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2011 Wisconsin Protests and Aftermath

Be Prepared.

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John David Podesta... is the Chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

"Podesta previously served as Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton and Counselor to President Barack Obama. He is the former president and now Chair and Counselor of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C., and is also a Visiting Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. He was a co-chairman of the Obama-Biden Transition Project."......

The Center for American Progress "The Center for American Progress (CAP) is a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization. According to CAP, the center is "dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and action." The Center presents a liberal viewpoint on economic issues. It has its headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The president and chief executive officer of CAP is Neera Tanden, who worked for the Obama and Clinton administrations and for Hillary Clinton’s campaigns. The first president and CEO was John Podesta, who served as chief of staff to then U.S. President Bill Clinton. Podesta remained with the organization as chairman of the board until he joined the Obama White House staff in December 2013. Tom Daschle is the current chairman.

The Center for American Progress runs a campus outreach group, Generation Progress, and a sister advocacy organization, the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Citing Podesta's influence in the formation of the Obama Administration, a November 2008 article in Time stated that "not since the Heritage Foundation helped guide Ronald Reagan's transition in 1981 has a single outside group held so much sway".....

.......Some open government groups, such as the Sunlight Foundation and the Campaign Legal Center, criticize the Center's failure to disclose its contributors, particularly since it is so influential in appointments to the Obama administration.

In March 2008, ThinkProgress, CAP's blog outlet, posted that John McCain had plagiarized from a 1996 speech by Rear Admiral Timothy Ziemer. However, it was revealed that McCain had used similar lines in a speech during 1995 and ThinkProgress retracted the error the next day.

In October 2010, ThinkProgress posted that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was bypassing campaign finance laws by using foreign money to fund campaign attack ads. FactCheck.org called it "a claim with little basis in fact", while the New York Times wrote, "[T]here is little evidence that what the chamber does in collecting overseas dues is improper or even unusual, according to both liberal and conservative election-law lawyers and campaign finance documents".

CAP was criticized by several Jewish organizations after some employees "publicly used language that could be construed as anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic". Bloggers associated with CAP published several posts using phrases such as "apartheid" and "Israel-firsters", causing NGO Monitor, the American Jewish Committee, and the Anti-Defamation League to label them anti-Israel and call on CAP to disassociate themselves from these statements. Officials at CAP said the “inappropriate” language came only in personal tweets—not on CAP’s website or its ThinkProgress blog. The Tweets were deleted, and the authors apologized.

....The Center for American Progress is a 501(c)(3) organization under U.S. Internal Revenue Code. In 2013, CAP received $42 million from a variety of sources, including individuals, foundations, labor unions, and corporations. From 2003 to 2007, CAP received about $15 million in grants from 58 foundations. Major individual donors include George Soros, Peter Lewis, Steve Bing, and Herb and Marion Sandler. The Center receives undisclosed sums from corporate donors. In December 2013, the organization released a list of its corporate donors, which include Walmart, CitiGroup, Wells Fargo, defense contractor Northrup Grumman, America's Health Insurance Plans, and Eli Lilly and Company.

In 2015, CAP released a partial list of its donors, which included 28 anonymous donors accounting for at least $5 million in contributions. Named donors included the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates, which each gave between $500,000 and $999,999. CAP’s top donors include Walmart and Citigroup, each of which have given between $100,000 and $499,000.".....