Higgins, Heather IWF

===

see IWF

NO MERRI

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?

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open ltr Gigi woman

3 23 Gigi scalp

We strongly urge you to reject Sohn’s nomination to the FCC and hold our regulators to the highest standard.

Sincerely,

Center for a Free Economy

Americans for Tax Reform

60 Plus Association

American Commitment

Center for Individual Freedom

Citizen Outreach

Conservatives for Property Rights

Consumer Action for a Strong Economy

Institute for Liberty

Less Government

Market Institute

Independent Women’s Voice

Eagle Forum

Affiliations listed for identification purposes only.

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Two Years After Barrett’s Confirmation, Let’s Be Blunt: The Point Was to End Roe | Truthout

*Truthout’s December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we will be able to do in 2026. Please support us with atax-deductible donationtoday.

Today marks the two-year anniversary of the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court on the eve of the 2020 election. For two years, she has proven to be an ongoing disaster for democracy.

Barrett was chosen because she secures the extreme agenda of the right-wing faction now in control of the United States’ highest court. The spin by right-wing dark money groups during her nomination hearings that she would set aside her personal views, follow settled law, and rule fairly has been refuted by the repressive dictates from the court that her installation has made possible. (Recent revelations of Samuel Alito’s express assurance to former Sen. Ted Kennedy that he would not overturn Roe further demonstrate that such promises are empty.)

Barrett is a destructive force aimed at 20th-century legal precedents that belatedly made some of the U.S. Constitution’s promises real for many Americans rather than mere parchment that served the elite.

If voters decide to elect a much more progressive Congress this November, lawmakers could expand the number of justices on the court and set term limits on the current appointees, as Demand Justice and other progressive groups have suggested. An emboldened House could even begin impeachment proceedings, where evidence supports such action, as with Brett Kavanaugh’s perjury and Clarence Thomas’s ethical failures.

On this inglorious anniversary, it is worth remembering that but for the 2020 installation of Barrett — as Donald Trump was literally being voted out of the White House — there would not have been enough votes for the Supreme Court to fully overturn Roe v. Wade.

Chief Justice John Roberts’s time on the court before Barrett was on board has been marked by the hollowing out of Americans’ rights, while he was pretending to follow precedent — and garnering some fawning press with his claim that he would be a humble umpire calling balls and strikes rather than a player on a team. Think, where Roberts deputized Justice Anthony Kennedy to write a majority opinion that reinterpreted the First Amendment and destroyed Congress’s power to limit dark money. The ruling unleashed a tsunami of secret cash that has engulfed U.S. elections and the court.

And recall Shelby County, where Roberts himself wrote the ruling gutting key protections of the Voting Rights Act (which he had attacked as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration) by claiming that U.S. society had transcended the anti-Black racism of the 1960s, despite congressional findings to the contrary. He thus enabled 21st century-style anti-Black racism through voting restrictions schemed by the GOP and its id, Donald Trump. A federal court, for example, found that a 2013 law that restricted voter IDs and more in North Carolina “target[ed] African Americans with almost surgical precision.” That measure would not have been allowed to proceed without pre-clearance by the Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act before Roberts gutted it. A similar Texas measure that had been held back due to pre-clearance because the state could not prove it would not harm Black and Latino voters became binding law immediately after Roberts’ ruling. Some Republican legislators adopting voter restrictions schemes even said the quiet part out loud.

But with Barrett on the Court, Justice Alito did not have to bend to Roberts’ artifice of gradualism to get a fifth vote to destroy the protections guaranteed by Roeand Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

So, Alito was unrestrained in advancing the kind of religious decree he had seemingly coveted to impose with his longtime ally, Justice Clarence Thomas.

Alito’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization rescinded the constitutional right to have an abortion without state interference in the early months of a pregnancy. It is larded with so much bombastic rhetoric that it’s almost as if the court that is entrusted with protecting the rights of “We the People” is actually a partisan editorial board housed inside the nation’s most ornate government building — Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journaleditorial page but with neoclassical columns outside, plus life tenure. Unlike the right-wing rantings of the Journal’s editorial board however, Alito’s tirade carries the force of law and is forcing people into crises that threaten their lives, their mental health and their future ability to start a family when and if they choose.

