Written by Professor John J. Tierney of the Institute of World Politics, it’s titled, “The New Internationalism: Peace and Security Funders Group.”
The Peace and Security Funders Group (PSFG) is a liberal internationalist coalition of U.S. donors who believe the best way to prevent wars, constrain rogue nations, and prevent the spread of nuclear weapons is to let international laws and organizations set the terms of world peace.
The umbrella group, whose listed supporters claim to have assets exceeding $25 billion, aims to entangle the U.S. government in a process of international negotiation to create a new global legal regime. It would likely limit U.S. sovereignty and replace a strong national defense with endless rounds of international rulemaking and consensus-building.
President Obama’s new “green jobs” czar Van Jones, an avowed militant communist, had been on the board of the pressure group Apollo Alliance, which aspires to flatten the U.S. economy by having government fund “green jobs” scams, according to the “Glenn Beck Program” earlier this week.
Even worse, the green gangster group, which has ties to ACORN, SEIU, and Center for American Progress president John Podesta, has significant pull in Congress and helped to write the stimulus bill.
The Apollo Alliance “is designed to bring together the elements of organized labor with the community organizers with the green groups, the environmental groups, and to access all of the big foundation money that’s been supportive of those causes in the past,” explained Phil Kerpen, director of policy for Americans for Prosperity.
Jones described the group’s “mission as sort of a grand unified field theory for progressive left causes; it ties all these things together,” Kerpen said. He added
They really admire the Apollo mission, the moon-shot mission, and they think that we need a similar centrally-planned, organized massive mobilization to reorder society and take control of energy and their various other objectives. They admire that and they want it like a moon shot.
Beck asked if Wade Rathke, the disgraced founder of ACORN who was expelled by the radical left-wing group last year for covering up his brother’s embezzlement of nearly $1 million in ACORN funds, had been a member of the Apollo Alliance’s board.
Kerpen responded, “Yes. He’s on — he was until this year on the board of the Tides Foundation and the Tides Center, which are the parent organizations that host the Apollo Alliance.”
I just stumbled on an arrow in the left’s propaganda quiver I’d never heard of before.
It’s a Massachusetts-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit called Political Research Associates, which operates the publiceye.org website. Its 2007 tax return (PDF) shows it operates on a shoestring budget.
In its mission statement, Political Research Associates describes itself as “a progressive think tank devoted to supporting movements that are building a more just and inclusive democratic society. We expose movements, institutions, and ideologies that undermine human rights.”
The group explains why it focuses on the right:
While attacks on civil liberties can come from any direction, the political and Christian Right use skillful marketing that exploits the public’s desire for quick solutions and capitalizes on today’s hectic information flow. With clever slogans that oversimplify complex public policy issues, the Right routinely scapegoats others in pursuit of their agenda.
PRA responds with fair and accurate analysis, looking beneath the sound-bites and slogans of the Right, exposing the true goals and agendas of specific leaders, organizations and movements. We then present our analysis in ways that can help the media, advocates and educators understand and challenge the Right.
On its website a table shows a continuum of right-wing beliefs. It divides right-wing thought between the Secular Right, Religious Right, and Xenophobic Right.
The group’s donors include left-wing funders the Ford Foundation ($385,000 since 2002), the Public Welfare Foundation ($300,000 since 2000), the secretive Tides Foundation ($278,601 since 1999), and the Barbra Streisand Foundation ($5,000 in 2000).
The “Glenn Beck Program” did an excellent piece on June 3 about Herb and Marion Sandler, the toxic mortgage king and queen, and their connection to ACORN and the inappropriately named Center for Responsible Lending. (The video clip is embedded above.)
Through their charity, the Sandler Family Supporting Foundation, they gave at least $5,723,222 to the ACORN network. Specifically, the charity gave $4,498,222 to American Institute for Social Justice (since 2003), $700,000 to Project Vote (in 2005), $525,000 to ACORN (2000–2001 according to Activist Cash). This excludes any contributions that either Sandler may have made personally to ACORN or its affiliates.
According to the “Glenn Beck Program,” the Sandlers paid ACORN to send out protesters to hound Wells Fargo Bank, which competed with Golden West, the Sandlers’ bank. If true, this is an explosive allegation.
