borrowing another position from the liberal think tank, which was founded in 2003 to buttress the Democratic opposition to a Republican president. Like CAP, his group won’t disclose its donors. CAP has justified that stance by saying that, unlike the anonymously financed campaign groups it criticizes for secrecy, it doesn’t run TV ads.”[[12]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_edn12)

CAF’s Form 990 from 2011, when the organization was still being set up, reported total revenues of $700,000. It also indicated that CAF had paid $40,000 to Orion Strategies, a consulting firm where Goldfarb has served as vice president.[[13]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_edn13)

MMA 816

Right-Wing Media Attempt To Scandalize Cheryl Mills Volunteer Trip For Clinton Foundation, Ignoring Undermining Evidence

Research ››› 1 hour 36 min ago ››› CAT DUF

A CNN investigation alleged that former Hillary Clinton aide Cheryl Mills potentially violated ethics rules by traveling to New York for the Clinton Foundation while also employed by the State Department -- yet it also noted that she was doing unpaid volunteer work on the trip, thus debunking its own claim. Numerous right-wing media outlets reported on the matter either without mentioning or by glossing over the volunteer aspect.

Right-Wing Media Monitor, Film Attendees Inside All-Gender Restroom At Democratic Convention

Research ››› July 26, 2016 2:38 PM EDT ››› RACHEL PERCELA

Right-wing media monitored and filmed people using the designated all-gender restroom at the Democratic National Convention, looking for “obviously transgender” convention attendees in the bathroom. Conservative media have long peddled the bogus myth that nondiscrimination protections for transgender people will allow male sexual predators to sneak into women’s bathrooms by pretending to be transgender, leading to an increase in assault and misbehavior in restrooms.

Myths & Facts: The Minimum Wage

Research ››› June 24, 2016 4:41 PM EDT ››› ALEX MORAS

On June 25, 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) into law and established the first nationwide minimum hourly wage. The relative value of the minimum wage has fluctuated considerably over time, but it has steadily eroded since reaching an inflation-adjusted peak in 1968 -- the $1.60 per hour wage that year would be worth roughly $11.05 today. For several years, in the face of a growing movement to lift local, state, and federal minimum wages to a livable standard, right-wing media opponents have frequently promoted a number of misleading and discredited myths about the minimum wage’s economic effects.

The Right-Wing Media Figures Praising Trump’s Attacks On Press

Major Media Figures Slam Trump’s Attacks For “Showing Little Regard For Democratic Accountability.”

Research ››› June 1, 2016 12:21 PM EDT ››› JULIE ALDERMAN

Mainstream media figures criticized presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s attacks on the press during a May 31 press conference as showing “a fundamental misunderstanding of reporters’ roles” and “little regard for … the legitimate role of a free press in a free society,” while right-wing media lauded the attacks as a “smart move” against the “corrupt media.”

{ Wash. Free Beacon’s Elizabeth Harrington: “It’s A Smart Move” For Trump “To Attack The Media.”Washington Free Beacon’s Elizabeth Harrington said that “it’s a smart move” for Trump “to attack the media” because “the majority of Americans” have “a low opinion of the mainstream media.” From the May 31 edition of Fox News’ The Real Story:

:{ELIZABETH HARRINGTON: I think it’s a smart move to attack the media, because when Donald Trump says he has a low opinion of the mainstream media, he's with the majority of Americans who feel that way. I mean, the media's favorability rating is at historic lows. So it’s really a win-win for him, because he gets to go out there, attack journalists, attack the media, which many Americans feel the same way, that they don't have a lot of trust in them. And then at the same time he says, “Look, I raised $5.6 million for vets. I didn't have to do it.” And that makes him look good as well. So I really think it’s a smart move and it’s really a win-win for him. Fox News,:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{ :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*The Real Story*:{,:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{ :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[5/31/16:{]}:}

Gun Industry And Conservative Media Team Up To Falsely Attack Clinton For? Challenging Legal Immunity For Negligent Gun Dealers

Research ››› April 26, 2016 1:48 PM EDT ››› TIMOTHY JOHNSON

Conservative media and Politico are citing new polling that purports to show voters oppose Democratic presidential front-runner? Hillary Clinton’s call to repeal a federal immunity law which largely shields negligent gun sellers from legal liability when they sell guns to people they know or should know are dangerous. The poll question -- which was commissioned by the gun industry’s trade group and conducted by a Republican polling firm -- is dishonest because it misrepresents Clinton’s position on the law, suggesting that it was designed as a push poll rather than an accurate snapshot of public opinion.

Media Push Right-Wing Myths After California's $15 Minimum Wage Announcement

Research ››› March 30, 2016 3:20 PM EDT ››› ALEX MORASH

On March 28, Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) announced a legislative compromise to raise the California minimum wage gradually from $10 per hour in 2016 to $15 per hour by 2022. Right-wing media have attacked the historic wage increase, claiming it will kill jobs and that it "goes against every law of capitalism." Meanwhile, mainstream media have promoted misinformation about the minimum wage peddled by restaurant industry front groups.

The Free Beacon's Hollow Attack On Judge Garland's Bipartisan Credentials

Research ››› March 17, 2016 1:16 PM EDT ››› MATT GERTZ

The Washington Free Beacon attacked Judge Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court because he volunteered for Democratic presidential candidates more than 20 years ago. However, Chief Justice John Roberts, who was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2005, served on campaign organizations for both Bush and his father. Roberts also "assisted those working on behalf of George W. Bush" during litigation over the 2000 recount in Florida.

Right-Wing Media Distort Hillary Clinton's Comments About Libya Intervention

Conservative Media Follow RNC Lead In Smearing Clinton For Accurately Stating No Americans Died In Military Campaign To Oust Gadhafi

Research ››› March 15, 2016 7:19 PM EDT ››› NICK FERNANDEZ, TYLER CHERRY & BOBBY LEWIS

Right-wing media figures are distorting a comment made by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during a MSNBC town hall, where Clinton said "we didn't lose a single person" during the 2011 U.S. military intervention in Libya. Conservative commentators parroted the GOP in berating Clinton for allegedly "forgetting" about the four Americans who were killed during the 2012 Benghazi attacks, when in reality Clinton was referring only to the military intervention in Libya, which ended nearly a year before the Benghazi attacks.

Washington Free Beacon Smears Potential SCOTUS Nominee For Fulfilling Constitutional Duty As Public Defender

Research ››› March 14, 2016 2:37 PM EDT ››› ALEX KAPLAN

The Washington Free Beacon smeared potential Supreme Court nominee Jane Kelly for previously representing criminal defendants during her tenure as a public defender. The Beacon's implication that Kelly is guilty-by-representation leaves out crucial details about the cases, and as experts have pointed out, undermines the American system of justice and the constitutional right to legal counsel.

Right-Wing Media Mock Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau's Historic Washington Visit

Research ››› March 10, 2016 2:39 PM EST ››› DAYANITA RAMESH

Right-wing media mocked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Obama prior to and during Trudeau's historic visit to Washington, D.C., calling the event a "first date" and dismissing Trudeau as "the Obama of the North," a "fanboy," and "not the smartest guy in the world."

Breitbart News Targets Wrong Michael Goldfarb For Criticizing Donald Trump

Blog ››› January 25, 2016 9:53 AM EST ››› ERIC HANANOKI

UPDATE: Breitbart News has corrected its piece. The headline now states, "CORRECTED -- Michael Goldfarb: Trump is the Politics of 'Fear, Paranoia, Nativism.'" An attached note reads: "CORRECTION: Our morning lead was a link to a story on the BBC Magazine by Michael Goldfarb. This is not the Founder of the Washington Free Beacon, but a different individual. Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Marlow accept responsibility for this mistake and apologize to Michael and the staff of the Free Beacon."

ORIGINAL: Breitbart News ran a piece claiming that the founder of the conservative Free Beacon attacked Donald Trump as embodying "the politics of 'fear, paranoia, nativism.'" But Breitbart News, which has been criticized for being "the most pro-Trump news outlet on the right," wrote about the wrong person.

A January 24 Breitbart News piece carried the headline, "'Free Beacon' Founder: Trump Is The Politics of 'Fear, Paranoia, Nativism'" and linked to a January 24 BBC News Magazine piece by Michael Goldfarb. During the morning of January 25, Breitbart News made the article its top story:

But the founder of the Free Beacon is a different Michael Goldfarb. The Free Beacon's Goldfarb is a Republican who worked as an aide to Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) presidential campaign and for the conservative Weekly Standard.