In my view, Roberts is too politically attuned to have overturned Roe all at once in an election year that could hurt the political party that enthroned him. Before Barrett’s appointment, Roberts was the swing vote in a five-GOP majority, so he could set the pace for the reversals of legal precedents that right-wing lawyers had selected to target.

Most Americans don’t realize that almost all of the cases heard by the Supreme Court are discretionary and not part of any mandatory jurisdiction under the Constitution. The right-wing faction in control of the court is able to handpick which legal precedents it wants to overturn and it is busy inventing new supposed legal “doctrines” like the “major questions” theory put forward by Charles Koch-funded groups, for example, to give a veneer of legitimacy to what is in reality a dramatic power grab. The newest democracy-destructive gimmick right-wing groups are advancing is the utterly discredited “independent state legislature” theory that suddenly bars courts from any oversight over what state legislatures can do in elections, including setting aside the popular vote.

Notably, in the 2021-22 term, the court heard just 66 cases of more than 8,000 petitions, choosing cases to limit commonsense protections against gun violence, to expand prayer in public schools, to restrict the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to mitigate climate change, and to overturn Roe, while also signaling that limiting constitutional rights to access to contraception and restricting LGBTQ+ rights may be next.

On the surface, Dobbs overturned decades of Supreme Court rulings in order to ratify a Mississippi law that banned abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. But the aim of the Dobbsruling was to attack access to abortion care well beyond one state’s borders. Mississippi has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the U.S., which has the world’s highest maternal mortality rate among economically developed countries, and it has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country.

Barrett’s vote in Dobbs put abortion on the ballot in every major state and federal election this November.

The good news is that the voter registration of women since Dobbs is up — way up — as seen in the massive pushback shown in the Kansas election this summer.

In response, right-wing groups like the so-called Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) are right now targeting women voters in swing states to downplay the reversal of Roe. IWV and its related group, the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), state they have no position on abortion, but they have backed every justice who voted to overturnRoe, starting with Thomas and including Barrett.

IWV previously backed U.S. Senate candidates who made outlandish and grotesque claims that women could not get pregnant from rape or that pregnancies that resulted from rape were “something that God intended,” as arguments for abortion bans without exceptions for rape or incest. Its ad campaign targeting this year’s midterm elections does not disclose who is bankrolling it but, notably, that woman’s “voice” group has thrown the voices of very rich men. Under old disclosure rules, IWV had to reveal that one of its biggest funders was the late Foster Friess, the multimillionaire Trump donor who once thought it was funny to remark: “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.”

It should come as no surprise that IWV CEO and IWF Board Chair Heather Higgins was part of the elite throng invited to celebrate Barrett’s nomination at Trump’s Rose Garden event. Higgins is the heir to the Vicks VapoRub fortune — brought to you by the same corporation that was the sole U.S. distributor of thalidomide, the anti-morning sickness drug that maimed thousands of children. IWF opposed a Senate vote to confirm Obama nominee Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court vacancy that arose when Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, because it was an election year. But when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died less than two months before the 2020 election, they were all-in for Barrett.

When you look closely at that Rose Garden event that practically anointed Barrett — and infected dozens with COVID-19 — what you see is a sea of right-wing groups celebrating what Barrett herself would later deny under oath. That is that Barrett was chosen not because she would faithfully follow legal precedents but because she was seen as a sure vote for overturning them, in Roe and more.

Which other very special interests were there to celebrate this new era of regression?

*Carrie Severino, a former Thomas clerk who is the public face of the Judicial Crisis Network, which is a core lever in the court-packing operation of the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo;

*Gary Marx, president of Madison Strategies and co-creator of the Judicial Crisis Network;

*Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project, which also has ties to Leo;

*Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, which Leo helps steer;

*Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which focuses on getting anti-choice candidates into positions of political power (and she also is a member of the Council for National Policy where Leo touted how the Trump appointees to the court, before Barrett, were at the precipice of changing the interpretation of the Constitution in ways not seen in a century since the robber baron era);

*William Mumma of the Becket Fund, which has given Leo its highest award;

*Maureen Ferguson, senior fellow at the “Catholic Association,” a dark money group that Leo has been on the board of and that is part of his cadre of groups administered by the anti-choice and anti-marriage equality money man Neil Corkery;

*C. Boyden Gray, a long-time ally of Leo’s in packing the courts with anti-choice and anti-regulation appointees (and a Big Tobacco heir);

*Ed Whelan, president of the “Ethics and Public Policy Center” where Leo has served on the board (Whelan infamously attacked Christine Blasey Ford in aid of Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination by audaciously claiming she was sexually assaulted by someone else.);

*Alex and Jill Vogel and their son. (The Vogel law firm is a core ally in Leo’s umbrella of court-packing groups; Jill Vogel, heir of the Liberty gas station chain, is an elected representative in Virginia.)

