Martosko, D

see CCF

http://mediamatters.org/people/david-martosko

SEE Extensive Berman filepunked 2x by JOK?

<a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/the-mystery-of-david-martosko-214787">https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/the-mystery-of-david-martosko-214787</a>no lnxLess than a week after Election Day, David Martosko, the hard-charging and cigar-chomping U.S. political editor of DailyMail.com, found himself at the center of a ballyhoo inside the Beltway. Speculation abounded regarding the president-elect’s Cabinet picks, and one report placed Martosko, quite unexpectedly, on the short list for press secretary. Given his nickname from the campaign trail—“Trump’s de facto comms director,” supplied by Washington Post reporter Jenna Johnson after Martosko criticized her Trump coverage—the news struck many as a moment of cosmic irony.By then, Martosko had established a reputation as a journalistic antihero. During the 2016 campaign, he was perhaps the most prolific reporter covering a man who made a mockery of the media. There was his steady stream of scooplets from inside Trump world and exclusive interviews with the would-be president, often criticized for being cushy. There were his surly tweets scolding other journalists who he felt were biased in favor of Hillary Clinton. Like the Donald himself, Martosko excelled at aspects of his job while ignoring certain codes of conduct, such as when he took multiple trips on Trump’s private 757 in lieu of the press plane—then bragged about it with colleagues. If Donald Trump had a journalistic soulmate, it would probably be David Martosko.So, when the prospect of the unconventional Daily Mail reporter-editor staring down from the White House podium first surfaced in November, it engendered reactions from chuckles to disbelief in the D.C. press corps. Some found the rumor of his consideration for the job so outlandish, they assumed it was a farce. “No one would put it past Martosko himself floating the idea of him being up for press secretary,” says Betsy Rothstein, the media reporter at the Daily Caller. In fact, she says, “that would be vintage Martosko.”The rumors were true, says Martosko, but he didn’t get the job. It went to Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer, whose combative press briefings have vaulted him to a unique form of national celebrity. But Martosko’s gambit rankled fellow journalists. “Once you go to work or seek to go to work for this administration, you don’t go back,” says one fellow White House reporter. Though several press secretaries have in fact flipped back and forth (Dee Dee Myers, for instance, hosted a cable news show after a stint in the White House)—and others, such as Jay Carney and the late Tony Snow, left journalism for the briefing room—Martosko’s abrupt to and fro was an anomaly. “There has long been a revolving door between the press and the White House,” says Kyle Pope, editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journalism Review. “But I don’t quite remember a scenario going in this direction—someone trying to go into an administration and then immediately going back.”As for Martkosko, he doesn’t see the ethical trouble. “I was honored to be asked for a meeting,” he says via email to Politico Magazine, his first on-the-record comments since being considered for White House press secretary. “I considered it a point of patriotism to say yes, and I would have had the same answer for any president-elect. … I personally believe that being considered for a job like this should not impact your professional impartiality—and it hasn’t!”One could argue, however, that Martosko’s reporting—relentless and rabble-rousing, often accentuated with all-caps words in his headlines—has changed in recent weeks, morphing from an unapologetic form of access journalism to rather mundane analysis of press briefings and Sunday talk shows. In the first 30 days of the Trump administration, Martosko has seen his throughway to Trump insiders blocked off. Suddenly, the guy who was pilloried for being a kiss-ass to Trump on the trail has lately been, well, just another guy. “As Trump added new staff and shuffled the responsibilities of others, and as the old-timers approach their jobs with new levels of gravitas, it’s naturally harder to get people to talk on the record,” Martosko writes in an email. “I think a lot of journalists in Washington are seeing the same thing.”Blending in with the crowd was not part of Martosko’s playbook in 2016. At a presser back in May that devolved into one of Trump’s trademark anti-media diatribes, the candidate singled out several reporters, including Martosko. After drilling CNN correspondent Jim Acosta sarcastically as “a real beauty” and demeaning the media as “losers,” he made sure to gently caress Martosko, insisting he was not one of the bums he was referring to. “Not you David, actually,” Trump said.That special, favorite-child sheen has worn off since the swearing-in. There have been no real scoops to his name and rarely a quote from a White House source. Martosko hasn’t produced the same caliber of guilty-pleasure click bait that he’s known for, such as this headline from September: “Miss Universe ‘fat-shamed’ by Donald Trump was accused of threatening to kill a judge and being an accomplice to a MURDER bid in her native Venezuela.” And while he’s been known to stick up for Steve Bannon on Twitter, he’s also been outspoken regarding the war on facts that Trump aides have launched, not to mention ribbing the POTUS for hanging a photo of his inauguration that was inscribed with the wrong date of his swearing-in and reminding the administration of broken campaign promises, including Trump’s pledge to release his tax returns.All of this could be viewed as Martosko getting even for getting passed over. Or, oddly enough, maybe it’s part of a prolonged audition for the press-secretary gig in case Spicer vacates the job down the line. If nothing else, Trump appreciates a wild card, not to mention someone who has an aptitude for unpredictability and who is willing to take the offensive. And Martosko is certainly taking the offensive. The early returns on Spicer haven’t been good, and Martosko hasn’t held back his schadenfreude on Twitter: 

David Martosko?@dmartosko Sean Spicer just spelled the apostrophe in "Ja’Ron Smith" as "the little thing that goes up before the R"
8:40 AM - Jan 6, 20174See David Martosko's other TweetsTwitter Ads info and privacy


David Martosko?@dmartosko Sean Spicer is reading press releases to the press corps at his briefing. I don't get it.
8:41 AM - Jan 18, 20174726 people are talking about thisTwitter Ads info and privacy


David Martosko?@dmartosko Losing credibility is like a spinal cord injury. Takes 1 second to snap. Takes forever to recover. You're still never really whole again.
9:10 PM - Jan 21, 2017


David Martosko?@dmartosko Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer. Oh. My. God. Better than Larry David as Bernie Sanders. Better than hot cocoa in December.
10:26 PM - Feb 4, 20173,820


Maybe Martosko, stoking the flames under Spicer and ramping up his tenacity online, is only biding his time.

