With a group of radical Democrat prosecutors and lawmakers waging war on the free-speech rights of climate skeptics, a new report identifies billionaire “green” crony capitalist Tom Steyer (shown) as the chief financier — and financial beneficiary — of the controversial agenda. According to the report, produced by the non-profit watchdog Energy & Environment Legal Institute, the major Democrat donor has massive investments in the so-called “green” energy industry — a sector that is largely dependent on the government subsidies and regulations justified by increasingly discredited climate alarmism. And so, in an apparent effort to protect his investments and extract even more wealth from the public, the crony billionaire has become the largest campaign donor for either political party, dropping around $100 million just in the last two years alone. The implications of what appears to be massive corruption are huge, with a wide array of Democrats across America implicated in the schemes.
The investigative report, Buying the Democrat Party Lock, Stock and Barrel, exposes the political spending of Steyer, a California billionaire who made a big part of his fortune in coal (and still owns lots overseas). In the 2014 election cycle, the billionaire spent some $75 million to oppose political candidates who would not bow to his extreme “green” agenda and help enrich him. In 2016, after a dismal track record in the midterm elections, Steyer reportedly spent about $25 million directly backing alarmist Democrats. And he is apparently plotting to spend yet another $50 million on politicians this year to buy even more support — in addition to another $50 million he plans to raise from fellow crony capitalists seeking to buy themselves more political power and subsidies. The litmus test for politicians who want Steyer’s money is whether or not they support global-warming alarmism and the associated policies that will enrich him.
Among other victories secured so far by Steyer and his political funding: support among Democrats at the state and federal level for tax-funded subsidies to industries he is invested in. On top of that, Steyer is also apparently linked to the ongoing jihad waged by state prosecutors against climate skeptics — an attack on fundamental liberties that some experts have described as a “criminal conspiracy” to deprive Americans of their rights. In a short video released the day after the report, E&E Legal outlined how the billionaire was spending money in an apparent bid to have “law enforcement” officials shut down dissenters by abusing the legal system. “Steyer’s actions are an assault on our First Amendment and our representative form of government — all in order to benefit himself,” the narrator says after outlining the extremism pushed by Steyer and his minions.
The assault on rights enshrined in the First Amendment, which has been chronicled in these pages, is particularly egregious. “Free speech is one of the most sacred rights we as Americans possess, and the Founding Fathers sought various ways to protect it, most significantly with the First Amendment,” said David Schnare, E&E legal general counsel. “The fact that Tom Steyer not only seeks to buy elections for his personal gain but is actually trying to bankroll efforts to attack freedom of speech is beyond reprehensible, it’s un-American.”
Numerous others — including prominent global-warming alarmists — have also blasted the effort to prosecute climate skeptics. Conservative AGs, meanwhile, have lambasted their extremist counterparts for the witch-hunt. In a letter, the GOP prosecutors warned that if “minimizing” the alleged threat of alleged man-made global warming is “fraud,” then so is exaggerating the alleged threat. And unfortunately for alarmists, mountains of evidence, including the leaked “ClimateGate” e-mails, point to brazen fraud by the alarmists.
According to the report, Steyer is also trying to eliminate his business competitors using government. “He uses donations to environmental groups, candidates and political parties to spread the word,” E&E Legal explained, adding that the $74 million he spent in 2014 fell flat. Eventually, he switched tactics, going to the White House and the EPA in a bid to get state governments to support a war on (domestic) coal. He has also made funding for Senate Democrats contingent on adopting his extremist “climate” and “clean” energy agenda. And he started funding the Democratic National Committee directly. Much of the information on his activities came from documents obtained using public records laws. “The uncovered emails not only reveal Steyer’s vast influence over the climate change movement, but more importantly, his willingness to ignore the Constitution, trampling representative government and shutting down free speech,” the report said.
Apparently Steyer was even able to purchase some planks in the Democrat Party Platform, which was drafted by a committee that included numerous well-documented communists, socialists, and other extremists. Instead of an “all of the above” approach to energy sources to power America, for example, the new Democrat Platform calls for the nation to be run entirely on government-approved forms of “clean energy” within the next few decades — with “clean” meaning basically whatever Steyer has invested in. Within 10 years, sounding more like a Soviet economic plan, the platform says 50 percent of U.S. energy must come from “clean” sources (in which Steyer has invested, of course); as if CO2, known as the gas of life and exhaled by every person on Earth, was somehow “dirty.”
