Research Cited

Colorado labor and education are in the crosshairs of an anti-union Wisconsin foundation, according separate investigations by the Center for Media and Democracy and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation that supported the anti-union efforts in support of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (who grew up in Colorado Springs, coincidentally) are spreading their efforts nationwide, starting with Colorado and North Carolina.

Yet Bice ignores the elephant in the room: whether this charitable group is violating the federal law restricting a tax-exempt charity from engaging in activities to benefit a political party. As Mary Bottari of the liberal Center for Media and Democracy has reported, the documents show the Bradley Foundation has funded training schools for Republicans, has engaged in efforts to turn Democratic-leaning blue states into Republican-leaning red states, and funded many things that seem like purely partisan projects.

We welcome the Center for Media and Democracy’s Deputy Director, Mary Bottari to discuss their extensive investigation into the Bradley Foundation’s “weaponized philanthropy.” New recently released information reveals in tremendous detail how the Bradley Foundation has spent hundreds of millions in tax deductible money to build a huge partisan apparatus across the country molded on what they have already done to Wisconsin.

Mary Bottari, from the Center for Media and Democracy, will tell us how her organization uncovered secret documents, from the right-wing Bradley Foundation, describing the game plan to defund and dismantle unions.

The Ring of Fire Network

The Ring of Fire Network, Bradley Files Exposed, May 12, 2017, Part 1 (SoundCloud)

The Ring of Fire Network, Bradley Files Exposed, May 12, 2017, Part 2 (SoundCloud)

The Center for Media and Democracy examined Bradley Foundation documents that were released in 2016 via Twitter accounts connected to the Russian hackers tied to the breach of the Democratic National Committee. The documents reveal that Bradley “has a new stream of funding to build this ‘conservative infrastructure’ and is using a metric to assess the strength and depth of that infrastructure in individual states—including ‘receptive’ politicians, right-wing ‘think tanks,’ symbiotic ‘grassroots’ groups, friendly media, litigation centers, and opposition research—to guide Bradley’s strategic funding initiatives.”

Jane Mayer, author of the book “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right” (2016), told the Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy that the cache of Bradley Foundation documents “appears to be more evidence that a few powerful private foundations are weaponizing philanthropy for their own private political purposes.” CMD, a watchdog group that played a pivotal role in exposing the machinations of the billionaire Koch brothers, examined the Bradley Foundation documents and concluded that they reveal a concerted effort to “expand right-wing ‘infrastructure’ to influence policies and politicians in statehouses nationwide.”