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The Monument Mobs Don’t Hate The Confederacy, They Hate America
The Monument Mobs Don’t Hate The Confederacy, They Hate America
The Monument-Destroying Mobs Don’t Hate The Confederacy, They Hate America
The mobs defacing and pulling down monuments across America have no limiting principle because their target is America itself.
By John Daniel Davidson
JUNE 15, 2020
Angry mobs are tearing down and defacing monuments across America. They make no distinction between Confederate and Union, abolitionist and pro-slavery, 15th-century figures and 20th. They don’t care when a monument was erected, who built it, or why. They have not come to debate or persuade their fellow citizens to relocate these statues to museums or private property. They believe the debate is over and that they have won.
The Confederacy Isn’t the Target
Their target is not the Confederacy. It is the United States. They mean to destroy symbols of American history writ large, because to them all of American history is racist and genocidal. Their goal is not to cleanse a nation they love of monuments to Confederate traitors who tried to secede, but to cleanse their consciences of ever having loved such an evil and irredeemably racist country in the first place.
That is why you see mobs defacing statues of abolitionists like Matthias Baldwin and Union war heroes like Adm. David Farragut and Gen. George Thomas. That is why the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution in Philadelphia was vandalized this past weekend with the words “committed genocide.” That is why statues of Christopher Columbus were torn down or beheaded in three cities last week. That is why officials in Dallas recently removed a Texas Ranger statue from Love Field Airport. That is why a mob of college students toppled two statues of American pioneers on the University of Oregon campus. That is why Black Lives Matter protesters in San Antonio, Texas, are threatening to march on the Alamo.
To suppose this has anything to do with the Confederacy or the Civil War is to misunderstand completely the nature of what is happening right now in America. The people who are pulling down monuments, defacing statues, and demanding U.S. military bases be renamed do not have a limiting principle. They don’t distinguish between those who fought for freedom against the British Empire and those who fought for union against the slave states of the South. To them, the Union itself was a crime against humanity long before the South seceded. What kind of moral monster would ever fight to preserve it?
This is the 1619 Project come to life. If the American Revolution was fought to protect and preserve slavery then the entire history of American colonization and westward expansion is a litany of crimes that no one should celebrate. The Founding Fathers are no less guilty than Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis — not just because they owned slaves but because they founded the United States, a nation conceived not in liberty but in white supremacy.
In this reading of history, the crimes of Gen. George Washington are worse than the crimes of Gen. Lee. In religious terms — and make no mistake, this is a religious movement of the radical left — the founders are guilty of original sin, which we have all inherited and which only public penance and indulgences can erase.
There Is No Limiting Principle
You will nevertheless hear, and likely have already heard, arguments for a limiting principle, a way to justify pulling down Confederate monuments while allowing monuments to Christopher Columbus or Thomas Jefferson to stand.
The comedian Andrew Schulz tries to make this argument in a recent YouTube video. Confederates were traitors and slavers, he says. Their monuments were built to glorify a treasonous and failed effort to secede from the Union. The Founding Fathers might have had slaves and Columbus might have been a slaver, but we didn’t build monuments to honor them for these things. Their monuments were built to celebrate the good things they did, not the bad things. Confederates, like Nazis, only did bad things, so their monuments must come down.
But to accept this argument, you must first concede that Columbus and the founders did something good, that the achievements for which their monuments stand are worthy in the first place. You must accept, in other words, that the United States itself is deserving of praise and reverence, that there is something to celebrate and honor in our national heritage, that despite its faults and failures America has achieved a degree of liberty and prosperity unparalleled in human history.
This is precisely what the mob rejects. Schulz pokes fun at the people going after Columbus and the founders, calling them “crazy.” But they are not crazy according to their logic. They do not love America because America is wicked. There is almost nothing worth celebrating in our nation’s history, and almost nothing in our heritage worth honoring.
There’s a reason, for example, the anarchists and Antifa rioters in Seattle’s “autonomous zone” set up barricades and hung a sign saying, “Now Leaving The United States.”
