Governor Ducey Shows Bipartisanship at Globalist Event In Sedona

Governor Ducey Shows Bipartisanship at Globalist Event In Sedona

By Corinne Murdock |

Over the weekend, leaders from across the world convened in Sedona for an annual event dedicated to collectively solving global issues: the McCain Institute’s Sedona Forum. Among them was Governor Doug Ducey.

A recap of the event focused on the word “democracy.” Featured speakers insisted on white supremacy’s hold on U.S. institutions, argued that the significance of 9/11 ended with January 6, lamented distrust in mainstream media, and proposed tactics for increasing aggression against Russia for invading Ukraine. 

While at the event, Ducey published a series of tweets declaring that Russia was attacking democracy and freedom by invading Ukraine. He commended the late senator, John McCain, for warning Americans about Russia and Vladimir Putin. Ducey didn’t mention NATO’s role in instigating the war. However, he did post a candid photo of his conversation with former NATO and Ukraine ambassador Kurt Volker.

Though Volker only served as NATO ambassador for one year, 2008 to 2009, he worked on NATO-related assignments beginning in 1998. Volker’s U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC) Ambassador position incited controversy due to former President Donald Trump’s investigatory attempts into President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China and Ukraine. 

Volker helped create Arizona State University’s (ASU) Ukrainian campus, American University Kyiv, which stalled at the end of February due to the Russian invasion. 

ASU President Michael Crow was also in attendance at the Sedona Forum. He co-hosted a panel with Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL-16) and The New Yorker writer Sue Halpern to discuss cybersecurity. 

In another photo, Ducey shook hands with Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).

Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) was also present at the Sedona Forum.

The event had moderators and reporter coverage provided by its “media partner,” The Washington Post — the very publication that doxxed the woman behind “Libs of TikTok,” the popular social media account relied on by parents and politicians for showcasing leftist ideologies and political trends. 

Two of Hollywood’s most elite celebrities, Angelina Jolie and Ben Affleck, were present and spoke at the forum. 

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

ASU ‘Integrity Project’s’ Hidden Past Raises Questions After Previous Attempts To Undermine Trump

ASU ‘Integrity Project’s’ Hidden Past Raises Questions After Previous Attempts To Undermine Trump

By Corinne Murdock |

Despite its name and alleged purpose, Arizona State University’s (ASU) The Integrity Project (TIP) appears to fall short on achieving honesty and transparency.

AZ Free News discovered that TIP was formerly a nonprofit established in the first year of former Donald Trump’s administration with the primary purpose of undermining the former president. Yet today, TIP describes itself as an “apolitical” nonprofit aimed at combating misinformation, with its core values rooted in transparency, impartiality, and honesty. 

“Our mission and our work are intended to be transparent to the public,” states TIP. “Malicious actors are undermining the stability of democracies, communities, families, and even friendships. We will fight back with the truth.”

Yet, TIP’s hidden past raises questions of transparency and intent for the ASU partner

“The Integrity Project was created due to a frustration with the politicization of the truth. What was once the foundation that unified our democracy, the facts themselves had become the very thing that could collapse our society,” reads the TIP members and partners page. “All of our founders and members set aside their personal beliefs in order to serve something bigger than themselves. Misinformation has eroded the foundation of our democracy, with manipulated facts becoming the catalyst for mistrust and division that has our society on the road to ruin. The purpose of The Integrity Project is to restore the legitimacy of information, and nothing more.” 

Initially, the nonprofit branded itself online as “Lead Not Greed” after September 2017, when its X (formerly Twitter) page launched. In the following months, it rebranded as the “Campaign for Accountability and Transparency,” and then “Make Integrity Great Again” (MIGA). Several websites were presented on the X profile at some points: “holddjtaccountable.org,” and then “makeintegritygreatagain.org.”

As of this publication, the MIGA url still redirects to TIP’s website. 

In June 2018, MIGA filed a widely-reported complaint attempting to revoke the liquor license for the Trump International Hotel on the basis that Trump allegedly lacked good character. The District of Columbia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board dismissed the request several months later.

“Donald Trump needs to choose: he can either be the president, or he can be a businessman, but he can’t be both. Lead Not Greed is fighting back by finally hitting Trump where it hurts — in the pocketbook,” stated the organization. 

The lawyer that filed suit on behalf of MIGA was Joshua Levy: partner at Levy Firestone, former counsel for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs as well as Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Around the middle of 2022, the MIGA website transitioned to TIP and existing social media slates were wiped clean. None of these changes were disclosed on TIP’s website or social media pages as of press time. In fact, prior posts by its past versions were wiped entirely. 