*You don’t hear of many 46-year-old rising stars in any profession, no less the young man’s game of political beat reporting. But that’s Martosko, whose big personality and outsize audience—roughly one-third of the 243 million unique visitors per month at the DailyMail.com come from within the U.S.—has lifted him, swiftly and unorthodoxly, into rarefied airs within the political press.Part of this fame is due to his knack for inserting himself into a story. Many of the top Google results for his name are not links to pieces by him, but rather, reporting about him, including “Clinton campaign stiff-arms reporter in coverage pool” and “Daily Mail Editor: ‘A Lot’ of the Reporters Covering Hillary Are ‘Fans.’” Throughout last year, Breitbart aggregated his work incessantly; liberal blogs like Wonkette poked at him with nasty monikers like “shitragger-in-chief.”More than breaking news or covering campaign events, which accounts for the bulk of his work, Martosko is better known for what might be called gonzo-journalism-meets-tabloid-sensationalism. For example, the time when he got booted off Clinton’s press bus in New Hampshire, only to find a rental car and chase down her motorcade. Clinton had dubbed her van the "Scooby Van." Martosko filed a story: “Scooby hits the road at 92 MPH! Secret Service zooms Hillary to dinner through driving rain following secret afternoon house party.” (Clinton’s camp denied the speeding.) To his followers, it’s the quintessential Martosko yarn—him going to the ends of the earth to report the story (what was the story again?)—to Democratic operatives, these sorts of antics led them to supply a code name for Martosko: #Creepolla.
“Our audience loved the intersection of politics and entertainment, so I just worked it and worked it every day,” Martosko tells me.
Others disagree. “He wasn’t exactly getting up and cheering during Trump rallies, but I took issue with how uncritical he was [of Trump] in his articles,” says one national political reporter. “On Twitter, he could be an attack dog on behalf of the Trump administration.” But while some of his colleagues privately describe him as a Trump apologist, he has his defenders. “As forgiving as Martosko was in his coverage of Trump, I don’t think he ever crossed that line in publishing a press release of the Trump campaign or serving as his media super PAC, like Breitbart,” says a reporter at a right-leaning D.C. publication.
Indeed, those who’ve worked for Martosko or beside him describe the man in wildly different ways. To some, he’s a misunderstood and brilliant loner. To others, he’s a mercurial troll. Everyone agrees he’s colorful. “As a character, I love him. As a person, I do not,” says Rothstein.
Martosko certainly cut a figure on the campaign trail. A recovering alcoholic, he has been known to type stories with a cigar in hand. (He eschews booze, along with coffee and fungi—the former because of the taste, the latter because of a deathly allergy to mushrooms—but he blissfully indulges in smokes.) The Daily Mail doesn’t have a physical Washington bureau, so when he’s not on the road, one of his favorite places to work is the heated, smokers-friendly patio at Morton’s in downtown D.C. Or he works from a home office that consists of Ikea furniture, a gas fireplace, a cigar humidor and a coat rack on which he hung every press credential upon returning home.
He was at times a staunch defender of press-pool etiquette, according to several reporters who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity. In the waning weeks of the general election, Breitbart reporter Joel Pollak caused a kerfuffle when he wrote a story, since amended, that included a description of how the traveling press pool reacted to a Trump speech, in between campaign stops. From that day forward, Martosko made announcements over the PA system, reminding newcomers, “what we say here, who we see here, stays here”—a version of the warning read aloud before every AA meeting.At the same time, though, Martosko’s Twitter beefs with other journalists are legion. He often comments on other reporters’ tweets, calling out what he sees as liberal bias. Despite the fact that Martosko deleted his entire Twitter archive, wholesale, after Election Day, you can still find traces of tit-for-tats online. Last September, Martosko remarked on Twitter, of Clinton’s appearance at a campaign event, “She sounds bored / half-awake / disinterested … not the kind of performance that inspires fear in our enemies. Where’s the caffeine.” A couple of Reuters reporters sparred with Martosko after the tweet, before Clinton traveling press secretary Nick Merrill tweeted for Martosko to “delete your account.” Unlikely to happen. “This seems a good a time as any to re-up my only Twitter rule: Curse at me and you’re blocked or muted, depending on my mood,” he tweeted on November 14. On Wednesday, he made an odd remark to NBC News’ Katy Tur, sharing a story about naked man who bit someone at her network’s offices in Washington. “Hey @KatyTurNBC ... You doing okay? :-)”
There is a reason why no mainstream journalists chose to speak with me on the record for this story—beyond the fact that reporters tend to be uncomfortable calling out colleagues. “I don’t think anyone is afraid of [David], but on the campaign trail, most of the reporters would avoid him, because there was a sense that the guy has a lot of personal animus,” says one experienced campaign reporter. That reputation grew darker in the weeks after the election. More than the commotion Martosko caused by reporting on Trump while getting vetted as a potential Cabinet pick—which drew heavy scrutiny—it was the nature of the job discussions that put him under fire. Last month, the New York Post Page Six column reported on a memo, said to be written by Martosko and shared with Trump, suggesting that White House journalists ought to be regularly drug-tested. For Martosko, this turn in the news was a keeping-it-real-goes-wrong moment—one he’s not eager to revisit. “It’s not my role to talk or write about the content of those meetings, or any contact I had with the transition, or anything like that,” he says over email, regarding the specifics of his meetings with “several top people.”
Well-intentioned or not, Martosko’s next-level snark can feel condescending when you’re on the receiving end. “I find his tweets incredibly arrogant, the way he counsels the media about how to report correctly,” says Rothstein. “He’s been in the media for what, five minutes?”
Martosko has, in fact, been in the media for only six years. Prior to journalism, he spent time as an opera conductor, a singing telegram deliveryman and a longtime PR flack for Berman and Company, where he often defended corporate clients in the food and beverage industry against claims made by consumers and activists. As part of that job, Martosko once tangled with actor Jeremy Piven, who left his role in a David Mamet play after alleging that some sushi gave him food poisoning. Martosko swung back in a statement to the press: “If Piven weighs about 160 pounds he would have to eat at least 3.4 pounds of sushi-grade tuna—that’s 108 pieces of tuna sushi roll—every week for his entire lifetime in order to introduce any new health risks from mercury.”
Martosko’s most infamous work involved him impersonating a dope-smoking commie to infiltrate animal-rights groups—a stunt that led to a lawsuit and a 2013 Mother Jones investigation. Martosko, so impressed with the reporting that sullied his name, later offered investigative reporter Kate Sheppard a job. (She declined.)In 2011, Tucker Carlson hired him away from Berman to run his nascent Daily Caller as executive editor. Not long after arriving, a wave of staff departures ensued. But Martosko is generally credited with improving the rigor and reputation of the Daily Caller, which, when he arrived, had a loose editorial direction and a National Lampoon-like office culture. “It was a frat house, and David was trying to manage it,” recalls Patrick Howley, a Daily Caller reporter then and now an op-ed contributor. Howley points to a number of big-for-D.C. names, including Matt Boyle, whom Martosko mentored at the Daily Caller as evidence of his editorial strength. “David has been a big part of conservative new-media history,” he adds.But it wasn’t until Trump that Martosko began getting attacked by Clinton campaign officials in WikiLeaks email dumps and having his name bandied about for presidential appointments. “Trump has made many winners and losers in the media; David is clearly one of the winners,” says Charles Johnson of GotNews.com, who is no stranger to controversy himself, having been called “the web’s worst journalist” by Gawker. For fringe-y, radical journalists like Johnson, Martosko is something of a role model whose rise to prominence draws applause. “If you think about it, [David] was basically nobody, and within a few years, he’s the political editor of the largest English-language publication in the story,” says Johnson.It’d be hard to argue that Martosko’s portfolio has been full-blown conservative hackery. His DailyMail.com byline runs the gamut, ranging from friendly cover fire (“Final tally shows Trump lost popular vote by 2.8 million – but he BEAT Clinton by 3 million votes outside of California and New York”) to stiff checks (“Photos of Trump’s ‘record crowd’ that supposedly broke arena record set by ZZ Top 42 years ago show the Arkansas venue was actually half EMPTY”). He even wrote a story on the pushback to Trump’s immigration ban from New York Mayor Bill de Blasio—who is not exactly friendly to reporters from conservative publications—and has hammered the Trump administration on things like Tiffany Trump’s voter registration in two states.
Martosko maintains that he’s got no ideological orthodoxy. “I didn’t cover the Trump campaign as a fan,” Martosko says over email. “The same goes for his presidency. My team and I will report the good and the bad because that’s what our readers expect of us.”
READ MOREShafer_Picture.jpgFOURTH ESTATE
Dear Baby Donald: Leaks Are as American as Apple PieBy JACK SHAFER170214_gateway_pundit_screengrab_1160.jpgMEDIA
‘Real News’ Joins the White House Briefing RoomBy BEN SCHRECKINGERAccording to Martosko, his longevity—not any sort of partisan bent—is why he secured so much access during the campaign. “I interviewed Donald Trump often in the early days before he announced he was running because he was accessible and eager to talk to an audience as big as DailyMail.com’s,” he says.
In other words, Martosko got in early and hitched a ride to Trump, as he ascended, improbably, like a runaway balloon that never came back down to Earth.
But in Trump’s America, where the media have been labeled Public Enemy No. 1, Martosko is, like it or not, still part of the horde. At least for now. All but one political journalist I spoke to, many of whom cringed at the idea of Martosko at the podium three months ago—said they’d take him in a heartbeat over Spicer. At least Martosko has a sense of humor.
But if the president came calling again, this time with a formal offer, would Martosko take it?“I put the whole thing behind me pretty quickly,” he says. “I truly have one of the best journalism jobs in Washington.”404 --> https://www.thefreelibrary.com/SWEETENER+SLAUGHTER%3B+12%2C800+animals+die+for+no-calorie+pills+Dogs...-a076981559
bsSWEETENER SLAUGHTER; 12,800 animals die for no-calorie pills Dogs were killed after 52 weeks of treatment by exsanguination.
 daily mirror tabloid? cited in congr test?Link/Page Citation Byline: MIKE HAMILTON 
BEAGLES were among thousands of animals killed in laboratory tests on a new artificial sweetener. 
The dogs probably had their throats cut, while marmoset monkeys died from brain damage and rabbits were poisoned during a 20-year study into the effects of Sucralose. 
The sweetener - sold in the United States as Splenda - is expected to be on sale in the UK in a couple of months. 
Researchers estimate that 12,800 animals died during the research. 
The death toll came to light in articles published in a scientific journal. 
Sucralose - which is 600 times sweeter than sugar - is the first no-calorie sugar-based sweetener to be developed. 
It is set to be a money- spinner for British sugar giant Tate & Lyle, who commissioned the research. 
But thousands of animals died in a series of gruesome laboratory experiments to test the sweetener both here and in the US, anti-vivisection campaigners have revealed. 
In the most shocking tests, 32 beagle dogs were locked in metal cages for 52 weeks at the McNeil Speciality Products labs in New Jersey. 
They were given Sucralose mixed in with their normal feed, and blood and urine samples were collected. 
At the end of the study they were anaesthetised and had their throats slit open so they bled to death. 
They were then cut open and their organs - by now drained of blood so easier to dissect - were examined to test the product's toxicity levels. A report of the study was published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology. 
It read: "Dogs were killed after 52 weeks of treatment by exsanguination (draining of blood) while under anaesthesia and examined." 
Thousands of monkeys, rabbits, mice and rats were killed during tests in the UK. 
In one experiment at the controversial Huntingdon Research Centre in Cambridgeshire four beagle puppies were starved before being force-fed Sucralose through tubes. 
Researchers took blood samples from the animals' jugular veins and examined their urine and faeces to discover the effect of Sucralose on their metabolisms. 
It is unclear whether the puppies survived or not. 
An unspecified number of marmoset monkeys died or were killed after they were force-fed Sucralose at the Life Science Research lab in Eye, Suffolk, now part of Huntingdon Life Sciences. 
Twelve male monkeys aged under 10 months were examined and force-fed Sucralose for seven weeks. 
On the seventh day of the study two of the monkeys died from brain defects, a third was killed after four weeks and the remainder of the brain-damaged animals were put down. In another British-based experiment, also carried out at Eye, rabbits were given a dose of Sucralose 1,200 times the expected human daily intake. Many died from trauma. 
Others suffered extreme weight loss, convulsions and intestinal disorders. 
Tests on pregnant rabbits and thousands of mice and rats were also carried out at Huntingdon. 
Experiments, which have not been published, were also carried out at labs at Inveresk, near Edinburgh, and at Covance at Harrogate, Yorkshire. The British Union For The Abolition Of Vivisection (email: info@buav.org), estimates tens of thousands of animals have died. 
BUAV's director of research Sarah Kite said: "They are particularly nasty. Animals have been made to suffer and die simply to put out another sweetener which we don't need. 
"These appalling tests, which usually involve slitting the animals' throats, are legal, but we feel they should not be allowed in this country." Sucralose is already on sale in 40 countries including the US - where it is marketed under licence by Johnson & Johnson - Australia and Canada. It is sold as tiny sweetener tablets or as a powder for use in soft drinks, ice cream and jams. 
Tate & Lyle has applied to the European Union and the UK's Food Standards Agency for approval to release Sucralose. 
Tate & Lyle divisional managing director Austin Maguire said: "We have done the minimum number of tests required. Sucralose is unique. Consumers welcome that additional choice." A spokesman for Huntingdon Life Sciences - bailed out by the Government this year when its bank became the focus for protests and withdrew their loan - said: "We would only do these tests if there was no alternative. 
"Most were done at Huntingdon some years ago and are not happening now." 
A Home Office spokesman said: "Anyone who wants to do safety testing has to show a clear necessity for using animals to gain a licence." 
mike.hamilton@sundaymirror.co.uk 
COMMENT: Page 8 
CAPTION(S): 
TESTS: Huntingdon Research; VICTIM: Marmoset; IMAGE: The sweetener's UK logo; TO DIE FOR: Beagles like this were fed Sucralose for a year. Research animals usually then have their throats cut; PROFIT: On sale as Splenda in US<h4 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Senate hearings focusing on HLS issues</h4>According to Dr. Jerry Vlasik's October 10th, 2005 address to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works:  INHOFE?<dl style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><dd>"Huntingdon Life Sciences has been infiltrated and exposed 5 times in recent years by journalists, animal rights campaigners and members of the public; each time evidence of animal abuse and staff incompetence has been uncovered. A 1999 inspection of their Occold (UK) facility by the Good Laboratory Practice Monitoring Authority revealed 41 deficiencies, including errors in standard operating procedures, training issues, record keeping, quality assurance, equipment, labeling and facilities. 520 violations of the UK Good Laboratory Practices Act were documented in an expose by the Daily Press (UK) in 2000. They are the only UK laboratory to ever have their license revoked by the government. ...Each of the witnesses that have testified before me have their own financial interests at stake in the continued oppression, torture and murder of non-human animals by HLS." <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Berman_cares_about_animals:clients_exposed#cite_note-16" title="">[17]</a></dd></dl>Dr. Vlasik is a trauma surgeon, former vivisector and Press Officer for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. He was the only activist invited to attend these hearings. A previous hearing in May featured statements from <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Martosko" title="David Martosko">David Martosko</a> of CCF. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Berman_cares_about_animals:clients_exposed#cite_note-17" title="">[18]</a><a name="Tyson_Foods" id="Tyson_Foods"> </a>Martosko  daiy caller  https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/David_MartoskoMartosko is Executive Editor of The Daily Caller, a news organization in Washington, D.C.He was previously director of research for <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Berman_%26_Company" class="mw-redirect" title="Berman & Company" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Berman & Company</a>. He has testified before the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee and the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy & Poultry. He has also spoken before FDA and USDA panels on seafood, obesity and animal agriculture, and addressed foreign police agencies on the topic of criminality in the animal rights movement.CCF is an <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Industry-funded_organization" class="mw-redirect" title="Industry-funded organization" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">industry-funded organization</a> and front group for the restaurant, and other industries. It is registered as a tax-exempt, non-profit organization under the IRS code <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/501(c)(3)" title="501(c)(3)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">501(c)(3)</a>. Over 40% of the group's 2005 expenditure was paid to <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rick_Berman" title="Rick Berman" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Rick Berman</a>'s <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Public_relations" title="Public relations" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">public relations</a> company, Berman & Co. for "management servicesmall cash grants does not prove peta or orgs supported or even approved of acts?http://www.rexano.org/Documents/MARTOSKO_TESTIMONY.pdfPETA has made a $5,000 cash grant to Joshua Harper, an activist presently awaiting trial in New

