A Warm Tribune-Review Sendoff

Where Eric Heyl offers a nice moist towel (metaphorical, of course) to Ed Feulner, Trib columnist and current President of the Heritage Foundation.

For those not familiar with this story, here's some background.  Earlier this month the Tribune-Review reported that South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint would be resigning from the Senate to replace Feulner as President of the Heritage Foundation.  According to this piece from Newsmax, this makes for one big happy:

Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner is enthusiastically welcoming the appointment of South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint as his replacement.

In announcing that DeMint will step down from the Senate on Dec. 31 to take over the running of the foundation, Feulner issued the following statement.

“Three years ago, I told the Heritage Foundation's Board of Trustees that I would step down as president in April of 2013. I urged them to set up a formal succession process and begin a national search.

“During their nationwide search, the Board looked for a successor who would keep Heritage on its course of growth and innovation, and preserve our widely acknowledged status as an institutional center of the conservative movement. And the Board has found a splendid successor.

“I'm delighted to announce that the Board has elected Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina to take over next April as President of The Heritage Foundation.

Do I need to add that Tribune-Review owner Richard Mellon Scaife is the Vice-President of the Board of Trustees for Heritage and also owns 40% of Newsmax?

Nice tight little web of journalismness there, huh?  All those connections to Scaife.  No mention of them in Scaife's paper...

Anyway, I wanted to point out a few things.  I think we can gather where Heyl did his research for his first question:

Q: You shepherded The Heritage Foundation from a nine-member outfit to an organization that employees 275-plus and occupies three Washington, D.C., buildings. Were you confident setting out that you could grow the foundation into what The New York Times once called “the Parthenon of the conservative metropolis”?

If you go to Ed Feulner's bio at Heritage, you'll see these two paragraphs at the top:

Edwin J. Feulner’s leadership as President of The Heritage Foundation has transformed the think tank from a small policy shop into America’s powerhouse of conservative ideas and what the New York Times calls “the Parthenon of the conservative metropolis.”

Under Feulner, Heritage’s presence in Washington grew from a nine-member staff working out of a rented office on Capitol Hill in 1977 to a 275-person organization occupying three office buildings near the U.S. Capitol today.

Eric, that's some great in-depth research, my friend!  Must've taken you all of 6 seconds to find.  In touting Heritage, Feulner points out how it became such a powerhouse; credibility, marketing and timeliness.

On its credibility, he responds with this on pointing out some of Heritage's significant achievements:

It‘s been 35 years so I could go through a long, long list. But in the ’80s, it has to be when Ronald Reagan (backed) the anti-missile defense system, or Star Wars, as it was then called, and (the ideas) that tax reform and tax cuts lead to a growing economy.

Hmm...so the great achievements are SDI and Trickle-down Economics - but was any of it true?

Well we have the American Physical Society way back in 1987 already doubting the feasibility of the Strategic Defense Initiative and we all know how well Trickle-down works:

The tax cuts came in 1981, Reagan's first year in office. The administration's plan slashed corporate and individual income tax rates, with the biggest cut in the top rate. The Reagan team promised that their tax cuts would jolt the economy back to life because, as the Wall Street Journal's editors put it, "high taxes interfere with natural human creativity and drive." And the true believers went so far as to suggest that the economy would grow fast enough that tax revenues would actually rise, making the tax cuts painless.

The results never came close to measuring up to the supply-side rhetoric. For starters, the tax cuts busted the federal budget. The federal deficit ballooned from 2.7% of GDP in 1980 to 6% of GDP in 1983, the largest peacetime deficit in history, and was still 5% of GDP in 1986. Tax revenues did pick up, especially after the 1983 payroll tax increase kicked in, reducing the deficit somewhat. Still, tax revenues grew far more slowly over than the 1980s business cycle (2.5% from 1979 to 1989) than they did in the 1990s business cycle (4.1% from 1989 to 2000).

Yea, great achievements, there Ed.

One bit of early Heritage history not brought up much these days (and a h/t to an astute reader for bringing this to my attention): Roger Pearson.  From the Institute for the Study of Academic Racism at Ferris State University:

Fascist ideologist Roger Pearson, a Pioneer Fund beneficiary ($568,000 from 1981-1991) and author of Eugenics and Race, published by Willis Carto's notoriously anti-Semitic Noontide Press, argues that the white race is endangered by inferior genetic stock, but with proper use of modern biological technology "a new super-generation" descended from "only the fittest" of the previous generation can be produced. The first nation to adopt such a scientific breeding program, Pearson contends, "would dominate the rest of the world."

