The Trib's Editorial Board's On The Defensive, I Guess

From today's Tribune-Review op-ed page:

In a Facebook post, state Rep. Brian Sims, D-Philadelphia, accuses those associated with the Commonwealth Foundation, a free-market Harrisburg think tank, of being “racist, homophobic, sexist, classist, ableist, anti-American bigots whose single driving motivation is to secure the wealth of (its) multimillionaire donors at the expense of every single working person and family in the commonwealth.” Sims' words once again prove that ignorance and intemperance are the main ingredients of a “progressive” smear.[Bolding in Original]

If you're looking for an explanation, John Micek over at Pennlive, has one:

It's no secret that Harrisburg's Commonwealth Foundation tilts to the right. The think-tank on State Street has helped lead the charge on such conservative cornerstone issues as Paycheck Protection and the amusingly misnamed "Right to Work," movement.

It's also been in the vanguard of opposition to Gov. Tom Wolf's budget and the tax hike plans embedded within it. And if there's some liberal cause making the rounds, it can be reliably counted upon to oppose it.

All of which apparently didn't sit well with state Rep. Brian Sims, D-Philadelphia, who took to the Facebooks earlier this month to go all Old Testament prophet in the wildnerness on the Koch Bros.-linked think-tank. [Link and Bolding in Original.]

As much as I like Micek, I think he missed the context of the story.  Let's start with the facebook message that the braintrust found so offensive:

Oh Commonwealth Foundation we've talked about this!

See, I already know that you are all racist, homophobic, sexist, classist, ableist, anti-American, bigots whose single driving motivation is to secure the wealth of your multimillionaire donors at the expense of every single working person and family in the Commonwealth. See, I told you I already get it so you don't need to waste money sending me proof...actually go ahead and waste that money!

We're better than you bigots!

And move on to the context.  Here's a follow-up from Sims:

The bigots at the Commonwealth Foundation have just now come across my post about their useless mailing earlier this month and rather than address any of my facts (err accusations) about the work they do, each person who like worked on the flier is posting about how I individually called them names [smile emoticon]

I'm guessing that's about as close to a legitimate defense as they can come up with so its all good on my end!

"Stop hating on our hatred. Stop discrimination against our discrimination. Hold still so we can hurt you and hate you more."

I think you've done enough to hurt working class, military, middle class, and poor families today, Commonwealth Foundation. How about you rest up and attack Americans and liberty tomorrow on a full night sleep.

So the right-tilting Commonwealth Foundation mailed something to state Rep Brian Sims that Sims thought wasteful enough to mock them about it with some rather harsh words.  (I'll leave it to you to agree or disagree)

But who's Brian Sims?  For those who need a reminder, Brian Sims is this guy:

An openly gay lawmaker was silenced by colleagues on the Pennsylvania House floor Thursday when he attempted to speak about the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act.

State Rep. Brian Sims (D-Philadelphia) took to the House floor on Thursday to discuss the high court's landmark ruling, which found the federal law barring the government from recognizing same-sex marriages legalized by states to be unconstitutional. However, as WHYY News and Philly.com report, Sims' remarks were blocked by several state lawmakers using a procedural maneuver.

One of those lawmakers, conservative state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler), told WHYY that he believed Sims' comments would be a violation of "God's law."

"I did not believe that as a member of that body that I should allow someone to make comments such as he was preparing to make that ultimately were just open rebellion against what the word of God has said, what God has said, and just open rebellion against God's law," Metcalfe said.

Yea, that Brian Sims.  Anyone who can trigger Daryl Metcalfe into such righteous indignation must be doing something right.

But let's head back to the rather gentle argument skewing the braintrust makes.  First off, Sims wasn't accusing "those  associated" with the Commonwealth Foundation of being bigots, etc. (which could mean anyone who donates to the foundation or simply agrees with its "research", for example).  He was accusing the Foundation itself of being those things.

By widening the Venn diagram and expanding Sims' less-than-gentle mockery, the braintrust unfairly smears Sims.

But that's all a diversion from the bigger problem with what the braintrust wrote.   I'll give you a hint.  It's found among the nouns of this phrase:

...motivation is to secure the wealth of (its) multimillionaire donors at the expense...[Emphasis added.]

Hmm.  Rich donors of the Commonwealth Foundation.  Hmm.

According to the bridgeproject, the Commonwealth Foundation received $7,654,207 in foundational support over the years.  Just under 35% of that (about $2.667 million) came from the Sarah Scaife, Allegheny and Carthage Foundations - all controlled (before his passing) by Trib owner Richard Mellon Scaife.

Sims indirectly called out the Trib's former owner (although he was a billionaire and not merely a millionaire) and the braintrust, in pushing back, just never seemed to get around to saying, "Hey, that's our former boss you're insulting!"

Given all the money he shuttled off to the Commonwealth Foundation, shouldn't they have pointed that out?

Conflict Of Interest? CONFLICT OF INTEREST??

In yesterday's Tribune-Review readers were presented with this lump of insincere concern:

Gov.-elect Tom Wolf has come out of the gate leading a charge for ethics reform in government. But his own glaring conflict of interest leaves a cloud over his high-minded efforts.

Wolf has asked his transition team to sign an ethics pledge in an attempt to prevent conflicts of interest within his administration. He's also publicly expressed his support for a comprehensive gift ban, indicating he would prohibit executive branch officials from accepting gifts from lobbyists — even something as small as a cup of coffee.

But if accepting a small gift creates a conflict of interest, the gov.-elect will soon be facing an enormous ethical dilemma: negotiating new state contracts with government unions who were among his largest campaign donors this past election.

Government unions spent millions more to support Wolf via “Super PACs,” which are partially funded by union dues. It's not unreasonable to think that union leaders will expect a return on their significant investment.

