Largesse

Julie Bykowicz of AP writes about a conference that has been taking place this week in Dana Point, California. It is put on by Charles Koch of Koch brothers fame. Attendees were

450 business leaders — many among them top political contributors — and the elected officials who receive that largesse. They've been strategizing with officials at the education, policy and activist groups that Koch and his brother David have spent years building up and funding.

That network has a budget of $889 million through the end of 2016 — and much of it will be directed at electing a Republican to the White House.

As such, five GOP contenders spoke to the donor group, answering questions.

...The Koch donor conferences, held twice a year, are insular affairs.

Only those who have donated $100,000 or more to Koch-backed groups are invited. Yet even those deep-pocketed donors must check their mobile phones at the doors of some strategy sessions.

For the first time, a small number of reporters were invited to hear the 2016 candidates and attend some other forums. As a condition of attending, reporters were not permitted to identify any of the donors in attendance.

Most of the Koch-backed entities are nonprofits that do not have to disclose their donors. The two most politically active groups are American for Prosperity, which deploys activists to knock on doors and discuss issues important to the Kochs, and Freedom Partners, which has a super PAC that can spend directly on elections.

Although leaders for those two groups say they aren't endorsing anyone in the GOP primary, donors at the retreat have the ability to write million-dollar checks to boost a candidate's chances.

Read more here.

Uppity

Victor Davis Hanson asks why do liberals hate certain people so much? For example,
Sarah Palin:

Middle-class white conservative Christian moms from Alaska are not what liberals mean when they talk of diversity.

Why do liberals despise Rush Limbaugh more so than, say, conservatives hate Bill Maher or Chris Matthews? Yes, he is vastly more successful and influential, and does them, as the president so frequently whines, a lot of political damage. Of course, the Left hates the fact that Limbaugh went from middle-class to a billionaire, and without the proper educational credentials and anguish along the way to contextualize his wealth. (Keeping millions of listeners entertained for three hours, 250 days a year, is supposedly easy; in contrast, teaching a graduate seminar fifteen times a semester on your dissertation is an ordeal, full of deep thinking and contemplative heavy lifting.)

Liberals hate entire countries too, especially Israel. Why? Is it because unlike its neighbors it follows the rule of law? Is Israel too fair to gays and women?

Liberals hate Israel because like a Palin or Limbaugh, it seems too self-assured. Does not Jerusalem care that Harvard or Oxford professors despise it? Cannot it do the calculus of seven million versus the 300 million who hate it in the Middle East? Apparently not.

Liberals sure hate the Koch brothers. At first glance, this too baffles. It is not the money per se. After all, they idolize George Soros, who predates the Kochs in subsidizing political causes.

And like Palin, the Kochs have pretensions, in their case of giving to the fine arts and humanities, as if they think they are something more than they are. Yes, they are uppity as well.

Then there is Clarence Thomas. Liberals despise him too. He is a free thinker who makes no apologies for his past or present. Moreover, he is a far better representative of the black American experience of the late 20th century than, say, is the Hawaii prep-schooled, choom-ganger Barry Dunham, son of a white PhD and rather odious Kenyan hustler, whom we now know in his final and most successful reincarnation as Barack Obama.

Finally, liberals really hate Fox News. It trumps the audience of MSNBC and CNN combined and then some. Envy of its success accounts for a lot of the ire. Fox really believes they are a news agency.

How uppity is that?

Read more here.