watchdog.org BS

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Government watchdog Congressional Integrity Project (CIP) is slamming the new Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) subcommittee under U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). The group calls the subcommittee a “rogues" gallery of extremists, conspiracy theorists and C-team political operatives” promoting President Donald Trump’s clampdown on certain non-government organizations (NGOs).

The Guardian reports far-right firebrand Greene will launch hearings this week on “Public Funds, Private Agendas: NGOs Gone Wild”, purporting to expose the use of federal funds by NGOs to advance “radical” agendas such as “open borders and the Green New Deal scam.”

But a (CIP) memo condemns the hearing as “political theater” and “weaponized government oversight.” The memo also describes the hearing as extreme hypocrisy considering the substantial federal funding Republican allies and rightwing groups receive.

“Their own networks have systematically benefited from government contracts, subsidies, and loans worth billions of dollars,” the memo states, according to the Guardian.

IFrame Content

Personalities contributing to the committee display this week on Capitol Hill include personalities such as Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which the Southern Poverty Law Center designates a hate group. Krikorian has made statements that Haiti’s problems today stem from the nation being one of the first in recent history to throw off the yoke of slavery and not be.” VID]

The memo adds that CIS received more than $700,000 in PPP loans and is now under investigation by the justice department for potentially lying to obtain at least one of them.

“That’s right, Republicans chose as their star witness on government waste someone who may have committed fraud to secure government money for his organization,” the memo claims.

Another participant is Power the Future founder and Executive Director Daniel Turner, who the CIP describes as a career political operative who worked for the Charles Koch Institute before founding Power the Future. Power the Future is a climate-denial organization that attacks environmental groups for receiving federal grants, says CIP. It added that Turner’s former employer, billionaire Charles Koch, has received more than $750 million in government subsidies, even as Greene claims to be rooting out government waste.

“Turner … represents everything wrong with this sham hearing,” CIP told the Guardian. “He’s a junior varsity Republican operative masquerading as an objective analyst while advancing the financial interests of the fossil fuel industry – the same interests that have systematically profited from the very government largesse he now pretends to oppose.”

Read the full Guardian report at this link.

REF

The far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has assembled a “rogues’ gallery of extremists, conspiracy theorists and C-team political operatives” to promote Donald Trump’s crackdown on non-government organisations (NGOs), a congressional watchdog has claimed.

The House of Representatives’ Delivering on Government Efficiency (Doge) subcommittee, chaired by Greene, is due to hold a hearing on Wednesday entitled “Public Funds, Private Agendas: NGOs Gone Wild”.

The subcommittee said in a press release that the hearing will “expose” the use of federal funds by NGOs to advance “radical” agendas such as “open borders and the Green New Deal scam”. It frames its work as an investigation of the alleged funneling of taxpayer dollars to politically motivated groups while “lining the pockets of their friends and allies”.

But a memo from the Congressional Integrity Project (CIP), obtained by the Guardian, condemns the hearing as “political theater”, “weaponized government oversight” and an exercise in hypocrisy, given the substantial federal funding received by Republican allies and rightwing groups.

While attacking civil society organisations for receiving federal grants, the memo says, “their own networks have systematically benefited from government contracts, subsidies, and loans worth billions of dollars”.

Wednesday’s hearing on Capitol Hill will feature witnesses Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies; Daniel Turner, founder and executive director of Power the Future; and Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center.

The CIP describes Greene’s lineup as “rogues’ gallery of extremists, conspiracy theorists and C-team political operatives masquerading as government watchdogs”.

It notes that the Center for Immigration Studies has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and regularly circulates content from “white nationalist and antisemitic writers”.

Krikorian has made statements including that Haiti’s problems stem from not being “colonised long enough”.

The memo adds that CIS received more than $700,000 in PPP loans and is now under investigation by the justice department for potentially lying to obtain at least one of them. “That’s right, Republicans chose as their star witness on government waste someone who may have committed fraud to secure government money for his organization.”

The CIP describes Turner as a career political operative who worked for the Charles Koch Institute before founding Power the Future, a climate-denial organisation that attacks environmental groups for receiving federal grants. Yet Turner’s former employer, Charles Koch, has received more than $750m in government subsidies.

The memo states: “Turner, who calls ‘climate change the slippery slope to socialism’ and promotes conspiracy theories about climate science, represents everything wrong with this sham hearing.