Ok.  It's good that we've established that.  But let's look at where this came from.  Down the bottom of the column there's this:

Nathan Benefield is vice president of policy analysis for the Commonwealth Foundation

Commonwealth Foundation...Commonwealth Foundation...where have I seen that name?

That's right.  Here - from April, 2013 in The Nation:

The Commonwealth Foundation, a right-wing think tank in Harrisburg, is plotting to go after public sector employee unions. In a letter from Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) on behalf of the Foundation, the think tank announced “Project Goliath,” a new effort to make Pennsylvania the next Wisconsin or Michigan. The Commonwealth Foundation is one of a fifty-nine-state network of similar think tanks that have vastly expanded since 2009. The letter makes clear that conservatives believe that right-wing political infrastructure—the organizing institutes, the partisan media outlets, the rapid response efforts—has helped turn the tide against labor unions.

And the column in the Trib this weekend is about how the Wolf administration is going to face a conflict of interest for all that Union (especially the guv'ment union) money that flowed into the campaign.  WHAT A COINCIDENCE!

Hmmm...so let's take a look at the money.  Always the money.

First the Commonwealth Foundation.  According to the Bridge Project over the years:

• The Foundation received $2.617 million in foundation support from the foundations controlled by the late Trib owner, Richard Mellon Scaife.  That's about 35% of the total amount ($2.617 million out of about $7.654 million)

And now Senator Toomey.  From his letter accompanying the foundation's description of "Project Goliath" we find this:

From my years as a US Congressman from 1999 to 2005 and then as the head of the Club For Growth...

So, onto the Club for Growth.  In 2012 we reported on the $200,000 or so in Scaife Foundation money shuttled to the Club and the $21,000 in personal Scaife money donated to the Toomey campaign.

I mean it's reasonable to believe that donors expect a return on their investment, right?  I mean if we're talking transparency and all.

So Scaife funded the Commonwealth Foundation AND furnished a platform for it (and a number of other Scaife-funded think tanks) to communicate to the public - all while failing to inform that public of the financial connections making it all possible.

WHAT A COINCIDENCE!

The Commonweath Foundation

Found in The Nation:

The Commonwealth Foundation, a right-wing think tanks in Harrisburg, is plotting to go after public sector employee unions. In a letter from Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) on behalf of the Foundation, the think tank announced “Project Goliath,” a new effort to make Pennsylvania the next Wisconsin or Michigan. The Commonwealth Foundation is one of a fifty-nine-state network of similar think tanks that have vastly expanded since 2009. The letter makes clear that conservatives believe that right-wing political infrastructure—the organizing institutes, the partisan media outlets, the rapid response efforts—has helped turn the tide against labor unions.

The piece posts (and quotes) the letter and you can read it for yourself here.

There's something I want to add to the piece (but this isn't a criticism of the writers reporting - he was looking at a particular section of the story and so there's no reason he had to include anything else).  If it's a warning for PA residents about an upcoming effort by the legislature to undermine the state's labor unions, then we can probably expect to see some reporting about it by the Tribune-Review.

And if Toomey's letter lauds the Commonwealth Foundation (a right-wing think tanks in Harrisburg) and if the Trib covers the story in some way, then we want to get out front to point out (yet again) Trib owber Richard Mellon Scaife's financial connections to the Commonwealth Foundation.

Check out this page from the Bridge Project.  It lists all the foundational support given to Commonwealth.  By my math and at this time it adds up to a little over $6.6 million dollars (unadjusted for inflation from 1988 to 2011).  Of that foundations controlled by Scaife make up more than a third ($2.5 million out of $6.6 million).  In fact, in the first five years of foundation support all but $25,000 of it came from foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife ($450K out of $475K).  In the first ten Scaife's foundations constituted about 57% of all the foundational support ($900K out of about $1.6 million).

The fun part is to look at Toomey's letter itself or more specifically the Commonwealth document attached to it.  Included in the letter are some accolades about the Commonweath Foundation from some other conservative think tanks.  There's praise from:

• Cato Institute ($2.4 million in Scaife money)
• Competitive Enterprise Institute ($3.6 million in Scaife money)

So whenever the Trib starts reporting on the Commonwealth Foundation's efforts (or the legislature's efforts spawned from it) to pass any sort of "right to work" legislation, we should keep in mind the millions Scaife's already spent on it.

Hey, Ma! Look At ME!

From the Daily Kos:

New report by Keystone Progress unveils Commonwealth Foundation and Allegheny Institute as part of web of groups pushing national corporate agenda at the expense of Pennsylvania’s middle class

(HARRISBURG, PA)— Keystone Progress and the Center for Media and Democracy released a new report today that exposes how two nominally independent tanks—the Commonwealth Foundation and the Allegheny Institute—are taking their cues from right wing funders, the Republican Party and the agenda established by the American Legislative Exchange Council.

The report, entitled “The Commonwealth Foundation and the Allegheny Institute: Think tanks or corporate lobbyist propaganda mills?” exposes the relationship of far-right State Policy Network (SPN) to both groups. SPN is a web of conservative state-based think tanks across the United States. In addition to its state think tank affiliates, many other national right-wing organizations are associate members of SPN, including the controversial American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Cato Institute, the Franklin Center, the Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute, and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. [Bolding in original]

You can take a look at the report here.

And on page 17 you can read this:

Scaife has been accused of using his newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, to promote conservative principles through the Allegheny Institute’s comments and research.^clvii The Tribune-Review has failed to state its conflict of interests when quoting an Allegheny Institute official or using research from the Institute.^clviii In August, 2013, at least five articles cited the Allegheny Institute, including a “puff piece,” promoting Institute president Jake Haulk.^clix None of them mentioned the connections between the Tribune-Review and the Institute.^clx

In August 2012, the progressive Pennsylvania blog “Two Political Junkies” accused the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review of not reporting a story due to its connections to the Scaife family^clxi. [Links included back to 2PJ and self-serving emphasis added.]