The writer of the BBC article is public radio veteran Michael Goldfarb. Breitbart News could have easily ascertained the true identity of the writer by simply reading the article's author identification. The BBC article wrote that Goldfarb is "the author of Emancipation: How Liberating Europe's Jews from the Ghetto led to Revolution and Renaissance" and linked to his professional website. An August 2008 NPR feature noted that there are two different Michael Goldfarbs and that they are often confused for one another.

Free Beacon editor in chief Matthew Continetti tweeted that "this story is false. We are waiting for retraction. Thanks." Free Beacon staff writer Lachlan Markay tweeted, "Anyone who's ever met @thegoldfarb is chuckling at the notion that his byline would ever appear at the BBC."

Breitbart News is a notoriously unreliable news site. In 2014, it attacked President Obama's nomination for attorney general by going after the wrong Loretta Lynch. In 2013, it alleged then-Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel received funding from a group called Friends of Hamas -- which never actually existed.

Right-Wing Media Echo Conservative Group's Lie That New Email Contradicts Administration's Benghazi Testimony

Research ››› December 9, 2015 12:44 PM EST ››› CYDNEY HARGIS

Right-wing media are repeating the false claim that a Defense Department email sent to Hillary Clinton's deputy chief of staff showing U.S. military forces were ready to "move to Benghazi" the night of the September 11, 2012 attacks contradicts former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's testimony about the attacks. In fact, the congressional testimony that conservatives claim the email contradicts shows that military forces were deployed that night.

Conservative Benghazi Reporting Is A Dumpster Fire

Blog ››› December 9, 2015 12:10 PM EST ››› MATT GERTZ

We need to talk about how bad the Benghazi lies have gotten.

Media Matters researchers have spent literally hundreds of hours over the last three years painstakingly debunking the various falsehoods and conspiracy theories regarding the 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya. We have written hundreds of blog posts and research documents, produced massive statistical studies on Benghazi coverage, tarnished the reputation of 60 Minutes, and written an e-book on The Benghazi Hoax that conservatives have perpetrated. We have scrutinized materials on the subject including but not limited to transcripts of the numerous public congressional hearings on the subject, the many reports released by Democratic, Republican, and nonpartisan committees, several books, and uncountable articles about the attacks and their aftermath.

We try to take the conservative media outlets we write about seriously. This has become even more difficult than usual in recent days. Conservative journalists seem increasingly willing to grasp for any potential speck of information about the Benghazi attacks that could be seen as damaging to progressives. We've reached a point where it literally takes us 30 seconds to debunk their bullshit by simply taking the claims that they say are damning and checking them against the sources they are citing.

Their need to cater to the conservative obsession with Benghazi is destroying their claim that they can engage in legitimate reporting. The quality of the lies has dropped precipitously -- it's almost like they aren't trying anymore. The predictable effort to use the deaths of four Americans for political ends has become a farce.

Yesterday afternoon, the right-wing legal organization Judicial Watch produced a Defense Department email from the night of the attacks that they claimed was new information indicating that the Obama administration could have helped the Americans under fire in Benghazi, but deliberately decided not to, and then lied about it. Let's pause and consider just how cartoonishly despicable that behavior would have been, if it had happened -- and thus how skeptical any reporter should treat that claim.

Of course, that didn't happen.

Instead, several conservative journalists, from Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo to Daily Caller's Mark Tapscott to TheBlaze's Oliver Darcy to TownHall.com's Katie Pavlich, all effectively rewrote the Judicial Watch press release without any apparent skepticism or indication of independent thought. (In a revealing case of crowdsourced editing, Pavlich subsequently had it pointed out to her on Twitter that the email was not, in fact, news, and has crossed out her initial claims that this proved a contradiction. This would be to her credit if it hadn't been so incredibly easy to get the story right.)

By this morning, Fox News was describing the email as yet another Benghazi "smoking gun."

This is a pathetic failure of basic reporting, and everyone involved should be embarrassed. As noted above, Benghazi has an incredibly long paper trail. But the conservative journalists covering the story either couldn't be bothered to consult that record or they are deliberately lying to their audiences to get clicks.

The email in question was sent to State Department leaders at 7:19 pm on the night of the attack by then-Department of Defense chief of staff Jeremy Bash, and stated that Defense had "identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak." According to Judicial Watch, this "seems to directly contradict" then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's 2013 congressional testimony that "time, distance, the lack of an adequate warning, events that moved very quickly on the ground prevented a more immediate response."

I cannot emphasize enough how easy it was to determine that this was not, in fact, a contradiction. I literally spent about thirty seconds thinking "huh, that sounds unlikely," then ran the Panetta quote through Nexis and read the transcript of Panetta's testimony. Later in the same opening statement, he details the various forces that were deployed but either didn't arrive in time or did arrive but couldn't stop the attacks -- the forces that had been "spinning up" at the time of the email. If conservative outlets don't have Nexis, a Google search for "Leon Panetta 2013 Benghazi hearing" produces both transcript and video of the event.

Again, I didn't use some sort of fancy-pants research tricks, I just looked up the quote that Judicial Watch was saying was contradicted by the email and checked myself to see if it actually was.

Others who have been paying the bare minimum of attention to the Benghazi story quickly pointed out the email was consistent with the findings the Republican-led House Armed Services Committee released in May of 2013 and confirmed the Defense Department's timeline of events. Again, these are public documents that can be Googled. It is not that hard to find them.

The conservatives who reported on this could have done so. They didn't bother. Either they don't know anything about a topic that has been a major focus of political and media attention for the last several years and aren't interested enough in verifying facts to try, or they were lying in order to feed the ravenous Benghazi conspiracy beast.

The reporters mentioned above all work for outlets that have sought to distinguish themselves as legitimate ones that do real reporting. Even the liberal Mother Jones magazine has described the Washington Free Beacon as a "genuine muckraking success" and noted that its publisher has stressed the importance of reporting "facts." After declaring to a conservative audience that the movement needed to build its own New York Times (and getting booed), Tucker Carlson started the Daily Caller. TheBlaze's Glenn Beck launched a movement around the idea that conservatives needed to be able to "do your own research" rather than listening to the established media. TownHall.com (originally a creation of the Heritage Foundation but now owned by right-wing radio giant Salem Communications) seems to have the fewest pretensions to journalistic convention; yet as of posting time they were the only outlet to attempt to correct their original bogus reporting.

Fox News is going to do what Fox News does: lie to its audience to bolster conservatives and make money.

If conservative reporters want to be more than Rush Limbaugh shouting at his fans, its adherents must actually do the work of journalism. Benghazi Derangement Syndrome remains a blight on those efforts, and there's no sign that they're willing to adjust their standards to match reality.

That's a shame for them if they want to be taken seriously. Then again, it keeps us from having to work too hard.

Right-Wing Media Take Joint Chiefs Of Staff Chairman's Testimony On ISIS Out Of Context To Claim He Is Contradicting President Obama

Research ››› December 2, 2015 1:15 PM EST ››› ALEX KAPLAN

Right-wing media are claiming congressional testimony from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford contradicts President Obama's recent statement that ISIS was "contained." In fact, Dunford and Obama made the same point, with Obama specifically referring to the geographic containment of ISIS in parts of Syria and Iraq, and Dunford noting ISIS has been "tactically" contained "in areas."

Fox News Runs With Out-Of-Date Story About Top Secret Clinton Emails That Reportedly Don't Exist

Research ››› November 6, 2015 5:47 PM EST ››› MATT GERTZ

Fox News reported on a supposedly "bombshell" document signed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that acknowledged the possibility of facing criminal penalties for mishandling classified information, while ignoring the revelation earlier the same day that two emails she had received, which the intelligence community had previously deemed top secret, did not contain such information

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.

Center for American Freedom Résumé

Contact Information

Center for American Freedom

1600 K Street, NW

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202.465.8605 http://americanfreedom.com/

Founded

2012

About

“The Center For American Freedom is a conservative not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through education, ideas, and action. We are creating a long-term, conservative vision for America—a vision that policy makers, thought-leaders, and activists can use to shape the national debate and pass laws that make a difference. Our mission is to transform conservative ideas into policy through rapid response communications, legislative action, organizing and advocacy, and partnerships with other conservative leaders throughout the country and the world.”

