Tides Foundation

In the soul-searching saga that has followed Mitt Romney’s defeat in November, some leading Republicans claim that to stave off political oblivion the GOP must wholeheartedly embrace comprehensive immigration reform including amnesty for those illegal aliens already in the country.

This is wishful thinking, of course. According to various studies including a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) report, pandering to Latino voters will not gain the Republican Party Hispanic-American votes. Latinos are particularly hard to win over to the Republican side because they tend to be ideologically aligned with big-government solutions traditionally associated with Democrats.

In other words, if conservatives embrace amnesty and all it entails, they get nada. Zero. Zip. The Left wins by getting a huge increase in the left-leaning portion of the electorate.

For liberals, there’s no downside at all. It’s a win-win as the Cloward-Piven Strategy of overwhelming the system is applied to immigration policy.

The National Immigration Forum (NIF), a media-savvy political shop largely underwritten by radical left-wing political manipulator George Soros, is attempting to dupe conservatives into supporting a massive immigration amnesty.

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Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) is now involved in a serious scandal involving corruption and prostitution. The New Agenda, a feminist group, called upon the senator to resign from office if allegations that he had sex with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic prove accurate.

But little attention has been paid to the activism of his daughter, TV and radio commentator Alicia Menendez, who works for NDN (formerly the New Democrat Network), a Washington, D.C.-based liberal pressure group. NDN, founded by Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, consists of the NDN Political Fund, the New Politics Institute, and the Hispanic Strategy Center. Ms. Menendez became a senior advisor to NDN and the New Politics Institute in 2010 .

When Rosenberg hired Ms. Menendez he hailed her as “a well-established television commentator and experienced organizer in important emerging communities. You can find her talking about national politics just about every week on the cable news networks, Fox and MSNBC. She is a veteran of both Rock the Vote and Democracia USA, successful organizations dedicated to increasing the participation of Millennials and Hispanics in the electoral process.”

Menendez earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College in 2005, with an honors degree in Studies in Women, Gender and Sexuality. According to a profile at Viral Read,  

Ms. Menendez is a self-proclaimed feminist and has addressed women’s issues in politics in many different ways. In a March 2008 piece she wrote entitled “Silda for Governor ’14″ she focused on then-NY Governor Eliot Spitzer, after it was discovered he had been paying for the services of prostitutes. She seemingly excused his actions for biological, boys-will-be-boys reasons, yet empathized with his wife Silda’s resilience – ultimately calling on her to run for Governor herself. Then during the 2012 presidential election (as well as her father’s own re-election campaign), in a piece for NBCLatino.com, she addressed “The GOP’s Lady Problems”, claiming that because Republicans desire to discuss women’s issues in terms of the economy, deficit and jobs, instead of contraception, abortion rights and equal pay, they were out of touch with women in general.

It is unclear if Ms. Menendez was previously aware of her father’s alleged activities overseas.

In any event, NDN and Ms. Menendez have ties to radical anti-American philanthropist George Soros. Soros’s Democracy Alliance, an invitation-only club for billionaire leftist political donors, approved a grant of unknown size to NDN in 2006.  Democracy Alliance, founded in 2005, is a financial clearinghouse that recommends to its wealthy members projects and groups aimed at transforming America into a European-style socialist state. Soros is the preeminent funder of the left in the United States. He openly favors American decline and has said European-style socialism “is exactly what we need now.” Soros praises Communist China effusively, saying the totalitarian nation has “a better-functioning government than the United States.”

NDN is a 501(c)(4) lobbying group so information about its funding is difficult to find. The Kanter Family Foundation of Vienna, Virginia, disclosed that it has given NDN $50,000 since 2009.

The New Policy Institute describes itself as a “501(c)(3) tax-exempt project of Tides Center and affiliate of NDN.” The Tides Center is related to the notorious Tides Foundation, which anonymously funnels money from donors such as Soros to radical causes that the donors would prefer not to be publicly identified with.

The New Policy Institute has received $227,000 in grants from the Tides Foundation since 2008.

Other philanthropies to donate to NPI include: Kanter Family Foundation ($57,500 since 2009); East Bay Community Foundation ($210,000 since 2009); and the Nick and Leslie Hanauer Foundation ($75,000 since 2009). Nick (Nicholas) Hanauer is a member of Soros’s Democracy Alliance.

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights (but Not Equal Rights) Under Law

By Kevin Mooney, Organization Trends, February 2013 (PDF here)

Summary: Formed in the midst of the nation’s struggle to guarantee equal rights to all Americans, regardless of race, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has morphed into just another left-wing pressure group trying to gain special privileges for its favored constituencies, even if that means undermining the voting rights of Americans of every race.

