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Friday Interview: Professional Bias Toward Global Warming Alarmism

SOme people worry that global warming is a huge threat to our future. Others believe the danger has been oversold. Richard Stroup, adjunct professor of economics at N.C. State University, delivered a presentation this year to the John Locke Foundation’s Shaftesbury Society titled “Climate Change and People: Views from the Sciences and History.” Stroup also discussed the topic with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)

Kokai: One of the key pieces of your presentation dealt with this idea that people, even with the best of intentions in addressing this issue of global warming and climate change, might come up with ideas and policy proposals that would be counterproductive at best and very harmful at worst. How does that happen?

Stroup: Well, inevitably, as Adam Smith taught us a long time ago as a moral philosopher, people have the ability to see and understand what goes on right around them, but the other 99.99 percent of the people on the planet that are farther away from them, that they don’t see and interact with, it’s very difficult for them to have any idea what those folks are going through or how they might be impacted by something that the decision maker might do. So everybody has what Justice Stephen Breyer calls tunnel vision. It’s absolutely inevitable.

:{It’s simply a matter of limitation of what we know and how much we can think about, so that I as an economist understand that economics is an extraordinarily important topic for students to study in university, or high school for that matter. If they don’t understand some economic principles, they’re going to be making bad mistakes for themselves and for everybody else down the road.

Now, by the same token, the professor of music probably understands that music is very important, that students who can understand music properly can lead a much more satisfying life and probably be better people. And that may be true. Now I as an economist know that mine is still more important! But again, we just naturally have something like tunnel vision because we can’t possibly have anything like knowledge of what everybody else is thinking about.}:

Kokai: So let’s apply this to climate science. A scientist working in this field sees data that suggest to that scientist that manmade contributions to carbon dioxide emissions are leading us to a path where we’re going to have a dangerous level of warming. So the recommendations are for policies that would reduce these CO2 emissions. What could be wrong in the process from going from the basic scientific data to these policy recommendations?

Stroup: The problem is that, because they believe their science and the possibilities they’re working on are very important, and the questions they’re looking at are very, very important — and that, by the way, helps to justify better funding for them — but again, if they really believe that what they’re doing is highly important, then there’s not very much conflict as they move from understanding that things could be as bad as this.

Maybe there’s only a 5 percent chance of it happening, but one time in 20 it could happen, and surely we want to avoid that because it could possibly be quite bad if that did come to pass. Well, they’re going to likely talk about that as something we just have to care about, and the way to get that kind of attention is to not say that there’s a 5 percent chance this is going to happen, but to say that I’m almost certain that this is a real possibility, and that we just can’t take a chance. We have to fund the research that will let us avoid that problem, and, meanwhile, we had better shut off the potential source of the problem.

Kokai: In discussing this in your presentation to the John Locke Foundation’s Shaftesbury Society, you made the point that when the scientist goes from the data and what the data showed, to these recommendations, they’re often getting into the realm of economics whether they know about it or not. What kind of problems does that create when one of these scientists starts making arguments that ought to be left to economic analysis?

Stroup: The problem is, of course, that they know that in order to get more attention, the problem — it very much helps if the problem is seen in the most distressing possible light that will get the attention to give force to their recommendations. It will also give force to their requests for more funding, and those are two powerful motives. And when an economist starts fooling around in their backyard, so to speak — at least that’s how they’re viewing it — they don’t like the idea of comparing the ideas that they are working toward versus the outcomes that some other scientist is working toward.

For example, meteorologists don’t like it when the astrophysicists come in with a different explanation of why we’ve had a lot of — we’ve had a significant amount of global warming in the last 100 to150 years; in fact, even more in the last 200 years — but whether or not it has to do with CO2 is another question. And the astrophysicists can show you much better correlations as a matter of fact with sunspots than the meteorologists can with greenhouse gases.

And so that disturbs them, and they do not want to let go of the idea that, “Boy, the problem I’m working on is really, really important, and even if we’re not sure that this is the best explanation, it may be, and it’s worth finding out, and we need big-time funding,” and that means it needs to be trumpeted as a big-time problem that they’re working on.

Kokai: Even if they had the proper explanation of what’s causing global warming, is there a problem when you don’t have a cost/benefit analysis of trying to do something about it?

Stroup: When you’re a policymaker, if you’re trying to help, not just this person or that person, not just this worthy goal or that worthy goal, but you’re trying to consider them all at the same time, then the very imperfect kind of analysis — in fact benefit/cost is imperfect — but that is better than nothing at all. And it’s a whole lot better than nothing at all, and it makes you ask the right questions and hopefully thereby avoid some of the worst policy errors.

You can go after a really nice goal, whether it’s more wilderness or less CO2, or more money for a particular hospital, but what are you giving up? And if you don’t ask the question of what we’re giving up when we do that, what other worthy goals are out there, it’s very difficult to do good benefit/cost analysis. A meteorologist untrained in policy analysis or economics is not going to do a very good job of it. But they’re not so much interested in benefit/cost analysis as they are letting people understand — forcing them to understand, if possible — that their job is so important it must be funded appropriately, which means more.

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Carolina Journal is a non-partisan news service of the John Locke Foundation, committed to the highest level of journalistic quality, following the facts wherever they lead. Our coverage is delivered from a free-market, limited government perspective, with the interests of the taxpayer and voter at the center of our reporting.

Founded in 1991, CJ has been a pioneer in nonprofit journalism publishing thousands of fact-based articles on politics, education, health care, regulations, taxes, and other issues. In addition to news, CJ offers readers in-depth investigative stories, polling, cartoons, commentary, video interviews, and analysis.

Our newly revamped CarolinaJournal.com website covers North Carolina politics and policy daily. Over the last year, Carolina Journal Online served more than 500,000 unique visitors. In addition, Carolina Journal’s print edition has a statewide print circulation of more than 40,000. According to a recent survey by an independent consulting firm, Carolina Journal is read by more than three-quarters of North Carolina’s “influentials” — politicians, government staffers, lobbyists, CEOs, journalists, civic leaders, and political activists.

CJ reporters and editors contribute weekly to radio and television news programs across the state and have a solid social media presence, offering up-to-the-minute news and analysis.

Our latest project, The Debrief, brings viewers a weekly wrap of state politics and policy in a lively YouTube show featuring the reporters of Carolina Journaland hosted by CJ’s editor-in-chief, Donna King.

CJ is a leader in investigative journalism in North Carolina. It has exposed corruption, conflicts of interest, and misuse of public funds by public officials, including members of Congress and members of the North Carolina General Assembly.

For more information on Carolina Journal, please get in touch with us at editor@carolinajournal.com

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The John Locke Foundation (JLF) is a right-wing pressure group based in North Carolina. Created in 1990, it describes itself as "an independent, nonprofit think tank that would work 'for truth, for freedom, and for the future of North Carolina.'"[1] It is an affiliate member of the State Policy Network (SPN).[2]

JLF publishes the monthly Carolina Journal a right-wing nonprofit news site.

Contents

News and Controversies

JLF Called Out for Blocking Action on Climate Change

In July of 2016, nineteen U.S. Senators delivered a series of speeches denouncing climate change denial from 32 organizations with links to fossil-fuel interests, including the John Locke Foundation.[3] Sen. Whitehouse (RI-D), who led the effort to expose "the web of denial" said in his remarks on the floor that the purpose was to,

:{"shine a little light on the web of climate denial and spotlight the bad actors in the web, who are polluting our American discourse with phony climate denial.

This web of denial, formed over decades, has been built and provisioned by the deep-pocketed Koch brothers, by ExxonMobil, by Peabody coal, and by other fossil fuel interests. It is a grim shadow over our democracy in that it includes an electioneering effort that spends hundreds of millions of dollars in a single election cycle and threatens any Republican who steps up to address the global threat of climate change. . . . [I]t is long past time we shed some light on the perpetrators of this web of denial and expose their filthy grip on our political process. It is a disgrace, and our grandchildren will look back at this as a dirty time in America’s political history because of their work.”[3]}:

Koch Wiki
Charles Koch is the right-wing billionaire owner of Koch Industries. As one of the richest people in the world, he is a key funder of the right-wing infrastructure, including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN). In SourceWatch, key articles on Charles Koch and his late brother David include: Koch Brothers, Americans for Prosperity, Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, Stand Together, Koch Family Foundations, Koch Universities, and I360.

Ties to the Bradley Foundation

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation provided $1.5 million over three years (2015-2017) to the Civitas Institute and the John Locke Foundation (JFL) in North Carolina. Both are affiliated with the State Policy Network and both are almost entirely underwritten by Art Pope, Bradley’s new board chairman and a long-time Koch ally. ^[4]

Bradley wants the groups to “create a comprehensive communications infrastructure around four primary elements: radio, online content aggregation, mobile applications, and an AP-style news service for local newspapers” (The Barder Fund, 8/18/15). ^[4]

Bradley also encourages its “think tanks” to engage in opposition research. It is funding a “Mapping the Left” website at Civitas to track the connections between progressive organizations in North Carolina. There is also a Mapping the Left app:

“The Mapping the Left (MTL) project combines data, research and news articles to show the magnitude of the radical Left’s infrastructure in North Carolina. For decades, the liberal/progressive movement has mostly been invisible to the general public. Hiding from the ‘liberal’ label, the well-organized progressive movement has built a network of groups that work together to push an extreme, liberal/progressive agenda that the media has failed to report upon.”

Bradley Files

In 2017, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), publishers of SourceWatch, launched a series of articles on the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, exposing the inner-workings of one of America's largest right-wing foundations. 56,000 previously undisclosed documents laid bare the Bradley Foundation's highly politicized agenda. CMD detailed Bradley's efforts to map and measure right wing infrastructure nationwide, including by dismantling and defunding unions to impact state elections; bankrolling discredited spin doctor Richard Berman and his many front groups; and more.

Find the series here at ExposedbyCMD.org.

Connections to Art Pope

The John Locke Foundation receives around 80 percent of its funding from Art Pope, who controls the institute's agenda from its board of directors. It received over $2.5 million from the Pope family foundation in fiscal years 2010-2011.[5] From its founding in the early 1990s until 2006, "the organization was not taken seriously," according to one North Carolina political figure, but when Pope gained control of his family's fortune in 2006 he began to invest significantly in the organization as he aimed to gain a voice in North Carolina conservative policy circles.[6]

A New Yorker exposé explains that Pope invests not only in the Foundation, but in state-level political elections and other non-profit institutions designed to make his takeover of the North Carolina GOP complete. Marc Farinella, an adviser to North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue, commented that "The Republican agenda in North Carolina is really Art Pope’s agenda. He sets it, he funds it, and he directs the efforts to achieve it. The candidates are just fronting for him. There are so many people in North Carolina beholden to Art Pope—it undermines the democratic process.”[6]

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council

The John Locke Foundation has ties to several of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) "task forces." Staff members Daren Bakst, Director of Legal and Regulatory Studies, and Fergus Hodgson, Director of Fiscal Policy Studies, sit on the Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force and the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force, respectively.[7][8] Mr. Bakst gave a presentation to the Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force at ALEC's 2010 annual meeting: “The Limits of EPA Regulatory Power."[9]

John Coletti, Director of Health and Fiscal Policy Studies, represents John Locke on the Health and Human Services Task Force.[10] Coletti has sponsored model legislation (the "Patients First Medicaid Reform Act") and has made presentations to the task force.[11][12]

Director of Regulatory Studies, Jon Sanders, was a member of the now defunct Public Safety and Elections Task Force[13] and Director of Education Studies, Terry Stoops, is a member of the Education Task Force.[14]

An August 2013 ALEC board document obtained by The Guardian lists the John Locke Foundation as having been part of the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force and the Education Task Force, but as having terminated its membership on May 11, 2013, although it "would like to join again if can fit in budget."[15]

Please see SPN Ties to ALEC for more.

About ALEC
ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org, and check out breaking news on our ExposedbyCMD.org site.

Ties to the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity

The John Locke Foundation was listed as a Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity "Watchdog Bureau".[16] The Franklin Center funds reporters in over 40 states.[17] Despite their non-partisan description, many of the websites funded by the Franklin Center have received criticism for their conservative bias.[18][19] On its website, the Franklin Center claims it "provides 10 percent of all daily reporting from state capitals nationwide."[20]

Franklin Center Funding

Franklin Center Director of Communications Michael Moroney told the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) in 2013 that the source of the Franklin Center's funding "is 100 percent anonymous." But 95 percent of its 2011 funding came from DonorsTrust, a spin-off of the Philanthropy Roundtable that functions as a large "donor-advised fund," cloaking the identity of donors to right-wing causes across the country (CPI did a review of Franklin's Internal Revenue Service records).[21] Mother Jones called DonorsTrust "the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement" in a February 2013 article.[22] Franklin received DonorTrust's second-largest donation in 2011.[21]

The Franklin Center also receives funding from the Wisconsin-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation,[23] a conservative grant-making organization.[24]

The Franklin Center was launched by the Chicago-based Sam Adams Alliance (SAM),[25] a 501(c)(3) devoted to pushing free-market ideals. SAM gets funding from the State Policy Network,[26] which is partially funded by the Claude R. Lambe Foundation.[27] Charles Koch, one of the billionaire brothers who co-own Koch Industries, sits on the board of this foundation.[28] SAM also receives funding from the Rodney Fund.

The John Locke Foundation and Global Warming

In July 2007, the John Locke Foundation released a report authored by Joel Schwartz (a climate change skeptic then at the American Enterprise Institute), titled, "A North Carolina Citizen's Guide to Global Warming." ^[29] In the report, Schwartz claims that [Al] "Gore's brand of over-the-top climate hysteria has nothing to do with reality"; and that "Most of the greenhouse effect is natural and is due to water vapor naturally in the atmosphere, as well as natural levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and a few other greenhouse gases." ^[30]

In a 2010 investigation by the Institute for Southern Studies, the John Locke Foundation was found to be one of the most outspoken climate skeptics in North Carolina, working in concert with other groups funded by the Koch Brothers and Art Pope to creation the illusion of disagreement about the fundamentals of climate science. Examples cited by the Institute include:[31]

In 2007, North Carolina passed Senate Bill 3 to adopt a minimum requirement for the use of renewable energy sources by investor-owned electric utilities. The bill requires that 12.5 percent of all electricity sold in the state by 2020 must come from renewable sources or improved efficiency. The John Locke Foundation would like to do away with it altogether, according to the group's 2010 climate agenda.[31]

John Locke Foundation Fought Renewable Energy

In December 2011, Facing South reported that representatives of the American Legislative Exchange Council, American Tradition Institute and the John Locke Foundation were holding forums in the North Carolina coastal communities of Wilmington and Morehead City titled, "The Truth About Wind Power on the Coasts of North Carolina". N. C. Senate Bill 3, a law that passed in 2007, made the state the first in the Southeast to adopt a minimum requirement for the use of renewable energy sources by investor-owned electric utilities: 12.5 percent by 2025. The groups dismissed the law as an energy tax on the poor. The John Locke Foundation is calling for repealing it entirely, as well as abandoning all state efforts to address global warming.[32]

John Locke Foundation Ties to the Tobacco Industry

JLF has received funding from Phillip Morris (PM), and the former president of the JLF sat on the National Advisory Board of a front-group set up by Phillip Morris called the "National Smokers Alliance."

A February 2, 2000 letter from RJR Tobacco Company's Executive VP, External Relations, Tommy Payne to the JDL reads, in part, "Please find enclosed a check in the amount of five thousand dollars ($5,000.00) made payable to the John Locke Foundation." ^[33]

A June 30, 1994 Philip Morris document lists Marc Rotterman, the former president of the John Locke Foundation, as a Member of the National Board of Advisors for the National Smokers Alliance, a front-group set up by Phillip Morris. ^[34][35]

An August, 1994 article written by JLF President, John Hood, in Consumer Research argues for "free-choice" for tobacco users and the loosening of restrictions on tobacco use. ^[36]

JDL received $5,000 in funding from PM for "public policy" work in 1998 according to the company's 1998 public policy contributions records. ^[37]

According to the November, 2000 edition of "Issues Watch" the JLF received funding from RJ Reynolds in 1996 for "works to improve public policy debate in North Carolina." ^[38]

Funding

Between 2010 and 2015 FAS received $306,500 from DonorsTrust, which is affiliated with Donors Capital Fund. The twin Donors organizations are advertised as a way for very wealthy people and corporations to remain hidden when "funding sensitive or controversial issues," creating a lack of accountability.[39] (See DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund Grant Recipients for more).

On its website JLF states that it is a 501(c)(3) "non-profit, nonpartisan think tank supported entirely from voluntary contributions. JLF does not and would not accept government funds. It has received support from nearly 1,500 individuals, businesses, and foundations." ^[40] JLF does not disclose its corporate or foundation funders.

Media Transparency state that JLF has received $334,000 in grants between 1985-2003.[41] While JLF does not disclose who its corporate funders are, some of its funding has come from the tobacco industry.

Personnel

Board of Directors

Former Board of Directors

Staff, Fellows and Scholars

President and CEO

Investor Relations

Outreach

Research Division

Communications and Marketing

Carolina Journal

Finanace and Operations

Design

Former staff:

Core Financials

2016[42]

2015[43]

2014[44]

2013[45]

2012[46]

2011[47]

2010[48]:

2009[49]:

2008[50]:

Contact Information

Employer Identification Number (EIN): 56-1656943

John Locke Foundation

200 West Morgan St, Suite 200

Raleigh, North Carolina 27601

Phone: (919).828.3876

Email: info@johnlocke.org

Website: http://www.johnlocke.org/

Twitter: @JohnLockeNC

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnlockefoundation/

Articles and Resources

Related SourceWatch Articles

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External Resources

References

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https://theintercept.com/**2022/09/**16/fossil-fuel-industry-climate-free-speech/

REPS. JAMIE RASKIN, D-Md., and Katie Porter, D-Calif., probably didn’t plan for their committee hearings to run at the exact same time this week, but the hearings sure were talking to each other.

