MADIRD – Government-funded “journalists” in Germany are being ridiculed after a half-baked plan to “infiltrate” the Heartland Institute, a prominent American think tank, revealed that the organization does nothing wrong and does not take money to change its positions.
The tax-supported “reporters” with ZDF also targeted Naomi Seibt, a sweet German girl who rose to prominence by daring to expose the obvious problems with the man-made global-warming hypothesis and questioning other establishment narratives.
But finding no evidence of scandal or wrongdoing, the German climate alarmists posing as journalists ended up with egg on their faces.
Basically, during the UN “COP25” climate meetings, operatives with the publicly funded TV show Frontal 21 and “Correctiv” posed as lobbyists offering to pour a large sum of money into Heartland to help the organization expose the lies surrounding “climate change.”
Like any think tank in the world being offered funds to advance its mission, Heartland’s senior fellow for environment and energy policy James Taylor was happy to hear that there might be additional funds to further the organization’s policy agenda of free markets and sound science.
Taylor also mentioned that the Institute has worked with the Trump administration–as if working on policy, which is the objective of think tanks, were something sinister.
And he agreed to legally help the donors remain anonymous, something globalist billionaires do every day when they funnel money through groups such as the Sea Change Foundation, as the U.S. Congress and American law-enforcement agencies know very well.
(For conservatives and those who reject the UN-backed “climate emergency” hysteria, there are plenty of excellent reasons to want to remain anonymous–especially in the age of ANTIFA terrorism and political retaliation and other abuses against those who challenge the establishment.)
The attempted hit piece uncovered nothing of substance though–no scandals, no willingness to compromise the truth, no nothing.
And so, the main highlight of ZDF’s “reporting” was that they managed to dupe Taylor into believing them.
WOW!
It was sort of like James O’Keefe’s incredible undercover journalism through Project Veritas, except instead of exposing evil doers and baby butchers and Stalinist freaks working for Bernie Sanders, the German government’s propaganda broadcaster ZDF was the one that ended up looking foolish.
“I was quite amused earlier this week when I saw reports that a friendly acquaintance in Germany turned out to be a James O’Keefe wannabe,” explained Taylor. “The difference is that James O’Keefe actually reveals scandalous material from the inner workings of the groups he infiltrates. By contrast, the big headline from ‘Mathias’ is that he gained my trust – and then affirmed that we don’t engage in wrongdoing.”
“Thank you for proving that, Mathias,” added Taylor, using the fake name adopted by the German government’s propagandist.
Taylor, who leads Heartland’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy, pointed out that the messaging from Mathias and his “leftist media friends” showed that ZDF found nothing: “‘I duped James Taylor into believing I was a prospective donor,’ or ‘I got inside The Heartland Institute.'”
“OK, so I generally like people, am generally a trusting person, and am happy to talk with people,” continued Taylor. “None of the headlines or messaging are ‘Taylor offered to sell Heartland’s issue stances when offered big money’ or anything similar.”
He concluded: “I personally think Heartland should launch a public relations and fundraising campaign highlighting Mathias’ vindication.”
Both Taylor and Naomi had amazing responses. Check them out below!
Here is Naomi’s video response, with English subtitles:
Taylor, meanwhile, responded by putting out a hilarious email summarizing it all:
Hello XXXX,
Thank you for your email. I will provide an overview, as well as some comments on the article XXX attached. YYY, below, addressed a different article. By the way, YYY is entirely correct that I never said Heartland ‘can spread money-specific topics that the customer wants,’ especially because I don’t even know what that means.
Here is the background:
After giving a talk during the first day of the European Institute for Climate and Energy (German acronym EIKE) annual climate conference last November in Munich, a sharp-dressed German man in his 30s approached me and complimented me on my presentation. ‘Mathias’ was pleasant and intellectually sharp and he asked me all sorts of questions about climate and energy. He told me he advised and helped manage the financial affairs for a few wealthy philanthropists who were interested in the issue. Over the two days of the conference, we spoke several times and he asked more questions about the topic and about how his clients might donate to The Heartland Institute. I gave him the same answers I would give anybody, none of which were secret information.
