“STAR TREK” DIRECTOR BEHIND ATTACKS ON POTENTIAL ROMNEY VEEPS. Media Matters founder took money from Soros, AFL-CIO, SEIU

Posted on July 15, 2012 at 11:54 PM EST

By Aaron Klein
Film director JJ Abrams, the SEIU and AFL-CIO unions and billionaire George Soros are all prominent donors to a super PAC run by David Brock, founder of the controversial Media Matters for America.
The super PAC, American Bridge 21st Century, just unveiled a new website this past Friday called VeepMistakes.com featuring more than 1,300 pages of purported opposition research and video clips on potential GOP vice presidential candidates.
Brock’s PAC so far has focused its ire on former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
ABC News.com featured a lengthy profile on American Bridge’s new VeepMistake.com website, however the news article failed to mention once that the super PAC was founded by Brock and grew out of Media Matters.
White House staffers reportedly have held regular meetings with Media Matters, which recently came under fire for unusual tactics, including compiling a de facto enemies list; announcing an all-out campaign of “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” aimed at the Fox News Channel; and reportedly seeking to investigate the personal lives of targeted reporters and news personalities.
Now KleinOnline has reviewed American Bridge’s donor list. Included is Abrams, who gave $37,500 to Brock’s super PAC last June.
Abrams is best known for creating the television series “Alias” and “Lost” and directing such movies as “Mission: Impossible III”, “Star Trek,” and “Super 8.” Abram is also a top Obama campaign donor.
Other American Bridge donors for the fiscal year of 2011 include the National Education Association, SEIU and AFL-CIO with $100,000 each.
Soros donated $1 million to the super PAC.
Wrote Brock: “Thanks to investments by progressive leaders like Mr. Soros we have been able to build a cutting edge organization that we will continue to build upon in order to keeping providing effective and efficient services to the progressive movement.”
Media Matters tied to MoveOn.org, ACORN
Bock’s Media Matters is also tied to financing from Soros and the radical left, including a group that funds MoveOn.org and financed ACORN.
KleinOnline reported how one of the single largest donors to the embattled Media Matters for America is a controversial far-left clearinghouse that funds groups such as MoveOn.org, ACORN and a litany of anti-war organizations.
The organization in question, the Tides Foundation, is funded in part by Soros, himself a prominent Media Matters donor.
Tides functions as a money tunnel in which major leftist donors provide large sums that are channeled to hundreds of radical groups.
Tides documentation reviewed by KleinOnline shows the group provided a total of $4.1 million to Media Matters during the fiscal years of 2004-2009.
During that same time period, Tides provided an additional $110,000 to the Media Matters Action Network, the group’s affiliated progressive lobby.
The Tides Foundation funding to Media Matters was most significant during the progressive news organization’s startup year in 2004, when Tides granted it $2.2 million.
In 2005, Tides sent another $1.1 million to Media Matters.
The years 2006 and 2007 saw smaller Tides donations of $56,223 and $38,225 respectively.
In 2008, a significant Tides donation of $659,500 came in to Media Matters, with another $106,038 in 2009.
In 2010, the Tides Center expressed public support for Media Matters when the media group stepped up its activism against Fox News by posting a Web page dedicated to anti-Fox material along with an online petition that pressed Fox’s advertisers to “Drop Fox.” At the time, Tides chief executive and founder, Drummond Pike, endorsed Media Matters’ campaign.
Media Matters already admitted to taking $1 million directly from Soros. The billionaire has donated more than $7 million to Tides over the years.
Now KleinOnline’s revelation of Tides donations to Media Matters may raise more questions about the partiality of media group. Tides is one of the biggest financial backers of progressive and radical left groups in the U.S.
For example, Tides is a primary funder to ACORN, and is closely tied to the group implicated in voter fraud. The Tides Center’s Board Chairman is Wade Rathke, ACORN’s founder and chief organizer.
Tides also is a primary funder to MoveOn.org, the American Civil Liberties Union, Campaign for America’s Future; the Center for American Progress; the Center for Community Change; the socialist-leaning Democracy Now!; the Marxist-founded Free Press; and Marxist-oriented Institute for Policy Studies.
Tides recently has been closely linked to Occupy since the anti-Wall Street movement’s inception. The Tides-funded Adbusters magazine is reported to have come up with the Occupy Wall Street idea after Arab Spring protests toppled governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. The Adbusters website serves as a central hub for Occupy’s planning.
The Tides-funded Ruckus Society has been providing direct-action training to Occupy protesters as well as official training resources, including manuals, to Occupy training groups. Ruckus, which helped spark the 1999 World Trade Organization riots in Seattle, was also listed as a “friend and partner” of the Occupy Days of Action in October.
Another grantee of Tides, MoveOn.org, has joined Occupy.
Media Matters has been facing closer scrutiny after a series of investigative articles by the Daily Caller highlighting questionable financial and activist practices.
With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott