Uihlein schlitz

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CA VOTER ID BS REFORM CA

The latest contribution, dated Aug. 4, brings the total Uihlein has donated to the campaign to $10.5 million-half of the $21 million raised so far by the initiative's backers led by Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, a San Diego Republican. Proposition 39, which leads in polls, is part of a national push by conservatives to require that voters provide proof that they're eligible to vote before ...

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sf chron --> yahoo

A megadonor Republican billionaire from Illinois has so far given $17 million to the effort to enact voter ID requirements in California, making him Prop. 39's biggest single backer.

Richard Uihlein, the heir to the Schlitz Brewing Company and the co-founder of a leading shipping and packaging company, has been a prominent Republican donor since the 1990s. This year alone, Uihlein has given more than $35 million to the Restoration of America PAC, a conservative super PAC. His shipping company, Uline, is based in Wisconsin, where Uihlein has also shelled out several millions so far this year to support the state's Republican Party.

Uihlein first donated $4 million to Prop 39 in December 2025. Two separate donations of $6.5 million followed in August and earlier this month, campaign finance records show. The next single-largest donation of about $1 million came from Reform California, Assembly Member Carl DeMaio's PAC. DeMaio, R-San Diego, is one of two Republican state lawmakers who filed Prop 39.

The measure, which will be on the ballot this November, would require California voters to show government-issued identification every time they vote in person. Those voting by mail - which is the vast majority of Californians - would have to confirm their identity by writing the last four digits of a government ID on ballot envelopes.

The proposed law follows some of the same objectives laid out in the Trump-supported "SAVE" America Act. That legislation failed but included its own voter ID regulations, proof of citizenship requirements and an end to most mail-in voting. President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have claimed, without evidence, that voter fraud is widespread and that voter ID is the solution.

Voting rights advocates, however, say creating documentation requirements could disenfranchise eligible voters and believe the measure is designed purposefully to suppress voting. California already requires a California driver's license, state-ID number or the last four digitals of a Social Security number to register to vote.

Under Prop 39, eligible voters could request a free voter ID card from the state, which is one reason the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office said the measure would cost state and local governments "tens of millions of dollars to low hundreds of millions of dollars" to implement.

Uihlein and his wife, Elizabeth Uihlein, are some of Trump's biggest financial supporters. The two are in their early 80s and Forbes puts their combined net worth at about $14 billion. During the 2024 campaign cycle, the couple gave about $139 million to MAGA-aligned candidates and campaigns. Richard Uihlein did not respond to a Chronicle request to discuss his donations to Prop 39. He has said he shares his father's conservative values.

The late Ed Uihlein supported politicians who embraced segregation during the Civil Rights Movement.

In 2018, the New York Times published a profile on the couple's donation history in an article titled "The Most Powerful Conservative Couple You've Never Heard Of." They rarely grant interviews but sent the Times a statement saying, "We care about our community and our country and choose to personally support candidates that share our policy beliefs."

Campaign finance records show Richard Uihlein has been a major supporter of the American Principles Project, which has run attack ads on abortion rights, transgender health care for minors and the teachings of "critical race theory." After the pandemic, he donated $50,000 to a campaign to recall four school board members in a small town in Wisconsin because of their support for COVID-19 safety protocols and "equity" training for teachers, according to online news outlet Urban Milwaukee.

He gave $800,000 to the "Safeguard Girls Sports" committee in Maine this year, making him its largest donor, according to the Portland Press Herald. The "Protect Girls Sports in Maine" initiative that will be on the ballot in Maine this November would bar transgender girls from participating in girls' sports and restrict transgender students' access to school bathrooms, locker rooms and changing areas.

A growing number of prominent Republicans are endorsing Democrats in 2026

The Uihleins have also put their money behind election deniers, ProPublica reported. They were the largest donors to a candidate for governor in Pennsylvanie who attended the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. They have given money to a Nevada official who said he opposed the certification of President Joe Biden's election victory. ProPublica uncovered internal documents from Super PAC Restoration of America, which said it aims to "get on God's side of the issues and stay there" and "punish leftists." Richard Uihlein is the PAC's main funder.

Voters are watching Prop 39 closely. In a PPIC California poll released last week, Prop 39 received the highest share of responses to the question "Which one of the 14 state propositions on the November 3 ballot are you most interested in?" with 23%. The poll found 43% of those surveyed support the measure, and 55% oppose.

Prop 39 was submitted by DeMaio and state Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach (Orange County). Adding the identification requirements would require an amendment to the state Constitution.

The ACLU of Northern California and the California Donor Table, a group that supports progressive candidates, have both donated to defeat the voter ID law. The opposition's top individual donors include Netflix founder Reed Hastings ($1 million) and his wife, Patty Quillin ($1.5 million) as well as philanthropist and Democratic donor Quinn Delaney ($1.5 million).

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Common Cause

https://www.commoncause.org › california › articles › right-leaning-billionaires-help-bankroll-california-voter-id-ballot-measure

Right-leaning billionaires help bankroll California voter ID ballot ...

Jul 13, 2026The top donor is Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein, who contributed $4 million. Uihlein and his wife, Elizabeth, were the fourth-largest donors to federal elections from 2023 to 2024, according to the nonpartisan campaign finance site OpenSecrets.

Yahoo

https://www.yahoo.com › news › politics › articles › meet-illinois-billionaire-whos-poured-204805361.html

Meet the Illinois billionaire who's poured $17M into Prop 39 ... - Yahoo

Sep 21, 2026The next single-largest donation of about $1 million came from Reform California, Assembly Member Carl DeMaio's PAC. DeMaio, R-San Diego, is one of two Republican state lawmakers who filed Prop 39.

San Francisco Chronicle

https://www.sfchronicle.com › politics › article › richard-uihlein-prop-39-22438880.php

Illinois billionaire pours $17M into California voter ID campaign

Sep 21, 2026Richard Uihlein, cofounder of a leading shipping and packaging company, has been a prominent Republican donor since the 1990s.

The Sacramento Bee

https://www.sacbee.com › news › politics-government › capitol-alert › article316461529.html

Billionaires fuel California voter ID Proposition 39 effort ...

Jul 13, 2026Uihlein and his wife, Elizabeth, were the fourth-largest donors to federal elections from 2023 to 2024, according to the nonpartisan campaign finance site Open Secrets.

AP News

https://apnews.com › article › california-voter-id-republican-funding-4247a4be55bc677c916eb4450b345db3

Why are out-of-state billionaires funding a California voter ID measure ...

Oct 7, 2026Uihlein is joined by Southern California businessman Steven Bray, who loaned the campaign more than $3 million and gave $50,000 outright. The right-wing political group Reform California, tech entrepreneurs Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and former Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presidential running mate Nicole Shanahan are also major donors.

PressReader.com

https://www.pressreader.com › usa › san-francisco-chronicle-late-edition › 20260923 › 281500758166799

Big donor backs ID measure with $17M - PressReader

Sep 23, 2026The ACLU of Northern California and the California Donor Table, a group that supports progressive candidates, have both donated to defeat the voter ID law. The opposition's top individual donors include Netflix founder Reed Hastings ($1 million) and his wife, Patty Quillin ($1.5 million) as well

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neo confed

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Sludge/Right Wing Watch reached out to the Leadership Institute for comment on this story via a contact form listed on its website and Witoslawski via Facebook Messenger, but received no response.

:{:{Other GOP megadonors in the Koch network have also helped fund the organizations linked to Magill and Witoslawski. From 2013 to 2017, shipping supplies magnate Richard Uhlein,}: the fourth-biggest federal political donor of 2018 and a patron of Koch-backed political groups, gave $1 million each to the Leadership Institute and IHS through his family foundation.

The family foundation of discount store magnate Art Pope, an IHS board member who co-founded the political nonprofit Americans for Prosperity with Charles and David Koch, gave over $1.6 million to IHS and $40,000 to FEE. The foundation of the parents of Education Sec. Betsy DeVos, gave $50,000 to the Leadership Institute from mid-2013 through mid-2018. DeVos’s in-laws have also attended Koch donor conferences.}:

“There is no question that the far right political world is radicalizing people into white nationalism and growing its ranks,” the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Beirich said. “Some of the GOP’s current positions on immigration are no different than those of white nationalists, so we shouldn’t be surprised. We even saw last week that a synagogue attacker followed this pathway, through conservative politics to Ben Shapiro and on to pure hatred. Unfortunately, this is becoming a more well worn path these days.”

Tags: Alt-Right money in politics white nationalism Foundation for Economic Education Identity Evropa Institute for Humane Studies Leadership Institute Young Americans for Liberty

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2022 pro publ 2x?

That Cardboard Box in Your Home Is Fueling Election Denial

Much of the cardboard and paper goods strewn about our homes — the mail-order boxes and grocery store bags — are sold by a single private company, with its name, Uline, stamped on the bottom. Few Americans know that a multibillion-dollar fortune made on those ubiquitous products is now fueling election deniers and other far-right candidates across the country.

Dick and Liz Uihlein of Illinois are the largest contributors to Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who attended the Jan. 6 rally and was linked to a prominent antisemite, and have given to Jim Marchant, the Nevada Secretary of State nominee who says he opposed the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020.

They are major funders to groups spreading election falsehoods, including Restoration of America, which, according to an internal document obtained by ProPublica, aims to “get on God’s side of the issues and stay there” and “punish leftists.”

Flush with profits from their shipping supply company, the Uihleins have emerged as the No. 1 federal campaign donors for Republicans ahead of the November elections, and the No. 2 donors overall behind liberal financier George Soros. The couple has spent at least $121 million on state and federal politics in the last two years alone, fighting taxes, unions, abortion rights and marijuana legalization.

From Minor to Major Donors

Modest donors a decade ago, the Uihleins have emerged as the top donor to federal Republican causes this cycle.

2009 – 2010

2021 – 2022

$25M

$5M

$50M

In 2021 to 2022, the Uihleins contributed over $60 million and ranked 1st

In 2009 to 2010, the Uihleins contributed $319,000 and ranked 34th

Source: OpenSecrets

Uline’s core business — selling boxes — is so boring there’s an entire Simpsons bit devoted to its dullness. But tax records obtained by ProPublica show the company, which is privately held and does not publicly disclose financial results, has experienced an astonishing boom.

The Uihleins, who make the vast majority of their money from the company, reported around $18 million in income in 2002, according to the records. That rocketed fortyfold, to $712 million, in 2018. Thanks to the pandemic-induced online shopping surge, Uline has grown even more since.

Uline Up

$750M

500M

Uihleins’ Income

250M

2002

2010

2018

Source: Data obtained by ProPublica

While the Uihleins rarely speak to the press — they didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story — they have become well known in political circles. But the explosion of the Uihleins’ wealth as well as the roots of their politics have not been well understood.

The German-American clan made their original fortune in the 19th century as owners of the Milwaukee brewery Schlitz. Family members were staples of the Chicago Tribune society pages. In 1917, Dick’s grandfather was identified as a millionaire in a Chicago Tribune humor item about how the wealthy man had fired an unqualified chauffeur.

When Dick and Liz Uihlein donated millions in recent years to the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action, they were following in a family tradition. Edgar J. Uihlein of Chicago was among the handful of largest donors to the original America First Committee, the aviator Charles Lindbergh’s group that opposed the United States’ entry into World War II. (It’s unclear whether that was Edgar Sr., Dick’s grandfather, or Edgar Jr., his father, who had just graduated from college.) While America First drew supporters from across the political spectrum, it was most associated with rightists. Uihlein’s donation was disclosed in 1941. Later that year, Lindbergh gave an openly antisemitic speech assailing Jewish influence.

When Edgar Uihlein Sr. died in 1956, his estate was valued at $4.8 million — more than $50 million in today’s dollars — and the money was left in a trust for his heirs, newspapers reported at the time.

Dick’s father, Edgar Uihlein Jr., who had started a plastics company after serving in the Navy during World War II, established himself as an important funder of far-right political groups in the 1960s.

A document from 1963 identifies Edgar Uihlein Jr. as on the National Finance Committee of the John Birch Society. Founded a few years earlier, the group quickly became a significant force to the right of the Republican Party, known for its obsessively anti-communist politics. The Birchers combined hostility to New Deal social programs with lurid conspiracies, famously campaigning against “the horrors of fluoridation,” a supposed Red plot.

Edgar J. Uihlein was listed as a member of the John Birch Society’s National Finance Committee in a July 1963 bulletin.

The group fiercely opposed civil rights. An entry in one 1963 Birch newsletter railed against the upcoming March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King would give his “I Have a Dream” speech: “the only good Americans who should have anything to do with this Communist-instigated mob in any way, or pay any attention to it in Washington, are the police required to maintain law and order.”

An excerpt from an August 1963 bulletin of the John Birch Society

Edgar Uihlein Jr. supported politicians who embraced segregation. In early 1962, he sponsored a speech that brought to Chicago a former U.S. Army general named Edwin Walker. Walker toured the country attacking supposed communist conspiracies and civil rights, while celebrating the Southern defeat of Reconstruction, which he labeled “the tyranny within our own white race.”

The Anti-Defamation League, which tracked far-right figures in the period, has archives showing Edgar Uihlein Jr.’s involvement with several other groups and campaigns, including a $1,000 contribution to the presidential campaign of segregationist George Wallace in 1968. It’s not clear when, if ever, Uihlein’s association with the John Birch Society ended. As late as 1977, the founder of the group wrote a long letter to him asking for money.

Edgar Uihlein Jr.’s second child, Dick, born in 1945, grew up in the wealthy Chicago suburb of Lake Bluff and got the same sort of blue-blood education (Phillips Andover, Stanford) as his father (Hotchkiss, Princeton). Amid the social upheavals of the ’60s, Dick Uihlein didn’t waver: He married Liz before graduating from college in 1967, joined the family business and immersed himself in conservative politics. He worked on the 1969 Illinois congressional campaign of Phil Crane, who won a crowded Republican primary in an upset on a hardline anti-tax and anti-communist platform.

In one of the only interviews he’s ever given, Dick Uihlein told National Review in 2018 that he got his politics from his father, who often went by Ed. At the family breakfast table growing up, Uihlein recalled, “My father would talk about the importance of capitalism and the evils of socialism.” Dick said that same year that “my father shared many of the same values that I have, conservative values.”

Dick Uihlein said he shared his father’s values in court testimony in 2018.

Dick and Liz Uihlein continue to revere Edgar Jr., who died in 2005. Dick Uihlein named the family foundation after his father, and it now sends tens of millions of dollars to right-wing institutions. Among the recipients of the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation’s grants are the Federalist Society and think tanks that have pushed misleading claims about the 2020 election, such as the Conservative Partnership Institute and the Foundation for Government Accountability, as the Daily Beast reported.

Tucked in toward the back of the Uline catalog released this summer, sent out to millions of homes and businesses, was a long tribute to the “wise” Edgar Uihlein Jr.

“Father Uihlein, the head of the family, had a towering presence, and we respected his values,” wrote Liz Uihlein under a picture of her husband and father-in-law, recalling “frequent dinners at his house, where business, issues of the day, fishing muskies and, always, politics were discussed.”

She ended on a note of nostalgia tinged with bitterness: “Living your life and raising your kids were easier in an easier time. There was no legalized marijuana, defund the police or social media. We, like so many families, were raised with a sharp moral compass. The rules were the rules, but it was OK.”

Liz

Uihlein wrote a tribute to Edgar Uihlein Jr. in a recent edition of the Uline catalog. Dick Uihlein is sitting on the far right next to his father.

The Uihleins’ political giving reflects these longings for a bygone era. Dick Uihlein is a major funder of the American Principles Project, which runs ads attacking what it calls “transgender ideology,” abortion and the teaching of “critical race theory.”

Last year, Uihlein weighed in on recalling four school board members in a small town north of Milwaukee because of their support for COVID-19 safety protocols and “equity” training for teachers. More recently, in his home state of Illinois, Uihlein has spent more than $50 million to back the Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey, who has drawn criticism for saying the Holocaust “doesn’t even compare” to the toll of abortions and for accusing Democrats of “putting perversion into our schools” for adopting a sex ed bill that includes information about gender identity and same-sex couples.

The Uihleins were huge beneficiaries of a tax provision promoted by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., that was included in the Trump tax overhaul and are continuing to support the Wisconsin senator and fund attack ads against his opponent.