“He’s a junior varsity Republican operative masquerading as an objective analyst while advancing the financial interests of the fossil fuel industry – the same interests that have systematically profited from the very government largesse he now pretends to oppose.”

Walter leads the Capital Research Center, “a secretive organization that won’t disclose its donors while attacking others for lacking transparency”, the CIP alleges.

“His organization’s fiscal arrangements appear designed to shield activities from public scrutiny, yet he positions himself as a watchdog exposing liberal ‘dark money’.”

In 2023, according to the memo, Walter helped funnel nearly $600,000 in anonymous donations to supreme court justice Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni Thomas’s group while his organisation had business before the supreme court, creating conflicts of interest.

Walter also has a history of making or defending offensive statements about race, gender and sexual orientation. He publicly defended a university professor accused of making racist statements, said average Americans have “disgust at homosexual practice” and in the 1990s mused that one good thing from the Monica Lewinsky scandal might be “that feminism will die, that sexual harassment laws will fizzle”.

The memo adds: “This hearing represents weaponized government oversight at its worst, with Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene assembling hate group leaders, conspiracy theorists, and dark money operatives to attack civil society organizations while the very people crying about government waste have pocketed billions in federal contracts and subsidies.”

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*SPN's Legislative Agenda Is Frequently Buttressed by Its Forays as "Press" and the Echoes of Its Allies in the Growing Right-Wing State "Press" Corps. As CMD was one of the first to document, SPN groups like the Goldwater Institute are hiring people to act as reporters, and the legislative agenda of SPN is increasingly echoed by the growing right-wing infrastructure of groups that pose as press. Some even get their stories or "reports" picked up as news and delivered to state newspapers as a "wire" service like the Associated Press, as with the Franklin Center's Watchdog.org groups and the Ryun brothers-allied "American Majority" and "Media Trackers" operations.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Portal:State_Policy_Network

===

http://watchdoglabs.org/

The National Institute on Money in State Politics documents 29 million state campaign finance contributions over the last two decades to state candidates and state committees that total a staggering $23.5 billion.

Each of the 29 million records identifies the state of the contributor and the state of the recipient. In most records, the contributors and recipients are in the same state, but not always.

State population differences

State population explains part of the differences among states.

As the largest state by population, California’s 38 million people accounted for 1.87 million state political donations that totaled $4.46 billion. California’s state political causes received 1.75 million contributions that totaled $5.04 billion.

California was a net “importer” of state political money. With about 12% of the US population, donors from California gave almost 19% of state political money while California causes received more than 21% of the national total.

Wyoming, the smallest state by population with about 600,000 people, represents about 0.20% of the US population. Wyoming donors gave 0.13% of all state campaign finance amounts, while Wyoming candidates received about 0.13%. Wyoming was a slight net “importer” of state political money, but the difference is small....

from http://www.followthemoney.org/

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Center for Media and Democracy / By Brendan Fischer [1]

Right-Wing Front Group Poses as Journalists to Attack Investigation Into Political Money Laundering

December 19, 2013 |

The Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity (through its Wisconsin Reporter and Watchdog.org [2] websites) has aggressively attacked the government’s "John Doe" probe into possible campaign finance violations during Wisconsin's 2011 and 2012 recall elections. Its media outlets have also published new information about the apparent targets of the investigation, but they have omitted an important detail: Franklin Center has close ties to individuals and groups that may be caught up in the John Doe probe.

The only name associated with the investigation led by the Milwaukee County's District Attorney's office, Eric O'Keefe, helped launch the Franklin Center's operations in 2009, and his Sam Adams Alliance group provided the majority [3] of its startup budget. O'Keefe has spoken publicly [4] about being subpoenaed in his capacity as director of Wisconsin Club for Growth. Franklin Center's Director of Special Projects [5] John Connors, and the Executive Assistant to the President [5] Claire Milbrandt, also have close ties to a group reportedly involved in the probe. Its former Director of Operations and General Counsel, James Skyles, worked with another group active in the Wisconsin recalls.

Franklin Center's Wisconsin Reporter has written 16 stories so far that are highly critical of the anti-corruption probe and prosecutors (calling its series "Wisconsin's Secret War" [6]), but these latest revelations raise questions about whether the outfit has a conflict of interest in its coverage.

"It does sound like a conflict-of-interest situation that minimally ought to be disclosed, whenever stories are written," said Robert Drechsel, Director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism and Mass Communications. "Particularly if the reporting in question is being done by an entity that holds itself out as nonpartisan and as doing the same kind of journalistic work being done by any traditional journalism institution."