Needless say, the report's a good read.  The report's authors do a great job describing the financial twining between Scaife and both the Commonwealth Foundation and the Allegheny Institute.

They also point out the connections between the Commonwealth Foundation, Allegheny Institute and ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Did you know Scaife had a hand in the foundation of ALEC?

We wrote about it here, citing the Washington Post, from May 2, 1999:

Scaife has given ALEC more than $2 million since 1975, keeping the group alive in its early years. Now his donations ($75,000 last year) are an insignificant part of its budget. [Emphasis added.]

Awkward kung fu moves!

More Tribbing At The Trib

Or maybe it's the same tribbing, who knows? Anyway on today's editorial page, Richard Mellon Scaife's braintrust writes:

Capping 7 1/2 long years of unrelenting temerity toward taxpayers, lame-duck Gov. Ed Rendell will go out the same way he came in: as a big spender.

Under legislation to boost the state's debt ceiling by $600 million -- ensuring still more reckless spending -- the guv will get $298 million to seal his spendthrift legacy.

Philadelphia's former mayor reportedly will spend about a third of his brotherly love on his favored city. Among recipients will be the Arlen Specter Library Project Center.

"At least call it 'The Taxpayers Library' or 'The Pennsylvania State Debt Center,'" writes Nathan Benefield of the Commonwealth Foundation.

We've seen the Commonwealth Foundation before haven't we?

Yes we have. Richard Mellon Scaife has supported the Commonwealth Foundation to the tune of about $2 million.But take a closer look at what they braintrust did. Here's the reference again:

"At least call it 'The Taxpayers Library' or 'The Pennsylvania State Debt Center,'" writes Nathan Benefield of the Commonwealth Foundation.

And then search for the phrase "taxpayers library" at the Commonwealth Foundation you'll find this. It's a blog post about another piece at Capitolwire - something that requires a subscription to read.

Looks to me like the braintrust is using its vast media influence to get the word out (from behind a subscription wall, no less) about some tidbit from the Commonwealth Foundation. All with no mention of the $2 mil Scaife spent on Commonwealth while his editorial board gleefully touts its research.

The circle jerk continues.

The Trib. Again.

Yawn.

Aw, geez. We gotta do this again?

From one of today's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorials:

By destroying the myth that state control of alcohol sales ameliorates societal harm, a new Commonwealth Foundation report bolsters the case for ending Pennsylvania's archaic status quo.

"Government-Run Liquor Stores: The Social Impact of Privatization" (available at CommonwealthFoundation.org) says privatizing sales lowers per-capita consumption and DUI-related fatality rates and doesn't increase underage drinking.

It concludes: "Evidence from 48 states over time shows no link between market controls and ... social goals."

The Reason Foundation estimates Pennsylvania could sell its wholesale and retail liquor operations for $1.7 billion. And, Commonwealth's Nathan Benefield estimates, annual alcohol sales tax revenue would remain close to its existing level.[emphasis added]

Guess what?

There's no mention of the $410,000 in grants ($140K in 2008 and 2007 and $130K in 2006) from the Richard Mellon Scaife-controlled Sarah Scaife Foundation to the Commonwealth Foundation in this editorial from the Richard Mellon Scaife owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

AND

There's no mention of the $375,000 in grants ($125K each from 2008, 2007 and 2006) from the Richard Mellon Scaife-controlled Sarah Scaife Foundation to the Commonwealth Foundation in this editorial from the Richard Mellon Scaife owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

That's $785,000 gone unmentioned by Scaife's brain trust.

Richard Mellon Scaife's journalistic circle jerk continues. (Don't these guys get tired?)

But wait, there's another aspect of Scaife's circle jerk to be explored.

Take a look at this page. (It's the Board of Directors page at Commonwealthfoundation.org.) The Chairman of the Board is someone named Michael W. Gleba. Does that name sound familiar? It should.

He's the Executive Vice President of the Sarah Foundations.

Can someone tell me if that's kosher?

They Did It Again

From today's Tribune-Review:

As director of policy research for the nonprofit Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives, Nathan A. Benefield has researched and written on issues ranging from taxes and government spending to health care policy and economic development. He frequently has testified before Pennsylvania House and Senate committees on issues such as the state budget, transportation funding, privatization and education.

The topic today is the film tax credit.

Of course, there's no mention of the financial support given to the Commonwealth Foundation by the owner of the paper that's interviewing him, Richard Mellon Scaife.

In case you missed any of our coverage, here's some numbers:

• In 2009, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $130,000 to the CFPP.
• In 2008, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $140,000 to the CFPP.
• In 2007, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $140,000 to the CFPP.
• In 2006, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $130,000 to the CFPP.
• In 2005, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $130,000 to the CFPP.
• In 2004, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave $120,000 to the CFPP.

That's about $700,000 in 6 years.

According to mediamatters, Scaife's foundations have given more cash to the CFPP than any other foundation. About $2 million.

And yet no mention of all that money, all that support in the interview.

Someone has to say it - the circle jerk continues.

Another Two-Fer At The Trib

From today's Editorial Page at Richard Mellon Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Extended federal unemployment benefits, set to run out June 2, aren't putting people to work. Left unchecked, they "help" those who are gaming the system.

Of course they'd say that. But what's the data to support it? Where does it come from?

No surprise here, either:

Notes David Littmann, senior economist for the free-market Mackinac Center for Public Policy, those federal checks -- for up to 99 weeks -- don't reduce unemployment but the incentive to find work.

It's no wonder Pennsylvania struggles to maintain its unemployment compensation fund when it's second only to California in what it pays out, according to the Commonwealth Foundation.[emphasis in original]

We all know where this is headed, right?

