Equally dismaying, the author finds, is Nader's backing from a crackpot group with ties to Pat Buchanan, Lyndon LaRouche, and Louis Farrakhan." Echoing Berlet (who had attacked Nader in 2000 for working with figures like conservative industrialist Roger Milliken), Hitchens charged that "[t]he Newman-Fulani group is a fascistic zombie cult outfit." Nader came under fire from the ADL that year for his own Middle East views. These criticisms of Newman's organizations contrast with other evaluations of the Newman-founded All Stars Project. In 2003, the Institute for Minority Education of Columbia University's Teachers College undertook an evaluation of All Stars programs that was coordinated and funded by All Stars Project staff and supporters. The 124-page report was based on extensive on-site observation of two of the All Stars programs, which were described as "an exemplary effort in a field that is bursting with creative activity" The evaluations authors noted that they had "not had access to data referable to the impact of these interventions on the short or long term behavioral development of learner participants. The report made only one brief reference (on page 9) to controversies regarding All Stars staff and volunteers being "involved in various political movements, most centrally Independent [sic] Party politics ... [w]hile sometimes used as a point of attack by unfriendly media, the political networking has given the All Stars Project access to some halls of power that would have otherwise been closed." The Columbia researchers noted on page 14 of their report that the political character of the All Stars program: "Although political activism is not an explicit part of the All Stars and the DSY curriculum, it is an outcome of the programs. Young people who are empowered to get what they want are also likely to fight for what they think is right ... [T]he participants and staff of the ASTSN/DSY (All Stars Talent Show Network/Development School for Youth) have developed policy approaches to working with youth that are practical, efficient, and successful. That they have also worked to develop some influence in the halls of power is a tremendous asset to the development of the programs—as well as to the political process, which needs all the direction it can get in developing and implementing policy." In 2006, the New York City Industrial Development Agency performed a review of the All Stars pursuant to an All Stars application for a bond. Several Democratic