tagged w/ GOP Propaganda
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Interesting article for your consumption!
Untangling the hairball of right-wing non-profits is a job worthy of the DuPont family genealogist. First cousins, second cousins, intermarrying, charities that aren't really charitable, you name it, you'll find it in the dark recesses of the back pages of federal disclosures. But if you look long enough, and take the time to get to know the various families and their incestuous patterns, a picture emerges. If I had Glenn Beck's blackboard I might be able to even illustrate it, but since I don't, I'll just use pictures.
Up to now, most of the focus on funding has been on Koch Industries, and rightly so. You should all download and read this comprehensive report by the Center for American Progress. It gives a great high-level overview of their political and business dealings.
But the Koch family is only one of several just like them. They're not on the Dow Jones exchange, and if you aren't living in their state or within their direct sphere of influence, you won't really be aware of what they're doing. There's no better state to begin to shed light on them than Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, the descendants and keepers of the Bradley Brothers' legacy - Lynde and Harry - are who you need to know if you want to get ahead in state and/or national conservative politics.
Wisconsin's Conservative Powerhouse
A 2004 report prepared by the National Committee on Responsible Philanthropy (NCRP) about the conservative funding network ranked the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation second on their list of top conservative funders, with the Sarah Scaife Foundation at the top. That was 2004. Like Fred Koch, Harry Bradley was a founding member of the John Birch Society. The asset value of the Bradley Foundation skyrocketed after the Allen-Bradley Co. was sold to Rockwell International Corp. in 1985. The report also notes that Wisconsin was third in a list of top recipient states for conservative philanthropy.
Bradley Foundation Grants
The 2004 NCRP report listed total foundation grants from 1999-2001 as $38,858,118. For the years 2007-2009, total Bradley Foundation grants were $98,154,552, a 252% increase.
The president of the Bradley Foundation is Michael Grebe. From the NCRP report:
Grebe views Milwaukee as a "laboratory" in which it generates and funds various public policy programs that ultimately serve as models for national programs. School choice and welfare reform have been longstanding issues of interest to the Bradley Foundation, and its work on these issues began at the local level but continues at the state and national levels.
Specific grants support that claim. The Bradley Foundation is one of the biggest donors to the State Policy Network, which funds and creates state-based think tanks to influence policy. The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute received a grant of $400,000 in 2009 and another $1,075,000 in 2010, earmarked for "a project on Wisconsin policymaking." In 2009, the Employment Policies Institute received $250,000 with a follow-up payment in 2010 of $750,000. The Employment Policies Institute is currently active in the area of opposing minimum wage laws, among other things. Donors' Trust received $500,000 in 2009 to support the "Health Freedom Fund". Most notably in the context of current Wisconsin politics, the Center for Union Facts has received $1,250,000 from 2007-2009 from the foundation for "public education programs." The Center for Union Facts is responsible for spreading the false claim that public employees earn more than private employees, attacks on public school teachers, and other anti-union talking points and public relations. It is a Rick Berman production. Berman is a favorite front guy for astroturf groups funded by the Bradley Foundation and others, including the Walmart dynasty.
For the rest of the story, go to the link provided:Interesting article for your consumption!
Untangling the hairball of right-wing... more
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Conservative commentator Ann Coulter shrugged off a few hecklers and took aim at liberals and President Barack Obama during her University of Wyoming speech intended to counterbalance an appearance at the school last year by a former 1960s radical.Conservative commentator Ann Coulter shrugged off a few hecklers and took aim at... more
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2 years ago
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The Cleveland Leader has a series of posts tracking the Obama campaign’s lies and evasions about the candidate’s long history of connections with ACORN, and their attempts to quietly edit the Obama website as more information leaks out: Obama Campaign Involved in More Cover-Ups in ACORN Scandal.
Wikileaks.org has an article from the Winter 2003 edition of the magazine Social Policy (whose website has gone offline sometime in the past few days), making it very clear that Barack Obama’s ties to ACORN are extensive.
Acorn's Social Policy mangazine noted,
Obama started building the base years before. For instance, ACORN noticed him when he was organizing on the far south side of the city with the Developing Communities Project. He was a very good organizer. When he returned from law school, we asked him to help us with a lawsuit to challenge the state of Illinois’ refusal to abide by the National Voting Rights Act, also known as motor voter. Allied only with the state of Mississippi, Illinois had been refusing to allow mass-based voter registration according to the new law. Obama took the case, known as ACORN vs. Edgar (the name of the Republican governor at the time) and we won. Obama then went on to run a voter registration project with Project VOTE in 1992 that made it possible for Carol Moseley Braun to win the Senate that year. Project VOTE delivered 50,000 newly registered voters in that campaign (ACORN delivered about 5000 of them).
Since then, we have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office. Thus it was natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for STate Senate and then his failed bid for U.S. Congress in 1996. By the time he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends.
The Cleveland Leader has a series of posts tracking the Obama campaign’s lies... more
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dbe928
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4 years ago
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