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CLARENCE DOCKU MANIFORLD PICTURES

Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words

7.9

producer

2020

Rickover: The Birth of Nuclear Power (2014)

Rickover: The Birth of Nuclear Power

6.1

executive producer

producer

2014

Rediscovering Alexander Hamilton

executive producer

producer

2010

God and the Inner City

producer

2003

Rediscovering George Washington

TV Movie

executive producer

producer

2002

The Fall of Newt Gingrich

producer

2000

The Rodney King Incident: Race and Justice in America

producer

1999

Inside the Republican Revolution: The First Hundred Days

TV Movie

producer

1995

Hollywood vs. Religion (1994)

Hollywood vs. Religion

3.7

Video

producer

1994

Campus Culture Wars: Five Stories About Political Correctness

producer

1993

America's Political Parties: Power and Principle

TV Mini Series

producer

1992

Hollywood's Favorite Heavy: Businessmen on Prime Time TV

TV Movie

co-executive producer

1987

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an 5 23

michael Pack, the Chief Executive Officer of the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees Voice of America, was recently found responsible for several instances of misconduct, according to a federal inquiry, Rolling Stone reports.

Per NPR, the former President Donald Trump appointed leader, in 2020, "met with a career employee to discuss which senior leaders at the agency and the Voice of America should be forced out due to their perceived political beliefs," and "firing someone over political affiliation is typically a violation of federal civil service law."

Rolling Stone reports:

The Office of Special Counsel found that 'during his less-than-eight-month tenure CEO [Michael] Pack was responsible for numerous improper activities,' including 'abuse of authority, gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, or a violation of law, rule, or regulation.' The OSC's report concluded that Pack 'abused his authority and retaliated against career USAGM executives who engaged in whistleblowing.'

Furthermore, according to Rolling Stone "the OSC found thatPack interfered with independent journalism at Voice of America and other outlets he oversaw; retaliated against executives who filed whistleblower complaints; and mismanaged and wasted funds by paying $1.6 million in a confidential, no-bid contract to a Virginia law firm to investigate USAGM executives. Pack also 'restricted employee communications with outside parties [and] failed to exempt legally protected disclosures.'"

Regarding what was said about employees' political beliefs, NPR reports an employee wrote "Hates Republicans" in a memo, while another said, "Openly despises Trump and Republicans."

David Seide, a lawyer "with the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit public interest law firm which has represented more than 30 whistleblowers at USAGM, VOA and its sister networks since Pack took office," according to NPR, said, "This report is remarkable in its breadth and depth and detail of the wrongdoing that was underway at these agencies in the last six months of the Trump administration."

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https://www.alternet.org/**2022/03/**clarence-thomas/

U.S, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has a business relationship with Leonard Leo, a co-chairman of the board of the right-wing Federalist Society, which was responsible for “vetting” and effectively installing then-President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees.

“Right-wing judicial activist Leonard Leo has been exerting influence over the Supreme Court for three decades,” reports The Daily Beast‘s Roger Sollenberger. “So why is Clarence Thomas hiring Leo’s firm to do public relations?”

Justice Thomas is promoting a new release of his 2007 memoir and has hired Leonard Leo’s PR firm, CRC Advisors, to promote the book. The Daily Beast adds Leo “was also tasked with promoting a Thomas documentary, and the firm was the registered agent for four Thomas-centric web domains.”

Sollenberger reports that the “revelations of Leo and Thomas’ business relationship offers new evidence of ties between a sitting justice and a man widely considered the most powerful conservative judicial activist in the country. And while it might not be an instantly damning smoking gun, experts say the connection—where Thomas stands to gain financially—raises further questions about thearch-conservative justice’s deep and shady ties to a sprawling network of dark money organizations and right-wing activist groups, many of which have business before him.”

Leonard Leo has also “raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the three decades on behalf of right-wing dark money groups to influence the federal judiciary and Supreme Court. He advised and persuaded Republican presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump in their appointments of Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Chief Justice John Roberts—and prepped Justice Thomas for his nomination hearings.”

The Federalist Society, which Leo ran for years, was founded in 1982. Antonin Scalia, Robert Bork, and Ted Olson were there at the beginning. It has reshaped America’s courts and laws, especially under Donald Trump.

U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) in a 2019 speech on the floor of the Senate noted that “nearly 90% of Trump’s appellate judges, and both his Supreme Court justices, are members of the so-called Federalist Society. On the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas—all are members. Now that’s a little weird. What’s really weird is that through this Federalist Society vehicle, big special interests are picking federal judges.”

Read the full Daily Beast article here, read Sen. Whitehouse’s full speech here, and watch him again go after the Federalist Society in a 2020 Senate hearing here.

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-strange-pick-to-promote-his-book-says-it-all?ref=home

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Clarence Thomas’ Strange Pick to Promote His Book Says It All

Amicus Curiae

Right-wing judicial activist Leonard Leo has been exerting influence over the Supreme Court for three decades. So why is Clarence Thomas hiring Leo’s firm to do public relations?

Roger Sollenberger

Political Reporter

Published Mar. 08, 2022

When Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was promoting a new release of his 2007 memoir last October, he made an interesting choice for his public relations firm, a company run by one of the most influential figures in conservative legal circles: Leonard Leo.

Leo, the former head of the Federalist Society and a top fundraiser for right-wing judiciary activist groups, wasn’t just in charge of Thomas’ memoir; Leo’s PR firm, CRC Advisors, was also tasked with promoting a Thomas documentary, and the firm was the registered agent for four Thomas-centric web domains.

The interesting part of this choice is not that Leo’s firm was incapable of handling the work—far from it. What makes Thomas’ decision notable is that Leo happens to have a vested interest in the Supreme Court, and his dark money network actively tries to influence rulings.

The revelations of Leo and Thomas’ business relationship offers new evidence of ties between a sitting justice and a man widely considered the most powerful conservative judicial activist in the country. And while it might not be an instantly damning smoking gun, experts say the connection—where Thomas stands to gain financially—raises further questions about the arch-conservative justice’s deep and shady ties to a sprawling network of dark money organizations and right-wing activist groups, many of which have business before him.

The news also comes at a time of dwindling public faith in the Supreme Court’s impartiality. That faith hit an all-time low last September, the month before the audiobook’s press release.

Paul Collins, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and author of several books about the high court, called Thomas’ specific choice of Leo’s firm, of all available options, “strange” and “unnecessary.”

“It signals that this world of the Federalist Society is even smaller than we thought,” Collins told The Daily Beast.

That world was already thought to be miniscule, with Leo’s hand seemingly never far from the court’s affairs.

The foremost of a tight cadre of hyperconservative legal activists, Leo has raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the three decades on behalf of right-wing dark money groups to influence the federal judiciary and Supreme Court. He advised and persuaded Republican presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump in their appointments of Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Chief Justice John Roberts—and prepped Justice Thomas for his nomination hearings.

Leo is also the hub of a network of dark money groups which routinely, and anonymously, fund and join arguments before the Supreme Court—bankrolling what researchers have called an “amicus flotilla.”

