I predicted about 15 years ago, while speaking on a panel sponsored by Durham’s Human Relations Commission, that political disagreements, meaning anyone who disagreed with “progressives,” would soon be labeled racist and classified as hate crimes. The audience and the other panelists (I was the only conservative in the room) scoffed.

They can scoff no more. My prediction has come true. The Center for American Progress, the George Soros-funded group headed by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta (who has always reminded me of the Tom Courtenay character Pasha in “Dr. Zhivago” for his revolutionary zeal) now finds that Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries are, well, hateful:

And what do they hate? The “progressive agenda.” The Kochs, according to Podesta’s group, are “responsible for a vicious attack campaign aimed directly at obstructing and killing progressive reform.” First, they opposed the stimulus, financing “television and radio ads deriding the recovery package as simply ‘pork’ spending.” Imagine that! Then, through the group Americans for Prosperity, they helped organize some of the first “Tea Party” protests.

From there, it was on to stopping environmental cap-and-trade legislation. According to the Center, the Kochs have helped fund “an underhanded campaign to falsely charge that a set of hacked e-mails somehow unravels the scientific consensus that global warming is occurring.” In addition, Americans for Prosperity has run ads “mocking environmentalists as spoiled brats concerned about their ‘three homes and five cars’ than about economic conditions.”

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