Media Matters donors Revealed

[Stephanie]

well well..

SNIP:

Left-wing foundations lavish millions on Media Matters

Published: 12:50 AM 02/17/2012 | Updated: 1:06 AM 02/17/2012

By David Martosko, The Daily Caller

Relying on tax returns and websites of wealthy U.S. foundations, a Daily Caller investigation has revealed the sources of more than $28.8 million in funding collected by the liberal Media Matters for America since 2003, the year before its formal incorporation. That sum represents 54 percent of every dollar the organization has raised in its history, making Media Matters a principally foundation-driven — not citizen-supported — activist group.

The list of Media Matters’ foundation funders, 120 in all, reads like a Who’s Who of the American progressive movement, including the far-left Tides Foundation ($4,384,702), George Soros’ Open Society Institutes ($1,075,000), the Ford Foundation ($966,466), the Sandler Foundation ($400,000) — endowed by subprime mortgage lenders Herb and Marion Sandler, who once bankrolled the embattled ACORN organization — and the Schumann Fund for Media and Democracy ($600,000), managed by longtime PBS host Bill Moyers and his son.

They also include the anti-George W. Bush organization MoveOn.org ($50,000), the Barbra Streisand Foundation ($85,000), the kids’ shoes-powered Stride Rite Charitable Foundation ($25,000), the Lear Family Foundation ($55,000) — endowed by the TV producer and People for the American Way founder Norman Lear — and the Joyce Foundation ($400,000), whose board of directors included Barack Obama from 1994 to 2002.

(RELATED: See the list of Media Matters’ foundation donors)
http://dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/MMFA-donors-THE-DAILY-CALLER.pdf


lots of comments at site
Read more: Media Matters

 

[Conservative]

and this surprises anyone because?

 

[Conservative]

the libtards will say 'so what'. as always

 

[California Girl]

This, technically, makes them part of the evil 1%.

Just sayin'.

 

[Stephanie]

These are the people funding the OWS folks..

get a clue

 

[occupied]

the libtards will say 'so what'. as always

So what? If any of the various R/W lobbying groups were disclosed we would find a mix of big oil, big pharma and big banks. We all know who the big players are, how much we allow them to influence our personal opinions is the question.

 

[California Girl]

the libtards will say 'so what'. as always

So what? If any of the various R/W lobbying groups were disclosed we would find a mix of big oil, big pharma and big banks. We all know who the big players are, how much we allow them to influence our personal opinions is the question.

Media Matters is not supposed to be a 'lobbying group'.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

These are the people funding the OWS folks..

get a clue

And the kochs fund the teebaggers.

Welcome to the real world.

 

[Claudette]

Any proof anyone is "funding" the Tea Partiers??

 

[jillian]

*waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah*

 

[California Girl]

*waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah*

Yea, I can understand why the left wing hacks are crying. This seriously blows their claims about media neutrality out of existence. Which will be helpful over the coming months... what with there being an election in November. Corruption in the media, with the direct involvement of the Obama Administration... that is soooo not gonna play well for him.

 

[occupied]

Any proof anyone is "funding" the Tea Partiers??

Freedomworks, American crossroads, Koch brothers, you know the list. The funny thing will be when all the people from 2010 start looking for that pile of funding to find it gone this summer, maybe we will see what the tea party would have looked like without the lobbyist money and the paid media attention.

 

[jillian]

Any proof anyone is "funding" the Tea Partiers??

seriously. please try not to be intentionally obtuse.

at least i hope it's intentional.

from that bastion of liberal thought, US News and World Reports

Tea Party Funding Koch Brothers Emerge From Anonymity

Few in America had heard about the third-richest Americans, brothers David and Charles Koch, until just recently. Aside from David Koch’s gifts to the Lincoln Center in New York and the naming of a theater after him, few outside a small, elite circle would recognize the name or know how to pronounce it. (“Koch” as in “coke”)

For decades, they were under the radar. They and their father had amassed an incredible fortune, mainly in the oil business. Their privately held company revenues last year were estimated at $100 billion. Each brother is worth $21.5 billion. That is a very big “B” in both cases.

For many years, they have been involved in politics but not terribly open or transparent about it. It is true that David Koch ran as vice president on the 1980 Libertarian ticket, to the right of Ronald Reagan. According to New York Times columnist Frank Rich, “his campaign called for the abolition not just of Social Security, federal regulatory agencies and welfare but also of the FBI, the CIA, and public schools.” Since the Libertarian party’s 1 percent showing in 1980, David Koch has very much been behind the scenes, until now. [See who donates the most to your member of Congress.]

Jane Mayer, of The New Yorker, in her 10,000 word piece last August, peeled the cover off the onion of the Koch brothers' empire. And she focused not only on their personal wealth and family, but on their political empire building

*snip*
But it has now come out how involved they have been in funding Tea Party groups, Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, and Citizens for a Sound Economy ($12 million). [Check out a roundup of political cartoons on the Tea Party.]

