In recent weeks there has been a lot of liberal media handwringing over 501(c)(4)s, nonprofit social welfare organizations that are legally allowed to publish political ads without disclosing anything about their donors.
The far-left ProPublica observed Saturday:
As NewsBusters previously reported, actor Zach Galifianakis on Monday attacked the Koch brothers saying "They are creepy" and 'It’s not freedom what they are doing."
Philip Ellender, President of Government and Public Affairs, Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC, responded to this nonsense via email moments ago:
Following in the footsteps of HBO's The Newsroom and virtually all liberal media members, actor Zach Galifianakis attacked the Koch brothers Monday.
As reported by the New York Daily News:
UC Berkeley professor Richard Muller has become a media darling now that he believes in global warming as a result of a study he led on the subject funded by the Koch brothers.
With this in mind, CNN's Fareed Zakaria must have been shocked by what Muller told him Sunday after he asked his guest, "Were [the Kochs] disappointed by the results of your research or have they asked for their money back?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
As NewsBusters previously reported, HBO's The Newsroom has used information for its scripts from material provided to it by the far-left, George Soros-funded propaganda outlet Think Progress.
On Sunday, the show cherry-picked six seconds - yes, I said six seconds! - from a highly-edited TP video to smear conservative businessmen Charles and David Koch (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Martin Bashir got a scolding on national television Thursday that everyone on MSNBC as well as within the parent companies Comcast and General Electric should receive.
During a contentious interview with the general counsel for Koch Industries, Inc., Bashir's guest said, "The way that your network has handled issues with us, the way that a lot in the far-left media have handled issues with us, attacking us even when there’s no basis like with the Trayvon Martin issues, that situation, that has led to death threats against our owners" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
Using the Trayvon Martin tragedy as their hook, liberal lobby groups have set their sights on the conservative-leaning American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and its corporate donors, blaming the Sanford, Fla., shooting on the Sunshine State's Stand Your Ground law. ALEC supports conservative legislative efforts at the state level such as Stand Your Ground, as well as pro-business legislative priorities of interest to many food and drink companies.
But in reporting on recent victories by liberal groups in pushing companies like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and McDonalds to drop their support of ALEC, the Washington Post's Tom Hamburger failed to clue readers into the liberal allegiances of "advocacy groups" attacking ALEC and its corporate donors.
New York magazine's Frank Rich on Monday stereotyped folks who back ballet as defacto supporters of gay rights.
This came during a lengthy segment on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show wherein the host absurdly told viewers that it's wrong for wealthy people who appear to be socially liberal to fund conservative candidates that don't completely support same sex marriage (video follows with transcript and commentary):
It’s terrible that an author got death threats, even if he’s a sleazy hack who invaded the privacy of a prominent conservative politician. It’s equally terrible that prominent conservative donors received death threats for how they choose to use their money. But according to NBC, only one of those two stories is worth telling.
In the first case, the network was warning in 2010 of death threats against Sarah Palin-sliming author Joe McGinniss. As for the second, NBC ignored reports of death threats against the libertarian Koch brothers and members of their foundation.
There was a fascinating exchange last week between Melissa Cohlmia, spokesman for Koch Industries, and New York Times public editor (or ombudsman) Arthur Brisbane. Koch Industries, which engages in arts philanthropy and conservative-libertarian causes, is a target of obsession and hostility both by left-wingers and reporters and writers for the New York Times, as Times Watch has shown.
While Brisbane mostly defended the Times’s news coverage and its right to deliver anti-Koch opinions in op-eds and art critics, he admitted the paper’s overwhelming left-ward slant in its opinionizing made for “predictable and sometimes very dull reading,” “and there can be little doubt that the Times ownership and editorial page ascribe to a liberal perspective.”
ABC's Brian Ross on Friday investigated the alleged misdeeds of "billionaire boosters" to the Tea Party and even used a liberal documentary to attack the conservative group. Appearing on "Good Morning America," Ross touted a Bloomberg report hitting the "secret sins" of Koch Industries and whether the corporation traded with Iran.
An ABC graphic linked, "Billionaire Boosters of the Tea Party: Donors' Company Under Fire." Ross used a clip of businessman David Koch and simply added, "...A documentary filmmaker was rolling [sic], as David Koch appeared before Tea Party leaders and spoke of American values." There was no information that "(Astro)Turf Wars" is a liberal documentary trashing the Tea Party, in addition to David and Charles Koch. See video below. MP3 audio here.
Liberals endlessly harp on what they perceive as conservatives' greed. What really sticks in their craw is conservatives' generosity.
An example of this occurred on Ed Schultz's radio show Monday with guest Robert Greenwald, a filmmaker specializing in left-wing agitprop at an outfit he modestly calls Brave New Films.
Greenwald was describing a website he recently created, Koch Brothers Exposed, about energy magnates David and Charles Koch. The site includes a video of protesters outside a Lincoln Center theater named after David Koch when he pledged $100 million for badly-needed renovations three years ago. The demonstrators staged a "renaming ceremony" demanding the theater shed Koch from its name.