Monthly Notes

Philanthropy Notes: March 2016


Former conservative journalist David Brock has built an empire of activist groups since he went over to the Left years ago. Once an avowed enemy of the Clintons, he’s now their best buddy, wielding influence by churning out a constant stream of pro-Hillary Clinton propaganda. He’s created a bunch of groups that play a big role in politics, including Media Matters for America and the Correct the Record super PAC, and he’s steered money to leftist causes through George Soros’s Democracy Alliance. Some call this network the “Brocktopus.” But Brock’s scorched-earth offensive against insurgent Democrat contender Bernie Sanders is giving Democrat insiders heartburn, according to The Hill newspaper. Clinton donors, fundraisers, and operatives are concerned “about Brock’s comments, particularly some of his attacks on Bernie Sanders.” Key players worry Brock could be damaging her image and hurting her presidential chances. Brock planned to raise questions about 74-year-old Sanders’s health until Center for American Progress founder and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta told him on Twitter to “Chill out. We’re fighting on who would make a better President, not on who has a better Physical Fitness Test.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg scolded employees for replacing “Black Lives Matter” slogans with “All Lives Matter” on walls at corporate headquarters in San Francisco, Breitbart News reports. Zuckerberg told workers what they did was “malicious” and “disrespectful,” reminding them that there are “specific issues affecting the black community in the United States.” He added, “This has been a deeply hurtful and tiresome experience for the black community and really the entire Facebook community, and we are now investigating the current incidents.” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is also a Black Lives Matter supporter.

Donations to the University of Missouri’s athletic department took a big hit after a losing football season in which the team threatened to boycott games in order to support student protests over spurious racist incidents on campus, the Columbia Daily Tribune reports. This past December the athletic department took in only $191,000, compared to the $685,000 it received the previous December after Mizzou’s football team won a second consecutive SEC East title. “The decline in donations is being felt by the academic side of university fundraising, as well,” the newspaper reports. “New pledges and donations overall fell $6 million in December, usually one of the biggest months because donors are planning their tax deductions.”

Dan Cardinali will become the new CEO at Independent Sector effective July 5, replacing a triumvirate of executives that ruled there since Diana Aviv quit to head up Feeding America in October. Cardinali has been president of Communities In Schools since 2004, a group touted as the nation’s largest dropout prevention organization. He also worked as a community organizer in Guadalajara, Mexico, and obtained a one-year research fellowship at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

GOLDMAN SACHS WATCH

The campaign of class-warrior Hillary Clinton is pushing the panic button over the prospective release of secret transcripts of high-dollar speeches she made to Goldman Sachs that threaten to portray her as a two-faced un-progressive Wall Street elitist out of touch with the common people. The transcripts of three speeches for which Goldman paid her an astonishing $675,000 threaten to torpedo the false, focus group-friendly image she has cultivated. In the speeches to her fellow one-percenters, she reportedly comes across as unduly cozy with the financial titans that her angry left-wing base blames for most of America’s (and the world’s) problems today. One speech attendee reportedly said Clinton “sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing director” than a politician. Releasing that transcript “would bury her against Sanders,” the individual added. “It really makes her look like an ally of the firm.”

Matthew Vadum

The author of Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers (WND Books, 2011), Vadum, former senior vice president at CRC, writes and speaks widely…
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