MIGA was established by Jerome “Jerry” Hirsch, a self-identified Republican, founder and longtime chairman of the Lodestar Foundation in Phoenix. Hirsch’s foundation has projects including ASU’s Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation, a partnership between ASU and the Kellogg Foundation, as well as an active partner in TIP; the Collaboration Prize, a contest recognizing the best nonprofit collaborations in the nation; and the Nonprofit Collaboration Database, an online database of more than 1,000 nonprofit collaborations, maintained in partnership with The Foundation Center. 

Hirsch was also one of the 2022 participants of the globalist Sedona Forum hosted by the McCain Institute.

Ten years ago, Hirsch was credited by the ASU Foundation as one of the principal “university founders” of the modern ASU, dubbed the “New American University.” Last December, Hirsch and ASU President Michael Crow were among those who signed onto the letter to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) petitioning for citizenship rights for illegal immigrants remaining in the U.S. under the protection of the DACA program.

Unlike his MIGA endeavor, it doesn’t appear that Hirsch has spawned a similar effort to counter President Joe Biden’s foreign business dealings.

TIP’s current board of directors doesn’t include Hirsch. Current board members are: 

  • Mi-Ai Parrish, overseer of Arizona PBS and Media Enterprise; former president and publisher of The Arizona Republic; a friend of Biden-appointed Ninth Circuit Court Judge Roopali Desai; former market president at USA Today
  • Wellington “Duke” Reiter, special advisor to Crow with responsibilities in higher education, sustainable urbanism, and advancement of the New American University
  • Barry Burden, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor, director of the Elections Research Center, and Lyons Family Chair in Electoral Politics; 
  • Byron Sarhangian, attorney for Snell & Wilmer;
  • Craig Krumwiede, president and CEO of Harvard Investments, founding member of Social Venture Partners Arizona (tied to Hirsch’s Lodestar Foundation);
  • Joe Blackbourn, founder of Everest Holdings

Blackbourn recently took credit for founding TIP, but made no mention of its past as MIGA. 

Despite MIGA’s newer presence online in 2018, with few followers and only two posts — as other users at the time pointed out — MIGA and its attempt to revoke Trump’s hotel liquor license gained the attention of other major leftist personalities such as Mindy SchwartzBill PradyJordan UhlLeah Greenburg, and Need to Impeach.

Although the website for MIGA said that their nonprofit was also named “Make Integrity Great Again,” the group used its former name, “Campaign for Accountability and Transparency,” as the primary identifier for all of its tax filings, dating back to the 2017 fiscal year. 

MIGA’s first tax filing showed that it was created on Sept. 14, 2017. That was the day that Trump signed a resolution condemning white supremacy and hate groups following his controversial remarks on the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“You know, you have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also,” said Trump.

That first year, MIGA spent over $184,600 to create a website “to educate the public concerning the importance of addressing the character of public officials and candidates, and promote integrity as the basic tenet of American democracy.” It gave over $121,500 to a New York-based nonprofit, Purpose Campaigns (now Purpose Foundation), to undertake full operations and management of their campaign.

In 2018, MIGA spent over $153,200 on its website and over $358,000 on research for undisclosed “potential future programs” and challenges of qualifying as a nonprofit, among which it noted was the creation of the MIGA name. MIGA also spent a combined $309,000 on legal services from two Washington, D.C. law firms: Zuckerman Spader and Cunningham Levy Muse.

MIGA listed its two other officers as Lois Savage, secretary, and Sandra Horn-Goul, treasurer. 

Savage and Hirsch have run the Lodestar Foundation since 1999; she was also the first executive director of a Lodestar spinoff, Social Venture Partners Arizona (of which TIP board member Krumwiede is a founder), and the initiator of the Arizona Grantmakers Forum. Savage served on former Gov. Janet Napolitano’s Interagency and Community Council on Homelessness.

Both Savage and Crow served on the 2009 Center for the Future of Arizona project “The Arizona We Want”: Crow on the steering committee, Savage as a critical reader.

Horn-Goul is the wife of the late Michael Goul, formerly ASU’s Department of Information Systems chairman and senior associate dean for faculty and research and professor of information systems.

TIP featured speakers this year have centered discussions on disinformation, misinformation about the 2022 election, media literacy and information quality, the spread of false beliefs through misinformation, and the anti-science nature of vaccine skepticism. 

In addition to events, TIP has a three-year plan: a two-year research project to monitor misinformation in Arizona, publication of a media literacy curriculum through ASU’s journalism school, and increasing dissemination of their research online. 

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.