In 1965 Pearson became editor of Western Destiny, a magazine established by Carto and dedicated to spreading fascist ideology. Using the pseudonym [link to deposition] of Stephan Langton, Pearson then became the editor of The New Patriot, a short-lived magazine published in 1966-67 to conduct "a responsible but penetrating inquiry into every aspect of the Jewish Question," which included articles such as "Zionists and the Plot Against South Africa," "Early Jews and the Rise of Jewish Money Power," and "Swindlers of the Crematoria."

Despite Pearson's long history of association with neo-Nazi groups, he was appointed in 1977 to the original board of editors of Policy Review, a journal published by the respected Heritage Foundation, a conservative political research organization in Washington, D.C. [Emphasis added.]

After an expose in the Washington Post in May, 1977, Pearson was asked to leave Heritage.  Feulner became President of Heritage in 1977 - would've been nice to see a comment on how/why Heritage fired the   fascist (maybe even why they hired him in the first place), huh?

How The Right Wing Noise Machine Works

I guess this may have to be an ongoing series.

It's long been known that Richard Mellon Scaife has funded large swaths of the right wing media - from the Heritage Foundation to his ownership of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He funds the think tanks and then his paper reports on what those think tanks say - and all with no mention whatsoever about the Scaife money funding both sides.

A few days ago, it was about Ilya Somin. Today, it's about Paul Kengor:

Paul Kengor's new book, "DUPES: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century," is a masterful history of how many progressives have unwittingly aided some of America's most dangerous adversaries. However, history is a process and the same dynamic is at work today among our most powerful leaders. Fortunately, we now have an active universe of commentators and media outlets that seek to inform and educate us about the perils we now face with power in the hands of modern-day "dupes."

So who's this "Paul Kengor? He actually had a piece in the Trib recently. It was on Juan Williams and touched on NPR's "hypocrisy" for not firing Nina Totenberg "for wishing AIDS upon the family of the late Jesse Helms." (Actually the piece is a reprint from The American Thinker - where the author of the piece, Ed Lasky, is the news editor.  Small world, huh?)

From this blog post we learn some context of Totenberg's "wish."  It was from 1995 and Helms was at that point holding up the reauthorization of the Ryan White Act because he was disgusted by the image of men having anal sex.  How much more human suffering would have happened had he succeeded in stopping the reauthorization?  Totenberg catches flack for her rather inartful statement but Kegnor is silent on the disgusting Helms himself and the pain and death the Senator from South Carolina was himself wishing on a lot of other human beings.

Interesting.

Back to Paul Kengor and the right wing noise machine.

If you do just a little digging, you'll find the connections.  For instance Kengor is on the "Board of Advisors" of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.  About 87% of that institute's funding comes from none other than Richard Mellon Scaife.

The book itself is published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.  And what's the ISI?  According to the mediamatters.org:

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) is an educational organization based in Delaware. Founded in 1953, ISI strives to educate for liberty and promote a set of principles deemed the principles of freedom. These principles include limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, rule of law, free market economy, and Judeo-Christian moral norms.

The ISI has received about $10.4 million over the last 25 years or so from the foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife.

Media Matters has more:

ISI sponsors the Collegiate Network, an organization that supports right-leaning publications on many prestigious college campuses. The organization also has its own publishing imprint, ISI Books, which has published the work of more conservative authors like William F. Buckley, Michael Barone, and L. Brent Bozell. The organization is chaired by Edwin J. Feulner, Jr., who is also president of the Heritage Foundation. Major donors include the Castle Rock, Carthage Scaife, Olin, and Bradley Foundations. [emphasis added.]

Again, small world, huh?  Paul Kengor, advisee to the Scaife-funded Allegheny Institute for Public Policy, has a book published by the Scaife-funded Intercollegiate Studies Institute and now he's getting some free publicity for the book on the pages of the Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

There's some more minor stuff here, as well.  Ed Feulner, president of the Scaife-funded Heritage Foundation has a weekly column at the Scaife-owned Tribune-Review and is the former chairman of also Scaife-funded ISI, the institute that published Kengor's book.

Which makes me wonder, would any of this have happened without Richard Mellon Scaife's philanthropic largess?

I dare say, very little.

This is how the right wing media noise machine works.

The circle-jerk continues.

Tribbing Full Circle

Remember this blog post? It's from 3 short weeks ago.

