How much does a protest march cost? Apparently quite a lot because 17 year old Cameron Kasky has rather quickly organized a March in DC to fight gun rights and so far has raised: $500,000 from Spielberg, $500,000 from Katzenberg, $500,000 from Clooney, $500,000 from Oprah, and upwards of $1 million on a GoFundMe page that has been up for 3-4 days! Quite a haul! All of the donors were heavy weights in the Obama and Clinton camps. Katzenberg came under an SEC investigation that claimed he had bribed Chinese officials with Joe Biden.
Kasky is joined by David Hogg, who has also made himself a personal spokesperson for anti-gun ownership, anti-NRA, anti-Trump. Their solution? Ban all guns.
Kasky set up his Twitter account February 18th. He now has over 78,000 followers. Hogg, about the same, (I imagine – the same followers). Their “Political Organization” (as per their Facebook page) is called March For Our Lives, donations are not tax deductible, they have a Twitter account, a Facebook account, Instagram page and a website. WHEW!
They have utilized the disgraced former DNC Chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz to help promote their campaigns including the upcoming nationwide March 24th protest. They are also supported by Florida Senate member, Lauren Book, who ran unopposed for the District seat because it was a ‘redistricted’, newly created seat. This is her first political experience.
In 2016, Eric Holder and Obama created the National Democratic Redistricting Committee in order to extend the number of potential Democrat seats by the next election given Trump won the majority in the 2016 election. And that wasn’t fair.
Reading the Twitter feeds and Facebook feeds, the commentary demand that anyone whose opinion is not aligned be ‘blocked’. Others claim that anyone who disagrees must be a Russian Troll. And still others believe that everyone is a Bot. One person went so far as to state that freedom of speech was for the government, but didn’t apply to them. OUCH!
While their pain and fear is shared by everyone, their solution is not. And while the publicity is aligned with the students attempting to change gun laws, the laws are not and the facts are not. When lobbying for change, it is best to have truth and facts to support your argument. These students are naïve, but because they are students, they have managed to rally hearts behind them. Statistics? Not so much.
Media outlets have vilified conservatives who challenge some of the oddities in the student organization – the most obvious being the scripted reading by Hogg. However, the idea that a group of underage teen-agers would be in charge of $3,000,000 (and growing) donated via Facebook from highly public democrats is a bit startling… if not wholly lacking in legality. I seriously doubt that Clooney, Oprah or Speilberg would hand over that kind of money without a league of adult lawyers managing it’s use. So obviously, there is much more lurking in the background than we are privy to.
It’s also rather interesting that the March 24th protest was scheduled in DC seemingly without going through the ‘elaborate’ permitting system which requires Homeland Security approval, Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs approval, Metropolitan Police Department approval, Fire Department approval, as well as a sit down to discuss specifics with the police. Who did all that?
In addition, it is common for opposing groups to petition for simultaneous permits, which we have yet to hear about.
George Soros’ Media Matters has taken the student movement to the highest degree of propaganda. The Women’s March organizers are also behind the March 24th protest whose goal was to raise $2 million for the 2017 protest which would pay for porta-potties, security and bus parking. The March For Our Lives is backed and funded by Bloomberg’s, Everytown For Gun Safety, a nonprofit which advocates for gun control. In 2015, their reported revenue was shy of $40 million. According to their 990 for 2016, they spent $1.8 million on actual grants – 4.5%of total revenue, most of which went to three organizations: Mainers For Responsible Gun Ownership, Nevadans for Background Checks, and Oregon Democracy Fund.
Oregon Democracy Fund was created in 2015, has no known website or data. They are a 501©(4) organization which is not considered charitable and may not be written off as a charitable donation, rather they are a business expense registered as a Social Welfare organization. Therefore, Everytown, which is a charitable nonprofit, makes grants to Social Welfare organizations that are not charitable nonprofits, but rather lobbying organizations. Both the Mainers and the Nevadans organizations, also 501(c)(4)’s, are linked back to Bloomberg.
Thus, it would appear that his grant making is simply to support his own lobbying organizations. In addition to the “grants”, Everytown spent roughly $2.4 million on political lobbying and gave funds to politicians.
For Every Season, turn, turn turn… there is always a back story.