Sunlight Down the Spider Hole

Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman. – Louis Brandeis

This is the defining statement that The Sunlight Foundation claims to base their cause on. Oh, if that were only even remotely true…

Founded in January 2006, the Foundation has a stated goal of using the revolutionary power of the Internet and new information technology to enable citizens to learn more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing and thus help reduce corruption, ensure greater transparency and accountability by government and foster public trust in the vital institutions of democracy. At the declared core of all of the Foundation’s work is a focus on the power of technology and the Internet to transform the relationship between citizen’s and their government.

The truth is somewhat different however. The Foundation and its many tentacles, began in 2006 during the Bush Administration. I suspect it was meant to be used to skew political instances against the Republicans in order to assure an Obama win in 2008 – to snare them in a web of record so-to-speak. It made for a great political weapon and it certainly didn’t hurt. However, during the current Administration, much of what The Sunlight Foundation and its minions record is either soft-balled, inaccurate or twisted to make it look more favorable. Politics at its finest! It is a very insidious and clever form of propaganda, claiming one thing, while in reality doing the opposite. A classic Progressive tactic.

Claiming non-partisanship and not officially supporting any candidate, in 2007, the Foundation did have three specific priorities for the incoming Congress in 2007:

· Contemporaneous online filing: “The public reports about campaign receipts and expenditures, personal financial disclosure, trips, gifts and travel currently required of lawmakers should be filed electronically [on a monthly basis] and shared online within 24 hours of their filing.” Moreover, the Foundation believes that candidates’ Personal Financial Disclosure reports should be amended to require disclosure of the affiliations of lawmakers (and their family members) with political organizations or charities.

· Ending secret legislation: “All earmarks, bills, and amendments should include an identification of the proposing Member’s name. All non-emergency legislation should be posted online, in its final form, at least 72 hours before a vote.”

· Meaningful lobbyist disclosure: “All who are paid to engage in direct issue advocacy with lawmakers and their staff should be required to register, and all registered lobbyists should disclose all legislative contacts, all legislation and regulations discussed, all contributions they make and coordinate to Members and organizations affiliated with members, all prior government employment, and any relationship to a current Member of Congress, staff member, or executive branch employee.”

Now, I ask you, has ANYONE made any noise about the above three priorities during the Obama Administration that you know of? Token at best and primarily against the right side of the aisle. In fact the left side of the aisle has done the opposite of the above – they have gone all gonzo on financial corruption, meetings in secret, undecipherable legislation for nefarious purposes, power grabs and shredding the Constitution. Either The Sunlight Foundation is massively incompetent or corrupt. I vote for number two, Bob.

The Foundation’s initial projects – from the establishment of a Congresspedia, the making of “transparency grants” for the development and enhancement of databases and websites and two separate efforts to engage the public in distributed journalism and offer online tutorials on the role of money in politics efforts – are based on the premise that the collective power of citizens to demand greater accountability is the clearest route to reform.

Unfortunately, the supporters of  The Sunlight Foundation are suspect and funding is provided, in part, by George Soros. Therefore, the transparency and the claim of participants of self-policing blogs etc., while reducing corruption and increasing accountability, is highly doubtful and most likely is being used to an extent as a propaganda outlet.

The Sunlight Foundation was founded by Ellen Miller and Michael Klein because of claimed concerns about the influence of money and relationships, as well as a fear of corruption, in Congress. The Sunlight Foundation was launched in April 2006 with a $3.5 million contribution from co-founder Michael Klein, a securities lawyer.

From Discover The Networks:

The Foundation’s co-founder and Executive Director is Ellen Miller, who previously served as Deputy Director of the Campaign for America’s Future, where she directed its Project for an Accountable Congress. She also established the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics (which is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, the Joyce Foundation and Pew Charitable Trusts) and Public Campaign (funded by the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Columbia Foundation, the Compton Foundation, the Educational Foundation of America, the Ford Foundation, the JEHT Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy). Miller is the former publisher of  TomPaine.com, a former fellow at The American Prospect and an occasional contributor to The Nation.

Michael Klein is co-founder and Chairman of The Sunlight Foundation. In January 2006, he retired from the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering after 35 years as a practicing attorney. He now serves as a trustee of the American Himalayan Foundation and the Pen Faulkner Foundation.

