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heritage 1 bak

originator of defund the left? seems to have morphed of late: demint oddly decamps for it, worse than you think guys refer to it as used to be a TT, now need to hire spin/crisis PR firm to save its racist ass 5/13.

madate for leadership node 2/18

tag added 5/14  also hub

capt 914?!

RR bible/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_for_Leadership

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_for_Leadership

http://www.thinktankwatch.com/

RWW:

Heritage Foundation

The best-known and most influential right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation owes much of its success to savvy marketing and PR and the generous donations of right-wing benefactors, foundations and wealthy corporations. The foundation boasts about its influence on Capitol Hill yet insists that it does not "lobby."

:{Heritage Foundation 

214 Massachusetts Avenue NE

Washington, DC 20002

Website: www.heritage.org}:

:{President/Executive Director: Dr. Edwin Feulner 

Established: In 1973 by Joseph Coors (of Coors Beer) and Paul Weyrich. 

Finances: $52,292,374 revenue (2004); $123 million in assets (2004) (2004 990)

Officers: Edwin J. Feulner, Jr., President; Phillip N. Truluck, Executive Vice President; Stuart M. Butler, Vice President; Becky Norton Dunlop, Vice President; Michael G. Franc, Vice President; Rebecca Hagelin, Vice President; Kim R. Holmes, Vice President; John Von Kannon, Vice President & Treasurer; Edwin Meese III, Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy; Robert E. Russell, Jr., Counselor and others. }:

Board of Trustees: David R. Brown, M.D., Chairman; Richard M. Scaife, Vice Chairman; J. Frederic Rench; Douglas F. Allison; Holland H. Coors; Midge Decter; Edwin J. Feulner, Jr.; Jerry Hume; Kay Cole James; Hon. J. William Middendorf, II; Barb Van Andel-Gaby; and others.

Employees: 173 excluding fellows 

Membership: 275,000 

Publications: annual report, monthly newsletter "Insider," publishes numerous detailed public policy papers for Congress, average of 10 or more a month.

Read the latest news on the Heritage Foundation on the group's Right Wing Watch index page

Principal Issues

Recent Activities

Funding

}:

Former Heritage Foundation employees who have served in the Bush Administration

Other Employees and Board Members of Note

History and Background

Quotes about the Heritage Foundation

The Wall Street Journal says, "No policy shop has more clout than the conservative Heritage Foundation."

:{"Keep up the wonderful work of truth which emanates from Heritage."

– John Ashcroft in praise of Heritage}:

:{"Some of the finest conservatives in America today do their work in The Heritage Foundation. For those of you new to all this, The Heritage Foundation is America's leading conservative think tank."

– Rush Limbaugh, }:November 10, 2000. Read

The Democratic Policy Committee Annual Report says, "It is hard to overstate the impact The Heritage Foundation has had on the direction of U.S. policy since the late 1970's." Read.

:{"The Heritage Foundation will continue to be a key element in the phalanx of rightist groups with an agenda of austerity for the poor, hostility to minorities and women, upward distribution of wealth for the rich, economic domination of the Third World, with repression and bloodletting for those who rebel."

– Russ Bellant, The Coors Connection, 1991}:

:{

Updated: December 2006}:

FILED UNDER

- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/heritage-foundation#sthash.ATVPkULo.dpuf

==

Thanks to the Obama administration’s high-profile rollout of the National Climate Assessment, climate change was, for a day yesterday, the nation’s leading story. Different media outlets approached it in different ways, but when it came to CNN’s Crossfire… well, not surprisingly, the show opted for a debate about the science.

The result was a lot of sound and fury, but at least the debater on the side of reality – Bill Nye the Science Guy – gave as good as he got. Nye was up against not only conservative host S.E. Cupp, who said the White House was engaging in global warming “scare tactics” and accused “science guys” of attempting to “bully other people,” but also Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation. Loris acknowledged that humans are responsible for “some part” of the changing climate and claimed that “I’m not a denier, I’m not a skeptic,” but he also asserted that “we’ve had Arctic ice, globally, increasing” (not!) and that “we’ve had this 16-to-17-year hiatus in warming.” (Actually, the notion that global warming is “slowing down” is very misleading.)

“Let’s just start with, we don’t agree on the facts,” Nye said to Loris and Cupp. “This third report [the National Climate Assessment] came out, saying it’s very serious. You say, ‘No.’ Right? There’s the essence of the problem.”...http://grist.org/climate-energy/bill-nye-keeps-fighting-the-good-fight-debates-climate-change-on-cnn/

Nicolas (Nick) Loris, an economist, focuses on energy, environmental and regulatory issues as the Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

A senior policy analyst in Heritage's Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, Loris researches and writes about energy prices and other economic effects of environmental policies and regulations, including climate change legislation, energy efficiency and energy subsidies. He covers coal, oil and gas and renewable energy policy and articulates the benefits of free market environmentalism.

