Dancin' With Who Brought You

It is laughable to see organizations such as National Review pretend they are morally offended by, for example, John Derbyshire's proud and blatant racism. These organizations were founded by racists, pay for racist propaganda, hire racists, and send racists on cruises to mingle with other wealthy racists, where they all can finally indulge in racist conversations without fear of public disgust.

Scaife-Funded Network Works Hard to Kill Immigration Reform by Katie Lorenze

With immigration reform advancing through Congress, an anti-immigrant network funded by a small group of right-wing foundations is trying to kill reform by pressuring moderate Republicans and appealing to the party’s xenophobic wing. The groups could stymie efforts by some Republicans to appeal to the country's growing Latino population by moving to the center on immigration.  

The anti-immigration Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and others are using shoddy research methods to claim that immigration is at fault for a whole host of problems in America, from crime to income inequality. ProEnglish, a lobbying organization that advocates for "official English,” has released a video attacking Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for his work on the immigration bill. The Center for Immigration Studies has testified in Congress against reform, claiming “virtually all illegal aliens are guilty of multiple felonies.” All of these organizations are connected to John Tanton, a nativist who has formed a network of radical anti-immigration groups, all of which receive a significant portion of their funding from foundations tied to the Scaife family.  

John Tanton’s Anti-Immigration Network, Bankrolled by the Scaifes

Tanton was initially a population control advocate connected with the environmental movement – which now largely supports immigration reform – but has since dabbled in eugenics, openly professed his preference for white people, and been tied to white supremacists. Tanton has constructed a powerful array of anti-immigrant groups that for the past three decades has had significant influence over the immigration debate, with the help of millions of dollars from the Scaife family foundations.  

Tanton was a close friend of the late Cordelia Scaife May, an heir to the Mellon family's banking and oil fortune, and who until her death in 2005 was one of the richest women in America. Like Tanton, May was an environmentalist committed to population control -- and believed limiting immigration was the best way to do it -- and founded the Colcom Foundation to advance this goal, providing tens of millions to anti-immigrant groups as well as funding legitimate environmental organizations. Colcom's Vice President of Philanthropy, John Rohe, worked for Tanton for many years and wrote a fawning biography. Since 2001, Colcom has been the primary funder for many groups in the Tanton network, giving over $17 million to NumbersUSA and almost $15 million to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and more than $6 million to the Center for Immigration Studies.  

Scaife May's billionaire brother, Richard Mellon Scaife, is a major supporter of right-wing causes perhaps best known for bankrolling the effort to try ousting President Bill Clinton after "troopergate" and more recently for funding the climate change deniers at the American Enterprise Institute. Scaife manages the Carthage Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation, which together with the Scaife Family Foundation (controlled by Richard Scaife’s children since 2001) have donated more than $4 million to FAIR and more than $3 million to CIS since the early 1990s; additionally, since 2001, the foundations have given ProEnglish $285,000 and NumbersUSA $987,500. The Scaife Family Foundation is also the sole funder of ProEnglish.  

Richard Mellon Scaife is also a major funder and Vice-Chairman of the Heritage Foundation, which recently generated controversy for issuing an anti-immigration report written by an author who previously argued that immigrants have lower IQs than the “white native population.”

Read the rest.

These aren't people who lived a hundred years ago; they are financing a complaint media and propagandizing right now.

The personal is the political; people who hate and fear other races and ethnicities, or communists, or women or whatever use their resources to create political pressure. But naked hatred and fear and greed are not acceptable political programs, so the powerful make up other reasons such as safety and freedom. The Sarah Scaife Foundation funded a lot of right-wing organizations.

Sarah Scaife Foundation past relationships:  

Accuracy in Media - funder  

Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty - funder  

Allegheny Institute for Public Policy - funder  

American Academy for Liberal Education - funder  

American Civil Rights Institute - funder  

American Enterprise Institute - funder  

American Foreign Policy Council - funder  

America's Future Foundation - funder  

America's Survival - funder  

Atlantic Legal Foundation - funder  

Atlas Economic Research Foundation - funder  

Capital Research Center - funder  

Cato Institute - funder Center for Equal Opportunity - funder 

Center for Immigration Studies - funder  

Center for Individual Rights - funder  

Center for Security Policy - funder  

Center for Strategic and International Studies - funder  

Center for the Study of the Presidency - funder 

Claremont Institute - funder  

Collegiate Network - funder  

Commentary - funder  

Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow - funder  

Commonwealth Foundation - funder  

Competitive Enterprise Institute - funder  

Counterterrorism and Security Education and Research Foundation - funder  

David Horowitz Freedom Center - funder 

Ethics and Public Policy Center - funder  

Federalist Society - funder  

Fletcher School - funder  

Foreign Policy Research Institute - funder  

Foundation for Cultural Review - funder  

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education - funder  

Foundation for the Defense of Democracies - funder  

Freedom House - funder  

FreedomWorks Foundation - funder  

Galen Institute - funder  

George C. Marshall Institute - funder  

George Mason University Foundation - funder  

Heritage Foundation - funder  

Hoover Institution - funder  

Hudson Institute - funder  

Independent Women's Forum - funder  

Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis - funder  

Institute for Justice - funder  

Intercollegiate Studies Institute - funder  

Jamestown Foundation - funder  

Judicial Watch - funder  

Maldon Institute - funder  

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research - funder  

Media Research Center - funder  

Mercatus Center - funder  

Mountain States Legal Foundation - funder  

National Center for Policy Analysis - funder  

National Institute for Public Policy - funder  

National Legal and Policy Center - funder  

National Taxpayers Union - funder  

Pacific Legal Foundation - funder Pacific Research Institute - funder  

Reason Foundation - funder  

James C. Roddey - trustee  

Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation - funder  

Tax Foundation - funder  

University of Virginia School of Law - funder

Where would our libertarian elite pundits be today without Scaife May's racism and oodles of money? Or the Koches' largess, by way of the John Birch Society? True, everyone must be paid by someone, but it says a lot about their peers that they must stoop so low to find someone willing to publish their work.

But this is what happens when billionaires get millionaires to write campaign financing laws in their favor. The billionaires smear their hysteria all over everyone else's attempts to make money. Scaife  May already has tons of money and doesn't need to worry if the institutional racism she funded costs other people money and elections. The politicians they fund can't afford to be as cavalier.