Afraid of Food Activists, Big Food Is Increasingly Using Dirty Tricks

The egg industry has been using fake "humane treatment of chickens" certifications,
while the milk industry claimed milk "helps fight breast cancer." (Photo by Whitney)

By Martha Rosenberg
Officially, Big Food is not worried about the small number of “fringe” food activists who object to cruel, unhealthful and environmentally destructive products. But unofficially, it is a different story. American Egg Board CEO Joanne Ivy stepped down in apparent disgrace this fall when a 2013 email she wrote to a consultant saying the board was accepting “your offer to make that phone call to keep Just Mayo off Whole Foods shelves,” was revealed. Just Mayo is an egg-free and vegan product from San Francisco start-up Hampton Creek. Whole Foods still sells it.

Why is Ivy’s attempt to quash competition reason to step down? As a USDA commodity “checkoff” program, the egg board is a quasi-government agency not supposed to be playing dirty retail tricks.

US egg producers themselves have also been caught playing dirty tricks. To block growing public outrage over the profit-driven cruel practices of debeaking and forced molting of chickens, United Egg Producers (the trade group that represents 85 percent of US egg producers and 180 egg farms) rolled out an “Animal Care Certified” logo ten years ago to assure consumers that its members’ eggs were produced humanely.

The problem was–it wasn’t true. In 2005, the Better Business Bureau ruled that the label was misleading, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) demanded that the label read not “Care Certified” but “United Egg Producers Certified,” clarifying that there was no third party certification involved. United Egg Producers was also fined $100,000 and made to sign an agreement with attorneys general in sixteen states to settle the false advertising claims.

Statements from the dairy industry including its checkoff arm are also misleading. In addition to claiming milk helps fight breast cancer (that’s news to oncologists) the Fluid Milk Board told Congress a few years ago it was promoting milk to address “the high incidence of high blood pressure among African Americans.” It also said being lactose-intolerant was no reason to abstain from milk and even called milk a diet food which drew it government censure. In 2007, the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection directed milk promoters to stop the weight-loss claims “until further research provides stronger, more conclusive evidence of an association between dairy consumption and weight loss.”

Susan Ruland, National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board spokesperson, objected. “There’s a strong body of scientific evidence that demonstrates a connection between dairy and weight loss,” she said. After the FTC clampdown, ads claimed that low-fat dairy products do not necessarily add weight and may have “certain nutrients that can help consumers meet dietary requirements”–pretty much the definition of “food.”

Then the ads went negative and bashed the competition. “Soft drinks and other sweetened beverages are now the leading source of calories in a teen’s diet and these nutrient-void beverages are increasingly taking the place of milk,” they charged.

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5 Times More Political Cash Floating Around Than in 2012: Super PACs and Dark Money Groups Spending Reaching New Heights

By Robert Maguire and Will Tucker
Political organizations working to influence the 2016 elections outside the party or official campaign structure had spent more than $25.1 million as of Sept. 21. That’s an increase of more than 34 percent over their counterparts at this point in the 2014 midterm elections — and a five-fold leap over their outlays by this date in the last presidential cycle, a Center for Responsive Politics review of Federal Election Commission data shows.​

If any type of group is in vogue, it’s the “single-candidate” committee, according to FEC data, and that means a boon for conservative groups in terms of sheer spending power. Of the 40 organizations that have spent the most so far in the 2016 cycle — a list that includes political nonprofits, super PACs and business associations — more than half are dedicated to one candidate and one race. The same is true of the top 20 biggest spenders, which includes 11 single-candidate groups.

The rise of single-candidate operations gives conservative organizations an edge in a presidential race marked by a large crop of Republican presidential candidates. Of the 20 biggest spenders, just one has a liberal viewpoint: the establishment-Democrat-backing Senate Majority PAC.

In 2013, back when single-candidate groups spent just under $2.7 million before September, 14 of the top 20 biggest spenders had supported liberal candidates or opposed conservative ones.