Loris has testified before Congress and been published and quoted in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Times and Investor's Business Daily. His radio and television appearances include CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC and National Public Radio. He is a prolific contributor to the energy and environment section of The Foundry, Heritage's policy blog.

A senior policy analyst since July 2013, Loris was a policy analyst specializing in energy and environmental issues such as theKeystone XLpipeline when he was named in spring 2012 to succeed Ronald Utt, a retiring Roe Institute colleague, as Morgan fellow. The fellowship was endowed by retired real estate developer Herbert Morgan and his late wife, Joyce, of Arlington, Va., longtime proponents of free enterprise and limited government.

Before joining Heritage in June 2007, Loris was an associate at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, immersing himself for a year in a market-based management program. His first media experience was as an editorial intern for Townhall.com.

Loris received his master's degree in economics from George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics, finance and political science from Albright College in Reading, Pa.

Loris, who was born and grew up in Quakertown, Pa., currently resides in Arlington, Va.

Are staffers leaving the Heritage Foundation at a dizzying pace?  There have certainly been some recent high-profile exits, but it doesn't appear there has yet been a mass exodus.

Here is what the Washington Post is reporting:

The shift toward political activism has dismayed some longtime Heritage scholars; more than half a dozen have left in recent months.

The group has experienced a wave of departures to Capitol Hill and rival think tanks in recent months, losing its top statistician, its chief lobbyist, a senior tax analyst, a key retirement expert and a Latin America expert. Heritage Vice President Matthew Spalding announced last month that he was decamping for conservative Hillsdale College, where he will become vice president and dean of educational programs in Washington.

Truluck said that the think tank’s rate of turnover is consistent with past years and that DeMint fully supports independent analysis. “There has been no change in our policy direction,” he said. “Zero.”

==

The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin, a neoconservative, has just written a piece titled "Where Did The Think Tank Go?," in which she calls the Heritage Foundation a"once great" think tank.  Here is more of what Ms. Rubin says:

There is nothing approaching the conservative thought or scholarship one would expect of a think tank. It’s pure politics, and the sort of amateur, unthinking brand that has gotten Republicans in trouble both in office and in campaigns. [Heritage President Jim] DeMint is hawking a series of town hall meetings, which I am sure will generate additions to the group’s e-mail list and hence to its funding base.

Heritage folks will announce that this is all under the guise of Heritage Action, a political entity, not the think tank per se. But who is kidding whom? DeMint speaks on behalf of both, and the latter has been entirely subsumed by the hard-knuckle political screeching for which Heritage Action is famous.

In sum, DeMint isn’t really trying to run a think tank. He’s running a political racket that takes the most extreme right-wing positions imaginable,decries those who won’t go along, wails when the stances they advocate fail and then uses the burning resentment it has stoked to generate headlines and donations. When do you suppose conservatives will realize they are being fleeced by this operation?

===

is some of whatThe Washington Timesin reporting, in an article titled "

When he was in the Senate, Jim DeMint wasn’t shy about trying to recruit conservatives he thought would buck the Republican Party establishment and gum up the collegial workings of the legislative process.

Now on the outside, running the Heritage Foundation, the former senator from South Carolina may have even more levers to pull as he puts the full weight of the conservative think tank behind the effort to defund President Obama’s health care law — and in the process becoming a tremendous headache for many fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill.

“Some people love him, some people hate him,” said John Feehery, a Republican Party strategist. “He has never been someone who wanted to be a deal-cutter. Jim DeMint is someone who wants to push the party to the right. He seems to want to spend most of his attention going after Republicans.”

Here is what the article says on DeMint possibly losing clout:

His hardball tactics even might have led to friction with the strongly conservative House Republican caucus. The National Journal reported last week that Heritage officials were disinvited from attending private strategy sessions of the conservative House Republican Study Group after the think tank harshly criticized the farm bill passed by the House.

The defund Obamacare tour, which started in Arkansas in mid-August, put Mr. DeMint at odds with a number his former Republican colleagues in the Senate, including fellow South Carolinian Sen. Lindsey Graham.

:{The entire article can be read here.

The Heritage Foundation was recently ranked as the 18th best think tank in the world by the annual University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings.  It was rated the 9th best think tank in the US.  It was also rated as the #1 think tank in the world in terms of best use of social media and the Internet.  Heritage was also rated as the 10th best think tank in the world in terms of most significant impact on public policy.}:

==

==

CONTINUE TO CAST DOUBT

Staffers from some Koch-funded nonprofit groups have continued to testify before Congress, sowing doubt about climate change in spite of scientists' consensus that global warming exists, that it warrants concern and that it is tied to human behavior.

