Tax Free....little if any oversight....and nearly zero disclosure of investors and agenda.
A little bit on a few foundations (also called unions, funds, societies, alliances, institutes, think tanks, etc)...to basically demonstrate the high degree of cross pollination and incestuous management/funding sources...and since I just finished the rant on Ron Paul....I'll focus on the conservative flavor that controls that side of the franchise. Also for a better understanding you probably should go through that post first as well as the links providing the historical background for my comments and opinions.
Further Background:
Tax-exempt Foundations were originally setup for humanitarian
purposes to provide grants to existing institutions. Rene A. Wormser
served as General Counsel to the Reece Committee, which was a
congressional committee that investigated the Tax-exempt Foundations
from 1953 to 1955. His book, Foundations: Their Power and Influence,
is a documented expose of his experience with the committee. In it he
wrote, "Foundations were originally created to support existing
institutions and to undertake certain 'operating' functions."
Soon after (or possibly from their inception) foundations became a
loop hole that the financial elite used to avoid taxes. "By the time
the income tax became law in 1913, the Rockefeller and Carnegie
foundations were already operating. Income tax didn't soak the rich, it
soaked the middle class," wrote Perloff. "Because it was a graduated
tax, it tended to prevent anyone from rising into affluence. Thus it
acted to consolidate the wealth of the entrenched interests, and protect
them from new competition."
Smoot pointed out that the primary purpose of some of the large
Tax-exempt Foundations is no longer humanitarian in nature, but
"predominately tax avoidance." "One of the leading devices by which the
wealthy dodge taxes" concurred Perloff "is the channeling of their
fortunes into tax-free foundations." He also charged that, "The major
foundations, though commonly regarded as charitable institutions, often
use their grant-making powers to advance the interests of their
founders."
The "independent, uncontrolled financial power often enables
foundations to exert a decisive influence on public affairs," wrote
Wormser. He further testified that, "They have a power comparable to
political patronage." He cautioned "When they do harm, it can be
immense harm--there is virtually no counterforce to oppose them." Source
In the international field, foundations, and an interlock among
some of them and certain intermediary organizations, have exercised a
strong effect upon our foreign policy and upon public education in
things international. This has been accomplished by vast propaganda, by
supplying executives and advisors to government, and by controlling much
research in this area through the power of the purse. The net result of
these combined efforts has been to promote 'internationalism' in a
particular sense - a form directed toward 'world government' and a
derogation of American 'nationalism.'
They observed that the major foundations 'have actively supported
attacks upon our social and government system and financed the promotion
of socialism and collectivist ideas.' The Reece Committee clearly
declared that the CFR was 'in essence an agency of the United States
Government' and that its 'productions are not objective but are directed
overwhelmingly at promoting a globalist concept.' Source
On August 19, 1954,
Reece summed up his investigation:
"It has been said that the foundations are a power second only to that
of the Federal Government itself ... Perhaps the Congress should now
admit that the foundations have become more powerful, in some areas, at
least, than the legislative branch of the Government."
The investigation ended in 1955, when funding was withheld. Source
This
tool comes in handy for further investigation (names and connections) as well as visual picture of the web...
American Conservative Union:
Established
in 1964, the American Conservative Union (ACU) is a large grassroots
conservative lobbying organization, committed to a market economy, the
doctrine of original intent of the framers of the Constitution,
traditional moral values, and a strong national defense. It was formed
in response to the electoral defeat of Barry Goldwater; the organizing
meeting included Robert Bauman (organizer); Frank S. Meyer, John
Chamberlain, Jameson Campaigne Sr., John Ashbrook, Katharine St. George,
William F. Buckley Jr. and L. Brent Bozell. It was modeled after the
Americans for Democratic Action, and also was positioned as an
organization where members of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), founded
by Buckley, could go when they reached the maximum age of 35.
In
1984, David Keene, the current chairman of the ACU, assumed that
position. He is also the managing associate of Carmen Group Lobbying, a
Washington, DC-based lobbying firm.
Source
Board
members include: Senator Jesse Helms; Grover Norquist, Morton
Blackwell, also on the Conservative Leadership PAC and Free Congress
Foundation boards; and Becky Norton Dunlop, also serves on boards of the
Heritage Foundation, the Family Foundation and Century Communications
Frequent
Donors: The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation; the Bill and Berniece
Grewcock Foundation; and the William E. Simon Foundation
Source
Less
than a month after he succeeded David Keene as chairman of the American
Conservative Union, Al Cardenas sat down with HUMAN EVENTS to discuss
the outlook for the ACU and the conservative movement. A Florida
co-chairman of Ronald Reagan’s 1976 presidential campaign and the 1978
Republican opponent to longtime Rep. Claude Pepper (D.-Fla.), Miami
attorney Cardenas, whose family came from Cuba, has been in active in
most of the modern conservative political battles. As head of the
nation’s oldest national conservative organization, which is the main
sponsor of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC),
the 59-year-old Cardenas will no doubt be a player in helping direct the
movement in the coming decade.
Source
The Leadership Institute:
The
Institute was founded in 1979 by conservative activist Morton C.
Blackwell. Its mission is to "increase the number and effectiveness of
conservative activists" and to "identify, train, recruit and place
conservatives in politics, government, and media."
The Leadership
Institute offers 40 types of training seminars at its Arlington
headquarters, around the United States, and occasionally in foreign
countries. In 2009, the Institute trained more than 9,500 students.
Since its 1979 founding, the Leadership Institute has trained more than
91,475 students. Notable alumni include Grover Norquist, Karl Rove,
Senator Mitch McConnell, Congressman Mike Pence, and seven new members
of the 112th Congress.
While the Institute does not provide
instruction in philosophical conservatism, it does encourage its
graduates to read classic conservative authors like Edmund Burke and
"classical liberal" authors like Frederic Bastiat, as well as more
modern conservative thinkers including William F. Buckley Jr., Milton
Friedman, Russell Kirk, Barry Goldwater, and libertarian thinkers such
as F. A. Hayek.
The Leadership Institute teaches 41 different
types of classes and seminars using its own curriculum. Class content
varies from teaching how to create a campus newsletter to political
activism (i.e. grassroots activism) to professional training and
development (i.e. broadcast journalism).
The Institute has
developed an interest in training students internationally, and has been
active in the creation of similar Institutes in Greece, Chile, Poland,
France, the U.K., Korea, Canada, and Japan.
Source
Blackwell
is considered something of a specialist in matters relating to the
rules of the Republican Party. He served on rules committees of the
state Republican parties in Louisiana and Virginia. He serves now on the
RNC’s Standing Committee on Rules and has attended every meeting of the
Republican National Conventions’ Rules Committees since 1972.
Blackwell
has been a member since 1984 of the Council for National Policy, a
group of politically active conservatives. Founders included Richard
Viguerie, the Virginia direct-mail specialist, Paul Weyrich, Howard
Phillips of the Constitution Party, and Phyllis Schlafly, a St. Louis
activist who led the opposition to the proposed Equal Rights Amendment.
Another founder was Tim LaHaye, author of the Left Behind novels. The
council does not make its proceedings public. When he first ran for
president, George W. Bush addressed the Council for National Policy. His
remarks from 2000 have never been unveiled.
Source
We
know that at least two of the young men charged in connection with
attempts to tamper with Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office phones led
conservative college newspapers that received seed money from The
Leadership Institute. But what’s the Leadership Institute?
Leadership
Institute Vice President David Fenner said in a phone interview this
morning that the group had “informal, above-board relationships” with
both James O’Keefe and Joseph Basel when they were college students.
O’Keefe
founded The Centurion at Rutgers and Basel launched The Counterweight
at the University of Minnesota-Morris — each of which received $500
“Balance in Media” grants from the Leadership Institute. Both were
charged yesterday with trying to tamper with Landrieu’s phones.
In
tax forms posted on its website, the Leadership Institute reported
receiving nearly $6 million in contributions in 2008, compared to $9.6
million in 2007. The group reported spending $11.2 million in 2008 and
$11.4 million the year before — leading to a net loss both years.
The group claimed its net assets and fund balances totaled $11.6 million at the end of 2008.
In
2008, the Leadership Institute reported spending more than $3 million
conducting “344 training schools of 39 different types to train youth
leaders and provide education regarding the public policy process.”
Additionally,
the group reported $4.6 million in spending on its “campus leadership
program” — the same program that O’Keefe and Basel benefited from. The
Leadership Institute uses this program to conduct “leadership schools
for these groups and helps students start newspapers on their campuses.”
Source
...basically the Leadership Institute is a feeder program (training and indoctrination) for use by the foundations...for example -
Andrew,
as a young twenty-something, has a resume with experience at Grove
City’s Center for Vision and Values, the Leadership Institute, Young
America’s Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, The Fund for American
Studies, Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation’s Associate Program, and
the Bill of Rights Institute, where he is currently a director of
development.
“Attending my first Leadership Institute’s Youth
Leadership School in 2002 led to my first job as a youth campaign
coordinator in the most expensive congressional primary race in 2004,”
Andrew said. “My first experiences in Washington, D.C. came to fruition
because of my internship at the Leadership Institute. That summer
served as a springboard for me in many ways.”
Source
The
goal of the alliance, according to organizers, is to foster the growth
of liberal or left-leaning institutions equipped to take on prominent
think tanks on the right, including the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover
Institution, the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute,
as well as such training centers as the Leadership Institute and the
Young America's Foundation.
Source
The Performance Institute:
Called
“the leading think tank in performance measurement for government” on
OMB’s ExpectMore.gov, The Performance Institute has been a leader in
Performance Management training and policy since the 2000 administration
transition. As part of the Government Performance Coalition, a group of
good government organizations, the Institute worked in 2000 to deliver
recommendations to the then new administration on what would become the
President’s Management Agenda. Source
Carl
DeMaio's former company, the Performance Institute, reaped the majority
of its revenue from public funds. Then, DeMaio used that money to push
for his own political agenda. DeMaio called the Performance Institute a
"private think tank," but unlike other think tanks, it has no board and
no oversight. In the past, the Performance Institute did not disclose
its donors, or how much its former CEO, Carl DeMaio, made. Source
In
2007, Thompson Publishing Group, now Thompson Media Group acquired The
Performance Institute and The American Strategic Management Institute
from founder Carl DeMaio. The Performance Institute is a private,
non-partisan think-tank in the United States that specializes in
improving government results through the principles of performance,
transparency and accountability.
Thompson Media Group, LLC,
originally established as Thompson Publishing Group, Inc. was founded in
1972 by Carl DeMaio. It is a privately-held media company that
specializes in providing compliance, regulatory, and market information
through its four operating units: Thompson Publishing Group, The
Performance Institute & American Strategic Management Institute, AHC
& BioWorld, and Sheshunoff Information Services, A.S. Pratt, &
Alex Information (collectively, SIS). Thompson Media Group, LLC,
is based in Washington, DC. Thompson Media Group LLC established their
name during reorganization in 2011.
Source
American Conservative Defense Alliance:
A think tank and interest group that supports national security
conservatism, emphasizing that the United States should take foreign
action only in service of vital national interests. Its platform
states:
Supporting a strong, cost-effective and
Constitutional national defense strategy, the purpose of which is to
secure the lives, liberty, and property of the American people.
Creating, strengthening, and maintaining military forces capable of
defeating any enemy that attacks the United States. Ensuring that
America’s soldiers, airmen, marines, sailors, coast guard and reserve
component forces are the best equipped, trained, and led military forces
in the world.
Promoting a foreign policy of strategic
independence, thereby avoiding foreign conflicts unless there is a
verifiable and imminent threat to the United States. If the U.S. does
engage in military action, there must be clear standards for victory and
exit. Absent exceptional circumstances, when a vital national interest
is at stake, America should neither underwrite regimes nor engage in
nation building.
Providing to the world examples of how to
maintain a free and prosperous society based on the rule of
Constitutional law, individual liberty, and the rights of private
property.
Its positions reject the doctrines of neoconservatism.
Source
Michael
advocated for American national security interests as a co-founder of
the American Conservative Defense Alliance, which worked to promote a
traditional conservative foreign and defense policy (2008- 2010). He
blogs on national security related issues at Politico. Working to
promote civil liberties, Michael co-founded and is National Director of
the Liberty Coalition, a transpartisan coalition of groups working to
protect civil liberties, privacy and human autonomy (2005- present). He
is presently the coalition coordinator and public policy counsel for
the Campaign for Liberty working on transparency and open government
issues including Audit of the Federal Reserve. He also sits on the
Steering Committee for Openthegovernment.org and Board Member for Bill
of Rights Defense Committee.
Source
This
public policy group is the creation of Grover Norquist, an anti-tax
conservative activist with a record of ties to Muslim Brotherhood
leaders and Islamist front groups.90 It was founded in early 2008 and,
until recently, housed in Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform offices.
91 ACDA Board Members include Samah Norquist, secretary (also Grover
Norquist’s wife); Peter Gemma, treasurer; and Philip Giraldi, the
Francis Walsingham Fellow.
Norquist’s role in Islamist influence
operations is an ominous one. He founded a front organization called the
Islamic Free Market Institute in 1998 together with a Muslim activitist
long associated with Muslim Brotherhood operatives named Khaled Saffuri
“to promote a better understanding of Islam in America.”
During
the presidential campaign of 2000, Norquist arranged a meeting between
Alamoudi and then- Republican presidential candidate, Texas Governor
George W. Bush.96 Later, after the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001, President Bush appeared at a prayer service with Alamoudi and
apparently remained unaware of his terrorist links for a number of years
after that.97
Another troubling connection is Grover Norquist’s
close relationship with Faisal Gill, Policy Director of the Information
Analysis and Infrastructure Protection division for the Department of
Homeland Security under President Bush. In 2004, it was discovered that
Gill, who was a political appointee, had failed to disclose his own
formerly close working relationship with Alamoudi, whom he apparently
served as spokesman for the American Muslim Council. Nevertheless, Gill
was permitted to retain his government position.98
Although the
American Conservative Defense Alliance claims to advocate for a strong
U.S. national defense policy, it eschews any initiative that would
entail “imposing American-styled ‘democracy’ abroad” or engaging in
“nation-building.”99 ACDA’s place within the Iran Lobby network can be
discerned from a look at key figures among its leadership boards,
website links to other Iran Lobby entities and posted statements by its
associates that scoff at evidence of the Tehran regime’s pursuit of
nuclear weapons and involvement in supporting terrorist militias in Iraq
The
ACDA links with NIAC’s Trita Parsi also include a November 14, 2007
event at the Nixon Center that was co-sponsored by ACDA and featured a
panel discussion about U.S. foreign policy towards Iran. Panelists
included Philip Giraldi and Trita Parsi. The event was posted on the
personal website of Michael D. Ostrolenk, ACDA President and Board
Member. Ostrolenk’s homepage also highlights an October 17, 2007
discussion with Trita Parsi about his then just-released book,
Treacherous Alliance.
Source
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA Officer, is a fellow with the American Conservative Defense Alliance
Source
...other current key people -
Donald Devine,Director, Office of Personnel Management, 1981-85
Bruce Fein, Ron Paul's 2012 Campaign Legal adviser, Former Reagan lawyer
Thomas Gale Moore, Economist, Council of Economic Advisers, 1985-89
William Niskanen, Chairman of the Cato Institute
Richard Viguerie, Conservative activist
Source
Americans for Tax Reform:
Fiscal
conservative interest group, headed by Grover Norquist, which opposes
all tax increases and advocates a flat tax; rates legislators on
compliance with its key issue votes; Advisory Committee and Supporting
Member, Congressional Internet Caucus Source
Its
founder and president is Grover Norquist, a conservative tax activist.
It was founded by Grover Norquist in 1985 at the request of President
Ronald Reagan.
Shortly after Bill Clinton's 1992 election, ATR
headquarters became the site of a weekly, off-the-record get-together of
conservatives to coordinate activities and strategy. The "Wednesday
Meeting" of the Leave Us Alone Coalition soon became an important hub of
conservative political organizing. Participants each week include
Republican congressional leaders, right-leaning think tanks,
conservative advocacy groups and K Street lobbyists. George W. Bush
began sending a representative to the Wednesday Meeting even before he
formally announced his candidacy for president in 1999, and continued to
send representatives after his election in 2000.
ATR has
helped to establish regular meetings for conservatives nationwide,
modeled after the Wednesday meetings in Washington, with the goal of
creating a nationwide network of conservative activists to help support
initiatives such as tax cuts and deregulation. There are now meetings in
48 states and more internationally, with meetings in Canada,
Austria, Belgium, Croatia, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United
Kingdom.
According to an investigative report from the Senate
Indian Affairs Committee on the Jack Abramoff scandal, released in June
2006, ATR served as a "conduit" for funds that flowed from Abramoff's
clients to finance surreptitiously grass-roots lobbying campaigns.
Records show that donations from the Choctaw and Kickapoo tribes to ATR
were coordinated in part by Abramoff, and in some cases preceded
meetings between the tribes and the White House.
Source
Free Congress Foundation:
Found
by Paul Weyrich in 1974 after serving as President of the Heritage
Foundation for a number of years and considered one of the most
influential men in US politics.
The
Free Congress Foundation’s history as an active voice on behalf of
conservative ideas and principles reaches back to its founding in 1977
by the late Paul Weyrich.
The foundation won early national
prominence and played an important role in organizing and driving
coordinated political action by modern conservatives.
Powered
over the years by the financial support of a broad range of donors, FCF
has had significant impact on public policy issues of importance to all
Americans.
Source
The
Free Congress Foundation (or Free Congress Research and Education
Foundation or FCF for short), is a conservative think tank founded by
Colorado beer magnate Joseph Coors and led by Paul M. Weyrich. It
evolved from the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress and the
Free Congress Research and Education Foundation. A group affiliated with
the FCF is the Free Congress Political Action Committee. The
organization publishes Empowerment!.
Source
No
one has said, "What will fill this coming vacuum?" No one has developed
a strategy for the transition from Washington to localism.
Such
thoughts are not common in today's world of Federal power and Federal
money. It takes a specific worldview even to ask such a seemingly
utopian question.
Ron Paul has such a worldview. So do his followers.
As
for training materials, they already exist. Paul Weyrich's Free
Congress Foundation developed them three decades ago: the Kasten system.
This system of local mobilization got Bob Kasten elected to Congress in
1974 and to the Senate in 1980.
Source
While
in Rep. Paul's office, I also worked closely with the Free Congress
Foundation's Coalition for Constitutional Liberties and its 800 member
organizations to educate the public on the privacy implications of KYC.
It was this coalition that generated most of the comments to the
regulators--many through the Libertarian Party's DefendYourPrivacy.com
web site. I have teamed up with Free Congress to double our efforts for
privacy and against KYC. We are leading the initiative against the
global KYC initiative. Our coalition and letter by forty-three
organizations (
http://www.freecongress.org/) are credited with forcing the Bush administration to review their policies.
Source
The Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF):
Founded
in 1989 in Denver, Colorado, by Richard M. Ebeling and Jacob G.
Hornberger, both with ties to the Foundation for Economic
Education....and who sits on the board?
BOARD OF TRUSTEES:
Harold Luhnow, president of William Volker & Company
A.C. Mattei, president of Honolulu Oil Corporation
Charles White, president of the Republic Steel Corporation
Donaldson Brown, former vice-president of General Motors
Jasper Crane, former vice president of Du Pont
B.E. Hutchinson, chairman of the finance committee of Chrysler Corporation
W.C. Mullendore, president of the Southern California Edison Company
Foundation for Economic Freedom:
Established
to study and advance classical liberalism, the Foundation for Economic
Education (FEE) is the oldest free-market organization in the United
States. Murray Rothbard recognized FEE for creating
a "crucial open center" that he credits with launching the movement.
In
1946, FEE was founded by Leonard Read of the Los Angeles Chamber of
Commerce, Donaldson Brown of General Motors Corporation, Professors Leo
Wolman of Columbia University and Fred R. Fairchild of Yale University,
Henry Hazlitt of the New York Times, Claude Robinson of Opinion Research
Corporation, and David Goodrich of B. F.
Goodrich. The William Volker Fund was
instrumental in subsidizing FEE's establishment.
Source
Lawrence
W. Fertig (b. 1898 – d. 1986) was an American advertising executive and
a libertarian journalist and economic commentator.
Fertig wrote
columns for the New York World-Telegram and the New York Sun. Fertig
also wrote the 1961 Regnery Press offering, Prosperity Through Freedom.
He
was the founder of Lawrence Fertig & Company, a New York
advertising and marketing firm. The Hoover Institution maintains an
archive of Fertig's papers at their Stanford, California location.
After
attending the 1944 Bretton Woods conference on behalf of Scripps-Howard
newspapers, Fertig authored a weekly column on financial matters,
something that he would continue until the collapse of the New York
World Journal Tribune in the late 1960s. He was on the board of
trustees of the Foundation for Economic Education's monthly journal, The
Freeman.
Fertig, who was a member of the NYU board of trustees,
was instrumental in supporting his friend Ludwig von Mises when the
economist fled Europe to the United States during the rise of the Third
Reich, even going so far as to pay part of Mises' salary himself
when Mises began teaching at Fertig's alma mater. Referring to Mises'
visiting professorship at NYU, economist Murray Rothbard stated that
NYU’s
support for Mises was grudging, and only came about because advertising
executive and NYU alumnus Lawrence Fertig, an economic journalist and
close friend of Mises and Hazlitt, exerted considerable influence at the
university.
The Mises Institute, founded in 1982 in honor of
Ludwig von Mises, credits Fertig as being instrumental in its creation
and development. The institute offers a Lawrence Fertig memorial
prize to the author whose work "best advances economic science in the
Austrian tradition."
Source
Brookings Institution:
Brookings
Institution is a tax-exempt think tank created in 1916 as the Institute
for Government Research by a group of business leaders and academics
led by St. Louis timber and mining executive Robert Brookings, who later
served on the War Industries Board. The IGR was founded to provide
research and expertise to help restructure government agencies in accord
with modern business methods, in order to promote administrative
competence and government efficiency. During the Depression Brookings
took on government and corporate research contracts. Renamed in 1927,
the Brookings Institution established itself as a conservative think
tank supported by industry and critical of the New Deal social programs,
which were seen as replacing free enterprise with central authority.
After
the second world war, Brookings supported the Marshall Plan and an
active U.S. presence in the world, and by the 1960s had a reputation as a
liberal think tank, but Brookings income flowed from Rockefeller and
Ford Foundation grants and corporate contributions. By the mid-1980s, in
keeping with the Democratic Party and other "liberal" institutions,
Brookings positioned itself back in the "center" of the political
spectrum again. In the 1980s Brookings studies called for government
budget cutbacks, corporate competitiveness, and national security. In
the 1990s Brookings studies promoted market-based incentives to replace
regulation, increases in military spending, and "free" trade. In 1995,
Michael Armacost, a U.S. State Department official under Reagan, became
the president of Brookings.
Brookings board of trustees includes
the corporate CEOs and directors of AT&T, Fremont Group (Bechtel),
Booz Allen & Hamilton, Kissinger Associates, Human Genome Sciences,
Inc., Johnson Capital Partners, State Farm, Aetna, Times Mirror, the Las
Vegas Sun newspaper, Heinz Family Philanthropies, ARCO, Chase
Manhattan, USAirways, Bank of America, Levi Strauss, as well as Robert
S. McNamara (former president of the World Bank) and James D. Wolfensohn
(the current president of the World Bank). Brookings trustees also
include directors and trustees of foundations, hospitals, and
universities, including Johns Hopkins University, University of Chicago
Law School, Harvard, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, the University of Pennsylvania, the
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Source
Heritage Foundation:
The
Heritage Foundation, founded in 1973 with funding from
ultraconservative sources including Scaife and Coors, is a think tank
whose mission is "to formulate and promote conservative public policies
based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government,
individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national
defense." Heritage produces articles, lectures, conferences, and
briefings for Congress, Congressional staff, executive branch
policymakers, the news media, and academia.
