Democrats who used to work on Capitol Hill are helping to disrupt Republican lawmakers’ town hall meetings across the country through a nationwide effort to oppose and “resist” President Donald Trump’s agenda.
“Indivisible is ultra-slick leftist astroturf activism at its finest,” @Vadum says.
They call their group Indivisible Guide, a name that came from an actual guide posted online telling activists how to pressure members of Congress. Among topics: what to say when going to town halls and calling or visiting a member’s office.
Leaders of the organization have loose ties to George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund manager who bankrolls liberal causes, according to the Capital Research Center, a conservative think tank that investigates nonprofits.
Dear reader:
In today's media environment, there are few publications that Americans can rely on to learn the “other” side of the issues.
The Daily Signal is a dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts solely funded by the financial support of the general public.
We are a non-profit organization
We serve more than 2 million readers a month
We do not accept government funds
We do not run any advertising
Please donate to ensure we can continue to provide The Daily Signal for free.
If you rely on The Daily Signal for news and analysis on key issues, please take one minute to help make a difference. Thank you.
However, in an email Friday to The Daily Signal, board members of Indivisible Guide denied financial backing from Soros:
We have received donations from more than 4,000 people since putting a donate button on our site two weeks ago. We think George Soros funds many worthy programs, but he has not funded us. We understand why it’s convenient for Republicans to dismiss widespread popular disapproval as astroturf, but anyone looking at the numbers for the Women’s March and other recent events knows better.
The Capital Research Center argues that Indivisible Guide’s board has indirect ties with left-leaning groups funded by Soros, as well as with other liberal organizations.
“Indivisible is ultra-slick leftist astroturf activism at its finest,” Matthew Vadum, senior vice president at the Capital Research Center, told The Daily Signal in an email. “At least three of the group’s five principals—Ezra Levin, Leah Greenberg, and Angel Padilla—have ties to organizations funded by George Soros. Indivisible is apparently not yet a nonprofit, but plans are in the works to register it as a nonprofit.”
According to Vadum’s research:
Ezra Levin, a former staffer for Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, and his wife, Leah Greenberg, are the president and vice president of the Indivisible Guide’s board, respectively.
Levin is also associate director of the Corporation for Enterprise Development, an anti-poverty nonprofit. Melissa Bradley, who sits on that group’s board, previously worked for Green for All, a group founded by liberal commentator and former Obama administration official Van Jones. She was appointed as a Soros Justice Fellow through the Open Society Foundations, which Soros founded.
Greenberg previously worked for Humanity United, which is funded by Soros’s Open Society Institute.
The secretary of Indivisible Guide, Angel Padilla, works for the National Immigration Law Center, which is funded by Soros through his Open Society Foundations. And treasurer Matt Traidi is the research team director for the Service Employees International Union, a major donor to and endorser of Democrat politicians, Capital Research Center notes.
Indivisible Guide boasts that it has disrupted town halls held by Republican lawmakers in Utah, California, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, and Nebraska. And the group, which amplifies its message over Twitter and other social media, promises it isn’t finished.
Politico reported that local activists shouted down Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich. Police had to escort Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., at a town hall meeting because of protesters.
One CNN report presented the disruption of a town hall meeting held Thursday night by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, as a sign of a “grassroots” reaction to Trump such as the taxpayer-based tea party movement was against the Washington establishment:
ActBlue, a political action committee that raises millions of dollars for Democrat candidates, also raises money for Indivisible Guide. Its appeal says, in part:
As former congressional staffers and advocates, we want to help provide local activists with information, tools, and support to take action. Most of all we want you to be part of this nationwide movement.
Let us be clear: donating is the last thing we want you to do. If it’s a choice between going to your local group’s meeting or donating to us, please go to the meeting. Really.
The website of Indivisible Guide, also known simply as Indivisible, provides scripts for what activists should say when calling the office of their House or Senate members on various issues—among them opposing senior Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s role in the White House, Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, his refugee policy, and most other policy positions.
More than 4,500 local groups have signed up to resist the Trump agenda in nearly every congressional district in the country. What’s more, you all are putting the guide into action—showing up en masse to congressional district offices and events, and flooding the congressional phone lines. You’re resisting—and it’s working. … we want to demystify the heck out of Congress and build a vibrant community of angelic troublemakers.
Longstanding liberal groups MoveOn, the Working Families Party, and the American Civil Liberties Union have joined Indivisible Guide’s effort.
Just two days after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, Indivisible Guide, MoveOn.org, and the Working Families Party organized a teleconference for activists that attracted 60,000 listeners, Politico reported.
Indivisible did another call with the ACLU focusing on Trump’s executive order aimed at increasing the vetting of immigrants from seven terrorism-prone Middle Eastern countries; it drew about 35,000 listeners.
MoveOn.org is conducting “Resist Trump” rallies across the country. The ACLU issued pamphlets about how to demonstrate, including for protesters who attempted to disrupt Washington during Trump’s inauguration.
In running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called the Working Families Party “the closest thing there is to a political party that believes in my vision of democratic socialism.”
Actor and liberal activist George Takei, of “Star Trek” fame, tweeted Friday:
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
No comments:
Post a Comment