Meet Gara LaMarche, ‘Head of Lefties’ Koch Network’

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Gara LaMarche


BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
July 23, 2014 12:51 pm
Gara LaMarche is the “militant leftist philanthropist” that has quietly “affected you, your statehouses, your businesses, and your freedom,” according to a profile of the head of the Democracy Alliance by Michelle Malkin in National Review.

LaMarche “funnels billions of dollars from undisclosed donors to nonprofits and astroturf groups” through the secretive progressive Democracy Alliance, but you don’t hear his name on the Senate floor during Harry Reid’s (D., Nev.) rants about dark money in politics.

Here’s why: LaMarche is a militant leftist philanthropist. He’s a protected elite — Columbia University grad, former ACLU leader and Human Rights Watch official — with ready access to the White House. He and the Left’s other dark-money managers preach transparency and openness while plotting behind closed doors to secure power at every level of government.

LaMarche currently heads the shadowy Democracy Alliance (DA). In internal documents obtained and published this month by John Hinderaker of the Power Line blog, the group currently describes itself as the “center of gravity” for the progressive funding world. DA enrolls wealthy liberal “members” who coordinate and finance a web of at least 132 left-wing groups. Though some of their members’ and partners’ identities have been exposed, DA takes great care to promise a cloak of donor secrecy “to provide a comfortable environment for our partners to collectively make a real impact.”

While they bash Wall Street publicly, DA leaders have quietly recruited venture capitalists, bankers, and hedge-fund moguls — along with union bosses and red-diaper trust-fund babies — to fund their takeover goals. Public-school educators who belong to the American Federation of Teachers, headed by $500,000-plus yearly salaried President Randi Weingarten, should know that $230,000 of their hard-earned union dues go to DA, as Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon has reported.

While they bemoan “income inequality,” the DA brass has wined, dined, and wooed 1-percenter plutocrats with swanky get-togethers featuring New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, Kentucky secretary of state and Democratic Senate candidate Alison Grimes, and popular “comediennes” Stephanie Miller and Lizz Winstead.

http://freebeacon.com/politics/meet-gara-lamarche-head-of-lefties-koch-network/