His network has most recently taken the shape of a sprawling legal effort focused on influencing election administration, including misleading allegations of impropriety. The Federalist Society, the legal activist group synonymous with Leo, has been called “the single most influential advocacy organization in Washington.”

But Leo’s affiliations with the court are especially heightened when it comes to Justice Thomas.

Leo made Thomas the godfather of one of his children, and, according to The New York Times, has hosted the justice on vacation at his New England getaway. Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, was also the subject of a recent profile by the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, titled, “Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to The Supreme Court?” It detailed the staggering extent and depth of connections between the justice’s wife and conservative groups.

Some of those organizations are tied with Leo, and, as Mayer reported, many have matters before the court. At least one of them has tapped CRC to handle its public relations.

Leo, whom Ginni Thomas considers a mentor, joined CRC Advisors in 2020, after stepping down from his position as vice president of the Federalist Society. (He still co-chairs the board.) Leo told Axios at the time that CRC planned to pump a “minimum of $10 million” into judicial advocacy issues ahead of the 2020 election.

“Leo and his CRC Advisors form the head of a many-legged dark-money operation designed to deliver on the priorities of right-wing donor interests.”

— Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

Neither CRC Advisors nor the Supreme Court replied to a request for comment.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a progressive who has long called for clarity about dark money influence on the judiciary, said Leo’s group, in running public relations for Thomas, appears to be trying to clean up after its own damage.

“Leo and his CRC Advisors form the head of a many-legged dark-money operation designed to deliver on the priorities of right-wing donor interests,” Whitehousetold The Daily Beast. “That operation spent hundreds of millions of dollars—if not more—to capture the Supreme Court. Now, it’s trying to prop up its right-wing justices’ credibility in the face of growing public frustration with whatJustice Sotomayor calls the ‘stench’ of partisanship emanating from the Court.”

CRC’s press announcement for the Thomas memoir—My Grandfather’s Son—promotes a new release in audiobook and Kindle formats. It also quotes two conservative activists, and informs media that they can contact a CRC Advisors official if they want to land an interview with either of them.

One of the officials, Mark Paoletta, worked on Justice Thomas’ nomination; the other, Carrie Severino, clerked for him and currently runs the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative group linked to Leo which has poured millions into influencing judicial nominations.

CRC Advisors was also chosen to promote the critically panned Thomas documentary, Created Equal, which Variety called “a two-hour infomercial for the decency, the competence, and the conservative role-model aspirationalism of Clarence Thomas.”

(CNBC reported that the documentary’s producer—a Trump appointee—had tapped donations to his nonprofit to help fund his private production company.)

CRC has also registered several web domains related to Justice Thomas, including “clarencethomas.org,” “clarencethomas.us,” “justicethomas.us,” and “theanitahillcase.com,” a reference to the credible sexual harassment allegations that marked Thomas’ bitter nomination hearings in 1991.

The relationship carries the further context of Leo’s activism, fundraising, and connection to cases before the court. This extends not just to the Federalist Society, but to CRC itself, which within months of promoting the memoir published multiple press releases about attempts to influence Supreme Court cases, including a petition to knock down the vaccine mandate.

Collins, the UMASS professor, noted that, after the fraught nominations of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, the public has been particularly sensitive to ethical concerns.

“Many people, including the Chief Justice, are worried about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court in the eyes of the American public,” Collins said, referencing Chief Justice John Roberts’s annual report last year, where Roberts took the unusual step of admonishing federal judges for ethical breaches, writing that, “We expect judges to adhere to the highest standards.”

“The continued exposure of real or potential conflicts of interest could be problematic for the court, especially when we see ties like this between a justice and the Federalist Society, which plays such a large role in the legal world,” Collins said.

Stephen Gillers, an expert on legal ethics at New York University School of Law, said that while the connection between Leo, CRC, and Thomas bears reporting, it doesn’t hit an official ethical bar—partly, he said, because the bar is so much higher for Supreme Court justices than for any other federal judge.

“The ethics rules governing justices are much narrower than the rules governing other federal judges. So on the question of disqualification, in this case it’s too attenuated, as this case doesn’t suggest that those rules have been violated,” Gillers explained, noting that “Ginni Thomas is a class by itself; nothing comes close to the harm that does to our courts.”

On the issue of CRC, Gillers said, “There’s a difference between whether something is newsworthy, and whether it crosses a legal line. This instance is newsworthy, but it doesn’t cross a line.”

“Thomas of course has a right to hire a PR firm to sell his book and get attention to it. Now, it may appear to many people as unseemly, but that’s not a legal question,” Gillers said. “In my view, justices should not act in a way that casts suspicion on the court just because they can.”

Artemus Ward, a professor of political science at Northern Illinois University who has written extensively on the politics of the Supreme Court, said that the matter could raise political problems for Thomas.

Ward pointed to a 1960s conservative campaign to force the resignation of Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, a liberal justice “got hounded out by conservatives because of some alleged ethical breaches regarding his finances, such as receiving speakers fees.”

“It was never fully clear just what the money was or whether he had crossed ethical lines, but conservatives held hearings to drum him out of office because they saw him as a liberal crony,” he said. “The question with Thomas is whether the endgame for Democrats is to hound him out of office before he’s ready to go.”

2022 The Daily Beast Company LLC

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Trump’s nominee to lead federal media agency funded a private company with donations from his nonprofit

Published Fri, Sep 20 20194:40 PM EDTUpdated Fri, Sep 20 2019

Brian Schwartz

@schwartzbCNBC

Key Points

President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead a federal media organization has been funding his own private film company with donations from a nonprofit that he runs.

Michael Pack, a conservative filmmaker with ties to Steve Bannon, has seen at least $1.6 million in donations from his nonprofit sent into the coffers of his independent production company, according to disclosure forms.

The details about Pack’s business dealings are revealed as senators review his nomination and Democrats begin to scrutinize him.

President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead a federal media organization has been funding his own private film company with donations from a nonprofit that he runs.

Michael Pack, a conservative filmmaker, saw at least $1.6 million in donations from his nonprofit sent into the coffers of his independent production company, Manifold Productions, according to disclosure forms reviewed by CNBC.

Since 2011, Pack’s nonprofit, the Public Media Lab, has listed only Manifold as the benefactor of these donations and consistently describes the purpose of the grant as “for the production of educational films.” That includes the latest filing from 2017, when the group wrote a $300,000 check to Manifold.

That year, Public Media Lab received $900,000 in contributions. The nonprofit’s mission statement focuses on receiving and awarding grants that will develop and support educational documentary films and filmmakers. Pack is listed as the principal officer and director of the nonprofit.

The phone number listed on the disclosure is identical to the one listed on Manifold Productions’ website. It’s unclear what happened after Manifold’s company received the money. The firm did not return multiple requests for comment.

The details about Pack’s business dealings were revealed as senators review his nomination and Democrats begin to scrutinize him.

Pack, who was once the CEO of conservative think tank the Claremont Institute, has ties to former White House chief strategist and Trump campaign boss Steve Bannon.