Twelve other vehemently anti-choice groups were represented at the ceremony by: Carol Tobias (president of the National Right to Life), Jeanne Mancini (president of March for Life), Penny Nance (leader of “Concerned Women for America”), Tony Perkins (president of the Family Research Council, Ralph Reed (chair of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and former head of the Christian Coalition), Michael Farris (president of Alliance Defending Freedom, which helped orchestrate the Dobbs case and other attacks on reproductive rights), Kelly Shackelford (president of the First Liberty Institute), Kay Coles James and John Malcolm (of the Heritage Foundation), Matt Schlapp (leader of the American Conservative Union), Tom Fitton (president of Judicial Watch), David Bossie (president of the group called “Citizens United”) and Jenny Beth Martin (head of the Tea Party Patriots).

In all, more than 30 special interest groups with an agenda to have the court to reverse Roeand other major legal precedents were there. There were so many operatives against Roe that it’s almost as though they knew something Barrett would deny under oath.

In addition to numerous Trump appointees, a group of anti-choice senators was there, including Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) and Kelly Loeffler (R-Georgia). Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Pete Hegseth were also in attendance. There were also some intriguing lesser-known attendees, such as Anthony De Nicola, a partner at a hedge fund, and Maureen Blum, the president of “Strategic Coalitions and Initiatives,” who describes her work as “strategic political warfare.”

Next to Heather Higgins at the Rose Garden festivities sat Cleta Mitchell, one of the lawyers now infamous for aiding Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. Mitchell was on the call with Trump when he seemingly tried to extort the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to just find more votes for him. Though she lost her job at a big law firm, the ongoing investigation into that call has not deterred Mitchell from continuing to attack the election and trying to change state laws to make it harder for Americans to vote. She’s also been caught on tape telling Republican legislators to destroy their notes about her advice on how to redraw voting district maps as part of extreme partisan redistricting schemes to control state power.

There were also 10 big church reps who backed Trump and his anti-abortion stance, including Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son, and Jerry Prevo, acting president of the right-wing Liberty University.

As could be expected, the event also included Barrett’s family and former colleagues from Notre Dame Law School, including law professor O. Carter Snead. Snead was one of several attendees to submit amicus briefs that called for Roe to be overturned to the court after Barrett’s confirmation . Barrett did not recuse herself for her lack of impartiality and her documented history of attacking Roe. Senators Josh Hawley and Mike Lee, who were at the Rose Garden event, also submitted an amicus brief with Sen. Ted Cruz calling for Roe to be overturned. Erin Hawley — who is married to the and insurrectionist senator who shares her surname — helped Alliance Defending Freedom coordinate the legal assault on *Roe*through the Mississippi case and other vehicles.

What few knew back then, despite the spirited opposition to Barrett’s confirmation, was how the Federalist Society’s Co-Chairman Leonard Leo maneuvered Barrett onto the Supreme Court. As I previously noted in testimony to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary:

According to a new book co-authored by Severino — who worked closely with Leo on the pressure campaigns to block Garland and install Gorsuch — Leo met with then-White House Counsel Don McGahn in April 2017 about expanding Trump’s Supreme Court list to include Barrett. At that time, Barrett had been a law professor for 15 years and had no judicial experience, but Leo and the White House Counsel’s Office were going to remedy that by getting her some time sitting on a federal circuit court. In May of that year, Trump nominated Barrett to a vacancy on the Seventh Circuit created by [Sen. Mitch] McConnell’s refusal to allow President Obama’s nominee, Myra S. Powell (the first black woman appointed to the Indiana Supreme Court), a hearing for nearly a year….