• The Mackinac Center is a Michigan-based conservative think tank that received $100,000 from the Richard Mellon Scaife controlled Sarah Scaife Foundation in 1999-2000.
• The Commonwealth Foundation is a Pennsylvania-based conservative think tank that's received about $2 million from the Richard Mellon Scaife controlled Allegheny, Carthage and Sarah Scaife foundations over the last 2 decades.

And yet no mention of any of that money in an editorial critical of extending unemployment benefits.

The circle jerk/tribbing continues.

Interesting.

I want to go further on this.

The Mackinac Center is a member of something called the State Policy Network. The SPN describes itself as:

State Policy Network is the capacity building service organization for America's free market, state-focused think tank community. We advance a free society by providing leadership development, management training and networking opportunities for think tank professionals and by promoting strategic partnerships among market-oriented organizations.

So it's an organization of conservative state-based think tanks, fair enough.

Guess who else is a member?

• Commonwealth Foundation (approx $2 million Scaife money over the years)

Associate Members

• Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (approx $4 million Scaife money over the years)
• Accuracy in Media (approx $4.3 million Scaife money over the years)
• Capital Research Center (approx $4.5 million in Scaife money over the years)

Just to name a few. The Heritage Foundation's a member, as is Judicial Watch and Freedomworks and so on. All recipients of vast amounts of Scaife money. How many of these Scaife-funded foundations does his editorial board use as "informational" sources?

Tell me again how there's no vast right-wing conspiracy.

Follow The Money - Some Scaife Updates

From Rich Lord at the P-G:

Three foundations that Richard Mellon Scaife long guided are heading into a season of leadership changes, reorganizations and dramatic expansions three months after the filing of the late billionaire’s will.

Nearly doubling in size is the Sarah Scaife Foundation, which Mr. Scaife, son of the philanthropy’s namesake, turned into a national force in funding the development of conservative thought. That foundation is expected to absorb the smaller, similarly focused Carthage Foundation.

Then there's this:

The Sarah Scaife Foundation has “been responsible for a lot of national public policy for the conservative movement, in particular the work done by the Heritage Foundation, and in Pennsylvania the work done by the Commonwealth Foundation and the Allegheny Institute [for Public Policy],” said Allegheny County Republican Committee chairman Jim Roddey.

The merger of the Carthage Foundation and the terms of Mr. Scaife’s will portend “more grants and … a bigger scope,” said Mr. Roddey, who is on the Sarah Scaife Foundation’s board.

Did you know that Jim Roddey was also once on the board of the Allegheny Institute?

Yes, he was.  Small world.  Lotsa Scaife money supporting lotsa conservative causes.

But while the Sarah Scaife Foundation's getting bigger - meaning there's be more money for the Heritage Foundation, AEI and so on - this is also occurring:

The two children of Richard Mellon Scaife have demanded, in court filings last week, an accounting for hundreds of millions of dollars that they said was drained from a trust to cover the losses of the Tribune-Review newspapers, despite the trustees’ duty to preserve funds for them.

Jennie Scaife, of Palm Beach, Fla., and David N. Scaife, of Shadyside, filed similar petitions in Orphans Court of Allegheny County. They claimed that three trustees who controlled $210 million in 2005 let that dwindle to nothing by the time of their father’s death, four months ago.

And:

The petitions suggest deep divisions between, on one hand, Richard Mellon Scaife’s children, and, on the other, the handful of close associates managing his estate, estimated to be in the billion-dollar range. Richard Mellon Scaife did not mention the children in his will, which split most of his wealth between two foundations.

Now obviously, I have no info other than these two articles in the P-G, and it'll probably be years before this is resolved, but it looks as though Scaife drained one trust (one that he shouldn't have) to fund his Tribune-Review, reserving the rest of his vast wealth to be passed on to the three (or two, now that Carthage has been folded into Sarah Scaife) Foundations that support Scaife's political causes.

Why couldn't he use his own money to prop up the obvious financial failure that is his Tribune-Review?

There's something vastly distasteful about all that.

Forbes.com on R. M. Scaife

A week or so ago, Forbes.com posted this article titled:

Billionaires Channel Millions to Think Tanks

So you can pretty much guess what the post is about.  Laurie Bennett, author of the piece, begins thusly:

Just as big money is transforming politics, it’s also helping to reshape American think tanks.

Members of the Forbes 400 have poured millions of dollars into research organizations that fit their social, political and/or business concerns.

The conservative Heritage Foundation has received funding from libertarian Charles G. Koch, CEO of Koch Industries, as well as from Richard Mellon Scaife, owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and heir to the Mellon banking fortune.

Ah, there it is.  Nice to see it mainstreamed at Forbes.com.  In looking in all the political directions of this story (which is fair) she does a "they all do it" approach to the think tank funders; right, left and middle.

It's a Two-fer!

On today's Tribune-Review editorial page.

First, there's this:

The Heritage Foundation calculates that the average electricity bill for a family of four would double, triple or even nearly quadruple under Al Gore's call for America to generate all electricity from renewable resources by 2018. Of course, it makes you wonder how much of a stake Mr. Gore has in renewable resource electricity generation, doesn't it?

Hmm. So how much of a stake does Richard Mellon Scaife, who owns the Tribune-Review and who controls three Scaife foundations who routinely give money to the Heritage Foundation?

About $24 million.

Then there's this:

The Commonwealth Foundation has unloaded on special interest groups that suckle at the taxpayer teat for denouncing "special interest" groups. In particular, the Harrisburg think tank cites groups that are "the emissaries" of Fast Eddie Rendell in attempting to tax, tax, tax the burgeoning Marcellus Shale industry above and beyond the taxes paid by other energy companies. It's the kind of turf-protecting politics that hangs a giant "STAY AWAY" sign on Pennsylvania.

