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RELATED LINKSExternal LinksBusinessWeek: No Bush Left Behind: The President's brother Neil is making hay from school reform AP: Neil Bush makes one-day profit over $170,000 Cursor.orgMediaTransparency.org sponsor More stories by Bill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs' Media Transparency writersAndrew J. Weaver FundometerEvaluate any page on the World Wide Web against our databases of people, recipients, and funders of the conservative movement. |
ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz Neil Bush's family valuesDespite a record of past scams and other controversial business deals, Neil Bush is now benefiting directly from President's Bush's No Child Left Behind Act and his father's international networkTwo years ago, when Neil Bush and his mother, the former first lady Barbara Bush, were featured guests at a $1,000-a-table fundraiser for the Western Heights School District in Oklahoma City, proceeds from the event were specifically earmarked for the purchase of products from Neil's company, Ignite! Learning. Late last year, when Neil's mom agreed to make a contribution to a Hurricane Katrina relief foundation for those victims that had relocated to Texas, she stipulated that her donation had to be used by local schools to acquire Ignite products. Most of Ignite's business has been obtained through sole-source contracts without competitive bidding. Neil Bush has been directly involved in marketing the product. It must have been a long time ago that Neil Bush, the son of Bush 41 and the younger brother of Bush 43, discovered that the key to unlocking the entrepreneurial vault was to take full advantage of the Family. While entrepreneurial nepotism is as American as apple pie and Thomas Kinkade paintings, the Bush Family has honed it into a science. Over the past two decades, while Neil Bush has made impressive amounts of money in all sorts of interesting business deals, he has always seemed like the kid who was caught red-handed throwing chalk at the teacher, got sent to the principal and yet returned to the classroom unscathed. These days, with the help of the Saudi Royal Family, a former junk bond dealer, a Russian mobster, the Rev. Sum Myung Moon, and mom and dad, family string-pulling is again paying off. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that Ignite! Learning, a company headed by Neil Bush "and partly owned by his parents is benefiting from Republican connections and federal dollars targeted for economically disadvantaged students under the No Child Left Behind Act." The company has managed to "place its products in 40 U.S. school districts and now plans to market internationally," the Times reported. "Interviews and a review of school district documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act," by the Los Angeles Times, "found that educators and legal experts were sharply divided over whether Ignite's products were worth their cost or qualified under the No Child law." According to the Times, "Most of Ignite's business has been obtained through sole-source contracts without competitive bidding. Neil Bush has been directly involved in marketing the product." A story about these developments also appeared in a mid-October issue of BusinessWeek. Headlined "No Bush Left Behind", the magazine reported that "after five years of development and backing by investors like Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and onetime junk-bond king Michael R. Milken, Neil Bush aims to roll his high-tech teacher's helpers into classrooms nationwide. He calls them ‘curriculum on wheels,' or COWs. The $3,800 purple plug-and-play computer/projectors display lively videos and cartoons: the XYZ Affair of the late 1790s as operetta, the 1828 Tariff of Abominations as horror flick. The device plays songs that are supposed to aid the memorization of the 22 rivers of Texas or other facts that might crop up in state tests of ‘essential knowledge.' "Bush's Ignite! Inc. has sold 1,700 COWs since 2005, mainly in Texas, where Bush lives and his brother was once governor. In August, Houston's school board authorized expenditures of up to $200,000 for COWs. The company expects 2006 revenue of $5 million. Says Bush about the impact of his name: ‘I'm not saying it hasn't opened any doors. It may have helped with some sales.' (In September, the U.S. Education Dept.'s inspector general accused the agency of improperly favoring at least five publishers, including The McGraw-Hill Companies, which owns BusinessWeek. A company spokesman says: ‘Our reading programs have been successful in advancing student achievement for decades; that's why educators hold them in such high regard.')" According to the Los Angeles Times, "The law provides federal funds to help school districts better serve disadvantaged students and improve their performance, especially in reading and math." However, Bush's company "does not offer reading instruction, and its math program will not be available until next year." Unfortunately, the Department of Education "does not monitor individual school district expenditures under the No Child program, but sets guidelines that the states are expected to enforce, spokesman Chad Colby said." Ignite executive Tom Deliganis admitted that "some districts seem to feel OK" about using No Child money for the Ignite purchases, "and others do not." BusinessWeek also pointed out that the Washington Times Foundation, "A foundation linked to the controversial Reverend Sun Myung Moon has donated $1 million for a COWs research project in Washington (D.C.)