AlterNet: Lila Rose Propped Up By Right-Wing Establishment
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
From the February 3 article, “The Right-Wing Dough Supporting the Sicko 'Stings' at Planned Parenthood” on AlterNet.org:
In response to my question about Live Action's funding, Schear said that, Lila Rose's anti-choice activism began with a grant from Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute, which has been training young right-wingers for leadership roles for more than 30 years. The grant funded Rose's newspaper, The Advocate, which she still publishes. I recently attended one of the Institute's breakfast meetings with news-makers; the speaker was Tim Phillips, president of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the astroturf group founded and chaired by David Koch. Phillips, you see, is a graduate of the Institute, as are many right-wing luminaries.
More recently, Rose has gained the support of the Gerard Health Foundation, which supports anti-choice groups, many of them Catholic. In 2008, Rose won one of the foundation's coveted "Life Prizes". That year, a total of $600,000 was divided between seven recipients. The foundation is funded by the trust of Raymond Ruddy, a former executive with Touche Ross and Maximus, on whose board of Maximus he still sits. Maximus describes itself as providing operational services to the U.S. government, and foreign governments. (Isn't government bad, bad, bad? Aren't foreigners bad, bad, bad? Guess not when you're making big bucks off of them.)
Schear also said that Rose receives in-kind contributions -- basically, free services -- from CRC Public Relations, the firm behind the media sensation known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. You know -- the guys who sought to impugn the war-time record of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., when he ran for president. CRC is led by Greg Mueller, who worked on the presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes. SourceWatch also lists among CRC's clients the Republican National Committee, the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Oh, and then there's the 2009 anti-health-care-reform effort by Rick Scott -- now the governor of Florida -- known as Conservatives for Patients' Rights.