Leo met for dinner twice, in June and September 2017, with Trump to discuss nominations including Barrett a candidate on Trump’s list for the next vacancy on the Supreme Court, which was expected to be Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Barrett was confirmed to the Seventh Circuit on Halloween of 2017. [Then] on November 17, McGahn announced that Trump had added Barrett to his short list. That announcement came during the Federalist Society’s National Convention, where Barrett spoke…

Before Barrett could be nominated to the Supreme Court though, another vacancy arose with Anthony Kennedy’s announcement that he would be stepping down in 2018. Leo mobilized groups to which he steered funding to support Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the seat despite evidence that Kavanaugh had previously lied under oath to Congress and in spite of the compelling testimony of Ford about his attempt to assault her, which he denied. IWV was one of the groups that flanked Kavanaugh; along with its 501(c)(3) arm, IWF, it had received substantial funds from Leo-tied groups and dark money entities as Trump began packing the court with Leo’s assistance.

After millions in dark money spending helped propel Kavanaugh onto the court, the Washington Post began an in-depth investigation of Leo’s court-packing operation, culminating in a story by Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Shawn Bobergin May 2019. That investigation tallied the money raised by Leo’s umbrella groups at more than $250 million, along with revealing that Leo’s personal assets seemingly increased dramatically in 2018. (True North Research updated that figure to nearly $600 million, earlier this year.)

As a “volunteer” for Trump, Leo was not required to file any financial disclosure forms about his sources of income while he chose the list of Supreme Court candidates from which Trump chose. The Post’s story sparked a firestorm of controversy around Leo, who claimed to the paper’s documentary crew that he was uninterested in money. By the year’s end, Leo had left his day job at the Federalist Society to form a for-profit group called CRC Advisors with his longtime ally Greg Mueller. He continues to be a co-chair on the Federalist Society’s board and aid in its finances.

So when Ginsburg died, Leo was operating under the rubric of CRC, which was deploying the Judicial Crisis Network. That dark money group had been given a new operational name: the Concord Fund, presumably named after the first battle in the Revolutionary War.

But what was not publicly known then was that behind the scenes, Leo had secretly been staked by a right-wing Chicago billionaire, Barre Seid. As Barrett’s nomination was pending Seid was in the process of selling his company and giving the assets to Leo in what was dubbed the “Marble Freedom Trust.” As the The New York Times and ProPublica with The Lever wrote a few weeks ago, Seid was able to use tax lawyers and loopholes to transfer $1.6 billion into Leo’s hands as the sole operative trustee of Marble, tax-free.

Despite this mammoth infusion of cash to fund Leo’s extreme agenda for the Supreme Court, other courts and political offices, Marble has no real address, no website and not even its own phone number. The phone number listed on its first tax filing goes to Corkery, Leo’s longtime collaborator on dark money operations.

What kind of shadowy institution has that much wealth and that little public information? It’s basically just a bank account — a huge one. Some of the other core Leo groups, like Rule of Law Trust and the BH Group/BH Fund, have the same indicia: no real operating address even before the pandemic, no website and no independent phone number (or one that just goes to Corkery), but millions and millions of dollars.

That’s not all.

The Marble Freedom Trust tax filing for 2020 reveals that there are two other men close to Leo involved. One is Tyler Green, whose home in Utah is listed as Marble’s address. He’s the “administrative” trustee, who ostensibly holds the paperwork for the dark money behemoth. Green previously clerked for Thomas and is another Federalist Society brethren appointed previously to a high post in Utah legal circles. The other is Jonathan Bunch, a “successor” trustee in case anything were to happen to Leo. Bunch has a business with Leo and has been helping him with court-packing since before Leo helped launch the Judicial Crisis Network at a dinner with Scalia held just after the 2004 election.

A new book by David Enrich reveals how Bunch reached out to the Trump campaign to help pack the Supreme Court with Leo after Scalia’s death in 2016. According to Enrich, Bunch called Trump adviser McGahn who deadpanned that he had already tapped John Sununu for judicial selection because he had played such an instrumental role in choosing David Souter for the Supreme Court during George H.W. Bush’s presidency. Bunch was apparently taken aback because right-wing operatives had vowed “No More Souters,” which was shorthand for no more independent justices whom the right-wing could not count on to do its bidding in destroying Roeand other legal precedents they dislike.

But it was a joke. McGahn was joking and Bunch was reportedly relieved that Trump would not make the same “mistake” in appointing justices like Souter to the nation’s highest court.