Jersey on federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism charges. [20] An FBI evidence recovery log from

the search of his residence describes a razor-blade booby-trapped envelope, [21] similar to those

used in a string of attacks claimed by an ALF-like group calling itself “The Justice Department”

[22]. Harper has reported that he is working on a video documentary, called “Speaking With

Fire,” which will encourage and defend animal-rights-related arson...The Oregonian

OCTOBER 27, 1999

Scientists Get Letters Rigged With Razors

by Bryan Denson

Underground animal-rights extremists have mailed letters rigged with razor blades to scientists across the

United States, including four in Oregon, to scare them out of using primates in research.

The letters, postmarked Friday in Las Vegas, were the second such mass mailing in the past 90 days by a

group calling itself the “Justice Department.” One envelope was delivered to a Portland-area scientist, who

turned it over unopened to authorities.

In early August, the group mailed similar envelopes to fur industry officials across the United States and

Canada, including at least three Oregon ranchers. Animal-rights extremists have been accused of previous

mailings in England and Canada, but the latest mass mailings are thought to be unprecedented in the United

States.

For 20 years, underground terrorists devoted to the environment and its creatures have burned, bombed and

otherwise sabotaged industries that rely on natural resources. They have typically intended to inflict

economic, not physical, harm.

But the mass-mailed letters, rigged with utility razor blades affixed to index cards, were designed to cut

fingers. The wife of a Pennsylvania fur farmer, who sliced her thumb last summer, appears to be the only

one hurt so far.

FBI agents in Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas confirmed Tuesday that they were familiar with the

incidents but would not confirm having opened an investigation.

The latest batch of letters was sent to 86 primate researchers from Atlanta to Seattle, according to a notice

posted by the extremist organization on an Animal Liberation Front Internet sites.

“Animal abusers beware,” the site warns, “. . . the wave of booby-trapped letters sent to fur farmers in North

America in August was only the beginning.”

Dr. Don P. Wolf, a senior scientist at Oregon Health Sciences University’s regional primate research center

in Hillsboro, received one of the rigged letters early Monday at a Portland fertility clinic. Wolf had been

warned that he was on the hit list, so he didn’t open the letter when it arrived. Instead, he gave the envelope

to campus police, who turned it over to the FBI.

“It’s very sobering to realize that it would be very easy for an individual to do bodily harm if they were

determined,” said Wolf. Three other OHSU primate researchers also made the hit list, but all were out of

town and none received the letters, said Jim Parker, chief spokesman for primate researchers at OHSU.

At least a dozen other researchers nationally had received the letters by Tuesday, but none had been hurt,

said Jacquie Calnan, president of Americans for Medical Progress, a Virginia-based group dedicated to

bolstering public opinion of medical research.

Calnan, who spent Monday and Tuesday e-mailing researchers on the hit list, was dismayed by the latest

mailing
---derrickDB: A group called the Justice Department, an extreme faction of the animal liberation movement, has said they’re willing to harm humans to further animal liberation goals. They have carried out these booby trapped razor blade letter campaigns in England, the U.S. and in Canada, targetting individuals associated to animal cruelty and abuse. It’s not unusual in human society to have people bent on doing violence and harm to others, and the animal liberation movement is no different. Same goes for the anti-abortionists, the black liberationists, native sovereigntists, and others. The Justice Dept. is very clearly a small minority, and the vast majority of animal rights supporters are nonviolent. But even when you analyse the JD razor blade actions and the amount of actual harm they can inflict on someone, how does that compare to what faces animals in labs or those being hunted? I’m not going to justify that kind of violence, because I don’t believe in it, but I don’t think causing razor cuts on fingers equates to terrorism, not compared to what’s been inflicted on activists by animal abusers, certainly not compared to what, for example, the US military does on a routine basis, and absolutely not compared to the vast torture of nonhuman animals on which our system is based. DJ: Even if we include the razor cuts – and I realize the razors were not sent by the ALF – it seems the level of effort that goes into squelching the ALF is often out of scale with the damage – and I’m thinking of the liberations and sabotage – they actually do.=<p align="center" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; color: rgb(95, 96, 104); font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Jan. 4, 2005 - Dec. 9, 2006  <table border="0" cellpadding="0" align="left" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(95, 96, 104); font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" width="width"><tbody style="box-sizing: border-box;"><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Democrats/Independent (Minority)</td><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Republicans (Majority)</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">James M. Jeffords, Vermont</td><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma, Chmn.</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Max Baucus, Montana</td><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">John W. Warner, Virginia</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut</td><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Christopher S. Bond, Missouri</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Barbara Boxer, California</td><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">George V. Voinovich, Ohio</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Thomas R. Carper, Delaware</td><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Lincoln Chafee, Rhode Island</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York</td><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Lisa Murkowski, Alaska</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Frank R. Lautenberg, New Jersey</td><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">John Thune, South Dakota</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Barack Obama, Illinois</td><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Jim DeMint, South Carolina</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"> </td><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">Johnny Isakson, Georgia</td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;"> </td><td width="50%" valign="top" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px;">David Vitter, Louisiana

</td></tr></tbody></table>






http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/02/daily_mail_new_york_times_how_the_british_tabloid_became_the_world_s_most_popular_online_newspaper.html==<h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 2px; clear: both; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 153, 255); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">David Martosko: Potential Press Secretary</h2>Martosko Was Conservative Daily Caller’s Executive Editor Before Working For Daily Mail. Politico reported on December 13 that the Daily Mail’s U.S. political editor, David Martosko, has interviewed for a Trump administration position and that his name had been mentioned as a possible pick for press secretary. Before joining the Daily Mail in 2013, Martosko worked as the executive editor for the conservative news site The Daily Caller starting in 2011. During his stint at The Daily Caller, Martosko refused to correct an embarrassing false report about an EPA court brief, then doubled down on the erroneous story with a misleading editor’s note. While working at the Daily Mail, Martosko fell for and reported a false smear by discredited conservative activist James O’Keefe, and pushed the baseless smear that Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is anti-gun. Martosko also serves on the media advisory board of the American Media Institute, which plants stories in major publications and is largely funded by a right-wing dark money group. [Politico, <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/12/daily-mail-us-political-editor-interviewed-for-trump-position-232606" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">12/13/16</a>; Media Matters, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/09/29/updated-daily-caller-compounds-error-with-bad-r/182971" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">9/29/11</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/10/20/report-daily-caller-employees-were-embarrassed/183946" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">10/20/11</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/06/18/right-wing-media-already-falling-for-okeefes-la/194509" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">6/18/13</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/03/12/right-wing-media-claims-surgeon-general-nominee/198455" target="blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">3/12/14</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/10/19/american-media-institute-duping-mainstream-media-outlets-running-its-right-wing-investigations/213932" target="_blank" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">10/19/16</a>]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/09/29/updated-daily-caller-compounds-error-with-bad-r/182971<div class="item-body" style="box-sizing: border-box;">This week we caught Daily Caller reporter Matthew Boyle <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2011/09/27/no-epa-is-not-hiring-230000-workers-to-implemen/182118" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">completely misreading</a> a court brief to claim that the "EPA is asking taxpayers to fund up to 230,000 new government workers" to process greenhouse gas regulations "at an estimated cost of $21 billion." In reality, EPA was describing a scenario that it avoided by issuing a rule in May 2010 significantly reducing the number of facilities required to obtain permits for greenhouse gas emissions.Boyle's <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/26/epa-regulations-would-require-230000-new-employees-21-billion/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">report</a> -- which was <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/09/28/inhofe_stands_by_daily_caller_epa_story.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">circulated</a> by Sen. Inhofe's office and made its way to <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2011/09/27/no-epa-is-not-hiring-230000-workers-to-implemen/182118" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">Fox News</a> -- was just wrong. But rather than issue a correction, Daily Caller <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/09/28/defending-false-epa-story-daily-caller-lashes-o/182743" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">doubled down</a>, telling Politico that "anyone who has spent more than a few months in Washington knows" EPA wouldn't try to "limit its own power." As <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/kate_sheppard/status/118775543607996416" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">more</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/bryanrwalsh/status/119128735990546432" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">commentators</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/chrislhayes/status/119123158950359040" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">noticed</a> this brazen disregard for the facts, The Daily Caller came up with a more substantive response, still insisting the story "was spot-on and accurate":<div class="im" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 25px 30px 10px; margin: 20px 20px 25px; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-shadow: rgb(204, 204, 204) 0px 6px 0px -4px; clear: both;">Our story about the EPA was spot-on and accurate. It's true that the agency's court filing outlined a "tailoring rule" as a more gradual approach to hiring 230,000 people at a cost of $21 billion. But the EPA was clear that "the Tailoring Rule is calculated to move toward eventual full compliance with the statutory threshold" -- meaning it's not a question of if the EPA wants to triple its budget, but when.</blockquote></div>Nope. The <a href="http://www.eenews.net/assets/2011/09/16/document_pm_02.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">brief</a> did not present the tailoring rule "as a more gradual approach to hiring 230,000 people at a cost of $21 billion." It presented the rule as a way to circumvent a <a href="http://www.epa.gov/nsr/documents/20100413piecharts.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">scenario</a> in which state and local agencies would need 230,000 employees to review 6.1 million permit applications. The rule phases in compliance, "thereby relieving the overwhelming regulatory burdens on both permitting authorities and literally millions of stationary sources."You don't need 230,000 new workers if you don't have a massive flood of permit applications to process all at once. Instead of 6.1 million sources requiring operating permits, EPA expects 15,550 -- 97 percent of which can add greenhouse gases to the permits they already have for other pollutants.</div>The brief adds that "this phase-in process would also allow EPA time to develop streamlining measures" necessary for broader enforcement:<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 25px 30px 10px; margin: 20px 20px 25px; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); background: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-shadow: rgb(204, 204, 204) 0px 6px 0px -4px; clear: both;">After considerable study and receipt of public comment, EPA determined that by phasing in the statutory thresholds, it could almost immediately achieve most of the emission benefits that would result from strict adherence to the literal 100/250 tpy [tons per year] threshold while avoiding the permit gridlock that unquestionably would result from the immediate application of that threshold. This phase-in process would also allow EPA time to develop streamlining measures that could eventually ease administration at the statutory thresholds. Thus, EPA promulgated the Tailoring Rule to 'phase[] in the applicability of these programs to GHG sources, starting with the largest GHG emitters.'</blockquote>According to the Supreme Court, greenhouse gases are an "<a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/03/28/wsj-shifts-epa-attack-to-accuse-supreme-court-o/178019" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">air pollutant</a>" under the Clean Air Act. The threshold for regulation of conventional pollutants under the Act is 100-250 tons per year, but emissions of greenhouse gases are much greater than, for instance, lead and sulfur dioxide. So the tailoring rule allows EPA to regulate emission permits starting at 75,000-100,000 tons per year, which still "captures approximately 86% of the emissions of greenhouse gases that would be captured by immediate, full application of the statutory 100/250 tpy threshold." The threshold will not be lowered past 50,000 at any point before April 2016.The brief also states that by May 2016, EPA will have conducted "a five-year study" of the greenhouse gas regulations and will issue a rule "addressing what action can be taken" regarding smaller sources of emissions. The tailoring rule, EPA says, is designed to "move toward" compliance with the 100-250 tpy threshold, unless the "impossibility of full administrative implementation persists."As the National Journal <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2011/09/27/no-epa-is-not-hiring-230000-workers-to-implemen/182118" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">reported</a>, industry groups know they can't overturn the Supreme Court's 2007 decision establishing EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, "so instead industry lawyers are homing in" on the tailoring rule, which if successfully challenged "will force EPA back into the politically and practically untenable position of regulating all those millions of entities."But there's no evidence that Boyle was aware of any of this until today, when his editors began scrambling for an explanation. In fact, the article didn't even address the tailoring rule at all.UPDATE:Daily Caller now has an <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/29/editors-notebook-230000-reasons-to-get-an-epa-story-right/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">editor's post</a> up defending the story (read: writing what they wish the initial article had said and claiming that's "what we've been saying since Monday.") The post notes that "Sen. James Inhofe <a href="http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=b24a30a6-802a-23ad-4e27-3d3087eb247d&Issue_id=" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">weighed in</a>, supporting our report." Oh good.Daily Caller remains in the wrong for the reasons explained above. And they still don't seem to understand the basics of the issue, claiming EPA is "in court to ask a court for permission" to use the tailoring rule and that "new regulations (as written) would force it to hire those 230,000 new federal employees." EPA is already implementing these permitting requirements and is in court to defend the tailoring rule. EPA didn't write new regulations that would require 230,000 employees, it wrote a regulation to avoid that scenario after the permitting requirements were automatically triggered by the vehicle emissions rule.But you don't need to get into those details to know that Daily Caller simply published a bad report. Just read the <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/26/epa-regulations-would-require-230000-new-employees-21-billion/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">story</a>. Boyle wrote (twice!) that EPA is "asking for taxpayers to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats -- at a cost of $21 billion -- to attempt to implement the rules." And after the story was posted, Boyle tweeted <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/mboyle1/status/118379206651555840" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">this</a>:Conservative activist James O'Keefe released a new highly edited video that he's using to suggest there are widespread problems with a government program that provides phones and phone service to low-income Americans.The Lifeline phone program, which according to the <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/guides/lifeline-and-link-affordable-telephone-service-income-eligible-consumers" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">Federal Communications Commission</a> "provides discounts on monthly telephone service for eligible low-income consumers to help ensure they have the opportunities and security that telephone service affords, including being able to connect to jobs, family, and 911 services," has <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2009/10/the-obama-phone/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">existed for decades</a> and was expanded to include cell phones during the Bush administration. Conservatives have criticized the program repeatedly, which they have <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/10/02/hannity-asks-caller-if-hes-voting-for-obama-to/190286" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">called</a> the "Obama phone" for years.O'Keefe's video, which coincides with the launch of his <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/06/17/breakthrough-james-okeefe-saves-the-world/194491" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">self-congratulatory book</a>, purports to show O'Keefe's actors receiving free cell phones after telling employees of a wireless phone company that they plan to sell the phones to pay for drugs, other purchases, or bills. The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-nZUIDQ6TYU" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">edited video</a> includes a narration by O'Keefe asking if the employees would tell his actors "to sell the phones and break the law."The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzViw2ipw5k" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">raw footage</a> that O'Keefe also released doesn't show any of the featured employees telling the actors to sell their free phones, despite the actors repeatedly saying that they intend to do so and asking about their resale value. As New York magazine's Jonathan Chait <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/okeefe-shocked-to-learn-goods-are-fungible.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">explained</a>, the employees only acknowledged that personal property, in the form of these cell phones, can be sold by their owners to buy other things. The raw footage also shows that none of the actors actually received a free phone -- only information about how they could apply for a free phone and the eligibility requirements to receive one, with the actors walking away saying they'd bring their documentation later.But O'Keefe's edited video is fulfilling its intended effect and is fooling right-wing media. The Daily Mail Online's David Martosko, who wrote the exclusive article about O'Keefe's video, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2343377/I-dont-care-Hidden-camera-catches-wireless-company-employees-passing-Obama-phones-people-say-theyll-sell-drugs-shoes-handbags-spending-cash.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none; outline: none; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">falsely wrote</a> in his headline that the video "catches wireless employees passing out 'Obama phones' to people who say they'll sell them for drugs, shoes, handbags and spending cash." Martosko again wrote that the video:<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 25px 30px 10px; margin: 20px 20px 25px; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); background: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-shadow: rgb(204, 204, 204) 0px 6px 0px -4px; clear: both;">[S]hows two corporate distributors of free cell phones handing out the mobile devices to people who have promised to sell them for drug money, to buy shoes and handbags, to pay off their bills, or just for extra spending cash.</blockquote>Again, the raw footage shows that the actors who stated their intention to sell free phones for these reasons never actually received phones.Fox News has teased a segment on the O'Keefe video for Tuesday's edition of The O'Reilly Factor. Will Fox fall for O'Keefe's misleading framing?==

Controversial Daily Caller Editor Admitted to Posing As Radical Animal Rights Activist

mojo

David Martosko said in a sworn deposition that when he worked for a corporate-funded PR shop—before he was a journalist—he used fake online personas to obtain information on activists.

KATE SHEPPARD

MAR. 15, 2013 6:00 AM

David Martosko, the outgoing executive editor of the Daily Caller, is joining the British Daily Mail. Facebook

David Martosko—the outgoing executive editor of the conservative Daily Caller and a prominent defender of the news site's disputed claim that Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) paid two women for sex in the Dominican Republic—admitted in a court document obtained by Mother Jones that he used a fake Facebook profile to pose as a "dope-smoking commie" in order to gather information on animal rights activists. The admission came in a May 2011 deposition Martosko gave under oath as part of a defamation case against him and his former employer, Berman and Company, a PR shop that specializes in combating progressive activists who target corporations.