In it I criticize this editorial for getting some facts very wrong regarding the UN's Human Rights Council report (the UPR or "Universal Periodic Review") and for not disclosing the tightly wound financial connections that exist between the Tribune-Review's owner, Richard Mellon Scaife and the Heritage Foundation, the think tank the editorial was using for its "information".

Guess what? The circle is complete, old man.

Today there's an op-ed by Ed Feulner, president of that same Heritage Foundation (it's his weekly column, by the way), that gets the same facts wrong and still fails to disclose the tens of millions of dollars in support that the various Scaife foundations have given to Heritage.

But this is nothing new.

But there is something that needs to be said about Feulner's column. The sloppy filler. Take a look at the two paragraphs it quotes from the UPR:

A recent Arizona law, S.B. 1070, has generated significant attention and debate at home and around the world. The issue is being addressed in a court action that argues that the federal government has the authority to set and enforce immigration law. That action is ongoing; parts of the law are currently enjoined.

President Obama remains firmly committed to fixing our broken immigration system, because he recognizes that our ability to innovate, our ties to the world, and our economic prosperity depend on our capacity to welcome and assimilate immigrants. The Administration will continue its efforts to work with the U.S. Congress and affected communities toward this end.

Looking at them, you'd think they were somehow connected.

You'd be wrong.

Take a look at the report. The two paragraphs are found in a section titled:

V.2 Values and Immigration

and are two of five separate numbered paragraphs within that section. The second paragraph is not a commentary on the first - it's just filler.

So the column's a rehash of parts of editorials already published in the Tribune-Review. And it's not even well researched or written.

You'd think for $24 million, Richard Mellon Scaife would get better homework from Ed Feulner.

The circle-jerk continues.

Slow News Day, I Guess. Or Maybe I Just Need A Break...

I got nothin'.

If you're looking for something to do whilst pondering Ed Feulner's latest in Richard Mellon Scaife's Tribune-Review, you can reread my post regarding the tightly twined financials connecting Feulner and Scaife.

They're in each other's back pockets - a point never mentioned on the pages of the Trib.

The Trib Pulls A Trifecta

It's Christmas time and Richard Mellon Scaife's brain-trust is loaded with gifts today.

In each of their three editorials today, they manage reference a think tank funded by their boss.

Reference one. In discussing how Mayor Luke blinked on his tuition tax plan they write:

But as the ever astute Jake Haulk of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy again reminds, Pittsburgh's problems "stem from too much spending and irresponsible financial management. More money will not fix the city's ills."

That same Allegheny Institute has received, since 1995, about 87% of its "grant money" (the money grant to it) directly from foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife.

Reference two. In discussing the national debt, they write:

Rather than pass the mounting bill to future generations, Congress must address the triple tsunamis: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending. Notes Nicola Moore of The Heritage Foundation, as Social Security IOUs are redeemed and health care costs drive up expenditures for Medicare and Medicaid, publicly held debt by 2050 will exceed 320 percent of gross domestic product, based on Congressional Budget Office figures.

That same Heritage Foundation that received close to $24 million from foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife.

Reference three. In discussing hunger in America, they write:

We're all hearing about hunger this Christmas. And, indeed, there is hunger in America. Thus, we must do all we can to help alleviate the problem. That said, however, The Heritage Foundation's Ed Feulner reminds that the statistics regularly are twisted. To wit, it's widely being reported, and quite incorrectly, that an Agriculture Department study finds that 1 in 6 Americans went hungry in America in 2008. Worrying that one might run out of food and actually having no food are not the same. Thus, the first way to begin addressing hunger in America is to be honest about the statistics

Again, The Heritage Foundation. Did I mention that Scaife is the Vice-Chairman of its Board of Trustees and Ed Feulner is on the board of the Sarah Scaife Foundation (one of the Foundations giving millions to Heritage)?

By the way, here's Fuelner's column on hunger. Where he says:

But for a few Americans the problem isn’t overeating -- it’s getting enough to eat in the first place. A recent study by the Agriculture Department claimed that more than 16 million U.S. households, a total of some 49.1 million people, experienced “food insecurity” in 2008.

Fortunately, “food insecurity” isn’t as dire as it sounds. USA Today made the mistake of reporting that the study found “1 in 6 went hungry in America in 2008.” That’s wrong. Most “food insecure” households merely reported they had “worried” they might run out of food, or had eaten cheaper, unbalanced meals at some point in the last year. With 15 million Americans unemployed, that response isn’t too surprising. When asked specifically about “hunger,” about 3 percent of the population, or 10 million persons, reported they’d been hungry because they didn’t have enough money for food at least one day during the prior year.