A Senior Fellow at The Sunlight Foundation is veteran journalist and editor Bill Allison, who for nine years worked for the George Soros-funded Center for Public Integrity, where he co-authored The Cheating of America, whose central thesis holds that “the rich and powerful shirk their responsibilities” as taxpayers. Allison was also senior editor of  The Buying of the President 2000 and co-editor of  The Buying of the President 2004.

Another Senior Fellow at the Foundation is Larry Makinson, who was a journalist in Alaska in the mid-1980s and then worked for fifteen years at the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), including two years as its Executive Director. After leaving CRP he spent a year as Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Integrity.

The National Director of The Sunlight Foundation is Zephyr Teachout, who formerly worked as a lecturer at the University of Vermont and was Director of Online Organizing for Howard Dean‘s 2004 presidential campaign. A licensed attorney, Teachout has represented indigent death-row inmates in North Carolina for the Center for Death Penalty Litigation; she was also the co-founding Executive Director of the Fair Trial Initiative, a fellowship program that trains young lawyers in death penalty trial work.

The Sunlight Foundation’s major disbursements (ranging from $25,000 to $325,000) in 2006 included grants to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (which also has received financial backing from George Soros‘ Open Society Institute, Democracy Alliance, the Tides Foundation, the Streisand Foundation and the Arca Foundation), the Young Elected Officials Network, (a project of People for the American Way), MAPLight.org, the Center for Responsive Politics, OMB Watch, the Center for Media and Democracy, the Center for Citizen Media, NewAssignment.Net, Room Eight, the Project on Government Oversight and ReadtheBill.org. Smaller grants (ranging from $1,650 to $16,000) were made to Metavid,More Perfect, Arizona Congresswatch, the Connecticut Local Politics Blogspot,WashingtonWatchdog.org, the National Institute on Money in State Politics, the Project on Government Oversight and the BluegrassReport.

Are you seeing a pattern yet? I am. Almost all of these lean left and/or are Progressive. Well spent funds indeed.

The Sunlight Foundation website features or featured four blogs on the subject of ethics and money in Washington D.C.; they are run by four of its principals: Citizen’s Notebook (Zephyr Teachout); Sunspots (Ellen Miller); Under the Influence (Bill Allison) and Dollarocracy (Larry Makinson). I’m not sure if all of these still exist, but they are leftist in nature and purpose. The Sunlight Foundation’s site currently reads like a conservative hit piece.

· Assets: $2,066,772 (2009)

· Grants Received: $7,111,704 (2009)

· Grants Awarded: $2,640,282 (2009)

But wait, there’s more:

Contributions

2011

· $1,000,000.00 Michael R. Klein
For general support.

· $1,000,000.00 Rockefeller Family Fund
For general support.

· $500,000.00 Rita Allen Foundation
To fully develop and implement the Open States Project which will provide a new resource for identifying and tracking activity within state legislatures. (Grant awarded over two years)

· $300,000.00 Open Society Foundations
To advance transparency and open government through reporting, tools and policies that will further expose for public scrutiny the influence of lobbying in Washington and will promote the full implementation, codification and expansion of the Open Government Directive. (Grant awarded over 15 months)

· $200,000.00 Atlantic Philanthropies
To establish a new pilot, post-graduate journalism fellowship program, the “John E. Moss Fellowship,” at Sunlight which will intensively train journalism post-graduates in new techniques and technologies. (Grant awarded over two years)

· $156,000.00 Pew Charitable Trusts
Contract

· $110,000.00 Kaphan Foundation
For general support.

· $100,000.00 Mark Cuban
For general support.

· $93,077.00 Stanton Foundation
To create a national, legislative alert system on the basis of issue or keyword – a Google Alerts for public policy.

· $75,000.00 SRA International, Inc.
For general support.

· $60,000.00 William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
For development of open-source software that reveals the patterns of influence behind public comments.

· $50,000.00 Chang K. Park Foundation
For general support.

· $40,000.00 Open Society Foundations
To expand and diversify a coalition of groups that will publicly demand transparency from the “Super Committee” and to coordinate action among the coalition.

· $40,000.00 Rockefeller Brothers Fund
To ensure greater transparency of the effects that corporations have on American public policy.

· $37,000.00 Minnesota Historical Society
Contract

· $27,525.00 OSI-ZUG
For support of  TransparencyCamp 2011.