These people don’t want to improve America. Like the monuments they despise, they want to tear it down.
John is the Political Editor at The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/15/the-monument-destroying-mobs-dont-hate-the-confederacy-they-hate-america/
The Monument-Destroying Mobs Don’t Hate The Confederacy, They Hate America
The mobs defacing and pulling down monuments across America have no limiting principle because their target is America itself.
By John Daniel Davidson
JUNE 15, 2020
Angry mobs are tearing down and defacing monuments across America. They make no distinction between Confederate and Union, abolitionist and pro-slavery, 15th-century figures and 20th. They don’t care when a monument was erected, who built it, or why. They have not come to debate or persuade their fellow citizens to relocate these statues to museums or private property. They believe the debate is over and that they have won.
The Confederacy Isn’t the Target
Their target is not the Confederacy. It is the United States. They mean to destroy symbols of American history writ large, because to them all of American history is racist and genocidal. Their goal is not to cleanse a nation they love of monuments to Confederate traitors who tried to secede, but to cleanse their consciences of ever having loved such an evil and irredeemably racist country in the first place.
That is why you see mobs defacing statues of abolitionists like Matthias Baldwin and Union war heroes like Adm. David Farragut and Gen. George Thomas. That is why the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution in Philadelphia was vandalized this past weekend with the words “committed genocide.” That is why statues of Christopher Columbus were torn down or beheaded in three cities last week. That is why officials in Dallas recently removed a Texas Ranger statue from Love Field Airport. That is why a mob of college students toppled two statues of American pioneers on the University of Oregon campus. That is why Black Lives Matter protesters in San Antonio, Texas, are threatening to march on the Alamo.
To suppose this has anything to do with the Confederacy or the Civil War is to misunderstand completely the nature of what is happening right now in America. The people who are pulling down monuments, defacing statues, and demanding U.S. military bases be renamed do not have a limiting principle. They don’t distinguish between those who fought for freedom against the British Empire and those who fought for union against the slave states of the South. To them, the Union itself was a crime against humanity long before the South seceded. What kind of moral monster would ever fight to preserve it?
This is the 1619 Project come to life. If the American Revolution was fought to protect and preserve slavery then the entire history of American colonization and westward expansion is a litany of crimes that no one should celebrate. The Founding Fathers are no less guilty than Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis — not just because they owned slaves but because they founded the United States, a nation conceived not in liberty but in white supremacy.
In this reading of history, the crimes of Gen. George Washington are worse than the crimes of Gen. Lee. In religious terms — and make no mistake, this is a religious movement of the radical left — the founders are guilty of original sin, which we have all inherited and which only public penance and indulgences can erase.
There Is No Limiting Principle
You will nevertheless hear, and likely have already heard, arguments for a limiting principle, a way to justify pulling down Confederate monuments while allowing monuments to Christopher Columbus or Thomas Jefferson to stand.
The comedian Andrew Schulz tries to make this argument in a recent YouTube video. Confederates were traitors and slavers, he says. Their monuments were built to glorify a treasonous and failed effort to secede from the Union. The Founding Fathers might have had slaves and Columbus might have been a slaver, but we didn’t build monuments to honor them for these things. Their monuments were built to celebrate the good things they did, not the bad things. Confederates, like Nazis, only did bad things, so their monuments must come down.
But to accept this argument, you must first concede that Columbus and the founders did something good, that the achievements for which their monuments stand are worthy in the first place. You must accept, in other words, that the United States itself is deserving of praise and reverence, that there is something to celebrate and honor in our national heritage, that despite its faults and failures America has achieved a degree of liberty and prosperity unparalleled in human history.
This is precisely what the mob rejects. Schulz pokes fun at the people going after Columbus and the founders, calling them “crazy.” But they are not crazy according to their logic. They do not love America because America is wicked. There is almost nothing worth celebrating in our nation’s history, and almost nothing in our heritage worth honoring.