The super PAC supporting Chris Christie, America Leads, is at the head of the pack in terms of spending this time around, having laid out $4.7 million to support the New Jersey governor’s bid for the GOP nomination. Right to Rise, the super PAC that had raised more than any other as of mid-year — four times more than all super PACs combined at this point in 2012 — has reported spending $2 million to back Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida. But Right to Rise reportedly is shelling out a whopping $24 million for ads in Iowa and New Hampshire that began running last week; that money is just beginning to show up in FEC reports.

Democrats know how far they’re down, and essentially admitted to the FEC two weeks ago that though they deem some of Republicans’ tactics legally questionable, they’ll do the same if given the green light.

Meanwhile, as of mid-September 2015, groups with the single-candidate designation have spent $16.2 million. That’s more than 55 times as much as the 2012 generation spent at this point and outpaces 2014’s single-candidate super PACs by $14 million. Single candidate groups would go on to spend $269 million by the end of the 2012 cycle, and $62.6 million in 2014.

Having yet to spend even 6 percent of what they have reported raising, single-candidate groups have cash stockpiled for ad buys, voter calls and mailers, regardless of the course Democrats choose.

“Dark money” advantages

Republican advantages may go beyond sheer numbers. In “America Next,” Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) has the backing of the first single-candidate “dark money” group to report spending to FEC this cycle. This 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, which can accept unlimited donations without revealing donors’ names, is one of several functioning almost as de facto arms of the campaigns themselves, continuing a trend that began only in 2014.

While Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, have single-candidate super PACs providing them big-money firepower this cycle from sources that are disclosed to the public, they have not yet taken the step of incorporating single-candidate dark money organizations into the mix. That’s not to say that liberal dark money groups are entirely silent: Planned Parenthood has reported spending $74,057 attacking Clinton’s opponents.

America Next has already helped Jindal in a least a couple of ways: The group bought $340,537 in television ads explicitly supporting Jindal’s candidacy for president after months of paying Jindal’s travel bills as he jetted around the country giving policy speeches before declaring himself a candidate.

Most of the Republican candidates, like Jindal, are backed by politically active nonprofits set up to provide donors an anonymous avenue to support a candidate, and some — in particular the pro-Rubio Conservative Solutions Project — have spent heavily on ads supporting their candidate. By framing its support for Rubio as issue ads, though, Conservative Solutions has avoided having to report that spending to the FEC.

But for some of the multi-candidate “dark money” groups, even their FEC-reported spending is higher than in 2014. Americans for Prosperity, for example, never reported spending to the FEC before May of an election year. But as of Sept. 21, more than a full year before the 2016 election, the group has spent $1.6 million, according to its reports to the agency, making it the fifth-highest-ranking outside spending group so far this cycle.

By early September 2014 — just two months before the midterm elections — AFP, known for taking advantage of loopholes in the reporting rules, had already run more than 30,000 ads in states with contentious Senate races, according to data from the Wesleyan Media Project, yet it had only reported two expenditures totaling $409,225 to the FEC.

Organizations that do not disclose their donors have already reported spending more than $4.6 million this cycle — up from $2 million at this point in 2014 and just $313,505 at this point in 2012. Overall, expenditures by nondisclosing dark money groups makes up nearly 20 percent of all reported outside spending so far in 2016, not including spending by the parties. That’s up considerably from less than 7 percent at this point in 2012.

Hot races for outside spenders

Both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Prosperity have spent money attacking former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who is running for Senate, but the Chamber has been running explicit vote-for or vote-against ads in several other races as well.

The Chamber has reported spending during the odd-numbered years in the last three cycles, but the totals have exploded: from $30,000 and $100,000 over the full years of 2009 and 2011 to $949,401 in all of 2013. Now, less than three-quarters of the way into 2015, the Chamber’s reported outlays come to $3 million.

Meanwhile, among super PACs, it’s Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) — deemed by both parties to be vulnerable in a presidential election year in a light-blue state — who’s at the center of a battle already underway. The Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC spent nearly $600,000 against Ayotte through Sept. 14. The Republican-backing ESA Fund, formerly Ending Spending Action Fund, countered with nearly $500,000 to prop up Ayotte. Spending there, as elsewhere, will surely increase.

It’s clear from the data that spending has ratcheted up at a pace not seen in previous cycles — but the cycle is still very young. Around this time in the 2014 midterms, for example, CRP reported that liberal dark money groups were dominating; by the time the cycle was over, though, the ideological pendulum had swung waaaay back to the right.

 
Reprinted with permission from Open Secrets.

Presidential Candidates Controlled by Shadow Puppets: Outside Groups Pulling the Strings in 2016 Election

Ostensibly independent groups reported to have close ties to a candidate account for 96 percent of total outside fundraising

This explosion of outside money, the vast majority of it not subject to contribution limits, is a consequence of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, says the Brennan Center. (Photo: Alexander Harbich/flickr/cc)

By Deirdre Fulton
Representing a "fundamental shift in how presidential campaigns are funded in the United States," so-called shadow campaigns are already dominating the 2016 election cycle, according to a new study issued Tuesday by the Brennan Center for Justice.

The report, Shadow Campaigns: The Shift in Presidential Campaign Funding to Outside Groups, reveals that ostensibly independent groups—many of which in reality enjoy close ties to individual candidates—have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, greatly outpacing the candidates' own campaign committees.

Furthermore, the study finds, 95 percent of the outside money, or $270 million, has been collected by groups not subject to contribution limits, raising questions "about whether big donors are attempting an end-run around the strict limits on contributions to candidates' formal campaign committees."

"The advantage of funds raised through unlimited-contribution groups is obvious," the report explains. "One wealthy donor can write a check for millions. Campaign committees, on the other hand, are limited to donations of $2,700 for the primary election. In theory, candidates are not permitted to 'coordinate' with groups that can raise unlimited funds. But with flawed coordination rules that go almost entirely unenforced, in reality the path is open for candidates to work closely with, and even exert control over, supportive outside groups—even to the point of assigning close advisers to run them."

This explosion of outside money, the vast majority of it not subject to contribution limits, is a consequence of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, says the Brennan Center.

"In Citizens United, the Supreme Court argued we don’t need to worry about outside spending because it’s independent—it can’t corrupt candidates because they don’t control it," said Ian Vandewalker, author of the report and counsel in the Brennan Center's Democracy Program.

"But the biggest money in this election is going to the outside groups that seem to be the least independent, by any common-sense understanding of that word," he continued. "When candidates fundraise for outside groups, give up former staff to run those groups, or count the groups' money in their own fundraising announcements, everyone knows what’s going on."

While the report shows Republicans generally benefiting more than Democrats from shadow campaigns, the candidate who benefited the most from this trend is clearly former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is running for the Republican nomination. Shadow campaign groups supporting Bush and benefiting from his fundraising efforts—namely the Right to Rise Super PAC—took in $108.5 million, a record-breaking amount that is almost 10 times the $11.4 million raised by his campaign.

What's more, the report points out, "despite the massive sums reported here, we know that our analysis underestimates the true extent of fundraising by outside groups, including those that are not subject to contribution limits and may have ties to their favored candidate, because 'dark money' organizations have not yet been required to report their revenue."

At least one presidential candidate has shunned help from such shadow campaigns. Over the weekend, Democratic White House hopeful Bernie Sanders called for public funding of elections as a way to "allow people to run for office without having to beg money from the wealthy and the powerful."

Referring to Citizens United, Sanders said: "We must overturn that decision before it's too late. We are increasingly living in an oligarchy where big money is buying politicians."

Reprinted with permission from Common Dreams.

Wanna Know Why Obama Doesn't Stand For Anything? — Look At The People Surrounding Him: Ex-Top Obama Aides Now in the Business Of Undermining Unions

Photo by Lady Buffalo.

By Steven Rosenfeld
Another top Obama presidential campaign consultant has crossed over to the dark side, not merely becoming a lobbyist but signing on with a decidedly un-progressive cause: working for Uber and against organized taxi driver unions.

“We’re in a political campaign, and the candidate is Uber, and the opponent is an asshole named Taxi,” Travis Kalanick, Uber’s CEO, said at a tech conference in May. “Nobody likes him, he’s not a nice character, but he’s so woven into the political machinery and fabric that a lot of people owe him favors.”

Enter David Plouffe, Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign manager and then a senior White House advisor. On Tuesday, Plouffe signed a contract to work as a top political strategist for Uber, the ride-networking company that helps people make money by ferrying passengers. Uber is in a nasty fight with the unionized taxi industry, which is heavily regulated and more costly to operate. Uber was valued at $17 billion in June and has been assembling its own political army, the Daily Beast reported.

“I could not be more excited to join such a vibrant company and its people who will be at the absolute leading edge of tomorrow’s innovations and changing people’s lives and their cities for the better,” Plouffe said in an Uber blog post, announcing he will become senior vice president for policy and strategy. “It will be a privilege to jump in the foxhole with the team.” Plouffe is the fourth highest ranking ex-Obama campaign consultant to sign on with anti-labor clients, according to Buzzfeed.com, which noted that Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign manager, Jim Messina, left to work for England's Conservative Party, whose platform includes outlawing strikes.

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Criminalizing A Generation: Anti-Marijuana Movement is Funded by Private Prisons, Law Enforcement, Big Pharma and Alcoholic Beverage Companies

Photo by Hammerin Man.

By Noel Brinkerhof
Legalized marijuana may have taken root in Colorado and Washington, but that doesn’t mean it has to spread to other parts of the country, as far as a bevy of special interests are concerned.

Some of the most lucrative and powerful industries in America oppose marijuana decriminalization because it threatens their financial bottom-line or jobs for their workers. Five different interest groups form the backbone of the anti-pot campaign, according to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks political spending.

First, there’s the spirits, wine and beer companies. Legalized marijuana represents a direct threat to this industry’s business model. The more people can legally smoke a bud, the less need they’ll have to buy a Bud. Four years ago, the California Beer and Beverage Distributors contributed $10,000 to help defeat California’s Proposition 19, which sought to legalize recreational marijuana in the state.

Law enforcement groups also want to maintain criminal penalties for pot possession. If the country stops waging its war on drugs, including marijuana, fewer government dollars will flow to police efforts to address this public policy issue. Municipalities will also receive less money from property seized in drug raids.

Others in the criminal justice world that want to keep the status quo of locking up marijuana offenders are private prison operators and prison guard unions. States that legalize marijuana use are likely to experience a decline in prison populations—and that will reduce the need for government to hire private prison companies and correctional officers.

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Heartland Institute Head Reluctantly Stands by Earlier Denial of Cigarette Smoking Risks - His Current Job is 'Debunking' Climate Change

Heartland president Joe Bast: (Screen capture from YouTube video)

Just as the group is now known for its over the top attacks on climate scientists, Heartland once played a large role in criticizing public health experts and others calling attention to the dangers of cigarette smoking.

By Nick Surgey
Before the Heartland Institute became famous for its leading role in climate change denial, the group spent many years working to defend the tobacco industry. Just as the group is now known for its over the top attacks on climate scientists, Heartland once played a large role in criticizing public health experts and others calling attention to the dangers of cigarette smoking.

At a mining conference in Denver earlier this month, Republic Report spoke to the Heartland president Joe Bast about his past support for the tobacco industry. In an opinion column titled "Five Lies About Tobacco," Bast once repeatedly claimed that health concerns regarding cigarette smoking were overblown and worth ignoring. At first, Bast denied that he had ever dismissed concerns about smoking and disputed the quote we read to him.

"In 1998, you wrote in a Heartland op-ed that smoking cigarettes has little to no adverse health effects," we noted. "Do you stand by that?"

"No, I never wrote that," replied Bast. "Why would I have written something like that?" Bast asked to see the op-ed, and promised to "contest" it.

Later, Republic Report returned and read Bast's op-ed to him. Watch the video below:

After reading his op-ed to him — which claimed moderate smoking is not deadly and has "few, if any adverse health effects" — Bast then reaffirmed his comments, but hedged, arguing that he meant "one or two cigarettes a day or week." We read another line from his piece, which at the time claimed up to seven cigarettes a day does not raise the risk of lung cancer. Bast again confirmed his sentiment.

Heartland has gone to great lengths to argue that its attacks on public health or climate science are not motivated by the vast amounts of funding it receives from industry groups. But again, the tobacco wars are an instructive reminder of Heartland's agenda.