The Sandlers have also given heavily to the Center for Responsible Lending, an ACORN ally that champions the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Their foundation has given the Center at least $11,200,000 since 2005.
The Sandlers are also deeply involved in an effort to push America’s journalistic culture even farther to the left. They have given a reported $10 million to ProPublica, a left-leaning investigative journalism outfit. Cheryl K. Chumley profiled ProPublica in last month’s Foundation Watch.
Philip Klein reports at the American Spectatorthat left-wing activist groups plan to spend $82 million to dupe Americans into supporting DMV-style government healthcare.
Danish enviro-skeptic Bjorn Lomborg had an excellent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.
He’s right to say that much of corporate America is pushing for draconian carbon emission controls because visions of dollar signs are dancing in their heads. They are more than happy to eat U.S. tax dollars in order to supposedly save the planet.
I would go farther than that. I would say that they are recklessly indifferent to whether the new energy taxes they support –whether they be direct (carbon taxes) or hidden (cap and trade)– will harm America.
We’ve been following the destructive lobbying of U.S. big businesses on this issue for some time.
Timothy P. Carney profiled the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) for us in the June 2008 edition of Organization Trends. Fred Lucas detailed the efforts by Al Gore to feed the global warming hysteria in the August 2008 Foundation Watch and also looked at the efforts by Goldman Sachs to cash in on that hysteria in the October Foundation Watch. In the August 2007 Foundation Watch Deborah Corey Barnes spotlighted Al Gore’s environmental scaremongering business.
House Judiciary Committee member Steve King (R-Iowa) is demanding congressional hearings about the twisted finances of the radical activist group ACORN.
“This spider web, this myriad web of ACORN dollars and revenue streams, every bit of them should be looked at, all the corporations that they are networked with all of the boards of directors of those corporations, the inner locking connecting, the faces that are the same from board to board,” King said.
We explored this very topic at length in the November Foundation Watch.
King’s call came the same day that Judicial Watch released a pile of documents from the Department of Commerce. The documents show internal communications at Commerce regarding ACORN and the U.S. Census Bureau.
Meanwhile, Kevin Mooney of the Washington Examiner tried to attend a meeting at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and was denied entry by an ACORN spokesman. The meeting attended by representative of various left-wing groups was organized to come up with a PR strategy to deflect attention from ACORN’s corruption.
Was this photo taken at Shining Path headquarters? (just kidding) Disgraced ACORN founder Wade Rathke (left) and ACORN enabler Drummond Pike (right) in an undated photo taken in Peru. On the wall is a large poster of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. (photo: Pike’s blog)
* * * * *
John Podesta’s left-wing Center for American Progress Action Fund has invited many liberal and radical groups to a meeting Thursday morning to discuss how to use rhetorical misdirection to take the focus off ACORN’s increasingly well publicized corruption. One of the groups, Alliance for Justice, is advertising the crisis management meeting called “Reframing the Attack on Voter Registration” on its website.
The intrepid investigative journalist Kevin Mooney of the Washington Examinerreports
Nearly a dozen left-wing advocacy groups are meeting Thursday at the Center for American Progress (CAP) to discuss how to respond to a growing barrage of damaging news reports and editorial criticism of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform (NOW). [sic]
The strategy meeting at the liberal think tank is being described as a “briefing and discussion” on how to respond to the negative coverage. ACORN is currently under investigation for voter registration fraud and related allegations in at least 14 states.
Among the organizations expected to attend the strategy session are: Advancement Project, Alliance for Justice, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Center for Community Change, Common Cause, Fair Elections Legal Network, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and People for the American Way.
Bertha Lewis, billed as “ACORN’s new chief organizer and CEO,” is a featured speaker. [...]
Lewis is the ACORN executive who lied to Lou Dobbs on CNN last month. Lewis can’t stand controversial Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and she said he claimed to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan. As Newsmax reported:
What Arpaio actually said was that whenever he tried to enforce U.S. immigration laws, activists on the left accused him of being a racist, like a member of the Klu Klux Klan. He then went on to say he didn’t let the insults bother him.
Lewis refused to back down from her malicious lie, which is not surprising because when confronted, ACORN officials routinely lie, lie, and lie some more.
I suspect that ACORN and its allies will play the race card. Useful idiot Adam Serwer of the American Prospect summed up last fall what they’re likely to say in coming days:
The allegations against ACORN are part of a tangle of misinformation and insinuation that is being played out across the media, and within the Justice Department. ACORN, because of its advocacy on behalf of low-income and minority families, and its efforts to register voters in poor and minority districts, has become a focus for the right’s racial anxieties.
They’ll say conservatives and Republicans are sinister, racist scum who don’t want minorities to vote, and all the negative publicity is the result of a vast conspiracy that originated among scab health care workers on the planet Klendathu who all belong to country clubs that frown on same-sex marriage unless it’s solemnized by a non-union pastor who dines on endangered species and who enjoys maximizing his carbon footprint, yada yada yada, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
We’ve heard this fanciful narrative before but the difference is now a surprisingly large segment of the population is paying attention to ACORN’s illicit activities.
For what it’s worth, President Obama’s radical new nominee to replace Associate Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, used to serve on the board of LatinoJustice PRLDEF. (White House backgrounder)
Along with groups such as the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), LatinoJustice fought a war of attrition against President George W. Bush’s 2001 nomination of conservative Miguel Estrada, a Honduran-born immigrant, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Democrats in the Senate filibustered the nomination and Estrada withdrew from consideration in 2003.
A tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit, LatinoJustice PRLDEF hailed the nomination of Sotomayor on the basis of her ethno-cultural heritage. “As the second largest and fastest growing population in America, with a large pool of qualified individuals to choose from, it was wholly appropriate for the president to nominate a Hispanic,” the group said in a written statement. (PDF)
According to the group’s website, it gets some of its funding from George Soros’s Open Society Institute.
A search of philanthropy databases reveals other significant donors to LatinoJustice to be Carnegie Corporation of New York ($1,025,000 since 2000), Ford Foundation ($2,280,000 since 2001), Rockefeller Foundation ($1,275,000 since 2000), and JPMorganChase Foundation ($70,000 since 2001).
Among radical left-wing groups, it has a fairly garden-variety agenda. A captive of identity politics, it pushes for multiculturalism, diversity, bilingual public education, race-based gerrymandering of electoral districts, race-based employment quotas, tenants’ rights, and illegal immigrants’ rights.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF was known as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund until last year when it filed Articles of Amendment with New York State to change its name. (See pages 35 to 41 of its IRS Form 990 for the group for Tax Year 2007.)
(Note: This blog post was updated several times on the day it was posted.)
Donations from financial institutions to the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now during the past several years for community redevelopment are open to misdirection and misappropriation, according to ACORN dissidents. Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup made grants to the ACORN Housing Corporation and other ACORN affiliate groups. The three banks are also among the top recipients of federal bailout money under the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). [...]
The “dissidents” to whom Mooney refers are the ACORN 8, a group of long-time ACORN activists who are angry about ACORN’s lawbreaking and corruption. I’m quoted in the article too.
I wrote about the ACORN 8 in the American Spectator earlier this year and have an article in this week’s Human Events arguing that ACORN should be probed for racketeering (RICO) law violations.
The “Glenn Beck Program” had a segment today on Fox News about the connection between ACORN and the Tides Foundation. (I can’t find a video clip of the segment online yet.)
He said that Drummond Pike, head of the Tides Foundation, wrote a personal check for about $700,000 to ACORN to cover the bulk of the $948,000 that Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, embezzled from the ACORN network.
The Tides Foundation is a pass-through entity. Wealthy liberals give the charity money, take the tax deduction, and then tell Tides which causes to give their money to. The money is then given in the name of Tides and the real donor’s name is withheld. Pike has said that keeping the identity of Tides donors secret is very important.
Wade Rathke, who was expelled by ACORN’s national board last summer for his role in covering up the embezzlement, is a member of the Tides board. Suspicious? You betcha.
Meanwhile, ACORN stands accused of election fraud, extortion, and racketeering, yet congressional leaders have no interest in investigating the group. House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) and House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-Michigan) refuse to probe ACORN.
Why?
In a clip shown on Beck’s show today, reporter Griff Jenkins asked Frank about ACORN. Frank, who claims ACORN is not eligible for $8.5 billion in federal funding, tried to blame ACORN on the out-of-office Bush administration.
The congressman probably won’t do anything about ACORN. Why would he? ACORN supporters are his power base.
People with good credit will soon be forced to pay more to subsidize people with bad credit.
That’s because the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation Tuesday that puts the screws to credit card companies by limiting their ability to price their products according to risk.
Passage in the Senate by 90 to 5 votes came after the House approved separate legislation on the same topic by a margin of 357 to 70 on April 30. The two chambers are expected to work out the differences on their competing bills in time for President Obama to sign a measure into law by the Memorial Day congressional recess.
Tom McMahon, acting executive director of liberal group Americans United for Change, has tried to shame Republican lawmakers into voting for the anti-market bill. “The Limbaugh-led Republican Party [which has] repeatedly said no to get the economy moving again … will have another opportunity to do the right thing.”
Of course McMahon makes no effort to explain how kneecapping credit companies will help to stimulate the economy.
According to Edward L. Yingling, CEO the American Bankers Association, provisions in the legisation “will undermine the availability of credit.” Credit cards are “a strong economic driver and are relied upon by consumers and small businesses to make payments and to bridge short-term financial gaps,” he said.
Yingling said the legislation “fundamentally changes the entire business model of credit cards by restricting the ability to price credit for risk.”
As John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute noted when the House passed its version of the legislation three weeks ago, limiting consumers’ choices and interfering with sensible risk-based pricing practices “will result in less availability of credit and actually force card holders to pay higher rates in many instances.”
The attack on the credit card industry was funded in part by left-wing philanthropist George Soros through his foundation, the Open Society Institute, as shown in “Consumers and Credit Cards: Leftist Watchdogs Attack An American Success Story,” by Sara Wille, Foundation Watch, September 2006. (A related article is “Demonizing Subprime Lenders: Liberal Groups Oppose Consumer Choice,” by Melanie Sans and Matthew Vadum, Organization Trends, October 2007.)
The Heritage Foundation’s InsiderOnline highlights our profile of ProPublica, which appears in the current issue of Foundation Watch. Here’s a summary of the article:
The press is filled with sad stories about venerable for-profi t newspapers that have been forced to declare bankruptcy and shut down. So it’s striking that the billionaire liberals Herb and Marion Sandler have decided now is the time to fund a new nonprofit group called ProPublica whose mission is to serve the public interest by funding independent investigative journalism. Too bad ProPublica churns out little more than left-wing hit pieces about Sarah Palin and blames the U.S. government for giving out too little foreign aid.
John Vaught LaBeaume cites our work on the Colorado Democracy Alliance (CoDA) in an op-ed in today’s Washington Examiner about former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado) and the changing political scene in Colorado.
Director of Communications, William J. Clinton Foundation
President Clinton’s Press Office at the Clinton Foundation is seeking an experienced Director of Communications.
The Director of Communications will perform the following duties under the direction of the Chief of Staff to the President:
Manage day-to-day press operation
Serve as a chief spokesperson for the Foundation and a primary point of contact for members of the media
Negotiate, manage, execute and staff major public announcements and media appearances for President Clinton
Write and edit speeches, press materials, talking points and other key public documents
Oversee communications activities for all of the foundation’s initiatives and global activities, and provide guidance and oversight to communications teams at each initiative
Work with integrated marketing and online teams to further communications goals across the Foundation’s initiatives
Manage and oversee the foundation’s communications department
Qualifications:
The role of Director of Communications will be filled by a seasoned communications professional who is exceptionally articulate and persuasive in writing and speech. S/he must have at least five years of communications experience and a demonstrated ability to develop powerful messages, meet tight deadlines and juggle multiple and complicated tasks.Excellent management and organizational skills are a must.
The candidate will have:
Minimum of 5 years experience in communications fields including public relations, marketing or related areas, with demonstrated stability and sustained commitment in previous position(s)
Knowledge of the media and ability to work well with journalists.
High-level on-the-record experience
B.A. degree, with additional educational course work in communications, public policy, journalism, law or related fields.
Exceptional writing and editing skills with a portfolio demonstrating published works and high-level, creative, thoughtful and polished printed communications.
Portfolio of earned media demonstrating the ability to successfully pitch stories to journalists and bring them to fruition
Willingness and ability to work long hours and weekends
Proven capacity to successfully multi-task in a fast-paced or stressful environment, with demonstrated personal traits of sense of humor, maturity and grace under pressure
The William J. Clinton Foundation & Office of President Clinton are Equal Opportunity Employers.This job description is intended to convey information essential to understand the scope of the position.It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of skills, efforts, duties, or responsibilities associated with the positions.
Left-wing performance artist Medea Benjamin of Code Pink (shown at left in above photo) appears to be settling down here in the nation’s capital, at least for now.
The ultra-leftist subversive, who years ago said moving to Cuba made her feel “like [she] died and went to heaven,” bought a home on Capitol Hill, according to District of Columbia records:
Note that Benjamin’s address has been redacted — even Code Pink crazies deserve some privacy.
She must feel that it’s important to be here to lobby her friends on Capitol Hill and in the Obama administration.
Benjamin gets kudos because unlike some of the capital city’s politicos, she failed to claim the D.C. homestead exemption. Presumably she does not intend to make Washington her primary place of residence.
Common Cause’s state chapters in Florida and New Jersey are going out of business, Tampa Bay Online reports:
After 30 years of advocating campaign finance reform, tougher ethics laws, election reform and other “good government” issues, the Florida chapter of Common Cause is shutting down for lack of funding. [...]
The two Common Cause full-time staff members, Wilcox and development director Alex Chavez of Sarasota, were told yesterday their jobs were being terminated at the end of March, along with a total of 20 staffers nationwide, said Chavez. He said that will include closing at least one other state office, in New Jersey.
The Florida chapter was opened in 1974, four years after the national organization was founded by John Gardner, a former high official of the Lyndon Johnson administration, who described it as a lobbying group for the common interests of the populace. [...]
Chavez, hired less than a year ago to boost the organization’s membership and fundraising, called the situation “a sign of the times – really a sad story, a sad situation for the progressive movement.”
Wilcox said direct mail fundraising for small donors is drying up, and “major donors are the ones who were burned by Madoff. Non-profits are struggling.”
That’s Bernard Madoff, by the way, the now-jailed liberal embezzler who has helped to kill at least two big left-wing grant-making charities, the Picower and JEHT foundations, so far.
Big liberal institutional donors to Common Cause include Arca Foundation ($1,395,000 since 2000), Carnegie Corp. of New York ($1,360,000 since 2001), Beldon Fund ($1,300,000 since 2005), and Joyce Foundation ($570,000 since 2002). Before he became U.S. president, Barack Obama served on the Joyce Foundation’s board.
At least four members of George Soros’s Democracy Alliance, the billionaire socialists’ club, have also given big to Common Cause, which suggests that Common Cause is a Democracy Alliance-approved grantee. The list includes Soros’s Open Society Institute ($1,225,000 since 2001), Lewis B. & Dorothy Cullman Foundation Inc. ($75,000 since 2004), Rutt Bridges Family Foundation ($23,000 since 2004), and Gill Foundation ($20,000 since 2004).
Common Cause attacks pharmaceutical companies for opposing government-run health care, demands federal regulation of drug prices, and pushes for so-called campaign finance reform and public financing of campaigns for political office.
According to its most recent tax returns, Common Cause Education Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, generated a $1,651,117 deficit in the tax year ending June 30, 2007, down from a $1,316,229 surplus the previous tax year.
The group’s 501(c)(4) lobbying arm known as Common Cause is doing better, but, ominously, reported on its most recent publicly available tax return that its 501(c)(3) affiliate owed it $1,900,805 as of June 30, 2007.
Common Cause (the c4) reported a $2,219,933 surplus in the tax year ending June 30, 2007, which was an improvement over the $1,057,107 deficit it reported the year before.
Larry Brilliant, a public health activist appointed to head Google’s charitable arm, Google.org, in February 2006, is leaving the post to become the corporation’s “chief philanthropy evangelist,” whatever that means.
John Reosti profiled Google.org in the November 2007 Foundation Watch.
Private foundations that have lost millions of dollars investing in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme could be subject to a 10 percent IRS penalty for failing to exercise due diligence and fiduciary responsibility, the New York Times reports. Among the biggest losers: The Picower Foundation (Palm Beach, FL) thought to have invested $958 million with Madoff, the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family Foundation (Palm Beach)–$199 million; the Betty and Norman F. Levy Foundation (New York)–$244 million; and the Chais Family Foundation (Encino, CA)–$178 million.