Such extremism in the platform of one of America’s major political parties might be good news to crony billionaires like Steyer, who stand to make a fortune on government-dependent “green” investments. But for Americans, who will pay drastically higher bills in addition to suffering from a crippled economy and an exodus of jobs to nations where Steyer has coal investments, the price tag will be enormous. More than two thirds of America’s energy today comes from cheap, economically viable sources such as coal and natural gas that Steyer and his agents in government want to abolish — at least for Americans.
It turns out, though, that, in other countries, at least, Steyer is heavily invested in fossil fuels and even coal, exposing him to criticism for his hypocrisy and raising questions about his supposed belief in CO2 as “pollution” in need of regulation. “Over the past 15 years, Mr. Steyer’s fund, Farallon Capital Management, has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into companies that operate coal mines and coal-fired power plants from Indonesia to China,” the New York Times reported, citing records and interviews.
On top of language that would protect Steyer’s huge investments in tax-subsidized solar and wind energy, the Democrat Platform also calls on the federal government to persecute those who expose the man-made global-warming theory and the alarmist movement more broadly. As The New American has documented extensively, the lawless war against climate skeptics and realists has become increasingly extreme. Indeed, under the guise of investigating “fraud,” a coalition of far-left attorneys general has even been abusing the legal system to persecute non-profit groups that have discredited the global-warming theories and the alarmism associated with them. The prosecutors, styling themselves “AGs United for Clean Power,” have been exposed working with Rockefeller-funded extremists, too. And now, their entire scheme seems to be blowing up in their faces as they face congressional investigations and potential civil and criminal prosecution.
Steyer, though, was proud of his work buying a plank in the Democrat political platform and getting his extreme agenda adopted as official policy. “If you look at 2016 and the platform that we’ve agreed on, it is a quantum leap forward from four years ago,” he boasted from Philadelphia this week in an interview with Bloomberg, the far-left “news” outlet controlled by another alarmist billionaire dedicated to, among other extremism, disarming Americans in violation of the Second Amendment. “I think we have the most progressive environmental platform in the history of the Democratic Party.” He did not mention how much richer he would progressively get if the extreme platform were actually implemented.
But as the DNC wraps up amid a non-stop stream of mega-scandals and the potential implosion of the party, the latest evidence of systematic corruption outlined in the new report is likely to add fuel to the fire. Indeed, grassroots activists are already turning their backs on the corrupt party establishment — and especially on the crony capitalist billionaires trying to buy the party. “The Democrat Convention began amid the stench of political corruption revealed by the WikiLeaks released e-mails, and Steyer’s purchasing of a Democrat platform plank to shut his critics up is just another chapter in an ugly and out-of-control system,” E&E Legal Executive Director Craig Richardson said in a statement. “It’s no wonder Americans are fed up with the entire process, particularly crony capitalism’s intersection with electoral politics, and they are demanding authentic change.”
Of course, it is hardly the first time that billionaire crony capitalists have been exposed pushing the “climate” agenda and other “green” schemes to benefit themselves. Indeed, a 2014 report from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee revealed the existence of a shadowy network described by lawmakers as the “Billionaires Club” that has been showering funds on the environmentalist “green movement” for years. Among other concerns, the Senate report said the secretive Billionaires Club might be violating federal laws in its controversial efforts to get its own agents elected to political office, seize control of the federal regulatory regime, and push a radical agenda on America. Now that the Billionaires Club has purchased so much power, it is using its agents in the bureaucracy to further fleece taxpayers to advance its own goals by granting its front groups even more money, the Senate investigators found. Top insiders such as David Rockefeller, George Soros, and Bill Gates are deeply involved.
Despite the best efforts of crony capitalists and establishment insiders, though, surveys show the vast majority of Americans do not even believe the man-made global-warming theory — much less the ridiculous “solutions” being pushed for the non-problem. The United Nations “climate” regime is also falling apart before it even goes into effect. While bad news for Democrats and the investment portfolios of establishment billionaires like Steyer and mega-banks like Goldman Sachs, that is all good news for Americans and humanity. But efforts to expose climate alarmism and the agenda behind it must continue. Crony billionaires like Steyer and the broader establishment have a great deal invested in the agenda, and so, a great deal is at stake. Still, the truth is an extremely powerful weapon — and it stands on its own without the need to spend billions buying politicians. That means everyday Americans without billions to buy politicians can still win this fight.
Photo of Tom Steyer: AP Images
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, environment, politics, education, and more. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU.
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