Refuting Spakovsky Who's "Refuting" Mediamatters

This'll be kinda circular so bear with me for a while.

In today's Tribune-Review my good friends on the [board who decides these things] decided to give Hans A. Von Spakovsky some space in (as the headline puts it):

Refuting (not rebutting) Media Matters
But with the usual misplacement of some very pertinent information (a practice so prevalent on the Trib editorial page), he does neither.

Hans begins:

Media Matters, the self-styled “media watchdog” of the left, has accused the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review of using “deceptive numbers” to “attack” immigration reform. But the Trib is exactly right when it says that the Obama administration is not committed to border enforcement and cannot be trusted to implement a comprehensive immigration reform plan.

The criticisms voiced by Media Matters are way off base — particularly their claims about so-called “secret numbers” from The Heritage Foundation and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

Of course he leaves out how much money the owner of the paper's given to those two fine organizations. Here, let me help you with that:

•  The Center for Immigration Studies has recieved a total of $11,476,000 in foundation money over the years with 17% of it ($1,947,5000) coming from two foundations (Sarah Scaife and Carthage) controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife.  Indeed in the first decade of records found at the bridge project (1991,2001), Scaife's foundations gave about 66% of the total foundational support.  I think that's called "seed money" but I could be wrong.
• We all know about how much Scaife's sent to the Heritage Foundation.  A this point, Heritage has received $109,986,558 in foundation money with about 25% ($27,944,000) coming from three Scaife foundations (Allegheny, Carthage and Sarah Scaife).  In the first decade of Heritage numbers found at the Bridge Project (1985-1995), Scaife's foundations gave almost exactly half of the foundation money given to Heritage ($12,439,000 out of $25,138,677).  Again, seed money.

But that's old stuff.  While its omission invalidates anything that follows, still let's move on.  This is how the Media Matters posting Von Spakovsky found so offensive begins:

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review cited deceptive statistics from the Heritage Foundation to attack the immigration reform effort, falsely claiming that the Obama administration is not enforcing current laws and arguing that it would continue this practice under a comprehensive immigration reform law.

A December 15 editorial by the Tribune-Review cited a post by the Heritage Foundation to claim that "the deportation of illegal aliens, in fact, has sunk to its lowest level in 40 years" and that the Department of Homeland Security has accepted 81 percent of 580,000 applicants for provisional legal status under a program called the Deferred Act of Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The Tribune-Review argued that these numbers show that the Obama administration is not committed to border enforcement and therefore should not be trusted to roll out a comprehensive immigration reform plan.

But the Tribune-Review's analysis should be taken with a grain of salt since its Heritage Foundation numbers come from "secret numbers" obtained by the anti-immigrant nativist Center for Immigration Studies, which is known for fabricating information and pushing misleading studies.

Let's start with that "secret numbers" link since Von Spakovsky mentions it specifically.  It leads to this paragraph in this piece at the Washington Times:

Authorities deported fewer illegal immigrants in fiscal 2013 than at any time since President Obama took office, according to secret numbers obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies that suggest Mr. Obama’s nondeportation policies have hindered removals.

Just 364,700 illegal immigrants were removed in fiscal 2013, according to internal numbers from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement that CIS released Wednesday — down 11 percent from the nearly 410,000 who were deported in 2012.

And here's that report from CIS - and I'll ask, where do you think the Washington Times came up with the phrase "secret numbers"?  Here:

The report also presents previously unpublished statistics disclosing the startlingly large number of cases on ICE’s post-final-order docket of aliens who have been ordered removed, but who remain living here in defiance of immigration enforcement.

Now let's go back to how Hans pumped up the charge against Media Matters:

...particularly their claims about so-called “secret numbers” from The Heritage Foundation and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS)

He wants you to think that the charge of "secret numbers" came from Media Matters when it was actually from the Washington Times piece dutifully describing the very CIS "research" he's trying to defend.

Didn't he think someone would check?

Then there's Von Spakovsky's next charge:

Media Matters accused CIS of “fabricating information.”

But then he rebuts the charge by citing the very same Washington Times piece we've just been talking about.  The point being, he had to know about how they were the exact source of the "secret numbers" phrase and yet still decided not to tell you.

But let's look back at that "fabricating information" charge.  When and how did Media Matters say it?  What context?  It's in a sentence discrediting CIS in general - it's not about the specific charge Von Spakovsky attempts to rebut with the Washington Times piece.  The link at Media Matters leads to this PDF from the Center for New Community where we can read this description of CIS from the Southern Poverty Law Center:

CIS often manipulates data, relying on shaky statistics or faulty logic to come to the preordained conclusion that immigration is bad for this country.

That sentence is from this page at SPLC.  Here's an example of why the SPLC thinks CIS "fabricates information":

"Hello, I Love You, Won't You Tell Me Your Name: Inside the Green Card Marriage Phenomenon" (November 2008). This report alleges widespread fraud among marriages between American citizens and foreigners, but then goes on to admit that "there is no way of knowing" just how prevalent marriage fraud is because there is no systematic data. CIS even concedes that most marriages "between Americans and foreign nationals are legitimate." Then, based on this non-data, CIS gets to what seems to be the real point of its study — "if small-time con artists and Third-World gold-diggers can obtain green cards with so little resistance, then surely terrorists can." Fraudulent marriage applications, CIS concludes, are "prevalent among international terrorists, including members of Al-Qaeda. [Bolding in original.]

