Yellow Journalism and Civil Society: Patagonia Outdoor Clothing and Gear
I am probably one-third amateur nonprofit and tax exemption reporter and two-thirds curator of news on the same topics. Most of my original reports are about cases, statutes and regulations. Otherwise, I just gather news stories from media and sometimes add editorial content. I try to avoid explicitly partisan stuff, though I admit that I am a partisan. I don’t often rely on Fox News or MSNBC. The news in the Wall Street Journal is nonpartisan even if the editorial side has swallowed the MAGA Kool-aide. The editors pretend to be logical, but they can’t help repudiating the decency Reagan or John McCain ever stood for. Honestly, I don’t know how they can look at themselves in the mirror without laughing at their political clown noses. Even CNN is not too partisan, though it struggles at times to maintain its center-left look. Everybody has biases. Only in this blog, dear friends, will you find completely objective unbiased news about nonprofit and tax exempt organizations.
The Washington Examiner and the New York Post are two explicitly partisan sources. Partisan enough that they might be described as yellow journalistic. But, as my father used to say, “even a fool can teach you something.” The Washington Times ran a story last week about Patagonia’s “funneling” of financial support for terrorists. “Funneling” suggests a mens rea that is about as likely as the moon is made of cheese. Still, the story is useful to my sermonizing about war hysteria driving attacks on Civil Society. It seems like partisans in our never-ending social wars are scouring 990s and other documents in an effort to tie donations made long before October 7th to terrorism. In pursuit of some other cultural war or political aim. In this case, the cultural war involves the fight against climate change, which is often characterized as a Chinese inspired effort to undermine America. Here are excerpts from the Washington Times exclusive:
Patagonia, the outdoor apparel brand with offices across the world, granted tens of thousands of dollars to a group connected to Palestinian terrorism. Now the company says it has launched an internal review into the funding. Through its tax-exempt private foundation in California, Patagonia has sent more than $139,000 since 2016 to Alliance for Global Justice, tax records show. That same progressive Arizona-based organization, a recent Washington Examiner investigation found, is linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group — a fact that prompted donors and payment processors such as PayPal to cut ties with AFGJ amid mounting scrutiny from Congress.
Patagonia’s funding of AFGJ is a window into how major corporations operating in the United States financially boost groups taking aim at the Jewish state of Israel, including AFGJ, which has said it sponsors 140 projects and reported holding $11 million in assets on its most recent tax forms filed with the IRS. One project under AFGJ is Samidoun, an Israeli-designated terrorist coalition that has shared staffers with the PFLP. AFGJ also fundraised in the past for the France-based Collectif Palestine Vaincra, a partner of the PFLP that, along with Samidoun, is protesting in support of Hamas after it killed 1,200 people last year in Israel on Oct. 7.
Patagonia’s 2023 grants to AFGJ, which totaled $30,000 combined, were to climate-focused projects under the charity working on “community cleanup around a defunct oil refinery site” and “building activism among Black TLGBQIA+ individuals through climate advocacy and community gardening,” Hans Cole, Patagonia’s vice president of environmental activism, said in a statement. “Patagonia remains committed to rigorous stewardship of our philanthropic efforts and is evaluating continued funding of local efforts through AFGJ,” Cole told the Washington Examiner.
Patagonia is not a private foundation, by the way, though its nonvoting stock is held by a (c)(4). It is a charitable purpose trustArmy-McCarthy hearings, the Washington Times seeks to condemn one organization by its attenuated third or fourth level “linked to” connections. We should be concerned that it’s not just yellow journalists having limited success in efforts to shut down Civil Society for not adhering to party line politics. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even bother saying anything about any of this.
darryll k. jones