Thursday Open Thread
Welcome to your Thursday open thread. Well, that last snowstorm was a bust, at least for Delaware. I saw actual sunshine yesterday! It was nice to get a taste of spring even if for only a few hours.
Steve Benen at Washington Monthly flags this story about the Koch brothers secret meeting last weekend. They have their own private security force just like Joe Miller.
In particular, Vogel noted the events in California over the weekend, with Koch-paid guards tracking resort guests deemed “suspicious,” and erecting a blockade to prevent cameras from filming arriving guests.
Inside the resort at the beginning of the conference, “there was an atmosphere almost of paranoia,” said Gary Ferdman, a Common Cause official.
Ferdman had reservations at the resort and stayed there Thursday and Friday night. He said he was told Saturday that his lunch reservations at the resort restaurant had been canceled and was urged to check out and leave promptly by a member of Koch’s large security detail.
Security manned every doorway and stairwell near the ballrooms where Koch events were held, and threatened to jail this POLITICO reporter while he waited in line at the resort’s cafe, after he stopped by a Koch conference registration table.
The resort grounds were “closed for a private function,” the resort’s head of security, James Foster told POLITICO, ushering the reporter outside, where private security guards, wearing gold lapel pins bearing Koch’s “K” logo, threatened “a citizen’s arrest” and a “night in the Riverside County jail” if the reporter continued asking questions and taking photographs.
The Kochs already have a reputation for being overly-secretive and heavy-handed in their tactics. I don’t imagine threatening a journalist while he waited in line at a hotel cafe is going to help.
As Jon Chait joked, “If those hired goons don’t dispel the image of the Kochs as sinister moguls, I don’t know what will.”
Freedom of speech means that RWNJs get to say what they want, free from criticism. How legal is it to have your own security force arrest people?
Remember how we talked about a bill introduced in South Dakota to require all adults to own a gun? The bill’s sponsor was trying to make a point about the Constitutionality of health care reform. Except we found out that George Washington did sign a law to require people to own a gun. TPM interviewed the bill’s sponsor with this new information.
So I called Wick, to ask his opinion. He affirmed to me that his bill is about making a statement. “The bill is really about Obamacare, and the fact that it’s unconstitutional.”
Does he think a gun mandate and the health care mandate are the same thing, I asked? “Yes,” he responded.
I then asked him whether he had an opinion on the gun mandate that was signed into law by Washington in 1792. “I wasn’t aware of it,” he said after a short pause. “Is it still on the books or has it been removed?”
I explained that the Militia Acts were amended many times over the course of this country’s history, and this provision was phased out a long time ago.
In the course of the interview, I asked whether this would change his opinion on individual mandates. “No,” he said. “I really don’t feel like a gun mandate would be constitutional under these circumstances.”
What does he mean by the circumstances?
“Well, it was shortly after the Revolutionary War, and it was before the War of 1812,” he said, “which may have been something that was on the radar screen — that they knew there could be another challenge coming from overseas. I’m not a history major, though.”
I’m not a history major, though.. Not truer words have been spoken.
Tags: Open Thread
This yearly conference or ‘gathering’ started by the Koch Bros. has been going on for years. Likewise, the organizers elected to keep it a private affair without journalists there (which is their legal right).
This is all part of everyone’s first amendment right to free speech and association. Similarly, the ‘left’ has this same right. The ‘Democracy Alliance,’ for example, holds many closed door meetings and gatherings where deep-pocketed billionairs and the Hollywood elite develop specific strategy and fundraising techniques to foment their liberal viewpoint. Again, perfectly legal.
The same rule exists for those who rail against the Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission ruling. A person, a union, a group or a corporation can assert their freedom of speech. You will undoubtably see enormous spending from all democratically-affiliated groups in the run-up to the 2012 elections. Republicans too.
I wonder if ThinkProgress will keep score when dems spend wildly, and a lot of their money comes from unions from abroad? You see, that’s what’s so refreshing about the Supreme Court’s ruling. It’s equal. It does not choose sides; they ruled without passion and without prejudice.
The ThinkProgress Red Herring that was posited by those who felt they were losing the messaging battle, resorted to unsubstantiated muckracking. This tactic lasted about a week before it was ultimately debunked. Moreover, the very ‘tactic’ employed to call out the Chamber of Commerce backfired because many unions, and other democratic groups used the same ‘legal’ fundraising strategies. Hypocrisy at its best.
You did note the trick here, right? Newshound does the “you do it too” bullshit by ignoring key details of the Koch Bros story. Like a journalist being intimidated by *private security* which got the hotel’s security head to try to talk him into leaving. After said journalist made a perfectly valid reservation (and was actually staying at the hotel) for both hotel and hotel cafe.
Of course, readers at home know that all of this generosity towards the privacy of the Koch Bros meeting is always and everywhere spectacularly one-sided. If the DKos Convention was to turn away, say Andrew Breitbart, he’d be over here howling about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of movement. Which we are meant to believe are entitlements only repubs are supposed to have.
🙄
Exactly Cassandra. The Kochs are free to have invitation-only meetings and private security but it’s crossing into strange territory when they are telling hotel guests where they can eat.
The Kochs have a huge financial influence on our elections. They should face scrutiny for it.
Remember how Tom Kovach was supposed to be conflict free if he became President of NCC Council. Well, you’ll never guess what happened. The other day during the Land Use Committee meeting he had to recuse himself on the VERY FIRST rezoning matter that was brought to the committee since he has been a member of it. The very first time. Now ain’t that something. Apparently, the law firm he works for represents someone opposed to the rezoning proposal.
My hunch is that this guy is going to be another Paul Clark except that he will have a (R) after his name.
Well, Dana, maybe we could have both Clark and Kovach enlist in the National Guard, then send them both to Afghanistan, where the government could use some experienced hands, and let them serve out their interest-conflicted terms over there.
“the law firm he works for represents someone opposed to the rezoning proposal.”
Sounds like the opposite of Paul Clark to me.
“they ruled without passion and without prejudice.”
You have no evidence of either, unless you’re claiming that unions’ millions equal corporate trillions. An absurd contention, of course, but the sort of thing conservatives do every day.
Republicans Vote To Repeal Obama-Backed Bill That Would Destroy Asteroid Headed For Earth
awwww O2008, i actually clicked on the link thinking it could be real.
Groups like Common Cause, labor unions (SEIU, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, et al.) and Ruckus Society have every right to protest. They can fly a blimp with a slogan on it (which one group did), they can chant, cheer, hold up signs, even signs that are deemed racist or unprofessional in nature, as long as they don’t break the law.
This civil disobedience playbook stuff is legendary for outfits like MoveOn.org, Greenpeace, the New Black Panther Party and countless other outfits. They use the “by any means necessary” approach to fight their cause.
Again, protesting, demonstrating, writing op-eds, voting, rallying, voter registration drives, etc. are all perfectly allowable in our free society. Do you really think that Common Cause ‘JournOlist’ was there for crumpets and tea? I’ve been to Rancho Mirage for a golf tournament. It makes the Hotel DuPont look like a Hotel 6. I’m sure this journalist with his low-40s pay booked a room for the weekend and blew a month’s salary.
Is it hard work to be that snide, NH? Or… are we all supposed to be impressed? Thought you guys made elitist a bad word.