Accuracy in Media notes:
“Aspen (Institute) is one vehicle whereby left-wing billionaires like George Soros work to influence politicians on Capitol...
Trey Grayson is currently Kentucky’s secretary of state. Under the law, this makes him the chairman of Kentucky’s board of elections. Considering that Grayson is running for Senate, it makes sense that he should not be involved in overseeing the vote counts for this particular race. However, when asked by one of his opponents if he was willing to refrain from supervising his own election results, the Trey Grayson campaign had the following reply:
“Secretary Grayson is a national leader in elections reform who has received broad, bipartisan support for his commonsense ideas that make our elections more secure, more accessible, and more honest. This political request is absurd and blatantly self-serving.”
Instead of recognizing the conflict of interest and giving an evenhanded response, the Grayson campaign came off looking caustic and arrogant. This was a reasonable request, and Trey should have done the honorable thing and recused himself from overseeing his election results.
Since the launch of this site, we have been bombarded with emails thanking us for the information. Here are some of the highlights (posted with permission):
“Thanks for the website. I always look for the truth about candidates before supporting them.” – Bert
“I respect Trey Grayson on a personal level, but his connections to left wing groups makes me very worried about his ideology.” – Samantha
“The information on your site made me realize one thing! Trey Grayson is not a conservative!” – Richard
Always feel free to contact us with comments, questions, and content submissions at the following email:
Trey Grayson has a history of receiving an alarming percentage of PAC donations. Here is the most recent data for the 2010 election cycle:
As you can see, 13% of Trey Grayson’s donations come from PACs. Contrast this with his Republican primary opponent, Rand Paul:
Even the democratic candidates, Jack Conway and Daniel Mongiardo, received only 3% and 1% of their donations from PACS, respectively.
The high percentage of PAC donations to Trey Grayson’s campaign are not the only troubling aspect of his fundraising, however. The following graph breaks down the contributions Trey received in his 2007 campaign for Secretary of State:
The category “Lawyers and Lobbyists” has consistently been Trey’s top contribution category.
On September 23rd 2009, a large group of Senators and political insiders held a $500 per plate fundraiser in Washington DC for Trey Grayson. This event featured seventeen Senators who voted in favor of the TARP Banker Bailout. Read more
List of 23 Senators and their bank bailout votes.
10/01/08 Vote on Financial Bailout Bill
(S. Amdt. 5685 to H.R. 1424)
Despite this “Bailout Ball” fundraiser, Trey Grayson continued to slip in the polls, and a WHAS-TV/Survey USA poll showed him behind his Republican opponent. However, the establishment insiders proved they were not willing to give up on their handpicked candidate. In November, more political heavyweights along with Pfizer PAC came to bat for Trey for two consecutive fundraisers:
It is very suspicious that these members of the political establishment feel they need to go out of their way to get involved in a highly contested GOP primary in order to fund Trey Grayson’s campaign. It leads one to believe that Trey will represent the ruling class rather than the voters if he is elected.
Published: January 31, 2008Posted in: Environmentalism, Featured, Liberal, Trey Grayson, Van JonesTags:Environmentalism, Van Jones
Trey Grayson showed his connections to the leftist “global warming” alarmists by giving a keynote speech on the issue last year at Eastern Kentucky University as part of the National Focus the Nation event.
“Focus the Nation” is a radical green group that supports the progressive agenda and opposes Kentucky’s coal industry. Additionally, the group is closely associated with self-proclaimed communist Anthony Van Jones. If you don’t recall, Van Jones was the former Green Jobs Czar for President Obama. He had to resign when the media confronted the White House about his radical past.
This group has shown strong support for such harmful initiatives as Cap and Trade legislation, which would raise energy prices for all Americans, and especially hurt Kentuckians. FreedomKentucky outlines some of the disastrous impacts Cap and Trade would have on the Kentucky coal industry:
Over 95 percent of Kentucky’s electricity comes from coal generated power plants. Kentucky is third in the nation in coal production, generating over $3 billion in sales and hundreds of millions in tax revenue. The Kentucky coal industry employs more than 15,000 people.
The “cap and trade” provision will not only devastate the coalfield communities in eastern and western Kentucky, it will destroy large segments of Kentucky’s manufacturing base, particularly energy intensive industries like steel and aluminum.
Kentucky currently produces 30 percent of our nation’s steel and aluminum. Together, these industries employ thousands of Kentuckians in communities like Ashland, Russellville, Sebree, Hawesville and Lewisport. The energy tax in the “cap and trade” provision will significantly increase the cost of producing steel and aluminum, putting our companies at a severe competitive disadvantage compared to their competitors in other countries.
High-end estimates suggest that Cap and Trade will cost the average Kentuckian an extra $1000 a year on their utility bills. This increase in cost may come to Kentuckians when they are already boiling over with the consequences of a weak economy and are least able to condone an attack on the Coal industry, the state’s backbone.
While a Cap and Trade battle in Congress may or may not materialize; the EPA has reported that they may consider going around Congress via regulatory statute in the Clean Air Act.
Trey Grayson’s association with this radical environmentalist group is extremely disturbing.
