Conservative Group Accidentally Reveals Its Secret Donors. Some of Them Are Liberal Orgs.

by Roger Sollenberger, Daily Beast, Nov 22, 2023 (excerpts)

 … A conservative nonprofit tied to a controversial “White House-in-waiting” for a second Donald Trump presidency has apparently unintentionally revealed its top donors—and two of them are foundations famously associated with liberal causes.

The nonprofit, called American Compass, included the names of five donor organizations on a schedule in its 2022 tax statement, a copy of which was obtained by The Daily Beast. The page header says, “Do Not File” and “Not Open to Public Inspection,” indicating the donors may have been accidentally disclosed.

Of the five groups, two stand out for their prominent histories of supporting liberal causes—the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Omidyar Network Foundation.

(CLUE: Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar publishes Civil Beat.)

According to the tax statement, the Omidyar Network has contributed a total of $400,000 to American Compass since 2020. (In reality, Omidyar has donated $500,000, including forthcoming installments.)…

The donations are striking because American Compass is a partner organization in Project 2025, a controversial right-wing think tank that has been building the policy and personnel firmament for a second Trump administration.

Project 2025 is an arm of the Heritage Foundation and it has been criticized for its hard-right, authoritarian agenda—including “dehumanizing” rhetoric towards the LGBTQ community, re-upping Trump’s attempt to include citizenship on the census, leveraging the power of the Justice Department to crack down on critics, and a potentially unconstitutional plan to sic U.S. troops on domestic protesters.

Project 2025 backers include xenophobic Trump advisers Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, as well as Christian nationalist and former Trump budget chief Russ Vought, one of the group’s top advisers.

According to The Washington Post, Project 2025 has been crafting “specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents,” with Trump himself “naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute.” The group is also “drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations,” the Post reported….

The conservative nonprofit Capital Research Center repeatedly hammered American Compass earlier this year, after independently uncovering the Hewlett and Omidyar support via the donors’ own voluntary grant disclosures online….

In a statement for the Omidyar Network Foundation, a spokesperson told The Daily Beast, “We would encourage you to reach out to American Compass directly for comment on the pro-worker elements they were able to advocate for related to Project 2025.” The spokesperson did not reply to follow-ups seeking specific comment on American Compass’ affiliation with anti-democratic groups and ideologies that appear at odds with Omidyar’s historical support for inclusive global development….

When veteran progressive labor journalist Hamilton Nolan scratched the sheen off of the Mandate, he found that liberals should have cause for concern.

The labor section begins by devoting “an absurd amount of space” to purging critical race theory and diversity policies from government entities, Nolan wrote. But the more substantive policies, he said, would reverse “independent contractor” rules, making it “impossible for ‘gig economy’ workers to organize and build power.” …. 

(CLUE: Omidyar being self-serving.)

“Congress should also consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate in the first place,” one of Project 2025’s policy books argues, asserting that—until the labor revolution of the mid-20th century—“these unions were not compatible with constitutional government,” and “it is hard to avoid reaching the same conclusion” today....

(QUESTION: How will HGEA react to Omidyar's support for this plan?)

read … Conservative Group Accidentally Reveals Its Secret Donors. Some of Them Are Liberal Orgs.

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