Recent 2013 testimony includes:

• On Feb. 5, Mary Hutzler, senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that research shows America has an abundance of fossil fuel reserves that could power the nation for nearly 600 years.

Hutzler urged lawmakers to allow drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, off the coast of the southern United States and in the Green River that runs through Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

“Our economy needs the lasting stimulus that robust energy development on federal lands and waters would provide,” she said, according to the committee transcript.

• On Feb. 14, her colleague, Daniel Simmons, director of Regulatory and State Affairs at the Institute for Energy Research, told members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that environmental regulation of the oil industry is to blame for the rising cost of gasoline. He also suggested opening up the same federal lands to oil and gas drilling.

• A month later, on March 13, Hutzler testified during a hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that federal subsidies of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources had failed to make America energy independent. She argued that the fuels receiving the most government money produced the least amount of energy. 

• On April 24, an energy policy analyst at theHeritage Foundation, testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, criticized federal incentives for companies that make fuel-efficient cars.

• On April 25, Simmonsurged members of the House Committee on Natural Resources to support a bill that would allow companies to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, in waters belonging to the United States and Mexico. At the same hearing, research fellows at the Heritage Foundation also testified in favor of the bill.

• On May 7, Paul Knappenberger, assistant director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, told members of House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that carbon dioxide emissions from the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline would have an insignificant impact on climate change. He also challenged the notion of a scientific consensus linking carbon dioxide emissions to climate change.

“The more we learn, the less responsive it seems that the earth’s average temperature is to human carbon-dioxide emissions,” Knappenberger said.

And testimony last year included this:

• On Sept. 11, 2012: David Kreutzer, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, emphasized uncertainty about carbon dioxide’s role in global warming during a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Kreutzer criticized the EPA’s funding of environmental programs in developing countries, adding that “the magnitude of carbon dioxide’s impact on global warming is, in fact, not settled.”

Other Koch-funded groups whose staff and researchers have testified in recent years against federal environmental regulation are the George C. Marshall Institute, the American Council for Capital Formation, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Reason Foundation and the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

The Heritage Foundation said large donors such as the Kochs have no influence on the research done by the conservative think tank. The Koch foundations gave $1.8 million to Heritage from 2007 to 2011, according to IRS records. The money funds general operations and not any specific programs, said John Von Kannon, vice president and senior counselor of development for Heritage.

“Our requests to them are very clear on that,” Von Kannon said.

Heritage gets most of its money from more than 600,000 individual donors, minimizing the influence of any one person or group, he said. Donors don’t ask Heritage staff to testify on Capitol Hill, he added.

“They tell us, ‘We like what you’re doing, and we want to support you,’ ” Von Kannon said.

Experts on Climate Change

Ariel Cohen, Ph.D.

Senior Research Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Policy, The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies

David W. Kreutzer, Ph.D.

Research Fellow in Energy Economics and Climate Change

Diane Katz

Research Fellow in Regulatory Policy

Nicolas Loris  GMU

Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow

Jack Spencer

Director, Roe Institute

==

==

hired harvard racist to come up with 6.3 trillion cost of immigration, low iQ  http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26315908/vp/51837416#51837420 same montana PO box as full on skinhead

rory cooperbrooks bros

The Heritage Foundation, through its Center for Media and Public Policy, is hiring an Investigative Journalist to conduct original reporting on policy issues.

moyers 4/13 ormstein and mann say that "false equivalence" between dems and GOP ( // to balancing norms in AGW?) by giving both sides reporters insulate themselves from citicicism (even self crit, fear of bias) and keep advertisers happy.

BILL MOYERS: …named names and pointed fingers. You wrote, "The two parties are not equally to blame because the Republicans have become extreme both in," quoting you, "in terms of policy and process." And you're saying here today, a year later, that's still the case?

THOMAS MANN: It's very much the case, Bill. We had no choice but to say it. It was in some ways, it was obvious if you if you look at the situation, and there is a body of scholarly research that has demonstrated this rightward march of the party, both among elected officials, but also rank-and-file Republicans. And the strongest, most extreme of those, the Tea Party people, have pulled the others back toward them. It's a reality, and it's not just ideological difference either. They begin with those differences, but then it's the strategic hyper-partisanship, what Norm referred to earlier: If Barack Obama is for something, we have to be against it because he's not a real American.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: Let me just offer a bit of a caveat here on two fronts. First, we're not saying Democrats are angels here. Plenty of flaws there. But I also hold out still some hope for the Senate. You have a number of Republicans in the Senate, and this has less to do with ideology than with focus. Are you there to solve problems, or are you there either to pursue a radical agenda or to gain political advantage? Everybody's going to look for political advantage.

