The Nation magazine is prominently featuring the attack on ALEC in its August 1-8 issue, including a cover that describes ALEC as “the right-wing group subverting our democracy.” The left-wing magazine is putting on a full court press, publishing half a dozen separate attacks on ALEC and their efforts. These attacks are not only baseless, they are a dishonest attempt to pass off what amounts to ideological objections from a far-left viewpoint under the guise of concern for democratic legitimacy.

In the interests of full disclosure, I interned at ALEC in the fall of 2009. I am not currently affiliated with the organization in any way, but I know from first-hand experience what ALEC is all about, and it has nothing to do with the nonsense being generated by CMD and disseminated by The Nation and other liberal outlets.

ALEC is a membership organization that brings the public and private sectors together in the common cause of limited government. Both public and private sector members work together to draft state level model legislation tackling common issues with solutions based upon organizational principles of “free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty,” which members can then introduce in their states if they so choose.

According to a hit piece by Mary Bottari of the Center for Media and Democracy published at the Huffington Post, this amounts to “corporations hand[ing] legislators the law changes they desire that directly benefit their bottom line.” Never mind that all legislation must go through the same, public legislative process as any other bill, and can only make it into law if lawmakers, who are held accountable by the public through the election process, first introduce and then pass the legislation. The same piece then recounts a list of “horrors” pushed by ALEC, including efforts to lower taxes or make it harder on politicians to raise tax rates, reforming the failed government monopoly on education, addressing policies that promote unemployment such as minimum wage laws, and cutting off the gravy train to unions and other beneficiaries of Democratic Party largess. Congratulations, Mary, you’ve successfully convicted ALEC of being conservative.

That is, ultimately, what the left is trying to do here. If they can convince people that advancing conservative positions is beyond the pale simply on its face, then they are conveniently free to dismiss conservatives without addressing the merits of any arguments. Common Cause, another participant in the anti-ALEC crusade, has even demanded a baseless IRS investigation into their 501(c)3 status. So while they are trying to shut down the marketplace of ideas, we are supposed to believe that is ALEC which is subverting democracy?

The left has largely succeeded in getting government involved in all matter of private affairs. It only makes sense then to include in the discussion those affected by government action. In doing so ALEC is promoting both good government and the very essence of democracy.

Do we not want our state legislators communicating and sharing best practices across borders? If an idea has already been tried somewhere else, don’t you want your own legislators to know whether it has failed or succeeded before attempting to address the same issue? The left certainly thinks so when it comes to their own ALEC-like organization, Progressive States Network (PSN), which they have not similarly attempted to discredit. In fact, according to their website, PSN has their own “Task Forces” just like ALEC, which include groups such as the AFL-CIO, SEIU, ACORN, and the Sierra Club. I guess it’s perfectly fine for these special interest groups to work with state lawmakers and have influence over the legislative process, but not the businesses that create jobs and understand how regulations will actually impact the economy.

Left-wing “good government” groups are clearly not about good government per se. They are about left-wing government. Their attacks are coming not because ALEC is doing anything wrong, as the left engages in the same tactics without drawing the ire of these so-called watchdogs, but because the ideas ALEC advances are “wrong” in the eyes of the left. In so doing, they reveal that they don’t really believe in the actual principles of democratic society, like the free flow of ideas. Those of us who do hold such principles have an obligation to push back against the self-serving bullying and intimidation of the left. Their attacks on ALEC are an attack on all of us.

Their proposals for “reform” have fallen flat, in large part because they have been exposed as efforts to chill the Freedom of Speech.  These attacks on the First Amendment have used populist rhetoric in an attempt to silence corporate speech.  These efforts to silence corporations are difficult to reconcile when one sees that the New York Times, a media corporation, published a new proposal for “reform” authored by the founder of a non-profit corporation, aimed at silencing speakers that do not support their liberal world view.

In the April 4, 2011 edition of the New York Times, David Callahan launched an ideological attack on the boogeymen de jour, Charles and David Koch.  Callahan sets the tone of his article by attacking the Koch brothers for “conceal[ing] the recipients of their largess.”  In order to prevent this from occurring, Callahan would “require all nonprofit organizations that engage in political advocacy to reveal their donors.”