Principals (2013)

Michael Goldfarb, Chairman
Aaron Harison, President
Matthew Continetti, Editor
Jaime Sneider, Board member
Mary Katharine Ham, Board Member
William Kristol, Board Member

Center for American Freedom News Feed

New conservative lobbying push for gay marriage - Salon Interview with Dorothy Roberts - Center For American Progress Medical examiners search for human remains amid debris believed to be from 9 ... - globalnews.ca Oy Vey! Republicans in Florida Want to Ban Orthodox Jewish Women From ... - PolicyMic Leader of Cuban opposition group visits exiles - Salon Notable deaths around the nation and world as of April 28, 2013 - OregonLive.com (blog)Beaten American Pastor Saeed Prays for America in Wake of Boston Bombings ... - American Center for Law and Justice (blog)Heavy security on streets for Nashville marathon - Salon The Blaze seeks Congressional support for Boston Marathon bombing conspiracy - Salon Hyundai's shocking ad: You can't kill yourself in our car - Salon

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Sources

[[1]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_ednref1) CAF, http://americanfreedom.com/; Washington Free Beacon, http://freebeacon.com/.

[[2]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_ednref2) CAF, About, http://americanfreedom.com/about/.

[[3]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_ednref3) CAF, About, http://americanfreedom.com/about/.

[[4]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_ednref4) Daniel Halper, “Welcome, Washington Free Beacon,” Weekly Standard blog, Feburary 7, 2012, http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/welcome-washington-free-beacon_626259.html.

[[5]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_ednref5) Justin Raimondo, "Who Funds the War Party?" Antiwar.com, February 25, 2013, http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2013/02/24/who-funds-the-war-party/.

[[6]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_ednref6) Mark Kogan, "5 Huge Lies From the Right Wing Media That Conservatives Still Think Are True," PolicyMic, March 2, 2013, http://www.policymic.com/articles/27564/5-huge-lies-from-the-right-wing-media-that-conservatives-still-think-are-true.

[[7]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_ednref7) Jim Rutenberg, "A Conservative Provocateur, Using a Blowtorch as His Pen," New York Times, February 23, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/us/politics/michael-goldfarb-gleeful-provocateur-at-intersection-of-many-worlds.html?pagewanted=all.

[[8]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_ednref8) Ali Gharib, "Michael Goldfarb Doesn't Care About Facts," The Daily Beast "Open Zion" blog, February 25, 2013, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/25/michael-goldfarb-doesn-t-care-about-facts.html.

[[9]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_ednref9) Jim Rutenberg, "A Conservative Provocateur, Using a Blowtorch as His Pen," New York Times, February 23, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/us/politics/michael-goldfarb-gleeful-provocateur-at-intersection-of-many-worlds.html?pagewanted=all.

[[10]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_ednref10) CAF, Staff, http://americanfreedom.com/staff/.

[[11]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_ednref11) CAF, Staff, http://americanfreedom.com/staff/.

[[12]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_ednref12) Ben Smith, “How to fight liberals: Imitate them,” Politico, January 5, 2012, http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=31ADA019-4DAA-4765-9C2F-C7F74FD02CB2.

[[13]](http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/center_for_american_freedom#_ednref13) Guidestar.org, CAF 990s, http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/45-3057411/center-american-freedom.aspx.

defends kochs; http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/paranoid-style-liberal-politics_555525.html?nopager=1

David Koch’s secretary told him the news. This was in February, during the rowdy standoff between Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and demonstrators backing 14 Democratic legislators who’d fled to Illinois rather than vote on a bill weakening public employee unions. Koch’s secretary said that an editor for a left-wing website, the Buffalo Beast, had telephoned the governor posing as David Koch and recorded the conversation. And Walker had fallen for it! He’d had a 20-minute conversation with this bozo, not once questioning the caller’s identity. But then how could Walker have known? Sure, David Koch was a billionaire whose company had donated to his campaign. But Koch (pronounced “Coke”) had never talked to Walker in his life.

Yet here were the media reporting that he and his brother Charles were behind Walker’s push against public employees. Anger washed over David like a red tide. He’d been victimized by some punk with a political agenda. “It’s really identity theft,” he told me a month later, during an interview at Koch Industries’ headquarters. “And I think it’s extremely dishonest to misrepresent yourself. I think there’s a question of integrity. And the person who would do that has got to be an incredibly dishonest person.” Up until Walker’s showdown with the Democratic state senators, Koch had never seen a photograph of the governor. He didn’t know him at all. But now the protesters occupying the Wisconsin state capitol were calling Walker a “Koch Whore.”

Why? Because the Koch Industries PAC had given $43,000 to Walker’s campaign. That was less than one half of one percent of Walker’s total haul—but still enough for the left to tie Koch Industries to the battle royal in Wisconsin. David found the whole affair disturbing. “One additional thing that really bothered me,” he said, “was that the press attacked me rather than the guy who impersonated me! And I was criticized as someone who’s got a death grip on the governor and his policies. And that I control him—I mean, that’s insane!”

Ah, but such is life when you and your brother are suddenly two of the most demonized men in American politics. For decades David and Charles have run Koch Industries, an energy and manufacturing conglomerate that employs around 50,000 people in the United States and another 20,000 in 59 other countries. Depending on the year, Koch Industries is either the first- or second-largest privately held company in America—it alternates in the top spot with Cargill, the agricultural giant—with about $100 billion in revenues. David and Charles are worth around $22 billion each. Combine their wealth and you have the third-largest fortune in America after Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Like most billionaires, the brothers spend a lot of time giving their money away: to medical and scientific research, to educational programs, to cultural institutions, and to public policy research and activism.

That last part has caught the attention of the left’s scouring eye. For unlike many billionaires, the Koch brothers espouse classical liberal economics: They advocate lower taxes, less government spending, fewer regulations, and limited government. “Society as a whole benefits from greater economic freedom,” Charles wrote in a recent Wall Street Journalop-ed. Judging by the results of the 2010 elections, there are millions of Americans who agree with him.

Over the years the Kochs have flown beneath the radar, not seeking publicity and receiving little. But then the crash of 2008 arrived, and the bailouts, and the election of Barack Obama, and pretty soon the whole country was engaged in one loud, colossal, rollicking, emotional argument over the size, scope, and solvency of the federal government. Without warning, folks were springing up, dressing in colonial garb, talking about the Constitution, calling for a Tea Party. Some of them even joined a group called Americans for Prosperity—which the Kochs helped found and partly fund.

For progressives confused at the heated opposition to their do-gooder agenda, the Kochs became convenient scapegoats. Invoking their name was a way to write off opposition to Obama as the false consciousness of racist rubes stoked by greedy businessmen. In the liberal imagination the Kochs ascended from obscurity to infamy in record time. Starting in the spring of 2009, whenever you turned on MSNBC or clicked on the Huffington Post you’d see the Kochs described in terms more applicable to Lex Luthor and General Zod.

As last year’s midterm elections approached, the White House singled out the Kochs for attack. President Obama relied on innuendo: “They don’t have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are,” he said in August. “You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation. You don’t know if it’s a big oil company, or a big bank.” Obama’s lieutenants were more direct. Also in August, an administration official, later identified as the economist Austan Goolsbee, delivered a background briefing to reporters in which he falsely alleged that Koch Industries paid no corporate income tax. (An inspector general is now investigating whether anyone in the Obama administration accessed confidential tax information prior to the attack.) The Kochs, former White House adviser David Axelrod wrote last September, are “billionaire oilmen secretly underwriting what the public has been told is a grass-roots movement for change in Washington.”

But that was just for starters. Liberals in the media turned into Koch addicts. They ascribed every bad thing under the sun to the brothers and their checkbooks. Pollution, the Tea Party, global warming denial—the Kochs were responsible. The liberals kneaded the facts like clay until the Kochs resembled a Lovecraftian monster: the Kochtopus! Its tentacles stretched everywhere. “Their private agenda is really the eradication of the federal government in almost all of its forms, other than the parts of it that protect personal rights,” New Yorkerwriter Jane Mayer told NPR’s Terry Gross. Anonymous, the hackers’ collective, accused the Kochs of attempting to “usurp American Democracy.” The Koch brothers manipulated the Tea Partiers, according to Keith Olbermann, by “telling them what to say and which causes to take on and also giving them lots of money to do it with.”

“They have an interest that is hard core ideological, hard core conservative. And dad’s money to pursue that agenda, it turns out, goes a long, long way,” said Rachel Maddow. Another left-wing radio host, Mike Papantonio, called them “inheritance babies who don’t want to pay taxes.” “The billionaire Koch brothers spent millions to have a seat at the Republican table in Washington,” said Ed Shultz, also of MSNBC, “and let’s be upfront about this now, folks. Now, they are the table.” For Paul Krugman, “What the Koch brothers have bought with their huge political outlays is, above all, freedom to pollute.” Frank Rich called them “fat cats.” Howard Dean was blunt: “We don’t want the right wing buying elections.” The Kochs, wrote a group of liberal bloggers, are “the billionaires behind the hate.”