U.S. House Speaker
Newt Gingrich called the Heritage Foundation "the most far-reaching
conservative organization in the country in the war of ideas," and U.S.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey said "when conservatives on Capitol
Hill are looking to turn ideas into legislation, the first place they go
is The Heritage Foundation." Two-thirds of the Heritage Foundation's
1981 policy recommendations to President Reagan were adopted.
The
Center's national advisory board includes William F. Buckley Jr.,
conservative journalists Mary Lou Forbes, Paul Greenberg, and Charles
Krauthammer, and several professors of journalism. Heritage claims its
more than 200,000 members make it "the most broadly supported think tank
in America." Heritage Foundation had income of $43 million in 1998;
two-thirds of it from individuals, 26 percent from foundations, and 4
percent from corporations. Amway, Joseph Coors, Pfizer, John M. Olin
Foundation, and the Sarah Scaife Foundation are recent funders of the
Heritage Foundation's work.
Source
The
Heritage Foundation has been home to some of the nation's most
influential neo-conservative voices, especially in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. The Foundation has since lost some of its luster, as some
of its leading voices have graduated to other influential government and
non-government careers. Still, the Foundation remains a conservative
voice in Washington and around the world.
Meanwhile, there was
also a connection between Heritage and the Rev Sun Myung Moon (founder
of the Moonies). This first appeared in a 1975 congressional
investigation on the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA)
activities in the US.
The report noted, "In 1975, Ed Feulner ...
was introduced to KCIA station chief Kim Yung Hwan by Neil Salonen and
Dan Feffernan of the Freedom Leadership foundation".
Salonen was
head of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church in the United States. The
Freedom Leadership Foundation (FLF), a political arm of Moon's
Unification network, was linked to the World Anti- Communist League.
In
the early 1980s, the KCIA began making donations to Heritage
Foundation. In turn, Heritage established an Asian Studies Center.
Source
Paul
Weyrich is considered by conservative Powers That Be as the most
powerful man in American politics today. Weyrich allegedly founded the
immensely influential conservative think tank, Heritage Foundation, in
1973 with funding from Joseph Coors of the Coors beer empire and Richard
Mellon-Scaife, heir of the Carnegie-Mellon fortune.
Over the
past 25 years, Heritage has also been funded by private foundations
such as Pew Charitable Trust which also funded many GOALS 2000
initiatives. William Greider's bestseller, Who Will Tell the People: The
Betrayal of American Democracy reveals other benefactors: "Not
withstanding its role as 'populist' spokesman, Weyrich's organization,
for instance, has received grants from Amoco, General Motors, Chase
Manhattan Bank [David Rockefeller] and right-wing foundations like Olin
and Bradley."
Paul Weyrich
served as President of Heritage Foundation until 1974 when he founded
the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress (which he heads today
as the Free Congress Foundation). Heritage Foundation guided the Reagan
administration during its period of transition and Joe Coors served in
the President's "Kitchen Cabinet." During its first year, the Reagan
administration adopted fully two-thirds of the recommendations of
Heritage's Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative
Administration.
John Saloma's Ominous Politics, refers to
Heritage as a "shadow government" noting that "[Heritage President]
(Edwin) Feulner also served on the Reagan transition executive committee
(fourteen other Heritage staff and board members also had transition
appointments), but declined to join the administration."
Source
Back
around 1988, Rockefeller and an assistant -- the son of a very famous
foreign policy expert -- interviewed Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress
Foundation. He wanted to know which figures in the conservative movement
were hostile to him. Weyrich mentioned the John Birch Society. "Who
else?" he asked. "The hard- money movement," Weyrich replied. "What's
that?" Rockefeller asked. The assistant said, "I'll brief you later."
Rockefeller
was intrigued. "Who are they?" Weyrich mentioned me and Larry Abraham.
(Thanks, Paul. He blew our cover.) "What are they saying?" Weyrich
accurately replied: "They are saying that you and your big business
colleagues are making deals behind the Iron Curtain, so that when full
trade resumes, you will already be set up there."
Weyrich
reported to me and to Abraham that Rockefeller replied, "They're right,"
and then went on at some length to describe their efforts. Within a few
months, the Berlin Wall went down. In 1991, the USSR committed suicide.
All
I am saying here is this: For a man still at the top of the pinnacle of
influence, he has remained out of touch with respect to the American
Right, which is among his greatest enemies, along with the American
Communists -- defunct for over 20 years -- and some fringe groups on the
Left.
Source
Hoover Institute:
The
Hoover Institution is a conservative think tank founded in 1919 as a
center for advanced study in domestic and international affairs,
supporting conservative scholars, sponsoring conferences, publishing
books and articles, and producing television and radio programs.
The
Hoover Institution says it "strives to conceive and disseminate ideas
defining a free society, involving the study of politics, economics, and
their interrelationships (that is, political economy) within the United
States and other countries." The Hoover Institution describes its work
in terms of the rule of law and property rights; promoting the idea of
society based on individualism rather than classes; government
performance in terms of accountability to society; economic growth and
tax policy; and international rivalries and global cooperation with
respect to security, trade and commerce, and the rule of law.
Former
Speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich and former U.S. Secretary of
State (and corporate insider) George Schultz are research fellows at
Hoover. Other Hoover scholars include national security and Pentagon
officials like William Perry, Richard Allen, and Bobby Inman. "Honorary
Fellows" include Ronald Reagan, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Margaret
Thatcher.
Like other ultraconservative think tanks such as the
American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Hudson
Institute (see the separate profiles for these organizations), the
Hoover Institution is funded by the ultraconservative foundations such
as John M. Olin, Lilly, Smith Richardson, Carthage, and Scaife.