And the joke is on us, except it’s not funny at all.

Instead, the U.S. now faces a Supreme Court packed with right-wing extremists like Barrett. Not only did she vote for overturning Roe, she also refused to recuse herself from a climate liability case involving Shell even though she was raised on Shell money through her father’s work expanding drilling for oil.

And she has refused to reveal her husband’s clients and whether they have any business before the Court. In this Barrett is taking a page from Clarence Thomas, who has not revealed Ginni Thomas’s revenue or clients even though Jane Mayer uncovered that Ginni has been paid by those filing briefs to the court where her husband sits in judgment. (He has also refused to recuse himself from cases implicating his wife, who was demonstrably involved in efforts to stop the counting of the 2020 presidential vote.) Barrett refused to step back from rulings like Dobbs despite her personal agenda to overturn Roe, as evidenced by her signature on a 2006 anti-abortion ad.

With Barrett and the other Trump judicial appointees, the U.S. now has five Supreme Court justices who appear to have no concerns with imposing their personal views as law, such as ruling that the government can regulate the most intimate personal health choices about if and when to start a family but that the EPA cannot regulate corporations to require more alternative energy to mitigate climate change.

The anniversary of Barrett’s confirmation is a travesty. And her tenure will continue to do damage to our rights and our democracy until we have a Congress willing to rein in the radical reactionary justices arrogantly imposing their religious beliefs and partisan political agenda as binding law on the rest of us.

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For nearly half a century, billionaire Charles Koch has quietly funded, initiated, and supported efforts to dismantle democracy in the United States, two professors wrote for Progressive Magazine.

Nancy MacLean, the William H. Chafe distinguished professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University, and Lisa Graves, executive director of True North Research and a co-creator of the websites Koch Exposed and Koch Docs, detailed a seemingly never-ending list of ways one of the richest people in the world and his wealthy allies continue to “divide the American electorate.”

The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which has long been funded by Koch and his late brother, David, has strategized on ways to enforce voter suppression efforts by passing voter ID laws – which began when Barack Obama was first elected in 2008.

Last year, the Center for Media and Democracy, for which Graves sits on the board, found that a handful of Koch-backed groups collectively spent more than $1 billion on the 2020 election.

One of the organizations, Americans for Prosperity, spent around $70 million leading up to the 2022 midterms, involving itself in over 450 races on efforts that heavily targeted swing voters.

Soon after the election, Koch released Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World, a book in which he claimed he was ready for “a final act building bridges across political divides.” No more political involvement. MacLean and Graves noted that a few days prior to the book release, The Wall Street Journal published an article titled, “Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake.”

The book even contained phrases like, “Boy, did we screw up.” “What a mess!” “This is crazy! Are we going to have a civil war?” He had convinced the public that his time toying with democracy was over.

But, MacLean and Graves said that “mainstream news editors seemed to forget that” they were reporting on “a specialist in strategic disinformation, who had perfected the practice of deceiving the public during his network’s three decades of climate change denial” – a mastermind of finesse.

Even with that, what Maclean and Graves call Koch’s “most diabolical” move thus far, is how he bandwagoned the “white supremacist” reaction to nationwide civil unrest following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, by initiating a campaign that geared fear-mongering language towards the idea of teaching race in schools – also known as critical race theory.

The Koch network proceeded to fund organizations that actively fought against CRT, although a spokesperson from a Koch-funded group claims that is untrue.

Two examples of Kock-backed anti-CRT initiatives include ALEC’s financial support of a workshop titled “Against Critical Theory’s Onslaught,” featuring the main figurehead of anti-CRT rhetoric, Christopher Rufo in 2020; and when a coalition of Koch-funded groups including the Manhattan Institute and Heritage Foundation advocated against the idea of teaching race in schools in a published letter.

Aside from funding organizations that promote anti-CRT language, Koch also funds Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) and Independent Women’s Voice (IWV), which work in tandem to promote anti-trans language. For example, the groups created a “Women’s Bill of Rights” which asserts that trans women are not women.

MacLean and Graves wrote, “Just as Koch-funded operations weaponize and intensify racism to secure political power, they also exploit and escalate misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia by any means to boost Republican power.”