For all the Uihleins’ dismay at the disorder they see consuming the country, there is one domain where they can exert near total control. Former employees of Uline told ProPublica the couple’s traditionalist politics govern the smallest details of how the company is run.

For new staffers, it begins with the dress code in the employee handbook: Women are not permitted to wear pants except as part of a pantsuit or on Fridays; hose or stockings must be worn except during the warmer months; dresses “that are too short” and corduroy of any kind are strictly prohibited.

“DRESS CODE VIOLATIONS ARE TAKEN SERIOUSLY AND MAY RESULT IN DISCIPLINARY ACTION UP TO AND INCLUDING TERMINATION,” the handbook warns.

Excerpts from Uline’s employee handbook

The handbook defines “tardy” as one minute past an employee’s scheduled start time. Just four personal items are allowed on employees’ desks, with maximum dimensions of 5 inches by 7 inches. One former staffer at Uline’s headquarters recalled a coworker who was forced to remove several drawings done by his young child. “Liz would walk up and down the aisles, and if your desk looked off, you’d be written up,” he recalled.

The Uihleins have enlisted company employees to manage their vast personal real estate holdings and maintain their exacting standards, records obtained by ProPublica show. While the Uihleins’ primary home is in Lake Forest, Illinois, they also have several waterfront properties in Florida. In one case, a Uline staffer emailed an official in Everglades City to complain after surveillance footage showed a local man “peeing off Dick’s dock.”

The family’s management style has worked well for the company. Founded in 1980 when Dick and Liz Uihlein saw a gap in the market and borrowed money from Dick’s father to launch a shipping supply distributor, Uline has grown to a network of 12 vast warehouses around the country as well as in Canada and Mexico. Uline’s signature marketing product, its Sears-style catalog, now runs over 800 pages, offering endless varieties of paper bags, packing tape, foaming hand soap, metal racks and more.

Liz Uihlein runs day-to-day operations from the company’s Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin headquarters, right over the Illinois border. Her obsessive focus on next-day shipping and customer service — “We answer the phones faster than 911,” a company saying goes — have powered Uline’s expansion.

Growth accelerated with the online shopping boom that relies on Uline’s specialty, cardboard boxes, which it carries in more than 1,700 sizes. “It’s weird to develop a love of corrugated boxes and shipping supplies, but I really enjoy” it, Liz Uihlein told a Milwaukee business newspaper.

Uline is now so dominant that its customers range from high-end firms like Tesla and Gucci to countless small merchants on Etsy to huge municipal governments. The New York City Department of Education and other agencies, for example, collectively spend more than half a million dollars per year with Uline.

Unlike at other corporate workplaces where discussing politics is tacitly discouraged, the Uihleins lean in to theirs. Employees gathered at the major Uline distribution center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for a company party in 2019 were bemused when the entertainment hired by the company emerged on stage: a Donald Trump impersonator, wearing a red MAGA hat. The company regularly hosts “Lunch & Learn” sessions at its headquarters with figures such as former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, as the Guardian reported.

An excerpt from a 2020 email sent to Uline employees for a talk on “Why Freedom Is Better Than Socialism”

In 2018, when the New York Times published a profile labeling the Uihleins “The Most Powerful Conservative Couple You’ve Never Heard Of,” the company began to get calls from angry liberal customers canceling their accounts, a former sales staffer recalled. A website, Refuse Uline, was launched that lists alternatives to the company. But as the company’s only shareholders, the Uihleins only have to answer to themselves.

When COVID-19 hit, as Liz Uihlein campaigned against shutdowns and required workers to return to the office before vaccines were available, demand for Uline’s shipping and cleaning supplies surged.

In 2020, as other businesses shuttered, sales at Uline shot up 14% to $6.5 billion, according to an internal report obtained by ProPublica. Stung by a worker shortage, Uihlein emailed Wisconsin’s Democratic governor in July 2021 urging him to “get government out of the way” by immediately cutting people off of expanded federal unemployment benefits that had helped people weather the pandemic. Uline needed to fill 500 jobs, she noted in the email, which ProPublica obtained via a public records request. The governor did not oblige.

It’s not clear when the Uihleins, who are both 77, will retire. But the next generation is in place. The couple’s adult children are executives at the company, and they have begun to give money to federal candidates — all conservatives. Dick and Liz Uihlein, meanwhile, have been taking steps to preserve their multibillion-dollar empire for their descendants by shielding it from the hated estate tax.

Over the years, they have gradually transferred the shares of Uline into a so-called “dynasty trust,” which now appears to hold a majority of the company, according to the tax records and business documents filed in Florida. Bob Lord, a lawyer at tax reform group Patriotic Millionaires, said dynasty trusts are typically designed to avoid estate and other transfer taxes for ultrarich families.

“The goal is for the company to remain in the family for possibly hundreds of years,” he said. “And the wealth generated by the company will accumulate untouched by estate tax.”

Andy Kroll contributed reporting.

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8 25 EDIT // WAR

Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein - Wikipedia

MUCH TALK

Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein (/ˈjuːlaɪn/ YOO-lyne^[1]) are American billionaire owners of business supply company Uline, heirs to the Schlitz brewing fortune,^[2]^ and major financial supporters of the Republican Party.^[3]^

Richard Uihlein was born to Schlitz beer founder descendant and noted conservative Edgar Uihlein and Lucia Ellis Uihlein.^[4][5]^ He graduated from Phillips Andover ^[6]^ and from Stanford University with a BA in history.^[7]^ Until 1980, Uihlein worked in international sales for General Binding Corporation, a company his father co-founded.^[8]^ Uihlein's cousin is Lynde Bradley Uihlein.^[2]^

Richard's father, Edgar Uihlein, was a prominent conservative figure in the 1960s and 1970s. He sat on the John Birch Society's finance committee, donated to the presidential campaign of segregationist candidate George Wallace, and supported General Edwin Walker, who led an insurrection in response to the racial integration of the University of Mississippi.^[9][10]^

Elizabeth Anne Uihlein was born to Robert Emerson Hallberg, an auto company executive, and Elizabeth Pierce Hallberg of Winnetka, Illinois.^[11]^ She had a sister, Katherine Hallberg, who died in 1997.^[11]^ She is the cousin of Martin Hanson, a Wisconsin environmentalist who fought for federal protection of Lake Superior's Apostle Islands.^[12][13]^

The Uihleins have three children.^[14]^ The couple's primary residence is in Lake Forest, Illinois, but they own several homes and are noted part-time residents of Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin.^[15][16]^

Business activities

Uline

Further information: Uline

In 1980, with start-up funds from Richard's father, Elizabeth and Richard founded Uline, a shipping supplies company.^[17][14]^ The company expanded rapidly and is now one of the largest privately held U.S. companies; in 2014, Forbes estimated its value as between $700 million and $2 billion.^[14]^ As of 2020, the company had around 7,000 employees.^[18]^ Elizabeth Uihlein is the company's president and Richard is the CEO; their three children hold executive roles.^[19][20]^[14]

EAU Holdings

Elizabeth and Richard own and operate a number of businesses in downtown Manitowish Waters under EAU Holdings Inc, a holding company advertised on Uline's website.^[21][22]^ Businesses owned by the entity include a gym, a restaurant, various lodgings, a coffee shop, a salon, a spa, and gift shops.^[22]^

Galectin Therapeutics

Richard Uihlein is the chairman of the board for Galectin Therapeutics, a publicly traded biotech company focusing on treatments for chronic liver disease and cancer.^[23]^ He is its largest individual stock holder.^[24][23]^

Political activities

Views and history

Richard

Richard Uihlein has been a Republican donor for decades, and increased his political giving after Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.^[8]^ He has been a longtime donor to Republicans who share his ultra-conservative views.^[14]^ He is a staunch social and economic conservative,^[25]^ with views that are anti-union,^[18][19]^[25] anti-tax,^[18][25]^ and pro-deregulation.^[25]^

He has supported far-right ^[14]^ candidates and has often supported efforts in opposition to gay and transgender rights as well as abortion rights.^[15]^ Richard Uihlein has been described as a person who "shuns the spotlight";^[19]^ he rarely gives interviews.^[18]^

Elizabeth

Elizabeth has said her mother was a liberal and her father a conservative.^[26]^ She has said she held liberal beliefs in her early years.^[27]^

Like her husband, Elizabeth rarely gives interviews, but she frequently makes statements about her political views in a column that appears in the Uline catalog and on the Uline website.^[18][28]^ Past columns have addressed topics including "the danger of Chinese competition", "the negative health effects of marijuana use", and "the detriments of the Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy".^[29]^

During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Elizabeth Uihlein said the pandemic was "overhyped" and in November 2020 was an outspoken critic of stay-at-home directives issued to combat the spread of the virus.^[18]^

Elizabeth Uihlein focuses her donations on the main GOP organizations, such as the Republican National Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee, and National Republican Congressional Committee.^[30]^

National politics

Richard Uihlein is the biggest donor to Women Speak Out PAC, a group seeking a federal abortion ban.^[31]^ He has also donated millions to Restoration PAC, according to which "all marriage is for one man and one woman for life".^[31]^ He has supported conservative groups and candidates including Ted Cruz, Roy Moore, The Club for Growth, and the Illinois Policy Institute.^[17][8]^[15][32] Uihlein has also been a major donor to Liberty Principles PAC,^[33]^ Americas PAC,^[34]^ and Scott Walker.^[35]^

2014 election cycle

In the 2014 election cycle, the Uihleins made at least $5 million in political contributions, mostly to right-wing PACs ($1.8 million to Liberty Principles PAC, $670,000 to Americas PAC, and slightly under $500,000 to Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund and affiliated super PAC).^[14]^

2016 election cycle

The Uihleins gave $22 million in the 2016 election cycle.^[19]^ In the 2016 Republican primaries, Uihlein initially supported Scott Walker and Ted Cruz; after they both dropped out of the race, Uihlein backed Donald Trump,^[19]^ contributing money to the pro-Trump "Great America PAC" and $500,000 to Trump's inauguration,^[25]^ which he attended.^[19]^ He also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Republican National Committee.^[19]^

2018 election cycle

In the 2018 election cycle, Richard dramatically increased his political contributions,^[19]^ making $37.7 million in contributions to outside spending groups (the fourth-largest donor to such groups).^[36]^ His contributions include support for many Republican candidates in competitive primary races,^[19]^ such as Chris McDaniel.^[19][25]^ Also in 2018, Uihlein gave financial support to Kevin Nicholson, a one-time long-shot Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin; eight super PACs Uihlein funded also supported Nicholson.^[25]^ They contributed $4 million to the Fair Courts America PAC.^[37]^

Donations to Roy Moore

Richard supported Roy Moore for U.S. Senate.^[38]^ The support began on September 8, 2017, before sexual misconduct allegations against Moore came to light, with a contribution of $50,000 to Moore's Proven Conservative PAC.^[38]^ On November 22, 2017, after multiple women, some of whom where underage at the time of the alleged offense, had come forward accusing Moore of sexual assault, Richard donated another $50,000 to the Proven Conservative PAC.^[38]^

Pay for play newspapers

From 2016 to 2018, a political action committee the Uihleins funded gave at least $646,000 to a new network of free newspapers and websites created by Brian Timpone that mimics local newspapers but offers pay-for-play articles to conservative clients.^[39]^

2020 election cycle

In the 2020 election cycle, the Uihleins and their company had, by April 2020, contributed $1.5 million to Trump's "America First Action" super PAC and $20 million to other Republican groups.^[18][40]^

Uihlein was a major financial backer for the rally that preceded the January 6 United States Capitol attack.^[31]^ From 2015 to 2020, the Uihleins donated $4.3 million (including $800,000 in October 2020) to Tea Party Patriots, a group that participated in the March to Save America rally that preceded the attack.^[41]

After it was reported that the Uihleins were a major financial backer for the rally that preceded the January 6 attack, Northwestern University reviewed its contract with Uline at a university donor's behest.^[31][42]^ Upon conclusion of the review, Northwestern continued its contract with the company.^[43]^

In November 2020, the Uihleins announced to their company that they had contracted COVID-19 after media speculation that they had been infected during Trump's White House election result watch party.^[44][45]^ Journalists made this speculation after the Uihleins' personal jet flew to DC on the evening of the election and a string of COVID-19 infections befell known attendees.^[45][44]^ Elizabeth insisted that they had not attended Trump's party and had instead contracted it from a friend.^[44]^

2022 election cycle

During the 2022 election cycle, they contributed to the U.S. Senate campaigns of Herschel Walker, Ron Johnson, and Adam Laxalt.^[46]^ Other politicians the Uihleins supported include Georgia representative Jody Hice and Texas representative Louie Gohmert.^[47]^

2024 election cycle

As of October 2024, Richard Uihlein had given nearly $59 million in 2024 to Restoration PAC, a leading pro-Trump super PAC that is active in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia.^[48]^

State politics

Richard is a significant supporter of the Foundation for Government Accountability, a think tank that has worked to relax child labor laws in 22 states.^[49]

In September 2022, Richard donated $750,000 to help defeat a ballot question that would legalize recreational cannabis in Wisconsin.^[50]^

The Uihleins spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 2011 Wisconsin Senate recall elections in support of state senators facing recall over their support for legislation to end collective bargaining for public employees, and also backed litigation against public-employee unions, including Janus v. AFSCME.^[19]^ During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Elizabeth called upon Republican members of the Wisconsin Legislature to push to remove Governor Tony Evers from office over the stay-at-home directives he issued.^[18]^

Richard Uihlein spent $2.6 million in support of Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner in his successful 2014 Illinois gubernatorial election campaign. Uihlein broke with Rauner after he signed legislation in 2017 that expanded abortion coverage for women on Medicaid;^[25]^ Uihlein gave millions to Jeanne Ives, who challenged Rauner in the 2018 Republican primary.^[25][8]^

During the 2022 Illinois gubernatorial election; Richard Uihlein gave more than $42 million to "People Who Play By The Rules PAC",^[51][52]^ a super PAC that ran attack ads against Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker to boost the candidacy of Republican nominee Darren Bailey.^[51][53]^ The super PAC was operated by Republican operative and talk radio host Dan Proft.^[53]^ Richard Uihlein also gave $10 million directly to Bailey's campaign.^[53]^

During Ohio's 2023 August special election cycle, Richard Uihlein donated $4 million to a PAC supporting Issue 1, an effort to require a 60% majority to pass citizen-initiated constitutional amendments.^[54]^ The measure was defeated by a 57% to 43% margin.^[55]

During the 2022 election cycle, the Uihleins were the largest donors to Doug Mastriano's 2022 Pennsylvania gubernatorial campaign.^[56]

Between 2019 and 2020, Uihlein gave $250,000 to Allen West's campaign for the chairmanship of the Texas Republican Party against incumbent James Dickey.^[36]^

Local politics

The Uihleins own several houses in the United States and frequently inject themselves into local politics via large donations to the city governments where they own homes.^[6][57]^ Their primary residence is in Lake Forest, Illinois, but they also own residential property in Lake Bluff.^[58]^ They own two lake houses in Wisconsin, one in Manitowish Waters and one in Hayward on Kavanagh Bay.^[57][59]^ Elizabeth is heavily involved in the politics and commerce of Manitowish Waters via EAU Holdings.^[57][8]^ The couple owns multiple properties in Florida.^[6][16]^

The Uihelins contributed $3.2 million to the American Principles Project PAC between 2020 and 2022, which ran campaign ads for school board races with messages against "transgender ideology" and critical race theory.^[60]^

Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin

Elizabeth is heavily involved in politics and economy of Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, where she and Richard own a large summer house on Spider Lake. Of her work in the town, she has said, "I'm 'up north', my husband's political".^[12]^

Her investment in area businesses began with the 1998 purchase of a motel as a "defensive move" against a Pakistani buyer who was rumored to be interested.^[6]^ She claims that under his management the motel would have been "doomed to fail".^[6]^ Elizabeth has said that her operations in the town were not profitable as of 2015.^[12]^

It is estimated that the Uihleins invested $6.5 million in the town between 2007 and 2015.^[12]^ In January 2018, they pledged $1.15 million to the Wisconsin DNR for the purpose of maintaining and expanding bike paths in Manitowish Waters.^[61]^ Elizabeth has since donated to Manitowish Waters Bike Trail Inc via the LUMW Foundation, giving $71,383 in 2022.^[62]^