“Aspen (Institute) is one vehicle whereby left-wing billionaires like George Soros work to influence politicians on Capitol Hill by bringing them to luxurious places, hotels and resorts, and listening to mostly liberal and left-wing speakers.” Read More
Trey Grayson received a fellowship from the left-wing Aspen Institute, which is largely funded by George Soros. The institute emphasizes a commitment to “bipartisanship,” so Grayson’s receiving of this award was not surprising considering his support for the candidacy of Bill Clinton.
Further demonstrating the leftist viewpoints of this institute, Aspen has also rewarded Anthony Van Jones for his work in the “green movement.” Van Jones was the former Green Jobs Czar for the Obama administration who was forced to resign after the media discovered his radical ideologies. He is a self-avowed communist who has ties to Marxism and black nationalism. Check out this clip from “Fox and Friends” (select transcript below).
BRIAN KILMEADE, co-host, “Fox and Friends”: Phil, we have a czar, he’s a green jobs czar, he’s Van Jones, he’s got a deep history in communism.
PHIL KERPEN, AFP Policy Director: He does. He has a very checkered past. This is somebody who was involved in radical politics out in San Francisco, California. He was arrested during a demonstration/riot following the Rodney King verdict. And he said himself that he was radicalized in jail, that he found communism and anarchism. And then he started a pretty radical, kind of communist, socialist, utopian group that was supposed to end all racism though central planning. And then he decided that the real path the sort of progressive nirvana, was the this green jobs idea. I think its pretty instructive what his past is, I am not just trying to smear the guy, but I think it’s the same sort of philosophy, the idea that government ought to be reordering society in accordance with some utopian vision that failed with communism and socialism, and will fail with this green jobs idea. We are imposing a top-down vision.
GRETCHEN CARLSON, co-host: And more importantly for America Phil, is the fact that we already have an Energy Secretary, who by the way had to go through Congress to be approved. And the reason that these czars, you don’t know anything about them, is because they don’t have to go through that process. [Read more]
This is not the first time Trey has been associated with Van Jones and radical left-wing organizations, as outlined in Trey’s Environmentalist Ties. It is troubling that any Senate Candidate would maintain such associations.
Demonstrating that he retains some of his liberal ideologies as a former Clinton supporter, Trey Grayson joined Democrat Jonathan Miller to co-found the “Cradle-to-College” commission. The name itself suggests a commitment to the Nanny State, an overbearing government powerhouse that pretends it can take care of children better than their parents can, from “cradle to grave.”
Trey Grayson and his liberal colleague formed Cradle-to-College as a socialist scheme that uses wealth redistribution to set up college funds for newborn children. This program is very similar to current efforts by the Obama administration and the Democratic congress to extend healthcare to all Americans through the force of government. However, instead of promising “universal, affordable healthcare,” Trey Grayson’s liberal initiative seeks to extend all students the opportunity to attend college.
While Trey Grayson and his liberal associates may have good intentions in setting up this program, like government-run healthcare it is extremely flawed. By using taxation to provide each student with a “free” education, this scheme eliminates the market-based incentives that would otherwise make college more affordable and of higher quality. When universities feel they are guaranteed to receive government-sponsored aid, they no longer have the incentive to drive prices down.
The other disturbing element of Trey Grayson’s college plan is that it requires each student to perform community service in order to “cash in” on his or her college account. While participating in community or military service is undoubtedly something to be commended, problems arise when government requires these services in exchange for money that is extracted from the people in the first place. That is, some people such as Rahm Emanuel are looking to create a big-government program in the form of “universal, citizen service.” He outlines his idea in the following video:
America prospers when individuals have their God-given rights of life, liberty, and property protected. If Trey Grayson was truly a conservative, he would emphasize the values of free markets, low taxes, and personal responsibility. A better approach to his government program would be to reduce taxes for all Kentuckians and remove government intereference from the college market. This way, families would be able to keep more of their own money, and colleges would be forced to compete for tuition. Additionally, the values of service to the local community and the country should be voluntary actions made by free Americans.
Conservatives should demand that Trey Grayson stands up for the values of limited-government, free markets, and personal responsibility instead of proposing more government programs in the name of bipartisanship.
Many are wondering which of Bill Clinton’s political positions attracted Trey Grayson to his candidacy in 1992. His campaign promised initiatives such as more government control of healthcare, abortions on demand, and gay rights legislation. Nonetheless, Trey registered as a Democrat and actively supported the Clinton campaign.
Why, then, did he suddenly decide to become a Republican? We can speculate that he transfered to the GOP as an ambitious career move after southern Democrats suffered major defeat in the 1994 elections. After all, Trey Grayson said, “Now would be a good time to be a Republican” when kicking off his campaign.
Reader Feedback
Since the launch of this site, we have been bombarded with emails thanking us for the information. Here are some of the highlights (posted with permission):
“Thanks for the website. I always look for the truth about candidates before supporting them.” – Bert
“I respect Trey Grayson on a personal level, but his connections to left wing groups makes me very worried about his ideology.” – Samantha
“The information on your site made me realize one thing! Trey Grayson is not a conservative!” – Richard
Always feel free to contact us with comments, questions, and content submissions at the following email:
contact@treygrayson.info
In other news, our website has reached the front page of Google for searches for “Trey Grayson.” See for yourself.
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