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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMother Jones - Exposed: The Dark-Money ATM of the Conservative Movement
Kochs, Bradleys, DeVoses and a few other wealthy families bankroll conservative politics.
http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/donors-trust-donor-capital-fund-dark-money-koch-bradley-devos
Working out of an nondescript brick rowhouse in suburban Virginia, a little-known organization named Donors Trust, staffed by five employees, has steered hundreds of millions of dollars to the most influential think tanks, foundations, and advocacy groups in the conservative movement. Over the past decade, it has funded the right's assault on labor unions, climate scientists, public schools, economic regulations, and the very premise of activist government. Yet unlike its nearest counterpart on the progressive side, the Tides Foundation, a bogeyman of Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, Donors Trust has mostly avoided any real scrutiny. It is the dark-money ATM of the right.
Founded in 1999, Donors Trust (and an affiliated group, Donors Capital Fund) has raised north of $500 million and doled out $400 million to more than 1,000 conservative and libertarian groups, according to Whitney Ball, the group's CEO. Donors Trust allows wealthy contributors who want to donate millions to the most important causes on the right to do so anonymously, essentially scrubbing the identity of those underwriting conservative and libertarian organizations. Wisconsin's 2011 assault on collective bargaining rights? Donors Trust helped fund that. ALEC, the conservative bill mill? Donors Trust supports it. The climate deniers at the Heartland Institute? They get Donors Trust money, too.
Donors Trust is not the source of the money it hands out. Some 200 right-of-center funders who've given at least $10,000 fill the group's coffers. Charities bankrolled by Charles and David Koch, the DeVoses, and the Bradleys, among other conservative benefactors, have given to Donors Trust. And other recipients of Donors Trust money include the Heritage Foundation, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, the NRA's Freedom Action Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Federalist Society, and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, chaired (PDF) by none other than David Koch.
In a recent interview, Ball, who calls herself a libertarian, went to great lengths to stress that she's no Koch brothers stooge, and that Donors Trust is not yet another appendage of the almighty "Kochtopus." She insists, "We were not created by them at all."
No, not at all.
Mopar151
(9,983 posts)Nothing!
Lint Head
(15,064 posts)I think he is a cynical individual without a conscience. He does not care who he steps on to make money.
silverweb
(16,402 posts)[font color="green" face="Verdana"]Let the sun shine in!
annabanana
(52,791 posts)I think we're getting to the place where they realize that you can't eat money. They can throw all the "messaging" and PR crap out there that they want.
More and more people are recognizing the disconnect between the world that THEY are trying to sell, and the one that we live in.
Good.
Berlum
(7,044 posts)But time by the overpaid Propaganda Whores -- Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck, etc. ad nauseum -- and they there will be HELL to pay.
RepubliProles ain't gonna like it when they realize they let themselves get SUCKERED.
h