Agreements giving Elizabeth considerable control over Rest Lake Park and local trails have been highly contentious among area residents.^[12]^ Complaints commonly center around the park and trails having an overly manicured appearance, with residents and officials saying trails have too much grass on their margins and too many trees have been removed.^[12]^

Elizabeth has been known to offer advice on how to improve the aesthetics of Manitowish Waters businesses to their owners in conjunction with offers to pay for the repairs herself.^[12][63]^

Rest Lake Lodge

In August 2015, unpermitted clear cutting was performed at the Rest Lake Lodge, one of the businesses owned by EAU. The work was found to have violated rules related to removing trees near a body of water.^[12]^ Elizabeth's attorney blamed the cutting on her contractor's ignorance of local regulations, but acknowledged that it was her idea.^[12]^ Under a restitution plan approved in October 2015, the Uihleins were required to revegetate the area and pay a $750 fine.^[64][12]^

Also in 2015, Elizabeth motioned to purchase the lake frontage connect to the same property from the Wisconsin DNR after it was made available for sale following actions by the Republican-led state legislature under Governor Scott Walker, whom the Uihleins had heavily supported.^[61]^ Due to critiques of the sale centering around price and the frontage connecting two other protected wooded areas, the sale was tabled in September 2015, but in August 2016 a revised version of the deal including a land and frontage swap was approved.^[65][66]^[67]

An unapproved 500-foot trail on the DNR land parcel sought by the Uihleins was discovered in the second half of 2015.^[68]^ Elizabeth denied creating the trail, but said that her employees may have performed light cleaning of the area.^[68]^

Hayward, Wisconsin

In 2015 and 2016, Richard attempted to form an agreement with Utility company Xcel Energy, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to have a floating bog that was blocking the dock to his home in Hayward on Kavanagh Bay nailed down to the lake bed.^[57][59]^ Normally, when floating bogs become a nuisance to boaters, area residents push them away with their boats.^[69]^

Lake Bluff and Lake Forest, Illinois

In June 2023, the Uihleins petitioned for a two-year exemption from a seasonal ban on the use of leaf blowers for their Lake Bluff home.^[70]^ The regulation contained such an exemption for public properties, like parks, that are more than 20 acres in size, and they argued that their home should qualify as it was 22 acres in size.^[70]^ Their request was denied.^[70]^

Richard donated to elect a group of school board members for the district that included the "chief critic" of Lake Forest High School's first black principal, Chala Holland.^[15][71]^ Of Holland, a critique of academic tracking,^[72]^ Richard wrote, "I cannot sit by and watch the current administration sacrifice open, honest communication, sacrifice academic excellence and sacrifice my tax dollars."^[15]^

Palatine, Illinois

Richard donated money to community groups and school board campaigns that sought to roll back policies that allow students to use school facilities consistent with their gender identities.^[73][15]^

Involvement in conservative media

In the lead-up to the 2014 U.S. Senate race in Texas, Richard donated $450,571.65 to finance a newspaper that published false stories about Representative Steve Stockman's opponent, Senator John Cornyn, suggesting that he "wanted to ban veterans from having guns, had voted to fund abortion, and was secretly working with Democrats to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants".^[74][75]^ This was discovered when the donation was investigated as an attempt by Stockman to subvert limits on coordinated campaign spending.^[74]

Richard Uihlein has had a longstanding financial relationship with conservative newspaper producer Brian Timpone.^[39]^ Since 2004, Timpone has worked to build a network of locally published free Internet and print news.^[76]^ These newspapers often employ names that are similar to respected local institutions but are unaffiliated with them.^[77]^ The articles he publishes often reference real events, but he has been accused of severely distorting facts to create emotional responses in his readers.^[76]^ Timpone's companies have been known to offer pay-for-play articles to conservative clients.^[39]^ From 2016 to 2018, a political action committee the Uihleins funded gave at least $646,000 to a network of newspapers and websites Timpone created.^[39]^

People Who Play By The Rules PAC, which contributed money to Timpone's operations during the 2022 Illinois races, received more than $42 million from Richard Uihlein.^[78][51]^[52] During the lead-up to the 2022 election, Timpone's operations blanketed the state in confusingly titled free newspapers that attacked Governor JB Pritzker and other Illinois Democrats.^[78]^

In October 2024, ProPublica traced a newspaper delivered to Wisconsinites, The Wisconsin Catholic Tribune, which was unaffiliated with the Catholic Church and painted Trump as pro-Catholic and Biden as anti-Catholic, to Timpone and Uihlein.^[79]^ The company producing the newspapers, which is owned by Timpone, was paid by Restoration PAC, which had received $125 million from Richard between 2020 and the article's publication.^[79]

Richard is a supporter of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth organization formed in 2012 with a strong media arm.^[80][81]^ Between 2014 and 2016, he donated $275,000 to it.^[82]^ On January 13, 2021, shortly after the January 6 attack, he donated $250,000 to it.^[83]^

RealClearPolitics and The Federalist are also significant recipients of funds from the Ed Uihlein foundtation, Richard Uihlein's philanthropic entity.^[84][85]

Philanthropy

Elizabeth

Elizabeth operates the LUMW Foundation.^[86]^ The foundation primarily gives to organizations in Chicago's northern suburbs and in and around Manitowish Waters.^[86]^

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DUCK 8 26

Revolving Door Project

https://therevolvingdoorproject.org › billionaires-and-the-trump-admin-richard-elizabeth-uihlein

Oligarchs and the Trump Admin: Richard & Elizabeth Uihlein

Apr 8, 2025Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein are major backers of Republican campaigns and causes, including $59 million to Trump's 2024 campaign.

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Richard_and_Elizabeth_Uihlein

Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein - Wikipedia

Richard Uihlein has been a Republican donor for decades, and increased his political giving after Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. [8] He has been a longtime donor to Republicans who share his ultra-conservative views. [14] He is a staunch social and economic conservative, [25] with views that are anti-union, [18][19][25] anti-tax, [18][25] and pro- deregulation. [25] He has ...

Press Herald

https://www.pressherald.com › 2026 › 01 › 16 › trump-donor-dark-money-largely-funding-maine-referendum-drives

Trump donor, dark money largely funding Maine referendum drives

Jan 16, 2026And a citizen initiative to remove transgender protections for students is mostly funded by an $800,000 contribution from conservative megadonor Richard Uihlein, the founder of the Wisconsin-based ...

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › 2026 › may › 13 › uline-trump-donors-pause-wisconsin-development-project

Trump mega-donors pause Wisconsin development project, citing economic ...

May 13, 2026Trump mega-donors pause Wisconsin development project, citing economic uncertainty Uline, owned by billionaire Republicans Richard and Liz Uihlein, halts construction of a new facility in Kenosha

InfluenceWatch

https://www.influencewatch.org › person › richard-uihlein

Richard Uihlein - Influence Watch

Richard Uihlein Richard (Dick) Uihlein is the co-founder of shipping-supply company Uline and a major Republican political donor. As of July 2026, Richard and his wife Elizabeth have contributed about $400 million over the years to right-of-center candidates and causes in federal races, according to Federal Election Commission filings. 1

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › 2026 › feb › 25 › wisconsin-official-uline-investigation-maga-donors

Investigation urged into immigration practices of company owned by Maga ...

Feb 25, 2026A Milwaukee city council member has called for an investigation into the immigration policies at Uline, the office supply company owned by Liz and Richard Uihlein, two of the biggest donors to ...

substack.perfectunion.us

https://substack.perfectunion.us › p › cardboard-billionaire-uihlein-vaults

Cardboard Billionaire Uihlein Vaults Up the Ranks of Trump Backers

Oct 17, 2024By Donald Shaw and David Moore, Sludge Billionaire Richard Uihlein has long been a major funder of Republican politics, but a new Federal Election Commission filing reveals that he has ramped up his spending in recent weeks to record levels as he finances groups attacking Vice President Kamala Harris and promoting former President Donald Trump. Uihlein gave more than $48 million to the ...

Forbes

https://www.forbes.com › sites › siladityaray › 2024 › 10 › 16 › billionaire-dick-uihlein-poured-nearly-49-million-into-pro-trump-pac-filings-show

Billionaire Dick Uihlein Poured Nearly $49 Million Into Pro-Trump PAC

Oct 16, 2024The billionaire shipping supplies magnate gave nearly $49 million to a conservative PAC, which in turn contributed to several pro-Trump groups.

factually.co

https://factually.co › fact-checks › society › who-is-robert-uihlien-causes-he-supports-b79adf

Who is Robert Uihlien and what causes does he support?

Dec 14, 2025Bottom line: multiple reputable trackers and investigative outlets portray Richard Uihlein as a central funder of conservative, pro‑Trump and anti‑establishment causes — giving hundreds of millions that target elections, policy think tanks, media and groups tied to election‑denial networks — but limitations in nonprofit and dark ...

Wisconsin Public Radio

https://www.wpr.org › news › wisconsin-college-republicans-raised-1m-2025-richard-elizabeth-uihlein

Wisconsin College Republicans raised $1M in 2025. It came from 2 people.

Jan 20, 2026A Wisconsin College Republicans group raised more than $1 million last year thanks to dual $500,000 donations from Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, two of the state's biggest GOP megadonors.

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cmd

Billionaire Megadonors Push State Courts Rightward

by Juliana Broad | November 26th, 2024

Elon Musk, Richard Uihlein, and Jeff Yass are among the billionaire Republican megadonors who aimed extensive resources at this year’s state court races.

===

We unraveled the $122 million web of climate denial, political extremism, and Trump ties to Project 2025

Mapped: How 6 Billionaire Family Fortunes Fund Project 2025 - DeSmog

As scrutiny of Project 2025 continues to grow, defenders of the Heritage Foundation-led initiative, which would reshape federal governance and give the next Republican president unprecedented new powers, say it’s the criticism — not the 922-page plan itself — that’s too extreme.

In a piece published last month, Fox News cited prominent conservatives who feel there’s “nothing radical” about the endeavor. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has accused detractors of “panic-mongering” and tried to reframe Project 2025’s sprawling “Mandate for Leadership” blueprint as more boring than scary — a milquetoast white paper that simply “melds the work of some 400 scholars and analysts from an eclectic mix of center-right groups.” This echoes Heritage’s insistence that Project 2025, while conservative, is anything but fringe.

But the findings from DeSmog’s recent investigation into Project 2025’s funding sources tell a very different story. Our wide-ranging analysis of public financial disclosure forms found that the groups on Project 2025’s advisory board — whose experts largely helped to draft the plan — are heavily funded by just six family fortunes. Since 2020, foundations linked to these billionaire families have contributed over $122 million to Project 2025 groups, including at least 290 individual donations to 49 nonprofits that contributed to the Mandate for Leadership documents or are on the initiative’s advisory board. We’ve mapped the funding ties between the billionaire families and the Project 2025 individuals and organizations in an interactive graphic, below.

Groups that received funds from the six family fortunes are far from the political mainstream, according to DeSmog’s analysis, including entities that actively deny the science of anthropogenic climate change — as well as organizations that have been classified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. DeSmog’s review also uncovered additional ties between the six families and the Trump/Vance ticket, though both candidates have tried to distance themselves from the initiative in recent months. Indeed, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein — the billionaire founders of the Uline packaging company, whose charitable donations tie them closely to Project 2025 — are among the former president’s biggest donors.

Project 2025 styles itself as populist, moderate, and far from the politics of Washington. Heritage Foundation President Kevin D. Roberts hails it as a plan for the perennially downtrodden, hard-laboring folks “who shower afterwork instead of before.” Its funding sources — elite, extreme, and closely tied to the Trump campaign — suggest exactly the opposite.

The Donors

Though the Mandate pledges to “prioritize the economic prosperity of ordinary Americans” and pry influence away from “America’s corporate and political elites,” the funding that produced it comes from the upper echelons of the billionaire class.

And not just any billionaires. The six family dynasties providing significant support to Project 2025 — Bradley, Coors, Koch, Scaife, Seid, and Uihlein — all have long histories of fighting for financial and environmental deregulation. Three of the six families have promoted climate denial consistently enough to appear in DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database, which tracks the people and organizations doing the most to undermine decarbonization efforts.

They include oil and gas magnate Charles G. Koch and his Koch Family Foundations; the Scaife Family Foundations, which tap vast wealth from the Mellon aluminum, oil, and banking fortune; and chemicals-and-electronics industrialist Barre Seid, whose recent, record-setting $1.6 billion gift to a nonprofit controlled by Federalist Society co-chair Leonard A. Leo has been a major source of Project 2025 money.

While the Heritage Foundation suggests a diverse conservative coalition gave rise to the Mandate for Leadership, the six family fortunes’ giving patterns were remarkably similar. Of the 49 Project 2025 groups, 37 percent received funding from at least three of the six families. 70 percent of the 49 groups received funding from at least two of the families. (In a few cases, the donations were to sister 501(c)4 lobbying arms that share offices and staff.) The average donation was over $420,000.

*Related:See DeSmog’s coverage of Trump Megadonor Tim Dunn’s Plan That’s More Extreme Than Project 2025

Links to Climate Denial

For decades, oil and gas magnate Charles G. Koch and his late brother David fought vigorously for environmental deregulation, including by supporting groups that sow doubt about the science of manmade climate change. Foundations linked to Koch gave at least $9.6 billion to 15 Project 2025 groups since 2020. But four of the lesser-known families — Bradley, Scaife, Seid, and Uihlein — gave even more, and all six family fortunes helped to fund Project 2025 groups that have denied the science of manmade climate change.

Of the 10 groups that the six families funded most heavily, seven are in DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database. That includes more than $11 million to the Heritage Foundation; $8.3 million to Turning Point USA, which has provided a platform for well-known climate deniers like Alex Epstein; and $4.6 million to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which in 2015 published an op-ed claiming warming is “obviously not initiated by the burning of fossil fuels”. In total, foundations linked to the six families gave to 15 Project 2025 groups with entries in DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database.

That wasn’t the only form of extremism DeSmog uncovered. Four Project 2025 organizations that received donations from the six billionaire fortunes since 2020 are classified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a leading civil rights watchdog group. These include the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ group that received over $1.6 million in donations from Bradley and Koch; The Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigrant group that received $650,000 from Scaife; Eagle Forum, an anti-government and anti-immigrant group that received over $100,000 from Koch and Uihlein; and Family Research Council, an anti-abortion group that received $25,000 from Seid.

Of the six billionaire families, only Coors-linked foundations — run by heirs to the Coors brewing fortune — did not donate to at least one SPLC-designated hate group.

Links to the Trump Campaign

For months, Donald J. Trump has publicly disavowed Project 2025, claiming to know nothing about the initiative. That stance conflicts with subsequent media reports, including resurfaced video of the former president and current Republican presidential nominee saying, as a keynote speaker at a 2022 Heritage Foundation event, that Heritage would “lay the groundwork & detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.” The Washington Post reported that Trump flew in a private plane to the event with Heritage President Kevin Roberts.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, has also been the subject of intense scrutiny for numerous ties to Project 2025 — including writing the foreword to Roberts’ forthcoming book. DeSmog’s investigation also uncovered numerous ties between Vance and Project 2025 advisory groups, including a previously unreported 2017 keynote speech at a Heritage event.

But while the candidates continue to downplay any Project 2025 connections, one link is unavoidable: a billionaire family that heavily supports Project 2025 groups is among their campaign’s biggest donors, according to Federal Election Commission data.

In May, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, the founders of the Uline packaging company, each donated $5 million to Make America Great Again, Inc., a super PAC supporting Trump’s reelection. That’s not including the more than $48 million Richard contributed to Restoration PAC, a pro-Trump political action committee, last quarter alone. Restoration PAC has spent over $12.9 million this year on political advertising, including ads supporting Trump and attacking his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Since 2020, the Ed Uihlein Foundation, which is run by the Uihleins and named in honor of Richard’s father, has donated at least $13.4 million to 13 different Project 2025 groups.

The map below is interactive. Click on a donor to see the groups it funded with dollar amounts, or a nonprofit to see which of the six family fortunes made donations.

