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Andrew J. Weaver
Andrew J. Weaver &
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Andrew J. Weaver, et. al.
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Bryan G. Pfeifer
Dave Johnson
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LINKS
Selected directory listings for National DeskJan 14, 2000
The Picking of the President: The Parties are Over
Reported by:
Mara Liasson
January 21, 2000
Campaign Finance: Who's Running This Show?
Reported by:
Morton Kondracke
March 24, 2000
Education - A Public Right Gone Wrong
Reported & hosted by:
Larry Elder
March 31, 2000
The Other Immigrants: Importing Our Brain Power
Reported & hosted by:
Charles Krauthammer
June 2000
Urbanism, Suburbanism and The Good Life
Reported & hosted by:
Fred Barnes
June 2000
Popular Culture in Hollywood and America
Hosted by:
????
PREVIOUS YEAR SHOWS
Coarsening of American Life
Reported by:
Morton Kondracke Mara Liasson and David Steinber
More program listings for National DeskSUNDAY, January 17 1999 at 12:00 p.m.:
(KTCA ) THE NATIONAL DESK--"We the (Rude)
People." Series premiere. Public affairs series examines issues on minds of
young Americans. This episode asks if the nation is becoming increasingly rude
and uncivil. (CC)
SUNDAY, January 24 1999 at 12:00 p.m.:
(KTCA ) THE NATIONAL DESK--"Life, Liberty
and the Pursuit of Sleaze: Media and Politics." How politics has become a
"full-contact" sport, and the media's role in this development. (CC)
SUNDAY, January 31 1999 at 12:00 p.m.:
(KTCA ) THE NATIONAL DESK--"The Popular
Culture: The Best of Times and the Very Worst of Times." David Steinberg
visits leading Hollywood creative talents, actors, politicians and media
watchdogs to learn how popular culture, once viewed as America's beacon to the
world, has come to be perceived by some as the nation's dumping ground. (CC)
SUNDAY, April 11 1999 at 12:00 p.m.:
(KTCA ) NATIONAL DESK--"The War on
Boys." With boys disproportionately affected by Attention Deficit Disorder,
violence and suicide, this program asks whether advancement of women can occur
without retreats by men. (CC)
SUNDAY, April 18 1999 at 12:00 p.m.:
(KTCA ) NATIONAL DESK--"Politics and
Warriors: Women in the Military." The effect of women in the armed forces
on male counterparts and American military culture and readiness. (CC)
SUNDAY, April 25 1999 at 12:00 p.m.:
(KTCA ) NATIONAL DESK--"Title IX and Women
in Sports: What's Wrong With This Picture?" A federal regulation designed
to prevent sex discrimination in educational activities has sent several school
athletic programs into disarray. (CC)
Sunday, January 16 2000 at 12:00 p.m.:
(KTCA ) NATIONAL DESK--"The Picking of the
President: The Parties Are Over." The transformation of the presidential
nomination process from the smoke-filled rooms of past conventions to today's
open primaries. (R - KTCI-17, Thur., Jan. 27, 10 p.m.) (CC)
Thursday, February 3 2000 at 11:00 p.m.:
(KTCA ) NATIONAL DESK--CAMPAIGN FINANCE / WHO'S
RUNNING THE SHOW?
Thursday, January 27 2000 at 10:20 p.m.:
(KTCI ) NATIONAL DESK--(Joined in progress)
"The Picking of the President: The Parties Are Over." The
transformation of the presidential nomination process from the smoke-filled
rooms of past conventions to today's open primaries. (CC)
Thursday, February 3 2000 at 10:00 p.m.:
(KTCI ) NATIONAL DESK--"Campaign Finance:
Who's Running This Show?" Facts and debates regarding political campaign
financing in the United States. (CC)
Sunday, April 2 2000 at 12:00 p.m.:
(KTCA ) NATIONAL DESK--"Education - A
Public Right Gone Wrong." Proposed reforms for America's public schools -
including vouchers, charter schools, private scholarships, home schooling and
tax credits. (R-KTCI-17, Mon., April 3, 8 p.m.) (CC)
Monday, May 1 2000 at 11:00 p.m.:
(KTCA ) NATIONAL DESK--"The Other
Immigrants: Importing Our Brain Power." Despite a lot of talk about poor
immigrants who come seeking a better life in America, the United States also
imports many of its doctors, lawyers, nurses and computer professionals.
(R-Tue., May 2, 5 a.m.; KTCI-17, Sun., May 7, 5 p.m.) (CC)
Tuesday, May 2 2000 at 5:00 a.m.:
(KTCA ) NATIONAL DESK--"The Other
Immigrants: Importing Our Brain Power." Despite a lot of talk about poor
immigrants who come seeking a better life in America, the United States also
imports many of its doctors, lawyers, nurses and computer professionals. (CC)
Monday, April 3 2000 at 8:00 p.m.:
(KTCI ) NATIONAL DESK--"Education - A
Public Right Gone Wrong." Proposed reforms for America's public schools -
including vouchers, charter schools, private scholarships, home schooling and
tax credits. (CC)
Sunday, May 7 2000 at 5:00 p.m.:
(KTCI ) NATIONAL DESK--"The Other
Immigrants: Importing Our Brain Power." Despite a lot of talk about poor
immigrants who come seeking a better life in America, the United States also
imports many of its doctors, lawyers, nurses and computer professionals. (CC)
Evaluate any page on the World Wide Web against our databases of people, recipients, and funders of the conservative movement.
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
National Desk
National Desk is a former PBS show that was partially funded by the conservative philanthropies. The show featured many people from institutions that also were sponsored by the conservative philanthropies. Produced by Whidbey Island Films, National Desk was once titled "Reverse Angle."
Screen captures from the National Desk propaganda piece, "Education: A Public Right Gone Wrong"
Brother Robert Smith, Messmer HS: $2.4 million from the Bradley Foundation
Clint Bolick of the Institute for Justice
John Chubb: $400,000 from Olin and Bradley; vested interest as head of Edison Project
John Norquist, now working with Howard Fuller.
Margaret Lin: National Charter School Initiatives
Mikel Holt: $25,000 Olin Foundation
Milton Friedman, chief ideologist of conservative movement (gets grants, too).
Myron Lieberman, $140,000 to Bowling Green from Bradley and Olin
Screen captures from the June 10, 2000 National Desk
Center for the Study of Popular Culture
Robert Atkinson, Progressive Policy Institute
Jo Kwong, Atlas Economic Research Foundation
Randall O'Toole, Thoreau Institute
Walter Williams, George Mason University
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OTHER LINKS
Current Online
November 30, 1999 ."...National Desk itself won its regular but limited presence on public TV from a political shoving match on a bigger scale than the recent feminist response. The program might never have gotten CPB backing if conservatives had not exerted political pressure on the system to correct a perceived "liberal bias."
Read the full report >
MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Bill Berkowitz
March 16, 2007
Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism'
On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
In a story written just before Anderson's northern California appearance, Truckee Today's Karen Sloan described PERC as an organization that "contends that private property rights encourage good stewardship of natural resources." The story, headlined "'Enviroprenuer' scholar to speak at Resort at Squaw Creek," pointed out that "PERC scholars argue that government subsidies often degrade the environment, that market incentives can spur individuals to conserve and protect the environment and that polluters should be liable for the harm they cause others."
On its website, PERC -- a non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1980 -- calls itself "the nation's oldest and largest institute dedicated to original research that brings market principles to resolving environmental problems." PERC maintains that it "pioneered the approach known as free market environmentalism."
Read the full report >
Bill Berkowitz
March 10, 2007
During recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy'
In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Neil Mallon Bush, the son of President George H. W. Bush and the brother of President George W. Bush, attended the forum to renew old family friendships and to drum up a little business for his educational software company. "The Jeddah Economic Forum has been very productive," Bush told Arab News. "I have been to this conference four times since 2002. I have seen it develop from the very beginning. There was less participation in the past, now there is more international participation."
These days, Neil Bush is the chairman and CEO of Ignite Learning, a company devoted to developing technology-assisted curriculum. Ignite calls it COW: "Curriculum on Wheels." In an interview with Arab News' Siraj Wahab, Bush talked enthusiastically about his company's mission: "We are building a model in the United States for developing curriculum that is engaging to grade-school kids, and our model is to deploy this engaging content through a device. So it is easy for any teacher to use our device through projectors and speakers. The curriculum is loaded on the device. We use animation and video and those kinds of things to light up learning in classrooms for kids. It helps teachers connect with their kids. We are planning to develop an Arabic version of that model."
A video on Ignite!'s website makes clear the enervating, rote approach to learning taken by the Bush family. While this may not be an advance in actual education, it does serve to enrich Neil Bush and commodify teachers. In concept it is much like Channel One, whereby Chris Whittle enriched himself forcing millions of primary school students to watch repackaged TV News sandwiched between corporate advertising.
Read the full report >
Bill Berkowitz
March 2, 2007
American Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances
Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
These days, Gingrich, who is simultaneously a "Senior Fellow" at the American Enterprise Institute and a "Distinguished Visiting Fellow" at the Hoover Institution, is making like your favorite uncle, fronting a YouTube video contest offering "prizes" to whoever creates the best two-minute video on why taxes suck. Although the prizes may not be particularly attractive to the typical YouTuber, nevertheless Gingrich recently launched the "Winning the Future, Goose that laid the Golden Egg, You Tube Contest." According to Newt.org, participants are to "Create a 120 second video explaining why tax increases will hurt the American economy, leading to less revenue for the government, not more. Or in other words, explain why we shouldn't cook the goose that laid the golden eggs (the American economy) by raising taxes."
Although he hasn't formerly announced his candidacy -- and he probably won't anytime soon -- Gingrich definitely has his eyes on the White House. He's just still figuring out how he will get there. Over the past several months Gingrich has been ubiquitous on the media and political scenes.