Trump nominated Pack to be the CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which was once known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The group’s board controls U.S. government-funded media companies such as the Voice of America and Radio Europe. The current CEO is John Lansing, a former president of Scripps Network.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

During his opening statement before a confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Pack described Manifold’s work as a film company but did not mention that it is funded, at least in part, by his own nonprofit organization.

“Our films tell America’s story— also one of the goals of international broadcasting. The stories we’ve told range from history to politics to culture,” he said. “We’ve made films about our nation’s founding fathers, the entertainment industry, the history of America’s political parties, Congress, great engineers and scientists, and much more.”

Later in the hearing, ranking member Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., brought up what he described as “some issues” and noted that his own staff are asking Pack questions about his past. He declined to specify what Pack has been asked.

“Mr. Pack, some issues have arisen since we spoke, and I’m not going to raise it here today. But my staff has asked you a series of questions, and I want you to state to the Committee: Do you commit to providing complete and prompt responses to those questions as well as any follow-ups before we advance your nomination to the full Senate?” Menendez asked.

Pack, at the time, confirmed he received those questions but said it would take him some time to give the committee his answers.

“The breadth of the questions made it impossible to answer quickly. They require adequate research, consultation, going back over some relative documents, but I absolutely commit that I will get you the answers as expeditiously as possible,” Pack said.

Representatives of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not respond to a request for comment.

Pack directed two documentaries that were executive produced by Bannon, including “Rickover: The Birth of Nuclear Power,” which aired on PBS. Manifold said in a 2017 op-ed that Bannon’s addition to the White House may lead to conservative documentary filmmakers gaining more respect.

“Now that there is a documentarian in the White House, perhaps conservative documentaries can earn some respect,” Pack wrote in The Federalist. https://thefederalist.com/2017/03/10/will-steve-bannon-help-break-lefts-monopoly-documentaries/

“Documentaries have been the almost exclusive playground of the Left, often the far left,” he wrote.

Public Media Lab 2017 990 tax return:

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https://www.c-span.org/video/?521801-2/created-equal

Michael pak, what were we just watching there? Well, that was the trailer toour film called Created equal Clarence thomas in his own words, the same title as the book. It's a two hour film. It was released in january of 2020 was in a bunch of theaters, 100 and 10 theaters. And then Covid cut its theatrical release short, it was then broadcast nationally on PBS in May, did very well on PBS and then it was released digitally and it's still available digitally. It's on amazon and viewers can go to our website manifold productions dot com with a full list of how to watch it. And that film was based on a very long interview with Clarence Thomas. I think you could see that he looked right at the camera and tells his story in his own words from his beginnings to today. And so I interviewed him for over 24 hours over a four-month period, and ginny for five or six hours. And they're the only interviews in the film. And that's why it's Clarence Thomas in his own words, but it was a 25 hour interview and it's only a two hour film. So, my co author of the book, Mark Paoletta, a long term friend of the thomases, had the idea that we should take some of that material and put it in a book. And the book is 95% new material, but it follows the same pattern as the film. It tells his life story from the beginnings to the to the court and onto today.

So I think this is an important moment for people to understand justice Thomas where his ideas come from and who he is as a person. What was it like trying to convince the Supreme Court justice to sit down for 24 hours of interview. It was not easy and it is the longest interview ever granted a filmmaker by any Supreme Court justice, let alone one that's been reluctant to be interviewed. But the film evolved and at each stage I was very honest and open with him. And we came to, we were originally planning to do a traditional documentary interview, 15 people from all periods in his life and all points of view. But I quickly realized that his voice would be lost and he was the best teller of his own story in this way he tells you what he thinks and you can accept it or reject it. And this is why I think PVS was enthusiastic. It doesn't say this is the truth, it says this is the way Clarence thomas saw his life and if you want to understand him and understand his recent Supreme Court rulings, it's worth understanding who he is and where he comes from. So he followed the evolution and and he committed to doing the film. And one of the things about Justice thomas is he's very stubborn, he agrees to do something, he sticks with it and in spite of temptations maybe to not stick with it, He did stick with it and I should say had no editorial control.

So it was a lot of trust in a filmmaker and he didn't in fact see it until it was broadcast on PBS. You describe him, you are Mark to your co author, described him as the greatest Supreme Court justice of all time. Well, that would be Mark, I do not consider myself an expert in the Supreme Court. I'm a documentary filmmaker. I think he's a I think it is surely true that he is now one of the most that he is a strong influence on this Supreme Court. Many people call it the thomas court. It's obviously really the roberts court, but I think he is perhaps the strongest influence at the moment and that's why it's important for people to read the book and see the movie and understand him whatever their politics. I mean, we really wanted the film to be on PBS because we wanted a broad swath of America to see him and understand him. And we want that for the book as well. One of the themes that came out in the book in the interview is that justice thomas likes to take the longer view. I think that's true. I mean we call the um created equal because his life is really based on the way he sees the declaration of independence, those core principles and how they are realized in the constitution. I and I think you can understand it if you follow his life story. I mean, you know this, I think yourself, but maybe not all your listeners know he's born in pinpoint Georgia, a gullah speaking area off the coast of Georgia. So english isn't really his first language in rural poverty.

His father leaves before he can remember. His mother really is raising him when he's about six or seven years old. They moved to Savannah and he, as he said, he went from rural poverty to urban squalor. And in Savannah, his mother is working as a maid. He, she doesn't have enough money to give them enough food. They're hungry, they're cold in the winter, she brings them to school and he just leaves school and wanders the streets and after two years she realizes she can't take care of those kids and brings them to her father, his grandfather to raise. And that's where his life turns around. And the first thing his grandfather says is the damn vacation is over and he's thinking what he and his brother thinking what vacation and we've just been in dire poverty, but he gives them hard work. They got to work on his grandfather's oil truck right after school. They got to go to school every day, gives them discipline and hard work. And though he himself is functionally illiterate, had less than a third grade education insists upon sending them to catholic school and let's not forget this is the segregated south. So it's an all black school run by these irish nuns who also reflect those values, discipline, hard work and a real strong curriculum and justice thomas thrives in that environment and a lot of people don't know. He decided he wanted to be a priest and he enrolled in a seminary and he went to the seminary and his grandfather was proud of him.

But it was a big financial commitment. And then after two years in the seminary, he experienced the seminaries, I should say we're all white seminaries and he was one of the first groups integrating them. And there he started to experience some racism and it reached a peak in 1968 when they're watching tv when martin Luther king JR shot and one of the white seminary and says, I hope that S. O. B. Dies for Clarence thomas. That capped it off. He felt the church wasn't doing enough for civil rights, that his grandfather was wrong about everything. And he became, in his own words, an angry black man and became radicalized and decided didn't want to be a priest. And his grandfather said, well if you can make your own decisions, you're on your own and kick him out of the house. The only father he ever knew really kicks him out. He's on his own. He has to go wherever he has a scholarship holy cross in massachusetts and there he continues to be a radical. He helped start the black student union engages in a walkout, invite black panthers to come and speak.

You may remember this period I do and the next period of his life is sort of working through that and coming back to his grandfather's values and that reaches one of the key moments and that is when he goes to an anti war demonstration in Cambridge massachusetts and it turns into a riot and he gets swept up in the riot. You know, they go get liquor from the liquor store ahead of time and he's just caught up in the mob mentality and he hates what he's become.