[GFX]

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May 2, 2024 rww

Evan Vorpahl @ True North: True North Issues New Research Report Detailing Who Is Targeting State Courts to Limit Freedoms

True North is issuing a new research report shining a light on those men–Leonard Leo, Dick Uihlein, Charles Koch, and Jeff Yass–and right-wing groups targeting state courts and other levers of power to change the rules and limit our freedoms. This new report also documents how Leo used the Federalist Society to target state supreme courts and the judicial selection process in order to advance his agenda, and more.

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[[===

evil crypto

https://www.alternet.org/gop-megadonor-citizen-ballot-initiatives/

https://yyy.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/23/foundation-government-accountability-democracy

an 6 23

no lnx

This GOP megadonor is funding efforts to 'derail citizen-led ballot initiatives': report

Alex HendersonJune 23, 2023

Over the years, Illinois-based shipping magnates Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein have been major donors to the Republican Party. And these days, they have a preference for far-right MAGA candidates, including 2022 Pennsylvania gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano (who lost by double digits to Democratic now-Gov. Josh Shapiro).

In 2023, The Guardian reports, Richard Uihlein has been a major funder of a Florida-based group known as theFoundation for Government Accountability (FGA) — who are trying to make it more difficult to get initiatives on ballots.

The Guardian's Brendan Fischer, in an article published June 23, reports, "These efforts are designed to derail citizen-led ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights, raise the minimum wage or expand Medicaid. In effect, FGA and its allies seek to give 41 percent of the voting population an effective veto over the wishes of the other 59 percent."

READ MORE: 'A stark illustration of our broken campaign finance system': Here's how rich mega-doners hacked US politics

Fischer notes that in "at least four states," FGA has "lobbied or testified in favor of changing ballot initiative rules to enshrine minority rule."

He then explains, "The latest fight is in Ohio, where Republican lawmakers last month passed a measure requiring future constitutional amendments to receive at least 60 percent support from voters — rather than a simple majority — and that would make it harder for proposed amendments to make it on to the ballot. Ohioans will now vote in August on whether to approve the higher thresholds…. FGA's tactics in Ohio echo those used previously — and unsuccessfully — in Arkansas and South Dakota."

In 2021, Fischer reports, FGA "issued a legal memo arguing for the constitutionality of a 60 percent requirement for enacting ballot initiatives, and a report decrying how voters in red states like Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska had approved Medicaid expansion through the ballot initiative process."

READ MORE: Appeals court dismisses GOP megadonor’s lawsuit against Beto O’Rourke: report

The Guardian's full report is available at this link.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Meet the billionaire Trump donor pushing for recall of Wisconsin’s governor over stay-at-home order after claiming 'the media is overblowing COVID-19' ›

GOP billionaire donor who funded Clarence Thomas’ lavish lifestyle also donated heavily to Sinema, Manchin ›

'You sort of just gasp': Clarence Thomas’ billionaire GOP donor hoards Hitler artifacts ›

Series: The Secret IRS Files

Inside the Tax Records of the .001%

For billionaire Ken Griffin, it was well worth spending $54 million to ensure he and other rich Illinoisans wouldn’t have to pay more tax.

By the time Illinois voters streamed into voting booths on Election Day in 2020, Griffin, then Illinois’ wealthiest resident, had made sure they’d heard plenty about why they should not vote to raise taxes on him and the state’s other rich people. His tens of millions paid for an unrelenting stream of ads and flyers against an initiative on that year’s ballot, which would have allowed Illinois lawmakers to join 32 other states in setting higher tax rates for the wealthy than for everyone else.

In the end, Griffin spent about $18 for every one of the 3.1 million votes against theinitiative. After initial optimism about its prospects, the measure came up hundreds of thousands of votes short and went down to defeat.

Rarely does the public get a clear view of the payoff for wealthy Americans who put their money down to achieve a political outcome. But in this case, ProPublica’s trove of IRS data can provide crucial context for the ballot fight. For Griffin and many of his fellow ultrawealthy Illinoisans, spending even such a vast amount was well worth it when compared with what a tax hike might have cost them.

According to the data, Griffin averaged an annual income of $1.7 billion from 2013 to 2018. That was the fourth-highest in the country, behind only the likes of Bill Gates.

Using that average income as a guideline, the new state tax increase, which aimed to raise the rate from 5% to 8% on the highest incomes, would have cost Griffin around $51 million every year in extra tax. In especially good years — in 2018, Griffin reported income of almost $2.9 billion — he might have been forced to pay more than $80 million more.

A Citadel spokesperson responding on Griffin’s behalf pointed out that, according to ProPublica’s previously published data, Griffin paid the second-highest amount of taxes of any American from 2013 to 2018. “Over the past decade,” he said in a statement, “it is almost a certainty that Ken has been the largest individual taxpayer in the State of Illinois — a state notorious for profligate spending and rampant corruption.” Griffin has said he’s not against raising taxes; he opposed the measure, he added in his statement, because “Illinois needs to put its fiscal house in order before burdening hard-working families with yet more taxes.”

The state’s current flat tax rate of 5% is far below the top rates in other large states run by Democrats like California and New York and comparable to those in some Republican-led states like Utah. Advocates for raising the rates on the wealthy in Illinois say the state needs additional revenue, pointing to its regular budget deficits and deep pension debts.

Not all Griffin’s political bets pay off. A candidate for Illinois governor he supported with tens of millions of dollars went down to defeat in June’s Republican primary. Meanwhile, even though the income tax initiative was defeated, Griffin announced last month that he was moving Citadel’s headquarters to Miami and relocating there himself.

Though no other donor to the anti-tax fight came close to matching the tens of millions that Griffin gave, others made contributions that were more than what most Illinois households earn in a year. ProPublica analyzed the tax data of nine other ultrawealthy supporters of Griffin’s anti-tax campaign. According to our estimate, this group of heirs and business owners, which includes some of the wealthiest people in Illinois, can expect to see a healthy return on their contributions and save millions in taxes over the coming years.

The math behind our estimate is simple: Wealthy Illinoisans will save about 3% of their income, because that was the size of the proposed tax increase on the wealthy. That’s essentially how Illinois’ state income taxes work for Illinois residents. With some adjustments, a state tax rate is applied to the income listed on their federal returns. ProPublica contacted all 10 of the anti-tax donors mentioned in this article and the accompanying chart. None challenged the methodology used to estimate their tax savings.

Richard Uihlein, who along with Griffin has emerged as a conservative megadonor on the national stage, pitched in $100,000 to the anti-tax campaign — for him a modest amount given his average annual income of $492 million in recent years. Through his family foundation, Uihlein has also given millions of dollars to the Illinois Policy Institute, a small-government group that fought the graduated tax plan. Uihlein’s average income would lead to about $15 million of annual tax savings from the defeat of the ballot initiative.

Sam Zell, the real estate mogul known in Chicago for putting together a leveraged buyout of the Tribune Company that preceded its bankruptcy, gave $1.1 million. Based on his recent income, he would save $1.6 million in taxes each year. A spokesperson for Zell declined to comment.

Patrick Ryan made his billions in insurance, and Northwestern University’s football stadium and basketball arena bear his family’s name, thanks to the hundreds of millions he’s given the school. He gave $1 million. His recent income suggests $2.1 million in annual tax savings.

Richard Colburn, whose billionaire family owns the electrical parts maker CED, gave $500,000 to the anti-tax campaign, which would help save him $5.5 million each year in taxes, according to our estimates. In an email message to ProPublica, Colburn said his reasons for opposing the graduated tax were simple: It would have “eaten substantially” into his investment earnings, some of which he passes on to a nonprofit foundation he manages. Like Griffin, he contended the state would not have used the money well.

“Though I enjoy living in the Chicago area, I could save immensely by moving to a lower-tax state, and therefore I ‘invested’ to limit the temptation on me to relocate,” Colburn wrote. “Another element of my ‘investment’ stems from my desire to limit the mis-spending by the State of Illinois that occurs every time Springfield has extra money.” (His full statement is here.)

Donald Wilson, founder of the trading firm DRW, gave $250,000 to the anti-tax campaign. That donation in particular looks modest when weighed against his potential tax savings: Based on Wilson’s average annual income of $114 million, the proposed tax increase would have cost him $3.5 million more every year.

Some of the contributions to the anti-tax campaign came from trusts, special legal entities often used by the wealthy to hide or protect assets, as well as to avoid the estate tax. Richard Stephenson, founder of a chain of for-profit hospitals called Cancer Treatment Centers of America, contributed $300,000 through his Celebrate Life Trust. Stephenson is a longtime Republican donor and such an enthusiast of Ayn Rand’s message of uncompromising self-interest that he was an executive producer on two movies based on the novel “Atlas Shrugged.”

Uihlein, Ryan, Wilson and Stephenson also did not respond to requests for comment.

One $25,000 contribution came from the Philip M. Friedmann Family Charitable Trust. Friedmann made his fortune by selling the greeting card company he co-founded to a private equity firm.

Friedmann’s trust, unlike Stephenson’s, is a personal foundation. That means Friedmann likely received a tax deduction for donating to his own organization, which then used some of the funds to fight an increase in his taxes.

The contribution to the anti-tax campaign by Friedmann’s foundation appears to have violated federal tax law, three nonprofit tax law experts told ProPublica. Personal foundations are prohibited from spending to try to influence legislation, a category that includes contributions to a ballot initiative committee, said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor at Notre Dame. Organizations that break that law are required to pay a penalty of up to 25% of the expenditure in addition to attempting to retrieve the money.

Although this prohibition is spelled out on the IRS’ online guide for private foundations, “smaller family foundations don’t always know the applicable rules,” said Ellen Aprill, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University.

Friedmann did not respond to requests for comment.,,.....

CMD 3 22

The Dirty Dozen Funders of Climate Misinformation

A dozen of the largest nonprofits donated $47.8 million to the leading climate denial organizations, accounting for 88% of the funds CMD was able to track down using FY 2014-20 federal tax returns.

Half of the traceable funding came from DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, two donor-advised fund sponsors that pass along their clients’ donations to other charities approved by their boards of directors. While the two funds give exclusively to conservative causes, no restrictions are apparent within that ideology. For instance, CMD was first to report that DonorsTrust is by far the biggest known funder of American white nationalist hate groups.

Among the “Dirty Dozen” climate denial financiers are foundations established by the right-wing Bradley, Koch, Mercer, Searle, and Scaife families. The Kochs, Mercers, and other Republican megadonors pour additional money into political groups and electoral campaigns focused on electing right-wing candidates who oppose meaningful action on climate change and often support expanding and deregulating the fossil fuel industry.

The funders named in this report have also financed a broader right-wing political strategy to misinform the public about a number of issues and increase GOP voter turnout.

“Bad actors are using a tried and tested playbook to weaken public mandates and create confusion [about] viable solutions going forward,” notes Jennie King, head of civic action and education at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an independent nonprofit dedicated to protecting human rights and reversing polarization, extremism, and disinformation around the world. “This includes weaponizing climate response within a broader ‘culture wars’ frame and conflating it with any supposed controversy, from Covid-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates to critical race theory, trans rights, or geopolitics.”

Leading non-ideological donor-advised fund sponsors connected to the Vanguard and Fidelity financial firms are also among the Dirty Dozen climate misinformation funders.

“We cannot solve the climate crisis until we solve the climate misinformation crisis,” U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told CMD. “It is disappointing that mainstream organizations are still keeping ties with groups that have attacked climate science and legislative solutions. We need to be calling this behavior out publicly, so Americans know which organizations are linked to climate denial efforts.”

All nonprofits identified by CMD that gave $10,000 or more to the top climate misinformation groups from 2014–20 are listed in the table below.

tABLE 2

Top Nonprofit Climate Denial Funders, 2014-20

Numerous charities, private foundations, and trade associations have bankrolled the climate misinformation movement.

Page 1 of 4

Table with 9 columns and 53 rows. Currently displaying rows 1 to 15.

Donor 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 TOTAL

1 DonorsTrust/Donors Capital Fund $3,293,850 $3,816,850 $3,676,750 $2,422,000 $3,830,200 $2,101,732 $1,416,500 20,557,882

2 Searle Freedom Trust $839,500 $589,500 $1,140,000 $940,000 $1,096,000 $754,000 $985,000 6,344,000

3 Sarah Scaife Foundation $350,000 $610,000 $842,000 $875,000 $960,000 $715,000 $1,245,000 5,597,000

4 Mercer Family Foundation $885,000 $100,000 $1,075,000 $970,000 3,030,000

5 Dunn Foundation $1,200,000 $250,000 $325,000 $200,000 $350,000 $350,000 $350,000 3,025,000

6 Bradley Foundations $344,376 $318,876 $458,500 $519,000 $280,000 $475,000 $110,000 2,505,752

7 American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers $365,000 $275,000 $470,000 $400,000 1,510,000

8 Koch Foundations $100,128 $431,891 $333,028 $413,016 $84,000 $99,049 $18,749 1,479,861

9 Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program $38,500 $228,500 $265,000 $230,000 $235,000 997,000

10 Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund $35,525 $21,350 $27,867 $241,355 $212,310 $231,055 $201,952 971,414

11 National Philanthropic Trust $150,000 $175,000 $175,500 $176,000 $200,000 876,500

12 Bartley J. Madden Foundation $45,000 $270,000 $270,000 $250,000 $30,000 865,000

13 Thomas W. Smith Foundation $150,000 $175,000 $200,000 $200,000 725,000

14 The 85 Fund $700,000 700,000

15 Ed Uihlein Family Foundation $10,500 $129,000 $35,000 $115,000 $115,000 $140,000...

igor salon

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/glenn-youngkin-2655355138/

A billionaire Trump donor who funded a group that marched on the Capitol ahead of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is bankrolling a dark-money group boosting Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin's attacks on Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe.

The Republican-aligned Restoration PACthis week launched attacking McAuliffe, who served a previous term as governor, over crime rates. (Virginia's unusual term limits restrict governors to one term, but does not bar them from running again after leaving office.) The PAC has spent $1.767 million funding ads against McAuliffe, making it by far the largest independent expenditure group in the race.

The group is funded almost entirely by Republican mega-donor Richard Uihlein, co-founder of the Wisconsin shipping supply giant Uline. Uihlein contributed $24.5 million to the group in the 2020 election cycle, making up 97% of its funding, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. He put another $1.5 million into the group in May, according to FEC filings.

Uihlein and his wife Liz are among the biggest Republican donors in the country, having given more than $65 million to former President Donald Trump,Republican candidates and conservative groups since 2019. The Uihleins have also contributed $4.3 million over the past five years to theTea Party Patriots, including $800,000 in October 2020, making them by far the group's biggest donors.

The Tea Party Patriots participated in the "March to Save America" rally that preceded the Capitol riot and were one of 11 groups listed as part of the "#StopTheSteal coalition," according to WBEZ. The group also contributed to Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., who was accused by "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander of helping plan the rally, which Brooks has denied. Tea Party Patriots also contributed to Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who led objections to the certification of Electoral College results in the Senate.

Restoration PAC last month also gave $942,000 to Women Speak Out Virginia — 2021, a PAC affiliated with the anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List that launched a $1.4 million campaign to attack McAuliffe on abortion.

Uihlein's foundation also contributed $275,000 to Trump booster Charlie Kirk's Turning Point Action between 2014 and 2016. The group was listed as a participant in the Capitol protest and Kirk took credit for "sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president" in a since-deleted tweet.

Turning Point Action also previously received $50,000 from the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative dark-money group that helped Trump fill federal courts with conservative judges and is pushing to restrict voting. The group also funds the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), giving it $2.1 million last October and a total of $12.7 million since 2014. RAGA's fundraising arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, sent out robocalls urging supporters to "march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal" on Jan. 6.

The Judicial Crisis Network has multiple legal aliases it uses for other initiatives, including The Concord Fund and Free to Learn Action.That latter group has launched a $1 million ad campaign focused on "critical race theory" in schools, an issue Youngkin and other conservatives have seized on. The group is spending $1 million attacking McAuliffe for arguing that parents should not dictate school curricula.