There’s a reason, for example, the anarchists and Antifa rioters in Seattle’s “autonomous zone” set up barricades and hung a sign saying, “Now Leaving The United States.”
These people don’t want to improve America. Like the monuments they despise, they want to tear it down.
John is the Political Editor at The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/15/the-monument-destroying-mobs-dont-hate-the-confederacy-they-hate-america/
Welcome To Your New World Order: A Rundown Of Woke Insanity
Welcome To Your New World Order: A Rundown Of Woke Insanity
Welcome To Your New World Order: A Rundown Of Woke Insanity Amid The Newest Cultural Revolution
As the nation continues to spiral under its 21st century cultural revolution, here's a running list of the ongoing insanity.
By Tristan Justice
Updated June 14, 2020
America is in the midst of a new cultural civil war that for years has been brewing under the surface as left-wing academics breed aggressively woke children now permeating throughout the nation’s mainstream institutions.
Since the killing of George Floyd at the knees of a Minneapolis police officer sparked the worst outbreak of civil unrest in decades, protests that grew out of demanding justice for Floyd morphed into a dark operation to fundamentally transform the nation’s psyche, convincing the people of their own inherent evil from ancestral wrongs.
Battle lines are clearly being drawn, where the radical left has offered Americans a binary choice in a false dichotomy between total submission or unrelenting exile with those opposed to the new woke world order cast out of society as unrepentant racists refusing to atone for past generations’ sins. No justice, no peace. Silence is violence. You’re either with us, or against us. There is no middle ground. Which side of history are you on?
Of course in reality, (and sanity), it’s clearly not that black and white, but if recent events show us anything, they expose that this mentality is no longer one of a fringe left-wing movement but a central tenant of our mainstream culture of what it means to make “progress.” America, according to the now only acceptable narrative, is an irredeemably racist society that was built for the sole purpose to oppress. It has never been great. Anyone who thinks otherwise, is as guilty as the slaveholders who lived more than 150 years ago.
For as long as the nation continues to go mad, purging books, movies, statues and history in its own cultural revolution launched by woke elites, The Federalist will be chronicling its destruction, updating this list with each new event in its collapse. The Federalist will also be keeping tally of those fired from lack of allegiance to the new woke overlords found here.
**
Minneapolis City Council Officially Dismantles Police Department
The Minneapolis City Council moved through on its promise to abolish its police department by a unanimous vote on June 12 to replace its law enforcement with a “transformative new model.”
The resolution passed declared the city government would begin a year long process to develop its new system of providing public safety.
New York Times Op-ed: ‘Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police’
The New York Times ran an op-ed on June 12 erasing any doubt that calls to “defund the police” actually mean the complete abolition of law enforcement, as if the Minneapolis City Council’s Friday vote to do just that wasn’t proof already.
As this list will later explain, the Times had previously issued an apology to readers for publishing a well-reasoned editorial by Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton arguing for Trump to “send in the troops” to quell violent riots after staff complained its publication put black employees “in danger.”
**
Seattle Mayor While Anarchists Control Downtown: This Is Fine
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan shot back at President Donald Trump on June 12 as the president called for an end to the city’s partial occupation by socialist protestors.
“Seattle is fine,” Durkan wrote, defending the demonstrators keeping downtown businesses that have survived the pandemic closed as heroic exemplars of free expression. “Don’t be so afraid of democracy.”
**
Inslee Had No Idea About Anarchist Insurrection Taking Over Seattle
Washington Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee was completely oblivious to the anarchist insurrection taking over Seattle when he was asked about the rogue militia during a coronavirus press briefing.
**
Episode Of ‘Fawlty Towers’ Censored
The British television station, UKTV pulled down the episode “The German” of “Fawlty Towers” off air over “racial slurs.”
“The episode contains racial slurs so we are taking the episode down while we review it,” UKTV said in a statement.