So much unmentioned by Von Spakovsky...kinda makes you wonder who's fabricating what information for which purpose.

Yep, They're STILL At It!

From today's Tribune-Review:

De facto amnesty for an estimated 300,000 illegal aliens is not merely an Obama administration end run around a Congress opposed to such coddling. It also hamstrings an economy struggling to create jobs -- and is especially harmful to younger, less-educated jobless Americans. In a new report, Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies (cis.org), says this administration is allowing hundreds of thousands of illegals who'd otherwise be deported to stay here and to apply for work authorization, too.

We've danced this dance before, haven't we? A few times. So let's look at how others view CIS. First there's John Micek over at Capital Ideas. He was writing about some hearings run by another friend of ours, Daryl Metcalfe:

The range of experts appearing before lawmakers today suggests that Mr. Metcalfe -- as is common knowledge hereabouts -- has already made up his mind. The witnesses include Michael Bekesha, of the conservative Judicial Watch, which has received funding from the Scaife Foundation; the Center for Immigration Studies, whose research has been called into question by the Southern Poverty Law Center; the Tea Party Immigration Coalition and several others, including a police chief from Beaver Meadows, Pa., and a member of the American Legion.

And this is what (from the link above) the SPLC has to say about the CIS:

Although the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) bills itself as an "independent" think tank that seeks "to expand the base of public knowledge"about immigration, the Washington, D.C.-based group is only interested in one thing. CIS's reams of reports, as well as its blog postings, editorials, and frequent panels and press conferences, incessantly push the idea that America's immigration system is an unadulterated evil and that the only way to save America from impending doom is to cut drastically the number of immigrants. CIS has blamed immigrants, both legal and undocumented, for everything from terrorism to global warming. To make its case seem as strong as possible, CIS often manipulates data, relying on shaky statistics or faulty logic to come to the preordained conclusion that immigration is bad for this country. But CIS studies have been regularly debunked by mainstream academics and think tanks including the Immigration Policy Center, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and America's Voice.

But I guess that's ok.  I mean if one of your main sources of foundation money actually owns a newspaper and that newspaper regularly quotes your "research", it's more or less inconsequential that that research gets debunked by mainstream academics.

Another lesson on the rightwing noise machine.

CIS In The News

Yesterday, my good friends on the Tribune-Review braintrust published this on their op-ed page:

Blaming the surge in unaccompanied Central American minors illegally entering the United States on a 2008 anti-trafficking law that gave such children additional protections, the Obama White House and Democrats misapply that law, ignore sex trafficking's distinction from human smuggling and deflect attention from administration failures.

A new Center for Immigration Studies (cis.org) report points out...

And so on. Pretty standard stuff from our friends at the Trib.

That would be the same CIS that we've written about before.

But that's not the point of this blog post.  No no, this is the point of this blog post:

A senior policy analyst from an immigration-restrictionist think tank wants to see President Barack Obama not just impeached, but publicly executed, he told a sympathetic audience last week. During a talk at a Tea Party organization in Sebring, Florida, Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analyst Stephen Steinlight said that Obama’s supposed executive overreach couldn’t be reined in by a lawsuit and that “being hung, drawn, and quartered is probably too good for him,” Imagine 2050 first reported. He then joked that Obama’s head should be on a skewer.

Do you know what sort of execution Steinlight is calling for?  Here's a description from Britannica.  It's:

...part of the grisly penalty anciently ordained in England (1283) for the crime of treason. Until 1867, when it was abolished, the full punishment for a traitor could include several steps. First he was drawn, that is, tied to a horse and dragged to the gallows. A so-called hurdle, or sledge, is sometimes mentioned in this context. Although such a device may have been a means of mercy, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I (2nd ed., 1898; reissued 1996) states that it was more likely a way to deliver a live body to the hangman. The remainder of the punishment might include hanging (usually not to the death), usually live disemboweling, burning of the entrails, beheading, and quartering. This last step was sometimes accomplished by tying each of the four limbs to a different horse and spurring them in different directions.

Then there's the head on a skewer part - that's what Steinlight wants to see happen.

Did you know that it's a felony to threaten the life of the president of the United States?

When will the Secret Service be visiting the offices of the Center for Immigration Studies to investigate this threat on the life of the President of the United States of America?

The Trib Doesn't Own A Mirror

And I mean that metaphorically, as you'll see in a bit.

Let's start here:

In a new Center for Immigration Studies (cis.org) report, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jerry Kammer documents how the century-old Carnegie Corporation of New York's "strident, polarizing, and partisan" immigration activism betrays the mission Mr. Carnegie set for it -- fostering democratic discussion of complex issues.

In the last 10 years, Carnegie grants of at least $57 million have funded "news stories," groups, think tanks and conferences that were anything but open-minded regarding any approach to immigration other than amnesty -- known inside the Beltway as "comprehensive immigration reform."

Carnegie even bankrolled smear campaigns that wrongly labeled the anti-amnesty Federation for American Immigration Reform and CIS as "hate groups."

Before we continue, did you know that Ronald Reagan signed into law legislation allowing amnesty for illegal aliens?

He did. The section begins with this:

SEC. 245A. "8 USC 1255a" (a) TEMPORARY RESIDENT STATUS. -- The Attorney General shall adjust the status of an alien to that of an alien lawfully admitted for temporary residence if the alien meets the following requirements...