And even though he's fallen away from the church, when he gets back to Holy Cross in the middle of the night, he kneels in front of the chapel and says, if God will take anger out of my heart, uh you know, I will change. And that's his beginning of his coming back, his grandfather and his nuns values as he sees them.And that plays out in over year law school and his early years working for then Attorney General Danforth in Missouri. And finally he ends up voting for and working for Reagan and that's his journey back and we tell that story and it's a complicated story in both in the book and in the film, but then once he becomes a public conservative black man, he is attacked by the media and he has his battles with the left and that reaches a peak or a first peek, at least in his very contentious confirmation hearing and then on through today on the court and we tell that story and it's a dramatic story in the film in the book or I should say we let Clarence thomas tell that story and you refer to that in the book as the radical years, but you also bring up the theme or he brings up the theme of circumstances controlling you rather than you controlling circumstances and that's something to be avoided.

He says, well, I think that um you know, he, I think what he, what he, I think he would say that um he was blessed by having this core upbringing by his grandfather and these nuns, I mean he would not have been who he is without them and he is constantly referencing how important they are to him. I mean we end the film with, with his talking about his grandfather in the book picture things and with the pictures of the two of them and I think he feels that he was blessed in his circumstances, other people might see it differently. He was born in dire poverty, he had to grow up under segregation, he had many hardships and reversals, but I think he feels in a way blessed as well as challenged and I think one of the impressive things of justice thomas's life is this resilience in coming back into the face of hardship and feeling basically blessed. [43 yrs on ct for revenge?]

And that's I think an inspiring thing to all of us, whatever our politics, what's the role of Ginny thomas in his life? Well, you know, we interviewed jenny, you know, much less time than Justice thomas and she really helps tell his story, but he talks about when he met her and marrying her and what she means to him and she, he calls her a gift from God. And I think they are very close. Um, and I think that the confirmation battle, the very contentious confirmation battle, they were not married that long pulled them together to have to go through through something like that together. And I think that that has made them one as she says, Michael peck, does he in the book address his first marriage to Cathy ambush and his son Jamal, He addresses it a little bit.

I think you can see in the film, we didn't put this so much in the book that I pressed him and he did not want to speak much about it. So he speaks a little about it. We tell about it. Um, but he doesn't speak much. I think it's interesting that as a result of that marriage, they had a child, a son and she wanted him to raise the child and he raised his son as a single person with not a huge salary in Washington in the 80s, a very tough thing to do is this your first book?

It's my first book. I'm really a filmmaker and we've made, I've been making films for decades. We've made over 14, 15 films, almost all of them have been broadcast nationally on PBS, which we're grateful for. This is the first one we've chosen to turn into a film because we had this resource and actually marked a lot of my co author was the originator of that idea. I think of myself as a filmmaker rather than an author, but I have to say there's something satisfying about seeing your name in a book, you know, actual physical book, not just an e book. I mean, there is an e book, but but there's something about seeing your name in a book that is really great. Michael Pack is the co author of created equal Clarence thomas in his own words, and he's president of manifold Productions, incwe appreciate you being on book tv Thank you very much.

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wiki 8 22

michael Pack is an American documentary filmmaker who was CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) from June 2020 to January 2021. Pack was nominated by President Donald Trump and took office at USAGM in June 2020 after Senate confirmation.^[1] He resigned on January 20, 2021 at the request of President Joe Biden, effective at 2:00 p.m., two hours after Biden took office.^[2][3][4]

Pack founded Manifold Productions, a documentary film company, in 1977. He later served as an executive at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and as CEO of the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank.

Pack's short tenure as head of USAGM was characterized by NPR as a series of "crises."^[5][6] Pack fired the heads of the news outlets under USAGM's purview and installed Trump loyalists in the positions. He disbanded a bipartisan board that oversees the USAGM and spent millions of taxpayer dollars on law firms to investigate journalists for purported bias against Trump. He rescinded rules at USAGM that protected journalists at Voice of America and other affiliates from political interference.

Early life and education[

Pack was born in New York City. He attended Yale University from Fall 1972 to Fall 1973, but did not graduate. From Fall 1974 to Spring 1975, Pack studied English at UC Berkeley. School records show that he withdrew without obtaining a degree.^[c

Pack attended New York University in the Summer of 1975 as a visiting student.^[

Career[

Early in his career, Pack worked for Radiotelevisione Italiana and the U.S. Information Agency.^[7] He founded Manifold Productions, Inc., an independent film production company, in 1977. Through Manifold Productions, Pack has written, directed and produced 13 documentary films on a range of topics.^[8]

In 1993, Pack served as Co-Chair of the International TV Council at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In 2002, President Bush nominated and the Senate confirmed Pack to serve on the National Council on the Humanities, which oversees the National Endowment for the Humanities.^[9] He served from July 2002 to February 2005. From 2003 to 2006, Pack served as Senior Vice President for Television Programming at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.^[10]

From 2015 to 2017, Pack served as President and CEO of the Claremont Institute in Upland, California, and Publisher of its Claremont Review of Books.^[11]

Pack has collaborated with Stephen Bannon, a former Trump advisor and co-founder of the conservative website Breitbart News.^[1] In 2019, Pack produced and directed a documentary about the Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas.^[1]

In January 2021, District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine sued Public Media Lab and Manifold Productions, alleging that they funneled $4.1 million in tax-protected nonprofit funds to Pack.^[12][13]

USAGM CEO[

Pack at his confirmation hearing in September 2019

Background[

In 2016, President Barack Obama signed legislation abolishing the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the independent oversight board that had previously controlled several government-sponsored media agencies, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.[14] The role of the board was replaced by a single agency executive appointed by the White House augmented by advisory boards with no decision-making powers.^[14][1]

In June 2018, the White House announced that President Donald Trump intended to nominate Pack as the chief executive officer of the U.S. Agency for Global Media,^[15] making him the first CEO nominated to head the newly created USAGM since the 2016 reforms.^[16]

Confirmation[

Pack's first confirmation hearing took place on September 19, 2019.^[17] On May 8, 2020, Senator Jim Risch moved to schedule a committee confirmation hearing for Pack for the following week.^[18] Pack's nomination was contentious, with critics arguing that the mission of VOA would be compromised by installing a CEO who they considered a conservative partisan.^[1]

On May 12, 2020, Democratic Senator Robert Menendez raised with District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine the question of whether Pack unlawfully directed funds from the non-profit charitable organization he ran – Public Media Lab – to his profit-making company Manifold Productions. According to CNBC, at least $1.6 million in donations received by the nonprofit had been sent to Manifold.^[19] In response, Racine indicated that he initiated an investigation.^[20] A request by Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to delay a vote until the investigation was complete was overruled by Risch, with the committee recommending Pack's nomination on a 12-10 party-line vote.^[19]

The Senate invoked cloture on Pack's nomination on June 4, 2020, by a vote of 53–39,^[21] and it confirmed him the same day^{[22][23][24][25]} by a vote of 53–38.^[26]