Be careful about working to uphold the rule of law in areas of the country where both political parties are competitive. Otherwise, you can expect to hear from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which has joined forces with Project Vote, Demos, Common Cause, the Advancement Project, and other far-left groups in an effort to scuttle ballot integrity efforts. Thanks in large measure to a compliant, uncritical news media, the Lawyers’ Committee and its allies, have worked successfully to delay (but not stop) implementation of voter identification laws that would protect the best interests of the very racial minorities the Committee claims to champion.

While it is fair to point out that Republicans have been the primary driving force behind voter ID laws since the 2010 mid-term elections, the New York Times and other liberal publications do not inform readers that a broad cross-section of Americans, spanning political and racial lines, support these same laws. In fact, polls show that minorities actually favor voter ID laws by a slightly higher margin than whites.

John Fund, a senior editor with the American Spectator who has written two books on voter fraud, told the “True the Vote” Summit in Houston, Texas, last year that the poll results should not be surprising.

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A  Reaganite Entrepreneur’s Flawed Philanthropy:

An engineering genius didn’t design his foundation to honor his donor intent

By Martin Morse Wooster (Foundation Watch, January 2013 – PDF here)

Summary: This co-founder of a pioneering high-tech firm was a conservative Republican who spent years supporting politicians and public intellectuals on the Right. But the eminent engineer wasn’t careful when designing his own multibillion-dollar foundation, which now follows only those threads of his donor intent that can be woven into fashionable leftism.

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Catalist for Victory: How Nonprofits and Unions Have Struggled to Re-elect President Obama

By Neil Maghami, Organization Trends, November 2012 (PDF here)

Summary: Supposedly nonpartisan nonprofits on the Left and their union allies have exploited the latest “microtargeting” technology as they’ve worked feverishly to elect Democrats. The most powerful weapon in their arsenal is Catalist LLC, a state-of-the-art data firm that services both “nonpartisan” nonprofits and every would-be Democrat officeholder who can afford it. (Note: This study went to press shortly before the election.)

Winning in war, quipped a Southern leader in the Civil War, is all about getting to the battlefield “firstest with the mostest.” That’s a formula for victory in presidential politics, too. When it comes to mustering all possible support on Election Day 2012 for the Democratic Party, unions and tax-exempt left-wing groups have played a critical role in the party’s get-out-the-vote strategy. Since 2006 a high-tech operation called Catalist LLC has helped both unions and tax-exempt groups fine-tune their electoral influence to the point that they may well provide the Democrats the edge they need.

Catalist boasts it was vital to President Obama’s 2008 victory. By its own admission, “over 90 organizations, campaigns and committees” used the company’s services. “Based on data that was loaded into the Catalist databases and then standardized,” a Catalist analysis of the 2008 cycle says, “progressive organizations, the Obama campaign, and federal party committees attempted to contact more than 106 million people. This means that the progressive community attempted to contact over 46% of the U.S. adult population. Contacts were delivered in-person, over the phone, by mail and over the internet.”

Catalist says that “data stored by all progressive groups (over 90 organizations, campaigns and committees) working with [us] in the 2008 cycle shows that presidential [voter] ID activity alone reached 15,452,954 people—a difference of over 80% [compared to 2004]. Overall, Catalist customers were responsible for generating over 7 million voter registration applications. They completed over 127 million contacts to over 49 million unique individuals. Of these individuals, 28 million voted on Election Day, representing over 20% of all votes cast. Furthermore, 82% of progressive activities occurred in 16 highly contested states. Progressives contacted 37% of all the people who voted in the 16 battlegrounds.”

If this is what Catalist and its allies could achieve in 2008, imagine their goals for 2012, after four more years of refining their techniques. This edition of Organization Trends examines the who’s, why’s, and how’s of Catalist. We’ll also explore Catalist’s link to George Soros, the Left’s Daddy Warbucks. And we’ll look at some of Catalist’s known customers in the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt community and among labor unions.

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I was on “The Source” with Ezra Levant on Sun News Network (TV) last night providing an update on the Brett Kimberlin saga.

Here’s the video clip:

(Thanks for posting the video, SDAMatt2a!)

The Estate Tax:  Charitable Giving and Private Profits,  Who Wins, Who Loses?

By Palmer Schoening, M.P.P and William Beranek, Ph.D

(Organization Trends, June 2012, PDF here)

Summary: The 2001 tax relief legislation provided for the phase out and termination of the federal estate tax in 2010. But Democrats in Congress revived it for 2011 and 2012. And if Congress fails to act before January 1, 2013, the Federal Estate Tax exemption will drop to $1 million and the rate will increase to 55%. Former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Holtz-Eakin estimates that returning to a 55% death tax would cost an already jobs-thirsty America an additional 500,000 lost jobs. The most likely scenario this year is a one-year extension of the current tax (35% estate tax with a $5 million exemption) but Congress would be wise to repeal the tax completely. Repealing the tax will provide jobs, keep family businesses and farms intact, and increase charitable giving.