After litigation forced the disclosure of thousands of tobacco company documents, many Heartland letters to companies such as Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds were exposed to the public.

"Heartland does many things that benefit Philip Morris' bottom line," Bast once wrote to Roy Marden, the Manager of Industry Affairs for Philip Morris Management in a letter seeking $35,000 in contributions for Heartland from the tobacco company.

His evidence? A litany of reports, opinion pieces, and new articles placed by Heartland in defense of the tobacco industry and in opposition to those seeking to highlight the health risks associated with smoking.

"Heartland has devoted considerable attention to defending tobacco," wrote Bast in the letter. He pointed to several examples, including "two of my essays, titled 'Five Lies About Tobacco' and 'Joe Camel is Innocent.'"

Reprinted with permission from PRWatch.

National Rifle Association Has Neo-Nazis On Its Board—Yet Still Has Enough 'Legitimacy' To Block Surgeon General Nominee

Wayne LaPierre - Lobbyist Loaded for Bear.
CEO and the Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association.
(Illustration by DonkeyHotey)

By Lisa Mascaro

Intense opposition from the National Rifle Assn. has all but doomed prospects for President Obama's nominee for surgeon general, officials said Saturday as pro-gun Senate Democrats peeled away from the White House on a volatile issue in an election year.

RELATED STORY: NRA Board Member's Latest Racial Trick — "If You Know You Are A Committed White Racist -
Deflect Attention, By Calling Black Folks Racist"

Facing a potential high-profile setback for the president, the White House is not pushing for a vote to confirm Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy, a Harvard- and Yale-educated internist and former emergency room doctor who has advocated for stricter gun control laws, the officials said.

Democratic leaders in the Senate have begun surveying senators to determine whether there is enough support to save the troubled nomination. Few Republicans are expected to back Murthy, and as many as eight Democrats also could be opposed.

Ted Nugent, NRA Board Member: The fact that he knows he can get kudos from
some gun owners by playing the racist fool tells you all you need to know about
the NRA and right-wing gun owners. Yet the NRA gets easy access to any and all
politicians. (Illustration by DonkeyHotey)

"We don't expect a vote to happen," a Senate aide said.

RELATED STORY: The GOP, Race and Ted Nugent — If you won’t Denounce Nazi Insults,
What does that Say about You?

The divide between the White House and the president's party has widened in recent weeks as Obama's low poll numbers leave Democrats increasingly concerned about their chances in the November midterm election and whether they could lose their majority in the Senate.

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Push To Re-Establish Slavery By Wisconsin Republicans: Propose 7-Day Work Week At Behest of Business Lobby

Set of shackles, late 18th century - from Tamale, Ghana.
(Photo by Rept0n1x)

Wisconsin Republicans propose 7-day work week at behest of business lobby (via Raw Story )

A pair of Republican legislators in Wisconsin are circulating a draft of a bill that would allow a 7-day work week for the state’s workers. According to the Stephen Points Journal newspaper, the two lawmakers are floating the bill on behalf of the…

Americans for Responsible Leadership Wholly Funded by Koch-Linked Group

ARL's President, Kirk Adams (Photo by Gage Skidmore)

By Viveca Novak
Americans for Responsible Leadership -- one of the political nonprofits involved in a scheme last year that California authorities called political "money laundering" -- spent more than $25.2 million last year, roughly a 13-fold increase over the $1.8 million it spent in the non-election year 2011.

And ARL received almost all its revenues -- 97.6 percent -- from a single organization linked to billionaire conservatives Charles and David Koch, the Center to Protect Patient Rights, making it practically a wholly-owned subsidiary of the latter group. In that sense it's similar to another 501(c)4 nonprofit, American Future Fund, which obtained 92 percent of its 2012 funds from CPPR and one other Koch-linked group.

ARL spent nearly $9.8 million in the 2012 elections, including $3.2 million against President Obama's re-election bid, according to reports it filed with the Federal Election Commission. The rest was spent supporting Obama's rival, GOP nominee Mitt Romney, and 20 other Republican candidates, most of whom were running for Senate seats.