Before Daily Caller Editor in Chief Tucker Carlson hired him in 2011—a controversial choice given Martosko's previous arrests and lack of experience in journalism—Martosko spent a decade working for Richard Berman, a longtime PR operative behind a number of industry-backed campaigns. At Berman and Company, Martosko served as the director of research for the Center for Consumer Freedom, a Berman-run nonprofit that opposes new laws on food and beverages. CCF, which is funded by the food and beverage industry, runs Humane Watch, a website that posts derogatory information about the Humane Society of the United States. Martosko was the site's "founding editor." CCF also operates Activist Cash, a website that compiles biographical information on groups and individuals that engage in "anti-consumer activism."

In the 2011 deposition, Martosko acknowledged he used a Facebook account under the name of "Gregory Davis" (later changed to "Preston Davis") to obtain information about animal rights activists. (You can read the full deposition here.) Here's the exchange:

Q: Okay. Well, have you ever used a Facebook name that was not your own?

Martosko: Yes.

Q: And what name was that?

Martosko: I believe it was Preston Davis.

Q: And was that the only Facebook name you've used?

Martosko: Other than my own?

Q: Other than your own.

Martosko: Yes.

Q: Okay. What about Gregory Davis or Greg Davis?

Martosko: Ah. That was—I think that was originally—forgive me. That was originally the name of the same account, and then that name was changed.

Q: Okay. And you had used that to friend activists, I guess that you were wanting to learn more information about; is that correct?

Martosko: That's correct.

Martosko's aim was to connect with animal rights activists as Facebook friends to collect intelligence on their plans and activities. Later in the deposition, Martosko said that he didn't remember how many activists he friended using the Davis account.

Although animal rights activists had long suspected that Martosko was behind the Davis Facebook account, the deposition marked the first time he acknowledged the scheme. Martosko appears to have created the Facebook account in 2009, according to an exhaustive 2011 analysis of Davis' online activities published by HumaneWatch.info, a website created to track CCF's work. The profile for this account, according to the site, was "a two-dimensional caricature of a vegan activist, with a few superficially liberal interests and a political affiliation listed as 'dope-smoking commie.'"

As Gregory Davis, Martosko posted about stereotypically lefty, vegan, and animal activist subjects, such as "living in a wood hut" and hanging out with his "freegan crew," and friended progressive activists and groups such as PETA, the Humane Society of the United States, Mercy for Animals, Sea Shepherd, and Stop Humane Watch, a group that aimed to monitor and push back on Martosko's outfit. Many of the individuals Gregory Davis friended were later profiled on a CCF website devoted to monitoring animal rights activists.

"Davis wanted people to think he was a real extreme animal rights advocate or like a vegan abolitionist. He kind of invented a cover story for himself," one of the women who moderated the Stop Humane Watch Facebook page in 2010 told Mother Jones. (She asked that she not be identified, citing job concerns.) "I didn't think much of it at the time," she noted. "When people posted abolitionist or extreme stuff, we dealt with it. We weren't about doing away with farms altogether; we were about changing the practices." She recalled a particular incident in May 2010 when Gregory Davis posted a comment advocating violent action against Conklin Dairy—an Ohio farm that was the target of protests after animal rights campaigners released a video of a worker abusing livestock.

"He was trying to rile up people to go to this protest," the moderator said. The post was taken down, as Stop Humane Watch did not want be seen as encouraging violent acts. Asked about the Conklin Dairy incident in the deposition, Martosko said, "I don't recall doing that." But he would not absolutely deny he did so.

Over time, Gregory Davis began posting out-of-character comments, including criticism of the Humane Society of the United States and a defense of Martosko in threads about Martosko's personal life and CCF's work. Consequently, activists grew leery. "He kind of betrayed himself," the moderator said. "The more he talked, the more he showed he was inconsistent." In late 2010, Stop Humane Watch began warning people not to friend Gregory Davis. Around that the time, Kevin Fulton, a farmer from Nebraska active in animal rights work, began to suspect Gregory Davis was actually Martosko. "I just went on a hunch, and I was right. The old farm boy gut instinct," Fulton said. "At first the other guys [in the group] said, 'I don't know…' I said, 'I'm telling you, I think it's Martosko.'"

Soon thereafter, Martosko changed the name on the account to "Preston G. Davis." Following up on Fulton's hunch, the activists who run HumaneWatch.info were able to trace the IP address for the computer Gregory/Preston Davis was using to Berman and Company's office in Washington, DC.

The Facebook profiles don't appear to be first time Martosko used the Gregory Davis persona online. Mother Jones was able to find comments dating back to 2001 on anarchist and animal rights web forums from a commenter using the email address linked to the Facebook profile. In one instance, Davis posted a USA Today column by Martosko's boss, Richard Berman, and solicited activists' "thoughts."

Martosko acknowledged his use of the Davis account as part of a defamation suit regarding an ad CCF placed in the New York Times in December 2008. The ad claimed that the Humane Society of the United States was "helping a terrorist group raise money" because the group's vice president was slated to appear at a fundraiser for another animal rights group, the Humane League of Philadelphia, which CCF claimed was started by affiliates of an organization whose members had been imprisoned for violating the Animal Enterprise Protection Act. The Humane League of Philadelphia sued Berman and Company, the Center for Consumer Freedom, Richard Berman, David Martosko, and the New York Times. Last month, a judge in the New York State Supreme Court agreed to dismiss the defamation suit against the Times, but the case against Berman and Martosko is moving ahead. (Read the judge's decision here.)

Martosko, who announced recently that he is leaving the Caller to become the US political editor for the UK-based Daily Mail, has been involved in several controversies during his short career in journalism. Most recently, Martosko defended the Daily Caller's reporting on two Dominican women who claimed that they were paid to have sex with Menendez—allegations Menendez has repeatedly denied. Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that one of the women came forward to say that she had in fact never met Menendez and had been paid to make false allegations. (The Caller claims that she was not one of the two women that it had interviewed.)

Martosko also drew negative press in September 2011 when he insisted that a Daily Caller report claiming the Environmental Protection Agency planned to hire 230,000 employees to enforce greenhouse gas regulations was legitimate, even as numerous outlets criticized the Daily Caller for inaccurate reporting.

At the Caller, Martosko has not always disclosed his previous work with Berman and Company. In a piece last August criticizing a teachers' union, Martosko quoted Berman without mentioning that he used to work for him. In another article, Martosko cited a report obtained by CCF without saying that he used to work there.