In her Committee on Natural Resources hearing, Porter highlighted the role PR firms play in blocking climate policy. Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, and his selected witness, Amy Cooke, CEO of the conservative John Locke Foundation, expressed concern that preventing companies and their hired PR firms from spreading misinformation about climate change would have a chilling effect on free speech.

Meanwhile, the House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, chaired by Raskin, focused on free speech attacks against environmentalists, digging into the fossil fuel industry’s attempts to curb citizens’ speech rights via strategic litigation and laws that criminalize protest. Taken together, the two are a perfect illustration of the industry’s First Amendment strategy: expand free speech for corporations, curb it for citizens.

raskin’s free speech hearing focused on two key tactics: the increased filing of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs— defamation suits aimed at penalizing citizens or citizen groups for exercising their First Amendment rights — and theproliferation of so-called critical infrastructure bills, which pile on fines and criminal sentences for those caught trespassing or vandalizing near pipelines, power plants, railroads, or other infrastructure. These anti-protest bills were a direct industry backlash to the Standing Rock protests in 2016 and 2017. Starting with a law passed in Oklahoma in 2017, they proliferated with the help of the industry group American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and the American Legislative Exchange Council, which drafts and disseminates pro-corporate model legislation for adoption by state governments. Seventeen states now have critical infrastructure laws on the books, with several more considering proposals.

“SLAPPs and anti-protest bills are really two sides of the same coin,” said Deepa Padmanabha, deputy general counsel for Greenpeace and a witness at Raskin’s hearing. “They’re tactics used by the same corporate actors to quash dissent. They’re pushing legislation to silence us, to criminalize our critiques through anti-protest bills. And they’re also filing SLAPP suits to silence dissent.”

Greenpeace has dealt with both. Greenpeace USA activists were arrested in 2019 under Texas’s felony critical infrastructure law for unfurling banners on a bridge, which temporarily blocked shipping. The goal of the action was to highlight the connection between the oil industry and climate change.

Greenpeace is engaged in active litigation in a couple of SLAPP suits too. In one, Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, sued the organization for its role in the Standing Rock protests. The suit was initially filed in federal court and invoked the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, orRICO, a law designed to prosecute organized crime. “Energy Transfer was alleging that our advocacy work to uplift Indigenous voices at Standing Rock constituted organized crime,” Padmanabha said.

Because RICO allows for damages to be tripled if a defendant is found guilty, Greenpeace faced a $1 billion fine. Losing that suit would have had a truly chilling effect on free speech. A federal judge threw out the case, but Energy Transfer filed again in North Dakota (minus the RICO charge), a state that doesn’t have an anti-SLAPP law on the books.

“SLAPPs and anti-protest bills are really two sides of the same coin.”

Anti-SLAPP laws allow defendants a quick way to get SLAPP suits dismissed, minimizing the time and money spent on meritless cases. Currently, 31 states and the District of Columbia have adopted anti-SLAPP statutes, which makes it fairly easy for corporate entities to go venue shopping for a court in a state without such a law. To address that gap, Raskin proposed new legislation this week to create federal anti-SLAPP protection. While some players in the fossil fuel industry may oppose Raskin’s bill, others have actually sought to avail themselves of anti-SLAPP protections. Exxon Mobil, for example, in its final attempt to thwart the fraud case against it in Massachusetts, argued that the suit was a SLAPP.

The oil company’s attorney Justin Anderson maintained that Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s fraud complaint against Exxon was not valid because the company’s public statements on climate policy should be considered political opinion (“petitioning activity,” in legal parlance), not misleading advertising — even when Exxon falsely claimed that climate change wasn’t real and overstated the company’s investments in low-carbon technology.

When one judge asked why Exxon would file an anti-SLAPP complaint rather than make a First Amendment argument in court, Anderson made clear that the point was to avoid discovery, when the corporation would be asked to hand over files and make its executives available for depositions. “The anti-SLAPP statute provides a mechanism to have a case that is brought against someone for petitioning activity dismissed at the outset before burdensome discovery is imposed on the party,” he argued.

The “petitioning activity” argument is one that the industry and its allies have trotted out repeatedly, both in court and in congressional hearings like those held this week. It’s a broad interpretation of free speech rights for corporations, the very sort of protection these same companies are opposed to extending to individuals. In his testimony before Raskin’s subcommittee, Daren Bakst, a senior research fellow on environmental policy and regulation for the Heritage Foundation, said, “The chilling effects are states bringing lawsuits against people for their speech.” It’s hard to tell because he said “people,” but he meant oil companies. Which he made clear by immediately referencing “what municipalities are doing, the government is doing against these fossil fuel companies. And I also see that Massachusetts is doing.”

This view of an oil company as a person who is being silenced for simply sharing their views on climate policy is the basic argument oil companies are making in dozens of cases across the country. These cases, brought by both municipalities and states, hinge either on fraud or nuisance claims and effectively ask that fossil fuel companies pay up for delaying action on climate, which increased both the impacts of the climate crisis and the price of adapting to a warming world. In all of them, the corporate defendants make some version of a free speech argument. They maintain that their public speech about global warming differed from their internal knowledge because their public statements were “petitioning speech,” related to their political views and desires and thus, protected. The industry has been building the foundation for such an argument for about as long as it has known about climate change — since the late 1960s.

“They will try to defend their misinformation efforts as political speech covered by the First Amendment and not subject to false advertising laws.”

The argument arose out of a situation not unlike the one playing out today, with war driving up prices at the pump and oil companies desperate to control public perception.

According to documents from Mobil’s corporate archive at the University of Texas at Austin, the company’s longtime PR whiz Herbert Schmertz and then-CEO, Rawleigh Warner, came up with an idea to help wrestle back control of the narrative. Using Mobil’s PR and advertising budget, they would create “idea advertising” to push the company’s take on key issues of the day and create the sense of Mobil as a citizen with a distinct personality.

They ran weekly :{advertorial:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:s in the New York Times as well as regular placements in a wide range of other publications, from the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal to Time and Fortune. Then Schmertz proposed TV and radio too. Why not?

In the early 1970s, Mobil took their TV and radio advertorials to all the big broadcast stations and only one, NBC, agreed to run them. CBS and ABC said they preferred to have their journalists cover energy issues. For Schmertz and Warner, it was a battle they had to win. What if the newspapers, or PBS, started to rethink playing nice with Mobil? In a media blitz, the two blasted CBS and ABC from every angle, in their NYT spot, on radio and TV programs, at events. Warner went to various business clubs to talk about the importance of protecting corporate free speech. Schmertz testified before Congress in 1978, urging First Amendment protection for Mobil’s ads and arguing that there was no difference between Mobil advertorials and New York Times editorials, because after all the Times was a business too.

Mobil helped rally support and funding for the first big Supreme Court case on the matter, First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, the precursor to Citizens United. The court ruled that corporations could spend whatever money they wanted to influence politics, overruling a Massachusetts statute that said otherwise. “If the restricted view of corporate speech taken by the Massachusetts court were accepted,” Justice Lewis A. Powell wrote, “government would have the power to deprive society of the views of corporations.”

Related

How the Media Launders Fossil Fuel Industry Propaganda Through Branded Content

“I don’t think people really appreciate how big of a deal that was in shifting the rules of speech in the public space,” environmental sociologist Robert Brulle said. “Now, suddenly, corporations could use their budgets — which are enormous, you know, much larger than individuals — to advocate their position in the public space. … It allowed for a systematic distortion of the public space that gives corporations basically a loudspeaker to amplify their voice above everybody else’s.”

The 2010 Citizens United ruling, of course, intensified that dynamic. Whereas Bellotti allowed corporations to publicly campaign for particular ballot initiatives or candidates, Citizens United allowed political speech of any sort without disclosure of who was paying, who was actually speaking. Oil companies have been working to broaden corporate free speech rights even more in recent years, as their arguments in climate litigation and before Congress show.

“They will try to defend their misinformation efforts as political speech covered by the First Amendment and not subject to false advertising laws,” said Brulle, who has co-authored briefs in some of these cases.

Robert Kerr, who’s researched Mobil’s role in the corporate free speech movement for years, said to side with the oil companies’ arguments in these cases, the Supreme Court would have to turn its back on about a century’s worth of legal precedent. “It’s really deeply established even by some of the members of the current Supreme Court that the First Amendment will never protect expression that is fraud,” he said. “The worry now is that with this court there seems to be a majority that wants to say yes to almost any question the corporate interests raise.”

It makes sense then, that the industry and its allies would be working hard to rebrand climate denialism as simply a difference of opinion, to put some distance between greenwashing and fraud, to collectively gasp about the “chilling effect” (a phrase that came up so often in minority witness testimony this week that it’s hard to believe someone somewhere wasn’t disseminating talking points) that tackling misinformation might have on free speech. The fact that those efforts are happening alongside coordinated attempts to criminalize protest is more of the same: corporations drowning out the public.

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new fox target?

Laura Ingraham is the latest on the far right to attack a bedrock institution of American society: public schools. The Fox News propagandist on Thursday called to “defund government education” and wrongly implied the National Education Association, a labor union, was responsible for establishing education standards and curricula, which is the responsibility of government agencies.

Ingraham hosted Terry Stoops of the right-wing think tank The John Locke Foundation, which Accountable.US has said “repeatedly alleged Democrats conspired to allow widespread voter fraud.”

Stoops complained that Twitter took action against him after he posted what allegedly were proposed agenda items from the National Education Association’s annual meeting. Ingraham showed excerpts saying the NEA will support the right to abortion, LGBTQ rights, and other mainstream positions, which Ingraham attacked as “whackpot declarations.”

READ MORE: 'They're projecting': Fox News sparks outrage after calling teachers union the 'KKK with summers off'

Reading some of the proposed items, Ingraham mocked them, saying, “Reading, writing, and abortion.”

Stoops berated the NEA’s discussion of critical issues facing America, suggesting the group, America’s largest labor union and not a think tank or government education agency, was advancing an “insane agenda.”

Ingraham jumped in, calling for an end to public schools, and saying taxpayer funds should be diverted to private education.

As Media Matters reports, Ingraham said the NEA’s annual meeting “is more like a political rally for the far left.”

READ MORE: How can community schools rescue a ‘troubled’ district?

“I mean, it’s kind of a combination of Human Rights Campaign, BLM, you know, Earth Justice League, whatever it is,” Ingraham continued, conflating a union agenda with a government agency’s work.

“But what it’s not about is education and this is why I think, Terry, a lot of people are saying it’s time to defund government education or at least defund it by giving vouchers to parents so they can say, ‘No, we’re not doing this anymore.’ And I think that just has to happen. We have to stop funding this madness.”

Since colonial times in America public schools, supported by taxes, have existed. In the mid-1800s states began to make public education mandatory. But as the religious right has grown in power, conservatives have tried to steer tax dollars away from public schools and into private and religious schools.

Watch below or at this link:

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    John Locke Foundation

    17 years 1 month

        Director of the Center for Effective Education

        Jan 2021 - Present 1 year 7 months

        Vice President for Research and Director of Education Studies

        Feb 2017 - Jan 2021 4 years

        Director of Research and Education Studies

        Apr 2012 - Feb 2017 4 years 11 months

        Education Policy Analyst

        Jul 2005 - Apr 2012 6 years 10 months

    University of Virginia Graphic

    Graduate Research And Teaching Assistant

    University of Virginia

    Aug 2002 - May 20052 years 10 months

    Charlottesville, Virginia Area

    School of Education and Human Development

    Library of Virginia Graphic

    Research Assistant

    Library of Virginia

    Jun 2003 - Aug 20033 months

    Richmond, Virginia Area

    Dictionary of Virginia Biography

    University of Mary Washington Graphic

    Instructor

    University of Mary Washington

    Jan 2002 - Jul 20027 months

    Fredericksburg, Virginia Area

    Professional communication courses

    Spotsylvania High School Graphic

    English Language Arts Teacher

    Spotsylvania High School

    Jul 2001 - Jun 20021 year

    Fredericksburg, Virginia Area

    University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work Graphic

    Programs Assistant

    University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work

    Sep 1998 - Jul 20012 years 11 months

    Greater Pittsburgh Area

    Child Welfare Education Programs

    Clarion University of Pennsylvania Graphic

    Teaching Assistant

    Clarion University of Pennsylvania

    Jan 1998 - May 19985 months

    English Composition II courses

Education

hic

    Georgetown University

    Certificate Education Finance

    2019 - 2019

    University of Virginia

    University of Virginia Graphic

    University of Virginia

    Ph.D. Social Foundations of Education

    2002 - 2010

    Dissertation: "Engrossing the education of the country": John Holt Rice, Presbyterianism, and Educational Competition in the South, 1777-1831 (Advisor: Jennings L. Wagoner, Jr., Ph.D.)

    University of Pittsburgh

    University of Pittsburgh Graphic

    University of Pittsburgh

    M.Ed.Education: Administrative and Policy Studies

    1999 - 2001

    PennWest Clarion

    PennWest Clarion Graphic

    PennWest Clarion

    B.S.Speech Communication and Theatre

    1993 - 1997

    Summa Cum Laude

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    Join us for a very timely and critical topic--school choice! “The Triumph of School Choice in North Carolina” with Dr. Terry Stoops Wed Feb 9th…

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    I will forever cherish the gift of wisdom granted us by this martyr for Humanity, conveyed in part through this book. I hope you will read it…

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    Bob Luddy addresses the essential principle of "Sound Money" at the January 12, 2022 Bastiat Society of Raleigh. 'As the French economist Frédéric…

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    Check out a recent piece I co-authored in the Fayetteville Observer and on Yahoo News. North Carolina is clinging to Jim Crow laws to prevent you…

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ggl 7 22

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bs

https://www.carolinajournal.com/news-article/should-a-light-shine-on-donors-to-nonprofits/

aug 2017 kari travis (libtard?)

paul Gessing wanted to pop the top on the soda tax in Santa Fe, New Mexico. That was all. 

The president of the libertarian Rio Grande Foundation never planned to file a lawsuit against the city. But when Santa Fe elected officials accused him of violating a campaign finance ordinance and demanded to see his donor list, he thought he had no choice.  

Rio Grande’s problem is nothing new. In fact, the John Locke Foundation and dozens of other nonprofits have faced and continue to face similar scrutiny from people and organizations opposing the nonprofits’ mission.

Under federal law, organizations classified as 501(c)3 aren’t allowed to engage in political or campaign advocacy, while 501(c)4 entities may participate in lobbying and political campaigning — provided the majority of their work is focused on public policy and issue advocacy.  

Although 501(c)3 nonprofits are prohibited from endorsing or opposing any candidate running for elected office, for decades they’ve been subject to much scrutiny under federal and local campaign finance laws. 

The trouble for Rio Grande began in March, when Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales proposed a two-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary beverages including soda, energy drinks, sports drinks, juice boxes, and even sweetened coffee. The revenue would fund a Pre-K program for the city, Gessing told Carolina Journal.  

The tax was bad news, RGF policy analysts said. Beverage prices would explode. The cost of a soda 12-pack would nearly double. Low-income families would suffer.  

On April 6, RGF released a website and videovoicing their concerns. The goal was to tell voters what would happen if they green-lighted the plan.  

The same day RGF released the video, Gessing got a letter from the city’s attorneys.  

“They said, ‘If you go ahead with this, you’re going to have to disclose your donors.’ And that’s when I kind of freaked out a little bit.” 

RGF had done nothing illegal by IRS 501(c)3 nonprofit standards, Guessing said. They weren’t campaigning on behalf of a candidate. They weren’t engaged in inappropriate advocacy.  

“It was news to me. I was running around with my hair on fire for the next few days trying to figure out what to do going forward, because it was totally unexpected.” 

RGF violated a city law, passed in 2015, that forces nonprofits to disclose donor information if they campaign around ballot initiatives, city attorneys said. 

Gessing appeared before the city ethics board, where he was forced to disclose the nonprofit that produced the website and video, as well as the name of the donor who funded the project.  

RGF decided to keep the website up but canceled plans for expensive postcard and social media campaigns. 

Shortly after, Matt Miller, an attorney from the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute, called Guessing.  

Santa Fe’s law was unconstitutional, Miller said.  

“I told [Gessing] that we could challenge this law in federal court and have a good probability of winning.”  

A lawsuit was filed.  

The controversy surrounding nonprofit disclosure laws

Arguments over nonprofits and donor privacy date back to 1956, when Alabama tried to force the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to turn over its bank records and donor information.  

Alabama repeatedly claimed the NAACP was breaking a state law requiring foreign corporations to qualify before doing business in the state.  

The nonprofit, based in New York, believed it was exempt from the law. Turning over its donor information would be dangerous to supporters and would deter future contributions, NAACP leaders said. 

A two-year legal battle ensued, until, in 1958, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the NAACP, saying that Alabama’s demand violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In 2010, Citizens United, a conservative 501(c)4, challenged the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, a 2002 law preventing corporations or union-funded political ads from airing within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. The law also required “electioneering communications” to display the name and address of the person or group that funded the ad.  

The organization was blocked from airing a documentary about Hillary Clinton shortly before the 2008 presidential primary. Though the film was critical of Clinton, it did not explicitly tell voters to vote against her.  

The Supreme Court voted, 5-4, in favor of Citizens United, ruling that government shouldn’t restrict speech for some corporations while exempting other corporations with media affiliations. The court did, however, maintain the BCRA’s donor disclosure requirement.  

In 2014, Delaware Strong Families, a 501(c)3 religious nonprofit, planned to distribute a voter guide based on issues of interest. The practice is a common way for organizations to inform voters about where candidates stand on social and economic issues.  

Under Delaware law, DSF was required to report the names, addresses, and contribution amounts of its donors, because the voter guide qualified as an electioneering communication. Not only was the state interested in who paid for the voter guide, it also wanted to see the names of any donor who contributed more than $100 to the nonprofit during the election period.  