Now here's the data from the Department of Agriculture. They define "food insecure" as:

At times during the year, these households were uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of all their members because they had insufficient money or other resources for food. Food-insecure households include those with low food security and very low food security.

"Low Food Security" is defined as:

These food-insecure households obtained enough food to avoid substantially disrupting their eating patterns or reducing food intake by using a variety of coping strategies, such as eating less varied diets, participating in Federal food assistance programs, or getting emergency food from community food pantries.

By the way, this group has increased since 2007, from 7% to 8.9% of the population.

"Very Low Food Security" is defined as:

In these food-insecure households, normal eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times during the year because they had insufficient money or other resources for food. In reports prior to 2006, these households were described as “food insecure with hunger.”

And this group has increased since 2007 as well - from 4.1% to 5.7% of the population.

Feulner's point is correct it was wrong to say that based on the above data that "1 in 6 went hungry in America in 2008" but that's not the complete story about the data. The part he omitted (and certainly the part Scaife's brain trust omitted) is that however bad things are, they're getting worse.

So in the first instance more people since 2007 have had to change their diets or get food stamps or get help from a local food pantry. In the second, more people since 2007 have actually gone without food because they couldn't afford it.

Now take a look again at how the brain trust described things:

To wit, it's widely being reported, and quite incorrectly, that an Agriculture Department study finds that 1 in 6 Americans went hungry in America in 2008. Worrying that one might run out of food and actually having no food are not the same. Thus, the first way to begin addressing hunger in America is to be honest about the statistics.

Very true. But did they realize they spun it wrong, too?

More On Richard Mellon Scaife and the Heritage Foundation

An astute reader wrote in today, commenting on this blog post. The post, in the event you missed it, outlined some of the recent monies granted to the Heritage Foundation by the philanthropic foundations controlled by Tribune-Review owner/publisher Richard Mellon Scaife.

My astute reader wrote:

Hell, David, that $2 million barely scratches it. He and Joseph Coors gave so much money that there's a plaque -- a bas relief of the Scaifer hisself -- in the lobby of the Heritage Foundation. Ever heard of Ed Fuelner? He's the CEO and all-encompassing head of the Heritage Foundation and herewith I give you one of the great finds of the You Tubes: Fuelner fawning over the man and crediting him (and himself) with ending the Cold War. Enjoy. And tremble.

And then my reader included a youtube link which you can watch (and tremble) for yourself on your own time

I did a little digging and found Mediamatters' fuller set of numbers: between 1985 and 2007 the Heritage Foundation received $21.235 million in grants from the Sarah Scaife Foundation, $2.559 million from the Carthage Foundation and a comparatively paltry $100,000 from the Allegheny Foundation - all foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife. That's close to $24 million between 1985 and 2007.

And there's never a mention of Scaife's multi-million dollar support of the Heritage Foundation whenever his editorial board sees fit to write about it.

Or when the Foundation is mentioned in a news article:

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., has felt the heat of an IRS investigation. The agency raised issues about a money-raising letter the foundation distributed in 1996 that was signed by then-Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole. In return for his signature, the foundation gave him the names of people who answered the letter.

The IRS didn't strip Heritage of its tax-exempt status.

Or even when Heritage President Ed Feulner gets weekly column space in Scaife's paper.

But wait wait, there's more. The connections are tighter. From the Feulner's bio at the Heritage Foundation website, we can read that:

He is a longtime officer and director of three grant-making foundations: the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Aequus Institute and the Thomas A. Roe Foundation.

And that Richard Mellon Scaife is Vice-Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Heritage Foundation. His bio brags about:

Scaife’s extensive involvement in the publishing industry - he is the owner and Chairman of the Board of the Tribune-Review as well as a number of radio stations - has brought a refreshing alternative voice to the media markets of Western Pennsylvania, including his hometown of Pittsburgh.

So Ed Feulner is on the board of the Sarah Scaife Foundation and Richard Mellon Scaife is on the board of Heritage Foundation; The Trib's editorial board routinely references studies out of the Heritage Foundation and the President of the Heritage Foundation gets a weekly column at The Trib; and tens of millions of dollars have flowed from one foundation to the other over the past 25 years or so.

How surprising is it that all this just as routinely goes unmentioned on the pages of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review? That it's all just plainly hidden from that paper's readers?

A Circle-Jerk of massive proportions continues.