By the time the rhetoric trickled down from the president of the United States to MSNBC talking heads to anonymous email writers, any pretense to civility or actual fact had vanished. The emails that showed up in Melissa Cohlmia’s inbox each morning were unhinged. Cohlmia is director of corporate communication for Koch Industries. Every day when she arrived at work, the first things she’d read were emails with subject lines like “This is the result of the hate you’ve been spewing,” “Corrupt Polluting Scum,” “I am boycotting Koch Industries,” “Treason,” and “Eat s—t you jerks.”

Koch Industries has a target on its gargantuan back. The brothers are the latest victims of the left’s lean, mean cyber-vilification machine. Cohlmia spends her time trying to debunk the falsehoods being spread about her bosses and her company. It may be a losing battle. There’s just too much junk. And every so often Cohlmia has to stop and wonder: How on earth did it come to this?

Market Science

The Kochs’ grandfather, Harry, immigrated to the United States from the Netherlands in 1888. He settled in Quanah, Texas, where he bought a newspaper and printing company. His son Fred was born in 1900.

Fred Koch graduated from MIT, where he studied engineering. In 1925 he moved to Wichita. There he developed an oil refining process that led to bigger yields and helped smaller, independent oil companies. This made him few friends in the industry. Instantly, the major companies sued. Koch spent years fighting 44 different lawsuits. He won all but one—and that verdict was overturned when it was revealed that the judge had been bribed.

With the big firms working against him, Fred looked to opportunities overseas. He found them in, of all places, the Soviet Union. Stalin, engaged in a massive program of industrialization, was hiring capitalists to assist him. Between 1929 and 1931 Fred Koch built 15 oil-cracking plants in the USSR. The experience changed him irrevocably. The Soviet Union, he wrote in his bookA Businessman Looks at Communism, was “a land of hunger, misery, and terror.” During one of his trips, his handler was an old Bolshevik named Jerome Livshitz. “In the months I traveled with him he gave me a liberal education in Communist techniques and methods,” Fred wrote. Fred began to fear what would happen if communism spread. “Many of the Soviet engineers he worked with were longtime Bolsheviks who had helped bring on the revolution,” Charles Koch told me during an interview in his office. “As a matter of fact they would tell [my father] that some day they were going to destroy him. And then for them to be purged, to be killed by Stalin, it was shocking, because they had been totally dedicated to [Stalin’s] cause.”

After he returned to America, Fred started a family. Charles, the second of four sons, was born in 1935. David followed five years later. Fred tried to instill in his boys the lessons he’d learned overseas. “He was a very conservative Republican and was not a fan of big government,” David said. Conversations at the kitchen table often revolved around the Communist threat. “He told me that once there were a couple of engineers [from Russia] in the office here in Wichita,” Charles said, “and the KGB came looking for them, and he hid them in the bathroom. Later the engineers were going back to the Soviet Union, and one of them supposedly jumped out of a hotel window and committed suicide.” Fred smelled foul play. “He was always convinced that they pushed him out,” Charles said.

Fred was a member of the John Birch Society. The Birchers, famously drummed out of the conservative movement by William F. Buckley Jr., believed that Communist infiltration spread all the way to the top of the U.S. government, including the Eisenhower presidency. Fred Koch’s conspiratorial worldview, in other words, anticipated the manner in which liberal writers would describe his sons decades later.

Fred was a towering personality. “My father was a man of enormous integrity, and he wanted his children to grow up to be great men, and fine, honest, decent people,” David said. Charles and David attended their father’s alma mater and studied his chosen field. When Charles graduated, he stayed in Boston. He found a job with the consulting firm Arthur D. Little, where he worked in business development and management services. Life was good. Then in 1960 he got a call from his father: My health is failing, Fred told him. You need to come back and work for the company and succeed me. “I said, ‘God, I’m doing great here, so I’d rather stay here,’ ” Charles said. Which he did.

A year later Fred called Charles again. Return home and work for me, Fred said, or I’ll sell the company. Charles complied. “He was very strong, and Dutch, and one of his favorite sayings was, ‘You can tell the Dutch but you can’t tell them much,’ ” Charles said. He took over the company after his father’s death in 1967. In the years since Charles Koch went to work for Fred, Koch Industries has grown more than 2,600-fold. The notion that Charles and David are “inheritance babies” is nonsense.

David joined the company in 1970 and became president of Koch Engineering nine years later. These days he runs the Koch Chemical Technology Group from his home in New York City. It is Charles, though, who oversees the whole operation from the headquarters in Wichita. It is Charles who developed the theories behind the company’s management practices and politics. The same philosophy drives Charles’s business, philanthropy, politics, and personal conduct. And the key to that philosophy, more than anything else, is a passionate belief in free markets.

During college Charles had a revelation. “I became convinced that it was an ordered universe,” he said. The natural world was governed by laws that could be understood by rational men. But not only nature—organizations, economies, entire societies operated according to the same fundamental principles. “How well a society followed these laws determined the extent to which it would have peace, prosperity, and progress,” Charles said. He began reading everything he could get his hands on: economics, philosophy, history, psychology, anthropology, the philosophy of science. His studies consumed his spare time. One day he came across the Austrian school of economics. Von Mises, Hayek, F. A. Harper, Sowell—these free market thinkers were his gurus. He read Maslow on Management. He read Michael Polanyi. He would take insights from one author, attach them to insights from another, and try to make everything fit together.

What Charles was studying, he later concluded, was the “science of human action.” The concepts behind free market and liberal societies, he believed, could be applied in every sphere of life. In his quest to apply them, he made Koch Industries his laboratory. “I had to do trial and error,” he said. “That is, experiment with capturing the benefits and finding the mechanisms in an organization that would create the same power that private property, free exchange, the rule of law does in a society.” Building a business wasn’t about short-term profit. It was about creating long-term value. It was an intellectual odyssey. “And that’s really what the development of Market-Based Management involved,” Charles said.

Market-Based Management: The words cast a spell on Koch Industries employees. The coinage is Charles’s. A Koch Industries website defines Market-Based Management (MBM for short) as “a holistic approach to management that integrates theory and practice and prepares organizations to deal successfully with the challenges of growth and change.” MBM does this “by applying the principles that allow free societies to prosper.” It’s hard to get more specific than that, however. Sometimes it seems as though Market-Based Management is whatever Charles Koch says it is. “He’s a teacher,” Rod Learned, director of internal communication for Koch Industries, told me. “He’s trying to get people to understand there are principles in life, like in engineering.”

At its heart, Market-Based Management seems to be about trial and error, about turning employees into entrepreneurs, about devolving power so that individuals in a project team or on the factory floor ask questions, make decisions, and feel like they have a stake in the company. And what a company: By the time Charles published The Science of Success in 2007, Koch Industries had expanded to include 10 major business groups containing hundreds of different entities and employing tens of thousands of people. There was also the Matador Cattle Co.—the descendant of Fred Koch’s ranches—and a venture capital group called Koch Genesis. The scope of the enterprise was mind-boggling.

During the course of four decades Charles had transformed Koch Industries from a company that processed and transported oil and natural gas into a manufacturing giant. What employees called Koch’s “legacy industries” were still there—refining, chemical production, asphalt, pipelines, fertilizer, engineering equipment—but a slew of new businesses—polymers, paper, finance—had been overlaid on top. “Our various companies are good at operating large, complex plants that require lots of technology to process some sort of commodity, typically a liquid or solid,” Steve Feilmeier, Koch Industries’ executive vice president and chief financial officer, told me. “And then we combine that with a trading and marketing capability.”

In 2004 Koch Industries acquired Invista from DuPont, giving Charles and David ownership of Lycra, Stainmaster Carpet, Antron, Dytek, and other polymer brands. The following year Koch Industries acquired Georgia-Pacific in a $21 billion deal. Angel Soft, Soft ’n Gentle, Dixie, Brawny, Mardi Gras, and many other paper goods brands came with it. The one thing Koch Industries doesn’t do, in fact, is drill for oil. “Our roots are in refining,” Rod Learned said, “but it isn’t accurate to describe us as a major oil company.” No, not at all. Koch Industries is much bigger than that.