And how much support has the Scaife controlled foundations unloaded on the Commonwealth Foundation over the years?

About $2 million.

Since it's a two-fer, does this circle jerk require both hands?

The Trib Brain Trust Just Can't Help Itself

Today, I thought I'd try something new. Here's the whole "Sunday Pops" column from today's Tribune-Review:

So, would those arguing that the federal judge who struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage has a "conflict" because he has a gay partner argue that a federal judge with a wife who upheld the ban is similarly conflicted? ... How can the Keystone Research Center's "independent" Budget and Policy Center claim to be "independent" when its parent is an arm of organized labor? ... After years of speculation over whether he was a natural-born U.S. citizen, President Barack Obama finally released his birth certificate indicating he was born in Hawaii. But given Mr. Obama could have nipped the matter in the bud years ago, why did he wait so long to do so? ... Donald Trump is taking credit for forcing the president to release his birth certificate. But he might have a "birther" problem of his own. We're told some tabloid is about to report that Mr. Trump was born on Mars ... or Venus ... or was it Mercury? ... Lest we forget, the whole "birther" controversy was started by supporters of Hillary Clinton after she lost the Democrats' 2008 presidential nomination. So much for the shibboleth that this was a "right-wing operation." [Bold in original.]

A mixture of spin and just plain silly (and one they get right). Let's go point by point.

Point 1 -

So, would those arguing that the federal judge who struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage has a "conflict" because he has a gay partner argue that a federal judge with a wife who upheld the ban is similarly conflicted?

Ok, so I have no problem with this one. They even got the irony quotes right. Only one thing: it's obvious that they're assuming that the hypothetical federal judge in that last phrase is male. (A teensy bit of sexism that should be pointed out.) If she were female then the meaning of the sentence is completely changed, doncha think?

So Let's move on.

Point 2 -

How can the Keystone Research Center's "independent" Budget and Policy Center claim to be "independent" when its parent is an arm of organized labor?

Seeing this on the Scaife-funded Trib, I chuckled. Especially when I found this from Commonwealth Foundation:

Everyone loves to hate "special interests." They spend millions of dollars in electing and lobbying public officials in order to gain political or legislative favor.

So it was no surprise when groups like PennFuture and the Keystone Research Center's Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center joined with Common Cause PA and the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters to attack individuals affiliated with the natural gas industry for giving $2 million in state campaign contributions over the past 10 years. Nor was it surprising that they called for a severance tax to punish this "special interest."

But someone forgot to tell these organizations living in glass houses that they ought not to throw stones.

Indeed, the $2 million in contributions given over 10 years by natural gas interests is dwarfed by the contributions of the labor unions that run the Keystone Research Center's Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (KRC/PBPC). Union political action committees gave $27 million in state races in 2007-08 alone and $60 million over the last three election cycles. Of course these special interests expect special favors in return for their "investments." [Emphasis added for dramatic effect]

How much money has Scaife funneled to the Commonwealth Foundation, the foundation that attacks the KRC for being in the pocket of it's "special interest" donors? About $2 million.

Of course the editorial board writers of the Scaife owned paper would never mention this.

Point 3 -

After years of speculation over whether he was a natural-born U.S. citizen, President Barack Obama finally released his birth certificate indicating he was born in Hawaii. But given Mr. Obama could have nipped the matter in the bud years ago, why did he wait so long to do so?

I want you to note the grammatical lack of clarity of that first sentence before we look at its rhetorical misdirection. Was it Obama who was speculating that he wasn't born in Hawaii? Surely looks that way. But the rhetorical misdirection is the greater sin here. In order for this phrase "Obama finally released his birth certificate indicating he was born in Hawaii" to be true, the official birth certificate released 3 years ago has to be something other than an official birth certificate. All they did was to move the goal posts from "he's not one of us." to "what's he hiding by waiting for so long?"

Except he didn't wait. See what the Trib did there?

Point 4 -

Donald Trump is taking credit for forcing the president to release his birth certificate. But he might have a "birther" problem of his own. We're told some tabloid is about to report that Mr. Trump was born on Mars ... or Venus ... or was it Mercury?

The "on what planet was The Donald born?" is actually a Karl Rove talking point. I heard him use it the other night. Other than that, this is just silly.

Point 5 -

Lest we forget, the whole "birther" controversy was started by supporters of Hillary Clinton after she lost the Democrats' 2008 presidential nomination. So much for the shibboleth that this was a "right-wing operation."

THAT'S RIGHT! It's a lib'rul plot! Spread by the lib'rul media best represented by:

• World Net Daily
• Rush Limbaugh
• Sean Hannity
• Michael Savage
• Jerome Corsi
• Michelle Geller
• Orly Taitz
• Alan Keyes
• G. Gordon Liddy
• Jim Quinn
• Rose Tennant
• Chuck Norris
• And about half (depending on how you slice it) of the GOP.

So of course it's NO RIGHT WING OPERATION! Of course not.

That's just silly.

Follow The Money - PATownhall

A week or so ago, I stumbled across this website.  It's "PaTownHall - Pennsylvania's marketplace of ideas" and it describes itself as:

PA Town Hall is a cooperative project involving over 20 center/right organizations and columnists from throughout Pennsylvania. It is a "one stop shop" for readers to view the latest policy papers, news releases, newsletters, polls, blogs and columns as well as listen to radio programs produced by participating organizations.

The site piqued my curiosity, to say the least.  Where did it come from?  Who hosts it?  Who's paying for it?  And finally, HOW MUCH SCAIFE MONEY IS ENTWINED IN THE PROJECT?

So let's follow the money.

On the "About" page we learn that:

PA Town Hall is owned and operated by the Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Research, Inc. The Lincoln Institute is a 501c3 nonprofit educational foundation based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The mission statement of the Lincoln Institute commits the organization to "the conduct of an extensive public information and educational program designed to foster federal and state public policy based upon traditional American values."

Ah, The Lincoln Institute.  According to the Bridgeproject, the Institute has received overall $1.428 million dollars over the last 20 or so years - 68% of which ($980,000) came from the Scaife controlled Allegheny Foundation.

But what about those "20 center/right organizations" that make up the project?

Let's take a look.  Here's the page titled "Member Groups".  Alot of the list is made up of individuals, so let's set them aside and just concentrate on the some of groups on the "Member Group" page that have received Scaife funding (all info from the BridgeProject):

• Allegheny Institute: $6.484 million total, 89% ($5.8 million) from Scaife foundations
• Commonwealth Foundation: $7.523 million total, 35% ($2.667 million) from Scaife foundations
• Foundation for Individual Rights in Education: $9.865 million total 14.7% ($1.45 million) from Scaife foundations

And so on.  I note that our good friend Salena Zito is also on the "Member Groups" list.  She's a staff writer and editorial columnist for the Tribune-Review

Here's a thought experiment: What would PATownhall look like had it never received 68% of it's foundation funding from the Scaife Foundations?  What would the political geography of the state look like without all that money coming from those three sources all controlled (until recently, of course) by one very rich white guy?

Here's a couple more: The next time Salena Zito mentions anyone else (individual or organization) on the PA Townhall "Member Group" (for example Senator Toomey) will she, in the spirit of full disclosure, mention their common membership on that list?  

Next time Lowman Henry is so lovingly profiled by the Tribune-Review, will they point out that their former owner shuttled hundreds of thousands of dollars Henry's way to fund the Lincoln Institute?

Follow the money.

Politifact's Biggest Lie Of 2010

We all know what it is, don't we?

Health Care Reform is a government takeover of the healthcare system.

From Politifact:

In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to overhaul America's health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a "government takeover."

"Takeovers are like coups," Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo. "They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom."

The line stuck. By the time the health care bill was headed toward passage in early 2010, Obama and congressional Democrats had sanded down their program, dropping the "public option" concept that was derided as too much government intrusion. The law passed in March, with new regulations, but no government-run plan.

But as Republicans smelled serious opportunity in the midterm elections, they didn't let facts get in the way of a great punchline. And few in the press challenged their frequent assertion that under Obama, the government was going to take over the health care industry.

PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen "government takeover of health care" as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats' shellacking in the November elections.

They point out that they are making no judgement about whether the Health Care Reform bill was a good idea or a bad idea. They're just saying that the statement "HCR is a government takeover" is "simply not true."

Here's what they said:

PolitiFact reporters have studied the 906-page bill and interviewed independent health care experts. We have concluded it is inaccurate to call the plan a government takeover because it relies largely on the existing system of health coverage provided by employers.

It's true that the law does significantly increase government regulation of health insurers. But it is, at its heart, a system that relies on private companies and the free market.

Republicans who maintain the Democratic plan is a government takeover say that characterization is justified because the plan increases federal regulation and will require Americans to buy health insurance.

But while those provisions are real, the majority of Americans will continue to get coverage from private insurers. And it will bring new business for the insurance industry: People who don"t currently have coverage will get it, for the most part, from private insurance companies.

Consider some analogies about strict government regulation. The Federal Aviation Administration imposes detailed rules on airlines. State laws require drivers to have car insurance. Regulators tell electric utilities what they can charge. Yet that heavy regulation is not described as a government takeover.

And politifact is not alone in calling this lie a lie. Here's factcheck.org:

Despite the fact that the federal health insurance plan (a.k.a. the “public option”) is now gone from the bill, Republicans and conservative groups have continued to claim that the bill institutes a system like the one in the United Kingdom, or Canada, or otherwise amounts to a government takeover. It doesn’t. A pure government-run system was never among the leading Democratic proposals, much to the chagrin of single-payer advocates. Instead, the bill builds on our current system of private insurance, and in fact, drums up more business for private companies by mandating that individuals buy coverage and giving many subsidies to do so.

So when we read:

Constitutional questions have dogged the health care bill since its introduction. But rather than address these issues head on, supporters of the legislation have shrugged them off. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, when asked where the Constitution grants the power to impose an individual mandate to buy insurance, famously replied, "Are you serious?"

This is the same tactic being used by defenders of the federal takeover of health care in response to the lawsuit against the new law.

We know that this is a lie - there is no federal takeover of health care.

By the way, the writer of that above passage, Nathan Benefield is the director of policy research at the Commonwealth Foundation. The same Commonwealth Foundation that's received about $2.2 million over the past 2 decades or so from the foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife (including $50,000 in "start up" funds in 1988).

No matter who pays for it, it's still a lie.

Subtle, Very Subtle

By now you should all have learned that Governor Corbett, behind in the polls by double digits and presumably in desperate need of an election year boost, has announced:

...that the state has secured agreement with the federal government to implement the portion of his Healthy Pennsylvania plan that will improve and bring financial stability to the state’s Medicaid program so that the state can increase access to quality, affordable health care through the private insurance market.

In the words of Kate Giammarise at the P-G:

Pennsylvania’s working poor could start receiving subsidized health insurance as early as Jan. 1 now that the federal government has approved the state’s proposed Medicaid overhaul.

Federal regulators approved much of Gov. Tom Corbett’s “;Healthy PA” plan, the state and federal governments confirmed Thursday, ending months of negotiations between the two parties. Enrollment in what’s being called the “Healthy PA Private Coverage Option” will begin Dec. 1.

Mr. Corbett’s plan, unveiled last year and formally submitted to the federal government for review in February, would not directly expand the state’s Medicaid program, but would instead offer federal subsidies to low-income Pennsylvanians to purchase private insurance. As many as 600,000 uninsured Pennsylvanians could be eligible, according to the state’s latest estimates.

