Investigating Power
In 2020, DonorsTrust, a libertarian nonprofit, gave Metric Media Foundation $1.27 million “for general operations,” according to the Tow Center. A 2019 analysis of their IRS filings by the Center for Media and Democracy found that DonorsTrust and a sister organization, Donors Capital Fund, had pumped at least $90 million into “right-wing causes.”
Nonprofit online magazine Grist, in collaboration with the Center for Media and Democracy, published data last February showing that Canadian energy company Enbridge spent almost $6 million on police and sheriff’s services, as well as emergency response, during the Line 3 project in Minnesota. The state’s public utilities commission, which gave approval for Line 3 […]
According to SourceWatch, which monitors funding by right-wing foundations, the Searle foundation’s federal tax forms show it has been a regular funder to the Claremont Institute, giving $150,000 in 2022, $180,000 in 2021, $130,000 in 2020 and $130,000 in 2019.
In 2011, The Washington Post reported that Edelman helped API cast “REAL PEOPLE not Actors” in an Energy Citizens TV commercial highlighting “American Made Energy.” The following year, API kicked off “Vote 4 Energy,” the next chapter of Energy Citizens, which featured “supposedly average people looking into the camera and saying ‘I vote… for American domestic energy’ and promoting […]
Climate, Democracy, Economy, Environment, Koch
Americans for Prosperity is a political advocacy group founded by David and Charles Koch. The Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive watchdog group, classifies it as an “astroturf,” or pseudo grassroots organization, which represents the interests of Koch Industries.
The Center for Media and Democracy reports that a recent ALEC conference in Arizona advocated for a rewrite of the Constitution, our nation’s foundational document, for the first time in American history. The citizens’ lobby Common Cause calls the nationwide movement for a convention “the most serious threat to our democracy, flying almost completely under […]
Bradley Files, Democracy, Extremism, Trump
t took some time to get off the ground, but last year, AFL reported a whopping $44.4 million in revenue—up seven times from 2021. Of that largesse, $27 million alone came from the Bradley Impact Fund, a donor-advised dark money fund that previously bankrolled a number of organizations that pushed election fraud conspiracies in 2020.
Johnson also shared a telling story about his more recent exploits. “Somehow, I found myself invited to a small dinner that Charles Koch was having,” he began. The other guests, as Johnson described them, were 25 of the top conservative donors in the U.S. (They may have held as much as $4 billion in assets, according […]
School letter-grading policies were also promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, also known as ALEC. Its members are mostly conservative state lawmakers, and its funding comes from foundations, trade groups, and some corporations, according to research from the Center for Media and Democracy.
“The inclusion of climate change denial groups and PR firms alongside the massive presence of the fossil fuel industry at Cop28 calls into question the seriousness of the talks to enact policies to address the unfolding climate emergency,” said David Armiak, research director at the Center for Media and Democracy. “Why else would groups that […]