You wake up in the morning and turn on a light using electricity generated by oil and natural gas that Koch Industries discovered, sold, refined, and delivered to the power plant. You get out of bed and your feet touch a carpet made from Koch polymers. You drink from a paper cup manufactured by Koch. You use a Koch paper towel to clean up water spilled from the cup. You get dressed in Lycra products made by Koch. You leave the house, built from materials that in all likelihood have at some point intersected with a Koch company, and get into a car powered by gasoline made by Koch Industries. You drive to the airport where you get on an airplane using fuel refined at a Koch facility. If the airplane is Air Force One, when you get thirsty you have some coffee from the Koch-produced official presidential coffee cup. You hijack the plane and demand that the pilot take you to a country where there is no Koch presence, no Koch employee, no Koch brand. But he can’t. He just stares into space. Because there is no escape.

It’s enough to make you a conspiracy theorist.

The Man in Black

Back when Charles was first captivated by free markets, the luminaries of the Austrian school of economics were in political exile. Despite their trenchant analysis of credit and the business cycle, the Austrians hadn’t done enough econometric modeling to be taken seriously by the mainstream. Keynesianism reigned supreme. Market-oriented professors preferred Milton Friedman and the Chicago school. Few people read Human Action or The Counter-revolution of Science.

In the 1960s Charles got to know F. A. “Baldy” Harper, the Cornell economist who founded the Institute for Humane Studies. Taking a cue from Hayek’s Intellectuals and Socialism, Harper and Koch wanted to advance the careers of young academics interested in free enterprise. The trouble was that they’d hold a seminar and maybe six professors would show up. “No one was familiar with these ideas,” Charles said. He’d have to build an intellectual infrastructure to spread the word.

What happened next was crucial to the development of American libertarianism. In the 1970s Charles got to know Ed Crane, the chairman of the national Libertarian party, with whom he’d discuss politics and strategy. They had the idea of setting up a think tank “to take these concepts and apply them to public policy issues,” Charles said. The Cato Institute was founded in 1977 with money from the Charles G. Koch Foundation. The intellectual engine was up and running. Then Charles met Richard Fink.

Fink was an economics Ph.D. at New York University. He’d been offered a teaching job at Rutgers, where he’d earned his bachelor’s degree. He wanted to set up a research center devoted to the Austrians. The department told him he could do whatever he wanted as long he raised the money himself. So Fink went to work. He called two donors but both turned him down. The third donor he called was Charles Koch. Try as he might, however, Fink couldn’t get through to Koch directly. He kept calling until one day Charles picked up the phone himself. The billionaire told Fink to fly to Wichita and deliver his proposal. Fink was elated: This was his chance!

There was just one hitch. Fink didn’t own a suit. He was a grad student with long hair and a wild beard and a gold chain, and he had to impress one of the richest men in the country. What to do? He and his wife went to a store in Manhattan that was having a fire sale. He picked out a black polyester suit with white piping, a black and white checkered shirt, and a bright blue tie.

On the day of his trip to Kansas he put on his clothes, appended his Phi Beta Kappa pin to the azure tie, and looked in the mirror: Nice threads! When he got off the plane in Wichita he noticed people staring at him and assumed they were impressed with his outfit. This was the seventies, after all. Fink told me, “I thought I was hot stuff.”

When the man in the black polyester suit arrived at Koch Industries, Charles offered him a drink. Fink turned it down. “Good,” Charles told him, “because we don’t have any alcohol.” Fink asked Charles if he’d read the proposal. Charles said he hadn’t. He picked it up from a pile and read it quickly while Fink sat there. The meeting was brief. Fink spent the plane ride back to New York thinking he’d bombed. But Koch called a few days later: He was willing to fund Fink’s project.

In 1980 academic politics forced Fink to relocate to George Mason University in suburban Virginia. There, with Koch’s support, he founded the Center for the Study of Market Processes. Years later Fink asked Charles why a badly dressed hippie economics Ph.D. had been given all this money. “I like polyester,” Charles told him. “It’s made of petroleum.”

In 1999 Fink’s think tank was renamed the Mercatus Center. By then Fink had become a fixture in Koch Industries, coordinating business ventures, philanthropy, and activism and becoming Charles Koch’s intellectual sounding board. “There are a lot of people who have ideas but they don’t know to get it done,” Charles said. “Rich always had a sense for how to get something done and make it effective.” And Fink has plenty to keep him busy: He’s executive vice president and board member at Koch Industries and chairman and CEO of Koch Companies Public Sector LLC. He sits on the board of the Mercatus Center, the Charles G. Koch, Claude R. Lambe, Fred C. and Mary R. Koch charitable foundations, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Market-Based Management Institute, and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.

The Kochs’ politics didn’t match traditional categories. Republicans, in their view, were just as implicated in big government as Democrats. To this day the Cato Institute calls for a much smaller defense budget, a noninterventionist foreign policy, and liberal positions on social issues. Some of these views have made movement conservatives uneasy. In June 1979 National Review went so far as to publish an essay critical of Cato Institute libertarians by Lawrence V. Cott. The title of the piece was “Cato Institute & the Invisible Finger.” The finger in question belonged to Charles Koch.

The intraconservative friction was evidence that Charles was becoming influential. In 1980 David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian party ticket. As a candidate, David could use his fortune to educate the populace about the free market. Yet it isn’t quite accurate to say, as many have, that David was running to “Reagan’s right.” Yes, the Libertarians wanted to shrink government. But they also believed it was important to distinguish themselves from Chamber of Commerce, “family values” Republicans. Ed Clark, the party’s presidential nominee, described himself as a “low-tax liberal.”

There must not have been many of those. Libertarians got 1 percent of the vote in 1980. But David and Charles were pleased nonetheless. “Compared to what they’d gotten before,” Charles said, “and where we were as a movement or as a political/ideological point of view, that was pretty remarkable, to get 1 percent of the vote.”

It would take more than 1 percent to turn their vision into reality. Voters didn’t have access to all the nifty ideas being cooked up inside Cato and Mercatus. “No one was bringing it down to the average citizen,” Fink said. So in 1984 Charles and David established Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). Richard Fink was its first president.

CSE was an exercise in community organizing. It rallied grassroots voters in support of reduced spending and lower taxes. “What we needed was a sales force that participated in political campaigns or town hall meetings, in rallies, to communicate to the public at large much of the information that these think tanks were creating,” David said. “Almost like a door-to-door sales force that some of the cosmetics organizations have.” CSE was an innovation in interest group politics, marrying business practice and libertarian ideology: Mary Kay meets von Mises.

Citizens for a Sound Economy’s greatest success came in 1993, when it sponsored rallies and ad campaigns opposing President Clinton’s proposal for a BTU energy tax. Yet the victory was diminished by controversy within Koch Industries. The nineties were a difficult time. Charles and David’s brothers, Freddie (the eldest) and William (David’s twin), attempted to take over the company. William ensnared Koch Industries, Charles, and David in a web of litigation. Making matters worse was a series of industrial accidents and environmental violations that drew the attention of Clinton’s EPA.

Politics fell by the wayside as Charles and David worked to maintain their positions and comply with federal requirements. “We had some problems,” Charles said. It took a massive effort to right the ship. “There’s no question we had some tough issues,” Jim Mahoney, Koch Industries’ executive vice president for operations excellence and compliance, told me. “But I would say two things happened. Number one, we took responsibility for it, and number two, we learned from it.”

In David’s case the legal rigmarole was accompanied by personal trauma. In 1991 he was the only passenger in first class to survive when his US Airways 737 collided with a commuter jet on a runway at Los Angeles International Airport. The following year he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. “I had a terrible panic attack,” David said. “I thought I was going to die.” He underwent radiation at Sloan-Kettering, surgery, hormone therapy—each time the cancer came back. “Once you get that disease,” David said, “and I’ve had it for 20 years almost, you become a crusader to try to cure the disease not only for yourself but for other people.”

David poured himself into his philanthropy. Most of his money went to medical research and cultural institutions. His multimillion-dollar gifts went to MIT, Johns Hopkins, Lincoln Center, the American Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and elsewhere. None of these places is known for right-wing politics. “Probably the least area in terms of my overall contributions is public policy,” David said. The difference is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Things had settled down by the time George W. Bush was inaugurated president. The election of a self-described compassionate conservative did not allay the Kochs’ fears for the future of economic liberty. Charles and David quickly found themselves disappointed in Bush. “What he did led to the current administration,” Charles said. Charles’s favorite presidents were George Washington, Grover Cleveland, and Calvin Coolidge. “Harding was very good too,” he said, “but he had some other issues.” It’s been downhill since Hoover.