He asked if he might sit in on our event in Madrid scheduled for a week later. I told him the event would be livestreamed and was not a live-audience event, but he would be welcome to attend live if he wished. After the event, he asked if we could talk some more. I invited him to join several of us planning on having dinner in the hotel lobby. Over the course of the dinner we spoke on a variety of topics related to climate change, energy, and the environment. As the dinner was winding down, he asked if we could talk privately because he would like to speak in more depth about how his clients could help support Heartland. Two of his inquiries were how Heartland was as influential as we are and how his clients could support Heartland in a manner that would ensure they were not identified and harassed by European leftists.
I happily shared with him some of the effective things we do, such as provide valuable news and information to legislators from our free-market perspective. I said our stories are much like the New York Times, except that we are open about the fact that we advocate a free-market perspective. The New York Times, by contrast, nefariously denies an agenda or ideological bias in its reporting. This successful model I have proudly shared with people in many public settings.
At some point, Mathias turned the conversation to the specifics of how his clients could donate to Heartland while retaining their anonymity. I noted that we don’t share the identity of our donors with anybody. He asked if there were additional measures a donor could take to maximize their desired privacy. I mentioned that there are donor-advised funds that donors can give to, with those funds then making the actual gift to the organization. I mentioned that there are donor-advised funds for free-marketers and leftists alike, with Donors Trust being one of the funds that works with free-market organizations.
Those are two of the points Mathias focused on, though we discussed many topics over a span of approximately 30 minutes. Although Mathias had pulled up seats at a side table for us, we were in the public lobby area of the hotel, where dozens of UN delegates and leftist NGO representatives were staying and mingling, and I felt no trepidation about saying any of this to whoever may be listening.
Over the next month or so, Mathias called me a few more times with more questions. He asked what type of product and impact Heartland could deliver with donor money. He also asked me if I could send him a brief description of our present and potential impact regarding the European climate, energy, and environmental debate, especially if a donor was willing to fund it. I sent a reply, making sure to emphasize, “Heartland’s positions do not change based on donations we receive, but donor money allows us to direct more resources to advocating issues we have in common with the donor.” (Funny how that didn’t make it into the story, LOL.) Soon after that, I was informed about the leftist article being published on my conversations with Mathias.
What the Leftist Moles Reported:
Upon hearing about the articles coming out in Germany, I honestly was not very concerned. I knew I had said nothing scandalous or even embarrassing. My only concern was that the leftists would lie about what I said or severely twist out of context what I said. They certainly twisted much of what I said, but even their twisted versions are far from scandalous.
The three ’embarrassing’ lines of attack were (1) I was duped into believing Mathias was a potential donor, (2) I explained how Heartland successfully provides valuable news with a free-market perspective, and (3) there are such things as donor-advised funds by which liberals and free-marketers alike can safeguard their privacy while donating to public policy organizations.
The headlines of the stories written by the German leftist media and blogs are ‘James Taylor of Heartland got duped by a pretend donor’ or ‘Here is a look inside the Heartland Institute.’ The reason why the headlines are not, ‘Heartland caught taking particular positions for money,’ or ‘Heartland caught engaging in misconduct’ is because neither of the latter two happened. Even the German leftist media and blogs implicitly admit this by not making any such claims or providing any such evidence. So, ultimately, the big ’embarrassment’ is that I gave an audience to somebody who convincingly presented himself as a potential large donor. And over several conversations over the span of more than a month, the mole was unable to unearth a single scandalous thing. Thus, the headline is simply, ‘James Taylor was duped into thinking our mole was a potential donor.’ OK, I guess that is mildly embarrassing. The real people who got punked, however, were the moles; they spent all that time, money, and energy, yet merely validated that we do things ethically and properly.
As a side note, much of what Frontal 21 alleges I said in the XXXX-supplied article is not true. For example, I am analytical by nature and almost always argue through logic rather than emotion. Anybody who has ever read my articles or seen me speak knows this. My asserted quote, “The people cannot be motivated by logical things, you have to argue emotionally,” is something I would never assert. I seem to recall Mathias might have made such an assertion, and perhaps I summarized what he was saying accordingly, but it is something I never asserted to Mathias. Also, Mathias never identified himself as a lobbyist, as the Frontal 21 article asserts. Not that such misrepresentations are that important, as even the false narrative is a far cry from scandalous or even embarrassing.
Naomi Seibt is hitting back at the German fraudsters pretty hard. They talked to Naomi quite a bit and tried to get dirt on her, but also with no success. I would also be happy to take the battle to them, pointing out and perhaps ridiculing them for going to such great lengths while digging up zero dirt,…..
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
James
See more from Naomi in Spain here: