Tucker Carlson and the Battle for Freedom

After years of attacks on Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and recently Laura Ingraham, the targeting of Tucker Carlson has become the tipping point for push back. The push back comes in the form of an organization calling itself “Stand With Tucker,”, and it can be found here.

The group was started by Larry Ward, who has been in the political advertising business for twenty years, with a focus on digital and social media. Ward has already been long involved in fighting the left-wing tech giants of Silicon Valley, notably with Facebook.

The site posted by Ward and his conservative coalition says among other things, this:

Enough! We have had enough of the hateful, well-funded and orchestrated smear campaigns designed to silence conservative voices. Tucker Carlson is the latest target of Media Matters and the Soros left. We must fight back. Sign this petition urging Fox News and Tucker Carlson Tonight advertisers including Lexus, Jaguar, Pacific Life, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Sheex who have pulled ads according to the LA Times, to stand for free speech.

In an accompanying press release the group headlines:

Conservative Coalition Forms to Stand with Tucker Carlson; Rebuke Media Matters 

The release begins:

Washington, D.C. — A large and growing conservative coalition composed of organizations, PAC’s and media personalities has formed to emphatically rebuke the efforts of Media Matters to stoke the flames of the liberal mob in order to silence and deplatform Tucker Carlson. The Stand with Tucker campaign is designed to confront Media Matters’s attempt to shut down Tucker Carlson Tonight and purge voices on the right.

We have written a number of times of Media Matters in this space, discussing its fascist-style move to silence conservative media while being repeatedly flagged for a visceral anti-Semitism and flat out bigotry.

A list of prominent conservatives have signed on to support Stand with Tucker, with statements of support attached.

There was a tweet from Donald Trump Jr. saying: “This is how to handle the outrage mob. Remember, even the most sincere apology means nothing to them. They want to break and ruin you. That’s their end goal.”

Others include:

Ed Rollins, the former Reagan campaign manager and current Chairman of the Great America PAC. Said Rollins:

“Tucker Carlson is a gentleman, a great American, a devoted family man, an intellectual whose voice needs to be heard. Oh and he’s also a thinking conservative and thought leader which is why the liberals want to shut him down.” 

James O’Keefe, Founder of Project Veritas, said:

“Our broken and corrupt media deserve no apologies. If we can’t trust their reporting why should we trust their outrage? Tell them to pound sand.”

Former Georgia Congressman Paul Broun said:

“Tucker Carlson is the most reasonable voice on television today. All Americans should Stand with Tucker.” 

Amy Kremer, Women Vote Trump, said:

“I may not always agree with everything that Tucker says, or has said in the past, I support his strong conservative voice. He is not a follower of group think and that is something I respect. I’m sick of the mob mentality where if you don’t fall in line, they are out to destroy you. This is America and if we disagree, then agree to disagree and stop trying to destroy those who don’t agree. This is nothing more than a Media Matters hit job to take down a conservative voice. If we don’t stand strong, they will take us down one by one. I stand with Tucker Carlson and will never bow to the mob.” 

Ed Martin, Chairman of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle PAC, said:

“Tucker Carlson is an effective and broadly heard voice for conservative values on so many issues that matter to America right now. Conservatives must not play the liberal game and fall for drummed up politically correct frenzies. Stand with Tucker.”

And then there is this from the man who got the pushback rolling:

Larry Ward, Organizer of the Stand with Tucker Coalition and the President of Constitutional Rights PAC, said:

“Don’t forget the disturbing intimidation tactics by Antifa protestors surrounding Tucker Carlson’s home terrorizing his family, chanting, ‘Tucker Carlson, we will fight. We know where you sleep at night.’ Media Matters is Antifa with a bigger budget.”

Well said. “Antifa with a bigger budget” is an excellent description. There were more notable conservatives as well who are listed on the website.

I spoke to organizer Larry Ward, who informs that Tucker Carlson himself had no knowledge of the formation of the group. Ward also said that the group’s petition had quickly gained over 50,000 signatures with more pouring in.

Particularly interesting was Ward’s observation about what he calls the political “weaponizing” of corporations against conservatives. Comparing it to the Obama administration’s weaponizing of government bureaucracies like the IRS and the FBI to target perceived Obama and liberal “enemies” (like Donald Trump), Ward points to the role of liberal corporate executives in a war against not only Tucker Carlson but Fox News and conservative media figures at large. They are no longer about, as it were, selling soap. They are about using soap — whatever their product may be — to silence conservatives. He specifically refers to what he calls “Liberal Sleeper Cells” in corporate America. Ward’s point is that the lefties in Media Matters collude with the lefties inside corporation A or B and — voilà! — a conservative in the media somewhere is now the target of the moment, replete with a campaign to silence them.

And indeed, while I had not used Ward’s term of art, in fact “Liberal Sleeper Cells” were exactly what I have found in the corporate attacks on Tucker Carlson.

As I noted previously in this space the use of the Red Lobster seafood chain is exactly in this manner. The company, owned by a San Francisco firm called Golden Gate Capital, is in fact run by a number of executives who were financial backers of Hillary Clinton. As I noted, Golden Gate Co-Founder and Managing Director David Dominik made contributions to the Hillary Victory Fund, the Democratic National Committee, Hillary for America, and the Hillary Action Fund, including a “whopping $272,600 in just one month — September of 2016 — according to FEC records.” Others at Golden Gate playing this game of political weaponizing with a seafood restaurant included:

• Golden Gate Managing Director Rishi Chandna, a repeated contributor (totaling over $10,000) to Hillary Clinton 2016 running mate Tim Kaine in Kaine’s 2018 re-election race.
• Golden Gate Managing Director Felix Lo, also a repeat Hillary Clinton contributor to the tune of $5,400 in 2016.
• Golden Gate Managing Director Joshua Olshansky, a Hillary Clinton and DNC contributor in the amount of $50,000 in 2016.
• Golden Gate Managing Director Jim Rauh totaled $50,000 to Clinton committees and the DNC.

Then there was the insurance company Pacific Life, which also pulled its ads from Tucker Carlson Tonight. Pacific Life is mentioned in Ward’s Stand with Tucker release, and I noted previously that in reality Pacific Life “is in the decidedly political business of supporting the American Left.” Of note, I discovered this as the Democrats prepared to enter the new Congress in December of 2018:

In the last election cycle alone of 2017-2018, Pacific Life’s PAC has given beaucoup bucks to the following Democrats:

Incoming Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — $2500

Incoming Democrat House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — $5500

Incoming Democrat House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff — $1000

Defeated Indiana Democrat Senator Joe Donnelly — $2000

Defeated Missouri Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill — $4000

Defeated Florida Democrat Senator Bill Nelson — $2000

Recently, at the CPAC gathering of the other week, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre spoke a version of exactly what Larry Ward is talking about — the political weaponizing of corporations. Among other things, LaPierre spoke of the efforts of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to use corporations — in this instance banks and insurance companies — to effectively silence the NRA. Writing at NewsBusters, I quoted from LaPierre’s speech:

“By using his power over Wall Street to starve the National Rifle Association of funds.… At the Governor’s direction, New York’s banking regulator sent letters to the CEO of every bank and every insurance company doing business in the state of New York. The letters urged those institutions to blacklist Second Amendment groups, especially the National Rifle Association. To deny us bank accounts, to block NRA members from purchasing affinity insurance — including health insurance for their families. To prevent us from purchasing ads on the airwaves, and to suffocate Second Amendment speech by choking off the funds that make free speech possible. That’s Governor Cuomo’s goal. 

“To achieve it, the Governor didn’t just threaten companies. He went out and acted. New York started to punish companies that did business with the National Rifle Association. The State imposed multi-million dollar penalties, and forced several of our business partners to abandon us.”

Taken all together, to Stand with Tucker is not just about standing with Tucker. It is about standing up for freedom.

Combine the following:

• assaults on Fox News and its individual anchors by Media Matters and various corporations
• the drive to get Rush Limbaugh off the air
• the use of the FBI and CIA to target the Trump campaign
• the move to impeach President Trump
• the climate change movement
• the Cuomo use of banks and insurance companies to shut down the NRA
• the move to eliminate the Electoral College
• the move to pack the Supreme Court
• the physical assaults not only on Tucker Carlson’s home but various conservatives on college campuses — like this vicious attackon conservative Hayden Williams at Berkeley
• the drive for massive illegal immigration through open borders
• the drive to limit the amount of income that can be earned through massive taxation schemes
• the move for single payer, socialized medicine

These and so much more are not merely a drive to silence conservatives. They are different fronts in what has become a battle for freedom itself. They are about power —control — by the American Left over every single American in every aspect of their life.

What Larry Ward and his Stand with Tucker campaign have done is to fight back — to fully engage conservatives in what is becoming a titanic struggle to preserve the God given freedoms that has made America a beacon of hope in the history of the world.

For which Ward and his growing legions should be congratulated.

https://spectator.org/tucker-carlson-and-the-battle-for-freedom/