Bush wasn’t all bad: He was personally a nice guy, he made some excellent appointments to the Supreme Court, and he was business friendly. His foreign policy, the invasion of Iraq in particular, was a different story. “Boy, that’s cost a lot of money, and it’s taken so many American lives,” David said. “I question whether that was the right thing to do. In hindsight that looks like it was not a good policy.”

In 2003 Charles Koch and Richard Fink had an idea for a seminar that would educate donors in the importance of economic freedom. “It was obvious we were headed for disaster,” Charles said. Something had to be done to stop the coming fiscal collapse. The plan was to organize people interested in market issues, explain what was at stake, and suggest ways the participants could promote free enterprise. The first seminar was held in Chicago. Fifteen people attended.

The seminars gained momentum during Bush’s second term. Soon the meetings were held twice every year, and by the winter of 2011 they were attracting around 300 people. The Kochs hosted big-name speakers: Antonin Scalia, Eric Cantor, Clarence Thomas, Paul Ryan. “We’re not a bunch of radicals running around and saying strange things,” said David. “Many of these people are very successful, and occupy very important, respected positions in their communities!” At the end of each seminar the participants would pledge money to conservative groups. One attendee told me the Kochs were among the best political fundraisers he’d ever seen. “They’re almost as good as AIPAC,” he said, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Around the time the seminars began, there was an internal shake-up at Citizens for a Sound Economy. The group split into FreedomWorks, chaired by Dick Armey, and Americans for Prosperity (AFP). David Koch chairs the AFP foundation. “I see AFP as having a huge number of boots on the ground,” David said. Its ranks have swelled to upward of 1.6 million people.

Charles and David sensed that Bush’s failure would drive Americans into the arms of Barack Obama. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the financial crisis of September 2008 made a toxic brew, and Americans turned to the young Democratic senator who promised hope and change. Change is what they got. Ask Charles Koch what he thinks about Obama and he looks like he’s just bit into a lemon. “He’s a dedicated egalitarian,” Charles said. “I’m not saying he’s a Marxist, but he’s internalized some Marxist models—that is, that business tends to be successful by exploiting its customers and workers.”

David agreed. “He’s the most radical president we’ve ever had as a nation,” he said, “and has done more damage to the free enterprise system and long-term prosperity than any president we’ve ever had.” David suggested the president’s radicalism was tied to his upbringing. “His father was a hard core economic socialist in Kenya,” he said. “Obama didn’t really interact with his father face-to-face very much, but was apparently from what I read a great admirer of his father’s points of view. So he had sort of antibusiness, anti-free enterprise influences affecting him almost all his life. It just shows you what a person with a silver tongue can achieve.”

The silver tongue promised to build a “New Foundation” for America based on greater federal government involvement in health care, education, and energy. Taxes would be raised, regulations increased, mandates imposed to guarantee a more equitable distribution of wealth. Charles and David agreed with none of this. The larger government grows, they believed, the worse off societies become. Obama had to be stopped.

The Kochs weren’t the only ones opposed to the president’s vision. Within months of Obama’s inauguration, the Tea Party had begun. “The way it’s grown, the passion and the intensity, was beyond what I had anticipated,” Charles said. It was beautiful—a sight to behold. But there was one other thing the Kochs didn’t expect: the buzz saw of the contemporary left.

Addicted to Koch

A few years ago Richard Fink told Charles and David to prepare for the worst. The brothers were raising their political profile, Fink said, and that would come at a cost. There would be a lot of name-calling. Their opponents would impugn their beliefs, characters, and business. Charles understood what Fink was talking about. “I believed that when we were considered effective we would be attacked,” he said. Before Obama’s election, those who were aware of the Kochs’ political activities tended to assume they were tilting at Austrian windmills. The Kochs had an exotic philosophy, but few took them very seriously.

Not anymore. During the fight over health care and cap and trade in 2009 and 2010, liberals went looking for baddies against whom to mobilize public opinion. The Kochs’ wealth and political involvement made them an obvious choice. Reflecting on the ferocity of the onslaught that ensued, Charles told me, “I didn’t anticipate the hatred, the advocacy of violence.” He must not have been paying attention.

Back in 2005, when Republicans controlled the federal government, liberals had asked themselves, Where do we go from here? They’d long studied what they called the “counter-establishment,” the array of conservative foundations, think tanks, and media. These institutions, liberals concluded, had pushed America to the right. What the left required was the mirror image of the Olin and Bradley foundations, the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute, The Weekly Standard and National Review, talk radio and Fox News Channel. The left needed to build a “counter-counter-establishment,” a “vast left-wing conspiracy” to combat the “vast right-wing conspiracy” that had impeached Bill Clinton and elected George W. Bush.

Since most of America’s preeminent intellectual and media organizations already tilted left, the activists could focus on energizing the grassroots. A rich liberal could fund talk radio—Air America. Moveon.org became the leader of the antiwar movement. MSNBC transitioned from CNN-lite to Fox News for Democrats. The Brookings Institution may have been the most famous think tank in America, but it lacked Heritage’s political pull. The new Center for American Progress would have a separate entity—the Center for American Progress Action Fund—devoted to turning its ideas into law.

This institution-building coincided with the rise of the blogosphere. Over the last decade the left took to the Internet like conservatives at a gun show: They felt right at home. By 2006 the progressive bloggers (the term “liberal” had too many negative connotations) had become a powerful force. They called themselves the Netroots, organized conferences, pooled resources, and played a key role in forcing Joe Lieberman out of the Democratic party. The Internet served as a virtual community for liberals who’d lacked a sense of belonging. The web’s immediacy allowed writers to connect, comment, propose, report, fact-check, and update in real time. No utterance from a Republican, no matter how banal, went unexamined.

By the time the Tea Party was getting started in 2009, the left-wing counter-counter-establishment was a juggernaut, investing vast energy in destroying the reputations of its favorite targets: Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh. Inside this Death Star were legions of twenty-something writers, most of them fresh out of college, tapping furiously at their keyboards, discoursing on the subtleties of macroeconomics and the depravity of American conservatives. An hour or so spent on Google was research enough to write a blog post that would be read by producers for Keith Olbermann and editors at the New York Times. Seemingly random accumulations of fact would be presented breathlessly in purple prose: Look at what the bastards are doing now!In a matter of hours attacks that originated in the bowels of the Center for American Progress Action Fund would traverse heaven’s ladder and reach White House speechwriters.

What happened to the Kochs was a classic example. A young researcher at the Center for American Progress noticed that some Tea Party rallies had been organized by Americans for Prosperity. On April 9, 2009, he wrote up his discovery and posted it on a Center for American Progress Action Fund blog under the headline “Spontaneous Uprising? Corporate Lobbyists Helping to Orchestrate Radical Anti-Obama Tea Party Protests.” Here was the definitive proof, he wrote, that the yokels in tricornes were only pawns of moneyed interests. A little googling revealed that Charles and David Koch had been active in politics for decades, that they’d given money to all sorts of conservative causes, that they operated—this was almost too good to be true—an energy company that had had run-ins with the EPA. Sound the alarm! Rachel Maddow is on line one!

Other sharks caught whiff of the chum. In March 2010 the environmentalists at Greenpeace released a report titled “Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine.” Its authors contained their fury long enough to conclude, “Koch Industries has become a financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition.” In the liberal mind, Koch had displaced ExxonMobil on the Top Ten Enemies of Gaia list.

Koch addiction became a left-wing pandemic. In August 2010 the New Yorker published Jane Mayer’s “Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.” Mayer drew heavily from the writings of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the Greenpeace report, and public tax records. For several thousand words, relying on interviews with anonymous sources, Democratic operatives, a disgruntled conservative, a historian of libertarianism, and the author of “A Pagan’s Blog,” Mayer unspooled a fantastic tale of manipulation and malpractice.

She reported ominously that “many of the organizations funded by the Kochs employ specialists who write position papers that are subsequently quoted by politicians and pundits.” She unironically quoted former Democratic congressman Dan Glickman, who told her that before the voters in Wichita threw him out in 1994, “I’d been in Congress 18 years. The Kochs actually engaged against me and funded my opponent.” The impertinence! The outrage! “With the growing prominence of the Tea Party,” Mayer wrote, “and with increased awareness of the Kochs’ ties to the movement, the brothers may find it harder to deflect scrutiny.”

How right she was. “Covert Operations” became a sort of Rosetta Stone for Koch addicts. It was the template for any liberal wanting someone to blame for all the trouble in the world. Mayer had unlocked the secrets of the Kochtopus.

Her story contained four main lines of argument. The first was that the Kochs used Americans for Prosperity to control the Tea Party. For anyone remotely familiar with the history of the Tea Party, the assertion was laughable. In one guise or another, AFP had been around for 25 years before Obama showed up and brought the Tea Partiers out of hiding. What had taken so long?

