The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Left-Wing Groups Getting Psyched Up for ‘Netroots Nation’ Event in Minneapolis

Posted on | June 14, 2011 | 4 Comments

Between 1999 and 2005, George Soros donated $535,000 to Alliance for Justice (AFJ), which has also received major donations from liberals like Ted Turner and Barbra Streisand. One of AFJ’s main activities is to help Democrats block the appointment of conservative judges (they supported filibusters of President Bush’s nominees) and to push for the creation of “new rights” as a strategy to advance the progressive agenda.

Because left-wing groups routinely pool their online resources, AFJ’s fundraising e-mails are distributed to millions of people who have signed up to receive updates from groups like MoveOn.org and Democracy for America. That explains why I received the following e-mail today:

Dear Robert,
We’re heading to Minneapolis for Netroots Nation this week! Here’s what we have in store for you at the Netroots Nation 2011 conference, an annual gathering of some of the most influential voices in the progressive online community.
The Roberts Court’s extreme pro-business agenda has been gaining more and more attention this term with cases like Wal-Mart v. Dukes and AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion. This Saturday, Alliance for Justice and a panel of experts will tackle the Court’s hard right turn in “The Corporate Court: Your Rights vs. Corporate Interests.”
Our panelists — Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Dahlia Lithwick (Slate), Eva Paterson (Equal Justice Society), and Carl Pope (Sierra Club) — will address the growing influence of corporations within the American judicial system, particularly in the Supreme Court on Saturday, June 18 at 10:30 a.m. in room L100 H.
We’ll also be screening excerpts from our award-winning film, Crude Justice, and a Q&A with AFJ Communications Director Kevin Fry as a part of the conference screening series. Join us in room M100 J during the General Showcase I on Thursday, June 16 at 4:30 p.m.
Alliance for Justice president Nan Aron will lead an informal discussion on judges, corporate influence, and the fight for a fair America on Friday, June 17th, at 4:30pm in the exhibit hall’s caucus area.
Don’t forget to stop by our booth (#922) to meet our staff, learn more about AFJ, and talk with our expert about developing hard-hitting social media campaigns without violating the restrictions imposed on nonprofits.

Talk to you soon,
Alliance for Justice
P.S. Tell us what you’re up to at Netroots by tweeting us @afjustice!

Notice I’ve highlighted the fact that this legal advocacy group — which employs dozens of leftist lawyers — is offering expert advice to progressives on “developing hard-hitting social media campaigns without violating the restrictions imposed on nonprofits.” This is what Soros & Co. are paying them to do: Teaching the Left to stretch the limits of the law to push their agenda.

What can you do to help fight back against AFJ and their progressive allies at Netroots Nation?

Well, for starters, you can hit my tip jar for $20. I’m not a nonprofit foundation, just a guy bringing Old School shoe-leather journalism to the New Media environment. With more than 7,000 Twitter followers, I certainly know a thing or two about “social media” and hope that regular readers will agree that I’ve done a few “hard-hitting campaigns” in the past three years. So your contributions to the Shoe Leather Fund are neither tax-deductible nor charitable — just an informal fee-for-service reward for a Shameless Capitalist Blogger.

But you can do more than that: You can attend Right Online 2011 this weekend in Minneapolis — the conservative counterforce against Netroots Nation. Just look at who will be speaking Friday and Saturday at this event: Leading online voices like Michelle Malkin, Andrew Breitbart, Erick Erickson of Red State and Ed Morrissey of Hot Air, plus GOP 2012 presidential candidates Tim Pawlenty, Rep. Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain — and there’s much, much more!

And by “much, much more,” I mean: Me.

Yes, that’s right: After three years of non-stop effort, I’ve finally persuaded Erik Telford to include me on the RightOnline agenda. I’ll be leading a Saturday afternoon seminar entitled, “Journalism vs. Blogging: Building Credibility.” What I intend is to explain a little bit about how to employ the Joe Friday “just-the-facts-ma’am” journalism style when what you’re doing is reporting news, as contrasted to the opinionated or humorous “snarktastic” style that bloggers so often use when doing political commentary.

I’ve often invoked an observation made by my young friend, J.P. Freire, “Conservative journalism needs fewer Bill Buckleys and more Bob Novaks” — that is to say, less punditry and more reporting.

Because of its history as a movement, conservatism has tended to create greater incentives for opinionated pundits than for straight-news reporters. Everyone wants to be the next Bill Buckley — or Ann Coulter or Charles Krauthammer or George Will, et al. — than to stoop down and do the less glamorous and often quite tedious work of reporting the news.

This tendency is one reason why we in the conservative blogosphere spend so much time bitching about liberal media bias: Because liberals are working as reporters, while everybody on the Right is doing second-rate Buckley imitations.

I don’t want to argue about the reasons for this or point fingers of blame, nor do I have the inclination now to discuss ways to change the incentives within the conservative movement. What I want to do — what I intend to do at Right Online — is to describe the basics of the Joe Friday “just-the-facts-ma’am” style, and urge citizen-journalists to use it effectively to help build the credibility of the conservative blogosphere as a news reporting medium.

So I hope you’ll register now and join me at Right Online 2011.

Erik Telford has a Daily Caller column today about Right Online, and you should read the whole thing — right after you hit the freaking tip jar.

Shameless Capitalism™
It’s Not Just a Philosophy, It’s a Lifestyle


Category: Minnesota, Right Online

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