Tag: dark money

Dark Money PAC Rallies 17K Doctors to Denounce RFK Jr. HHS Nomination

As the Senate showdown over RFK Jr.’s HHS nomination nears its climax, the medical industry and its front group appendages are pulling out all the stops to make sure they knock Kennedy out of contention and get him replaced with one of their dutiful lackeys, as has been standard operation procedure for decades now in Our Sacred Democracy™.

The Committee to Protect Health Care, a partisan dark money PAC with a particular interest in promoting abortion, has issued a stark warning to senators considering RFK Jr.’s nomination.

Via Committee to Protect Health Care (emphasis added):

As physicians who care deeply about the health and safety of our patients and communities, we are appalled by Donald Trump’s reckless decision to appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). The health and well-being of 336 million Americans depend on leadership at HHS that prioritizes science, evidence-based medicine, and strengthening the integrity of our public health system. RFK Jr. is not only unqualified to lead this essential agency–he is actively dangerous. We urge the Senate to protect and defend our patients’ access to quality health care by rejecting his appointment.

This appointment is an affront to the principles of public health, the tireless dedication of medical professionals, and the trust that millions of Americans place in the health care system*. RFK Jr. has a well-documented history of spreading dangerous disinformation on vaccines and public health interventions, leaving vulnerable communities unprotected and placing millions of lives at risk. His appointment is a direct threat to the safety of our patients and the public at large.

A strong public health infrastructure can only be achieved when we work collectively to protect one another. Vaccines are among the greatest medical breakthroughs in history, saving millions of lives and transforming communities worldwide…

This appointment is a slap in the face to every health care professional who has spent their lives working to protect patients from preventable illness and death. Americans deserve better. Our patients deserve a Secretary of HHS who upholds the principles of science and public health, focusing on addressing real public health crises facing Americans such as the high cost of prescription drugs, access to care, and the systemic barriers patients face – not someone whose legacy is built on lies and conspiracy theories. 

As physicians, we are outraged by this appointment and we call on the Senate to act immediately. Reject Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination and demand qualified leadership at HHS that prioritizes science, the protection of public health, and the well-being of all Americans. The health and security of our nation depend on it. Anything less is an abdication of responsibility to the American people.

*it would seem The Science™ has done a bang-up job all on its own the past few years destroying “the trust that millions of Americans place in the health care system.”

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‘Anti-Energy Lawfare’: Millions in Dark Money Fueling Local Climate Lawsuits Across the Country, Congressional Investigation Finds

California law firm Sher Edling received more than $3 million in unreported dark money to push high-profile climate litigation on behalf of dozens of Democratic-led cities and states, according to a Monday congressional report obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Sher Edling, the Senate Commerce Committee and House Oversight Committee report found, received $2.9 million last year from the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, a shadowy group managed by the New Venture Fund. Because the contributions were made in 2023, the New Venture Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based dark money organization, isn’t required to disclose them until it files its next annual 990 form with the IRS in mid-November. Sher Edling also received a previously unreported check worth $235,000 in 2022 from the Tides Foundation, a grantmaking organization that wired a staggering $667 million to dozens of progressive causes in 2022, its most recent tax filings show.

The newly uncovered funds shed light on how powerful progressive interests continue to work hand in hand with Democrats to punish oil and gas companies. Sher Edling was founded in 2016 to take up risky first-of-their-kind lawsuits against the oil and gas industry, accusing the industry of causing global warming and arguing it is financially responsible for extreme weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

Most of Sher Edling’s cases are working their way through state courts, even as the oil industry has pushed for them to be litigated in federal courts. If successful, the suits could force oil companies to pay billions of dollars in climate damages to local and state governments. Sher Edling would receive a large portion of that settlement money, according to its legal services contracts.

As 501(c)(3) nonprofits, the New Venture Fund and Tides Foundation aren’t legally required to disclose their donors. Together, the two groups received $1.3 billion in contributions and grants from anonymous donors in 2022 alone. As a result, it’s largely unclear who exactly employed the organizations to send grant money to Sher Edling.

Since it was founded in 2016, Sher Edling has agreed to represent dozens of states and cities in climate-related cases, including Delaware, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Baltimore, and Honolulu. In the cases, Democratic prosecutors have argued the oil and gas industry is responsible for global warming and that it has deceived consumers about the downstream impacts of their petroleum products for decades.

Critics have blasted the litigation, labeling it a backdoor effort to bankrupt oil and gas companies and peg the industry for local emissions. Still, activists say the lawsuits are a critical part of the broader effort to curb reliance on fossil fuels and boost green energy.

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Dark Money Group Plows Millions Into Biden Campaign

President Joe Biden’s reelection effort will count on help from some anonymous friends.

In the 2024 general election, President Biden will be supported by numerous campaign committees and funds. One of the most significant will be FF PAC, also known as Future Forward. FF PAC has collected and will likely continue to collect millions from a nonprofit group, Future Forward Action USA, that shares leadership and a name with FF PAC.

According to FF PAC’s year-end financial summary filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Jan. 31, the hybrid political action committee brought in $25.3 million in total receipts in 2023. Future Forward Action USA sent FF PAC about $8.3 million, or about a third of its total fundraising for the year.

In 2020, when then Vice President Joe Biden was squaring off against incumbent President Donald Trump, Future Forward USA Action was one of the most important benefactors of FF PAC. According to FEC records, it sent FF PAC $61 million between 2019 and 2020. That’s around 40 percent of the about $151.4 million FF PAC collected in the cycle.

For the 2022 midterm cycle, Future Forward Action USA sent about $16.3 million to FF PAC. That’s around 53.4 percent of the about $30.6 million FF PAC raised between 2021 and 2022.

Future Forward USA Action is a tax-exempt, non-profit 501(c)(4). This type of organization, according to the Internal Revenue Service, is often a so-called social welfare organization. The agency also bars private enrichment and supporting or opposing a specific political candidate. However, social welfare organizations are allowed to engage in some political activities as long as they are not the primary activity.

FF PAC is a hybrid PAC. It can solicit and accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor unions, and other political committees, according to the FEC. It must maintain two bank accounts—one for independent spending on advertisements or voter drives and another for making direct contributions to federal candidates.

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Is Dark Money ‘Anti-Hate’ Group CCDH Run By An Intelligence Operative?

A UK dark money nonprofit with outsized influence over the digital advertising space and political sphere, which popped up seemingly out of nowhere, is run by a British operative who reportedly had dreams of being a spook in his younger years – only to surround himself with spook-adjacents in his quest to deplatform opinions that diverge from establishment orthodoxy.

As Paul Thacker writes in Tablet, Former British Labour party operative Imran Ahmed heads up the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which in March of 2021 released a report about online misinformation that quickly reached the pre-Musk Twitter regime, and was used to silence Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who the report named as one of “The Disinformation Dozen.” The report was then cited by by the Biden administration.

“There’s about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms,” claimed former White House spox-turned-MSM gaslighter Jen Psaki in July 2021.

After Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced he was running against Biden for the Democratic nomination and appeared on Joe Rogan, Ahmed told the BBC, “He’s working really hard to keep people from knowing he’s a hardcore anti-vaxxer.” -Tablet

The report notes how Ahmed’s group, funded by all sorts of dark money, pulled off a near-impossible feat in DC – climbing to the upper echelons of influence in the DC cesspool dominated by massive think tanks and hardball lobbyists.

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Sam Bankman-Fried’s dad allegedly had advisory role at top Democratic ‘dark money network’

Joseph Bankman, the father of troubled former crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, allegedly held an advisory role at a top Democratic dark money network, an arrangement a watchdog says “deserves serious scrutiny.”

The allegation appeared in a lawsuit Bankman-Fried’s former company, FTX, filed against his parents Monday after they allegedly “exploited their access and influence within the FTX enterprise to enrich themselves, directly and indirectly, by millions of dollars,” the company’s lawyers wrote. FTX is seeking to recoup money to pay owed debts.

Bankman-Fried’s father, a Stanford University law professor, “sat on the advisory board of Arabella Advisors,” according to the complaint. 

Arabella Advisors, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm, manages a nonprofit network that provides fiscal sponsorship to dozens of left-wing groups.

The funds it manages, which include the New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Windward Fund and Hopewell Fund, collectively raise over a billion dollars in anonymous cash annually and, in turn, also shower liberal causes and initiatives with money nationwide.

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Swiss Billionaire Bankrolls Biden Agenda With $63 Million in Dark Money

A Swiss billionaire is evading bans on foreign donations to political candidates and committees by giving tens of millions of dollars to a web of nonprofits to bankroll President Joe Biden’s agenda. 

Hansjörg Wyss, who made billions in the medical device industry, is positioning himself as a megadonor to Democrat-aligned groups despite being forbidden from making political donations as a foreign national. Wyss gave $72 million in 2021 to the Berger Action Fund, which directs money to nonprofits that don’t have to disclose their donors or expenditures. By donating to the fund, Wyss can bypass bans on foreign political financial involvement. 

