Free Republic

The news media's treatment of foundation involvement in public policy may have changed forever on March 17. That was the day the New York Post published "Buying 'Reform': Media Missed Millionaires' Scam," an account by one of its columnists, Ryan Sager, of the massive spending by several mainstream foundations to secure passage of the 2002 overhaul of campaign-finance laws and to keep the issue alive. Mr. Sager told his readers he had discovered "an immense scam perpetrated on the American people by a cadre of left-wing foundations and disguised as a 'mass movement.'" Foundations like Ford, Open Society, Carnegie, Joyce,...

WASHINGTON -- What are the biggest charity abuses in America? The answers coming from witnesses testifying at a Senate hearing last Tuesday pointed to practices by nonprofit, tax-exempt groups that are technically legal but violate the spirit of private charity. Those answers are wrong. The biggest abuse is nonprofits that deliberately and habitually break the law. The Senate Finance Committee is currently investigating practices of groups that enjoy exemption from taxation under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code. In the past few years, more and more news stories have detailed the questionable practices of nonprofits, from huge CEO compensation packages...

Corporate tax collections in Montana are up 50 percent in the most recent year, but evidently that’s not enough for State Senator Jim Elliott. He wants more revenue and he wants to find it by examining the tax return of every company filing in Montana.1 Senator Elliott has filed a lawsuit to force the Montana Department of Revenue to disclose corporate tax returns for those corporations with over $1 million in Montana sales. Apparently he does not trust the Montana Department of Revenue to do its job, because he wants to use this information to determine whether corporations are evading...

CAMPAIGN-FINANCE reform has been an immense scam perpetrated on the American people by a cadre of left-wing foundations and disguised as a "mass movement." But don't take my word for it. One of the chief scammers, Sean Treglia, a former program officer of the Pew Charitable Trusts, confesses it all in an astonishing videotape I obtained earlier this week. This is an amazing story. I combined part of Ryan Sager's editorial and the transcript of the tape. The tape — of a conference held at USC's Annenberg School for Communication in March of 2004 — shows Treglia expounding to a...

While the Democrats' party leaders flummox around trying to decide why they lost the November election and what to do about it, a number of their allies on the left have been working steadily and stealthily to do nothing less than bend to their will that cornerstone of American capitalism -- the corporation.

The United Nations With World War II still being fought, delegates from the United States and twenty-five other nations met and issued a "Declarations of the United Nations," the first official use of the term "United Nations." In 1943 representatives of the USSR, Great Britain, Nationalist China, and the United States met in Cairo, Egypt where plans were laid for the creation of a world organization. Another high level conference was held in Tehran, where Joseph Stalin was brought into the planning. In 1944 the initial drafts of the UN Charter was drafted at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC. Finally,...

"Charitable" Foundations: ATMs for the Left "Charitable" Foundations: ATMs for the Left By Ben Johnson FrontPageMagazine.com | March 2, 2004 One of the unlamented developments of this election year is the Democratic Party’s retreat to the Left. Although the media claim the party's voters have learned their lesson by settling for the “electable” John F. Kerry, a cursory examination of the Democrats shows they remain animated by anti-Bush furor. The party rank-and-file may have decided they prefer the sing-song cadences of John Kerry or the charming drawl of John Edwards to the red-faced shrieks of Howard Dean, but the message...

In recent debates concerning "gay marriage" and "civil unions" I believe conservatives have made three equally dangerous errors. First, I believe some have ignored the religious foundation of marriage. Marriage between only a man and woman is not the traditional view. It is the universal and eternal view. This is so because God made it so at the beginning of creation: "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife." Not only did God himself invent and institute marriage between a man and wife, but he also mentions fathers and mothers from the...

By John Berlau © 2004 Insight/News World Communications Inc. Though President Bush constantly is criticized and attacked by Democratic partisans for pursuing policies that benefit "the wealthy," why are so many of what would be considered America's superrich his political opponents? In addition to the Hollywood mega-elite, which since the death of Sam Goldwyn have opposed the GOP mainly for cultural reasons, billionaire businessmen have stepped forward calling for the defeat of Bush or his policies. Most prominent has been speculator George Soros, who has pledged to raise $75 million to defeat Bush, given millions to Democratic Bush-bashing groups such...

Friday, December 5, 2003, Wall Street Week on PBS -- Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr. wrote the book. He is, it seems shocked at the gap between the rich and the poor. He said on PBS’s Wall Street Week Without Louis Rukeyser, that he hoped the new rich kids would turn out more like the 1910 generation, aware of the responsibility that being rich puts on them. What is this “responsibility?” Why, giving the money to foundations. Now, we know the difference between WSW with Louie and WSW without Louie. It is the difference between a capitalist and a Bolshevik who...