Guv'mint subsidies?  Redistributing the wealth to help the poor?  That's a guv'mint take over of the economy!  Impeach Obama!

Give it time.  Give it time, for surely our friends in the Pennsylvania Tea Party will be screeching that very soon.

Back to reality.  While it's good news that hundreds of thousands of the states poor could be receiving subsidized health insurance soon, not everyone's happy with the deal.

From Pennlive.com:

"Today's agreement begins to dig Pennsylvania out of the hole Governor Corbett and lawmakers created when they rejected funding to expand health care coverage to half-a-million low-income Pennsylvanians. There never should have been a coverage gap in Pennsylvania, and we share the relief of hundreds of thousands of uninsured Pennsylvanians in knowing it's finally on track to close," said Antoinette Kraus, of the Pennsylvania Health Access Network, in a news release, referring to the fact that the coverage became available Jan. 1 in states that accepted the Obamacare version.

And from Michael Morrill of Keystone Progress:

"The Obama administration's approval today of 'Healthy Pennsylvania,' Governor Corbett's insurance industry giveaway, will leave thousands of working families without insurance unnecessarily. Because the Corbett administration refused to accept a simple expansion of the medicaid program, thousands in Pennsylvania have gone without insurance they so dearly need, and thousands will still be left out in the cold because the approved deal will create unaffordable premiums.

"There is no reason to give more money to the insurance companies when there was an easy alternative that would have used that money to directly aid the families that need it most -- expanding medicaid as 20+ other states have already done. Instead, the Corbett administration has decided to play politics with the health of thousands of Pennsylvanians in an effort to funnel millions of dollars into the pockets of wealthy insurance companies."

And our friends on the right must surely be unhappy as well. From Alex Nixon and Brad Bumsted of the Trib:

The conservative Commonwealth Foundation commended Corbett for pushing back against Medicaid expansion, but said he should “walk away” from the plan as approved.

“Given the federal government's unwillingness to grant Pennsylvania work search requirements or meaningful cost-sharing, it's in the best interest of Pennsylvanians to walk away and pursue other avenues to truly expand health care access,” the Harrisburg nonprofit said in a statement.

And there's the subtle.  That's the Tribune-Review, remember.  Which, via its editorial page, has denounced Obamacare forever.  Prior to his passing, Richard Mellon Scaife owned the Tribune-Review.  Prior to his passing, Scaife presided over a number of foundations.  Prior to his passing, those foundations gave lots of money to various conservative institutions over the years.

Turns out that about 35% of the foundational support received by the above mentioned Commonwealth Foundation came from those Scaife-controlled foundations - amd there's not a peep out of Nixon and Bumstead about all the money their former boss gave to the conservative institution they were quoting.

Subtle, very subtle.

Corbett, TANF, and The Welfare Waiver Myth

As usual, we start with an editorial at the Scaife-owned Tribune-Review:

In no uncertain terms, Gov. Tom Corbett has rejected the Obama administration’s re-election-year pander allowing states to dispense with the work requirement under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.

Note that the Scaife's braintrust uses the verb "to dispense with" in its description of the TANF work requirement.

Too bad that description just isn't true.  The work requirement under TANF is not being "dispensed with".  How do I know?

Factcheck.org.  In its discussion of the now-debunked Romney ad on TANF, they say:

Work requirements are not simply being “dropped.” States may now change the requirements — revising, adding or eliminating them — as part of a federally approved state-specific plan to increase job placement. [Emphasis added.]

If you're not a fan of factcheck, how's about CNN?  They called the debunked Romney ad "nuts."

So the braintrust's frame is simply wrong.  But guess what we find when we dig just a little deeper?

First the Trib:

Moreover, of six states that have reduced their welfare rolls during the recession, four match work requirements with time limits, writes Elizabeth Stelle for the Commonwealth Foundation.

Never a mention of the millions Scaife's given to the Commonwealth Foundation.

UPMC Tax Break

I see that the P-G has the story.

As does the Burgh Report.

Of course The Remarkable Rauterkus is in the story as well.

For those who don't know here it is in a nutshell:

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl today asked City Council to grant UPMC tax credits in the amount of money it donates to the Pittsburgh Promise, a program to give college grants to city high school students who meet minimum grade requirements.

A sources close to city-council tells me that several council members were surprised to see legislation as they'd thought that the year's business had been finished. Imagine their colletive surprise when suddenly this is dropped in to their collective laps. They tell me that the administration (that would be Mayor Opie and friends) want to "fast track it" before the new year, when the new council members are sworn in.

For your perusal, here's the legislation:

Resolution authorizing the City of Pittsburgh (City”) to enter into an Agreement or Agreements with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (“UPMC”) to grant to UPMC tax credits equal to certain payments made by UPMC or its affiliates to the Pittsburgh Promise Foundation, if by legislation or Court decision, UPMC or its affiliates are made subject to the imposition of taxes by the City.

WHEREAS, UPMC has entered into a Grant Agreement with the Pittsburgh Foundation under which UPMC will make gifts to the Pittsburgh Promise Foundation for the purpose of providing scholarships to residents of the School District of Pittsburgh as they are graduated from the public schools of the School District; (“UPMC”)and

WHEREAS, the City recognizes and acknowledges the charitable status of UPMC and its affiliates; and

WHEREAS, the City, UPMC and its affiliates recognize that in the future legislation or Court decisions could mandate or permit the imposition by the City of a tax or municipal service fee or payment in lieu of taxes..

Be it resolved by the Council of the City of Pittsburgh as follows:

1 The Mayor and appropriate officials of the City are hereby authorized to enter into an Agreement of Agreements with UPMC, in form and substance, subject to approval of the City Solicitor, to grant tax credits to UPMC or its affiliates in the event that legislation enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, or final Court decisions mandated or authorized the City to impose any tax or municipal service fee or payment in lieu of taxes on UPMC or its affiliates, such credits to be equal to certain payments which may be made by UPMC to the Pittsburgh Promise Foundation, as may be more fully set forth in such Agreement or Agreements.

