11/2/15

Ted Cruz Breaks With Koch Brothers on Crime Bill

Before Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) electrified conservatives with his denunciation of liberal media bias at the GOP presidential debate last week, he took a little-noticed position on a major crime bill before the Senate that set him apart from the politically powerful Koch brothers. Taking the side of law-and-order conservatives on an issue that could emerge as a major focus of the 2016 presidential campaign, Cruz came out against the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (S. 2123) on the grounds that the legislation, which will retroactively reduce the sentences of thousands of federal prison inmates, could lead to the release of violent criminals, some convicted of using weapons while engaged in other crimes. He said the Senate bill would release “illegal aliens with criminal convictions” when a “major crime wave” is already sweeping the nation.

In an extraordinary development, the Koch brothers decided to publicly go after Cruz. Echoing the views of the libertarian billionaires, whose network of conservative advocacy groups was planning to spend $889 million on the 2016 campaign, Mark Holden, Senior Vice President & General Counsel of Koch Industries, Inc., issued a statement denouncing the Texas senator by name. He said, “We are disappointed that some members, including Senator Cruz, who have supported the need for reform and been strong supporters of the Bill of Rights, did not support this bill.”

While Cruz had indicated support back in February for a Senate bill on “sentencing reform,” he voted against the latest version because he said it would lead to more criminals being released from prison and committing crimes against law-abiding citizens and police.

In dramatic testimony, Cruz said that while he had supported the Smarter Sentencing Act, a previous version of the bill, the final version had been changed and had “gone in a direction that is not helpful.” He said it provides “leniency” for “violent criminals who use guns” and gives lighter sentences to criminals already serving time. Cruz said that letting thousands of criminals out of prison at this time makes no sense “when police officers are under assault right now, are being vilified right now, and when we’re seeing violent crime spiking in our major cities across the country…”

Political observers say that the public attack on Cruz from the Koch brothers, who are seeking to influence the selection of a GOP 2016 presidential nominee, could easily backfire and expose the nefarious influence of the libertarian billionaires’ attempt to affect the outcome of the race for president on the Republican side. In addition to the Kochs, libertarian hedge fund operator Paul Singer has entered the Republican contest, endorsing Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and promising him millions of dollars in campaign contributions through his own network of conservative organizations and allies. Singer, whose son is homosexual, wants the GOP to embrace gay rights and gay marriage.

There are very few organizations active in conservative politics that are not financed by either Koch or Singer. Donald Trump, a billionaire in his own right, doesn’t need their support.

Blogger Tina Trent, who writes and lectures about criminal justice issues, hailed Cruz’s decision to come out against the Koch-backed bill, saying the legislation was “a 100 percent giveaway to some of the most radical anti-incarceration activist groups funded by George Soros,” the billionaire hedge fund operator and backer of the Democratic Party. She said, “I’m happy to see Cruz refuse to obey the Kochs on this one vote, but the fact that they came out and chastised him publicly when he did cross them even slightly points to bigger questions—and bigger problems. Will Cruz go further and completely sever ties with the Kochs?”

Libertarians and their Leftist Allies Push Criminal Justice Reform

Though branded by the media as free market conservatives, the Koch brothers are libertarians on social and foreign policy issues and do business with China and Russia. They chose “criminal justice reform” as their latest high-profile cause, even though this has meant collusion with the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations and his grantees.

We noted in a story last March that the Coalition for Public Safety was playing a leading role in this new “bipartisan” campaign for “criminal justice reform,” and has been financed by $5 million from the Koch brothers and other “core supporters,” such as the liberal Ford Foundation. Soros money for this effort has been mostly funneled through the ACLU, a major “partner” in the group, which received $50 million to cut national incarceration rates and release criminals.

The Coalition for Public Safety is run by Christine Leonard, a former Ted Kennedy Senate staffer once affiliated with the left-wing Vera Institute for Justice. We pointed out that the Vera Institute is so extreme that its Project Concern had a National Advisory Board on Adolescent Development, Safety and Justice that included the former communist terrorist Bernardine Dohrn as an adviser from 1998 to 2003.

One Soros-funded group, Critical Resistance, was founded by communist Angela Davis and says it seeks “to end the prison industrial complex (PIC) by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe. We believe that basic necessities such as food, shelter, and freedom are what really make our communities secure.” It got $100,000 from the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations.

An all-day “Bipartisan Summit on Criminal Justice Reform” that was sponsored in part by the Coalition for Public Safety featured former Obama official and Marxist Van Jones as a major speaker. Jones appeared at a podium emblazoned with the company name “Koch Industries.” Obama’s then-Attorney General Eric Holder also spoke to the event.

Cruz was joined in his opposition to the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act by Republican Senators Orrin Hatch (UT), David Perdue (GA), Jeff Sessions (AL), and David Vitter (LA). Nevertheless, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Assistant Democratic Leader Dick Durbin pushed the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act through the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 15-5 vote. A Cruz amendment to fix the bill was voted down.

Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning said that Senate Republicans, “in a quest for bipartisanship,” have passed a bill that will “retroactively reduce more federal prison sentences, resulting in an additional flooding of our cities with thousands more convicted criminals out of penitentiaries.” He asked, “Given the volatile mix of massive increases of Muslim refugees, the influx of Central American gangs and Mexican drug cartel members, and the disarming of our police, what could go wrong with releasing tens of thousands of convicted criminals early into the already violent cities? Why would Republicans vote for that?”

Law Enforcement Groups Weigh in on Pending Crime Legislation

Unwilling to let the Koch brothers and George Soros have their way on the crime legislation, organizations representing law enforcement are making their views known. Groups opposing the bill include the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys, National Sheriffs’ Association, National Immigration & Customs Enforcement Council, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, National Narcotic Officers’ Associations’ Coalition, National District Attorneys Association, Major County Sheriffs’ Association, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents Association.

Major figures opposing the bill include Ed Meese, Former Attorney General of the United States; Ron Hosko, Former Assistant Director of the FBI; and Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum.

Senator Sessions, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and former federal prosecutor, quoted Steven Cook, the President of the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys, as saying that the bill “threatens to reverse many of the gains we have made by making thousands of convicted and imprisoned armed career criminals, serial violent criminals, and high-level drug traffickers eligible for early release.” Cook added that “it would seriously weaken the very tools that federal prosecutors, working with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners, have used to keep our communities safe.”

“In reality,” Tina Trent told Accuracy in Media, “there is no big public groundswell of support for releasing recidivist criminals back onto the streets. The urgency around this issue has been almost entirely manufactured by paid activists in the leftist and libertarian camps—aided by the media, of course. This is why they’re being so intentionally secretive about the process and the people who would be released and how the releases would be implemented. It’s also why they’re not making it easy, or even possible, to see state-by-state information about the specific inmates who would be released, nor can the public view the full criminal arrest and conviction records for these inmates.”

Taking on libertarian rhetoric about alleged “nonviolent” drug offenders supposedly populating the prisons, she noted there are several ways an offender can be classified as “non-violent” even when he or she has a long rap sheet of arrests for violent crimes and even convictions for violent crimes. In such cases, defense lawyers will have their clients plead to a drug charge in exchange for charges of violent crimes being dropped.

The “Ferguson” Effect?

Despite the serious flaws in the bill and questions about the radicals backing it, aCongressional Criminal Justice and Public Safety Caucus has been created to make similar legislation a reality on the House side. Representatives Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Raul Labrador (R-ID), Cedric Richmond (D-LA) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) will serve as co-chairs of this newly-formed body.

Jessica Berry, Deputy Director of the Coalition for Public Safety, thanked Chaffetz and the other Republicans for partnering with Democrats as well as President Obama, for the purpose of “getting criminal justice reform done.”

Berry’s praise for Republicans should give them concern. She is a former top Democratic Party staffer on Capitol Hill, having served as the principal law enforcement and criminal justice advisor to Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and an adviser to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

If the “bipartisan” bill passes Congress, Republicans may eventually be blamed for helping to put more criminals back on the streets, producing more of the “Ferguson effect” that Obama’s FBI director James Comey says has put the lives of police officers and innocent members of the community in greater danger.

The controversy over Comey’s remarks could complicate the President’s push “to loosen the nation’s sentencing laws,” the Hill newspaper reported. Another potential complication is that the outspoken Cruz and others may put pressure on Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) to stop the bill from coming up for a vote so that Republicans don’t further embarrass themselves by partnering with soft-on-crime Democrats in hock to Soros-funded activist groups.