Broadening the ‘media exemption’ to include nonprofits  

Both 501(c)3s and 501(c)4s are treated unfairly under campaign finance laws, a recent study on nonprofit privacy shows.  

The primary jobs of public policy organizations are analyzing legislation and informing the public of potential outcomes, said Jon Riches, director of national litigation and general counsel for the Goldwater Institute.  

Such work is similar to that done by news outlets, but, unlike media organizations, 5o1(c)3s and 501(c)4s don’t receive the exemptions under campaign finance laws.  

That’s a double standard, Riches told CJ. 

Media organizations write opinions, endorse candidates, and accept money to print campaign ads. All of these activities could be classified as campaign and “electioneering communications.” Yet, to protect First Amendment rights, newspapers and networks aren’t held to account in the same way as nonprofits.  

For example, the Gannett-owned Delaware News Journalexercises tremendous influence over public policy and political races. In the 2016 election, the paper endorsed candidates for governor, Congress, New Castle County executive, and Wilmington mayor.  

But unlike DSF, which was scrutinized for its “electioneering communication,” the Journal was exempt from Delaware’s campaign finance laws.  

Media exemptions protect First Amendment rights, but the criteria for those privileges are outdated, Riches said. Many modern news sources are owned by privately funded nonprofits. Additionally, the public turns to think tanks and public policy nonprofits to gather information, just as they would turn to a news network.  

A paradox results. 

“A small nonprofit organization is subject to often onerous regulations whenever it speaks about policymakers or supports candidates and issues in the run-up to an election — while giant companies like Comcast, CNN, or Fox [News] can make movies, publish reports, and write editorials supporting or opposing those very same issues and candidates without facing any such restrictions whatsoever,” Riches writes in An Informed Citizenry: Broadening the “Media Exemption” to Include Nonprofit Communications.  

No principled reason exists to treat public policy nonprofits differently than news organizations, especially since the purpose of the press exemption is preserving the collection and dissemination of information, he said.  

That value doesn’t depend on the identity or corporate structure of the outlet.  

“Some have argued that the institutional press should receive special constitutional protection not afforded to other corporations or associations because the institutional press is somehow unique,” Riches said. “These arguments are dangerously elitist.” 

Campaign finance laws enforce transparency and sometimes do, indeed, apply to news networks, countered Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina.  

Filing as a 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 doesn’t qualify an organization for a press exemption, Phillips said. Donor disclosures and other privacy regulations are determined by a nonprofit’s activities. For example, if a 501(c)4 campaigns on behalf of a candidate, it should disclose its donors.  

Such laws exist to protect the public from corruption, Phillips said.  

“The U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts throughout the nation have made clear that disclosure laws are a minimal burden on First Amendment activity and that they serve the very important public interest in maintaining a well-informed electorate,” he told CJ.  

Courts should continue to apply a balancing test to Constitutional challenges, as in the Citizens United case, Phillips added.  

But any law not “strictly tailored to campaign finance needs” is concerning, said Susanna Birdsong, policy counsel for the North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.  

“As ever we will oppose and challenge campaign finance reform laws that we believe are unconstitutionally overbroad,” Birdsong said. 

What’s next for the Rio Grande Foundation 

There’s a good chance RGF will win the lawsuit against Santa Fe, Miller said. On Aug. 24, the city filed an answer to the case, denying the foundation’s conclusion that requiring donor disclosure burdens a person’s right to free speech.   

“The Rio Grande Foundation has alleged no facts that indicate that disclosure of its contributors’ names will subject them to threats, harassment, or reprisals from either government officials or private parties,” wrote Santa Fe attorney Kelly Brennan.  

The case is on hold for several months while lawyers on both sides build their defense. No major developments are likely before the beginning of 2018, Miller said.  

For now, Gessing and his staff are stuck waiting. 

“The idea of donor privacy is being totally undermined here,” Gessing told CJ. 

If foundation contributors sense a threat to their privacy, they will be far less likely to support RGF — or any other nonprofit. That’s a threat to free speech.  

It’s one thing to have campaign or candidate oriented finance laws. It’s another to have ballot measure regulations, Gessing said. 

“You can always argue that there’s a quid pro quo with the candidate, whereas the ballot measure, pass or no pass, isn’t going to give us anything on the backside of the issue. We are purely involved in the ballot measure … because of principle.”  

Perception is half the battle for conservative think tanks such as RGF, which are often branded as mouthpieces for the Koch brothers. 

This can sometimes evoke hostility from Left-leaning politicians.  

Mayor Javier Gonzales, a Democrat, doesn’t necessarily have a vendetta against RGF, but the organization’s libertarian label hasn’t helped the situation, Gessing said.  

“I think [city officials] were probably more gleeful in their enforcement than they would have been otherwise.”  

The Constitution is clear on the issue, Miller said. Governments can’t silence nonprofits by threatening the privacy of their donors.  

It is up to individuals to decide whether an organization is honest, he said.  

“Groups may choose to make themselves very transparent to gain legitimacy. And it’s totally legitimate for listeners and voters to prefer messages from people who are totally transparent.” 

And, apparently, Santa Fe residents listened to RGF’s video and website. In May, the proposed soda tax fell flat among voters.  

Gessing only hopes his organization can continue to work as it should.  

“We’ve been active and involved and taken positions on soda taxes before. It’s not like we just rolled out of bed one day and saw this tax and got … a big check from the soda industry and said, ‘OK, now we’ve got to do this.’”  

“This is the core of what we do.”

categories: Business and Regulations, CJ Exclusives, Law & Regulation, North Carolina

tags: campaign finance, First Amendment, goldwater institute, NAACP, rio grande foundation

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Two of the professors under investigation have a CU Boulder connection: Pielke, a professor in the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, and Steven F. Hayward, who now teaches at Pepperdine University but spent the 2013-14 academic year as CU’s first Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy.

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IHE sorta

...beckwith Francis J. Beckwith is professor of philosophy and church-state studies at Baylor University. This piece was originally published by the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.

So, in the fall I brought George Yancey (University of North Texas) and Patrick Deneen (University of Notre Dame) to campus. Yancey spoke on “Conservatives in Academia: Is There Bias Against Them?” while Deneen gave a talk on “The End of Liberalism: Why the World Is Falling Apart.”

In the spring, the university hosted lectures by Elizabeth Corey (Baylor University), who spoke on “Can Conservatives Support Diversity?” and author Rod Dreher, who discussed his New York Times best-seller, The Benedict Option.

==

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/James_G._Martin_Center_for_Academic_Renewal

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, formerly the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, is a right-wing 501(c)3 nonprofit and associate member of the State Policy Network (SPN).[1] The organization along with the John William Pope Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization that provides funding to many SPN and other right wing organizations, is underwritten by Art Pope.

The James Martin Center was founded by the John Locke Foundation in 2003 as the Pope Center, changing its name at the beginning of 2017. The organization aims to add conservatives to the faculty of public universities. Its vision for "improving" universities is:[2]

==

==

2007

Center for Climate Strategies wants to help states cut global warming pollution. A North Carolina think tank funded by energy interests wants to stop them.

*By Sue Sturgis

Given Washington's reluctance to tackle global warming, many states have recently taken the initiative, drawing up their own plans to cut carbon emissions. For help, 25 states have turned to the Center for Climate Strategies, a nonprofit group of scientists, engineers, business strategists and policy experts who guide states in figuring out how to best reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

But in recent months, the Center has become the target of concerted attacks by the John Locke Foundation, a conservative North Carolina-based think tank that opposes strict environmental regulations. A longtime skeptic of prevailing climate science, which it criticizes as "alarmist," Locke has published a series of scathing attacks directed at the Center in its own publications and other outlets including the American Spectator, Washington Times, Washington Examiner and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Why the hostility? Among Locke's criticisms is that the Center for Climate Strategies was founded by an "environmental advocacy group." In fact, it was created by a business-friendly organization, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, whose current directors include representatives from leading energy companies like PPL Corp., Inter-Power, Exelon and Reliant.

Locke also criticizes the Center for taking money from foundations that it accuses of being "on the global warming panic train," among them the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Turner Foundation and the Heinz Endowments.*

But Locke's diatribes against the Center fail to disclose the potential bias in its own funding sources. According to an Institute for Southern Studies analysis of the group's tax returns, the John Locke Foundation received at least $126,500 from outfits with ties to the fossil-fuel industry between fiscal 2002 and 2005.

Looming large behind a number of Locke's funders is ExxonMobil. Since 1998, the oil giant has funneled more than $16 million to several dozen advocacy organizations in an effort that a recent Union of Concerned Scientists report described as seeking "to deceive the public about the reality of global warming" by "using seemingly independent front organizations to publicly further its desired message."

Among the fossil-fuel-tainted contributions the Locke Foundation has received:

* $70,000 from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, one of the Koch Family Foundations operated by billionaires David and Charles Koch of Koch Industries, the largest privately owned oil company in the United States.

* $20,000 from the Cato Institute, an anti-regulatory think tank that was co-founded by Charles Koch. Cato has received at least $110,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org, a Web site sponsored by Greenpeace USA. ExxonSecrets.org also reports that Cato has received funds from such other fossil-fuel interests as the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron and Shell Oil.

* $15,000 from the Reason Foundation, an anti-regulatory think thank that's received $381,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org. Reason has also received funds from the American Petroleum Institute, BP Amoco and Koch Industries.

* $10,000 from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, an anti-regulatory think tank that'sreceived $780,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org. Charles Koch is also a major funder.

* $6,500 from the Center for Energy and Economic Development, a Texas-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting the viability of coal-based electricity.

* $5,000 from the DCI Group, a Republican lobbying firm that has received $140,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org.

The John Locke Foundation's biggest funder is James Arthur "Art" Pope, who founded the organization and has given it more than $8 million since 2002. A former Republican N.C. state representative, Pope has served on the boards of the Exxon-funded Atlas Economic Research Foundation, as well as Citizens for a Sound Economy, another Koch-founded group that's alsotaken more than $380,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

Aside from being a prominent politico -- his hometown paper has dubbed him "the knight of the right" -- Pope is president and CFO of Variety Wholesalers, a company operating more than 500 discount retail stores in 14 states. Though not an energy firm, Variety does have an economic interest in avoiding gas taxes -- a proposal embraced catalogued* by the Center -- since its profits depend on importing and distributing foreign-made goods as cheaply as possible.

* * *

The John Locke Foundation stepped up its crusade against the Center for Climate Strategies this September, when it teamed up with the Heartland Institute to host a conference call promising to expose the Center's "hijacking of climate policy."

The Heartland Institute was a natural ally: The Chicago-based think tank has long fought any attempts to curtail global warming pollutants. Heartland has also taken at least $791,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998, according to ExxonSecrets.org, and the Union of Concerned Scientists found that nearly 40 percent of the funds the institute got from the oil giant were earmarked for fighting climate change regulations. In addition, Walter Buchholtz, who's listed as Heartland's government relations advisor on the group's 2005 tax return (PDF), has also served as ExxonMobil's senior environmental advisor.

The featured speaker for the Sept. 12 conference call -- which drew state legislators, policy analysts, and a lobbyist for Peabody Energy, the world's largest coal company -- was Michael Sanera, Locke's research director. Sanera is also a member of an advisory board for theCommittee for a Constructive Tomorrow and a former analyst at the Heritage Foundation -- both funded by ExxonMobil.

Sanera led the attendees through a Power Point attack, accusing the Center for Climate Strategies of, among other things, peddling false assumptions such as the idea that "CO2 emission reduction is the solution to global warming." It offered participants a list of suggestions on how to counteract the Center that included "Discredit CCS's Sponsoring Organization (State environmental bureaucracy)," "Demand scientific peer review process," and "Demand cost-benefit analysis by academic economists."

The assault on the Center continued on Oct. 5, when Locke's blog announced the launch ofClimate Strategies Watch, "a new watchdog Web site that scrutinizes and keeps up with new developments of the Center for Climate Strategies."

Details were scarce: The post did not say who was behind the site, the site itself had no sponsor details, and the domain was anonymously registered. Weeks later, sponsorship information was added to the site, identifying it as a "joint project of The Heartland Institute and John Locke Foundation." The site's front page warns of the Center's funding by "wealthy liberals" and features the image of a man peering through a magnifying glass at cockroaches emblazoned with the names "Rockefeller," "Heinz" and "Turner."

Then on Oct. 17, Locke released what it called a "peer review assessment" by the Boston-based Beacon Hill Institute -- who had a representative on the September call -- claiming the Center used "seriously flawed" methods in crafting climate proposals because it did not account for the costs of regulating greenhouse emissions. Beacon Hill's assessment, however, didn't consider the costs of not regulating greenhouse gases. Nor did it disclose that among Beacon Hill's clients are the CSE Foundation, DCI Group, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, Pacific Research Institute and Texas Public Policy Foundation -- which together have received at least $1,780,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

A week after Beacon Hill's report was released, N.C. Sen. Robert Pittenger (R-Charlotte) -- a member of the N.C. Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change -- co-hosted with Locke a press conference spotlighting the study. Following the suggestion made during the Sept. 12 call to discredit the "environmental bureaucracy," Pittenger began by complaining that the commission didn't have enough hard science because it had heard from only two climatologists, Dr. Robert Balling and Dr. Pat Michaels.

As it so happens, though, both are prominent skeptics of prevailing climate science who've taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from oil, coal and other fossil-fuel interests (for details, see here and here). Michaels -- a scholar with the Exxon-funded George C. Marshall Instituteand Cato Institute and an outspoken participant in the Sept. 12 conference call -- recently left his job with Virginia's state climatology office amid criticism that his industry funding and controversial views left the office too politicized. Still not satisfied, Pittenger said he petitioned the commission's chairs to invite two more prominent climate-science contrarians -- Dr. Sallie Baliunas and Dr. Richard Lindzen.

"We've got a bunch of liberal greenies who have just enough information to be dangerous," Pittenger declared at the event. Certainly no "greenie" himself, Pittenger has received $13,300 in political contributions from electric utilities and $5,200 from automotive interests in the last three election cycles, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. A real-estate investor, he's also taken more than $45,000 in contributions from his colleagues in the real-estate industry, many of whom dislike the smart-growth development policies the Center promotes.

So what does the John Locke Foundation feel should be done about climate change? Most of their work simply denies there's a serious problem. But they do offer a glimpse of what they think we should be worrying about instead in a February 2006 American Spectator opinion piece titled "Bible Bending Propaganda" byPaul Chesser, Locke's associate editor and a leading critic of the Center's work.

In the piece, Chesser goes after the Evangelical Climate Initiative, a Christian group favoring strong action to reduce global warming pollution. He blasts the Initiative for claiming Christ "for their own alarmist agenda" and its members for suffering from "Biblical illiteracy" and for being "Birkenstocked" "enviro-hippies."

But instead of calls for hard science, the Locke Foundation editor veers from the skeptics' usual playbook and quotes not a dissenting climatologist, but the biblical Book of Revelation. Scripture, Chesser notes, promises us that Jesus "does not dwell on the earth but instead will return to the New Jerusalem ... after God also establishes a new heaven and a new earth." Going on to cite a letter from Christ's apostle Peter describing a coming day of judgment and destruction of the "godless" in which the elements will be dissolved by fire, Chesser concludes:

And don't forget, God has some serious global warming of His own planned ... Christian leaders ought to be warning people about that rather than looking for ways to mitigate the questionable effects of the current heat wave.

*(*Disclosure: The Institute for Southern Studies has received funding from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which have also supported the Center for Climate Strategies' work. For a complete list of the Institute's recent foundation supporters, click here.*)

==

icccRoy Cordato

Vice President for Research, John Locke Foundation

==

The John Locke Foundation (JLF) is a right-wing, free-market think tank in North Carolina. The JLF describes itself as, "...an independent, nonprofit think tank that would work for truth, for freedom, and for the future of North Carolina." [1]

Contents

   * 1 The John Locke Foundation and global warming

   * 2 The John Locke Foundation and the tobacco industry

   * 3 Funding

   * 4 Personnel

   * 5 Contact details

   * 6 Articles and resources

         o 6.1 Related SourceWatch articles

         o 6.2 References

         o 6.3 External resources

         o 6.4 External articles

The John Locke Foundation andglobal warming

In July 2007, the John Locke Foundation released a report authored by Joel Schwartz (a climate change skeptic then at the American Enterprise Institute), titled, "A North Carolina Citizen's Guide to Global Warming." [2] In the report, Schwartz claims that [Al] "Gore's brand of over-the-top climate hysteria has nothing to do with reality"; and that "Most of the greenhouse effect is natural and is due to water vapor naturally in the atmosphere, as well as natural levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and a few other greenhouse gases." [3]

In a 2010 investigation by the Institute for Southern Studies, the John Locke Foundation was found to be one of the most outspoken climate skeptics in North Carolina, working in concert with other groups funded by theKoch Brothers and Art Pope to creation the illusion of disagreement about the fundamentals of climate science. Examples cited by the Institute include:[4]

* In 2005, shortly after legislation addressing climate change was first introduced at the General Assembly, the foundation released a public policy statement titled "Global Warming Policy: NC Should Do Nothing," which claimed that climate science remains "unsettled."

   * That same year, the Locke Foundation distributed to all members of the state legislature the Michael Crichton novel "State of Fear," a work of fiction that promoted the views of Dr. Fred Singer, a prominent climate skeptic. Singer has held positions with the Cato Institute, which was co-founded in 1977 by Charles Koch and funded by the Kochs, and with other Koch-financed groups including the American Council on Science and Health, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Frontiers of Freedom, Heritage Foundation, Institute for Humane Studies, and the National Center for Policy Analysis.