Nonprofit Watchdog Files IRS Complaint Against Greenpeace, Seeks Federal Probe - Greenpeace Violates Tax Laws PipeLineNews.org - A nonprofit watchdog group today filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service against Greenpeace on Monday, urging the agency to investigate the environmental organization. In a report entitled ``Green-Peace, Dirty Money: Tax Violations in the World of Non-Profits,'' Public Interest Watch detailed how Greenpeace -- one of the nation's most recognizable and visible non-profits -- is knowingly and systematically violating U.S. tax laws. At the heart of the matter is the way in which Greenpeace's complex corporate structure masks its misuse of...

Foundations Paying Millions of Dollars to Their Own Well-To-Do Trustees Instead of Charities, Study Shows 8/29/03 3:42:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk Contact: Pablo Eisenberg of the Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, 202-362-0256, e-mail: pseisenberg@erols.com WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A new study analyzing the tax returns of 238 foundations has revealed that in a single year, they spent nearly $45 million on "trustee fees" -- the vast bulk of which go to their own predominately wealthy boards of directors rather than to the charitable causes they were set up to...

<p>In the days after Sept. 11, 2001, Sami Omar al-Hussayen led fellow Muslims as they joined an emotion-charged candlelight march remembering the dead. The Saudi graduate student in computer science at the University of Idaho helped organize a blood drive for victims. He issued a press release on behalf of the Muslim Students Association, stating that the small town of Moscow's Muslims "condemn in the strongest terms possible what are apparently vicious acts of terrorism against innocent citizens."</p>

12 Journalists Get Michigan Fellowships twelve American journalists have been awarded fellowships for the coming academic year by the University of Michigan's Knight-Wallace Fellows program. While on leave from their news organizations, the fellows will work on projects of their choosing and receive stipends of $55,000. The group is the 31st to receive fellowships from the university. The program, formerly known as the Michigan Journalism Fellows, was renamed last year after a $1 million gift from the CBS News correspondent Mike Wallace and his wife, Mary, and a $5 million matching grant from the John S. and James L. Knight...

<p>NEW YORK - The U.S. House is considering a bill that could force the nation's foundations to give away more of their money to charity each year, creating a potential windfall of billions of dollars for nonprofit groups.</p> <p>The bill has created a furor in the philanthropic world, with foundations warning that they could be forced to squander their assets and spend themselves out of existence.</p>

<p>The American antiwar movement is decked out with all the elements of the counterculture, but it is getting some very establishment funding.</p> <p>In a few months, foundations and donors have kicked in millions of dollars to help antiwar groups stage demonstrations, take out expensive newspaper and TV ads, maintain Web sites, hire and pay staff, and lease office space in high-rent New York, Washington and San Francisco locales.</p>

Pay Much Attention To That Man Behind The Curtin ! Of all the bizzare spectacle's that I've been privileged to watch on C-SPAN The Reparations Rally on the Washington Mall was by far the straw that broke this camel's back. If you think that the motley collection of far left third world radical's where up to putting on this Extravganza of the Bizzare, you haven't been paying attention, and need to be Illuminated. As is the case with most of the trial bulloon's, they seem absurd, if not down right commical, but rest assured,there are powerful forces behind the scene's...

Conservatives' Billions Fuel Leftist EstablishmentWes Vernon, NewsMax.comThursday, Aug. 8, 2002 WASHINGTON – Huge left-wing foundations, created with the money provided by pioneering conservative entrepreneurs, are driving the agenda in the U.S., and by extension, through much of the world. And a CEO who has studied the problem says it is time to act. The "liberal establishment” did not just appear out of thin air, says Neal B. Freeman, founder and CEO of the Blackwell Corp., a television production company with a broad range of client services. Just as the left is better than conservatives at gut-fighting street-smarts politics, so...

July 25 — There may be a big deal stirring in candy land. The trust that controls Hershey Foods Co., an American icon that is the nation’s largest candy and chocolate maker, is exploring a sale of the company, it said in a press release Thursday. Sources familiar with the matter said such a deal could fetch more than $10 billion. For years, the storied company has been a bystander during a food-industry consolidation, widely regarded as untouchable because of the trust’s loyalty to its mission and its hometown of Hershey, Pa. But now tumult in the corporate world has...

"The ultimate problem of all education is to coordinate the psychological and the social factors. ... The coordination demands that the child be capable of expressing himself, but in such a way as to realize social ends." – John Dewey Foundations offer financial and institutional support for a few good causes. On the other hand, most of their efforts in eugenics, population control, education and environmentalism are elitist. Very often they are also counterproductive and do nothing for ordinary citizens – but they do a whole lot for elites and the expansion of the state. It wouldn't be so bad...