Leftist groups are hoping McConnell will bring the bill to a full Senate vote, in order to demonstrate how Republicans can work with Democrats on an issue dear to the Obama administration.

04/30/15

Black Mom Changes Leftist Narrative on Violence

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The reaction among responsible black and white law-abiding citizens to the black thugs rioting in Baltimore was captured by Toya Graham, the black mother who smacked her son around when she found him on the streets joining the attacks on police. Even liberals in the major media applauded her efforts.

“I don’t want him to be a Freddie Gray,” she told CBS News, referring to her son and the black youth who died under mysterious circumstances while in police custody.

CBS reported, “Graham, a single mom with six children, denounced the vandalism and violence against police officers. She said rioting in Baltimore is no way to go about getting justice for Freddie Gray and that she doesn’t want that life for her son.”

Graham then appeared on the CBS This Morning Show to discuss the incident and the struggle to raise her children.

The important teaching moment represented by this dramatic incident, a brief moment of sanity in the media, undercut the left-wing effort to somehow blame the police for the riots. As a result, the “progressives” had to go on the attack against the black mother.

Over at Think Progress, the blog of the pro-Obama Center for American Progress, Graham was attacked as a “misguided” mother who exercised bad judgment in holding her son accountable. Writer Kira Lerner said the issue was alleged police violence, not rioting in the streets by black youth.

She quoted a woman with a group opposed to “police brutality” as saying that “While she doesn’t condone the looting that was highlighted by the media in Baltimore Monday night, she said she understands where the violent protesters are coming from.”

Meanwhile, over at Hot Air, a piece by Noah Rothman ran under the headline, “Don’t let urban unrest derail conservative criminal justice reform.” While the riots were underway, he insisted that “a consensus opinion” had emerged on both the left and the right in favor of getting soft on criminals and letting more of them out of prison.

In the wake of what has happened in Baltimore and Ferguson, the Republican primary electorate might be tempted to embrace a “tough on crime” candidate, but “That would be a mistake,” Rothman informed Hot Air readers.

What’s more, he lectured them, the war on drugs has “failed” and there is no alternative to letting “non-violent offenders” out of prison.

In fact, the war on drugs did not fail. David Evans, a special advisor to the Drug Free America Foundation, notes that marijuana use went down among young people by 25 percent from the advent of the Reagan administration’s “Just Say No” campaign to the inauguration of President Obama. “If we had had a reduction in any other health problem in the U.S. of 25 percent, we would consider it an outstanding success,” he said.

Being “tough on crime” is precisely what many observers, including that courageous Baltimore mom, have concluded needs to be done in the inner cities.

Going soft was precisely what the Baltimore mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, had done, accounting for the weak police response to the riots. Former police officer Michael Tremoglie points out that the Baltimore police knew that the mayor had said she wanted “protesters” protected and room furnished for them to “destroy,” and that “They knew that the DOJ [Department of Justice] was ‘monitoring’ what was occurring during the riots.”

Before he came to Hot Air, a site owned by Salem Communications, a Christian firm, Rothman had sung the praises of the pro-marijuana voices in the media such as MSNBC’s Touré. On another occasion, he had highlighted how comedian Kevin Hart and rapper Ice Cube had attacked commentator Nancy Grace’s anti-marijuana comments.

Hot Air, which claims to be the most heavily-trafficked conservative blog on the Internet, has emerged as a forum for pro-marijuana and soft-on-crime viewpoints, most of them articulated by Rothman, a former libertarian writer for Mediaite.

It is certainly true that the Rothman perspective on “criminal justice reform” has been embraced on the left.

As Accuracy in Media noted recently, in an article about a “criminal justice reform” conference held in Washington, D.C., there is a White House-directed effort to enlist conservatives to join with various progressive organizations to weaken laws against a series of violent and non-violent crimes.

Hillary Clinton joined the campaign on Wednesday, saying that “It’s time to end the era of mass incarceration.”

Some readers at Hot Air were astounded by the advice given by Rothman, who cited the Obama Justice Department as a reliable source of information on criminal justice issues, including alleged police violence.

One said, “Isn’t it great when we can come to Hot Air to read some halfwit ‘conservative’ columnist agree with Eric Holder about root causes?”