While Mr. Callahan alleges the current system can be utilized by the left and the right, he seems particularly offended by David Koch’s support of “ideologically driven organizations like the Cato Institute.”  Callahan argues that such groups should be treated differently from other not-for-profit organizations.

His proposal, couched in terms of “fairness” is nothing more than an attempt to limit speech.

“In response, the Internal Revenue Service should create a new category for nonprofits engaged in policy advocacy. Such groups would have to disclose all their donors, while traditional 501(c)3’s — museums and universities, for example — could continue to receive anonymous gifts.

“The I.R.S. should also set a ceiling on the deductibility of such gifts to limit the extent to which all taxpayers subsidize de facto political giving by the wealthy. The treatment of small gifts would remain unchanged to encourage ordinary Americans to engage in civic life.

Mr. Callahan founded Demos, A Network for Ideas and Action.  Demos reports to the I.R.S. that it is a “non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization in pursuit of a more equitable economy, a vibrant & inclusive democracy, an empowered public sector & a responsible U.S. engagement in the world.”  Demos engages in this “research and advocacy” while enjoying the benefits of its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.

When we look at the actual work carried out by Demos we find a hodgepodge of policy advocacy in such “non-partisan” issue areas as distribution of wealth and income, economic challenges of young people, felon disenfranchisement, inequality, poverty, and a program devoted to “race & debt.”

Were a conservative organization to address these issues, Mr. Callahan would be offended.  As he has proposed he would require them to disclose their donors and create disincentives to fund such an organization.  But like many liberals, Mr. Callahan’s true purpose seems to be “free speech for me, but not for thee.”  From Senator Chuck Schumer’s misleadingly named DISCLOSE Act, to aggressive anti-speech advocacy by so-called “non-partisan” groups as Public Citizen, the Campaign Legal Center, and Common Cause, the mission of these “reformers” is clear – they only want to protect speech that they agree with.

Callahan’s proposal is a thinly veiled attempt to chill the Freedom of Speech and silence conservative viewpoints.  If he were proceeding in good faith, he would call on Demos to voluntarily disclose its donors.  After all, Callahan and Demos are engaged in policy advocacy, which in his view deserves less protection than museums and the arts.

Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert wants Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether the liberal group Common Cause should lose its nonprofit status, after a conservative website published footage of protesters calling for the lynching of conservative Supreme Court justices.

The footage shows enraged protesters making inflammatory and threatening comments about Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as well as Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas.

Gohmert said that the inflammatory remarks are more troubling given the attack on Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords earlier this year.

“We shouldn’t have any organization, especially one that says it’s nonpartisan, out there stirring up hatred and animosity to the point that people would say, “Let’s string up a justice of the Supreme Court as well as his wife,” Gohmert said.

Rep. Steve King, a Republican who joined Gohmert in his condemnation of the group, said the protesters are part of a larger effort to smear the justices’ reputations.

“This is an organized attempt of media lynching of Justice Thomas,” he said.

In February, a conservative reporter for the website BigGovernment.com interviewed protesters at a rally organized by Common Cause outside of the Rancho Las Palmas Resort in California, where the billionaire Koch brothers were holding a four-day fundraising retreat for conservative groups.

One of the protesters interviewed, when asked about Thomas, who is African American, said: “What do we do with him? String him up. And his wife, too. Let’s get rid of Ginny.”

Another protester encouraged mutilating the justice, saying that those who disagree with his conservative background should “cut off his toes one by one and feed them to him.”

Read the whole thing here.

In a peaceful rally of more than 1,000 people, a crew of videographers who have worked with Breitbart egged a few into making outrageous, bigoted remarks on camera, then presented them as representative of the entire crowd and the rally sponsors. None of the interviewees was identified, and some looked to be wearing wigs or disguises. Given Breitbart’s history of promoting staged videos, it is difficult to have any confidence in the authenticity of the clips.

