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Joyce Foundation, once again
Alphecca has a great post on how the Joyce Foundation is financing anti-gun studies at the Harvard School of Public Health.
I've discussed the $700 million Joyce Foundation before. They're using their millions to create fake grassroots groups, generate studies, stir up campaigns, you name it. They're financing Bloomberg's mayors group, putting $380,000 into the "Legal Community Against Gun Violence", funding "Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence", essentially buying issues of the Stanford Law & Policy Review and other law reviews.
Via Instapundit, which also has this earlier posting on the purchase of law reviews.
[Welcome, Instanpundit readers. I might suggest you take a look at my documentary film on the right to arms (there's a link in the left margin), which stars Prof. Reynolds, not to mention Gene Volkh, Randy Barnett, and many others. It has a Wikipedia page here that sums up the content.
Update--link fixed. Thanks.
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Where on earth did "The Joyce Foundation" acquire
700 million dollars? I sure hope none of that money came from government grant sources, as TJF is a clearly lefty policy-fabrication organization that only funds "research" supporting it's ideology.
Where they got the money? - http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/funderProfile.asp?fndid=5310
Seems to be the same old story - wealthy philanthopist endows an organization, activists take over, original mission is distorted or ignored entirely.
They were intended to focus their efforts on local projects in the Great Lakes region - so much for that.
I notice that the Tides Foundation is a big recipient of funding. Between the Joyce Fund and Teresa Heinz Kerry the Tides Foundation really gets the big bucks.
What bothers me about this is that these foundations give money to other foundations who then do funding the first one wants but does not want their name attached. That way they can say they did not support the groups the other foundations fund. One hand washes the other and they all get deniability and tax exempt status. Really frosts me big time.
The foundation problem is easy to solve legally, but may be very difficult to solve politically. Legally, foundations could be made to disappear within a certain time after the death of the founder by revoking a charitable foundation/trust exemption to the "rule against perpetuities." That rule is a carryover from old English common law and in the infant United States was implemented along with other aspects of state property law to avoid cretating the equivalent of hereditary nobility. The rule against perpetuities states that a trust can only be created to endure for the life of a natural person alive at the time of creation of the trust plus a fixed time (usually 21 years). After that, the trust capital must be distributed. Charitable trusts and foundations are exempt from this rule (foundations are treated must like corporations). Put the rule back in and POOF! all the namby pamby liberal do-gooders have to go back to working for a living instead of wasting other peoples' money on their pet projects.
Of course, we Americans love charity, so deep sixing charitable foundations would be a loser politically.
The first link here in this sentence is broken: "Via Instapundit, which also has this earlier posting on the purchase of law reviews."
As for the subject: What media bias?!
The writer, Whittaker Chambers, said: "Working people vote Democratic. The middle class is Republican. The rich are Communists."
Lot of truth in that. catholicfundamentalism.com points out many of the same things, especially that we should pray for the lost souls of the left.
Exactly how does one go about taking over a foundation?
I'd like to have $700 Million to cause trouble with ....