Another said, “I don’t think this is a very timely post. At least not whilst the animals are burning, looting, robbing, raping, killing each other and forming alliances with opposing gang bangers to destabilize the structure of society.”

Still another called attention to Heather MacDonald’s piece in the New York Post, “The Perilous New Push to Excuse Lawlessness,” as being “a hundred times better than Noah’s.” The writer said, “She’s an actual conservative who lived through the times when ‘law and order’ were questionable values, and conservatives had to fight hard to implement them.”

MacDonald had referred to “a wide-ranging movement [which] is already under way to transform the criminal justice system in order to avoid a disparate impact on blacks.” But since blacks commit a disproportionate amount of the crime, she said that fulfilling this promise “would require gutting murder statutes, and most other criminal laws,” and that the country’s two-decade-long crime drop would be in jeopardy.

Despite cities like Ferguson and Baltimore going up in flames and the rare story of a mother like Toya Graham making a plea for law-and-order, the liberal media are going to make sure that the movement for criminals’ rights that now operates under the goal of achieving “criminal justice reform” will get the lion’s share of the publicity.

Indeed, Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” just ran a favorable story about the “Coalition for Public Safety,” which is trying to make the ACLU sound like a reasonable organization conservatives can work with. Based on what was reported, it looks like some conservative groups are taking the bait.

04/4/15

The Soros-Koch Criminals Lobby

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival

The Koch Brothers are working hand-in-glove with the Obama Administration and the “progressives” to empty the prisons. Van Jones, a former activist with the group, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), has emerged as a point man for Koch Industries in a multi-million dollar campaign for “criminal justice reform.” This campaign used to be financed by billionaire hedge fund operator George Soros. Watch this show to understand how Republicans like Georgia Governor Nathan Deal and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are part of this effort.

03/30/15

Marxist Van Jones Praises Koch Brothers

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

When he left the Obama Administration in disgrace, the expectation was that “former” communist Van Jones would return to Oakland, California, and resume his duties as an anti-police street activist. Instead, Jones, a former activist with the group, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), was hired as a “liberal” co-host of a new version of CNN’s debate show “Crossfire.” Now, Jones has emerged as a point man for Koch Industries in a multi-million dollar campaign for “criminal justice reform.”

The spectacle of Jones appearing at a podium emblazoned with the company name “Koch Industries” became a reality last Thursday when the ACLU and the billionaire Koch brothers joined forces to sponsor an all-day “Bipartisan Summit on Criminal Justice Reform.” Jones orchestrated most of the conference, serving as a moderator and speaker.

While the conference included a few Republicans, there was clear evidence that the new “bipartisan” campaign is being directed from the Obama White House. Attorney General Eric Holder and senior White House officials had met with several prominent leaders of the effort on March 2.

In addition to Jones, who was forced to resign as White House “Green Jobs Czar” after his extremist background came to light, Holder was a featured speaker, calling for “a fundamental shift in our criminal justice system,” and “historic change.”

Known for his lawless actions, such as refusing to enforce federal anti-drug laws, Holder was held in contempt by Congress for withholding documents from them about Fast and Furious, the scandal involving a gun-running operation that put deadly weapons in the hands of narcotics traffickers from Mexico. He is also known for the “open borders” policy that has prevented a vigorous enforcement of immigration laws on the federal and state level.

Addressing an audience of about 500 people, Holder spoke of a “rare consensus emerging across the country,” adding, “Recently, we have seen conservative stakeholders like Koch Industries and Americans for Tax Reform join with progressive voices like the Center for American Progress to form a new coalition dedicated to this cause.”

The “cause,” based on what we witnessed at the all-day event, is to reduce prison populations in the name of fiscal restraint and liberal compassion.

The financial support from the Koch brothers gives this left-wing campaign a bipartisan appearance and may be intended to buy some goodwill from the “progressives” who normally target these billionaires.

But knowing of Holder’s involvement in the event and the evidence that he, in fact, helped orchestrate this conference, it was troubling to some conservative observers that members of Congress, such as Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Republican governors such as Nathan Deal of Georgia, participated in this event.

Holder argued that the criminal justice system was racist against minorities, while Deal said the system was too costly and that many criminals can be re-educated, rehabilitated and released.

Although Americans for Tax Reform was indeed listed as a sponsor, its head, Grover Norquist, was in the news for another reason. He is embroiled in a controversy over his alleged ties to Islamists, and gave an interview to Glenn Beck defending himself against the charges.