What Ronald Reagan signed into law was legislation that said if an illegal alien meets certain requirements that illegal alien becomes an alien "lawfully admitted for temporary residence." In a word: AMNESTY.

Just sayin'

Let's get back to Kammer's criticisms.

Here's the piece he wrote for the Center for Immigration Studies. His opening beef:

On October 14, 2010, a story on many public radio stations around the country told of a new report that recent immigrants and their children had doubled their presence in the U.S. electorate between 1996 and 2008, totaling 10 percent of registered voters.

The story also included a warning. “Candidates — especially those in close elections — would do well to take heed,” said Elizabeth Wynne Johnson of Capitol News Connection, the news service that produced the story.

Johnson’s comment set up another. Walter Ewing of the Immigration Policy Center, which issued the report, added that the new voters “are not going to take very kindly to political rhetoric that demonizes immigrants because that’s going to be either themselves or their parents.”

The story provided a measure not only of the growing power of voters directly connected to the immigrant experience, but also of the pervasive role in the politics of immigration played by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Carnegie grants were instrumental at every level of the story.

Krammer points out that Carnegie funds BOTH the think tank that issued the report and the news outlet that reported on it - and that that's a bad thing.

How familiar does that sound? I mean just yesterday the Richard Mellon Scaife-owned Tribune-Review interviewed the director of the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives, itself the beneficiary of millions of dollars of Scaife money. And just last November, the Trib did a piece on Paul Kengor, beneficiary of Scaife support via the Scaife-funded Allegheny Institute for Public Policy and the Scaife-funded Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

And I have yet to mention the Scaife-funded Heritage Foundation and how his paper routinely references reports from that conservative think-tank. Here's one from September.

o I need to point out how much money Scaife has funeled to FAIR and CIS? (Oh, it's $4.295 million to FAIR and $1.4225 million to CIS.) So Scaife's funded both the organizations being criticized by the organizations funded by the Carnegie Corporation and he owns the newspaper publishing the column defending those organizations.

That should be enough for a good blog post. But wait! There's more!!

Guess what the Trib also published this morning? This piece from Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch.

Let's get the preliminaries out of the way. According to mediamatters, two Scaife Foundations (Carthage and Sarah Scaife) have given a total of $8.74 million to Judicial Watch since 1997.

Here's what Fitton had in today's Trib:

In the third release from the Federal Bureau of Investigation file of the late Sen. Edward "Ted" Kennedy, who died in August 2009 from brain cancer, Judicial Watch obtained new information pursuant to its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit originally filed on June 9, 2010 (Judicial Watch v. FBI).

The documents include a Dec. 28, 1961, FBI document describing a tour of several Latin American countries taken by Kennedy, then-assistant district attorney of Suffolk County. This document as it was originally made public was almost completely redacted. After an initial challenge by Judicial Watch, a version with fewer redactions was released.

The interesting part is if you go to Judicial Watch's website, you'll find this:

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained previously redacted material from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) file of the late Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy, who died in August 2009 from brain cancer. Judicial Watch obtained the records pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit originally filed on June 9, 2010 (Judicial Watch v. FBI (Case No. 10-963)).

The documents include a December 28, 1961, FBI memo describing a tour of several Latin American countries taken by then-Assistant District Attorney of Suffolk County Kennedy. This document as it was originally made public was almost completely redacted. After an initial challenge by Judicial Watch, a version with fewer redactions was released. Judicial Watch continued to argue that the blackouts were baseless and, after six more months, the FBI relented.

For your reading pleasure, O wise and gentle reader, I bolded and italicized the language common to both the column in the Trib and the Press Release found at Judicial Watch. It shows, in effect, the Scaife-owned Trib published a press release from Scaife-funded Judicial Watch.

The AP news story about this even made it onto the pages of the Trib a few days ago:

An FBI file contends that a young Edward M. Kennedy arranged to rent a brothel for a night while visiting Chile in 1961, a year before he was elected to the U.S. Senate.

The previously edited State Department memo, dated Dec. 28, 1961, was released by Judicial Watch, a Washington-based organization that said it obtained it through a Freedom of Information lawsuit.

According to the memo, the Massachusetts Democrat, younger brother of then-President John F. Kennedy, made arrangements to rent the brothel "for an entire night" in Santiago earlier in 1961.

"Kennedy allegedly invited one of the Embassy chauffeurs to participate in the night's activities," according to the memo.

One State Department official described Kennedy as "pompous and a spoiled brat," according to the memo. Kennedy was making a fact-finding trip to several Latin American countries.

The AP includes one important caveat missing from both the Judicial Watch press release and the column found in the Trib:

The documents from Judicial Watch provide no indication of the source of the allegations or whether the FBI believed the allegations were true.

Interesting, no?

That the braintrust doesn't see itself in the criticisms of the Carnegie Corporation just simply boggles the mind. Or maybe they do and they don't count on anyone checking their work.

You're welcome.

All Too Familiar

It is, by now, a familiar story. The Tribune-Review editorial board cites one or more think-tanks to support its position while simultaneously neglecting to point out the financial support given that think tank by their boss, Richard Mellon Scaife.

Today is no different:

The challenges that America‘s aging presents for Social Security‘s solvency must be resolved by confronting them head-on, not by relying on immigration-driven population growth.

