Article manages not to mention George Soros. Which is more dangerous, right-wing billionaires or left-wing billionaires? Should the activities of both be reigned in? http://www.wsj.com/articles/vast-right-wing-conspiracy-2-0-1452893703 Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy 2.0 The Kochs host public-policy seminars, fund political groups and back candidates. Are they really such a danger to the republic? Koch Industries Inc. headquarters in Wichita, Kansas. ENLARGE Koch Industries Inc. headquarters in Wichita, Kansas. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS George Melloan Jan. 15, 2016 4:35 p.m. ET 0 COMMENTS Jane Mayer, a New Yorker magazine staff writer and former Washington reporter for this newspaper, introduces Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by comparing current-day America to the Gilded Age of the 1890s and bemoaning the ways in which rich people today are trying to remake America to advance their interests. Inevitably, she quotes New York Times columnist Paul Krugman: We are on the road not to just a highly unequal society but a society of an oligarchy. A society of inherited wealth. That claim may have a familiar ring. Populists have been deploring the power of the rich since the birth of the republic. In 1907, Teddy Roosevelt railed at malefactors of great wealth. His fifth cousin, Franklin, laced his 1933 inaugural speech with a promise to drive the money changers out of whatever temples they occupied. The formula works well. Ms. Mayer is highly selective about which super-wealthy dabblers in politics she wants to expel. Warren Buffett, whose $62 billion fortune ranks second only to that of Bill Gates ($76 billion), is not one of her targets. Rather she quotes him in support of her thesis, to the effect that the rich are winning the class war. Tom Steyer, the West Coast hedge-fund billionaire environmentalist, gets a bye as well. So does former Google CEO Eric Schmidt ($11 billion), a big campaign contributor to Barack Obama, and Steven Spielberg, who has generously shared from his $3 billion nest egg to aid the goals of Bill and Hillary Clinton. A host of think tanks and political websites depend on liberal deep pockets, but their donors do not figure in Dark Money. Politically active, left-of-center oligarchs are apparently wonderful people, not dangerous ones. Ms. Mayer mainly dislikes foes of big government. Her list of the rich and dangerous begins with figures whose heyday has passed, such as Richard Mellon Scaife and John M. Olin. For decades, their philanthropies supported conservative journals, scholars and think tanks, much as the Bradley Foundation does today, another organization that earns her contempt. But most of Dark Money is aimed at just two people, Charles and David Koch. The brothers, tied for fifth on the Forbes list with $41 billion apiece, are most notably backers of the Cato Institute, a Washington free-market think tank. They also host public-policy seminars, fund political groups and back candidates either directly or by way of the Koch Industries political action committee. Ms. Mayer argues that they and their ultra-wealthy allies on the right have become the single most effective special interest group in the country. The Kochs might answer, We should be so lucky.
Chris Matthews chimes in. Is there still a vast right-wing conspiracy as alleged during the Clinton years? How does this fit with the Left's disdain for conspiracy theories? http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/26/m...ing-conspiracy-against-hillary-clinton-video/ MSNBC’s Matthews: There’s A ‘Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy’ Against Hillary Clinton [VIDEO] Photo of Steve Guest STEVE GUEST Media Reporter 5:05 PM 01/26/2016 20 MSNBC MSNBC's Matthews: There's A 'Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy' Against Hillary Clinton [screen shot MSNBC] MSNBC’s Chris Matthews claims that there is a “vast right-wing conspiracy” against Hillary Clinton that’s similar to the one of the Monica Lewinsky scandal days. Tuesday on “MSNBC Live,” Matthews said, “This is the weirdness about politics: It can be, that you can also have a problem, but your enemies are going to blow it up out of proportion.” (RELATED: Krauthammer: Hillary’s Defense Of Top Secret Email Is Reminiscent Of The Lewinsky Scandal [VIDEO]) Monday, during the Democratic Town Hall on CNN, questioner Taylor Gipple told Clinton, “I’ve heard quite a few people my age that think you’re dishonest…” Matthews, clearly taking issue with that statement directed towards Clinton, said, “I think somebody saying to your face, talk about bad manners, you’re dishonest. Well, wow, you’re saying to former secretary of state, former senator from New York, you’re dishonest? That’s pretty nervy for a young person to say that to a major figure in American life like that kid did.” “And Hillary, what’s she going to say, I’m not dishonest? She has to go back to the motives of those who have raised the questions about her honesty, which is, unfortunately for her, very much like what she said back during the Monica days, when she said there’s a vast right-wing conspiracy out to get me. But, in fact, there is,” Matthews claimed. (RELATED: Hillary’s Campaign Accuses Intel IG Of Coordinating With GOP On Damning Email Reports) “This is the weirdness about politics: It can be, that you can also have a problem, but your enemies are going to blow it up out of proportion,” Matthews claimed. (RELATED: Report: Emails At The Highest Classification Levels Found On Hillary’s Private Server)
Why isn't the Left denouncing conspiracy-mongering? http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box...inton-says-right-wing-conspiracy-still-exists February 03, 2016, 11:10 pm Clinton says right-wing conspiracy still exists By Jonathan Swan Hillary Clinton agrees there is still a "vast right-wing conspiracy" — and if anything it has only become more richly financed. During the New Hampshire town hall debate on Wednesday night, CNN host Anderson Cooper asked the presidential hopeful if she still believes there is a "vast right-wing conspiracy," as she said there was during the late 90s to initially explain the Monica Lewinksy scandal involing her husband. ADVERTISEMENT "Don't you?" Clinton replied, as the audience laughed. "Yeah. It's gotten even better funded." "They brought in some new multibillionaires to pump the money in. Look, these guys play for keeps. "They want to control our country." Seconds before the conspiracy exchange, a supporter in the audience asked the Democratic front-runner how she would, as nominee and president, defend herself against right-wing attacks. "I've had a lot of practice," Clinton replied. "I can laugh up here but it's not easy. "It is a brutal experience and when it first started happening to me ... I was just stunned. I could not understand how they got away with it. "So now that I've been through this for so many years," the former first lady continued, "my understanding of the political tactics that the other side uses is pretty well versed. They play to keep. They play to destroy. "I know I have to keep defending against them," Clinton added. "But I'm the one who has the experience to do that. "It's unlike anything you've ever gone through, to be the subject of tens of millions of dollars of untrue negative attacks."
