Harry Reid and the Left’s Big Money Hypocrisy

Imagine a secret meeting in a ritzy hotel ballroom between unnamed billionaires and high ranking government officials gathered for the purpose of coordinating hundreds of millions of dollars to sway governmental policies. Such would seem a tantalizing target for campaign finance reform advocates and those who routinely fulminate over money in politics. Yet, as Human Events found out, such is apparently not the case when it involves the rich liberal elite in an organization called The Democracy Alliance who came together this weekend at the Ritz Carlton in Chicago.

The Democracy Alliance is an organization founded with the assistance of George Soros in 2005 with the mission of directing funds from wealthy liberals to liberal groups. The invite list for this weekend’s meeting was kept secret.  The organization’s members, known as “partners”, are also a closely held secret. Interestingly, the weekend was billed an an “investment” conference where the left “invest” huge sums of money and the return is a change in policy.

There is little doubt that this secretive organization and its “partners” are having an impact. The president of the organization, Gara LaMarche, formerly president and CEO of Atlantic Philanthropies, was responsible for shifting tens of millions of dollars to organizations that advocated the passage of Obamacare. By some accounts the bill would likely have not become law absent this funding and these groups’ efforts.

In short, the Democracy Alliance is a clearing house for left-wing billionaires and millionaires spending money to affect U.S. policy–the very same activities so long targeted by organizations like Common Cause, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), People for the American Way, as well as politicians like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and President Obama.

Yet, as a Human Events reporter found out, these supposed watch dogs and outraged politicians weren’t so offended by this particular shadowy group of donors plotting to spend hundreds of millions in “dark money.”President Obama has railed against such secret money, yet he sent is closest advisor Valerie Jarrett to offer the keynote address to the organization.

Senator Harry Reid has raised eyebrows with his own unrelenting and sometimes daily attacks on the Koch brothers. He has lambasted the brothers for the amount of money they have invested in political causes. He has called them shadowy billionaires attempting to rig the system. He gone so far as to call them outright “un-American.”

Yet, when asked to comment on the distinction between the Democracy Alliance donors and the Koch brothers, Reid’s office had nothing to say.  To be fair, it is certain to have been an uncomfortable question since in all likelihood, Reid was  among the attendees at the big money affair. It would deny credulity that a Democrat Senate Majority leader trying to hang onto that post would take a pass on the opportunity to hobnob with that many Democrats with so many digits in their bank accounts and a eager willingness to spend it.

If that weren’t enough irony and hypocrisy, much of the conference reportedly centered on the issue of “income equality.”  The group invited current reigning class warrior New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to discuss the growing disparity between the rich and the poor. Yet, it has been reported that the new leadership of the organization intends to double down in support of policies actually cause income inequality.  Collectively, the plutocrats in the Democracy Alliance have been avid supporters of environmental policies that cause skyrocketing electricity costs, higher food prices and close down factories killing jobs.  Middle class America can hardly stand much more of the kind of help these  elite billionaires are offering.

All of this should serve to remind America of the immense hypocrisy of the Democrat party and the apparatus of the Left. The next time Harry Reid launches an attack on the Koch brothers and CREW files an ethics complaint it should be viewed as what it is disingenuous: Alinsky-ite propaganda.