There are problem-solvers in the Senate. They are flawed ones, as we saw with the gun bill. You know, people like Lamar Alexander or Bob Corker, who joined with most of their colleagues. But I've talked to them when it comes to either reforming the nomination process, doing something in a larger fiscal sense that will include revenues, acting on immigration. I think you've got some opportunities here. Those opportunities will go to the House, and the only way they'll pass is with far more Democrats than Republicans. And they may not make it through. But we don't have a lost cause yet in the Senate.

Now, the recent evidence is not great on that front. And the fundamental pathologies that we wrote about and talked about and we just felt an obligation that we'd built up some capital over the years. What's it for if you're not going to spend it now?

BILL MOYERS: You riled the Republicans but you riled the press by talking about false equivalency. Their evenhanded treatment of decidedly uneven behavior on the part of the two parties, the equal treatment for true and false statements by advocates, equal weight to competing spin between opposing politicians and pundits without regard to the accuracy of either. You didn't get invited on the Sunday talk shows after that, did you?

NOMAN ORNSTEIN: And still haven't been.

THOMAS MANN: You noticed that? It's because those programs are predicated upon having spin from one side and then the other side. We're not the first to point out the, this artificial balance. I mean, reporters, good reporters do it partly out of a sense of professionalism, to be fair. To be wary of allowing your own personal political views to influence your writing. All of that is good.

But now it's a safety valve. It keeps you from being charged as a partisan. It satisfies your producers, worried about advertising. And frankly, it's become really quite pernicious. We point out example after example in the book where they treat clearly unequal behavior as equivalent....

THOMAS MANN: Bill, this is such an important point. Nowadays, political parties are not organizations, they're networks. We talk sometimes about parties versus outside groups. No, no, no. The outside groups are part of the political parties, and so too are the media outlets. The large funders. It's a broad system. Super PACs don't exist as independent forces. They in fact are run by former party operatives and leaders of one kind or another.

And right now, you have a conjunction of forces that you can see in the conservative media, in the funding organizations, and in the Grover Norquist and the Koch brothers. And it all comes together to provide such overwhelming pressure on individual Republicans to toe the line, to oppose even when they want to engage in problem solving.

BILL MOYERS: So when you mention The Club for Growth, you're talking about essentially Wall Street finance group of private citizens who will take on a Republican in the primary to defeat him if he doesn't toe the line on what the financial interests want?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: And these are financial interests who don't just focus on financial interests. Many of them are themselves radical either libertarians or who have a very strong ideology. And so The Club for Growth will intervene not just on tax issues, but on others. And they're joined by other groups. You know, when Jim DeMint left the Senate

BILL MOYERS: To head The Heritage…

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: Head the Heritage Foundation, you know…

BILL MOYERS: Right. A very conservative organization.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN:Which used to be a think tank. Now, of course, it has a 501(c)4 called Heritage Action. They're raising money. They're aggressively participating in the political debates, and will in campaigns. Because you can have as much impact as Tom said, it's all part of a party apparatus now. From the outside, if you use the leverage of money, and you can also use the leverage of the social media, the talk radio hosts, and others, who have such a dominant impact on the party now, that it takes the problem solvers and puts them in a really, really tricky situation.

http://billmoyers.com/wp-content/themes/billmoyers/transcript-print.php?post=29748

DeMint bails to head heritage:  http://thinkprogress.org/politics/:{2012:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:/12/06/1293171/jim-demint-resign/

In an unexpected move, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), an arch-conservative and leader of the Tea Party movement, is resigning his seat in order to head up the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington DC.

DeMint has been among the most extreme members of the Senate since first getting elected in 2004, drawing a hard-right line on issues from unions to LGBT rights to abortion and beyond.

Here’s a look back at some of DeMint’s Senate highlights:

1. Stood with Akin after “legitimate rape” remarks. Following Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) infamous statement that victims of “legitimate rape” can’t become pregnant, DeMint was one of the first major conservatives to stand with the Missouri congressman. DeMint even used his political action committee to donate $90,000 to Akin’s campaign and used its network to raise hundreds of thousands more. “We support Todd Akin and hope freedom-loving Americans in Missouri and around the country will join us,” DeMint’s group said.

2. Led the opposition against Obamacare. In 2009, during the height of the GOP’s opposition to health care reform, DeMint told a conference call of conservative activists that, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Ironically, DeMint once supported Mitt Romney’s health care reform in Massachusetts, the law on which Obamacare is based.