For two years the left has tried desperately to find video evidence of Tea Party participants to damn the whole. They have failed so miserably that it became necessary for the creation of the group, CrashTheTeaParty.org, which called for opponents of the Tea Party to dress up as Nazis or in other offensive uniforms, or to carry troubling signs, all in the hopes of getting the mainstream media to falsely portray the fake Tea Party protesters as authentic and representative of the whole.

Well, Christian and I needn’t instigate fake people dressing and acting foolishly, in a racist fashion, or threatening violence. Those at the Rancho Mirage anti-Koch rally (against capitalism, free markets, and gummy bears) have been more than forthright in their extremism. (And now look at what we found in Madison, Wisconsin!)

Since Lisa Graves and the Center for Media and Democracy has now challenged the authenticity of the videos we took, we feel it’s appropriate to isolate those who made the hateful remarks by name.

The first is self-identified “Roger Fraser from Chicago, and happy to be here!”

I found him yelling “revolution now!” as I was rollerblading amongst the anti-capitalism H8 chanters.

“This is what we need more of here in America. This kind of street heat brought against those kind of folks [the participants at the Koch conference] to win this country back.”

I asked him, “What do you mean by ‘revolution’?”

Fraser answered, “Revolution! You know what I mean. What’s happening now in Egypt. Same thing needs to happen here.”

In 1994, a revolutionary named Roger Fraser from the Chicago area was listed on a “Membership, Subscription and Mailing List” for the Chicago Committees of Correspondence, an offshoot of the Communist Party USA, though maybe that was a different Communist-leaning “Roger Fraser from Chicago.”

The second is Bonnie Reiss, the owner of an erotic-ware shop in Palm Springs, “Sensuality, A Store for Her.”

Hartsock’s video showed Reiss reacting to his question, “After we impeach Clarence Thomas, what do we do with him?”

Reiss responded, “String him up… and his wife too…”

When local Palm Springs station KPSP Local 2 News caught up with Reiss, she denied she was invoking “lynching” and responded, “Lynching? I’m saying handcuffs and to jail! He should be handcuffed and brought to trial for his tax evasions.”

I called Reiss at work in her erotic-ware shop and she asked why I wasn’t in Wisconsin. I told her I was in fact in Wisconsin, and told her we caught doctors on tape giving fake notes to teachers so they could be paid during their teacher walkout.

Reiss responded, “You are evil.”

She then hung up.

Reiss is no stranger to the news. In 2008, her store was robbed. Reiss told a local CBS station, “He cleaned me out of my Hustler line, all my crotchless panties, g-strings, corsets, and bustiers and costumes.”

The third shows Don Wallace, who animatedly describes the nasty things he’d like to do to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (“he’s a dumbshit scumbag… put him back in the fields”), Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito (“he should go back to Sicily”), and Roger Ailes (“Roger Ailes should be strung up and… kill the bastard”).

]

Wallace is a former Los Angeles City Fire Department Captain and former president of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles union. After he retired from the LAFD he became a field deputy for an LA County Supervisor and failed in a bid for his retiring boss’s seat. He currently lives in Calabasas.

When called and asked if he had any regrets about what he said on camera last month, Wallace responded, “I regret that you called me.”

He then hung up.

If readers see any other familiar faces in Christian or my videos, please send us their names and any identifying information.

The Center for Media and Democracy depends on it!

Common Cause condemns bigotry, hateful statements caught on film at rally

Common Cause’s 40 year history of holding power accountable has been marked by a commitment to decency and civility – in public and private. So we are of course outraged to find that a few of those attending the events around a gathering Common Cause helped to organize Sunday near Palm Springs voiced hateful, narrow-minded sentiments to an interviewer in the crowd.

In their own clips of chosen and highlighted speakers for the formal panel they organized at the protest, you will repeatedly hear the Right, their honest political opposition, cast as hateful, evil, cruel, and worse. Writing at Hot Air, John Sexton pointed out just some of the official unhinged rhetoric from Van Jones at the Common Cause event.

We will not live on an economic plantation run by the Koch brothers.