A new Center for Immigration Studies (cis.org) report analyzes U.S. Census Bureau projections to explain why.

And then a few paragraphs later:

Plus, as Federation for American Immigration Reform (fairus.org) spokesman Ira Mehlman points out, immigrants tend to hold low-paying jobs and eventually will collect Social Security benefits — but their Social Security contributions won‘t offset those benefits‘ cost.

That's two think tanks.

We've written about the CIS as recently as last April.  Then we caught them in a pretty blatant misrepresentation of the truth.  Earlier we ran some of the numbers showing financial support Scaife's foundations have given to the CIS.  Let's update them now.

According to the Bridgeproject (formerly the Media Matters Transparency Project), the CIS has received $18,980,086 in foundation financial support (note: none of the amounts are adjusted for inflation) over the years.  During that time, Scaife's foundations have given $3,889,500 (or just a shade over 20%).  Bridgeproject also reports that the Federation for American Immigration Reform received a total of $9,658,000 in foundation support and during that time Scaife's foundations gave $1,822,500 (or a shade under 19%).

Now here's an interesting bit about CIS and FAIR from the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Although it goes unmentioned on its website and its other materials, CIS was born in 1985 as a program of FAIR, which had been run by Tanton since he started it in 1979. Even then, Tanton understood that CIS would soon need to stand on its own in order to be seen as the "independent, non-partisan" organization that its mission statement claims today. In a letter to Cordelia Scaife May, a far-right philanthropist who supported many of Tanton's nativist endeavors, Tanton was candid.

"For credibility," he told the woman whose foundation would go on to support CIS for decades, "this will need to be independent of FAIR, though the Center for Immigration Studies, as we're calling it, is starting off as a project of FAIR."

Tanton had a clear vision of the complementary, if unheralded, relationship between FAIR and CIS. As he wrote in another 1985 letter, CIS' role would be to produce reports "for later passage to FAIR, the activist organization, to remedy." And indeed, to this day, FAIR frequently cites CIS to back up its lobbying.

And now the Braintrust is citing both.

Um...We Kinda Already Knew A Lot Of This (Cordelia Scaife May In The NY Times) UPDATED

I am sure some, if not most, of you have read this piece from The New York Times about Cordelia Scaife May. It begins with this:

She was an heiress without a cause — an indifferent student, an unhappy young bride, a miscast socialite. Her most enduring passion was for birds.

But Cordelia Scaife May eventually found her life’s purpose: curbing what she perceived as the lethal threat of overpopulation by trying to shut America’s doors to immigrants.

She believed that the United States was “being invaded on all fronts” by foreigners, who “breed like hamsters” and exhaust natural resources. She thought that the border with Mexico should be sealed and that abortions on demand would contain the swelling masses in developing countries.

An heiress to the Mellon banking and industrial fortune with a half-billion dollars at her disposal, Mrs. May helped create what would become the modern anti-immigration movement. She bankrolled the founding and operation of the nation’s three largest restrictionist groups — the Federation for American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies — as well as dozens of smaller ones, including some that have promulgated white nationalist views.

Today, 14 years after Mrs. May’s death, her money remains the lifeblood of the movement, through her Colcom Foundation. It has poured $180 million into a network of groups that spent decades agitating for policies now pursued by President Trump: militarizing the border, capping legal immigration, prioritizing skills over family ties for entry and reducing access to public benefits for migrants, as in the new rule issued just this week by the administration.

As if this is news.

Why do I say this? Because of this:

A committee organized to welcome the world to Pittsburgh for the September G-20 economic summit has received a donation from a foundation that has, in the past, given millions of dollars to anti-immigration organizations including two listed as hate groups.

The Colcom Foundation, founded by Cordelia Scaife May, a now-deceased heir to the Mellon fortune, has been one of the major contributors to a web of groups founded by John Tanton, a Petoskey, Mich., ophthalmologist who has long been at the forefront of efforts to restrict immigration into the United States.

During Ms. May's lifetime, the foundation also underwrote the work of Samuel Francis, a self-described "white nationalist" who edited a newsletter for the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group that has advocated racial separation. Mr. Francis also was a regular speaker at conferences sponsored by American Renaissance, an annual gathering of academics who theorize on racially based differences in intelligence, contending that black people have lower intelligence than whites and Asians.

And:

Heidi Beirich, head of research for the Southern Poverty Law Center who has done extensive studies of the immigration control movement, called the list of Colcom recipients "quite a lineup of haters."

"It's beyond ironic that Colcom would be giving money to welcome the world to Pittsburgh, while simultaneously having bankrolled notorious white supremacists like Sam Francis and some of the most racist anti-immigrant groups in the country," Ms. Beirich said.

Check the date of publication: July 1 2009.

Within a few weeks, the Southern Poverty Law Center even commented on Roddy's piece:

Roddy’s article showed how the Colcom Foundation, founded by Cordelia Scaife May, a now-deceased heir to the Mellon banking fortune, had given money to extremists such as Samuel Francis, a white nationalist who edited a newsletter for the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a group that has advocated racial separation and believes blacks to be a “retrograde species of humanity.” The foundation started by May, who died in 2005, also donated massive amounts of money over several decades to the various anti-immigrant institutions created by John Tanton, a retired Michigan ophthalmologist who is the orchestrator of the modern nativist movement. Two Tanton-linked organizations listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups — the Social Contract Press and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) — are among those that received funds in the past from Colcom.