Tenure[

Pack assumed office over a week after his confirmation partially so his office could be swept for covert listening devices.^[27] One of his first actions as USAGM CEO was to fire the heads of the outlets under his purview – among them Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), and the Open Technology Fund^{[28][29][30][31][32]} – including certain officials favored by conservatives.^[33][34] Pack also installed Trump loyalists in leadership positions within the organization and disbanded a bipartisan board that oversees the USAGM.^[35][31][36] He planned for editorials to be read and posted on the website in various languages that would present administration policy as set by the president.^[37]

Pack continued a purge of USAGM, firing at least seven longstanding agency officials,^[38] including chief financial officer Grant Turner and general counsel David Kligerman.^[39][40] Kligerman and Turner said that their removals were retaliation against CEO; Turner said that he had been removed for calling Pack and his team "to account for gross mismanagement of the agency" and Kligerman said, "There is no other conclusion to draw, except that it is in retaliation for attempting to do my job in an apolitical manner and to speak truth to power."^[40] Kligerman was fired days after questioning the legality of Pack's mass firings.^[38] Under Pack, USAGM hired Frank Wuco, a former conservative talk radio "shock jock" known for spreading conspiracy theories and calling President Barack Obama a "Kenyan."^[38] It was reported in July 2020 that the USAGM under Pack would not extend visas for foreign VOA journalists.^[41][42] In late July 2020, Pack announced an investigation of a VOA video that purportedly promoted Joe Biden's presidential campaign.^[43][44] In August 2020, USAGM required several of its outlets to return money allocated for internet freedom projects for the agency to reallocate for other internet freedom uses.^[45]

In August 2020, Pack suspended top executives at USAGM, reportedly angry at them for telling him that some of his plans might be illegal. In an apparent attempt to get the executives fired, he hired a private law firm, McGuireWoods, to investigate them, though it found no malfeasance, and the executives were later reinstated.^[46]

On October 26, 2020, Pack rescinded rules at USAGM that protected journalists at VOA and other affiliates from political interference.^[47][48] Career employees at Voice of America accused Pack of seeking influence over the outlet's reporting^[49] and filed suit in federal court, seeking injunctions that prevent Pack from making personnel decisions about journalists employed by the agency, directly communicating with them and conducting any investigations into editorial content or individual journalists. On November 20, 2020, Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted the injunctions. "The court confirmed that the First Amendment forbids Mr. Pack and his team from attempting to take control of these journalistic outlets, from investigating their journalists for purported 'bias,' and from attempting to influence or control their reporting content," Lee Crain, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement.^[50]

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel revealed on December 2, 2020, that it had found "a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing" at USAGM, including "gross mismanagement" by Pack and violations of the legal firewall meant to protect Voice of America's journalistic integrity. It demanded that the USAGM investigate allegations by whistleblowers. The Government Accountability Project, a public interest law firm, told NPR that it was representing more than 20 whistleblowers at USAGM.^[51]

Among other appointments,^[52] Pack appointed Robert R. Reilly to lead VOA on December 9, 2020,^[53][54] and Victoria Coates to lead MBN on December 22.^[55]

On January 14, 2021, six days before Joe Biden's inauguration as president, a group of Voice of America journalists signed a letter demanding the resignation of the director of VOA and his deputy.^[56] The controversy concerned the reassignment of reporters Patsy Widakuswara and News Director Yolanda Lopez after the journalists questioned outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.^[57]

On January 20, 2021, the day Biden took office, Pack resigned at Biden's request, effective at 2:00 p.m., two hours after Biden took office.^[2][58][59]

NPR conducted scores of interviews over the controversies Pack's actions engendered. And few at the agency or its broadcasters agreed with Pack's characterization of his mission or performance, instead characterizing him as seeking political control over their coverage.^[60]

Filmography[

Pack has written, directed, and produced numerous documentaries, principally for PBS, as well as corporate and educational films. His major credits include:^[8]

Hollywood's Favorite Heavy: Businessmen on Prime Time TV, hosted by Eli Wallach (1987)
Campus Culture Wars: Five Stories about Political Correctness, narrated by Lindsay Crouse (1993)
Hollywood vs. Religion, hosted by Michael Medved (1995)
Inside the Republican Revolution: The First Hundred Days, hosted by Don Lambro (1995)
The Rodney King Incident: Race and Justice in America, narrated by Robert Prosky (1998)
The Fall of Newt Gingrich, narrated by Blair Brown (2000)
Rediscovering George Washington, hosted by Richard Brookhiser (2002)
God and the Inner City, narrated by Phylicia Rashad (2003)
Rediscovering Alexander Hamilton, hosted by Richard Brookhiser (2011)
RICKOVER: The Birth of Nuclear Power, narrated by Joan Allen (2014)
Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in his Own Words (2020)
The Last 600 Meters (2020), a documentary about "the two biggest battles of the Iraqi war"

References

...

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/voice-of-america

no twt

President Donald Trump's appointed head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media is barred from making any further editorial or personnel decisions following a series of injunctions issued by a federal courtlate Friday, in what journalists called a major rebuke of the Trump administration's attempt to reshape government-funded news broadcasters.

In Washington, D.C., Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howellruled in favor of five USAGM executives who were fired or suspended in August at the direction of CEO Michael Pack, who took the helm of the agency in June and promptly dismissed several career officials in what was called a "Wednesday night massacre."

Current and former USAGM employees applauded the ruling, with chief strategy officer Shawn Powers tweeting that Pack "has repeatedly and intentionally violated the First Amendment rights" of journalists at the agency.

twt]

the five former employees sued to stopPack, a close associate of former White House adviser and Breitbart News executive Steve Bannon, from interfering in the editorial affairs of Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia, and other broadcasters which operate under the USAGM.

The lawsuit was filed after Pack opened an investigation into VOA's chief White House reporter, Steve Herman, over unspecified concerns that he displayed an anti-Trump bias. The plaintiffs and many other critics inside and outside of the agency saidPack violated the "firewall" between political appointees and the broadcasters' newsrooms which is meant to keep the organizations from becoming mouthpieces for the White House.

Progressive critics have long considered VOA a vehicle for U.S. government propaganda overseas, promoting American-friendly coverage of world events. However, the overt takeover by a Trump loyalist has raised alarm since June.

A month after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a party-line vote to run the agency, the USAGM announced it would not renew visas for foreign journalists, potentially sending dozens of reporters who have worked for VOA and other broadcasters for years, back to countries where they could be persecuted. The decision was attributed by many critics to the Trump administration's "xenophobia."

Under Howell's order, Pack will no longer be able to make personnel decisions for the remainder of his tenure, which is set to end in January when President-elect Joe Biden takes office. He also will not be permitted to communicate directly with editorial teams or investigate editors or their news stories.

Howell said Pack's investigation of Herman imposed "an unconstitutional prior restraint not just on Herman's speech, but on the speech of [Herman's editors] and journalists at VOA."

NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik called Howell's ruling a "tremendous rebuke" of Pack's actions during his five months at USAGM.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

How Voice of America Persian Became a Trump Administration PR Machine

According to NPR, Pack’s memo has already been the subject of a whistleblower complaint filed by the Government Accountability Project alleging that it violates the VOA firewall by telling VOA leadership how to assign reporters to different stories and beats.

“The firewall is very clear. The USAGM CEO is not supposed to be sending out any kind of messaging about how news should be covered — how and by whom,” said a journalist interviewed by The Intercept. But another didn’t agree, saying that it was within Pack’s purview to send “best practices,” not specific instructions, for journalists to abide by.

One VOA journalist told The Intercept that the memo will contribute to a “culture of fear” under Pack and that employees have worried their past social media “likes” might come under scrutiny. “This feels like they are going after us,” the journalist said. “The example that was given in the letter was quite specific. It’s certainly making a lot of people nervous, including myself.”

Since Pack became the head of USAGM in June, he has been accused of trying to politicize coverage at VOA. Shortly after his confirmation, he fired the heads of four media organizations under USAGM’s purview, including the heads of Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. Pack later gave an interview with pro-Trump news outlet The Federalist, in which he speculated that the groups he oversaw would be “a great place to put a foreign spy” — a comment some in VOA thought could subject their overseas colleagues to reprisals. And in the same interview, while stressing that he would not tell specific journalists what to report, he nonetheless said it was his job “to drain the swamp, to root out corruption and to deal with these issues of bias.”

Pack’s comments caused controversy at VOA, and a group of 14 journalists at VOA signed a letter denouncing the actions and remarks about spies. One source told The Intercept that Pack’s past comments are an important factor in how VOA employees are viewing the new guidance.

“Given Pack’s past comments saying that there is an inherent left-wing bias in VOA and … that his job is to correct that bias, this kind of sudden emphasis on our social media policy very much makes me think that they’re looking at some of our social media profiles online to substantiate those claims.”

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omfg

https://www.startribune.com/senate-panel-advances-trump-pick-to-head-voa-other-outlets/570661342/

m Pack, now a nominee to lead the United States Agency for Global Media, which oversees the Voice of America, in Washington, on Feb. 9, 2006.

WASHINGTON — A bitterly divided Senate panel voted along party lines Thursday to advance President Donald Trump’s choice to head the Voice of America and other U.S. government-funded international broadcasters that have been the subject of harsh criticism from the White House.

After rejecting eight Democratic requests to postpone the move, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent Michael Pack’s nomination to the full Senate on a 12-10 vote. Pack is Trump’s choice to run the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA and its sister outlets like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Cuba-oriented Radio and Television Marti.

Democrats oppose the nomination of Pack, a former associate of Trump political adviser Steve Bannon, in part because of questions about his past business dealings. Recent criticism of VOA from Trump and the White House has intensified their concerns about his nomination.

Trump has pushed for Pack’s confirmation while launching unprecedented attacks on the Voice of America, the venerable broadcaster created during World War II to air independent news and promote American values to the world, for its coverage of China’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Democrats fear that Pack, a conservative filmmaker and former educator, could turn the organization into a Trump propaganda machine funded with more than $200 million a year in taxpayer money. Trump has mused about his desire to control a media outlet.

Pack has dismissed concerns he would allow that to happen, but the recent furor has reignited those concerns. The top Democrat on the committee. New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, and other Democrats said the vote should be delayed because Pack has not yet answered questions about discrepancies in tax returns related to a non-profit organization he runs.

Yet, the uproar over Voice of America and its recent coverage of China’s handling of the pandemic overshadowed the possible legal issues. It has become a touchstone in the Trump administration’s efforts to criticize Chinese authorities for the outbreak and deflect criticism of the U.S. response as the 2020 presidential campaign heats up.

Trump and his allies have long viewed VOA with suspicion, regarding it as an element of a “deep state” trying to thwart their policies. The hostility burst open on April 9 when Trump communications adviser Dan Scavino posted a VOA story about China to his official Twitter account with the comment “American taxpayers—paying for China’s very own propaganda, via the U.S. Government funded Voice of America! DISGRACE!!”

The story that VOA posted — about the lifting of the lockdown in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the new coronavirus first emerged — was actually an Associated Press report, but the following day, an official White House publication accused VOA of using taxpayer money “to speak for authoritarian regimes.” Trump weighed in several days later, calling VOA’s coverage “disgusting” and demanding that the Senate confirm Pack.

A planned vote on Pack's nomination was delayed earlier this month after the Washington, D.C., attorney general informed Menendez and committee chairman Jim Risch, R-Texas, that it had an open civil investigation into the tax return discrepancies.

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no lnx

https://www.nytimes.com**/2020/05/08/**us/politics/michael-pack-voa.html

With Push From Trump, Senate Moves to Install Contentious Filmmaker at U.S. Media Agency

A key Senate committee has scheduled a vote on the long-stalled nomination of Michael Pack, an ally of Stephen K. Bannon, to run the agency in charge of the Voice of America. Employees are worried.

The Voice of America studio in Washington. Voice of America is the largest American international broadcaster.

By Catie Edmondson and Edward Wong

May 8, 2020

WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leaders, under pressure from President Trump to install an ally who would dictate more favorable news coverage of his administration, are moving to swiftly confirm a conservative filmmaker to lead the independent agency in charge of state-funded media outlets.

Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has scheduled a committee meeting next week to advance the long-stalled nomination of Michael Pack, aclose ally of Stephen K. Bannon’s and a favorite of conservative activists, to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

The action came after Mr. Trump pressed Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, during a recent call to speed up Mr. Pack’s nomination, according to three people familiar with the private conversation who discussed it on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Trump’s personal intervention to push through his favored nominee illustrates his determination to install a sympathetic figure at the parent agency of broadcasters, which includes the Voice of America, the largest American international broadcaster and one that has recently provoked his ire.

At a news conference last month, the president said the Senate’s failure to confirm Mr. Pack was “preventing us from managing the Voice of America.”

“If you hear what’s coming out of the Voice of America, it’s disgusting,” he said. “The things they say are disgusting toward our country. And Michael Pack would get in and do a great job.”

The week before, the White House had lobbed an unusual broadside against the V.O.A., falsely accusing the United States-funded foreign broadcaster of parroting Chinese propaganda in its coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Trump’s social media director called it a “disgrace.”

The president singled out Mr. Pack’s nomination as part of a tirade about the Senate’s failure to confirm his nominees, in which he fumed about Democratic opposition to his chosen candidates and threatened to use a never-before-used presidential power to adjourn Congress himself so he could unilaterally install them. Mr. McConnell has since opened the Senate up for business — even as Congress’s top doctor said reconvening carried health risks — telling colleagues on their first day back that he would look to “move qualified nominees who have been held up for too long already.”

“The Senate will be acting on key nominations that relate directly to the safety of the American people, oversight of our coronavirus legislation, and more,” Mr. McConnell said.

A spokesman for Mr. McConnell said that the majority leader and Mr. Trump “talk all the time” but that the office does not give details on their conversations. A spokesman for the White House declined to comment on the call regarding Mr. Pack.

Democrats who have long opposed Mr. Pack’s nomination argued that it was inappropriate to convene to consider business unrelated to the novel coronavirus, particularly someone they called “a controversial political nominee.”