3. Wants to prevent gay or unmarried teachers from teaching in public schools. In 2010, DeMint “said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn’t be in the classroom.” During his first Senate campaign in 2004, DeMint agreed with the state party’s platform barring gay teachers from public schools, claiming that the government shouldn’t endorse certain behaviors.....

i may have to rethink ranking? this is about energy issues (green vs FF); big Koch funding, eg lambe

http://www.alternet.org/print/what-i-learned-conservative-think-tank-propaganda-now-facts-later

hightower 3 myths of plutocrats:

2: govt inept BS study http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/01/morning-bell-federal-workers-overpaid-and-cbo-agrees/

Then there's the counterintuitive assertion that privatization saves money for taxpayers by replacing "overpaid" government workers.Well, corporations certainly are energetic pay-slashers when it comes to workers, but--hello--the corporation tacks a hefty profit onto each job it snatches, plus adding on such overhead costs as the CEO's lavish pay, the palatial corporate headquarters, and marketing expenses.

Still, the myth persists, kept alive by such tireless promoters as the Heritage Foundation, yet another Koch-financed front group. In 2010, a team of Heritage fabricatorsissued a report showing that federal wages were 22 percent higher than what privatized workers would get for doing the job. Heritage's hide-the-pea calculation, however, counted only the salary of the contract employee, not the total that the corporation charges the government to provide that worker.

Last fall, the watchdog Project On Government Oversightanalyzed the full price (called the "billable rate") for farming out a public job. On average, corporations charge more than double the amount that a public employee costs. An in-house computer engineer, for example, costs taxpayers $136,000 a year (including benefits and administrative expenses), while the outsourced rate for the same work was $268,000.

...http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/3121

ALEC

ALEC Director of External Relations Caitlyn Korb spoke yesterday at a Heritage Foundation "Bloggers Briefing," begging conservative bloggers for help while prepping "a very aggressive campaign to really spread the word about what we actually do." Korb appears to be a new ALEC employee who recently worked for the Cato Institute. Both ALEC and Cato have received funding from Koch family foundations. The Heritage Foundation is an ALEC member.

The "Bloggers Briefing," which was started by Heritage's Rob Bluey and "a dozen conservative online entrepreneurs" six years ago, was broadcast online on "BreitbartTV," a project of the late Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart's team of bloggers and apparatchiks most recently gained notoriety for getting U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod fired. Breitbart released a clip of a speech given by Sherrod deliberately edited to create the false impression that she was prejudiced against white farmers. Her actual speech was a personal tale rejecting prejudice. Sherrod was later offered resinstatement by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, with apologies.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/11458

Founded by Scaife

Among Scaife's acquaintances at this time were Glenn Campbell, head of the conservative Hoover Institution, and Frank Barnett, a shadowy figure with links to the CIA.With their encouragement, Scaife began directing the vast resources at his disposal -- most particularly the donations of his family's trusts and foundations -- to fight the "Soviet menace." Later, joined by a number of younger conservatives, some with ideas, others with money, Scaife would become the biggest funder of the New Right,

...

Whelan said that he tried to get Scaife to buy a major national news organization -- something favored by Nixon aides who wanted someone more friendly at the helm of the Washington Post

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank located in Washington, DC. Founded in

1973, it works to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles

of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and

a strong national defense. According to its website, The Heritage Foundation has 244 staff

members and a $61 million expense budget.

In addition to individual contributions, The Heritage Foundation receives funding from a

variety of corporations and associations, including AIG, Altria Group (Philip Morris),

Lockheed Martin, and ExxonMobil. Since President Obama took office, Heritage has been

critical of the administration's priorities, including global warming legislation and health

care reform. exxon, scaife, carthage, koch, walton, ave etc etc

http://mediamattersaction.org/transparency/organization/Carthage_Foundation/connections

The Heritage Foundation - US$1,620,000 received from Koch foundations 2005-2008 [Total Koch foundation grants 1997-2008: US $3,358,000].?The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank that misinterprets science and policy regarding the climate and uses its conclusions to argue against action against climate change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation

Funding

Heritage is primarily funded through donations from private individuals and charitable foundations. Businessman Joseph Coors contributed the first $250,000 to start The Heritage Foundation in 1973. Other significant contributors have included the conservative Olin, Scaife, DeVos and Bradley foundations.

