It’s Always A Good Idea To Follow The Money

Hot Air posted an article yesterday about the money that funded the March for Our Lives. The March for Our Lives took place on March 24, 2018, in response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14, 2018. Isn’t it amazing how people managed to organize and put all that together in about five weeks?

The article reports that according to The Washington Free Beacon:

The March For Our Lives Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization launched in the aftermath of the deadly 2018 shootings at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, is bankrolled almost entirely by large donations in excess of $100,000. The group reported $17,879,150 in contributions and grants over the course of 2018, its first year of operations. Ninety-five percent of those contributions came from 36 donations between $100,000 and $3,504,717—a grand total of $16,922,331.

The group’s 990 tax form shows another 38 donations totaling between $5,000 and $100,000, which together accounted for an additional $876,114 of revenue. The remainder, just 0.5 percent of total receipts, came from those giving less than $5,000.

The group isn’t required to release the names of its donors but the Free Beacon notes that Marc Benioff and Eli Broad each donated a million dollars. Influence Watch has a list of some of the other big-name donors including Steven Spielberg and his wife who gave a combined million dollars:

A number of celebrities gave financial support to the organization: George and Amal Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Jeffrey and Marilyn Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, and Kate Capshaw each donated $500,000 for the event. The clothing company Gucci donated $500,000 to the movement. Actress Sara Ramirez notably donated $20,000 to the GoFundMe page. Professional basketball player Dwayne Wade also donated $200,000 to the organization.

All of that doesn’t include the largest contribution by far which came from CNN in the form of an endless stream of air time and online promotion for the Parkland kids, culminating in that awful special in which the Parkland kids and Sheriff Scott Israel were pitted against Dana Loesch and Marco Rubio.

The WFB story also includes a rundown of what the money was spent on. The largest chunk (nearly $8 million) went to funding the March itself. Another $4 million went to a 24-state tour to register young voters.

It is somewhat amazing to me that many Hollywood celebrities who are guarded by men with guns are perfectly willing to support taking guns away from ordinary citizens who are not guarded by men with guns.

This Sums It Up

On Saturday, The Daily Signal posted an article listing some observations about the protest march last weekend. The author of the article went to the march and lists his observations about the march.

These are his observations:

1) A Left-Wing Movement

As Julie Gunlock at The Federalist noted, some parents were led to believe that the March 14 National School Walkout would be about memorializing victims of the Parkland shooting. It wasn’t.

“The real mission of the walkout is to demand Congress pass more restrictive gun laws,” Gunlock wrote.

This goal was even more obvious at the March for Our Lives.

The author noted that there were many pink hats from the 2017 Women’s March and many anti-Trump or anti-Republican signs. One wonders what the Republicans had to do with the shooting at Parkland since it was the policies of the Obama administration that allowed the shooter to buy a gun (see article here about The Promise Program).

2) Well-Organized and Well-Funded

As BuzzFeed reported, a litany of leftist organizations and politicos got involved, including the George Soros-backed MoveOn.org, Women’s March LA, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., and, curiously, Planned Parenthood.

There were certainly many children present, but there’s no way they could have put this all together on their own. Outside help and organization was apparent.

It is ironic that Planned Parenthood, a group that is directly responsible for the murder of nearly one million unborn babies a year, provided part of the funding for the March for Our Lives.

3) Prayer Is Out

Taking away guns from ordinary Americans and denigrating prayer are two things that would have horrified our Founding Fathers.

4) Those Who Disagree Viewed as Complicit in Murder

So much for constructive debate.

5) Second Amendment Seen as Problematic and Outdated

This is probably a reflection on the failure of our education system to teach American history. The protesters seem to lack understanding of why the Second Amendment is included in the Bill of Rights.

6) Fuzzy Facts

For instance, in an interview with The Daily Signal’s Genevieve Wood, one marcher repeated the thoroughly debunked claim that there had been 18 school shootings this year prior to Parkland.

This shocking number, repeated by Obama and some major media outlets, was a bogus stat cooked up by a pro-gun control group.

Almost none of the incidents used in that statistic can be described as anything like a school shooting—several were suicides or random shootings that simply took place near a school campus.

The Washington Post even called the statistic “flat wrong.”