In this video, another official panelist, DeAnn McEwan, claims the Koch’s “have their fingers on the pillows that are suffocating all of us,” while citing the plight of various individuals needing intensive medical treatment. In effect, official Common Cause panelist McEwan is accusing the Kochs of being murderers. She even details a patient’s failed struggle to cling to life, in essence, blaming her death squarely on the Kochs.

DeAnn McEwan, Co-President of the California Nurses Association, speaks at the “Uncloak the Kochs” panel on January 30, 2011 in Rancho Mirage, CA.

After inciting protesters with such over-the-top, vile, and hateful officially sanctioned rhetoric, Common Cause cannot now simply pretend to distance itself from the hate-filled environment they themselves helped create. Sorry, Common Cause, until you clean up your act, police your official events, and purge them of hateful rhetoric from unhinged speakers acting as official participants, your apology is not accepted.

Actually, they didn’t even apologize but simply sought to rationalize away the very hate they intended to create with the official part of the program. Common Cause needs to take responsibility for its official actions, not simply place the blame on this-or-that protester caught up and carried away by their irresponsible programming at the recent event.

Among Common Cause’s, well, common causes, are campaign finance reform, net neutrality, outlawing the filibuster, promoting cap and trade, and in this particular case, herding a mass of protesters outside a nearby hotel to yell at Charles and David Koch for being conservative and rich.

Unfortunately several “haves” have missed the memo that you’re not to be both rich and conservative at the same time, and that bankrolling your pet causes is an extra no-no if you’re conservative—thus exempting left-wing billionaire philanthropists George Soros (from whom Common Cause has received $2 million over the past eight years) Peter Lewis, John Doerr, Julian Robertson, Nicolas Berggruen, and many others from being yelled at too.

At the morning panel event featuring UCI Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, activist Jim Hightower, Center for American Progress journalist and “Koch Brothers expert” Lee Fang, California Nurses Association co-president DeAnn McEwan, and President Obama’s former green jobs czar Van Jones, we were forewarned of the impending demise of both the environment and democracy at the hands of corporate lobbyists and their government shills.

There was eerily no mention of GE, AEP, Goldmann Sachs, Pfizer, Aetna, Alcoa, Xerox, Google, Motorola, IBM, or several other corporate giants who profit at taxpayer expense via their K Street connections to the Obama White House as well as the very economic and regulatory policies they lobby that these Common Cause panelists commonly endorse. But I’m sure that’s only because no one wanted to point out the obvious. Right?

We were then ushered outside to the parking lot across from the hotel in which the Koch brothers were holding a meeting, whereupon we were encouraged to yell at the building, decrying not only the Kochs, but Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia for their Citizens United ruling. Oh, and Fox News while we were at it.

We were joined by at least half a dozen busloads of public sector union members and common demonstrators from AFFCE, The Ruckus Society, 350, Greenpeace, Code Pink, and the Progressive Democrats of America, among others, without whose valuable contributions to the yelling, the rally would’ve been just a lousy bust. Video camera in hand, I purposely engaged them to get beyond their programmed talking points, only to find some rather colorful agenda items – particularly for Justice Thomas.

In post-Tucson America, where for the past few weeks a chorus of voices on the left have amplified their attacks on the “racist tea party,” “racist conservatives,” “racist Republicans,” and their “violent, irresponsible rhetoric” to the degree of accomplice-to-murder accusations, I figured a left-wing rally such as this would also be a demonstration of the left’s ideal, self-proclaimed rhetorical composure.

And having done extensive video coverage interviewing demonstrators in over fifty tea parties in forty-five cities in twenty-five states yet finding a total of zero instances of the “racist” and “violent” stigmas the left relentlessly assures us are true, I certainly didn’t expect to find almost every imaginable instance at one single “progressive” rally. But who was I to make presumptions?

So if on top of perpetuating the perennial narrative of the exclusively right-wing corporatist machine, “progressives” want to further their accusations of alleged predominant “racism” and “violence-baiting rhetoric” in the conservative movement, then game on.