YAF 2 Walker

see main and ron robinson

afraid to use tag?

walker pension: president of the Young America’s Foundation

judd 124

sinclair Smith has used his vast wealth to support a variety of far-right causes. The Baltimore Banner reports that since 2015, Smith, through his family foundation, has donated large sums to Young Americans for Liberty ($581,000), Project Veritas ($536,000), Turning Point USA ($150,000), and Moms for Liberty ($121,000).

dIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A conservative nonprofit launched by former Vice President Mike Pence is representing 11 conservative groups in supporting fishermen challenging the extensive power of the federal bureaucracy.

Advancing American Freedom, which plays no role in Pence’s 2024 presidential campaign, filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in which the court will revisit the longstanding precedent ofChevron deference. The group exclusively gave The Daily Signal a copy of the brief.

In Chevron v. National Resources Defense Council (1984), the Supreme Court held that whenever a law is ambiguous, a federal agency has the authority to interpret the scope and content of that ambiguity to achieve its ends, so long as the interpretation is “reasonable.”

This precedent granted executive agencies tremendous power to effectively rewrite the law, critics like Advancing American Freedom claim.

“The Left has used Chevron Deference to grow the administrative state and circumvent the approval of Congress to push their own agenda,” J. Marc Wheat, Advancing American Freedom’s general counsel, told The Daily Signal. “This is never what the Founders intended; unelected bureaucrats at various agencies do not have the power to legislate and we hope that the Supreme Court checks the Chevron Deference once and for all.”

In Loper Bright, fishermen are challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service—represented by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Federal law forces fishermen to carry inspectors aboard their vessels. A new Fisheries Service rule forces the fishermen to pay the salaries of these federal inspectors. The federal law requiring the inspections does not stipulate that fishermen must pay inspectors’ salaries, but the Fisheries Service insists that it has the power to demand payment under Chevron.

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with the Fisheries Service in August 2022, noting that the statute leaves “room for agency discretion.” Yet Judge Justin Walker dissented.

“Did Congress authorize the National Marine Fisheries Service to make herring fishermen in the Atlantic pay the wages of federal monitors who inspect them at sea?” he asks in his dissent. “Congress unambiguously did not.”

“Fishing is a hard way to earn a living,” he notes. While “Congress can make profitable fishing even harder by forcing fishermen to spend a fifth of their revenue on the wages of federal monitors embedded by regulation onto their ships,” it has not done so. “Until Congress does that, the Fisheries Service cannot.”

Advancing American Freedom filed the amicus brief on Monday, representing itself and ten other conservative organizations. Eagle Forum, the National Center for Public Policy Research, Project 21 Black Leadership Network, Students for Life of America, and Young America’s Foundation joined the brief.

The brief begins by quoting the Declaration of Independence, noting that the Founders faulted King George IIIfor erecting “New Offices… to harass” them “and eat out their substance.”

“Here, a New England fishing business is threatened with insolvency because a Federal agency seeks to swarm the industry with bureaucrats to consume the proceeds of some20% of the daily catch,” the petitioners write. “Bureaucracies that have grown smug and fat through Chevron deference should reacquaint themselves with their country’s history.”

“This case presents the question of Chevron deference dead on without any need to tack, offering an excellent opportunity to abandon this sinking ship and to offer lower courts a more seaworthy vessel for judicial review,” the petitioners write.

Conservative Supreme Court justices have criticized Chevron deference in recent years. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurrence in Michigan v. EPA (2015) that Chevron “wrests from Courts the ultimate interpretative authority ‘to say what the law is,’ and hands it over to” the executive branch. Justice Neil Gorsuchwrote last fall that the court should acknowledge “that Chevron did not undo, and could not have undone, the judicial duty to provide an independent judgment of the law’s meaning.”

Federal agencies have used Chevron deference to justify many controversial policies.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, President Joe Biden directed his administration to “protect and expand access to abortion care.” Following the prompting of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued guidance claiming to find an abortion mandate in a law that had never been interpreted as mandating abortion.

The federal agency interpreted the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which requires health care providers to provide “stabilizing treatment” in certain circumstances, as mandating abortion. If a health care provider determines that abortion is necessary to protect the mother’s life, he or she must either perform the abortion or refer the woman to a medical facility that would perform it, regardless of the relevant state law.

Advancing American Freedom, representing 25 other conservative and pro-life groups, filed an amicus brief challenging this interpretation of the law. The brief argues that this interpretation “would expand the meaning of the 1986 statute to include abortions as a form of treatment and would illegally overwrite legitimate state laws designed to protect women and the unborn.”

As in Loper Bright, Advancing American Freedom urges the Supreme Court to overturn Chevron.

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Portrait of Tyler O'Neil

@Tyler2ONeil

Tyler O'Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of "Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center."

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/546848-pence-launches-conservative-political-group/

rev dr pension wheeler and bernhardt

former Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday announced the creation of a new political advocacy group,

his latest step to remain involved in the conservative movement as he plots out his political future.

Pence launched Advancing American Freedom, while opposing the Biden administration’s agenda. Advancing American Freedom plans to build on the success of the last four years by promoting traditional Conservative values and promoting the successful policies of the Trump Administration,” Pence said in a statement. “Conservatives will not stand idly by as the radical Left and the new administration attempt to threaten America’s standing as the greatest Nation in the world with their destructive policies.”

The nonprofit advocacy group will be advised by several former Trump administration officials and prominent leaders in the conservative movement. Kellyanne Conway, Larry Kudlow, Russ Vought, Seema Verma, Andrew Wheeler, Robert Lighthizer and David Bernhardt are among the former Trump officials on its advisory board.

