February 21, 2012

February 21, 2012. Washington. (ONN) On Friday, a spreadsheet was released publicly which detailed the results of an in-depth investigation into the funding of the left-wing’s PR arm Media Matters. If readers ever wanted a glimpse into what or who America’s ‘shadow government’ is, this list is as good a place to start as any. It reads like a who’s who of America’s richest and most powerful influence-buyers on the progressive and liberal Democratic left.

Researched and released by The Daily Caller this weekend, this unfiltered look at an organization that alleges to be dedicated to fair and impartial reporting, proves the organization to be anything but. Called Media Matters for America, the group was incorporated in 2004. To give a sense of the types of programs the organization funds and promotes, one need only take a quick visit to their website. A brief visit to the site didn’t find one pro-active cause. Instead, it was a never-ending string of attacks on individuals, organizations and corporations.

The first attack is justly leveled at Fox News and the Fox Networks. Apparently selling a book, the site’s screaming headline quotes the title, ‘The Fox Effect: How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine’. Other rotating attacks were leveled at Glenn Beck and the accusations that the Fox News anchor promotes anti-Semitism and racism. A third promotion spot accuses Fox economic coverage of mimicking a Republican Party strategy memo.

Other issues and items Media Matters promotes are President Obama’s stimulus spending and the bailout of the auto industry. They level accusations at the Wall Street Journal while at the same time defending the benefits of electric cars. In one case, the group even blasts the like-minded CBS for accepting a donation from what they call, “a right-wing fringe group.”

Thanks to the information released on Friday, it’s no wonder why Media Matters functions as an attack dog for America’s extreme left wing. Investigators uncovered the sources of $28.8 million dollars in the group’s donations. That amount represents 54 percent of all contributions since 2003. While that is a staggeringly large amount of money, it was provided by no more than 120 specific individuals. And for those readers who’ve ever wondered who the secret and mysterious people are behind the scenes that corrupt the nation’s nightly news shows and fill them with little more than left wing political propaganda, here is a partial list of who they are.

Financial contributors to Media Matters for America, from The Daily Caller:

• Tides Foundation – $4.3 million
• Bohemian Foundation – $2.3 million
• Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation – $2.2 million
• Dyson Foundation – $2.1 million
• Gill Foundation – $1.1 million
• George Soros’ Open Society Institutes – $1 million
• Ford Foundation – $966,466
• Schumann Fund – $600,000
• Joyce Foundation – $400,000
• Sandler Foundation – $400,000
• Barbara Streisand Foundation – $85,000
• Lear Family Foundation – $55,000
• MoveOn.org – $50,000
• Stride Rite Charitable Foundation – $25,000

The article also lists other individual donors to Media Matters from a previous investigation by the right-wing National Review. Specific donation amounts by individual people are not public information and are not included. Some however, voluntarily made the information public. They include:

• Susie Tomkins Buell (Esprit clothing founder)
• Leo Hindery Jr. (telecom executive)
• Gail Furman (NY psychologist)
• Peter Lewis (Progressive Insurance)
• James Hormel (SPAM)
• Bren Simon (real estate tycoon)

The investigation by The Daily Caller also takes a closer look at who some of these people and foundations are, as well as what their large payments were earmarked for.

Beginning with Media Matters’ largest funding source, the Tides Foundation, the report reveals exactly what the Tides Foundation does. The article courteously calls the mysterious group a “clearinghouse for Democratic-aligned causes”. After one glimpse into the Foundation’s activities, it would also be fair to also call the organization a financial bundler or even a money launderer. The nonprofit Tides Foundation acts as a middleman for large money transfers. Donors, who wish to remain secret, transfer money, often millions of dollars, to Tides. Tides then passes the money along to other groups, organizations and activists, like Media Matters – to the tune of $4.3 million.

One of the biggest donors to Media Matters is the Sandler Foundation. The group was created by Herb and Marion Sandler. The couple made their fortune in the subprime mortgage boom that caused the American housing collapse. The Sandlers are also well known for being a major funding source for the street-level Democratic activist group ACORN.

Other donors like George Soros, Barbara Streisand and MoveOn.org need little introduction and any description their political agenda and accomplishments would take volumes. These three are independently renowned for their support of left-wing causes and politicians. The Joyce Foundation is another interesting discovery. Another one of the largest donors to Media Matters, the Foundation’s Board of Directors included President Obama from 1994-2002.

A glimpse into the inner workings of Media Matters reveals how their business model works. In one example provided by the report, the Joyce Foundation paid Media Matters to create and carry out an anti-firearms media campaign. Ensuing activities included scathing media reports attempting to smear the sports-shooting industry and the annual firearms convention. Media reports called firearms’ “increased lethality” the “nicotine of the firearms industry”. Exposing their level of sincerity, the report points out that the personal assistants of Media Matters’ founder David Brock carry concealed Glock firearms.

Another Media Matters promotion that gained momentary public attention was an effort to attack religious broadcasting networks, shows and personalities. The report explains how the left wing ARCA Foundation paid Media Matters $50,000 in 2006 to target religious shows for fact-checking and discrediting. ARCA was also one of the original funding sources for the launch of Media Matters, giving $100,000 for start-up costs two years earlier.

Even more examples show how the Gill Foundation and the Bohemian Foundation both paid Media Matters to establish a left-wing presence in Colorado, with the specific purpose of turning the red swing-state blue in the 2008 Presidential election. Immediately after Barack Obama’s inauguration, the Colorado office and its alleged front-group posing as an independent news outlet, closed.

In one of the more sinister and outrageous efforts by Media Matters, the Ford Foundation paid the group nearly $1 million since 2010 for one specific campaign – punish Ford Motor Company for daring to advertise on the independent-conservative Lou Dobbs Show. In a tried and true tactic of the left wing, one your publishers here at Whiteout Press have been victims of numerous times in the past, radical activists will bypass their actual target or adversary, in this case the Lou Dobbs Show, and attack the show’s sponsors. Ironically, the Ford Foundation paid Media Matters to attack its namesake Ford Motor Co.

According to a memo obtained by the report’s authors, the deal resulted in a hard-hitting negative ad campaign. “As part of the Drop Dobbs campaign” the memo read in part, “Media Matters produced and was prepared to run an advertisement against Ford Motor Company on Spanish Language stations in Houston, San Antonio, and other cities targeting its top selling product, pick-up trucks, in its top truck buying markets.”

While Media Matters is able to keep their funding sources secret, the nonprofit foundations that donate to them are legally obligated to report the funding. That is how most of the above donors and dollar amounts were discovered and why only half of the mysterious organization’s sources of funding are included. Making it even more difficult to find the truth, individuals who finance Media Matters are free to keep their identity a secret. 

With the secrecy and vast amounts of money being spread around for the specific purposes of attacking right wing individuals and causes, it’s no surprise that Media Matters has earned the scorn and contempt of the entire right wing establishment. With cries of a vast left-wing conspiracy typically dismissed as wild accusations, the report released by The Daily Caller this weekend puts a smoking gun into the hands of America’s extreme left. Thanks to the lengthy and detailed spreadsheet provided by the authors which includes all 120 of the uncovered funding sources of Media Matters, we can now assign the names of individuals and foundations that make up the all-too-real vast left-wing conspiracy.

Read The Daily Caller report and view the full spreadsheet here.