Hoover's
"board of overseers" includes the Archer Daniels Midland chairman
Dwayne Andreas, Texas oilman Robert Bass, Seattle television personality
Jean Enersen, Herbert Hoover III, David Packard of military and
electronics giant Hewlitt-Packard, former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld, Mellon oil heir and ultraconservative philanthropist
Richard M. Scaife, and free-market guru and former U.S. Treasury
Secretary William E. Simon.
Source
A
number of Hoover Institution fellows had connections to or held
positions in the Bush administration and other Republican
administrations. High-profile conservatives Edwin Meese, Condoleezza
Rice, George Shultz, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, and Amy Zegart are
all Hoover Institution fellows.
The Hoover Institution Press also
publishes the bimonthly periodical Policy Review, which it acquired
from the Heritage Foundation in 2001.
Source
American Enterprise Institute:
Founded by William J. Baroody and Milton Friedman in 1943. Source
The
American Enterprise Institute is a think-tank founded in 1943 which
promotes "free markets, free trade, a vigilant defense, and individual
freedom and responsibility." AEI is "dedicated to preserving and
strengthening the foundations of a free [sic] society-limited
government, competitive private enterprise, vital cultural and political
institutions, and vigilant defense-through rigorous inquiry, debate,
and writing."
AEI is governed by 26 trustees including corporate
and Pentagon insider Dick Cheney and executives from major corporations
including State Farm Insurance, Motorola, American Express, Enron,
Alcoa, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and Dow Chemical. AEI officers include
Samuel P. Huntington (Harvard professor, member of National Security
Council, architect of forced urbanization in Vietnam, author of
Trilateral Commission report on "excess democracy"), former U.S. Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and economist Murray L. Weidenbaum, architect
of deregulation under Reagan.
AEI and the Brookings Institution operate a Joint Center for Regulatory Studies (JCRS)
with the purpose of holding lawmakers and regulators "accountable for
their decisions by providing thoughtful, objective analyses of existing
regulatory programs and new regulatory proposals." The JCRS pushes for
cost-benefit analysis of regulations, which fits with AEI's ultimate
goal of deregulation.
Source
Among
the better known figures based at the institute are several former
George W. Bush administration officials and advisors who were key
promoters of the “war on terror” policies put in place after the 9/11
terrorist attacks, including John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle,
John Yoo, and David Frum. President Bush highlighted the enormous
influence the institute had in his administration during a January 2003
speech at an AEI dinner celebrating neoconservative forefather Irving
Kristol. After commending AEI for having "some of the finest minds in
our nation," the president said, "You do such good work that my
administration has borrowed 20 such minds."
Founded in 1943, AEI
is one of the oldest policy institutes in Washington. AEI traces its
origins to a New York City-based business association called the
American Enterprise Association (AEA), which was founded in 1938 and
soon after World War II opened a Washington office to lobby against
government intervention in the domestic economy. AEA, which brought
together some of the country's largest corporate firms, substituted
"institute" for "association" and became one of the nation's first
policy think tanks. Lewis Brown, president of Johns-Manville Corp., was
the principal figure behind AEA, which from its beginning had a strong
pro-business posture. Like the AEA, AEI is dedicated to the "maintenance
of the system of free, competitive enterprise."18
One of the
institute's earliest supporters on Capitol Hill was Gerald Ford, who as a
congressional representative praised the institute in 1950, beginning
what AEI describes as a "long and happy relationship with the
president-to-be." A key figure in AEI's early history was William
Baroody, who joined AEI as president in 1954 and was responsible for
bringing some of the country's most conservative economists into the
institute, including Milton Friedman and Paul McCracken.
With the
emergence of several new conservative think tanks, including the
Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute, AEI's influence appeared to
diminish. Despite this, President Ronald Reagan in 1988 acknowledged the
institute's pervasive influence in spearheading the "Reagan
Revolution." According to Reagan, "The American Enterprise Institute
stands at the center of a revolution in ideas of which I, too, have been
a part. AEI's remarkably distinguished body of work is testimony to the
triumph of the think tank. For today the most important American
scholarship comes out of our think tanks—and none has been more
influential than the American Enterprise Institute."
AEI
headquarters are located in a building on Washington's 17th Street that
is a warren of right-wing operations. Before it shuttered most of its
operations in 2006, the Project for the New American Century had its
offices there. Several PNAC principals, including Gerecht, Bruce
Jackson, Gary Schmitt, and Tom Donnelly, moved from PNAC to AEI. Also
located in the same building are the offices of the Weekly Standard,
which often serves as a favored outlet for AEI scholars. The
Philanthropy Roundtable, the rightist association of foundations that
split off from the Council of Foundations in the early 1980s, also found
a home in the AEI building.
The membership of AEI's board of
trustees reveals the institute's strong ties to the corporate community.
Members include Bruce Kovner (Caxton Associates), John Faraci
(International Paper), Raymond Gilmartin (formerly of Merck), Harvey
Golub (formerly of American Express), Roger Hertog (formerly of Alliance
Capital Management), Mel Sembler (Sembler Company), William
Stavropoulos (Dow Chemical), and Wilson Taylor (CIGNA), among many
others.33 Over the past several decades, AEI's board of trustees has
included representatives of scores of the nation's top corporations,
including Rockwell, Amoco, Hewlett Packard, Exxon Mobil, Texas
Instruments, Eli Lilly, and Citicorp. Former board members include Dick
Cheney (whose wife Lynne is an AEI fellow), then at Halliburton, and
Kenneth Lay of Enron.
Among the many corporate contributors to
AEI is the Walton Family Foundation, which was founded by the same
family that started Wal-Mart. According to the New York Times, Wal-Mart
"has discovered a reliable ally: prominent conservative research groups
like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the
Manhattan Institute.”
Major donors include the heavy hitters of
the conservative foundation world: the Smith Richardson Foundation, the
Olin Foundation, the Scaife Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley
Foundation, as well as smaller right-wing foundations such as Carthage,
Earhart, and Castle Rock.