John Cleese from the show condemned the move as “cowardly and gutless and contemptable.” On the comments the station found offensive, Cleese made clear, “we are not supporting his views, we are making fun of them. If they can’t see that, if people are too stupid to see that, what can one say?”
**
Shows Depicting Police Get Cancelled
As animosity towards police reach new heights, popular television shows depicting law enforcement doing their jobs are getting ripped from the air. Paramount Network’s “Cops” was among the first to go, followed by “Live PD” the next day produced by A&E with MGM’s Big Fish Entertainment.
**
The Mob Comes For ‘Paws Patrol’
The protests have reached Adventure Bay, a fictional Nickelodeon town home to the children’s show “Paws Patrol,” celebrating good cops which is now being demonized as “copapaganda.”
“Euthanize the police dog,” demanded police brutality protestors online, according to the New York Times.
**
Welcome To Your New World Order: A Rundown Of Woke Insanity Amid The Newest Cultural Revolution
As the nation continues to spiral under its 21st century cultural revolution, here's a running list of the ongoing insanity.
By Tristan Justice
Updated June 14, 2020
America is in the midst of a new cultural civil war that for years has been brewing under the surface as left-wing academics breed aggressively woke children now permeating throughout the nation’s mainstream institutions.
Since the killing of George Floyd at the knees of a Minneapolis police officer sparked the worst outbreak of civil unrest in decades, protests that grew out of demanding justice for Floyd morphed into a dark operation to fundamentally transform the nation’s psyche, convincing the people of their own inherent evil from ancestral wrongs.
Battle lines are clearly being drawn, where the radical left has offered Americans a binary choice in a false dichotomy between total submission or unrelenting exile with those opposed to the new woke world order cast out of society as unrepentant racists refusing to atone for past generations’ sins. No justice, no peace. Silence is violence. You’re either with us, or against us. There is no middle ground. Which side of history are you on?
Of course in reality, (and sanity), it’s clearly not that black and white, but if recent events show us anything, they expose that this mentality is no longer one of a fringe left-wing movement but a central tenant of our mainstream culture of what it means to make “progress.” America, according to the now only acceptable narrative, is an irredeemably racist society that was built for the sole purpose to oppress. It has never been great. Anyone who thinks otherwise, is as guilty as the slaveholders who lived more than 150 years ago.
For as long as the nation continues to go mad, purging books, movies, statues and history in its own cultural revolution launched by woke elites, The Federalist will be chronicling its destruction, updating this list with each new event in its collapse. The Federalist will also be keeping tally of those fired from lack of allegiance to the new woke overlords found here.
**
Minneapolis City Council Officially Dismantles Police Department
The Minneapolis City Council moved through on its promise to abolish its police department by a unanimous vote on June 12 to replace its law enforcement with a “transformative new model.”
The resolution passed declared the city government would begin a year long process to develop its new system of providing public safety.
New York Times Op-ed: ‘Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police’
The New York Times ran an op-ed on June 12 erasing any doubt that calls to “defund the police” actually mean the complete abolition of law enforcement, as if the Minneapolis City Council’s Friday vote to do just that wasn’t proof already.
As this list will later explain, the Times had previously issued an apology to readers for publishing a well-reasoned editorial by Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton arguing for Trump to “send in the troops” to quell violent riots after staff complained its publication put black employees “in danger.”
**
Seattle Mayor While Anarchists Control Downtown: This Is Fine
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan shot back at President Donald Trump on June 12 as the president called for an end to the city’s partial occupation by socialist protestors.
“Seattle is fine,” Durkan wrote, defending the demonstrators keeping downtown businesses that have survived the pandemic closed as heroic exemplars of free expression. “Don’t be so afraid of democracy.”
**
Inslee Had No Idea About Anarchist Insurrection Taking Over Seattle
Washington Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee was completely oblivious to the anarchist insurrection taking over Seattle when he was asked about the rogue militia during a coronavirus press briefing.