The Judicial Crisis Network is also closely aligned and shares staff with the Judicial Education Project and its Honest Elections Project, a conservative initiative pushing voting restrictions. The Judicial Education Network is almost entirely funded by the Donors Trust, a dark-money group backed by the Koch network. Donors Trust in 2019 gave more than $20 million to at least a dozen groups who would later question the results of the election. Last year, the Honest Elections Project announced a six-figure ad campaign stoking fears of a "brazen attempt to manipulate the election system for partisan advantage" before the election even happened.

Youngkin has tried to walk a fine line on Trump's election lies as he tries to solidify his Republican base without alienating independent and suburban voters in the increasingly blue state. He refused to acknowledge President Biden's election victory while seeking the Republican nomination, doing so only after he had already triumphed over Republican rivals. And while Youngkin has said he would have voted to certify the election results, he is nonetheless calling for an "audit" of voting machines in Virginia (something the state already does) and boosting election conspiracy theorists.

Youngkin, the former CEO of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group, is also the primary funder of Virginia Wins, contributing $1 million to back Republican candidates in down-ballot races. The PAC has funneled tens of thousands to candidates who attended the Stop the Steal rally, organized transportation for others to attend the event, defended Capitol rioters or pushed election conspiracy theories, Mother Jones reported on Thursday.

Youngkin did not respond to a request for comment.

"It's no surprise that some of the most powerful, pro-insurrection dark money forces are rushing to Glenn Youngkin's side in this campaign," Manuel Bonder, a spokesman for the Virginia Democratic Party, said in a statement to Salon. "They are supporting Youngkin because he's all in on their agenda — and they have full confidence that if elected, Glenn will do exactly what Donald Trump says. He belongs nowhere near the governorship."

alex k

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/12/09/who-funds-the-federalist-finally-we-know/

For years, the funding behind the right-wing, pro-Trump publication The Federalist has been a total mystery. Many Twitter users have asked the website’s leaders, repeatedly, “Who funds The Federalist?” only to be blocked by the likes of publisher Ben Domenech, co-founder Sean Davis, or senior editor Mollie Hemingway. (This author is blocked by all three.)

Last year, Hemingway characterized the question as “a kind of a veiled threat” and a “clear, coordinated attempt to silence The Federalist.

However, a few months earlier, The Federalist’s affiliated nonprofit, FDRLST Media Foundation, had been certified as a 501(c)(3) charity by the Internal Revenue Service, meaning that donors could begin making tax-deductible contributions to the foundation. If the donor was a nonprofit organization like a family foundation or trade association, its grants to the FDRLST Media Foundation would eventually be part of the public record. Hemingway is a director and “governor” of the foundation.

Last week, CMD obtained the 2019 tax records of two right-wing funders who donated to the FDRLST Media Foundation that year: GOP megadonor and shipping supply billionaire Richard Uihlein and DonorsTrust, a donor-advised fund manager that has been dubbed “the dark money ATM” of the conservative movement.

The Uihleins

The Federalist may have once had a “never Trump” image, but the conservative publication moved quickly rightward as President Donald Trump became president and took over the Republican Party. The outlet is now known for vigorously defending Trump, for its trolling and conspiracy-laden posts, and for attacking liberal media. Sometimes trafficking in racism, The Federalist had a “black crime” tag until someone exposed the tag on Twitter.

It’s unclear when Uihlein, the Illinois-based founder of shipping supply company Uline, began funding The Federalist, but it makes sense that his foundation, the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation, donated $400,000 to the FDRLST Media Foundation last year. Uihlein and his wife, Liz, are influential Trump donors and among the Republican Party’s biggest funders; Uihlein is the fifth-biggest donor to outside political spending groups of the 2020 federal elections, having doled out over $63 million tosuper PACs such as the pro-Trump America First Action, Club for Growth Action, the Senate Leadership Fund, and Restoration PAC, which he funded nearly exclusively.

The New York Times reported in August that, based on interviews, Richard Uihlein was a donor to The Federalist, but his foundation’s 2019 tax return is the first evidence of his financial support to be made public.

As The Federalist published story after story denying science and opposing mask wearing during the coronavirus pandemic—including one story allegedly written by an anonymous small-town mayor claiming that health officials order mask mandates for political, not scientific, reasons—Liz Uihlein minimized the virus, calling it “overhyped,” and endangered Uline workers by allegedly using lax safety practices and initially discouraging employees from working from home. Liz Uihlein, the president and CEO of Uline, got an exemption from Canada’s quarantine requirement to visit a Uline facility in the country, which she reached via private jet. The Uihleins would eventually contract COVID-19 in November.

The Uihleins have endorsed fringe candidates such as Roy Moore, the far-right Alabaman who ran for Senate in 2017 and was credibly accused of sexual misconduct with minors by multiple women. Liz Uihlein was a member of the 2016 Trump campaign’s economic council.

The Ed Uihlein Foundation gave to additional right-wing media outlets in 2019, including The Daily Caller News Foundation ($25,000), the Media Research Center ($275,000), and the Real Clear Foundation ($350,000), which has ties to The Federalist (see below). It also donated $400,000 to the Center for Security Policy, an anti-Muslim hate group. Its largest 2019 contribution, $3.2 million, went to the Foundation for Government Accountability, a State Policy Network member that advocated kicking people off of Medicaid this year during the pandemic. Since 2014, the Uihleins have given the Foundation for Government Accountability over $11 million.

The “Dark Money ATM” of the Conservative Movement

One of the political right’s biggest funding vehicles, DonorsTrust, gave $249,000 to the FDRLST Media Foundation in 2019. CMD was first to report on DonorsTrust’s 2019 tax records and on the group’s major donation to the white nationalist hate group VDARE, as well as a smaller amount to the New Century Foundation, the nonprofit behind the white nationalist publication American Renaissance.

DonorsTrust also gave $1,350,000 to the Real Clear Foundation and nearly $400,000 to the Media Research Center in 2019, part of $15 million in grants to conservative media operations that year.

DonorsTrust is a donor-advised fund sponsor, meaning that it manages individual charitable accounts of its wealthy clients, who have included GOP megadonors such the DeVos, Koch, and Mercer Families. These clients can donate appreciable assets into their accounts and score a double tax benefit: they get both a capital gains tax break and a charitable tax deduction. Clients then direct DonorsTrust to donate their money to the nonprofits of their choice, as long as the DonorsTrust board approves the proposed recipient. Donor-advised fund managers allow their clients to remain anonymous, as the manager legally owns and disperses the money.

DonorsTrust and its sister organization, Donors Capital Fund, distributed $165 million in grants in 2019, much of it going to right-wing think tanks, advocacy groups, litigation centers, media outlets, extremists, and climate deniers.

Past Clues

The Uihlein and DonorsTrust grants are the first known donations to The Federalist, but one financial tie was already public. Journalist Andrew Perez found that the George E. Coleman Jr. Foundation is an investor in FDRLST Media, LLC, the company behind The Federalist. In 2018, the Coleman Foundation had $148,000 invested in FDRLST Media. The foundation’s trustee, Daniel Oliver, is a former Reagan official who was once executive editor of the conservative National Review, which receives significant funding from DonorsTrust through its affiliated National Review Institute.

In advance of a 2019 Buzzfeed News article that cited the Coleman Foundation investment, Domenech, The Federalist’s publisher, refused to comment but tweeted that this impending revelation of public information amounted to “doxxing” an investor. “They will do this because they want to shut us down,” he claimed.

Federal tax records for the FDRLST Media Foundation are not yet public, but the Washington, D.C. secretary of state has public records of the foundation. David DesRosiers, the publisher of Real Clear Politics and the former executive vice president of the Uihlein-funded Manhattan Institute, is a director. Hemingway is both a director and a “governor.” Attorney Alan P. Dye is the third director.

It’s possible that more FDRLST Media Foundation donors will emerge as CMD obtains additional 2019 tax records from conservative foundations.

In September 2017, FDRLST Media filed an offering of debt securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At the time, $200,000 of the $750,000 offered had been sold. Listed as a director of FDRLST Media was John McIntyre, president and CEO of Real Clear Media. Someone named Jenn McIntyre was also listed as a director and an executive officer. The filing located FDRLST Media at the same Chicago address as Real Clear Politics, the main publication of Real Clear Media.

Real Clear has taken a “sharp right turn” in recent years, likely due to its increased funding from right-wing donors and its reaction to Trump’s takeover of the Republican party. A CMD report showed that at least 99 percent of the 2015 to 2018 revenue of the Real Clear Foundation, which funds the outlet’s investigative stories, came from right-wing funders, including DonorsTrust, Donors Capital Fund, the Uihlein Foundation, and two foundations of Charles Koch.

“As the administration lurched from one crisis after another,” wrote The New York Times’ Jeremy Peters last month, “Real Clear became one of the most prominent platforms for elevating unverified and reckless stories about the president’s political opponents, through a mix of its own content and articles from across conservative media.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/new-report-reveals-one-of-the-funders-of-the-federalist-and-how-right-wing-commentators-warp-the-news/

alex h

some right-wing pundits will offer a policy-by-policy defense of President Donald Trump, while right-wing pundits of the Never Trump persuasion — from CNN’s Ana Navarro and MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to Bill Kristol and Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark — will go issue by issue while slamming the president. But Jeremy W. Peters, in an article for the New York Times, examines athird type of right-wing pundit: one who is generally pro-Trump but is less interested in defending Trump on the issues than demonizing Trump’s liberal critics.

“What these writers and pundits don’t tend to do is make the doggedly pro-Trump defenses that appear on Breitbart and erupt from the mouth of Sean Hannity,” Peters explains. “Often, they don’t bother at all with the awkward business of trying to explain away Mr. Trump’s latest folly. Instead, they offer an outlet for outrage against those the president has declared his enemies, often by reducing them to a culture war caricature of liberalism.

Peter cites The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway and Allie Beth Stuckey (who hosts the podcast “Relatable”) as examples of pundits who fall into that category. Stuckey, according to Peters, “does not go out of her way to defend the president” but does go out of her way to demonize his liberal critics.

“Through this lens,” Peters observes, “Mr. Trump’s transgressions seem irrelevant compared with the manifold misdeeds of everyone from the Clintons to CNN. Their portrayal of what the country would look like if the Democrats win big in November is indeed a frightening one to Trump supporters: a White House with Sen. Bernie Sanders as the shadow socialist president; a Democratic House of Representatives where Rep. Ilhan Omar calls the shots; a society in which mask mandates are the first step in a government experiment with social control; a political arena where conservatives are badgered into silence."

the piece also revealed one of The Federalist’s funders, who have long been kept secret, and indicated how the backer may have influenced its coverage:

Critics have asked who is funding the site, since ad revenue alone wouldn’t be enough to sustain its staff of 14 and political websites often rely on wealthy donors for support. The Federalist has not disclosed its supporters, leading to criticism that it is not being transparent about its agenda. But according to two people with knowledge of its finances, one of its major backers is Dick Uihlein, the Midwestern packing supply magnate and Trump donor who has a history of giving to combative, hard-right candidates, like Roy S. Moore of Alabama, who make many Republicans squeamish. (After Mr. Moore was accused of assaulting underage girls in 2017, The Federalist ran an opinion piece that defended men who dated young women as a practice with a long history that was “not without some merit if one wants to raise a large family.”)

Another pundit Peters discusses in his article is Ben Shapiro, who famously became the butt of jokes in the U.K. after calling British conservative Andrew Neil a “leftist” during an appearance on his BBC program (to Brits who are familiar with Neil, the notion that he is a “leftist” is beyond laughable). Shapiro is not deeply enamored of Trump the way that Breitbart’s staff are, but as Peters notes, Shapiro’s hatred of liberals by far outweighs his issues with Trump.

“Mr. Shapiro isn’t shy about calling out the president for his divisive and unfocused leadership, but far more often, he takes shots at Mr. Trump’s critics,” Peters explains. “Mr. Shapiro echoes other conservatives who deflect: Mr. Trump wasn’t helping anyone, for instance, by asking top public health officials to study whether disinfectant could be injected into the human body as a coronavirus treatment. But, Mr. Shapiro explained he didn’t actually tell people to put bleach in their bodies: ‘That doesn’t mean he was recommending actually injecting Clorox, people.’”

Tim Miller, a Never Trump conservative and GOP activist who writes for The Bulwark, told the Times that publications like The Federalist are motivated by “an unquenchable desire to take everybody else down a peg.” Miller, on the other hand, believes that Trump has been terrible for the conservative movement — and he is happy to express that view during his appearances on cable news.

With Hemingway, Stuckey and Shapiro, Peters observes, the main ingredient is “anti-liberalism” — not an intense adoration for all things Trump like one finds at Breitbart.

Nicole Hemmer, a research scholar at Columbia University in New York City, told the Times, “The conservative ideology that had been cohesive during the Cold War is falling apart. It seems to me that ‘owning the libs’ is kind of the way you hold everyone together when your policy preferences are coming apart."

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/meet-the-billionaire-trump-donor-pushing-for-recall-of-wisconsins-governor-over-stay-at-home-order-after-claiming-the-media-is-overblowing-covid-19/

no lnx

Meet the billionaire Trump donor pushing for recall of Wisconsin’s governor over stay-at-home order after claiming ‘the media is overblowing COVID-19’

Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein

Written by Alex Henderson April 22, 2020

In the business world, supporters of stay-at-home orders and aggressive social distancing have been arguing that ending them prematurely — and causing unnecessary deaths from coronavirus — will ultimately hurt the U.S. economy a lot more than the financial pain that is presently being felt. But one person who doesn’t see it that way is billionaire shipping magnate Liz Uihlein, a major GOP donor and an economic adviser to President Donald Trump. And Bloomberg News reporters Anders Melin and Polly Mosendz, in an April 21 article, describe some of the actions Uihlein is taking politically to discourage social distancing and stay-at-home orders.

Uihlein, Melin and Mosendz report, is supporting a petition to recall Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers for his stay-at-home order.

“As protests grip Wisconsin and other states with Democratic governors, the debate is dividing neighbors, politicians and business executives,” the Bloomberg journalists notes. “Big company CEOs — Democrats and Republicans alike — have generally urged caution about reopening because of the health risk, yet some of the GOP’s biggest donors have been pushing hardest on the side of lifting restriction.”

Melin and Mosendz observed that although Koch Industries Chairman Charles Koch has “questioned blanket shutdowns…. few have objected more strongly than Liz Uihlein, chief executive officer of closely held Uline.”

Uihlein has a history of downplaying the severity of COVID-19. In a March 13 e-mail to Illinois politicians, the Uline CEO asserted, “The media is overblowing COVID-19. At what point do we go back to our normal lives? This has been a huge disruption.”

But the pandemic that Uihlein believes the media are “overblowing,” according to researchers at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, has killed at least 178,845 people worldwide (as of early Wednesday morning, April 22). And that includes over 45,000 deaths in the United States, which has become the coronavirus epicenter of the world.

Uihlein has been criticized for not doing enough to encourage Uline employees to work from home. Melin and Mosendz note that Uline is offering an extra $5 per hour to employees who work on site rather than working from home.

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/03/16/right-wing-super-pac-runs-pro-sanders-ad-after-running-anti-sanders-ad/

alex k

right-wing, billionaire-funded Club for Growth Action super PAC has a message for liberal voters: Billionaires behind Joe Biden are helping the Democratic Party rig the presidential primary against Bernie Sanders.

“After Mike [Bloomberg’s] $600 million couldn’t get it done, now the billionaires are propping up Joe Biden…because they own him,” says the narrator of the. “Don’t let them steal it.”

Just weeks ago, the same super PAC ran an ad attacking Sanders for his progressive positions on health care and climate change.At the time, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reported that Club for Growth Action’s biggest donors included billionaires Richard Uihlein, owner and CEO of shipping supplies company ULINE, Jeff Yass, managing director and co-founder of financial firm Susquehanna International Group, and private equity owner John Childs.

A March 10 Club for Growth Action press release says the group will spend five figures on the digital ad, which will run in the four states set to vote on Tuesday, March 17: Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio.

“Remember” is the fourth ad that Club for Growth Action has released in the Democratic presidential primary. The group has also run an ad attacking former candidate Beto O’Rourke and another criticizing Biden for working with “racist Dixiecrats” to oppose school busing integration. The super PAC has spent a total of nearly $180,000 on ads against Democratic presidential contenders Biden ($86,000), Sanders ($59,000), and O’Rourke ($35,000), according to Federal Election Commission data.