According to People for the American
Way, corporate donors to AEI have included the General Electric
Foundation, Amoco, Kraft, Ford Motor Company Fund, General Motors
Foundation, Eastman Kodak Foundation, Metropolitan Life Foundation,
Procter & Gamble Fund, Shell Companies Foundation, Chrysler
Corporation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, General Mills Foundation,
Pillsbury Company Foundation, Prudential Foundation, American Express
Foundation, AT&T Foundation, Corning Glass Works Foundation, Morgan
Guarantee Trust, Alcoa Foundation, and PPG Industries.
Source
The Cato Institute:
The
Cato Institute is a think tank dedicated to "promoting public policy
based on individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and
peace." It was founded in 1977 by petroleum millionaire and libertarian
Charles Koch and Edward Crane of the Alliance Capital Management.
Cato
sponsors an annual monetary conference, which has been attended by
Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan and others from the
regional Federal reserve Banks, U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence
Summers, International Monetary Fund first deputy managing director
Stanley Fischer, and Harvard professor Jeffrey Sachs, author of "shock
therapy" economic restructuring programs.
Cato opposes laws
discriminating against gays. It promotes the legalization of drugs, and
opposes censorship of pornography. Cato's opposition to government
intervention led it to oppose U.S. military action in the Persian Gulf
and Bosnia. But libertarian positions on various issues does not mean
that the Cato Institute does not support corporate power. In the absence
of civil authority, eliminating government regulation and government
programs simply means that corporate power is unchecked.
Most of the funding comes from conservative foundations such as Sarah Scaife and John M. Olin.
Source
The
Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington,
D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president
and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive
officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the second largest
privately held company by revenue in the United States.
Libertarian
economist Murray Rothbard was a core member of Cato's founding group
and coined the institute's name. Rothbard served on its board until
leaving in 1981.
Still, some critics have accused Cato of
being too tied to corporate funders, especially during the 1990s. Such
critics report that Cato received funding from Philip Morris and other
tobacco companies during this period and that at one point Rupert
Murdoch served on the boards of directors of both Cato and Philip
Morris.
Source
In 2010, the Cato Institute reported support by some 60 plus foundations including:
Atlantic Philanthropies
Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation
Earhart Foundation
JM Foundation, founded by businessman Jeremiah Milbank
John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Castle Rock Foundation (formerly known as The Coors Foundation)
Scaife Foundations (Sarah Mellon Scaife, Carthage)
Ford Foundation
Ploughshares Fund
Marijuana Policy Project
Source
The battle for control over a prominent libertarian organization in
Washington has cast a spotlight on its highly unusual structure, which
allows the nonprofit research institution to be controlled by
shareholders.
The Cato Institute, one of the largest think tanks in Washington,
is governed by four people, each with a 25 percent stake in the organization.
That stake can be bought and sold for cash under an arrangement, only
legal in a handful of states, that is frowned upon by the Internal
Revenue Service.
Charles and David
Koch,
billionaire brothers who own a large energy conglomerate, filed suit on
Thursday seeking an option to increase their 50 percent stake in
Cato, a large research organization that espouses free-market economics and limited government.
Although they don’t receive dividends like shareholders of a for-profit company,
the structure gives the Koch brothers power to appoint half of Cato’s board. In most nonprofits, new directors are elected by the organization’s membership or the current board members.
Source
Ludwig von Mises Institute:
Founded
by Llewellyn Rockwell, Jr. in 1982 after serving as Ron Paul's Chief of
Staff for 4 years. The Institute's stated goal is to "undermine
statism*** in all its forms". Rockwell credits Rothbard with convincing
him to reject statism completely:
"It was clear to me at the
time that Murray Rothbard was Mises's successor, and I followed his
writings carefully. I first met him in 1975, and knew immediately that
he was a kindred spirit.... I cannot remember the day that I finally
came around to the position that the state is unnecessary and
destructive by its nature – that it cannot improve on, and indeed only
destroys, the social and economic system that grows out of property
rights, exchange, and natural social authority – but I do know that it
was Rothbard who finally convinced me to take this last step."
Source
Many
readers may be surprised to learn the extent to which the Graduate
Institute and then Mises himself in the years immediately after he came
to United States were kept afloat financially through generous grants
from the Rockefeller Foundation. In fact, for the first years of Mises’s
life in the United States, before his appointment as a visiting
professor in the Graduate School of Business Administration at New York
University (NYU) in 1945, he was almost totally dependent on annual
research grants from the Rockefeller Foundation. Even after he finally
landed the position at NYU, where he remained only a visiting professor
until his retirement in 1969, his salary was paid for not by NYU, but
from funds contributed by generous private supporters.
Source
Hayek’s
teacher Wieser had been the main contact of the Rockefeller Foundation
among the academic economists in Vienna. After 1926, when he succeeded
Wieser as the main contact of the Rockefeller Foundation in Vienna,
Mises had the opportunity to provide or withhold material benefits.
Source
Project for New American Century:
The
Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational
organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American
leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such
leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment
to moral principle.
Source
Project for The New American Century info and sources
Mont Pelerin Society:
Founded
in 1947 in Mont Pelerin, Switzerland by Frederich von Hayek. The stated
objective of the Mont Pelerin Society is to strengthen the principles
and practices of the free society by encouraging market-oriented
economic systems with minimal and dispersed government as opposed to
government regulation of industry.
In 1947, 39 scholars, mostly
economists, with some historians and philosophers, were invited by
Professor Friedrich Hayek to meet at Mont Pelerin, Switzerland, and
discuss the state, and possible fate of classical liberalism and to
combat the "state ascendancy and Marxist or Keynesian planning [that
was]sweeping the globe". Invitees included Henry Simons (who would later
train Milton Friedman, a future president of the society, at the
University of Chicago); the American former-Fabian socialist Walter
Lippmann; Viennese Aristotelian Society leader Karl Popper; fellow
Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises; Sir John Clapham, a senior
official of the Bank of England who from 1940-6 was the president of the
British Royal Society; Otto von Habsburg, the heir to the
Austro-Hungarian throne; and Max von Thurn und Taxis, Bavaria-based head
of the 400-year-old Venetian Thurn und Taxis family.
