Investigating Power
Buying power is the money an investor has available to buy securities and equals the total cash held in the brokerage account plus all available margin. National Right to Work cited the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR), which is a research institute funded by National Right to Work, according to the progressive Center for Media and Democracy, a nonprofit watchdog group.
The Center for Media and Democracy has studied the NRTWC [National Right To Work Committee] and its funding. CMD reported that in 2012, NRTWC and its affiliated National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation and National Institute for Labor Relations Research had combined budgets of more than $25 million, making them a “powerful instrument of the corporate and ideological interests that want to keep wages low and silence the voice of organized labor in the political arena.” Mix said today that after the Supreme Court decided to hear Janus, his group was given access to an internal document from a Democratic political group indicating that 25 to 30 percent of its income came from organized labor.
CMD’s Mary Bottari reported last year on the huge sums that have been poured into anti-union projects by the massive right-wing Bradley Foundation, whose recipients include NRTWC [National Right To Work Committee] allies like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and State Policy Network (of which NRTWC is an associate member), as well as efforts to gain “unified control” in states — Republican control of governorships, legislatures, and supreme courts — in order to pass anti-union “reform” and other conservative policies. The Center for Responsive Politics noted in 2014 that NRTWC’s PAC had given 100 percent of its contributions to Republicans, and had been accused of campaign finance law violations.
A dozen public interest organizations are calling on the IRS to investigate the Trump Foundation for criminal violations of the US tax code.
The groups American Family Voices, Americans for Tax Fairness, Campaign for Accountability, Center for American Progress, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Media and Democracy, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Common Cause, Demand Progress Action, End Citizens United, Free Speech For People, Public Citizen all signed a letter calling on the IRS to investigate the Trump Foundation.
Although ALEC says it wants government to put “the people in control,” the Center for Media and Democracy uncovered that almost 98 percent of ALEC’s funding comes from corporations and trade associations. We’re talking places like ExxonMobil, a Koch charitable foundation, PhRMA.
Bradley Foundation internal documents reviewed by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reveal a concerted effort by the organization to delegitimize climate science, while promoting fossil fuel energy development in the United States.
The left-leaning Center for Media and Democracy said Exxon Mobil and its affiliates have given more than $1.7 million to ALEC, based on various disclosures by the company and the organization.
Indeed, as the present author first documented for the Center for Media and Democracy, Charles Koch became active in JBS after returning home to Wichita to help with the family business. Charles was a leader and fundraiser for JBS, including underwriting its publications and national radio network, while it attacked collective bargaining and leaders of the civil rights movement such as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks.
In 2016, The Bradley Foundation gave IFS $125,000 to fight those calling for greater disclosure rules, something the Bradley Foundation claims will “chill speech,” according to documents acquired by the Center for Media and Democracy.
According to Sourcewatch.org, contrary to its “mom and pop” image, the NFIB has been shown to lobby on issues that favor large corporate interests, not small businesses. While it refuses to name its donors, the NFIB has received $3.7 million from Karl Rove’s far-right Crossroads GPS, and in 2010 NFIB’s legal arm received $1.15 million from Donors Trust, a major donor to the Koch brothers’ extremist Americans for Prosperity Foundation.