That was 10 years, 2 months and 3 days before The Times.

How is this news?

Wasn't news to me.

UPDATE: Via an email, Dennis Roddy had a comment:

During the Corbett administration I found environmental groups happily accepting Colcom money all the while knowing that it was being used to essentially “greenwash“ the foundation's anti-immigrant behaviors. Nobody in the Capitol press corps would touch the story.

The Trib's At It Again.

It's Monday and the Editorial Board over at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is citing some think-tank's research in one of its editorials:

A Supreme Court ruling on ambiguous legal language discourages prosecution of illegal aliens for identity fraud -- so Congress, which wrote that language, must revise it immediately.

Janice Kephart, director of national security studies for the Center on Immigration Studies (cis.org), details the problem and its solution in "Fixing Flores: Assuring Adequate Penalties for Identity Theft and Fraud."

It should not be a surprise to anyone reading this blog that Richard Mellon Scaife (who owns the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) has funneled a large amount of money to the CIS over the years by way of the Scaife foundations he controls.

• The Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $150,000 to the CIS in 2008.
• The Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $150,000 to the CIS in 2007.
• The Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $150,000 to the CIS in 2006.

That's close to a half million dollars from 2006-2008.

In fact, according to Mediamatters.org, the Richard Mellon Scaife controlled foundations have given a total of $1,422,500 to the CIS since 1991. There is an additional $438,000 given to the CIS by the Scaife Family Foundation that I did not include as Richard Mellon Scaife gave up control of that foundation by 1999 to his son David and daughter, Jenny.

By my count, Mediamatters lists $2,248,000 in grants by various conservative foundations over the years to the CIS. If that's the case then more than half of that money came from the foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife.

Not a peep of a mention of that in the editorial, of course.

The circle-jerk continues.

Finally for the REAL embarrassing part: THEY GOT THE NAME OF THE ORGANIZATION WRONG. Take a look at the report. Same author (Janice Kephart) and the same website address (cis.org) but the name in big letters across the top of the page is Center For Immigration Studies not the Center On Immigration Studies.

Scaife's half funded the CIS and his own paper can't get the name of the organization right??

How embarrassing is that?

For them.

For the rest of us, it's kinda funny.

How Easy Was This?

From today's Tribune-Review Op-Ed page:

Few takers and negligible economic benefits should lead Congress to end the EB-5 program, which essentially sells visas to foreign investors otherwise unable to legally enter the United States.

That's what David North, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies (cis.org), concludes in his study of the program.

Ah...the CIS.

Remember them?  This is what the Southern Poverty Law Center has to say about the CIS:

To make its case seem as strong as possible, CIS often manipulates data, relying on shaky statistics or faulty logic to come to the preordained conclusion that immigration is bad for this country. But CIS studies have been regularly debunked by mainstream academics and think tanks including the Immigration Policy Center, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and America's Voice.

In this case, they simply misrepresent the facts (at best).

Federation for American Immigration Reform

An astute reader clued me into this.

In a story about a illegal immigrant who has been accused of car-jacking, we find this:

There are an estimated 140,000 illegal aliens working in Pennsylvania, according to the Federation of American Immigration Reform.

It's a mystery why the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review would use the Federation for American Immigration Reform for background information. A mystery because the Southern Poverty Law Center has declared FAIR to be a hate group.

Even if it weren't, we'd STILL be pointing out the financial support the foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife have made to FAIR.

• In 2008, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $300,000 to FAIR.
• In 2007, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $50,000 to FAIR.
• In 2007, the Carthage Foundation gave $300,000 to FAIR.
• In 2006, the Carthage Foundation gave $300,000 to FAIR.

That's nearly $1,000,000 in just two years. In fact the mediatransparency project over at Mediamatters reports that the Carthage and Sarah Scaife Foundations have given almost $3,000,000 to FAIR since 1986.

Don't you think that should have at least been mentioned in this article? I mean it is a warning about the need for immigration reform, isn't it?

The circle jerk continues.

But wait, there's more. The SPLC has this to say:

The organized anti-immigration "movement" is almost entirely the handiwork of one man, Michigan activist John H. Tanton.

And they list a number of other anti-immigration groups either funded or founded by Tanton. If we limit our search to just those groups founded by Tanton, we find that there's another group that's enjoyed the largess of Scaife's foundation money, the Center for Immigration Studies.

How much money has Scaife funneled to CIS? I am glad you asked.

• In 2008, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $150,000 to the CIS.
• In 2007, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $150,000 to the CIS.
• In 2006, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $150,000 to the CIS.

That's another $450,000 to John Tanton by way of CIS. Mediamatters reports that the Carthage and Sarah Scaife foundations have given about $1.5 million to the CIS since 1991.

I guess you could say that Richard Mellon Scaife's rather well-connected to the nation's anti-immigration movement.

Yawn...They're Doing It Again

Who? The Editorial Board of the Tribune-Review.

What are they doing? Richard Mellon Scaife's braintrust is, yet again, failing to disclose his financial ties to the think-tank they reference in an editorial. Take a look:

The Obama administration's lax immigration enforcement includes failure to reform immigration courts that illegal aliens routinely ignore.