   * In 2007, as North Carolina began working on ways to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions, itturned for technical assistance to the Center for Climate Strategies,a nonprofit group of scientists, engineers, business strategists and policy experts that has worked with governments in the U.S., Mexico and Canada on tackling climate change issues. In response, the Locke Foundation launched a series of attacks on the Center,charging that it was founded by an "environmental advocacy group known to take alarmist positions on global warming" -- when in fact it was founded by the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, a business-friendly group whose directors have included representatives of Reliant Energy, Dow, and the Academy of Natural Sciences. Locke has also teamed up with the HeartlandInstitute -- a climate-skeptic group that's been financed by the Kochs -- to hold a conference call during which Locke's research director accused the Center of peddling false assumptions like the idea that "carbon dioxide emission reduction is the solution to global warming."

   * Also in 2007, the Locke Foundation released a policy report titled "A North Carolina Citizen's Guide to Global Warming," assuring readers that the "alarming view" of global warming does not represent the scientific consensus. It went on to assert that "[m]ost of the greenhouse effect is natural and is due to water vapor naturally in the atmosphere, as well as natural levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and a few other greenhouse gases."The report was written by Joel Schwartz, who at the time was a visiting scholar at the Koch-funded American Enterprise Institute.

   * In addition, Locke has questioned mainstream climate science through a series in the Carolina Journal, the foundation's monthly newspaper, andopinion pieces published by its staff in other outlets, like the 2006 American Spectator article in which Locke editor Paul Chesser accused Christian climate activists of "Biblical illiteracy" and warned that "God has some serious global warming of His own planned." It's also spread its message of doubt through speaking engagements by climate science skeptic Pat Michaels,a climatologist who left the University of Virginia under a cloud of controversy over his industry funding and contrarian views to become a fellow at the Koch-founded and funded Cato Institute, as well as through its Carolina Journal radio show, which has discussed topics like "the biases that help convince global warming alarmists that their cause deserves so much attention."

In 2007, North Carolina passed Senate Bill 3 to adopt a minimum requirement for the use of renewable energy sources by investor-owned electric utilities. The bill requires that 12.5 percent of all electricity sold in the state by 2020 must come from renewable sources or improved efficiency. The John Locke Foundation would like to do away with it altogether, according to the group's 2010 climate agenda.[4]

The John Locke Foundation and the tobacco industry

JLF has received funding from Phillip Morris (PM), and the former president of the JLF sat on the National Advisory Board of a front-group set up by Phillip Morris called the "National Smokers Alliance."

A February 2, 2000 letter from RJR Tobacco Company's Executive VP, External Relations, Tommy Payne to the JDL reads, in part, "Please find enclosed a check in the amount of five thousand dollars ($5,000.00) made payable to the John Locke Foundation." [5]

A June 30, 1994 Philip Morris document lists Marc Rotterman, the former president of the John Locke Foundation, as a Member of the National Board of Advisors for the National Smokers Alliance, a front-group set up by Phillip Morris. [6][7]

An August, 1994 article written by JLF President, John Hood, in Consumer Research argues for "free-choice" for tobacco users and the loosening of restrictions on tobacco use. [8]

JDL received $5,000 in funding from PM for "public policy" work in 1998 according to the company's 1998 public policy contributions records. [9]

According to the November, 2000 edition of "Issues Watch" the JLF received funding from RJ Reynolds in 1996 for "works to improve public policy debate in North Carolina." [10]

Funding

On its website JLF states that it is a 501(c)(3) "non-profit, nonpartisan think tank supported entirely from voluntary contributions. JLF does not and would not accept government funds. It has received support from nearly 1,500 individuals, businesses, and foundations." [11] JLF does not disclose its corporate or foundation funders.

Media Transparency state that JLF has received $449,559 (unadjusted for inflation) in grants in the 1995-2006 period from a number of foundations including[12]:

*Roe Foundation

* Jaquelin Hume Foundation

* Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation

* John Templeton Foundation

* JM Foundation

* Brady Education Foundation

* Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation

While JLF does not disclose who its corporate funders are, some of its funding has come from the tobacco industry.

Personnel

   * John Hood, President [1]

* Roy Cordato, Vice President for Research and Resident Scholar

   * Daren Bakst, Legal and Regulatory Policy Analyst [2]

   * Joseph Coletti, Fiscal Policy Analyst [3]

   * David Hartgen, [4]

   * John Hubisz [5]

* Michael Sanera [6]

Contact details

200 West Morgan St.

Raleigh, North Carolina 27601

Phone: (919) 828-3876

Website: http://www.johnlocke.org/

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

* Joel Schwartz

   * Think tanks

   * Tobacco industry

References

  1. ↑ John Locke Foundation, "About the John Locke Foundation", accessed November 2007.

  2. ↑ "Policy Reports: A North Carolina Citizen's Guide to Global Warming," John Locke Foundation website, July 25, 2007.

  3. ↑ Joel Schwartz, "Policy Reports: A North Carolina Citizen's Guide to Global Warming (pdf)," John Locke Foundation, July 2007.

  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Sue Sturgis, "A Pope of climate denial" Facing South, October 26, 2010.

  5. ↑ T.J. Payne, Letter, Bates Number 522493786, February 2, 2000.

  6. ↑ Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, "National Smokers' Alliance Exposed", undated, accessed November 2007.

  7. ↑ "NSA National Board of Advisors", Bates Number 2047870829, June 30, 1994.

  8. ↑ J. Hood, "Anti-Smoking War Could Deny Consumers Choice", Consumer Research, John Locke Foundation, Bates Number 2503017203, June 1994.

  9. ↑ Philip Morris, "980000 Public policy Contributors", Bates Number 2065243965, December 17, 1998.

 10. ↑ Issues Watch, Tobacco industry sponsorship in the United States", Bates Number 2078871332, November 1, 2000.

 11. ↑ John Locke Foundation, "Support Us", accessed November 2007.

 12. ↑ "John Locke Foundation", Media Transparency, accessed November 2007.

External resources

External articles

Retrieved from "http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Locke_Foundation"

Categories: Climate change | Tobaccowiki | North Carolina | United States | Think tanks | Tobacco industry | Co-sponsor of the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change (2009)

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attack on http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=4115 alarmist

Who Is The Center For Climate Strategies?

By Dr. Roy Cordato

Jun. 8th, 2007

More |

*This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Dr. Roy Cordato, Vice President for Research and Resident Scholar at the John Locke Foundation.

bsRoy Cordato is Vice President for Research and resident scholar at the John Locke Foundation. From 1993-2000 he served as the Lundy Professor of Business Philosophy at Campbell University in Buies Creek, NC. From 1987-1993 he was SeniorEconomistat the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation (IRET) in Washington, DC. He has served as full time economics faculty at the University of Hartford and at Auburn University and as adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University. His publications include a 1992 book, Welfare Economics and Externalities in an Open Ended Universe (Kluwer Academic Publishers republished in 2007 by theLudwig von Mises Institute). His articles have appeared in a number of economics journals and law reviews in addition to The Christian Science Monitor,The Washington Times, Investor's Business Daily, The Journal of Commerce, The Congressional Record, The Orange County Register, The Freeman, Human Events, National Review Online, The Washington Examiner, Tax Notes and many other newspapers and magazines. In 2000 he received the Freedoms Foundation's Leavey Award in Free Enterprise Education. He is also a member of the Mont Pelerin Society and former executive board member of The Association of Private Enterprise Education. Cordato holds an M.A. in urban and regional economics from the University of Hartford and a Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University. He also holds a Bachelors of Music Education from the Hartt School of Music.

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Roy Cordato

Credentials

Source: [1]

Background

Roy Cordato's background is in music and economics and not climate science. Despite this,  DeSmogBlog has seen him portray himself as a "scholar"on climate change issues.

In this role, he became one of those "duped" by promoting a climate research paper that was proven to be a hoax.

According to his profile at the Heartland Institute's 6th International Conference on Climate Change:

"Roy Cordato is vice president for research and resident scholar at the John Locke Foundation. From 1993-2000 he served as the Lundy Professor of Business Philosophy at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina. From 1987 – 1993 he was senior economist at the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation (IRET) in Washington, DC. He has served as full-time economics faculty at the University of Hartford and at Auburn University and as adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University. His publications include Welfare Economics and Externalities in an Open Ended Universe (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992). In 2000 he received the Freedoms Foundation’s Leavey Award in Free Enterprise Education. He is also a member of the Mont Pelerin Society and former executive board member of the Association of Private Enterprise Education."

Stance on Climate Change

"You look at the models used to predict future warming, and you take those models and go back one hundred years and plug in the data and predict the warming we have today, they way overpredict. They're totally wrong with respect to the amount of warming we've had in the past one hundred years. And we see this over and over and over again. Hyperbole, using hysteria to get through a particular policy agenda."[2]

Key Quotes

"Roy Cordato, vice president for research and resident scholar at the John Locke Foundation, said public concern over global warming reached its peak several years ago and has been diminishing in step with the declining economy ever since." [3]

Key Deeds

March, 2008

Cordato was a speaker at the Heartland Institute's First International Conference on Climate Change.

Affiliations

Publications

According to Google Scholar, Cordato has not published any articles on the subject of climate change in peer-reviewed journals.

One of Cordato's articles for The Freemangives a positive review of Climate Confusion. The book is authored by Roy Spencer and sets itself apart by "forsaking blindingly technical statistics" and describing issue of climate change in "simple terms."