**
Episode Of ‘Fawlty Towers’ Censored
The British television station, UKTV pulled down the episode “The German” of “Fawlty Towers” off air over “racial slurs.”
“The episode contains racial slurs so we are taking the episode down while we review it,” UKTV said in a statement.
John Cleese from the show condemned the move as “cowardly and gutless and contemptable.” On the comments the station found offensive, Cleese made clear, “we are not supporting his views, we are making fun of them. If they can’t see that, if people are too stupid to see that, what can one say?”
**
Shows Depicting Police Get Cancelled
As animosity towards police reach new heights, popular television shows depicting law enforcement doing their jobs are getting ripped from the air. Paramount Network’s “Cops” was among the first to go, followed by “Live PD” the next day produced by A&E with MGM’s Big Fish Entertainment.
**
The Mob Comes For ‘Paws Patrol’
The protests have reached Adventure Bay, a fictional Nickelodeon town home to the children’s show “Paws Patrol,” celebrating good cops which is now being demonized as “copapaganda.”
“Euthanize the police dog,” demanded police brutality protestors online, according to the New York Times.
**
UCLA Professor Fired For Refusing Special Treatment For Black Students
University of California Los Angeles Accounting Professor Gordon Klein was placed on three weeks of involuntary leave after students demanded his firing for rejecting requests to provide a “no harm” final for black students.
Klein was condemned as a “racist” and was put in police protection following his refusal to give into students’ discriminatory demands.
Seattle Occupiers Running The ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone’ Demand Anarchy And Segregation
The occupiers of a section of downtown Seattle branding it the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” released their list of demands that includes the total abolition of police replaced by a new socialist utopis complete with a 21st century era segregation.
***
https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/12/welcome-to-your-new-world-order-a-rundown-of-woke-insanity-amid-the-newest-cultural-revolution/
University of California Los Angeles Accounting Professor Gordon Klein was placed on three weeks of involuntary leave after students demanded his firing for rejecting requests to provide a “no harm” final for black students.
Klein was condemned as a “racist” and was put in police protection following his refusal to give into students’ discriminatory demands.
Seattle Occupiers Running The ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone’ Demand Anarchy And Segregation
The occupiers of a section of downtown Seattle branding it the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” released their list of demands that includes the total abolition of police replaced by a new socialist utopis complete with a 21st century era segregation.
***
https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/12/welcome-to-your-new-world-order-a-rundown-of-woke-insanity-amid-the-newest-cultural-revolution/
Sunday 14 June 2020
Donations to Black Lives Matter are funneled through a Democratic fundraising group | Just The News
Donations to Black Lives Matter are funneled through a Democratic fundraising group | Just The News
Donations to Black Lives Matter are funneled through a Democratic fundraising group
Nearly 4% of all donations go to a third-party progressive organization.
By Daniel Payne / June 12, 2020
Financial contributions to Black Lives Matter are first processed through a Democratic and progressive fundraising group, one which takes a cut of all donations before passing it along to the racial justice organization.
Donations to Black Lives Matter have been skyrocketing in recent weeks amid ongoing protests in response to the killing of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis resident. Floyd died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes; bystander video of the incident captured Floyd screaming, “I can’t breathe!” as the officer kept his knee on Floyd’s throat.
Major corporations have been scrambling to donate huge sums of money to Black Lives Matter as the sometimes-violent protests have continued. Some of the donations have been astronomical: The Korean pop band BTS donated $1 million to the group earlier this month, and their fans quickly matched that amount with another $1 million donation.
Yet those donations do not go straight to Black Lives Matter. Rather, they first pass through ActBlue Charities, a fundraising group that bankrolls Democratic and progressive political efforts across the country. The group offers users a suite of fundraising tools, including data analytics, support services and customized contribution forms, to facilitate donor solicitation efforts.
The organization styles itself as “a nonprofit tech organization that builds digital fundraising tools for Democratic candidates and committees, progressive organizations, and other nonprofits.” Republicans are barred from using the service.
