Protesters Take On Conservative Retreat

[babylonsister]

Protesters Take On Conservative Retreat
By IAN LOVETT and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: January 30, 2011

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — So much for a quiet little weekend getaway.


Eric Thayer for The New York Times
Protesters in California on Sunday outside a political retreat run by the billionaire Koch brothers.

An invitation-only political retreat for rich conservatives, run out of the spotlight for years by a pair of Kansas billionaires, became a public rallying point for liberal outrage on Sunday, as 11 busloads of protesters converged on a resort in the Southern California desert.

An estimated 800 to 1,000 protesters from a spectrum of liberal groups vented their anger chiefly at Charles and David Koch, brothers who have used many millions of dollars from the energy conglomerate they run in Wichita to finance conservative causes. More than two dozen protesters, camera crews swarming around them, were arrested on trespassing charges when they went onto the resort grounds.

Organizers depicted the Koch brothers as symbols of the “unbridled corporate power” that they maintain was loosed by last year’s Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United campaign finance case, which lifted a ban on corporate spending in elections.

“You don’t very often get a chance to be across the street from a bunch of billionaires who are scheming to do things against our democracy,” said Kathy Clearly, 63, a retired schoolteacher who arrived by bus from Los Angeles and brandished a protest sign at the rally.

The political retreat, held at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa about 130 miles east of Los Angeles, amounted to a victory lap for the Koch brothers, who helped finance conservative candidates in the fall campaigns through their company’s political action committee, which spent $2.5 million, as well as through advocacy groups like Americans for Prosperity.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/us/politics/31koch.html?_r=1&hpw

[ArnoldLayne]

1. I wish we on the left would

do that more often.