· $25,000.00 Alan A. Fischer
For general support.

· $25,000.00 Craigslist Charitable Fund
For general support.

· $25,000.00 Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation
For general support.

· $23,245.87 Omidyar Network
For support of TransparencyCamp 2011.

· $5,000.00 Esther Dyson
For general support.

· $5,000.00 Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, Helianthus Fund
For general support, at the recommendation of Marjorie B. Roswell.

· $5,000.00 Google, Inc.
For support of TransparencyCamp 2011.

· $5,000.00 James and Theodore Pedas Family Foundation, Inc.
For general support.

· $5,000.00 M & M Foundation
For general support.

· $5,000.00 O’Reilly Media, Inc.
For support of TransparencyCamp 2011.

· $5,000.00 Raymond C. Clevenger, III
For general support.

· $4,423.23 O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Royalties from the book Beautiful Data, 1st Edition

· $2,500.00 Adobe Systems Incorporated
For support of TransparencyCamp 2011.

· $2,500.00 David Bonderman
For general support.

· $2,500.00 Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, Andrew C. Florance Fund
For general support, at the recommendation of Andrew C. Florance.

· $1,000.00 Lederer Foundation, Inc.
For general support.

· $600.00 Scott Crabtree
For general support.

· $500.00 Warren H. Haber
For general support.

That’s just 2011. Question – is charity in the name of political expediency still charity? The Foundation doesn’t try to hide any of its connections – it’s right there for all to see. George Soros is The Open Society Institute. Do you really think these organizations are being ethical and transparent when they are bought and paid for by the likes of George Soros? If you do, I have a bridge to sell you and some great swamp land that you really must see or not.

Just how deep does Sunlight go down the Soros spider hole? All the way to the bottom baby. Don’t mistake sunlight for an on-coming Progressive freight train bent on manipulating political data online.

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton - the NoisyRoom

Will Ignorance Lead to a Second Obama Term??

Stealing Election 2012

Good reads if you haven’t already:

The Road to the White House 2012, Barack Obama and the Enemies Within and Throw Them All Out

NEW STUNNING AUDIO: AUTHOR RELEASES INTERVIEWS CAPTURING HOLLYWOOD’S DISDAIN FOR CONSERVATIVES INCLUDING SESAME STREET

Author Ben Shapiro is working to expose the Hollywood left’s purposeful attempts to promote a liberal political agenda through entertainment mediums.  As we reported yesterday, (See below) left-wing messages are being woven into popular television shows — from kids’ favorite Sesame Street to “must see TV” sitcoms like Friends. But as Shapiro’s new book  “Primetime Propaganda” demonstrates, that’s just the tip of the liberal iceberg.

In videos sent exclusively to The Blaze from Shapiro, more Hollywood liberals openly admit to how their political biases plague today’s entertainment industry.

Is there a literal “blacklist” against conservatives trying to find work in Hollywood?  House creator David Shore says yes:

Video:  Primetime Propaganda: Shore Says Hollywood Discriminates Against Conservatives

Marc Cherry, creator of ABC’s Desperate Housewives weaves a pro-gay agenda into his primetime soap:

Video: Primetime Propaganda: Cherry Pushes Gay Agenda on Desperate Housewives

George Schlatter, creator of Laugh-In, sounds off on conservative radio and television host Glenn Beck. (Hint: it’s not nice):

Video:  Primetime Propaganda: Schlatter Attacks Glenn Beck

In addition to these interview exclusives, the Hollywood Reporter has more:

[Friends co-creator Marta] Kauffman also acknowledges she “put together a staff of mostly liberal people,” which is another major point of Shapiro’s book: that conservatives aren’t welcome in Hollywood.

Maybe that’s because they’re “idiots” and have “medieval minds.” At least that’s what Soap and Golden Girls creator Susan Harris thinks of TV’s conservative critics.  However, the ranks of dumb right-wingers has dwindled, according to Harris, whose video has her saying: “At least, you know, we put Obama in office, and so people, I think, are getting – have gotten – a little bit smarter.”

Some of the videos have executives making rather obvious revelations, like when Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds talk about pacifist messages in M*A*S*H or when MacGyver producer Vin Di Bona says anti-gun messages were a recurring theme in that show.