Despite his claim that he was removing himself from politics two years ago, it’s clear that with the success of a majority conservative Supreme Court, the continued push to control the bodies of women; anti-CRT, anti-trans, and other discriminatory laws that Koch’s behind-the-scenes funding and staunch support of those who can bring he and his allies' vision of a fully dismantled democracy to life presses on.

ref

https://theintercept.com/2020/10/24/amy-coney-barrett-women-group-dark-money/

oct 202 greta m

MARCH 4, the Leadership Institute, a nonprofit that trains conservative political leaders, hosted its monthly “Wednesday Wake-Up Club Breakfast” at its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. The headliner of this event was Heather Higgins, an heiress to the Vicks VapoRub fortune, as well as the chair of the Independent Women’s Forum and the CEO of its political advocacy arm, the Independent Women’s Voice, right-wing nonprofits that self-describe as nonpartisan. For most of the event, Higgins stood before a clear podium and fielded questions on how to build conservative political influence — at one point revealing that IWF came up with a memo, used by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, on how to support Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 Supreme Court confirmation without alienating the #MeToo movement.

“I will tell you that I’m extraordinarily proud of IWF,”. “We wrote a memo. It was used by a lot of members of the Senate and the House, Fox News, and elsewhere. Most important, Susan Collins told me that without that memo, she would not see how to support him. And if you look atthe speech she gave on the Senate floor, it’s entirely the playing out and architecture of how we said to structure the argument — what to say and how to say it, which is just so gratifying. We’re watching TV and we’re like, ‘That’s ours! That’s ours!’” After Collins’s hourlong speech, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., announced that he would vote for Kavanaugh, helping achieve the threshold of votes necessary to confirm Kavanaugh.

It’s not the first time the IWF and IWV have sought to exert conservative influence over the Supreme Court, often by leveraging their positions as women’s nonprofits. IWF rose out of “Women for Judge Thomas,” which was formed in 1991 to support Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas amid Anita Hill’s accusation of sexual harassment. In 2016, IWF and IWV werevocal opponents of President Obama’s Supreme Court pick Merrick Garland and in 2017 pushed for Neil Gorsuch’s quick, quiet confirmation, including by sharingmisleading quizzes on the Supreme Court.

Now, IWF and IWV have turned their attention to pushing for the rapid confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, including staging an “I’m With Her” rally outside of the Supreme Court on October 17, at the same time as a Women’s March. They have been quick to place op-eds in support of Barrett for the Washington Examiner, the Washington Times, and the National Review. On Fox News,where IWF and IWV are regular commentators, Kelsey Bolar, a senior policy analyst at IWF,criticized the Women’s March for “advocating against women, protesting a highly qualified female nominee to the Supreme Court” — part of a broader strategy of casting criticism of Barrett as anti-woman. IWF and IWV did not return a request for comment.

iWF and IWV are carefully branded as independent nonprofits supporting women, regardless of their policy positions, which include opposing Title IX, employer and tax-funded paid leave, and the Violence Against Women’s Act. “Being branded as neutral, but actually having people who know know that you’re actually conservative puts us in a unique position,” Higginstold donors in 2015, a quote unearthed by the Center for Media and Democracy. Beyond this neutral front, the groups are financially tied to an anonymously funded nonprofit network advancing conservative control of the courts, which could set the stage for dismantling the Affordable Care Act, the constitutional right to an abortion, marriage equality, and the regulation of pollutants under the Clean Air Act, and block future progressive (or moderate) legislation.

The central architect behind this ultraconservative vision is Leonard Leo, former vice president of theKoch-funded Federalist Society and President Donald Trump’s adviser responsible for coming witha list of potential Supreme Court nominees. In 2019, aninvestigation by the Washington Post described Leo as “the maestro of anetwork of interlocking nonprofits working on media campaigns and other initiatives to sway lawmakers by generating public support for conservative judges,” which has received $250 million from anonymous donors. IRS rules do not require 501(c)(4) nonprofits to disclose corporate funders, allowing corporations to exert an unlimited amount of financial influence behind a veil of nonprofits, which golargely unregulated.

iWF and IWV are not controlled by Leo, but they receive funding from organizations in his network. The Freedom and Opportunity Fund, which Leo founded in 2016, gave a total of $4 million in 2016 and 2017 to the Independent Women’s Voice, based ontax filings. In 2018, the Judicial Education Project, the research arm of the Leo-tied Judicial Crisis Network, gave $300,000 to Independent Women’s Forum. (We don’t yet know whether IWF or IWV received another influx of money from the Leo-tied network of dark-money nonprofits, coinciding with the current Supreme Court vacancy; the 990 tax forms for this year won’t be publicly available until November 2021.) Donors Trust, which Mother Jonescalled “the dark money ATM machine of the conservative movement,” also gave $792,000 in 2017 and $625,000 in 2018 to IWF, according to tax filingscompiled by DeSmog.

Lisa Graves, a researcher on the influence of dark money in U.S. politics and the founder of True North Research, notes that the influx of money from Leo-tied nonprofits to IWF and IWV coincides with the period when they were working to keep Justice Antonin Scalia’s vacancy open, while ultimately pushing forward with confirming Gorsuch in 2017 and Kavanaugh in 2018 to the Supreme Court. “We do know that IWF is playing a significant role within this right-wing infrastructure and that includes defending Trump’s nominees, no matter their record,” said Graves.

Another key strategy to influence the courts by IWF and the broader network of Leo-tied nonprofits has been filingamicus briefs, which can make it appear like there is a wider-ranging support or opposition for an issue than in reality. “A small number of donors are trying to orchestrate this legal revolution, but it looks broader than it is because they are throwing their voices through aflotilla of groups, and IWF is one of them,” said Graves.

To push Kavanaugh’s and Gorsuch’s nominations forward, staff of IWF and IWV made appearances on Fox News, wrote blog posts, and placed op-eds, including in the Boston Globe, and praised Gorsuch on IWF’s “Working for Women” podcast. On Tucker Carlson’s talk show, Tammy Bruce, the president of IWV, referred to the sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh as a “political stunt.” Erin Hawley, a legal fellow at IWF, was quoted in a slideshow published by Refinery21 on what women think about Kavanaugh, which also included quotes from high-profile politicians, like Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They hosted an “I stand with Brett” rally on Capitol Hill, along with other groups, including and the Leo-tied Judicial Crisis Network and the anti-LGBTQConcerned Women for America.

The Fight for Reproductive Justice in a Post-Ginsburg World

Any victory for Barrett does not fully belong to Higgins and the women of IWF and IWV, but to the long shadow of the private donors for IWF, IWV, and others — right-wing donors that remain largely concealed while wielding increasing power over the most vital decisions, from who we can marry to the quality of the air we breathe. The brochure from the IWF and IWV’s 2019 gala, which lists its private and nonprofit sponsors, offers a partial window into the private corporations funding it. These include Facebook, Juul, Marathon Petroleum Corporation, the American Beverage Association, the Walton Family Foundation (Walmart), Karen Wright (the CEO of the Ariel Corporation, the largest global manufacturer of gas compressors), Amway, and Dick DeVos (former Amway CEO and the husband of Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education). Who won the gala’s “Woman of Valor” Award? None other than Betsy DeVos.

This money isn’t all funneled into IWF and IWV’s efforts to restructure the courts; it could also go to their work advocating for a range of issues that seemingly have little to do with women. In the past few years, this has included downplaying therisks of pesticides and e-cigarettes, spreading climate disinformation by arguing the science on climate change is not settled, andarguing for the privatization of school lunch programs.

A 2016article by Joan Walsh in The Nation describes how IWF and IWV have come to take on a platform increasingly aligned with the Koch brothers. Walsh traces this shift to 2001, whenNancy Pfotenhauer, the former top lobbyist for Koch Industries, became the president of IWF. In 2003, Pfotenhauer also became president ofAmericans for Prosperity, a right-wing political advocacy group founded by the Koch brothers. While Pfotenhauer has since left IWF, the ties remain: Sixteen of the current staff and board members of IWF and IWV have worked for organizations that have received Koch funding, according to an analysis provided to The Intercept by True North Research.

In her acceptance speech at IWF and IWV’s gala, DeVos described her goal of chipping away at Title IX, the landmark civil rights law that protects from gender-based discrimination in any educational program that receives federal funding. “So, we are working to dismantle the government social engineering in education, including the previous administration’s staggering overreach on Title IX,” said DeVos, which then credits this policy position to IWF. “You were among the first to sound the alarm decades ago about the downstream unintended consequences of that 1972 law.” Now, as Barrett’s confirmation looms, they are closer than ever to this goal.

