Koch-Backed Donor Network Wants to Blame COVID Deaths on Public Health Measures
A billionaire-backed fund is promoting a deregulation agenda critical of prevailing public health recommendations.
William Potter via Getty Images
By
DonorsTrust, the preferred donor conduit of the Koch political network, has launched a new funding stream to resist public health measures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and use the crisis to further its broader policy goals.
The $422 million donor advised fund often referred to as the Right’s “dark money ATM” pins the “humanitarian crisis” created by the pandemic not on the 549,000 deaths in the U.S., but on “the actions of elected officials” who have tried to limit the virus’ spread.
Use of Pooled Philanthropic Funds Is Growing
city-journal.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from city-journal.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Right s Dark Money ATM Launches Funding Stream to Exploit Pandemic for Movement Goals
prwatch.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from prwatch.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
March 8, 2021 - 2:06pm
During a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 460,000 Americans and decimated the economy, more than $1 trillion meant for charitable purposes are sitting unused in private foundations and donor-advised funds.
The Initiative to Accelerate Charitable Giving, a new project from Boston College professor Ray Madoff, philanthropist John Arnold s Arnold Ventures, and other individuals and philanthropic organizations, wants to change that and has proposed measures that Congress can take to enhance payout requirements and incentivize more individual giving. Our proposals are designed to facilitate and encourage money getting to people s causes that they care about, Madoff told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). What we are opposed to is people being able to claim charitable tax benefits and not give their money to charity.
March 2, 2021 - 5:25pm
This article is published in partnership with Salon.
After the November election last year, the national coordinating group of Republican state attorneys general boasted about the success of its aggressive advertising and media campaign against Democrats. The group had used incidents of violence that occurred alongside massive peaceful protests of police killings of unarmed Black men to portray Democrats as lawless liberals who want to burn America. Our five-month Lawless Liberals campaign earned millions of impressions and emphasized that the Republican AGs are America s strongest defenders of economic freedom, defending the nation from threats of socialism, chaos, and lawlessness, the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) wrote in its press release.