They’re baaaaaaack. Barack Obama’s election-year goon squad kicked into high gear this week by kicking the president’s fiercest opponents in the teeth and targeting their pocketbooks.
Returning to bully business as usual, the Obama campaign launched a brazen salvo against two prominent conservative critics and their legions of private citizen donors.
In a scathing e-mail, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina name-checked wealthy free-market philanthropists Charles and David Koch — along with a growing movement of grassroots conservatives who’ve freely and legally given money to the Koch-founded nonprofit Americans for Prosperity and its sister foundation.
As a speaker at several AFP events over the past three years, I’ve met thousands of hardworking Americans who support its work at the local, state and federal levels.
The Koches’ sins are to 1) follow tax law and protect the identities of donors to their charitable organizations, and 2) exercise their free speech by funding advocacy ads informing the public about the Obama administration’s jobs-destruction toll and failed green energy “investments.” (Their most recent TV spot zeroed in on the taxpayer-funded Solyndra bankruptcy.)
‘‘When you attempt to drown out [Americans’] voices through unlimited, secret contributions to pursue a special-interest agenda that conflicts with what’s best for our nation, you must expect some scrutiny of your actions,” Messina railed.
The threat of scrutiny was backed by Obama himself: His campaign Twitter account directed 12 million-plus followers this week to “add your name to demand that the Koch brothers make their donors public.”
But former top Obama officials run a so-called super PAC (Priorities USA) that also maintains nonprofit status and subsidizes advocacy ads while protecting its donor base. The White House, of course, is mum on the unlimited, secret contributions that Obama is now encouraging wealthy liberals and lobbyists to make in pursuit of his own special-interest agenda — i.e., re-election.
The president’s lips are also sealed when it comes to applying his disclosure standards to the shadowy, George Soros-backed Center for American Progress, which has supplied the Obama administration with countless top policy staffers. CAP founder John Podesta was Obama’s transition chief, overseeing the backroom process of rewarding friends and allies with plum positions.
CAP flacks shrugged off conflict-of-interest questions: “We respect the privacy of supporters who have chosen not to make their donations public,” CAP spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said.
As for respecting the privacy rights of Obama’s foes? Not so much.
This disclosure charade comes just as numerous Tea Party groups are reporting that the Internal Revenue Service has targeted them for audits. According to Colleen Owens of the Richmond (Va.) Tea Party, several fiscal-conservative activist groups in Virginia, Hawaii, Ohio and Texas have received a spate of IRS letters. The missives demand extensive requests to identity volunteers, board members and . . . donors.
This is Omama’s M.O.: His bully brigade did the same to the US Chamber of Commerce and its donors during the 2010 midterms as payback for the organization’s ads opposing the federal health-care takeover.
And in 2008, Obama’s allies at a Soros-tied outfit sent out “warning” letters to 10,000 top GOP givers “hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions.” Witch-hunt leader Tom Matzzie said the letter was just the first step, “alerting donors who might be considering giving to right-wing groups to a variety of potential dangers, including legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives.”
Just as with the Obama super PAC, Matzzie’s group “Accountable America” was a 501(c)(4) nonprofit entity that shielded the identity of its donors.
It is no small exaggeration to conclude that Team Obama’s dead aim is to chill conservative speech and criminalize conservative dissent.