The Southern Poverty Law Center received $495,000 from the Picower Foundation for ”intelligence project research and investigation,” according to the Foundation’s IRS 990 form (p.44). The Center was profiled by CRC here.
Jack Shafer, Slate’s editor-at-large, doesn’t think much of proposals to save money-losing newspapers by converting them into charities, using their assets as endowments. Some pundits are starting to argue that this is the best way to save papers like the New York Times and Washington Post, which are losing subscribers and advertisers. They think financial cut-backs are hurting ”quality” journalism and that “legacy” newspapers like the Times and Post owe it to themselves and American democracy to re-organize themselves as nonprofit trusts. (I take it that the phrase “legacy newspapers” is comparable to “legacy airlines”: companies whose fixed costs put them on the verge of bankruptcy.)
Shafer thinks newspapers need to respond to changing market conditions, and they are fooling themselves if they think the foundation model can insulate them from hard times, new technologies, and evolving customer preferences. Foundations also change over time, and their officers can be expected to meddle in matters about which they know nothing. Shafer cites CRC’s book The Great Philanthropists and the Problem of ‘Donor Intent’ by Martin Morse Wooster to highlight the probem.
Says Shafer: “Foundations can evade ideological takeover by setting “term limits” on their operations, spending down their cash, and vanishing, as the John M. Olin Foundation did. But if the point is to stake the Times for perpetuity, the biggest problem will be keeping the foundation hustlers from taking over. In my experience, foundations that fund journalism directly—as opposed to journalistic education—are more interested in promoting what they consider “social justice” than promoting journalism. For them, a newspaper is just a means to an end.”
Regardless of the disclosure agreement the William J. Clinton Foundation entered into with the Obama administration in order to facilitate the confirmation of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, the Clintons’ tendency to play fast and loose with ethics is bound to be a continuing source of headaches for President Obama.
A new potential conflict was brought to light by the Washington Times which reports that a secret party paid an excessive sum for stock donated to the foundation. According to the news article:
Former President Bill Clinton’s foundation, despite identifying more than 200,000 of its donors in recent weeks, will not say who paid it windfall prices for stock in a struggling Internet firm with links to the Chinese government.
The William J. Clinton Foundation has identified donors and promised unusual transparency in order to reassure critics who fear the foundation could become the object of largesse from foreign interests seeking to influence his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. [...]
However, Mrs. Clinton’s office and the foundation have declined to answer questions about a lucrative 2006 stock transaction, details of which were reported by The Washington Times in March 2008.
The Accoona Corp. donated between $250,001 and $500,000 to Mr. Clinton’s charity after he spoke at the company’s launch in New York in 2004, according to donor information released by the foundation in December. The foundation sold its Accoona stock for $700,000 two years later, according to the charity’s tax return for 2006.
Despite what the tax return suggests, Accoona struggled mightily to turn a profit.
In 2007, Accoona filed a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission reporting more than $60 million in losses during three years. In the same prospectus, it listed the China Daily Information Corp., a subsidiary of China Daily, the official English-language newspaper of the Chinese government, as an official partner and 6.9 percent owner of the company. [...]
While the Clinton Foundation voluntarily disclosed the original donation of the stock, it still is unwilling to say who was willing to pay so much for its holdings in the struggling company. Mrs. Clinton’s office referred questions about the Accoona stock deal to Mr. Clinton’s foundation, which declined to provide details.
“We have not disclosed that and have no plans to,” foundation spokesman Matt McKenna wrote in an e-mail. [...]
We previously blogged about Clinton and the potential for conflicts of interest related to the William J. Clinton Foundation.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said he may hold up Sen. Hillary’s Clinton nomination to be U.S. secretary of state if his concerns about foreign donations to the William J. Clinton Foundation are not resolved, Reuters reports.
“Senator Cornyn is a strong proponent of complete transparency and has fought for as much throughout his time in office. He is keeping all of his options on the table,” his spokesman Kevin McLaughlin was quoted saying.
Cornyn sent a letter to Mrs. Clinton explaining his concerns. “Like many others, I remain deeply troubled that America’s foreign policy and your diplomatic mission will be encumbered by the sweeping global activities of the Clinton Foundation unless tighter foreign fundraising restrictions and transparency protocols are adopted,” he wrote.