The group will advocate for policies focused on three areas: The economy, foreign policy and “American liberties” like school choice and anti-abortion policies.

The launch of the advocacy group is Pence’s latest bid to remain a key player in conservative politics. Since leaving office, he has joined the Heritage Foundation as a distinguished visiting fellow where he has a regular column and podcast, and he also joined formerWisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) Young America’s Foundation as a scholar.

Pence is expected to speak later this month in South Carolina in his first speech since leaving office.

The Washington Examiner reported that the new advocacy group comes with the support of former President Trump, who has patched things up with Pence after attacking his former vice president for refusing to illegally subvert the certification of the Electoral College results on Jan. 6. Pence was the target of threats when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol that day, and he was taken away to a secure location when rioters entered the complex.

The former vice president is known to be interested in running for president in 2024, but the end of his tenure has raised questions about whether he would be embraced by Trump supporters. Other former Trump administration officials, such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, are also likely to launch presidential bids.

TAGS 2024 ELECTION ANDREW WHEELER CONSERVATIVE POLITICS DONALD TRUMP KELLYANNE CONWAY LARRY KUDLOW MIKE PENCE MIKE POMPEO NIKKI HALEY ROBERT LIGHTHIZER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

BACK 4 22

bad cide bak

RON ROBINSON: President of Young America's Foundation; NOTE NOT YAF

they merged 2011; Mi reboot yaf alt right

board member of Citizens United; board member of the American Conservative Union

ding dong?

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/546848-pence-launches-conservative-political-group/

rev dr pension wheeler and bernhardt

former Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday announced the creation of a new political advocacy group,

his latest step to remain involved in the conservative movement as he plots out his political future.

The group will advocate for policies focused on three areas: The economy, foreign policy and “American liberties” like school choice and anti-abortion policies.

The launch of the advocacy group is Pence’s latest bid to remain a key player in conservative politics. Since leaving office, he has joined the Heritage Foundation as a distinguished visiting fellow where he has a regular column and podcast, and he also joined former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) Young America’s Foundation as a scholar.

Pence is expected to speak later this month in South Carolina in his first speech since leaving office.

TAGS 2024 ELECTION ANDREW WHEELER CONSERVATIVE POLITICS DONALD TRUMP KELLYANNE CONWAY LARRY KUDLOW MIKE PENCE MIKE POMPEO NIKKI HALEY ROBERT LIGHTHIZER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

pensiOn plan

no lnx

Walker’s New Job Will Pay Plenty

National group he will run has lots of money. But Walker won’t be able to run for office.

By Bruce Murphy - Jul 15th, 2019

The Scott Walker era is over in Wisconsin.

After threatening to run for either governor or senator in Wisconsin in upcoming elections, Walker has announced he will be taking a job as president of the Young America’s Foundation, a national non-profit based in the Washington D.C. area (northern Virginia) that works to promote conservative ideas among young people and is perhaps best known for running the Reagan Ranch.

“This would preclude me from running for governor in this next cycle or running for the U.S. Senate if Ron Johnson’s seat is open,” Walker told the Journal Sentinel. “I won’t be engaged in anything else. This will be my sole occupation.”

That’s because it’s a full-time job and Walker agreed to serve in the position for four years. But he won’t be starting the job until January 2021, when the group’s current president, Ron Robinson, steps down after more than 40 years.

Walker has campaigned for political office in 15 elections over 29 years. Why would he agree to abandon his political hopes, which still seemed to be burning as hotly as ever, and wait that long for this position?

Walker told the newspaper that he and his wife, Tonette, have spent “a lot of time thinking about and praying about” the move. “But it just feels like God’s calling us to take on this mission.”

But the money he will earn might also have something to do with his decision. Walker’s past financial disclosure statements show he’s not a wealthy man. Going into his 2016 reelection campaign for governor Walker “reported a Barclays credit card with a balance of $10,000 to $15,000 at a high interest rate of 27.2 percent; a Bank of America credit card also with debt of $10,000 to $15,000; and federal loans of up to $250,000 to pay for college for his two sons,” as Politico reported.

The salary for his current job, as fundraising chairman for the National Republican Redistricting Trust, is not known, but the likely compensation for the job with Young America’s Foundation will be quite lucrative. The group’s most recent federal tax form, for 2017, shows that Robinson earned slightly more $1 million a year in total compensation.

The group is very well funded, with total assets of $69.5 million in 2017, and a $23.7 million annual budget, with $5.9 million of that going to salaries and expenses. The group had some $24 million in investments, which earned $2.7 million in investment income in 2017.

The intended use of the endowment funds, the group notes on its tax form, is to support its program activities, including the Reagan Ranch, National Journalism Center and national conservative student programs and seminars.

Young America’s Foundation calls itself “the principal outreach organization of the Conservative Movement.” Founded in 1977, it merged in 2011 with Young Americans for Freedom, a group launched in 1960 by conservative icon, William F. Buckley. The group has been active in battles over speech at universities and in sending conservative speakers to college campuses.

PRA:

From Red Menace to the Pink, Green, and Lavender Subversives

Campus Counter-subversion

At the 1989 Conservative Political Action Conference counter- subversion star J. Michael Waller spoke at a student workshop on conducting "Opposition Research." At the workshop a pamphlet published by the Young Americans for Freedom was distributed. Titled "List of Un-American Organizations on Our College Campuses" the 15-page booklet is dedicated to "Uncle Joe (1908-1957)" and fulfills its McCarthyist heritage by its blacklist-style smears of CISPES, United Campuses Against Nuclear War, Communist Party USA, Oxfam America, Trans Africa, Washington Office on Africa, United States Student Association, and a "Sandinista Support Network" including Witness for Peace, Nicaragua Network and TecNica.

