Texas Public Policy Fdn TPPF

<h1 class="title">=</h1><div>see TPPF 2 new 11/17</div><div>SEE life powered TPPF 3</div><div>capt 1 22</div><div>html goverment sic</div><div>
</div><div>sorta forgot about this; mackinac biggest state level stinktank?</div><div>
</div><div></div><div>huge swamp thing trump admin:</div><div>
</div><div><table id="dirty-deputies-table" class="display responsive dataTable no-footer dtr-inline" role="grid" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-spacing: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: thin solid grey; table-layout: initial; clear: both; width: 1240px; margin-top: 6px !important; margin-bottom: 6px !important; max-width: none !important;"><tbody style="box-sizing: border-box;"><tr role="row" class="even" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td tabindex="0" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 81.625px;">Doug</td><td class="sorting_1" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 89.625px;">Domenech</td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 192.625px;">Department of the Interior</td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 137.625px;"><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/06/26/president-donald-j-trump-announces-intent-nominate-personnel-key" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Assistant Secretary, Insular Affairs</a></td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 156.625px;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/doug-domenech" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a></td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 137.625px;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/texas-public-policy-foundation" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">The Kochs and Exxon Mobil have funded the TPPF.</a></td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 137.625px;"><a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/310068-climate-change-speaking-truth-to-power" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Wrote, "Speaking truth to power, these experts had a common message in response to the age-old questions: Is climate change real? Yes, it has happened in the past and will happen in the future. Is man making an impact on the climate? Perhaps but in very small ways. But the overarching consensus remains the climate change we are experiencing is by no means catastrophic."</a></td><td data-search="Koch; Exxon; oil and gas; fossil fueldata-order=" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 173.625px;">Koch; Exxon; oil and gas; fossil fuel</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div> <table id="dirty-deputies-table" class="display responsive dataTable no-footer dtr-inline" role="grid" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-spacing: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: thin solid grey; table-layout: initial; clear: both; width: 1240px; margin-top: 6px !important; margin-bottom: 6px !important; max-width: none !important;"><tbody style="box-sizing: border-box;"><tr role="row" class="odd" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td tabindex="0" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 81.625px;">Susan</td><td class="sorting_1" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 89.625px;">Combs</td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 192.625px;"><a href="http://www.mystatesman.com/news/national-govt--politics/combs-set-join-interior-department-agency-she-often-battled/oFe8HLO3ioTrwAiOVjnyeM/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Department of the Interior</a></td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 137.625px;"><a href="http://www.mystatesman.com/news/national-govt--politics/combs-set-join-interior-department-agency-she-often-battled/oFe8HLO3ioTrwAiOVjnyeM/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Assistant Secretary of Interior Nominee</a></td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 156.625px;"><a href="http://www.susancombs.com/about-susan/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Former Texas State Comptroller; Texas Public Policy Foundation</a></td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 137.625px;"><a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/revealed-the-corporations-and-billionaires-that-fund-the-texas-public-policy-foundation/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a Koch-funded organization; it is also funded by Exxon</a></td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 137.625px;"><a href="http://www.mystatesman.com/news/national-govt--politics/combs-set-join-interior-department-agency-she-often-battled/oFe8HLO3ioTrwAiOVjnyeM/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Reported to be an active opponent of the Endangered Species Act; reportedly used 'used her budget to finance studes on species that some academics criticized as politically skewed'</a></td><td data-search="Koch; oil and gas; Exxon; fossil fuel; nomineedata-order=" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 173.625px;">Koch; oil and gas; Exxon; fossil fuel; nominee</td></tr></tbody></table><table id="dirty-deputies-table" class="display responsive dataTable no-footer dtr-inline" role="grid" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-spacing: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: thin solid grey; table-layout: initial; clear: both; width: 1240px; margin-top: 6px !important; margin-bottom: 6px !important; max-width: none !important;"><tbody style="box-sizing: border-box;"><tr role="row" class="odd" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td tabindex="0" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 81.625px;">Kathleen</td><td class="sorting_1" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 89.625px;">Hartnett White</td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 192.625px;">White House Council on Environmental Quality</td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 137.625px;">Nominee for Chair</td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 156.625px;">TheTexas Public Policy Foundation; Former Chairwoman of Texas Commission on Environmental Quality</td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 137.625px;">The Texas Public Policy Foundation is funded by ExxonMobil, the Heartland Institute, and the Koch brothers.</td><td style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 137.625px;">Hartnett White has denounced climate science and stated that fossil fuels caused the end of slavery. She owns oil leases.</td><td data-search="nominee; fossil fuel; oil and gas; Koch; Exxon; climate denierdata-order=" style="box-sizing: content-box; padding: 0.5rem; border: thin solid grey; vertical-align: bottom; width: 173.625px;">nominee; fossil fuel; oil and gas; Koch; Exxon; climate denier</td></tr></tbody></table> <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/revealed-the-corporations-and-billionaires-that-fund-the-texas-public-policy-foundation/">https://www.texasobserver.org/revealed-the-corporations-and-billionaires-that-fund-the-texas-public-policy-foundation/</a>
<a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/inside-total-catastrophe-ensued-after-elected-libertarian-mayor-promised-freest">http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/inside-total-catastrophe-ensued-after-elected-libertarian-mayor-promised-freest</a>... In 2006, fearing annexation by rapidly encroaching San Antonio, some in Von Ormy proposed incorporating as a town. But in government-averse rural Texas, incorporation can be a hard sell. Unincorporated areas are governed mainly by counties, which have few rules about what you can do on private property and tend to only lightly tax. There’s no going back from what municipal government brings: taxes, ordinances, elections and tedious city council meetings. Still, the fear of being absorbed by San Antonio — with its big-city taxes and regulations — was too much for most Von Ormians.Enter Art Martinez de Vara. At the time, Martinez de Vara was an ambitious third-year law student at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, a local boy with a penchant for Texas history and right-wing politics.Martinez de Vara suggested a compromise of sorts. Von Ormy could become a “liberty city” — a stripped-down, low-tax, low-government version of municipal government that’s currently en vogue among the tea party in Texas.Initially, the city would impose property and sales taxes, but the property tax would ratchet down to zero over time. The business-friendly environment would draw new economic activity to Von Ormy, and eventually the town would cruise along on sales taxes alone.There would be no charge for building permits, which Martinez de Vara said would be hand-delivered by city staff. The nanny state would be kept at bay, too. Want to shoot off fireworks? Blast away. Want to smoke in a bar? Light up. Teens wandering around at night? No curfew, no problem.Martinez de Vara and his mother, Sally Martinez, along with other prominent residents, started the Commission to Incorporate Von Ormy. He gave Von Ormy a motto: “The Freest Little City in Texas.”Folks in Von Ormy liked what they heard and in May 2008 voted to incorporate. Martinez de Vara was elected mayor that November.In a 2015 presentation he gave at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, Martinez de Vara said that a group of people with no political experience took it upon themselves to do everything a large city like San Antonio does but at a lower cost. He touted Von Ormy’s ability to provide animal control services, a 20-officer police department — a mix of paid officers and volunteers — and an online city hall.“We were blessed with this unique opportunity to experiment with democracy,” he said.Today, there is no city animal control program and stray dogs roam the streets. The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office patrols the town instead of city police, and City Hall resides in a mobile home with one full-time staffer — though that’s a step up from the dive bar where City Council met until the owner bounced them out. If you go to the city’s website, you’ll be informed that it’s still under construction....</div><div></div><div>swamp things inside the wire</div><div>Texas Public Policy FoundationDoug Domenech
Backstory: The Austin, Texas-based conservative think tank was founded in 1989 by James Leininger, a physician and investor. Leininger is a devout Christian conservative with close ties to Energy secretary nominee Rick Perry, according to The Texas Tribune.
Key staff: Doug Domenech, who led the Trump administration's transition team for the Interior Department and is now a political aide at that agency, hails from TPPF. He was director of the think tank's Fueling Freedom Project before joining the Trump team. He was also secretary of natural resources in Virginia under then-Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) and an Interior official during the Bush administration.
Kathleen Hartnett White of TPPF's Armstrong Center for Energy and the Environment, who was rumored to be in the mix for Trump's EPA administrator and is considered a possible pick to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality. White, a former Texas regulator, was a Trump adviser on the campaign trail. She has argued that treating carbon dioxide like a pollutant is damaging to the U.S. energy sector (Greenwire, Nov. 28, 2016).
Energy/environmental platform: The group advocates for a pivot toward state autonomy and "less burdensome" regulations. Views pushed by TPPF's personalities — like support for fossil fuels, questions about climate change and calls for regulatory changes — have spurred attacks from critics including environmental and consumer groups (Energywire, Dec. 6, 2016).</div><div></div><div>omg</div><div>
<a href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/03/23/kochs-bankroll-movement-rewrite-constitution/">http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/03/23/kochs-bankroll-movement-rewrite-constitution/</a>By Alex Kotch, CMD contributorA constitutional convention, something thought impossible not long ago, is looking increasingly likely. Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, if 34 state legislatures “issue a call” for a constitutional convention, Congress must convene one. By some counts, the right-wing only needs six more states. Once called, delegates can propose and vote on changes and new amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which, if approved, are currently required to be ratified by 38 states.There are two major legislative pushes for a convention at the state level. One would attempt to engineer a convention for a balanced budget amendment only, and the other tries to secure an open convention for the purpose of limiting the power and jurisdiction of the federal government. But once a convention is underway, all bets are off. The convention can write its own rules, resulting in a wide-open or “runaway” convention that can make major changes to the constitution and even change the number of states required to ratify those changes.If America gets saddled with a runaway convention, the Koch coterie of funders will be to blame. Most of the groups pushing the convention idea are being underwritten by one or more institutions tied to billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ATTEMPTS TO LIMIT TOPIC OF THE CONVENTION LIKELY TO FAIL</h3>On Feb. 24, Wyoming became the <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/texas/articles/2017-02-28/call-to-convene-convention-of-states-clears-texas-senate" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">29th state</a> to pass a resolution requesting a convention specifically to add a single balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Many of these legislative resolutions also attempt to set the rules for the convention and limit who can attend it to a select list of largely GOP state leaders.Austerity advocates claim that they need only to convince five of seven targeted states—Arizona, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, South Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin—to get on board, and they will have enough states to convene a convention. As the <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2017/03/13230/wisconsin-lawmaker-echoes-alec-call-constitutional-convention" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Center for Media and Democracy has reported,</a> three linked measures were just introduced in Wisconsin and were placed on a fast track to approval.Another faction representing a broader “Convention of States” initiative is advocating an open constitutional convention to <a href="https://www.conventionofstates.com/about" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">limit</a> “the power and jurisdiction of the federal government.” Because this open convention format would be called on a particular subject rather than a particular amendment, representatives would likely vote on any number of measures.Legislatures in nine states—Arizona, Georgia, Alaska, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Louisiana—have signed on to the Convention of States resolution,. Texas appears likely to join in, as the state Senate <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas-legislature/2017/02/28/senate-approves-bills-call-convention-states-amend-constitution" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">approved</a> a Convention of States bill in February. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is fiercely campaigning for a convention and has deemed it an “emergency issue.” In 2016, he published a 70-page plan that includes nine proposed amendments aimed at severely limiting federal authority, even allowing a two-thirds majority of the states to override a Supreme Court ruling or a federal law.Groups like the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Common Cause, and the Center for Media and Democracy have raised the alarm about these efforts. No convention has been called since 1787 in Philadelphia where George Washington presided.The <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/research/constitutional-balanced-budget-amendment-poses-serious-risks" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Center on Budget and Policy Priorities</a> explains why any convention call, no matter how narrowly written, is likely to result in a “runaway” convention. A convention is empowered to write its own rules, including how delegates are chosen, how many delegates attend and whether a supermajority is required to approve amendments.Nothing in the Constitution prevents a convention, once convened, from setting its own agenda, influenced by powerful special interests like the Koch groups. A convention could even choose an entirely new ratification process. “The 1787 convention ignored the ratification process under which it was established and created a new one, reducing the number of states needed to approve the new Constitution and removing Congress from the approval process,” writes CBPP.Legal uncertainly surrounds the entire effort, which is sure to be litigated if successful. For instance, are states bound by resolutions passed many years ago? Will states withdraw their approval? Some states, like Delaware and New Mexico, have already moved to do so.<h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">THE KOCH CONNECTION TO THE PUSH FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION</h3>Libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch have long opposed federal power and federal spending. Koch Industries is one of the <a href="https://www.peri.umass.edu/water-100-polluters-index" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">nation’s</a> <a href="https://www.peri.umass.edu/toxic-100-air-polluters-index-2016-report-based-on-2014-data" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">biggest</a><a href="https://www.peri.umass.edu/greenhouse-100-polluters-index" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">polluters</a> and has been sanctioned and fined over and over again by both federal and state authorities. In response, the Kochs have launched a host of “limited government” advocacy organizations and have created a massive $400 million campaign finance network, fueled by their fortunes and those of their wealthy, right-wing allies, that rivals the two major political parties.The Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity says it <a href="http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/wisconsin-legislature-joins-radical-rights-call-federal-constitutional-convention" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">favors</a> a balanced budget convention. Such an austerity amendment would drastically cut the size of the federal government, threatening critical programs like Social Security and Medicare and eviscerating the government’s ability to respond to economic downturns, major disasters and the climate crisis.AFP has opposed an open convention, calling it “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110710152110/http://www.americansforprosperity.org/021911-tx-legislature-considers-us-constitutional-convention" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">problematic</a>.” But whatever qualms the Kochs might have, they continue to be a bedrock funder of the entire convention “movement.”Running the “Convention of States initiative” is an Austin, Texas-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit called <a href="https://selfgovern.com/" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Citizens for Self-Governance</a> (CSG). CSG reported revenue of $5.7 million in 2015, more than double its haul from two years earlier, when it launched its Convention of States Project, according to <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas-legislature/2017/02/28/senate-approves-bills-call-convention-states-amend-constitution" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Dallas News</a>. It now boasts 115,000 “volunteers,” although that figure may represent the number of addresses on its email list.The group is not required to disclose its donors, but research into other organizations’ tax records by the Center for Media and Democracy, Conservative Transparency and this author show a web of Koch-linked groups having provided nearly $5.4 million to CSG from the group’s founding in 2011 through 2015:<ul style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Donors Trust, a preferred secret money <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/02/14/12151/following-donors-trust-money-trail" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">conduit</a> for individuals and foundations in the Koch network of funders, has given CSG at least $790,000 since 2011.</li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">The Greater Houston Community Foundation, which is funded by Donors Capital Fund (linked to Donors Trust) and the Kochs’ Knowledge and Progress Fund, has donated over $2 million since 2011.</li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">The Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, which has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Donors Capital Fund, gave $2.5 million from 2012-2013.</li></ul>Citizens for Self-Governance also has two Koch-connected board members. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Eric_O%27Keefe" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Eric O’Keefe</a> is a director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, a group which has taken in <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wisconsin_Club_for_Growth#Funders" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">considerable funding</a> from Koch-linked groups like the Center to Protect Patient Rights, and was at the center of the long-running “John Doe” criminal investigation of Scott Walker’s campaign coordination with dark money groups.O’Keefe was the<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/118348/scott-walker-campaign-finance-scandal-serving-higher-purpose" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;"> national field coordinator</a> for the Libertarian Party when David Koch ran for Vice President in 1979 on the Libertarian Party ticket. The party’s platform called for the end of campaign finance law, the minimum wage, “oppressive Social Security,” Medicaid, Medicare and federal deficit spending.The Koch agenda has not changed much since.Another board member is Tim Dunn, an oilman from Midland, Texas who is vice chairman of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a> (TPPF), a right-wing think tank that’s raked in over $1 million from Koch family foundations, $160,000 from Koch Industries in 2012 alone and at least $1.8 million from Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund.Dunn runs another political group, Empower Texans, which supports Republican candidates and has taken in funds from Donors Trust and “Americans for Job Security,” a <a href="http://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/koch-brothers-groups-hit-massive-fines-crew-complaint/" target="blank" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Koch-tied dark money group</a> that was slapped with a severe fine by the FEC for its involvement in a dark money shell game intended to disguise the origin of its funds.Both <a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/content/detail/tppf-releases-paper-on-article-v-convention-of-states" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">TPPF</a> and <a href="https://empowertexans.com/under-the-dome/legislative-priority-convention-states/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Empower Texans</a> back the constitutional convention idea.What’s more, a 501(c)4 nonprofit connected to CSG, the Alliance for Self-Governance (which does business as Convention of States Action), received <a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/alliance-for-self-governance/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">$270,000</a> in 2012 from Americans for Limited Government, which has received funding not only by Donors Capital Fund but by two Koch-funded political groups, the Center to Protect Patient Rights and Americans for Job Security.Those two groups exchanged millions of dollars in 2010 and 2012, illegally hiding the source of funding for political expenditures, lying to the Internal Revenue Service and making unlawful contributions to pass-through groups, prompting investigations and historic fines by the both the <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/dark-money-groups-pay-1-million-dollars-in-fines-in-california-case" target="blank" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">State of California</a> and the <a href="http://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/koch-brothers-groups-hit-massive-fines-crew-complaint/" target="blank" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Federal Elections Commission</a>. Eric O’Keefe’s Wisconsin Club for Growth also funneled $450,000 to Alliance for Self-Governance in 2012, at a time when WCFG was battling the Walker recall.Any time any organization is named “self-governance” or “limited government” you can be sure that Wisconsin’s <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Eric_O%27Keefe" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Eric O’Keefe</a> is either a founder or on the board, and indeed O’Keefe is tied to all three organizations: CSG, the <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Alliance_for_Self-Governance" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Alliance for Self-Governance</a> and Americans for Limited Government.If the Kochs and their friends don’t want an open constitutional convention, they’ve sure done a lot to aid the effort.</div><div></div><div>
</div><div>OMFG</div><div>Ebell looks to be in good company in the Republican nominee’s camp. In August, Trump’s team announced <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/kathleen-hartnett-white" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">Kathleen Hartnett-White</a> as one of several new additions to its “economic advisory team.”Hartnett-White is another who doubts the well-established link between fossil fuel burning and climate change.In a column last year, Hartnett-White lauded the “environmental benefits” of fossil fuel burning, while claiming the evidence for climate change was waning.Hartnett-White is director of an energy and environment project at the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/texas-public-policy-foundation" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a> (TPPF) — another group that has taken money from the Koch brothers.In July, the TPPF released a “<a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/press_release/detail/tppf-releases-a-guide-to-understanding-global-temperature-data" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">research booklet</a>” written by contrarian Dr. Roy Spencer that attempted to undermine findings related to sea level rise, extreme temperatures, and other impacts from burning fossil fuels.Hartnett-White is also an adviser to the CO2 Coalition — a group that includes extreme climate science denier <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/patrick-moore" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Patrick Moore</a>, who rejects any evidence for human-caused climate change.</div><div></div><div>omg</div><div><a href="http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/11/19/scientists-declare-un-climate-summit-goals-irrational-based-on-nonsense-leading-us-down-a-false-path/">http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/11/19/scientists-declare-un-climate-summit-goals-irrational-based-on-nonsense-leading-us-down-a-false-path/</a></div><div>
</div><div>AUSTIN, Texas – A team of prominent scientists gathered in Texas today at a climate summit to declare that fears of man-made global warming were “irrational” and “based on nonsense” that “had nothing to do with science.” They warned that “we are being led down a false path” by the upcoming UN climate summit in Paris.The scientists appeared <a href="http://crossroads-summit.com/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: 14.4px; vertical-align: baseline;">at a climate summit sponsored by the Texas Public Policy Foundation</a>. The summit in Austin was titled: “At the Crossroads: Energy & Climate Policy Summit.”Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen, an emeritus Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT, derided what he termed climate “catastrophism.”“Demonization of CO2 is irrational at best and even modest warming is mostly beneficial,” Lindzen said.Lindzen cautioned: “The most important thing to keep in mind is – when you ask ‘is it warming, is it cooling’, etc.  — is that we are talking about something tiny (temperature changes) and that is the crucial point.”Lindzen also challenged the oft-repeated UN IPCC claim that most of warming over past 50 years was due to mankind.“People get excited over this. Is this statement alarming? No,” Lindzen stated.“We are speaking of small changes 0.25 Celsius would be about 51% of the recent warming and that strongly suggests a low and inconsequential climate sensitivity – meaning no problem at all,” Lindzen explained.“I urge you when looking at a graph, check the scales! The uncertainty here is tenths of a degree,” he noted.“When someone points to this and says this is the warmest temperature on record. What are they talking about? It’s just nonsense. This is a very tiny change period. And they are arguing over hundredths of a degree when it is uncertain in tenths of a degree,” Lindzen said.“And the proof that the uncertainty is tenths of a degree are the adjustments that are being made. If you can adjust temperatures to 2/10ths of a degree, it means it wasn’t certain to 2/10ths of a degree,” he said. (Also See: <a href="http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/01/16/scientists-balk-at-hottest-year-claims-we-are-arguing-over-the-significance-of-hundredths-of-a-degree-the-pause-continues/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: 14.4px; vertical-align: baseline;">Scientists balk at ‘hottest year’ claims: Ignores Satellites showing 18 Year ‘Pause’ – ‘We are arguing over the significance of hundredths of a degree’ – The ‘Pause’ continues</a>)“The UN IPCC wisely avoided making the claim that 51% of a small change in temperature constitutes a problem. They left this to the politicians and anyone who took the bait,” he said.Lindzen noted that National Academy of Sciences president Dr. Ralph Cicerone has even admitted that there is no evidence for catastrophic claims of man-made global warming. See: <a href="http://www.climatedepot.com/2012/07/16/backing-away-from-climate-alarm-nas-pres-ralph-cicerone-says-we-dont-have-that-kind-of-evidence-to-claim-we-are-going-to-fry-from-agw/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: 14.4px; vertical-align: baseline;">Backing away from climate alarm? NAS Pres. Ralph Cicerone says ‘we don’t have that kind of evidence’ to claim we are ‘going to fry’ from AGW</a>Lindzen also featured 2006 quotes from Scientist Dr. Miike Hulme, Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, and Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, admitting that claims of a climate catastrophe were not the “language of science.”<blockquote style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; line-height: 14.4px; vertical-align: baseline;">“The discourse of catastrophe is a campaigning device,” <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6115644.stm" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: 14.4px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hulme wrote to the BBC in 2006.</a> “The language of catastrophe is not the language of science. To state that climate change will be ‘catastrophic’ hides a cascade of value-laden assumptions which do not emerge from empirical or theoretical science,” Hulme wrote.“Is any amount of climate change catastrophic? Catastrophic for whom, for where, and by when? What index is being used to measure the catastrophe?” Hulme continued.</blockquote>Lindzen singled out Secretary of State John Kerry for his ‘ignorance’ on science.“John Kerry stands alone,” Lindzen said. “Kerry expresses his ignorance of what science is,” he added.Lindzen also criticized EPA Chief Gina McCarthy’s education: “I don’t want to be snobbish, but U Mass Boston is not a very good school,” he said to laughter.Lindzen concluded his talk by saying: “Learn how to identify claims that have no alarming implications and free to say ‘So what?’”
Princeton Physicist Dr. Will Happer, who has authored over 200 peer-reviewed papers, called policies to reduce CO2 “based on nonsense.”“Policies to slow CO2 emissions are really based on nonsense. They are all based on computer models that do not work. We are being led down a false path.“Our breath is not that different from a power plant,” he continued.“To call carbon dioxide a pollutant is really Orwellian. You are calling something a pollutant that we all produce. Where does that lead us eventually?” he asked.“Coal, formed from ancient CO2, is a benefit to the world. Coal is CO2 from ancient atmospheres. We are simply returning CO2 to the atmosphere from which it came when you burn coal. And it’s a good thing since it is at very low levels in the atmosphere. We are in a CO2 famine. It is very, very low,” Happer explained.Happer continued: “CO2 will be beneficial and crop yields will increase.” “More CO2 will be a very significant benefit to agriculture,” he added.Happer then showed a picture of polluted air in China with the caption: “Real pollution in Shanghai.”"If f you can see it, it’s not CO2,” Happer said.“If plants could vote, they would vote for coal,” Happer declared.Happer also rebutted the alleged 97% consensus.“97% of scientists have often been wrong on many things,” he said.Ecologist and Greenpeace founding member Dr. Patrick Moore discussed the benefits of rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.“Let’s celebrate CO2!” Moore declared.Embedded image permalink“We know for absolute certain that carbon dioxide is the stuff of life, the foundation for life on earth,” Moore said.“We are dealing with pure political propaganda that has nothing to do with science,” he continued.“The deserts are greening from rising CO2,” he added.“Co2 has provided the basis of life for at least 3.5 billion years,” Moore said.

Read more: <a href="http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/11/19/scientists-declare-un-climate-summit-goals-irrational-based-on-nonsense-leading-us-down-a-false-path/#ixzz3sut0a1jA" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: 14.4px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/11/19/scientists-declare-un-climate-summit-goals-irrational-based-on-nonsense-leading-us-down-a-false-path/#ixzz3sut0a1jA</a>

Read more: <a href="http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/11/19/scientists-declare-un-climate-summit-goals-irrational-based-on-nonsense-leading-us-down-a-false-path/#ixzz3susqeII0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: 14.4px; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/11/19/scientists-declare-un-climate-summit-goals-irrational-based-on-nonsense-leading-us-down-a-false-path/#ixzz3susqeII0</a></div><div> = http://ecowatch.com/2015/11/21/ted-cruz-obama-climate-change/...His taped remarks were delivered Thursday at the <a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a>‘s second annual <a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/press_release/detail/tomorrow-sen-ted-cruz-to-deliver-special-video-message-at-texas-public-policy-foundationcrossroads-summit" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">At the Crossroads: Energy & Climate Policy Summit</a>. The two-day event in Austin, Texas included speakers such as Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX), Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation, Marc Morano of Climate Depot and James Taylor of the Heartland Institute.“The president’s radical attempt to destabilize the nation’s energy system is flatly illegal,” Cruz said. “And unless it is invalidated by Congress, struck down by the courts or, hopefully, rescinded by the next administration, it will cause Americans’ electricity costs to skyrocket at a time when those who are struggling can least afford it. What the Obama administration is doing to harm the American economy is the sort of power grab that our founders would have recognized as tyranny.”His comments came just a day after he and 51 other senators <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/senate-rejects-obama-climate-rule-215984" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">approved two resolutions</a>rejecting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon rules for power plants, the <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=clean+power+plan" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Clean Power Plan</a>. President Obama has vowed to veto the measures.Republicans are also taking aim at Obama’s Green Climate Fund. The $3 billion fund was set aside by the Obama administration last year as something the president hopes to be able to bring to the negotiating table at the <a href="http://ecowatch.com/cop21/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">COP21</a> Paris climate talks.“We pledge that Congress will not allow U.S. taxpayer dollars to go to the Green Climate Fund until the forthcoming international climate agreement is submitted to the Senate for its constitutional advice and consent,” 37 Republican senators wrote in a letter to Obama Thursday....=</div><div></div><div>Wendy and the Pious Hospital Bed Maker
With so many fingers in so many pies, it’s often difficult to keep up with Dr. Wendy Gramm. In addition to Mercatus Center, she serves as the chairman of the board of another conservative organization “whose positions on issues can make the difference between life and death for major legislation.”The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) “501(c) non-profit, non-partisan research institute” is run by a man Texas Monthly called “the most influential Republican in Texas” and probably a person most people have never heard of.Austin Democratic political consultant George Shipley once called the shy and unassuming Dr. James Leninger, “ the sugar daddy and godfather of the Republican right wing in Texas.”Besides the many groups with a local political interest, Leininger has funded national social conservative organizations, including the American Family Association (considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center) , Christian Pro-Life Foundation, Family Research Council, and Focus on the Family.Molly Ivins reports:Leninger tends to give his PACs and foundations innocuous names — Texans for Justice, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the Texas Justice Foundation, Children’s Economic Opportunity Foundation, Texans for Governmental Integrity, the A PAC for Parental School Choice, etc. According to the Current (a weekly alternative paper), Leininger is also a major donor to, or plays a leading role in, at least a dozen major right-wing groups. Politically, he has given not only to Christian-right school board candidates and right-wing legislative candidates but also to Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Phil Gramm, and he was Rick Perry’s largest campaign contributor ($500,000) in Perry’s race for lieutenant governor.The mission of TPPF, founded by Leninger in 1989, is to “promote and defend liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise in Texas and the nation by educating and affecting policymakers and the Texas public policy debate with academically sound research and outreach.”
A conservative and devoutly religious Republican businessman, Leininger made his personal fortune through Kinetic Concepts, based in San Antonio, which makes and rents therapeutic beds for patients who are paralyzed or suffer from serious illnesses. As humble as that might sound, take note, KCI Revenue for 2008 was $1.88 billion, increasing to $1.99 billion in 2009 and in 2010 increased to $2.02 billion.
Incidentally, Rick Perry, before he ran for lieutenant governor developed a lucrative relationship with Leininger. According to a Houston Chronicle piece dated September 21, 1997:
On Jan. 13, 1995, Perry bought $38,875 worth of stock in Kinetic Concepts, a company owned by Jim Leininger, a San Antonio physician, conservative activist and major Perry campaign donor. Perry invested an additional $35,167 in the company on Jan. 24, 1996 — the same day he spoke at a luncheon that Leininger attended. Later that day, an investment firm bought 2.2 million shares of Kinetic Concepts stock, driving up its price. Perry sold his Kinetic Concepts holdings a month later for a $38,382 profit. Leininger and Perry acknowledged they spoke at the luncheon but denied discussing the stock.Just a terribly fortunate coincidence? Back in 1997, Wendy Gramm also (coincidentally) had ties to Leininger’s company. Gramm earned a miniscule $25,000 a year as a member of the Kinetic Concepts board of directors. She also held stock options in the company when Kinetic Concepts Inc. agreed to sell most of the company to two San Francisco investor firms in a deal worth $850 million to $875 million.It is no exaggeration to say that Rick Perry owes a lot to Leninger. There is the new report issued by Texans for Public Justice, a money-and-politics watchdog group.Perry might never have been governor — nor now be a presidential candidate — but for James Leininger. In a game-changing 1998 race then-Texas Agriculture Commissioner Perry was elected Lieutenant Governor. That victory secured Perry’s automatic promotion to governor two years later when President-Elect Bush abandoned the Governor’s Mansion. Perry narrowly won his fateful 1998 race against Democrat John Sharp, capturing just 50.04 percent of the vote. This squeaker victory was secured by an eleventh-hour media blitz that Perry paid for with a last-minute, $1.1 million loan. Leininger and two other Texas tycoons guaranteed the loan, which supplied more than 10 percent of the $10.3 million that Perry raised for that election. Leininger’s family and company PAC contributed $62,500 to that Perry campaign. Leininger also was the No. 1 contributor at the time to the Texas Republican Party (then chaired by former Leininger employee Susan Weddington), which sank $82,760 into that Perry campaign. “I congratulate Leininger,” Perry opponent John Sharp said at the time. “He wanted to buy the reins of state government. And by God, he got them.”Through the TPPF, Leininger has used his wealth to promote his own conservative-religious agenda in a variety of ways. Karen Olsson writes in Texas Monthly, Leininger was the driving force back in 2002 to influence the Texas Board of Education to re-write school textbooks.... TPPF aimed to influence policy by publishing research reports on state issues; its early preoccupations mirrored several of Leininger's own: tort reform, vouchers, and reduced government. Working in tandem with the new SBOE [State Board of Education] members, the TPPF began objecting to textbook material deemed liberally slanted or morally suspect. The Legislature retaliated in 1995, forbidding the SBOE to question any aspect of textbook content other than "factual errors." Despite the restriction, the TPPF continued to analyze proposed books, hiring researchers to ferret out errors both of fact and of insufficient patriotism. Last winter the group helped bat down an environmental-science textbook (in large part because of a poorly written sentence linking democracy to pollution); this summer it criticized proposed social science and history textbooks for failing to disavow socialism.While the TPPF’s involvement in Texas textbooks may seem like a very narrow agenda, its policy interests, in fact, are wide-ranging, covering many conservative causes. Teddy Wilson, progressive political activist and blogger notes:The TPPF supports the predictable conservative line on a whole host of issues. The TPPF disputes the scientific evidence of climate changes and claims that the “scientific consensus has never been as broad as proclaimed,” and the compromised emails of climate scientists showed “data manipulation and fundamental errors now discredit a once broadly accepted body of science.” The “private sector can bring innovation and competition to the criminal justice system” is how the TPPF frames its advocacy of the private prison industry, despite that there has been no evidence to support that the privatization of the prison industry has provided any public savings. The TPPF even has an entire center dedicate to “Tenth Amendment Studies,” which is a favorite Constitutional Amendment among the Tea Party faithful.If any of this sounds depressingly familiar, then there’s a good good reason. Two long time supporters of TPPF are foundations associated with Koch Industries (Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation) which contributed contributing $383,125 in 2005-2009 and nearly a half million dollars between 1997 and 2009. Rick Perry’s Wrong ApproachIn Perry’s campaign book, Fed Up! the governor says that he knows of no other organization that is better positioned than Texas Public Policy Foundation to help “foster a national conversation” about “the proper role of government in our lives."However, last May, TPPF might have pushed its agenda a bit too hard. Its attempts to influence educational policy created quite a controversy. Seven breakthrough solutions to problems with the Texas’ high educational system were drafted by TPPF in its think-tank capacity, and promoted by Governor Perry.It did not go over as well as expected. In response, five A&M faculty members from various disciplines drafted a letter to Richard Box, the chairman of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents, laying out their concern regarding the lack of transparency in the board's apparent intention to implement seven proposed "breakthrough solutions" promoted by the TPPF. The seven recommendations advocated “a business-style, market-driven approach under which colleges and universities would treat students as customers, de-emphasize research that isn't immediately lucrative, and evaluate individual faculty by the tuition revenue they generate.”Within a few days of the letter being posted online, more than 530 faculty members had added their names. The A&M Chancellor Mike McKinney eventually resigned.
All this is rather ironic of course since Wendy Gramm served on the board of Regents from 2001 to 2007, (as mentioned in Part 1) and serves as chairman in TPPF. Coincidence can quickly be discounted.
A concise assessment of TPPF’s market-oriented recommendations makes a fine case for rejection.Put simply, this is the wrong approach... the classroom is not a marketplace. The proposals reviewed here will not promote effective learning or the responsible use of resources inside a laboratory, library or seminar room. The University of Texas at Austin's bottom line is to provide a first-class education while spending our resources responsibly and efficiently. Separating those two goals is like separating research from teaching: it serves the wrong bottom line. Similarly, treating students as customers, offering them a "product" designed to win positive reviews and then rewarding the most popular instructors will neither challenge students in meaningful ways nor foster the deep learning and skills they will need throughout life.
Many feel the Perry’s close association with TPPF has damaged the university. This is turn has damaged the governor’s image. He would have Wendy Gramm, its chairman, to thank for that.
As the editors of The Eagle Bryan-College Station remark:Texas A&M University has the support of its former students that is the envy of many universities. Aggies love their alma mater and it shows in many ways. One Aggie, however, should love his school less and, in fact, should stay out of its business. Gov. Rick Perry's obsession and interference in A&M has caused great harm, damage some observers feel could take a generation to undo. From his appointment of regents with greater fealty to him than to the university system they are supposed to represent to his constant meddling in the day-to-day operations of the flagship university to his infatuation with the Texas Public Policy Foundation -- an ultraconservative think tank that seeks to insinuate itself into every corner of state government -- Perry has proven not to be a friend of A&M, but rather a hindrance.Never before has a governor of Texas had such deadly influence on a major state university, and Perry's meddling blocks the way of A&M's oft-stated efforts to achieve greatness.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation seems harmless on the surface, with its stated goals of limited government, individual liberties, free markets, personal responsibility and private property rights. Most Texans probably would subscribe to those goals. Dig below the surface, however, and you see just how radical its efforts are.
Founded by arch-conservative physician James Leininger, the foundation board is chaired by Wendy Gramm, former Texas A&M regent and wife of former Sen. Phil Gramm. Current Regent Phil Adams of Bryan is a board member, a clear conflict of interest to his responsibilities to A&M.The foundations website says, "The public is demanding a different direction for their government, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation is providing the ideas that enable policymakers to chart that new course."
Unfortunately, thanks to Perry's influence, those ideas become mandates, without discussion and input from the people of this great state....Perry has been in thrall to the Texas Public Policy Foundation and its backers since he began accepting generous contributions from them in his first statewide race. Texas cannot, however, be run by contribution and those most able to spend big bucks to help buy elections, no matter which side of the political spectrum they are on.
A&M is well on its way to achieving greatness. It would be a shame to let Rick Perry and his cohorts derail that with their interference.Rick Perry can love Texas A&M more by meddling less -- preferably not at all. Beyond appointing the best regents he can find -- no matter who they contributed to in the last gubernatorial election -- and attending football games at Kyle Field, Perry should leave A&M alone.Rick Perry Phil Gramm NexusA graph of the relationships mentioned in the posts.[dl 7/31/15]EpilogueIn researching and writing this post, I was astonished at how much harm two people can do to the country. One would think that our system would be stronger than that. That our long established system of checks and balances would prevent people like the Gramms from ever inflicting too great a harm to the nation. But then the underlying purpose of all the de-regulation that the Republicans have called for (and have achieved) is really just a means to an end, a method of abolishing the safety checks that had, for the most part, protected our institutions. Once those have been removed, anything is possible.Even this list of all of the misdeeds of Mr. and Mrs. Gramm, as comprehensive as it might seem, is partial. Still I should think this is enough information about Perry and the friends of Rick for most intelligent voters to help them decide who the governor of Texas owes his allegiance to.I began this investigation with a quote from the first president of the United States and I shall end it with two quotes by its fourth, James Madison.“All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree” And this is especially true when those that wield the power are partially hidden behind masks and puppets. When it comes to peoples like the Gramms- whose working relationship with a presidential candidate is not only acknowledged but applauded- it is simply not possible to be as vigilant as necessary. Since justice has apparently failed- not once but repeatedly in this case, the only option is to make sure than any candidate connected with such people is not elected to high office. We literally cannot afford it. Now is the time to make sure that Perry doesn't come any closer to the White House than he is at this minute.
When reflecting on the various attempts by Phil and Wendy Gramm to by-pass, ignore or remove the regulatory powers of our government to protect its citizens, it is helpful to recall this other quote by Madison:“If men were angels no government would be necessary” And when you are dealing with a pair like the Gramms (along with so many other less-than- angelic types), it's all the more reason that we need more regulations in place, not less. Ironically, despite having waved the flags of deregulation at every opportunity, Mr. and Mrs. Gramm themselves provide the best proof of the necessity, the vital importance of having tight regulations and the power to punish those that violate them. 
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http://politicalgates.blogspot.com/2011/11/friends-of-rick-perry-mr-and-mrs-gramm_14.htmllinks:...With so many fingers in so many pies, it’s often difficult to keep up with Dr. Wendy Gramm. In addition to Mercatus Center, she serves as the chairman of the board of another conservative organization “whose positions on issues can make the difference between life and death for major legislation.”<div style="line-height: 18.2px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation" style="text-decoration: none;">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a> (TPPF) “501(c) non-profit, non-partisan research institute” is run by a man Texas Monthly called “the most influential Republican in Texas” and probably a person most people have never heard of.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Austin Democratic political consultant George Shipley once called the shy and unassuming <a href="http://www.texscience.org/reform/leininger.htm" style="text-decoration: none;">Dr. James Leninger</a>, “ the sugar daddy and godfather of the Republican right wing in Texas.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Besides the many groups with a local political interest, Leininger has funded national social conservative organizations, including the American Family Association (considered a hate group by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center" style="text-decoration: none;">Southern Poverty Law Center</a>) , Christian Pro-Life Foundation, <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/family-research-council" style="text-decoration: none;">Family Research Council</a>, and<a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/focus-family" style="text-decoration: none;">Focus on the Family.</a></div>Molly Ivins reports:</div><div style="line-height: 18.2px;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div style="text-align: justify;">Leninger tends to give his PACs and foundations innocuous names — Texans for Justice, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the Texas Justice Foundation, Children’s Economic Opportunity Foundation, Texans for Governmental Integrity, the A PAC for Parental School Choice, etc. According to the Current (a weekly alternative paper), Leininger is also a major donor to, or plays a leading role in, at least a dozen major right-wing groups. Politically, he has given not only to Christian-right school board candidates and right-wing legislative candidates but also to Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Phil Gramm, and he was Rick Perry’s largest campaign contributor ($500,000) in Perry’s race for lieutenant governor.</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">The mission of TPPF, founded by Leninger in 1989, is to “promote and defend liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise in Texas and the nation by educating and affecting policymakers and the Texas public policy debate with academically sound research and outreach.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A conservative and devoutly religious Republican businessman, Leininger made his personal fortune through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_Concepts" style="text-decoration: none;">Kinetic Concepts</a>, based in San Antonio, which makes and rents therapeutic beds for patients who are paralyzed or suffer from serious illnesses. As humble as that might sound, take note, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_Concepts#cite_note-18" style="text-decoration: none;">KCI Revenue for 2008 was $1.88 billion, increasing to $1.99 billion in 2009 and in 2010 increased to $2.02 billion.</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Incidentally, Rick Perry, before he ran for lieutenant governor developed a lucrative relationship with Leininger. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_380803150" style="text-decoration: none;">According to a </a><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/perry-supplemented-wealth-profitable-deals-070714581.html" style="text-decoration: none;">Houston Chronicle piece dated September 21, 1997:</a></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ae/KCI_Company_logo.PNG/150px-KCI_Company_logo.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="text-decoration: none; clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ae/KCI_Company_logo.PNG/150px-KCI_Company_logo.PNG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); position: relative; padding: 8px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; border-radius: 5px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></a>
<div style="text-align: justify;">On Jan. 13, 1995, Perry bought $38,875 worth of stock in Kinetic Concepts, a company owned by Jim Leininger, a San Antonio physician, conservative activist and major Perry campaign donor. Perry invested an additional $35,167 in the company on Jan. 24, 1996 — the same day he spoke at a luncheon that Leininger attended. Later that day, an investment firm bought 2.2 million shares of Kinetic Concepts stock, driving up its price. Perry sold his Kinetic Concepts holdings a month later for a $38,382 profit. Leininger and Perry acknowledged they spoke at the luncheon but denied discussing the stock.</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Just a terribly fortunate coincidence? Back in 1997, Wendy Gramm also (coincidentally) had ties to Leininger’s company. Gramm earned a miniscule $25,000 a year as a member of the Kinetic Concepts board of directors. She also held stock options in the company when Kinetic Concepts Inc. agreed to sell most of the company to two San Francisco investor firms in a deal worth $850 million to $875 million.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is no exaggeration to say that Rick Perry owes a lot to Leninger. There is the <a href="http://info.tpj.org/reports/pdf/PerryLeiningerHeavenlyHost.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;">new report</a> issued by<a href="http://www.tpj.org/" style="text-decoration: none;">Texans for Public Justice</a>, a money-and-politics watchdog group.</div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">Perry might never have been governor — nor now be a presidential candidate — but for James Leininger. In a game-changing 1998 race then-Texas Agriculture Commissioner Perry was elected Lieutenant Governor. That victory secured Perry’s automatic promotion to governor two years later when President-Elect Bush abandoned the Governor’s Mansion. Perry narrowly won his fateful 1998 race against Democrat John Sharp, capturing just 50.04 percent of the vote. This squeaker victory was secured by an eleventh-hour media blitz that Perry paid for with a last-minute, $1.1 million loan. Leininger and two other Texas tycoons guaranteed the loan, which supplied more than 10 percent of the $10.3 million that Perry raised for that election. Leininger’s family and company PAC contributed $62,500 to that Perry campaign. Leininger also was the No. 1 contributor at the time to the Texas Republican Party (then chaired by former Leininger employee Susan Weddington), which sank $82,760 into that Perry campaign. “I congratulate Leininger,” Perry opponent John Sharp said at the time. “He wanted to buy the reins of state government. And by God, he got them.”</blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Through the TPPF, Leininger has used his wealth to promote his own conservative-religious agenda in a variety of ways. Karen Olsson writes in Texas Monthly, Leininger was the driving force back in 2002 to influence the Texas Board of Education to re-write school textbooks.</div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">... TPPF aimed to influence policy by publishing research reports on state issues; its early preoccupations mirrored several of Leininger's own: tort reform, vouchers, and reduced government. Working in tandem with the new SBOE [State Board of Education] members, the TPPF began objecting to textbook material deemed liberally slanted or morally suspect. The Legislature retaliated in 1995, forbidding the SBOE to question any aspect of textbook content other than "factual errors." Despite the restriction, the TPPF continued to analyze proposed books, hiring researchers to ferret out errors both of fact and of insufficient patriotism. Last winter the group helped bat down an environmental-science textbook (in large part because of a poorly written sentence linking democracy to pollution); this summer it criticized proposed social science and history textbooks for failing to disavow socialism.</blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">While the TPPF’s involvement in Texas textbooks may seem like a very narrow agenda, its policy interests, in fact, are wide-ranging, covering many conservative causes. <a href="http://www.leftofcollegestation.com/2011/05/who-is-texas-public-policy-foundation.html" style="text-decoration: none;">Teddy Wilson, progressive political activist and blogger notes:</a></div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">The TPPF supports the predictable conservative line on a whole host of issues. The TPPF<a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/pdf/2011-ClimateScience-CEE.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;">disputes the scientific evidence</a> of climate changes and claims that the “scientific consensus has never been as broad as proclaimed,” and the compromised emails of climate scientists showed “data manipulation and fundamental errors now discredit a once broadly accepted body of science.” The “private sector can bring innovation and competition to the criminal justice system” is how the <a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/pdf/2008-LegeEntry-PrivateSectorPublicSafety-ml.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;">TPPF frames its advocacy</a> of the private prison industry, despite that there has been <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/us/19prisons.html" style="text-decoration: none;">no evidence to support</a> that the privatization of the prison industry has provided any public savings. The TPPF even has an entire center dedicate to “<a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/publications.php?cat_level=315" style="text-decoration: none;">Tenth Amendment Studies</a>,” which is a favorite Constitutional Amendment among the Tea Party faithful.</blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">If any of this sounds depressingly familiar, then there’s a good good reason. Two long time supporters of TPPF are foundations associated with Koch Industries (Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation) which contributed <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/texas-public-policy-foundation/" style="text-decoration: none;">contributing $383,125 in 2005-2009</a> and nearly a half million dollars between 1997 and 2009.</div> </div><div style="line-height: 18.2px;">Rick Perry’s Wrong Approach
<div style="text-align: justify;">In Perry’s campaign book, Fed Up! the governor says that he knows of no other organization that is better positioned than Texas Public Policy Foundation to help “foster a national conversation” about “the proper role of government in our lives."</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, last May, TPPF might have pushed its agenda a bit too hard. Its attempts to influence educational policy created quite a controversy. Seven breakthrough solutions to problems with the Texas’ high educational system were drafted by TPPF in its think-tank capacity, and promoted by Governor Perry.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It did not go over as well as expected. In response, five A&M faculty members from various disciplines drafted a letter to Richard Box, the chairman of the <a href="http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/texas-am-university-system/" style="text-decoration: none;">Texas A&M University System</a> Board of Regents, laying out their concern regarding the lack of transparency in the board's apparent intention to implement seven proposed "breakthrough solutions" promoted by the TPPF. The seven recommendations advocated “<a href="http://7solutionsresponse.org/index.php?unit=introduction" style="text-decoration: none;">a business-style, market-driven approach under which colleges and universities would treat students as customers, de-emphasize research that isn't immediately lucrative, and evaluate individual faculty by the tuition revenue they generate.”</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Within a few days of the letter being posted online, more than 530 faculty members had added their names. The A&M Chancellor <a href="http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/mike-mckinney/" style="text-decoration: none;">Mike McKinney</a> eventually resigned.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">All this is rather ironic of course since Wendy Gramm served on the board of Regents from 2001 to 2007, (as mentioned in Part 1) and serves as chairman in TPPF. Coincidence can quickly be discounted.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://7solutionsresponse.org/index.php?unit=introduction" style="text-decoration: none;">A concise assessment of TPPF’s market-oriented recommendations makes a fine case for rejection.</a></div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">Put simply, this is the wrong approach... the classroom is not a marketplace. The proposals reviewed here will not promote effective learning or the responsible use of resources inside a laboratory, library or seminar room. The University of Texas at Austin's bottom line is to provide a first-class education while spending our resources responsibly and efficiently. Separating those two goals is like separating research from teaching: it serves the wrong bottom line. Similarly, treating students as customers, offering them a "product" designed to win positive reviews and then rewarding the most popular instructors will neither challenge students in meaningful ways nor foster the deep learning and skills they will need throughout life....</blockquote></div>=</div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div>GP 2013 Texas Public Policy Foundation $2,492,008 </div><div>--</div><div>wamo background:Until recently, Texas’s influence was balanced to some degree by the more-liberal pull of California, the nation’s largest textbook market. But its economy is in such shambles that California has put off buying new books until at least 2014. This means that McLeroy and his ultraconservative crew have unparalleled power to shape the textbooks that children around the country read for years to come.
<img src="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/images/drop-U.gif" alt="U" hspace="3" border="0" align="left" />p until the 1950s, textbooks painted American history as a steady string of triumphs, but the upheavals of the 1960s shook up old hierarchies, and beginning in the latter part of the decade, textbook publishers scrambled to rewrite their books to make more space for women and minorities. They also began delving more deeply into thorny issues, like slavery and American interventionism. As they did, a new image of America began to take shape that was not only more varied, but also far gloomier than the old one. Author Frances FitzGerald has called this chain of events “the most dramatic rewriting of history ever to take place.”This shift spurred a fierce backlash from social conservatives, and some began hunting for ways to fight back. In the 1960s, Norma and Mel Gabler, a homemaker and an oil-company clerk, discovered that Texas had a little-known citizen-review process that allowed the public to weigh in on textbook content. From their kitchen table in the tiny town of Hawkins, the couple launched a crusade to purge textbooks of what they saw as a liberal, secular, pro-evolution bias. When textbook adoptions rolled around, the Gablers would descend on school board meetings with long lists of proposed changes—at one point their aggregate “scroll of shame” was fifty-four feet long. They also began stirring up other social conservatives, and eventually came to wield breathtaking influence. By the 1980s, the board was demanding that publishers make hundreds of the Gablers’ changes each cycle. These ranged from rewriting entire passages to simple fixes, such as pulling the New Deal from a timeline of significant historical events (the Gablers thought it smacked of socialism) and describing the Reagan administration’s 1983 military intervention in Grenada as a “rescue” rather than an “invasion.”To avoid tangling with the Gablers and other citizen activists, many publishers started self-censoring or allowing the couple to weigh in on textbooks in advance. In 1984, the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way analyzed new biology textbooks presented for adoption in Texas and found that, even before the school board weighed in, three made no mention of evolution. At least two of them were later adopted in other states. This was not unusual: while publishers occasionally produced Texas editions, in most cases changes made to accommodate the state appeared in textbooks around the country—a fact that remains true to this day.The Texas legislature finally intervened in 1995, after a particularly heated skirmish over health textbooks—among other things, the board demanded that publishers pull illustrations of techniques for breast self-examination and swap a photo of a briefcase-toting woman for one of a mother baking a cake. The adoption process was overhauled so that instead of being able to rewrite books willy-nilly, the school board worked with the Texas Education Agency, the state’s department of education, to develop a set of standards. Any book that conformed and got the facts right had to be accepted, which diluted the influence of citizen activists.Around this time, social conservatives decided to target seats on the school board itself. In 1994 the Texas Republican Party, which had just been taken over by the religious right, enlisted Robert Offutt, a conservative board member who was instrumental in overhauling the health textbooks, to recruit like-minded candidates to run against the board’s moderate incumbents. At the same time, conservative donors began pouring tens of thousands of dollars into local school board races. Among them were Wal-Mart heir John Walton and James Leininger, a hospital-bed tycoon whose largess has been instrumental in allowing religious conservatives to take charge of the machinery of Texas politics. Conservative groups, like the Christian Coalition and the Eagle Forum, also jumped into the fray and began mobilizing voters.Part of the newcomers’ strategy was bringing bare-knuckle politics into what had been low-key local races. In the run-up to the 1994 election, Leininger’s political action committee, Texans for Governmental Integrity, sent out glossy flyers suggesting that one Democratic incumbent—a retired Methodist schoolteacher and grandmother of five—was a pawn of the “radical homosexual lobby” who wanted to push steroids and alcohol on children and advocated in-class demonstrations on “how to masturbate and how to get an abortion!” The histrionics worked, and the group quickly picked off a handful of Democrats. The emboldened bloc then set its sights on Republicans who refused to vote in lockstep. “Either you’d hippity-hop, or they would throw whatever they could at you,” says Cynthia A. Thornton, a conservative Republican and former board member, who refers to the bloc as “the radicals.”It took more than a decade of fits and starts, but the strategy eventually paid off. After the 2006 election, Republicans claimed ten of fifteen board seats. Seven were held by the ultra-conservatives, and one by a close ally, giving them an effective majority. Among the new cadre were some fiery ideologues; in her self-published book, Cynthia Dunbar of Richmond rails against public education, which she dubs “tyrannical” and a “tool of perversion,” and says sending kids to public school is like “throwing them into the enemy’s flames.” (More recently, she has accused Barack Obama of being a terrorist sympathizer and suggested he wants America to be attacked so he can declare martial law.) Then in 2007 Governor Rick Perry appointed Don McLeroy, a suburban dentist and longstanding bloc member, as board chairman. This passing of the gavel gave the faction unprecedented power just as the board was gearing up for the once-in-a-decade process of rewriting standards for every subject.
<img src="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/images/drop-M.gif" alt="M" hspace="3" border="0" align="left" />cLeroy has flexed his muscle particularly brazenly in the struggle over social studies standards. When the process began last January, the Texas Education Agency assembled a team to tackle each grade. In the case of eleventh-grade U.S. history, the group was made up of classroom teachers and history professors—that is, until McLeroy added a man named Bill Ames. Ames—a volunteer with the ultra- conservative Eagle Forum and Minuteman militia member who occasionally publishes angry screeds accusing “illegal immigrant aliens” of infesting America with diseases or blasting the “environmentalist agenda to destroy America”—pushed to infuse the standards with his right-wing views and even managed to add a line requiring books to give space to conservative icons, “such as Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority,” without any liberal counterweight. But for the most part, the teachers on the team refused to go along. So Ames put in a call to McLeroy, who demanded to see draft standards for every grade and then handed them over to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank founded by his benefactor, James Leininger. The group combed through the papers and compiled a list of seemingly damning omissions. Among other things, its analysts claimed that the writing teams had stripped out key historical figures like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Pat Hardy, a Republican board member who has sat in on some of the writing-team meetings, insists this isn’t true. “No one was trying to remove George Washington!” she says. “That group took very preliminary, unfinished documents and drew all kinds of wrongheaded conclusions.”Nevertheless, the allegations drummed up public outrage, and in April the board voted to stop the writing teams’ work and bring in a panel of experts to guide the process going forward—“expert,” in this case, meaning any person on whom two board members could agree. In keeping with the makeup of the board, three of the six people appointed were right-wing ideologues, among them Peter Marshall, a Massachusetts-based preacher who has argued that California wildfires and Hurricane Katrina were God’s punishment for tolerating gays, and David Barton, former vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party. Both men are self-styled historians with no relevant academic training—Barton’s only credential is a bachelor’s degree in religious education from Oral Roberts University—who argue that the wall of separation between church and state is a myth.When the duo testified before the board in September, Barton, a lanky man with a silver pompadour, brought along several glass display cases stuffed with rare documents that illustrate America’s Christian heritage, among them a battered leather Bible that was printed by the Congress of the Confederation in 1782, a scrap of yellowing paper with a biblical poem scrawled by John Quincy Adams, and a stack of rusty printing plates for McGuffey Readers, popular late-1800s school books with a strong Christian bent. When he took to the podium that afternoon, Barton flashed a PowerPoint slide showing thick metal chains. “I really like the analogy of a chain—that we have all these chains that run through American history,” he explained in his rapid-fire twang. But, he added, in the draft social studies standards, the governmental history chain was riddled with gaps. “We don’t mention 1638, the first written constitution in America … the predecessor to the U.S. Constitution,” he noted as a hot pink “1638” popped up on the screen. By this he meant the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, which called for a government based on the “Rule of the Word of God.” Barton proceeded to rattle off roughly a dozen other documents that pointed up the theocratic leaning of early American society, as the years appeared in orange or pink along the length of the chain.Barton’s goal is to pack textbooks with early American documents that blend government and religion, and paint them as building blocks of our Constitution. In so doing, he aims to blur the fact that the Constitution itself cements a wall of separation between church and state. But his agenda does not stop there. He and the other conservative experts also want to scrub U.S. history of its inconvenient blemishes—if they get their way, textbooks will paint slavery as a relic of British colonialism that America struggled to cast off from day one and refer to our economic system as “ethical capitalism.” They also aim to redeem Communist hunter Joseph McCarthy, a project McLeroy endorses. As he put it in a memo to one of the writing teams, “Read the latest on McCarthy—He was basically vindicated.”On the global front, Barton and company want textbooks to play up clashes with Islamic cultures, particularly where Muslims were the aggressors, and to paint them as part of an ongoing battle between the West and Muslim extremists. Barton argues, for instance, that the Barbary wars, a string of skirmishes over piracy that pitted America against Ottoman vassal states in the 1800s, were the “original war against Islamic Terrorism.” What’s more, the group aims to give history a pro-Republican slant—the most obvious example being their push to swap the term “democratic” for “republican” when describing our system of government. Barton, who was hired by the GOP to do outreach to black churches in the run-up to the 2004 election, has argued elsewhere that African Americans owe their civil rights almost entirely to Republicans and that, given the “atrocious” treatment blacks have gotten at the hands of Democrats, “it might be much more appropriate that … demands for reparations were made to the Democrat Party rather than to the federal government.” He is trying to shoehorn this view into textbooks, partly by shifting the focus of black history away from the civil rights era to the post-Reconstruction period, when blacks were friendlier with Republicans.Barton and Peter Marshall initially tried to purge the standards of key figures of the civil rights era, such as César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall, though they were forced to back down amid a deafening public uproar. They have since resorted to a more subtle tack; while they concede that people like Martin Luther King Jr. deserve a place in history, they argue that they shouldn’t be given credit for advancing the rights of minorities. As Barton put it, “Only majorities can expand political rights in America’s constitutional society.” Ergo, any rights people of color have were handed to them by whites—in his view, mostly white Republican men.While the writing teams have so far made only modest concessions to the ideologue experts, the board has final say over the documents’ contents, and the ultraconservative bloc has made it clear that it wants its experts’ views to get prominent play—a situation the real experts find deeply unsettling. While in Texas, I paid a visit to James Kracht, a soft-spoken professor with a halo of fine white hair, who is a dean at Texas A&M University’s school of education. Kracht oversaw the writing of Texas’s social studies standards in the 1990s and is among the experts tapped by the board’s moderates this time around. I asked him how he thought the process was going. “I have to be careful what I say,” he replied, looking vaguely sheepish. “But when the door is closed and I’m by myself, I yell and scream and pound on the wall.”<div><a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1001.blake.html">http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1001.blake.html</a></div></div><div>==</div>

<h2 class="title" align="left">texas school textbook censoring</h2>

cse and eagle forum

<a href="http://www.tfn.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5629">http://www.tfn.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5629</a>

timeline:

2001 - The Texas Public Policy Foundation and other pressure groups successfully lobby to ban an environmental science textbook they called “anti-free enterprise” and “anti- Christian.” Among the criticisms are those regarding textbook information on global warming and the U.S. role in creating pollution. The textbook had been used at the college level for several years. Publishers make changes to other books that significantly curtail the talk of endangered species and discussions of Native American cultures.

<a href="http://www.tfn.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issues_public_schools_censorship_timeline">http://www.tfn.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issues_public_schools_censorship_timeline</a>

<h1 class="title"></h1><h1 class="title">Before Texas Senator Ted Cruz did things like faux-filibustering the </h1><h1 class="title">funding of the federal government in order to halt the Affordable Care Act, </h1><h1 class="title">or “Obamacare,” he was a fellow at an influential state political group </h1><h1 class="title">called the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF). In 2010, he co-authored </h1><h1 class="title">a report for TPPF that described Obamacare as an “unconstitutional </h1><h1 class="title">federal overreach and violation of 10th Amendment rights.”i</h1><h1 class="title"> The paper </h1><h1 class="title">detailed what would later become an American Legislative Exchange </h1><h1 class="title">Council (ALEC) “model” bill to overturn Obamacare – the “Health Care </h1><h1 class="title">Compact”ii</h1><h1 class="title"> – as noted recently by the Current.</h1><h1 class="title">iii</h1><h1 class="title"> </h1><h1 class="title"> </h1><h1 class="title">TPPF is one of 63 state-based groups that have recently been identified as </h1><h1 class="title">members of the State Policy Network (SPN), a web of right-wing “think </h1><h1 class="title">tanks” in every state across the country. Although many of SPN’s member organizations claim to be </h1><h1 class="title">nonpartisan and independent, our in-depth investigation reveals that SPN and its member think </h1><h1 class="title">tanks are major drivers of the right-wing, ALEC-backed agenda in state houses nationwide, with </h1><h1 class="title">deep ties to the Koch brothers and the national right-wing network of funders, all while reporting </h1><h1 class="title">little or no lobbying activities. Acknowledging the groups’ political power and that their activities </h1><h1 class="title">make them into something different than think tanks, conservative commentator Michelle Malkin </h1><h1 class="title" /><h1 class="title">called one SPN member a “do” tank.iv</h1><h1 class="title">cmd</h1><h1 class="title"></h1><div>
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<div>The SPN revolving door spins both ways. Brooke Rollins, president and CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), <a target="blank" href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/staff_member.php?staff_id=7">previously served</a> [45] as Republican Gov. Rick Perry's deputy general counsel and the head of Perry's policy division, overseeing the administration's work on everything from health care and education to criminal justice. Jeff Judson, who led the TPPF before Rollins, <a target="blank" href="http://www.jeffjudson.com/bio.html">did stints</a> [46] in the offices of Sen. John Tower and Rep. Tom DeLay, as well as in the George H.W. Bush administration's Department of Energy spn</div>

lee fang right leans in:

State Policy Network was founded on March 24, 1992, in South Carolina by Thomas Roe, a wealthy businessman, Reagan adviser and leader of the South Carolina Policy Council, a state think tank modeled after the Heritage Foundation. Now headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, SPN began as an effort to mobilize more than twenty state think tanks. Political Research Associates, a left-leaning investigative team, reported that the group quickly became a “government-in-waiting” for the wave of Republican governors elected in 1994. As SPN affiliates proposed broad tax cuts and privatization schemes, the Republican governors frequently hired policy professionals from the think tanks to help enact those ideas.

Though backed by some of the largest Republican donors in the country, including the Coors family and Richard Mellon Scaife, SPN also thrived in the 1990s by assisting the tobacco industry in packaging its resistance to tobacco taxes and health regulations as part of a “freedom agenda” for conservatives.

Sharp herself gained experience working at this nexus of influence. Records stored with the University of California, San Francisco, reveal that Philip Morris not only gave generous financial donations to SPN affiliates, but was heavily involved in drafting and disseminating content for the think tanks. Before assuming her current position, Sharp served as executive director of the Cascade Institute, a State Policy Network affiliate in Oregon. The UCSF archive shows that during her tenure, the Cascade Institute corresponded with Philip Morris’s state lobbyist in Salem on promoting opposition to tobacco taxes, including one instance where Cascade published an opinion piece by a doctor. The doctor’s column, which was faxed to the Philip Morris representative, warned that high cigarette taxes could lead to “drive-by shootings and mob-style assassinations—turf wars—over the control of black market cigarette sales.”

At a 2001 meeting for SPN, Sharp invited Joshua Slavitt, Philip Morris’s director of external affairs, to give a talk. “I know that many of you have worked with Philip Morris,” Slavitt said, according to a prepared text, adding: “It won’t surprise you that we believe it is in our enlightened self-interest to be part of the policy discussions that ultimately shape the environment in which we do business.” He ended his speech with specific recommendations for SPN leaders in requesting corporate contributions.

A look at the donors to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the SPN affiliate in Austin, provides a rare window illustrating how these think tanks operate today. The evidence shows that the Big Tobacco–era strategy has been embraced by other large corporations.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation, whose leaders recently stirred up controversy for surreptitiously lobbying on behalf of the government of Malaysia, received the bulk of its money from more than seventy-five business interests, including firms like ConocoPhillips, Boeing, TXU Energy, ExxonMobil, AEP Texas and Devon Energy. The largest company on the donor list, Koch Industries, gave $159,834 through its Austin lobbyist, J. William Oswald, in addition to a $69,788 donation from the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, a Koch family foundation run in part by Richard Fink, another executive with Koch’s lobbying operation. As The Texas Observer noted, the Texas Public Policy Foundation has focused much of its advocacy on issues pertaining to its corporate benefactors, including energy deregulation and opposition to Environmental Protection Agency rules to curb mercury, smog and carbon pollution.

The Texas donor list also reveals that Sharp has played a larger role in directly financing the expansion of her affiliates than was previously known. Public disclosures indicate that SPN distributed only $19,500 to the Texas Public Policy Foundation in 2010. That modest amount, which is similar in size to grants given to other state think tanks, suggests that many of the groups do not rely on a central source of cash. But the leaked document shows Sharp as the contact for a donation of $300,000 from the “State Think Tank Fund,” as well as $195,000 from the “Government Transparency Fund” and $49,306 from SPN itself—a discrepancy of $524,806 compared with the disclosed grant. Neither the State Think Tank Fund nor the Government Transparency Fund appears on Guidestar.com or the Foundation Center, repositories for nonprofit and foundation disclosures.��

* * *

Like many SPN affiliates, the Texas Public Policy Foundation has seen its budget steadily rise. In 2011, the group brought in $5.5 million in contributions, $2.4 million more than it raised in 2008. How the other state think tanks in SPN’s orbit are funded largely remains a mystery, since they, like many overtly political nonprofits, do not disclose their donors. A recent investigation by the Center for Public Integrity shows that Donors Trust, a donor-advised fund that caters to wealthy individuals, has provided much of the funding for the recent expansion in state think tanks backed by the Franklin Center and SPN.

Under Sharp’s leadership, State Policy Network has grown, opening new think tanks (now numbering fifty-nine) and forging close relations with ALEC, which brings together conservative state lawmakers and corporate lobbyists to draft “model legislation.” In 2009, ALEC gave Sharp an award to thank her for “getting SPN members more involved” with the organization. “This special acknowledgement belongs to those who have put in dedicated time and energy through ALEC,�� said Sharp, who accepted the award onstage with lobbyists from Verizon and Altria.

While progressive donors have also sought to fund targeted think tank and state media outlets in certain states��namely Colorado and, reportedly, Texas—there is no comparison in terms of size and scope, or in the underhanded tactics embraced by their ideological opponents.

Brian Rothenberg, head of ProgressOhio, notes that while family foundations exist on the right and the left, corporate money has flowed almost exclusively to conservative think tanks. “Especially after Citizens United,” he says, the right is inherently better funded than the left.” In 2011, during the effort to repeal Governor John Kasich’s collective bargaining law, unions still provided less than 20 percent of ProgressOhio’s budget.

As far as local labor activists like Brett Banditelli (who also produces the Rick Smith radio show in Harrisburg) are concerned, their side is already overwhelmed. The Franklin Center’s Pennsylvania Independent “doesn’t have much readership, but does an incredible job of setting the tone on attacks on unions before the attacks come,” says Banditelli, who notes the Legislature might first go after union pensions before changing any membership or collective bargaining rules. Banditelli says labor has been slow to adapt to the changing media environment, and teachers and workers now stand defenseless.

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Also, Republicans who were newly elected in 2012 seem intent on consolidating power. Missouri’s GOP state legislators have contemplated using their supermajority to enact right-to-work legislation. The Advance Arkansas Institute, the SPN affiliate in Little Rock, produced content pushing for the strict voter ID laws recently passed by the legislature—which became Republican this year for the first time since Reconstruction.

Similarly, the Americans for Prosperity chapter in Kansas has pushed an effort to undercut paycheck dues to public sector unions this year, while the John W. Pope Civitas Institute, a North Carolina think tank, has rolled out attacks against Democratic efforts to reform the state’s infamously gerrymandered congressional lines.

Tim Phillips, the national head of Americans for Prosperity and a close adviser to David Koch, has been clear about his intention to make the most out of the Republicans’ state-level gains. Speaking at a recent press conference in Indianapolis, he declared: “We see a debate going on at the state level that is really going to define the nation.”

Meanwhile, at another Heritage Foundation gathering, Sharp and her colleagues said that their new strategy had been inspired in part by a Malcolm Gladwell article in The New Yorker called “How David Beats Goliath.” The piece, which details the ways that underdogs can win playing by their own rules, offers anecdotes on how insurgents have defeated well-equipped armies by harassing and weakening their opponents. It also describes how a computer scientist won a naval warfare simulation by spending his fictional trillion-dollar budget almost entirely on PT boats.

Referring to the Gladwell article, Sharp said PT boats are “an apt metaphor” for her network of groups because “they’re fast and maneuverable. A team of PT boats working strategically can defeat much larger and less maneuverable vessels—such as huge chunks of unions.”

===

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Tracie_Sharp" title="Tracie Sharp">Tracie Sharp</a> , president of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/State_Policy_Network" title="State Policy Network">State Policy Network</a> (SPN) since January 2000, had previously served on its board of directors for 14 years. She was the executive director and one of the founders of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cascade_Policy_Institute" title="Cascade Policy Institute">Cascade Policy Institute</a>, Oregon's market-oriented think tank, from 1991 to 1999. She worked in the areas of education and social security privatization.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Founders,History,and_Staff#cite_note-SPN-4">[5]</a>

In 2012, a list of 2010 funders of an SPN member think tank in Texas, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation" title="Texas Public Policy Foundation">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a> (TPPF), that was disclosed to the IRS was inadvertently made public. The list of funders revealed is an important case study in how SPN's member think tanks are funded, and by whom. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_Industries" title="Koch Industries">Koch Industries</a>, for example, gave $159,834 directly to TPPF, in addition to $69,788.61 from the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Claude_R.Lambe_Foundation" title="Claude R. Lambe Foundation" class="mw-redirect">Claude R. Lambe Foundation</a>, which is a Koch Family Foundation. SPN itself gave TPPF $49,306.90, but what's more, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Tracie_Sharp" title="Tracie Sharp">Tracie Sharp</a>, SPN's executive director, was the contact person for an additional $495,000. These two grants, for $300,000 and $195,000, were listed as being received from the "State Think Tank Fund" and the "Government Transparency Fund," respectively -- two funds about which virtually nothing is known.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Founders,History,and_Staff#cite_note-23">[24]</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Founders,History,_and_Staff#cite_note-24">[25]</a>

Sharp represents SPN as a member of the <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> (ALEC). She is a member of ALEC's <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Education_Task_Force" title="Education Task Force">Education Task Force</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Founders,History,and_Staff#cite_note-25">[26]</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Health_and_Human_Services_Task_Force" title="Health and Human Services Task Force">Health and Human Services Task Force</a>.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Founders,History,and_Staff#cite_note-26">[27]</a> She was the recipient of ALEC's 2009 <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Award_Winners" title="ALEC Award Winners">Private Sector Member of the Year Award</a>.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Founders,History,and_Staff#cite_note-27">[28]</a>

Sharp is also a trustee to the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Roe_Foundation" title="Roe Foundation">Roe Foundation</a> and to the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Special_Hope_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Special Hope Foundation (page does not exist)">Special Hope Foundation</a>, a "family foundation supporting innovative projects to assist the causes of the physically, emotionally, and developmentally disabled," a biographical note states. In 1993, Sharp founded HOPE-Oregon, a Portland, Oregon-based "private volunteer effort to provide health care education services to low-income families."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Founders,History,and_Staff#cite_note-SPN-4">[5]</a>

"Previously, Ms. Sharp worked with Washington State radio commentator and Republican Party leader <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Carlson&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="John Carlson (page does not exist)">John Carlson</a> as director of programs at the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Washington_Institute_for_Policy_Studies" title="Washington Institute for Policy Studies" class="mw-redirect">Washington Institute for Policy Studies</a> in Seattle."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Founders,History,and_Staff#cite_note-SPN-4">[5]</a> Please see <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Tracie_Sharp" title="Tracie Sharp">Tracie Sharp</a> for more.

===

<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading">Texas Public Policy Foundation</h1>

The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) is a conservative <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Think_tank" title="Think tank" class="mw-redirect">think tank</a> founded in 1989 by <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_R._Leininger" title="James R. Leininger">James R. Leininger</a>. The TPPF is based in Austin, Texas.

According to the TPPF's website, their mission is to "improve Texas government by generating academically sound research and data on state issues, and by recommending the findings to opinion leaders, policy makers, the media and general public. The work of the Foundation is conducted by academics across Texas and is funded by hundreds of individuals, foundations and corporations." <a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/about_tppf.php" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.texaspolicy.com/about_tppf.php" rel="nofollow">[1]</a>

<h2>Contents</h2>

[<a href="javascript:toggleToc()" class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>]</div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation#Funding">1 Funding</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation#Board_of_Directors">2 Board of Directors</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation#Senior_Fellows">3 Senior Fellows</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation#Staff">4 Staff</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation#Contact_Details">5 Contact Details</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation#External_links">6 External links</a></li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2>Funding</h2>

The TPPF's 2005 annual report states that the groups budget was $1,759,602 million, an almost 30% increase on its 2004 budget. Individual contributors accounted for just over half the contributions, unspecified corporations $259,000 or 15% with the remainder from unspecified foundations. <a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/pdf/2005%20Annual%20Report-TPPF.pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.texaspolicy.com/pdf/2005%20Annual%20Report-TPPF.pdf" rel="nofollow">[2]</a> (Pdf)

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Media_Transparency" title="Media Transparency">Media Transparency</a> lists TPPF as having received 26 grants totalling $491,749 (unadjusted for inflation) between 1998 and 2004 from a range of foundations including <a href="http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=1997" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=1997" rel="nofollow">[3]</a>:

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Armstrong_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Armstrong Foundation (page does not exist)">Armstrong Foundation</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Claude_R._Lambe_Charitable_Foundation" title="Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation" class="mw-redirect">Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_G._Koch_Charitable_Foundation" title="Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation" class="mw-redirect">Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Gordon_and_Mary_Cain_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Gordon and Mary Cain Foundation (page does not exist)">Gordon and Mary Cain Foundation</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jaquelin_Hume_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Jaquelin Hume Foundation (page does not exist)">Jaquelin Hume Foundation</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=JM_Foundation" title="JM Foundation">JM Foundation</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roe_Foundation" title="Roe Foundation">Roe Foundation</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ruth_and_Lovett_Peters_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Ruth and Lovett Peters Foundation (page does not exist)">Ruth and Lovett Peters Foundation</a></li>

</ul>

TPPF has received $15,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, $5,000 in 2001 <a href="http://www2.exxonmobil.com/corporate/newsroom/publications/c_ar_01/index.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www2.exxonmobil.com/corporate/newsroom/publications/c_ar_01/index.html" rel="nofollow">[4]</a> and $10,000 in 2004. <a href="http://www.exxonmobil.com/corporate/files/corporate/giving04_publicpolicy.pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.exxonmobil.com/corporate/files/corporate/giving04_publicpolicy.pdf" rel="nofollow">[5]</a>

<h2>Board of Directors</h2>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Brooke_L._Rollins" title="Brooke L. Rollins">Brooke L. Rollins</a> (President)</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=William_A._McMinn" title="William A. McMinn">William A. McMinn</a> (Chairman)</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Wendy_Gramm" title="Wendy Gramm">Wendy Gramm</a>, Chairman Emeritus; Distinguisheed Scholar, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mercatus_Center" title="Mercatus Center">Mercatus Center</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_Mason_University" title="George Mason University">George Mason University</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_R._Leininger" title="James R. Leininger">James R. Leininger</a>, Founder, Former CEO and Chair, Kinetic Concepts,</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Dunn" title="Tim Dunn">Tim Dunn</a>, Vice Chairman; CEO CrownQuest Operating</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ernest_Angelo&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Ernest Angelo (page does not exist)">Ernest Angelo</a>, Treasurer; Managing Partner, Discovery Exploration</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Phil_D._Adams&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Phil D. Adams (page does not exist)">Phil D. Adams</a>, Owner Phil Adams Company</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ramiro_Galindo&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Ramiro Galindo (page does not exist)">Ramiro Galindo</a>, Founder & CEO, R.A. Galindo</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bill_Jones" title="Bill Jones">Bill Jones</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Vinson_%26_Elkins" title="Vinson & Elkins">Vinson & Elkins</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dale_Laine" title="Dale Laine">Dale Laine</a>, Laine Strategy Group</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Lyles" title="Tim Lyles">Tim Lyles</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Vance_C._Miller" title="Vance C. Miller">Vance C. Miller</a>, Chairman, President & CEO Henry. S. Miller Companies</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_L.Nau,III" title="John L. Nau, III">John L. Nau, III</a>, Silver Eagle Distributors</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Brenda_Pejovich" title="Brenda Pejovich">Brenda Pejovich</a>, Founder and Former CEO Pejovich & Assoc</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jeff_Sandefer" title="Jeff Sandefer">Jeff Sandefer</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sandefer_Capital_Partners" title="Sandefer Capital Partners">Sandefer Capital Partners</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fritz_Steiger&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Fritz Steiger (page does not exist)">Fritz Steiger</a>, Founder and Former President TPPF</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Stevens" title="Michael Stevens">Michael Stevens</a>, Chairmen and CEO, Michael Stevens Interests</li>

</ul>

<h2>Senior Fellows</h2>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Barrett" title="John Barrett">John Barrett</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Bond&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Michael Bond (page does not exist)">Michael Bond</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Patrick_Brockett&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Patrick Brockett (page does not exist)">Patrick Brockett</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=H._Sterling_Burnett" title="H. Sterling Burnett">H. Sterling Burnett</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Wendell_Cox" title="Wendell Cox">Wendell Cox</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Robert_W._Crandall&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Robert W. Crandall (page does not exist)">Robert W. Crandall</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jerry_Ellig" title="Jerry Ellig">Jerry Ellig</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Timothy_J.Gronberg,Ph.D.&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Timothy J. Gronberg, Ph.D. (page does not exist)">Timothy J. Gronberg, Ph.D.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Christopher_Hammons&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Christopher Hammons (page does not exist)">Christopher Hammons</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Eric_Hanushek" title="Eric Hanushek">Eric Hanushek</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_A._Hartman&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="David A. Hartman (page does not exist)">David A. Hartman</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Devon_M._Herrick&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Devon M. Herrick (page does not exist)">Devon M. Herrick</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Milton_Holloway&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Milton Holloway (page does not exist)">Milton Holloway</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ronald_A._Kaiser&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Ronald A. Kaiser (page does not exist)">Ronald A. Kaiser</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Matthew_Ladner&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Matthew Ladner (page does not exist)">Matthew Ladner</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Maurice_P._McTigue&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Maurice P. McTigue (page does not exist)">Maurice P. McTigue</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Haavi_Morreim&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Haavi Morreim (page does not exist)">Haavi Morreim</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Grover_Norquist" title="Grover Norquist">Grover Norquist</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Randal_O%27Toole&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Randal O'Toole (page does not exist)">Randal O'Toole</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Pisciotta&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="John Pisciotta (page does not exist)">John Pisciotta</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Nat_Shapo&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Nat Shapo (page does not exist)">Nat Shapo</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_C._Smith&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="James C. Smith (page does not exist)">James C. Smith</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ronald_Trowbridge&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Ronald Trowbridge (page does not exist)">Ronald Trowbridge</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_G._Tuerck" title="David G. Tuerck">David G. Tuerck</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Vedder,_Ph.D." title="Richard Vedder, Ph.D.">Richard Vedder, Ph.D.</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bob_Williams" title="Bob Williams">Bob Williams</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Patrick_Wolf&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Patrick Wolf (page does not exist)">Patrick Wolf</a></li>

</ul>

<h2>Staff</h2>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Brooke_Rollins&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Brooke Rollins (page does not exist)">Brooke Rollins</a> President</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Quinn_Sullivan&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Michael Quinn Sullivan (page does not exist)">Michael Quinn Sullivan</a> Vice President</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chris_Patterson&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Chris Patterson (page does not exist)">Chris Patterson</a> Director of Research</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Byron_Schlomach&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Byron Schlomach (page does not exist)">Byron Schlomach</a> Chief Economist</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mary_Katherine_Stout&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Mary Katherine Stout (page does not exist)">Mary Katherine Stout</a> Health Care Policy Analyst</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bill_Peacock" title="Bill Peacock">Bill Peacock</a> Economic Freedom Policy Analyst</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Marc_Levin" title="Marc Levin">Marc Levin</a> Director, Center for Effective Justice</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Shari_Hanrahan&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Shari Hanrahan (page does not exist)">Shari Hanrahan</a> Director of Development</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Talmadge_Helfin&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Talmadge Helfin (page does not exist)">Talmadge Helfin</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Nancy_Druart&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Nancy Druart (page does not exist)">Nancy Druart</a> Events, Publications & Marketing Manager</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Nathan_Thompson&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Nathan Thompson (page does not exist)">Nathan Thompson</a> Director of Operations</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Arlene_Wohlgemuth&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Arlene Wohlgemuth (page does not exist)">Arlene Wohlgemuth</a></li>

</ul>

<h2>Contact Details</h2>

Texas Public Policy Foundation

900 Congress Ave., Ste. 400

Austin, TX 78701

Phone 512.472.2700

Fax 512.472.2728

Email: info AT TexasPolicy.com

Web: <a href="http://www.texaspolicy.com" class="external free" title="http://www.texaspolicy.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.texaspolicy.com</a>

<h2>External links</h2>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.news8austin.com/content/headlines/?ArID=98968&SecID=2" class="external text" title="http://www.news8austin.com/content/headlines/?ArID=98968&SecID=2" rel="nofollow">"Perry, staff took Bahamas trip paid for by donors"</a>, Associated Press, 24 February 2004</li>

</ul>

<div id="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Category</a>: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Think_tanks" title="Category:Think tanks">Think tanks</a></div>

</div>

<h1 class="title">Scott Walker's Texas Rangers</h1>

Submitted by <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/users/35270/mary-bottari" title="View user profile.">Mary Bottari</a> on January 13, 2012 - 8:42am

It has been a tough holiday season for Scott Walker. The state lost 14,600 jobs in November and a new government report indicates that Wisconsin <a href="http://www.leadertelegram.com/news/front_page/article_859381b8-3cdd-11e1-a70a-0019bb2963f4.html" title="reference on leads the nation" target="_blank">leads the nation</a> in killing public sector jobs. A November poll has support for the recall of the governor at 58 percent, up from 47 percent in the spring, and next week Wisconsin residents are preparing to file over 500,000 recall petitions to trigger a gubernatorial recall. Is it any wonder that Wisconsin's governor decided to fly to Texas to find a friendlier crowd?

</div>

<h2>Walker Addresses Koch-funded Policy Group</h2>

Walker was scheduled to address the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation" title="reference on Texas Public Policy Foundation" target="self">Texas Public Policy</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation" title="reference on Texas Public Policy Foundation" target="self"> Foundation</a>(TPPF), a right-wing policy shop, <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/texas-public-policy-foundation/" title="reference on funded by the Koch Brothers" target="blank">funded by the Koch Brothers</a> and central to promoting the agenda of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Legislative_Exchange_Council" title="reference on American Legislative Exchange Council" target="self">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> (ALEC) in the state.

Progress Texas executive director Matt Glazer says the group is the cornerstone of ALEC in Texas, helping to shape "model legislation" in areas such as higher education, healthcare, civil and criminal justice.

"The foundation develops legislation that then goes through the ALEC process," Glazer said during a January 11 news conference to draw attention to Walker's appearance in Texas. He also said that the TPPF helps staff some ALEC task forces and helps to develop and distribute their "model legislation." Separate investigative reports have pointed out how parts of the legislative agendas of both <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/10880/alec-bills-wisconsin" title="reference on Walker" target="blank">Walker</a> and <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/04/286164/perrys-legislative-agenda-bears-strong-resemblance-to-alecs-corporate-backed-model-bills/?mobile=nc" title="reference on Texas Governor Rick Perry" target="blank">Texas Governor Rick Perry</a> closely resemble that of ALEC.

Walker's visit did not go unnoticed by working people in the state. Texas <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=AFL-CIO" title="reference on AFL-CIO" target="_self">AFL-CIO</a> President Becky Moeller and Occupy Austin organized a noon protest outside the conference. Folks in ten gallon hats held "Recall Walker" signs and chanted to be heard inside the conference. "People need to see the pattern. The assault on working families is a coordinated right-wing attack that requires a coordinated defense at every point where the issue of dignity in the workplace is engaged," said Moeller.

<h2>Raising a Fortune from Outside the State of Wisconsin</h2>

Many in Wisconsin suspect that the real reason for Walker's visit to the Lone Star State was to raise unlimited campaign funds prior to an anticipated spring recall election.

Wisconsin's campaign finance laws limited individual donations to gubernatorial candidates to $10,000 until November 4, 2011, when a loophole in the recall law kicked in and enabled Walker to raise unlimited funds from individuals from that date until the end of the election. From July 1 to December 15, 2011, Walker raised <a href="http://www.wisdc.org/email-2011-12-16.html" title="reference on $5.1 million" target="_blank">$5.1 million</a>, the most ever for a single reporting period in Wisconsin. Forty-nine percent of the money came from outside the state, an astonishing number for a candidate who traditionally raised the vast majority of his money from inside the state.

The most recent campaign finance report showed that <a href="http://www.wisdc.org/index.php?module=wisdc.websiteforms&cmd=campaigncontributions&office=G&candidate=102575&year=2012&from=2011-01-01&to=2011-12-10" title="reference on 27 people gave Walker more than $10,000" target="_blank">27 people gave Walker more than $10,000</a>. Seventeen of the 27 are from outside Wisconsin. Five of these 27 hail from the state of Texas.

<h2>Walker's Big Texas Donors</h2>

Here are some of Walker's deep-pocket supporters in Texas.

Bob Perry of Houston, Texas, gave Walker $250,000 on December 4, 2011. Perry's wealth comes from the homebuilding company Perry Homes, but he is most famous for bankrolling the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_Truth" title="reference on Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" target="self">Swift Boat Veterans for Truth</a>, which funded the steamrolling of fellow veteran John Kerry during the 2004 presidential race. Perry's $250,000 is the largest donation to a political candidate in Wisconsin history. He is a big donor to Rick Perry, and he gave an eye-popping <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/10/20/bob-perry-gives-7-million-to-american-crossroads/" title="reference on $7 million" target="blank">$7 million</a> Karl Rove's <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Crossroads" title="reference on American Crossroads" target="_self">American Crossroads</a> group, one of the largest single campaign contributions ever.

H.R. Perot, Jr. of Plano, Texas, gave $20,000. He is Ross Perot's son, and has been called the wealthiest Texan of all time. Forbes has reported his net worth as $1.5 billion. He is also a big backer of Perry and the Texas Republican establishment.

John Nau, head of Silver Eagle Distributors, gave $40,000. Silver Eagle Distributors, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is the nation's largest distributor of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anheuser-Busch" title="reference on Anheuser-Busch" target="_self">Anheuser-Busch</a> products. He is a big backer of Perry and alcohol-related PACs in Texas.

.Margaret Crow, a Dallas "homemaker," is the widow of Trammell Crow of Trammel Crow Co. and Crow Holdings. The Trammel Crow company is a giant real estate and investment firm in 14 U.S. cities and Canada. Mrs. Crow gave $25,000 to Walker and is one of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's biggest donors. Among other controversies, Trammel Crow was sued in 2010 by the New York Attorney General for not constructing buildings accessible to the disabled.

As Wisconsin prepares for a likely recall election, Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Executive Director Mike McCabe fears that we haven't seen anything yet. The latest reports include only five weeks of unlimited fundraising and do not include anonymous independent expenditures.

"We are seeing things we've never seen before in Wisconsin. There is nothing to compare it to," McCabe said.

</div>

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crooks and liars:

Here's what I do know. Part of that agreement was to hold harmless all parties affected. The list of affected parties is in the image above, and includes the following people: Francisco Gonzalez, Greg Walker, Colin Sharky and Maureen Wagner as members of the board, former and past. Consultants, donors and fundraisers to Project Veritas include Kate Doner, Eric O'Keefe, and Denis Calabrese. Who are these people who consulted, donated or fundraised for James O'Keefe?

Kate Doner:

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Doner_Fundraising">Sourcewatch</a>:

Doner Fundraising established by Kate Doner in 2003 in Austin Texas, is a fundraising and event services company "that partners with issue based non-profits, coalitions, corporations, and professional associations" and Republican candidates.

Although listed on the site of the State Policy Network and its current newsletter as its event planning consultant, there is no website corresponding to the domain. Her colleague, Elizabeth James, who lists her phone number as the same as Doner Fundraising, has an email address affiliated with Quorum Public Affairs, another Austin strategic public affairs company helping businesses to influence goverment and regulatory policies.

[...]

A biographical note states that "Doner received her Bachelor’s of Arts from Hillsdale College in Michigan with a double degree in Political Science and History. She is a native of Michigan, has lived in Texas since 1993."

She served as Director of Finance for the Texas Public Policy Foundation in 2003.

[...]

She managed the Austin fundraising for Texas Representative Joe Nixon in his race for the Texas Senate in 2005. Nixon of Houston chaired the Texas House Civil Practices Committee and was described by Texans for Lawsuit Reform in 2003, in The Advocate as "our one true friend" there and a courageous lawyer." In a news release, Nixon described Doner as "known throughout the state as an Austin fundraising powerhouse....Her client list reads like the who's who of Texas' best known Republican and conservative causes."

Doner's comments on tort reform appeared in the Winter 2006 issue of James Madison Institute.

Her former husband, John Doner operates John Doner & Associates. His Austin-based firm provides marketing services and consulting for political campaigns, political action committees, grassroots initiatives, and associations since 1989.

</blockquote>

</div>

Texas Public Policy Fdn TPPF

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