Given Democrats’ near-supermajority in the Senate it seems unlikely Hillary Clinton’s confirmation would be delayed more than a few days.
We have done a number of articles on the Clinton Foundation, including our February 2008 profile of the foundation in Foundation Watch and my American Spectator article in November about concerns related to possible conflicts of interest that may exist should Sen. Clinton become President-elect Obama’s secretary of state.
Left-of-center nonprofits are getting the bailout they wanted from the U.S. government, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reports. The news comes a month after Independent Sector president Diana Aviv demanded it.
Our lawmakers are intent on pissing away billions of dollars on utterly useless giveaways to their supporters in the liberal nonprofit establishment. The money will have virtually no positive impact on the economy, except perhaps that it might bolster employment at nonprofit groups.
One of the more egregious line items is the $1 billion allocation for community development block grants (CDBG). These are slush funds that liberal groups like La Raza and ACORN use to subsidize their operations.
Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton ”intervened at least six times in government issues directly affecting companies and others that later contributed to her husband’s foundation,” AP reports after reviewing the New York senator’s official correspondence.
The New York Times reported previously that around the same time businessman Robert J. Congel made a hefty donation to the William J. Clinton Foundation, Senator Clinton helped Congel get millions of dollars in federal assistance for his business venture. (Previous blog entry.) The Department of State is expected to review future donations to the foundation from overseas contributors.
Right at this moment Mrs. Clinton is being questioned by a Senate committee as part of her confirmation process. She apparently coined a new phrase, “smart power,” to describe her approach to using diplomacy and military power in America’s interest. If it’s anything like the inappropriately named smart growth, God help us.
We profiled the Clinton Foundation in the February 2008 Foundation Watch and I wrote about the potential for conflicts of interest in the American Spectator.
Liberal financier, philanthropist, and embezzler extraordinaire Bernard Madoff remains out of jail and living in the lap of luxury despite the enormity of the crimes he has been accused of. Even displaying contempt for the court and his victims by distributing $1 million in jewelry to family and friends failed to get Madoff’s bail revoked. Truly amazing.
I wrote about Madoff’s misdeeds in the American Spectator. Apparently singlehandedly Madoff, through his Social Security-like Ponzi scheme, sunk the left-wing funders Picower Foundation and the JEHT Foundation.
They entertain ideas about how philanthropy might change (e.g., change investment policies to reduce risk to assets; change giving philosophy from social change-making to helping people directly; increase the percentage amount foundations give away; reduce and consolidate the number of nonprofits receiving gifts. But they decide: No, it’s best just to leave things as they are.
The measure would grant special race-based privileges to “Native Hawaiians” (who have only one drop of Hawaiian blood flowing in their veins) by exempting members of that group from paying state income and excise taxes. It would also create a new “tribal” government in the state that could help lay the groundwork for Hawaii’s secession from the United States.
We examined the bill and related issues in the May 2008 Foundation Watch. The article, “Racial Separatism in the Aloha State: The Bishop Estate Trust and Hawaii’s Kamehameha Schools,” is by Phil Brand, James Dellinger, and Karl Crow.
Daniel J. Popeo, chairman of the Washington Legal Foundation, recently wrote an article reflecting on the vast constellation of nonprofit organizations in America that opposes the free enterprise system. (Popeo is a former member of Capital Research Center’s board.)
The op-ed ran in the New York Times on Dec. 15, 2008. It is available here as a PDF file and begins:
I am always amazed at the number of charitable foundations, and the nonprofit organizations they support, who just don’t like America’s free enterprise system.
Philanthropists who made their fortunes in business like John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, and John D. MacArthur would be appalled by how eagerly those sustained by their wealth are declaring free market capitalism dead. These industrial entrepreneurs never intended the remains of their riches to be turned into cash cows for activist groups that agitate for laws, regulations, and lawsuits that stifle private property and economic rights.
There’s an old proverb that says life’s greatest curse can be answered prayers. It’s now clear that the death of American capitalism will cause the death of philanthropy. It becomes clearer each day how capitalism makes charity possible.
Thousands of worthy causes depend on the success of American business. Every source of funding for charitable work around the globe revolves around the free market and the wealth it creates. [...]