Mark Metcalf, a former Miami immigration court judge, extensively details the problems in a new Center for Immigration Studies (cis.org) report, "Built to Fail: Deception and Disorder in America's Immigration Courts."

Media Matters lists about $1.4 million dollars in grants from foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife between 1991 and 2007. This does not count the additional grants of $150,000 and $125,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation in 2008 and in 2009, respectively.

Of course no mention of the millions of dollars of Scaife Foundation money funneled to the CIS can be found in the editorial on Scaife's editorial page. That would be transparent but that's not how the right wing propaganda machine works.

Now take a closer look at the editorial. Or you can read the report first hand, if you like. Notice something? The Obama Administration is being criticized for (now wait for it) not cleaning up a mess left behind by the Bush Administration.

From the editorial:

He says deportation orders are rarely enforced -- in part because immigration judges lack authority to enforce their own orders -- even when those targeted ignore them or skip court. Among 1.9 million aliens freed to await trial from 1996 through 2009, 40 percent vanished.

Department of Justice statistics mask the grim truth, too. Justice contends 39 percent of aliens missed immigration court dates in 2005 and 2006; Mr. Metcalf says the real figure is 59 percent.

Look at the dates. Tell me again who was president from 2001 to 2009? This can't be Clinton's fault can it? I mean he was President from 1996 to 2001. Those were also the Lewinsky years. Brought to you, in part, by the Scaife funded Arkansas project. Thanks, Dick.

There's some more from Metcalf's report:

From 2002 through 2006 — in the shadow of 9/11 — 50 percent of all aliens free pending trial disappeared. Court numbers show 360,199 aliens out of 713,974 dodged court.

In the Shadow of 9/11 the Bush Administration allowed this to happen?

And it's Obama's fault for not cleaning it up in 2 years.

This is Scaife's braintrust at work.

Thanks again, Dick.

Jack Kelly Sunday

The Post-Gazette's Jack Kelly's still misleading (read: lying to) his readers.  Sometimes it's subtle.  Sometimes it's blatant.  And sometimes it takes some digging to find out the depth of his dishonesty.

I'll leave it to you, o gentle reader, to decide which one it is today.

Jack begins with a brief discussion of Republicans, RINOs, and why Congressional leaders McConnell and Boehner are actually "Whigs."

(So would you like to swing on a star
Carry moonbeams home in a jar
And be better off than you are
Or would you rather be a Whig?

A Whig's a politico who lived long ago
Replaced by Republicans, you know...)

[It's from a song - google it and get a little culture]


The Whigs made up one of the two dominant political parties pre-Civil war and the party dissolved over slavery.  Its anti-slave Whigs in the north (the "Conscience" Whigs) being absorbed by the new Republican Party and the pro-slavery Whigs (the "Cotton" Whigs) moving south to the older States-Rights flavored Democrats.

And here's where Jack makes his first big mistake/lie.  An earlier error is his description of "Free Speech, Free Press, Free Soil, Free Men, Fremont and Victory" as the platform of the Republican party in 1856 - actually, it was only its slogan.  The actual platform can be found here.

Why does the P-G let Jack Kelly get away with such obvious stupid (and easily checked) mistakes?

Anyway, onto the lie:

The party of slavery and segregation has done nothing to prevent, and much to facilitate, the murder of thousands of Americans by violent felons among illegal immigrants. Passage of “Kate Steinle’s Law” to cut off federal funds for so-called “sanctuary cities” and to make the Democrats who run them liable for wrongful death suits, is one of two great moral imperatives for 2015.

This is a two-fer.  Look at the first sentence.  By the "party of slavery and segregation" Jack Kelly means the Democratic party.  As Steven Benen of Washington Monthly noted five years ago:

This comes up from time to time, whenever Republicans are feeling particularly defensive about the civil rights issues. But in light of the party's confusion, it's probably time for a quick refresher.

The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to competing constituencies -- southern whites with abhorrent views on race, and white progressives and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled, ultimately siding with an inclusive, liberal agenda.

As the party shifted, the Democratic mainstream embraced its new role. Republicans, meanwhile, also changed. In the wake of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, the Republican Party welcomed the white supremacists who no longer felt comfortable in the Democratic Party. Indeed, in 1964, Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater boasted of his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and made it part of his platform. It was right around this time when figures like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond made the transition -- leaving the Democratic Party for the GOP.

Indeed, look at the political platform of those "Dixicrats" in 1948 (those would be those "southern whites with abhorrent views on race" that eventually went to the GOP in the mid-60s).  It actually contained this:

We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race; the constitutional right to choose one's associates; to accept private employment without governmental interference, and to earn one's living in any lawful way. We oppose the elimination of segregation, the repeal of miscegenation statutes, the control of private employment by Federal bureaucrats called for by the misnamed civil rights program. We favor home-rule, local self-government and a minimum interference with individual rights.

So tell me again how the Democrats are the "party of slavery and segregation"?

Now onto Jack's next big lie - it's about immigration and crime.  Jack should have done his homework better (or some at all).  Take a look at this from the Libertarian Cato Institute:

Myth: More immigrants means more crime

Remember Trump’s now-infamous description of Mexican immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists”? The facts suggest something quite the contrary.

Indeed, the academic literature on this question is pretty clear: Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native born citizens, and there is no credible evidence that they have any effect on overall crime rates.