According to the pamphlet:

=== "With Congress and the FBI no longer able to investigate anti-American activities on the college campuses, it has increasingly become the responsibility of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) to keep watch over those groups who desire to undermine America. === "While YAF was able to secretly monitor Leftist groups for the last several years, a recent string of newspaper articles and a television documentary have appeared, blowing YAF's cover.

The pamphlet also archly warns that it hopes to provide:

=== "a basic idea of the terrible threat these Hard- Left groups pose to our way of life. Many of these groups take their orders directly from a hostile foreign power and all of them are entrenched on at least one of the college campuses in your community.

Corporate Security

https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2019/06/27/conservative_philanthropy_in_higher_education.pdf

...

CASE V: UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT GROUPS

Although the Federalist Society and conservative domination of the legal system represent conservative philanthropy’s most consequential achievements, other kinds of higher education philanthropy have contributed to right-wing political success. Conservative activists and philanthropists have underwritten right-wing undergraduate student activism that advocates free market ideology on college campuses. One of the earliest organized efforts was Young Americans for Freedom, founded by a group of some 90 young activists at conservative publisher William F. Buckley Jr.’s Connecticut estate in September 1960.55 (Young Americans for Freedom is not to be confused with Young America’s Foundation, discussed below. For clarity, I refer to both organizations by their full names).

Typically portrayed in the literature as a right-wing analogue of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Young Americans for Freedom was in fact largely reliant on existing power centers within the nascent American conservative movement for organizational and financial support.56

Although Young Americans for Freedom predated the rise of dedicated conservative philanthropic giving by nearly a decade, it provided an important blueprint for the success of subsequent generations of conservative student activism. Young Americans for Freedom was a conservative mass-membership organization that owed its successes to its closeness to existing conservative organizations, institutions, and funders, in particular the National Review, William F. Buckley Jr., and Martin Liebman, a public relations luminary and direct mail pioneer. These older conservatives cultivated Young Americans for Freedom’s founding members to serve as movement leaders. Douglas Caddy, for instance, an early Young Americans for Freedom activist, wrote for conservative publications while an undergraduate at Georgetown and later took a position at Liebman’s public relations firm, where he worked as a full-time organizer for Young Americans for Freedom. Although not as substantial as later organized philanthropic efforts, support for Young Americans for Freedom established a blueprint for future conservative student activism, above all the importance of a pipeline for conservative student leadership to move through.57

In fact, Young Americans for Freedom’s eventual inability to provide such a career pipeline under the Nixon administration limited its influence.58 Large-scale philanthropic support for conservative student organizations on campus accelerated in the 1970s alongside the proliferation of available funding for conservative institution-building writ large. Compared with the scholarship on Young Americans for Freedom, there is a considerable gap in the scholarly literature on post-1970s conservative student groups and their funders. One of the few exceptions is the work of sociologists Amy J. Binder and Kate Wood, Becoming Right: How Campuses Shape Young Conservatives, which provides a good introduction to several major conservative student activist groups in the 2000s, including Young America’s Foundation, the Leadership Institute, and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). 59

Binder and Wood distinguish between the “populist” Leadership Institute and Young America’s Foundation, which focus mainly on cultivating firebrand conservative activists, and more “refined” and elitist organizations like ISI, although functionally these distinctions can be blurred. Most of the detail from Wood and Binder’s book comes from college students, organizers for conservative groups, and senior officials, all of whom emphasize the importance of financing. Groups like Young America’s Foundation and the Leadership Institute essentially function as conduits for conservative foundation money to be distributed to campus activists. In 2014 alone Young America’s Foundation controlled more than $59 million in assets and distributed nearly $23 million in funds.60

Its major donors include the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation (Richard’s daughter-in-law, Betsy, is the current secretary of education in the Trump administration), Charles and David Koch, the Bradley Foundation, and the Olin family (distinct from the Olin Foundation, which closed its doors in 2005).61

Young America’s Foundation often supports campus activists by underwriting the speaking fees, transport, and hotel costs of conservative and/or pro–free market speakers on campus, and by subsidizing conferences and networking opportunities for conservative campus activists.62

The Leadership Institute has a similar mission and similar funding sources, and actively seeks to support conservative campus-based groups and, above all, campus publications. Alumni of conservative campus newspapers who have gone on to prominent positions in conservative and mainstream media include New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat (Harvard Salient), National Review writers Rich Lowry

(Virginia Advocate), Jay Nordlinger (Harvard Salient), and Ramesh Ponnuru (Princeton Tory), syndicated columnist and far-right political figure Ann Coulter (Cornell Review), talk show host Laura Ingraham (Dartmouth Review), Washington Free Beacon editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti (Columbia Daily Spectator), QVC network president Michael George (Northwestern Review), and Silicon Valley tycoon Peter Thiel (Stanford Review).63

Binder and Wood quote a pseudonymous student at a satellite campus of a land-grant university in the western United States, who told them that “[Leadership Institute] contacted him out of the blue [and] immediately offered him $750 for use on his newspaper.”64 It should also be noted that Young America’s Foundation and Leadership Institute alumni have gone on to prominent positions in the American Right in the 2010s, including White House advisor and architect of the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policy Stephen Miller (Young America’s Foundation) and media provocateur James O’Keefe (Leadership Institute). 65

