Pence Perches at DC ‘think tank’ Heritage Foundation

02/11/2021 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 17 Comments

Why am I not surprised!

There was a time that conservatives looked to the Heritage Foundation as a bulwark against the Leftists’ drive to change America as they say they advise Congress on important legislative priorities.

But, in my view their reputation has been seriously tarnished in recent years as frankly they seem to have become just one more swamp dweller with little regard for the ‘deplorables’ including those now in Trump’s America First base!

Heritage’s latest President Kaye Coles James pulls down an annual salary of over a HALF A MILLION DOLLARS!

My first experience with them was back in the late ’80s and early ’90s when hundreds of landowners, ranchers and farmers had come together to form a national property rights grassroots organization to push back against the federal taking of our land.

I was deeply involved in the movement (I mentioned it here recently) and so I went to Washington to see if I could get the Heritage Foundation to give the fledgling grassroots movement some backing (support, not funding!). They simply brushed us off as if they didn’t understand what grassroots activists could do, or were doing, on a core conservative issue—property rights—as Congress was working to take more of our rights through draconian environmental laws.

Their fate was sealed in my eyes when in 2017 they took a position in FAVOR of more refugee resettlement to America. Here is one post I wrote at the time, but there are several more in 2017.

An aside: maybe Heritage might want to take a look at recent poll that shows how unhappy Americans are with Biden’s plan to bring in 125,000 refugees in the coming year. On that issue Heritage is apparently on the side of business and the likes of the Chamber of Commerce and not on the side the people!

Earlier, in 2016, a reader suggested I join Heritage’s Sentinel grassroots outreach, but I very quickly learned that they were never going to involve themselves with restricting immigration. Why? I suspect it has to do with big business donors always on the hunt for more cheap labor.

Here is the news about Pence comfortably ensconced (big salary?) at the Heritage Foundation until he can emerge as a Presidential candidate in 2024 (not a chance in hell in my view).

Perhaps one of Trump’s greatest failings as President was that he followed the advice of swamp dwellers, like Heritage, and chose staffers who were in many cases not loyal to him and his America First message.

From Forbes:

Mike Pence Joins Other Trump Administration Alumni At Heritage Foundation Post-VP

Mike Pence will be joining the Heritage Foundation as a distinguished fellow, the organization announced Thursday, making the former vice president the latest member of the Trump administration to migrate to the conservative think tank.

The Heritage Foundation announced Pence’s new position in a Thursday statement, explaining the former VP’s duties will include advising on and giving speeches about public policy issues, and contributing to a monthly column for the think tank’s multimedia news outlet, The Daily Signal.

“He will also work with Heritage to lead the conservative movement into the future…”

…read the announcement, touting Pence’s “allegiance to the Constitution and commitment to advancing a conservative policy agenda.”

In addition to his work at Heritage, Pence—who is widely expected to run for president in 2024—will focus on helping the GOP in the 2022 midterms, and reportedly plans to launch a policy-related fundraising committee.

Pence is not the only displaced member of the Trump administration to land at the Heritage Foundation. The think tank announced in late January that it had brought on three former Trump administration homeland security officials as fellows: Chad Wolf, who served as acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) before departing in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, former deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli and former acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

KEY BACKGROUND

The D.C.-based think tank, which is nearly 50 years old, played a subtle—yet substantial—role in the staffing of the Trump administration.

[….]

Among the names put forward by the Heritage Foundation include Betsy DeVos, Scott Pruitt, Mick Mulvaney, Rick Perry and Jeff Sessions.

Don’t send your money to the Heritage Foundation!

If Heritage is just a place to park Pence and other RINOs for a few years, let Liz Cheney and Mitch McConnell fund them! Hey, and maybe the Lincoln Project has a few millions to spare.

Put your hard-earned money directly into the hands of America First! office holders and candidates.

Have a look at a recent Heritage Form 990 (2018).

You are basically funding some huge salaries for the upper echelons and affording a bunch of has-been professional politicians a place to park their butts so they might ‘think.’

In that Form 990 we learned that the Heritage Foundation think tank took in around $75 million. See on Page 10 that the vast majority of their expenses were for things like salaries and employee benefits, office expenses, travel, fundraising etc.

Notice also on page 2 that their revenue has been steadily and precipitously declining over the previous years.

Almost a $20 million drop in revenue from 2014 to 2018. I guess that means that some of you have wised up.

And, the best part is the salary pages! They are a charitable non-profit organization and have every right to pay huge salaries, but you have a right to know where their money goes before you give them yours.

(As a point of comparison, rank and file Members of Congress and US Senators make $174,000 a year.)

What if the Heritage Foundation and other ‘Think Tanks’ don’t have what it takes to save America?

07/21/2020 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 6 Comments

And, you have been sending your money their way thinking that they are fighting for you in the swamp, only to find out that they are basically wimps who have gotten just too damn comfortable in the swamp.

Ned Ryun founder and CEO of American Majority.

There is an excellent piece by Ned Ryun at American Greatness in which he suggests it is time to build a new, leaner, meaner political Right. (Hat tip: Richard Falknor on twitter https://twitter.com/highblueridge)

A New Right Grounded in Insurgency Thinking

For conservatives it seems every day brings with it another betrayal from the professional Right. The hollow people leading the Republican Party and Conservatism, Inc., have been exposed. Some of us have known for years they wouldn’t be up to the task when a true challenge came, but it is still staggering to watch the meltdown happen in real-time.

So maybe it’s finally time for those on the Right to stop doing the same things they’ve been doing for nearly half a century, and instead form a new movement—a New Right that is actually equipped to defeat the Left.

As the think tanks are shown to be ineffective in the face of the aggressive Left, more people are beginning to realize that perhaps the money given to places like Heritage, American Enterprise Institute, and Cato was squandered. And it was a lot of money. The three organizations combined raised roughly $2.45 billion between 2001-2018, and that does not include the hundreds of millions in investments and real estate.

Rational people should acknowledge this reality and stop pretending it’s not happening. People invested billions of dollars in these entities, only to realize they never intended to be anything but sinecures.

Even worse, so-called conservative think tanks have little if anything in common with America First and have been corrupted by corporatism and imagined access to power.

It’s time to abandon the concept of institution building, as though we will ever have the ability to match the Left institution for institution. It’s time for a scrappy New Right to be built with an insurgency approach: we must accept that we are not in power, that we do not control the institutions, and that it’s time to go on the offensive. Our thinking, our strategy, and our investments must reflect that belief.

[….]

Let’s Build Fleet of PT Boats

For too long we have accepted the rules of the game laid out by the statists and the Left. It’s past time to stop playing by Goliath’s rules; time to start playing by David’s.

Read on….

Then consider this:

Some people might think this is mean. To which I say: grow up. There is a war for the republic’s existence and some people are like, “Ew, this approach would make me feel so icky.” You know what will make you feel super icky? When your indoctrinated kids inform on you and get you sent to a re-education camp. So suck it up, buttercup.

Much more here.

I only have one question:

Where do I enlist?

Endnote: I was done with Heritage when they began sucking up to the Refugee Industry back in 2017, here is one post I wrote at the time.

Trump Administration Officials: Refugee Admissions for FY2020 Could be Zero

07/19/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 11 Comments

“Refugee backers….worry that the doomsday scenario — taking numbers down to zero — could debilitate the resettlement program for years to come.”

(Politico)

I had planned to immediately this morning jump on the Rep. Ilhan Omar (Somali refugee) marriage scam story, but need to tell you about this breaking news first.

cws parade — Church World Service which receives millions in federal grants and contracts to place refugees in your towns and cities is crying the blues…..

A little background….
Every year at this time various administration agencies and the federal resettlement contractors (also called incorrectly ‘charities’) get together to plan for the coming fiscal year and how many refugees should be admitted and from where.
The State Department then in conjunction with the White House prepares the Presidential Determination that is sent to Congress in September for consultation with various committees. However, it is the President who has the power under the Refugee Act of 1980 to set the CEILING for the coming year.
One step in the process that has now been missing for years is the “scoping meeting” which for many many years was held in May or June and it was an opportunity for the public to weigh in with views on the scope of the program. Longtime readers of Refugee Resettlement Watch may recall that for a number of years during the Obama Administration those of us with concerns about the program swamped them with comments.
That opportunity for public comment was dropped and the Trump Administration has never revived it.
So here we are again the annual squabble over numbers of refugees for the coming fiscal year has begun (FY20 begins on October 1, 2019). Previously I saw that the nine federal contractors (Church World Service is one of the nine) who are paid to place the refugees are again pushing for 75,000.
Not happy with what they learned last week from the Trump team, they have leaked to Politico and surely other news outlets to vent and to stir up their minions to put pressure on Congress and the White House so they can continue to be paid to change America by changing the people.

And, get this! Heritage Foundation is on the side of more refugees rather than less!

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