Franklin Center Attacks John Doe, Citing Unnamed Sources

After Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Dan Bice first reported on [7] the new "John Doe" investigation -- a secret inquiry unique to Wisconsin that is "just like a grand jury except no jury [8]," led by special prosecutor Francis Schmitz, a former federal counterterrorism prosecutor with Republican credentials [9] -- interest was high, but thanks to the John Doe's strict secrecy rules, details were hard to come by.

The Franklin Center/Wisconsin Reporter quickly filled the void.

Wisconsin Reporter launched its "Wisconsin's Secret War" series in October, citing unnamed sources to reveal [10] that Wisconsin Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, and Republican Governors Association had received subpoenas [11], and describing details about "after-hours visits to homes and offices" and prosecutors' "demands for phone, email and other records." Thanks to those unnamed sources, Wisconsin Reporter had a new platform, and used it to recast the John Doe investigation as "an abuse of prosecutorial powers" with "the apparent goal of bringing down Gov. Scott Walker." The Walker campaign and 28 other groups also reportedly received subpoenas.

"This is a taxpayer-funded, opposition-research campaign," an anonymous source told the Wisconsin Reporter.

Wisconsin Club for Growth soon became the most prominent name associated with the John Doe after its director, Eric O'Keefe, told the *Wall Street Journal*editorial board [4] that he had been subpoenaed, with the investigation allegedly looking into what the Wall Street Journal called "illegal campaign coordination" between campaigns and independent groups. The group is also led by RJ Johnson, a top Walker advisor.

CMD uncovered [12] how in 2011, O'Keefe's Wisconsin Club for Growth took in $12 million [13], some of it from dark money conduits like the Koch-connected Center to Protect Patient Rights [14] (CPPR) and the Wellspring Committee [15], and in turn shuffled millions [12] to other organizations that spent money on ads during Wisconsin's Supreme Court race and recall elections. (CPPR, which is connected to the billionaire Koch brothers, was recently fined $1 million [16] by California's elections board for its role in what the Washington Post called "a series of money swaps and transfers through a network of politically active nonprofit groups [16]" to avoid donor disclosure. California prosecutors called it "campaign money laundering").

All of the groups involved in Wisconsin Club for Growth's monetary transfers are "dark money [17]" groups, a phrase which refers to election spending by nonprofits that exploit loopholes in campaign finance disclosure laws, and keep their donors secret by running "issue ads" designed to influence elections.

Franklin Center's John Connors Directly Connected to Dark Money Web

A central character in the Wisconsin Club for Growth dark money web is John Connors, the Franklin Center's "Director of Special Projects," who has close ties to many of the groups receiving funding from O'Keefe's Wisconsin Club for Growth. Some of those groups have reportedly been subpoenaed.

In the wake of the Center for Media and Democracy's reporting [12] on money changing hands between O'Keefe's Wisconsin Club for Growth and groups tied to Connors, Franklin Center's *Wisconsin Reporter* [18] quickly went on the offensive in a series [19] of articles [20], making up its own definition of "dark money" [21] for an unfounded attack on CMD's credibility, and falsely claiming that CMD's reporting constituted the launch of a "national campaign" to "unseat the governor."

None of the articles note Connors' ties to the Franklin Center/Wisconsin Reporter, even when attacking [19] CMD's stories that address him by name.

Here are some examples of those ties:

Connors is president of Citizens for a Strong America, whose entire $4.62 million budget [22] in 2011 came from Wisconsin Club for Growth [22], and which spent $836,000 [23] on ads (some of which included misleading [24] claims) in support of Justice David Prosser during his 2011 Supreme Court race, and additional undisclosed amounts [25] on Senate recall races that year. The Treasurer of Citizens for a Strong America is Valerie Johnson, wife of R.J. Johnson, who is a top advisor to both Wisconsin Club for Growth and Governor Walker.

90 percent [12]of the grants received by [26] Wisconsin Family Action in 2011 came from Connors' Citizens for a Strong America [22], which was entirely funded by Wisconsin Club for Growth. Wisconsin Family Action spent an estimated $850,000 [27] on the Senate recall campaigns in 2011. Connors acted as a consultant [28] to Wisconsin Family Action during the election year and helped plan a scheme that resulted in a different John Doe investigation [29] into possible election bribery, which resulted in no charges. The *Wall Street Journal* [4] reports that Wisconsin Family Action has received a subpoena in the latest John Doe probe.