Leftist politicians who resent some Americans having more money than others want to tax those they label “the rich.” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) is offended that “[i]n the United States today, the richest 1% owns 34% of our nation’s wealth” which, she says, is “more than the entire bottom 90% combined.” Unless the wealth of the rich is more heavily taxed, says Schakowsky, Americans will be forced to make one of two choices. “We can choose to cut education, job creation and health care, or we can choose to ask those who can contribute more to do so.”

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What do self-described “communist” Van Jones, his good friend Arianna Huffington, radical philanthropist George Soros, the Threshold Foundation, and the Tides Foundation all have in common?

They all are connected in some way to convicted “Speedway Bomber” Brett C. Kimberlin, a man described by Michelle Malkin as “a radical, violent, lying, dangerous felon.”

Kimberlin, as blogger Liberty Chick previously reported,

spent nearly 17 years in prison after being convicted of launching a week-long bombing spree that terrorized the residents of Speedway, Indiana in the late 1970’s. One of the blasts horribly maimed a man so badly that it directly led to that man’s suicide a few years later, which was proven when the widow of that bombing victim successfully sued and won a civil judgment against Kimberlin for $1.6 million.

Kimberlin is a political trailblazer of sorts. He is a tactical innovator whose tried and true methods would have impressed the father of modern community organizing, Saul Alinsky. The late conservative Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart recognized Kimberlin’s unique talents last fall, tweeting that the convicted terrorist and his confederates needed “exposure.”

Kimberlin is focusing on bullying conservatives into silence, which is the same thing that so much of progressivedom is concentrating on nowadays. But unlike Van Jones and the various Marxist agitators who have inflicted damage on conservative talk radio and innocuous groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) through innuendo and smears, Kimberlin gets in his enemies’ faces. While in prison he taught himself the law. Nowadays he sues conservatives who write about him and obtains restraining orders against them – the First Amendment be damned.

Amazingly, a leading Kimberlin detractor, conservative blogger Aaron Walker, was jailed by a Maryland judge yesterday after criticizing Kimberlin.

JTMP and another nonprofit Kimberlin founded, Velvet Revolution, receive money from left-wing funders. Of course it’s their privilege to do what they want with their money even if it means funding nonprofits operated by “a radical, violent, lying, dangerous felon.” Similarly, since 1984 it has been Capital Research Center’s mission to report on and analyze what charities do with their money.

The Threshold Foundation has been in the news in recent days because the San Francisco-based philanthropy gave $20,000 in 2008 to the Justice Through Music Project, a seven year old Bethesda, Maryland-based 501c3 nonprofit entity. JTMP was founded by Mr. Kimberlin a few short years after his release from prison. (See its latest IRS Form 990 [tax return] here.) Threshold has also given $60,000 to the related nonprofit, Velvet Revolution, since 2007. (For more information on Threshold, see Bonner Cohen’s July 2006 Foundation Watch article.)

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I discussed the exploits of left-wing terrorist bomber Brett Kimberlin on “The Source” with Ezra Levant yesterday on Sun News Network (Canada).

Here is the video clip of the interview:

Here is my article from today’s Front Page Magazine:

 Brett Kimberlin and the Hall of Fame of Leftist Terrorists

By Matthew Vadum

The Left has a long history of embracing unrepentant, manipulative sociopaths, felons, terrorists, and mass murderers – anything goes, provided that they share the same political ideology.

In fairness, most liberals do not feel affection for the worst of the worst among leftists such as Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Che Guevara, or Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones.

But there are a few domestic radicals who have attained a kind of folk hero status in left-wing circles.

Convicted cop killer and Black Panthers member Mumia abu Jamal, would-be GOP convention bombers David Guy McKay and Bradley Neil Crowder, ACORN founder and cyber-terrorism advocate Wade Rathke, Obamacare architect and convicted swindler Robert Creamer, Earth Day booster and murderer Ira Einhorn, imprisoned terrorist lawyer Lynne Stewart, Weather Underground leaders Jeff Jones, Bill Ayers, and Bernardine Dohrn, just to name a few.

“Speedway Bomber” Brett Kimberlin isn’t famous enough yet to have a cult following on the Left but give the determined, energetic activist time. A few short years after his release from federal prison the radical leftist has been embraced by all the right people, winning grants from the George Soros-funded Tides Foundation and wealthy celebrities.

He’s earned the confidence of leftist luminaries such as Teresa Heinz Kerry and Barbra Streisand who have sent money to his activist group, the Justice Through Music Project. The seven-year-old Bethesda, Maryland-based 501c3 nonprofit entity buys into the radical environmentalist agenda, supports the goals of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and claims to have registered 100,000 people to vote. (See its latest IRS Form 990 [tax return] here.)

This Maryland resident is a political trailblazer of sorts. Kimberlin is a tactical innovator whose tried and true methods would have impressed the father of modern community organizing, Saul Alinsky. The late conservative Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart recognized Kimberlin’s unique talents last fall, tweeting that the convicted terrorist and his confederates needed “exposure.”

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