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.

The Trib, Heritage, And The ISI

We all know by now the incestuous relationship between Richard Mellon Scaife's Tribune-Review and The Heritage Foundation. In case this is your first time here, here are a few bullet points to remember:

• Foundations that Scaife controls have given tens of millions of dollars to Heritage over the years
• Scaife is on the board of Trustees for Heritage
• Heritage President Ed Feulner is on the board of one of the Scaife foundations that gave money to Heritage
• Feulner has a weekly column on Scaife's Tribune-Review editorial page

Which is where we begin - on Feulner's column today:

Even in the depths of the Great Depression, Americans showed they could still think big. In just over a year, construction crews built a landmark that still stands proud, one recognized worldwide as a symbol of our country: the Empire State Building.

I recently visited the building to speak to an enthusiastic group of King's College students about the need to return to the principles of our Founding Fathers. Unfortunately, as a new study shows, many students simply aren't learning what makes America unique. In fact, what they are learning all too often helps divide rather than unite Americans.

This study, titled "The Shaping of the American Mind," is the latest in an annual series from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI.org), where I'm proud to serve as a trustee.

Actually he was also the former Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Interestingly enough, the current president of the board of trustees, T. Kenneth Cribb was once also on the board of the Sarah Scaife Foundation, according to Mediamatters.

Which leads us inexorably to the next question: So how much money has Richard Mellon Scaife funneled to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute?

Lots:

• Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $275,000 in 2008
• Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $275,000 in 2007
• Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $450,000 in 2006

That's a cool million in just three years.

Mediamatters has more. Over the last two decades, Scaife-controlled foundations have given about $9.8 million to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

So what do we have here in this column? Ed Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation ($23 million in Scaife money over the years) writes a column touting a study from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute ($9.8 million in Scaife money over the years) with no mention whatsoever of any of that $32 million.

What, didn't Ed think it was important enough to mention? How the owner of the paper he writes a column for has granted millions to both the foundation he works for and the institute he's using as a source of information?

The circle jerk continues.