Video: 93rd House of Delegates District GOP Nominee Really, REALLY Doesn’t Want to Talk About Her (Extremist) Employer

For those of you not familiar with her, Heather Cordasco is the Republican nominee in the 93rd House of Delegates district (Newport News, James City County, Williamsburg, York County; a 57%-38% Hillary Clinton district), facing off against Del. Mike Mullin (D). As you can see from the video, below, Cordasco really REALLY doesn’t want to talk about the type of work she does at her day job. Note how Cordasco first claims that “we are an investigative think tank,” then says she’s “happy to talk about the campaign,” but that she “wasn’t really here to talk about work.”

And why would Cordasco be reluctant to talk about her day job at the “Capital Research Center?” Check out the video first, then I’ll explain.

So…it turns out there’s very good reason why Cordasco  might be just a weeeeeee bit reluctant to talk about her work (as Philanthropy Officer) for the Capital Research Center.  For instance, Cordasco probably doesn’t see it as political advantageous, especially in a district that went by 19 points for Hillary Clinton last November, to talk about the fact that folks at this far-right organization have said stuff like…

• Environmentalism is (supposedly) a “misanthropic movement” with a “Malthusian hatred of the human species.” (source)
• Climate science is based on “medieval data torture,” kind of like the “Inquisition,” and that (supposedly) “[no] one can prove what role humans have in the Earth’s changing climate.” (source)
• “[L]abor unions and their front groups” (supposedly) have helped bring the “manufacturing industry to its knees,” while minimum wages laws are “foolish,” and there in large part so that “unions can earn more money from their membership dues.” (source)
• The Affordable Care Act – which, I’d remind everyone, was largely based on conservative, market-oriented ideas like the individual mandate, the exchanges, etc., and is very similar to “Romneycare” and the 1993/1994 Republican alternative to “Hillarycare” – is (supposedly) “classic Mussolini-style Fascism,” which “forces Americans at gunpoint to purchase health insurance.” (source)
• Following neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville back in August, the Capital Research Center’s VP wrote that “No one appeared more delighted by the violence than Mayor Signer who promptly used the opportunity to smear President Trump, who obviously had nothing to do with it.” (source)

It goes on and on, but these are just a few insane examples that jumped out at me after perusing the Capital Research Center’s website for a few minutes.

By the way, check out the following mailer from Cordasco, in which she hides her employment by this far-right, extremist group, simply calling it a “Non-Profit,” without further elaboration. Very deceptive/misleading, of course, but after looking at the “Non-Profit”‘s website, one can perhaps understand why Cordasco would be a bit…uh, reticent when it comes to what she does for a living.

In the end, it’s not too surprising that Cordasco wouldn’t want to talk too much about a group whose activities include:

• “[P]roduces a range of publications targeting foundations, unions and activist groups,” including “Labor Watch” (“scrutinises union contributions and activism”) and “Green Watch” (“a project dedicated to ‘monitoring the leadership, activities and funding of the liberal environmentalist movement'”)
• Creates “documentaries” such as “‘America Under Siege’ which ‘investigates the growing influence of revolutionary Marxists and their allies in different sectors of American society,'” and “America Under Siege: Soviet Islam” (don’t ask!).
• Receives “large donations from pro-fossil fuel groups like Exxon and the Koch Family Foundations through its Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation,” also “published a report criticizing the Sierra Club for its work in transitioning the US away from coal plants, portraying it as an attack on ‘American prosperity.'”
• Has close ties to the tobacco industry.
• Refuses to make its own funding public, even as it “claims that exposing the funding of [liberal, labor, environmental, etc.] groups is important because ‘sunshine–the glare of public scrutiny–is ‘the best of all disinfectants.'”

Bottom line: It is now crystal clear why Heather Cordasco desperately doesn’t want to talk about her employer or what she does for said employer, and it’s also crystal clear why everyone in the 93rd House of Delegates district should vote to reelect Del. Mike Mullin on November 7.