The New York Times reports that around the same time businessman Robert J. Congel made a hefty donation to the William J. Clinton Foundation, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-New York) helped Congel get millions of dollars in federal assistance for his business venture.
An excerpt from the article:
Mr. Congel and Philippe Reines, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, both said there was no connection between his donation and her legislative work on his project’s behalf. Mr. Reines said Mrs. Clinton supported the expansion of Carousel mall “purely as part of her unwavering commitment to improving upstate New York’s struggling economy, and nothing more.”
We profiled the Clinton Foundation in the February 2008 Foundation Watch and I wrote about the potential for conflicts of interest in the American Spectator.
The DC Examiner cited our research on Eliot Spitzer in an editorial touching upon the Bernard Madoff scandal called, “What goes around comes around for Socks-on Spitzer.”
Here is a link to our previous blog post on Spitzer.
MoveOn.org is asking its members to donate to lefty groups hurt by liberal philanthropist-financier Bernard Madoff. The text of the new email is reproduced below.
Names on the list include the ultra-leftist law firm, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the Brennan Center for Justice. We noted previously that Madoff’s improprieties killed off the JEHT Foundation. (JEHT funded CCR.)
George Soros’s Open Society Institute and the Atlantic Philanthropies have promised to match donations until January 1.
Here is the MoveOn email:
Dear MoveOn member,
You’ve probably heard about how Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff scammed investors out of at least $50 billion.
But you may not have heard that his victims included the foundations that support some really important progressive organizations. Groups that fight for human rights, fair elections and racial justice are getting hit hard—just in time for the holidays. We’ve worked side-by-side with many of them.
If these groups can’t replace the funding that came from investment accounts that Madoff stole, they may be forced to start cutting important projects or, in some cases, even lay off staff.
Can you pitch in $25 or $50 for each of the four organizations we’re highlighting below? Our friends at Atlantic Philanthropies and the Open Society Institute will each match every dollar that comes in until January 1! So, for the next three days, your donation of $25 or $50 means $75 or $150 for groups affected by Madoff. If a few thousand of us give together, it can make an enormous difference—and help repair some of the damage Madoff has done. Click here to contribute:
[LINK]
Your end-of-the-year gift will be tax-deductible as if you had made the gift directly to the designated charities; we will forward 100% of your contribution to the organizations you select.
Many organizations have been hit by this crisis. We’re highlighting the four that MoveOn has worked closely with over the last few years. Here’s a bit about each of the groups:
The Brennan Center for Justice is a nonpartisan institute that focuses on fundamental issues of democracy and justice. Their work ranges from voting rights to redistricting reform to checking presidential power in the fight against terrorism. MoveOn has worked with the Brennan Center closely in the fight for fair elections. Chip in to help them out here.
Human Rights Watch is one of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, they give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Its rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. MoveOn has worked with Human Rights Watch on campaigns to preserve the constitution and protect human rights in America and abroad. Chip in to help them out here.
Advancement Project is a policy, communications and legal action group committed to racial justice founded by a team of veteran civil rights lawyers in 1998. They have pursued critical litigation to protect voters and also support grassroots movements for universal opportunity and just democracy in the areas of education and immigrants’ rights. MoveOn has worked with Advancement Project to stop vote suppression, especially among minority folks. Chip in to help them out here.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a nonprofit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. MoveOn has worked with CCR to hold President Bush accountable for his unconstitutional acts, from illegal wiretaps to Guantanamo. Chip in to help them out here.
2008 has been an extraordinary year. Together, MoveOn’s 5 million members have done so much—and we have a new president and new hope to show for it. But we wouldn’t be where we are as a country without a strong movement of interconnected progressive organizations. Let’s come together one last time to keep that movement going strong.
Thanks for all you do.
–Eli, Carrie, Ilyse and the entire MoveOn.org Civic Action team
The New York Times has been compiling a running list of the clients/victims of liberal philanthropist and con man Bernard Madoff. It is available here.
Madoff’s up to $50 billion fraud has already killed off the left-wing JEHT Foundation (as we noted previously).
Capital Research Center’s Matthew Vadum appeared on “Conservative Roundtable” (with host Howard Phillips) recently. They discussed liberal philanthropist George Soros and his political activism. Here is the video:
