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Jamestown Foundation Issues Commentary: No Political Charges as Ma Xingrui Expelled From Politburo
WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on July 17, 2026, by non-resident fellow Christopher Nye in the foundation's China Brief:
* * *
No Political Charges as Ma Xingrui Expelled From Politburo
Executive Summary:
* On July 14, the Party announced the expulsion of Politburo member Ma Xingrui and referred him for prosecution on bribery charges.
* Ma's notice contains no specific political accusations. This is a departure from historical practice. Every other Politburo-level official felled under Xi Jinping has been charged with political crimes, such ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on July 17, 2026, by non-resident fellow Christopher Nye in the foundation's China Brief: * * * No Political Charges as Ma Xingrui Expelled From Politburo Executive Summary: * On July 14, the Party announced the expulsion of Politburo member Ma Xingrui and referred him for prosecution on bribery charges. * Ma's notice contains no specific political accusations. This is a departure from historical practice. Every other Politburo-level official felled under Xi Jinping has been charged with political crimes, suchas disloyalty, factionalism, ambition, or undermining the Central Military Commission chairman responsibility system.
* The omission suggests removing a top official no longer requires a political narrative. Framing the case as ordinary corruption shields Xi from the embarrassment of purging his own appointees.
Given that nearly all senior officials are vulnerable to accusations of economic corruption, the lower threshold that Ma's case suggests turns ordinary graft into a weapon and raises the risk of intensified elite infighting before the 21st Party Congress.
-
The Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) expelled Ma Xingrui, a sitting Politburo member and former Xinjiang Party secretary, on June 30. The official notice referred him for prosecution on bribery charges (Xinhua, July 14). The announcement is notable for what it lacks. Unlike the disciplinary notices of other Politburo-level officials felled during General Secretary Xi Jinping's tenure, Ma's charge sheet contains no specific political accusations. The text omits established disciplinary formulas regarding factionalism, disloyalty, or inflated political ambition. Instead, the CCP removed a top civilian leader just for ordinary corruption and supervision failures.
This divergence marks a significant shift in elite politics. It indicates that the leadership may no longer feel compelled to construct a grand political narrative to justify felling a Politburo member. Xi Jinping now exercises complete discretion over the public framing of top-level purges.
Charge Sheet Against Ma Focuses on Venal Corruption
Ma Xingrui entered the Politburo at the 20th Party Congress in October 2022. He was known as a renowned aerospace engineer who once served as general manager of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC). Within the Party, he had ascended the hierarchy by serving as Shenzhen Party secretary, Guangdong governor, and Xinjiang Party secretary. The Party abruptly relieved him of his Xinjiang post in July 2025 for an unspecified other appointment (Xinhua, July 1, 2025). Then, in April 2026, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced an investigation into Ma (Xinhua, April 3). Three months later, the leadership published the final disciplinary results.
The notice outlines a massive corruption scandal without mentioning political disloyalty. The document groups his offenses into four distinct disciplinary failures. First, Ma failed to fulfill his supervisory responsibility for party governance by indulging aides involved in suspected crimes. Second, he violated organizational discipline by answering official inquiries dishonestly and trading favors in personnel arrangements. Third, the commission cites severe integrity breaches. These include the acceptance of illicit gifts, instances in which Ma "traded power and money for sex", and a broader pattern of "large-scale family corruption". Fourth, the text accuses the former secretary of weaponizing public power for private profit. He is charged with leveraging his office to secure business contracts and job promotions for others in exchange for enormous financial bribes paid to himself and his "specific related persons", a legal term covering close relatives and associates.[1]
This severe document stands out specifically for what it omits. All other Politburo-rank officials disciplined under Xi Jinping ultimately received at least one political charge. Civilian peers like Zhou Yongkang and Sun Zhengcai faced accusations of leaking secrets or harboring inflated political ambition (Supreme People's Procuratorate, December 6, 2014; Xinhua, September 29, 2017, October 29, 2017). Recent military purges involving Central Military Commission (CMC) vice chairmen He Weidong (and Zhang Youxia) escalated to charges of undermining and trampling the "CMC chairman responsibility system", respectively (Xinhua, October 18, 2025; PLA Daily, January 25). As in Ma's case, nearly all of these other high-level disciplinary actions include accusations of financial crimes and nepotism. The difference with Ma's notice, however, is that it relies entirely on these economic offenses.
Previous Elite Purges Required Political Charges
In the post-Tiananmen era before Xi Jinping took power, the CCP rarely removed Politburo members. The Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao decades saw only three such dismissals in 23 years. Chen Xitong, Chen Liangyu, and Bo Xilai all lost their positions during this period. In each of these historical cases, the underlying conflict involved a challenge to the sitting leadership. Chen Xitong's Beijing municipal machine contested Jiang Zemin's authority (Radio Free Asia, June 23, 2017). Chen Liangyu resisted the macroeconomic policies of the Hu Jintao leadership (VOA, April 11, 2008). Bo Xilai faced expulsion after his abuse of power in the Wang Lijun incident (China Brief, March 2, 2012, March 30, 2012; Xinhua, September 28, 2012). All three men were ousted for economic crimes. Their underlying offense, however, was challenging central authority. The Party did not purge its highest ranks simply for financial crimes.
Xi Jinping lowered this historical threshold in his first term. Defying the core leadership was no longer the required trigger for a purge. Instead, merely possessing a severe political problem became sufficient to bring down a Politburo member. The notice announcing Zhou Yongkang's expulsion from the Party carried heavy political accusations, including charges of leaking Party and state secrets, alongside massive abuses of power (Supreme People's Procuratorate, December 6, 2014). Sun Zhengcai faced a slightly different formulation in 2017. His expulsion notice heavily emphasized bribery, though it still included a distinct political charge by citing the leaking of organizational secrets (Xinhua, September 29, 2017). The CCP subsequently formalized the political framing of these elite purges. The work report of the 18th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection explicitly grouped Zhou and Sun with former director of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee Ling Jihua as "careerists and conspirators" (Xinhua, October 29, 2017). A discipline official summarized this norm at a press conference after the Party Congress that year, saying that for the great majority of felled senior officials "political problems and economic corruption were intertwined" (Xinhua, October 26, 2017). Ordinary graft alone was insufficient to underpin the removal of a top leader.
The purge of top military commanders following the 20th Party Congress in 2022 demonstrates how this requirement for high-level officials to be accused of political crimes in order to be removed from their positions operates. The disciplinary apparatus now delivers severe political indictments almost simultaneously with criminal charges. When the Party expelled He Weidong in October 2025, the initial announcement focused purely on "job-related crimes" and massive bribes. The political verdict arrived the very next day, in a PLA Daily editorial that accused him of losing his faith and seriously undermining the CMC chairman responsibility system (Ministry of National Defense; China Brief, October 17, 2025; PLA Daily, October 18, 2025). The rhetoric escalated further when Zhang Youxia fell several months later. Given Zhang's established prestige within the military and his family's generational ties with that of Xi Jinping, his purge demanded the most severe political indictment. The ensuing editorial accused him of "seriously trampling on and damaging" the chairman responsibility system and "endangering the governing foundation of the CCP" (PLA Daily, January 25; China Brief, January 26). As in He Weidong's case, a brief announcement of a criminal investigation was instantly followed by a coordinated, media-driven political condemnation to legitimize the decision to purge Zhang.
* * *
Table 1: Comparison of Disciplinary Charges Against Politburo-Level Officials Under Xi Jinping [2]
* * *
Omitting Political Charges Signals a Change in Elite Management
The handling of Ma Xingrui signals another shift in the treament of senior leaders. Political charges are apparently no longer necessary to remove a member of the Politburo. Xi Jinping has further dismantled the unwritten rule that historically shielded the highest echelons from severe punishment. This case serves as a stark warning to the inner circle. Core officials must now maintain strict personal integrity rather than relying on political loyalty alone. At a minimum, they must keep their own relatives and personal aides in check. Unlike ordinary anti-corruption cases, this purge carries deep structural significance. It directly targets the Politburo level and raises the baseline disciplinary standard for the entire elite class.
This new dynamic reflects Xi Jinping's fully consolidated power. He is no longer bound by past unwritten rules. He does not need to provide the broader Party with a political explanation to maintain his governing legitimacy. More importantly, issuing excessive political charges now actively harms his own authority. The current central leadership consists almost entirely of officials Xi personally promoted. Accusing these handpicked loyalists of forming cliques, harboring political ambition, or acting with disloyalty creates a glaring contradiction, by implying that the paramount leader routinely elevates treacherous officials.[3] The post-20th Party Congress purges of newly appointed ministers like former foreign minister Qin Gangand former defense minister Li Shangfu already invited questions about Xi's personnel management (China Brief, September 20, 2023, April 23, 2025). Sweeping military purges amplified the skepticism. Framing Ma's downfall purely around common corruption could insulate the core leadership from this political risk.
The preceding analysis carries a caveat regarding timing. This assessment relies strictly on the official notices published to date. The Central Committee could still append political charges to Ma's file in the future. The historical cases of Xu Caihou, Guo Boxiong, and Sun Zhengcai provide precedents for this delayed tactic. Sun offers the most direct comparison. Aside from a charge of leaking secrets, his expulsion notice closely mirrored Ma's current charge sheet. The Party subsequently escalated Sun's case through internal circulars (The Paper, February 14, 2018). It even utilized state-guided peripheral media to leak that a close associate (a "specific related person" under the legal definition referenced above) had gifted Sun a dragon robe--a garment traditionally reserved for emperors--after a fortune teller predicted his ascent to higher office (Caixin Weekly, February 2, 2018). This bizarre detail served to publicly validate accusations of his extreme political ambition and personal greed. A similar retroactive escalation for Ma cannot be ruled out in the future.
Conclusion
The unprecedented decision to expel Politburo member Ma Xingrui solely on corruption charges without the customary political indictments marks a shift in elite management under Xi Jinping. It suggests that the core leadership can now remove top officials without constructing the severe political narratives required in previous years. This strategic omission may protect the paramount leader from the political embarrassment of repeatedly purging his own handpicked loyalists. The ultimate decision rests entirely with Xi Jinping. Because nearly all senior officials harbor similar corruption vulnerabilities, however, this lowered threshold for removal turns ordinary graft into a readily available weapon. Competitors jockeying for position ahead of the 21st Party Congress now possess a streamlined blueprint to strike rivals. As a result, this new dynamic threatens to intensify elite infighting.
* * *
Christopher Nye is a Non-Resident Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation.
* * *
Original text here: https://jamestown.org/no-political-charges-as-ma-xingrui-expelled-from-politburo/
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
No Political Charges as Ma Xingrui Expelled From Politburo
Executive Summary:
* On July 14, the Party announced the expulsion of Politburo member Ma Xingrui and referred him for prosecution on bribery charges.
* Ma's notice contains no specific political accusations. This is a departure from historical practice. Every other Politburo-level official felled under Xi Jinping has been charged with political crimes, such ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on July 17, 2026, by non-resident fellow Christopher Nye in the foundation's China Brief: * * * No Political Charges as Ma Xingrui Expelled From Politburo Executive Summary: * On July 14, the Party announced the expulsion of Politburo member Ma Xingrui and referred him for prosecution on bribery charges. * Ma's notice contains no specific political accusations. This is a departure from historical practice. Every other Politburo-level official felled under Xi Jinping has been charged with political crimes, suchas disloyalty, factionalism, ambition, or undermining the Central Military Commission chairman responsibility system.
* The omission suggests removing a top official no longer requires a political narrative. Framing the case as ordinary corruption shields Xi from the embarrassment of purging his own appointees.
Given that nearly all senior officials are vulnerable to accusations of economic corruption, the lower threshold that Ma's case suggests turns ordinary graft into a weapon and raises the risk of intensified elite infighting before the 21st Party Congress.
-
The Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) expelled Ma Xingrui, a sitting Politburo member and former Xinjiang Party secretary, on June 30. The official notice referred him for prosecution on bribery charges (Xinhua, July 14). The announcement is notable for what it lacks. Unlike the disciplinary notices of other Politburo-level officials felled during General Secretary Xi Jinping's tenure, Ma's charge sheet contains no specific political accusations. The text omits established disciplinary formulas regarding factionalism, disloyalty, or inflated political ambition. Instead, the CCP removed a top civilian leader just for ordinary corruption and supervision failures.
This divergence marks a significant shift in elite politics. It indicates that the leadership may no longer feel compelled to construct a grand political narrative to justify felling a Politburo member. Xi Jinping now exercises complete discretion over the public framing of top-level purges.
Charge Sheet Against Ma Focuses on Venal Corruption
Ma Xingrui entered the Politburo at the 20th Party Congress in October 2022. He was known as a renowned aerospace engineer who once served as general manager of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC). Within the Party, he had ascended the hierarchy by serving as Shenzhen Party secretary, Guangdong governor, and Xinjiang Party secretary. The Party abruptly relieved him of his Xinjiang post in July 2025 for an unspecified other appointment (Xinhua, July 1, 2025). Then, in April 2026, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced an investigation into Ma (Xinhua, April 3). Three months later, the leadership published the final disciplinary results.
The notice outlines a massive corruption scandal without mentioning political disloyalty. The document groups his offenses into four distinct disciplinary failures. First, Ma failed to fulfill his supervisory responsibility for party governance by indulging aides involved in suspected crimes. Second, he violated organizational discipline by answering official inquiries dishonestly and trading favors in personnel arrangements. Third, the commission cites severe integrity breaches. These include the acceptance of illicit gifts, instances in which Ma "traded power and money for sex", and a broader pattern of "large-scale family corruption". Fourth, the text accuses the former secretary of weaponizing public power for private profit. He is charged with leveraging his office to secure business contracts and job promotions for others in exchange for enormous financial bribes paid to himself and his "specific related persons", a legal term covering close relatives and associates.[1]
This severe document stands out specifically for what it omits. All other Politburo-rank officials disciplined under Xi Jinping ultimately received at least one political charge. Civilian peers like Zhou Yongkang and Sun Zhengcai faced accusations of leaking secrets or harboring inflated political ambition (Supreme People's Procuratorate, December 6, 2014; Xinhua, September 29, 2017, October 29, 2017). Recent military purges involving Central Military Commission (CMC) vice chairmen He Weidong (and Zhang Youxia) escalated to charges of undermining and trampling the "CMC chairman responsibility system", respectively (Xinhua, October 18, 2025; PLA Daily, January 25). As in Ma's case, nearly all of these other high-level disciplinary actions include accusations of financial crimes and nepotism. The difference with Ma's notice, however, is that it relies entirely on these economic offenses.
Previous Elite Purges Required Political Charges
In the post-Tiananmen era before Xi Jinping took power, the CCP rarely removed Politburo members. The Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao decades saw only three such dismissals in 23 years. Chen Xitong, Chen Liangyu, and Bo Xilai all lost their positions during this period. In each of these historical cases, the underlying conflict involved a challenge to the sitting leadership. Chen Xitong's Beijing municipal machine contested Jiang Zemin's authority (Radio Free Asia, June 23, 2017). Chen Liangyu resisted the macroeconomic policies of the Hu Jintao leadership (VOA, April 11, 2008). Bo Xilai faced expulsion after his abuse of power in the Wang Lijun incident (China Brief, March 2, 2012, March 30, 2012; Xinhua, September 28, 2012). All three men were ousted for economic crimes. Their underlying offense, however, was challenging central authority. The Party did not purge its highest ranks simply for financial crimes.
Xi Jinping lowered this historical threshold in his first term. Defying the core leadership was no longer the required trigger for a purge. Instead, merely possessing a severe political problem became sufficient to bring down a Politburo member. The notice announcing Zhou Yongkang's expulsion from the Party carried heavy political accusations, including charges of leaking Party and state secrets, alongside massive abuses of power (Supreme People's Procuratorate, December 6, 2014). Sun Zhengcai faced a slightly different formulation in 2017. His expulsion notice heavily emphasized bribery, though it still included a distinct political charge by citing the leaking of organizational secrets (Xinhua, September 29, 2017). The CCP subsequently formalized the political framing of these elite purges. The work report of the 18th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection explicitly grouped Zhou and Sun with former director of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee Ling Jihua as "careerists and conspirators" (Xinhua, October 29, 2017). A discipline official summarized this norm at a press conference after the Party Congress that year, saying that for the great majority of felled senior officials "political problems and economic corruption were intertwined" (Xinhua, October 26, 2017). Ordinary graft alone was insufficient to underpin the removal of a top leader.
The purge of top military commanders following the 20th Party Congress in 2022 demonstrates how this requirement for high-level officials to be accused of political crimes in order to be removed from their positions operates. The disciplinary apparatus now delivers severe political indictments almost simultaneously with criminal charges. When the Party expelled He Weidong in October 2025, the initial announcement focused purely on "job-related crimes" and massive bribes. The political verdict arrived the very next day, in a PLA Daily editorial that accused him of losing his faith and seriously undermining the CMC chairman responsibility system (Ministry of National Defense; China Brief, October 17, 2025; PLA Daily, October 18, 2025). The rhetoric escalated further when Zhang Youxia fell several months later. Given Zhang's established prestige within the military and his family's generational ties with that of Xi Jinping, his purge demanded the most severe political indictment. The ensuing editorial accused him of "seriously trampling on and damaging" the chairman responsibility system and "endangering the governing foundation of the CCP" (PLA Daily, January 25; China Brief, January 26). As in He Weidong's case, a brief announcement of a criminal investigation was instantly followed by a coordinated, media-driven political condemnation to legitimize the decision to purge Zhang.
* * *
Table 1: Comparison of Disciplinary Charges Against Politburo-Level Officials Under Xi Jinping [2]
* * *
Omitting Political Charges Signals a Change in Elite Management
The handling of Ma Xingrui signals another shift in the treament of senior leaders. Political charges are apparently no longer necessary to remove a member of the Politburo. Xi Jinping has further dismantled the unwritten rule that historically shielded the highest echelons from severe punishment. This case serves as a stark warning to the inner circle. Core officials must now maintain strict personal integrity rather than relying on political loyalty alone. At a minimum, they must keep their own relatives and personal aides in check. Unlike ordinary anti-corruption cases, this purge carries deep structural significance. It directly targets the Politburo level and raises the baseline disciplinary standard for the entire elite class.
This new dynamic reflects Xi Jinping's fully consolidated power. He is no longer bound by past unwritten rules. He does not need to provide the broader Party with a political explanation to maintain his governing legitimacy. More importantly, issuing excessive political charges now actively harms his own authority. The current central leadership consists almost entirely of officials Xi personally promoted. Accusing these handpicked loyalists of forming cliques, harboring political ambition, or acting with disloyalty creates a glaring contradiction, by implying that the paramount leader routinely elevates treacherous officials.[3] The post-20th Party Congress purges of newly appointed ministers like former foreign minister Qin Gangand former defense minister Li Shangfu already invited questions about Xi's personnel management (China Brief, September 20, 2023, April 23, 2025). Sweeping military purges amplified the skepticism. Framing Ma's downfall purely around common corruption could insulate the core leadership from this political risk.
The preceding analysis carries a caveat regarding timing. This assessment relies strictly on the official notices published to date. The Central Committee could still append political charges to Ma's file in the future. The historical cases of Xu Caihou, Guo Boxiong, and Sun Zhengcai provide precedents for this delayed tactic. Sun offers the most direct comparison. Aside from a charge of leaking secrets, his expulsion notice closely mirrored Ma's current charge sheet. The Party subsequently escalated Sun's case through internal circulars (The Paper, February 14, 2018). It even utilized state-guided peripheral media to leak that a close associate (a "specific related person" under the legal definition referenced above) had gifted Sun a dragon robe--a garment traditionally reserved for emperors--after a fortune teller predicted his ascent to higher office (Caixin Weekly, February 2, 2018). This bizarre detail served to publicly validate accusations of his extreme political ambition and personal greed. A similar retroactive escalation for Ma cannot be ruled out in the future.
Conclusion
The unprecedented decision to expel Politburo member Ma Xingrui solely on corruption charges without the customary political indictments marks a shift in elite management under Xi Jinping. It suggests that the core leadership can now remove top officials without constructing the severe political narratives required in previous years. This strategic omission may protect the paramount leader from the political embarrassment of repeatedly purging his own handpicked loyalists. The ultimate decision rests entirely with Xi Jinping. Because nearly all senior officials harbor similar corruption vulnerabilities, however, this lowered threshold for removal turns ordinary graft into a readily available weapon. Competitors jockeying for position ahead of the 21st Party Congress now possess a streamlined blueprint to strike rivals. As a result, this new dynamic threatens to intensify elite infighting.
* * *
Christopher Nye is a Non-Resident Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation.
* * *
Original text here: https://jamestown.org/no-political-charges-as-ma-xingrui-expelled-from-politburo/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Ifo Institute: Sentiment in Germany's Travel Industry Deteriorates Slightly
MUNICH, Germany, July 18 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release on July 17, 2026:
* * *
Sentiment in Germany's Travel Industry Deteriorates Slightly
The business climate for travel agencies and tour operators in Germany deteriorated somewhat in June. The ifo Institute index fell in June to -32.0 points, down from -30.3 points* in May. Before the escalation in the Middle East in February, the figure still stood at -15.6 points*. "Many travelers were uncertain about their vacation plans, especially at the start of the Iran conflict," says ifo industry expert Patrick Hoppner.
This ... Show Full Article MUNICH, Germany, July 18 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release on July 17, 2026: * * * Sentiment in Germany's Travel Industry Deteriorates Slightly The business climate for travel agencies and tour operators in Germany deteriorated somewhat in June. The ifo Institute index fell in June to -32.0 points, down from -30.3 points* in May. Before the escalation in the Middle East in February, the figure still stood at -15.6 points*. "Many travelers were uncertain about their vacation plans, especially at the start of the Iran conflict," says ifo industry expert Patrick Hoppner. Thiscould lead to catch-up effects: "Travelers who postponed booking their vacation in the spring may still decide to make a last-minute booking or take a last-minute vacation during the peak summer travel season."
Demand for many European and non-European destinations in the Mediterranean region is stable or on the rise. The number of air passengers departing from a major airport in Germany on a trip to Italy rose by 1.0% from January through May 2026 compared with the same period the previous year. The number of passengers traveling to Spain remained roughly constant.
That's according to the air traffic statistics of the German Federal Statistical Office. The number of passengers flying to Greece rose by 3.6%, to Croatia by 4.2%, and to Turkey by 2.7%. Overall, the number of air travelers declined by 0.2%. "Unlike the Mediterranean region, many long-haul destinations are currently losing their appeal," says Hoppner.
The share of travel companies expecting rising prices in the coming months declined noticeably in June. As a result, the ifo price expectations for the industry fell considerably. "One major reason for this is the significant drop in jet fuel prices in May and June," says Hoppner.
"However, the price level remains higher than before the escalation of the Iran conflict at the end of February." According to the consumer price statistics of the German Federal Statistical Office, the cost of flights to other European countries rose by 11.5% in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period the previous year.
* Seasonally adjusted
* * *
More Information
Survey (https://www.ifo.de/en/facts/2026-07-17/sentiment-germanys-travel-industry-deteriorates-slightly)
* * *
Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2026-07-17/sentiment-germanys-travel-industry-deteriorates-slightly
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Sentiment in Germany's Travel Industry Deteriorates Slightly
The business climate for travel agencies and tour operators in Germany deteriorated somewhat in June. The ifo Institute index fell in June to -32.0 points, down from -30.3 points* in May. Before the escalation in the Middle East in February, the figure still stood at -15.6 points*. "Many travelers were uncertain about their vacation plans, especially at the start of the Iran conflict," says ifo industry expert Patrick Hoppner.
This ... Show Full Article MUNICH, Germany, July 18 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release on July 17, 2026: * * * Sentiment in Germany's Travel Industry Deteriorates Slightly The business climate for travel agencies and tour operators in Germany deteriorated somewhat in June. The ifo Institute index fell in June to -32.0 points, down from -30.3 points* in May. Before the escalation in the Middle East in February, the figure still stood at -15.6 points*. "Many travelers were uncertain about their vacation plans, especially at the start of the Iran conflict," says ifo industry expert Patrick Hoppner. Thiscould lead to catch-up effects: "Travelers who postponed booking their vacation in the spring may still decide to make a last-minute booking or take a last-minute vacation during the peak summer travel season."
Demand for many European and non-European destinations in the Mediterranean region is stable or on the rise. The number of air passengers departing from a major airport in Germany on a trip to Italy rose by 1.0% from January through May 2026 compared with the same period the previous year. The number of passengers traveling to Spain remained roughly constant.
That's according to the air traffic statistics of the German Federal Statistical Office. The number of passengers flying to Greece rose by 3.6%, to Croatia by 4.2%, and to Turkey by 2.7%. Overall, the number of air travelers declined by 0.2%. "Unlike the Mediterranean region, many long-haul destinations are currently losing their appeal," says Hoppner.
The share of travel companies expecting rising prices in the coming months declined noticeably in June. As a result, the ifo price expectations for the industry fell considerably. "One major reason for this is the significant drop in jet fuel prices in May and June," says Hoppner.
"However, the price level remains higher than before the escalation of the Iran conflict at the end of February." According to the consumer price statistics of the German Federal Statistical Office, the cost of flights to other European countries rose by 11.5% in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period the previous year.
* Seasonally adjusted
* * *
More Information
Survey (https://www.ifo.de/en/facts/2026-07-17/sentiment-germanys-travel-industry-deteriorates-slightly)
* * *
Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2026-07-17/sentiment-germanys-travel-industry-deteriorates-slightly
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary to Providence: Update on the U.S. War With Iran
WASHINGTON, July 18 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on July 16, 2026, by Keystone Defense Initiative Director Rebeccah L. Heinrichs to Providence:
* * *
An Update on the U.S. War with Iran
Tonight, President Trump will address the nation. It would be wise to take this opportunity to explain to the American people how Iran threatens America's interests and his plan to counter them. The president wanted this conflict behind him as the midterms approached, but following Iran's ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 18 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on July 16, 2026, by Keystone Defense Initiative Director Rebeccah L. Heinrichs to Providence: * * * An Update on the U.S. War with Iran Tonight, President Trump will address the nation. It would be wise to take this opportunity to explain to the American people how Iran threatens America's interests and his plan to counter them. The president wanted this conflict behind him as the midterms approached, but following Iran'sviolations of the Memorandum of Understanding, the U.S. has had to reinstate its blockade of Iranian vessels, reimpose sanctions, and resume its punishing bombing campaign. Leveling with the American people and establishing the facts now will ease concerns and inspire confidence that there remains an actionable path to success.
President Trump laid out the following objectives for Operation Epic Fury: "First, we're destroying Iran's missile capabilities. . . and their capacity to produce brand new ones. . . . Second, we're annihilating their navy. . . Third, we're ensuring that the world's number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon. . . And finally, we're ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders."
In Operation Epic Fury, the United States Armed Forces, with the Israel Defense Forces, achieved great success in a sophisticated operation with clearly defined military aims. The Israelis used their world-class intelligence services to locate and eliminate key military leadership, as well as scientists indispensable to Iran's dangerous and still-active nuclear weapons program.
Now the battle of Hormuz is underway, and the United States is winning. It is a separate fight, and one of immense consequence. Iran has been able to sustain terrorist attacks--and that is what they are--against civilians in the strait. This is unacceptable for the United States and its allies. Only China backs Iran's claim to managing the strait.
The United States has the requisite military forces and munitions on hand to carry out this operation, and the U.S. should not hold back. The types of munitions that will be required for this mission are not in short supply. The U.S. Navy is available to escort ships through the strait along the Omani corridor. On the diplomatic front, US focus should shift focus away from the Iranians and towards European allies. The French and the Brits have the capability and desire to help clear the center pathway in the strait of mines, and to assist the United States in its naval escort mission. The United States should push for this and welcome the cooperation enthusiastically. The Europeans desire Iranian acquiescence to their participation, but they won't get it. The United States should look for ways to get the cooperation it needs anyway. This may require the United States to grant assurances that our Allies seek on other issues that have caused friction.
It's important to remember that time is on our side. The Gulf States are already busy working to diminish the value of the Strait by expanding overland routes. The UAE's new pipeline, which will begin operating by the end of 2027, will reduce the amount of oil that needs to cross Hormuz to about 10.5 million barrels per day. The UAE is also considering building another pipeline that would facilitate 9 million barrels a day. The Saudis are expanding their vast East-West pipeline and its two oil terminals along the Red Sea. The Strait is already far less valuable than it was a few months ago, and in a year, it will be even less, and in three, negligible.
Lastly, even as the U.S. and Israel have significantly degraded Iran's nuclear program, there are still decisions to be made about the "nuclear dust." President Trump can continue to expand strikes inside Iran to weaken it before directing a ground raid to dismantle and remove Iran's centrifuges. A complex operation like this should be done alongside the Israelis, who know exactly what to do. Or, he can further entomb their nuclear facilities through bombing, rendering them effectively inaccessible. If he chooses the latter, Israel will likely need to continue periodic airstrikes when the Iranians resume nuclear weapons activity.
The president has a good report to provide to the American people. As we continue to celebrate 250 years of freedom, the Iranian people are closer now to achieving theirs than in decades. The United States with Israel has crushed the Iranian military, and, with its European allies, Washington has imposed crushing sanctions on Iran to deprive the regime of its lucrative oil business. Syria and Iraq have made significant progress in extricating themselves from Iran's control and are moving closer to cooperation with the United States. Regimes can change, and the Iranian people can wrest their own future from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its clerics. With additional strikes to take out IRGC leadership and infrastructure, combined with an economy in shambles, the time will soon come for the people of Iran to rise up.
In the meantime, the United States has its work cut out to turn its military successes into lasting political victories. And with the right plan and execution, it is eminently possible.
Read in Providence (https://providencemag.com/2026/07/an-update-on-the-u-s-war-with-iran/).
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At A Glance:
Rebeccah L. Heinrichs is a senior fellow and director of the Keystone Defense Initiative. She specializes in US national defense policy with a focus on strategic deterrence.
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Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/update-us-war-iran-rebeccah-heinrichs
[Category: ThinkTank]
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An Update on the U.S. War with Iran
Tonight, President Trump will address the nation. It would be wise to take this opportunity to explain to the American people how Iran threatens America's interests and his plan to counter them. The president wanted this conflict behind him as the midterms approached, but following Iran's ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 18 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on July 16, 2026, by Keystone Defense Initiative Director Rebeccah L. Heinrichs to Providence: * * * An Update on the U.S. War with Iran Tonight, President Trump will address the nation. It would be wise to take this opportunity to explain to the American people how Iran threatens America's interests and his plan to counter them. The president wanted this conflict behind him as the midterms approached, but following Iran'sviolations of the Memorandum of Understanding, the U.S. has had to reinstate its blockade of Iranian vessels, reimpose sanctions, and resume its punishing bombing campaign. Leveling with the American people and establishing the facts now will ease concerns and inspire confidence that there remains an actionable path to success.
President Trump laid out the following objectives for Operation Epic Fury: "First, we're destroying Iran's missile capabilities. . . and their capacity to produce brand new ones. . . . Second, we're annihilating their navy. . . Third, we're ensuring that the world's number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon. . . And finally, we're ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders."
In Operation Epic Fury, the United States Armed Forces, with the Israel Defense Forces, achieved great success in a sophisticated operation with clearly defined military aims. The Israelis used their world-class intelligence services to locate and eliminate key military leadership, as well as scientists indispensable to Iran's dangerous and still-active nuclear weapons program.
Now the battle of Hormuz is underway, and the United States is winning. It is a separate fight, and one of immense consequence. Iran has been able to sustain terrorist attacks--and that is what they are--against civilians in the strait. This is unacceptable for the United States and its allies. Only China backs Iran's claim to managing the strait.
The United States has the requisite military forces and munitions on hand to carry out this operation, and the U.S. should not hold back. The types of munitions that will be required for this mission are not in short supply. The U.S. Navy is available to escort ships through the strait along the Omani corridor. On the diplomatic front, US focus should shift focus away from the Iranians and towards European allies. The French and the Brits have the capability and desire to help clear the center pathway in the strait of mines, and to assist the United States in its naval escort mission. The United States should push for this and welcome the cooperation enthusiastically. The Europeans desire Iranian acquiescence to their participation, but they won't get it. The United States should look for ways to get the cooperation it needs anyway. This may require the United States to grant assurances that our Allies seek on other issues that have caused friction.
It's important to remember that time is on our side. The Gulf States are already busy working to diminish the value of the Strait by expanding overland routes. The UAE's new pipeline, which will begin operating by the end of 2027, will reduce the amount of oil that needs to cross Hormuz to about 10.5 million barrels per day. The UAE is also considering building another pipeline that would facilitate 9 million barrels a day. The Saudis are expanding their vast East-West pipeline and its two oil terminals along the Red Sea. The Strait is already far less valuable than it was a few months ago, and in a year, it will be even less, and in three, negligible.
Lastly, even as the U.S. and Israel have significantly degraded Iran's nuclear program, there are still decisions to be made about the "nuclear dust." President Trump can continue to expand strikes inside Iran to weaken it before directing a ground raid to dismantle and remove Iran's centrifuges. A complex operation like this should be done alongside the Israelis, who know exactly what to do. Or, he can further entomb their nuclear facilities through bombing, rendering them effectively inaccessible. If he chooses the latter, Israel will likely need to continue periodic airstrikes when the Iranians resume nuclear weapons activity.
The president has a good report to provide to the American people. As we continue to celebrate 250 years of freedom, the Iranian people are closer now to achieving theirs than in decades. The United States with Israel has crushed the Iranian military, and, with its European allies, Washington has imposed crushing sanctions on Iran to deprive the regime of its lucrative oil business. Syria and Iraq have made significant progress in extricating themselves from Iran's control and are moving closer to cooperation with the United States. Regimes can change, and the Iranian people can wrest their own future from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its clerics. With additional strikes to take out IRGC leadership and infrastructure, combined with an economy in shambles, the time will soon come for the people of Iran to rise up.
In the meantime, the United States has its work cut out to turn its military successes into lasting political victories. And with the right plan and execution, it is eminently possible.
Read in Providence (https://providencemag.com/2026/07/an-update-on-the-u-s-war-with-iran/).
* * *
At A Glance:
Rebeccah L. Heinrichs is a senior fellow and director of the Keystone Defense Initiative. She specializes in US national defense policy with a focus on strategic deterrence.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/update-us-war-iran-rebeccah-heinrichs
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center for American Progress: Trump Dredges Up Debunked Election Conspiracy Claims To Distract Voters
WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Center for American Progress issued the following statement on July 16, 2026:
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Trump Dredges Up Debunked Election Conspiracy Claims To Distract Voters
Today, President Donald Trump made remarks asserting that China and other foreign nations attempted to meddle in the 2020 election. In response, Michael Sozan, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:
Yet again, President Trump is dredging up debunked election conspiracy theories in a desperate effort to rewrite the past and subvert the upcoming midterm elections. He is ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Center for American Progress issued the following statement on July 16, 2026: * * * Trump Dredges Up Debunked Election Conspiracy Claims To Distract Voters Today, President Donald Trump made remarks asserting that China and other foreign nations attempted to meddle in the 2020 election. In response, Michael Sozan, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement: Yet again, President Trump is dredging up debunked election conspiracy theories in a desperate effort to rewrite the past and subvert the upcoming midterm elections. He isresurrecting the same old, tired playbook to make Americans doubt the legitimacy of their electoral process.
Apparently, Trump will never be willing to accept the fact that he lost the 2020 election, and that state and local officials continue to conduct free and fair elections.
This is just another attempt by him to distract voters from his plummeting approval ratings and the fact that the rising cost of living, rampant inflation, and continuing war with Iran are affecting the lives of all Americans.
For more information, or to talk to an expert, please contact Sam Hananel at shananel@americanprogress.org.
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Original text here: https://www.americanprogress.org/press/statement-trump-dredges-up-debunked-election-conspiracy-claims-to-distract-voters/
[Category: ThinkTank]
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Trump Dredges Up Debunked Election Conspiracy Claims To Distract Voters
Today, President Donald Trump made remarks asserting that China and other foreign nations attempted to meddle in the 2020 election. In response, Michael Sozan, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:
Yet again, President Trump is dredging up debunked election conspiracy theories in a desperate effort to rewrite the past and subvert the upcoming midterm elections. He is ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Center for American Progress issued the following statement on July 16, 2026: * * * Trump Dredges Up Debunked Election Conspiracy Claims To Distract Voters Today, President Donald Trump made remarks asserting that China and other foreign nations attempted to meddle in the 2020 election. In response, Michael Sozan, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement: Yet again, President Trump is dredging up debunked election conspiracy theories in a desperate effort to rewrite the past and subvert the upcoming midterm elections. He isresurrecting the same old, tired playbook to make Americans doubt the legitimacy of their electoral process.
Apparently, Trump will never be willing to accept the fact that he lost the 2020 election, and that state and local officials continue to conduct free and fair elections.
This is just another attempt by him to distract voters from his plummeting approval ratings and the fact that the rising cost of living, rampant inflation, and continuing war with Iran are affecting the lives of all Americans.
For more information, or to talk to an expert, please contact Sam Hananel at shananel@americanprogress.org.
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Original text here: https://www.americanprogress.org/press/statement-trump-dredges-up-debunked-election-conspiracy-claims-to-distract-voters/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center for American Progress: Cruelty Must End - Better Immigration Policies for a Stronger America
WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Center for American Progress issued the following news release on July 17, 2026:
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Event Advisory: The Cruelty Must End: Better Immigration Policies for a Stronger America
America's immigration system has been broken for far too long. Congressional inaction has resulted in an antiquated legal framework that has failed to keep pace with our economic needs and changing global trends. Instead of implementing sensible policies, the Trump administration is systematically pursuing a cruel and reckless agenda, gutting legal immigration pathways, and deploying indiscriminate ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Center for American Progress issued the following news release on July 17, 2026: * * * Event Advisory: The Cruelty Must End: Better Immigration Policies for a Stronger America America's immigration system has been broken for far too long. Congressional inaction has resulted in an antiquated legal framework that has failed to keep pace with our economic needs and changing global trends. Instead of implementing sensible policies, the Trump administration is systematically pursuing a cruel and reckless agenda, gutting legal immigration pathways, and deploying indiscriminateenforcement tactics that have a total disregard for human life--as evidenced by multiple recent shootings by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. And many of those most at risk under President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaigns are immigrants who have lived in this country for decades, contributing to our economy and raising their families here. These actions by the administration are bringing chaos and terror to our communities, undermining the rule of law, and hampering economic growth.
Americans deserve a modern immigration system that is consistent with our values and serves our economic needs. Please join the Center for American Progress and America's Voice to hear from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and a panel of experts on the Trump administration's cruel and reckless anti-immigration and mass deportation agenda as well as the urgent need for accountability and commonsense policies that are consistent with our values and economic needs.
WHO:
Opening remarks:
Neera Tanden, President and CEO, Center for American Progress
Keynote remarks:
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV)
Distinguished panelists:
Stan Veuger, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Bruce Lesley, President, First Focus on Children
Melissa Morales, President and Founder, Somos Votantes
Moderator:
Vanessa Cardenas, Executive Director, America's Voice
Closing remarks:
Debu Gandhi, Senior Director of Immigration Policy, Center for American Progress
WHEN: Wednesday, July 29, 2026
9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. ET
WHERE: Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20005
RSVP: To join in person or online, please RSVP here.
For more information or to speak to an expert, contact Rafael Medina at rmedina@americanprogress.org.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanprogress.org/press/event-advisory-the-cruelty-must-end-better-immigration-policies-for-a-stronger-america/
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Event Advisory: The Cruelty Must End: Better Immigration Policies for a Stronger America
America's immigration system has been broken for far too long. Congressional inaction has resulted in an antiquated legal framework that has failed to keep pace with our economic needs and changing global trends. Instead of implementing sensible policies, the Trump administration is systematically pursuing a cruel and reckless agenda, gutting legal immigration pathways, and deploying indiscriminate ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Center for American Progress issued the following news release on July 17, 2026: * * * Event Advisory: The Cruelty Must End: Better Immigration Policies for a Stronger America America's immigration system has been broken for far too long. Congressional inaction has resulted in an antiquated legal framework that has failed to keep pace with our economic needs and changing global trends. Instead of implementing sensible policies, the Trump administration is systematically pursuing a cruel and reckless agenda, gutting legal immigration pathways, and deploying indiscriminateenforcement tactics that have a total disregard for human life--as evidenced by multiple recent shootings by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. And many of those most at risk under President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaigns are immigrants who have lived in this country for decades, contributing to our economy and raising their families here. These actions by the administration are bringing chaos and terror to our communities, undermining the rule of law, and hampering economic growth.
Americans deserve a modern immigration system that is consistent with our values and serves our economic needs. Please join the Center for American Progress and America's Voice to hear from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and a panel of experts on the Trump administration's cruel and reckless anti-immigration and mass deportation agenda as well as the urgent need for accountability and commonsense policies that are consistent with our values and economic needs.
WHO:
Opening remarks:
Neera Tanden, President and CEO, Center for American Progress
Keynote remarks:
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV)
Distinguished panelists:
Stan Veuger, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Bruce Lesley, President, First Focus on Children
Melissa Morales, President and Founder, Somos Votantes
Moderator:
Vanessa Cardenas, Executive Director, America's Voice
Closing remarks:
Debu Gandhi, Senior Director of Immigration Policy, Center for American Progress
WHEN: Wednesday, July 29, 2026
9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. ET
WHERE: Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20005
RSVP: To join in person or online, please RSVP here.
For more information or to speak to an expert, contact Rafael Medina at rmedina@americanprogress.org.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanprogress.org/press/event-advisory-the-cruelty-must-end-better-immigration-policies-for-a-stronger-america/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Capital Research Center Posts Commentary: Nonprofits That Ate the California Dream
WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Capital Research Center posted the following commentary on July 17, 2026, by The Federalist senior correspondent Chris Bray:
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The nonprofits that ate the California Dream
From the birth of Hollywood to the rise of Silicon Valley, California in the 20th century was the headquarters of the American Dream and what seemed like limitless prosperity. But 21st century California has been replacing profitable industries with politicized nonprofits and trading its prosperity for poverty.
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California was America, fearless and productive. It gave us memories of test pilots ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Capital Research Center posted the following commentary on July 17, 2026, by The Federalist senior correspondent Chris Bray: * * * The nonprofits that ate the California Dream From the birth of Hollywood to the rise of Silicon Valley, California in the 20th century was the headquarters of the American Dream and what seemed like limitless prosperity. But 21st century California has been replacing profitable industries with politicized nonprofits and trading its prosperity for poverty. - California was America, fearless and productive. It gave us memories of test pilotsover the Mojave Desert, Wozniak and Jobs in a garage, Gregg Toland and Orson Welles cutting a hole in the floor of a sound stage on the RKO lot to get a lower camera angle for Citizen Kane. It's where the dreamers went to make things. It starting dying about forty years ago, but it took us a while to notice.
California in 2026 is the home to a formidable collection of supposedly non-governmental organizations--NGOs--that proclaim their commitment to social justice and economic equity. They're helping. That's their industry.
The California Endowment, with "more than $4 billion in assets," pursues "the mandate to ensure health and justice for all."
The James Irvine Foundation, with a $3.6 billion endowment, seeks "fair and just outcomes for all Californians."
The Weingart Foundation, with about $900 million in assets, "partners with communities across Southern California to advance racial, social, and economic justice for all."
The California Wellness Foundation works on things such as "civic engagement and power-building to elevate community voices and priorities," and has about a billion dollars in assets to help them elevate those voices. That's presumably a lot of voice-elevating.
And so on. The California Association of Non-Profits last published a detailed report on the size of the state's nonprofit sector in 2019, concluding that "one in every 14 California jobs is at a nonprofit." For a current estimate, the national advocacy organization Independent Sector reports that the state has 144,728 non-profit organizations, 123,321 of which are public charities. Together, those organizations employ an estimated 1,112,268 people.
Also, California leads the country in poverty. A recent report from CalMatters notes that "California's rate, 17.7%, means that nearly 7 million of its residents are impoverished, 5 percentage points higher than the national rate and tied with Louisiana."
A massive fairness industry, partnering with communities to advance social and economic justice for all, isn't advancing social and economic justice for much of anyone, while they get in the way of the productive and useful part of the state. Advocacy, even expensive advocacy, doesn't appear to produce the thing the advocates call "justice."
So, what does it produce? A report from the California Policy Center (a rare conservative nonprofit in the state) offers a suggestion: "Over the last 50 years, a well-resourced network of donors, foundations, advocacy groups, and unions have developed a strategy to build a funding infrastructure capable of shaping policy, public opinion, and electoral outcomes."
All of that works together as one integrated unit, and all of it imposes extraordinary costs on the culture, economy, and politics of the state.
An NGO-controlled state legislature
The NGOcracy governs California. Legislators tend to come from the world of activism and nonprofits, not from business. They make laws that reflect the experience of making things or building things.
Consider the story of a single California NGO and the person who ran it.
You can read about the origins of the non-profit corporation now called SBX Youth and Family Services on their website, starting with the founding of a student group at Rialto High School in 1995. Then came the big milestone of high school graduation for "the founding members...including our first President Corey Jackson," which happened in 2000. Jackson did political work for years, leading the group that would become SBX while drawing a paycheck as a field representative for a series of legislators.
Then came the lawsuit: In 2018, the Inland Empire non-profit that was then still called Sigma Beta Xi and the ACLU sued Riverside County over the operation of a program run by probation officers for at-risk youth, the Youth Accountability Team (YAT). The ACLU and its plaintiff argued that "YAT treats children who have not been convicted of crimes like hardened criminals with surprise searches, unannounced home visitations, strict restrictions on who participants can speak to, curfews, and interrogations into intimate details of their lives. It's a program far more likely to be applied to youths of color."
The county settled the lawsuit. Among the conditions: a promise to provide millions of dollars in direct county funding "for community-based organizations to provide services to youth." Sigma Beta Xi and its president were finally funded, steadily and reliably. An NGO was consistently connected to a source of taxpayer dollars, and Jackson could lead it as full-time work.
You can see the result in Sigma Beta Xi's Form 990, the financial disclosure reports that a nonprofits file with the IRS. In 2022, the group reported $2,398,366 in "contributions and grants," reporting its activities in all-caps: "MENTORING APPROXIMATELY 400 STUDENTS ON 15 VARIOUS SCHOOL CAMPUSES LOCATED IN THE INLAND EMPIRE METROPOLITAN AREA OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA."
Take a moment to divide $2.4 million by 400 for yourself. Sigma Beta Xi also reported that it had paid a salary of $97,390 to its CEO and president, Corey Jackson.
Near the end of that year, Jackson left the nonprofit for his new job as a California state legislator.
This story is typical California. When the legislature encounters NGOs, it meets itself. Legislators tend to come from the world of activism and nonprofits, not from business. They don't end up making laws because they used to make things or build something. Instead, their professional background is "fighting for access to" or "ensuring that everyone gets a chance to." The legislature is a little island of NGO culture, comfortable with the language and presumptions of professional badgering and hectoring.
The state senator Maria Elena Durazo has just been elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Here's the opening of the "Meet Maria" page on her campaign website:
A farm worker organizer. A student activist.
A sweat shop organizer and union reformer. A national immigration leader.
A Democratic National Committeewoman. LA County's Labor Federation President.
A State Senator.
Arrested over 13 times for leading non-violent Civil Rights and Worker Rights protests.
This is who makes the laws and shapes the state budget in California. Government and the thing ironically called "non-governmental organizations" eloped while no one was looking. NGOs are GOs, living in good part on government grants while they shape the debate that guides state government. Legislators and NGO executives are partners and peers. They march in step.
The former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon came to the legislature through a series of NGOs, including a stint as "executive director of Plaza de la Raza Child Development Services, Inc., which provides comprehensive child development and social and medical services to over 2,300 children and families throughout Los Angeles County."
The reptilian Silicon Valley Assemblyman Marc Berman, a lawyer, worked for a while at private law firms, but then he found his true calling: "While serving on the Palo Alto City Council, Marc worked for the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, a non-profit focused on increasing access to high quality STEM education and closing the achievement gap in Bay Area public schools."
Senator John Laird "served as executive director of the Santa Cruz AIDS Project."
Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, the wife of California Attorney General Rob Bonta: "Prior to being elected to the State Assembly, Mia served as the CEO of Oakland Promise, a cradle-to-college and career preparation initiative across Oakland public schools."
Assemblywoman Stephanie Nguyen "served as the Executive Director of Asian Resources, Inc. (ARI) to ensure that all communities, especially the low-income, immigrant, refugee, limited English-speaking, formerly incarcerated and undocumented, have access to support and services to help them get one step closer to self-sufficiency."
And on, and on, and on. The NGOcracy governs California. NGOs are the farm team for elected office, and the players on the big league team play the game they learned as they came up through the minors.
The California Dream
In 2024, a Republican state senator made the theme of flight explicit, speaking during a legislative hearing in Sacramento to tell families to run. "If you love your children," said Senator Scott Wilk, "you need to flee California. You need to flee."
The idea of America runs through the Slater Mills to Henry Ford's River Rouge plant, and on to the SpaceX Starbase. Americans have perceived themselves as makers, builders, restless people who moved and created. The 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition was a party the country threw for itself in front of the world, with 200,000 electric lights (in the first electrified World's Fair), a towering steel-framed Ferris Wheel, and giant exhibition buildings to show off American industry: Look at what we can do. Just go look at the photographs of the fair's Electricity Building, and try not to burst into nervous laughter at the audacity of the thing.
California was that America. It built prosperity as a maker state, a place of explosive growth and major industry. It buzzed. Not actually, but close enough. The birth of movies and television were the birth of Hollywood. The birth of computers was the birth of Silicon Valley. The Cold War was the birth of an aerospace industry that relied on industrial innovation even as it paid the bills with the government funding. Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works sits in the Mojave Desert because that's where that stuff happened. There are still outdoor spaces in the desert north of Los Angeles where you can find public monuments to wild men in white polyester shirts and black clip-on ties, the cowboy-engineers who tried to fly whatever the aerospace companies tried to build.
Affluent and ambitious, California became a cultural center because there was money to pay for the cultural stuff. Pasadena is a center of Arts & Crafts architecture because Pasadena was a center of East Coast industrial wealth that went looking for nice weather; the famous Greene and Greene-designed Gamble House was built with soap money. Richard Neutra left Austria to build Modernist homes in places like Palm Springs. Bakersfield was an important center for mid-century modern architecture, because there was oil money there. Important architects wanted to build, so they went to the place where people were doing that.
Restless and always building, California drew Americans from other states. A population of a little less than seven million people in 1940 grew to twenty million by 1970, drawn by aerospace jobs and postwar prosperity. Now it's close to forty million.
That population has also begun, for the first time, to shrink. Remarkable news headline from March of this year: "Los Angeles County sees largest population decline in the U.S., census data shows." A county of ten million people has become a county of 9.7 million people; 54,000 left in a single year, from the middle of 2024 to the middle of 2025.
Los Angeles isn't alone. A January report from the Public Policy Institute of California describes a relentless tide of outmigration from the whole state. "From 2010 through 2024 (the year of the latest data) almost 10 million people moved from California to other states," the report concludes, "while just over 7 million people moved to California from other parts of the country, according to the American Community Survey. In fact, according to Department of Finance estimates, the state has lost residents to other states every year since 2001."
Here's a clue about who's leaving and who's coming: In ten years, statewide public school enrollment has declined by a half a million children.
In 2024, a Republican state senator made the theme of flight explicit, speaking during a legislative hearing in Sacramento to tell families to run. "If you love your children," said Senator Scott Wilk, "you need to flee California. You need to flee."
"Born and raised in this state, I love this state," Wilk added. "I'm not going to stay in this state. Because it's just too oppressive. And I believe in freedom, and so I'm going to move to America when I leave the legislature."
Wilk was wrong about one thing: California isn't separate from America. It's the bleeding edge of what America threatens to become, the social laboratory for a cultural transition. The state concentrates the dose of the burgeoning American poison.
Let a Californian tell you about that poison. Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley in the U.S. House, reacted to the SpaceX IPO and the expansion of Elon Musk's personal net worth by laying out a competing vision about the origins of correct prosperity. "Republicans believe that if you let the wealthy spend capital, it will make Americans prosperous," he wrote. "Democrats believe that the federal government investing in the healthcare & education of our people will make America prosperous & productive."
That's not a uniquely Californian vision, and U.S. Senators such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren weighed in from New England with a similar vision. But California is a cultural leader in the view that private enterprise is cruelty and greed, while anything that doesn't make a profit is inherently virtuous and decent. Mean Elon Musk is making rockets, cheap global satellite-based Internet access, electric cars, a platform for open discourse, and money, and that's very bad.
The California Community Foundation
The California Association of Non-Profits last published a detailed report on the size of the state's nonprofit sector in 2019, concluding that "one in every 14 California jobs is at a nonprofit."
There are some problems with this division of the world into the categories of greedy and virtuous based on the presence of profit.
In the spring of 2026, visitors walking through Downtown Los Angeles heard music coming from the plaza at the center of the county-owned Music Center, a collection of performing arts venues. Following the sound, people walking through the city emerged onto the plaza to see names projected on the walls of the public space, all under the same all-caps word: "TAKEN: Rosalina, at home with her children."
The projected names were a project of Am I Next?, a group that questions the enforcement of immigration law in emotionally loaded language designed to create a sense of universal menace: People are being taken by roving gangs of kidnappers, essentially at random, so everyone is in danger.
The Am I Next? website explains:
Through projections, billboards, and visual storytelling, the campaign brings real faces and truths into public view--reminding us that when one voice is silenced, all voices are at risk. It is both an act of resistance and an invitation for collective responsibility.
Whether you agree with them or not, the Am I Next? campaign makes no argument. It doesn't take an explicit position on immigration law, and it doesn't discuss the backgrounds of people "taken" by federal agents. Did they have deportation orders after a hearing in front of an immigration judge? Did previous administrations also deport people? All that factual background is unaddressed. In a message broadcast onto the walls of the city, the only fear-centered message is that people being arrested are essentially being disappeared, taken like kidnapping victims. It portrays enforcement of laws as inherently cruel and improper, like the actions of a drug cartel and its foot soldiers.
The donation page for the Am I Next? website explains that it is "made possible" by the California Community Foundation, a donor advised fund that claims to be America's fourth largest community foundation.
This appears to mean that Am I Next? is a fiscally sponsored project within CCF. Operating this way within the CCF would free Am I Next? from the legal and paperwork hassles of operating as an independent nonprofit. This is why fiscal sponsorships are used in the philanthropic world to incubate new NGOs.
But a more controversial advantage for this arrangement is that a giant donor advised fund such as CCF isn't legally required to explain how much it is spending on Am I Next? nor which of CCF's 1,900 separate donor accounts the funding came from. For the year ending June 2024 (CCF's most recent publicly available annual IRS filing) CCF reported $1.9 billion in net assets and more than $215 million in donations.
A video perched on home page of Am I Next? features CCF president Miguel Santana, as he looks into the camera and asserts that arrests undertaken in the enforcement of immigration law "are basic violations of all of our rights." He doesn't explain that claim, but he expands it in the next sentence: "As Americans, we are asking: Am I Next?"
We probably aren't next, if we didn't sneak into the country. But the amygdala-punching message of fear projected on the landscape of the city is a product of philanthropy, and "social justice" is a just check written by somebody to fund the inflated social terror.
A social justice nonprofit leader claiming to speak for the humble and oppressed can cash some nice checks of his own. Financial disclosure reporting from the California Community Foundation hasn't caught up to Santana's tenure as the fairly new president of the fund, but the Los Angeles Times has reported that his starting base salary was $640,000 a year.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Santana has held board and other leadership positions at a several other left-leaning foundations, but he was also the chief administrative officer for the City of Los Angeles, and a top executive for Los Angeles County. He has moved easily between NGOs and the governments that often fund them.
In its 2024 IRS filing, CCF reported $16.5 million in government grants, out of which they reported having paid $2.5 million in immigration advocacy grants. Rather than a nonprofit, CCF is best thought of as a taxpayer-assisted hedge fund that profits from emotionally manipulative virtue signaling.
The homelessness nonprofits
California's perennially unsolved homeless crisis is the story of an army of nongovernmental organizations spending absurd quantities of public money toward no apparent purpose while collecting enormous administrative salaries to perform the public appearance of virtue.
Aside from symbols and performance, what's the real product produced by the California NGO?
Start answering that question by looking at something that isn't an NGO.
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) is a joint powers agency, formed and for a while financed by both the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, with state and federal grants to round things out. Lavishly backed through special local taxes approved by voters, LAHSA has been dogged by credible allegations of waste and fraud.
In 2025, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to pull its homeless services funding out of LAHSA and bring the tax dollars back under direct county control. A year later, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development sent LAHSA a long letter announcing the end of federal funding for the authority. A government agency formed to end homelessness didn't accomplish much, and spent a fortune doing it, leading to a series of attacks on its scope and authority.
On its website, here's how LAHSA describes its service model, and the bold letters are from the original:
Through LAHSA, funding, program design, outcomes assessment, and technical assistance are provided to more than 100 nonprofit partner agencies that assist people experiencing homelessness achieve independence and stability in permanent housing.
In California, government spending on homelessness is infamously porous and curiously untraceable. An extraordinary report from the California State Auditor, released in 2024, concluded that "the State allocated nearly $24 billion for homelessness and housing during the last five fiscal years, or from 2018-19 through 2022-23," but couldn't show where the money had gone or what all that spending had accomplished.
According to the audit, California:
... has not tracked and reported on the State's funding for homelessness programs statewide since its 2023 assessment covering fiscal years 2018-19 through 2020-21. Currently, it has no plans to perform a similar assessment in the future. In the absence of an up to date assessment, the State and its policymakers are likely to struggle to understand homelessness programs' ongoing costs and achieved outcomes.
Lots of spending, but a struggle in the dark to understand the point of it all.
If you scroll through that report, you'll find this chart:
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Figure 3: There Are Many Layers to Homelessness Funding and Services
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In this chart, "CoCs" are continuum of care agencies, the authority that provides oversight to make a diverse set of interventions work together. They ensure "community-wide planning and strategic use of resources." At least that's the theory.
But as the chart also shows, homelessness money raining from the sky reaches actual homeless people only after passing through a long series of sluices, each with salaries to pay and offices to rent. Go back to LAHSA's statement about its work: In one of California's fifty-eight counties, LAHSA supports "more than 100 nonprofit partner agencies."
Chasing outcomes, Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia sent investigators to look at publicly funded safe housing sites that were meant to help the homeless transition into permanent housing. Contracts with charities for "Indoor Safe" facilities came with a series of requirements, including the mandate that they regularly provide hot meals and fresh food with their government funds. Actual outcome from an on-site audit: "The service provider's food inventory consisted almost entirely of instant ramen noodles."
One of Mejia's site audits led to indictments, as the CEO of the nonprofit Abundant Blessings - whose prior experience running organizations was that he owned a Yogurtland franchise in Santa Monica - was charged with fraud in state and federal courts.
From the federal indictment of Abundant Blessings CEO Alexander Soofer:
Rather than providing the services for which he billed these public entities, Soofer pocketed at least $10 million. He used that public money for a down payment on his $7 million Westwood home, millions of dollars of upgrades to that home, private schooling for his children, lavish spending in Las Vegas, private jet travel, and stays at luxury resorts across the United States - from Hawaii to Florida. Soofer also appeared to use $475,000 to purchase a vacation property in Greece, sending this money to a Greek property developer.
Digging into details, the probable cause affidavit submitted to the district court by an FBI agent described the moment when investigators allegedly tried to question the members of the board that oversaw Abundant Blessings and discovered that it didn't exist. Then the FBI started piling up paragraphs alleging precisely where LA's homeless services money had gone:
Hermes is a luxury retailer, and the luxury goods SOOFER and his wife purchased with taxpayer dollars include $910 for women's Chypre sandals with goat lining, $260 for a men's Faconnee tie, $1,250 for men's Paris calf-skin loafers, $455 for a men's Chevaux en Symetrie tie, and $2,450 for a men's trotting jacket.
You see, for-profit corporations are greedy, but nonprofits are inherently kind and decent.
Where homeless money flows to nonprofits, it tends to become hard to track. Remember the description of the Weingart Foundation near the start of this report? News stories in Los Angeles reported that the foundation, "one of L.A.'s biggest homeless service providers," received more than $100 million in public funds in just a few years while also being "continuously out of compliance with federal deadlines to turn in audits -- known as 'single audits' -- since early 2022."
California's perennially unsolved homeless crisis is the story of an army of NGOs spending absurd quantities of public money toward no apparent purpose, while collecting enormous administrative salaries to perform the public appearance of virtue. Skid Row funds $455 Hermes ties. How virtuous.
The end of ranching
The State of California had allocated $10 million to The Nature Conservancy to fund TNC's post-ranching management of the public land at Point Reyes, and had committed the funding long before the ranchers had agreed to the settlement. The neutral arbiter trying to convince the ranchers to settle and leave had a direct financial interest in their departure.
The connection between symbols of virtue and the realities of wealth again become clear in California's controversies over the management of public lands.
In 2022, a coalition of three environmental nonprofits sued the National Park Service over the presence of historic cattle ranches at Point Reyes National Seashore, in an area called West Marin that sits about an hour north of San Francisco. The "dairy empire" on the point had begun in the 1850s, so the litigation targeted agricultural operations that had been run continuously on the same land for about 170 years.
Intervening, a fourth environmental group that wasn't a party to the lawsuit offered to negotiate a settlement between the ranchers and the environmental groups, while the park service postured as an onlooker despite being the actual defendant. The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a giant NGO with net assets exceeding $8 billion, was described in news stories as a neutral arbiter, an organization with no interest in the case "which helped facilitate the mediation." TNC convinced twelve of the fourteen ranchers at Point Reyes to take settlement payments and leave, ending most ranching there.
The Nature Conservancy also funded the settlement that it negotiated, and a series of remarkable stories in the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat began to reveal details in that effort that changed the appearance of TNC's intervention.
First, in January of 2025, the newspaper described the way The Nature Conservancy pitched the end of ranching at "swank private fundraisers involving high-profile Bay Area philanthropists," securing cash for "a settlement reached without public input and that is not subject to federal regulations." Through the instrument of legal action brought by a group of NGOs, private equity wrote checks to end 170 years of ranching on a piece of public land. Here, from the reporting of Press-Democrat writer John Beck, is what it looks like when a nonprofit works to influence the use of public resources:
Making the rounds in the affluent Marin County enclave of Ross on Jan. 12, 2023, they stopped by the house of Dan Kalafatas and his wife, Hadley Mullin. He is chairman of the global climate strategy company 3Degrees, and she is senior partner and senior managing director at the private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners. Together, they agreed early on to support the cause and to help raise funds and spread the word to their well-connected friends.
The Nature Conservancy's donors "hopped in a convoy of SUVs" for a private tour of Point Reyes, then later attended a fundraising dinner "at a $20 million, 7-bedroom estate in Ross, not far from the Lagunitas Country Club." There was valet parking, and the caterer provided ranch-themed cocktails. As Beck's second story in the series noted, the dinner was "a who's who of Bay Area entrepreneurs, investors, tech execs and venture capitalists," and one later told him that she looked around the room and "didn't see any Point Reyes ranchers or West Marin farmers, or really anyone she knew from West Marin."
And then a third story from John Beck in the Press-Democrat made the whole process very clear: The State of California had allocated $10 million to The Nature Conservancy to fund TNC's post-ranching management of the public land at Point Reyes, and had committed the funding long before the ranchers had agreed to the settlement. The neutral arbiter trying to convince the ranchers to settle and leave had a direct financial interest in their departure.
"In effect," Beck wrote, "state funding was already set aside to restore land that ranchers had not agreed to vacate." The Nature Conservancy officials told Beck that if the ranchers had not agreed to leave, they would have just used the money anyway to do other restoration work at Point Reyes. But they didn't claim that the ranchers had known about the state funding while they negotiated with the group that was set to receive it.
"When you pull back the curtain," a former Point Reyes rancher told Beck, "you start to maybe understand a little bit more about what happened."
And that's correct: you do start to maybe understand a little bit more. Private equity, NGOs, and government worked in partnership to produce an outcome that wasn't explained to people outside the circle they created. This story is about as California as it gets.
The purest California NGO story
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights is a nonprofit service provider that nestles up against a nonprofit political activist group, a helping people group that by the most remarkable coincidence also assists politicians in the pursuit of power while being lavishly funded by the governments those politicians run.
Or maybe it's this one, the purest form of the California NGO story.
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) marries all the themes together. It's a nonprofit service provider that nestles up against a nonprofit political activist group, a helping people group that by the most remarkable coincidence also assists politicians in the pursuit of power while being lavishly funded by the governments those politicians run.
In 2024, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass proudly announced that she had secured federal funding from the Biden administration so that local migrant support groups could provide housing and free stuff - "supportive services" - to new arrivals from other countries. The federal government's USA Spending website reports that CHIRLA got a $450,000 grant to provide "citizenship education and training."
At CHIRLA, that much government cash would barely register. Parsing public records, the Capital Research Center's InfluenceWatch offers a long list of government grants to the organization, mostly from one predictable source:
In 2023, CHIRLA received nearly $34 million in government grants, primarily from the State of California, accounting for roughly three-quarters of its $44.9 million in revenues. In 2022, CHIRLA received $25.6 million in government grants, more than 80 percent of its $31 million in revenues.
Among those grants were $1.28 million from the City Los Angeles between 2017 and 2025. And CHIRLA is also funded by the Los Angeles County Office of Immigrant Affairs. So they've run the table: CHIRLA gets paid by city, county, state, and federal governments.
Once again blurring boundaries, this NGO is lavishly funded by government - so really kind of a GO - also took in tremendous amounts of cash from philanthropic foundations: $3 million from the Weingart Foundation, $1,325,000 from the James Irvine Foundation, $2,275,000 from the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, and so on. Government and philanthropic tributaries run into the same financial rivers.
Funded in good part with taxpayer dollars, CHIRLA also has an affiliated political action fund (using the same name: CHIRLA Action Fund) that endorses candidates for public office, loudly and often, and then canvasses neighborhoods for its preferred candidates. Among many others in a long list, the leaders of CHIRLA recently stood alongside Xavier Becerra to endorse his campaign for California governor. CHIRLA also endorsed Eunisses Hernandez for L.A. City Council. And, of course, they endorsed Karen Bass for mayor while Bass proudly declares her commitment to finding CHIRLA more government funding.
Defending itself against allegations that it crosses boundaries between charity and politics, CHIRLA insists that it isn't involved in partisan questions and political campaigns. Instead, CHIRLA does "citizenship education" and "supportive services" while the CHIRLA Action Fund issues endorsements and provides campaign support.
That's true, so far as the letter of the law goes, but in spirit it gets more complicated.
Look up the IRS filings for both CHIRLA and the CHIRLA Action Fund and this is what you'll find: CHIRLA is a non-profit that's run out of an office at 2533 W. Third St., Suite 101, and the wholly separate CHIRLA Action Fund is a different organization that's run out of an office at 2533 W. Third St., Suite 101. If you have a question about CHIRLA, they list Zerihoun Yilma as their point of contact, while the CHIRLA Action Fund lists Zerihoun Yilma as their point of contact.
See, totally separate! Both are run by Angelica Salas, who also serves as a board member at the Latino Community Foundation and the California Wellness Foundation, while serving as a member of the state government's California Racial Equity Commission.
CHIRLA explicitly describes its "Immigrant Political Power Project" as an effort that "targets new citizens, Latinos, and English learners to build a voter base from scratch, with enough power to sway state politics."
Here's how they do that: "We reach out to these community members to build relationships, speaking with them in their language between four and seven times before election day about diverse issues - from their access to state safety-net programs to registering for the census."
And finally, the group calls the Immigrant Political Power Project "a joint project of CHIRLA and CHIRLA Action Fund," openly erasing the line between what are supposed to be separate organizations.
The conservative news website RedState frequently covers CHIRLA, with managing editor Jennifer Van Laar discussing (for example) allegations that the nonprofit organizes anti-ICE demonstrations and uses illegal immigrants to canvass neighborhoods for candidates.
Where does CHIRLA end and Democratic politics begin, and what boundaries sit between those things and government use of taxpayer dollars at every level? That's not a question that invites serious answers. A bowl of soup is eaten with one spoon.
Ruin is an industry
As California grows a laundry list of serious social failures, the one thing you absolutely can't blame is the availability of resources. "During Gavin Newsom's governorship," the Hoover Institution wrote in 2024, "California's state budget grew over 63 percent-
The California legislature passes somewhere north of a thousand bills every year, while considering about double that number, so there's not much time for committee hearings. Bills tend to get a few minutes of testimony, a witness or two in favor and a witness or two in opposition reading short statements into the record.
Then comes the unfortunate and hurried ritual known as the "me toos." Committees invite everyone who wants to speak to come to a microphone at the front of the hearing room, but the me toos are only allowed to say three things: name, organization, position. Speakers who try to wedge in a sentence as an actual argument - I'm opposed, because... - are quickly shut down.
Under a headline about legislators silencing witnesses, a 2025 story on the news website CalMatters described a legislative hearing on a proposed bear hunting bill in which witnesses traveled to the Capitol from all over the state and then had experiences like this one: "One of the bear bill's supporters, Elizabeth Washoe, took a day off work, filled up her vehicle with $5-plus a gallon gas before she left Modoc County and made the five-hour drive to the capital, only to be given a few seconds at the mic." This treatment tends to offend people, and legislators tend to not care at all.
The reality in California is that the me toos are giving the important testimony when they say the names of their organizations. That's the information the lawmakers are listening for, and it's all they need to hear. Bills advance on the basis of teams and relationships. Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, in favor. SEIU, in favor. Trevor Project, in favor. And the message is received.
To continue spooling out examples of the way California NGOs work is to keep telling the same story: blurred boundaries, cronyism and incestuous boundary-crossing, partisan power-seeking dressed up as a passion for social justice.
To talk about the controversies in California over election results being reversed a week after the election because of late-arriving ballots is to talk about ballot harvesting by public sector unions and "social justice" NGOs.
To talk about the legislature's pathological focus on anti-family bills is to talk about sexual identity activism from full-time activists at well-funded NGOs.
To talk about the decline of the cities and the ubiquity of homeless encampments and fatal overdoses on the street is to talk about "harm reduction" NGOs and the teams of "outreach workers" who spend their days getting paid to enable self-destructive behavior.
To talk about the middle-class being priced out of homes in California is to talk about the army of NGOs that exist to advocate for affordable housing, and the growing cost of building in the face of relentless professional activism that increases the costs of each new home.
Ruin is an industry.
As California grows a laundry list of serious social failures, the one thing you absolutely can't blame is the availability of resources. "During Gavin Newsom's governorship," the Hoover Institution wrote in 2024, "California's state budget grew over 63 percent, rising from around $200 billion in 2019 to about $327 billion in the current fiscal year ending June 30. After adjusting for inflation and California's population losses since 2019, this represents a 38 percent per person increase in real (inflation-adjusted) state government spending."
Perpetual growth in government spending, unbroken poverty rates, sticky and ubiquitous homelessness, appalling infrastructure, government-funded political activism for the people who govern the place. The client class is NGOs. The state's growth industry is buildings full of people who say they ensure access to justice.
As I write this, Governor Gavin Newsom is complaining that the FBI is talking to his friends. We don't know what they're looking for, but his former chief of staff has pleaded guilty to federal charges that she stole from political campaign funds to pay for a lavish lifestyle. She was joined in that scheme by a high-ranking staffer for Xavier Becerra, who will probably be the next governor. They see a pot of money and they assume it's for them: for their nice hotels, for their expensive dinners, for their living room furniture.
There's a reason for this kind of thinking in California, a state without boundaries. To understand the state and its decline, read a five year-old news story in the Los Angeles Times: "Facebook, Google, other corporate giants flooded Newsom with record $226 million in charity donations in 2020."
On its face, the headline doesn't make sense: How do corporations flood the governor of a state with charity donations? Does a governor run charities?
But the controversy over "behested payments" is precisely a crisis over the state's NGO cronyism. When you get into the details, here's what the actual donations look like:
Three organizations, including Silicon Valley Bank, collectively gave $175,000 this year on behalf of the governor to the California Partners Project, a nonprofit launched by First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom that focuses on promoting gender equity and understanding the impact of technology and media on children.
Large companies doing business in California gave money to the governor's wife through her non-profit, apparently because of their corporate commitment to "gender equity."
A little later, in 2024, the governor intervened in a dispute between Indian tribes over federal approval for a new casino, backing one tribe over another. You've already guessed the background, which the Washington Free Beacon discovered:
In April 2024, a few months before Newsom sent his letter to the Biden Interior Department, the Democratic governor requested Graton Rancheria to contribute $500,000 to his wife's charity, the California Partners Project. And in April 2025, one month before Newsom filed his lawsuit against the Trump administration, he again asked Graton Rancheria to contribute another $500,000 to his wife's charity.
As you can see, it's a very charitable state, and everyone is committed to helping.
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Chris Bray is a senior correspondent at The Federalist and a former infantry sergeant in the U.S. Army. He has a history PhD from the University of California Los Angeles,...
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Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-nonprofits-that-ate-the-california-dream/
[Category: ThinkTank]
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The nonprofits that ate the California Dream
From the birth of Hollywood to the rise of Silicon Valley, California in the 20th century was the headquarters of the American Dream and what seemed like limitless prosperity. But 21st century California has been replacing profitable industries with politicized nonprofits and trading its prosperity for poverty.
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California was America, fearless and productive. It gave us memories of test pilots ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Capital Research Center posted the following commentary on July 17, 2026, by The Federalist senior correspondent Chris Bray: * * * The nonprofits that ate the California Dream From the birth of Hollywood to the rise of Silicon Valley, California in the 20th century was the headquarters of the American Dream and what seemed like limitless prosperity. But 21st century California has been replacing profitable industries with politicized nonprofits and trading its prosperity for poverty. - California was America, fearless and productive. It gave us memories of test pilotsover the Mojave Desert, Wozniak and Jobs in a garage, Gregg Toland and Orson Welles cutting a hole in the floor of a sound stage on the RKO lot to get a lower camera angle for Citizen Kane. It's where the dreamers went to make things. It starting dying about forty years ago, but it took us a while to notice.
California in 2026 is the home to a formidable collection of supposedly non-governmental organizations--NGOs--that proclaim their commitment to social justice and economic equity. They're helping. That's their industry.
The California Endowment, with "more than $4 billion in assets," pursues "the mandate to ensure health and justice for all."
The James Irvine Foundation, with a $3.6 billion endowment, seeks "fair and just outcomes for all Californians."
The Weingart Foundation, with about $900 million in assets, "partners with communities across Southern California to advance racial, social, and economic justice for all."
The California Wellness Foundation works on things such as "civic engagement and power-building to elevate community voices and priorities," and has about a billion dollars in assets to help them elevate those voices. That's presumably a lot of voice-elevating.
And so on. The California Association of Non-Profits last published a detailed report on the size of the state's nonprofit sector in 2019, concluding that "one in every 14 California jobs is at a nonprofit." For a current estimate, the national advocacy organization Independent Sector reports that the state has 144,728 non-profit organizations, 123,321 of which are public charities. Together, those organizations employ an estimated 1,112,268 people.
Also, California leads the country in poverty. A recent report from CalMatters notes that "California's rate, 17.7%, means that nearly 7 million of its residents are impoverished, 5 percentage points higher than the national rate and tied with Louisiana."
A massive fairness industry, partnering with communities to advance social and economic justice for all, isn't advancing social and economic justice for much of anyone, while they get in the way of the productive and useful part of the state. Advocacy, even expensive advocacy, doesn't appear to produce the thing the advocates call "justice."
So, what does it produce? A report from the California Policy Center (a rare conservative nonprofit in the state) offers a suggestion: "Over the last 50 years, a well-resourced network of donors, foundations, advocacy groups, and unions have developed a strategy to build a funding infrastructure capable of shaping policy, public opinion, and electoral outcomes."
All of that works together as one integrated unit, and all of it imposes extraordinary costs on the culture, economy, and politics of the state.
An NGO-controlled state legislature
The NGOcracy governs California. Legislators tend to come from the world of activism and nonprofits, not from business. They make laws that reflect the experience of making things or building things.
Consider the story of a single California NGO and the person who ran it.
You can read about the origins of the non-profit corporation now called SBX Youth and Family Services on their website, starting with the founding of a student group at Rialto High School in 1995. Then came the big milestone of high school graduation for "the founding members...including our first President Corey Jackson," which happened in 2000. Jackson did political work for years, leading the group that would become SBX while drawing a paycheck as a field representative for a series of legislators.
Then came the lawsuit: In 2018, the Inland Empire non-profit that was then still called Sigma Beta Xi and the ACLU sued Riverside County over the operation of a program run by probation officers for at-risk youth, the Youth Accountability Team (YAT). The ACLU and its plaintiff argued that "YAT treats children who have not been convicted of crimes like hardened criminals with surprise searches, unannounced home visitations, strict restrictions on who participants can speak to, curfews, and interrogations into intimate details of their lives. It's a program far more likely to be applied to youths of color."
The county settled the lawsuit. Among the conditions: a promise to provide millions of dollars in direct county funding "for community-based organizations to provide services to youth." Sigma Beta Xi and its president were finally funded, steadily and reliably. An NGO was consistently connected to a source of taxpayer dollars, and Jackson could lead it as full-time work.
You can see the result in Sigma Beta Xi's Form 990, the financial disclosure reports that a nonprofits file with the IRS. In 2022, the group reported $2,398,366 in "contributions and grants," reporting its activities in all-caps: "MENTORING APPROXIMATELY 400 STUDENTS ON 15 VARIOUS SCHOOL CAMPUSES LOCATED IN THE INLAND EMPIRE METROPOLITAN AREA OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA."
Take a moment to divide $2.4 million by 400 for yourself. Sigma Beta Xi also reported that it had paid a salary of $97,390 to its CEO and president, Corey Jackson.
Near the end of that year, Jackson left the nonprofit for his new job as a California state legislator.
This story is typical California. When the legislature encounters NGOs, it meets itself. Legislators tend to come from the world of activism and nonprofits, not from business. They don't end up making laws because they used to make things or build something. Instead, their professional background is "fighting for access to" or "ensuring that everyone gets a chance to." The legislature is a little island of NGO culture, comfortable with the language and presumptions of professional badgering and hectoring.
The state senator Maria Elena Durazo has just been elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Here's the opening of the "Meet Maria" page on her campaign website:
A farm worker organizer. A student activist.
A sweat shop organizer and union reformer. A national immigration leader.
A Democratic National Committeewoman. LA County's Labor Federation President.
A State Senator.
Arrested over 13 times for leading non-violent Civil Rights and Worker Rights protests.
This is who makes the laws and shapes the state budget in California. Government and the thing ironically called "non-governmental organizations" eloped while no one was looking. NGOs are GOs, living in good part on government grants while they shape the debate that guides state government. Legislators and NGO executives are partners and peers. They march in step.
The former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon came to the legislature through a series of NGOs, including a stint as "executive director of Plaza de la Raza Child Development Services, Inc., which provides comprehensive child development and social and medical services to over 2,300 children and families throughout Los Angeles County."
The reptilian Silicon Valley Assemblyman Marc Berman, a lawyer, worked for a while at private law firms, but then he found his true calling: "While serving on the Palo Alto City Council, Marc worked for the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, a non-profit focused on increasing access to high quality STEM education and closing the achievement gap in Bay Area public schools."
Senator John Laird "served as executive director of the Santa Cruz AIDS Project."
Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, the wife of California Attorney General Rob Bonta: "Prior to being elected to the State Assembly, Mia served as the CEO of Oakland Promise, a cradle-to-college and career preparation initiative across Oakland public schools."
Assemblywoman Stephanie Nguyen "served as the Executive Director of Asian Resources, Inc. (ARI) to ensure that all communities, especially the low-income, immigrant, refugee, limited English-speaking, formerly incarcerated and undocumented, have access to support and services to help them get one step closer to self-sufficiency."
And on, and on, and on. The NGOcracy governs California. NGOs are the farm team for elected office, and the players on the big league team play the game they learned as they came up through the minors.
The California Dream
In 2024, a Republican state senator made the theme of flight explicit, speaking during a legislative hearing in Sacramento to tell families to run. "If you love your children," said Senator Scott Wilk, "you need to flee California. You need to flee."
The idea of America runs through the Slater Mills to Henry Ford's River Rouge plant, and on to the SpaceX Starbase. Americans have perceived themselves as makers, builders, restless people who moved and created. The 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition was a party the country threw for itself in front of the world, with 200,000 electric lights (in the first electrified World's Fair), a towering steel-framed Ferris Wheel, and giant exhibition buildings to show off American industry: Look at what we can do. Just go look at the photographs of the fair's Electricity Building, and try not to burst into nervous laughter at the audacity of the thing.
California was that America. It built prosperity as a maker state, a place of explosive growth and major industry. It buzzed. Not actually, but close enough. The birth of movies and television were the birth of Hollywood. The birth of computers was the birth of Silicon Valley. The Cold War was the birth of an aerospace industry that relied on industrial innovation even as it paid the bills with the government funding. Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works sits in the Mojave Desert because that's where that stuff happened. There are still outdoor spaces in the desert north of Los Angeles where you can find public monuments to wild men in white polyester shirts and black clip-on ties, the cowboy-engineers who tried to fly whatever the aerospace companies tried to build.
Affluent and ambitious, California became a cultural center because there was money to pay for the cultural stuff. Pasadena is a center of Arts & Crafts architecture because Pasadena was a center of East Coast industrial wealth that went looking for nice weather; the famous Greene and Greene-designed Gamble House was built with soap money. Richard Neutra left Austria to build Modernist homes in places like Palm Springs. Bakersfield was an important center for mid-century modern architecture, because there was oil money there. Important architects wanted to build, so they went to the place where people were doing that.
Restless and always building, California drew Americans from other states. A population of a little less than seven million people in 1940 grew to twenty million by 1970, drawn by aerospace jobs and postwar prosperity. Now it's close to forty million.
That population has also begun, for the first time, to shrink. Remarkable news headline from March of this year: "Los Angeles County sees largest population decline in the U.S., census data shows." A county of ten million people has become a county of 9.7 million people; 54,000 left in a single year, from the middle of 2024 to the middle of 2025.
Los Angeles isn't alone. A January report from the Public Policy Institute of California describes a relentless tide of outmigration from the whole state. "From 2010 through 2024 (the year of the latest data) almost 10 million people moved from California to other states," the report concludes, "while just over 7 million people moved to California from other parts of the country, according to the American Community Survey. In fact, according to Department of Finance estimates, the state has lost residents to other states every year since 2001."
Here's a clue about who's leaving and who's coming: In ten years, statewide public school enrollment has declined by a half a million children.
In 2024, a Republican state senator made the theme of flight explicit, speaking during a legislative hearing in Sacramento to tell families to run. "If you love your children," said Senator Scott Wilk, "you need to flee California. You need to flee."
"Born and raised in this state, I love this state," Wilk added. "I'm not going to stay in this state. Because it's just too oppressive. And I believe in freedom, and so I'm going to move to America when I leave the legislature."
Wilk was wrong about one thing: California isn't separate from America. It's the bleeding edge of what America threatens to become, the social laboratory for a cultural transition. The state concentrates the dose of the burgeoning American poison.
Let a Californian tell you about that poison. Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley in the U.S. House, reacted to the SpaceX IPO and the expansion of Elon Musk's personal net worth by laying out a competing vision about the origins of correct prosperity. "Republicans believe that if you let the wealthy spend capital, it will make Americans prosperous," he wrote. "Democrats believe that the federal government investing in the healthcare & education of our people will make America prosperous & productive."
That's not a uniquely Californian vision, and U.S. Senators such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren weighed in from New England with a similar vision. But California is a cultural leader in the view that private enterprise is cruelty and greed, while anything that doesn't make a profit is inherently virtuous and decent. Mean Elon Musk is making rockets, cheap global satellite-based Internet access, electric cars, a platform for open discourse, and money, and that's very bad.
The California Community Foundation
The California Association of Non-Profits last published a detailed report on the size of the state's nonprofit sector in 2019, concluding that "one in every 14 California jobs is at a nonprofit."
There are some problems with this division of the world into the categories of greedy and virtuous based on the presence of profit.
In the spring of 2026, visitors walking through Downtown Los Angeles heard music coming from the plaza at the center of the county-owned Music Center, a collection of performing arts venues. Following the sound, people walking through the city emerged onto the plaza to see names projected on the walls of the public space, all under the same all-caps word: "TAKEN: Rosalina, at home with her children."
The projected names were a project of Am I Next?, a group that questions the enforcement of immigration law in emotionally loaded language designed to create a sense of universal menace: People are being taken by roving gangs of kidnappers, essentially at random, so everyone is in danger.
The Am I Next? website explains:
Through projections, billboards, and visual storytelling, the campaign brings real faces and truths into public view--reminding us that when one voice is silenced, all voices are at risk. It is both an act of resistance and an invitation for collective responsibility.
Whether you agree with them or not, the Am I Next? campaign makes no argument. It doesn't take an explicit position on immigration law, and it doesn't discuss the backgrounds of people "taken" by federal agents. Did they have deportation orders after a hearing in front of an immigration judge? Did previous administrations also deport people? All that factual background is unaddressed. In a message broadcast onto the walls of the city, the only fear-centered message is that people being arrested are essentially being disappeared, taken like kidnapping victims. It portrays enforcement of laws as inherently cruel and improper, like the actions of a drug cartel and its foot soldiers.
The donation page for the Am I Next? website explains that it is "made possible" by the California Community Foundation, a donor advised fund that claims to be America's fourth largest community foundation.
This appears to mean that Am I Next? is a fiscally sponsored project within CCF. Operating this way within the CCF would free Am I Next? from the legal and paperwork hassles of operating as an independent nonprofit. This is why fiscal sponsorships are used in the philanthropic world to incubate new NGOs.
But a more controversial advantage for this arrangement is that a giant donor advised fund such as CCF isn't legally required to explain how much it is spending on Am I Next? nor which of CCF's 1,900 separate donor accounts the funding came from. For the year ending June 2024 (CCF's most recent publicly available annual IRS filing) CCF reported $1.9 billion in net assets and more than $215 million in donations.
A video perched on home page of Am I Next? features CCF president Miguel Santana, as he looks into the camera and asserts that arrests undertaken in the enforcement of immigration law "are basic violations of all of our rights." He doesn't explain that claim, but he expands it in the next sentence: "As Americans, we are asking: Am I Next?"
We probably aren't next, if we didn't sneak into the country. But the amygdala-punching message of fear projected on the landscape of the city is a product of philanthropy, and "social justice" is a just check written by somebody to fund the inflated social terror.
A social justice nonprofit leader claiming to speak for the humble and oppressed can cash some nice checks of his own. Financial disclosure reporting from the California Community Foundation hasn't caught up to Santana's tenure as the fairly new president of the fund, but the Los Angeles Times has reported that his starting base salary was $640,000 a year.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Santana has held board and other leadership positions at a several other left-leaning foundations, but he was also the chief administrative officer for the City of Los Angeles, and a top executive for Los Angeles County. He has moved easily between NGOs and the governments that often fund them.
In its 2024 IRS filing, CCF reported $16.5 million in government grants, out of which they reported having paid $2.5 million in immigration advocacy grants. Rather than a nonprofit, CCF is best thought of as a taxpayer-assisted hedge fund that profits from emotionally manipulative virtue signaling.
The homelessness nonprofits
California's perennially unsolved homeless crisis is the story of an army of nongovernmental organizations spending absurd quantities of public money toward no apparent purpose while collecting enormous administrative salaries to perform the public appearance of virtue.
Aside from symbols and performance, what's the real product produced by the California NGO?
Start answering that question by looking at something that isn't an NGO.
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) is a joint powers agency, formed and for a while financed by both the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, with state and federal grants to round things out. Lavishly backed through special local taxes approved by voters, LAHSA has been dogged by credible allegations of waste and fraud.
In 2025, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to pull its homeless services funding out of LAHSA and bring the tax dollars back under direct county control. A year later, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development sent LAHSA a long letter announcing the end of federal funding for the authority. A government agency formed to end homelessness didn't accomplish much, and spent a fortune doing it, leading to a series of attacks on its scope and authority.
On its website, here's how LAHSA describes its service model, and the bold letters are from the original:
Through LAHSA, funding, program design, outcomes assessment, and technical assistance are provided to more than 100 nonprofit partner agencies that assist people experiencing homelessness achieve independence and stability in permanent housing.
In California, government spending on homelessness is infamously porous and curiously untraceable. An extraordinary report from the California State Auditor, released in 2024, concluded that "the State allocated nearly $24 billion for homelessness and housing during the last five fiscal years, or from 2018-19 through 2022-23," but couldn't show where the money had gone or what all that spending had accomplished.
According to the audit, California:
... has not tracked and reported on the State's funding for homelessness programs statewide since its 2023 assessment covering fiscal years 2018-19 through 2020-21. Currently, it has no plans to perform a similar assessment in the future. In the absence of an up to date assessment, the State and its policymakers are likely to struggle to understand homelessness programs' ongoing costs and achieved outcomes.
Lots of spending, but a struggle in the dark to understand the point of it all.
If you scroll through that report, you'll find this chart:
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Figure 3: There Are Many Layers to Homelessness Funding and Services
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In this chart, "CoCs" are continuum of care agencies, the authority that provides oversight to make a diverse set of interventions work together. They ensure "community-wide planning and strategic use of resources." At least that's the theory.
But as the chart also shows, homelessness money raining from the sky reaches actual homeless people only after passing through a long series of sluices, each with salaries to pay and offices to rent. Go back to LAHSA's statement about its work: In one of California's fifty-eight counties, LAHSA supports "more than 100 nonprofit partner agencies."
Chasing outcomes, Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia sent investigators to look at publicly funded safe housing sites that were meant to help the homeless transition into permanent housing. Contracts with charities for "Indoor Safe" facilities came with a series of requirements, including the mandate that they regularly provide hot meals and fresh food with their government funds. Actual outcome from an on-site audit: "The service provider's food inventory consisted almost entirely of instant ramen noodles."
One of Mejia's site audits led to indictments, as the CEO of the nonprofit Abundant Blessings - whose prior experience running organizations was that he owned a Yogurtland franchise in Santa Monica - was charged with fraud in state and federal courts.
From the federal indictment of Abundant Blessings CEO Alexander Soofer:
Rather than providing the services for which he billed these public entities, Soofer pocketed at least $10 million. He used that public money for a down payment on his $7 million Westwood home, millions of dollars of upgrades to that home, private schooling for his children, lavish spending in Las Vegas, private jet travel, and stays at luxury resorts across the United States - from Hawaii to Florida. Soofer also appeared to use $475,000 to purchase a vacation property in Greece, sending this money to a Greek property developer.
Digging into details, the probable cause affidavit submitted to the district court by an FBI agent described the moment when investigators allegedly tried to question the members of the board that oversaw Abundant Blessings and discovered that it didn't exist. Then the FBI started piling up paragraphs alleging precisely where LA's homeless services money had gone:
Hermes is a luxury retailer, and the luxury goods SOOFER and his wife purchased with taxpayer dollars include $910 for women's Chypre sandals with goat lining, $260 for a men's Faconnee tie, $1,250 for men's Paris calf-skin loafers, $455 for a men's Chevaux en Symetrie tie, and $2,450 for a men's trotting jacket.
You see, for-profit corporations are greedy, but nonprofits are inherently kind and decent.
Where homeless money flows to nonprofits, it tends to become hard to track. Remember the description of the Weingart Foundation near the start of this report? News stories in Los Angeles reported that the foundation, "one of L.A.'s biggest homeless service providers," received more than $100 million in public funds in just a few years while also being "continuously out of compliance with federal deadlines to turn in audits -- known as 'single audits' -- since early 2022."
California's perennially unsolved homeless crisis is the story of an army of NGOs spending absurd quantities of public money toward no apparent purpose, while collecting enormous administrative salaries to perform the public appearance of virtue. Skid Row funds $455 Hermes ties. How virtuous.
The end of ranching
The State of California had allocated $10 million to The Nature Conservancy to fund TNC's post-ranching management of the public land at Point Reyes, and had committed the funding long before the ranchers had agreed to the settlement. The neutral arbiter trying to convince the ranchers to settle and leave had a direct financial interest in their departure.
The connection between symbols of virtue and the realities of wealth again become clear in California's controversies over the management of public lands.
In 2022, a coalition of three environmental nonprofits sued the National Park Service over the presence of historic cattle ranches at Point Reyes National Seashore, in an area called West Marin that sits about an hour north of San Francisco. The "dairy empire" on the point had begun in the 1850s, so the litigation targeted agricultural operations that had been run continuously on the same land for about 170 years.
Intervening, a fourth environmental group that wasn't a party to the lawsuit offered to negotiate a settlement between the ranchers and the environmental groups, while the park service postured as an onlooker despite being the actual defendant. The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a giant NGO with net assets exceeding $8 billion, was described in news stories as a neutral arbiter, an organization with no interest in the case "which helped facilitate the mediation." TNC convinced twelve of the fourteen ranchers at Point Reyes to take settlement payments and leave, ending most ranching there.
The Nature Conservancy also funded the settlement that it negotiated, and a series of remarkable stories in the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat began to reveal details in that effort that changed the appearance of TNC's intervention.
First, in January of 2025, the newspaper described the way The Nature Conservancy pitched the end of ranching at "swank private fundraisers involving high-profile Bay Area philanthropists," securing cash for "a settlement reached without public input and that is not subject to federal regulations." Through the instrument of legal action brought by a group of NGOs, private equity wrote checks to end 170 years of ranching on a piece of public land. Here, from the reporting of Press-Democrat writer John Beck, is what it looks like when a nonprofit works to influence the use of public resources:
Making the rounds in the affluent Marin County enclave of Ross on Jan. 12, 2023, they stopped by the house of Dan Kalafatas and his wife, Hadley Mullin. He is chairman of the global climate strategy company 3Degrees, and she is senior partner and senior managing director at the private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners. Together, they agreed early on to support the cause and to help raise funds and spread the word to their well-connected friends.
The Nature Conservancy's donors "hopped in a convoy of SUVs" for a private tour of Point Reyes, then later attended a fundraising dinner "at a $20 million, 7-bedroom estate in Ross, not far from the Lagunitas Country Club." There was valet parking, and the caterer provided ranch-themed cocktails. As Beck's second story in the series noted, the dinner was "a who's who of Bay Area entrepreneurs, investors, tech execs and venture capitalists," and one later told him that she looked around the room and "didn't see any Point Reyes ranchers or West Marin farmers, or really anyone she knew from West Marin."
And then a third story from John Beck in the Press-Democrat made the whole process very clear: The State of California had allocated $10 million to The Nature Conservancy to fund TNC's post-ranching management of the public land at Point Reyes, and had committed the funding long before the ranchers had agreed to the settlement. The neutral arbiter trying to convince the ranchers to settle and leave had a direct financial interest in their departure.
"In effect," Beck wrote, "state funding was already set aside to restore land that ranchers had not agreed to vacate." The Nature Conservancy officials told Beck that if the ranchers had not agreed to leave, they would have just used the money anyway to do other restoration work at Point Reyes. But they didn't claim that the ranchers had known about the state funding while they negotiated with the group that was set to receive it.
"When you pull back the curtain," a former Point Reyes rancher told Beck, "you start to maybe understand a little bit more about what happened."
And that's correct: you do start to maybe understand a little bit more. Private equity, NGOs, and government worked in partnership to produce an outcome that wasn't explained to people outside the circle they created. This story is about as California as it gets.
The purest California NGO story
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights is a nonprofit service provider that nestles up against a nonprofit political activist group, a helping people group that by the most remarkable coincidence also assists politicians in the pursuit of power while being lavishly funded by the governments those politicians run.
Or maybe it's this one, the purest form of the California NGO story.
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) marries all the themes together. It's a nonprofit service provider that nestles up against a nonprofit political activist group, a helping people group that by the most remarkable coincidence also assists politicians in the pursuit of power while being lavishly funded by the governments those politicians run.
In 2024, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass proudly announced that she had secured federal funding from the Biden administration so that local migrant support groups could provide housing and free stuff - "supportive services" - to new arrivals from other countries. The federal government's USA Spending website reports that CHIRLA got a $450,000 grant to provide "citizenship education and training."
At CHIRLA, that much government cash would barely register. Parsing public records, the Capital Research Center's InfluenceWatch offers a long list of government grants to the organization, mostly from one predictable source:
In 2023, CHIRLA received nearly $34 million in government grants, primarily from the State of California, accounting for roughly three-quarters of its $44.9 million in revenues. In 2022, CHIRLA received $25.6 million in government grants, more than 80 percent of its $31 million in revenues.
Among those grants were $1.28 million from the City Los Angeles between 2017 and 2025. And CHIRLA is also funded by the Los Angeles County Office of Immigrant Affairs. So they've run the table: CHIRLA gets paid by city, county, state, and federal governments.
Once again blurring boundaries, this NGO is lavishly funded by government - so really kind of a GO - also took in tremendous amounts of cash from philanthropic foundations: $3 million from the Weingart Foundation, $1,325,000 from the James Irvine Foundation, $2,275,000 from the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, and so on. Government and philanthropic tributaries run into the same financial rivers.
Funded in good part with taxpayer dollars, CHIRLA also has an affiliated political action fund (using the same name: CHIRLA Action Fund) that endorses candidates for public office, loudly and often, and then canvasses neighborhoods for its preferred candidates. Among many others in a long list, the leaders of CHIRLA recently stood alongside Xavier Becerra to endorse his campaign for California governor. CHIRLA also endorsed Eunisses Hernandez for L.A. City Council. And, of course, they endorsed Karen Bass for mayor while Bass proudly declares her commitment to finding CHIRLA more government funding.
Defending itself against allegations that it crosses boundaries between charity and politics, CHIRLA insists that it isn't involved in partisan questions and political campaigns. Instead, CHIRLA does "citizenship education" and "supportive services" while the CHIRLA Action Fund issues endorsements and provides campaign support.
That's true, so far as the letter of the law goes, but in spirit it gets more complicated.
Look up the IRS filings for both CHIRLA and the CHIRLA Action Fund and this is what you'll find: CHIRLA is a non-profit that's run out of an office at 2533 W. Third St., Suite 101, and the wholly separate CHIRLA Action Fund is a different organization that's run out of an office at 2533 W. Third St., Suite 101. If you have a question about CHIRLA, they list Zerihoun Yilma as their point of contact, while the CHIRLA Action Fund lists Zerihoun Yilma as their point of contact.
See, totally separate! Both are run by Angelica Salas, who also serves as a board member at the Latino Community Foundation and the California Wellness Foundation, while serving as a member of the state government's California Racial Equity Commission.
CHIRLA explicitly describes its "Immigrant Political Power Project" as an effort that "targets new citizens, Latinos, and English learners to build a voter base from scratch, with enough power to sway state politics."
Here's how they do that: "We reach out to these community members to build relationships, speaking with them in their language between four and seven times before election day about diverse issues - from their access to state safety-net programs to registering for the census."
And finally, the group calls the Immigrant Political Power Project "a joint project of CHIRLA and CHIRLA Action Fund," openly erasing the line between what are supposed to be separate organizations.
The conservative news website RedState frequently covers CHIRLA, with managing editor Jennifer Van Laar discussing (for example) allegations that the nonprofit organizes anti-ICE demonstrations and uses illegal immigrants to canvass neighborhoods for candidates.
Where does CHIRLA end and Democratic politics begin, and what boundaries sit between those things and government use of taxpayer dollars at every level? That's not a question that invites serious answers. A bowl of soup is eaten with one spoon.
Ruin is an industry
As California grows a laundry list of serious social failures, the one thing you absolutely can't blame is the availability of resources. "During Gavin Newsom's governorship," the Hoover Institution wrote in 2024, "California's state budget grew over 63 percent-
The California legislature passes somewhere north of a thousand bills every year, while considering about double that number, so there's not much time for committee hearings. Bills tend to get a few minutes of testimony, a witness or two in favor and a witness or two in opposition reading short statements into the record.
Then comes the unfortunate and hurried ritual known as the "me toos." Committees invite everyone who wants to speak to come to a microphone at the front of the hearing room, but the me toos are only allowed to say three things: name, organization, position. Speakers who try to wedge in a sentence as an actual argument - I'm opposed, because... - are quickly shut down.
Under a headline about legislators silencing witnesses, a 2025 story on the news website CalMatters described a legislative hearing on a proposed bear hunting bill in which witnesses traveled to the Capitol from all over the state and then had experiences like this one: "One of the bear bill's supporters, Elizabeth Washoe, took a day off work, filled up her vehicle with $5-plus a gallon gas before she left Modoc County and made the five-hour drive to the capital, only to be given a few seconds at the mic." This treatment tends to offend people, and legislators tend to not care at all.
The reality in California is that the me toos are giving the important testimony when they say the names of their organizations. That's the information the lawmakers are listening for, and it's all they need to hear. Bills advance on the basis of teams and relationships. Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, in favor. SEIU, in favor. Trevor Project, in favor. And the message is received.
To continue spooling out examples of the way California NGOs work is to keep telling the same story: blurred boundaries, cronyism and incestuous boundary-crossing, partisan power-seeking dressed up as a passion for social justice.
To talk about the controversies in California over election results being reversed a week after the election because of late-arriving ballots is to talk about ballot harvesting by public sector unions and "social justice" NGOs.
To talk about the legislature's pathological focus on anti-family bills is to talk about sexual identity activism from full-time activists at well-funded NGOs.
To talk about the decline of the cities and the ubiquity of homeless encampments and fatal overdoses on the street is to talk about "harm reduction" NGOs and the teams of "outreach workers" who spend their days getting paid to enable self-destructive behavior.
To talk about the middle-class being priced out of homes in California is to talk about the army of NGOs that exist to advocate for affordable housing, and the growing cost of building in the face of relentless professional activism that increases the costs of each new home.
Ruin is an industry.
As California grows a laundry list of serious social failures, the one thing you absolutely can't blame is the availability of resources. "During Gavin Newsom's governorship," the Hoover Institution wrote in 2024, "California's state budget grew over 63 percent, rising from around $200 billion in 2019 to about $327 billion in the current fiscal year ending June 30. After adjusting for inflation and California's population losses since 2019, this represents a 38 percent per person increase in real (inflation-adjusted) state government spending."
Perpetual growth in government spending, unbroken poverty rates, sticky and ubiquitous homelessness, appalling infrastructure, government-funded political activism for the people who govern the place. The client class is NGOs. The state's growth industry is buildings full of people who say they ensure access to justice.
As I write this, Governor Gavin Newsom is complaining that the FBI is talking to his friends. We don't know what they're looking for, but his former chief of staff has pleaded guilty to federal charges that she stole from political campaign funds to pay for a lavish lifestyle. She was joined in that scheme by a high-ranking staffer for Xavier Becerra, who will probably be the next governor. They see a pot of money and they assume it's for them: for their nice hotels, for their expensive dinners, for their living room furniture.
There's a reason for this kind of thinking in California, a state without boundaries. To understand the state and its decline, read a five year-old news story in the Los Angeles Times: "Facebook, Google, other corporate giants flooded Newsom with record $226 million in charity donations in 2020."
On its face, the headline doesn't make sense: How do corporations flood the governor of a state with charity donations? Does a governor run charities?
But the controversy over "behested payments" is precisely a crisis over the state's NGO cronyism. When you get into the details, here's what the actual donations look like:
Three organizations, including Silicon Valley Bank, collectively gave $175,000 this year on behalf of the governor to the California Partners Project, a nonprofit launched by First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom that focuses on promoting gender equity and understanding the impact of technology and media on children.
Large companies doing business in California gave money to the governor's wife through her non-profit, apparently because of their corporate commitment to "gender equity."
A little later, in 2024, the governor intervened in a dispute between Indian tribes over federal approval for a new casino, backing one tribe over another. You've already guessed the background, which the Washington Free Beacon discovered:
In April 2024, a few months before Newsom sent his letter to the Biden Interior Department, the Democratic governor requested Graton Rancheria to contribute $500,000 to his wife's charity, the California Partners Project. And in April 2025, one month before Newsom filed his lawsuit against the Trump administration, he again asked Graton Rancheria to contribute another $500,000 to his wife's charity.
As you can see, it's a very charitable state, and everyone is committed to helping.
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Chris Bray is a senior correspondent at The Federalist and a former infantry sergeant in the U.S. Army. He has a history PhD from the University of California Los Angeles,...
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Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-nonprofits-that-ate-the-california-dream/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Capital Research Center Issues InfluenceWatch Wrapup on July 17, 2026
WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following InfluenceWatch wrapup on July 17, 2026, by Jonathan Harsh:
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InfluenceWatch, a project of Capital Research Center, is a comprehensive and ever-evolving compilation of our research into the numerous advocacy groups, foundations, and donors working to influence the public policy process. The website offers transparency into these influencers' funding, motives, and connections while providing insight often neglected by other watchdog groups.
The information compiled in InfluenceWatch gives news outlets and other interested ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following InfluenceWatch wrapup on July 17, 2026, by Jonathan Harsh: * * * InfluenceWatch, a project of Capital Research Center, is a comprehensive and ever-evolving compilation of our research into the numerous advocacy groups, foundations, and donors working to influence the public policy process. The website offers transparency into these influencers' funding, motives, and connections while providing insight often neglected by other watchdog groups. The information compiled in InfluenceWatch gives news outlets and other interestedparties research to use in reporting on significant topics that are often overlooked by the American public.
CRC is pleased to present some of the most significant additions to InfluenceWatch in the past week:
* Western Resource Advocates (WRA) is an environmentalist advocacy group that has promoted left-of-center climate policies such as cutting carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and reducing water usage in western U.S states by 25 percent. The WRA has received funding from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, the Catena Foundation, the National Philanthropic Trust, and the United States Energy Foundation. It has made grants to organizations that include American Rivers, Faith in Action Nevada, One Apia Nevada, and the River Network.
* Asian Law Caucus (ALC) is a California-based advocacy group that provides legal services for Asian American and Pacific Islander communities within the state. The ALC has received funding from the Ford Foundation, the NEO Philanthropy Action Fund, the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, and the Foundation to Promote Open Society. The ALC has itself made grants to Chinese for Affirmative Action, the State Power Fund, the Asian Community Development Council, and Communities United For Restorative Youth Justice.
* Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT) is an environmental activist group that advocates in favor of policies to prevent the production and release of chemicals from industrial and military facilities in the state. In 2024, the group received $2 million from Yield Giving, a grantmaking organization founded by MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazonfounder and former CEO Jeff Bezos. ACAT has also received funding from the Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust, the Windward Fund, the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, and the Groundswell Fund.
* Center for an Urban Future (CUF) is a New York City-based think tank that researches and produces economic and environmental policy proposals for the city. The CUF has received funding from the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, the Robin Hood Foundation, the Tides Center, the New York Community Trust, the Tides Foundation, the Altman Foundation, the Clark Foundation, and the Bernard F. and Alva B. Gimbel Foundation.
* Faith in Place is a Chicago-based activist organization that works with religious and faith-based groups to promote left-of-center environmentalist policies. The group has received funding from the Lily Endowment, the Joyce Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and the Chicago Community Trust. It has made grants to the Chicago Votes Education Fund, the Illinois Environmental Council Education Fund, and Ceres, Inc..
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Jonathan Harsh holds a master's degree in political science from James Madison University and a bachelor's degree in political science from Beloit College.
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Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/influencewatch-friday-07-17-2026/
[Category: ThinkTank]
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InfluenceWatch, a project of Capital Research Center, is a comprehensive and ever-evolving compilation of our research into the numerous advocacy groups, foundations, and donors working to influence the public policy process. The website offers transparency into these influencers' funding, motives, and connections while providing insight often neglected by other watchdog groups.
The information compiled in InfluenceWatch gives news outlets and other interested ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 18 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following InfluenceWatch wrapup on July 17, 2026, by Jonathan Harsh: * * * InfluenceWatch, a project of Capital Research Center, is a comprehensive and ever-evolving compilation of our research into the numerous advocacy groups, foundations, and donors working to influence the public policy process. The website offers transparency into these influencers' funding, motives, and connections while providing insight often neglected by other watchdog groups. The information compiled in InfluenceWatch gives news outlets and other interestedparties research to use in reporting on significant topics that are often overlooked by the American public.
CRC is pleased to present some of the most significant additions to InfluenceWatch in the past week:
* Western Resource Advocates (WRA) is an environmentalist advocacy group that has promoted left-of-center climate policies such as cutting carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and reducing water usage in western U.S states by 25 percent. The WRA has received funding from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, the Catena Foundation, the National Philanthropic Trust, and the United States Energy Foundation. It has made grants to organizations that include American Rivers, Faith in Action Nevada, One Apia Nevada, and the River Network.
* Asian Law Caucus (ALC) is a California-based advocacy group that provides legal services for Asian American and Pacific Islander communities within the state. The ALC has received funding from the Ford Foundation, the NEO Philanthropy Action Fund, the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, and the Foundation to Promote Open Society. The ALC has itself made grants to Chinese for Affirmative Action, the State Power Fund, the Asian Community Development Council, and Communities United For Restorative Youth Justice.
* Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT) is an environmental activist group that advocates in favor of policies to prevent the production and release of chemicals from industrial and military facilities in the state. In 2024, the group received $2 million from Yield Giving, a grantmaking organization founded by MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazonfounder and former CEO Jeff Bezos. ACAT has also received funding from the Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust, the Windward Fund, the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, and the Groundswell Fund.
* Center for an Urban Future (CUF) is a New York City-based think tank that researches and produces economic and environmental policy proposals for the city. The CUF has received funding from the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, the Robin Hood Foundation, the Tides Center, the New York Community Trust, the Tides Foundation, the Altman Foundation, the Clark Foundation, and the Bernard F. and Alva B. Gimbel Foundation.
* Faith in Place is a Chicago-based activist organization that works with religious and faith-based groups to promote left-of-center environmentalist policies. The group has received funding from the Lily Endowment, the Joyce Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and the Chicago Community Trust. It has made grants to the Chicago Votes Education Fund, the Illinois Environmental Council Education Fund, and Ceres, Inc..
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Jonathan Harsh holds a master's degree in political science from James Madison University and a bachelor's degree in political science from Beloit College.
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Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/influencewatch-friday-07-17-2026/
[Category: ThinkTank]