===

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 hasreceived $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 itsquiz messaging campaigntargeting 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 independentin 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—thedrug 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:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:.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]

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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/

:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Independent Women's Voice, About, organizational website, accessed May 17, 2013.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Andy Kroll, Koch-Linked Women's Group Takes Credit for Mark Sanford's Win, Mother Jones, May 8, 2013.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Bridge Project, Conservative Transparency, organizational website, accessed May 20, 2013.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Ken Vogel, Kochs brothers' plan for 2012: raise $88 million, Politico, Feb. 11, 2011.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ 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.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Brendan Fischer, Americans for Job Security Targets WI GOP Senate Race, From the Shadows, PRwatch, Aug. 10, 2012.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Americans for Prosperity, About, organizational website, accessed May 20, 2013.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ SourceWatch, Contributions of the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, organizational website, May 17, 2013.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Kim Severson, Looking Past Sex Scandal, South Carolina Returns Ex-Governor to Congress, New York Times, May 7, 2013.
:{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ 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.

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.

[hide]

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**:(style="background-color:#ff9900;"):}: 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	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.

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]

Higgins speaking in Phoenix, Arizona on February 26, 2011.

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]

:{Sep 27, 2016 - :{Heather:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: R. :{Higgins:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. Verified account. @TheHRH .... Hillary Won, But :{Trump:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Helped His Campaign - my take. Net-no harm, :{Trump:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: better ...:(style="word-wrap:break-word"):}:

**==**

**rww**Political Correctness And Political Awkwardness At The RNC

:{:(style="box-sizing:border-box;transition-duration:0.2s;transition-property:background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform;transition-timing-function:linear"):}:By 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

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 Higgins Jeff Sessions Election 2016 RNC 2016 American Conservative Union Republican 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 campaignin 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.

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 businessmanFoster 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 fromSteve 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.

===

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

===

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 Commitmentare 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.

TC4'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.

American Commitment, which also received money from the two large donor groups, was originally headed byCPPR 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 forThemis, 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, Politicoreported, 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.

Higgins, Heather IWF

Related

The Fight for Reproductive Justice in a Post-Ginsburg World

Lomborg has zero credibility on climate change

Lomborg’s history of promoting soft climate denial in right-wing media

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Ties to Koch Brothers

2013 Mark Sanford Campaign

Personnel

Staff

Contact Details

Contents

Ties to the Koch Brothers

Controversies

IWF Managing Director Suggests Gender Discrimination Is a Fairy Tale

IWF Fellow Calls Gun Control "Sexist," 2013

Opposition to Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), 2013

Defense of Rush Limbaugh

Efforts to Eradicate Teaching of Global Warming from Schools

History

Feminist Majority Objects to IWF's State Department Grant, 2004

Funding

Personal background

Journalist and commentator

Investment career

Non-profit roles and policy work

Responses to 2010 special elections

ACR advocacy for private foundations

Political views

See also

IWV Boasts of Its Role in “Republican Conservative Arsenal”

IWF Attacks Work Policies It Admits Many Women Like

IWV Spent to Help “War on Women” GOP Candidates

IWF’s Koch Ties and More

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

INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S VOICE FUNDERS FOR BROWN? NOT “INDEPENDENT WOMEN”

THE BIGGEST DONOR: FOSTER FRIESS, A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE GOP GUY

MULTI-MILLIONAIRE MAN: RICHARD SHARP, GOP DONOR

BILLIONAIRE MAN: JACK TEMPLETON, ANOTHER GOP DONOR

MULTI-MILLIONAIRE MAN: THOMAS PATRICK, GOP DONOR

MULTI-MILLIONAIRE WOMAN: RANDY KENDRICK, GOP DONOR

THREE MORE VERY RICH MEN, GOP DONORS

A $300 CHECK FROM A WOMAN, WHO IS A GOP DONOR

NONE WERE FROM MASSACHUSETTS

MAJORITY OF OTHER REPORTED INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S VOICE AD DONORS WERE NOT WOMEN

OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF FEC DISCLOSED INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S VOICE DONORS? MEN

WHAT NOW FOR THE INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S VOICE?

Conservative funders

Heather Richardson Higgins

References