DANIEL GREENFIELD: BLOOMBERG VS. THE KOCH BROTHERS
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/bloomberg-vs-the-koch-brothers/print/
The Democratic Party wants the 2014 elections to be about anything and everything except ObamaCare. The depths of Hope and Change were plumbed in 2008, the War on Women was exhausted in 2012 and that leaves only the Koch Brothers.
Senator Harry Reid, facing the end of his time as Senate Majority Leader, has decided to bet the farm on the Koch Brothers. His Senate Majority PAC (formerly Commonsense Ten, really “Keep Harry Reid Majority Leader”) is trying to protect Senate Democrats who are hated in their own states for voting to drive up the price of health insurance while cutting Medicare by accusing their Republican opponents of being pawns and puppets of the Koch Brothers.
One ad already running in Louisiana tells voters, “Out-of-state billionaires are spending millions to rig the system and elect Bill Cassidy. Their goal? Another politician bought and paid for.”
And who is funding the $3 million Reid ad campaign denouncing out-of-state billionaires for spending millions to influence politics? Is it grass roots Louisiana voters or local kindergarteners pitching in their pennies to stop the rampage of the billionaires?
The single biggest donor to Senate Majority PAC is an out-of-state billionaire. Michael Bloomberg donated $2.5 million this year. Bloomberg’s priorities of banning guns, soda and salt are more at odds with the average Louisiana voter, who overwhelmingly supports the Second Amendment and eats what he likes no matter how much salt and sugar it has, than those of the “libertarian-minded” Koch Brothers.
Mainstream media stories about the Senate Majority PAC ad blitz don’t bother to mention that the clamor over “out-of-state billionaires spending millions” is really a case of the 16th richest man attacking the 6th richest men in order to keep the Senate exactly the way it has been for the last seven years.
If Bloomberg had donated $2.5 million to a Republican PAC that was using it to air ads blasting Democrats as puppets of George Soros, every news story about the ad blitz would lead with the absurd hypocrisy of one billionaire funding attacks against another billionaire for trying to influence politics.
The choice not to report this reveals that the biggest problem with politics isn’t the undue influence of money, but the undue influence of media.
Bloomberg, who has his own media outlet, has a very distinct agenda and it isn’t a libertarian-minded plot to “take over the government and leave you alone.” His $2.5 million donation to help Harry Reid cling by his fingernails to his position isn’t being done out of the goodness of his heart.
Bloomberg isn’t a party donor, he’s an issue donor. And his biggest issue is gun control.
46 percent of Louisiana residents own a gun and Proposition Two, which made it the state with the strongest backing for the Second Amendment, passed by 74 percent. Louisiana voters deserve to know that an out-of-state billionaire fanatically obsessed with outlawing guns is trying to rig their system.
“The mayor intends to keep his wallet open after he leaves office to influence national policy around issues like guns, education and marriage equality,“ a Bloomberg adviser said.
Louisiana voters oppose 2 out of 3 of those policies.
Other Senate Majority PAC donors include billionaire hedge fund manager James H. Simons, media mogul Fred Eychaner and sleazy Hollywood tycoon Harvey Weinstein. Simons and Weinstein live in Manhattan and Eychaner in Chicago. Weinstein, like Bloomberg, is a gun control fanatic.
Bloomberg isn’t just buying Senator Mary Landrieu, he’s also buying the Senate Majority Leader by helping him hang on to power. Fortunately for Bloomberg, Harry Reid has a history of being for sale.
Before Harvey Whittemore was sent to prison for illegally funneling $130,000 to Reid’s re-election committee, Reid had worked to move Whittemore’s Coyote Springs project forward, intervening for him with Federal agencies in ways that raised eyebrows even among his own allies.
Reid pushed to give $450 million in stimulus cash to a Chinese wind farm company whose backers donated to his campaign. He worked to help a Chinese solar energy company, which received $39 million worth of land for $4.5 million, receive Federal waivers. And he even pressured the Department of Homeland Security to expedite visas to shady Chinese businessmen linked to a casino project involving his son.
Most recently Reid’s name has come up in a corruption investigation involving online gambling.
Considering how many favors Senator Reid has done for Chinese interests with American money, it was surreal to see him denouncing the Koch Brothers as “un-American” on the Senate floor. If anyone is un-American, it’s Reid who has proven that he’s willing to divert millions to China if his sons get a piece of the action.
There is a case to be made for moving money out of politics, but Reid is the worst possible politician to make it.
Senate Majority PAC inveighs against the influence of money on politics at the service of a man who will do anything and everything for anyone as long as they spell his name correctly on the check.
The Senate’s Manchurian Candidate accused the Koch brothers of corrupt foreign practices based on a debunked Bloomberg article. Reid claimed that they bribe foreigners to get contracts. Meanwhile foreigners bribe Reid to get contracts.
“Is even one of you — is even one of you — willing to stand up and disavow the Koch brothers’ agenda?” Reid demanded.
The question is whether Senator Reid will disavow the Bloomberg agenda?
“I’m trying to find a Republican who will raise an objection to two brothers trying to buy America,” Reid said.
Is there a Democrat who will object to the attempts by Nazi collaborator and wanted financial criminal George Soros to buy America? What about Fred Eychaner and Steve Mostyn?
What about Imaad Zuberi, a top figure in the Syrian Sunni opposition, who bundled at least $500,000 for Obama? What about Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, whose dishonest political ads are setting new lows even by the already low standards of national politics?
The only time that Democrats raised any objection to Bloomberg’s attempts to buy the political process outright was when he began to oppose Democrats in red states unless they buckled on gun control. Then Reid’s people met with Bloomberg’s people and begged the billionaire to stop targeting them.
The only time that Reid objects to Bloomberg buying America is when it hurts Democrats.
“I’m not afraid of the Koch brothers,” Reid boasted. Instead Reid is afraid of Michael Bloomberg.
“I believe I am on the side of the American people,” Reid said. But the American people don’t pay Reid. Billionaires like Bloomberg do.
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