In 2006, the Foundation established the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom,[^^14]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation#cite_note-thatcher-13) based on a grant from the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, to advance the transatlantic alliance between the U.S. and Britain. Lady Thatcher has since been named Patron of the Heritage Foundation, her only official association with any U.S.-based group.[^^15]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation#cite_note-14)

In 2007, Heritage reported an operating revenue of $48.7 million dollars. $26.4 million came from individual donors, $16.8 million from foundations and $2.2 million from corporations.[^^16]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation#cite_note-15)[dead link] As of April 2010, Heritage reported 630,000 supporters.[^^17]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation#cite_note-WSJ-16)

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Malaysia, changing views, and business interests

Prior to 2001, Heritage had been sharply critical of Malaysia's prime minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, criticizing him as anti-Semitic and condemning his human rights and anti-free market policies. However, in 2001, without any change in Malaysia's government or policies, the foundation shifted to a very pro-Malaysian view. This shift sparked a controversy over a potential conflict of interest relating to the Heritage Foundation's president, Edwin Feulner, who co-founded Belle Haven Consultants, a company with business interests in Malaysia, during the same time in which the foundation had its shift of views towards the country. Bruce R. Hopkins, an attorney, remarked that Heritage's actions were on the border of legality for tax-exempt non-profit organizations, since there were concerns of the non-profit's resources being used to advance private interests. The Heritage Foundation has denied any sort of conflict of interest, claiming that its shifting views on Malaysia unfolded following the country's cooperation with the U.S. after the September 11 attacks in 2001.[^^18]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation#cite_note-17)

The foundation has continued to issue pro-Malaysia statements. In 2001, the foundation arranged a meeting between Mahathir Mohamad and U.S. president George W. Bush, a meeting that raised accusations of a $1.2 million payment to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, which Mahathir denied.[^^19]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation#cite_note-18) In 2005, the foundation stated that Malaysia was "moving in the right economic and political direction with some recent bold moves".[^^20]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation#cite_note-19)

SW

Heritage Foundation

From SourceWatch

Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a New Right think tank. Its stated mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of "free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense." It is widely considered one of the world's most influential public policy research institutes.

Contents[hide]

History

The Foundation wields considerable influence in Washington, and enjoyed particular prominence during the Reagan administration. Its initial funding was provided by Joseph Coors, of the Coors beer empire, and Richard Mellon Scaife, heir of the Mellon industrial and banking fortune. The Foundation maintains strong ties with the London Institute of Economic Affairs and the Mont Pelerin Society.

With a long history of receiving large donations from overseas, Heritage continues to rake in a minimum of several hundred thousand dollars from Taiwan and South Korea each year.

In autumn of 1988, the South Korean National Assembly uncovered a document revealing that Korean intelligence gave $2.2 million to the Heritage Foundation on the sly during the early 1980s. Heritage officials "categorically deny" the accusation.

Heritage's latest annual report does acknowledge a $400,000 grant from the Korean conglomerate Samsung. Another donor, the Korea Foundation - which conduits money from the South Korean government - has given Heritage almost $1 million in the past three years.

The Heritage Foundation concerns itself with many issues, from missile defense to Europe to public administration, and about 20 other subject areas. It regularly publishes comprehensive articles, papers, journals, etc., expressing its strong neo-conservative opinions in these subject areas.

While the Foundation has contributed many ideas and positions on contemporary public policy, it is best known for the support generated by its foreign policy analysts in the 1980s and early 1990s to provide military and other support to anti-communist resistance movements in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Nicaragua and other nations, a policy that came to be known as the Reagan doctrine.

The Foundation ultimately succeeeded in this effort, winning both covert and overt United States support to so-called "wars of liberation" against Soviet-aligned states around the world. Critics argued that this effort led to undue bloodshed in the Third World and damaged American relations with the former Soviet Union. Supporters have argued that the cost imposed on Moscow by such efforts was huge, leading to the beginning of the end for the imperial Soviet empire. Whatever the truth, it was the first prominent example of The Heritage Foundation's ability to spark global debate and alter fundamentally the course of American policy.

The Foundation worked closely with leading anti-communist movements, including the Nicaraguan contras and Jonas Savimbi's Unita movement in Angola to bring military, economic and political pressure on Soviet-aligned regimes. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Foundation's support for the Nicaraguan contras and Angola's Savimbi proved extremely influential with the United States government, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council and other governmental agencies. The Heritage Foundation presented its case for armed support for these movements, and United States support soon followed.

But Heritage Foundation foreign policy analysts didn't just champion the Reagan Doctrine in Washington. Some were deeply intertwined players in these conflicts, visiting the front lines to provide political and military guidance to Savimbi and the contra leadership. They also provided bold and inflammatory predictions that these conflicts were tugging on the very soul of global communism and that these Soviet-supported regimes and the Soviet Union itself were on the brink of collapse. This prediction, of course, looks surprisingly accurate in retrospect, but ignores the many other contributing factors to the collapse of communism.