Cordato has spread his message of global warming skepticism through news sources including The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Times, Investor's Business Daily, The Journal of Commerce, The Congressional Record, The Orange County Register, Human Events, National Review Online, The Washington Examiner, Tax Notesand numerous others.

Resources

  1. "John Locke Staff, Fellows, & Scholars - Biographies: Dr. Roy Cordato," The John Locke Foundation, Accessed December 3, 2011.
  2. "Who is Roy Cordato," DeSmogBlog, November 15, 2007 (see video).
  3. "Climate Change Commission Gets a Cold Shoulder," Carolina Journal Online, August 4, 2010.
  4. "Roy Cordato," climateconference.heartland.org (Website for the 6th International Conference on Climate Change).
  5. "Archive for Roy Cordato," The Freeman.
  6. "Roy Cordato Literature Archive," Ludwig von Mises Institute.

=

whole series atack ctr clim strats

===

One of JLF’s most important projects is its monthly newspaper, Carolina Journal. Since its debut in 1991, Carolina Journal has published hundreds of articles on politics, education, health care, crime, taxes, and other issues. With a statewide readership of more than 20,000, Carolina Journal — under Publisher Jon Ham and Managing Editor Rick Henderson — covers state government and the legislature and includes special sections on education, books and culture, higher education, and local government.

While known for its analysis and opinion, the newspaper is also a leader in investigative journalism. In 1997, CJ’sDon Carrington broke the story of a $21 million slush fund used by insiders for pork barrel projects in violation of law. The following year, a CJ investigation of hiring and promotion practices in state government helped to prompt former Gov. Jim Hunt and lawmakers to enact reforms of the state personnel system. More recently, Carolina Journal has exposed conflicts of interest and misuse of public funds in areas such as economic development, a natural-gas boondoggle in Northeastern North Carolina, and state grants to politically connected nonprofits. Partly as a consequence of CJ investigations, former State Sen. Frank Ballance resigned his office as a freshman member of Congress in 2004 and was later indicted for federal crimes.

Articles from Carolina Journal are frequently quoted in news reports and editorials. Carolina Beat a weekly op-ed column, is condensed from Carolina Journal and appears hundreds of times a year across the state. A separatesyndicated column written by CJ publisherJohn Hood appears weekly in more than three dozen daily and community newspapers with half a million readers statewide.

Carolina Journal reporting and analysis is available in several other forms as well. Carolina Journal Weekly Reportis distributed by e-mail each weekend to thousands of North Carolinians who have an interest in politics and public policy. Its daily web site, CarolinaJournal.com, provides JLF commentaries and news reports, summaries of breaking stories in the state’s major media, and links to newspapers, wire services, blogs, and other information resources. About 30,000 different North Carolinians each month visit CarolinaJournal.com. On the airwaves,Carolina Journal **Radiois an hourlong newsmagazine broadcast each weekend on 20 commercial radio stations across the state. As host, Hood interviews CJ writers, contributors, and special guests about the major issues of the day.

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John Hood is President and Chairman of the John Locke Foundation, a North Carolina think tank that issues policy studies, hosts dozens of events and training sessions each year, produces broadcast programs, and publishes Carolina Journal, a newspaper, website, and radio program with a monthly audience of nearly 200,000 North Carolinians. Hood helped to found JLF in 1989.

In addition to his duties at JLF, Hood is a syndicated columnist for the Winston-Salem Journal, High Point Enterprise, Gaston Gazette, Durham Herald-Sun, and newspapers in 50 other North Carolina communities. He also writes a monthly column, "Free & Clear," for Business North Carolina magazine.

Hood is a frequent guest on talk radio and serves as a weekly panelist on “NC Spin,” a political talk show broadcast on 16 television stations in Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Greenville, Wilmington, Asheville, and elsewhere. He also created “Carolina Journal Radio,” a weekly newsmagazine broadcast on 18 radio stations.

Hood is the author of six books. The most recent one is Our Best Foot Forward: An Investment Plan for North Carolina's Economic Recovery,published by JLFin 2012. The Raleigh News & Observer described Our Best Foot Forward as "loaded with data and interesting ideas" and concluded that it "makes valuable contributions to the policy debate in North Carolina."

In 2005, Praeger published Hood's Selling the Dream: Why Advertising is Good Business The industry publicationAdweek raved that Selling the Dream offered “a refreshing argument” for the role advertising plays in benefiting consumers. Choice rated the book as “highly recommended,” concluding that “Hood provides a fascinating look into the world of advertising and beyond to support his view that advertising provides a societal good.”

Hood is also the author of Investor Politics (Templeton Press, 2001.) “John Hood has produced a timely and informative account of...the most significant demographic shift of this century — the rise of a shareholder democracy in America,” said Jack Kemp. National Review called Investor Politics “chock-full of interesting historical anecdotes, clever policy analysis, and surprising musings.”

In 1994-95, Hood was a Bradley Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the nation’s premier conservative think tank. At Heritage, he researched and wrote a book entitled The Heroic Enterprise: Business and the Common Good(The Free Press, 1996). The Wall Street Journal praised Hood’s book for “demonstrating the nexus between market incentives and socially desirable outcomes” and for providing “an avalanche of examples of Adam Smith’s invisible hand at work in the modern corporation.”

In addition to these public-policy books, Hood has published two volumes of family history and is currently writing the biography of former North Carolina Gov. James G. Martin.

Hood writes and comments frequently on politics and policy issues for national media organizations, particularlyNational Review Online and its main blog “The Corner.” His articles have appeared in both magazines — such asReaders’ Digest, The New Republic, National Review, Military History, and Reason — and in newspapers, includingThe Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Chicago Tribune. He’s been interviewed by, among other news media, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, CNN, CNBC, NBC Nightly News, and the Fox News Channel.

At JLF, Hood created theE.A. Morris Fellowship for Emerging Leaders, a yearlong program that prepares young North Carolinians for leadership roles in government, business, and nonprofits. The ranks of Morris Fellows include state lawmakers, local elected officials, entrepreneurs, business managers, professionals, educators, and citizen activists. Hood has also served on selection committees for other programs such as the Wildacres Leadership Initiative's William Friday Fellows and the German Marshall Fund's Marshall Memorial Fellowship. 

Hood received his degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he founded a student magazine called The Carolina Critic in the mid-1980s that ultimately grew to encompass five campus editions (at UNC-Chapel Hill, N.C. State, UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Charlotte, and Wake Forest University). Hood currently serves as chairman of the Carolina Liberty Foundation, an independent nonprofit that provides financial support to conservative and libertarian student groups at Chapel Hill.

He is a Mecklenburg County native and currently resides in Wake County with his family.

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Loraine AhearnThe Greensboro News & Record

Taylor Batten

The Charlotte Observer

Jack Betts

The Charlotte Observer

Tom Campbell

“N.C. Spin” Television Show

Si Cantwell

The Wilmington Star-News

Damon Circosta

NC Center for Voter Education

Doug Clark

The Greensboro News & Record

Ed Cone

The Greensboro News & Record

Orson Scott Card

The Rhinoceros Times

Rob Christensen

The Raleigh News & Observer

Charles Davenport

The Greensboro News & Record

John Drescher

The Raleigh News & Observer

Chris Fitzsimon

NC Policy Watch

Steve Ford

The Raleigh News & Observer

John Hood

JLF/Syndicated Columnist

John Hood's “Daily Journal”

Jim Jenkins

The Raleigh News & Observer

Allen Johnson

The Greensboro News & Record

D.G. Martin

One on One (Chatham Journal Weekly)

Rick Martinez

The Raleigh *News & Observer*

Mary Newsom

The Charlotte Observer

Bernie Reeves

Metro magazine (Triangle-Coast)

Barry Saunders

The Raleigh News & Observer

Scott Sexton

Winston-Salem Journal

Mary Schulken

The Charlotte Observer

Barry Smith

Freedom Newspapers (8 papers)

Bob Burtman

The Independent Weekly (Triangle)

==

national (must be same list as __?)

Mike S. Adams

Gary Aldrich

Bruce Bartlett

Tony Blankley

Brent Bozell

Pat Buchanan

William F. Buckley

Lorie Byrd

Steve Chapman

Mona Charen

Linda Chavez

Ann Coulter

Larry Elder

Don Feder

Edwin J. Feulner

Suzanne Fields

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

Maggie Gallagher

Mike Gallagher

James Glassman

Jonah Goldberg

Paul Greenberg

Mary Katharine Ham

David Horowitz

Charles Krauthammer

Larry Kudlow

John Leo

David Limbaugh

Rich Lowry

Ross Mackenzie

Michelle Malkin

John McCaslin

Michael Medved

Joel Mowbray

Bill Murchison

Oliver North

Robert Novak

Marvin Olasky

Bill O'Reilly

Kathleen Parker

Dennis Prager

Paul Craig Roberts

Ben Shapiro

Amity Shlaes

Thomas Sowell

Jacob Sullum

Mark Tapscott

Cal Thomas

Rich Tucker

Emmett Tyrrell

Malcolm Wallop

Jude Wanniski

Diana West

George Will

Walter Williams

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