This poses another counterfactual: would a similar conservative leadership cadre have developed absent support from organizations like Young America’s Foundation and the Leadership Institute? Ultimately, it seems unlikely that conservative organizations operating independently on college campuses without any kind of overarching political and financial coordination would have developed such a wide-ranging and politically disciplined leadership class. For instance, the broad support that conservative philanthropy has provided to conservative firebrand Dinesh D’Souza, now a bestselling author, suggests that a vibrant conservative ecosystem, both on and off campus, is crucial for cultivating conservative leaders. The Olin Foundation and the Institute for Educational Affairs first supported D’Souza through his right-wing campus newspaper, Dartmouth Review, in the early 1980s. After graduating from Dartmouth, D’Souza secured a John M. Olin Fellowship at the American Enterprise Institute, where he helped popularize the phrase “political correctness” to decry early 1990s campus culture. It seems fair to say that D’Souza owes much of his success to Olin, which can likely be said for many lesser-known conservative thinkers and writers who have reliably promoted free enterprise and pro-capitalist views.66

notes: 54Maxine Joselow, “Is George Mason the New Trump U?” E&E News, July 17, 2018, https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060089361; “Tracking Deregulation in the Trump Era,” Brookings Institution, January 16, 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/interactives/tracking-deregulation-in-the-trumpera/. 55 There are three scholarly treatments of Young Americans for Freedom by historians. These are Gregory L. Schneider’s Cadres for Conservatism: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of the Contemporary Right (New York: New York University Press, 1999), John A. Andrew’s The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997), and sociologist Rebecca E. Klatch’s A Generation Divided: The New Left, the New Right, and the 1960s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). There are also a handful of accounts from conservative pundits involved in Young Americans for Freedom, notably William F. Buckley Jr.’s Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater (New York: Basic Books, 2008) and Wayne J. Thorburn’s (former executive director of Young Americans for Freedom) A Generation Awakes: Young Americans for Freedom and the Creation of the Conservative Movement (Ottawa, IL: Jameson Books, 2010). ]]

It should also be noted that Young America’s Foundation and Leadership Institute alumni have gone on to prominent positions in the American Right in the 2010s, including White House advisor and architect of the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policy Stephen Miller (Young America’s Foundation) and media provocateur James O’Keefe (Leadership Institute). 65

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A survey of the literature on conservative philanthropy in higher education yields the following key themes: The importance of dense networks to achieve immediate and long-term goals. Michael Joyce, a senior official at the Olin Foundation and later the head of the Bradley Foundation, called this the “wine collection” effect; I refer to it as the career pipeline. This pipeline is a way for foundations to invest in conservative figures when they are students or scholars, who mature and eventually contribute to rightwing politics off campus.67

This was the Olin Foundation’s stated goal when it supported writers and activists like Dinesh D’Souza. But it was also a goal of institution-building on college campuses. Multiple foundations funded overlapping efforts at colleges and universities across the United States to establish centers for right-wing thought, and those efforts operated cumulatively over time. The creation of a center of conservative economic thought at the University of Chicago allowed for future successes; even failed attempts like Manne’s entrepreneurship at Rochester and Emory reaped results under different circumstances at George Mason.

The establishment of conservative student groups, from the Federalist Society to undergraduate conservative newspapers, provided a pipeline of talent to these institutions and, in the case of the Federalist Society, eventually provided financial support. Identifying faculty organizational entrepreneurs and sympathetic administrators. From an operational standpoint, this was a critical component of the eventual establishment of conservative centers on campus. When any of the three ingredients (dense networks of donors, dedicated organizational entrepreneurs among faculty, and a sympathetic administration) were lacking—as at the University of Rochester in the 1960s and Emory University in the 1980s—the institution-building efforts failed.

When those three ingredients were present, as they were at Harvard in the late 1980s and George Mason University since the 1970s, the transformations could be profound. The Koch network at George Mason would never have been as successful as it has been without the collaboration of faculty and administrators. A corollary to this is the importance of overcoming institutional resistance. There has been tremendous resistance in the academy to right-wing philanthropy. Three of the right-wing efforts discussed in this review—at the University of Chicago in the 1940s, the University of Rochester in the 1960s, and Emory University in the 1980s—were unsuccessful because of faculty or administration resistance; the successes were possible when support from faculty and, above all, administration was forthcoming.

http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/rightwing-billionaires-are-intentionally-funding-hate-speech-college-campuses

On March 2, eugenicist Charles Murray attempted to give a lecture at Middlebury College in Vermont, with little success. Protesters shouted him down and he was sequestered in another room to answer questions over a livestream. Afterwards, Murray left the campus, but not before protesters blocked his car and injured a professor.

Labeled a white nationalist by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Murray is the author of the 1994 book The Bell Curve, in which he argues that inequalities of race, gender and income exist because white men are smarter and genetically superior to black people, Latinos, women and the poor. Numerous academics have panned the book for its faulty reasoning and unprovable points.

So why is someone with such fringe ideas invited to speak on college campuses, and who pays for it? It’s unlikely that many university departments would invite such an obviously racist and discredited figure. While co-presenting the Murray talk, the political science department did not invite Murray, nor did it contribute any funding for the event. The Middlebury student chapter of a far-right libertarian think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, asked him to speak, and AEI picked up the tab.

Murray is not the only controversial guest making the college circuit on a think tank’s dime. Another conservative nonprofit, Young America’s Foundation, also establishes student chapters at numerous universities and sends bigoted scholars and lecturers including Ann Coulter, David Horowitz and Ted Nugent to speak at their campus events free of charge. Bankrolling these nonprofits are conservative mega-donors including Charles and David Koch and the DeVos family, who by funding the organizations enable hate speech at institutions of higher education.