Connors registered [30] the web domain for United Sportsmen of Wisconsin, a group that worked with [31] Wisconsin Family Action and Americans for Prosperity on an operation during the 2011 recall races in which absentee ballot applications were sent with the incorrect date for elections. Connors' Citizens for a Strong America transferred $236,000 [22] to United Sportsmen in 2011. The United Sportsmen group was embroiled in scandal [32] earlier this year after outgoing Assembly Majority leader Scott Suder cut a $500,000 [31] taxpayer-funded "sweetheart deal" for the group, which Governor Walker rescinded [33] after public outcry.

A review of Franklin Center's tax filings shows that it has paid $235,157 to Connors' Milwaukee-based consulting firm, J Connors & Co, over the past two years ($114,930 in 2012[34] and $119,227 in 2011 [35]). A close Connors associate, Claire Milbrant, who has worked at J Connors & Co since its founding in 2009, was also hired by the Franklin Center last month as its Executive Assistant to the President.

In addition to being the Franklin Center's "Director of Special Projects" -- part of its "leadership team," according to the organization's website [5] – Connors registered [36] Wisconsin Reporter's "Watchdog.org [2]" web domain.

Franklin Center/Wisconsin Reporter has attacked CMD's reporting [19] about Connors' groups but has failed to mention that one of its directors is directly tied to those organizations.

CMD's calls to John Connors for comment have not been returned.

Club for Growth's Eric O'Keefe Helped Launch and Fund Franklin Center

Mike McCabe, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, cautioned that the public still doesn't actually know what the John Doe investigation is about: we only know what Franklin Center has reported, and what Eric O'Keefe, the Wisconsin Club for Growth chair, told the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

"Its no accident that he went to Murdoch's newspaper, and no accident that it ran as an editorial [in the Wall Street Journal] rather than a news story," said McCabe, whose nonpartisan, nonprofit group tracks election spending in Wisconsin.

On Wisconsin Club for Growth's last published IRS Form 990, O'Keefe was listed as one of just three board members who spend hundreds of hours a year leading and guiding that group, whose budget increased twelve-fold in 2011 while Scott Walker was facing a potential recall election and also grew in the 2012 election year.

O'Keefe ties to the Franklin Center run deep. He was the CEO and chairman of the Sam Adams Alliance, which in 2009 launched and funded the Franklin Center. According to an O'Keefe bio from last year: [37] "Under his leadership, the Sam Adams Alliance (SAM) has established some of the most active and respected organizations in the freedom movement, including American Majority and the Franklin Center."Whether he continues to fund or direct funds to Franklin Center is unknown.

O'Keefe's Sam Adams Alliance, whose president was the former executive director of the Illinois State Republican party, acted as [38] the Franklin Center's "sponsoring organization" until the group obtained its 501(c)(3) status, according to its communications director [38]. According to the *Milwaukee Journal Sentinel* [3], much of the $2.9 million Franklin Center raised in its first year came from the Sam Adams Alliance. (The other group that O'Keefe boasts of creating in his bio, American Majority, was established to recruit and train Tea Party political candidates, and held a rally [39] in support of Governor Walker during the height of the 2011 protests featuring Andrew Breitbart and others.)

Franklin's President, Jason Stverak, previously worked as Regional Field Director for O'Keefe's Sam Adams Alliance, after leading the South Dakota Republican Party for six years. Their allies speak of O'Keefe and Stverak in the same breath. For example, in the acknowledgement section [40] of James O'Keefe's book, the undercover videographer whose heavily-edited videos helped bring down ACORN (and who is not related to Eric O'Keefe) thanks "Eric O'Keefe and Jason Stverak for their role in the citizen journalism movement."

In only one [41] of the sixteen articles Franklin Center/Wisconsin Reporterhas written on the John Doe have they touched on O'Keefe's ties to Franklin Center.

"The public has to be very wary of taking for granted what is being reported by the Wall Street Journal and Wisconsin Reporter," McCabe said. "O'Keefe and others have decided that is who they want reporting on John Doe, they've decided what to leak, and how they want it framed, and what they want the public to believe what the investigation is about," he said, while prosecutors and judges are gagged by the John Doe's secrecy order.

Ties to the "Coalition for American Values"

Franklin Center also has connections to another mysterious organization active during the Wisconsin recalls called "Coalition for American Values." That group dropped $400,080[27] on a flood of ads in the final weeks before Governor Walker's recall election, and attracted significant attention by making a unique appeal: instead of promoting Walker or attacking his opponent, the ads attacked the premise of the recall itself. The ads depicted individuals who claimed they would vote for Walker not necessarily because they support his policies, but because they opposed the use of recall under these circumstances.

These ads, coupled with similar messaging from Governor Walker, proved effective. Exit polls on June 5, 2012 showed that sixty percent of voters thought recalls were only appropriate for cases of official misconduct -- a complete reversal from polls conducted in November 2011, just as the recall was launched.

The address Coalition for American Values lists on its filings with Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board [42], and on its associated PAC's filings with the Federal Election Commission [43], is 119 S Emerson St #231 in Mt. Prospect, Illinois. This is also the address given for Coalition for American Values' lawyer, James Skyles, who was General Counsel and the Director of Operations for the Franklin Center [44] until March 2011.

The "treasurer" listed on Coalition for American Values' FEC filings and the contact on its filings with Wisconsin's election board is Brent Downs. In 2008, when Connors chaired the Marquette College Republicans, Downs was his treasurer [45]. Both were both students at Marquette University at the same time, and Downs, like Connors, also chaired the Students for Prosperity [46] chapter of David Koch's Americans for Prosperity at Marquette University.

In its FEC filings, the Coalition for American Values reports [43] tens of thousands [47] of dollars [48] of payments [49] to [50] Connors' Campaign Now! consulting and direct mail firm (which he has run out of the same office as J Connors & Co, along with Claire Milbrant).

The Coalition for American Values explicitly called for the reelection of Governor Walker, so the group reported its spending, but it did not report the true origin of its funds. Wisconsin law requires that nonprofits or corporations disclose the source of all contributions "made for" the purpose of funding their ads -- but Coalition for American Values sidestepped those rules by claiming that the $400,080 was not specifically provided to the group for the ads, despite there being few other reasons that a donor would have given the group hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Franklin Center Takes Bull by Horns

The Franklin Center/Wisconsin Reporter has led the charge against the John Doe investigation, the prosecutors involved, and even reporters covering the topic.

Professor Theodore L. Glasser [51], a Professor of Communications at Stanford University, told CMD that at a minimum, a news outfit should disclose their connections to the subjects they are reporting on. "For the reader, without that transparency, it is hard to make a judgment about the independence of that reporting," he said.

"Not to say that the conflict [of interest] would go away with transparency, but it would at least allow readers to judge for themselves."

See more stories tagged with:

Wisconsin recall elections [52],

wisconsin dark money groups [53],

wisconsin john doe investigation [54],

franklin center [55],

Center for Media and Democracy [56]

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/right-wing-front-group-poses-journalists-stop-campaign-finance-investigation

Links:

*[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/brendan-fischer*

*[2] http://Watchdog.org/*

*[3] http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/127152603.html*

*[4] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304799404579155953286552832*

*[5] http://franklincenterhq.org/about/staff/*

*[6] http://watchdog.org/series/wisconsins-secret-war/*

*[7] http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/secret-probe-spreads-to-five-wisconsin-counties-b99124190z1-228569231.html*

*[8] http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/what-even-is-a-wisconsin-john-doe-investigation*

*[9] http://sensenbrenner.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=54611*

*[10] http://host.madison.com/news/local/writers/jack_craver/wisconsin-reporter-says-new-john-doe-investigation-focused-on-conservative/article_b3c94a06-40b2-11e3-bda1-001a4bcf887a.html*

*[11] http://watchdog.org/113017/conservatives-wisconsin/*

*[12] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/11/12309/new-john-doe-investigation-probes-dark-money-wisconsin-recall-elections-club*

*[13] http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/contrib.php?cmte=C90009945&cycle=2012*

*[14] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_to_Protect_Patient_Rights*

*[15] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wellspring_Committee*

*[16] http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/politics/a-money-shuffle-to-avoid-donor-disclosure/552/*

*[17] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money*

*[18] http://watchdog.org/about/*

*[19] http://watchdog.org/117604/liberal-money-conservative/*

*[20] http://watchdog.org/118311/shouting-echo-chamber/*

*[21] http://watchdog.org/118639/dark-money-wisconsin/*

*[22] https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2012_12_EO/27-1204594_990O_201112.pdf*

[23] http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/judicial-public-financing-wisconsin-%E2%80%94-2011

*[24] http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/apr/01/citizens-strong-america/ad-says-joanne-kloppenburg-jailed-80-year-old-farm/*

*[25] http://m.startribune.com/news/?id=127118328*

*[26] https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2012_08_EO/83-0448717_990O_201112.pdf*

*[27] http://www.wisdc.org/pr072512.php*

*[28] http://media.jsonline.com/documents/Martens+Letter_120511.pdf*

*[29] http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/groups-accused-of-voter-bribery-cleared-by-das-investigation-953bdus-135147838.html*

*[30] http://cognidissidence.blogspot.com/2011/04/koch-brothers-heavy-hand-behind-anti.html*

*[31] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/08/12224/wisconsin-prepares-hand-half-million-taxpayer-funds-koch-tied-gop-lobby-shop*

*[32] http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/221667081.html*

*[33] http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/fishing-trip-underscores-close-ties-between-suder-united-sportsmen-b99108668z1-225745101.html*

*[34] http://franklincenterhq.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/990-2012-Franklin-Center.pdf*

*[35] https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2012_12_EO/26-4066298_990_201112.pdf*

*[36] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/04/10534/group-called-citizens-strong-america-operates-out-ups-mail-drop-runs-expensive-ad*

*[37] http://www.libertyguide.com/resources/9-how-understanding-politics-helps-in-policy/*

*[38] http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/the-group-em-behind-em-the-group-behind-that-sketchy-wisconsin-poll?ref=fpa*

*[39] https://www.facebook.com/events/192810837409217/*

*[40] http://books.google.com/books?id=XpB5w-rpUq4C&pg=PT251&lpg=PT251&dq=Jason+Stverak+and+Eric+o'keefe&source=bl&ots=amTAoCkq9l&sig=tYkGFrMHYYP_k8REbk82x7tCV9k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3QGpUtvFJ8XuyQGc9IGQBA&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Jason%20Stverak%20and%20Eric%20o'keefe&f=false*

*[41] http://watchdog.org/116566/conservative-john-doe-democrats/*

*[42] http://www.prwatch.org/files/cfav_gab_registration.pdf*

*[43] http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/581/13964021581/13964021581.pdf#navpanes=0*

*[44] http://www.prwatch.org/files/skyles_linkedin.pdf*

*[45] http://www.prwatch.org/files/connorsdowns.doc*

*[46] http://www.prwatch.org/files/downs_website.png*

*[47] http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/452/12954430452/12954430452.pdf#navpanes=0*

*[48] http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/138/12961466138/12961466138.pdf#navpanes=0*

*[49] http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/824/12951655824/12951655824.pdf#navpanes=0*

*[50] http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/614/13940509614/13940509614.pdf#navpanes=0*

*[51] https://comm.stanford.edu/faculty-glasser/*

*[52] http://www.alternet.org/tags/wisconsin-recall-elections*

*[53] http://www.alternet.org/tags/wisconsin-dark-money-groups*

*[54] http://www.alternet.org/tags/wisconsin-john-doe-investigation*

*[55] http://www.alternet.org/tags/franklin-center*

*[56] http://www.alternet.org/tags/center-media-and-democracy*

*[57] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B*

kos

SUN AUG 18, 2013 AT 07:05 AM PDT

Rightward-Facing Dog: Who is Watchdog.org?

If you want to know the source of the conspiracy theories floating around Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe's former company, GreenTech Auto, look no further than a little website named Watchdog.org and its so-called "Virginia bureau." It sounds like some sort of muckraking investigative site -- until a closer look reveals that this is in fact a watchdog trained to only bark at Democrats and wag its tail at Republicans.

However, it's not just another volunteer-based, opinionated blog like, say, Blue Virginia. Watchdog is funded by big corporate, conservative interests -- including the Koch brothers -- to essentially manage the opposition research for campaigns like Ken Cuccinelli's so that the campaigns can focus their time and money on other things.

They're certainly not legitimate journalists, but they've established their "bureaus" in state capitals across the country, and some state capital correspondents' associations grant them press credentials. Unfortunately that includes our very own Virginia Capital Correspondents Association, of which Watchdog's Kenric Ward -- unlike any other blogger or lobbyist -- is allowed to be a member.

Thanks to some investigative journalism done about them, here's what we do know about the shadowy Watchdog.org:

It gets big bucks from right wing donors: Watchdog is run by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, which itself was launched by the conservative Sam Adams Alliance. These groups are so tied in to all the other major Tea Party power brokers and organizations that it's hard to go through all those links without pulling out a progressive version of Glenn Beck's chalkboard.

According to Source Watch,95% of the Franklin Center's funding in 2011 came from Donors Trust, a group that Mother Jones has called "the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement" for its record of steering half a billion dollars anonymously from wealthy conservative donors to the poster children of the Tea Party, including Americans for Prosperity, the execrable ALEC, and climate denial groups like Heartland Institute.

The Franklin Center's parent, Sam Adams Alliance, in turn gets money from another parent organization, the State Policy Network, which (in turn!) gets cash from such right wing notables as the Claude R. Lambe Foundation and, of course, the Koch brothers. (Do money-laundering operations have so many layers of middlemen?)

Its bias is unquestionable:The Franklin Center's leanings are obvious, as it has for example (per a story in Media Matters) funded "a conservative blogger conference...that featured discredited right-wing voices Dana Loesch and James O'Keefe" and was "a co-sponsor of the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference. According to the CPAC site, that means Franklin Center contributed at least $5,000 to the right-wing event."

And per TruthOut, "At the 2011 American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual conference in New Orleans, The Franklin Center was listed as a 'Vice-Chairman' level sponsor of the ALEC conference.In 2010, this equated to a gift of at least $25,000."

Yet Franklin Center officials profess that their Watchdog practices objective journalism. Watchdog claims to be

"a collection of independent journalists covering state-specific and local government activity...doing what legacy journalism outlets prove unable to do: share information, dive deep into investigations, and provide the fourth estate that has begun to fade in recent decades."

Sadly, the only estates this group is protecting are the ones with the high fences and guard dogs owned by the richest 1%. *

On Watchdog's Virginia website, you can search on the names of our gubernatorial candidates, and quickly find that there is no balance in their coverage -- it's universally negative against McAuliffe (in 54 articles so far, and counting) while keeping hands off of Cuccinelli. (There is some criticism of Governor McDonnell -- for not being conservative enough.)

In fact, Watchdog is the original source of most of the stories you've seen about GreenTech -- and the investigations into the company. And they brag about it: "Watchdog.org series leads to EB-5 investigation."

Here's a great window into how today's conservative establishment manipulates the media and public opinion -- funnel lots of money into alleged "news" organizations, have them stir up lots of smoke over alleged "scandals", followed by powerful politicians calling for investigations (in this case, Sen. Chuck Grassley), milk those investigations for all they're worth as your Tea Party organizations -- funded by the same donors -- whip up hatred against your opponents, all the while diverting attention from the real issues and the failings of your own candidates. Stir and repeat.

This is a pattern Watchdog has manifested in state capitals nationwide. While there are numerous examples from Iowa to West Virginia, perhaps the most noteworthy is the work of Watchdog affiliateWisconsin Reporter,which has worked diligently to support the right-wing agenda of Gov. Scott Walker in that state. As one who applied to work for that organizationreported, the application process uses a questionnaire inquiring into the applicant's beliefs on a range of political issues like "How do free markets help the poor?" and "Do higher taxes lead to balanced budgets?"

Journalism? Um, no.

It slants its coverage to fit its donors: Just as interesting is how the organization gears its coverage to meet the specific lobbying needs of its corporate donors. Hence you see the organization bragging to its donors in a fundraising email, "When you give to the Franklin Center, you have an immediate impact on the power of our reporting."

Media Matters recounts how Watchdog affiliate IdahoReporter.composted numerous stories against a seemingly uncontroversial bill to ban minors from commercial tanning beds, ultimately leading to the bill's defeat.

Wonder which industry paid them for that story? It was enough to lead the Capitol Correspondents Association of Idaho to revoke Watchdog's credentials and for the association's president to call the group "basically a lobbying organization linked to a news arm."

Questions worth asking:

While states like Idaho and Ohio have revoked their Watchdog.org affiliate's credentials, in Virginia, you can see for yourself that they are granted the same status as legitimate press. Yet the Virginia Capital Correspondents Association website states that its credentialed members:

"must (i) work independently of any government, industry, or institution and (ii) not engage, directly or indirectly, in any lobbying, political activity or other activity intended to influence elections or any matter before the General Assembly or before any independent agency, or any department or other instrumentality of the Executive Branch."

So Watchdog's crusade against McAuliffe's campaign doesn't count? And their work for the obviously right wing Franklin Center counts as "working independently"?

If you think their credentials as state correspondents should be revoked, you can contact VCCA at officers@vapress.org, or even better, contact the members of the VCCA, whose names Virginians will recognize as the most active (real) journalists covering Virginia politics. You may want to ask them why they're imperiling their own reputations by allowing a phony "news organization" to be granted the same status as theirs.

Also check your local press outlets to see if they're using material from Watchdog and passing it off as "news". The Media Matters story quotes Cort Kirkwood, managing editor of the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Virginia as admitting that he does, with the excuse that he can't afford his own capital correspondents.

And I would strongly encourage reporters and pundits who have jumped on the GreenTech story to do their own reporting and stories on what Watchdog is all about. One question bugging me is whether Watchdog is just a sneaky way for donors to funnel their money indirectly to support a campaign like Cuccinelli's without anyone knowing. With all the focus right now in Virginia on gifts from corporate buddies, this may be a convenient time for such subterfuge.

It's more important than ever for media consumers to be aware of the sources of what they're reading, as right wing groups like Watchdog shamelessly manipulate the system to let corporate donors and their wholly-owned politicians work their will. We need more real watchdogs -- and fewer corporate lapdogs.

wiki

Watchdog.org is a non-profit (news) website that features reporting on state and local government. It is a project of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.^[2]

According to the Watchdog.org website, the organization exists to “(enhance) communication between reporters and (provide) a forum for published journalism, Watchdog.org promotes a vibrant, well-informed electorate and a more transparent government. Watchdog.org utilizes a state-specific approach, in order to provide readers with information that is of proximate and practical interest.”^[3]

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Organization

According to the website, “Watchdog.org is a collection of independent journalists covering state-specific and local government activity. The program began in September 2009, a project of Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to promoting new media journalism. Watchdog.org’s investigative journalists and capitol news reporters across the country are doing what legacy journalism outlets prove unable to do: share information, dive deep into investigations, and provide the fourth estate that has begun to fade in recent decades.”^[4]

In July 2011, the Pew Foundation's Project for Excellence in Journalism was reported to have found that, among other non-profit news outlets, "the conservative Watchdog.org sites ... don't reveal much about who’s paying their bills, and their work skews clearly in one direction, both in the topics they cover and the content of individual stories".^[5]

In response to such criticism, Vice President for Journalism Steven Greenhut wrote in the Huffington Post: “Like many non-profits, we don't publicize our donors. We do publicize our approach to journalism: We approach stories from a free-market, pro-liberty perspective, just as other publications have their own take. We state ours upfront and let the readers make their own decisions about the veracity of our pieces.”^[6]

Watchdog.org states that it abides by the Code of Ethics promulgated by the Society of Professional Journalists^[7] and is guided by standards of the Associated Press.^[8] On February 16, 2010, the organization was certified by Google News.^[9]

Watchdog.org's sponsor, the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, does not disclose donor information. According to the organization website,^[10] "The Franklin Center protects the identification of its generous donors and ensures anonymity of all contributions.”

Watchdog News Bureaus

Watchdog.org consists of 23 state news bureaus with journalists reporting on state and local government.^[11][12] The Watchdog.org brand of news organizations is used by over a dozen state-watchdog news groups^{[12][13][14][15]} in the network. Many of these publications are projects by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, the same non-profit group that sponsors Watchdog.org.

The network includes news outlets such as Hawaii Reporter, Illinois Watchdog, Wisconsin Reporter and bureaus in Florida, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio Watchdog, Oklahoma, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming, Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Idaho.^{[16][17][18][19]}

New Technology

Watchdog.org's sponsoring organization, the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity promotes itself as an advocacy group for “transparency in government.”^[20] They support this through the use of “new media.” Watchdog.org and the Franklin Center believe^[21] that journalists must master new media, and they offer^[20] in-depth training and education to individuals and organizations interested in learning new media techniques and how to be citizen journalists.

On June 13, 2011, Franklin Center announced^[22] that Watchdog.org news coverage would be accessible through an IPhone application.

watchdog.org BS

Right-Wing Front Group Poses as Journalists to Attack Investigation Into Political Money Laundering

Rightward-Facing Dog: Who is Watchdog.org?

Contents

Organization

Watchdog News Bureaus

New Technology

External links

References

TAGS