There were other examples of misinformation as well, including one sign that called for a ban on “automatic weapons,” which have actually been banned since 1934.

Unfortunately, Americans have received a huge amount of disinformation about guns and gun control, much of it perpetuated by the media.

7) Not a Gun-Free Zone

The March for Our Lives crowd may have wanted to disarm Americans, but the event hardly took place in a gun-free zone.

Armed police covered the streets to ensure the safety of those gathering in the nation’s capital. In fact, there were even armored military vehicles embedded within groups of protesters.

Some signs essentially called for only the government to have firearms.

Of course, the idea that only the government and the military should have access to firearms would not have sat well with the Founders. They feared a government powerful enough to disarm the citizenry and a standing army. That’s why we have the Second Amendment.

Sir Winston Churchill said, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” I suggest those students asking for the repeal of the Second Amendment do a study of the history of countries where only the government has seized firearms from ordinary citizens. That scenario generally does not end well.

On February 6, 2010, I posted an article about the changes being made to the bar glasses in Britain.

This is the article:

The bar glasses had recently been reinvented.  According to the Houston Press, a new shatterproof pint glass is being introduced in the British Pubs.

The article states:

“According to British Home Secretary Alan Johnson, there are about 87,000 of these (glass) attacks every year, some very serious. We even read a story about a bloodbath in a London bar in which 50 pint glasses were smashed in a minute and one person’s eye popped out. Sounds more like a horror movie than a night out at the pub.”

I must admit I live in a very sheltered world–I wasn’t even aware of the problem.  I am glad they have come up with a solution to ‘glass attacks’ at the pub, but it occurs to me that you could still knock a person out with a well-placed hit on the head even if the glass didn’t break.  I’m not sure what the solution to that would be.

The article also points out that the new glass will keep the beer (or ale) cold longer.  Since the British drink their beer at room temperature, I suspect that would be more of an American selling point.  Oh well, I’m glad that some inventor has solved one of life’s problems.  Let me know when someone comes up with an idea of how to prevent the fights in the first place. 

Guns are generally illegal in Britain, so people in bars were fighting with broken bar glasses. Maybe the problem isn’t the weapon.

 

Some Of The Signs Don’t Agree With The Stated Purpose

The rallies held around the country yesterday supposedly had the aim of ending gun violence, but when you looked at some of the signs the protesters carried, you began to wonder what the actual agenda was.

Jazz Shaw at Hot Air posted a few pictures from the “March for Our Lives”:

So what have we here? The march opposed the Second Amendment–an Amendment that actually protects their right to protest–without the Second Amendment it is very unlikely that the right of free speech or the right of assembly would exist. The march blames the GOP for the loss of life due to gun violence. To say that is a stretch is a bit of an understatement. Also, doesn’t that make this a political march? If so, why did schools bus children to various cities to participate? Is that not a use of tax dollars for political purposes? The march targeted the NRA–a group that promotes gun safety. I guess they needed a target–regardless of the validity of targeting that organization.

The true purpose of this march was to register young Democrat voters–the Democratic party is losing voters because of its dramatic shift left. As the party is being taken over by the likes of Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer, the traditional base of the Democratic party is leaving the party. President Trump’s win in 2016 included votes from many of the Democrats who were Reagan Democrats. This is frightening to the party leaders. The two groups currently being used to build up Democratic voters by the party leaders are Hispanic immigrants (legal or illegal) and youth. This march was an example of the lack of knowledge of American history and the U.S. Constitution in our young people. These things are no longer being taught effectively in school. Therefore these young people are easily manipulated through emotion rather than logic. We may be in danger of losing the republic that we know and love if the Democratic party is successful in their goals.

There is some good news. Breitbart reported today:

A report indicates attendance at Saturday’s student march for gun control was approximately 200,000, which is less than half of the expected crowd size.

…But CBS News reports that the actual number of attendees turned out to be about 300,000 lower than Witt expected. They put the number at “202,796” at its peak.

Nevertheless, USA Today reports that march organizers claimed “800,000 protesters attended the gun-control demonstration in Washington, DC, on Saturday.”

Despite what you have heard in the media, hopefully many of our youth are smarter than we give them credit for.