In addition, a production company connected to the right-wing billionaire Mercer family facilitated at least one college speaking gig of Milo Yiannopoulos, the former Breitbart News editor known for his racist, sexist, Islamophobic and anti-transgender vitriol.

Sending Murray to colleges

Murray has been a scholar at AEI since 1990, four years before The Bell Curve was published. In 2013, AEI founded its college chapter program, and now there are “executive councils” at more than 80 colleges and universities. At a leadership training program available to executive council members this summer, Murray is teaching a course called “The Building Blocks of Human Flourishing.”

Murray is a frequent invitee of AEI campus groups. He’s now touring the country to talk about his 2012 book on the "state of white America” and gave talks at Duke University, Columbia, NYU, the University of Notre Dame and Villanova University in late March.

Regarding the recent Murray talk at Middlebury, AEI Executive Council member Alexander Khan told the Washington Post, “Our goal was not to create a controversy, but to start a discussion and a dialogue.” Khan did not return requests for comment.

Dissenters see things differently. Nearly 500 Middlebury alumni wrote a letter to the college preceding Murray’s attempted talk, saying that traditional free speech arguments fall flat in justifying his appearance. Murray’s shoddy theories are “the same thinking that motivates eugenics and the genocidal white supremacist ideologies which are enjoying a popular resurgence under the new presidential administration.”

AEI declined to comment for this story, but other reports claim that in sponsoring Murray’s talk, the nonprofit is paying Murray’s speaker fee directly.

AEI gets most of its funding from the foundations of wealthy conservatives and a pass-through group meant to shield the identity of these very donors. Donors Capital Fund, to which conservative mega-donors such as the Koch, DeVos and Bradley families donate, is AEI’s biggest funder at nearly $23 million through 2014, according to ConservativeTransparency.org. The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, a major funder of many conservative groups, is close behind, and foundations run by Charles Koch and Richard and Helen DeVos, the parents of Education Sec. Betsy DeVos, have given more than $1 million each to AEI.

Piling on the hate speech: Young America’s Foundation

A similarly funded and probably even more conservative nonprofit, Young America’s Foundation, works to direct “public education on the ideas of individual freedom, a strong national defense, free enterprise [and] traditional values and leadership,” according to its most recent publicly available tax form. YAF spent roughly half of its 2015 budget of $17.7 million on conference and lecture programs including “lectures on college campuses” and student chapters.

Just like AEI, YAF has student chapters at colleges and universities around the nation. These “Young Americans for Freedom” chapters, which now exist at numerous institutions of higher learning as well as at high schools, can seek “logistical and financial assistance [from YAF] to host a big-name conservative speaker.”

“Radical feminists, big government bureaucrats, fringe environmentalists, race-baiters, Islamo-fascists, and run of the mill leftists are distraught that [YAF chapters] would even think about promoting conservative ideas,” the website states.

YAF’s roster of more than 90 speakers features several notable bigots including Coulter, Horowitz and Nugent. YAF farms out its speakers at a quick pace, with roughly one event per day during the final three weeks of April.

Some campuses are having quite the year. For example, after a Yiannopoulos event that was canceled because a protest got out of hand, UCBerkeley had noted Islamophobe Horowitz speak on April 12 and will host Coulter on April 27.

“We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity,” wrote Coulter in the National Review shortly after the 9/11 attacks, referring to allies of the 9/11 terrorists. An alumna of the YAF National Journalism Center’s internship program, she often makes headlines for her outrageous racist and anti-Muslim statements and regularly writes for the white nationalist website VDARE.

YAF is providing “a large portion of the funding to bring Coulter to Berkeley” as well as “logistical support before the event as well as on-the-ground support from experienced staff.”

Horowitz is a former leftist who took a hard-right turn decades ago and has now earned the titles of “anti-immigrant” and “anti-Muslim extremist” from the Southern Poverty Law Center. He runs the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which the SPLC calls “the premier financier of anti-Muslim voices and radical ideologies.”

“Somewhere between 150 million and 750 million Muslims support a holy war against Christians, Jews, and other Muslims who don’t happen to believe in the Quran according to Bin Laden,” Horowitz erroneously claimed in 2007.

Among the particularly bigoted YAF speakers is anti-Muslim extremist Robert Spencer, who runs the hate site Jihad Watch, a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He has said, “[T]raditional Islam itself is not moderate or peaceful. It is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers.”

YAF speaker Matt Walsh, an anti-LGBTQ “Christian columnist and political incendiary” for Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, has called transgender people mentally ill and perverted and written that “‘transgender’ propaganda is wrong…demented…evil...dangerous [and] abusive.”

Also on the YAF roster is musician and activist Ted Nugent, whose racist comments know no bounds. In 2014, he called the 44th president “a Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel [and] ACORN community organizer gangster.”

It’s not just the YAF speakers who have racist and white nationalist leanings. Current YAF president Ron Robinson and board member James B. Taylor ran a now-inactive political action committee called America’s PAC, which donated to the white nationalist Martel Society and consistently contributed to the campaigns of Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King, a white nationalist who has recently cheered far-right European nationalists. Taylor is also former president of the National Policy Institute, which is now run by noted neo-Nazi and “alt-right” leader Richard Spencer.

YAF founded the Conservative Political Action Conference, a major right-wing event that occurs every year. CPAC rescinded its invitation to 2017 keynote speaker Yiannopoulos after videos in which he defends pedophilia surfaced, although his long record of racist, sexist and xenophobic rants was apparently not a problem.

The Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation is by far the biggest donor to YAF, and the Donors Capital Fund and its affiliate, Donors Trust, are also big contributors. The Bradley Foundation, three Koch family foundations and a foundation of the wealthy Mercer family have also given large donations.

YAF did not return a request for comment.

An ‘alt-right’ provocateur on campus

When Yiannopoulos, known for his wide-ranging hate speech, spoke at the University of Washington, the College Republicans group that had invited him had to raise money to cover increased security, as Yiannopoulos’ events often attract large protests. The student group raised over $12,000 from a GoFundMe campaign organized by its president, and the event got the green light.

Yiannopoulos charged no speaking fee. A performance agreement obtained by MuckRock shows that Glittering Steel, the production company owned by white nationalist Trump adviser Steve Bannon and connected to the conservative Mercer family, wrote the contract. Yiannopoulos told AlterNet his speaking fee was $0 “on every stop of the Dangerous Faggot Tour.” He did not directly answer questions about whether a private citizen or company paid his speaking fees behind the scenes and how exactly Glittering Steel was involved.

“Make America Number 1,” the super PAC of billionaire investor Robert Mercer, paid Glittering Steel nearly $1 million last year. Mercer is a part owner of Breitbart News, which Bannon ran for four years before joining the Trump campaign last August. The hedge fund magnate was a big part of Trump’s victory, and his daughter Rebekah was on the Trump transition team.

Yiannopoulos’ Berkeley event was sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, according to Horowitz’s online magazine, and was set to launch a joint campaign against sanctuary campuses. The Berkeley College Republicans had to provide more than $6,000 for increased security. An “anonymous donor” took care of part of that fee “with two conditions: that he remain anonymous and that the event occur.”

The Freedom Center did not respond to a request for comment.

Critical members of the campaign have long and rich histories with Young America’s Foundation, pouring efforts into our conservative youth movement for decades prior to this cycle. Key Foundation allies involved with the campaign include Kellyanne Conway, who has served as the Foundation’s pollster for many years, Steve Bannon, who has collaborated with the Foundation to create a number of powerful films, Vice President-elect Mike Pence, a frequent speaker at Foundation conferences and events, Reagan Ranch Board of Governors member Rebekah Mercer, and David Bossie, an alumnus of Foundation programs.

Ron Robinson

Like so many of his cohorts, Ron Robinson is a Reaganite. He served as an advisor to the United States Department of Education during the Reagan Administration and holds Reagan in the highest regard. Currently, he serves as Director for Citizens United, and has been the President of the Young Americans Foundation for over thirty years.

Time Magazine referred to Robinson as “one of the seasoned generals of the right,” who is leading the “diverse and well-funded” generation of conservatives who are “winning battles on campus.”

He is the co-author of “Funding Fathers: The Unsung Heroes of the Conservative Movement, Published, of course, by the right-wing Regnery Publishing Company.

Not surprisingly, Robinson served as a Trustee at the Philadelphia Society, a membership only organization that has had considerable influence over the Conservative Movement in this country. He currently serves as a Trustee for the Phillips Foundation, a group that advances Constitutional principles and American Values. The Phillips Foundation awards the annual Reagan Scholarship. Additionally, he is the Vice President of the Free Speech Defense and Education Fund. The FSDEF is noted for its assistance to the Christian Action Network.

Robinson is married to Michelle Easton who is the founder and president of the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank that seeks to advance women through conservative ideas.

Robinson has all of the credentials and contacts that make him a valuable asset to Citizens United.

crnc scammed sr citizens with scary direct mail: Response Dynamics:

Oct-24-04 12:04 PM by starroute

Searching on Response Dynamics also led to the website of another direct-mail solicitation firm, Hogan, Schenk, & Paul, whose founder Amy Paul is described as having previously worked for both Response Dynamics, Inc. and Bruce W. Eberle & Associates. In the sidebar is an endorsement of Paul and her partners by a man named Ron Robinson, who is associated with Floyd Brown, producer of the Willie Horton ad. Robinson is director of Citizens United, of which Brown is chairman, and is president of Young America's Foundation, of which Brown is executive director.

Ronald E. (Ron) Robinson has been the president of the Young America’s Foundation for over thirty years [1]. He is also a director and founding member ofCitizens United[2] and a director of the American Conservative Union[3]. Most recently, Mr. Robinson has become a board member of the new conservative investigative research organization, the Government Accountability Institute[4].

Resources and articles

References

Jump up↑ "American Conservative Union: Board of Directors", organization website, accessed October 2012

Jump up↑ "Citizens United: Who We Are", organizational website, accessed October 2012,

Jump up↑ "American Conservative Union: Board of Directors", organization website, accessed October 2012

Jump up↑ "g-a-i team", organizational website, accessed October 2012

Related SourceWatch articles

American Sovereignty Action Project

Categories: Politics (U.S.)Elections (U.S.)

http://www.yaf.org/ronrobinson.aspx

Ron Robinson, President

Video: How does the media treat conservatives?

Ron Robinson has served as Young America’s Foundation's president for more than three decades. Time magazine wrote that Young America’s “[F]oundation—run by a former Reagan Administration advisor, Ron Robinson—is now the nation’s largest advocacy group devoted to student politics.” Time referred to Robinson as one of the “seasoned generals of the right” who is leading the “diverse and well funded” generation of conservatives who are “winning battles on campus.”

Insight Magazine reported that under Robinson’s leadership, “Young America’s Foundation is leading the conservative charge to win the hearts and minds of impressionable college-age students…Indeed, the Foundation organizes so many programs on so many campuses that it’s difficult to find a conservative activist younger than 30 who hasn’t had some contact with its activities.”