According to research by the American Immigration Council based on data from the Census Bureau, 1.6% immigrant men from 18 to 39 are incarcerated compared with 3.3% of native born men in the same age bracket.

Other studies look at crime rates in cities and states that have different immigrant populations, finding that increases in the immigrant population coincide with big decreases in violent crime rates. Nevertheless, the myth of the immigrant-driven crime wave remains prevalent.

Why doesn't anyone at the P-G do this before publication?  How much more do we need to do?

Ok, one more, I guess.  The big one:

The other is to end federal subsidies for Planned Parenthood’s abortion mills. The nine gruesome, heartbreaking videos released so far by the Center for Medical Progress make plain the wine-swilling Mengeles who run the organization have committed multiple felonies.

As the man said, you're entitled to your own opinions but you're not entitled to your own facts.  From Thinkprogress:

Following the release of several inflammatory videos that suggest Planned Parenthood is improperly profiting from the sale of “aborted baby parts,” GOP lawmakers have been quick to condemn the national women’s health organization. However, their current strategies to attack Planned Parenthood are falling short.

Planned Parenthood officials say they’re simply helping their patients donate fetal tissue samples, which can help scientists develop new treatments for serious diseases. Anti-abortion activists, meanwhile, say the misleading videos released by the right-wing group Center for Medical Progress prove the organization is acting immorally.

In response, several state officials have launched investigations into their local Planned Parenthood affiliates, looking for proof that the group is breaking the law.

But so far, they’ve come up completely empty.

Officials in states including Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, and South Dakota have not been able to turn up any evidence that Planned Parenthood clinics are violating state laws and regulations regarding the collection of fetal tissue donations. Records obtained from other states, like Kansas, reveal that some Planned Parenthood clinics don’t even give their patients the option to donate this tissue.

“In every state where these investigations have concluded, officials have cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing,” Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement released on Friday. “We’ve said all along that Planned Parenthood follows all laws and has very high medical standards, and that’s what every one of these investigations has found. This campaign by anti-abortion extremists is nothing less than a fraud.”

You're free, of course, to be skeptical of ThinkProgress, but take a look at their sources.

So, Jack.  Where are the felonies?  Where/when did they occur?  What's your evidence that they did?  How do you reconcile that to the actual facts produced above?

And most importantly:

WHY DIDN'T ANYONE AT THE P-G GET ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS BEFORE THE PUBLICATION OF JACK'S LATEST FETID STAIN OF RIGHT WING FECULENCE??

 As a follow-up:

WHY DO I HAVE TO KEEP ASKING THIS QUESTION?

Go on.  Have a good Sunday.

The Trib and Judicial Watch and ALEC: Nefarious Nexus

From today's Trib:

The American Civil Liberties Union did the Obama Justice Department's bidding in challenging Arizona's law cracking down on illegal immigrants. Now, Judicial Watch is fighting to determine whether Justice and the ACLU also are in cahoots on an ACLU lawsuit seeking to keep Pennsylvania's voter ID law from taking effect before November's election.

Here's what Judicial Watch has on this:

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that on June 1, 2012, it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) to obtain records detailing the agency’s communications with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) regarding Pennsylvania House Bill 934, commonly referred to as Pennsylvania’s Voter ID law (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. Case 1:12-cv-00884)). The ACLU and allied organizations have filed a lawsuit to prevent the law, signed by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett on March 14, 2012, from taking effect before the November elections.

Ah, so we're talking about HB 934.  More on that later.  But let's read further down the page.  A paragraph or so later we find:

Pennsylvania House Bill 934 requires voters to produce a Pennsylvania driver’s license or another government-issued photo ID, such as a U.S. passport, military ID, or county/municipal employee ID. As reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, on May 1, 2012, so-called “civil rights” groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit to seek to prevent Pennsylvania’ voter ID law from taking effect before the November elections. The trial is scheduled to begin on July 25, 2012.

How nice of them to link back to Scaife's paper, isn't it? Especially since it's not a Trib article.  If you look, it's actually the AP's work.  But, as I said it's nice for Judicial Watch to give a such a subtle shout-out to Richard Mellon Scaife's newspaper.

Why do I mention that?

Glad you asked.  From the Phoenix New Times:

But [Judicial Watch has] never wanted for cash, in large part because of the deep pockets of crackpot Pennsylvania billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.

And:

Through his Carthage Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation, Scaife helps bankroll a number of far-right and nativist groups, such as the Heritage Foundation, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (which was behind writing SB 1070), NumbersUSA, the Center for Immigration Studies, and Judicial Watch (see "FAIR-y Tales," Terry Greene Sterling, December 2).

According to the progressive Media Matters Action Network, the Scaife family foundations mentioned above have given $8.7 million to Judicial Watch since 1997, making Scaife Judicial Watch's primary benefactor.

See? So how nice of them to give a shout out to their primary benefactor.  Isn't it funny, though, that that little bit of info never seems to make it onto the pages of the Trib?

But let's get back to HB 934, shall we?  We've written about it before.  In case you're just joining us, HB 934 is sponsored by our good friend Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler).  It's also an example of a piece of ALEC legislation.

ALEC?  What's ALEC, Mr. Dayvoe?  Again, for those just joining us, ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council.  We've written about them before, too.

