Richard Mellon Scaife, The Sarah Scaife Foundation, And The Tribune-Review's Editorial Board

In an e-mail this morning, an astute reader reminded me of the rather intimate connection between the sources Richard Mellon Scaife's editorial board cites and the man himself, by way of the money flowing from the Sarah Scaife Foundation.

Initially I wasn't going to write about this today (it's my ANNIVERSARY, for Jebus' sake!) but as I have a little free time, I thought what the heck?

Following the money, it certainly looks to be a rather incestuous circle-jerk over there at the Trib.

For instance, from this PDF taken from their website, we learn that Richard Mellon Scaife is the Chairman of the Sarah Scaife Foundation.

We also learn, for instance, that in 2008, the Foundation gave $200,000 to an organization called the American Civil Rights Institute.

The Trib's editorial board, incidentally, mentions the ACRI in this editorial from January 7, 2008:

Ward Connerly, founder of the American Civil Rights Institute, has begun a campaign to put ballot initiatives before voters in these states this fall to ban their ["affirmative action"] programs. It's the latest move in his slowly successful crusade to eradicate such race- and gender-based policies nationwide.

With no mention of the 200 large.

Then there's this interview with Frank Gaffney, President of the "Center for Security Policy (and incidentally self-described member of "the Dick Cheney Fan Club"). There's no mention of the $300,000 the CSP received from the Sarah Scaife Foundation in 2008, the $300,000 it received in 2007, or the $350,000 in 2006.

Close to a million dollars in three years from a Richard Mellon Scaife-controlled foundation and there's no mention of it in a Richard Mellon Scaife-owned newspaper?

Shouldn't there be?

There's more:

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has received $350,000 in 2008, $275,000 in 2007, and $350,000 in 2006. That's $975,000 in three years and no mention of it here:

The first casualty of "climate change" rhetoric continues to be the truth. Take, for instance, President Obama's speech to the United Nations on Tuesday. Myron Ebell, the noted director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, documents at least four misrepresentations...

Or here:

Newly released Treasury Department figures on the cap-and-trade climate bill reveal a potential government windfall of up to $200 billion annually in federal receipts, far in excess of what the Obama administration originally projected.

And that would cost the average American household about $2,000 annually, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which requested the Treasury data from March under the Freedom of Information Act.

Or here:

In mid-August, CRU destroyed raw data for its global surface temperatures findings, allegedly because of limited storage space, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

By the way, that last one? They got the story almost completely wrong.

And that's just the beginning of the alphabet.

Gotta go, game's on.