Robinson has led the Foundation through two successful landmark Supreme Court victories for student rights,

[what are they?]

the inauguration and development of the National Conservative Student Conference and the National High School Leadership Conference held annually in Washington; and the Foundation’s effort to save Ronald Reagan’s ranch.

Robinson is a native of Buffalo, New York. He received a bachelors of arts degree in political science at Canisius College and a juris doctor degree at The Catholic University of America. Robinson served as executive director of Young Americans for Freedom (1977-79), president of the United States Youth Council (1983-85), and president of the International Youth Year Commission (1983-84). He was an advisor to the U.S. Department of Education during the Reagan administration. He is also co-author of Funding Fathers: The Unsung Heroes of the Conservative Movement (Regnery, 2008).

Robinson served as a trustee of the Philadelphia Society, is currently a trustee of The Phillips Foundation, a director of Citizens United and the Citizens United Foundation, a director of the American Conservative Union, and he is the vice-president of the Free Speech Defense and Education Fund. He also serves on the boards of the Strong Charitable Trust and the D.J. Findley Family Foundation.

Robinson is a member of the Virginia and U. S. Supreme Court Bars and resides with his wife, Michelle Easton, president of the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, in Reston, Virginia.

The Staff and Board

National Headquarters Staff

Ron Robinson, President

Kimberly Martin Begg Esq., Vice President and General Counsel

Patrick X. Coyle, Vice President

Nicole Hoplin, Vice President

Darla Anzalone, Director of Communications

Jason Barbour, Director of Development

Cheri Cerame, Director of Information Technology

Ingrid Chowrimootoo, Assistant to the Director of Communications

Amy de Venoge, Program Officer-Graphic Design

Tamara Dypsky, Accounting Manager

Dede Hamilton, Front Office Manager

Jessica Jensen, Assistant to the President/Editor, Libertas

Raj Kannappan, Program Officer - YAF Chapter Services

Veronica Kosinski, Controller

Danielle Lee, Deputy Director of Communications

Richard Leed, Director of Finance

Chris Miranda, Director of Marketing

Stuart Moriarty, Assistant to the Director of Communications

Ashley Pratte, Spokeswoman

Josh Rogers, Assistant to the Director of Communications

Morgan Shield Esq., Staff Attorney

Katie Taran, Director of Conferences

Savonia Vassel, Development Officer

Ashley Weaver, Director of Alumni Relations

Reagan Ranch Staff

Andrew Coffin, Vice President and Director of the Reagan Ranch

Ben Afshar, Development Officer

Danielle Behler, Development Officer

Amy Brooker, Assistant to the Director of the Reagan Ranch

Marilyn Fisher, Ranch Curator

Brent Kilpper, Physical Resources Director

Brendan Pringle, Development Officer

Caroline Corazza, Development Officer

George Thompson, Ranch Manager

Ellen Withey, Welcome Desk Officer

Katie Devlin, Sarah T. Hermann Intern Scholar

Julia DiBernardo, Sarah T. Hermann Intern Scholar

National Journalism Center

Kirby Wilbur, Executive Director

Hannah Jackman, Program Director

Emily Hoosier, Program Officer

Dr. Stephen Smoot, Director of Academic Programs

Board of Directors

Ron Robinson, President of the Board

Ronald Pearson, Vice President of the Board

Frank Donatelli, Secretary and Treasurer of the Board

T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr.

Wynton C. Hall

Thomas L. Phillips, Director Emeritus

Peter Schweizer

James B. Taylor

Reagan Ranch Board of Governors

Frank Donatelli, Chairman

Attorney General Edwin Meese, Co-Chairman

Robert F. Agostinelli

Governor George Allen, Reagan Ranch Presidential Scholar

John Barletta

Dr. Suzanne Becker

Lisa M. Buestrin

Robert Cummins

Becky Norton Dunlop

Robert Giuffra, Jr.

Timothy S. Goeglein

Ambassador Patricia L. Herbold

Eric and Nicole Hoplin

Marty Irving

Harold Knapheide

Mark Larson

Rebekah Mercer

Al Moore

Doug & Pat Perry

Thomas Phillips

Rear Admiral JJ Quinn

Fred & Ruth Sacher

Richard & Jane Schwartz

Craig Shirley

Owen & Bernadette Casey Smith

Barbara S. Waddell

National Journalism Center Board of Governors

T. Kenneth Cribb, Chairman

Thomas Phillips, Chairman Emeritus

Kellyanne Conway

Rich Lowry

Alex Marlow

Alex Mooney

Katie Pavlich

Ron Pearson

Matt Robinson

Tom Winter

Young Americans for Freedom Board of Governors

Michael Jones, Chairman

Chris Bedford

Nathan Brand

Patrick X Coyle, Executive Director

Brad Marks

Samuel Settle

Tyler Trumbac

T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr., a native of South Carolina. He received a B.A. from Washington and Lee University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Mr. Cribb was deputy to the chief counsel of the 1980 Reagan campaign. During the Reagan transition, he was deputy director of the Legal and Administrative Agencies Group, Office of the Executive Branch Management. He went on to serve the Reagan Administration for almost the entire eight years of its existence, beginning in 1981 as assistant director for the Office of Cabinet Affairs.

He served next as assistant counselor to the President, in which capacity he assisted Counselor Edwin Meese. When Mr. Meese became Attorney General, Mr. Cribb accompanied him to the Justice Department where he became counselor to the Attorney General of the United States. In 1987, Mr. Cribb returned to the White House as assistant to the President for domestic affairs and served in this position until the fall of 1988.