The donation page linked from the central Black Lives Matter website actually reroutes users to a secure ActBlue donation form. “ActBlue Charities is a registered charitable organization formed to democratize charitable giving,” the form states.
On its website, ActBlue says it takes a 3.95% “processing fee” from “all transactions,” after which the donated money "goes straight to the candidate or organization."
The company stipulates that any donations that are rejected by an organization, or go unclaimed for more than 60 days, "will be re-designated as a contribution to ActBlue." Those contributions are "generally to support its social welfare activities," the organization states.
It is unclear just how much money ActBlue has processed for Black Lives Matter. On the Black Lives Matter donation page, ActBlue states that users can obtain the fundraising group’s “latest financial report” by emailing the company. Yet when asked, the company would not provide that report.
“If you are hoping to review the financial report of any specific nonprofit fundraising via ActBlue Charities, we’d encourage you to reach out to them directly,” a representative said via email on Wednesday when asked for ActBlue’s most recent financial report.
ActBlue did not respond to further queries repeatedly asking for the report.
The Democratic fundraising group appears to be pulling down significantly larger amounts of donations this spring than it has done in previous years. On its recap for April 2020, it lists over 4.4 million total contributions for that month — three times as many as listed in April 2018 — while the total dollar amount it processed in April, around $141,000,000, was up from just under $56 million the same month in 2018.
It is not clear how much of that money was donated specifically to Black Lives Matter. Neither ActBlue nor Black Lives Matter on their websites list the amount of donations the latter group receives. The April numbers do not reflect the recent surge in donations to Black Lives Matter, which only began skyrocketing in late May after Floyd's death in Minneapolis.
Multiple queries to Black Lives Matter over the past two days were ignored. A Facebook message to Kailee Scales, the group’s managing director, was also not answered on Thursday morning.
On a recent Reddit “Ask Me Anything” forum, when asked how donations for the group are spent, Scales replied: “Right now, our programs are focused on civic engagement, expansion of chapters, Arts & Culture, organizing and digital advocacy resources and tools.”
Financial contributions to Black Lives Matter are first processed through a Democratic and progressive fundraising group, one which takes a cut of all donations before passing it along to the racial justice organization.
Donations to Black Lives Matter have been skyrocketing in recent weeks amid ongoing protests in response to the killing of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis resident. Floyd died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes; bystander video of the incident captured Floyd screaming, “I can’t breathe!” as the officer kept his knee on Floyd’s throat.
Major corporations have been scrambling to donate huge sums of money to Black Lives Matter as the sometimes-violent protests have continued. Some of the donations have been astronomical: The Korean pop band BTS donated $1 million to the group earlier this month, and their fans quickly matched that amount with another $1 million donation.
Yet those donations do not go straight to Black Lives Matter. Rather, they first pass through ActBlue Charities, a fundraising group that bankrolls Democratic and progressive political efforts across the country. The group offers users a suite of fundraising tools, including data analytics, support services and customized contribution forms, to facilitate donor solicitation efforts.
The organization styles itself as “a nonprofit tech organization that builds digital fundraising tools for Democratic candidates and committees, progressive organizations, and other nonprofits.” Republicans are barred from using the service.
The donation page linked from the central Black Lives Matter website actually reroutes users to a secure ActBlue donation form. “ActBlue Charities is a registered charitable organization formed to democratize charitable giving,” the form states.
On its website, ActBlue says it takes a 3.95% “processing fee” from “all transactions,” after which the donated money "goes straight to the candidate or organization."
The company stipulates that any donations that are rejected by an organization, or go unclaimed for more than 60 days, "will be re-designated as a contribution to ActBlue." Those contributions are "generally to support its social welfare activities," the organization states.
It is unclear just how much money ActBlue has processed for Black Lives Matter. On the Black Lives Matter donation page, ActBlue states that users can obtain the fundraising group’s “latest financial report” by emailing the company. Yet when asked, the company would not provide that report.
