Right Flips for Left Cash
Google is almost inarguably the dominant company on the Left. So ensconced are they in the highest of high Left political circles, they basically owned and operated the Barack Obama Administration.
Google and the administration were an incestuous staff revolving door. And Obama, Inc. was an eight-year Pez dispenser of Google-crony policies. Whatever Google wanted – Google got. And Google continues its complete subjugation of the post-Obama Left-Democrats.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump ran against Obama, Inc. – and won. And has set about doing what he said he would do – undoing lots and lots of Obama, Inc. policies. Including the raft of cronyism Google received.
Which has the Left-Democrats and their fellow travelers in the media – freaking out. At Google’s behest, of course. Speaking of the media, how dominant of…everything is Google? They and their Silicon Valley cohorts are paradigm shifting the entirety of the media – even further Left. As sportswriter Jason Whitlock just astutely observed:
“The entire media has moved far left. The media used to cater to New York, the hub for traditional liberal values. Journalists used to be obsessed with working at a New York magazine or newspaper or TV network. Now the entire industry is obsessed with going viral and how words will be received via social media.
“Who determines this? San Francisco/Silicon Valley, the hub for revolutionary, far-left extremism, the home base for Twitter and Facebook. Twitter and Facebook’s employee base is from the area. New York and San Francisco are distinctly different. San Francisco is driving the American media, not New York.
“You have young, microwaved millionaires and billionaires reshaping the American media in a way that reflects San Francisco values. This is a major story the mainstream media ignore. San Francisco hacked the media. Frisco-inspired clickbait is the real fake news.”
Whitlock doesn’t mention Google by name – but he eminently gets their game.
Google has long given lots and lots of coin to lots and lots of Democrats and Leftist outfits. But this is money chasing ideas – dog bites man. The Democrats and the Left were already where Google wanted them – Google’s massive money just prioritized and amplified the Left-Democrats’ efforts on Google’s behalf.
But Google isn’t stupid. They can read the writing on the political wall. And increasingly, that penmanship – belongs to Republicans and the Right.
Thanks to national trends – and the magic of gerrymandering – the House of Representatives looks to be in Republican hands for a generation. And shorter-term, the already-Republican-majority Senate – looks to be getting much more Republican in 2018. Throw in the Republican Trump Administration – and all of Google’s work greasing the Left-Democrats is looking like much ado about increasingly little.
Which is why – nearly a decade ago – Google started greasing the Right-Republicans. And this is where the ideological lines not only blur – they warp and distort. This is man-bites-dog.
This isn’t money chasing ideas – where Google funds people with whom they already agree. This is Google hoping their coin – will shift Right-Republican thinking and actions in their Leftist direction.
Sadly, to varying degrees – it is working. And perhaps the bizarre-est example of this – is California Republican Congressman Darrel Issa. And that bizarre-ness – is embodied in Issa’s patent policy disconnect.
Issa is a private-sector-made multi-millionaire – the richest member of Congress. And he made his millions – thanks to patents, and the protections patents afforded his products: “Issa made most of his fortune in the 1990s while leading Directed Electronics Inc., a Vista-based manufacturer of vehicle antitheft devices that he created. His is the voice of the Viper car alarm system, which warns, ‘Please step away from the car.’”
Issa developed effective, attractive new ways to protect your automobile – and then patented them. Which protected his ideas from thieves. Which is only fair – they’re his ideas, he alone should profit from them. And profit he eminently did.
But now, as a Congressman, Issa is bizarrely leading the charge to undermine the patent protections that rightly made him his uber-millions: “Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the Chair of the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet, struck a defiant tone this morning speaking at the National Press Club. Issa, speaking at Patents in Theory and Practice: Implications for Reform, sponsored by the Technology Policy Institute, explained in no uncertain terms that the patent litigation reforms contained in the Innovation Act will not be watered down, period.”
What does the Innovation Act do? Nigh nothing good: “The Innovation Act is fundamental transformation of the constitutionally-protected patent process, that doesn’t go through the Constitutional amendment process. All under the (intentional or accidental) false flags of ‘litigation reform’ – to deal with ‘patent trolls.’ But ‘patent trolls’ are almost always nothing more than people with patents – defending them against patent thieves. The patent holders usually have to sue to do that, and this ‘litigation reform’ makes it exponentially more difficult for them to do so.”
Why on Earth would patent-multi-millionaire Issa want to do this? Enter Google.
Google is a gigantic thief of all things intellectual property – including patents. It’s why they emplaced as the head of Obama’s Patent and Trademark Office – their very own Michelle Lee. And Google will benefit mightily – should Issa and his Congressional cohorts make it exponentially easier for them to steal said patents.
Not only is Issa pushing Google-crony patent theft legislation – he is the lead advocate of the Trump Administration keeping Google’s Lee in place at the Patent Office. Or even more bizarrely – wanting Trump to promote her to head up the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. An office created by the Obama Administration – and thus far headed up by three consecutive Google exes. Now Issa is pushing for a fourth – in a Trump Administration. That ran on undoing Obama.
Why is Issa engaged in all of this anti-Right-Republican bizarreness? Perhaps it’s this: Google’s newly-formed parent company – is Alphabet. Issa’s #1 top contributor in the 2016 cycle? Alphabet. Issa’s #1 top contributor in pre-Alphabet 2014? Google. Issa’s #2 contributor in 2012? Bet you’ll never guess – oh wait, you did. It was Google.
Google has been uber-funding Issa – from just about the very moment they decided to start funding Right-Republicans.
And it’s paying off handsomely. Issa is almost certainly the biggest Right-Republican advocate of Google’s Leftist policies.
Here’s hoping very few other Right-Republicans fall prey to the Contribution Poisoning to which Issa seems so eminently susceptible.
This first appeared in Red State.