But an additional video has Di Bona, who also created America’s Funniest Home Videos, becoming remarkably blunt about his approval of a lack of political diversity in Hollywood. When Shapiro asks what he thinks of conservative critics who say everyone in Hollywood is liberal, Di Bona responds: “I think it’s probably accurate, and I’m happy about it.”

Another video has Leonard Goldberg — who executive produces Blue Bloods for CBS and a few decades ago exec produced such hits as Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels and Starsky and Hutch — saying that liberalism in the TV industry is “100 percent dominant, and anyone who denies it is kidding, or not telling the truth.”  Shapiro asks if politics are a barrier to entry. “Absolutely,” Goldberg says.

When Shapiro tells Fred Pierce, the president of ABC in the 1980s who was instrumental in Disney’s acquisition of ESPN, that “It’s very difficult for people who are politically conservative to break in” to television, he responds: “I can’t argue that point.” Those who don’t lean left, he says, “don’t promote it. It stays underground.” …

In the book, subtitled “The true Hollywood story of how the left took over your TV,” Shapiro also tells anecdotes of bias against conservatives. One example is Dwight Schultz, best known for his roles as Murdock in The A-Team and Barclay in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The late Bruce Paltrow knew that Schultz was a fan of President Ronald Reagan. When Schultz showed up to audition for St. Elsewhere, a show Paltrow produced, to read for the part of Fiscus, Paltrow told him: “There’s not going to be a Reagan a**h*** on this show!” The part went to Howie Mandel.

IS SESAME STREET SPREADING LEFT-WING PROPAGANDA? EXEC ADMITS, YES

While the theme song to the kids show Sesame Street encourages people to ask how to get there, one author just finished an expose exploring what’s really in the popular show: left-wing propaganda.

Sesame Street, with its loveable and fuzzy characters, is really a mouthpiece for the left’s agenda. That’s the conclusion of author Ben Shapiro, who after interviewing hundreds of industry insiders found that many of Hollywood’s most popular shows, including the popular kids program, are inundated with secret political messages. And he got top executives to admit it.

Shapiro’s new book, “Primetime Propaganda”: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV,” according to it’s description “is the story—told in their own words—of how television has been used over the past sixty years by Hollywood writers, producers, actors, and executives to promote their liberal ideals, to push the envelope on social and political issues, and to shape America in their own leftist image.”

For example, Shapiro quotes Mike Dann, one of Sesame Street’s founding executives, saying it “was not made for the sophisticated or the middle class.” Using the premise, the team worked in all sorts of messages, including Grover breaking bread with a hippie and Oscar the grouch who was supposed to address “conflicts arising from racial and ethnic diversity.” Dann also admitted he used the program in the wake of 9/11 to highlight peaceful alternatives to war.

“Sesame Street tried to tackle divorce, tackled ‘peaceful conflict resolution’ in the aftermath of 9/11 and had [gay actor] Neil Patrick Harris on the show playing the subtly-named ‘fairy shoeperson’,” writes Shapiro, according to THR.

The news may not be surprising considering the left‘s recent use of the show’s cuddly character, Elmo. The furry, red puppet has been used to trumpet free internet, lament job loss, and even plug Michelle Obama’s child nutrition bill.

But the left-wing messages aren‘t limited to children’s programs. Adults are inundated, too. The Independent explains:

The TV series Friends undermined family values; Sesame Street taught ethnic minorities about civil disobedience; Happy Days had a subtle anti-Vietnam subtext; and the 1980s cop show MacGyver tried to persuade pistol-packing Americans that guns are bad.

Happy Days? Friends? Believe it. Shapiro even got Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman to own up to intentionally hiring liberals and sending a strong message to conservatives in a popular episode:

Among Shapiro’s most revelatory interviewees is Marta Kauffman, the co-creator of Friends, who recalls how she hired a “bunch of liberals” to run the programme to “put out there what we believe”. In 1999, she admitted casting the actress sister of Newt Gingrich, the prominent Republican, to play a preacher at a lesbian wedding because she wanted to annoy conservatives.

“When we did the lesbian wedding, we knew there was going to be some flack,” said Kauffman. “I have to say, when we cast Candice Gingrich as the minister of that wedding, there was a bit of a ‘fu** you’ in it to the right-wing, directly.”

So how did Shapiro get these executives to say such things on record. According to him, he took advantage of liberal stereotypes.