“If you are hoping to review the financial report of any specific nonprofit fundraising via ActBlue Charities, we’d encourage you to reach out to them directly,” a representative said via email on Wednesday when asked for ActBlue’s most recent financial report.
The Democratic fundraising group appears to be pulling down significantly larger amounts of donations this spring than it has done in previous years. On its recap for April 2020, it lists over 4.4 million total contributions for that month — three times as many as listed in April 2018 — while the total dollar amount it processed in April, around $141,000,000, was up from just under $56 million the same month in 2018.
It is not clear how much of that money was donated specifically to Black Lives Matter. Neither ActBlue nor Black Lives Matter on their websites list the amount of donations the latter group receives. The April numbers do not reflect the recent surge in donations to Black Lives Matter, which only began skyrocketing in late May after Floyd's death in Minneapolis.
Multiple queries to Black Lives Matter over the past two days were ignored. A Facebook message to Kailee Scales, the group’s managing director, was also not answered on Thursday morning.
On a recent Reddit “Ask Me Anything” forum, when asked how donations for the group are spent, Scales replied: “Right now, our programs are focused on civic engagement, expansion of chapters, Arts & Culture, organizing and digital advocacy resources and tools.”
https://justthenews.com/accountability/donations-black-lives-matter-are-funnelled-through-democratic-fundraising-group
Donations to Black Lives Matter are funneled through a Democratic fundraising group
Nearly 4% of all donations go to a third-party progressive organization.
By Daniel Payne / June 12, 2020
Financial contributions to Black Lives Matter are first processed through a Democratic and progressive fundraising group, one which takes a cut of all donations before passing it along to the racial justice organization.
Donations to Black Lives Matter have been skyrocketing in recent weeks amid ongoing protests in response to the killing of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis resident. Floyd died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes; bystander video of the incident captured Floyd screaming, “I can’t breathe!” as the officer kept his knee on Floyd’s throat.
Major corporations have been scrambling to donate huge sums of money to Black Lives Matter as the sometimes-violent protests have continued. Some of the donations have been astronomical: The Korean pop band BTS donated $1 million to the group earlier this month, and their fans quickly matched that amount with another $1 million donation.
Yet those donations do not go straight to Black Lives Matter. Rather, they first pass through ActBlue Charities, a fundraising group that bankrolls Democratic and progressive political efforts across the country. The group offers users a suite of fundraising tools, including data analytics, support services and customized contribution forms, to facilitate donor solicitation efforts.
The organization styles itself as “a nonprofit tech organization that builds digital fundraising tools for Democratic candidates and committees, progressive organizations, and other nonprofits.” Republicans are barred from using the service.
The donation page linked from the central Black Lives Matter website actually reroutes users to a secure ActBlue donation form. “ActBlue Charities is a registered charitable organization formed to democratize charitable giving,” the form states.
On its website, ActBlue says it takes a 3.95% “processing fee” from “all transactions,” after which the donated money "goes straight to the candidate or organization."
The company stipulates that any donations that are rejected by an organization, or go unclaimed for more than 60 days, "will be re-designated as a contribution to ActBlue." Those contributions are "generally to support its social welfare activities," the organization states.
It is unclear just how much money ActBlue has processed for Black Lives Matter. On the Black Lives Matter donation page, ActBlue states that users can obtain the fundraising group’s “latest financial report” by emailing the company. Yet when asked, the company would not provide that report.
“If you are hoping to review the financial report of any specific nonprofit fundraising via ActBlue Charities, we’d encourage you to reach out to them directly,” a representative said via email on Wednesday when asked for ActBlue’s most recent financial report.
ActBlue did not respond to further queries repeatedly asking for the report.
The Democratic fundraising group appears to be pulling down significantly larger amounts of donations this spring than it has done in previous years. On its recap for April 2020, it lists over 4.4 million total contributions for that month — three times as many as listed in April 2018 — while the total dollar amount it processed in April, around $141,000,000, was up from just under $56 million the same month in 2018.