And guess, just guess, who had a hand in ALEC's founding.  From the Washington Post in 1999:

Scaife has given ALEC more than $2 million since 1975, keeping the group alive in its early years.

So the Scaife-funded Judicial Watch is defending some legislation that came from the Scaife-supported ALEC while the Scaife-owned paper is both silent on those connections and yet still accuses the DOJ and the ACLU of being in "cohoots".

Another lesson on how the right wing noise machine works.

Tracking Teh Crazie - Victoria Jackson

Via Huffingtonpost:

Former "Saturday Night Live" actress Victoria Jackson, working on confidential information she as a web talk show host has special clearance to obtain, has claimed that the United States is being overtaken by radical Muslims bent on bringing the nation under Sharia law.

"I just went to a briefing in Washington DC, across the street from the Capitol, at the Longworth building at 8:30 am two days ago and it changed my life," Jackson said last week on her web show, "Politichicks." "For six hours, I saw pictures and names and dates and facts and Islamic law books and Korans, Surahs for six hours and they proved to me... that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated our highest positions in government and this is serious."

You can watch it here, if you like.  It's episode 10.

Huffpost points out that Jackson blogged on the meeting earlier in December:

I went to a six hour briefing in Washington D.C. last week. Thirty eight government representatives were invited. Fifteen showed up. Slides, photos, names, dates and documents were shown overhead proving that the Muslim Brotherhood, not only planned the “Arab Spring” and Libyan take over, but has infiltrated our highest government positions, schools, courts and military and is even making policy.

And then:

During this briefing, I saw many documents that had been confiscated from F.B.I. raids on Muslim cells. One document from 30 years ago outlined their “phased plan” to overtake America/the West; 1) Phase of discreet and secret establishment of leadership 2) Phase of gradual appearance on the public scene. Gaining public support and sympathy. Establishing a shadow government (secret) within the Government 3) Escalation phase, prior to conflict and confrontation with the rulers, through utilizing mass media. 4) Open public confrontation with the Government through exercising the political pressure approach. Training on use of weapons domestically and overseas. 5) Seizing power to establish the Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united.

John Guandolo and Steve Coughlin spoke, “…The Elbarasse archives and close observation revealed these techniques employed by the Ikhwan to achieve civilization jihad in America; expand Muslim presence by birth rate, immigration and refusal to assimilate; occupy and expand domination of physical spaces; ensure the Muslim community knows and follows MB doctrine; control the language we use in describing the enemy; ensure we do not study their doctrine; force compliance with shariah at local levels; fight all counter-terrorism efforts; employ ‘lawfare’ – the offensive use of lawsuits and threats of lawsuits; claim victimization/demand accommodations; condemn “slander” against Islam; subvert the U.S. education system – infiltrate and dominate U.S. Middle East and religious studies programs; demand the right to practice shariah in segregated Muslim enclaves; demand recognition of sharia in non-Muslim spheres; confront and denounce Western society, laws, traditions; demand that shariah replace Western law.

John Guandolo and Steve Coughlin are both VPs at the Stategic Engagement Group and evidently they were reading from this report by the Center for Security Policy (page 74):

The Elbarasse archives and close observation of the Brotherhood’s operations reveal the following as the most important of the techniques employed by the Ikhwan in America to achieve the seditious goals of its civilization jihad:

• Expanding the Muslim presence by birth rate, immigration, and refusal to assimilate;
• Occupying and expanding domination of physical spaces;
• Ensuring the “Muslim Community” knows and follows MB doctrine;
• Controlling the language we use in describing the enemy;
• Ensuring we do not study their doctrine (shariah);
• Co-opting key leadership;
• Forcing compliance with shariah at local levels;
• Fighting all counterterrorism efforts;
• Subverting religious organizations;
• Employing lawfare - the offensive use of lawsuits and threats of lawsuits;
• Claiming victimization / demanding accommodations;
• Condemning “slander” against Islam;

By the way, The CSP is Frank Gaffney's group.

Hmm...warnings from the Center for Security Policy.  Yea, we can trust that intel.  Sure we can.

Craig Smith, Again.

Sigh. This is getting to be a pattern.

On February 20, Tribune-Review writer Craig Smith interviewed Dick Armey of Freedomworks, recipient of more than a million dollars of Scaife foundation money.

On April 10, Tribune-Review writer Craig Smith interviewed Michelle Bernard of the Independent Women's Forum, recipient of more than a million dollars of Scaife foundation money.

On April 17, Tribune-Review writer Craig Smith interviewed James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation, recipient of millions and millions of dollars ($23 million in fact) of Scaife foundation money.

Today, he interviews Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies another recipient of millions of dollars of Scaife money.

I mean really, does Craig get a residual for every interview he does with a representative of some Scaife-funded think-tank? At least it's not in alphabetical order, that would be obvious.

We touched on the CIS in mid-April but it's probably a good idea to take another look. Here's some raw data from that blog post:

How much money has Scaife funneled to CIS? I am glad you asked.

• In 2008, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $150,000 to the CIS.
• In 2007, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $150,000 to the CIS.
• In 2006, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $150,000 to the CIS.

Mediamatters reports an additional $1.5 million or so of Scaife foundation money sent to the CIS over the years.

Pretty safe to assume that whenever Mr Smith interviews people for Scaife's paper, he doesn't look much farther than foundations/think tanks who've benefited from Scaife foundation money.

The circle jerk continues.