Meet fake cowboy and superPAC proprietor Foster Friess (center)
This moment that Rick Santorum’s money backer is revealed is a fleeting moment. The New Hampshire Primary is this Tuesday, followed by the quadrennial South Carolina Confederate Flag controversy a week later. (Don’t laugh. It was that, far more than the “black babies” whispering campaign that doomed John McCain’s candidacy against George Herbert Hoover Bush in 2000. Them Southerners and South Carolinians takes their Rebel flags seriously. Right, proud member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Pat Buchanan?)
Tempus fugit. As I reported HERE, Foster Friess is more than just a big donor, his company (run to his son, who also lives in Jackson Hole, and also attends Koch secret shindigs) makes six figures a year “advising” donors.
That year, Foster gave $8.1 million to NCF
See “The Biggest Foundation That You’ve Never Heard Of “
Got your attention?
Foster’s Son’s company RECEIVED $870K from the “charity” in the same year
see “Following Foster’s Buddies’ Money”
For those of you who actually care about such things, these people are NOT Christians. (What? Hart, how can you say that?) It might seem tedious, but they have torn up the Nicene Creed, and replaced it with their OWN, quite different “creed.”
And that OUGHT to be important to Christians. (This being, according to M. Bachmann, recently of Waterloo, “a Christian nation.”)
Here is a shamefully neglected piece of crackerjack investigative reporting that STILL hasn’t penetrated the thick neanderthal brow ridge of the national media. This is the link, and this is the taste:
Inside The #1 Religious Right Money Machine
By Michael Reynolds
10/29/2006 10:04:19 PM ESTUpdate: A much shorter version of my investigative report appeared in Mother Jones, Dec 2005. This the full-length version. further note: The National Christian Foundation is now the 29th largest charitiable foundation in the US according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s just released report, the Philanthropy 400.
[…]
“It seems to be a business,” said Hill from her office in Washington. “Where does the charity stop and the business begin? It’s unclear. This is the face of modern charity. There may be nothing wrong going on here. But who knows? With this magnitude and density, can the IRS even figure this out?”
Whether you are seeking investors for the Kingdom or the Dow, target marketing is imperative. At the high end is The Gathering, a 400-member invitation-only club of wealthy Christian donors who conference annually and make several retreats a year to consider where to put their money. It was founded in 1985 in Arlington, Virginia and is now headquartered in Tyler, Texas. NCF president Terry Parker is chairman of their board and headlines their monthly newsletter with an “Ask Terry” column. To qualify for an invitation to this elite group ” an individual, family or their foundation should be giving a minimum of $200,000 annually to Christian ministries or have the capacity to do so.”
The second-tier marketing extension for NCF is Generous Giving, which targets those evangelicals populating suburbia and exurbia who can afford to jump into a donor-advised fund with a minimum $10,000 gift. Generous Giving was bankrolled and is guided by the Maclellan Foundation–one of the top five donors to NCF. Hugh Maclellan serves as chairman of Generous Giving’s board of directors that includes NCF’s CEO David Wills and three other members of the Maclellan Foundation board.
Generous Giving holds annual conferences plus regional gatherings–from Kansas City to Hong Kong–throughout the year. These conferences are altar calls for evangelicals to put their assets into the Christian right money machine. They feature Maclellan, Blue, Wills and Christian Right torchbearers like Chuck Colson who pump the gathered givers with exhortations titled “The Church Is at War: The Clash of Civilizations” and “Changing the Culture with Generous Giving.”
NCF relentlessly plows deeper in the fields with Ron Blue’s Christian Financial Professionals Network*; Burkett’s Crown Financial Ministries, The Christian Medical and Dental Association and dozens more. In 2003 NCF sank over $1.115 million into these groups, with almost all of that going to Generous Giving.
“The pooling of their resources is incredible, said McNab. “These are very smart people who have put together a very powerful network. This is about multi-layer marketing, kind of like Amway.” […]
[* See the tax return above “Ronald A Blue and Company $420,635.00.]
Read Michael Reynolds’ piece. I corresponded with Mr. Reynolds, who told me that no one had been much interested, and so he had been forced to turn his investigations towards something more acceptable to paying editors. And yet the thread remains: exposed but not unraveled.
In a year in which secret money is the single most important wildcard in the game show “Who gets to run our country?” why aren’t these people being paid attention to?
This is dangerous stuff, folks. Please read “Koch Dominionists for Santorum,” if you haven’t already.
It’s short and has lots of pictures.
Courage.
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A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.