Did the Kochs order Keli Carender to organize the first “porkulus” protest in Seattle in February 2009? Did they direct Rick Santelli to call for a Tea Party live on CNBC a few days later? The suggestion was absurd. “I see these people on TV, and they’re interviewed, and it’s obvious no one’s pulling their strings,” Charles said. Neither brother has attended a Tea Party. If anything it was the Tea Partiers who used Americans for Prosperity: They would have invented it if it hadn’t already existed.

The second charge was that the Kochs’ talk about free markets was merely cover for economic self-interest. But if that were true, why doesn’t every major corporation full-throatedly support limited government? Are we really to believe that Koch Industries is the only self-interested corporation in America? The reality, of course, is that an easier way to advance corporate self-interest is the one taken by most giant companies: securing monopolies, bailouts, tariffs, subsidies—the opposite of free enterprise. “It’d be much safer economically to sit on the sidelines or curry favor with the Obama administration,” said Richard Fink.

It was impossible for the liberal activists to acknowledge that libertarians might actually operate from conviction. Charles and David believed in low taxes, less spending, and limited regulation not because those policies helped them but because they helped everybody. “If I wanted to enhance my riches,” said David, “why do I give away almost all my money?”

Particularly outrageous was Mayer’s claim that David used his position on the National Cancer Advisory Board to lobby against classifying formaldehyde as a carcinogen. David was on the board for almost seven years. Not once did he hear formaldehyde discussed. Koch Industries’ position on the status of formaldehyde, he told me, was totally separate from his being a cancer patient and medical philanthropist. “That chemical is used in thousands of different applications,” David said. “And we of course rigorously, religiously follow all those regulations and rules about its use.” It was a perfect example of the tortured logic omnipresent in the blogosphere. David Koch has prostate cancer. David Koch sat on a cancer board. David Koch’s company doesn’t think formaldehyde, which the human body produces naturally, should be regulated as a carcinogen. Conclusion: David Koch is abusing his position!

It was more than passing strange for Mayer to use the “self-interest” canard. In “Covert Operations” Mayer trotted out a spokesman for George Soros, the liberal billionaire and political activist, who “argued that Soros’s giving is transparent, and that ‘none of his contributions are in the service of his own economic interests.’ ” Six years earlier, however, in a profile of Soros for the New Yorker, Mayer had written differently. The hedge fund king told her how he’d once established a think tank in England “which had at first looked like a fruitless venture”—right up to the minute his connections opened a door into the British bond market. “I made many millions,” Soros told Mayer. (The pound sterling wasn’t as lucky.)

The Kochs’ chief heresy, according to Mayer, was their dismissive attitude toward global warming alarmism. Charles and David were deemed “anti-science.” The brothers—both of whom held master’s degrees from MIT and ran successful companies that refined oil, produced chemicals, and manufactured polymers—scoffed at the accusation. “These people aren’t interested in science,” Charles said. “Science isn’t about consensus. Science is about skepticism, about challenging the status quo.” The Kochs believed the cost of a carbon-free economy would be too high. “There’s a direct correlation between the energy use of a country and its standard of living,” David said. “If your energy use is massively reduced, it’s going to damage your standard of living.” The available data didn’t justify the cost. “With the uncertainty and the politicization of the science so far,” Charles said, “to go spend trillions of dollars a year changing the whole world economy to satisfy something this uncertain, because you have some religious zealots like Al Gore going around preaching this—it doesn’t make sense.”

Mayer’s final line of attack also had to do with the environment. Koch Industries’ record wasn’t spotless. In the 1990s in particular the Kochs had to settle several lawsuits with the government. Oil had spilled and leaked from pipelines into bodies of water. Two teenagers had been killed when an underground butane pipeline ruptured. An employee at the Corpus Christi refinery had covered up illegal discharges of benzene. The repercussions were severe. “The only time I’ve ever seen Mr. Koch upset is when we had a misstep around compliance,” Koch Minerals president Steve Tatum, who’s been with Koch for 27 years, told me.

In order to avoid further violations, Koch Industries adopted the goal of “10,000 percent compliance”: 100 percent of personnel acting in accordance with regulations 100 percent of the time. What bothered Koch employees was that the left’s attacks were devoid of context. Many of the criticisms were simply a function of Koch Industries’ long history and size. “You’ve got 74 years of opportunity to talk about fines or spills or what have you,” said Rod Learned, the internal communications director. “If you look at industry averages and look at Koch, we compare very favorably.” It’s true, for example, that Koch is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the country—as you’d expect from one of the largest companies. “The investment banks, they don’t pollute very much, because they don’t make anything,” said Tatum. “We make stuff.”

Koch employees felt as if they’d entered a parallel dimension. There was a whole other side to the history of the company that the media totally ignored. “We suffer from folks recycling things that happened many years ago, and who haven’t looked at our performance since then,” Sheryl Corrigan, senior vice president at Koch subsidiary Flint Hills Resources, told me. Since the disasters in the 1990s Koch had been praised for its compliance—by Democratic administrations.

On July 25, 2000, Clinton’s EPA sent a letter to Charles Koch congratulating his company on plans to reduce emissions at the Pine Bend and Corpus Christi refineries. “I appreciate that Koch took the initiative to work with EPA to develop an agreement that would advance the common interests of Koch, EPA, and the general public,” wrote Office of Regulatory Enforcement director Eric V. Schaeffer. “The Koch representatives were outstanding in their cooperation throughout the negotiation process.” None other than Janet Reno said she was “pleased” with the agreement. Koch’s cooperation, said then-EPA administrator Carol Browner (now President Obama’s climate czar), was “unprecedented.”

Koch made Herculean efforts to get ahead of the regulatory curve. The engineers lessened the amount of excess gas burned at Koch refineries—a practice known as flaring. “We’ve reduced the flaring at our refineries to almost nil,” Dave Robertson, the company’s president and chief operating officer, told me. In August 2003 the EPA selected Koch subsidiary John Zink Company for its prestigious National Environmental Performance Track program. Koch employees traveled frequently to Washington for consultation with government officials. “I think we have a constructive relationship with EPA,” said Jim Mahoney.

Koch’s efforts continue to elicit notice. Since Obama’s inauguration, Koch companies have been recognized more than 280 times by local, state, and federal agencies for safety and environmental stewardship. In 2009 Invista voluntarily agreed to a huge settlement with EPA. “Invista is making a clean start in a settlement that achieves significant environmental benefits,” an EPA administrator said at the time. In October 2009 the EPA gave its SmartWay Excellence Award to Georgia-Pacific for reducing pollution in the freight industry. In October 2010 Flint Hills Resources agreed to a deal with the federal government over permitting rights at its Texas refinery. “The process we have agreed to with Flint Hills Resources is an excellent one,” said EPA regional administrator Al Armendariz in a press release, “and we look forward to working with the company to complete the work to transition their permits.”

Well, hold it right there, Mr. EPA regional director! Where’s the Center for American Progress Action Fund when you need it? Someone explain to Al Armendariz: You never give the devil his due.

The New Puritans

No amount of contrary evidence was enough to dislodge the left’s conviction that Charles and David Koch ran an empire hellbent on America’s destruction. Koch addiction was too powerful. As the media campaign intensified, demonstrators started showing up at the Koch campus in Wichita. A left-wing blogger ambushed David when he traveled to Washington to see the 112th Congress sworn in. The liberal group Common Cause organized a protest at the most recent Koch fundraising seminar in Palm Springs. The lefties outside the hotel unfurled a white banner with the words “Koch Kills” printed in red. Drops of blood fell from each letter. “These people were very, very extreme,” David said, “and I think very dangerous.”

The imputation in February that Governor Scott Walker had brought Wisconsin to a standstill to further the interests of Koch Industries was of course ridiculous. But it also demonstrated the power of the left-wing vilification machine. As the assaults piled up Charles couldn’t help thinking of Schopenhauer’s “Art of Controversy.” The German philosopher had noted that people who can’t win an argument through reason attack their opponent’s motivation. “I thought I was cynical enough,” Charles said. “But that was pretty shocking, to see what we’re up against, or what the country’s up against: to have an element like this.”

The left’s inability to understand where the Kochs were coming from puzzled Charles and David. Wasn’t it obvious that small government and free markets resulted in a better world? “Why don’t we teach in schools things that make society more prosperous, and more peaceful, and people will respect each other more? It’s a strange thing, isn’t it?” said Charles. “It’s unbelievable how they distort what your message is!” said David. The Kochs thought their aim was to increase the standard of living for everyone. The way to do this, they believed, was by applying to society the same methods that had grown their company.

