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A thorough investigation of how Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and various wealthy foundations are subverting America should send chills down everyone’s back.
A number of readers have been pointing out a report to me from the Competitive Enterprise Institute about the way wealthy foundations are effectively taking over much of state government in many places. It’s entitled “Government for Rent: How Special Interests Finance Governors to Pursue Their Climate Policy Agenda,” and is authored by Christopher C. Horner. I reviewed it when it came out and because it’s primarily about climate change policy, which is not the principal subject of this blog, I held out writing about it.
It turns out, though, there’s just too evidence in the report to ignore: evidence of how wealthy foundations—which are a frequent subject of this blog—are not just buying influence but actually subverting government.
The report, which may be found here, is extremely well documented. It shows how extremely wealthy individuals and wealthy foundations with special interest agendas are buying their way into government. They aren’t just getting the sort of favors that define graft; they’re actually buying staff positions and inserting themselves into government through the back door by slipping the doorman some bucks and sitting at the desks. They are directly subverting democracy.
It will come as no surprise that one of the governors most susceptible to this subversion—because he imagines he’s in control—is Governor Andrew Corruptocrat Cuomo. The email correspondence between his staff and that of Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” and the Governor of Washington state reveals a direct attempt to create a new “Secretariat” composed of the governors and select wealthy foundations known not only for climate change radicalism but also fractivism.
Readers can peruse the report (or this fine article by our friend Kevin Mooney for some added perspective) but I want to focus on Tom Steyer’s attempt to buy Pennsylvania, which explain a lot. Check out this excerpt (emphasis added):
Other governors whom Team Steyer and others worked to persuade include Pennsylvania’s Governor Tom Wolf. When asked for his schedule, Governor Wolf’s staff declined to provide it under the state’s Right to Know Law:
“Please note that the Governor’s schedule may be found at www.governor.pa.gov/schedule/.”
This statement is only partly true. That meeting, as far as the publicly available schedule was concerned, was simply a “political meeting.” Yet, according to emails released under Pennsylvania’s Right to Know Law (RTKL), it was, in fact, “Tom Steyer meeting.”
Redactions show the meeting’s subject matter was too sensitive or personal for prying, public eyes.
According to Steyer’s aide (through NextGen) Aaron Burgess, Governor Wolf rebuffed Steyer’s overtures to publicly join the Climate Alliance or We Are Still In. Responding to Ricketts’ inquiry to Team Steyer for information, that “ hearing needs a little time before signing on with these groups. Are you hearing differently?”, Burgess wrote:
“In regards to Pennsylvania, Tom sat down the Governor Wolf this morning to make the ask, and Wolf is pretty adamant about not joining. It is his view that it will have a negative effect in his state as the bigger deal he makes about it, the more the leg will come after him. Basically, his climate plan is “the quieter the better.” We are rethinking our PA strategy today and will be on the phone with some environmental partners in the state this afternoon.”
Governor Wolf’s reticence is likely due to the fact that “resistance” to Trump administration climate policies is popular in blue states but not so much in purple ones. As a result, purple state governors recruited to the cause of donor-funded governance and climate activism were less eager to be seen in public with their movement.
Tom Steyer, in other words, came calling to collect on his investment in Tom Wolf’s election. Wolf, fearing the legislature would come after him, said it was best to work behind the scenes and keep everything hidden. He also told Steyer he was working with “some environmental partners.”
Gee, I wonder who those might have been. PennFuture? Surely, given they got to staff both the DEP and DCNR Secretary positions. And, who funds PennFuture? None other than the Heinz Endowments and the William Penn Foundation, of course, who also fund the Clean Air Council, the Delaware Povertykeeper and StateImpactPa; the Heinz and Haas families.
These are Pennsylvania’s oligarchs. They couldn’t care less about climate change or the environment, except, of course, for their own wilderness playgrounds. They want us much land around them as possible, provided it’s been acquired with government money. If they did really care, Chris Heinz, one of the Heinz Endowments directors, wouldn’t be investing in Ukrainian oil and gas and his mother and stepfather would be jetting and yachting around the world back and forth between their multiple homes and vacation spots.
It’s all about power, the ability to manipulate government in their own interest and protecting themselves from the common man. Tom Wolf, moreover, is no hero for rebuffing Steyer’s agenda; he didn’t rebuff it. He only said it had to be orchestrated from behind the curtain, so the legislature wouldn’t know what was going. These wealthy foundations are destroying American democracy and they need to be reined in with fuller disclosure requirements, much stricter enforcement of tax-exemption rules, elimination of donor-advised funds and other measures to breakup the oligarchies and stop the subversion of democracy.
The post How Wealthy Foundations Are Subverting America by Buying Government appeared first on Natural Gas Now.
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