“Putting Mr. Pack up for a committee vote under these circumstances would be a shocking departure from committee practice and an abdication of the committee’s role to vet nominees and ensure only those who are fit to serve get our stamp of approval,” the Democrats on the foreign relations panel wrote Thursday in a letter to Mr. Risch.

ImageSenator Jim Risch, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, scheduled a committee meeting for next week to vote on Mr. Pack’s nomination — eight months after his confirmation hearing.

Senator Jim Risch, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, scheduled a committee meeting for next week to vote on Mr. Pack’s nomination — eight months after his confirmation hearing.Credit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

The U.S. Agency for Global Media, formerly known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors, oversees news organizations that together make up one of the largest media networks in the world. V.O.A. is the most prominent, but the agency is also in charge of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, among other groups. Many journalists in the organizations are nervous about whether Mr. Pack — following the lead of the White House — will try to curb or assault their editorial independence, according to people with knowledge of the newsrooms.

“There has been great apprehension,” said Brett Bruen, who worked with the agency as the director of global engagement on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council. “Pack threatens to shred their credibility, both in Washington and worldwide.”

“It will become a taxpayer-funded extension of OANN and Breitbart, spinning out spurious stories,” Mr. Bruen added, using the acronym for One American News Network and naming two news conservative news outlets that churn out glowing coverage of Mr. Trump.

The agency traditionally had a bipartisan board that served as the organization’s collective head and helped maintain the firewall. But a provision in a 2016 defense policy bill elevated the chief executive and put the board in an advisory role. The chief executive can make appointments at the networks with no checks on that power.

“My question is: Does he understand what the mission of Voice of America is, which is truthful journalism?” David B. Ensor, a recent director of V.O.A. who is now at George Washington University, said of Mr. Pack. “There are some people on the right who think a propaganda channel would be more effective. They are wrong. I hope he’s not one of them.”

A Washington-based filmmaker, Mr. Pack has collaborated on movies with Mr. Bannon, a former head of Breitbart News, and produced and directed a documentary, “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words.” His nomination has been backed by a cadre of powerful conservative activists and groups, including the Heritage Foundation, former Senator Jim DeMint and Jerome Corsi, the political commentator and conspiracy theorist.

Mr. Bannon is a longtime critic of V.O.A., saying in 2018 that it was “a rotten fish from top to bottom.”

“It’s now totally controlled by the deep-state apparatus,” he said.

Mr. Pack previously served as the director of Worldnet — now the television component of V.O.A. — under President George Bush, and worked at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a senior executive in its television production division.

“In today’s connected age, molding global public sentiment matters,” Mr. Pack said at his confirmation hearing. “As Lincoln would have counseled, we need to counter lies with the truth. We need to make clear to the world the ideals America strives to live up to.”

Even before the White House began publicly attacking V.O.A., its current top managers, Obama appointees and drawn largely from traditional media backgrounds, expected to lose their jobs if Mr. Pack were confirmed.

Image

Michael Pack was once a senior executive at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.Credit...Bill Crandall for The New York Times

Mr. Pack was nominated by Mr. Trump in June 2018 to lead the agency, prompting protests from Democrats and quiet resistance from some Republicans on Capitol Hill, including former Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, then the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who showed little interest in moving the nomination.

In a letter in April to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, cited a number of concerns he referred to as “problematic revelations” that emerged the night before Mr. Pack’s confirmation hearing.

At issue, Mr. Menendez said, was whether he engaged in “inappropriate or unlawful activity” related to transactions between his film company and a nonprofit organization he runs. Mr. Menendez also cited concerns over whether Mr. Pack acted improperly in awarding his film company with a contract for fund-raising services for the nonprofit.

“To date, his responses have been perfunctory and inadequate,” Mr. Menendez wrote.

But the larger concern is that, if confirmed, Mr. Pack would try to influence coverage at V.O.A. and other networks. With a budget of $750 million and a reach of more than 345 million people globally, the U.S. Agency for Global Media tries to promote American democratic values by melding journalism and political messaging across an array of radio and television channels. Its 3,300 employees are legally protected from political interference.

John Lansing, the previous permanent chief executive, was known for maintaining journalistic independence and keeping a firewall between the news organizations and politicians. Mr. Lansing is now the chief executive of NPR.

After Mr. Trump’s comments at his April news conference, Amanda Bennett, who leads Voice of America, released a lengthy statement defending its reporting.

“One of the big differences between publicly funded independent media, like the Voice of America, and state-controlled media is that we are free to show all sides of an issue and are actually mandated to do so by law,” Ms. Bennett said.

Elizabeth Williamson contributed reporting.

http://thefederalist.com/2017/03/10/will-steve-bannon-help-break-lefts-monopoly-documentaries/

Will Steve Bannon Help Break The Left’s Monopoly On Documentaries?

President Trump’s chief strategist and senior counselor Steve Bannon is, among other things, a successful conservative documentary filmmaker, a rare achievement.

Michael Pack By Michael Pack

MARCH 10, 2017

Now that there is a documentarian in the White House, perhaps conservative documentaries can earn some respect—and a revival. Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s chief strategist and senior counselor, is, among other things, a successful conservative documentary filmmaker, a rare achievement.

Over the last decade, Bannon has directed more than a dozen documentaries. His films run the gamut from celebrating Ronald Reagan’s determination to win the Cold War to probing hot political issues including immigration. Bannon also served as executive producer for two films, which I directed and produced through the company I founded, Manifold Productions. The first told the harrowing story of the two biggest battles of the Iraq War, Fallujah and Najaf. The second explored the remarkable life of Admiral Hyman Rickover, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who became the father of the nuclear submarine.

Documentaries Are Deeply One-Sided

Given the explosion of interest in documentaries and the rise of conservative news and talk radio, you might expect that Steve and I are typical of a large and growing group of conservative documentarians. A quick reality check indicates just the opposite.

Documentaries have been the almost exclusive playground of the Left, often the far left. Every year, on TV and in movie theaters, you can see any number of films decrying global warming, attacking big agriculture, mocking gun ownership, denouncing George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (but not Barack Obama’s), etc., but rarely can you see films on the other side of any of these issues.

Long before I met Steve, I had the opportunity to give this matter much thought both as a successful documentary filmmaker for more than 35 years and a funder of documentaries. I served on the National Council of the National Endowment for Humanities and as senior vice president of Television Programming at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

While there might be other social and cultural forces at work, I have come to see that the institutions that foster documentaries have largely locked out anyone who is right of center. Let’s trace the process through the growth and development of new filmmaking talent.

This Is a Cultivation Problem

A budding filmmaker may well decide to major in film during his college years. He or she will have ample opportunity. Most of the over 4,000 colleges and universities in America have a film department. Students are treated to courses on environmental filmmaking, social media, gay and lesbian films, activist filmmaking, which all push the familiar politically correct agenda. Students are taught to make films that view American history and society solely through the lens of race, class, and gender. Professors in film studies tend to be even more liberal than their counterparts in other disciplines. Each year, they indoctrinate a new crop of tens of thousands of young students.

