The mainstream media will never cover this story but we first got wind of this organization back  in 2009:

Last month, former minority leader and uber lobbyist Dick Gephardt, was a presenter at the National Endowment for Democracy’s annual “Democracy Award” ceremony. The purpose for the awards was to honor the “heroic efforts of Cuban workers, lawyers, and writers working to advance democratic values and fundamental rights within Cuba.” Sounds like a great cause right? Who’s against bringing democracy to Cuba. According to this Wikipedia entry, the organization seems to be a little overzealous in their efforts:

“NED says it does not directly fund any political party, as this is forbidden by law. However, it has been accused of providing funding to opposition candidates in elections in countries other than the USA. According to NED, it intervenes in elections by funding election observation and civic education on voting, such as student “get-out-the-vote” campaigns.

Critics such as Pat Buchanan accuse the NED of fomenting revolution and regularly interfering in the affairs of other countries, especially dictatorships and undemocratic regimes.

NED has principally supported candidates with strong ties to the military and who support the rights of U.S. corporations to invest in those countries with minimal restriction. The NED has not supported candidates who oppose investments by U.S. corporations or who promise restrictions on investment rights of U.S. corporations.” Read more…

This left leaning article suggests that Gephardt’s National Endowment for Democracy may have financed President Mubarak’s downfall in Egypt:

NED was created as an act of Congress and receives more than 90 per cent of its budget from the US government. Freedom House, while not one of its core institutions, also regularly receives the majority of its funding from NED. Chaired by Richard Gephardt – former Democratic Representative, now CEO of his own corporate consultancy and lobbying firm – the NED’s Board of Directors consists of a collection of corporate lobbyists, advisors and consultants, former U.S congressmen, senators, ambassadors and military staff, as well as senior fellows of highly political “think tanks”.

NED and its affiliates (particularly IRI) have been implicated in funding groups involved in organising coups against democratically elected leaders…NED poured funding into the cause of ‘defending democracy’ in France against her elected government, under Francois Mitterrand, which it regarded as dangerously socialist. As Barbara Conry of the right leaning Cato Institute once wrote: “Through the Endowment, the American taxpayer has paid for special-interest groups to harass the duly elected governments of friendly countries, interfere in foreign elections, and foster the corruption of democratic movements.”

One need only look at NED’s official website to see that it is pushing a right-wing agenda in Egypt, with nearly half of the $2,497,457 allocated to Egypt in 2010 going to the Center for International Private Enterprise for actions such as strengthening civil society’s “capacity to advocate for free market legislative reform” and other large grants awarded to youth organisations for training and mobilising activists in the use of new and social media.

But this is just the funding that is openly boasted of and the Egyptian authorities are finding it difficult, apparently, to trace the organisation’s funding. Dawlat Eissa – a 27-year-old Egyptian-American and former IRI employee – claimed that that the IRI was using employee’s private bank accounts to channel funding into IRI covertly from Washington. Read more…

The ‘son of a milk truck driver’ has come a long way from those humble roots. Now he’s accused of doing the bidding of ‘big business’ by overthrowing foreign governments.

Related:

Political Fix is a Day Late/Dollar Short…Again

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