Read the full report >
Bill Berkowitz
February 25, 2007
Despite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran
After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Long before the Bush Administration began escalating its rhetoric and upping the ante about the supposed "threat" posed to the US by Iran, well-paid inside-the-beltway think tankers were agitating for some kind of action against that country. Some have argued for ratcheting up sanctions and freezing bank accounts, others have advocated increasing financial aid to opposition groups, and still others have argued that a military strike at Iran's nuclear facilities is absolutely essential. For all, the desired end result is regime change in Iran.
If President Bush plunges the U.S. into some kind of military conflict with Iran, you can thank the Washington, D.C.-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a key player in the current debate over Iran.
President Bush acknowledged as much when he recently appeared at the AEI for a much-publicized speech on his War on Terror, which focused on the front in Afghanistan.
Read the full report >
Bill Berkowitz
February 18, 2007
Unmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups
With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The other item that didn't get any State of the Union play is a project that was once envisioned to be the centerpiece of the president's domestic agenda: his faith-based initiative. As Joseph Bottum, editor of the conservative publication First Things -- "The Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life" -- pointed out, Bush "didn't mention faith-based initiatives, which...[he] once claimed would be his great legacy."
The president's faith-based initiative is facing several tough court battles.
Read the full report >
Bill Berkowitz
February 10, 2007
On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California
He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
In a 10-page addendum to his new book ""Words that Work -- It's Not What You Say Its What People Hear," Luntz, formerly a top political pollster for the Republican Party, may have written so critically of the party's recent efforts that he has become persona non grata. Luntz used to be one of the party's go-to-guys for political guidance and strategy, a counselor to such GOP stalwarts as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former New York City Major Rudy Giuliani and Trent Lott.
"The Republican Party that lost those historic elections was a tired, cranky shell of the articulate reformist, forward-thinking movement that was swept into office in 1994 on a wave of positive change," Luntz wrote. According to syndicated columnist Robert Novak, Luntz went on to say that the Republicans of 2006 "were an ethical morass, more interested in protecting their jobs than protecting the people they served. The 1994 Republicans came to 'revolutionize' Washington. Washington won."
Read the full report >
Bill Berkowitz
February 4, 2007
Fueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director
As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Flash forward some 30-plus years and an Internet entrepreneur believes that it is time for a new conservative movement. He too has seen an entity on the left he admires enough to want to emulate: MoveOn.org.
"The left has been brilliant at leveraging technology," said Rod Martin, founder of TheVanguard.org, "and so have we to a point: our bloggers and news sites are amazing, and the RNC's get-out-the-vote software is unparalleled. But no one on our side has even begun to create anything like MoveOn. And after 2006, if we want to survive, much less build a long-term conservative majority, we better start, and fast."
Read the full report >
Bill Berkowitz
January 29, 2007
Founder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives
Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
During a mid-December conference call Connerly allowed that he had scheduled visits to Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah during the upcoming months to get a handle on how many campaigns he might launch.
"Twenty-three states have systems for putting laws directly before voters in the form of ballot initiatives," the Chronicle pointed out. "Three down and 20 to go," Connerly boasted. "We don't need to do them all, but if we do a significant number, we will have demonstrated that race preferences are antithetical to the popular will of the American people."
"The people of California, Washington and Michigan have shown that institutions that implement these [affirmative action] programs are living on borrowed time," Connerly said.
Read the full report >
Bill Berkowitz
January 25, 2007
The Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics
These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Now, Tancredo, who has represented the state's Sixth District since 1999, has joined the long list of candidates contending for the GOP's 2008 presidential nomination. In mid-January Tancredo announced the formation of an exploratory committee -- Tom Tancredo for a Secure America -- the first step to formally declaring his candidacy. While his announcement didn't cause quite the stir as the announcement by Illinois Democratic Senator Barak Obama that he too was forming an exploratory committee, nevertheless Tancredo's move did not go completely unnoticed.
While voters' concerns over the war in Iraq and the GOP's "culture of corruption" predominated in the 2006 midterms, Tancredo will be doing his best to make immigration an issue for the presidential campaign of 2008.
Read the full report >
Bill Berkowitz
January 18, 2007
New report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations
If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
For those who remember a similar IRD-led attack on the World Council of Churches two decades ago the IRD's latest blast appears to be -- to borrow a phrase from New York Yankee great Yogi Berra -- "déjà vu all over again."
The IRD excoriated the World Council of Churches (WCC) for allegedly being tools of the anti-American left over its support of the Nelson Mandela-led African National Congress in South Africa, and its opposition to President Ronald Reagan's contra wars in Central America; wars that destabilized governments and were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. And now it is doing a similar job on the NCC.
"The institute, a Washington-based think tank, is allied with conservative groups on issues such as same-sex marriage. From its founding in 1981, its primary effort has been to challenge what it calls the 'leftist' political positions of mainline Protestant denominations, such as the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)," the Washington Post recently reported.
Author and longtime right wing watcher Frederick Clarkson recently described the IRD as an "inside the beltway, neoconservative agency [that] has waged a war of attrition against the historic mainline protestant churches in the U.S."
Read the full report >
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