What happens to them next? The indoctrination and grooming continues. Their professors and mentors guide them through the postgraduate institutions that help them make and market their films. First, liberal foundations such as the Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation provide funding. Then, activist production companies and distributors such as Participant Media get their films released into theaters. Next, sympathetic broadcasters such as PBS and HBO show their films in prime time. Finally, liberal critics and industry organizations such as The New York Times and the Oscars give them praise and awards.

These institutions provide money, distribution, credentialing, and networking; every one of them shares the politically correct views sanctioned by the academy, which is not surprising given that they are staffed by university-trained professionals who live on one coast or the other. For filmmakers on the left, it is a closed loop.

I have some bad news for this documentary establishment. Trump, with Bannon’s help, campaigned against political correctness and self-dealing elites. And they won.

Even worse for them, Bannon understands this problem from the inside of the film industry. I hope he will find a way to break their politically correct stranglehold and open a path for young, talented conservative filmmakers. Documentaries provide an important way of understanding our politics, history, and culture. Viewers, and the nation, are better served by a diversity of views.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/04/trump-taps-bannon-ally-for-top-broadcasting-job-michael-pack-broadcasting-board-of-governors-voice-of-america-radio-free-europe-asia/

Trump has tapped a conservative filmmaker who is a close ally of former White House strategist Steve Bannon to lead the broadcasting arm of the U.S. government, a $685 million agency that oversees prominent U.S.-funded outlets including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Michael Pack, who ran the conservative Claremont Institute, is a sharp critic of what he calls the “politically correct agenda” at universities around the country, where he says liberal media professors indoctrinate students with courses on environmental filmmaking and gay culture.

The White House on Friday evening announced Pack’s nomination to be CEO of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The position requires Senate confirmation.

If confirmed, Pack will take over a troubled government agency roiled by fierce political infighting since Trump took office, according to sources inside the board and others familiar with internal deliberation.

In addition to VOA and RFE/RL, Pack would oversee the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, which collectively reach 278 million people each week in 61 languages around the world, according to the board’s own figures. The Trump administration requested $661 million for the agency’s budget in fiscal year 2019.

Pack, a former executive of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, has worked on two documentaries with Bannon. In an article he wrote last year, Pack said liberals had a “politically correct stranglehold” over film schools.

“Students are treated to courses on environmental filmmaking, social media, gay and lesbian films, activist filmmaking, which all push the familiar politically correct agenda,” he wrote in The Federalist.

“Students are taught to make films that view American history and society solely through the lens of race, class, and gender. Professors in film studies tend to be even more liberal than their counterparts in other disciplines. Each year, they indoctrinate a new crop of tens of thousands of young students.”

Critics have raised alarm bells over the proposed appointment under a new management configuration, saying Trump could turn the Broadcasting Board of Governors into his own personal propaganda machine — a charge other experts dismiss because the CEO has no editorial oversight over the sprawling organization.

Traditionally, the board was overseen by a bipartisan board of directors, but a provision of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act passed under former President Barack Obama gave them a mandate to dissolve the board, consolidate power into the CEO position, and create a new board that only serves in an advisory capacity.

https://www.alternet.org/donald-trumps-trade-war-masks-darker-agenda-aiding-far-right-europe

djt moron but

there are others with a more sophisticated agenda, however, which may be even more concerning since they seem to see Trump as a useful tool. One of those is former Trump campaign chief and senior adviser Steve Bannon, who has been out of the limelight these last few months. The last we heard Trump was calling him "sloppy Steve," but apparently Bannon hasn't lost his affection for the big guy in spite of that. Frankly, Trump may not have lost his for Bannon either -- as long as someone is willing to kiss his ring he'll invite them back into his circle before long.

Fareed Zakaria interviewed Bannon in Rome recently where he was enthusiastically cheering on the chaos of the recent Italian elections, implying that a new day of economic populism was surging across Europe like a Panzer division on methamphetamines. He was full of the usual contradictions and muddled philosophical compost, but he essentially made the case that right-wing nationalism is the wave of the future, while trying unconvincingly to claim that race, ethnicity and religion have nothing whatsoever to do with it. He sputtered his way through an unconvincing explanation about how Trump's massive tax cuts were the basis of Trump's economic populism:

Europe is about a year ahead of the United States. . . . You see populist-nationalist movements with reform [here]. . . . You could begin to see the elements of Bernie Sanders coupled with the Trump movement that really becomes a dominant political force in American politics.

It's hard to say what's going to happen in America but it's hard to imagine a successful marriage between Sanders' left-wing populism and Trump's right-wing nativism. The xenophobia and racism is a real sticking point.

In Europe there is certainly a rising right-wing movement that Bannon and his allies are closely observing, presumably for tips on how to use Trump to make it happen in America. For instance, Trump's newly confirmed ambassador to Germany, a former right-wing hit man and odious Twitter troll named Richard Grenell, has made one of the worst first impressions of any diplomat in history with this tweet:

There was widespread indignation from across the German political spectrum but Grenell refused to back down, basically telling the German people he was only following orders:

Mind you, he was the only U.S. ambassador to do such a thing. Over the weekend Grenell went even further, giving an interview to Breitbart News in which he said he was “excited” by the rise of far-right parties in Europe and was prepared “to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders.” Breitbart reported:

Unafraid to name names, Mr Grenell expressed a deep respect and admiration for the young Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz saying, “Look, I think Sebastian Kurz is a rockstar. I’m a big fan.”

Chancellor Kurz, leader of the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), formed a coalition with the populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) earlier this year, and has been one of the strongest advocates for securing the European Union’s external border.

Not long after the formation of the coalition, Kurz stood up to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, rejecting the controversial European Union migrant quota system. He was also been [sic] a leading conservative on the topic of counter-Islamisation while Foreign Minister in the previous coalition government, advocating and helping to pass a ban on the full-face Islamic veil.

The German government was not amused. According to Robert Mackay at The Intercept, it "demanded a formal explanation from the United States on Monday of what, exactly, the new U.S. ambassador in Berlin, Richard Grenell, meant when he promised to use his office to help far-right nationalists inspired by Donald Trump take power across Europe." Grenell tweeted that he did not plan to endorse anyone but stood by his claim that Europe, like America, is “experiencing an awakening from the silent majority — those who reject the elites and their bubble. Led by Trump.”

No doubt America's European allies were thrilled to hear that, especially with the neo-fascist rumblings coming from Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and now Slovenian right-wing nationalist Janez Janša.

The trade war is bad enough. White nationalist Trumpers stomping around Europe shooting off their mouths and giving support to far right politicians is making it worse.

In a detail nearly no one will notice, Trump just named a right-wing academic and filmmaker named Michael Pack, who is allied with Bannon, to lead the broadcasting arm of the U.S. government, a $685 million agency that oversees prominent outlets such as the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. What could possibly go wrong there?

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Michael Pack: Trump Pushes for Senate to Confirm ...

www.nytimes.com › 2020/05/08 › politics › michael-pack...

May 8, 2020 - David B. Ensor, a recent director of V.O.A. who is now at George ... Mr. Pack has collaborated on movies with Mr. Bannon, a former head of ...