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That's close to what the group told the IRS it spent on political activity in its annual tax filing covering 2012, which was obtained by OpenSecrets Blog: almost $9.9 million. ARL also gave $11 million to a group working on a California ballot measure and nearly $1.4 million to organizations fighting two Arizona ballot initiatives.

National Rifle Association: Gunpowder and Blood on Their Cold, Dead Hands

Wayne LaPierre - Lobbyist Loaded for Bear.
CEO and the Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association.
(Illustration by DonkeyHotey)

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

This grim anniversary of the Newtown, Conn., killings, with 28 dead, reminded us of that moment back in 2000 when Charlton Heston made his defiant boast at the NRA convention that gun control advocates would have to pry his rifle from his “cold, dead hands.” You would have thought he had returned to that fantasy world of Hollywood where, in a previous incarnation, he portrayed those famous Indian killers Andrew Jackson and Buffalo Bill Cody, whose Wild West, as Cody marketed it, still courses through the bloodstream of American mythology.

For sure, Heston wasn’t channeling his most famous role, as Moses in The Ten Commandments, striding down from Mount Sinai with a stone tablet on which had been chiseled God’s blueprint for a civilized society, including, “Thou Shalt Not Kill!”

But the Good Lord seems not to have anticipated the National Rifle Association, its delegates lustily cheering Heston as his demagoguery brought them to their feet. Started after the Civil War by two former officers of the Union army who were disconsolate that their troops had shown such poor marksmanship in battle, its purpose was to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis.”


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The National Rifle Association: Gunpowder and Blood on Their Cold, Dead Hands

Gunpowder and Blood on Their Cold, Dead Hands (via Moyers & Company)

This grim anniversary of the Newtown, Conn., killings, with 28 dead, reminded us of that moment back in 2000 when Charlton Heston made his defiant boast at the NRA convention that gun control advocates would have to pry his rifle from his “cold,…

ALEC at 40: Turning Back the Clock on Prosperity and Progress in the United States - CMD Special Report

For this report, which focuses on ALEC’s 2013 legislative agenda, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) researched five areas: 1) Voter ID and Stand Your Ground legislation, 2) wages and worker rights, 3) public education, 4) the environment, and 5) citizen access to the courts. Research continues on other areas of ALEC’s agenda. Key Findings:

ALEC's having a big party - at our expense.

    •   CMD identified 466 ALEC bills from the 2013 session. 84 of these passed and became law. ALEC bills were introduced in every state in the nation and the District of Columbia in 2013. The top ALEC states were West Virginia (25 bills) and Missouri (21 bills).

    •    Despite ALEC’s effort to distance itself from Voter ID and Stand Your Ground by disbanding its controversial Public Safety and Elections Task Force, 62 of these laws were introduced: 10 Stand Your Ground bills and 52 bills to enact or tighten Voter ID restrictions. Five states enacted additional Voter ID restrictions, and two states passed Stand Your Ground.

    •    CMD identified 117 ALEC bills that affect wages and worker rights. 14 of these became law. These bills included so-called “Right to Work” legislation, part of the ALEC agenda since at least 1979, introduced in 15 states this year. Other bills would preempt local living or minimum wage ordinances, facilitate the privatization of public services, scrap defined benefit pension plans, or undermine the ability of unions to organize to protect workers.

    •    CMD identified 139 ALEC bills that affect public education. 31 of these became law. Just seven states did not have an ALEC education bill introduced this year. Among other things, these bills would siphon taxpayer money from the public education system to benefit for-profit private schools, including the “Great Schools Tax Credit Act,” introduced in 10 states.

ALEC wants American Justice weighted in favor of rich.

    •    CMD identified 77 ALEC bills that advance a polluter agenda. 17 of these became law. Numerous ALEC “model” bills were introduced that promote a fossil fuel and fracking agenda and undermine environmental regulations. The “Electricity Freedom Act,” which would repeal state renewable portfolio standards, was introduced in six states this year.

    •    CMD identified 71 ALEC bills narrowing citizen access to the courts. 14 of these became law. These bills cap damages, limit corporate liability, or otherwise make it more difficult for citizens to hold corporations to account when their products or services result in injury or death.

Read the full report with charts of ALEC bills HERE.

Reprinted with permission from PRWatch.