-area schools. In 2004 a Shanghai chip company agreed to give Bush stock then valued at $2 million for showing up at board meetings. (Bush says he received one-fifth of the shares.) In 1988 a Colorado savings and loan failed while he served on its board, making him a prominent symbol of the S&L scandal. Neil calls himself ‘the most politically damaged of the [Bush] brothers.'" The Rev. Moon, Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Milken aren't the only controversial financial participants. Fugitive Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky, who has been accused of having strong tries to the Chechen mafia, has been an investor in Bush's Ignite! project since at least 2003. And then, there's mom and dad. The former first lady got herself in a bit of hot water when she contributed to a Hurricane Katrina relief foundation for storm victims who had relocated to Texas. However, she stipulated that her donation had to be used by local schools for purchases of COWs. "In January 2004," according to the Los Angeles Times, Neil and his mom "were guests of honor at a $1,000-a-table fundraiser in Oklahoma City organized by a foundation supporting the Western Heights School District. Proceeds were earmarked for the purchase of Ignite products." While Mary Blankenship Pointer, the organizer of the event "said she planned the event because district students were ‘utilizing Ignite courseware and experiencing great results [and].our students were thriving,' ... Western Heights school Supt. Joe Kitchens said the district eventually dropped ... Ignite because it disagreed with changes Ignite had made in its products. ‘Our interest waned in it,' he said." In addition to investors and high-powered international connections, Bush Family ties have provided the sometimes star-crossed Neil with an always accessible escape route from responsibility. Escape from prison was the operative term in 1988, when as a director of the Denver, Colorado-based Silverado Savings and Loan Association Bush presided over a monumental scam that actually cost taxpayers something north of $1 billion. A Resolution Trust Corporation suit against Bush and other officers of Silverado was settled in 1991 -- during the time his father was president -- for $26.5 million. Bush was fined $50,000 and banned from future banking activities. He managed, however, to avoid going to the hoosegow. Instead, he left the state for the greener pastures of Texas, and the opportunity to get back on the entrepreneurial horse. It would no doubt be difficult, even for the notoriously loyal Bush Family, to find anyone not concerned by Neil's numerous character flaws; blemishes that oozed into the public domain when Neil decided to divorce his wife of 23 years, Sharon Bush. The story goes that Neil, in one of the more fetid "You've Got Mail" moments in recent years, informed Sharon of his intentions in an e-mail. The Bush's divorce threatened to spill over into a tell-all book by his former wife because Neil was being downright tightfisted with the financials. He ultimately loosened his purse-strings and Sharon's book was shelved. Nevertheless, the public's right-to-know was advanced -- although some might argue that it was set back -- when it was revealed in Bush's deposition that during numerous business trips to Asia, Neil was a serial recipient of late-night visits by anonymous prostitutes; assignations that he apparently didn't have to pay for. In a post dated October 6, Wonkette pointed to several of Neil Bush's unusual business assignations:
On January 2, 2004, the Associated Press reported, in a story headlined "Neil Bush makes one-day profit over $170,000", that Neil Bush "made at least $798,218 on three stock trades in [the Kopin Corp. of Taunton, Massachusetts] a small U.S. high-tech company where he had been a consultant, according to his tax returns, including $171,370 buying and selling the company's shares in a single day." AP pointed out that "Unlike the ordinary investor who buys at the market price...Bush benefited from the fact that his stock purchase costs in some cases were minimal because he got a bargain, paying $13 a share when he exercised stock options that were part of his consulting compensation from Kopin. The company's stock price was selling for many times that amount during much of the time Bush was trading. The company granted him 20,000 stock options." In an e-mail responding to the Los Angeles Times story, Bush said that Ignite's program had improved the test scores of economically disadvantaged children and he denied that his family's political connections helped grow the company. "As our business matures in the USA we have plans to expand overseas and to work with many distinguished individuals in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa," he wrote. "Not one of these associates by the way has ever asked for any access to either of my political brothers, not one White House tour, not one autographed photo, and not one Lincoln bedroom overnight stay." He also characterized the Times' piece as "entirely political." sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'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.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring 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."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican 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.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite 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.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned 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.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'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."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled 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.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder 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."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe 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.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew 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.
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