“There was a certain amount of stereotyping on their part in granting the interview,” he told the Independent. “Many probably assumed that with a name like Shapiro and a Harvard Law credential, there was no need to Google me: I would have to be a leftist. In Hollywood, talking to a Jew with a Harvard Law baseball cap is like talking to someone wearing an Obama pin.”

“I was shocked by the openness of the Hollywood crowd when it came to admitting anti-conservative discrimination inside the industry,” he told the paper. “They weren’t ashamed of it. In fact, some were actually proud of it.”

Source:  The Blaze

Related:

Book: The Secret Knowledge

Manipulating morals: scientists target drugs that improve behavior

Researchers say morality treatments could be used instead of prison and might even help humanity tackle global issues  -  Progress, Big Brother or just creepy…?

Existing drugs such as Prozac are already known to affect moral behaviour, but scientists predict that advances may allow more sophisticated manipulations. Photograph: Scott Camazine/Alamy

A pill to enhance moral behaviour, a treatment for racist thoughts, a therapy to increase your empathy for people in other countries - these may sound like the stuff of science fiction but with medicine getting closer to altering our moral state, society should be preparing for the consequences, according to a book that reviews scientific developments in the field.

Drugs such as Prozac that alter a patient's mental state already have an impact on moral behaviour, but scientists predict that future medical advances may allow much more sophisticated manipulations.

The field is in its infancy, but "it's very far from being science fiction", said Dr Guy Kahane, deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and a Wellcome Trust biomedical ethics award winner.

"Science has ignored the question of moral improvement so far, but it is now becoming a big debate," he said. "There is already a growing body of research you can describe in these terms. Studies show that certain drugs affect the ways people respond to moral dilemmas by increasing their sense of empathy, group affiliation and by reducing aggression."

Researchers have become very interested in developing biomedical technologies capable of intervening in the biological processes that affect moral behaviour and moral thinking, according to Dr Tom Douglas, a Wellcome Trust research fellow at Oxford University's Uehiro Centre. "It is a very hot area of scientific study right now."

He is co-author of Enhancing Human Capacities, published on Monday, which includes a chapter on moral enhancement.

Drugs that affect our moral thinking and behaviour already exist, but we tend not to think of them in that way. [Prozac] lowers aggression and bitterness against environment and so could be said to make people more agreeable. Or Oxytocin, the so-called love hormone ... increases feelings of social bonding and empathy while reducing anxiety," he said.

"Scientists will develop more of these drugs and create new ways of taking drugs we already know about. We can already, for example, take prescribed doses of Oxytocin as a nasal spray," he said.

But would pharmacologically-induced altruism, for example, amount to genuine moral behaviour? Guy Kahane, deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and a Wellcome Trust biomedical ethics award winner, said: "We can change people's emotional responses but quite whether that improves their moral behaviour is not something science can answer."

He also admitted that it was unlikely people would "rush to take a pill that would make them morally better.

"Becoming more trusting, nicer, less aggressive and less violent can make you more vulnerable to exploitation," he said. "On the other hand, it could improve your relationships or help your career."

Kahane does not advocate putting morality drugs in the water supply, but he suggests that if administered widely they might help humanity to tackle global issues.

"Relating to the plight of people on other side of the world or of future generations is not in our nature," he said. "This new body of drugs could make possible feelings of global affiliation and of abstract empathy for future generations."

Ruud ter Meulen, chair in ethics in medicine and director of the centre for ethics in medicine at the University of Bristol, warned that while some drugs can improve moral behaviour, other drugs - and sometimes the same ones - can have the opposite effect.

"While Oxytocin makes you more likely to trust and co-operate with others in your social group, it reduces empathy for those outside the group," Meulen said.

The use of deep brain stimulation, used to help those with Parkinson's disease, has had unintended consequences, leading to cases where patients begin stealing from shops and even becoming sexually aggressive, he added.

"Basic moral behaviour is to be helpful to others, feel responsible to others, have a sense of solidarity and sense of justice," he said. "I'm not sure that drugs can ever achieve this. But there's no question that they can make us more likeable, more social, less aggressive, more open attitude to other people," he said.

Meulen also suggested that moral-enhancement drugs might be used in the criminal justice system. "These drugs will be more effective in prevention and cure than prison," he said.

By Amelia Hill - guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 April 2011 16.23 BST  Cross-posted at True Health Is True Wealth

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