Club for Growth Action has made over $5 million worth of independent expenditures in the 2020 elections so far, much of it going towards Republican congressional primaries, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Other conservative super PACs have made independent expenditures opposing Biden and Sanders, as CMD recently reported. As of March 4, The Committee to Defend the President had spent nearly $900,000 against Biden, while the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund spent $69,000 against Sanders. Additional conservative groups have spent smaller amounts attacking both candidates.

Club for Growth, the 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofit linked to Club for Growth Action, with an annual revenue of $6.7 million, is also reliant on conservative billionaires. For example, the Charles Koch-backed trade association now called The Seminar Network Chamber of Commerce donated $175,000 to Club for Growth in 2017. A few years before, the group received over $1 million from the Koch-backed Center to Protect Patient Rights.

no lnx graf

https://www.prwatch.org/news/:{2020/02:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:/13545/wealthy-donors-and-fossil-fuel-interests-pump-millions-super-pacs-2020-elections

independent political spending groups are readying their arsenals to flood the airwaves with 2020 election ads praising their preferred candidates or attacking those they don’t like. Right-wing millionaires and billionaires and fossil fuel corporations are helping them do so.

Leading the pack are Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, the midwestern executives of shipping supply giant Uline, having donated a total of $19.4 million to seven super PACs from January 2019 through January 2020.

Oil and materials conglomerate Koch Industries has donated the most of any corporation so far, giving nearly $5.3 million to three super PACs, including $4 million to AFP Action, which is the sister group of Charles Koch's flagship political nonprofit, Americans for Prosperity. Also funding AFP Action is the group's predecessor, Freedom Partners Action Fund, which gave nearly $6.5 million.

Conservative super PACs owe thanks not just to Koch Industries but to a number of other fossil fuel companies, a trade group, fossil fuel executives and their spouses, and heirs to fossil fuel fortunes. Fossil fuel interests donated nearly $18.8 million to conservative super PACs and hybrid PACs--committees that operate both a super PAC and a traditional PAC--from January 2019 through January 2020.

Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Valero all gave over $1 million to GOP super PACs. Executives such as Western Refining Chairman Paul Foster, Midland Energy CEO S. Javaid Anwar, and coal producer Alliance Resource Partners CEO Joe Craft gave six- or seven-figure sums.

The Megadonors

Richard Uihlein has emerged as a key Republican megadonor in the last several years. In 2010, he was 36th on the list of top donors to outside political spending groups at the federal level. Over that decade, he inched up the ladder until he vastly increased his spending in 2018, giving nearly $38 million to outside groups.

In the current election, Uihlein's giving appears to be continuing this upward trend. Since last year, Richard and his wife, Elizabeth Uihlein, have given the most money--$12.5 million--of any donor to Club for Growth Action.But they also gave large amounts to the pro-Trump America First Action ($1.5 million), Americas PAC ($1.5 million), House Freedom Action ($1 million), Kentucky Tomorrow ($250,000), Restoration PAC ($2.5 million), and Senate Conservatives Action ($125,000). In total, the couple has delivered $19.4 million to conservative super PACs.

In May 2016, Elizabeth Uihlein landed on the Trump Victory Committee, which raised money for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, after considerable political spending.

The Uihleins have also spent heavily in state elections, boosting the2014 campaign of Republican Bruce Rauner, who became governor of Illinois.Richard Uihlein has expressed anti-gay and anti-transgender views and has backed extremist candidates such as Alabama's Roy Moore, a right-wing evangelical accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women.

Timothy Mellon, the majority owner of transportation holding company Pan Am Systems and an heir to the Mellon steel fortune, donated $10 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, which spends money to boost Republican House candidates, for the second election cycle in a row. In addition, Mellon gave $2.5 million to Senate Republicans' main super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund.

Mellon is a big Republican Party donor who donated $1.5 million in 2010 to Arizona's legal defense fund as it fought lawsuits over its harsh anti-immigrant law SB 1070. In 2014, he put $30,000 into the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee and donated the maximum allowed amount to Carson's presidential campaign the following year. In the current election cycle, Mellon has donated mostly to GOP candidates, but gave the maximum allowed amount of $2,800 to Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's (D-HI) campaign.

Mellon is related to the Scaife family, which, through the Scaife family foundations, is one of the biggest bankrollers of the right-wing movement, including several hate groups.

Other top donors who have given multiple millions of dollars to GOP super PACs include:

Jeff Yass, managing director of investment firm Susquehanna International Group: $4.1 million. Club for Growth Action ($2 million) and Protect Freedom PAC ($2.1 million).

Warren A. Stephens, CEO of investment bank Stephens, Inc.: $3.6 million. 1820 PAC ($250,000), America First Action($500,000), Congressional Leadership Fund ($750,000), Security is Strength PAC ($50,000), Senate Leadership Fund ($1.5 million), Waiting for Women Action Fund ($500,000).

Paul E. Singer,president of hedge fund company Elliott Management Group: $3.5 million. Congressional Leadership Fund ($1 million), Senate Leadership Fund ($2 million), Waiting for Women Action Fund ($500,000).

Stephen A. Schwarzman, CEO of private equity firm Blackstone: $3 million. 1820 PAC ($500,000), Congressional Leadership Fund ($2.5 million).

In total, 24 individuals and couples have given $1 million or more to conservative super PACs since 2019.

Some big donors contributed individually and through their companies. Mountaire Farms CEO Ronald Camerondonated $2.8 million of his own money, including $1 million to AFP Action, while his company donated $500,000 to both the Congressional and Senate Leadership Funds.

Six members of the family of Education Sec. Betsy DeVos, including her husband, Dick DeVos, combined to donate a total of $2.3 million to super PACs: America First Action ($400,000), Better Future MI Fund ($700,000), the Congressional Leadership Fund ($450,000), and the Senate Leadership Fund ($750,000).

Koch Industries Leads Corporate Contributions

CMD tracked $23.5 million in direct corporate donations to conservative super PACs since 2019, much of which came from fossil fuel companies—most prominently, Koch Industries.

In addition to donating $4 million to AFP Action, Koch Industries gave $500,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund and $750,000 to the Senate Leadership Fund. The company gave nearly $5.3 million to super PACs from 2019 through January 2020.

Real estate conglomerate Hillwood Development Co. gave close to $3.1 million to GOP PACs, including $1.1 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, $1 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, and $1 million to Engage Texas, a super PAC funded by Texas-based companies and business executives that launched in June 2019 "with the goal of registering hundreds of thousands of new voters and convincing them to help keep the state red in November."

Hillwood Development founder Ross Perot, Jr. gave $10,000 to Texans for a Conservative Majority, a super PAC that was founded in 2013 by a corporate lobbyist to help reelect Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and came out of hibernation last year to help the senator keep his seat again.

Oil giant Chevron added $1 million to the Senate Leadership Fund,$750,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund, and $15,000 to Maverick PAC. ConocoPhillips ANS Marketing Company, a subsidiary of ConocoPhillips, donated $1 million to the Senate Leadership Fund and $250,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund. Oil and gas pipeline company Energy Transfer donated $1 million to Engage Texas and $100,000 to Texans for a Conservative Majority.

Thirty-seven companies and one trade group gave more than $100,000 to conservative super PACs from 2019 through January 2020.

Fossil fuel companies accounted for nearly $11.9 million in conservative super PAC donations, or more than 50 percent of the amount that corporations gave to such PACs. None of these companies made donations to liberal super PACs. In all, fossil fuel companies, executives, or heirs gave more than $18.8 million to conservative super PACs from 2019 through January 2020.

Jan Duncan, the widow of Dan Duncan, the late co-founder of oil and gas pipeline company Enterprise Products, gave $1 million each to Engage Texas and Women Speak Out PAC, an affiliate of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List.

The trade group American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers gave $100,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fundand $10,000 to the West Virginia-based Black Bear PAC.

Campaign FinanceCorporationsDemocracyEnvironmentKoch ExposedPoliticsRight WingU.S. Government

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/01/club-for-growth-action-5/

1/20

political leanings:Conservative

2018 total spending: $19.6 million

Club for Growth Action, the super PAC of the conservative Club for Growth, was launched in August 2010. On its website, the organization declares its mission is to “take on any Member of Congress on policy who fails to uphold basic economic conservative principles … regardless of party.”

The PAC targets some Republican incumbents in primary elections in order to replace them with “pro-growth, limited government conservatives.” Club for Growth Action states on its website that it has been “instrumental” in helping to elect conservatives such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Marco Rubioof Florida andSen.Tim Scott of South Carolina.

As of Dec. 31, 2019, the group had raised $7.7 million in the 2020 election cycle.

Its independent expenditures — spending for or against identified candidates, without coordination with candidates or parties —totaled about $2.5 million as of Feb. 10. Club for Growth Action spent more than $550,000 against Democrat Dan McCready in North Carolina. McCready lost to Republican Dan Bishop in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District special election in 2019. In the Democratic presidential primaries, the group has so far spent almost $67,000 against former Vice President Joe Biden, $59,000 against Sen. Bernie Sanders and a little more than$34,000 against former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas. O’Rourke dropped out of the Democratic race on Nov. 1.

The bulk of Club for Growth Action’s money thus far in the 2020 cycle has come from three donors. Richard Uihlein, the chief executive officer of Uline, a shipping, packaging and industrial supplies company, gave the PAC $2.5 million in May. The two other major donors are Jeff Yass, cofounder of the financial firm Susquehanna International, and Virginia James, a conservative investor and former spouse of Club for Growth co-founder and stockbroker Richard Gilder. They have donated $2 million and $1 million to the PAC, respectively.

In the 2018 cycle, Club for Growth Action spent $19.6 million. The PAC spent $1.2 million in the Texas senatorial race against O’Rourke, who lost in his bid to unseat Cruz. The group also spent more than$1.1 million to defeat Republican candidate Russell “Russ” Fagg in the Montana Senate Republican primary.

The PAC also focused onspecial House elections in Georgia and Pennsylvania. During the last election cycle,the group found itself at odds in the Georgia House race with a pro-Trump group called 45Committee.Club for Growth Action endorsed RepublicanBob Gray — one of 18 candidates, including 11 Republicans, running in what was known as a “jungle primary.”

45Committee ran TV ads opposing Gray, claiming voters could not “trust him” because he “stands with the Club for Growth.” Gray did not survive the primary.Karen Handel, a Republican, won the special election in a runoff against Democrat Jon Ossoff.

A large chunk of the PAC’s money in the 2018 election cycle came from Uihlein, who has donated to Club for Growth Action since2010. Uihlein gave the PAC $6.7 million. Jeff Yass, co-founder of global trading firm Susquehanna International Group, gave the PAC a little over$3.8 million. Yass also serves on the board of directors at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

In the 2016 cycle, Club for Growth Action spent a little over $20 million. On the presidential election alone, the group spent nearly $8 million — including more than$7 million against Donald Trump during the Republican primary. The group, for example, accused Trump in TV adsof supporting higher taxes. Once in office, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which reduced individual and corporate income tax rates, among other things. (See our story, “A Guide to the Tax Changes.”)

https://www.propublica.org/article/while-trump-cracked-down-on-immigration-a-republican-megadonor-sued-for-a-special-visa

Many of the same social media influencers who attended Trump’s “Social Media Summit” on July 11 have rallied to defend his racist attacks against U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-D), Rashida Tlaib (MI-D), Ayanna Pressley (MA-D), and Ilhan Omar (MN-D). And a number of them are bankrolled by the Kochs, the Bradley Foundation, and other large right-wing foundations.

In a tweet July 14, Trump called for the minority freshman lawmakers, fierce critics of his policies, to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” All four are American citizens, and three of the four were born in the United States.

Since then, Trump has doubled down on the attacks, saying the lawmakers “hate our country,” and did nothing to abate chants of “Send her back!” at a recent campaign rally in North Carolina.

In the face of widespread outrage, Trump’s friends from the Summit have gone out of their way to justify his actions.

The Heritage Foundation condemned Trump’s comments, but also suggested that he made them out of love for the country and that the “destructive and divisive nature of the rhetoric of the members of Congress in question” was to blame.

The Media Research Center (MRC) used its “Newsbusters” site to criticize mainstream media coverage, writing that “Trump didn’t say anything violent” and publishing another piece titled, “The ‘Squad’ Won’t Condemn Antifa Terrorism….WHERE Are The Media?”

And Will Chamberlain’s Human Events published a piece arguing that there’s a double standard at play because Trump’s targets aren’t white, claiming that “Ilhan Omar…really is a danger to the U.S.,” and concluding that Trump’s chanting supporters can’t be blamed “for wanting to protect America.”

Although the mainstream media has done a good job of covering Trump’s inaugural Social Media Summit and his racist attacks, there has been very little reporting on who bankrolls this online echo chamber of right-wing, anti-immigration, and white nationalist pundits.

The Heritage Foundation

The Heritage Foundation has been one of the top supporters of Trump’s anti-immigration push on the right.

Those who attended the Trump summit from Heritage include Robert Bluey, vice president of communications and executive editor of the group’s news website, “The Daily Signal”; Bridgett Wagner, vice president of policy promotion; Maria Sousa, digital director; Lyndsey Fifield, social media manager; and Jessica Anderson, vice president of Heritage Action for America.

The Sarah Scaife Foundation is a major source of revenue for the Heritage Foundation, providing the group with at least $18 million since 1985. The foundation also funds a number of other anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim organizations, including the Center for Immigration Studies and the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Billionaires Charles and David Koch and their partners in Stand Together (formerly known as the Seminar Network) have given over $5.7 million to Heritage since 1998 through their various family foundations, and the Koch network’s preferred donor conduit duo of DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund has chipped in another half million since 2010.

The Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation has provided at least another $5.9 million to Heritage since 1998 and the Mercer Family Foundation, run by one of the “blow-it-all-up billionaires” behind Trump’s rise to power, Rebekah Mercer, has given at least another $1 million since 2015.

Heritage generally steers clear of the xenophobic language prevalent among other Trump influencers. Heritage researcher Jason Richwine, coauthor of a controversial report concluding that allowing illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship would cost taxpayers trillions, resigned from Heritage when it became public that he had argued in his Harvard dissertation that, “The average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations.”

Media Research Center

Brent Bozell’s MRC operates “NewsBusters,” a site that claims to be “documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.” It has a section entitled “Trump Coverage Studies” that attempts to refute mainstream media stories on Trump.

MRC has received at least $7 million from the Mercer Family Foundation since 2015; $2.4 million from the Bradley Foundation since 1998; and $1.4 million from the Sarah Scaife Foundation since 2012.

MRC claims to “not associate with known white nationalists,” and took down a piece it had promoted last year from a white nationalist website, which stated that Black people “are a threat to all who cross their path,” after it was reported by MediaMatters. It was not the first time, however, that NewsBusters had linked to or promoted white nationalist websites.

Bozell was a fierce critic of Trump prior to the 2016 election, but since repeatedly attacked the press for criticizing the president.

Project Veritas

Project Veritas, a 2015 grantee of the Trump Foundation, is run by James O’Keefe, a right-wing activist and provocateur who uses deception and manipulative editing in his “investigations.”

Due to O’Keefe’s methods, Project Veritas has been plagued by legal issues over the years, and the group is barred from seeking donations in Florida, Maine, Mississippi, Utah, and Wisconsin.

Project Veritas’s funders are difficult to identify as the group receives the majority of its funding through donor conduits. DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund have given the group over $4.8 million since 2011.

O’Keefe has been criticized for associating with radical white nationalists for years and has appeared on InfoWars — conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ infamous radio show denounced by ex-staffers as a “den of racism and harassment” — multiple times. After InfoWars was removed from social media platforms for promoting violence and hate, O’Keefe tweeted, “InfoWars targeted, taken off social media. These tech companies’ practices are opaque and given their power must be made more transparent. We will expose the entire rotten tech machine.”

InfoWars has also hosted Patrick Casey, the leader of the white nationalist group Evropa, which helped plan the deadly Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. Evropa has since rebranded itself as the American Identity Movement.

Most recently, O’Keefe has teamed up with Ginni Thomas, a former Heritage staffer and wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, and the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) chief marketing officer, Bill Meierling, to launch a new dark money operation to “protect President Trump.”

Prager University

Prager University, a social media video project of Dennis Prager and an attendee at the Trump Summit, has been banned and/or restricted on YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, and Twitter for providing a platform for hate speech.

Anti-Semitic Owen Benjamin, anti-LGBT Steven Crowder, and former Turning Point USA Communications Director Candace Owens have all contributed to Prager University. Owens left Turning Point USA after many campus chapters called for her resignation following her statement that “Hitler was an ‘OK’ leader until he tried to take his message global.”

In studying Prager University, the sociologist Francesca Tripodi writes that Prager’s project creates “a dense network of extremist thinkers” that “allows for those who identify as mainline conservatives to gain easy access to white supremacist logic.”

Prager University has received at least a million dollars since 2010 from the Bradley Foundation. Bradley internal documents examined by CMD show that Bradley funds Prager for its strong reach across social media platforms and because it “distills (conservative/Judeo-Christian) principles into content-rich, entertaining five-minute video ‘courses’ taught by public intellectuals, many of whom are Bradley Prize winners.”

Turning Point USA

Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA has a history of racism that extends beyond former employee Candace Owens. The group’s former chapter president at University of Nevada, Las Vegas used racial epithets and exclaimed “white power” while hugging another individual who shouted “we’re going to rule the country” and “fuck the niggers” in a video that went viral earlier this year.

Kirk also named Kyle Kashuv, widely known for his racial slurs, to be Turning Point USA’s high school outreach director. Kashuv resigned from the post when he was outed by a former classmate who said he “used the N-word frequently,” ranked women’s attractiveness by race, and referenced his “Jewish slaves.”

Turning Point USA has received close to $300,000 since 2014 from GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein‘s Ed Uihlein Family Foundation.

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/05/28/corporate-funded-groups-continue-campaign-cripple-public-sector-unions

don weiner

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The same corporate-funded groups that bankrolled a successful ten-year campaign to cripple public employee unions by having the U.S. Supreme Court strike down “fair share” fees for nonmembers in Janus v. AFSCME last year are now suing to retroactively recover fees paid before the Court’s ruling.

This is the latest move in the right-wing’s quest to “defund and defang” public sector unions with a goal of delivering a “mortal blow” to progressive politics, and mirrors similar “clawback” suits filed across the country over the past year.

Two groups that spearheaded the Janus case, the Liberty Justice Center (LJC) and National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF), have now filed a federal lawsuit in Illinois seeking repayment of $2 million in fair share fees paid by 2,700 Illinois public employees to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) between May 1, 2017 and June 27, 2018.

Public employee unions are required to represent all workers, whether they join the union or not, so unions have collected “fair share” fees, also known as agency fees, for many decades to cover the basic costs of bargaining for higher wages and benefits. That practice was upheld by the Supreme Court unanimously in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education in 1977, but the Court turned its back on that precedent in the *Janus* case and struck them down on First Amendment grounds.

A similar lawsuit by the two groups filed in a different federal district court was thrown out earlier this year when the judge ruled that AFSCME had collected the dues “in good faith.”

“That ruling echoes what more than a dozen other federal and state courts have decided in similar cases,” AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall told the Chicago Tribune. “The anti-worker, corporate-funded front groups prolonging this failed litigation want to use the courts to further their political attack on working people and our union. Their repeated lawsuits are nothing but a greedy grab for more.”

In its Janus decision, the Court’s majority acknowledged that public sector unions would now have to represent nonunion members even without their agency fees, creating an entire class of free-riders.

With respect to both lawsuits and the earlier Janus case, public sector unions note that the plaintiffs never complained about receiving the wage increases, health insurance coverage, vacation time, and other benefits that the union negotiated for on their behalf.

In addition to the new lawsuit, LJC and NRTWLDF have appealed the original case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Lawsuits Bankrolled by Corporate Foundations and a Megadonor

Richard Uihlein, an Illinois businessman and GOP megadonor, the Koch brothers’ donor network, and the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation have bankrolled much of the groups’ legal war on public sector unions.

The LJC, part of the right-wing Illinois Policy Institute at the time of the Janus ruling, has received $1.7 million since 2010 from the Koch donor network’s funding vehicles, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, and $320,000 since 2009 from the Bradley Foundation, which the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) exposed in a series of articles in 2017.

Uihlein has given over $8.6 million to Illinois Policy Institute since 2009 and at least another $800,000 since 2014 to LJC. Uihlein is notoriously anti-union and spent millions to support the gubernatorial campaigns of the anti-worker governors Scott Walker and Bruce Rauner.

Uihlein has also given $300,000 since 2014 to NRTWLDF, which has received $1.3 million since 2003 from Bradley and $833,000 since 2010 from DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, according to IRS filings.

LJC’s most recent IRS 990 filing shows that its revenue jumped from $494,000 in its fiscal year 2016 to $692,000 in 2017, a 40 percent increase, while it was working on the Janus case. LJC’s chair, John Tillman, was paid over $400,000 in 2017 from affiliated nonprofits, principally the Illinois Policy Institute.

LJC is a member of the State Policy Network (SPN). In the states, SPN groups peddle cookie-cutter “studies” to back the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) agenda.

Bradley Foundation grants to SPN “affiliate” and “associate” members stretch back decades and amount to approximately $133 million, according to Bradley grant summary documents tallied by CMD.

A 2016 Bradley internal file on SPN notes that SPN’s focus in recent years has been on “catalyzing further efforts to curb public-sector unions’ excesses” and “mobilizing nonprofits, donors and citizens to uphold the principles of donor privacy and freedom of speech.” The right-wing effort is part of a concerted campaign to bankrupt unions in order to cripple the Democratic Party and, more broadly, the progressive movement.

The new wave of legal assaults on public employee unions as we head into the 2020 elections appears to be the latest stage of that campaign.

David Armiak contributed research to this report.

https://www.factcheck.org/2018/06/americas-pac/

leanings: Republican/Conservative

Spending target: Undisclosed

Americas PAC has traditionally specialized in making independent expenditures attempting to convince black and Hispanic voters to support Republican candidates, but the PAC says it is widening its net.

Americas PAC declares on its website: “With large percentages of minority voters supporting marriage, lower taxes, school choice and pro-life positions but voting Democratic, our goal is to ask for their vote without compromising our conservative views.”

The PAC spends mostly ontargeted radio ads and social media. In 2016 it sponsored a Spanish-language radio ad asking (in translation): “Does [Democratic Senate candidate] Catherine Cortez Masto [of Nevada] care that 3 out of 5 babies aborted in America are black and Hispanic?… I have a question for Catherine Cortez Masto: Why should I vote for you if you don’t even care about our babies?”

And in 2014, it ran a radio ad on Wisconsin stations with large black audiences urging listeners to turn out to support Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s reelection bid. A female narrator said, “Democrats ask for our votes every election. But why do we vote for a party that wants our votes but not our babies?”

In the 2016 election cycle, the PAC reported raising and spending just under $2 million, of which $1.9 million was donated by Republican donor Richard Uihlein, CEO of Uline Corp., a manufacturer and distributor of shipping, packaging and industrial supplies.

In 2018, the PAC and Uihlein are thinking bigger. As of March 31, 2018, the PAC had already reported raising more than $5 million, all of it from Uihlein (either directly or transferred from another PAC, Solutions for Wisconsin, exclusively financed by Uihlein.)

The PAC’s first 2018 target is Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.It reported spending more than $700,000 directly opposing her reelection, and $2.6 million supporting GOP hopeful Kevin Nicholson in the Aug. 14 Republican primary to choose her general election opponent.

Another early target is Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. The PAC reported spending more than $500,000, as of June 5, to oppose Manchin’s reelection.

It also reported spending nearly $695,000 supporting Republican Matt Rosendale as the GOP nominee to run against Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in Montana. Rosendale, the state auditor, won the June 5 GOP Senate primary.

Americas PAC was established in 2003 by Kansas Republican activist Richard Nadler as a “dark money” political committee organized under Section 527 of the IRS code. As such, it was allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts for independent expenditures from any U.S. source without disclosing the identity of its givers.

After Nadler’s death in 2009, control passed to its longtime political consultant, Tom Donelson, who runs it from a two-story house in Marion, Iowa. He registered it with the Federal Election Commission as a super PAC in 2014, and has since filed regular disclosures of its donations and expenditures.

When we contacted Donelson, he declined to say how much he hoped to raise and spend in 2018. But he did share that the PAC is now looking beyond targeting minority voters.

“[W]e have expanded from our minority outreach to include other aspects of the Democratic base including single white women, as well as independents and blue collar workers, what we call ‘Trump Republicans,'” he told us via email. “We also target Republicans to ensure the whole base comes out.”

In addition to the Senate races in West Virginia, Montana and Wisconsin, the PAC has what Donelson called a “wish list” of other contests, including House races, depending on fundraising.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/business/economy/labor-court-conservatives.html?smid=tw-share

Behind a Key Anti-Labor Case, a Web of Conservative Donors

By NOAM SCHEIBER and KENNETH P. VOGELFEB. 25, 2018

In the summer of 2016, government workers in Illinois received a mailing that offered them tips on how to leave their union. By paying a so-called fair-share fee instead of standard union dues, the mailing said, they would no longer be bound by union rules and could not be punished for refusing to strike.

“To put it simply,” the document concluded, “becoming a fair-share payer means you will havemore freedom.”

The mailing, sent by a group called the Illinois Policy Institute, may have seemed like disinterested advice. In fact, it was one prong of a broader campaign against public-sector unions, backed by some of the biggest donors on the right. It is an effort that will reach its apex on Monday, when the Supreme Court hears a case that could cripple public-sector unions by allowing the workers they represent to avoid paying fees.

One of the institute’s largest donors is a foundation bankrolled by Richard Uihlein, an Illinois industrialistwho has spent millions backing Republican candidates in recent years, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois.

Tax filings show that Mr. Uihlein has also been the chief financial backer in recent years of the Liberty Justice Center, which represents Mark Janus, the Illinois child support specialist who is the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case.

And Mr. Uihlein has donated well over $1 million over the years to groups like the Federalist Society that work to orient the judiciary in a more conservative direction. They have helped produce a Supreme Court that most experts expect to rule in Mr. Janus’s favor.

The case illustrates the cohesiveness with which conservative philanthropists have taken on unions in recent decades. “It’s a mistake to look at the Janus case and earlier litigation as isolated episodes,” said Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, a Columbia University political scientist who studies conservative groups. “It’s part of a multipronged, multitiered strategy.”

In doing so, these donors have not just brought labor to the brink of crisis but threatened the Democratic Party as well.

Amid changes in the campaign finance landscape and the decline of private-sector unions, the party and its candidates have increasingly relied on major public unions for funding, including hundreds of millions of dollars in direct and indirect spending during the 2016 presidential cycle. Those unions include the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, whose Council 31 is the defendant in the Janus case.

Mark Janus, the plaintiff in a Supreme Court case challenging mandatory union fees, at the Illinois State Capitol. Credit Whitney Curtis for The New York Times

A recent paper by Mr. Hertel-Fernandez and two colleagues may foretell what Democrats can expect if Mr. Uihlein and his fellow philanthropists succeed. It found that the Democratic share of the presidential vote dropped by an average of 3.5 percentage points after the passage of so-called right-to-work laws allowing employees to avoid paying union fees. That is larger than Democrats’ margin of defeat in several states that could have reversed their last three presidential losses.

And that is clearly on the mind of Republicans. In a recent interview, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, acknowledged the potential of the Janus case to hurt Democratic fund-raising for the coming midterm elections. “In states where they got rid of the automatic deduction and employees figured they could keep their own money, they did,” he said. “So it could have an impact.”

Conservative groups aren’t alone in locking arms to advance an ideological agenda. For decades, liberal donors and foundations, sometimes working together through coalitions like the Democracy Alliance, have promoted liberal goals in a variety of ways. Some backed groups, like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, that used litigation to move American society leftward.

But the extent of the coordination on the right often dwarfs liberal efforts. Especially on the state level, conservative groups are “doing different things, mobilizing different constituencies,” Mr. Hertel-Fernandez said. “But they’re all working with one another. You don’t see the same thing on the left.”

As the percentage of unionized private-sector workers has collapsed in recent decades, public-sector unions, which have held steady in the mid-30s since the early 1980s, have increasingly become a target.

Conservatives chafe at the unions’ political influence, which they believe not only props up the Democratic Party but also drives up government spending and skews public policy on issues like education.

In 2011, Wisconsin rolled back the right of most public unions to bargain over anything other than wages and eliminated the requirement that nonmembers pay fees. The portion of unionized public-sector workers in the state plummeted from half to just over one-quarter within five years.

In seeking to produce similar results nationally, conservative donors have created a symbiosis between groups aiming to overturn Supreme Court precedent favorable to unions and groups that take advantage of those rulings to drain unions of members.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Wisconsin, which had over $800 million in assets in 2016, has funded both kinds of organizations.

In a 2014 case brought by a group that had received more than $1 million in contributions from the Bradley Foundation, the Supreme Court ruled that home-care aides and other “partial-public employees” paid through Medicaid could not be forced to pay fair-share fees if they left their unions. Unions say these fees, typically about 80 percent of standard dues, are necessary to compensate them for representing nonmembers in bargaining and grievance proceedings.

A fund-raising solicitation from the Illinois Policy Institute, one of several groups that have fueled efforts to weaken public-sector unions.

Then in 2016, the court heard a case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, that could have struck down fair-share fee requirements for all public employees represented by unions in more than 20 states, including California, Illinois and New York. The case was brought by a group that has received millions of dollars from the Bradley Foundation.

During 2015 and 2016, the foundation also substantially increased its contributions, totaling well over $1 million, to groups like the Independence Institute of Colorado and the Freedom Foundation of Washington State. Those groups have used such tools as direct mail, phone calls and door knocking to persuade public-sector workers to give up union membership.

Richard Graber, the chief executive of the Bradley Foundation, said the foundation avoided short-term tactical considerations in its giving. But he acknowledged that the increase was driven partly by the recent Supreme Court developments, which promised to make such opt-out campaigns more compelling for union members. (Some conservative groups are currently raising money for even more ambitious opt-out campaigns to take advantage of a favorable ruling this year.)

Our columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and his Times colleagues help you make sense of major business and policy headlines — and the power-brokers who shape them.

In February 2016, the month after the Supreme Court heard the Friedrichs case, Justice Antonin Scalia died, depriving conservatives of a decisive fifth vote to strike down mandatory union fees. That gave the Liberty Justice Center, backed by Mr. Uihlein, a chance to try again.

Few philanthropists have funded a more sweeping assault on labor than Mr. Uihlein, who with his wife, Elizabeth, founded a Wisconsin-based shipping supply company called Uline.

Mr. Uihlein is an ardent conservative who considers many Republican office holders too moderate on fiscal and social issues, according to those who know him.

“It’s not just politics for him,” said his friend Leonard A. Leo, the Federalist Societyexecutive vice president, who declined to offer specifics on Mr. Uihlein’s views. “I think he is philosophically attuned to conservative ideas,” added Mr. Leo, whom the Trump White House enlisted to shepherd the Supreme Court nomination of Neil M. Gorsuch, Justice Scalia’s successor.

The Uihleins have spent tens of millions of dollars over the past decade supporting Republican candidates and committees. That includes contributions to super PACs backing the 2016 presidential campaigns of Mr. Walker and Mr. Cruz, and at least $250,000 to help Mr. Walker survive a 2012 recall election. (Mr. Uihlein did not respond to a request for comment.)

The Uihleins appear to be preoccupied with state employee pensions and the unions that negotiate them.

“Bruce is the only one in the race who isn’t beholden to public-sector unions,” Mr. Uihlein said of Mr. Rauner, the year before his 2014 election as Illinois governor, in an interview with Crain’s Business Chicago. The Uihleins gave more than $2.5 million to his campaign.

Justice Neil Gorsuch speaking in November before the Federalist Society, which seeks a judiciary aligned with conservative values. He filled the Supreme Court seat vacated by Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. Credit Sait Serkan Gurbuz/Associated Press

Mr. Rauner has been a major ally in the fight against public-sector unions. Shortly after taking office in 2015, he challenged the constitutionality of mandatory union fees in federal court.

By the time a judge ruled that Mr. Rauner lacked standing for his lawsuit, the Illinois Policy Institute, which drew more than one-third of its $5.8 million in revenue that year from Mr. Uihlein’s foundation, had found a viable plaintiff to replace him: Mark Janus. The Liberty Justice Center and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which Mr. Uihlein also contributes to, represented Mr. Janus in court.

Since then, the policy institute has sought to persuade state employees to leave their union through its mailing campaign. It said it had obtained employees’ names through Freedom of Information Act requests.

Mr. Rauner’s administration has amplified the institute’s message, and vice versa. In an August 2016 email to state workers, the administration highlighted a benefit of giving up union membership and urged workers to visit a website that would help them do so. The policy institute soon promoted the same website and provided similar guidance in its mailings to state workers.

Mr. Uihlein’s foundation has supplemented these efforts by supporting a nonprofit called Think Freely Media, which uses storytelling techniques to champion free-market ideas, including right-to-work laws. The Uihlein foundation contributed more than $1.5 million to Think Freely from 2014 to 2016, the last year for which tax records are available.

At the center of this network is a longtime conservative activist named John Tillman, who serves as the chief executive of the Illinois Policy Institute as well as the chairman of the Liberty Justice Center and Think Freely Media.

In an interview, Mr. Tillman, who managed a call center earlier in his career and talked up his “marketing-centric approach” to promoting free enterprise, said the institute is fighting the enormous power of union leaders but is not anti-union per se.

“In the late 1800s, early 20th century, business owners had all the power, and workers had very little power,” he said. “Unions and collective bargaining emerged as a way to level the playing field. I think it was an amazing story of success.”

But in other contexts, Mr. Tillman has been less conciliatory.

In a fund-raising solicitation by the policy institute in December, Mr. Tillman claimed credit for helping more than 2,600 workers leave their union, resulting in a loss of $1.2 million in union revenue.

“It’s time for Illinois to throw off the shackles of big labor and big government,” he wrote.

“When you and I look around Illinois and see the devastation the union-dominated status quo has inflicted,” he continued, “we simply have no choice.”

Follow Noam Scheiber and Kenneth P. Vogel on Twitter: @noamscheiber, @kenvogel

On the Republican side, outside spending against GOP Senate candidates is even higher.

In the 2018 cycle, about $4.7 million of the roughly $5.2 million – or around 90 percent – of outside spending against all Republican candidates for the Senatehas targetedAlabama’s Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore. All but about $295,000 of the $4.7 million targeted Moore before the Republican primary in September. Outside spending after the primary has come from two groups, The Advocacy Fund and Highway 31.

Among Republicans, the next highest total was the $28,000 targetingone of Baldwin’s Republican challengers, Kevin Nicholson, who has the supportof former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Nicholson is a former Democrat who once workedfor the Democratic National Committee and even spoke at its 2000 convention.

Uline Inc, a Wisconsin-based shipping supply company owned by Illinois-based conservative donor Richard Uihlein, gave $3.5 million to the pro-Nicholson super PAC Solutions for Wisconsin. Uihlein’s investmentsalso include several resorts, spas and restaurants in the state.

Solutions for Wisconsin, in turn, has contributed $1.5 million to Americas PAC and Restoration PAC,which representthe second and third largest outside spenders opposing Baldwin. Uihlein also gave$250,000 directly to Americas PAC. He is the chief donor to a super PAC that has funded ads benefiting Moore as well, The Daily Beast reported.

Two advisors Nicholson is replacing on his campaign are takingpositions at Solutions for Wisconsin.

So far in the 2018 cycle, Uihlein has fundedroughly $6.1 million in outside spending, all of which went toward conservative groups.

The outside spending group that has spent the mostagainst Baldwin is Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a politically active nonprofit that serves as the fundraising hub of the donor network spearheaded by billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch.

Freedom Partners has spent around $1.7 million to defeat Baldwin, and as a 501(c)(6) trade association, it is not required to disclose its donors.

Koch Industries PAC is one of Ryan's top 10 career contributors, according to Open Secrets. It was notable to CMD that Ryan recently did a 180-degree turn on criminal justice reform, shortly after the Kochs signaled their support for self-serving criminal justice reform. Ryan has appeared at several Koch summits, has spoken frequently to the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity group, and Politico's Ken Vogel reported in 2012 that the Kochs may have helped Ryan secure the VP slot on the Romney ticket.

Kochs Go to Bat for U.S. Senator Ron Johnson

In other Koch news, Patrick Marley at the *Milwaukee Journal Sentinel* reported yesterday the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity astroturf group would be spending in Russ Feingold's race against incumbent U.S. Senator Ron Johnson.

They will spend $1 million in four weeks with trying to raise the profile of Johnson, who is virtually unknown in the state. While Feingold visited every one of Wisconsin's 72 counties every year during his time in the U.S. Senate, Johnson rarely faces the public, preferring to have controlled "telephonic" town hall meetings.

Other dark money groups backed by millionaires and billionaires are prepping to unload on Feingold including "Restoration PAC," bankrolled by Wisconsin businessman Richard Uihlein, and "Reform America Fund," bankrolled by toilet magnate Terry Kohler. Uihlein spent some $500,000 on ads supporting Johnson last year.

Reform America was recently registered by Koch operative Lorri Pickens at the FEC. Kohler has long worked with Scott Walker's campaign guru R.J. Johnson, and was last spotted in an unseemly scandal regarding a $500,000 government appropriation for a phony sporting organization packed with Koch insiders.

This is an unprecedented pattern in Wisconsin politics. Politicians no longer have to travel the state, meet constituents, and earn media if they have millionaires willing to spend on positive ads to boost their poll numbers and attack their opponents.

Will Undisclosed Dark Money Be the Big Winner in the WI Supreme Court Race?

Finally, Koch money could also be in play in a close Wisconsin Supreme Court race where a dark money group called "Wisconsin Alliance for Reform" is spending $2.6 million on misleading attack ads on Wisconsin Judge Joanne Kloppenburg, according to an estimate from the nonprofit Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

As CMD uncovered, WAR was also registered by Pickens, who has served as a dark money maven in the state for many decades. Pickens was involved in another Supreme Court race in 1997 that resulted in $60,000 in fines for illegal coordination between the committee of Justice Jon Wilcox and a purportedly independent third party group run by Pickens' husband and Mark Block. Pickens has worked for the Koch's Americans for Prosperity and numerous other groups that pushed for a trio of bills in 2015 that laid to waste Wisconsin's anti-corruption laws. One of the bills allowed unlimited undisclosed dark money into Wisconsin campaigns and elections for the first time.

While the Kochs and their servants are working hard to keep voters in the dark on election day, disclosure in campaign financing is broadly supported by the American public, including Republicans. In a recent poll, 77 percent of Americans want limits on money in politics and 88 percent wanted to "make fundamental changes" or "completely rebuild" the campaign finance system.

Koch Fingerprints on Wisconsin Voter Supression

Today also marks for many Wisconsin voters their first encounter with the state's Koch-backed and ALEC-inspiredvoter ID lawwhich threatens to disenfranchise up to 300,000 eligible voters who lack needed ID.

While the law explicitly requires a public campaign to educate voters about new ID requirements, it is no coincidence that the state legislature hasn't appropriated money to run public service ads in this cycle. Democracy advocates will be on the look-out for problems, and voters facing problems can call an emergency hotline: 1-866- OUR-VOTE.

Despite a near-total absence of in-person voter fraud, voter ID was passed in 2011 but immediately drew legal challenges and a court injunction. An all-Republican panel of 7th Circuit justices reinstated voter ID just a few weeks before the November 2014 election. When the full court—whose eleventh seat has been vacant since 2010—heard the case, it issued a 5-5 decision split along party lines, leaving the panel's ruling intact.

Backed by the same political network that pushed voter ID through in the first place, the Senator who has been blocking that 7th Circuit appointment for nearly six years is none other than Ron Johnson.

See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/04/13076/kochs-make-news-wisconsin-voters-threaten-turn-races-upside-down#sthash.ED7242fY.dpuf

“In the donor world, it is primarily a love of economic freedom,” said Chart Westcott, a Dallas private equity investor who has contributed $200,000 to UnintimidatedPAC, a group backing Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. “That’s the biggest drive for most donors — more prosperity for the country as a whole, as well as for themselves.”

At least $13.5 million of the $20 million raised by Mr. Walker’s super PAC came from just four donors: the Wisconsin roofing billionaire and union foe Diane Hendricks; the Ricketts family of Nebraska and Illinois; the New York investor Len Blavatnik; and the Uihlein family of Illinois, whose members descend from the founders of the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company.

PLEASANT PRAIRIE (WITI) — Uline, a Pleasant Prairie packaging supply company is at the center of a controversy in the campaign for governor. Democratic challenger Mary Burke says she helped bring the company to Wisconsin from Illinois — but the company’s owner says she’s exaggerating.

In ads and campaign appearances, Burke is touting her role in bringing Uline across the border.

In 2008, Uline— a packaging supply business, announced it would move from Waukegan, Illinois to Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.

Company owner Dick Uihlein says Burke is over-stating her involvement in the process.

“We didn’t even know Mary Burke, so she had no influence at all,” Uihlein said.

However, Burke is standing by her assertion. Her campaign has released a statement, reading:

“Mary Burke was proud to have played a central role in attracting Uline to Wisconsin during her time as Commerce Secretary. Her commitment to improving Wisconsin’s economy, which is lagging at 9th out of 10 Midwestern states in job creation under Scott Walker, isn’t about politics.”

There is evidence of Burke’s involvement. She wrote a letter to Uline, saying: “The Wisconsin Department of Commerce is prepared to offer an aggressive package” to help attract the company over the border.

“Honestly, I apparently met her. I don’t remember,” Uihlein said.

Burke’s campaign calls that “selective amnesia” from Scott Walker donors.

On Tuesday, June 3rd, the company announced major expansion plans that will bring 500 new jobs to the state.

“Liz and Dick and Brian feel that what we’ve done in this state has been a positive for them and their business,” Gov. Scott Walker said.

Gov. Walker points to Wisconsin’s unemployment rate of 5.8 percent — substantially better than the national average, as evidence that his job creation policies are working.

“The only time in the last 25 years when Wisconsin was at worse unemployment than the federal level was during the time that Mary Burke worked as the Secretery of Commerce,” Gov. Walker said.

The Uihleins say they are big supporters of Gov. Walker — and campaign finance records show they have given more than $300,000 to Republican candidates since 2010.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130928/ISSUE01/309289966/the-koch-of-conservative-politics-in-illinois-uihlein

Lake Forest businessman Richard Uihlein doesn't want government getting its paws on his money. To stop it, he's giving big chunks of it to conservative Republicans and their tea party allies instead.

In the last two and a half years, thelow-profile CEO has outspent Chicago hedge-fund tycoon Kenneth Griffin to become Illinois' largest GOP donor nationwide, according to Sunlight Foundation, a campaign finance watchdog group in Washington. He has contributed nearly $4 million to national tea party candidates and their super-PAC juggernaut, plus almost $1.8 million to the most conservative candidates and causes in Illinois.

“I'm a conservative Republican, and I'm trying to help people who believe as I do in limited government and free markets,” says Mr. Uihlein, 68. “I'm not one to hide from that.”

For decades Mr. Uihlein, who with his wife, Elizabeth, owns Uline Inc., a packaging supply company, was a modest but reliable donor to Republican candidates. He rose to the top tier of right-wing financiers after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed unlimited independent political contributions with its Citizens United decision in 2010.

As the federal government heads toward a shutdown over a tea party-backed attempt to defund Obamacare, and the Illinois governor's race kicks into high gear, Mr. Uihlein and the recipients of his largesse are at the center of it all. But when it comes to electing Republicans or reforming government, the question is whether his contributions have been well-spent.

“Some (donors) want the party to do well, and some want to push the party in one direction or another,” says David Morrison, deputy director of Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a nonprofit watchdog group in Chicago. “Uihlein is clearly in that smaller camp. The problem is they sometimes support people who can't win election. They would rather lose and be right than compromise.”

Mr. Uihlein scoffs at the idea that GOP contributors should support more moderate Republicans who have a greater chance to win, particularly in a Democratic-leaning state such as Illinois. That means “it's terrible to be principled,” he says. “You've got to be principled.” He's appalled that a conservative could “be labeled an obstructionist because you've got principles, for Christ's sake.”

'MAKES HIS OWN DECISIONS'

Mr. Uihlein, an avid hunter and fisherman in his spare time, is probably best-known in Illinois for his $500,000 contribution to the failed gubernatorial campaign of conservative talk-radio commentator Dan Proft in late 2010, well after he lost the primary election with less than 8 percent of the vote and just before strict state campaign finance limits kicked in. That was on top of $70,000 that Mr. Uihlein gave to the Proft campaign before the primary. About $431,000 remains unspent. (See the full list of Mr. Uihlein's contributions.)

Today some of the largest recipients of Mr. Uihlein's money, such as Washington-based Club for Growth Action and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, are leading the budget fight in Congress that threatens to shut down the government on Oct. 1. Club for Growth and related groups Mr. Uihlein supports have targeted Republicans such as Rep. Aaron Schock of Peoria for defeat because they voted to raise the federal debt ceiling to avoid government shutdowns in the past.

“This is a guy who makes his own decisions,” says Mr. Proft, who also runs a political action committee, Liberty Principles PAC, which has received but not spent about $310,000 from Mr. Uihlein, by far its largest contributor, to elect conservative Republicans to the Illinois General Assembly. “He's someone who's animated by principle. If there are Republicans who aren't abiding by core free-market principles, he's willing to support those who are.”

Mr. Uihlein's great-grandfather was a co-founder of Milwaukee's Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co., and his father co-founded Northbrook-based General Binding Corp., where Mr. Uihlein worked in international sales until he and his wife started Uline in 1980. The family-owned company has more than $2 billion in sales and almost 4,000 employees worldwide.

Three years ago, the Uihleins spent $100 million to move Uline's headquarters and about 1,000 jobs from Waukegan to a greenfield site in Pleasant Prairie, Wis., just two miles over the state line, with the help of state and local incentives valued at $6 million.

Mr. Uihlein says he primarily was motivated by the need to expand, and Wisconsin officials courted him aggressively. But “I wouldn't be looking now to set up shop in Illinois,” he adds.

In next year's governor's race, all of Mr. Uihlein's chips are on Republican Bruce Rauner; he has helped Mr. Rauner, former chairman of private-equity firm GTCR LLC, raise money andcontributed more than $31,000 to new super PACs aligned with his campaign. The Illinois fiscal crisis “worries me enormously,” Mr. Uihlein says. “Bruce is the only one in the race who isn't beholden to public sector unions and the only one who will truly fight for this.”

UIHLEIN, ELIZABETH A LAKE FOREST, IL	$25,000	10/31/12	Club for Growth Action
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$100,000	10/31/12	Club for Growth Action
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$75,000	10/29/12	Now Or Never PAC
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$25,000	10/29/12	Liberty Principles PAC
UIHLEIN, RICHARD PLEASANT PRAIRIE, WI	$20,000	10/20/12	America's Liberty Pac
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$5,000	10/13/12	Racine Tea Party Pac
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$200,000	10/02/12	Club for Growth Action
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$100,000	09/19/12	New Prosperity Foundation
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FORREST, IL	$50,000	08/29/12	USA Super PAC
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$50,000	08/29/12	Madison Action Fund
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$50,000	08/24/12	Liberty Principles PAC
UIHLEIN, RICHARD PLEASANT PRAIRIE, WI	$100,000	07/30/12	Freedomworks for America
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$100,000	07/26/12	Club for Growth Action
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$200,000	06/27/12	Club for Growth Action
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$200,000	06/19/12	New Prosperity Foundation
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$10,000	05/02/12	Club for Growth Action
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FORREST, IL	$25,000	04/19/12	USA Super PAC
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FORREST, IL	$25,000	04/19/12	USA Super PAC
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$50,000	03/20/12	Liberty Principles PAC
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$25,000	03/01/12	New Prosperity Foundation
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$100,000	01/11/12	Club for Growth Action
UIHLEIN, RICHARD PLEASANT PRAIRIE, WI	$250,000	12/28/11	Freedomworks for America
UIHLEIN, RICHARD LAKE FOREST, IL	$100,000	06/17/11	Club for Growth Action