CRC Media Hits in February 2020

Another great month of media hits for Capital Research Center as we continue our work of investigating influencers deeply and exposing their special interests widely. This month includes not only some great original op-eds—which were shared by some pretty hefty names in media—but also a few odd mentions in places such as Sputnik News.

News outlets from across the spectrum continue to use our original research as source material in their own stories, publish our researchers’ op-eds, and interview our experts on topics as diverse as labor law, dark money funding networks, and free speech—to name but a few.

Below are the media hits for February 2020 (and a holdover from January). Please click through and enjoy the growing influence Capital Research Center is having on the world of public policy.

“Don’t Be Fooled by Liberal Dark Money Influence”
Christian Post, Ken Blackwell, 1/16/2020

Another dark money group is Arabella Advisors, orchestrators of many supposed “grassroots” campaigns on issues ranging from climate change to President Trump’s Supreme Court nominees. But in reality, Arabella doesn’t organize actual grassroots opposition to the Trump administration, it creates fake groups that pump out phony opposition through subsidiaries such as the Sixteen Thirty Fund.

WALTER: Nonprofit Behind Faulty Iowa Caucus App Has Ties to Hillary Clinton, Obama
Daily Caller, Scott Walter, Op-Ed, 2/4/2020

As the Daily Caller reported Tuesday in the wake of the Iowa caucus debacle, the firm responsible for the technology that caused delays in vote counts is linked to a vast network of Democrat-aligned groups engaged in leftist advocacy. At Capital Research Center, we track the funding and interconnections of these groups on our InfluenceWatch site, where the entry for ACRONYM, the nonprofit owner of Shadow, Inc. which designed the faulty app, reveals many of the ties to Clinton and Obama.

Democrat operatives and their friends in the media immediately dismissed theories that the Iowa app failure was a clever way to rig the system against Bernie Sanders. Again.

“Iowa Caucus’ Faulty App Had Ties to Former Clinton Admin Official”
Federalist, 2/5/2020

As a for-profit consulting company, Arabella Advisors manages an array of 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofits to which it has funneled billions over the last decade, half a billion in 2017 alone.

Last year, the conservative watchdog organization known as Capital Research Center conducted an investigation into Arabella Advisors, determining that “it is impossible to know which organizations subsidize the various campaigns and political movements spawned by Arabella’s funds.

“Equal Rights Amendment Deadline Extended and Mike Watson of Capital Research Center Discusses Unions and the Current Push for More Control”
Sandy Rios in the Morning, 2/10/2020

He’s the type of guy George Soros buys. Literally. ‘Soros Aims to Transform the Justice System by Funding D.A. Races,’ Capital Research Center reported in December, explaining how the leftist philanthropist has contributed more than $17 million in district attorney races in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Arizona, New York and California since 2015.

“Column: Churches Lead Campaign to Help People Burdened by Medical Debts, with Goal of Easter ‘When Jesus Forgave Our Debt’”
Chicago Tribune, 2/13/2020

RIP Medical Debt connects individual donors, philanthropists, and organizations with individuals facing medical debt, allowing donors to purchase debt portfolios at pennies on the dollar,” according to the Capital Research Center’s InfluenceWatch report. “Rather than collecting on the debt, donors write the purchase off as a charitable contribution to RIP, who then uses the funding to forgive medical debts for random individuals across the United States.

“Women’s Rights’ Groups Silent on Female Athletes Seeking to Preserve Women’s Sports”
Breitbart, 2/13/2020

According to Influence Watch, a project of Capital Research Center that seeks to provide “fact-based, accurate descriptions of all of the various influencers of public policy issues,” NOW “was formed to push for women’s legal and economic equality.”

However, the watchdog group says the scope of NOW’s agenda “has widened significantly to encompass all aspects of the left-of-center platform including tax and spend deficit spending to expand social programs, government funded handouts, unfettered abortions, government-controlled single-payer healthcare, and an unceasing litany of LGBT interest issues.”

“Soros-Funded Org Puts a Hit Piece Out on Pregnancy Help Centers”
Pregnancy Help, 2/13/2020

“OpenDemocracy states on its website that through its “reporting and analysis of social and political issues,” it “seeks to educate citizens to challenge power and encourage democratic debate across the world.”

Its “fiscal sponsor” is NEO Philanthropy, which Capital Research Center’s (CRC) Influence Watch terms “a fiscal clearinghouse for left-of-center causes.”

Much of “American mega-funder” NEO’s nearly $340 million in revenues since 2010, “came from multi-billion-dollar foundations,” CRC’s Hayden Ludwig reports, including the Ford Foundation and George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society.”

“Out of the Chaos, Let a Thousand Conspiracies Bloom”
American Conservative, 2/14/2020

We might also add that the right, too, is on the hunt for a conspiracy that seems to have been hiding in plain sight; the conservative watchdog group Capital Research Center adds valuable information on Acronym, Shadow, Inc., as well as Acronym’s superpac PACRONYM. For sure, these seem to be names out of a James Bond movie—and so now, where’s SMERSH and SPECTRE?

In the meantime, looming over all, is the, uh, specter of Michael Bloomberg and his money—which currently clocks in at $61 billion. We can note that Bloomberg’s balance is up ten billion in the last year or so. In other words, during the time that Bloomberg has been plotting his run for president, his wealth has been increasing exponentially. That’s the power of compound interest, or, more to the point, of capital gains. Such are the ways of plutocracy, now come to politics.

“Bloomberg Camp Denies Funding of Flawed Iowa Voting App”
Real Clear Politics, 2/14/2020

The Capital Research Center, a conservative watchdog, issued a report last year casting Arabella as a “hydra-like” network that raked in $582 million in 2017 while benefiting from tax laws allowing it to keep many of its donors undisclosed.

After the Iowa voting problems, several news outlets reported that Clinton and Obama campaign veterans serve in senior roles at Shadow. In the days since the caucuses fiasco, scrutiny has widened to include the money trail between Shadow and a constellation of dark-money liberal groups.

“We Hear You: Taking on the Left, Even in Blue States”
Daily Signal, Scott Walter (LTE), 2/16/2020

Dear Daily Signal: Fred Lucas reports that Leonard Leo decided to step away from daily leadership at the Federalist Society to lead a new group (“Trump Judicial Adviser Teams Up With Conservative PR Executive in New Initiative”). That new outfit, CRC Advisors, is intended to directly counter Arabella Advisors, a behemoth of left-wing activism.

Leo is certainly aiming high, because the four in-house nonprofits run by Arabella took in combined revenues of $635 million in 2018. They operated hundreds of pop-up activist groups, including Demand Justice, the top foe of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees.

It will take a lot of conservative support for Leo’s David to match that Goliath.—Scott Walter, President, Capital Research Center, Washington, D.C.

“Who Are the Former Obama Staffers Who Have Declared War on US Attorney General William Barr”
Sputnik News, 2/17/2020

One of the organisers of an open letter urging US Attorney General William Barr to resign is “Protect Democracy”, a nonprofit legal group that has been a longtime critic of the policies of the Donald Trump administration, including accusations that the US president provided false information to justify his anti-foreign terrorist entry executive order, commonly known as Travel Ban.

The group and its affiliated organisations, Protect Democracy Project (PDP) and United to Protect Democracy, are operated by former Barack Obama staffers who have never concealed the “urgent” purpose of their creation back in 2017, which was “to hold the President and the Executive Branch accountable”, or simply to “oppose” the policies of Donald Trump, as the Influence Watch website asserts.

“The Left Is Awash in Money”
Powerline, 2/17/2020

Here is another example. Have you heard of Arabella Advisors? I hadn’t, but check this out:

“Arabella Advisors (commonly called ‘Arabella’) is a philanthropic consulting company that guides the strategy, advocacy, impact investing, and management for high-dollar left-leaning nonprofits and individuals. [1] Arabella provides these clients with a number of services that ease their operations and that enable them to enact policies focused on environmentalism and other left-of-center issues.”

“Based on Tax Filings, Bill Kristol’s Been a Democrat for Years”
The Federalist, Hayden Ludwig, Op-ed, 2/19/2020

Bill Kristol—son of the “godfather of neoconservatism” Irving Kristol, and founder and editor-at-large of The Weekly Standard, a now-defunct outlet—confirmed the suspicions of many observers recently when he tweeted that he (and maybe all conservatives?) is now a Democrat.

“Not presumably forever; not perhaps for a day after Nov. 3, 2020; not on every issue or in every way until then. But for the time being one has to say: We are all Democrats now,” Kristol wrote.

“Shocker: Never Trump Commentator Bill Kristol Has Been a Democrat for Years”
Townhall, 2/20/2020

As for who funds the Bulwark, well, it’s a cast of characters that are hardcore allies of liberal America, including Planned Parenthood. The Federalist posted a story from Hayden Ludwig who tracked the monies that fund this project.

“NeverTrump Burns Leftist Cash on Failed Impeachment Crusade”
American Greatness, 2/20/2020

So, of course, Kristol was in attendance at the soiree. Alleged “conservatives” in the NeverTrump cabal that Kristol commands have prostituted themselves by accepting money from the leftist tech billionaire with a grudge against the president and a record of hostility to conservatism.

“Omidyar has given $213 million to various causes, many of which are active in left-wing politics,” according to a report in InfluenceWatch, which tracks the activities of political interest groups. His name often is mentioned alongside other tycoons on the Left such as Tom Steyer, George Soros, and Michael Bloomberg.

“Be Skeptical of the Lie Counters”
Indiana Tribune-Star, Scott Walter, LTE, 2/24/2020

Mr. Tonsfeldt also says he googled 20 different sites which all agreed about the number of misstatements or lies by President Trump. I could not find that many sites but I did find that of the two principally recognized sites, one is funded by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, a well-known leftist organization, and the other by George Soros, who I expect most people are familiar with his politics. I think Mr. Tonsfeldt will find the other sites were simple restating what was in these two primary sources as 20 sites are not going to agree on anything otherwise. You other folks out there might want to google ‘Dishonest Fact Checkers’ by Capital Research Center. Lots of interesting reading there.

“Labor Board Deals Final Blow to Obama-Era Effort to Unionize Fast-Food Industry”
Washington Examiner, 2/25/2020

The SEIU was one of the main funders of the effort to organize fast-food companies through the joint employer rule. The Capital Research Center, a conservative nonprofit group, estimated that the union spent as much as $182 million between 2013 and 2018 in an attempt to organize industry.

Robert Cresanti, president of the International Franchise Association, cheered the announcement. “With today’s rulemaking, the Department of Labor’s final rulemaking on joint employer, and the NLRB’s decision in the years-long McDonald’s case, the past three months represent an unparalleled amount of pro-franchise actions from the federal government,” Cresanti said.

“Big Three Ignore Soros Giving $2 Million to Group Supporting Smollett Prosecutor Kim Foxx”
MRC News Buster, 2/25/2020

Funding liberal attorneys is a trend for liberal billionaire Soros. Capital Research Center reported Dec. 17, 2019, that since 2015, Soros has spent “more than $17 million on district attorney and other local races in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Arizona, but also in large, predominantly left-of-center states such as California and New York.” [Emphasis added.]

Soros’ goal, according to a Nov 14, 2019 Washington Times report, is supporting leftist district attorneys to “remake the criminal justice system.” [Emphasis added.]

“Reagan Forum Podcast: Dennis Prager and Mark Joseph”
Ricochet, 2/28/2020

In this week’s “A Reagan Forum” we look at the terrifying violence on college campuses across America as students lash out at any speaker brave enough to say something they disagree with. This topic is now a best-selling book and eye-opening documentary called “No Safe Spaces” by conservative talk radio host Dennis Prager, Hollywood producer Mark Joseph and television and radio personality Adam Carolla.