An organization funded by a leftist billionaire recently published a report smearing donors to political and media groups on the right.
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) Research Director David Armiak published an article on Nov. 17 classifying the financial backers of the DonorTrust non-profit as people fueling so-called “culture wars and spreading climate misinformation, Trump’s big lie, and hate.” Armiak listed a large number of political, media and non-profit organizations including the Media Research Center, which he said received $160,600 from DonorTrust.
The CMD sought to target donors to DonorTrust, in an alleged effort to combat dark money in politics and limit the influence of billionaire Charles Koch. Despite this stance, the CMD has hypocritically taken money from leftist groups like billionaire George Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society and from the Soros-funded Tides Foundation in order to complete its “opposition research” and left-wing “agitation” work, according to Influence Watch.
According to the Open Society Foundations (OSF) website, Soros has given at least $15,013,960 to the Tides Foundation and $14,235,421 to the Tides Center from 2016 to 2022. Additionally, Soros gave at least $34,780,000 to Tides Advocacy from 2017 to 2022.
In the article, the CMD mentioned that DonorTrust gave money to The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The CMD frequently goes after ALEC, taking a seemingly activist approach to name and shame its donors. On its website, the CMD bragged that “since CMD first exposed ALEC in 2011, more than 100 corporations have dropped ALEC, including Verizon, Ford, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, General Electric, and Google.”
The CMD has also embraced radical positions on energy. In 2022, the CMD published an article that referred to ESG disclosures and divesting from “waning” fossil fuels as “routine practices.” The CMD has even positioned itself to the left of leftist billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who has bragged about shutting down coal plants and pushing states to adopt net-zero policies. A 2020 CMD article scolded Bloomberg for being unwilling to immediately get rid of natural gas and further cripple American energy.
Moreover, Armiak wrote about the alleged “manufactured crisis around so-called ‘woke’ capitalism, which demonizes companies that embrace environmental, social, and governance factors (ESG) in their business and investing practices.” Concerns about ESG investing are not a “manufactured crisis.”
According to state officials who testified before Congress, large anti-energy organizations such as Climate Action 100+ and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero are using “tens of trillions in assets” to pressure companies.
Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks has referred to ESG as the “greatest threat to our freedoms in America today without question.” In an interview with MRC Business, Oaks highlighted the dangers of slapping ESG scores on states, saying, “It is incredibly dangerous, even in the corporate world, because then you're driving groupthink; you’ve destroyed the capital markets; you are bypassing our legislative process.” .”
Aside from environmentalist pressure campaigns, organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) impose their own ESG scores to pressure companies.
The HRC’s “Corporate Equality Index” judges companies based on factors such as whether they included “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” in their nondiscrimination policies, have “trans-inclusive” bathrooms and “health coverage for transgender individuals without exclusion for medically necessary care.”
Conservatives are under attack! Contact ABC News (818) 460-7477, CBS News (212) 975-3247 and NBC News (212) 664-6192 and demand they report on the harm done to American energy and unity by ESG Investing!