2 Any ordinance of resolution inconsistent with this resolution, in whole or in part, is hereby repealed.

I've also been informed that if 25 valid signatures can be delivered on a petition to City Council tomorrow before the meeting tomorrow at 10am, a public hearing can be scheduled for the legislation.

A petition that looks like this:

We, the undersigned below, petition the Council of the City, in accordance with Section 320 of the Home Rule Charter, for a public hearing on legislation introduced in Council on December 17, 2007 that would allow."

The Mayor and appropriate officials of the City are hereby authorized to enter into an Agreement of Agreements with UPMC, in form and substance, subject to approval of the City Solicitor, to grant tax credits to UPMC or its affiliates in the event that legislation enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, or final Court decisions mandated or authorized the City to impose any tax or municipal service fee or payment in lieu of taxes on UPMC or its affiliates, such credits to be equal to certain payments which may be made by UPMC to the Pittsburgh Promise Foundation, as may be more fully set forth in such Agreement or Agreements.

I understand that in order to make a valid signature on this petition that I am a resident of the City of Pittsburgh and that I am a registered voter in the city of Pittsburgh .

Name Address

___________________________________________________

___________________________________________________

Just cut and paste, sign and send it to Mark Rauterkus. Or maybe he has a cleaner copy.

THIS Is Who They Get As An Expert??

A lesson, my friends, in how the right wing media works.

In today's Tribune-Review there's some somewhat less than exuberant reporting on the plans for the upcoming Occupy Pittsburgh demonstrations.  After setting the scene by quoting two contrasting participants (one a struggling student the other, well, not), the Trib finds an expert to give some non-partisan concerned commentary on the group.:

The movement's wide-ranging appeal could be its undoing if organizers don't focus on the right target, said Antony Davies, an associate professor of economics at Duquesne University.

"(Occupy Wall Street) doesn't seem to have a set of demands. There is this general statement, with people feeling that they've been plundered, and that's, in my opinion, pretty fair. But they're protesting the wrong street," Davies said.

Instead, Davies pointed to government intervention in the banking and housing industry in recent years.

"It's kind of like blaming the kid because he got into the paint and painted the television, but the problem is, you shouldn't have left the paint on the floor to begin with," Davies said.

Well, that doesn't look good, does it?

Until we Google Professor Davies (what, didn't they think we would??).

Turns out our concerned non-partisan, along with being an econ professor at Duquesne is a scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Do we need to mention how much money Trib owner Richard Mellon Scaife's funnelled to the Mercatus Center?

• Media Matters charts $320,000 in funds from the Sarah Scaife Foundation from 2004-2007
• There's another $180,000 from that same foundation from 2008, 2009, and 2010.

That's half a million dollars from my friend Dick to the think tank were his paper's "non-partisan" expert sometimes hangs his scholarly hat.

That doesn't even mention his being a member of the "Council of Scholars" of the Commonwealth Foundation or the millions of dollars Scaife's funneled there either.

But that's not the big story.

The big story is how much Koch Brothers money the Mercatus Center's received. Media Matters lists it at a skosh more than $9 million between 2002 and 2008. These are the same Koch Brothers that funded a great deal of the right wing "Tea Party Movement" over the last few years.

But maybe that's just a coincidence.  Could be.  Perhaps it is and I should be fitted with a tin foil hat PDQ.

But look who spoke at a Tea Party Rally (hosted by the lovely Rose Tennent, by the way) on April 15, 2010: Antony Davies, PhD.

THIS is who the Trib gets its non-partisan commentary?  A Tea-Party guy??

This is how the right wing media works.

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.

More On Rick Saccone's "Year Of The Bible"

Hey, you remember this, right?

Our good friends at the Freedom From Religion Foundation brought suit against the resolution back in April, saying:

HR 535 improperly proclaims the bible to be ‘the word of God,’ . . . the Pennsylvania House of Representatives has no such authority or right to determine what is ‘the word of God,’ or if there is a ‘word of God,’ or if there is a ‘God’

A few days ago, the suit was dismissed by U.S. Middle District Judge Christopher C. Conner:

The judge dismissed the suit by the Freedom From Religion Foundation after concluding that House members have "absolute legislative immunity" in passing such measures.

However, he's quite adamant in his decision about some other things:

However, the court’s determination that the defendants engaged in a “legislative act” for purposes of immunity should not be viewed as judicial endorsement of this resolution. It most certainly is not. At best, H.R. 535 is a benign attempt to reaffirm the underlying principles of the Reagan proclamation of 1983. At worst, it is premeditated pandering designed to provide a reelection sound bite for use by members of the General Assembly. But regardless of the motivation behind H.R. 535, its express language is proselytizing and exclusionary (e.g., “Renewing our knowledge of and faith in God through holy scripture can strengthen us as a nation and a people”). The court is compelled to shine a clear, bright light on this resolution because it pushes the Establishment Clause envelope behind the safety glass of legislative immunity. That it passed unanimously is even more alarming. This judicial rebuke of the resolution is not intended to impugn the religious beliefs of any citizen. To the contrary, the court’s disapprobation is directed to the blatant use of legislative resources in contravention of the spirit – if not the letter – of the Establishment Clause. At a time when the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania faces massive public policy challenges, these resources would be far better utilized in meaningful legislative efforts for the benefit all of the citizens of the Commonwealth, regardless of their religious beliefs.

So the legislature has the authority to pass such resolutions, but it probably shouldn't have.

By the way U.S. Middle District Judge Christopher C. Conner is a George W. Bush nominee.