IWF bak

IWF722

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SEE TWO
see voices 501c4 bs (long claim non-partisan but FUND gop
3-4 shuffle [pass thru to CFG?]
see heather higgins

=<div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">=</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/10/01/roe-amazon-google-facebook-independent-womens-forum/">https://theintercept.com/2022/10/01/roe-amazon-google-facebook-independent-womens-forum/</a></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">
</div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;"><div data-reactid="184" style="box-sizing: border-box;">WHEN THE Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the country’s top internet companies quickly responded with commitments to help employees in states that moved to ban abortion. In an implicit signal of support for abortion rights, the companies said they would help those employees seek abortions in states where the procedure remains legal.In the years leading up to the seismic reproductive rights decision, however, the tech giants sponsored a controversial group that’s worked tirelessly to put the Supreme Court under conservative control, setting the stage for Roe’s reversal.The Independent Women’s Forum traces its origins back to the 1991 fight to confirm the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas. Since then, the group has expanded into promoting a litany of perennial right-wing causes like <a href="https://www.iwf.org/2020/04/21/policy-focus-a-realistic-approach-to-climate-change/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">climate denial</a>, <a href="https://www.iwf.org/2022/08/04/biden-should-address-the-immigration-crisis-at-its-core/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">immigration alarmism</a>, and <a href="https://www.iwf.org/2022/08/22/competition-protects-consumers-not-protection-from-government/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">deregulation</a>, but a conservative-dominated Supreme Court remained a focus.public relations plays a key role in its operation. With savvy self-branding as a pro-woman organization, the group <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/10/24/amy-coney-barrett-women-group-dark-money/" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">fought for the appointment</a> of conservative justices to the Supreme Court. The IWF couched support for Brett Kavanaugh as good <a href="https://www.iwf.org/2018/09/04/statement-kavanaugh-is-a-champion-of-women-limited-government/" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">feminism</a> and any opposition to Amy Coney Barrett as <a href="https://www.iwf.org/2020/09/26/the-hypocritical-smearing-of-amy-coney-barrett/" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">sexism</a> — despite well-founded concerns that their ascensions to the court would spell the end of Roe. The IWF wields a skillful mix of media placement, op-eds, television punditry, and other contributions to the conservative content ecosystem.</div><div data-reactid="195" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The group also takes advantage of quieter influence peddling as well. In 2020, IWF chief and Vicks VapoRub heiress Heather Higgins boasted to a closed audience of Virginia conservatives about how instrumental the group was in rallying congressional support for Kavanaugh’s nomination. Higgins told the group that the IWF circulated a confidential strategy memo on the Hill. “Most important,” Higgins said, “Susan Collins told me that without that memo, she would not see how to support him,” referring to the Republican senator from Maine.</div><div class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-top: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); padding: 20px 0px 10px; margin: 7px 40px 20px 0px; float: left; width: 400px;"><a class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link" href="https://theintercept.com/2020/10/24/amy-coney-barrett-women-group-dark-money/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: row;" /><div class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link-thumbnail" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative; z-index: 1;"><a class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link" href="https://theintercept.com/2020/10/24/amy-coney-barrett-women-group-dark-money/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: row;"><img alt="" height="440" src="https://theintercept-static.imgix.net/usq/f3d8e084-e614-43e5-823d-050975249b5c/f3d8e084-e614-43e5-823d-050975249b5c.jpeg?auto=compress,format&cs=srgb&dpr=2&h=440&w=440&fit=crop&crop=faces%2Cedges&_=c839a4857c58704c483a73ff45122473" width="440" aria-hidden="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 90px; height: auto;" /></a></div><div class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link-text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h2 class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link-eyebrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: normal; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; font-kerning: normal; font-feature-settings: "kern"; padding-bottom: 5px;">Related</h2><h3 class="PromoteRelatedPost-promo-link-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; font-kerning: normal; font-feature-settings: "kern";">The Dark Money-Funded Women’s Group Rallying Behind Amy Coney Barrett</h3></div></div><div data-reactid="248" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Independent Women’s Forum and its sister organization, Independent Women’s Voice, draw on donations from right-wing financial mainstays like the Koch brothers, but in recent years the groups have enjoyed financial support from Facebook’s parent company, Meta; Google; and Amazon. In 2017, Google sponsored an IWF gala at the “gold” donor level, according to brochures provided to The Intercept by True North Research, a progressive watchdog group. Other brochures show that Meta (which at the time still using the name Facebook) sponsored IWF galas in 2018, alongside Google, and 2019. Honorees at IWF events have included notable anti-abortion figures like Rep. Lynne Cheney, R-Wy.; top Trump administration official Kellyanne Conway; and Vice President Mike Pence.Corporate disclosures from Amazon show that the company donated undisclosed sums to the IWF in 2018, 2019, and 2020.Amazon, Google, Meta, and the IWF did not respond to a request for comment.True North founder Lisa Graves characterized the IWF’s efforts as an attempt to launder conservative ideology. “They act as a distaff,” she said in an interview, “in essence providing a woman’s face for the right wing’s critique or attack on progressives and its advance of this extreme and regressive, repressive agenda.”<div data-reactid="251" style="box-sizing: border-box;">DESPITE THE PUBLIC perception of Silicon Valley’s alignment with progressive values and liberal causes, tech companies, particularly those fearing state regulation, have long funneled money to right-wing groups like the IWF. At the same time, the IWF routinely pushes policy positions that are highly favorable to its corporate donors.The IWF has consistently espoused tech industry-friendly positions on labor, antitrust, and other issues, without disclosing its donors’ interests. Take, for example, an April IWF <a href="https://www.iwf.org/2022/04/04/price-of-new-antitrust-regulations/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">blog post</a> that warned that antitrust enforcement against Big Tech would prove disastrous. “Tech innovation has been nothing short of miraculous over the past few decades,” wrote Patrice Onwuka, director of IWF’s Center for Economic Opportunity and its go-to defender of powerful tech firms.</div><a class="InstreamPromo InstreamPromo--promo" href="https://theintercept.com/collections/end-of-roe/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); display: block; margin: 40px 0px 40px -20px; padding: 20px 0px; letter-spacing: normal; width: auto !important;">
       Read Our Complete CoverageThe End of Roe</a><div data-reactid="253" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Few issues in tech have <a href="https://www.iwf.org/2022/01/20/concerning-klobuchar-antitrust-bill/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">galvanized</a> the IWF and Onwuka like the bipartisan American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which would block tech companies from leveraging their enormous reach to favor their own services over competitors. In a December 2021 piece titled “Amazon Prime may not be around to save the day next Christmas,” Onwuka <a href="https://www.iwf.org/2021/12/23/amazon-prime-may-not-be-around-to-save-the-day-next-christmas/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">claimed</a>, “Senator Amy Klobuchar and others are on a path to end services like Prime’s fast and free shipping and other services that we depend upon.” Onwuka then linked to a blog post by the Amazon-funded Chamber of Progress that <a href="https://medium.com/chamber-of-progress/a-closer-look-how-senator-klobuchars-bill-would-ban-amazon-prime-aa57dd5d22c0" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">claimed, dubiously, that the law would “ban Amazon Prime.”</a>In June, Onwuka <a href="https://www.iwf.org/2021/06/14/congress-steps-up-antitrust-crusade-with-bills-against-big-tech/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">wrote</a> a jeremiad against congressional antitrust efforts: “The conveniences that make life and work easier and faster and save consumers money may disappear.” <a href="https://www.iwf.org/2021/06/14/fbi-keeping-peoples-fortunes-and-antitrust-bills-targeting-big-tech/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Later</a> that day, Onwuka appeared on Fox Business, again protesting antitrust enforcement against the tech industry. “I’m more worried about the impact on small business owners and on women and families that rely on some of the benefits that some of these big four tech companies provide,” she said.While shielding Big Tech from antitrust scrutiny has proven a priority for the IWF, the group also stands up directly for its benefactors. In 2019, Onwuka wrote an entire post dedicated sticking up for Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg after Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/14/facebook-zuckerberg-conservatives-private-meetings-046663" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> that he had attended dinners with notable conservative commentators and lawmakers. “Zuckerberg is a private citizen who can eat dinner with whomever he wants,” Onwuka wrote. “His dinner has a clear business purpose and that’s part of doing business.”</div><blockquote class="Pullquote Pullquote--right" data-reactid="254" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; box-shadow: none; line-height: 1.125; float: right; max-width: 55%;"><div data-reactid="256" style="box-sizing: border-box;">“Institutionally they have no position on abortion, that’s their stated position. But organizationally, they have backed the most aggressive anti-choice slate of judges we’ve ever seen.”</div></blockquote><div data-reactid="257" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The cordial treatment of industry giants is of course a linchpin of conservatism, and the IWF would almost certainly be warning that antitrust will bring us back to the Bronze Age even without Google sponsoring its gala dinners. But fueling the right-wing punditry mill is a large, ever-expanding facet of Big Tech’s political strategy.While there’s no evidence that Zuckerberg or Google CEO Sundar Pichai have any personal opposition to abortion access, their companies no doubt benefit from <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90424503/facebook-google-amazon-are-ramping-up-their-secretive-influence-campaigns-in-dc" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">their support of a broad, thriving conservative discourse ecosystem</a> in which any government regulation is anathema. For tech company leadership, the reality that this ecosystem pushes not just Facebook-friendly laissez-faire economics, but also climate denial and abortion bans is considered a perhaps unfortunate but worthwhile byproduct.Silicon Valley’s patronage of right-wing think tanks and campaigns is an arrangement in which there is ample plausible deniability to go around. When The Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/11/google-contributions-climate-change-deniers" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a> in 2019 that Google was donating to some of the nation’s most notorious climate-denial organizations, a company spokesperson retorted, “We’re hardly alone among companies that contribute to organizations while strongly disagreeing with them on climate policy.”The multitude of topics on which the IWF engages, and its careful avoidance of publicly opposing abortion access have helped it avoid a reputation as an anti-abortion group. “Institutionally they have no position on abortion, that’s their stated position,” explained Graves, of True North. “But organizationally, they have backed the most aggressive anti-choice slate of judges we’ve ever seen.”</div></div></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">=</div></div><div>=
ORIGIN: women for thomas;

IWF Board Chair Heather R. Higgins has held senior positions in numerous right-wing foundations, including the Randolph Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation and the Philanthropy Roundtable.

Kellyanne Conway, White House advisor and former Trump campaign manager, is an IWF board member. Directors Emeritae include Lynne V. Cheney, wife of Dick Cheney and Kimberly O. Dennis, president of the board of directors of Donors Trust and president and CEO of Searle Freedom Trust.

Nancy M. Pfotenhauer, a former Koch Industries lobbyist, left Koch Industries to become president of IWF in 2001 and she later served as Vice Chairman of IWF’s Board of Directors. She has a long history of promoting dirty energy and pushing for deregulation of polluting industries.
=<div><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/the-not-so-independent-women-s-forum-was-born-in-defense-of-clarence-thomas-and-the-far-right/">https://truthout.org/articles/the-not-so-independent-women-s-forum-was-born-in-defense-of-clarence-thomas-and-the-far-right/</a></div><div>
</div><div>hBO’s new film on demand, <a href="https://www.hbo.com/movies/confirmation" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">Confirmation</a>, revisits the painful battle over the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court in spite of the testimony of Anita Hill that he sexually harassed her.</div>Some pundits have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/arts/television/hbos-confirmation-revisits-anita-hill-clarence-thomas-and-drama-in-the-senate.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">attempted</a> to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llfrAg207KU" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">disparage</a> the film, even though it has several scenes that portray Thomas and his wife Ginny as quiet, sympathetic figures and not as the outspoken right-wing political activists that they were and are.One of the harshest critics of the film is a group that calls itself the “Independent Women’s Forum” (IWF).<div>IWF is hardly independent though, despite its name.</div>It is deeply imbedded in the right-wing political infrastructure.In fact, IWF began as part of the coordinated effort to get Thomas confirmed so he could advance the right-wing’s legal agenda on the courts, in the face of deep fears by many that he would limit individual rights as a judge—fears later validated by his rulings and extreme dissents as a Justice.As Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson wrote in their book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Justice-Selling-Clarence-Thomas/dp/0395633184" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">Strange Justice</a>: “the falsehoods and distortions involved in the selling of Clarence Thomas to the American people neither started nor ended with the treatment of Anita Hill’s accusations. From the beginning, the placement of Thomas on the high court was seen as a political end justifying almost any means.”Central to the efforts to get Thomas confirmed were not only the attacks on Hill by GOP Senators but also <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?21511-1/thomas-confirmation-hearing-reaction" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">press</a> <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?19896-1/support-judge-thomas-nomination" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">outreach</a> used to discredit her that was orchestrated by a small group of powerful right-wing women.That confirmation battle put one of the most reactionary judges in modern history on the Court, and it also led to the creation of IWF, an ultra reactionary women’s group opposing women’s rights in numerous ways.IWF’s creators defended Thomas, despite the detailed evidence against him, and the organization they founded has defended him and continued to attack Hill since 1991.The Thomas hearings also led to a backlash from voters to a US Senate that had 98 men and only two women as Senators.In spite of a temporary majority supporting the confirmation of Thomas based on the incomplete information provided in the Senate hearings, American voters resoundingly rejected the idea of an all-white male Senate Judiciary Committee examining a woman’s testimony about sexual harassment.The 1992 election that followed swept out President George H.W. Bush and swept in four women as new Senators and more women in other offices, making that election “the Year of the Woman.”Today, 20 US Senators are women; and IWF leaders and alums have regularly attacked the most powerful woman elected Senator since the Thomas hearings, Hillary Clinton.IWF — which has had close ties to the billionaire Koch Brothers, before they were infamous, and to other rightwing donors — has used its well-funded platform to secure numerous press appearances without much scrutiny of its record and sometimes because of its reactionary positions.That’s in part because media outlets have defaulted to point-counterpoint “reporting” that gives equal weight both to facts IWF opposes and to outlier claims that are IWF’s stock in trade.Part of the playbook was set as IWF came into being, as its founders deployed women in the press to counter a fellow woman whose testimony threatened their political agenda and ally.Much of that claim boiled down to denying her experience as inauthentic and deceitful because Thomas had not sexually harassed them. It was a brutally effective tactic.This is the story of IWF’s roots.IWF: Born to Give a Woman’s Voice to Defending Clarence ThomasOn June 28, 1991, the first black man to serve on the US Supreme Court, Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall — an icon to the civil rights community — announced his retirement.Ten days later, President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, a 43-year old African American judge who had a controversial tenure as President Reagan’s Chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where he challenged core ideas about equal economic opportunity for women, such as equal pay and comparable worth.Although it was only 16 months before the next presidential election and even though the choice of a young right-winger like Thomas to fill the beloved Justice Marshall’s seat was a lightening rod for controversy, the Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled hearings on his nomination for September.As the controversy over Thomas’ nomination grew, a small group of right-wing women began meeting for lunch to discuss the nomination at the offices of Ted Olson in the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.One of the women at those lunch meetings was Barbara Kay Bracher, a lawyer who married Olson in 1996.Following the Thomas confirmation, she would go on to staff investigations of the Clinton Administration as a congressional aide and to write a diatribe called “Hell to Pay: the Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” which was published by the right-wing bookseller Regnery shortly before Olson perished on a plane in the 9/11 attacks on her way to a taping for Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” TV show.(Ted Olson became famous for taking the Bush v. Gore case to the US Supreme Court, where Justice Clarence Thomas sided with him and four other GOP Justices in stopping the Florida recount in 2000, making Republican George W. Bush president despite Democrat Al Gore winning the popular vote. Bush then named Ted Olson Solicitor General of the United States.)The driving force at those pro-Thomas strategy sessions in Olson’s office back in 1991 was Rosalie “Ricky” Silberman, who had worked with Thomas as Vice-Chair of the EEOC and was one of his confidantes.Before that, Silberman had worked as the press secretary for GOP Senator Bob Packwood, who later resigned in 1995 in the wake allegations that he harassed and assaulted numerous women he worked with.(Ricky Silberman was also married to Thomas’ mentor from Thomas’ brief time as a judge on the DC Circuit: Judge Laurence Silberman, a very political judge who among other things later tried to clear George W. Bush of culpability for lying about Iraq’s weapons and was later given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by Bush.)The third major figure in these lunches was Anita K. Blair, who was a lawyer who became General Counsel for IWF. President George W. Bush made her Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and in 2011 she was hired as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department on human resources in the Obama Administration.In the later 1990s during the Republican effort to impeach Democratic President Bill Clinton, Blair <a href="https://www.iwf.org/news/2432467/Playing-Trivia-with-Sexual-Harassment/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">claimed</a> on behalf of IWF that:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2rem 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3rem; border-left: 0.5rem solid rgb(159, 161, 164); line-height: 2;">“nothing ever did more to trivialize sexual harassment than the sorry spectacle surrounding Anita Hill … Given prime-time exposure on national television Hill told a bizarre, uncorroborated story about Thomas, her boss at two federal agencies. Hearing her belated complaints about off-color jokes allegedly told about 10 years before, millions of Americans wondered, ‘What on earth does this have to do with sexual harassment?’ Americans learned the answer from Hill and her supporters: ‘Sexual harassment isn’t about sex, it’s about power.’ The Anita Hill spectacle wasn’t about sexual harassment; it was about the exercise of pure partisan political power. The media circus surrounding Hill and Thomas was produced and directed by liberal operatives, including fifth-columnists like NPR’s Nina Totenberg.” [jewish?]</blockquote>Those three right-wing politicos—Silberman, Olson, and Blair—formed an ad hoc committee called “Women for Judge Thomas,” which ultimately became a non-profit group dubbed the “Independent Women’s Forum.”The Clarence Thomas Nomination Begins and IWF’s Founders Step ForwardBut even before Anita Hill was in the picture — discovered by Senate Judiciary Committee staffers vetting the Bush nominee — allies of Thomas knew his controversial record as President Reagan’s chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) could play poorly with many women and others concerned about equality.The Women for Judge Thomas committee began holding press conferences the month President Bush announced Thomas’ nomination to a lifetime position on the Court in July.Thomas was in his early 40s and had never argued a case before the US Supreme Court, and he had only had 16 months of experience as a sitting judge on any court.His selection was considered a tactical masterstroke by C. Boyden Gray, President Bush’s White House Counsel, who had been criticized for letting the first vacancy in Bush’s term go to New Hampshire Justice David Souter, who was considered by the far right to be not “conservative” or activist enough to deliver judicial votes to change the law in the ways they wanted.By putting forward an African American with right-wing bona fides, at Gray’s urging the Bush White House sought to mute Democratic objections for fear of offending a major constituency over fighting a nominee with a rags-to-riches life story.(Gray is the grandson and also the nephew of three presidents of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. After President George H.W. Bush lost his bid for another term in the 1992 “Year of the Woman” election, Gray became chairman of David Koch’s Citizens for a Sound Economy, which would later officially join forces with IWF.)But Thomas’ limited judicial experience and the hearings on his nomination deepened concerns of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.As the New York Times reported: “‘Judge Thomas lacks the experience and qualifications that a Supreme Court Justice ought to have,’ said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont. ‘He fled from his record and he refused to answer legitimate questions.'”Leahy also noted: “‘Nothing in Judge Thomas’s record or testimony suggests the level of professional distinction or constitutional grounding appropriate for a Supreme Court nominee. His legal and judicial experiences are limited. His speeches and writings have shown little in the way of analysis or scholarship.'”So, when his nomination was considered, the Committee deadlocked 7-7 on his nomination but then voted to send the nomination to the full Senate for a vote without a recommendation for or against confirmation. Although the Democrats had a 57-43 majority, a number of Southern Democrats had already pledged to vote for Thomas to be confirmed.Hill Comes Forward and IWF’s Founders Step Up to Counter Her in the PressBefore the Senate vote could be held, however, National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg broke the story that the Senate investigation had uncovered allegations that Thomas had made unwanted advances toward some of his subordinates in his leadership positions in the Reagan Administration.Totenberg received a tip that Professor Anita Hill, a conservative black law professor, had told the Senate that Thomas had made sexual comments to her when he was her supervisor when they both worked for the Reagan Administration.This shocking development increased the volume of concern about confirming Thomas to a lifetime job on the highest court in the land, and the Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled another round of hearings to examine the allegations.Under the guidance of Ricky Silberman, the Women for Judge Thomas Committee identified women who worked with Thomas who said they had not been sexually harassed by him and that he had behaved professionally toward them.Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigators—including a Democrat named Ricki Seidman—identified another staffer who said she had been subject to sexual advances in the workplace by Thomas and also interviewed colleagues of Professor Hill, whom she confided in about the inappropriate things she said Thomas said.As Steve Kornacki noted in <a href="https://www.salon.com/2010/10/27/anita_hill_clarence_thomas/" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">Salon</a>:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2rem 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3rem; border-left: 0.5rem solid rgb(159, 161, 164); line-height: 2;">“Three Hill friends — Susan Hoerchner, Ellen Wells and John Carr — testified under oath that she had told them about Thomas’ conduct as it happened between 1981 and 1983. ‘Anita said that Clarence Thomas had repeatedly asked her out … that he wouldn’t seem to take ‘no’ for an answer,’ Hoerchner told senators. ‘The thing Anita told me that struck me particularly and that I remember almost verbatim was that Mr. Thomas had said to her, “You know, if you had witnesses, you’d have a perfect case against me.”‘”</blockquote>On October 11, 1991, in nationally televised hearings, Hill testified in detail about things Thomas had said to her when she worked for him. While many observers were shocked by the graphic details, the Republicans on the Committee and other Thomas proxies strongly attacked Hill’s character and her decision to continue working for Thomas rather than file a legal complaint, despite her concerns that doing so would destroy her career and her future.Hill had explained on NPR that her decision to testify was a difficult one, and was made on moral grounds because Thomas, as Chair of the EEOC, the agency that enforces federal workplace discrimination laws, had been “in charge of protecting rights of women and other groups in the workplace” but instead was “using his position of power for personal gain.”Simply put, by sexually harassing her as she described, Thomas was alleged to be engaging in the kind of workplace discrimination that his agency was tasked with stopping.Many women believed that such behavior demonstrated that Thomas was unfit for a position of power and a lifetime position on the nation’s highest court.But the Senate’s hearing about her allegations morphed into an inquisition of her, much like how criminal defense attorneys attempt to discredit rape victims in order to prevent the conviction of their clients.What people saw on TV was an all-white Senate Judiciary Committee filled with several men who impugned Hill’s character, doubted her intelligence, and attacked her motives — despite her conservative credentials — instead of treating her with respect and giving any credit to her eye-witness accounts of Thomas’ behavior. The attack on Hill was led by Republican Senators Arlen Specter, Orrin Hatch, and Alan Simpson on the Committee, and by Missouri’s John Danforth, Thomas’ champion in the Senate.More than 20 million American households tuned in to watch Hill testify at hearings chaired by then-Senator Joe Biden, who is now Vice President.As Politico noted last fall when Vice President Biden was considering running for president: “Biden’s done a lot over the past 24 years, including authoring the landmark Violence Against Women Act … But that hasn’t erased the memories of how Biden presided over those hearings … blamed for doing little to stop the attacks on Hill.”He has also been criticized for opting not to call Angela Wright, an African American who worked in the press office at the EEOC, whose testimony would have echoed Hill’s charges of sexual harassment.Wright had “detailed a pattern of harassing behavior, including an instance in which Thomas asked her what her bra size was.” Wright had also told her colleague, Rose Jourdain, at the time that Thomas made comments about “her figure, her body, her breasts, her legs, how she looked in certain suits and dresses.”Wright’s statement was allowed to go into the official hearing record but she was not allowed to testify to help rebut Thomas’ denial.In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, another Thomas aide “Sukari Hardnett wrote that many black women at the agency felt they were ‘an object of special interest’ to their boss. ‘If you were young, black, female and reasonably attractive,’ her letter read, ‘you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female,'” as noted by Kornacke.But the Senate and the country did not get to hear from these women.When Mayer and Abrahamson conducted a full investigation for their book, rather than the rushed examination that occurred in the Senate, they also discovered that classmates of Thomas reported:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2rem 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3rem; border-left: 0.5rem solid rgb(159, 161, 164); line-height: 2; background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248);">“that he often recounted sexually explicit films in lurid detail. Kaye Savage, a former colleague, reports that the walls of his bachelor apartment were covered with Playboy nude centerfolds. The owner of a video store near the EEOC [called Graffiti] said Thomas was a regular customer for pornographic movies.”</blockquote>This evidence would have corroborated Hill's testimony and refuted Thomas’ denial, but none of this was part of the Senate’s hearings.Years later, another woman “Lillian McEwen, who had dated Thomas in the 1980s and who was promoted by Thomas backers as something of an alibi during his confirmation hearings, spoke publicly about her relationship with him for the first time [in 2010]. Now retired, McEwen said that ‘Hill’s allegations that Thomas had pressed her for dates and made lurid sexual references rang familiar,’ as the [Washington] Post put it—as detailed by Kornacke in Salon.Kornacke added: “McEwen said that Thomas had been ‘obsessed with porn’ and ‘would talk about what he had seen in magazines and films, if there was something worth noting.’ She also said that Thomas would tell her about the women he worked with — even commenting to her about one’s bra size. ‘He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners,’ McEwen told the Post. ‘It was a hobby of his.'”That information was not known to the Senate at the time Clarence Thomas’ nomination was being considered, but none of that has changed IWF’s line of attack against Hill.Thomas Fires BackIn response to Hill’s testimony, Thomas attacked the Senate for what he flamboyantly described as a “high-tech lynching” of an “uppity” black man who dared to be conservative.He used the televised broadcast of the hearings to portray the Senate’s consideration of Hill’s allegations against him as racist and as promoting racial stereotypes—even though his accuser was also a conservative African American.GOP senators like Arlen Specter were given wide leeway to attack Hill with incredibly derogatory and personal claims such as suggesting she had “fantasies about sexual interest in her” and that she “was having a problem being rejected by men she was attracted to.”Hill took and passed a lie detector test, but Republican Senators smeared her further claiming she passed because she believed her “fantasies” about Thomas pursuing her.Many women were disgusted by the way the Senate treated Hill and by the words and actions of Thomas, but not Silberman and her committee of Women for Judge Thomas, which held press conferences and other outreach buttressing the Republican attacks on Hill.The IWF predecessor did so by pressing the claim that because he had not harassed the women they assembled he could not have harassed Hill and by arguing that she had “other” motives, which fueled the right-wing narrative that she had made up the allegations supposedly because she wanted to be with Thomas.Meanwhile, the Judiciary Committee hearings ended by effectively giving Clarence Thomas the last word, as Hill did not testify again to rebut Thomas’ denial of her allegations.Thomas Was Confirmed in One of the Closest Votes in HistoryGiven how forcefully the GOP Senators sought to discredit Hill and the deployment of women in defense of Thomas, perhaps it should come as no surprise that the public remained divided over Thomas’ confirmation. Several <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/15/us/the-thomas-nomination-most-in-national-survey-say-judge-is-the-more-believable.html/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">polls</a> indicated that a majority favored his confirmation, while the remainder were split between opposing and being undecided.In a contest of he-said-she-said, it appeared that a majority of those polled believed Thomas, who had so evocatively taken umbrage at the allegations against him. Having other women, like Ricky Silberman, defend him certainly helped his case.And, at the same time, the public was denied the chance to hear from another woman willing to testify that she had also been sexually harassed by Thomas.Also lost in the hot-button national conversation was the message that no one is entitled to a lifelong job on the US Supreme Court.So, on October 15, 1991, the Senate handed Thomas a lifetime job on the Court, with narrow 52-48 vote (with 11 Democrats joining 41 Republicans and 2 Republicans — Senator Jeffords (R-VT) and Senator Packwood (R-OR) — joining the Democrats).Hill was home in Oklahoma, and Thomas, after he was confirmed for the lifetime post at the youthful age of 43, reportedly swore he would stay on the Court for 43 years to get his <a href="https://articles.baltimoresun.com/2001-07-01/news/0106300203_1_clarence-thomas-anita-hill-david-brock/" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">revenge</a> on his enemies.It was out of the ugliness of the Clarence Thomas nomination fight that the “Independent Women’s Forum” was born.IWF Continued to Fight Hill Even After Thomas Was ConfirmedIf the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee had sought to incapacitate Anita Hill with an array of punches at her reputation, Ricky Silberman seemed determined to throw the knockout blow.A year to the day after her senate testimony, Hill returned to Washington DC to recount her experience. At a conference at Georgetown Law, she spoke in academic terms while analyzing the structures that had colluded against her, and received a standing ovation for her bravery.Across the city on that same day, Ricky Silberman held a counter-conference at the Federalist Society.Speaking to that audience, Silberman accused Hill of being a liar, labeled the assembled group of academics at Georgetown “the extreminists,” and proclaimed that Hill’s “unsubstantiated charge of sexual harassment launched the mother of all gender wars.”Later that year, in 1992, Silberman formally founded IWF with Barbara Bracher (Olson), Anita Blair and Lynn Cheney to fight that so-called “gender war.”However neither Silberman nor IWF would let the Anita Hill testimony rest.In 1993, David Brock published the book “The Real Anita Hill,” an alleged investigation into the “true motives” of Hill’s testimony.Silberman helped Brock edit, assemble, and advertise the book, which by all accounts was an orchestrated hit piece.Brock, who had repeatedly referred to Hill in the media as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty,” would later apologize for his actions, and label himself as a “witting cog in the Republican sleaze machine.” (Brock has disavowed his past as a political hit man for the right-wing and now leads groups challenging the right-wing and is also now aligned with Hillary Clinton.)Silberman, who passed away in 2007, never apologized. The IWF tribute to her included a tribute from her memorial by Clarence Thomas.Beyond Attacking Anita Hill, IWF Routinely Peddles Reactionary ClaimsAs <a href="https://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2016/04/clarence_thomas_female_supporters_in_the_iwf.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">documented</a> by Barbara Spindel in Slate, five years after Hill’s testimony, IWF ran a cover-story in its 1996 “Women’s Quarterly” magazine where Elizabeth Larson, an IWF staffer, speculated that women were “spurred on by Anita Hill’s example” and now found “it more profitable to litigate than to work.”In that article, Larson also suggested that women should simply “deal with” sexual harassment, a position the organization would advocate for in the 1990s time and again.As <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=t7ucdUw7iKQC&pg=PA159&lpg=PA159&dq=" lee="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">detailed</a> by researcher Lee Cokorinos in his book, “The Assault on Diversity: An Organized Challenge to Racial and Gender Justice,” IWF received substantial financial underwriting by right-wing funders like the Scaife Foundation and the John M. Olin Foundation to focus many of its efforts on Silberman’s “gender war.”In the words of Anita Blair, who served as an IWF leader from 1992 until 2000, “it was in 1977 or 1978 that feminism should have declared victory and gone home… All that was needing to be done had been done.”In keeping with this fictitious worldview, IWF opposed a host of women equality initiatives throughout the 1990s using misleading data and taking some extreme positions:<ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1rem 1.25rem; padding: 0px; list-style-position: outside; line-height: 2;"><li style="background-color: rgb(248, 248, 248); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">when lobbying against the Senator Biden’s “Violence Against Women Act,” IWF claimed “wives instigate violence, including severe violence, against husbands more often than husbands do against wives.”</li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">IWF argued that gender integration of the Virginia Military Institute would cripple national defense,</li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">IWF asserted that the problem of sexual assault on college campuses was overblown, since it is “inherently incredible” that female college students “are unable to report assaults to authorities,”</li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">and much more, including assailing key Title IX protections for female athletes.</li></ul>Like every GOP-aligned group in the 1990s, IWF also supported efforts to impeach President Clinton, reaching out to Kenneth Starr for legal assistance as early as 1994. Barbara Olson and other IWF-ers helped carry the torch against Bill and Hillary Clinton.IWF also provided Republicans in Congress with women’s voices to testify against affirmative action, social safety net programs, and gun violence mitigation measures.As a whole, IWF was focused on combatting a caricature of what it described as “radical feminism.” [strict fr vs nurture mo?]Over the past 25 years since the Clarence Thomas hearings, IWF has given a female face and voice to opposing almost every mainstream and common sense protection for equality that’s been advanced — opposing equal pay, paid sick leave, increasing the minimum wage, and protecting women’s reproductive privacy and freedom, and much more — many of which Thomas has also sought to weaken or strike down from the Supreme Court.Over the years, IWF has not lost its interest in attacking Hill, even though its latest spin is about its supposedly “family-friendly” policies that put Wall Street in the driver’s seat and would take away responsibilities from employers regarding maternity leave, despite overwhelming business <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/03/13072/chamber-commerce" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">support</a> for expanding employer-paid maternity and family leave, as the Center for Media and Democracy recently <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/03/13074/luntz-poll-american-ceos-shows-deep-support-progressive-policies" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">documented</a> in a story broken by Lydia DiPillis in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/04/leaked-documents-show-strong-business-support-for-raising-the-minimum-wage/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">The Washington Post</a>.IWF’s kind of outlier, free-market fundamentalist approach should come as no surprise since IWF and David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity have been close partners—even sharing space and leadership for a number of years—and because the Koch network of billionaires uses an array of vehicles to push an anti-government, anti-science, anti-worker agenda.But the claim that IWF is merely a “right-leaning think tank,” given its legacy and extreme positions, ignores the history of a group that began with efforts to discredit Anita Hill and that continues to traffic in denial and disdain, despite the evidence that has mounted against so many of its claims.<div>
</div><div>=
see new legal arm: Independent Women's Law Center IWLC

=

thot this was defunct, i assoc with phyLis schlafly, but keeps showing up lately in GMO background? ACTA

cf renta-tom: ideological entrepreneur can find a niche to spin counter-narrative, often mirroring?

is it training? a hub?

=

cmd 50 pp report

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3026994/Independent-Womens-Forum-Voice-Report-by-CMD-08.pdf

http://www.exposedbycmd.org/independent-womens-voice-known-donors-men/

The Independent Women’s Voice touts its “independent” brand in reaching potential voters.

But is it even women‘s voices it is throwing? Let alone independent women?

The reported data from the Federal Election Commission data says no.

New research shows that the overwhelming majority of its known donors are men.

Very rich men.

Yes, men have provided most of the disclosed donations to fund election-related expenditures under the name of the “Independent Women’s Voice.”

(IWV is a (c)(4) that operates out of the same offices as the Koch-tied “Independent Women’s Forum.”)

How do we know? Because IWV disclosed donors to the FEC in connection with the Scott Brown special election for the Senate in filings here and here.

Because before the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated clean election reforms in the Citizens United case in 2010 along with related decisions, IWV took a different approach to disclosure.

89% OF DONORS TO INDEPENDENT WOMEN‘S VOICE IN BROWN RACE WERE MEN

In January 2010 in that spending, IWV reported that more than 89% of its donors were men.

Late last year, Heather Higgins, the President of IWV, told potential donors about the first race she deployed her strategy to use the “independent” brand: the race to fill the seat of the late Senator Ted Kennedy.

She said: “[W]e have worked hard to create a branded organization that does not carry partisan baggage. It’s called Independent Women’s Voice. Being branded as neutral, but actually having the people who know know that you’re actually conservative puts us in a unique position. Our value here (and what is needed in the Republican conservative arsenal) is a group that can talk to those cohorts that wouldn’t otherwise listen but can do it in a way that is taking a conservative message and packaging it in a way that will be acceptable and will get a hearing.”

She noted that the “independent” brand of IWV was successful in the politically diverse state of Massachusetts in 2010.

Higgins added that in Brown’s election, IWV was successful “redefining that as being about healthcare in the 41st vote” to filibuster the health insurance reforms that President Obama was seeking. She claimed that IWV helped “close his 20‑point gap” with his opponent, Martha Coakley, a Democrat.
INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S VOICE FUNDERS FOR BROWN? NOT “INDEPENDENT WOMEN”

But who really funded that effort?

Not actually independent women.
THE BIGGEST DONOR: FOSTER FRIESS, A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE GOP GUY

The largest reported funder of the Independent Women’s Voice that January was Foster Friess  [CNP?]. He gave $87,000 to the effort, nearly 33% of the funding.

The 73-year old investment fund manager describes himself as a “billionaire wannabe” because he has a net worth of only about $500 million.

And, he’s no independent.

He funded the Super PAC of evangelical GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum (R-PA) in 2012.

Friess gave at least $1 million to advance the Koch Brothers’ agenda, making that pledge at one of their political strategy session in preparation for the 2012 elections.

The billionaire wannabe has spent at least $3 million to underwrite the Daily Caller operation. It provides daily fodder for Donald Trump’s claims. And the Trump operation pays Daily Caller to email its subscribers to promote his presidential campaign.

He also spent at least $100,000 to help Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) win his recall election in 2011.

And, he’s no feminist.

Friess told journalist Andrea Mitchell his position on birth control: “[T]his contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s so … inexpensive, you know, back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”

That’s Friess. Definitely not an independent woman.

But he does have close ties to Higgins. She contacted Friess to get funding to begin James O’Keefe’s controversial campaign against ACORN.

He threw his voice (money) through IWV in the Scott Brown race for the Senate.

Friess is now “all-in” for GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
MULTI-MILLIONAIRE MAN: RICHARD SHARP, GOP DONOR

The next largest donor to the Independent Women’s Voice for the Scott Brown effort was also not a woman and not an independent.

Richard Sharp gave Higgins $50,000 to help, which was almost 22% of the funding IWV reported that January.

Sharp, the former CEO of Circuit City, helped develop CarMax and invested first in Crocs, according to his obituary in 2014.

He was also an active Republican backer of President George W. Bush.

He notoriously tried to use his influence “to suppress a study … that correctly predicted that [Virginia’s GOP Governor] Gilmore’s car-tax rollback would create a $1 billion hole in the state budget.”
BILLIONAIRE MAN: JACK TEMPLETON, ANOTHER GOP DONOR

Dr. John (Jack) M. Templeton, Jr., was the next largest disclosed donor to IWV underwriting its efforts to help Brown beat Coakley in her bid to become the first woman Senator of the Bay state.

He gave $30,000.

Dr. Templeton was the son of billionaire investor John Templeton, one of the richest men in the world before his death in the Bahamas.

Dr. Templeton, an evangelical Republican, ran the Templeton Foundation.

In 2008 alone he gave nearly half a million dollars to the National Organization for Marriage, which fought marriage equality in Massachusetts and spent big on California Proposition 8. Regulatory agencies have pursued the group for failing to comply with requirements for private disclosure of donors.

NOM has been called an anti-gay group that demonizes LGBTQ Americans. And, internal documents revealed that one of it’s goals was to divide black Americans over gay rights and to “to ‘sideswipe’ President Barack Obama by depicting him as a ‘social radical’ via issues including child protection and pornography.”

Dr. Templeton also spent a million dollars launching “Let Freedom Ring,” a right-wing group that helped launch the Tea Party protests, pushed for a huge fence between on the Mexican border, and promoted myths about the Iraq War.

He died in 2015.

Like the most of the disclosed donors to IWV, he was not ever a woman, and he was not independent.
MULTI-MILLIONAIRE MAN: THOMAS PATRICK, GOP DONOR

The next largest donor to IWV was Thomas Patrick.

He gave it $25,000.

He’s a former Merrill Lynch executive, who joined a venture capital firm: New Vernon Capital. He has appeared on the show of Higgins’ ally, Larry Kudlow.

He backed Mitt Romney’s bid for the White House in 2012, was a major donor to Bush-Cheney 2004, and has funded the National Republican Congressional Committee and other GOP-aligned groups.

Patrick, like the other bigger donors, is not a woman and not an independent.

MULTI-MILLIONAIRE WOMAN: RANDY KENDRICK, GOP DONOR

One woman did give about 10% of the funds to help IWV in the Scott Brown effort: Randy Kendrick.

As noted by the Arizona press, she is “in a league of her own in her support for the political right, giving more than $130,000 to state political efforts in the 2014 election cycle, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, and, at the federal level, more than $290,000 to Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives and other conservative political action committees, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.”

She’s a lawyer who has been active in the Koch billionaire network, working with Higgins to help launch Sean Noble’s controversial money shuffling operation, the Center to Protect Patient Rights (which has been renamed American Encore).

Kendrick gave IWV $23,435 in January 2010.

Although she is a woman, she is not an independent. She is very active in federal and state GOP activities, although she opposes Trump along with some other “conservative” Republicans.

The other remaining four donors to IWV in January 2010 gave less than 10% to the effort cumulatively.
THREE MORE VERY RICH MEN, GOP DONORS

Tom Klingenstein, who has been the managing partner of an investment firm that shares his name, gave $10,000 (4%). Klingenstein describes himself as a “conservative,” and he is not a woman.

Ron Gidwitz gave $5,000 (2%). The Illinois press has described him as “easily the Illinois Republican Party’s most consistent contributor, fundraiser and cheerleader, dating back four decades when he was finance chair for Rep. Henry Hyde.” Again, he is not a woman or an independent.

Myles Pollin gave $1,000. He practices law as a partner with the big firm Sidley, focusing on “Collateralized Debt Obligations” (CDOs) and distressed assets, like those discussed in the film “The Big Short.” He helped raise funds

Finally, one other woman wrote a small check to help in the IWV efforts for Brown in January 2010. It was for $300 (.001 of the amount raised).

Giovanna Cugnasca wrote that check. She’s a Vice President at Emcor Securities in New York. The year after that donation, she joined the board of the Independent Women’s Forum, which Higgins chairs.

Cugnasca has made a number of political contributions to GOP candidates, including to Republican U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, before his controversial comments about rape, pregnancy, and “God’s will.” She has also donated to the campaigns of Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Allen West.WERE FROM MASSACHUSETTS

In all, more than 89% of the reported donations to IWV in January 2010 when it was working to help Scott Brown win a seat in the Senate were made by men. And the two women whose donations constituted a small minority of the funding have been GOP donors, not donors to “independent” candidates.

And none of those IWV donors even resided in Massachusetts.
MAJORITY OF OTHER REPORTED INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S VOICE AD DONORS WERE NOT WOMEN

The only other FEC reported donors to IWV under Higgins’ control occurred in late 2011.

Again, the majority of disclosed donors were not women, as shown here and here.

In September and October of that year, the group disclosed six donors. Two of whom are women whose donations constituted a minority of the funding.

The largest donor was a group called “One Jerusalem,” which was founded by 18 people, three of whom are women.

Its founders included David Horowitz, a right-winger and friend of Higgins; some famous Rabbis; a movie star; and the comedian Jackie Mason. It held a huge rally in Israel in 2001. One Jerusalem, as its name indicates, focuses on maintaining Jerusalem as an undivided capital of the country.

It gave IWV $37,859.87 in late 2011.

Parker Collier, an active donor to the GOP and the wife of a Florida real estate investor, gave $29,060.69.

Virginia James, a wealthy investor who lives in New Jersey and an active donor to GOP candidates (like Richard Mourdock), gave $10,000.

James is also a major donor to right-wing groups that run ads to influence elections to help Republicans, like Club for Growth and Templeton’s Let Freedom Ring.

The other disclosed donors were Pollin, the law firm partner, $3000; Donald Tober, the Chairman of the Sugar Foods Corporation, $1000; and Lewis van Amerongan, a wealthy investor, $1000.
OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF FEC DISCLOSED INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S VOICE DONORS? MEN

The donations to IWV disclosed to the FEC in 2010 and 2011 total $313,654, and 80% of those donations were not from women.

And, none of them appear to be from people who are politically “independent.”

Indeed, all of them, other than the one foundation, are active GOP donors.
WHAT NOW FOR THE INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S VOICE?

Since the change in the interpretation of FEC reporting requirements, there is no comparable public snapshot of who has underwritten other ads and election-related activities of IWV

But that fact did not deter IWV from posing as the voice of independent women in the Brown election, even though most of its donors for that effort were wealthy Republican men.

So, will IWV disclose who has been bankrolling its efforts to be an asset in the “Republican conservative arsenal” since then?

If a majority of its documented donors actually are women and actually are independent that would be newsworthy.

This snapshot of the known funding reported to the FEC tells a different story, as Heather Higgins launched this chapter of IWV’s activities to influence the results in American elections.

Furthermore, part of Higgins’ pitch last November at the David Horowitz event was for men to fund the election activities of IWV: “So for the men in the audience who think that the last thing they want to do is support a women’s group, understand that if you have any interest in … winning elections you have to think of this as a market segmentation issue and you can’t leave out that part of the market if you want to win.”

Therefore, the real question is: when IWV “speaks” to influence our elections, is it really just throwing the voice of billionaire wannabees like Foster Friess or of actually independent women?...IWV has positioned itself to influence the

election of the president, senators, and more.

For example, at the Republican National

Convention in Cleveland, Heather Higgins

—the president of IWV and the chair of the

IWF board—appeared at an ACU event titled

“Will Conservatives Support Trump?” That

Higgins is supporting Donald Trump despite...is how she will spend IWV’s funds and on<...At the RNC event, Higgins put a positive spin

on Trump’s rhetoric and policies...example, when he talks about illegal

immigration, he just “wants to protect you and

your kids.”) She called the “#NeverTrump”

group “#EverSnob,” admitting that Trump

“can seem very nouveau” riche.

But, she said, “don’t let perfect be the enemy

of the good…your choice is Hillary Clinton...advisors who will lead us to the best possible...outcomes on a wide range of [issues] and his

judicial picks….”

(Higgins’ fellow panelists were Sen. Jeff

Sessions (R-AL), infamous for his leniency

toward the Ku Klux Klan; Trump election

lawyer Doug McGahn, an advisor to House

Majority Leader Tom DeLay; and FOX pundit

KT McFarland, who almost ran against Sen.

Hillary Clinton in 2006. Another IWF board

member was at a second ACU/CPAC panel,

claiming the GOP is the “party of workers.”)

Despite the hard push within the GOP to

reach out to women, a related “Women Vote

Trump” event at the RNC was so poorly

attended that the press shared photos of a

sea of empty chairs.

Jezebel quoted IWF/V’s Ashley Carter

asserting that: “Undecided women voters

see [Trump] as having the ability to make

real change happen by simply saying

what needs to be said.”

She emphasized that, "Many will not say

they are Trump supporters, a statement

which may reflect on their own beliefs and

associations, but they say [in IWV polling]

they will vote for Trump.”

According to Rolling Stone, one of the

event organizers responded told the room:

“‘We want to thank Ashley for that

incredible information… ‘Independent

Women's Voice has just proved all the

naysayers incorrect, right?’ ‘Right?’”

“Incredible” is an apt description. Truly

independent polling—not from IWV—has

shown that about 70% of American

women disfavor Trump, the “largest

gender gap” in polling history.

In response, Trump hired IWF Board

Member Kellyanne Conway, a pollster;

and then he made her campaign manager

after reshuffling Paul Manafort, amidst

controversy over his ties to Russia.

As the Washington Post noted, for

Conway Trump’s “history of bullying

women wasn’t a deal breaker. Trump’s

string of biting comments shouldn’t hurt

him more than it already has.”

“’The more that people keep repeating the

same insults, the more it invites him to

very legitimately defend himself,’”

Conway said. ‘Women look at the full

measure of the man, not just one

comment.’” Conway’s past clients include

“Trump’s pick for vice president, Indiana

Gov. Mike Pence, who lost women by five

points in his 2012 race,” the Post not...

talk to those cohorts [women do not identify as GOP or rightwing] that would

not otherwise listen but can do it in a way that is taking a conservative message and

packaging it in a way that will be acceptable and will get a hearing….”

“Women are … 54% of the electorate.

Women also vote at a higher rate than men do.

So for the men in the audience who think that the last thing they

want to do is support a women’s group, understand that if you

have any interest in … winning elections you have

to think of this as a market segmentation issue and

you can’t leave out that part of the market if you want to win.”

“For the last five years, I have been working to provide the margin

that matters in races that are toss-ups or worse….

And we approach it much the way the NRA [the National Rifle

Association] does.

When the NRA decides that they want a particular candidate

because he’s good on their issue, sometimes they run ads on guns

but very often they runs ads on something entirely different and

never even mention guns because their goal is to win the race not to

make to make themselves feel good about the ads they have run.”

“Similarly, we try to think about what is it we need to say to have impact

with these people [independent women]. It’s been remarkably

successful…. [People who like us include] donors who want a high return

on their investment for their political dollars….”

IWV Spends Dark Money to Aid Rightwing Candidates

Here are some of the examples Higgins

highlighted of how IWV has used its

independent branding (to help the GOP):

• In South Carolina, IWV was the

only significant independent

expenditure in Mark Sanford’s

House race. Higgins said, after

the NRCC pulled out, IWV got

“evangelicals to hold their nose

and vote for Mark in order to be

able to hold onto that seat and

not have the liberal win it.” (He

had cheated on his wife.)

• In Kentucky, when it looked like

Matt Bevin was going to lose the

governorship, IWV “focused on

Democrats, liberals, and

independents” and took credit for

turning things around because,

she said, the Republican

Governors Association and

“partisan”-named groups could

not reach those voters.

• In Wisconsin, IWV did a pushpoll/survey

challenging the idea

that Scott Walker was being

unfair to union members, by

claiming public sector workers

were overpaid by 30% compared

with the private sector. Higgins

asserted IWV moved the dial by

31 points in favor of Gov. Walker

in the recall.

• In 2012, she said IWV moved

“women who were soft Obama

approvers into being

disapproving” by nine points

through an ad “they would like,

that they would think was

speaking to them, from

somebody who understood

them”--the “boyfriend” ad about a

“relationship” that had not

worked.

Republican candidates imploded with a series

of anti-woman claims in 2012. While IWF

argued that there was “no Republican War on

Women,” IWV was quietly making independent

expenditures to aid the GOP candidates fueling

the controversy with their anti-choice claims.

• For example, Missouri U.S. Senate

candidate Todd Akin claimed rape

victims can’t get pregnant because “If

it’s a legitimate rape, the female body

has ways to try to shut that whole thing

down.” On the eve of the election, IWV

spent $67,242.43 to aid Akin with robocalls,

but he lost. (Akin was also a

client of IWF Board Member, the

pollster Kellyanne Conway.)

• Indiana’s Richard Mourdock was

slated to win a Senate seat until he

asserted that when a woman is raped

and gets pregnant, she carries a “gift

from God,” “something that God

intended to happen.” Two weeks later,

IWV spent $176,991 on “Romney wants

Mourdock” ads and more.

• IWV also spent money to try to help

Joe Walsh, a GOP congressman from

Illinois who claimed abortions

performed to save a mother’s life are

never necessary: "there is no such

exception as 'life of the mother,' and as

far as 'health of the mother,' same

thing." The American College of

Obstetricians and Gynecologists

scolded Walsh for his “inaccurate

statements.” Two weeks later, IWV

spent over $5K on robo-calls to aid him,

but he lost to vet Tammy Duckworth.

In 2014, IWV also spent money to aid other

U.S. Senate candidates, including:

• Joni Ernst (R-IA), whose win was

made possible by the investment of

billionaires in the Koch network (as

CMD has documented in a complaint to

the IRS about the “Trees of Liberty”);

8

• Koch politicians Sen. Mitch

McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Pat

Roberts (R-KS). (Kansas is the

home state of Koch Industries.);

• Upstarts Tom Tillis (R-NC), an

alum of the controversial pay-toplay

ALEC; Cory Gardner (RCO),

another ALEC alum; and

David Perdue (R-GA);

• An unsuccessful Tea Party

challenger to long-time Sen.

Thad Cochran (R-MS); and

• Losing GOP candidate Scott

Brown, of New Hampshire and

late of Massachusetts. In 2010, it

also aided him. The majority of

those funds for the “Independent

Women’s Voice” came from men.

• IWV also spent money against

Stephen Colbert’s sister,

Elizabeth Colbert Busch, in a

House race in South Carolina.

And that’s not all. In 2012, IWV spent:

• more than $70K aiding Tommy

Thompson against Tammy

Baldwin, who became the first

openly LGBTQ person and

Wisconsin woman elected to the

U.S. Senate; IWV backed

Thompson. He had briefly

defended anti-gay discrimination;

• nearly $100K that year aiding

losing Senate candidate Tom

Smith in Pennsylvania who

supported a total abortion ban

and exceptions for rape or incest;

• on expenditures that aided Pete

Hoekstra’s failed bid for the U.S.

Senate for Michigan. He had called the

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act a

“nuisance” and said equal pay

“shouldn’t be the law” (IWF opposes it);

• aiding failed Illinois U.S. Senate

candidate Josh Mandel, who defended

Mourdock’s claims, opposed any

abortion exception for rape or incest,

and opposed reauthorization of the

Violence Against Women Act (VAWA);

• aiding Robert Turner, who created

Rush Limbaugh’s TV show;

• and trying to help Jane Corwin, who

supported shackling prisoners while

they give birth.

In 2010, as Higgins took over IWV, it had

expenditures for successful but controversial

congressional candidates, such as:

• Andy Harris of Maryland, who equated

non-discriminatory funding for

contraceptives under the Affordable

Care Act to church arson;

• David Schweikert of Arizona, who

voted against VAWA;

• Ben Quayle of Arizona, who used a

pseudonym to criticize women’s

appearances online; and

• self-described “anti-feminist” Renee

Elmers on North Carolina, who urged

the GOP to bring policy discussionsIn all, IWV reported spending more than $850K on 2014 Senate races: almost all of it for

GOP candidates with 0% NARAL ratings. It spent more than $5 million that year on related

advocacy. In 2012, it reported independent expenditures totaling nearly $1 million, out of its

more than $5 million in other spending. In 2010, it reported independent expenditures of

more than $500K out of its more than $1.5 million spent. [A list of races is in the appendix

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2016/04/clarence_thomas_female_supporters_in_the_iwf.html

Confirmation Bias

How “Women for Judge Thomas” turned into a conservative powerhouse.
By Barbara Spindel

clarence thomas anita hill.
Anita Hill’s televised testimony that Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her is credited for ushering in the Year of the Woman. But it also has another, less visible legacy.

Right on the heels of FX’s The People v. O.J. Simpson, the HBO film Confirmation offers another opportunity to relive a depressing ’90s spectacle—in this case, Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court hearings. Anita Hill’s televised testimony that Thomas sexually harassed her, and her poor treatment at the hands of the all-male Senate Judiciary Committee, are often credited with raising awareness of the issue of workplace sexual harassment and ushering in the so-called Year of the Woman, the 1992 election of four women to the Senate. (Confirmation premieres April 16 and stars Scandal’s Kerry Washington as Hill and The Wire’s Wendell Pierce as Thomas.)

But the Thomas hearings have another, less visible legacy. A small group of prominent Washington women rallied around the nominee; they were headed by the late Ricky Silberman, a friend of Thomas’ who, like Hill, had worked with him at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Calling themselves Women for Judge Thomas, they pointedly demonstrated that not all women, simply by virtue of their sex, were ready to don an “I Believe Anita Hill” pin. This ad-hoc bunch—which included Anita Blair, Barbara Ledeen, and the late Barbara Olson—went on to form the Independent Women’s Forum, a D.C. nonprofit devoted to waging war on mainstream feminism.
Stills of Kerry Washington and Wendell Pierce in Confirmation.

Kerry Washington as Anita Hill and Wendell Pierce as Clarence Thomas in Confirmation.

Back in the 1970s, Phyllis Schlafly and her allies had whipped up fears of unisex public bathrooms and female military conscription in order to help kill the Equal Rights Amendment. After that, groups such as Schlafly’s Eagle Forum and Beverly LaHaye’s Concerned Women for America railed against reproductive rights and gay rights and championed traditional gender roles. But among conservative women’s groups, the IWF was something new. If you squinted, its members—enterprising, educated professionals—looked like they could belong to the National Organization for Women. Instead, they had an extreme loathing for the feminist movement.

The IWF argued that second-wave feminism had solved the problem of sex discrimination. In a 1997 interview with now-defunct conservative magazine Insight, Blair, who was by then IWF president, said that current feminists were “playing out their own Freudian drama on the policy stage, saying, ‘Well, my first husband walked out on me, or I never had dates in high school, so all men are bad.’ ” A 1997 IWF press release called National Pay Inequity Awareness Day “a cruel hoax … designed to brainwash girls and young women into believing that they are victims.” The IWF’s Elizabeth Larson, in the organization’s Women’s Quarterly magazine, called sexual harassment an issue drummed up by “a growing number of women, many spurred on by Anita Hill’s example … [who] find it more profitable to litigate than to work.” After the 1994 passage of the Violence Against Women Act—spearheaded by then-Sen. Joe Biden in what was widely seen as atonement for his mishandling of the Thomas hearings—the IWF argued that the legislation should be repealed or receive zero funding; IWF spokeswoman (and ’90s right-wing It Girl) Laura Ingraham referred to VAWA as feminist “pork” with a “tear-jerker” title. The group also took on affirmative action, headlining a Women’s Quarterly article on the topic “That’s No White Male, That’s My Husband”—a phrase that revealed a lot about IWF constituents’ racial identities and loyalties. (“You can’t have white guys saying you don’t need affirmative action,” Ledeen told the Washington Post when asked why the anti-feminist IWF had organized as women in the first place.)
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Laura Ingraham appears with Sen. George Allen at a fundraiser on Oct. 7, 2006, in Maidens, Virginia.

In 1995, NOW President Patricia Ireland, in a considerable understatement, called it “a little startling” that the new and tiny conservative upstart IWF, with fewer than 2,000 members, was garnering media coverage to rival that of Ireland’s mass-membership organization. It surely helped that stalwart right-wing donors including Richard Scaife and the Koch brothers were funding the IWF, and that its well-connected roster included former National Endowment for the Humanities chairwoman (and wife of Dick Cheney) Lynne Cheney, Who Stole Feminism? author Christina Hoff Sommers, neoconservative writer (and wife of Norman Podhoretz) Midge Decter, and Wendy Lee Gramm and Mary Ellen Bork, married, respectively, to Texas Sen. Phil Gramm and rejected Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.

Hill was often dismissed as overreacting to a joke about a pubic hair on a Coke can.

While much of the IWF’s campaign against feminism was waged in the media, the group also took the fight to Capitol Hill; the IWF testified before Congress against the Violence Against Women Act and affirmative action, and filed amicus briefs opposing the enforcement of Title IX and the coeducation of the Virginia Military Institute. After the election of George W. Bush, the IWF’s clout grew as its members received posts within the new administration, among them Elaine Chao as labor secretary, Diana Furchtgott-Roth as chief of staff of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and Blair as deputy assistant secretary of the Navy. Most absurdly, two IWF members, then-president Nancy Pfotenhauer and board member Margot Hill, were appointed to the administration’s National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women.

Despite engaging in serious business, the IWF’s spokeswomen never appeared to take themselves too seriously; they loved to bait feminists but always with a smile. Blair said, “There’s a telltale way to find a liberal feminist: It’s the nasty wrinkles around her mouth that she gets from frowning. You’ll probably find my side with laugh lines.” “We have no angry agenda,” Grace Paine Terzian, then publisher of Women’s Quarterly, told a journalist in 1995. When Wendy Kaminer wrote on right-wing challenges to feminism in the American Prospect the following year, the IWF’s Elizabeth Lurie responded in a letter to the editor that she had found the piece “howlingly funny.” All of this forced cheer was intended to highlight the contrast between the IWF’s anti-feminism and its caricatured version of feminism, which, according to Hoff Sommers in a 1996 60 Minutes profile of the IWF, had come to mean “that you’re chronically offended, that you’re looking for oppression and bias under every tree.”

Plenty of people still see Hill as fitting this description, even 25 years after the Thomas hearings. Although she accused Thomas of repeated graphic descriptions of pornographic films, including scenes of rape and bestiality, and of detailed boasts about his own sexual prowess, Hill was and is often dismissed as overreacting to a joke about a pubic hair on a Coke can. Indeed, IWF managing director Carrie Lukas recently described Hill’s allegations against Thomas as “rather PG-rated.”

Of course, the IWF exists not because its founders thought Hill was overreacting but because, as friends of Thomas, they thought she was lying. In the years since—when downplaying the existence and impact of sex discrimination and of gender-based crimes such as harassment, rape, and domestic violence—the IWF doesn’t suggest that all women are lying. The group has frequently suggested, however, that women who speak out about these issues are whining, and should stop playing the victim, and ought to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. In that sense the IWF, whose current mission is to “improve the lives of Americans by increasing the number of women who value free markets and personal liberty,” has ties to Thomas that are not merely personal but philosophical as well.

The women of the IWF continue to stand by Clarence Thomas, and he by them. After Silberman’s 2007 death, Thomas sat down with the group’s Michelle Bernard and Charlotte Hays to talk about his friend for the IWF newsletter. “Sometimes at IWF we are accused of being anti-women and anti-feminist, because our mantra is that all issues are women’s issues,” his interviewers noted. “I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” Thomas responded, proceeding to describe his own experiences being called “traitor” and “Uncle Tom.” “When I am criticized, I take it as a compliment,” he said. “If I weren’t relevant, they wouldn’t talk about me. Don’t worry about it. You just wish them good health and do it with a smile.”

=
https://www.thenation.com/article/gops-long-war-against-women-and-sex/

Valenti 2012

Aspirins and short skirts and contraception, oh my! The last few weeks have seen a slew of Republican gaffes concerning women’s sexuality. From Rick Santorum’s billionaire supporter Foster Friess’s waxing nostalgic about the good old days when women put aspirin "between their knees” in lieu of contraception to an online furor over whether the young conservative women at CPAC dressed too provocatively—the GOP has a major woman problem on their hands.

Their fear of sex—of women’s sexuality in particular—has become a major media talking point, and a source of outrage among American women. But what I don’t understand is why anyone is surprised. Republicans have long based their agenda for women in a deep-rooted disdain for all things female. We’ve been down this road many, many times before.

When a picture of Congressman Darrell Issa’s all-male panel on birth control (the make-up of which prompted several Democratic women to walk out of the hearing) hit the Internet and mainstream media—I couldn’t help but be reminded of a similar picture of George W. Bush signing the “partial birth” abortion ban, surrounded by a group of smiling clapping men. All men. (Santorum was one of them.)

Dahlia Lithwick reported last week in Slate on a law that’s poised to pass in Virginia that would make it legal to penetrate abortion-seeking women against their wills by requiring a medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound—a procedure that would count as rape under state law. Delegate David Englin told Lithwick that one Republican lawmaker told him that the invasive ultrasound wasn’t an issue because women seeking abortions had already made the decision to be “vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant.” Apparently once women have been penetrated, all other future penetrations should be no problem, consent notwithstanding.

If this attitude sounds radical, consider that up until 2008, it was the basis for Maryland rape law. If a woman initially agreed to sex, but later withdrew consent, any sex that followed wasn’t rape. The justification was based on archaic legislation that said after the initial “de-flowering” of a woman, nothing could be considered rape because “the damage was done,” she was no longer a virgin and couldn’t be “re-flowered.”

The focus on birth control is not new either. Conservatives and Republican appointees successfully held up emergency contraception for over-the-counter status for three years in the FDA, despite a recommendation from an independent joint advisory committee to the agency to make the drug available. Dr. W. David Hager—appointed by then President Bush to the FDA’s Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs—told the New York Times about why he voted against the drug’s approval, noting, “What we heard today was frequently about individuals who did not want to take responsibility for their actions and wanted a medication to relieve those consequences.” (Hager also penned a book in which he argued that prayer could cure PMS—quite the expert on women’s health!)

It also came out that in an internal memo FDA medical official Janet Woodcock argued against making the contraceptive available over the counter for fear that it would cause “extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an ‘urban legend’ status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B.” (The same fear-based rhetoric over young women becoming promiscuous was used when conservatives tried to hold up Gardasil, the HPV vaccine that prevents cervical cancer.)

But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that this is just a problem of men attacking women’s rights. Conservative women’s rights groups, always eager for a patriarchal pat on the head, have long thrown other women under the bus under the guise of protecting them from their own wanton sexuality. The Independent Women’s Forum—who oppose the Violence Against Women Act, Title IX and who don’t believe pay inequity exists—started a campaign years ago to get the award-winning play The Vagina Monologues banned from college campuses, arguing that it’s pornographic and reduces women to their body parts. (Specifically, the one they’d rather not think about.) The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, another right-wing women’s organization, launched a campaign and contest in 2008 to “Bringing Back the Dowry and Hope Chest.” The winner received a “cedar-lined hope chest filled with $1000 worth of dowry items” as well as $500 toward her future wedding. Retro-chic!

Given this long history of paternalism and efforts to rollback women’s rights—I think the calls that the GOP is launching a “war on women” are right on, but years late.

Perhaps today, with the Internet moving information faster than ever before, Republican and conservative sexism doesn’t go as easily unnoticed (just ask the folks at Komen). Perhaps the influx of young women and feminists into self-directed and social media activism has changed the course of the national debate. Or maybe women are just fed up with yet another legislator dictating how they should run their lives and use their bodies.
Whatever the reason, we need to ensure that Republicans are held accountable and don’t get to brush these comments and actions off as mistakes or misunderstandings. Because they’re not simple gaffes, they’re a crystal clear window into the future that the GOP wants for women

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/04/13091/confirmation-how-not-so-independent-womens-forum-was-launched-aid-clarence

By Lisa Graves and Calvin Sloan

HBO's new film on demand, "Confirmation," revisits the painful battle over the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court in spite of the testimony of Anita Hill that he sexually harassed her.

Some pundits have attempted to disparage the film, even though it has several scenes that portray Thomas and his wife Ginny as quiet, sympathetic figures and not as the outspoken right-wing political activists that they were and are.

One of the harshest critics of the film is a group that calls itself the "Independent Women's Forum" (IWF).

IWF is hardly independent though, despite its name.

It is deeply imbedded in the right-wing political infrastructure.

In fact, IWF began as part of the coordinated effort to get Thomas confirmed so he could advance the right-wing's legal agenda on the courts, in the face of deep fears by many that he would limit individual rights as a judge--fears later validated by his rulings and extreme dissents as a Justice.

As Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson wrote in their book Strange Justice: "the falsehoods and distortions involved in the selling of Clarence Thomas to the American people neither started nor ended with the treatment of Anita Hill's accusations. From the beginning, the placement of Thomas on the high court was seen as a political end justifying almost any means."

Central to the efforts to get Thomas confirmed were not only the attacks on Hill by GOP Senators but also press outreach used to discredit her that was orchestrated by a small group of powerful right-wing women.

That confirmation battle put one of the most reactionary judges in modern history on the Court, and it also led to the creation of IWF, an ultra reactionary women's group opposing women's rights in numerous ways.

IWF's creators defended Thomas, despite the detailed evidence against him, and the organization they founded has defended him and continued to attack Hill since 1991.

The Thomas hearings also led to a backlash from voters to a U.S. Senate that had 98 men and only two women as Senators.

In spite of a temporary majority supporting the confirmation of Thomas based on the incomplete information provided in the Senate hearings, American voters resoundingly rejected the idea of an all-white male Senate Judiciary Committee examining a woman's testimony about sexual harassment.

The 1992 election that followed swept out President George H.W. Bush and swept in four women as new Senators and more women in other offices, making that election "the Year of the Woman."

Today, 20 U.S. Senators are women; and IWF leaders and alums have regularly attacked the most powerful woman elected Senator since the Thomas hearings, Hillary Clinton.

IWF—which has had close ties to the billionaire Koch Brothers, before they were infamous, and to other rightwing donors—has used its well-funded platform to secure numerous press appearances without much scrutiny of its record and sometimes because of its reactionary positions.

That's in part because media outlets have defaulted to point-counterpoint "reporting" that gives equal weight both to facts IWF opposes and to outlier claims that are IWF's stock in trade.

Part of the playbook was set as IWF came into being, as its founders deployed women in the press to counter a fellow woman whose testimony threatened their political agenda and ally.

Much of that claim boiled down to denying her experience as inauthentic and deceitful because Thomas had not sexually harassed them. It was a brutally effective tactic.

This is the story of IWF's roots.
IWF: Born to Give a Woman's Voice to Defending Clarence Thomas

On June 28, 1991, the first black man to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall—an icon to the civil rights community—announced his retirement.

Ten days later, President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, a 43-year old African American judge who had a controversial tenure as President Reagan's Chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where he challenged core ideas about equal economic opportunity for women, such as equal pay and comparable worth.

Although it was only 16 months before the next presidential election and even though the choice of a young right-winger like Thomas to fill the beloved Justice Marshall's seat was a lightening rod for controversy, the Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled hearings on his nomination for September.

As the controversy over Thomas' nomination grew, a small group of right-wing women began meeting for lunch to discuss the nomination at the offices of Ted Olson in the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

One of the women at those lunch meetings was Barbara Kay Bracher, a lawyer who married Olson in 1996.

Following the Thomas confirmation, she would go on to staff investigations of the Clinton Administration as a congressional aide and to write a diatribe called "Hell to Pay: the Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton," which was published by the right-wing bookseller Regnery shortly before Olson perished on a plane in the 9/11 attacks on her way to a taping for Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" TV show.

(Ted Olson became famous for taking the Bush v. Gore case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Justice Clarence Thomas sided with him and four other GOP Justices in stopping the Florida recount in 2000, making Republican George W. Bush president despite Democrat Al Gore winning the popular vote. Bush then named Ted Olson Solicitor General of the United States.)

The driving force at those pro-Thomas strategy sessions in Olson's office back in 1991 was Rosalie "Ricky" Silberman, who had worked with Thomas as Vice-Chair of the EEOC and was one of his confidantes.

Before that, Silberman had worked as the press secretary for GOP Senator Bob Packwood, who later resigned in 1995 in the wake allegations that he harassed and assaulted numerous women he worked with.

(Ricky Silberman was also married to Thomas' mentor from Thomas' brief time as a judge on the D.C. Circuit: Judge Laurence Silberman, a very political judge who among other things later tried to clear George W. Bush of culpability for lying about Iraq's weapons and was later given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by Bush.)

The third major figure in these lunches was Anita K. Blair, who was a lawyer who became General Counsel for IWF. President George W. Bush made her Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and in 2011 she was hired as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department on human resources in the Obama Administration.

In the later 1990s during the Republican effort to impeach Democratic President Bill Clinton, Blair claimed on behalf of IWF that:

"nothing ever did more to trivialize sexual harassment than the sorry spectacle surrounding Anita Hill ... Given prime-time exposure on national television Hill told a bizarre, uncorroborated story about Thomas, her boss at two federal agencies. Hearing her belated complaints about off-color jokes allegedly told about 10 years before, millions of Americans wondered, ‘What on earth does this have to do with sexual harassment?' Americans learned the answer from Hill and her supporters: ‘Sexual harassment isn't about sex, it's about power.' The Anita Hill spectacle wasn't about sexual harassment; it was about the exercise of pure partisan political power. The media circus surrounding Hill and Thomas was produced and directed by liberal operatives, including fifth-columnists like NPR's Nina Totenberg."

Those three right-wing politicos--Silberman, Olson, and Blair--formed an ad hoc committee called "Women for Judge Thomas," which ultimately became a non-profit group dubbed the "Independent Women's Forum."
The Clarence Thomas Nomination Begins and IWF's Founders Step Forward

But even before Anita Hill was in the picture--discovered by Senate Judiciary Committee staffers vetting the Bush nominee--allies of Thomas knew his controversial record as President Reagan's chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) could play poorly with many women and others concerned about equality.

The Women for Judge Thomas committee began holding press conferences the month President Bush announced Thomas' nomination to a lifetime position on the Court in July.

Thomas was in his early 40s and had never argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and he had only had 16 months of experience as a sitting judge on any court.

His selection was considered a tactical masterstroke by C. Boyden Gray, President Bush's White House Counsel, who had been criticized for letting the first vacancy in Bush's term go to New Hampshire Justice David Souter, who was considered by the far right to be not "conservative" or activist enough to deliver judicial votes to change the law in the ways they wanted.

By putting forward an African American with right-wing bona fides, at Gray's urging the Bush White House sought to mute Democratic objections for fear of offending a major constituency over fighting a nominee with a rags-to-riches life story.

(Gray is the grandson and also the nephew of three presidents of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. After President George H.W. Bush lost his bid for another term in the 1992 "Year of the Woman" election, Gray became chairman of David Koch's Citizens for a Sound Economy, which would later officially join forces with IWF.)

But Thomas' limited judicial experience and the hearings on his nomination deepened concerns of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

As the New York Times reported: "'Judge Thomas lacks the experience and qualifications that a Supreme Court Justice ought to have,' said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont. ‘He fled from his record and he refused to answer legitimate questions.'"

Leahy also noted: "‘Nothing in Judge Thomas's record or testimony suggests the level of professional distinction or constitutional grounding appropriate for a Supreme Court nominee. His legal and judicial experiences are limited. His speeches and writings have shown little in the way of analysis or scholarship.'"

So, when his nomination was considered, the Committee deadlocked 7-7 on his nomination but then voted to send the nomination to the full Senate for a vote without a recommendation for or against confirmation. Although the Democrats had a 57-43 majority, a number of Southern Democrats had already pledged to vote for Thomas to be confirmed.
Hill Comes Forward and IWF's Founders Step Up to Counter Her in the Press

Before the Senate vote could be held, however, National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg broke the story that the Senate investigation had uncovered allegations that Thomas had made unwanted advances toward some of his subordinates in his leadership positions in the Reagan Administration.

Totenberg received a tip that Professor Anita Hill, a conservative black law professor, had told the Senate that Thomas had made sexual comments to her when he was her supervisor when they both worked for the Reagan Administration.

This shocking development increased the volume of concern about confirming Thomas to a lifetime job on the highest court in the land, and the Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled another round of hearings to examine the allegations.

Under the guidance of Ricky Silberman, the Women for Judge Thomas Committee identified women who worked with Thomas who said they had not been sexually harassed by him and that he had behaved professionally toward them.

Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigators--including a Democrat named Ricki Seidman--identified another staffer who said she had been subject to sexual advances in the workplace by Thomas and also interviewed colleagues of Professor Hill, whom she confided in about the inappropriate things she said Thomas said.

As Steve Kornacki noted in Salon:

"Three Hill friends—Susan Hoerchner, Ellen Wells and John Carr—testified under oath that she had told them about Thomas' conduct as it happened between 1981 and 1983. ‘Anita said that Clarence Thomas had repeatedly asked her out … that he wouldn't seem to take ‘no' for an answer,' Hoerchner told senators. ‘The thing Anita told me that struck me particularly and that I remember almost verbatim was that Mr. Thomas had said to her, "You know, if you had witnesses, you'd have a perfect case against me."'"

On October 11, 1991, in nationally televised hearings, Hill testified in detail about things Thomas had said to her when she worked for him. While many observers were shocked by the graphic details, the Republicans on the Committee and other Thomas proxies strongly attacked Hill's character and her decision to continue working for Thomas rather than file a legal complaint, despite her concerns that doing so would destroy her career and her future.

Hill had explained on NPR that her decision to testify was a difficult one, and was made on moral grounds because Thomas, as Chair of the EEOC, the agency that enforces federal workplace discrimination laws, had been "in charge of protecting rights of women and other groups in the workplace" but instead was "using his position of power for personal gain."

Simply put, by sexually harassing her as she described, Thomas was alleged to be engaging in the kind of workplace discrimination that his agency was tasked with stopping.

Many women believed that such behavior demonstrated that Thomas was unfit for a position of power and a lifetime position on the nation's highest court.

But the Senate's hearing about her allegations morphed into an inquisition of her, much like how criminal defense attorneys attempt to discredit rape victims in order to prevent the conviction of their clients.

What people saw on TV was an all-white Senate Judiciary Committee filled with several men who impugned Hill's character, doubted her intelligence, and attacked her motives—despite her conservative credentials--instead of treating her with respect and giving any credit to her eye-witness accounts of Thomas' behavior. The attack on Hill was led by Republican Senators Arlen Specter, Orrin Hatch, and Alan Simpson on the Committee, and by Missouri's John Danforth, Thomas' champion in the Senate.

More than 20 million American households tuned in to watch Hill testify at hearings chaired by then-Senator Joe Biden, who is now Vice President.

As Politico noted last fall when Vice President Biden was considering running for president: "Biden's done a lot over the past 24 years, including authoring the landmark Violence Against Women Act … But that hasn't erased the memories of how Biden presided over those hearings … blamed for doing little to stop the attacks on Hill."

He has also been criticized for opting not to call Angela Wright, an African American who worked in the press office at the EEOC, whose testimony would have echoed Hill's charges of sexual harassment.

Wright had "detailed a pattern of harassing behavior, including an instance in which Thomas asked her what her bra size was." Wright had also told her colleague, Rose Jourdain, at the time that Thomas made comments about "her figure, her body, her breasts, her legs, how she looked in certain suits and dresses."

Wright's statement was allowed to go into the official hearing record but she was not allowed to testify to help rebut Thomas' denial.

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, another Thomas aide "Sukari Hardnett wrote that many black women at the agency felt they were ‘an object of special interest' to their boss. ‘If you were young, black, female and reasonably attractive,' her letter read, ‘you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female,'" as noted by Kornacke.

But the Senate and the country did not get to hear from these women.

When Mayer and Abrahamson conducted a full investigation for their book, rather than the rushed examination that occurred in the Senate, they also discovered that classmates of Thomas reported:

"that he often recounted sexually explicit films in lurid detail. Kaye Savage, a former colleague, reports that the walls of his bachelor apartment were covered with Playboy nude centerfolds. The owner of a video store near the EEOC [called Graffiti] said Thomas was a regular customer for pornographic movies."

This evidence would have corroborated Hil''s testimony and refuted Thomas' denial, but none of this was part of the Senate's hearings.

Years later, another woman "Lillian McEwen, who had dated Thomas in the 1980s and who was promoted by Thomas backers as something of an alibi during his confirmation hearings, spoke publicly about her relationship with him for the first time [in 2010]. Now retired, McEwen said that ‘Hill's allegations that Thomas had pressed her for dates and made lurid sexual references rang familiar,' as the [Washington] Post put it--as detailed by Kornacke in Salon.

Kornacke added: "McEwen said that Thomas had been ‘obsessed with porn' and ‘would talk about what he had seen in magazines and films, if there was something worth noting.' She also said that Thomas would tell her about the women he worked with — even commenting to her about one's bra size. 'He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners,' McEwen told the Post. ‘It was a hobby of his.'"

That information was not known to the Senate at the time Clarence Thomas' nomination was being considered, but none of that has changed IWF's line of attack against Hill.
Thomas Fires Back

In response to Hill's testimony, Thomas attacked the Senate for what he flamboyantly described as a "high-tech lynching" of an "uppity" black man who dared to be conservative.

He used the televised broadcast of the hearings to portray the Senate's consideration of Hill's allegations against him as racist and as promoting racial stereotypes--even though his accuser was also a conservative African American.

GOP senators like Arlen Specter were given wide leeway to attack Hill with incredibly derogatory and personal claims such as suggesting she had "fantasies about sexual interest in her" and that she "was having a problem being rejected by men she was attracted to."

Hill took and passed a lie detector test, but Republican Senators smeared her further claiming she passed because she believed her "fantasies" about Thomas pursuing her.

Many women were disgusted by the way the Senate treated Hill and by the words and actions of Thomas, but not Silberman and her committee of Women for Judge Thomas, which held press conferences and other outreach buttressing the Republican attacks on Hill.

The IWF predecessor did so by pressing the claim that because he had not harassed the women they assembled he could not have harassed Hill and by arguing that she had "other" motives, which fueled the right-wing narrative that she had made up the allegations supposedly because she wanted to be with Thomas.

Meanwhile, the Judiciary Committee hearings ended by effectively giving Clarence Thomas the last word, as Hill did not testify again to rebut Thomas' denial of her allegations.
Thomas Was Confirmed in One of the Closest Votes in History

Given how forcefully the GOP Senators sought to discredit Hill and the deployment of women in defense of Thomas, perhaps it should come as no surprise that the public remained divided over Thomas' confirmation. Several polls indicated that a majority favored his confirmation, while the remainder were split between opposing and being undecided.

In a contest of he-said-she-said, it appeared that a majority of those polled believed Thomas, who had so evocatively taken umbrage at the allegations against him. Having other women, like Ricky Silberman, defend him certainly helped his case.

And, at the same time, the public was denied the chance to hear from another woman willing to testify that she had also been sexually harassed by Thomas.

Also lost in the hot-button national conversation was the message that no one is entitled to a lifelong job on the U.S. Supreme Court.

So, on October 15, 1991, the Senate handed Thomas a lifetime job on the Court, with narrow 52-48 vote (with 11 Democrats joining 41 Republicans and 2 Republicans—Senator Jeffords (R-VT) and Senator Packwood (R-OR)—joining the Democrats).

Hill was home in Oklahoma, and Thomas, after he was confirmed for the lifetime post at the youthful age of 43, reportedly swore he would stay on the Court for 43 years to get his revenge on his enemies.

It was out of the ugliness of the Clarence Thomas nomination fight that the "Independent Women's Forum" was born.
IWF Continued to Fight Hill even after Thomas Was Confirmed

If the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee had sought to incapacitate Anita Hill with an array of punches at her reputation, Ricky Silberman seemed determined to throw the knockout blow.

A year to the day after her senate testimony, Hill returned to Washington D.C. to recount her experience. At a conference at Georgetown Law, she spoke in academic terms while analyzing the structures that had colluded against her, and received a standing ovation for her bravery.

Across the city on that same day, Ricky Silberman held a counter-conference at the Federalist Society.

Speaking to that audience, Silberman accused Hill of being a liar, labeled the assembled group of academics at Georgetown "the extreminists," and proclaimed that Hill's "unsubstantiated charge of sexual harassment launched the mother of all gender wars."

Later that year, in 1992, Silberman formally founded IWF with Barbara Bracher (Olson), Anita Blair and Lynn Cheney to fight that so-called "gender war."

However neither Silberman nor IWF would let the Anita Hill testimony rest.

In 1993, David Brock published the book "The Real Anita Hill," an alleged investigation into the "true motives" of Hill's testimony.

Silberman helped Brock edit, assemble, and advertise the book, which by all accounts was an orchestrated hit piece.

Brock, who had repeatedly referred to Hill in the media as "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty," would later apologize for his actions, and label himself as a "witting cog in the Republican sleaze machine." (Brock has disavowed his past as a political hit man for the right-wing and now leads groups challenging the right-wing and is also now aligned with Hillary Clinton.)

Silberman, who passed away in 2007, never apologized. The IWF tribute to her included a tribute from her memorial by Clarence Thomas.
Beyond Attacking Anita Hill, IWF Routinely Peddles Reactionary Claims

As documented by Barbara Spindel in Slate, five years after Hill's testimony, IWF ran a cover-story in its 1996 "Women's Quarterly" magazine where Elizabeth Larson, an IWF staffer, speculated that women were "spurred on by Anita Hill's example" and now found "it more profitable to litigate than to work."

In that article, Larson also suggested that women should simply "deal with" sexual harassment, a position the organization would advocate for in the 1990s time and again.

As detailed by researcher Lee Cokorinos in his book, "The Assault on Diversity: An Organized Challenge to Racial and Gender Justice," IWF received substantial financial underwriting by right-wing funders like the Scaife Foundation and the John M. Olin Foundation to focus many of its efforts on Silberman's "gender war."

In the words of Anita Blair, who served as an IWF leader from 1992 until 2000, "it was in 1977 or 1978 that feminism should have declared victory and gone home… All that was needing to be done had been done."

In keeping with this fictitious worldview, IWF opposed a host of women equality initiatives throughout the 1990s using misleading data and taking some extreme positions:

• when lobbying against Senator Biden's "Violence Against Women Act," IWF claimed "wives instigate violence, including severe violence, against husbands more often than husbands do against wives."
• IWF argued that gender integration of the Virginia Military Institute would cripple national defense,
• IWF asserted that the problem of sexual assault on college campuses was overblown, since it is "inherently incredible" that female college students "are unable to report assaults to authorities,"
• and much more, including assailing key Title IX protections for female athletes.

Like every GOP-aligned group in the 1990s, IWF also supported efforts to impeach President Clinton, reaching out to Kenneth Starr for legal assistance as early as 1994. Barbara Olson and other IWF-ers helped carry the torch against Bill and Hillary Clinton.

IWF also provided Republicans in Congress with women's voices to testify against affirmative action, social safety net programs, and gun violence mitigation measures.

As a whole, IWF was focused on combatting a caricature of what it described as "radical feminism."

Over the past 25 years since the Clarence Thomas hearings, IWF has given a female face and voice to opposing almost every mainstream and common sense protection for equality that's been advanced—opposing equal pay, paid sick leave, increasing the minimum wage, and protecting women's reproductive privacy and freedom, and much more—many of which Thomas has also sought to weaken or strike down from the Supreme Court.

Over the years, IWF has not lost its interest in attacking Hill, even though its latest spin is about its supposedly "family-friendly" policies that put Wall Street in the driver's seat and would take away responsibilities from employers regarding maternity leave, despite overwhelming business support for expanding employer-paid maternity and family leave, as the Center for Media and Democracy recently documented in a story broken by Lydia DiPillis in the Washington Post.

IWF's kind of outlier, free-market fundamentalist approach should come as no surprise since IWF and David Koch's Americans for Prosperity have been close partners--even sharing space and leadership for a number of years--and because the Koch network of billionaires uses an array of vehicles to push an anti-government, anti-science, anti-worker agenda.

But the claim that IWF is merely a "right-leaning think tank," given its legacy and extreme positions, ignores the history of a group that began with efforts to discredit Anita Hill and that continues to traffic in denial and disdain, despite the evidence that has mounted against so many of its claims.

---

Lisa Graves is CMD's Executive Director, and she is the former Chief Counsel for Nominations for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for Senator Patrick Leahy. Calvin Sloan is a CMD researcher and multi-media specialist who previously worked for People for the American Way.
Women
News

=
Nancy Pfotenhauer, Koch, and Lobbying 2008?)

Nancy Pfotenhauer (formerly Nancy Mitchell) was an advisor to Senator John McCain during his presidential election campaign, and a former director of Koch Industries’ Washington office.  Pfotenhauer was Koch Industries’ chief in-house lobbyist from 1996 to 2001.  Her lobbying efforts were focused on gas pipelines.  In 2001, Nancy Pfotenhauer left Koch Industries to become the president of the Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative research group that receivesfunding from Koch Industries.

In 2003, the Independent Women’s Forum became affiliated with the Citizens for a Sound Economy (now Americans for Prosperity). Pfotenhauer served as president and CEO of Americans for Prosperity and executive vice president of policy for Citizens For a Sound Economy.  Citizens for a Sound Economy was co-founded by David H. Koch and has received$12,906,712 in grants from the Koch Family Foundations. Americans for Prosperity has received $1,000,000 in funding.

other than koch, no obvious reason to be climate deniers?

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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Independent_Women%27s_Forum

 

The Independent Women's Forum (IWF; not to be confused with the International Women's Forum) is an anti-feminist organization predominately funded by conservative U.S. foundations, including the Koch brothers' Claude R. Lambe Foundation.[1] On its website, it describes its mission as being "to rebuild civil society by advancing economic liberty, personal responsibility, and political freedom. IWF builds support for a greater respect for limited government, equality under the law, property rights, free markets, strong families, and a powerful and effective national defense and foreign policy."[2]

An article by Sally Patel in IWF's "scholarly" magazine, The Women's Quarterly, stated that "the battered women's movement has outlived its useful beginnings."[3]

In October 2003, the IWF announced an affiliation with Citizens for a Sound Economy, now the Americans For Prosperity Foundation, with which they were to share premises and staff. "The Affiliation agreement provides for staff and resource sharing between Americans for Prosperity and the Independent Women's Forum. Nancy Pfotenhauer, president of the Independent Women's Forum, will also be president of Americans for Prosperity," the announcement stated. Despite sharing staff and location, the announced stated that each group "will be a separate organization with its own board of directors."[4]

As of 2008, IWF was no longer affiliated with AFP and was seeking its own office space.[5]
Contents
 [hide]

    1 History
    2 Efforts to Eradicate Teaching of Global Warming from Schools Nationwide
    3 Funding
    4 Personnel
        4.1 Staff
        4.2 Board of Directors
        4.3 Directors Emeritae:
    5 Contact details
    6 References
        6.1 Related SourceWatch Articles
        6.2 External Articles

History

Founded by Rosalie Gaull (Ricky) Silberman in 1992, the IWF grew out of the ad hoc group, Women for Judge Thomas.

While claiming to challenge "radical feminists," IWF primarily targets mainstream feminists and feminist organizations, as exemplified by such figures as Hillary Rodham Clinton and such groups as the American Association of University Women.

 

IWF is a secular counterpart to Religious Right women's groups like Eagle Forum and Concerned Women for America, but these groups often work together. People for the American Way describe IWF as a group that "opposes affirmative action, gender equity programs like Title IX, and the Violence Against Women Act."[6]

 

IWF members include academic women who are paid to write papers that denigrate the idea of equity for girls and women in education. One of these papers,[1] by Judith Kleinfeld, a professor of psychology at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, has questioned an MIT study[7] on discrimination against women in MIT's science department, calling their findings "junk science."

IWF's constantly-updated web site shows an ever expanding sphere of concerns, all viewed from right-wing perspectives.

In October 2004 the Feminist Majority Foundation has objected to the U.S. Department of State's decision to award part of a $10 million grant to IWF for "leadership training, democracy education and coalition building assistance" to women in Iraq. The funding was from the Iraqi Women's Democracy Initiative.[8]. IWF will be working in Iraq with the American Islamic Conference and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a think tank with neoconservative ties.

 

IWF's head Michelle Bernard has now re-emerged at the head of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy. The Bernard Center's website lists no donors, no history and no contact information other than a PO box in Potomac, Maryland. Analysts from the Bernard Center have written about 'misguided' food and nutrition policy, and the need for more charter schools.
Efforts to Eradicate Teaching of Global Warming from Schools Nationwide

In May, 2010 IWF started supporting a group called Balanced Education for Everyone whose goal is to stop the teaching of global warming in U.S. schools. The group calls global warming "junk science," and claims teaching it scares children unnecessarily. The group started its national effort at a meeting of the Mesa County, Colorado District 51 School Board, where it presented the board with a petition containing 600-700 signatures of people who want global warming instruction stopped. [9][10]
Funding

Media Transparency lists IWF as having received $7,651,000 in foundation grants between 1994 and 2006.Funders include:[11]

    Roe Foundation
    Castle Rock Foundation
    Sarah Scaife Foundation
    Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
    William H. Donner Foundation
    Jaquelin Hume Foundation
    Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation
    Earhart Foundation
    Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation
    Gilder Foundation
    JM Foundation
    Randolph Foundation
    William E. Simon Foundation
    Ruth and Lovett Peters Foundation
    John M. Olin Foundation
    Brady Education Foundation

At the time of its resource sharing announcement with Americans for Prosperity in October 2003, IWF stated that "we had come through a difficult transition a few years ago and were really hitting our stride after getting a major, million-dollar grant."[4]

 

According to the group's 2006 Annual return[12] filed with the Internal Revenue Service, the total revenue

    2002: Revenue $2,582,437
    2003: Revenue $205,143
    2004: Revenue $1,045,983
    2005: Revenue $$948,953
    2006: Revenue $1,816,131; Expenses $1,964,833 Loss $105,067

Personnel
Staff

    Michelle D. Bernard - President
    Regina Truslow, Executive Assistant to the President
    Erin Grant, Manager of Donor Relations Policy
    Sandy Liddy Bourne, Visiting Fellow
    Jennifer C. Braceras, Visiting Fellow
    Charlotte Hays, Senior Fellow
    Krista Kafer, Visiting Fellow
    Halima Karzai, Associate Director for Foreign Policy and International Women's Issues
    Allison Kasic, Director of The R. Gaull Silberman Center for Collegiate Studies
    April Lassiter, Visiting Fellow
    Carrie L. Lukas, Vice President for Policy and Economics
    Vicki Murray, Visiting Fellow
    Nina Owcharenko, Visiting Fellow
    Christie Raniszewski Herrera,
    Solveig Singleton, Visiting Fellow
    Princella Smith,
    Anne Trenolone,
    Kate Pomeroy, Vice President of Communications
    Stacy Chin, Director of Programs and On-line Communications
    Carol Eberly, Manager of Media and Online Communications

Board of Directors

    Heather R. Higgins - Chairman
    Mary Arnold
    Carol T. Crawford
    Jennifer Ashworth Dinh
    Randy Parris Kendrick
    Larry Kudlow
    Joanne T. Medero

Directors Emeritae:

    Lynne V. Cheney
    Midge Decter
    Kimberly O. Dennis
    Wendy Lee Gramm
    Elizabeth Lurie
    Kate O’Beirne
    Louise V. Oliver
    Nancy_Pfotenhauer
    R. Gaull Silberman

Contact details

Independent Women's Forum
1726 M Street, NW
Tenth Floor
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 419-1820
Email: info At iwf.org
Website: http://www.iwf.org/
References

    ↑ Center for Media and Democracy, Koch Family Foundations, SourceWatch.org profile, accessed February 2013.
    ↑ "Our Mission", Independent Women's Forum, accessed February 2008.
    ↑ Sally Patel, "It's Always His Fault: Femininist Ideology Dominates Perpetrator Programs", The Women's Quarterly, Independent Women's Forum, Summer 1997 - Number 12.
    ↑ 4.0 4.1 Independent Women's Forum, "IWF Announces Exciting New Partnership", Media Release, October 28, 2003. (This is a copy archived in the Internet Archive, accessed March 2008.
    ↑ Americans for Prosperity - research and background information, DeSmog Blog, accessed February 2013.
    ↑ People for the American Way, "Fighting the Right: The Right-Wing Affiliations of Bush Administration Officials: Appendix - Right Wing Groups", undated, accessed March 2008.
    ↑ "A Study on the Status of Women Faculty in Science at MIT", Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1999.
    ↑ Independent Women's Forum, "IWF Awarded Grant to Support Iraqi Women", Media Release, September 28, 2004.(This page is archived in the Internet Archive).
    ↑ Nancy Lofholm Push to teach "other side" of global warming heats up in Colorado's Mesa County Denver Post, May 26, 2010
    ↑ Emily Anderson Petitions target ‘political’ leanings of teachers Grand Junction, Colorado Daily Sentinel, May 26, 2010
    ↑ "Independent Women's Forum", MediaTransparency, accessed March 2008.
    ↑ Independent Women's Forum, "2006 Annual Return", page 1 and Scheule a Page 4.

Related SourceWatch Articles

    Anne Morse
    Candace de Russy - Member of advisory board

External Articles

    Elinor Burkett, The Right Women: A Journey Through the Heart of Conservative America, Scribner, ; ASIN: 0684833085, March 1998. (This book looks at the IWF, as well as other conservative women's groups).
    IWF heads down the toilet, Alas a Blog, November 28, 2003.
    Feminist Majority Foundation Online, "State Department Funds Anti-Women's Rights Group To Train Iraqi Women", Feminist Daily News Wire, October 5, 2004.
    Independent Womens Forum, "IWF Awarded Grant to Support Iraqi Women", September 28, 2004.
    Ronnee Schreiber, Righting Feminism: Conservative Women and American Politics, Oxford University Press, June 2008. ISBN 0195331818 ISBN 978-0195331813

Categories:

    Women
    Non-Government Organizations
    United States
    Climate change
    Environment
    Climate change deniers

 

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grew out of c thomas defence org

funded by e lurie

 

Independent Women's Forum

ORGANIZATION

 

Nonprofit conservative thinktank, founded in 1992 by Ricky Silberman and Barbara Olson.

Board of Directors as of October 2006: Chairman Heather R. Higgins, Mary Arnold, Carol T. Crawford, Randy Parris Kendrick, Lawrence Kudlow, Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer, Ricky Silberman.

Directors Emeritae: Lynne Cheney, Midge Decter, Kimberly O. Dennis, Wendy Gramm, Elizabeth Lurie, Kate O'Beirne, Louise V. Oliver.

Official Website:
http://www.iwf.org/

 
Charlotte Allen    
Journalist
    ?         Conservative writer
Michelle Bernard    
Activist
    c. 1964         Conservative commentator
Elaine Chao    
Government
    26-Mar-1953         US Secretary of Labor, 2001-09
Linda Chavez    
Activist
    17-Jun-1947         Neoconservative activist, pundit
Lynne Cheney    
First Lady
    14-Aug-1941         Wife of US Vice President Dick Cheney
Barbara Comstock    
Government
    c. 1959         Republican opposition research expert
Carol T. Crawford    
Business
    25-Feb-1943         US Intl. Trade Commission, 1991-2000
Midge Decter    
Journalist
    25-Jul-1927         Neoconservative maven
Kimberly O. Dennis    
Activist
    ?         Searle Freedom Trust
Wendy Gramm    
Business
    9-Jan-1945         Phil Gramm's wife, ex-Enron board member
Heather R. Higgins    
Activist
    1959         Chairman, Independent Women's Forum
Amy Holmes    
Columnist
    1973         BET host, conservative commentator
Laura Ingraham    
Pundit
    19-Jun-1964         The Hillary Trap
Joan W. Konner    
Journalist
    c. 1929         Dean, Columbia School of Journalism, 1988-97
Lawrence Kudlow    
Economist
    20-Aug-1947         Kudlow & Cramer
Leslie Lenkowsky    
Government
    30-Mar-1946         Philanthropic Studies
Carol Platt Liebau    
Pundit
    13-Feb-1967         Prude
Carrie Lukas    
Activist
    ?         Independent Women's Forum
Karen J. Mathis    
Attorney
    c. 1950         President of the ABA, 2006-07
Kate O'Beirne    
Columnist
    c. 1949         Conservative pundit
Barbara Olson    
TV Personality
    27-Dec-1955    11-Sep-2001    Conservative TV pundit
Ted Olson    
Government
    11-Sep-1940         US Solicitor General, 2001-04
Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer    
Activist
    ?         Independent Women's Forum
Sally C. Pipes    
Activist
    ?         Pacific Research Institute
Richard Scaife    
Activist
    3-Jul-1932         The Republican George Soros
Lisa Schiffren    
Activist
    c. 1960         Former Quayle speechwriter
Ricky Silberman    
Activist
    1937    18-Feb-2007    Cofounder, Independent Women's Forum
Christina Hoff Sommers    
Author
    1950         Who Stole Feminism?
Abigail Thernstrom    
Author
    1936         Opponent of Affirmative Action
Victoria Toensing    
Pundit
    16-Oct-1941         Washington lawyer

 

TWO

1/17 node , also tag
see voices 501c4 bs (long claim non-partisan but FUND gop
3-4 shuffle [pass thru to CFG?]
see heather higgins
CAPT 722

=
ORIGIN: women for thomas;

IWF Board Chair Heather R. Higgins has held senior positions in numerous right-wing foundations, including the Randolph Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation and the Philanthropy Roundtable.

Kellyanne Conway, White House advisor and former Trump campaign manager, is an IWF board member. Directors Emeritae include Lynne V. Cheney, wife of Dick Cheney and Kimberly O. Dennis, president of the board of directors of Donors Trust and president and CEO of Searle Freedom Trust.

Nancy M. Pfotenhauer, a former Koch Industries lobbyist, left Koch Industries to become president of IWF in 2001 and she later served as Vice Chairman of IWF’s Board of Directors. She has a long history of promoting dirty energy and pushing for deregulation of polluting industries.
=
see new legal arm: Independent Women's Law Center IWLC

documented

TO:

RE:    GOP Senate Members Suggested SCOTUS Talking Points

DATE:    February 24, 2022

Because this nominee is likely to be a woman of color, the Left will try to portray any opposition to confirmation as sexist and/or racist. Do not allow them to do this by suggesting that the president’s selection process led him to choose someone who may not be “the best person” for the job. The truth is, there is no “best person” for the job. When President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh was no more or less qualified than any of the other judges on President Trump’s short list, all of whom would have made terrific justices (and one of whom, Amy Coney Barrett, was eventually nominated to the Court).

 It is, therefore, important that you focus NOT on the selection process or on the nominee’s paper qualifications, but rather on the need to learn more about the nominee’s judicial philosophy. Consider saying: This nominee has impressive paper credentials. But beyond resumes, the most important qualification for a justice is commitment to the rule of law. The best way to tell whether a judge will be impartial and apply the law as written is to examine her judicial philosophy and her views about the role of the Court in a democratic society.

We need to see evidence that this nominee will leave politics to the politicians and not try to rewrite our Constitution or the statutes passed by Congress to fit her own personal conceptions of justice. In explaining why this is important, you can appeal to the concerns of some Americans (particularly women and swing voters) that their rights hang in the balance with every Supreme Court nomination. Remind voters that the Court can become dangerous if filled with unelected justices willing to impose their own morals from on high...
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Independent Women's Law Center Wrote Republican Senators' KBJ Talking Points, Distributed Before She Was Even Nominated
PUBLISHED ON MARCH 21, 2022

Talking points from the Independent Women's Law Center, a project of the Independent Women's Forum (IWF), and its sister organization Independent Women's Voice (IWV). The document was distributed to Republican members of the U.S. Senate, and is dated February 24, 2022, the day before Ketanji Brown Jackson was nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court.

The talking points urge Republican Senators to attack the "judicial philosophy" of the at that time unnamed nominee.

Erin Hawley is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Women's Law Center, and is the wife of Senator Josh Hawley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The name on the bottom of the document is Victoria Coley, a former Fox News producer.

IWF's past funders have included the Judicial Crisis Network, Rush Limbaugh, Facebook, Juul, and Marathon Petroleum Corporation. It has also received millions of dollars from the Freedom and Opportunity Fund, which was founded by Leonard Leo. Both IWF and IWV also receive substantial support through Donors Trust, which has been described as the "Dark-Money ATM of the Conservative Movement."

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logo looks like fem hyg product?

https://iwlc.org/
=
https://truenorthresearch.org/reports/

https://truenorthresearch.org/report/group-stealthily-targeted-independent-women-and-claimed-decisive-role-in-trumps-win/

A Report by Lisa Graves and Evan Vorpahl
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), a 501(c)(3), and the Independent Women’s Voice
(IWV), its (c)(4), claim to have played a pivotal role in the 2016 election of Donald Trump by
targeting independent women in Wisconsin. IWF/V is positioned to play a significant role
there, and elsewhere, in 2020.
IWF and IWV have jointly spent millions in recent years to influence the outcome of federal
and state elections. Wisconsin is a key state where they have focused their resources.
Due to gaps in reporting requirements and changes in the law, the activities of IWF/V are
not well known to outsiders. What Heather Higgins—IWF/V’s strategic leader and lead
fundraiser—tells potential donors and allies, however, is that IWF/V’s activities have often
been decisive in elections, including in Wisconsin in 2016 specifically.
IWF/V’s specialty is using its “independent” brand name to target people who register as
“independent” voters, particularly women. Its primary tactic is to use its (c)(3) to reach out
to targets in a state with relatively detailed messaging about a particular issue, repeatedly
and in multiple formats, and then layer in its (c)(4) activity to connect electoral candidates
to that issue right before the election.

IWF/V has devised a process of using quizzes shortly before an election to convey distorted
information to voters, without tying it to a political party or a candidate (or a request for
money), until the election is imminent.
The quizzes it produces to influence elections have focused on IWF/V’s claims and
disinformation about the Affordable Care Act, the U.S. Supreme Court, paid leave, climate
policy, and immigration.
It is difficult to assess independently the actual effectiveness of IWF/V’s efforts to influence
the outcome of the presidential and U.S. Senate races in Wisconsin in 2016, but a
“confidential” document obtained by True North Research provides one professor’s
assessment of IWF/V’s success.
That evaluation, procured by IWF/V, takes the position that IWF/V was exceptionally
successful in Wisconsin in moving independent voters to support Donald Trump and Ron
Johnson, in 2016, by double-digit percentages.
This special report from the new Wisconsin-based national watchdog True North Research
examines IWF/V’s astounding claims of success in Wisconsin in 2016 and in other elections,
as IWF/V plots its strategy to influence election outcomes in the upcoming 2020 races.

Lisa Graves is the Executive Director of True North Research and a Senior Fellow at Republic Report. She previously led
the Center for Media and Democracy, was the Chief Counsel for Nominations on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and
a Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. She’s been a frequent guest on MSNBC and in
documentary films. She directs two new research websites: KochDocs.org and IndependentWomensForum.org.
Background for Assessing IWF/V’s Claims
It Played a Pivotal Role for Donald Trump
and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin in 2016
The popular vote in Wisconsin in 2016
was more than 1.4M for Donald Trump
and 1.38M for Hillary Clinton, a difference
of 22,748 votes—and a margin of less
than 1% of the total votes cast. (Third
party candidates received more than
188K votes cast, or 6.3%, including the
31K cast for the Green Party.)

noted: “In Wisconsin alone, Americans for
Prosperity staff, equipped with state-of-the-art voter contact technology, made
1.5 million phone calls and knocked on
nearly 30,000 doors…. Koch groups spent
$4.3 million in Wisconsin, eclipsing the $3
million spent by the Clinton campaign,
with television ads that sought to
simultaneously tear down Democrat Russ
Feingold and Clinton, a pattern repeated
in other crucial swing states.”

Voting rights expert Ari Berman credited
Priorities USA’s assessment that the 2016
turnout in the state was suppressed by
approximately 200K votes. A narrower
analysis concluded that the votes of at
least 16K Americans in two of the most
populous Wisconsin counties were...

[That’s all part of the publicly known story
about the 2016 election in Wisconsin.
Here’s the part that is less well known:
IWF/V, whose electoral influence
operations are helmed by GOP strategist
and donor Heather Higgins, claims to
have played a pivotal role in Wisconsin

IWV’s Claim: Without its “educational messaging, both Trump and
Johnson would otherwise have lost WI by over 100,000 votes each.”]

...suppressed by Voter ID restrictions the
GOP adopted after Obama’s win in 2008.
The turnout in Wisconsin in 2016 was the
lowest it has been since 2000.

Further complicating the assessment of
who to credit with aiding Trump’s victory
in the state is the documented targeting
of Wisconsin and Michigan by Russian
troll farms working to help Trump.
Additionally, late in the campaign Brad
Parscale, who was then Trump’s digital
political guru, re-allocated key resources
for his planned ad buys on social media
away from targeting Virginia and Ohio to
targeting Wisconsin and Michigan.

Also, there’s the Charles Koch factor, as
investigative reporter Lee Fang recently...

through how she targeted independent
women here. Although IWF/V is known in
some DC circles as the group that got its
start defending Clarence Thomas against
evidence of sexual harassment and as
opponents of equal pay, it has stealthily
been playing a below-the-radar role in
elections, with an impact it claims has
been decisive.
Who Did IWF/V Target in Wisconsin in
2016 and What Was Its Claimed Effect?
Here is a snapshot of IWV’s “success
story” about the role it says it played in
delivering Wisconsin for Trump in 2016:...
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see prez carrie lukas

https://tennesseestar.com › 2021 › 05 › 04 › independent-womens-forum-president-carrie-lukas-discusses-newsweek-piece-and-strings-attached-to-the-american-families-plan
Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy - broadcast on Nashville's Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. - host Leahy welcomed President of the Independent Women's Forum Carrie Lukas to the newsmakers line to weigh in on her recent Newsweek piece and concerns over the American Families Act proposed by Joe ...
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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/wake-hurricane-ida-fox-doubling-down-climate-denial-order-attack-bidens-infrastructure

Fox News is using Hurricane Ida to downplay the seriousness of climate change and attack President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, including the infrastructure bill which contains measures to make us more resilient in the face of extreme weather.

The fingerprints of climate change on the recent Hurricane Ida, which caused extensive damage from the Southeast to the Northeast U.S., were clear. One was its rapid intensification over very warm Gulf waters before pummeling Louisiana. Another was the amount of heavy rainfall that the storm brought in the Northeast that broke records in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, and caused major flash flooding. Beyond clearly showing that climate change is happening now, Ida’s devastating impacts, particularly in the Northeast, exposed how ill-prepared we are for it. And much of the coverage of Hurricane Ida was permeated with the theme that “the infrastructure in place today was built for a climate that no longer exists.”

In fact, with increased media coverage of events such as Ida, the public is beginning to increasingly understand the dangers of climate change and the need for actions that not only reduce climate-causing emissions, but make our communities less vulnerable to the climate impacts that are already happening. But as the public and more media outlets are starting to connect extreme weather to the need for climate action, Fox News coverage seeks to break those links.
Fox networks downplayed climate change and accused Biden of politicizing Hurricane Ida to push a climate agenda

Since September 2, the day after Ida’s remnants ravaged the Northeast, Fox News and Fox Business have aired at least a dozen segments, combined, that claimed that the Democrats are using Ida as a pretext to implement a massive climate agenda including through the infrastructure bill [W/ CORP Tax increase]. These attacks, coupled with instances of climate denial, show the network’s ultimate goal is to stop the implementation of Biden’s climate agenda by all means necessary.

Fox’s favorite new climate contrarian Michael Shellenberger [FOSTER FRIESS LOMBORG. IWF]appeared on two Fox programs to downplay climate’s impact on Ida and to argue that the climate crisis is actually overblown, first on the September 2 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, and later on the September 7 edition of The Ingraham Angle. In both segments, Shellenberger accused Democrats of using climate change only as a cover to make the economy more dependent on renewable energy sources like solar power, which he has a history of attacking. (Shellenberger is useful for Fox News because he doesn’t outright deny that climate change is happening; he only -- and falsely -- suggests that it’s not a major problem. In this sense, he provides the perfect cover for the fossil fuel industry to keep polluting the planet.)

Perhaps one of the more egregious examples came during a discussion of Biden’s response to Hurricane Ida during the September 3 edition of Fox Business’ Mornings With Maria. Guest Patrice Lee Onwuka of the Koch-funded Independent Women's Forum accused Biden of using the “fallacy” of climate change to get his agenda passed:

[vid]

paTRICE LEE ONWUKA (INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S FORUM): I think President Biden is absolutely looking out for what kind of a legacy he wants to leave behind, and he will try his best to get his agenda passed, using whatever fallacy that he can find. I mean, it’s remarkable that we're talking about, you know, a hurricane, and people who’ve lost livelihoods, some who’ve lost their lives, and we’re still pivoting to this idea that it’s all driven by climate change, when frankly, the facts dispute that. So it is unfortunate that the American people are subjected to this every single day, but this is going to continue.

There is no “fallacy” here and she is wrong on the facts -- climate scientists know that climate change has an impact on hurricanes, from things like rainfall to intensity level to how slow they move, and these impacts will only get worse in the future unless carbon emissions are rapidly cut.

There were many other examples that attacked Democrats for politicizing extreme weather events and threw cold water on the infrastructure bill. On the September 3 edition of Fox News’ Your World With Neil Cavuto, correspondent Chad Pergam began a segment on the infrastructure bill by stating, “Democrats are using the storm to justify their push for the infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion bill. It's loaded with environmental provisions.”[which are obviously inherently bad?!]

During the September 4 edition of Bongino Unfiltered, host Dan Bongino began a segment on Ida by also claiming, “Democrats wasted no time demanding action against climate change.” The segment which displayed chyrons like “Democrats’ Climate Power Play” and “Dems Push Climate Alarmism After Deadly Storms” also featured a Democratic strategist squaring off against longtime climate denier Marc Morano. Morano used his time to argue that the climate crisis is overblown. Although climate “both-sides” debates should be a relic of the past as they were promoted solely by polluting interests wanting to advance the narrative that climate change is “debatable,” Fox had no qualms in reviving it here despite overwhelming evidence of climate’s impact on Ida.

In addition, Fox invited climate-denying meteorologist Joe Bastardi on the September 8 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight. The segment began with guest host Brian Kilmeade claiming that Joe Biden is “using these disasters for political purposes” in order to pass the infrastructure bill. Bastardi then backed up Kilmeade’s claim by dismissing the climate impacts of Ida, simply noting that other bad storms have happened in the past. He also falsely claimed, “The sun, the oceans, the events, the very design of the system, always try to fight back, and at the very least you can't tell what CO2 is doing.”

During an interview with U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) on the September 4 edition of Fox News Live, co-anchor Anita Vogel referenced Biden’s and Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) comments on Ida and climate change, and asked Malliotakis if “it's appropriate to blame this on climate change. … Should he be bringing politics into this when people are suffering?” Malliotakis responded, “We all need to do our part to be more environmentally friendly and reduce our footprint, but at the end of the day, you know, they're using this to push their radical-left agenda to try to pass a $3.5 trillion socialist wish list.”

Some Fox hosts also made similar comments in the wake of Ida. On the September 2 edition of Fox News’ Hannity, host Sean Hannity began a segment that ultimately downplayed the climate impacts of Ida by stating, “The left is blaming climate change for the heavy rainfall, severe weather and using it as another pretext to push their Green New Deal socialist agenda.” On the September 5 edition of Fox News’ The Next Revolution With Steve Hilton, host Steve Hilton did a short segment on Democrats using Ida to implement the Green New Deal.

Although the infrastructure bill is not the Green New Deal, that hasn’t stopped congressional Republicans, Fox News, and other right-wing media outlets from trying to compare the two. Fox is utterly obsessed with the Green New Deal and is using it to undermine basically every climate action that is proposed, however modest. This time, it’s the infrastructure bill the costs of which would pale in comparison to what unchecked climate change would do to the global economy.

Ida hit the U.S. against the backdrop of the recent report from U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that conclusively linked climate change “to an increased frequency and/or intensity of some weather and climate extremes since pre-industrial times.” It also followed a summer of harrowing extreme weather events that also had climate fingerprints all over them, including Western U.S. wildfires and drought, and a brutal Pacific Northwest heat wave. The fact that, despite all these events, Fox continued to diminish climate’s impact on Ida and argued for continued delayed action on climate change shows how much of a dangerous threat the network is to the discourse on climate change.
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heated 320

it  took Maine Governor Janet Mills 12 days since the first case of novel coronavirus hit to implement the type of restrictive social distancing policies scientists overwhelmingly recommend to halt disease spread, including the closure of nonessential businesses.

It took her only five days, however, to delay the state’s ban on single-use plastic bags, using a scientifically questionable theory that reusable bags pose an outsized risk of spreading COVID-19.

Since Mills’ March 17 order, reusable grocery bags in Maine have become taboo. City officials are now discouraging shopping from bringing them to the store, claiming they will threaten grocery story workers. “According to current research and understanding, COVID-19 can survive on various surfaces for hours and in some cases days,” Portland City Manager Jon Jennings said in a news release last week.

And though Mills was the first state governor in America to give credence to this theory, she hasn’t been the last. Over the weekend, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu outright prohibited shoppers from bringing reusable bags to stores. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker did the same on Wednesday. “From now on, reusable bags are prohibited and all regulations on plastic bag bans are lifted,” he said.

This, however, is likely just the beginning of the plastic industry’s war on reusable bags. Because as the pandemic has picked up steam in America, so too has the industry’s push for policy and culture shifts to encourage single-use plastics, and ban reusable alternatives. Their allies in the news media, oil and gas industry, and conservative think tank world are all quickly lining up behind them—and together, they’re putting pressure on the public and the federal government get on board.

Last week, the Plastics Industry Association asked the Department of Health and Human Services to make a national pronouncement supporting single-use plastics and advocating against reusable grocery bags, claiming they will worsen the pandemic. “Study after study after study have shown that reusable bags can carry viruses and bacteria, spread them throughout a grocery store, and live on surfaces for up to three days,” they claimed.

But those three studies don’t actually say what the industry claims. Taken together, they do not provide sufficient evidence that reusable grocery bags pose a greater threat to consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic than single-use plastic grocery bags.

Let’s go through them one by one.
1) The 10-year-old American Chemistry Council-funded study that looked at 84 reusable bags in two states and found no disease-causing bacteria

The first piece of research that the plastic industry says strongly suggests a correlation between reusable grocery bags and coronavirus spread was this 2010 study funded by the American Chemistry Council, an industry group which represents plastics interests. Conducted by researchers at the University of Arizona, it was published in the journal Food Protection Trends in 2011.

Analyzing just 84 reusable bags collected in California and Arizona, the studies authors concluded that “Large numbers of bacteria were found in almost all bags and coliform bacteria in half.” They did not, however, find any pathogenic bacteria or strains of E. Coli that actually make you sick. As Consumer Reports noted at the time, “They only found bacteria that don’t normally cause disease, but do cause disease in people with weakened immune systems.”

“A person eating an average bag of salad greens gets more exposure to these bacteria than if they had licked the insides of the dirtiest bag from this study,” Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist at Consumers Union, said in the article. “These bacteria can be found lots of places, so no need to go overboard.”

The reason there was bacteria on the bags was because people didn’t wash them. If people washed the bags, the study said, 99.9 percent of all bacteria was destroyed.
2) The study that looked at 30 reusable bags and said essentially the same thing

The second study, published in the international journal Food Control in 2019, found microbes capable of causing food-borne illness on the bags. This time, half the bags tested had coliform bacteria on them and some even had E. coli.

This makes sense, again, because the bags had a bunch of food in them, and were not washed or sanitized. As Johns Hopkins University infectious disease specialist told Bustle at the time, “Reusable shopping bags, like anything, can accumulate micoorganisms from the environment. Unless the bag is visibly soiled, most of the risk is not worth worrying about.”

Of course, this means coronavirus could be on your bag, because coronavirus can live on plastic surfaces for up to 3 days. But neither of these studies indicate that it has any greater risk of being on your reusable bag than, say, your money, your phone, or your hands, which also get a lot of use at the grocery story. Nor do they indicate that reusable bags made of plastic have a greater risk of holding the virus than single-use plastic bags, which could be infected with pathogens during transportation, manufacturing, or handling.

Cameron Wolfe, an associate professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at Duke University, told the Wall Street Journal something similar, when talking about how companies like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts have stopped filling customers’ reusable cups out of fear of coronavirus. “It’s drawing a pretty long bow to believe this will be meaningfully impactful,” he said. “It’s an incredibly low likelihood that the cup would be the primary vehicle for transmission to occur.”

The article added: “Coronavirus can survive for a period outside the body and is transmitted through droplets like those generated by a cough or a sneeze. If a cup is infected, its owner probably is too, said Mr. Wolfe, making handing over cash and touching door handles potentially just as risky.

“You’d have a better impact if you told customers with active coughs not to come in, or to use hand sanitizer before approaching the coffee stand,” he said.”
3) The study that looked at one reusable bag that someone had literally vomited next to in a bathroom and then gave to a group of children.

Yeah, honestly, like I can’t even go there with this one. You can read about that study here.

Also, coronavirus is not a norovirus. It is literally not the same thing.
No evidence, no problem

There is certainly a chance that coronavirus could live on our reusable grocery bags if those bags come in contact with an infected person—particularly if those bags are made of plastic. A study published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the novel coronavirus is most stable on plastic surfaces.

But that also includes single-use plastic surfaces, said Aaron Bernstein, the director of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment. “This suggests that relying on plastic bags may be the best way to ensure the virus persists in the environment and facilitates spread of the disease.”

Clearly, there is still a debate to be had over the efficacy of plastic bag policies for coronavirus—especially since plastic bag bans in themselves are attempts to address climate change and ocean pollution, two other pressing global crises. It would be foolish to prematurely stop an attempt to address two global crises without a baseline sort of consensus that it would even remotely help the other.

The right and its allies, however, appear to have made up their minds. Energy in Depth, a pro-oil-and-gas drilling industry front group formed by the American Petroleum Institute, wrote an article claiming coronavirus will spread without more single-use plastic bags. The New York Post and the Wall Street Journal have written editorials in support of reversing bag bans. Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative anti-climate group, is taking out ads on Facebook claiming that plastic bag bans help spread the coronavirus infectioN.

[graf twt]

it makes sense why so many right-leaning interest groups would come together on this issue. Before coronavirus, single-use plastic products were falling out of favor, as studies showed they were exacerbating climate change and destroying the ocean. Now, the industry is hoping COVID-19 will make everyone forget all that.

“As the coronavirus spreads across the country, single-use plastics will only become more vital,” Plastics Industry Association President Tony Radoszewski said in a statement last week. “We live longer, healthier, and better because of single-use plastics.”

Bernstein, however, is hoping that we remember something else. “In a crisis, we need science to guide us,” he said. “And that means science done by credible investigators who are supported by organizations without a vested financial interest in a specific outcome of their research.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/dark-money-posing-as-independent-womens-groups-might-have-played-a-pivotal-role-in-trumps-2016-win-study

no lnx

Dark money posing as ‘independent’ women’s groups might have played a ‘pivotal role’ in Trump’s 2016 win: study

Written by Alex Henderson March 2, 2020

When a political group describes itself as “independent,” it’s important to ask if that group really is “independent” or if, in fact, it has partisan leanings. The Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) and the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), which are sister organizations, both portray themselves as groups of free-thinking nonpartisan women. But David Armiak of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), in an article republished by Truthout on February 28, reports that according to Truth North Research (TNR), both organizations may have played a “pivotal role” in President Donald Trump’s victory in Wisconsin in 2016 as well as former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s victory in the 2012 recall election.

Armiak explains, “IWV boasts that Trump would have received an estimated 215,840 fewer votes in Wisconsin if it had not executed its quiz messaging campaign targeting 1.54 million voters. However, much of that messaging was conducted by IWV’s affiliated 501(c)(3) partner, IWF, which is prohibited by federal law from participating or intervening in elections.”

Lisa Graves, executive director of TNR, asserts that IWV and IWF aren’t as “independent” as they claim to be. Graves told CMD,  CRONON]  “People in Wisconsin and elsewhere need to know about this right-wing group that uses its ‘independent’ brand name to pretend to be independent in order to sway women voters who are independent. I don’t think it would be prudent to underestimate the resolve or impact of the Independent Women’s Voice on elections.”

According to Graves, it is “troubling” that IWV is “funded largely by dark money sources.” Graves notes that Heather Higgins, CEO of IWV and IWF, is a “touted strategist for the right wing and called the election for Trump when others were dismissing him, in part based on her assessment of independent and conservative women. I fully expect her groups to spend substantial sums deploying her quiz strategy in target states in 2020.”

The TNR report was authored by Graves and researcher Evan Vorpahl.

Armiak notes that IWV and IWF have received millions of dollars from right-wing groups, including DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. And even though IWV and IWF claim to be “women’s organizations,” Graves’ research found that 89% of IWF’s funders are men.

The Center for Responsive Politics has noted that IWV President Tammy Bruce, in 2018, was “vociferous” in her defense of Justice Brett Kavanagh. After Kavanaugh was accused of attempted rape by Palo Alto University psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford, Bruce appeared on Fox News and asserted that he was “effectively being used as a stand-in for all perpetrators.”

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wow, anti-fem at the start w ERA schalfly,  TP constant tight up to gamergate/ red pill?

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/how-southern-white-women-drove-the-gop-to-donald-trump/

no lnx

How southern white women drove the GOP to Donald Trump

written by Paul Rosenberg / Salon July 1, 2019

“The Long Southern Strategy,” a new book by political scientists Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields, first caught my eye because there’s a long history of denialism surrounding the “Southern strategy.” People sometimes claim that it’s a liberal myth or that it’s ancient history, or that wasn’t the real reason for the Southern realignment in American politics. That denialism has only intensified and grown more significant since the election of Donald Trump.

But Maxwell and Shields’ book turns out to be more than just well-timed, as its subtitle suggests: “How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics.” Rather than simply showing that the Southern strategy was a long-term phenomenon, the book shows that it was a continuously reshaped and evolving strategy, that it was multifaceted — involving gender and religion as crucially as race — and that in remaking the Republican Party and the South, it remade American politics as well. “The Long Southern Strategy” explains this reshaping process remaking better than anything else I’ve read, and does so via a compelling multi-disciplinary combination of history, cultural criticism and social science.

In “The Reactionary Mind” (Salon review here), political theorist Corey Robin argued that conservative politics “speak to and for people who have lost something. It may be a landed estate or the privileges of white skin, the unquestioned authority of a husband or the untrammeled rights of a factory owner.” Conservatives may have balked at Robin’s argument, but “The Long Southern Strategy” convincingly describes the specific combination of such losses on which Republicans have played, and the specific form of conservatism that resulted.

The building blocks aren’t old-fashioned racism, sexism and religious fundamentalism — all have been reshaped into new forms, making new arguments for halting progress and turning back the clock, which is also a part of the book’s story. For example, as co-author Angie Maxwell told me, “Modern sexism describes feelings of resentment and distrust towards feminists and working women. Rather than believing that a woman cannot do a particular job, folks who express Modern sexism resents a woman for wanting to do that job.”

“The Long Southern Strategy” also explains why Donald Trump is not such an anomaly after all, but rather the culmination of where the GOP has been headed for the past 50-plus years. “I gave a series of lectures the year before the election, called ‘The Inevitability of Donald Trump,'” Maxwell told me — but even she thought Trump would make it no further than the Republican nomination. She was concerned, however, about how close the election was going to be, because she had applied “modern sexism measures” to national polling in 2012, and found alarmingly high numbers. “I was worried we were not accounting for that effect,” she said. Perhaps not.

So I thought Maxwell would be a perfect interview subject as the 2020 campaign begins in earnest. It’s an invaluable guide for making sense of what’s about to unfold, as well as how we got here. This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

First I want to ask about the need to understand the Southern strategy as something long-term and continuing or evolving, not just a one-time event.

In short, with the Southern strategy, the story we tell is that after the Civil Rights Act, first Barry Goldwater and then Richard Nixon really played to white racial angst, and the South flipped to red. But when you start looking at not just the electoral map, but voting trends, the South goes pretty heavily back to Jimmy Carter in 1976. And most Southern politicians don’t change their party IDs during that period of time. You see from archival work and other scholarship how worried the GOP was post-Watergate that the inroads they made in the South they were going to lose. And sure enough, they do.

Now, if they were so adamant on a backlash to civil rights, then why pick Carter? But there this notion that Carter’s one of them — he shares their Southern identity, they understand him, he’s a born-again Christian. So the South kind of goes back [to the Democrats]. Then the Reagan folks in 1980 dropped the Equal Rights Amendment from their platform. This to me is the bridge. In 1980, the Republicans are trying again to win those Southern voters back, because they’ve really based their electoral map on that. They took that fork in the road in the late ’60s, and it’s kind of hard, once you set your strategy, to say, “Oh, let’s just pick a new one.” So they dropped the ERA.

This was a radical thing to do because the Equal Rights Amendment — and second-wave feminism in general — was a completely bipartisan effort. There were legions of Republican women feminists. In fact, they were some of the leaders in the movement. At the 1977 National Women’s Convention, the only national women’s convention we’ve ever had, every living first lady of both parties was there.. All the major congresswomen from both parties were there. What happened then was Phyllis Schlafly’s effort — she had written the book [A Choice, Not An Echo] that kind of inspired Goldwater to run years before — she started an anti-feminism counter rally, also in Houston, and had massive attendance at that, and their slogan was “family values.”

The GOP took notice. Schlafly was hoping it would get her a cabinet position, which it didn’t. But then the Reagan administration polls 40,000 women, an effort headed up by Richard Wirthlin, with Elizabeth Dole, and they classified American women into 64 types. They called them Nancys, Bettys — they give them names —and they realized that there were a whole lot more antifeminists out there than they realized, people who really wanted these traditional gender roles. I call them “antifeminist” because that is what they were calling themselves, a lot of times. Particularly in the South, among white women. And so that move [dropping the ERA] helped Reagan to secure a lot of those Southern white women. And that’s when you actually see people start changing their voter ID....

brett k /hist

Are Republican women ever going to get fed up? It's the question that keeps cropping up after every incident of Republican political leaders minimizing, denying or excusing sexual harassment and abuse. So far, the answer is no. Republican women did not turn on Donald Trump after a tape was released featuring him bragging about sexual assault. Republican women did not turn on the party when it backed Roy Moore's campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama, despite numerous reports of him creeping on teen girls as an adult man. Now the question is being raised again, in light of the allegations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court.

After Thursday's hearing — when it became clear that Kavanaugh's principal accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, was credible and backed by ample evidence while Kavanaugh himself appeared to lie multiple times under oath — the question arose all over again. Are Republican women finally going to wake up, realize that their party leadership sees them as second-class citizens, and fight back?

A survey of media reports suggests there's a lot of people who dearly hope so. "Here’s Why White Women Are Abandoning the GOP," blared a headline at the Atlantic.

"Republican Women Lose Faith in Kavanaugh — and Trump — After Week of Accusations," said a Morning Consult headline.

"New Poll: Kavanaugh, Trump Losing Support of Republican Women," declared New York magazine.

Other coverage, however, suggests a different story. Politico ran an article recently declaring that "party loyalty trumps #MeToo" for female Republicans. Local news covered rallies of women supporting Kavanaugh. The Associated Press ran a piece in which Republican women expressed skepticism about Ford's account and doubled down on their determination to support Republicans. Conservative pundits like Kellyanne Conway and Mollie Hemingway minimized the nature of the accusation, denying that what Ford described on worldwide live TV — being held down with her mouth covered, while an older teenage boy tried to remove her clothes — constituted assault and suggesting it was more like innocent flirting.

So what's the story here? Are Republican women getting fed up or not?

“Probably some of them are turning" on Kavanaugh, said Marjorie Spruill, a retired history professor and the author of "Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics." "But the vast majority of them, I doubt that they would, because they are committed to him on the basis of the policies that he would promote, just like they were with Trump."

Tresa Undem of the polling firm Perry Undem concurred, saying that the minority of Republican women who already disapprove of Trump will be more solidified in their distaste, but that "this is not going to have an effect" on the large majority of Republican women.

This week's polling data backs up that contention. A new CBS News poll shows that while only 29 percent of American women want Kavanaugh confirmed, a full 70 percent of Republican women want him on the bench. Even the Morning Consult poll that was being held out as evidence that Republican women were abandoning Trump and Kavanaugh didn't really show that. While there was some slippage of female Republican support, only about 15 percent of Republican women were willing to oppose Kavanaugh's confirmation — compared to 39 percent disapproval among all female voters.

Theses polls also found that Democratic and independent men were far more skeptical of Kavanaugh than Republican women -- and by wide margins.

While this might surprise casual observers, it did not surprise Undem, who told Salon, "Gender equality is very much a partisan issue," and noted that her own research has shown, over and over again, that Republican women are nearly as good at denying and minimizing sexism as Republican men. They tend to sign off on the same view that sexism isn't really a problem, but is largely something women make up to get attention or score political points.

For instance, Undem pointed out, the majority of women who voted for Trump, like the majority of men who did so, agreed with the statement, "Most women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist."

In a recent focus group, when Undem asked about the issue of the two parties' views on gender issues, she said she got "just blank stares" from Republican women.

This has been going on for decades, Spruill said, arguing that much of the political polarization of this moment reflects the way conservative women have aggressively organized in opposition to feminism. She pointed to the way anti-feminist women in the 1970s "redirected the Republican Party away from its traditional support for women’s rights" and shaped it into the boldly sexist party it is now.

While most of the focus of the gender fight of recent decades has been on issues like equal pay or abortion rights, Spruill observes that other questions directly relevant to the Kavanaugh case have long played a role. "Phyllis Schlafly and the Eagle Forum, for years, were opposed to a lot of what feminists said and did to try to protect women from violence, domestic abuse and sexual violence,” she said.

Schlafly's extensive history of bashing feminist efforts to prevent domestic violence and sexual abuse is still easy to find online. She railed against the Violence Against Women Act from its inception, claiming that it encouraged divorce and taught women to hate men. When Anita Hill stepped forward to accuse Clarence Thomas [--> IWF ] of sexual harassment in 1991, Schlafly argued that Hill was to blame for the harassment because she hadn't pushed back, and suggested that women in the workplace would have to learn "to thrive in a hostile environment."

The echoes of Schlafly's argument can still be heard in Laura Ingraham portraying Christine Blasey Ford as hysterical for being upset at an attempted rape or conservative legal commentator Sidney Powell describing stifling someone's screams after locking them in a room as "a fumbled attempt to make out with a girl at a party." Sexual abuse or assault by men and boys is treated, within this worldview, as something women must simply put up with. If women are upset or traumatized by it, that's held out as evidence that they are weak and undeserving of concern.

This kind of rhetoric is disturbing, but it is worth remembering that Republican women tend to live with Republican men. Choosing to be married to or live with men who make excuses for this sort of behavior means either getting on board — and perhaps even convincing yourself that it makes you "tough" to put up with it — or living with a degree of cognitive dissonance that is far more than most people can bear.

Undem emphasized that while most Republican women are sticking by their party and their men, however, a small percentage are getting wobbly — around 15 percent, the same proportion that now opposes Kavanaugh's confirmation. In plenty of congressional districts -- and nationally in the 2016 presidential race -- elections are won on the margins. Even a few percentage points of Republican women going sour and quitting the party in disgust could turn the electoral tide in 2018, and might make an even bigger difference when the pussy-grabber-in-chief is up for re-election in 2020.
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Update: Article on IWF’s 25th gala in Washington DC Nov. 15, The Politics of Cancer and Infertility

The Independent Women’s Forum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has taken money from tobacco and oil companies, partners with Monsanto, defends toxic chemicals in food and consumer products, denies climate science and argues against laws that would curb the power of corporations.

IWF began in 1991 as an effort to defend now Supreme Court Justice (and former Monsanto attorney) Clarence Thomas as he faced sexual harassment charges. The group now says it seeks to “improve the lives of Americans by increasing the number of women who value free markets and personal liberty.”

A key message of IWF is to shift the blame for health or environmental problems away from corporations and toward personal responsibility — for example arguing that parents, not food companies, are to blamefor America’s obesity problem.
Funding by right wing billionaires and corporations

According to data collected by Greenpeace USA, IWF has received over $15 million in funding since 1998, largely from right-wing foundations that promote deregulation and corporate free reign.

IWF’s leading contributors, with donations topping $5.3 million, are Donors Trust and Donors Capital Funds, the “dark money ATM of the conservative movement” connected with Charles and David Koch. The funds channel money from anonymous donors, including corporations, to efforts that champion corporate agendas, as a Greenpeace investigation established.

    IWF’s top funder: dark money from undisclosed donors

IWF has also received $844,115 in combined donations from Koch family foundations. Other top funders include the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, Randolf Foundation (an offshoot of the Richardson Foundation) and Searle Freedom Trust — all are leading funders of climate-science denial, according to a Drexel University study.

ExxonMobil and Philip Morris are among IWF’s funders, according to documents from the UCSF Tobacco Industry Documents Library. Phillip Morris named IWF in a list of “potential third party references” and “those who respect our views.”

The book “Merchants of Doubt” by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway described IWF as one of the “seemingly grass-roots organizations” funded by the Phillip Morris Corporation that focus on “Individual Liberties,” “Regulatory Issues,” or both.

Rush Limbaugh has donated at least a quarter of a million dollars to IWF, according to this report in The Nation: “Guess Which Women’s Group Rush Limbaugh has Donated Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars to? Hint: it’s the one that defends him whenever he launches into a sexist tirade.”
IWF leaders

IWF Board Chair Heather R. Higgins has held senior positions in numerous right-wing foundations, including the Randolph Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation and the Philanthropy Roundtable.

Kellyanne Conway, White House advisor and former Trump campaign manager, is an IWF board member. Directors Emeritae include Lynne V. Cheney, wife of Dick Cheney and Kimberly O. Dennis, president of the board of directors of Donors Trust and president and CEO of Searle Freedom Trust.

Nancy M. Pfotenhauer, a former Koch Industries lobbyist, left Koch Industries to become president of IWF in 2001 and she later served as Vice Chairman of IWF’s Board of Directors. She has a long history of promoting dirty energy and pushing for deregulation of polluting industries.

IWF’s agenda closely follows the lobbying and messaging agenda of tobacco, oil and chemical industry interests. Following are some examples:
Argues ‘standard Phillips Morris PR’

In August 2017, IWF lobbied FDA to approve Phillip Morris’ IQOS e-cigarettes, arguing that women need the products for various biological reasons to help them quit smoking regular cigarettes.

“Clearly, the FDA doesn’t intend to punish women, simply for their gender. Yet, that’s precisely what’s going to happen if women are limited to smoking cessation products that biologically cannot provide them with the help they need to quit traditional cigarettes,” IWF wrote.

In response to the IWF letter, Stanton Glantz, PhD, Professor of Medicine at the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, said: “This is standard Philip Morris PR.  There is no independent confirmation that IQOS are safer than cigarettes or that they help people quit smoking.”
Denies climate science  

The Independent Women’s Forum is a “Koch Industries Climate Denial Group” that “has spread misinformation on climate science and touts the work of climate deniers,” according to Greenpeace.

Jane Mayer reported in The New Yorker: “The (Koch) brothers have given money to more obscure groups, too, such as the Independent Women’s Forum, which opposes the presentation of global warming as a scientific fact in American public schools. Until 2008, the group was run by Nancy Pfotenhauer, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries. Mary Beth Jarvis, a vice-president of a Koch subsidiary, is on the group’s board.”

    Opposes teaching climate science in schools

A Denver Post story reported in 2010, IWF “thinks global warming is ‘junk science’ and that teaching it is unnecessarily scaring schoolchildren.” Through a campaign called “Balanced Education for Everyone,” IWF opposed climate science education in schools, which the group described as “alarmist global warming indoctrination.”

IWF President Carrie Lucas writes about the “growing skepticism about climate change” and argues “the public could pay dearly for the hysteria.”
Promotes toxic chemicals / Partners with Monsanto

IWF is a leading messenger for promoting toxic chemicals as nothing to worry about, opposing public health protections and trying to build trust for corporations like Monsanto. According to IWF’s “Culture of Alarmism” project, sharing information about hazardous chemicals in consumer products leads to “wasted tax dollars, higher costs and inferior goods for consumers, fewer jobs … and a needlessly worried, less free American populace.”

In February 2017, Monsanto partnered with IWF on an event titled “Food and Fear: How to Find Facts in Today’s Culture of Alarmism,” and an IWF podcast that month discussed “How Monsanto is Vilified by Activists.”

IWF pushes the talking points of Monsanto and the agrichemical industry: promoting GMOs and pesticides, attacking the organic industry and opposing transparency in food labels. Examples include:

    Vermont’s GMO labeling law is stupid. (The Spectator)
    Sinister GMO labeling will cause grocery costs to skyrocket. (IWF)
    Anti-GMO hype is the real threat to the well being of families. (National Review)
    General Mills caved in to the “food police” by removing GMOs (USA Today)
    Chipotle is stuffing their non-GMO burritos with nonsense. (IWF)
    Reasonable moms need to push back on the mom shaming and guilt tripping organic food narrative. (IWF podcast)
    GMO critics are cruel, vain, elite and seek to deny those in need. (New York Post)
    Educates celebrity moms about GMOs with Monsanto’s talking points (IWF)

Champions corporate-friendly “food freedom”

IWF attacks the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as “government nannies,” for example describing the agency as “food Marxists” and “completely out of control” for issuing voluntary guidance to food manufacturers to cut sodium levels.

A June 2017 IWF event tried to stoke fears about public health guidance

In 2012, IWF launched a “Women for Food Freedom” project to “push back on the nanny state and encourage personal responsibility” for food choices. The agenda included opposing “food regulations, soda and snack food taxes, junk science and food and home-product scares, misinformation about obesity and hunger, and other federal food programs, including school lunches.”

On obesity, IWF tries to shift attention away from corporate accountability and toward personal choices. In this interview with Thom Hartmann, Julie Gunlock of IWF’s Culture of Alarmism Project argues that corporations are not to blame for America’s obesity problem but rather “people are making bad choices and I think parents are completely checking out.” The solution, she said, is for parents to cook more, especially poor parents since they have a worse problem with obesity.
Attacks moms for trying to reduce pesticide exposures

IWF pushes industry messaging, using covert tactics, in attempt to ostracize moms who are concerned about pesticides; a prime example is this 2014 New York Post article, “Tyranny of the Organic Mommy Mafia” by Naomi Schafer Riley.

Under the guise of complaining about “mom shaming,” Riley – who is an IWF fellow but did not disclose that to readers – attempts to shame and blame moms who choose organic food.

Riley’s article relied on information from industry front groups that she falsely presented as independent sources:

    Riley described Academics Review – a front group funded by the agrichemical industry and started with the help of Monsanto to attack the organic industry and critics of GMOs – as “a nonprofit group of independent scientists.”
    Riley used the Alliance for Food and Farming, a food industry front group, to counter “the most common mommy worry — pesticides” with the message that pesticides are nothing to worry about.
    A key source, Julie Gunlock, was identified as an author but not as an employee of IWF and Riley’s colleague.

Partners with chemical industry front groups

IWF partners with other corporate front groups such as the American Council on Science and Health, a leading defender of toxic chemicals with deep ties to Monsanto and Syngenta. ACSH is funded by chemical, pharmaceutical, tobacco and other industry groups.

    In a February 2017 IWF podcast, ACSH and IWF “debunked Rachel Carson’s alarmism on toxic chemicals”
    ACSH was “fully behind” IWF’s “culture of alarmism letter” opposing efforts to remove hazardous chemicals from consumer products.
    IWF events attacking moms who are concerned about toxic chemicals, such as this “hazmat parenting” event, featured ACSH representative Josh Bloom and chemical industry public relations writer Trevor Butterworth.

As many journalists and articles have pointed out, IWF also partners with many other Koch-funded activist groups that deny climate science and push the deregulatory agenda of corporations.
For further reading:

The Intercept, “Koch Brothers Operatives Fill Top White House Positions,” by Lee Fang (4/4/2017)

The Nation, “Meet the ‘Feminists’ Doing the Koch Brothers’ Dirty Work,” by Joan Walsh (8/18/2016)

Center for Media and Democracy, “Most Known Donors of the Independent Women’s Forum are Men,” by Lisa Graves (8/24/2016)

Center for Media and Democracy, “Confirmation: the Not-so-Independent Women’s Forum was Born in Defense of Clarence Thomas and the Far Right,” by Lisa Graves and Calvin Sloan (4/21/2016)

Slate, “Confirmation Bias: How ‘Women for Judge Thomas’ turned into a conservative powerhouse,” by Barbara Spindel (4/7/2016)

Truthout, “Independent Women’s Forum Uses Misleading Branding to Push Right Wing Agenda,” by Lisa Graves, Calvin Sloan and Kim Haddow (8/19/2016)

Inside Philanthropy, “The Money Behind the Conservative Women’s Groups Still Fighting the Culture War,” by Philip Rojc  (9/13/2016)

The Nation, “Guess Which Women’s Group Rush Limbaugh has Donated Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars to? Hint: it’s the one that defends him whenever he launches into a sexist tirade,” by Eli Clifton (6/12/2014)

The New Yorker, “The Koch Brothers Covert Operations,” by Jane Mayer (8/30/2010)

Oxford University Press, “Righting Feminism: Conservative Women and American Politics,” by Ronnee Schreiber (2008)

Inside Philanthropy, “Look Who’s Funding This Top Conservative Women’s Group,” by Joan Shipps (11/26/2014)

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, “Conservative Women are Right for Media Mainstream; Media Have Finally Found Some Women to Love,” by Laura Flanders (3/1/1996)
 Our Investigations   ACSH, Carrie Lukas, Donors Capital, Donors Trust, Heather R. Higgins, Independent Women's Forum, Julie Gunlock, Kellyanne Conway, Kimberly O. Dennis, Koch Brothers, Lynne V. Cheney, Monsanto, Nancy M. Pfotenhauer, Naomi Schaefer Riley
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https://www.alternet.org/environment/koch-funded-anti-climate-group-tells-women-ignore-concerns-about-toxic-chemicals

At a recent soiree at Union Station, the D.C. power elite gathered in an anti-public health confab dressed up as a celebration of women that should concern anyone who cares about the health and rights of women and children.

The Independent Women’s Forum drew an impressive array of Republican politicians to its annual gala sponsored by, among others, the American Chemistry Council, the tobacco company Philip Morris, the cosmetics industry trade group, Google and the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council.

Speakers included House Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, who won the IWF Valor Award for being a “passionate advocate for limited government” who does not embrace “the idea that being a woman is a handicap.” Conway is also an IWF board member.

So what is the Independent Women’s Forum? IWF got its start 25 years ago as an effort to defend now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as he faced sexual harassment charges. The group has since raised millions from the secretive foundations of the Koch brothers and other right-wing billionaires to carry out its mission of “increasing the number of women who value free markets and personal liberty.”

In the world of the IWF—a group Joan Walsh described in The Nation as “the ‘feminists’ doing the Koch’s dirty work”—that means defending the freedom of corporations to sell toxic products and pollute the environment, while trying to frame that agenda as good for women and children.

E-cigarettes should be approved because of the unique biological needs of women, for example, and climate science education is too scary for students. (The e-cig letter is “standard Philip Morris PR,” says tobacco industry expert Stan Glanz, and Greenpeace classifies IWF as a “Koch Industries climate denial front group.”)

Women can also benefit by ignoring “alarmist” concerns about toxic chemicals, according to an IWF lecture series sponsored by Monsanto.

To give you a sense of the messaging on chemicals: Moms who insist on organic food are arrogant, snobby “helicopter parents” who “need to be in control of everything when it comes to their kids, even the way food is grown and treated,” according to Julie Gunlock, director of IWF’s “Culture of Alarmism” project, as quoted in an article titled “The tyranny of the organic mommy mafia” that was written by an IWF fellow.

At the IWF gala, Gunlock posed for a photo op with Monsanto staffer Aimee Hood and Julie Kelly, who writes articles casting doubt on climate science and pesticide risk, and once even called climate hero Bill McKibben “a piece of shit.”

Gunlock and Kelly are “rock stars,” Hood tweeted.

“I’m framing this,” Monsanto employee Cami Ryan tweeted in return.

Put a frame around the whole shindig and behold the absurdity of corporate-captured politics in America, where policy leaders openly embrace an anti-women “women’s group” that equates “freedom” with eating toxic pesticides, at an event sponsored by the chemical industry, a tobacco company, an extremist group that wants to do away with a voter-elected Senate and the world’s most influential news source.

Meanwhile in the rational world

In just the past few weeks, the Journals of the American Medical Association published a Harvard study implicating pesticide-treated foods in fertility problems, a UC San Diego study documenting huge increases in human exposure to a common pesticide, and a physician’s commentary urging people to eat organic food.Recent science suggests that if you want to get pregnant and raise healthy children, you should reject the propaganda that groups like the Independent Women’s Forum are trying to sell.

I wrote about those studies in more detail here, “Trying to get pregnant? Science suggests: eat organic and regulate the pesticide industry”.

Mainstream groups have been giving similar advice for years.

In 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended reducing children’s exposure to pesticides due to a growing body of literature that links pesticides to chronic health problems in children, including behavioral problems, birth defects, asthma and cancer.

In 2009, the bipartisan President’s Cancer Panel reported: “the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated.”

The panel urged then-President George W. Bush “most strongly to use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our Nation’s productivity, and devastate American lives.”

Unfortunately for our nation, acting on that advice has not been possible in a political system indentured to corporate interests.

Corporate capture of health and science

For decades, pesticide corporations have manipulated science and U.S. regulatory agencies to keep the truth hidden about the health dangers of their chemicals.

The details are being revealed by hundreds of thousands of pages of industry documents turned loose from legal discovery, whistleblowers and FOIA requests that have been examined in government hearings and by many media outlets.

For a synopsis of Monsanto’s “long-running secretive campaign to manipulate the scientific record, to sway public opinion, and to influence regulatory assessments” on its herbicide glyphosate, see this essay by my colleague Carey Gillam in Undark magazine.

As one example of government/corporate collusion: in 2015, on the Obama administration’s watch, the EPA official in charge of evaluating the cancer risk of glyphosate allegedly bragged to a Monsanto executive about helping to “kill” another agency’s cancer study, as Bloomberg reported.

Suppressing science has been a bipartisan, decades-long project. Since 1973, Monsanto has presented dubious science to claim the safety of glyphosate while EPA largely looked the other way, as Valerie Brown and Elizabeth Grossman documented for In These Times.

Brown and Grossman spent two years examining the publicly available archive of EPA documents on glyphosate, and reported:

    “Glyphosate is a clear case of ‘regulatory capture’ by a corporation acting in its own financial interest while serious questions about public health remain in limbo. The record suggests that in 44 years—through eight presidential administrations—EPA management has never attempted to correct the problem. Indeed, the pesticide industry touts its forward-looking, modern technologies as it strives to keep its own research in the closet, and relies on questionable assumptions and outdated methods in regulatory toxicology.”

The only way to establish a scientific basis for evaluating glyphosate’s safety, they wrote, would be to “force some daylight between regulators and the regulated.”

Limited government means freedom to harm

In Trump’s Washington, there is no daylight at all between the corporations selling harmful products and the agencies that are supposed to regulate them.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is pushing scientists off advisory boards and stacking the EPA with political appointees connected to the oil, coal and chemical industries, many of whom are connected to climate science deniers.

As one of his first official actions, Pruitt tossed aside the recommendation of EPA’s scientists and allowed Dow Chemical to keep selling a pesticide developed as a nerve gas that is linked to brain damage in children.

“Kids are told to eat fruits and vegetables, but EPA scientists found levels of this pesticide on such foods at up to 140 times the limits deemed safe,” Nicholas Kristof wrote in a scathing NYT op-ed. “Trump’s most enduring legacy may be cancer, infertility and diminished I.Q.s for decades to come.”

Pruitt has gone so far as to put a chemical industry lobbyist in charge of a sweeping new toxics law that was supposed to regulate the chemical industry.

It’s all so outrageous – but then, it has been for a very long time.

That sweeping new toxics law, which passed last year in a hailstorm of bipartisan glory, was opposed by many environmental groups but lauded by—and reportedly written by—the American Chemistry Council.

“The $800 billion chemical industry lavishes money on politicians and lobbies its way out of effective regulation. This has always been a problem, but now the Trump administration has gone so far as to choose chemical industry lobbyists to oversee environmental protections,” as Kristof described it.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics protested the administration’s decision on the nerve gas pesticide, but officials sided with industry over doctors. The swamp won. The chemical industry lobby, the American Chemistry Council, is today’s version of Big Tobacco…”

“Someday we will look back and wonder: What were we thinking?!”

The character of our country

A decade ago, the Independent Women’s Forum presented its Valor Award to Nancy Brinker, founder of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s largest breast cancer organization – a group that has also drawn criticism for taking money from polluting corporations and promoting unhealthy food and toxic products.

At the 2007 IWF gala, in an acceptance speech she called “The Character of our Country,” Brinker warned that millions of lives will be lost unless America acts to avert the coming “cancer tsunami.”

But then, she said: “My friends, this is not a problem of politics. When it comes to cancer, there are no Republicans or Democrats, no liberals or conservatives.”

Rather, she said, invoking vagueness as she stood before a group that tells women not to worry about pesticides, at an event awash in corporate cash, beating cancer is a matter of summoning the will to make cancer a “national and global priority!”

But that is exactly a problem of politics. It’s about Republicans and Democrats, both of whom have let Americans down by failing to confront the chemical industry. It’s about summoning the political will to get chemicals linked to cancer, infertility and brain damage off the market and out of our food.

In the meantime, we can take the advice of science: eat organic and vote for politicians who are willing to stand up to the pesticide industry.

This article first appeared in Huffington Post.  

Stacy Malkan is co-director of U.S. Right to Know,

fox and fr denier bs educ 2

https://www.ecowatch.com/fox-schools-climate-2480338939.html

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Julie Gunlock - Independent Women's Forum
www.iwf.org › About
Julie Gunlock is a senior fellow at the Independent Women's Forum and leads the ... She has offered political commentary on Fox News, TheBlaze TV and other ...

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off bs

Senior Fellow, Director of Culture of Alarmism Project

Julie Gunlock is a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum and leads the organization’s Culture of Alarmism Project. She is the author of the book From Cupcakes to Chemicals: How the Culture of Alarmism Makes Us Afraid of Everything and How to Fight Back.

Before joining IWF, Gunlock served as a Professional Staff Member on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and on the House Homeland Security Committee, and on the staffs of Ohio Senators Mike DeWine, George Voinovich, and Tom Coburn. Gunlock has written about food and culture for the New York Post, the Washington Post, New York Daily News, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Times, National Review Magazine, National Interest Magazine, the Tampa Tribune, and Townhall.com and is a regular contributor to National Review Online, BlogHer and Huffington Post. She has offered political commentary on Fox News, TheBlaze TV and other networks and is a regular guest on local, regional and national radio programs.

She lives in Virginia with her husband and three young, active, and perpetually hungry boys.
--
huffpo
https://www.ecowatch.com/fox-schools-climate-2480338939.html

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Bradley Foundation Fueled "Independent Women's Forum" Campaign Against Paid Sick Leave Laws
By
Lisa Graves — The Bradley Foundation underwrote new efforts to undermine popular public policies that help women and families, such as paid sick leave laws through funding for the controversial Independent Women's Forum.

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Each year, Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller marks “Equal Pay Day” by publishing a piece attacking the idea that women are paid less than men or trying to rationalize the pay gap.

This year, The Daily Caller criticized Google for highlighting the pay gap through Cheryl Sandburg’s Lean In initiative and a Funny or Die video about women being paid 20% less than men.

The piece, attributed to Carlson’s non-profit charity, the Daily Caller News Foundation, was illustrated with a photo of a woman “showered with money.”

The author, a recent college grad who is a Breitbart alum and former Koch intern, noted without irony that “the so-called wage gap only makes sense if hours worked, years of experience, and education of male and female laborers are considered.” It might help to read that “critique” again.

For good measure, the Daily Caller ran a second piece that day, a reprint of a blog claiming Elizabeth Warren paid women less than men. That spin bounced through the rightwing echo chamber from the Washington Free Beacon to the Daily Caller, Breitbart, and Fox, before it was refuted by Warren’s payroll data. No correction was issued by any of the outlets that spread the attack on Warren. (The Beacon has described itself as an “aerial hunting operation” and it has attacked watchdogs like the Center for Media and Democracy.)

But that’s par for the course for The Daily Caller. Though its website has more than 16 million visitors and a huge staff of writers who produce content for it through its non-profit the Daily Caller News Foundation, the site routinely relies on rightwing bloggers and groups to provide many of the “facts” it asserts as true in its news stories.

During the presidential election season, The Daily Caller was rife with articles attacking Hillary Clinton, including a piece by the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF)that reinforced Trump’s nicknaming Clinton as “crooked,” which some might consider projection given his documented history of cheating contractors out of their full pay or the Trump University scam or more.

IWF’s smear piece published in The Daily Caller in the run-up to the presidential election could have been written this year about the policymaker-in-chief: “The bigger problem is that she doesn’t think the rules should apply to her in the first place. HRC – or Her Royal Crookness – sees herself as a Queen, existing in a realm above the minions who work for her, and even higher above her lowly subjects. Queens don’t have to bother with the system meant for ordinary schlubs. She doesn’t have to accept facts or findings; we peons are expected to accept her version of events, rather than trust our own lyin’ eyes.”

IWF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity that is theoretically barred from intervening in an election by criticizing the character of a candidate. That story by the head of IWF concludes with: “Americans recall that we are supposed to be a nation of laws, after all, and those laws are meant to apply to everyone, even those with titles like Secretary or Senator. That’s bad news for Her Royal Crookness, Hillary Clinton, who epitomizes the elitism that Americans resoundingly reject.” IWF has not issued, and The Daily Caller has not published, a follow-up on that take in light of Trump’s acts as president.

Last summer, CMD released a major report detailing IWF’s history and role in the War on Women, a story that was broken by Joan Walsh in The Nation. CMD also documented that almost all of the publicly known funders of the IWF”s affiliated (c)(4), the “Independent Women’s Voice,” were men. CMD also filed an FEC complaint against IWV last November contending that the group violated election laws, which IWV denies.

CMD also documented how as IWF was claiming there was no “war on women,” IWV was running ads and doing calls to aid politicians like Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that IWF has sponsored a forum where its panelists contended that “rape culture statistics have been blown out of proportion in the United States, and that this is largely a product of the media’s focus on rape and sexual assault.” That’s the description from The Daily Caller’s coverage of the event. Another piece, titled “Restraining Orders Hurt Women” also credited IWF’s analysis.

IWF, by the way, has opposed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) for years and its renewal, despite the strong support for its protections by groups that represent women’s interests in not getting killed by a violent partner. VAWA helps fund a coordinated community response to help women who are beaten, raped, or stalked–and it helps ensure that those restraining orders are enforced across jurisdictions to help protect women where ever they may flee for safety.

IWF’s out-of-step assertions as a mainstream “women’s voice” have found a ready distribution channel in The Daily Caller. Take, for example, an article headlined “Stay vertical a bit longer, ladies: Study claims men as winning the game of love,” which featured IWF’s claims about marriage and sex. IWF’s rep expressed concerns about women engaging in “commitment-less sex” because “when it comes to marriage there is certainly a marketplace and many factors have changed that marketplace.”

That Daily Caller story also cited the controversial academic Mark Regnerus, who as CMD recently noted, has “claimed, for example, that ‘liberal’ and ‘very liberal’ women want to have much more sex than other women [and to] speculate that liberal women want more sex than other women because they’re not religious enough. Specifically, Regnerus theorizes that sex provides the “transcendent” feeling others achieve through faith – that these liberal women are getting in bed, as it were, what they’re not getting in church. ‘Basically,’ Regnerus writes, ‘liberal women substitute sex for religion.’ (Insert obligatory ‘Oh, God! Oh, God!’ joke here.)”

It’s not just sex on the brain of The Daily Caller, which regularly features swimsuit models to peddle its spin, like its “story” minimizing the effects of climate change on the day Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris agreement: “These 14 Models Prepared for Trump to Drop the Climate Deal.” The text accompanying the slideshow stated: “As we approach President Trump’s decision on the Paris climate accord, we decided to turn our attention to the models out there who have been hoping for warmer temperatures.”

The Daily Caller’s news presentation has sought to undermine grassroots efforts to secure paid leave and increase the minimum wage. One example is their story “Social Justice Activists Want Olive Garden To Be Nicer to Cows Before Serving Them As Meatballs.” That story emphasized that “Thus far, the coalitions’ campaign is not going well. The group’s attempt to set up meetings with Darden in the fall was an abysmal failure. The company responded with a letter rebuffing meetings and generally rejecting the demands set forth.” Other pieces pushed the rightwing narrative that requiring paid sick leave and increasing the minimum wage would lead to higher unemployment rates.

The Daily Caller has even written against maternity leave pay. One such piece was written by the Independence Institute, which is part of the State Policy Network: “Mandated Paid Maternity Leave: A Bad Idea for Women.” That’s not the view of most women or even of most CEOs, as CMD revealed last year after it was given a detailed survey by Frank Luntz’s group showing overwhelming support for maternity leave, paid sick leave, raising the minimum wage.

That survey of 1,000 executives was commissioned to help the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its global corporate funders and its state affiliates in their efforts to defeat popular paid sick leave policies and efforts to increase the minimum wage. Luntz’s team said the problem was business leaders have too much “empathy.”

Another Daily Caller piece amplified the assertions of the controversial PR flack Rick Berman–who 60 Minutes helped dub “Dr. Evil”–that “The $15 Minimum Wage Could Lead to More Youth Crime.” Like IWF, the claims of Berman’s front groups get plenty of play in The Daily Caller. CMD recently detailed how Berman’s front groups are funded not just by corporations but also with millions from the rightwing Bradley Foundation, which also funds IWF’s promo of “free market” alternatives to paid sick leave and raises in the minimum wage. CMD also published the audio of Berman bragging about his tactics: “I get up every morning and I try and figure out how to screw with the labor unions” and “marginalize the people on the other side….”

CMD has previously refuted to The Daily Caller’s claims about ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and its assertions on climate change and fracking, but has not responded to every erroneous claim the outlet has made about CMD. Among other things, like other rightwing outfits, the Daily Caller has repeated the claim that CMD is “Soros-funded,” even though CMD has pointed out that it is not funded by George Soros and was awarded a grant from the Open Society Institute several years ago as part of a set of grants to examine national security surveillance of Americans, along with a grant to the Kochs’ Cato Institute–which the Daily Caller has never called “Soros-funded.”

During CMD’s investigation of IWF, its researchers noted the way The Daily Caller was readily echoing IWF claims on numerous issues. That led CMD to take a closer look at The Daily Caller’s operations, which resulted in the investigation reported by the Washington Post on June 2, 2017. More details about that research, which showed that Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller had received a six-figure sum from the Trump Campaign in the weeks before the election, are available here.

As Callum Borchers noted in the Washington Post story, tax experts have expressed concerns about how Tucker Carlson’s charity benefits his for-profit media outlet, The Daily Caller, which profits from the web traffic and list-building resulting from its content, a substantial portion of which is provided by the non-profit. CMD has also noted that Carlson did not tell FOX News viewers that he had financially benefited from the Trump Campaign cash, as he critiqued other outlets for their purported bias against Trump or when he interviewed Trump for a primetime show on FOX this spring.

How much Carlson received in pay or bonuses from The Daily Caller last year after it received the money from the Trump Campaign is not known.

=

But he does have close ties to Higgins. She contacted Friess to get funding to begin James O’Keefe’s controversial campaign against ACORN.

big cmd report: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3026994/Independent-Womens-Forum-Voice-Report-by-CMD-08.pdf

some rep?

Independent Women’s Forum and its 501(c)(4) affiliate, the Independent Women’s Voice, market themselves to the media and voters as “non-partisan,” “independent,” and “neutral.”

However, a new investigation of the groups by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reveals them to be anything but that. Joan Walsh in the Nation broke this story today along with other new details about these not-so independent women’s groups.

[Meet the ‘Feminists’ Doing the Koch Brothers’ Dirty Work
The Independent Women’s Forum has leveraged its “non-partisan” brand to become an aggressive player in Republican politics.
By Joan Walsh

If you watch cable news, you’ve seen someone from an outfit called the “Independent Women’s Forum” promoting a conservative take on the women’s issue of the day. It’s no secret that the group leans right; it grew out of “Women for Judge Thomas,” which formed during Anita Hill’s testimony about Clarence Thomas at his 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, and was formally launched in 1992 by the late Barbara Olson and Rosalie “Ricky” Silberman, along with a cadre of powerful conservative women that included former second lady Lynne Cheney. Still, it’s always billed itself as “non-partisan” and “independent.” In its early years, it promoted IWF-affiliated author Christina Hoff Sommers’s brand of “equity feminism” and opposed the “radical feminism” of the ’90s women’s movement, which it argued was pushing myths about sexual harassment, pay inequities, and discrimination in the workplace and widespread abuse on college campuses. For years it played no formal role in electoral politics.

But an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), provided exclusively to The Nation, reveals that since 2010, IWF and its political arm, Independent Women’s Voice, have become aggressive players in Republican politics, embedded in the network of organizations backed by Charles and David Koch, advocating for the Koch brothers’ myriad concerns, and playing on their “independent” label to elect GOP candidates. If this country is to elect its first woman president, Hillary Clinton will have to face down this powerful conservative women’s group to get there.

“Our value here...is taking a conservative message and packaging it in a way that will be acceptable” —Heather Higgins

Increasingly, IWF and IWV are playing a bigger and more open role in Republican politics—while boasting about the way their “independent” label gives them access to voters that groups “branded” as Republican can’t reach. As IWV president Heather Higgins told a convening at the David Horowitz Freedom Center late last year (captured in this video): “Our value here, and what is needed in the Republican conservative arsenal, is a group that can talk to those cohorts [non-Republican women] that would not otherwise listen, but can do it in a way that is taking a conservative message and packaging it in a way that will be acceptable and will get a hearing.”

And at a recent gathering of the Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), IWF Executive Director Sabrina Schaeffer similarly bragged about her group’s success bringing an “independent” message on issues like paid family leave to even “progressive” women. Once IWF provided (highly debatable) information about how such legislation hurts women, “we were able to drop support by a double-digit spread,” Schaeffer told the group, according to notes taken at the event obtained by CMD.

Using their “independent” label to help Republicans isn’t the groups’ only misrepresentation. Although it claims to be neutral on abortion—“The IWF has never taken a stance on abortion,” Sabrina Schaeffer told the pro-choice website Rewire last year—since 2012, all but one of the GOP congressional candidates backed by IWV have had a zero rating from NARAL Pro Choice America, or were newcomers who support strict limits on abortion (the exception was Massachusetts GOP Senator Scott Brown). And while an IWF editor blasted Donald Trump as “Todd Akin on steroids” earlier this year, IWV even spent money to help Akin’s disastrous Senate campaign in 2012.

Despite many conservative leaders’ uneasiness with Trump, Heather Higgins is now an enthusiastic supporter of the man her colleague labeled “Todd Akin on steroids.” Though she once mocked Trump as “the Kardashian of politics,” she’s done a full Kanye West and now supports him—passionately.

“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good,” she told a panel titled “Will Conservatives Support Trump?” at the GOP convention in Cleveland last month, according to audio taken there. “Your choice is Hillary Clinton who will be wrong on all issues.… Trump will surround himself with principled, savvy advisers who will lead us to the best possible outcomes on a wide range of [issues] and his judicial picks.” Though conservatives may be balking now, she said, by November, Trump will win in a “landslide.” To that end, Higgins has turned her Twitter feed into a running defense of Trump, praising his call to “Second Amendment people” to “do something” about Hillary Clinton as “brilliant,” defending his claim that calling President Obama the “founder” of ISIS was sarcasm, and attacking Trump’s detractors. Remarkably, Trump just made IWF board member Kellyanne Conway his campaign manager.

“It’s clear that IWF and IWV are in the business of saying one thing, but doing another,” said CMD Executive Director Lisa Graves, who co-authored the report, “The Not-So-Independent Women’s Forum/Voice.” “They call themselves ‘independent,’ while IWF backs policies that echo the corporate lobbying agenda and IWV tells donors it’s a crucial part of the ‘Republican conservative arsenal.’”

The Nation sent three e-mails and made two phone calls to IWF/V asking for comment. One of the e-mails wrongly stated that the group had only helped Republicans. In fact, according to CMD research, it once aided a Libertarian. Communications Director Victoria Coley sent this reply:

    It’s tough to respond to the CMD report that we haven’t yet seen, especially when one of the only things we know about it—its claim that IWV spends money politically “exclusively on behalf of Republicans”—is demonstrably false. If they can’t even get that right—especially when it’s so easy to check—we can’t help but wonder what else the report asserts that just is not so?

I told Coley that was my mistake, not CMD’s, and sent a list of questions, but heard nothing more.

* *

In the 1990s, IWF was a plucky organization devoted to debunking “radical” feminism, promoting the work of IWF author Christina Hoff Summers—remember “Who Stole Feminism?” and “The War Against Boys”?—and railing against new laws prohibiting sex discrimination and sexual harassment, showing (with questionable data) how they would actually hurt women. IWF lobbied against the 1994 “Violence Against Women Act,” claiming “wives instigate violence, including severe violence, against husbands more often than husbands do against wives.” It opposed the gender integration of the Virginia Military Institute and joined with men’s sports organizations to attack Title IX education regulations that protected funding for female sports teams as unfair to men.

But with the arrival of Koch Industries lobbyist Nancy Pfotenhauer in 2001, the group began to affiliate itself more with the issues on the Kochs’ agenda, as well as with groups that the brothers fund. Since then there’s been a steady connection of IWF/V staffers and board members with various Koch affiliates. Pfotenhauer even took over as president of the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity in 2003, running it jointly with IWF from the same office into 2005.

More than half of IWF’s current board members have either received funding from Koch groups or worked for one of them.

Today, the IWF website looks like it still shares content with Americans for Prosperity, with posts devoted to lowering corporate tax rates and ending the “death tax,” criticizing food stamps, promoting gun rights and fracking—alongside screeds against Hillary Clinton and on how Title IX hurts boys. On its website, IWV says its five core issues areas are “healthcare, responsible government, workplace regulation, energy and economic literacy,” which are all core concerns of the Kochs and their allies. “Economic literacy,” for instance, is defined as the Kochs do: by adherence to free-market principles and opposition to public-employee unions. More than half of IWF’s current board members have either received funding from Koch-affiliated groups or worked for one of them, CMD says, as have roughly half of the IWF staff.

Still, with the hiring of attorney Michelle Bernard as president in 2006, IWF made an attempt to craft a new, genuinely “independent” middle stance, at least on a few issues, to try to bring together women of more diverse points of view. Bernard, who is African-American, expanded outreach to women of different races and classes and succeeded in reaching even some liberal women with her emphasis on education reform and school choice, a cause that in those years began to attract some neoliberal Democrats and frustrated African Americans. A grant from the State Department to work on human-rights issues with Muslim women in Iraq and elsewhere also took the group beyond its normal issues. In 2008, Bernard proved her own independence by backing Obama for president.

But the election of Obama along with the elevation of pharmaceutical heiress and former investment adviser Heather Higgins to chair the IWF board and lead Independent Women’s Voice changed the group’s approach. Pfotenhauer had founded IWV, the group’s 501(c)(4), in 2004, but IWV took a back seat to the more prominent activities of IWF. But the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling unleashed a tide of dark money, and IWV became a conduit, raising and spending money, and sometimes passing it along to affiliated conservative groups.

Under Higgins, IWF and IWV joined the cadre of right-wing players devoted to blocking Obama’s agenda, particularly the Affordable Care Act. IWF produced and ran an ad charging that the ACA would hurt women with breast cancer, for instance. That ad was called “really faulty” by the American Cancer Society and drew a “false” rating from Factcheck.org. Bernard left the group in October 2010. Soon the IWV, under Higgins, would out-raise and outspend IWF, the sister group, according to CMD.

Some of IWV’s moves would even seem to undermine IWF’s stated principles. The group has, controversially among conservatives, stayed away from the issue of abortion. “It…sets us apart from other organizations, because we don’t talk about abortion and gay marriage and some of those social issues that are in many ways are very alienating to women,” IWF director Schaeffer told Glamour magazine in 2013. “So many people are so discouraged when you have people on the fringe saying comments that are obviously offensive, saying things about ‘legitimate rape.’ I don’t know what inspires anybody to say words like that.”

But, in fact, CMD found that IWV spent $850,000 in 2014 supporting GOP Senate candidates who had a zero rating from NARAL, except for Scott Brown. And though Schaeffer specifically criticized Missouri GOP Representative Todd Akin’s “obviously offensive” remarks about “legitimate rape” to Glamour in 2013, the previous year IWV spent $67,000 to help Akin in his unsuccessful fight to unseat Senator Claire McCaskill. IWV invested another $177,000 in Indiana Representative Richard Mourdock’s Senate race, even after he said rape “is something God intended to happen,” which was also judged by many to be obviously offensive and likely cost Mourdock the election.

“Our investigation showed that Higgins uses IWV’s independent brand name to reach independent or Democratic voters and spends money to help anti-choice extremists,” CMD’s Lisa Graves notes, “while IWF claims it is not anti-abortion and there is no GOP ‘war on women.’”

*

Indeed, at the David Horowitz event where Higgins bragged about her group’s role in the “Republican conservative arsenal,” she explained that IWV has success “with audiences that normally don’t tend to like to hear from Republicans and conservatives” because “branding matters…. We have worked hard to create a branded organization that does not carry partisan baggage. It’s called ‘Independent Women’s Voice.’ Being branded as neutral, but having the people who know, know that you’re actually conservative, puts us in a unique position.”

Higgins took credit for turning around Scott Brown’s 2010 Senate campaign in Massachusetts (by figuring out that the most important issue to voters was giving Republicans “the 41st vote” against the ACA) and for helping Kentucky GOP Governor Matt Bevin squeak by last year mainly by targeting “Democrats, liberals, and independents,” she said. “Having this branding, you can go places where, if you’re the [Republican National Committee] or the [Republican Governors Association]…they can’t get access that we can.”

Spending for both IWF and IWV grew by more than 400 percent from 2011 to 2012.

Spending for both IWF and IWV grew by more than 400 percent from 2011 to 2012, according to CMD, reflecting the new investment in electioneering. The two groups have raised $16 million since 2010. Since the Citizens United decision that year, groups like IWF and IWV don’t have to disclose many of their donors, so it’s hard to know who’s behind the funding explosion. Higgins’s Randolph Foundation is a big donor, directing $3.78 million to IWF since 1998. The Koch-allied anti-Obamacare Center to Protect Patient Rights gave IWV $250,000 in 2009 to fund its push against the ACA, according to CMD, and the National Right to Work Committee has also funded the group in 2012 and 2013. Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, which secretly direct the funding of wealthy conservatives, including the Kochs, gave the groups $5.3 million between 2002 and 2014, the most recent year for which they have filed data. Although IWV boasts of accepting “no Koch money,” IWF received more than $8oo,000 from Koch-controlled family foundations between 2001 and 2012, CMD says.

In 2016, IWF and IWV have turned to the threat of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, as well as the pro-family agenda she and her allies are pushing with her campaign. The groups are uniquely placed to try to fight the gender gap that may doom Donald Trump and cost the GOP the Senate. As IWF’s Schaeffer told ALEC in July, “The war on women narrative has shifted from a focus entirely on reproductive rights to a focus on making the workplace fair for women. And I don’t need to tell you issues of pay equity, childcare subsidies, paid leave mandates, flexibility, overtime regulation, licensing, retirement—these are all now sort of the new front in the war on women, and we are doing our best to push back on that.”

IWF told women in focus groups that paid family leave actually hurts rather than helps the working poor.

Unfortunately for Republicans, Schaeffer noted, IWF polling shows that “people are overwhelmingly supportive of laws like the Healthy Families Act [which would mandate paid sick leave], and that includes conservatives, and so we have to do a much better job of talking about them.” When IWF told women in focus groups that paid family leave actually hurts rather than helps the working poor—Schaeffer offered no evidence for that claim—support dropped, she told the ALEC meeting. Even among “progressive women,” Schaeffer said, a message that paid leave both hurts the working poor, and limits their own work flexibility—again, she shared no evidence—reduced support by double digits.

The popularity of Democrats’ family-support legislation led IWF to put together its own “limited government” family-support package, named “Working for Women,” consisting of programs accomplished through the tax codes, like “personal care accounts” that would let a woman save for a family leave tax-free, as well as pushing for comp time rather than overtime, plus deregulating child care to make it more affordable. Schaeffer offered to help ALEC members find ways to push these “limited government” alternatives, rather than have nothing to counter the popular family-support proposals put forward by Democrats.

“In my opinion that’s deceptive, although unfortunately it is not usual for Koch-connected groups to behave like front groups that use appealing names that cloak their real agendas, especially to try to win elections,” CMD’s Lisa Graves said.

Meanwhile, Heather Higgins keeps up her Twitter advocacy of Donald Trump.

    They don’t get sarcasm. Or irony. Or honest answers. But the rest of us do, and it’s a powerful differentiator @IWV https://t.co/IQ6A6yR5Er   

    — Heather R. Higgins (@TheHRH) August 12, 2016   

Higgins may want to ask herself whether she’s providing “honest answers” when she boasts of using her independent “brand” to hype Republicans.

]

CMD’s Reporters’ Guide exposes the groups’ leaders admitting to—and boasting about—their true role for what it is: finding ways to sell right-wing policies and candidates favored by their funders to reach independent women voters under the guise of neutrality.
IWV Boasts of Its Role in “Republican Conservative Arsenal”

“Being branded as neutral, but actually having people who know know that you’re actually conservative puts us in a unique position,” Heather Richardson Higgins, the President of the Independent Women’s Voice and the Board Chair of theIndependent Women’s Forum, admitted in a speech to potential 2016 donors at a David Horowitz Freedom Center retreat.

“Our value here and what is needed in the Republican conservative arsenal is a group that can talk to those cohorts [women who are not Republican conservatives] that would not otherwise listen but can do it in a way that is taking a conservative message and packaging it in a way that will be acceptable,” she said.

While the Independent Women’s Forum and the Independent Women’s Voice claim to the public and press that they are a mainstream voice for women voters, their spending and their leaders’ speeches reveal the truth.

“Independent” is a PR term these groups use to appeal to women while pushing corporate-backed policies or extreme candidates that actually make things harder for working women and their families, in CMD’s assessment.
IWF Attacks Work Policies It Admits Many Women Like

The Independent Women’s Forum routinely attacks policies popular with many women, like equal pay, earned sick leave, and raising the minimum wage, as well as Title IX and protections for battered women.

And it has often done so by making extreme claims, which CMD also documents.

CMD’s investigation includes analysis of remarks to right-wing donors by the Independent Women’s Voice’s leader Heather Higgins in 2015.

CMD also analyzed notes from a meeting of the secretive American Legislative Exchange Council in July, at which Independent Women’s Forum President Sabrina Schaefer offered to help ALEC legislators “sell” corporate-backed alternatives to paid sick leave, equal pay, quality childcare, and workplace flexibility in their home states.
IWV Spent to Help “War on Women” GOP Candidates

CMD also describes how Independent Women’s Voice made “independent expenditures” on political ads or calls to aid some of the most extreme “War on Women” GOP candidates, including the following:

    It spent $67,242 to aid Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin with calls and independent voter outreach in November 2012, after Akin claimed on August 19, 2012 that rape victims couldn’t get pregnant because “if it’s legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
    It spent $176,991 on a “Romney wants Mourdock” ad after Indiana U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock asserted that when a woman is raped, she carries a “gift from God” and that such a pregnancy “is something that God intended to happen.”
    Joe Walsh, a GOP Rep. from Illinois claimed in the 2012 race against Tammy Duckworth that abortions to save a mother’s life are never medically necessary. Two weeks later, Independent Women’s Voice spent more than $5,000 on calls and outreach to independent voters in his district.
    In the 2014 Senate races, CMD’s research finds that Independent Women’s Voice spent more than $850,000 on GOP candidates, most of whom had 0% NARAL ratings; it spent more than $5 million that year on related advocacy.
    Higgins also told donors that Independent Women’s Voice made the only significant independent expenditure in Mark Sanford’s 2012 congressional race in South Carolina. She said Independent Women’s Voice worked to convince “evangelicals to hold their nose and vote for Mark in order to be able to hold onto that seat and not have the liberal win it.”

IWF’s Koch Ties and More

CMD’s investigation also includes an analysis of how the Independent Women’s Forum works as part of the Koch policy world infrastructure through its staff and alliances.

No fewer than half of the Independent Women’s Forum’s full-time staff previously worked directly for Koch-controlled groups or for entities that received Koch funding.

The Independent Women’s Forum also pushes numerous policies aligned with Koch-funded groups like David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

CMD’s analysis also shows that between 2001 and 2014, DonorsTrust and DonorsCapital Fund–funding entities with ties to the Koch network of billionaires–gave the Independent Women’s Forum a total of $5,344,000 in donations.

In a similar period, Koch-controlled foundations gave the group more than $800,000. Although many of the names of the Independent Women’s Forum’s big donors are not disclosed, documents analyzed by CMD reveal funding from the fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil and right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, among others.

A review of tax filings shows that Higgins is the largest individually identified donor to IWF in recent years.

The full CMD Reporters’ Guide is available here and can be viewed below. And here are links to materials with quotes from IWF/V in general and about women’s rights, civil rights, unions and worker rights, LGBTQ rights, our environment, education,  guns, health, and the ACA.

(Arn Pearson, Max Abbott, David Armiak, and Sari Williams also assisted with the report.)

http://www.exposedbycmd.org/independentwomensforum

iwf cf cmd:

pruitt rule of law bs
Independent Women's Voice: IWV.org
iwv.org/
Independent Women's Voice - a 501(c)(4) nonpartisan, nonprofit organization for mainstream women, men and families.
IWVoice.org - Independent Women's Voice - Who We Are
iwv.org/about
Independent Women's Voice is an advocacy 501(c)(4) that fights for women and families by effectively expanding support among women, independents, and millennials for policy solutions that aren't just well intended, but actually enhance people's freedom, choices, and opportunities.
Independent Women's Voice - SourceWatch
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Independent_Women's_Voice
Oct 11, 2017 - Independent Women's Voice. The Independent Women's Voice (IWV) is a nonprofitorganization advocating conservative policy established in 2003. IWV is the self proclaimed sister organization of Independent Women's Forum.
Independent Women's Forum - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Women%27s_Forum
IWF was founded by activist Rosalie Silberman to promote a "conservative alternative to feminist tenets" following the controversial Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas in 1992. IWF's sister organization is the Independent Women's Voice (IWV), a 501(c)(4) organization.
Founded‎: ‎1992
Revenue (2013)‎: ‎$709,757
Founder‎: ‎
Rosalie Silberman‎, ‎Barbara Olson‎, ‎A...
Method‎: ‎Educational programs, awards, grants, ...
The Independent "Women's" Voice? Most Known Donors Are Men ...
https://www.prwatch.org/.../independent-womens-voice-most-known-donors-are-men
Aug 24, 2016 - The Independent Women's Voice touts its "independent" brand in ... 89% of Donors toIndependent Women's Voice in Brown Race Were Men.
Meet the 'Feminists' Doing the Koch Brothers' Dirty Work | The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/.../meet-the-feminists-doing-the-koch-brothers-dirty-work/
Aug 18, 2016 - The Independent Women's Forum has leveraged its “non-partisan” brand ... since 2010, IWF and its political arm, Independent Women's Voice, ...
Carrie L. Lukas - Independent Women's Forum
www.iwf.org › About
She is also a contributor to National Review, Forbes.com, and Acculturated; and the vice president for policy and economics at Independent Women's Voice.
About Us - Independent Women's Forum
www.iwf.org/about
The Independent Women's Forum. ... The Women Of Independent Women's Forum ... IWF is the sister organization of the Independent Women's Voice. ...
independent women's voices Archives - Alliance Strategies Group
https://www.asgroupinc.com/tag/independent-womens-voices/
Since the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in March 2010, more and more Americans have realized that this legislation is not true ...

HEATHER HIGGINS

=

see IWF

SEE VOICE c4 (leo)

primary 220 on 2016 win

SEE cTR pROT pAT rIGHTS KOCH

see new prez tammy bruce (nope ex NOW, bailed)

220 aha confluence of old school old money with rw wacko laura ingra and horowitz, also jok?

=

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/window-meaningful-climate-action-closes-climate-change-skeptic-bjorn-lomborg-tells-right

Around the early days of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) on November 1, climate change contrarian Bjorn Lomborg was near ubiquitous in right-wing media. He appeared on Fox News and Fox Business a combined seven times, published an opinion piece in the New York Post, and wrote a series of op-eds in the Wall Street Journal since September. Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen even published an opinion piece on November 2 that drew heavily on Lomborg’s writings and statements.

This campaign fits a familiar pattern of right-wing and even mainstream news outlets promoting Lomborg to downplay the seriousness of climate change during a time when the world is focused on the need for climate action. Lomborg’s true value for the polluter industry and its fellow travelers in right-wing media is that he provides a thin veneer of seriousness and sincerity about climate change on one hand, while advocating climate inaction on the other. This cynical stance mirrors that taken by the fossil fuel industry, which has shifted tactics away from outright denial toward subtler forms of climate delay.
Lomborg has zero credibility on climate change

Lomborg’s prominent appearances to dismiss action on climate change rest less on his repeatedly debunked talking points and more on the fact that his narrative serves the interest of the powerful polluter lobby and its allies in right-wing media. His three main points -- climate change isn't that serious, the way to solve climate change is through technological innovation, and climate action as it’s currently conceived is too expensive -- all have one thing in common: They give license to industry and policymakers to kick the can down the road on fighting climate change.

Climate change is a serious threat to global humanity. Each degree of additional warming poses increasing risks for humanity in terms of health, economic well-being, and social cohesion. Staving off the worst consequences requires rapid decarbonization and transition to renewable energy sources; even with difficult tradeoffs, the technology to decarbonize by 2035 currently exists. And considering the cost of inaction far outweighs the cost of action, it is clear that the time to act is now.
Lomborg’s history of promoting soft climate denial in right-wing media

Lomborg is a long-time climate contrarian with connections to the fossil fuel-backed Koch network via his organization, the Copenhagen Consensus Center. As Media Matters noted in 2019:

    Since its registration in the U.S. in 2008, the Copenhagen Consensus Center has received $170,000 from the conservative Randolph Foundation, whose director, Heather Higgins, has ties to multiple groups within the Koch network. Copenhagen Consensus Center also received $300,000 from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which is part of the Koch network’s attempt to influence state and federal judges. The group also received $200,000 from conservative Republican billionaire Paul Singer, who had previously given more than $1 million to the oil billionaire Koch brothers. The Koch network has donated lavishly to climate denial efforts.

Groups connected to the shadowy Koch network have generously donated to Lomborg’s think tank. Since its registration in the U.S. in 2008, the Copenhagen Consensus Center has received $170,000 from the conservative Randolph Foundation, whose director, Heather Higgins, has ties to multiple groups within the Koch network. Copenhagen Consensus Center also received $300,000 from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which is part of the Koch network’s attempt to influence state and federal judges. The group also received $200,000 from conservative Republican billionaire Paul Singer, who had previously given more than $1 million to the oil billionaire Koch brothers. The Koch network has donated lavishly to climate denial efforts.

vicks richardson trump

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/dark-money-posing-as-independent-womens-groups-might-have-played-a-pivotal-role-in-trumps-2016-win-study

no lnx

Dark money posing as ‘independent’ women’s groups might have played a ‘pivotal role’ in Trump’s 2016 win: study

Written by Alex Henderson March 2, 2020

When a political group describes itself as “independent,” it’s important to ask if that group really is “independent” or if, in fact, it has partisan leanings. The Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) and the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), which are sister organizations, both portray themselves as groups of free-thinking nonpartisan women. But David Armiak of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), in an article republished by Truthout on February 28, reports that according to Truth North Research (TNR), both organizations may have played a “pivotal role” in President Donald Trump’s victory in Wisconsin in 2016 as well as former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s victory in the 2012 recall election.

Armiak explains, “IWV boasts that Trump would have received an estimated 215,840 fewer votes in Wisconsin if it had not executed its quiz messaging campaign targeting 1.54 million voters. However, much of that messaging was conducted by IWV’s affiliated 501(c)(3) partner, IWF, which is prohibited by federal law from participating or intervening in elections.”

Lisa Graves, executive director of TNR, asserts that IWV and IWF aren’t as “independent” as they claim to be. Graves told CMD,  CRONON]  “People in Wisconsin and elsewhere need to know about this right-wing group that uses its ‘independent’ brand name to pretend to be independent in order to sway women voters who are independent. I don’t think it would be prudent to underestimate the resolve or impact of the Independent Women’s Voice on elections.”

According to Graves, it is “troubling” that IWV is “funded largely by dark money sources.” Graves notes that Heather Higgins, CEO of IWV and IWF, is a “touted strategist for the right wing and called the election for Trump when others were dismissing him, in part based on her assessment of independent and conservative women. I fully expect her groups to spend substantial sums deploying her quiz strategy in target states in 2020.”

The TNR report was authored by Graves and researcher Evan Vorpahl.

Armiak notes that IWV and IWF have received millions of dollars from right-wing groups, including DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. And even though IWV and IWF claim to be “women’s organizations,” Graves’ research found that 89% of IWF’s funders are men.

The Center for Responsive Politics has noted that IWV President Tammy Bruce, in 2018, was “vociferous” in her defense of Justice Brett Kavanagh. After Kavanaugh was accused of attempted rape by Palo Alto University psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford, Bruce appeared on Fox News and asserted that he was “effectively being used as a stand-in for all perpetrators.”

=

iwf expose by cmd

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3031671/Independent-Womens-Forum-Voice-Report-by-CMD-08.pdf

see below

“Independent.” “Neutral.” “Mainstream.” That’s how the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) and Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) describe themselves. But that branding is calculated and misleading. The chief strategist for IWF/V—the drug heiress Heather Higgins—recently solicited donors for IWV’s 2016 operations, boasting: “Being branded as neutral, but actually having the people who know know that you’re actually conservative, puts us in a unique position…” to aid elections. Why the need to hide in sheep’s clothing? Because IWF/V is not-so independent. It’s anything but non-partisan, neutral, and mainstream. • Partisan. IWV has quietly but aggressively aided anti-woman GOP politicians while IWF has publicly claimed there has been no a Republican “war on women.” • Not Neutral. IWF/V has deep ties to the Koch machine and advances its agenda. • Not Mainstream. IWF/V attacks popular policies with extreme claims and actively pushes hyper-free market “solutions” that hurt working women and families. IWF/V has successfully relied on “aggressively seeking earned media” to peddle its claims, but its real history and true biases are not well known by reporters and producers or by the public. That’s because IWF, a 501(c)(3), claims it is a "nonpartisan, nonprofit organization for mainstream women, men and families." IWV, a 501(c)(4), says it is a “nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that fights for women and families.” Their claims have received very little scrutiny. This Reporters’ Guide from the Center for Media and Democracy exposes and details IWF/V’s history, which is not-so independent, mainstream, nonpartisan, or neutral.

But he does have close ties to Higgins. She contacted Friess to get funding to begin James O’Keefe’s controversial campaign against ACORN.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Independent_Women%27s_Voice

The Independent Women's Voice (IWV) is a nonprofit organization advocating conservative policy established in 2003. IWV is the self proclaimed sister organization of Independent Women's Forum. According to it's website, "Like IWF, IWV is dedicated to promoting limited government, free markets, and personal responsibility. ... IWV seeks to ensure that our mainstream voices are heard in the media and before state and national policymakers, in order to educate the public about how our conservative principles benefit women, men, and families, and are critical to the future of our country."[1]
1Ties to Koch Brothers

    22013 Mark Sanford Campaign
    3Personnel
        3.1Staff
    4Contact Details

Ties to Koch Brothers

Although the Independent Women's Voice calls itself "nonpartisan", the group has numerous ties to the billionaires Charles Koch and David Koch, arguably two of the most influential financiers of anti-regulation and right-wing ideology in the United States.[2]

IWV reportedly received $250,000 from the Center to Protect Patient Rights (CPPR), another Koch affiliated organization.[3] This conservative advocacy group is run by Sean Noble, who Politico has described as a "Koch Operative".[4] Nobel was hired by the Kochs to coordinate with other conservative Super PACs to target Democratic representatives in 2010. [5] Other individuals associated with the group also have Koch ties. Consultant Cheryl Hillen has raised at least $2.6 million for the organization and was formerly director of fundraising for the Koch Brothers-backed Citizens for a Sound Economy (which later split into Americans for Prosperity and Freedomworks).

One of CPPR's original directors, Heather Higgins, is chairwoman of the Independent Women's Forum, a climate change denialist group that has received Koch money and was previously run by a Koch lobbyist.[6]

In 2004, the Independent Women's Voice listed Nancy Pfotenhauer as its president. Pfotenhauer is a former Koch Industries lobbyist, and has rotated between various leadership roles at Kochs' flagship special interest groups including Americans for Prosperity and Citizens for a Sound Economy.[7]

IWV's sister organization has been openly receiving funding from Koch brothers' Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation since 1998.[8]
2013 Mark Sanford Campaign

Years after former South Carolina Republican Governor Mark Sanford's political popularity plummeted after a public confession of infidelity in 2009, Sanford ran and won against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch in a special election for a position in Congress.[9] The Independent Women's Voice reported spending $250,000 in support of Sanford in just the last week of the election.[10]
Personnel
Staff

    Heather R. Higgins, President and CEO
    Carrie L. Lukas, Vice President of Policy and Economics
    Sabrina L. Schaeffer, Executive Director
    Charlotte Hays, Senior Policy Analyst
    Hadley Heath, Policy Analyst

Contact Details

Independent Women’s Voice
1875 I Street, NW Suite 500
Washington, DC 20006
Phone: (202) 857-3293
Fax: (202) 429-9574
Email: info@iwvoice.org
Web: http://www.iwvoice.org/

     Independent Women's Voice, About, organizational website, accessed May 17, 2013.
     Andy Kroll, Koch-Linked Women's Group Takes Credit for Mark Sanford's Win, Mother Jones, May 8, 2013.
     Bridge Project, Conservative Transparency, organizational website, accessed May 20, 2013.
     Ken Vogel, Kochs brothers' plan for 2012: raise $88 million, Politico, Feb. 11, 2011.
     Lee Fang: Koch Operative Steered $55 Million To Front Groups Airing Ads Against Democrats; Ads Assailed Candidates Over Abortion, 9/11, Medicare, Republic Report, May 19th, 2012.
     Brendan Fischer, Americans for Job Security Targets WI GOP Senate Race, From the Shadows, PRwatch, Aug. 10, 2012.
     Americans for Prosperity, About, organizational website, accessed May 20, 2013.
     SourceWatch, Contributions of the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, organizational website, May 17, 2013.
     Kim Severson, Looking Past Sex Scandal, South Carolina Returns Ex-Governor to Congress, New York Times, May 7, 2013.
     Independent Women's Voice, IWV's Unique and Critical Role in Mark Sanford's Victory, organizational website, accessed May 17, 2013.

iwf srchwtch:

Independent Women's Forum (IWF; not to be confused with the International Women's Forum) is an anti-feminist organization predominantly funded by right-wing foundations, including the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the Koch brothers' Claude R. Lambe Foundation.[1] On its website, it describes its mission as being "to rebuild civil society by advancing economic liberty, personal responsibility, and political freedom. IWF builds support for a greater respect for limited government, equality under the law, property rights, free markets, strong families, and a powerful and effective national defense and foreign policy."[2] The Independent Women's Forum is an "associate" member of the State Policy Network, a web of right-wing “think tanks” in every state across the country.[3]

The IWF originally grew out of a group called "Women for Clarence Thomas," formed to support Clarence Thomas, then a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, against allegations of sexual harassment.[4][5] It has vocally opposed the Violence Against Women Act.

In an editorial, the New York Times called the IWF "a right-wing public policy group that provides pseudofeminist support for extreme positions that are in fact dangerous to women."[6]

From 2003-2008, IWF was affiliated with the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity.[7][8]
Koch Wiki

The Koch brothers -- David and Charles -- are the right-wing billionaire co-owners of Koch Industries. As two of the richest people in the world, they are key funders of the right-wing infrastructure, including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN). In SourceWatch, key articles on the Kochs include: Koch Brothers, Koch Industries, Americans for Prosperity, American Encore, and Freedom Partners.
Contents

    1Ties to the Koch Brothers
    2Controversies
        2.1IWF Managing Director Suggests Gender Discrimination Is a Fairy Tale
        2.2IWF Fellow Calls Gun Control "Sexist," 2013
        2.3Opposition to Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), 2013
        2.4Defense of Rush Limbaugh
        2.5Efforts to Eradicate Teaching of Global Warming from Schools
    3History
        3.1Feminist Majority Objects to IWF's State Department Grant, 2004
    4Funding
        4.1Core Financials
    5Personnel
        5.1Staff
        5.2Senior Fellows
        5.3Board of Directors
        5.4Leadership Circle
        5.5Directors Emeritae:
    6Contact Details
    7Articles and Resources
        7.1Related SourceWatch Articles
        7.2External Articles
    8References

Ties to the Koch Brothers

IWF has received funding from several sources with ties to the Koch brothers. The Koch family foundations donated $844,115 to IWF between 1998 and 2012, the most recent year for which records are available. DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund have contributed over $2.1 milliion to IWF since 2010.

Heather Higgins, the chair of IWF's board of directors, has attended at least one Koch network summit meeting. Former IWF president Nancy Pfotenhauer worked for Koch Industries and has attended multiple Koch network meetings. Pfotenhauer currently sits on the board of Americans for Prosperity, a key organization in the Kochs' political network.[9]
Controversies
IWF Managing Director Suggests Gender Discrimination Is a Fairy Tale

In an opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune on August 8, 2016, managing director at IWF, Carrie Lukas implies that gender discrimination is a fairy tale,

    "Obviously there was discrimination against women once upon a time, but the feminist movement has kind of clung to that. They've been allowed to get away with this idea that the sexes are interchangeable, but at the same time claim it's a legitimate idea that we need a woman to change things.”[10]

IWF Fellow Calls Gun Control "Sexist," 2013

Speaking at Senate hearings on gun control in February 2013, IWF senior fellow Gayle Trotter stated that gun control regulations were "sexist."

    "Calling guns “the great equalizer,” Trotter said women need firearms to protect themselves against male attackers. “An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman defending her babies in her home becomes a defense weapon,” Trotter said. “And the peace of mind she has…knowing she has a scary-looking gun gives her more courage when she’s fighting hardened violent criminals.”[11]

Trotter's testimony provoked strong reactions, with many critics citing research that suggests the presence of guns in the home often correlates with a greater likelihood that women and children will be injured or killed. A New York Times editorial wrote that it marked "an absurd low point" in the debate over gun violence in the U.S., adding that "[i]n domestic violence situations, the risk of homicide for women increased eightfold when the abuser had access to firearms, according to a study published in The American Journal of Public Health in 2003." The Times editors also noted that the IWF had opposed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994.[6] The Nation added Trotter's statement to its list of "Timeless Whoppers."[12] In Slate, feminist activists Amanda Marcotte wrote, "The conservative claim, made by Trotter, that guns are an "equalizer" is about as serious a misrepresentation as you can muster when it comes to violence against women. Most violence against women is perpetrated by men the victim knows in situations that are intimate or social, where guns aren't usually out."[5]

Trotter defended her testimony in an e-mail to the Daily Beast, writing, "I am an unapologetically liberty-loving, tyranny-hating, red-blooded, patriotic American woman, a lawyer who is proud to say that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are the founding charters of freedom and that government of the people, for the people and by the people is here to stay.”[11]
Opposition to Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), 2013

IWF has regularly opposed VAWA, including during a fight to reauthorize the Act in March 2013. "What concerns us most is VAWA includes no provisions for financial oversight, views violence more through an ideological lens than a practical one, erodes constitutional rights of the accused, and perpetuates the idea that society is hostile to women," Charlotte Hays of the Independent Women's Forum, said in a statement" at the time, according to the Washington Post.[13]

An article by Sally Patel in IWF's "scholarly" magazine, The Women's Quarterly, stated that "the battered women's movement has outlived its useful beginnings."[14]
Defense of Rush Limbaugh

IWF has repeatedly defended right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh,[15][16] including supporting Limbaugh after his misogynist comments towards Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke on his show in 2012. A report by The Nation and the American Independent Institute found that Limbaugh donated about $273,000 to IWF in 2007, making him the group's largest donor that year. The report noted that in later years, "donors to the IWF began cloaking its contributions by running them through the right-wing’s biggest donor-advised fund, DonorsTrust," making it difficult to know how much Limbaugh may have donated since then.[17]
Efforts to Eradicate Teaching of Global Warming from Schools

In May, 2010 IWF started supporting a group called Balanced Education for Everyone whose goal is to stop the teaching of global warming in U.S. schools. The group calls global warming "junk science," and claims teaching it scares children unnecessarily. The group started its national effort at a meeting of the Mesa County, Colorado District 51 School Board, where it presented the board with a petition containing 600-700 signatures of people who want global warming instruction stopped. [18][19]
History

Founded by Rosalie Gaull (Ricky) Silberman in 1992, the IWF grew out of the ad hoc group, Women for Judge Thomas.

While claiming to challenge "radical feminists," IWF primarily targets mainstream feminists and feminist organizations, as exemplified by such figures as Hillary Rodham Clinton and such groups as the American Association of University Women.

IWF is a secular counterpart to Religious Right women's groups like Eagle Forum and Concerned Women for America, but these groups often work together. People for the American Way describe IWF as a group that "opposes affirmative action, gender equity programs like Title IX, and the Violence Against Women Act."[20]

IWF members include academic women who are paid to write papers that denigrate the idea of equity for girls and women in education. One of these papers,[1] by Judith Kleinfeld, a professor of psychology at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, has questioned an MIT study[21] on discrimination against women in MIT's science department, calling their findings "junk science."

IWF's website shows an expansive sphere of concerns, all viewed from right-wing perspectives.

IWF's head Michelle Bernard later became the head of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy. The Bernard Center's website lists no donors, no history and no contact information other than a PO box in Potomac, Maryland. Analysts from the Bernard Center have written about 'misguided' food and nutrition policy, and the need for more charter schools.
Feminist Majority Objects to IWF's State Department Grant, 2004

In October 2004 the Feminist Majority Foundation objected to the U.S. Department of State's decision to award part of a $10 million grant to IWF for "leadership training, democracy education and coalition building assistance" to women in Iraq. Then-president of the Feminist Majority Eleanor Smeal said that the IWF "represents a small group of right-wing wheeler-dealers inside the Beltway."[22] The funding was from the Iraqi Women's Democracy Initiative. In a press release, IWF "denounced" the Feminist Majority's objection, calling it a "radical feminist group," and stated its plan to work with the American Islamic Congress and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.[23]
Funding

According to data collected by Media Matters' Conservative Transparency Project, IWF received $16,009,294 in foundation grants between 1994 and 2012. The top ten overall contributors to IWF are:[1]

    Randolph Foundation: $3,779,850 (1998-2012)
    DonorsTrust: $3,594,104 (2002-2012)
    Sarah Scaife Foundation: $1,900,000 (1999-2007)
    Donors Capital Fund: 1,640,000 (2012)
    Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation: $835,000 (1998-2010)
    John M. Olin Foundation: $776,000 (1995-2002)
    Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation: $580,000 (1995-2008)
    Castle Rock Foundation: $400,000 (1998-2011)
    Jaquelin Hume Foundation: $375,000 (1999-2009)
    William H. Donner Foundation: $308,157 (1998-2009)

#    
Donor
    
Recipient
    
Amount
    
Year
    Link
1    Americans for Tax Reform    Independent Women's Voice    $260,000    2013    +
2    National Right To Work Committee    Independent Women's Voice    $25,000    2012    +
3    Investor Protection Inc.    Independent Women's Voice    $25,000    2012    +
4    Annual Fund    Independent Women's Voice    $80,000    2011    +
5    Center to Protect Patient Rights    Independent Women's Voice    $250,000    2009    +
6    Independent Women's Voice    Independent Women's Forum    $36,568    2006    +
7    Independent Women's Voice    Independent Women's Forum    $75,000    2005    +
8    Independent Women's Voice    Independent Women's Forum    $50,000    2004

wikifluff

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

Heather Richardson Higgins (born September 21, 1959) is an American businesswoman, political commentator, and non-profit sector executive. She is the president and CEO of Independent Women's Voice, the 501(c)(4) sister organization of the Independent Women's Forum.[1]

Higgins has been associated with a number of different political and policy organizations. These range from non-profit, non-partisan organizations like the Hoover Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations to media organizations with more pronounced political affinities, such as the National Empowerment Television network and Irving Kristol's The Public Interest.

    1Personal background
    2Journalist and commentator
    3Investment career
    4Non-profit roles and policy work
        4.1Responses to 2010 special elections
        4.2ACR advocacy for private foundations
    5Political views
    6See also
    7References
    8External links

Personal background

Born in Atlanta, Georgia and raised in Manhattan, Higgins began her undergraduate studies in 1977 at Wellesley College. She graduated cum laude from Wellesley in 1981, earning a B.A. She then moved back to New York City and enrolled in the M.B.A. finance program at New York University's graduate school of business. After leaving NYU for several years to work as a research analyst, marketer, and portfolio manager at a small firm, she resumed her studies there in 1986 and was awarded her graduate degree in 1987.[2] She currently lives in Manhattan with her husband James and their three children.
Journalist and commentator

In the 1980s, Higgins began writing editorial columns for the Wall Street Journal. During this time, she also became an assistant editor at Irving Kristol's now-defunct quarterly, The Public Interest.[3] Higgins' editorial writing and policy work have led to appearances on a variety of news/commentary programs, including Hardball with Chris Matthews, Politically Incorrect,[4] Real Time with Bill Maher,[5] Crossfire, Equal Time and Good Morning America. With Newt Gingrich, she co-hosted The Progress Report on the now-defunct National Empowerment Television.[6][7] When asked about Higgins' television appearances, Bill Maher said, "Oh God, she could talk about anything."[2]

Higgins was co-editor of The Quotable Paul Johnson (1994), a book of collected quotations from the popular historian.[8]
Investment career

Before Higgins' 1991 entry into the non-profit sector, she worked as a Wall Street portfolio manager for seven years, eventually attaining the position of vice president of U.S. Trust before it became a subsidiary of the Charles Schwab Corporation. On February 3, 2006, she was elected to be a Director and Trustee of sixteen of UBS's registered investment companies, which consisted of thirty-six mutual funds as of January 2007.[9][10]
Non-profit roles and policy work

Higgins has been heavily involved with non-profit organizations. She is chairman and CEO of Independent Women's Voice,[11] a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, chairman of the Independent Women's Forum,[12] co-founder of the Alliance For Charitable Reform,[13] and has been president and director of New York's Randolph Foundation since 1991.[10] She was also the executive director of the Council on Culture & Community.[14]

In addition to helming the above organizations, Higgins' non-profit experience includes her position on the executive committee of the board of overseers for the Hoover Institution[15][16] and her membership in the Council on Foreign Relations.[17] She is also a trustee of the Committee for Economic Development,[18] vice-chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Philanthropy Roundtable and a former member of the W.H. Brady Foundation's board of directors.[19]

In November 2013, Campaigns & Elections named Higgins to their list of top fifty political influencers to watch in 2014.[20]
Responses to 2010 special elections

After Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley in the special election to select Ted Kennedy's successor, Independent Women's Voice commissioned a survey which Higgins cited as demonstrating that voters were motivated by the potential impact that the election was perceived as playing in healthcare reform and other national policy debates. Higgins also reported that the survey showed that, "while women overall voted 53%–45% for Coakley, Independent women voted 67%–33% for Brown. Given an option between reducing taxes and regulations on small business or increasing government spending, 51% preferred tax cuts while 30% chose infrastructure."[21]

In the May 2010 special House election in Hawaiʻi's 2nd congressional district, Independent Women's Voice ran advertisements critical of former Democratic Congressman Ed Case. The advertisements asserted that Case "had voted to raise taxes 72 times and had received failing grades from anti-pork barrel spending groups such as the National Taxpayers Union."[22] According to Politico, the group spent "more than $200,000" on the anti-Case advertising campaign.[23] Federal Election Commission filings indicate that the organization spent $237,500 on the effort as of early May 2010.[24]
ACR advocacy for private foundations

In a letter published in The Hill, Higgins and fellow Alliance for Charitable Reform [CLETA] co-founder Dan Peters responded to discussion of legislative regulatory proposals, saying that, "ACR believes that every dollar of tax increases on foundations is to the federal government rather than a dollar to charities, and the ACR is troubled by that notion.... We cannot adopt a one-size-fits-all solution that disadvantages smaller organizations. We must do everything possible to encourage philanthropy and not create barriers to charitable giving."[25]
Political views

Columnist Suzanne Fields, in an article discussing Higgins and IWF co-founder Lisa Schiffren, states that they "are mothers and relate to women who are not ideologically doctrinaire, but who are instinctively conservative on war and taxes."[26]

In an interview with the Acton Institute, Higgins expressed her fundamental opposition to government social programs insofar as they compete with or replace private charities, stating,

    Government programs pose serious problems for community institutions when they directly compete with those organizations which attempt to provide charity, while seeking to assist the individual beyond materialistic ends. Properly performed charity not only feeds you, but keeps your self-respect intact.'[14]

In her review of Thomas DiLorenzo and James T. Bennett's book Unhealthy Charities: Hazardous to Your Health and Wealth, which examines the operation of health charities, Higgins argues that,

    The problem is not that there are bad people running these organizations; almost anyone sitting on the board of such an organization would do the same thing in this environment. The problem is having centralized government funding in the first place. Reallocate the dollars, disperse the authority, create competing funding sources, and all these problems and false incentives will be instantly mitigated.[3]

George magazine published an article in its 1995 first issue, entitled "The Heather Report," in which Higgins' views were summarized as "essentially libertarian," and in agreement with the idea that "Centralized government will matter less and less.... We are in the midst of a 'great shift' from 'elitist to populist,' from a machine 'which is controlled and planned' to an organic system that, 'following this new paradigm, has faith in people, faith in their capacities, faith in their choices.'" Higgins was characterized as a link between the "wide-eyed" academic community and "flinty" political practitioners.[2]

In a 1995 Wall Street Journal column, Paul Gigot described Higgins as an "idea broker," explaining that she prefers not to be associated with political parties. Gigot included a quotation from her, in which she stated, "I am not really interested in a party.... If the Democrats had really been New Democrats, that would have been great. If these Republicans become Old Republicans, they'll lose me too."[27] William Galston, a senior domestic policy adviser in the Clinton administration, said, "I see Heather as an intellectual and policy entrepreneur with some real moral commitments.... I don't see her as a sharply partisan figure, certainly not in the way she deals with people."[2]
See also

    Independent Women's Forum
    Philanthropy Roundtable
    Randolph Foundation

Trump: The Kardashian of Politics | The Huffington Post
www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-higgins/trump-the-kardashian-of-p_b_9345246.html
Feb 28, 2016 - Donald Trump's galvanizing celebrity is trumping political certitudes (e.g., you need a ...Heather Higgins Heather Higgins is President & CEO of ...
The Promise of President Trump: Heather R. Higgins - WSJ
www.wsj.com/articles/the-promise-of-president-trump-heather-r-higgins-1484868081
Jan 19, 2017 - The Promise of President Trump: Heather R. Higgins. 'The more successful he is, the more the left will try to distract with attacks on him and his ...
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Oct 14, 2016 - OPINION | Trump's certainly flawed, but to Clinton he doesn't compare. ... By HeatherR. Higgins, contributor Tweet Share More. Elections are ...
Heather Higgins | Right Wing Watch
www.rightwingwatch.org/people/heather-higgins/
To our readers: A Donald Trump presidency threatens to empower dangerous elements of the Radical Right ... Heather Higgins. All Posts About Heather Higgins.
Donald Trump Will Win: Five Reasons Why | National Review
www.nationalreview.com/article/439451/donald-trump-will-win-five-reasons-why
Aug 29, 2016 - Trump might get some of them right, more and more people will choose the ... HeatherR. Higgins is the president and CEO of Independent ...
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Heather Higgins Articles - Political Columnist & Commentator - Townhall
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Heather R. Higgins is the president and CEO of Independent Women's Voice ... How Omarosa Responded When 'The View' Ladies Asked Her If Trump Was ...
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https://twitter.com/thehrh/status/780803675367366656
Sep 27, 2016 - Heather R. Higgins. Verified account. @TheHRH .... Hillary Won, But Trump Helped His Campaign - my take. Net-no harm, Trump better ...

rww
Political Correctness And Political Awkwardness At The RNC
pcm-4By Peter Montgomery | July 26, 2016 11:47 am

The Republican National Convention and the constellation of right-wing events scheduled during and around the official gathering included plenty of downright disturbing examples of racism, misogyny, religious bigotry, and Mussolini-wannabe-ism. It also included some intensely awkward moments, not all of them caught on television cameras.

Picture Sen. Jeff Sessions sitting on stage with four other speakers on a panel organized by the American Conservative Union Foundation to address the question, “Will conservatives support Trump?”

OK, now picture Sen. Sessions’ face as he tries to remain calm and composed while fellow panelist Heather Higgins, head of Independent Women’s Voice and a Wall Street Journal contributor, tells this joke:

There was a man who was lying in his hospital bed, quite sick, oxygen mask on his nose and mouth. And a young nurse comes in … to give him a sponge bath. And she hears him mumble through his mask, “Nurse, can you check, are my testicles black?”

She is embarrassed at this and kind of horrified, and she says, “Sir, all I’m supposed to do is wash your upper body and your feet.” And he tries again, and says, “Please, please can you check, are my testicles black?”

And so she decides that she doesn’t want his blood pressure to go up and him to be agitated by worrying about this, so she just steels herself for the embarrassment, pulls back the bed clothes, lifts up his hospital gown, takes him in one hand and checks, and she says, ‘Sir, you’re fine. You’re magnificent…

And he takes off his oxygen mask and he says, “Thank you, that was wonderful, nurse. But let me say this again slowly: are my test results back?”

Higgins was trying to make a humorous point about messaging, and people not hearing what you’re trying to say. But she also seemed to be demonstrating the gleeful contempt for “political correctness” that was on display all last week in Cleveland. The attitude seems to be that people should just “have a sense of humor” rather than take offense when something inappropriate or offensive has been said.

As others have noted, conservatives who complain about “political correctness” often seem to be longing for a time when it was acceptable to openly traffic in stereotypes or worse – or in the words of comedian Samantha Bee, to be free of the “cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect.”

Back to Higgins. In response to a question about Trump’s promise to build a wall on the border with Mexico, Higgins reminded people that Trump has said his wall would have a big door. “Who else would run the golf courses?” she snarked. That comment drew some groans and a loud “whoa” from fellow panelist KT McFarland, and someone else chimed in, “I think it’s Eric Trump, actually.” Rather than letting it go, Higgins added, “No, I meant manage the day-to-day maintenance.”

Higgins said that some conservatives oppose Trump because they don’t genuinely believe him to be conservative; others she described as “ever snob” – people who have a “social discomfort” with the way Trump talks and presents himself and “can’t see themselves or their friends every finding it socially acceptable to say that they’re for Trump.”

She said that those snobby people might never tell a pollster they are a Trump “supporter,” but that if a pollster asks whether they are thinking about voting for Trump they will get a much higher number, because in the end it comes down to a binary choice between him and Hillary Clinton. While many conservatives who backed other candidates are still working their way through the stages of grief, Higgins said, by October and November they’ll get to “acceptance” and vote for Trump.

 Tags: Heather HigginsJeff SessionsElection 2016RNC 2016American Conservative UnionRepublican Party

big cmd report: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3026994/Independent-Womens-Forum-Voice-Report-by-CMD-08.pdf

some rep?

Independent Women’s Forum and its 501(c)(4) affiliate, the Independent Women’s Voice, market themselves to the media and voters as “non-partisan,” “independent,” and “neutral.”

However, a new investigation of the groups by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reveals them to be anything but that. Joan Walsh in the Nation broke this story today along with other new details about these not-so independent women’s groups.

[Meet the ‘Feminists’ Doing the Koch Brothers’ Dirty Work

The Independent Women’s Forum has leveraged its “non-partisan” brand to become an aggressive player in Republican politics.
By Joan Walsh

If you watch cable news, you’ve seen someone from an outfit called the “Independent Women’s Forum” promoting a conservative take on the women’s issue of the day. It’s no secret that the group leans right; it grew out of “Women for Judge Thomas,” which formed during Anita Hill’s testimony about Clarence Thomas at his 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, and was formally launched in 1992 by the late Barbara Olson and Rosalie “Ricky” Silberman, along with a cadre of powerful conservative women that included former second lady Lynne Cheney. Still, it’s always billed itself as “non-partisan” and “independent.” In its early years, it promoted IWF-affiliated author Christina Hoff Sommers’s brand of “equity feminism” and opposed the “radical feminism” of the ’90s women’s movement, which it argued was pushing myths about sexual harassment, pay inequities, and discrimination in the workplace and widespread abuse on college campuses. For years it played no formal role in electoral politics.

But an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), provided exclusively to The Nation, reveals that since 2010, IWF and its political arm, Independent Women’s Voice, have become aggressive players in Republican politics, embedded in the network of organizations backed by Charles and David Koch, advocating for the Koch brothers’ myriad concerns, and playing on their “independent” label to elect GOP candidates. If this country is to elect its first woman president, Hillary Clinton will have to face down this powerful conservative women’s group to get there.

“Our value here...is taking a conservative message and packaging it in a way that will be acceptable” —Heather Higgins

Increasingly, IWF and IWV are playing a bigger and more open role in Republican politics—while boasting about the way their “independent” label gives them access to voters that groups “branded” as Republican can’t reach. As IWV president Heather Higgins told a convening at the David Horowitz Freedom Center late last year (captured in this video): “Our value here, and what is needed in the Republican conservative arsenal, is a group that can talk to those cohorts [non-Republican women] that would not otherwise listen, but can do it in a way that is taking a conservative message and packaging it in a way that will be acceptable and will get a hearing.”

And at a recent gathering of the Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), IWF Executive Director Sabrina Schaeffer similarly bragged about her group’s success bringing an “independent” message on issues like paid family leave to even “progressive” women. Once IWF provided (highly debatable) information about how such legislation hurts women, “we were able to drop support by a double-digit spread,” Schaeffer told the group, according to notes taken at the event obtained by CMD.

Using their “independent” label to help Republicans isn’t the groups’ only misrepresentation. Although it claims to be neutral on abortion—“The IWF has never taken a stance on abortion,” Sabrina Schaeffer told the pro-choice website Rewire last year—since 2012, all but one of the GOP congressional candidates backed by IWV have had a zero rating from NARAL Pro Choice America, or were newcomers who support strict limits on abortion (the exception was Massachusetts GOP Senator Scott Brown). And while an IWF editor blasted Donald Trump as “Todd Akin on steroids” earlier this year, IWV even spent money to help Akin’s disastrous Senate campaign in 2012.

Despite many conservative leaders’ uneasiness with Trump, Heather Higgins is now an enthusiastic supporter of the man her colleague labeled “Todd Akin on steroids.” Though she once mocked Trump as “the Kardashian of politics,” she’s done a full Kanye West and now supports him—passionately.

“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good,” she told a panel titled “Will Conservatives Support Trump?” at the GOP convention in Cleveland last month, according to audio taken there. “Your choice is Hillary Clinton who will be wrong on all issues.… Trump will surround himself with principled, savvy advisers who will lead us to the best possible outcomes on a wide range of [issues] and his judicial picks.” Though conservatives may be balking now, she said, by November, Trump will win in a “landslide.” To that end, Higgins has turned her Twitter feed into a running defense of Trump, praising his call to “Second Amendment people” to “do something” about Hillary Clinton as “brilliant,” defending his claim that calling President Obama the “founder” of ISIS was sarcasm, and attacking Trump’s detractors. Remarkably, Trump just made IWF board member Kellyanne Conway his campaign manager.

“It’s clear that IWF and IWV are in the business of saying one thing, but doing another,” said CMD Executive Director Lisa Graves, who co-authored the report, “The Not-So-Independent Women’s Forum/Voice.” “They call themselves ‘independent,’ while IWF backs policies that echo the corporate lobbying agenda and IWV tells donors it’s a crucial part of the ‘Republican conservative arsenal.’”

The Nation sent three e-mails and made two phone calls to IWF/V asking for comment. One of the e-mails wrongly stated that the group had only helped Republicans. In fact, according to CMD research, it once aided a Libertarian. Communications Director Victoria Coley sent this reply:

    It’s tough to respond to the CMD report that we haven’t yet seen, especially when one of the only things we know about it—its claim that IWV spends money politically “exclusively on behalf of Republicans”—is demonstrably false. If they can’t even get that right—especially when it’s so easy to check—we can’t help but wonder what else the report asserts that just is not so?

I told Coley that was my mistake, not CMD’s, and sent a list of questions, but heard nothing more.

*

In the 1990s, IWF was a plucky organization devoted to debunking “radical” feminism, promoting the work of IWF author Christina Hoff Summers—remember “Who Stole Feminism?” and “The War Against Boys”?—and railing against new laws prohibiting sex discrimination and sexual harassment, showing (with questionable data) how they would actually hurt women. IWF lobbied against the 1994 “Violence Against Women Act,” claiming “wives instigate violence, including severe violence, against husbands more often than husbands do against wives.” It opposed the gender integration of the Virginia Military Institute and joined with men’s sports organizations to attack Title IX education regulations that protected funding for female sports teams as unfair to men.

But with the arrival of Koch Industries lobbyist Nancy Pfotenhauer in 2001, the group began to affiliate itself more with the issues on the Kochs’ agenda, as well as with groups that the brothers fund. Since then there’s been a steady connection of IWF/V staffers and board members with various Koch affiliates. Pfotenhauer even took over as president of the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity in 2003, running it jointly with IWF from the same office into 2005.

More than half of IWF’s current board members have either received funding from Koch groups or worked for one of them.

Today, the IWF website looks like it still shares content with Americans for Prosperity, with posts devoted to lowering corporate tax rates and ending the “death tax,” criticizing food stamps, promoting gun rights and fracking—alongside screeds against Hillary Clinton and on how Title IX hurts boys. On its website, IWV says its five core issues areas are “healthcare, responsible government, workplace regulation, energy and economic literacy,” which are all core concerns of the Kochs and their allies. “Economic literacy,” for instance, is defined as the Kochs do: by adherence to free-market principles and opposition to public-employee unions. More than half of IWF’s current board members have either received funding from Koch-affiliated groups or worked for one of them, CMD says, as have roughly half of the IWF staff.

Still, with the hiring of attorney Michelle Bernard as president in 2006, IWF made an attempt to craft a new, genuinely “independent” middle stance, at least on a few issues, to try to bring together women of more diverse points of view. Bernard, who is African-American, expanded outreach to women of different races and classes and succeeded in reaching even some liberal women with her emphasis on education reform and school choice, a cause that in those years began to attract some neoliberal Democrats and frustrated African Americans. A grant from the State Department to work on human-rights issues with Muslim women in Iraq and elsewhere also took the group beyond its normal issues. In 2008, Bernard proved her own independence by backing Obama for president.

But the election of Obama along with the elevation of pharmaceutical heiress and former investment adviser Heather Higgins to chair the IWF board and lead Independent Women’s Voice changed the group’s approach. Pfotenhauer had founded IWV, the group’s 501(c)(4), in 2004, but IWV took a back seat to the more prominent activities of IWF. But the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling unleashed a tide of dark money, and IWV became a conduit, raising and spending money, and sometimes passing it along to affiliated conservative groups.

Under Higgins, IWF and IWV joined the cadre of right-wing players devoted to blocking Obama’s agenda, particularly the Affordable Care Act. IWF produced and ran an ad charging that the ACA would hurt women with breast cancer, for instance. That ad was called “really faulty” by the American Cancer Society and drew a “false” rating from Factcheck.org. Bernard left the group in October 2010. Soon the IWV, under Higgins, would out-raise and outspend IWF, the sister group, according to CMD.

Some of IWV’s moves would even seem to undermine IWF’s stated principles. The group has, controversially among conservatives, stayed away from the issue of abortion. “It…sets us apart from other organizations, because we don’t talk about abortion and gay marriage and some of those social issues that are in many ways are very alienating to women,” IWF director Schaeffer told Glamour magazine in 2013. “So many people are so discouraged when you have people on the fringe saying comments that are obviously offensive, saying things about ‘legitimate rape.’ I don’t know what inspires anybody to say words like that.”

But, in fact, CMD found that IWV spent $850,000 in 2014 supporting GOP Senate candidates who had a zero rating from NARAL, except for Scott Brown. And though Schaeffer specifically criticized Missouri GOP Representative Todd Akin’s “obviously offensive” remarks about “legitimate rape” to Glamour in 2013, the previous year IWV spent $67,000 to help Akin in his unsuccessful fight to unseat Senator Claire McCaskill. IWV invested another $177,000 in Indiana Representative Richard Mourdock’s Senate race, even after he said rape “is something God intended to happen,” which was also judged by many to be obviously offensive and likely cost Mourdock the election.

“Our investigation showed that Higgins uses IWV’s independent brand name to reach independent or Democratic voters and spends money to help anti-choice extremists,” CMD’s Lisa Graves notes, “while IWF claims it is not anti-abortion and there is no GOP ‘war on women.’”

* *

Indeed, at the David Horowitz event where Higgins bragged about her group’s role in the “Republican conservative arsenal,” she explained that IWV has success “with audiences that normally don’t tend to like to hear from Republicans and conservatives” because “branding matters…. We have worked hard to create a branded organization that does not carry partisan baggage. It’s called ‘Independent Women’s Voice.’ Being branded as neutral, but having the people who know, know that you’re actually conservative, puts us in a unique position.”

Higgins took credit for turning around Scott Brown’s 2010 Senate campaign in Massachusetts (by figuring out that the most important issue to voters was giving Republicans “the 41st vote” against the ACA) and for helping Kentucky GOP Governor Matt Bevin squeak by last year mainly by targeting “Democrats, liberals, and independents,” she said. “Having this branding, you can go places where, if you’re the [Republican National Committee] or the [Republican Governors Association]…they can’t get access that we can.”

Spending for both IWF and IWV grew by more than 400 percent from 2011 to 2012.

Spending for both IWF and IWV grew by more than 400 percent from 2011 to 2012, according to CMD, reflecting the new investment in electioneering. The two groups have raised $16 million since 2010. Since the Citizens United decision that year, groups like IWF and IWV don’t have to disclose many of their donors, so it’s hard to know who’s behind the funding explosion. Higgins’s Randolph Foundation is a big donor, directing $3.78 million to IWF since 1998. The Koch-allied anti-Obamacare Center to Protect Patient Rights gave IWV $250,000 in 2009 to fund its push against the ACA, according to CMD, and the National Right to Work Committee has also funded the group in 2012 and 2013. Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, which secretly direct the funding of wealthy conservatives, including the Kochs, gave the groups $5.3 million between 2002 and 2014, the most recent year for which they have filed data. Although IWV boasts of accepting “no Koch money,” IWF received more than $8oo,000 from Koch-controlled family foundations between 2001 and 2012, CMD says.

In 2016, IWF and IWV have turned to the threat of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, as well as the pro-family agenda she and her allies are pushing with her campaign. The groups are uniquely placed to try to fight the gender gap that may doom Donald Trump and cost the GOP the Senate. As IWF’s Schaeffer told ALEC in July, “The war on women narrative has shifted from a focus entirely on reproductive rights to a focus on making the workplace fair for women. And I don’t need to tell you issues of pay equity, childcare subsidies, paid leave mandates, flexibility, overtime regulation, licensing, retirement—these are all now sort of the new front in the war on women, and we are doing our best to push back on that.”

IWF told women in focus groups that paid family leave actually hurts rather than helps the working poor.

Unfortunately for Republicans, Schaeffer noted, IWF polling shows that “people are overwhelmingly supportive of laws like the Healthy Families Act [which would mandate paid sick leave], and that includes conservatives, and so we have to do a much better job of talking about them.” When IWF told women in focus groups that paid family leave actually hurts rather than helps the working poor—Schaeffer offered no evidence for that claim—support dropped, she told the ALEC meeting. Even among “progressive women,” Schaeffer said, a message that paid leave both hurts the working poor, and limits their own work flexibility—again, she shared no evidence—reduced support by double digits.

The popularity of Democrats’ family-support legislation led IWF to put together its own “limited government” family-support package, named “Working for Women,” consisting of programs accomplished through the tax codes, like “personal care accounts” that would let a woman save for a family leave tax-free, as well as pushing for comp time rather than overtime, plus deregulating child care to make it more affordable. Schaeffer offered to help ALEC members find ways to push these “limited government” alternatives, rather than have nothing to counter the popular family-support proposals put forward by Democrats.

“In my opinion that’s deceptive, although unfortunately it is not usual for Koch-connected groups to behave like front groups that use appealing names that cloak their real agendas, especially to try to win elections,” CMD’s Lisa Graves said.

Meanwhile, Heather Higgins keeps up her Twitter advocacy of Donald Trump.

    They don’t get sarcasm. Or irony. Or honest answers. But the rest of us do, and it’s a powerful differentiator @IWV https://t.co/IQ6A6yR5Er   

    — Heather R. Higgins (@TheHRH) August 12, 2016   

Higgins may want to ask herself whether she’s providing “honest answers” when she boasts of using her independent “brand” to hype Republicans.

]

CMD’s Reporters’ Guide exposes the groups’ leaders admitting to—and boasting about—their true role for what it is: finding ways to sell right-wing policies and candidates favored by their funders to reach independent women voters under the guise of neutrality.
IWV Boasts of Its Role in “Republican Conservative Arsenal”

“Being branded as neutral, but actually having people who know know that you’re actually conservative puts us in a unique position,” Heather Richardson Higgins, the President of the Independent Women’s Voice and the Board Chair of the Independent Women’s Forum, admitted in a speech to potential 2016 donors at a David Horowitz Freedom Center retreat.

“Our value here and what is needed in the Republican conservative arsenal is a group that can talk to those cohorts [women who are not Republican conservatives] that would not otherwise listen but can do it in a way that is taking a conservative message and packaging it in a way that will be acceptable,” she said.

While the Independent Women’s Forum and the Independent Women’s Voice claim to the public and press that they are a mainstream voice for women voters, their spending and their leaders’ speeches reveal the truth.

“Independent” is a PR term these groups use to appeal to women while pushing corporate-backed policies or extreme candidates that actually make things harder for working women and their families, in CMD’s assessment.
IWF Attacks Work Policies It Admits Many Women Like

The Independent Women’s Forum routinely attacks policies popular with many women, like equal pay, earned sick leave, and raising the minimum wage, as well as Title IX and protections for battered women.

And it has often done so by making extreme claims, which CMD also documents.

CMD’s investigation includes analysis of remarks to right-wing donors by the Independent Women’s Voice’s leader Heather Higgins in 2015.

CMD also analyzed notes from a meeting of the secretive American Legislative Exchange Council in July, at which Independent Women’s Forum President Sabrina Schaefer offered to help ALEC legislators “sell” corporate-backed alternatives to paid sick leave, equal pay, quality childcare, and workplace flexibility in their home states.
IWV Spent to Help “War on Women” GOP Candidates

CMD also describes how Independent Women’s Voice made “independent expenditures” on political ads or calls to aid some of the most extreme “War on Women” GOP candidates, including the following:

    It spent $67,242 to aid Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin with calls and independent voter outreach in November 2012, after Akin claimed on August 19, 2012 that rape victims couldn’t get pregnant because “if it’s legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
    It spent $176,991 on a “Romney wants Mourdock” ad after Indiana U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock asserted that when a woman is raped, she carries a “gift from God” and that such a pregnancy “is something that God intended to happen.”
    Joe Walsh, a GOP Rep. from Illinois claimed in the 2012 race against Tammy Duckworth that abortions to save a mother’s life are never medically necessary. Two weeks later, Independent Women’s Voice spent more than $5,000 on calls and outreach to independent voters in his district.
    In the 2014 Senate races, CMD’s research finds that Independent Women’s Voice spent more than $850,000 on GOP candidates, most of whom had 0% NARAL ratings; it spent more than $5 million that year on related advocacy.
    Higgins also told donors that Independent Women’s Voice made the only significant independent expenditure in Mark Sanford’s 2012 congressional race in South Carolina. She said Independent Women’s Voice worked to convince “evangelicals to hold their nose and vote for Mark in order to be able to hold onto that seat and not have the liberal win it.”

IWF’s Koch Ties and More

CMD’s investigation also includes an analysis of how the Independent Women’s Forum works as part of the Koch policy world infrastructure through its staff and alliances.

No fewer than half of the Independent Women’s Forum’s full-time staff previously worked directly for Koch-controlled groups or for entities that received Koch funding.

The Independent Women’s Forum also pushes numerous policies aligned with Koch-funded groups like David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

CMD’s analysis also shows that between 2001 and 2014, DonorsTrust and DonorsCapital Fund–funding entities with ties to the Koch network of billionaires–gave the Independent Women’s Forum a total of $5,344,000 in donations.

In a similar period, Koch-controlled foundations gave the group more than $800,000. Although many of the names of the Independent Women’s Forum’s big donors are not disclosed, documents analyzed by CMD reveal funding from the fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil and right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, among others.

A review of tax filings shows that Higgins is the largest individually identified donor to IWF in recent years.

The full CMD Reporters’ Guide is available here and can be viewed below. And here are links to materials with quotes from IWF/V in general and about women’s rights, civil rights, unions and worker rights, LGBTQ rights, our environment, education,  guns, health, and the ACA.

(Arn Pearson, Max Abbott, David Armiak, and Sari Williams also assisted with the report.)

http://www.exposedbycmd.org/independentwomensforum

iwf cf cmd:

The Independent Women’s Voice touts its “independent” brand in reaching potential voters.

But is it even women‘s voices it is throwing? Let alone independent women?

The reported data from the Federal Election Commission data says no.

New research shows that the overwhelming majority of its known donors are men.

Very rich men.

Yes, men have provided most of the disclosed donations to fund election-related expenditures under the name of the “Independent Women’s Voice.”

(IWV is a (c)(4) that operates out of the same offices as the Koch-tied “Independent Women’s Forum.”)

How do we know? Because IWV disclosed donors to the FEC in connection with the Scott Brown special election for the Senate in filings here and here.

Because before the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated clean election reforms in the Citizens United case in 2010 along with related decisions, IWV took a different approach to disclosure.
89% OF DONORS TO INDEPENDENT WOMEN‘S VOICE IN BROWN RACE WERE MEN

In January 2010 in that spending, IWV reported that more than 89% of its donors were men.

Late last year, Heather Higgins, the President of IWV, told potential donors about the first race she deployed her strategy to use the “independent” brand: the race to fill the seat of the late Senator Ted Kennedy.

She said: “[W]e have worked hard to create a branded organization that does not carry partisan baggage. It’s called Independent Women’s Voice. Being branded as neutral, but actually having the people who know know that you’re actually conservative puts us in a unique position. Our value here (and what is needed in the Republican conservative arsenal) is a group that can talk to those cohorts that wouldn’t otherwise listen but can do it in a way that is taking a conservative message and packaging it in a way that will be acceptable and will get a hearing.”

She noted that the “independent” brand of IWV was successful in the politically diverse state of Massachusetts in 2010.

Higgins added that in Brown’s election, IWV was successful “redefining that as being about healthcare in the 41st vote” to filibuster the health insurance reforms that President Obama was seeking. She claimed that IWV helped “close his 20‑point gap” with his opponent, Martha Coakley, a Democrat.
INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S VOICE FUNDERS FOR BROWN? NOT “INDEPENDENT WOMEN”

But who really funded that effort?

Not actually independent women.
THE BIGGEST DONOR: FOSTER FRIESS, A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE GOP GUY

The largest reported funder of the Independent Women’s Voice that January was Foster Friess. He gave $87,000 to the effort, nearly 33% of the funding.

The 73-year old investment fund manager describes himself as a “billionaire wannabe” because he has a net worth of only about $500 million.

And, he’s no independent.

He funded the Super PAC of evangelical GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum (R-PA) in 2012.

Friess gave at least $1 million to advance the Koch Brothers’ agenda, making that pledge at one of their political strategy session in preparation for the 2012 elections.

The billionaire wannabe has spent at least $3 million to underwrite the Daily Caller operation. It provides daily fodder for Donald Trump’s claims. And the Trump operation pays Daily Caller to email its subscribers to promote his presidential campaign.

He also spent at least $100,000 to help Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) win his recall election in 2011.

And, he’s no feminist.

Friess told journalist Andrea Mitchell his position on birth control: “[T]his contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s so … inexpensive, you know, back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”

That’s Friess. Definitely not an independent woman.

But he does have close ties to Higgins. She contacted Friess to get funding to begin James O’Keefe’s controversial campaign against ACORN.

He threw his voice (money) through IWV in the Scott Brown race for the Senate.

Friess is now “all-in” for GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
MULTI-MILLIONAIRE MAN: RICHARD SHARP, GOP DONOR

The next largest donor to the Independent Women’s Voice for the Scott Brown effort was also not a woman and not an independent.

Richard Sharp gave Higgins $50,000 to help, which was almost 22% of the funding IWV reported that January.

Sharp, the former CEO of Circuit City, helped develop CarMax and invested first in Crocs, according to his obituary in 2014.

He was also an active Republican backer of President George W. Bush.

He notoriously tried to use his influence “to suppress a study … that correctly predicted that [Virginia’s GOP Governor] Gilmore’s car-tax rollback would create a $1 billion hole in the state budget.”
BILLIONAIRE MAN: JACK TEMPLETON, ANOTHER GOP DONOR

Dr. John (Jack) M. Templeton, Jr., was the next largest disclosed donor to IWV underwriting its efforts to help Brown beat Coakley in her bid to become the first woman Senator of the Bay state.

He gave $30,000.

Dr. Templeton was the son of billionaire investor John Templeton, one of the richest men in the world before his death in the Bahamas.

Dr. Templeton, an evangelical Republican, ran the Templeton Foundation.

In 2008 alone he gave nearly half a million dollars to the National Organization for Marriage, which fought marriage equality in Massachusetts and spent big on California Proposition 8. Regulatory agencies have pursued the group for failing to comply with requirements for private disclosure of donors.

NOM has been called an anti-gay group that demonizes LGBTQ Americans. And, internal documents revealed that one of it’s goals was to divide black Americans over gay rights and to “to ‘sideswipe’ President Barack Obama by depicting him as a ‘social radical’ via issues including child protection and pornography.”

Dr. Templeton also spent a million dollars launching “Let Freedom Ring,” a right-wing group that helped launch the Tea Party protests, pushed for a huge fence between on the Mexican border, and promoted myths about the Iraq War.

He died in 2015.

Like the most of the disclosed donors to IWV, he was not ever a woman, and he was not independent.
MULTI-MILLIONAIRE MAN: THOMAS PATRICK, GOP DONOR

The next largest donor to IWV was Thomas Patrick.

He gave it $25,000.

He’s a former Merrill Lynch executive, who joined a venture capital firm: New Vernon Capital. He has appeared on the show of Higgins’ ally, Larry Kudlow.

He backed Mitt Romney’s bid for the White House in 2012, was a major donor to Bush-Cheney 2004, and has funded the National Republican Congressional Committee and other GOP-aligned groups.

Patrick, like the other bigger donors, is not a woman and not an independent.
MULTI-MILLIONAIRE WOMAN: RANDY KENDRICK, GOP DONOR

One woman did give about 10% of the funds to help IWV in the Scott Brown effort: Randy Kendrick.

As noted by the Arizona press, she is “in a league of her own in her support for the political right, giving more than $130,000 to state political efforts in the 2014 election cycle, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, and, at the federal level, more than $290,000 to Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives and other conservative political action committees, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.”

She’s a lawyer who has been active in the Koch billionaire network, working with Higgins to help launch Sean Noble’s controversial money shuffling operation, the Center to Protect Patient Rights (which has been renamed American Encore).

Kendrick gave IWV $23,435 in January 2010.

Although she is a woman, she is not an independent. She is very active in federal and state GOP activities, although she opposes Trump along with some other “conservative” Republicans.

The other remaining four donors to IWV in January 2010 gave less than 10% to the effort cumulatively.
THREE MORE VERY RICH MEN, GOP DONORS

Tom Klingenstein, who has been the managing partner of an investment firm that shares his name, gave $10,000 (4%). Klingenstein describes himself as a “conservative,” and he is not a woman.

Ron Gidwitz gave $5,000 (2%). The Illinois press has described him as “easily the Illinois Republican Party’s most consistent contributor, fundraiser and cheerleader, dating back four decades when he was finance chair for Rep. Henry Hyde.” Again, he is not a woman or an independent.

Myles Pollin gave $1,000. He practices law as a partner with the big firm Sidley, focusing on “Collateralized Debt Obligations” (CDOs) and distressed assets, like those discussed in the film “The Big Short.” He helped raise funds for Romney in 2012. He, too, in not an independent woman.
A $300 CHECK FROM A WOMAN, WHO IS A GOP DONOR

Finally, one other woman wrote a small check to help in the IWV efforts for Brown in January 2010. It was for $300 (.001 of the amount raised).

Giovanna Cugnasca wrote that check. She’s a Vice President at Emcor Securities in New York. The year after that donation, she joined the board of the Independent Women’s Forum, which Higgins chairs.

Cugnasca has made a number of political contributions to GOP candidates, including to Republican U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, before his controversial comments about rape, pregnancy, and “God’s will.” She has also donated to the campaigns of Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Allen West.
NONE WERE FROM MASSACHUSETTS

In all, more than 89% of the reported donations to IWV in January 2010 when it was working to help Scott Brown win a seat in the Senate were made by men. And the two women whose donations constituted a small minority of the funding have been GOP donors, not donors to “independent” candidates.

And none of those IWV donors even resided in Massachusetts.
MAJORITY OF OTHER REPORTED INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S VOICE AD DONORS WERE NOT WOMEN

The only other FEC reported donors to IWV under Higgins’ control occurred in late 2011.

Again, the majority of disclosed donors were not women, as shown here and here.

In September and October of that year, the group disclosed six donors. Two of whom are women whose donations constituted a minority of the funding.

The largest donor was a group called “One Jerusalem,” which was founded by 18 people, three of whom are women.

Its founders included David Horowitz, a right-winger and friend of Higgins; some famous Rabbis; a movie star; and the comedian Jackie Mason. It held a huge rally in Israel in 2001. One Jerusalem, as its name indicates, focuses on maintaining Jerusalem as an undivided capital of the country.

It gave IWV $37,859.87 in late 2011.

Parker Collier, an active donor to the GOP and the wife of a Florida real estate investor, gave $29,060.69.

Virginia James, a wealthy investor who lives in New Jersey and an active donor to GOP candidates (like Richard Mourdock), gave $10,000.

James is also a major donor to right-wing groups that run ads to influence elections to help Republicans, like Club for Growth and Templeton’s Let Freedom Ring.

The other disclosed donors were Pollin, the law firm partner, $3000; Donald Tober, the Chairman of the Sugar Foods Corporation, $1000; and Lewis van Amerongan, a wealthy investor, $1000.
OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF FEC DISCLOSED INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S VOICE DONORS? MEN

The donations to IWV disclosed to the FEC in 2010 and 2011 total $313,654, and 80% of those donations were not from women.

And, none of them appear to be from people who are politically “independent.”

Indeed, all of them, other than the one foundation, are active GOP donors.
WHAT NOW FOR THE INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S VOICE?

Since the change in the interpretation of FEC reporting requirements, there is no comparable public snapshot of who has underwritten other ads and election-related activities of IWV

But that fact did not deter IWV from posing as the voice of independent women in the Brown election, even though most of its donors for that effort were wealthy Republican men.

So, will IWV disclose who has been bankrolling its efforts to be an asset in the “Republican conservative arsenal” since then?

If a majority of its documented donors actually are women and actually are independent that would be newsworthy.

This snapshot of the known funding reported to the FEC tells a different story, as Heather Higgins launched this chapter of IWV’s activities to influence the results in American elections.

Furthermore, part of Higgins’ pitch last November at the David Horowitz event was for men to fund the election activities of IWV: “So for the men in the audience who think that the last thing they want to do is support a women’s group, understand that if you have any interest in … winning elections you have to think of this as a market segmentation issue and you can’t leave out that part of the market if you want to win.”

Therefore, the real question is: when IWV “speaks” to influence our elections, is it really just throwing the voice of billionaire wannabees like Foster Friess or of actually independent women?

The public evidence shows it’s a man’s world, masquerading as the voice of independent women.

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Heather Higgins is president and director of the Randolph Foundation in New York City. She is a co-founder of the Alliance for Charitable Reform, president and CEO of Independent Women’s Voice, chairman of the Independent Women’s Forum, and a board member of the Hoover Institution and a number of UBS’ mutual funds. In addition, she is a trustee of the Committee for Economic Development and member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, Ms. Higgins was a portfolio manager and vice president at U.S. Trust. Prior to working in finance, she was an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal and assistant editor at the Public Interest. Ms. Higgins continues to write and offer frequent commentary on radio and television.

Conservative funders

The only income for the CCC in its first year in the US came in the form of a $120,000 grant from the New York-based Randolph Foundation [15].

The foundation, seeded by money from the Richardson family’s sale of the Vick Chemical Company [16] in 1985, gave CCC another $50,000 in 2012 [17].

The main trustee at Randolph is Heather Higgins [18], the president and CEO of Independent Women’s Voice and the chairman of its sister organisation Independent Women’s Forum [19]. Higgins is the daughter of R. Randolph Richardson, a member of the family that sold Vick Chemical Company to Procter & Gamble for $1.2 billion [20].

Staff writers of both organisations regularly express scepticism about the science of human-caused climate change and cite Lomborg’s views approvingly.

A recent article from IWF senior fellow Vicki Alger claimed [21] “a majority of scientists believe that global warming is largely nature-made” — ignoring several studies that show the vast majority of research from scientists studying climate change believe exactly the opposite.

IWF funders include the Charles R. Lambe Foundation [22], controlled by Charles Koch, and Donors Trust [23], a fund for conservative philanthropists that has pushed millions into organisations promoting climate science denial and fighting laws to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Higgins is also board member at the Philanthropy Roundtable [24], another route for conservative philanthropy which shares two members of personnel with Donors Trust or its partner organisation Donors Capital Fund [25].

Also on the board of trustees at Randolph is Polly Freiss, the daughter-in-law of conservative Christian businessman Foster Freiss.

Foster Freiss put more than $2 million into Republican Senator Rick Santorum’s 2012 run for his party’s nomination for the presidency. Freiss also bankrolled conservative news outlet The Daily Caller [26], which regularly publishes articles supporting the views of climate science denialists.

On his personal web page, Freiss promotes climate science denial sources [27] including Climate Depot and The Heartland Institute [28]. Friess’s website has also promoted Lomborg’s views.

Foster Freiss and his daughter Polly attended the Koch brother’s secretive 2010 strategy meeting in Aspen [29], along with Heather Higgins and a host of other conservative activists.

The tax records of the Kansas-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation indicate it has given the CCC two $150,000 grants — one in 2011 [30] and another in 2012 [31].

The foundation is the legacy of pharmaceutical entrepreneur Ewing Kauffman and currently holds $1.89 billion in assets.

The only other known funder of Lomborg’s think tank is the Sevenbar Foundation — a group that gave Copenhagen Consensus Center $50,000 in 2009 [32] but otherwise supports micro-finance initiatives to empower women using money raised from lingerie shows.

Conservative activist James O'Keefe plotted a potential voter fraud sting of the Service Employees International Union in 2010 in Massachusetts — a sting that, had it been carried out, could have been funded by Rick Santorum patron Foster Friess.

The plot is elaborated on and eventually ruled out in an email chain started by conservative writer John Fund, who emailed Republican National Lawyers Association executive director Michael Thielen that the union was "contracting for buses on election day."

"If you're black or brown they'll rope you in and take you to the polls, registration can be worked out," Fund wrote, per his "Boston source." His email was forwarded on to others, forming the basis for the plans.

The email exchange, parts of which may be missing, is below. Read from the bottom. The last email is from James O'Keefe to associates Stan Dai and Nadia Naffe, who later filed harassment charges against O'Keefe.

Others on the thread include Heather Higgins, the founder of the conservative Independent Women's Voice and the late Andrew Breitbart.

Naffe told BuzzFeed she flew to Boston to investigate, but that they never uncovered anything of interest and the project fizzled.

    From: "James E. O'Keefe III" Date: January 13, 2010 12:21:54 PM EST To: xxxxxxx@gmail.com, xxxxxx@aol.com Subject: Fwd: brainstorm of sorts, here - far-fetched? Maybe not?...

    Your thoughts Nadia?

    ---------- Forwarded message ----------From: Heather Higgins Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 Subject: Re: brainstorm of sorts, here - far-fetched? Maybe not?... To: Steve Friess , James O'Keefe xxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com, Andrew Breitbart Cc: Foster Friess

    Andrew and James, I'm forwarding what could be a very clever idea from Steve Friess in response to the intel below from John Fund re SEIU's intentions in Tuesday's election in MA. Don't know what it would cost, but you all should talk.

    Warmest regards -Heather Higgins

    On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 12:25 AM, Steve Friess wrote:

    Wouldn't it be great if a "ACORN sting video" could be produced about these busses?

    Dad - maybe bounce this off Breitbart?

    Some black /Latina conservatives could be wired for video, and get picked up on one of these busses, and show what goes on. My guess -they are offering cash, (which I am pretty sure is illegal), and I also would wager that at least some of these busses are making more than one stop with the same people - ie getting them to vote twice -though I don't know the mechanics of that.

    Perhaps some private detective types would be needed to help track down the busses, and a block or two ahead of them to drop our cameramen off...

    Too much to dream? Imagine pulling this off - legal / image problems for SEIU would be a good thing... think there's upside to this?

    Brietbart would know, and Fund would know - 'if we catch them doing X, it could mean Y' - I just don't know what the stakes are...

    On Jan 12, 2010, at 12:46 PM, Heather Higgins wrote:

    Foster --See below from John Fund re SEIU -Acorn is in MA as well. It would be hugely helpful if you would assist with our non-glamorous but highly effective GOTV effort. If you could possibly let me know today, that would be helpful to our planning. This is such a great opportunity for making trouble in the best sort of way - I hope you can help us really capitalize on it.

    Many thanks, Heather

    -------- Original Message --------Subject: FW: John Batchelor From: "Fund, John" Date: Tue, January 12, 2010 8:25 am To: 'Michael Thielen'

    Tip from Boston source (normally reliable)

    Seiu contracting for buses on election day and heading to roxbury, mattapan, roslindale and jamaica plain. If you're black or brown they'll rope you in and take you to the polls, registration can be worked out.

    Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

In the next installment, O'Keefe, who appears to have contacted Fund at this point, starts setting up

    From: "James E. O'Keefe III" > Date: January 13, 2010 4:16:14 PM EST> To: "mikeroman.com" > Subject: Re: ACORN videos / seiu / election>> what time zone are you in. I'm assuming you mean 8Est. That works.> I'm 201-637-0564>> On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 1:10 PM, mikeroman.com wrote:>>>> Have time to talk around 8?>>>>>> On Jan 13, 2010, at 3:41 PM, James E. O'Keefe III wrote:>>>> > Mike,>> >>> > Got your info from John Fund.>> > I was the producer of the ACORN Videos>> > Would like to know whereabouts of the busses in Boston SEIU, et al are using in order to bus people in to vote in the Tuesday special election.>> > Thinking about sending some undercover folks up there.>> >>> > James

Then O'Keefe proposed sending Nadia Naffe up to Boston:

    From: "James E. O'Keefe III"
    Date: January 14, 2010 11:10:49 PM EST
    To: xxxxxxx@aol.com
    Cc: Stan Dai
    Subject: Boston

    Nadia,

    We're willing to book you a plane ticket to Boston to get some footage from the SEIU busses.
    Joe will be joining you taking care of logistics/equipment--- but i'll be in new orleans causing trouble.
    im confident your training will take you far.

    Interested in making some more video history?

    James

A couple days later, O'Keefe has booked travel for Naffe, who was to do the operation. This email included an Orbitz booking confirmation:

    From: "James E. O'Keefe III" > Date: January 15, 2010 2:46:09 PM EST> To: nknaffe@aol.com, Stan Dai , Joe Basel > Subject: Fwd: Travel Document - Boston 1/18/10>> Nadia,>> here's what I could come up with- one stop but its along the way - no 12 hour flights, more like 4-5 hour flight.> leaving tampa mon at noon> leaving boston wed at 2pm so you can sleep.>> keep in mind Wed morning is for additional work - if the polls are continuing if its close..>> I'll also get you a hotel room for the mon night - Joe is flying in overnight from San Francisco and arrives at 6:30am.>> Joe will be picking you up shortly thereafter. But you will have to wake up around 7 on tuesday - your country needs you.>> More details to follow.> James

He also set up a place for her and Joe Basel, one of the men later arrested with him after the Senator Landrieu affair, to stay in Boston (Naffe and Basel are copied on the email):

    From: "James E. O'Keefe III"
    Date: January 16, 2010 10:59:14 PM EST
    To: Amy Contrada
    Cc: xxxxxx@aol.com, Joe Basel
    Subject: Boston election day,

    Amy,

    Two of my collegues are coming to Boston to infilrate the SEIU on election day. One of them is a female.

    Would you be able to put them her up Monday night?

    James

The video from the trip, if it was ever made, was never published.

"I believe there was discussion of doing something but O'Keefe's office will tell you nothing was done," said Fund, reached by email.

"This is a classic example of someone trying to breath life into a three-year old dead horse," said Fund.

He said that other reporters had contacted him about it in the past and that some "pointed out the email thread looked truncated and edited." .

Reached by email, Naffe said the emails were authentic: "Fund and Steve Friess, the son of billionaire Foster Friess, introduced the idea to O'keefe that SEIU would fraudulently register anyone with brown skin to vote."

"James flew me out to Boston to find the SEIU busses, just days after that email was sent," Naffe said. She claimed that "Congressman Steve King from Iowa was waiting at the hotel when we arrived to take us to dinner. He gave us a pep talk about illegal voting."

"O'keefe has the footage, though I'm doubtful he would share any of it. Since, he was arrested a week later in New Orleans while attempting to wire tap Senator Mary Landrieu," Naffe said.

O'Keefe didn't respond to a request for comment.

Update: Fund emailed to say that he thinks his original email was altered: "I maintain the email was edited to take out the fact I was referring to what someone told me might be happening and that I was asking a source (whom I have quoted in the past) if they had heard anything about it."

He also wished to clarify that he did not personally tip O'Keefe to the busing. That has been reflected above.

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Heather Richardson Higgins
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Heather R. Higgins has held senior positions in numerous right-wing foundations, including the Randolph Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Independent Women's Forum, and the Philanthropy Roundtable. [1]
References

    ↑ Media Transparency Heather R. Higgins Person Profile, accessed October 20, 2011

 

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TC4 and CPPR's ties that bind

TC4 reported about $46 million in revenue in its first two years, mostly in year one. The funds that came almost entirely from investment income, rather than from contributions and grants as was the case with CPPR. Most of its grant-making came in the second year, when it used money it had banked to provide funds to 13 organizations, a big increase from the previous year when it made only two grants. During the two years, nearly $37 million went out the door in grants. In fact, in its second 990, the group told the IRS that "during the current fiscal year, TC4 ceased all non-grant making programs and focused solely on the grant making activities centered around the same initiatives."

In spite of the technical differences in their funding streams, though, TC4 and CPPR together gave grants to some of the same politically active nonprofits -- five of them received a total of $33.1 million from the two major donor groups, according to 990s the pair have filed.
 

Concerned Women for America, 60 Plus Association and American Commitment are all easily recognizable conservative groups. That's not true of another organization that received $892,000 from TC4. Incorporated in Delaware in 2010, PRDIST LLC is actually a subsidiary -- or another "disregarded entity" -- of Americans for Prosperity, the 501(c)(4) co-founded by David Koch. AFP let loose more than $35 million in outside spending in the 2012 election, nearly all of which was used to attack President Barack Obama.

And another multimillion-dollar grantee of both TCR and CPPR also has a complicated structure. POFN LLC, another Delaware corporation formed close to the same time as PRDIST LLC, received more than $8 million from the groups. It turns out to be a subsidiary of a nonprofit called SGC4 Trust, of which Gretchen Hamel -- the only employee TC4 has yet listed on its tax forms -- is the sole trustee.

SGC4 Trust, according to tax documents, does business under the name Public Notice -- a group of which Hamel is the executive director. A project of Public Notice is called Bankrupting America, which highlights government spending and regulation as the cause of the nation's fiscal woes.

Hamel did not respond to multiple messages left by OpenSecrets Blog.

Below is a table showing organizations that received money from both CPPR and TC4 Trust from 2009 until the end of 2010 (in TC4's case, mid-2011). The total comes to more than $41 million.

cppr.tc4.jpgTC4's grantees in its second year, in addition to the groups already named, were Eleventh Edition LLC; Freedom Club; the Center for Shared Services; TRGN LLC; and Generation Opportunity. Little or no public information exists for some of those organizations.

In its first year, other than Themis, TC4 gave money to just one other organization -- an LLC that, like many of its other grantees, has a name that is a jumble of letters. However, the name is smudged on the scanned copy of the 990 that OpenSecrets Blog has seen, though there are indications it may be connected to American Commitment.

Disregarded, but not forgotten

"Disregarded entities" could be considered something like subsidiaries or affiliates of their parent organizations. They are not required to file separate federal tax returns. But in other ways they are treated as legally separate from the parent, and are sometimes used to protect the parent company from liability.

And, perhaps more importantly in this case, disregarded entities can give grants under their own names to other groups, and the recipients need only list those disregarded entities -- not their parent organizations -- as donors.

That helps provide an additional layer of anonymity to any person or organization concerned, for whatever reason, about being identified as a donor.

The usefulness of these layers of cloaks to those fighting disclosure was apparent recently when the California Fair Political Practices Commission ordered an Arizona 501(c)(4) group, Americans for Responsible Leadership, to name its donors. Under court order, it did so, but little was unmasked. The group got its money from CPPR, which had received it from Americans for Job Security; both are also 501(c) organizations, and whoever or whatever was the original source of the funds remained hidden. The frustrated state agency called it a plain case of "money laundering."

The Koch connections

Links between many of the grantor and grantee groups and the Kochs are numerous and multilayered. For instance, Hamel, who ran TC4 in its first year and then became head of Public Notice, which received money from both of the larger groups, was a presenter at the 2010 edition of the brothers' annual gathering of conservative donors and groups.

Also at that meeting with Hamel -- a former Bush administration spokeswoman and frequent guest on Fox News -- were Sean Noble and Heather Higgins, two of the original board members of CPPR. Yet another of the original CPPR board members, Eric Novack, was a senior fellow at the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity.

sean noble.jpgAmerican Commitment, which also received money from the two large donor groups, was originally headed by CPPR president Noble. Later, Phil Kerpen took over; Kerpen is on the board of Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, which also was sent checks from the two major groups. The 60 Plus Association, the largest recipient of funds from TC4 and CPPR together and a big outside spender in 2010 ($7.1 million) and 2012 (4.4 million), is frequently reported to be on the receiving end of Koch money.  

As for Themis, its 2010 revenue was $7.7 million, tax documents show. The three grants from TC4 total $6.8 million, almost all of its income. According to The Guardian newspaper, the Kochs set up Themis "with $2.5m of their seed money," which could correspond with TC4's first, $2.5 million grant to Themis. The organization's data work played a role in helping Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker beat back a recall attempt earlier this year, Politico reported, noting that Koch strategists discussed investing as much as $20 million in Themis. Its unknown whether the additional funds materialized, in part because the 990s that might provide clues have not been filed yet.

Themis' tax documents list a Paul W. Brooks as the sole trustee, which is the same name as that of a former Koch Industries senior vice president. Messages left for him were not returned. The group's chief operating officer, Ben Pratt, is a former Koch Industries executive, as well.

 

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