http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2010/12/10/right-wing-gazillionaires-%E2%80%9Cstop-being-mean-to-us%E2%80%9D/If you’re looking for a chuckle to end your week, check out this op-ed that appeared on the website of the Pope-Civitas Institute today. The main point: progressives need to stop picking on poor, wittle defenseless, fabulously wealthy conservatives like Art Pope, the Koch brothers and the Chamber of Commerce.
Oh, and in a gymnastic dipsy-doo that would make Mary Lou Retton proud, the author claims that by questioning the Citizens United decision and some of the actions of the Kochs and the Chamber in funneling boatloads of cash (some of it from foreign sources) to candidates and causes in questionable ways, the Obama administration is behaving like – we’re not making this up – Richard Nixon!
Finally, in what seems to be a recitation of the official talking points that have been handed down for Pope Empire employees for the end of the year, the author offers up this amusing paragraph:
In North Carolina they targeted a member of the Civitas Board of Directors, Art Pope. Art is a member of our board and through the Pope Family Foundation a major benefactor of our educational non-profit and numerous other charitable organizations such as Hospice, the Boy Scouts and the NC Theater. Unfortunately for Art and his business, Variety Stores, Inc, they became targets of the same vicious political attacks we saw used at the national level. Left leaning organizations released exposé hit pieces and those attacks made it into the mainstream media. Their complaint – he used his money to lawfully support causes and candidates he believed in.”
Got that? A man who almost singlehandedly funds the entire right-wing movement in the state and who named the Civitas group after his own family is just a “member of the Board of Directors.”
More at the link --