The Center for American Progress, another major player in the new “criminal justice reform” effort, is funded by the Open Society Foundations of billionaire hedge-fund operator George Soros.

The new group Holder spoke about is called the Coalition for Public Safety, financed by $5 million from the Koch brothers and other “core supporters,” such as the liberal Ford Foundation. The group is run by Christine Leonard, a former Ted Kennedy Senate staffer once affiliated with the left-wing Vera Institute for Justice.

The Vera Institute is so extreme that its Project Concern had a National Advisory Board on Adolescent Development, Safety and Justice that included the former communist terrorist Bernardine Dohrn as an adviser from 1998 to 2003. Dohrn was accused of bombing a police station and killing a San Francisco police sergeant. However, she has never been brought to justice for her alleged role in this crime.

Though it tilted heavily toward the left, the new coalition and the conference had a sprinkling of conservatives, most notably former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. His firm, “Gingrich Productions,” was an official sponsor. Gingrich apparently became a friend of Van Jones when they appeared together on CNN’s “Crossfire.” Other conservatives or libertarians in attendance included Matt Kibbe, President/CEO of FreedomWorks, and Tim Head, Executive Director of the Faith & Freedom Coalition.

In a joint statement, Gingrich and Jones declared, “Our over-reliance on prisons has failed America. It is past time for both political parties to come together and fix a bad system of their own making. We believe this moment offers a once-in-a generation opportunity for reforms that will save entire communities and transform the lives of millions of Americans. We must not let it pass.”

However, the well-documented book, Why Crime Rates Fell, by John E. Conklin, argues persuasively that crime reduction is due in large measure to putting more criminals in prison.

On one panel at the event, John Malcolm of The Heritage Foundation disputed the liberal notion advanced by Nicole Austin-Hillery of the Brennan Center for Justice that increased incarceration had no role in the drop in crime. He noted that economist Steven Levitt has estimated that approximately 25 percent of the decline in violent crime can be attributed to increased incarceration, and that Professor William Spelman has estimated that increased incarceration may be responsible for as much as 35 percent of the reduction in violent crime.

Following Governor Nathan Deal as a speaker was Piper Kerman, a convicted drug-money launderer who wrote, Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, a book made into a television series by Netflix.

Dr. Tina Trent, an advocate for victims of crime, is watching this campaign go forward with a lot of questions and suspicion. She was writing about the campaign for “criminal justice reform” when it was primarily underwritten by Soros. She discovered that the group, Critical Resistance, a Soros-funded activist group founded by long-time communist Angela Davis, had invented the “cop-watch concept” that would be popularized by Jones in Oakland through a group called Bay Area Police Watch. Davis wrote, Are Prisons Obsolete?, a book arguing that criminals are victims of capitalist society.

Trent says the campaign is well underway and aims to eliminate the death penalty, life without parole sentences, “three strikes” laws, mandatory minimum sentencing laws, and other changes that states have passed over the last 20 years to reduce violent crime. Another goal is to expand voting rights for felons, who are expected to show their gratitude by voting Democratic.

She says the movement also aims to “ban the box”—a reference to removing the criminal record question from job applications—and legalize dangerous mind-altering drugs. In this context, the Soros-funded Drug Policy Alliance was another “partner” in the “bipartisan summit.”

Trent has also highlighted the Soros-funded effort to “radicalize” prisoners while they are incarcerated.

The campaign to target the prisons for revolutionary purposes is actually an old one. The House Internal Security Committee in 1973 published a report, “Revolutionary Target: The American Penal System,” which examined how “groups committed to Marxist revolutionary theories and tactics were exploiting the popular issue of prison reform and had become a source of the unrest then afflicting many of the nation’s prisons.”

A different approach and analysis of what has to be done about the crime problem is being taken by veteran journalist Colin Flaherty, in his new book, Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry. Flaherty argues that the Obama/Holder narrative of the alleged “racial victimization” of blacks by whites ignores the black-on-white violence that has become an epidemic across the country.

Rather than empty the prisons, he argues, more criminals need to be apprehended and punished.

Black crime rates are “astronomically out of proportion” to their presence in the population, he points out. But the media “ignore, condone and deny it.” Obama, he adds, is a “willing partner” in the deception.