The primary funder of Tucker Carlson’s new website ‘The Daily Caller’ is climate change denier and GOP bankroller Foster Friess, and Carlson has reportedly lined up sponsorship from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Mining Association and Southern Company, all major opponents of meaningful action to curb climate change.
Friess donated $3 million to Carlson’s site, which is run out of an office a “stone’s throw from the White House” by a 21-person staff. ‘The Daily Caller’ is the brainchild (if you can call it that) of Carlson and his college roommate Neil Patel, a former Dick Cheney aide. The site’s opinion editor is former RNC press secretary Moira Bagley, immediately calling into question Carlson’s insistence that ‘The Daily Caller’ won’t cater to the right-wing crowd.
Howard Kurtz reports in today’s Washington Post that “Carlson insists this won’t be a right-wing site” and quotes Carlson saying “We’re not enforcing any kind of ideological orthodoxy on anyone.”
But Kurtz notes that:
When he announced the Daily Caller last spring, Carlson was more explicit about its ideology, telling Human Events the site would be “opposed to what’s going on” under President Obama – “a radical increase in federal power … a version of socialism.”
Kurtz describes Friess as “an investment magnate and a Christian philanthropist” who has donated $689,000 to Republican organizations and the Bush presidential campaigns over the last decade. Friess has “gone hunting with Cheney” (oh boy) and “is a man of many opinions.”
One of those “opinions” is that much of the information on global warming is “distorted and manipulated,” according to Friess.
Josh Nelson over at EnviroKnow has compiled a quick rundown of Friess’s opinions on climate change and a list of recent items from Friess’s blog, such as this gem: “Global Warming a religion?”
Given their sources of funding, won’t it be interesting to hear what Carlson and company have to say when it comes to the subject of climate change?