The Foundation also leaped to the defense of Ronald Reagan's description of the former Soviet Union as an "evil empire," a description that generated wide global rebuke as potentially inviting nuclear conflict and, at the very least, further poisoning East-West relations. But with strong support by Heritage and other influential conservatives, Reagan stood by the statement, refusing to retract it until the Soviet Union began to crumble.

In an attempt to build on its foreign policy influence, the Foundation also engages in domestic and social policy issues, but its effort in these two areas has never quite matched the influence it wielded (in the late 1980s and early 1990s) in altering the debate over American foreign policy. Yet, the Foundation continues to weigh in on these topics with varying levels of success. One of its undeniable successes has been serving as a breeding ground for many of the nation's leading neo-conservative activists and intellectuals.

The following comments by former Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey, published in the summer 1994 issue of the Heritage Foundation's *Policy Review*, exemplify the Heritage philosophy:

"Liberation is at hand.... A paradigm-shattering revolution has just taken place. In the signal events of the 1980s - from the collapse of communism to the Reagan economic boom to the rise of the computer - the idea of economic freedom has been overwhelmingly vindicated. The intellectual foundation of statism has turned to dust. This revolution has been so sudden and sweeping that few in Washington have yet grasped its full meaning.... But when the true significance of the 1980s freedom revolution sinks in, politics, culture - indeed, the entire human outlook - will change.... Once this shift takes place - by 1996, I predict - we will be able to advance a true Hayekian agenda, including.... radical spending cuts, the end of the public school monopoly, a free market health-care system, and the elimination of the family-destroying welfare dole. Unlike 1944, history is now on the side of freedom."

The informational web site www.policyexperts.org [1] is a "service of The Heritage Foundation," listing many of the world's leading conservative-leaning public policy experts. Additionally, for many years, its scholarly, quarterly publication, *Policy Review*, was widely viewed as one of the world's leading conservative public policy journals.

The Heritage Foundation has been home to some of the nation's most influential neo-conservative voices, especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Foundation has since lost some of its luster, as some of its leading voices have graduated to other influential government and non-government careers. Still, the Foundation remains a conservative voice in Washington and around the world.

Meanwhile, there was also a connection between Heritage and the Rev Sun Myung Moon (founder of the Moonies). This first appeared in a 1975 congressional investigation on the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) activities in the US.

The report noted, "In 1975, Ed Feulner ... was introduced to KCIA station chief Kim Yung Hwan by Neil Salonen and Dan Feffernan of the Freedom Leadership foundation".

Salonen was head of Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church in the United States. The Freedom Leadership Foundation (FLF), a political arm of Moon's Unification network, was linked to the World Anti- Communist League.

In the early 1980s, the KCIA began making donations to Heritage Foundation. In turn, Heritage established an Asian Studies Center.

Policy stances

Supporting nuclear power

An April 2009 memo by Heritage fellow Jack Spencer criticized the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, drafted by Representatives Ed Markey and Henry Waxman, for containing "virtually no mention of nuclear power." Spencer wrote, "If reducing carbon dioxide and other emissions, creating jobs, and promoting domestic energy sources were truly the objective, then nuclear energy should be central to the legislation." He went on to suggest how federal energy legislation should encourage nuclear power, including by instituting "a fast-track program for granting construction/operation permits for certain new plants" and allowing "nuclear waste producers to finance and manage their own spent nuclear fuel however they see fit so long as public health and safety is protected." [1]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heritage_Foundation#cite_note-0)

Personnel

Funding

The Heritage Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation. In its annual report it states that "we rely on the financial contributions of the gemeral public: individuals, foundations and corporations. We accept no government funds and perform no contract work."

Between 2001 and 2010, the Foundation received $3.38 million from the conservative Bradley Foundation[2].

2006 Budget

In calendar year 2006 the Heritage Foundation spent over $40.5 million on its operations. That year the foundation raised over $25 million from individual contributors and $13.1 million from foundations.

While corporations provided only $1.5 million - 4% of Heritage’s contributions in 2006 - they none the less have significant interest in the foundations policy output. There's defence contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin, finance and insurance companies such as Allstate Insurance, Mortgage Insurance Companies of America, and American International Group (AIG), auto company Honda, tobacco company Altria Group (Philip Morris), drug and medical companies Johnson & Johnson,GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, oil companies ChevronTexaco and Exxon Mobil, software giant Microsoft, and chipping in over $100,000 each, Alticor (Amway), Pfizer, PhRMA, and United Parcel Service (UPS). [3]

...