Milton
Friedman was president of the Mont Pelerin Society from 1970-1972. Edwin
Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation, was president of the
Mont Pelerin Society from 1996-1998 and is currently the Senior Vice
President.
The American membership of the MPS has included,
besides Milton and Rose Friedman and the late journalist Walter Lippmann
[CFR], influential conservatives affiliated with the Heritage
Foundation: Michael Novak [CFR/American Enterprise Institute], Thomas
Sowell [Hoover Institution] and Deepak Lal [Cato Institute]. Anther
member of the Mont Pelerin Society is former CNP member Dr. John A.
Howard, president of The Rockford Institute, Senior Fellow of the Howard
Center for Family, Religion & Society and a member of The Bohemian
Club.
Over a dozen of the scholars who could not previously get a
job, a review, or a book deal would go on to win the "Nobel Prize in
Economics" (this "epic" story will be told separately). More
importantly, the Mont Pelerin Society would itself beget 500 foundations
and organizations in nearly 80 countries... again with strategic
contributions from Mr. Anonymous.
Initiated at Mont Pelerin and
copying the FEE, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) was created in
London in 1955. Serving as a conduit for both cash and "ideas", the IEA
set about the task of "rejuvenating" the dead and decaying British
Tories. By 1985, the "Iron Lady", Margaret Thatcher, would positively
gush on the occasion of the Institute's 30th Anniversary: "You created
the atmosphere which made our victory possible... May I say how thankful
we are to those who joined your great endeavor. They were the few, but
they were right, and they saved Britain." With that, the IEA begat the
Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which in turn created a network of
over 50 "think-tanks" in more than 30 countries.
And what were
the scale of these efforts? John Blundell, the head of the IEA, in a
speech to the Heritage Foundation, and Atlas in 1990, would identify a
rare failure in the Society's efforts. Shaking his head at the abortive
attempt to subsidize academic "Chairs of Free Enterprise" in dozens of
countries throughout the world, Blundell complained about wasting,
"hundreds of millions, perhaps one billion dollars". This was just one
initiative among many.
William Volker Fund:
The
William Volker Fund was a charitable foundation established in 1932 by
Kansas City, Missouri, businessman and home-furnishings mogul William
Volker.
In 1932, Volker set aside half of his fortune into the
William Volker Charities Fund. The fund’s articles of incorporation
claimed it would “care for the sick, aged and helpless”; “provide means
and facilities for the physical, mental, moral and spiritual betterment
of persons”; “improve living and working conditions”; and provide
“education and educational facilities” (209-210).
When William
Volker died in 1947, his nephew Harold W. Luhnow took control of
William Volker & Co. and also became the head of the William Volker
Charities Fund’s board of directors. Under the Luhnow’s
administration the fund shifted its focus away from charities in the
Kansas City area and began pursuing a number of strategies for
increasing the acceptance of Old Right and Austrian economics thought in
the United States.
Source
When
William Volker died in 1947, his will added $15 million of his assets
to the already sizable William Volker Charities Fund. Luhnow took
primary control of the trust. He also took control the William Volker
& Co. In 1952, Luhnow moved the headquarters of the fund and the
company to Burlingame, California.
Luhnow used Volker Fund
assets to support bringing schools associated wit the Austrian School of
economics to U.S. institutions. He "paid [Ludwig von] Mises's salary at
New York University; he paid F. A. Hayek's salary at the University of
Chicago; he funded lectures that Milton and Rose Friedman turned into
Capitalism and Freedom and he approved the grant that enabled Murray
Rothbard to write Man, Economy and State. As early as 1946, Luhnow
earmarked Volker Fund money to support Leonard Read and agreed to fund
the establishment the Foundation for Economic Education, which became
the first major post-war libertarian think-tank. By the late 1950s,
Luhnow had led the Fund to provide critical support for a host of
political groups, including the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and
the Institute for Humane Studies. In the 1960s Luhnow's leadership of
the Fund became more and more erratic until he eventually fired most of
its staff and much of the Volker Fund's remaining assets were given to
the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Source
The
William Volker Fund also launched a number of Libertarian think tanks,
foremost among them the “Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and
Peace.”
“In addition to its own activities, the Volker Fund
helped fund the formation of various complementary institutions,
including the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (ISI), which was
later renamed Intercollegiate Studies Institute; the Foundation for
Economic Education (FEE); the Earhart Foundation; and the Relm
Foundation. According to observers such as John Blundell of the Mont
Pelerin Society, the William Volker Fund’s strategic successor on its
expiration was the F.A. Harper’s Institute for Humane Studies. In 1963,
most the Volker Fund’s activities were transferred to a new Center for
American Studies (CAS), which proved short-lived and closed late in
1964. A decade later, the Volker Fund’s remaining money, amounting to
about seven million dollars, went to the Hoover Institution. The Fund’s
files have disappeared.” (William Volker Fund)
The official story
is that Hoover Institution was founded by Herbert Hoover with $50K,
although $7 million in funding would later arrive from the Volker Fund.
What is also usually not mentioned is that (1) the Hoover Institution
was heavily involved with the Eugenics societies of that day and (2)
Herbert Hoover’s implementation of free market, laissez faire ‘do
nothing’ economics prolonged the misery of the Great Depression.
“In
1919 the Hoover Institution was founded at Stanford University, Palo
Alto, California with a donation of $50,000 from Herbert Hoover… Herbert
Hoover founded the Hoover Institution at the suggestion of three men,
Andrew Dickson White, (S&B 1853), Daniel Coit Gilman, (S&B 1852)
and Ray Lyman Wilbur, president of Stanford… In 1921 the Second
International Congress of Eugenics is held in New York City. The
sponsoring committee includes Herbert Hoover and the presidents of Clark
University, Smith College and the Carnegie Institute of Washington
(Rockefeller)… Among the notables in attendance were future President
Herbert Hoover, Alexander Graham Bell, (the Congress’s honorary
president), conservationist and future Governor of Pennsylvania, Gifford
Pinchot, (S&B 1889) and Leonard Darwin, son of Charles Darwin.”
(“The History of Health”)
Source