We do know, from Mayer’s reporting, that the Koch brothers have personally given over $2 million to candidates over the last 12 years, their PAC has contributed $8 million to candidates, and they have spent $50 million on lobbying. The Charles Koch Foundation has given $48 million, and another foundation they control gave $28 million. David Koch’s foundation gave more than $120 million. According to Mayer, $196 million dollars in total was distributed in the last 10 years to conservative causes and institutions.

That all, as they say, is not chicken feed, and it begs the question: How in the heck did they stay under the radar for as long as they did?

Part of the reason is that much of what they did was not reportable but, more important, until recently they were not pouring the millions into campaigns through advertising and expenditures allowed due to the Citizens United Supreme Court case. [Read the U.S. News debate: Is the Citizens United decision hurting democracy?

Tea Party Funding Koch Brothers Emerge From Anonymity - Peter Fenn (usnews.com)

 

[Sallow]

Any proof anyone is "funding" the Tea Partiers??

Only the fat cats change — not their methods and not their pet bugaboos (taxes, corporate regulation, organized labor, and government “handouts” to the poor, unemployed, ill and elderly). Even the sources of their fortunes remain fairly constant. Koch Industries began with oil in the 1930s and now also spews an array of industrial products, from Dixie cups to Lycra, not unlike DuPont’s portfolio of paint and plastics. Sometimes the biological DNA persists as well. The Koch brothers’ father, Fred, was among the select group chosen to serve on the Birch Society’s top governing body. In a recorded 1963 speech that survives in a University of Michigan archive, he can be heard warning of “a takeover” of America in which Communists would “infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until the president is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us.” That rant could be delivered as is at any Tea Party rally today.

Last week the Kochs were shoved unwillingly into the spotlight by the most comprehensive journalistic portrait of them yet, written by Jane Mayer of The New Yorker. Her article caused a stir among those in Manhattan’s liberal elite who didn’t know that David Koch, widely celebrated for his cultural philanthropy, is not merely another rich conservative Republican but the founder of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which, as Mayer writes with some understatement, “has worked closely with the Tea Party since the movement’s inception.” To New Yorkers who associate the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center with the New York City Ballet, it’s startling to learn that the Texas branch of that foundation’s political arm, known simply as Americans for Prosperity, gave its Blogger of the Year Award to an activist who had called President Obama “cokehead in chief.”

The other major sponsor of the Tea Party movement is Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks, which, like Americans for Prosperity, is promoting events in Washington this weekend. Under its original name, Citizens for a Sound Economy, FreedomWorks received $12 million of its own from Koch family foundations. Using tax records, Mayer found that Koch-controlled foundations gave out $196 million from 1998 to 2008, much of it to conservative causes and institutions. That figure doesn’t include $50 million in Koch Industries lobbying and $4.8 million in campaign contributions by its political action committee, putting it first among energy company peers like Exxon Mobil and Chevron. Since tax law permits anonymous personal donations to nonprofit political groups, these figures may understate the case. The Kochs surely match the in-kind donations the Tea Party receives in free promotion 24/7 from Murdoch’s Fox News, where both Beck and Palin are on the payroll.
The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party - NYTimes.com

Your google broke?

 

[Stephanie]

and the Joyce Foundation ($400,000), whose board of directors included Barack Obama from 1994 to 2002.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

But but but but but but but but the Koch Brothers wanted to spend $100,000 to get alternate, scientific viewpoints on "Global Warming"

 

[g5000]

the libtards will say 'so what'. as always

So what? If any of the various R/W lobbying groups were disclosed we would find a mix of big oil, big pharma and big banks. We all know who the big players are, how much we allow them to influence our personal opinions is the question.

Media Matters is not supposed to be a 'lobbying group'.

Not true. They are a 501(c)(4). They are allowed to lobby and participate in political campaigns.

 

[8537]

Wait - Media Matters is funded by left-oriented foundations? And you felt it was worth forcing billions of electrons to stand at attention to share this information?

Please, think of the poor electrons!

Next thing you know, we'll learn that Accuracy In Media is funded by a bunch of rightwing foundations.

 

[Stephanie]

Wait - Media Matters is funded by left-oriented foundations? And you felt it was worth forcing billions of electrons to stand at attention to share this information?

Please, think of the poor electrons!

Next thing you know, we'll learn that Accuracy In Media is funded by a bunch of rightwing foundations.

well when you get that proof, you can force billions of electrons to stand at attention......... and share it.

 

[California Girl]

So what? If any of the various R/W lobbying groups were disclosed we would find a mix of big oil, big pharma and big banks. We all know who the big players are, how much we allow them to influence our personal opinions is the question.

Media Matters is not supposed to be a 'lobbying group'.

Not true. They are a 501(c)(4). They are allowed to lobby and participate in political campaigns.

I didn't say they couldn't. I said they are not supposed to.... at least they claim they don't.

Although that was before they got caught being Obama's buttboys.