Historical funding

Between 1985 and 2003, Media Transparency reports that the following funders provided $57,497,537 (unadjusted for inflation) to the Heritage Foundation [4]:

Right Web says of the Heritage Foundation:

"The foundation received $2. 2 million from the Federation of Korean Industries in the early 1980s. Initially it was believed this donation came from the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (which would make the Heritage Foundation a foreign agent of Korea), but the Federation later stated that the donation came at the encouragement of the KCIA.""The Heritage Foundation's income has increased every year since 1981. The progression has been: 1981--$7. 1 million; 1982-$8. 6 million; 1983--$10. 6 million; 1984--$10. 7 million; 1985-$11. 6 million; 1986--$14. 0 million; 1987--$14. 3 million; and 1988--$14. 6 million. In 1988, foundations provided 38 percent of Heritage's income, individuals provided 34 percent, and corporations gave 17 percent; the remainder came from investments and sales of materials."[5]

Case studies

In the aftermath of the devastation caused in the U.S. by Hurricane Katrina, the Heritage Foundation sought to ensure that the reconstruction efforts would promote its preferred policy approaches.

In a column for Media Transparency, Bill Berkowitz, noted that "'just as the Iraq War has been a Petri Dish for the neoconservative foreign policy agenda, rebuilding the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina could prove to be the mother of all testing grounds for a passel of active Heritage Foundation's domestic policy initiatives."

"Drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, suspend environmental regulations including the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, suspend prevailing wage labor laws, promote vouchers and school choice, repeal the estate tax and copiously fund faith-based organizations. These are just some of the recommendations a trio of hearty Heritage Foundation senior management officials are making to best facilitate the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast," he wrote. [1]

External links

SourceWatch resources

Abramoff also served as chairman of the United Students of America, a rightist student group based at the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation. (24)

CFA

Jonas Savimbi

Jonas Malheiro Savimbi (1934 - 2002) was a rebel leader in Angola who founded the Unita movement in 1966, and ultimately proved a central figure in 20th century Cold War politics.

With support from the United States and several African nations, Savimbi spent the majority of his life battling Angola's Marxist, Soviet-aligned government, which was supported by weapons and military advisors from the Soviet Union and Cuba. Savimbi remains an extremely important figure in Angolan history, viewed by some as a "freedom fighter" and by others as a war-monger who perpetuated a lengthy Cold War conflict.

Jonas Savimbi was born and raised in the eastern province of Moxico, which later served as his power base during the civil war that broke out in 1975, following Angola's independence from Portuguese rule. The war was an extremely bloody and costly one, causing the deaths of many thousands.

Savimbi's war against Angola's Marxist government became a sub-plot to the Cold War, with both Moscow and Washington viewing the conflict as important to the global balance of power. In 1986, for instance, Savimbi was invited by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to the White House. Reagan spoke of Unita winning "a victory that electrifies the world...."

Equally important, Savimbi also was strongly supported by the extremely influential Heritage Foundation. Heritage Foundation foreign policy analyst Michael Johns and other conservatives visited regularly with Savimbi in his clandestine camps in southern Angola and provided the rebel leader with ongoing political and military guidance in his war against the Angolan government. Savimbi's U.S.-based supporters ultimately proved successful in convincing the Central Intelligence Agency to channel covert weapons to Savimbi's war against Angola's Marxist government, which greatly intensified the conflict.

As U.S. support began to flow liberally and leading U.S. conservatives championed his cause, Savimbi won major strategic battles in the late 1980's and early 1990's, and Moscow and Havana began to reevaluate their engagement in Angola, as Soviet and Cuban fatalities mounted and Savimbi's ground control increased. At the height of his military success, Savimbi controlled nearly half the country and was beginning, in 1990, to launch attacks on government and military targets in and around the country's capital, Luanda. Observers felt that the strategic balance in Angola had shifted and that Savimbi was positioning Unita for a possible military victory.

Signaling the concern that the former Soviet Union was placing on Savimbi's advance in Angola, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev raised the Angolan war with Reagan during numerous U.S.-Soviet summits.

Under military pressure from UNITA, the Angolan regime negotiated a cease-fire with Savimbi, and Savimbi ran for president in 1992. But he questioned the legitimacy of the election when he lost, and resumed fighting. In 1994, Unita signed a new peace accord, but Savimbi declined the vice-presidency that was offered to him and again renewed fighting in 1998.

After surviving more than a dozen assassination attempts, Savimbi was killed four years later, in February 2002, in a battle with Angolan government troops.[1]. A ceasefire between UNITA and the MPLA was signed six weeks later.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article, Jonas Savimbi, and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

SourceWatch resources

Category: Angola