Ronald Pearson, Vice President

Ronald Pearson is president of Pearson & Pipkin, Inc., a political management and government relations consulting firm, and he also serves as vice president of Young America's Foundation's Board of Directors. Mr. Pearson also served as national treasurer of Young Americans for Freedom and was vice president of a major publishing company.

He was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and received a B.A. from Valparaiso University, an M.A. from the University of Notre Dame, and did postgraduate work at Brown University. Mr. Pearson was chief of staff to the late congressman John Ashbrook. He has been a consultant to many political campaigns and to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, as well as an expert consultant to various government bodies, including the Voice of America during the Reagan Administration.

Secretary/TReasurer

A long-time activist, Frank Donatelli is chairman of the Reagan Ranch Board of Governors and serves on Young America's Foundation's Board of Directors.

He is also executive vice president and director of Federal Public Affairs for McGuireWoods Consulting and serves as counsel to McGuireWoods LLP. Frank is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and the American University Law School.

During the 2008 presidential race, Senator John McCain tapped Frank to serve as deputy chairman of the GOP where he coordinated the RNC’s fundraising and organizing activities directly with the McCain-Palin presidential campaign.

His previous appointments have included serving as an Assistant to President Ronald Reagan for political and intergovernmental affairs and as deputy assistant to the President for public liaison at the White House. He served on White House Chief of Staff James Baker's team that negotiated presidential debates in 1984. Frank was also a senior advisor to Bob Dole in 1996 and represented his campaign in debate negotiations.

Frank has more than 20 years of experience in public policy advocacy and boasts substantial expertise in the legislative process. He has represented a wide variety of companies in such diverse areas as energy, taxes and trade, telecommunication, and Homeland Security and has provided strategic advice and policy guidance to many large companies and trade associations.

He has appeared on numerous public affairs programs on MSNBC, Fox News and CNN, and is a noted writer whose articles have been printed in the Washington Post, the Washington Times and the New York Daily News.

In 1992, Frank chaired the Christopher Columbus Quincentennery Commission which celebrated the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the New World. In March 2009, he was elected chairman of GOPAC, a group that assists GOP “rising stars” running for state and local office.

Thomas L. Phillips

In January of 1974, Thomas L. Phillips launched Phillips International, Inc. with two newsletters, three employees and a $1,000 investment.

From that entrepreneurial start-up, the company grew into one of the foremost print and on-line publishing firms in America with four subsidiaries and sales of more than $245 million. The firm produced widely respected newsletters and on-line information services for the consumer and business-to-business marketplaces. Tom sold the final Phillips International subsidiary in January of 2007.

Tom is founder and chairman of Eagle Publishing, Inc., America’s leading source of books and periodicals with a conservative, free-enterprise focus. Headquartered on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Eagle Publishing provides a full range of products and services with perspective and solutions favoring traditional values of free markets, limited government, and individual freedom.

Tom earned a B.A. in political science from Dartmouth College and an M.A. in journalism from The American University. He then held positions with two large national advertising agencies and a Washington, D.C., publishing firm.

Tom was a founding member of the Newsletter Publishers Association and served as president of the Association. In 989, he was honored as NPA "Publisher of the Year." In 1994, he was elected as the first member of the Newsletter Publishers Hall of Fame.

Tom is founder of The Phillips Foundation, a non-profit organization which sponsors two noteworthy programs: an annual fellowship program for young print journalists who work on a one-year writing project of their choosing,focusing on journalism supportive of American culture and a free society; and the Ronald Reagan College Leaders Scholarship Program which provides scholarships to outstanding undergraduate student leaders in the cause of freedom, American values, and constitutional principles.

In addition to Tom’s service on the Board of Directors of Young America’s Foundation, he chairs the Board of Governors of the National Journalism Center and is also a member of the Reagan Ranch Board of Governors. He is a member of the Advisory Board of The Claremont Institute. Tom was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Fund for American Studies and chairman of the Board of Visitors for the Institute on Political Journalism. He served for many years on the Board of Junior Achievement of the National Capital Area and on the Board of the Boy Scouts of America National Capital Area Council.

Peter Schweizer is the president of the Government Accountability Institute, the William J. Casey Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a member of Young America’s Foundation’s Board of Directors, and a bestselling author.

His most recent book is Throw Them All Out (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011). It was the subject of a feature on CBS’ 60 Minutes and is widely credited with impacting the passage of the STOCK Act, legislation to ban congressional insider trading which was signed into law in April 2012 by President Obama. The book spent seven weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list.

His other non-fiction books include Reagan’s War (Doubleday, 2002), which the Los Angeles Times called “a rousing and compelling case that Reagan’s personal and political odyssey…was central to bringing down the ‘evil empire.” He is also the co-author of The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty (Doubleday, 2004), Architects of Ruin (Harper, 2009), Victory (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994), Do As I Say (Not As I Do) (Doubleday, 2005), and Makers and Takers (Doubleday, 2008).

His academic books include Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement (Texas A&M University Press, 2006), The Reagan Presidency: Assessing the Man and His Legacy (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), and The Fall of The Wall: Reassessing the Causes and Consequences of the End of the Cold War (Hoover Institution Press, 2000). He was also a contributor to Living in the Eighties(Oxford University Press, 2008).

His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Review, and elsewhere. He has appeared on numerous radio and television programs.

Peter received his M.Phil. from Oxford University and his B.A. from The George Washington University. He lives in Florida with his wife and children.