Wyss created the fund in 2007, and it has donated $339 million to left-leaning groups since 2016, according to the Associated Press. Wyss’s representatives claim the tens of millions go to “issue advocacy,” addressing the environment, for example, and not partisan interests. 

Yet groups that received Wyss’s money have spent heavily backing Biden and Democrats, the AP reported: 

Of the $72.7 million donated in 2021 by Wyss’ Berger Action Fund, $62.7 million went to two groups that were focused on building public support for Biden’s agenda, according to tax documents and a statement from the group.

Since switching his focus to nonprofits, two closely related organizations that play a role in Democratic politics have been among the biggest recipients of Wyss’ money. 

The Sixteen Thirty Fund and the New Venture Fund — two organizations that share the same founder, address and management firm — collectively received $245 million donated by Wyss’ groups since 2016, tax records show… 

Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust, said Wyss’s giving must come under “immediate scrutiny.”

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Dem-Linked Dark Money Group Is Masquerading As A Newspaper To Influence Pivotal Court Race

A Democrat-linked dark money group has used a website resembling a Wisconsin news outlet to attack the conservative candidate in the state’s current high-stakes Supreme Court election.

American Independent Media (AIM), a Washington, D.C.-registered 501(c)(4) nonprofit with ties to Democratic political operative David Brock, bought at least $90,000 in Facebook advertisements this month promoting two articles critical of former State Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly on The Wisconsin Independent, a media website labelled as an AIM “project.” Early voting is already underway in Kelly’s officially non-partisan April 4 Wisconsin State Supreme Court election contest against liberal Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz, which will determine whether Democrats take majority control of the court for the first time in 15 years, according to NBC News.

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A Dem-Linked Dark Money Network Is Quietly Funding The ‘Misinformation’ Research Industry

Several funds managed by Arabella Advisors, a Democrat-linked consultant firm, are quietly bankrolling research by universities and non-profits into how online “misinformation” and “disinformation” spreads, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of the networks’ grants.

Arabella Advisors, run by former Bill Clinton official Eric Kessler, manages certain administrative, legal and philanthropic functions of several non-profits including the Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hopewell Fund, North Fund and New Venture Fund, which donate to a variety of left-leaning groups, causes and Democratic candidates, according to tax filings and statements on the funds’ and Arabella’s websites. Several funds within the network are also sponsoring research into the effects of, and how best to mitigate, misinformation and disinformation, according to a DCNF review of public grants.

Many of the Arabella-funded research projects cite conservatives predominantly as purveyors of misinformation, with several projects recommending solutions to mitigate the spread of misinformation, including censorship.

The New Venture Fund sponsored a project in March called “The True Costs of Misinformation” at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, led by the center’s research director Joan Donovan, that sought to study the impacts of online misinformation, particularly on “vulnerable communities,” according to the project’s description. The project included a workshop featuring several panels on different topics related to the alleged impacts of misinformation.

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Sam Bankman-Fried Reveals Massive ‘Dark Money’ Donations To Republicans

Former crypto billionaire and Democratic Party megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried revealed he gave large sums of “dark” money to Republicans in a Nov. 29 interview.

He told crypto YouTuber Tiffany Fong that “all my Republican donations were dark” because “reporters freak the fuck out if you donate to a Republican” and that he “didn’t want to have that fight” with “super liberal” journalists. He claimed he was the third largest Republican donor and gave “about the same” to both parties. He did not specify how much he donated to Republicans or which GOP politicians he supported.

Campaign finance watchdog group OpenSecrets reported that Bankman-Fried donated over $36 million to Democrats and over $39 million in total, making him the sixth largest donor of the 2022 midterm election cycle. He was Democrats’ second-largest donor behind George Soros, who contributed over $128 million to Democrats this cycle.

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GOP senators block bill requiring dark money groups to disclose donors

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a Democrat-led measure to require so-called dark money groups disclose the identities of donors who contribute more than $10,000 during an election cycle.

The vote in the 100-member chamber was 49-49 with every present Republican voting against the bill and every present Democrat voting for it.

The bill is not new, however. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) first introduced the legislation in 2010 and it has been reintroduced every Congress since.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told Insider that he is concerned the donors would be harassed.

“I don’t want to see them doxxed, and hassled, and harried, and harmed, and that’s what this bill is about,” he said.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) cited a 1958 Supreme Court decision that determined that the state of Alabama, which at the time was largely controlled by segregationist Democrats, could not force the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to disclose its members.

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