To Charles, the call for bigger government was egalitarianism run amok. Liberals, he thought, fetishized equality of condition at the expense of personal liberty. “They cannot stand that some people are better off than others,” Charles said. “I think part of it fits Mencken’s definition of a Puritan: someone that’s miserable because he knows that someone, somewhere, is enjoying himself. He cannot stand that. And I think they all slept through Economics 101.”

The controversy surrounding the Koch brothers was a classic illustration of the saying that liberals think conservatives are evil while conservatives think liberals are stupid. For the engineer Kochs, devotees of the “science of human liberty,” the answer to the social problem was as clear cut as a blueprint for an oil fractionation device. They assumed that if you educated people in the laws of economics, they would see the light. “I can’t figure out how they can look at the data and not see the overwhelming benefits of the free market,” said Richard Fink. “I just don’t understand it.” The Kochs’ critics, it turned out, had no interest in the truth about them. What made the Kochs interesting was their usefulness as symbolic enemies: objects of the progressives’ latest two minutes’ hate.

The raw emotions and mindless smears left employees of Koch Industries hurt and befuddled. They kept searching for an answer. It was as if the universe had turned upside down. “All of us are given something, some more than others, and it’s up to us to build on it,” said Koch Minerals executive Steve Tatum. “Charles and David did. They built on what they inherited from their family. Hopefully, I have too. And I inherited nothing but a little help with college.

“What doesn’t seem right is when a person works to get through college, gets a degree, works for 25 years to become successful—and now you’re the bad guy,” Tatum said. “And I think, that’s the American dream, isn’t it?”

Tatum reclined in his chair and extended his hands, palms up. “Isn’t that what we want for everyone?”

Matthew Continetti is the opinion editor ofThe Weekly Standardand the author, most recently, ofThe Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star(Sentinel).

Koch Industries

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The Left’s Corporate Shakedown

Anti-ALEC groups engage in extortion-like tactics to cripple conservative org

BY: CJ Ciaramella Follow @cjciaramella

July 17, 2012 5:00 am

A host of progressive organizations have led an intense campaign to destroy the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for more than a year, not only through legal challenges but also through public shaming campaigns against corporations and state legislators connected to the group.

The methods employed by anti-ALEC groups could be described as not unlike extortion, experts say.

Color of Change, a “social justice” nonprofit headed by 9/11 Truther and former Obama green jobs czar Van Jones, has been at the front of the “name-and-shame campaign,” which seeks to pressure ALEC’s corporate sponsors into dropping their membership in the organization.

“To date, we have not publicly highlighted [your] involvement with ALEC,” Color of Change executive director Rashad Robinson wrote to a corporate member of ALEC in a June 25 letter obtained by the Free Beacon. “However, we plan to do so and wanted to make you aware of the next steps in our campaign.”

“We have commissioned a series of radio ads to make consumers aware of [your] relationship with ALEC and the policies it supports,” Robinson continues. “We plan to begin running these ads soon on Black radio stations across the country. We will also make the media aware of this ad campaign.”

“If [redacted] is reconsidering its relationship with ALEC, please contact Color of Change’s Director of Strategy, Gabriel Rey-Goodlatte, as soon as possible,” Robinson warns. “We would appreciate a response within one week.”

Rey-Goodlatte was arrested in 2001 for buying merchandise with counterfeit $20 bills, according to news reports. The Jones lieutenant, then 18, was charged with three felony counts of first-degree criminal possession of a forged substance and misdemeanor counts of petty larceny, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported at the time.

When reached on his cell phone and asked if the news report was true, Rey-Goodlatte said, “No,” and then announced he was heading into a meeting and hung up.

Color of Change did not return numerous requests for comment about its funders or its campaign against ALEC.

The anti-ALEC contingent has been effective. Just days before an anti-ALEC forum last Thursday in Arlington, Va., five more large companies, under pressure from left-wing groups, severed their ties with ALEC, bringing the total that have withdrawn their membership in the organization to 25 so far.

“We want to make ALEC toxic to be a part of,” Diallo Brooks, the director of field mobilization for People for the American Way, told the crowd at the town hall-style forum. Brooks was explaining his organization and its allies’ strategy to dismantle the private-public partnership of state legislators and businesses that works to advance free-market legislation.

Around 100 attendees gathered to listen to Brooks and his fellow panelists decry ALEC’s alleged plans to privatize schools and prisons, roll back environmental regulations, and destroy unions.

According to AFL-CIO state government-relations director Naomi Walker, ALEC’s goal is no less than to “destroy our democracy.”

Groups represented on Thursday’s panel included the National Education Association, Common Cause, ProgressVA, and the AFL-CIO. Several former and current progressive Virginia lawmakers also were on hand.

“Anyone who comes to you and says, ‘We have a great new innovative idea,’ stop and question it,” said Kim Anderson, the advocacy director for the National Education Association. “Because I guarantee they’re not interested in equity and equal access for every kid in America.”

“ALEC’s mechanics are second grade arithmetic,” NEA vice-president said at the Netroots Nation panel. “Deregulate, defund, and privatize.”

While Color of Change works to harass ALEC’s corporate sponsors, Common Cause has been leading the fight on the legal front.

The non-profit group, which presents itself as a strictly non-partisan organization, has filed an IRS whistleblower complaint against ALEC, challenging the group’s tax-exempt status and accusing it of lobbying activities. It has also filed requests with more than 45 state attorneys general to investigate ALEC.

Common Cause’s president, Bob Edgar, is a former Democratic congressman. The law firm working with Common Cause in its complaint, Phillips & Cohen, also has a long history of donating generously to Democrats.

The refrain among progressives is that ALEC is “shady” and crafts its laws in the shadows.

“ALEC is not a transparent organization, no matter what its members tell you,” said Anna Scholl, the executive director of ProgressVA.

However, secrecy is the rule, not the exception, among the many groups who oppose ALEC.

When asked to disclose their funders by the Free Beacon during the Q&A session at Thursday’s event, both ProgressVA and People for the American Way declined to answer.

“As I told you before, as a c4 organization our donors aren’t publicly disclosed,” ProgressVA Executive Director Anna Scholl said. “Our funds come from a mix of individuals who support our work and grants funds. We don’t disclose names because that’s what our donors understand when they give us money.”

ProgressVA is part of the national ProgressNow network. The umbrella organization promotes a variety of liberal causes, such as socialized healthcare and higher taxes on the wealthy.

Brooks declined to respond. People for the American Way does not disclose its donors on its website.

As previously reported by the Free Beacon, Color of Change does not disclose its donors, and its tax filings are so vague that the scope of its operations and funding are impossible to determine.

Legally required disclosures show Color of Change is funded by a number of liberal philanthropy groups such as the George Soros-funded Open Society, which gave $250,000 to the Citizen Engagement Laboratory in 2010 “to support Color of Change.”

WFB wa free Beacon / ctr am frdm

History

Two research operations and confusion between them

The Washington Free Beacon operation does not produce the dossier

Democratic Party operation produces dossier

The Safety of Fracking: Lachlan Markay on Cavuto

Contents

History

Reception

See also

References

External links

Ex-Countrywide Exec Co-Wrote Mortgage Reform Bill

:{Free Beacon Admits:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{ Failure To Disclose Paid Partisan Origins Of Its Reporting Is "Standard Practice":(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:

Beacon Doubled Down On Unethical Practices, Compared Media Matters' David Brock To A Nazi

Rand Paul's Confederacy Scandal Is Not an Anomaly -- Libertarianism Papers Over Deep Racism in America

The Washington Free Beacon's "Aerial Hunting Operation"

The People Behind the "Center for American Freedom"

CMD Wins Awards for ALEC Exposed and Investigative Breakthroughs...

The Right Web Mission

Sources

CJ Ciaramella

Conservative 'Free Beacon' Fronts for Taiwan Lobby

History

Personnel

Staff

Contact

References

ALEC Goes After the Center for Media and Democracy

ALEC Attempts to Spin Legislators about Corporate Exodus

ALEC Uses Edelman PR and Media Attack Dogs to Try to Discredit ALEC Critics

The Washington Free Beacon's "Aerial Hunting Operation"

The People Behind the "Center for American Freedom"

CMD Wins Awards for ALEC Exposed and Investigative Breakthroughs

ALEC Ups the Ante But the Odds Are on More Defections and Inquiries

The Right Web Mission

Sources

Attachments