It is not clear how much of that money was donated specifically to Black Lives Matter. Neither ActBlue nor Black Lives Matter on their websites list the amount of donations the latter group receives. The April numbers do not reflect the recent surge in donations to Black Lives Matter, which only began skyrocketing in late May after Floyd's death in Minneapolis.
Multiple queries to Black Lives Matter over the past two days were ignored. A Facebook message to Kailee Scales, the group’s managing director, was also not answered on Thursday morning.
On a recent Reddit “Ask Me Anything” forum, when asked how donations for the group are spent, Scales replied: “Right now, our programs are focused on civic engagement, expansion of chapters, Arts & Culture, organizing and digital advocacy resources and tools.”
Financial contributions to Black Lives Matter are first processed through a Democratic and progressive fundraising group, one which takes a cut of all donations before passing it along to the racial justice organization.
Donations to Black Lives Matter have been skyrocketing in recent weeks amid ongoing protests in response to the killing of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis resident. Floyd died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes; bystander video of the incident captured Floyd screaming, “I can’t breathe!” as the officer kept his knee on Floyd’s throat.
Major corporations have been scrambling to donate huge sums of money to Black Lives Matter as the sometimes-violent protests have continued. Some of the donations have been astronomical: The Korean pop band BTS donated $1 million to the group earlier this month, and their fans quickly matched that amount with another $1 million donation.
Yet those donations do not go straight to Black Lives Matter. Rather, they first pass through ActBlue Charities, a fundraising group that bankrolls Democratic and progressive political efforts across the country. The group offers users a suite of fundraising tools, including data analytics, support services and customized contribution forms, to facilitate donor solicitation efforts.
The organization styles itself as “a nonprofit tech organization that builds digital fundraising tools for Democratic candidates and committees, progressive organizations, and other nonprofits.” Republicans are barred from using the service.
The donation page linked from the central Black Lives Matter website actually reroutes users to a secure ActBlue donation form. “ActBlue Charities is a registered charitable organization formed to democratize charitable giving,” the form states.
On its website, ActBlue says it takes a 3.95% “processing fee” from “all transactions,” after which the donated money "goes straight to the candidate or organization."
The company stipulates that any donations that are rejected by an organization, or go unclaimed for more than 60 days, "will be re-designated as a contribution to ActBlue." Those contributions are "generally to support its social welfare activities," the organization states.
It is unclear just how much money ActBlue has processed for Black Lives Matter. On the Black Lives Matter donation page, ActBlue states that users can obtain the fundraising group’s “latest financial report” by emailing the company. Yet when asked, the company would not provide that report.
“If you are hoping to review the financial report of any specific nonprofit fundraising via ActBlue Charities, we’d encourage you to reach out to them directly,” a representative said via email on Wednesday when asked for ActBlue’s most recent financial report.
The Democratic fundraising group appears to be pulling down significantly larger amounts of donations this spring than it has done in previous years. On its recap for April 2020, it lists over 4.4 million total contributions for that month — three times as many as listed in April 2018 — while the total dollar amount it processed in April, around $141,000,000, was up from just under $56 million the same month in 2018.
It is not clear how much of that money was donated specifically to Black Lives Matter. Neither ActBlue nor Black Lives Matter on their websites list the amount of donations the latter group receives. The April numbers do not reflect the recent surge in donations to Black Lives Matter, which only began skyrocketing in late May after Floyd's death in Minneapolis.
Multiple queries to Black Lives Matter over the past two days were ignored. A Facebook message to Kailee Scales, the group’s managing director, was also not answered on Thursday morning.
On a recent Reddit “Ask Me Anything” forum, when asked how donations for the group are spent, Scales replied: “Right now, our programs are focused on civic engagement, expansion of chapters, Arts & Culture, organizing and digital advocacy resources and tools.”
https://justthenews.com/accountability/donations-black-lives-matter-are-funnelled-through-democratic-fundraising-group
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