Carlson has defended his decision to hire Martosko from Berman and Company, despite Martosko's lack of journalism experience. "I hired Martosko because he's smart and aggressive, the two qualities I care about most in new hires," Carlson told the Washingtonian recently. "You can teach journalism. Despite lots of effort to pretend otherwise, it's not that complicated. Look at the people who do it."

Carlson says he's not concerned about Martosko's admission that he used a fake identity as a PR operative to infiltrate and undermine the animal rights movement. "I watched carefully everything David did, and I was satisfied that everything was completely aboveboard and honest from the second he got here," Carlson told Mother Jones. Martosko did not respond to a request for comment.

UPDATE: Martosko sent a comment, by email, on Friday afternoon:

Activists in the animal rights movement have spent decades posing as everything from medical lab workers to farmhands—both online and in person—in order to gather information about their investigative targets. That tactic is their bread and butter. So it should be unremarkable that many researchers would turn the tables on them in order to collect information. Law enforcement infiltrates the violent wing of the movement on a regular basis as well. As the saying goes, what's good for the goose...

==

<div>

</div>

==

LI

nb no Dcaller

David Martosko

Washington, District Of ColumbiaOnline Media

Current

MailOnline, The Leadership Institute

Education

Dartmouth College

Recommendations 7 people have recommended David

500+

connections

View David’s full profile. It's free!

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Experience

MailOnline

U.S. Political Editor

MailOnline ???

March 2013 – Present (3 years 5 months)Washington D.C. Metro Area

Faculty

The Leadership Institute

January 2013 – Present (3 years 7 months)

Teacher for "Online Journalism Workshop" course

Honors & Awards

SHARED Edward R. Murrow Award (writing)

Radio Television Digital News Association

2012

SHARED Fourth Estate Award

The American Legion

2012

==

Ashley M. Papa

Associate Producer & Talent Booker for FOX News Channel & Relationship Columnist for FOX News Magazine

Matt Lewis

Andy Hiller

Political Editor at WHDH-TV, Boston

Karen Travers

Correspondent at ABC News

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Scully Steve

Senior Executive Producer, Political Editor & Washington Journal Host at C-SPAN

Chris Stirewalt

Political Editor

Rebecca Sinderbrand

Political Editor at The Washington Post

Mike Emanuel

Chief Congressional / Senior Political Correspondent at Fox News Channel

==

wow, no links img

stop humane watch

Berman’s Vermin

The Center for Consumer Freedom (which runs HumaneWatch) recently purchased a full-page ad attacking the Humane Society of the United States. Of course the ad –- published in The Washington Examiner — was filled with the usual array of half-truths, innuendo, and misleading statements that Richard Berman specializes in.

We don’t have a multi-million dollar budget paid for by disreputable corporations, but when Rick Berman throws a hand grenade, we’re happy to pick it up, pull the pin, and throw it back.

We therefore present Berman’s Vermin, a factual, seven point examination of Richard Berman and his unsavory tactics. Many people wrongly assume that HumaneWatch is a watchdog group, or that it is concerned about animal welfare. Please share this graphic on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to help set the record straight!

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 0px; border: 0px; list-style: square;"><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-02/union-busting-by-profiting-from-non-profit-may-breach-irs.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">Violations of requirements</a> for tax exempt status.</li>

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 0px; border: 0px; list-style: square;">Berman uses disgruntled HSUS employee to head up a <a href="http://www.stophumanewatch.org/images/HSSP_2011_BermanPayments.jpg" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">phony shelter charity</a> that paid him $765,483.00 while snubbing shelters.</li>

<li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 0px; border: 0px; list-style: square;"><a href="http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=11842" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">Donor advisory from Charity Navigator</a> for Berman’s questionable practices.</li>

<li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 0px; border: 0px; list-style: square;">Berman’s tactics rely on <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2013/05/18/corporations-anonymously-fund-attacks-and-influence-washington-policy-through-nonprofit-groups/qyaJIFcv7yYOsQvya6ykAK/story.html" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">fear and anger</a>.</li>

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 0px; border: 0px; list-style: square;">Berman’s <a href="http://stophumanewatch.org/blog/alert-stalker/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">shamed “Director of Research” </a><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/03/david-martosko-daily-caller-humane-society-animal-rights-facebook" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">confessed to stalking activists</a>.</li>

<li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 0px; border: 0px; list-style: square;">Berman has funneled <a href="http://stophumanewatch.org/blog/berman-profits-from-nonprofits" target="_blank" style=" box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">$35,000,000.00 in supposed nonprofit donations</a> into his personal and corporate bank accounts.</li>

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 2px 0px; border: 0px; list-style: square;">Berman was forced to retract <a href="http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/opposition/facts/retraction.html" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;">false claims of terrorist activity</a>.</li>

</ul>

Download in JPEG or PDF format.

References:

Violations of requirements for tax exempt status.

Berman uses disgruntled HSUS employee to head up a phony shelter charity that paid him $765,483.00 while snubbing shelters.

Donor advisory from Charity Navigator for Berman’s questionable practices.

Berman’s tactics rely on fear and anger.

Berman’s shamed “Director of Research” confessed to stalking activists.

Berman has funneled $35,000,000.00 in supposed nonprofit donations into his personal and corporate bank accounts.

Berman was forced to retract false claims of terrorist activity.

One down…

In February, we revealed information that suggested David Martosko was being quietly put out to pasture by Berman & Company. (Although given HumaneWatch’s agenda, perhaps “trucked to a Mexican slaughterhouse” would be a more apt analogy.)

Today we have confirmation of that rumor. It’s a dark day for Martosko, but a good one for animals and the truth.

The morning of May 10th saw Martosko facing a judge on alcohol-related charges. Martosko’s high-priced, well-connected lawyer succeeded in having the prosecutors drop the case, as he previously succeeded in doing on at least three other charges against his client.

What’s really noteworthy about the day’s events, however, is news from a highly-placed source which states that Martosko has confirmed that he no longer works for Berman & Company, Inc.

Thanks to the circumstances surrounding Martosko’s headlong plunge into ruin, there was no fanfare, no press release, no fond farewells on the HumaneWatch website or Facebook page. Martosko was unceremoniously herded out the back door with the bootprints still fresh on his backside, a dirty little secret to be buried and forgotten and quickly as possible.

<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110708191647/http://consumerfreedom.com/careers.cfm">https://web.archive.org/web/20110708191647/http://consumerfreedom.com/careers.cfm</a>

[

<h3 style=" line-height: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Researcher/Analyst</h3>

You are committed to the free market and individual empowerment, with a healthy skepticism of sacred cows. People think of you as an inquisitive, high-energy individual with a probing mind and a good sense of humor.

You have a college degree and at least two to five years of work experience in a job where you demonstrated your ability to think on your feet. You have strong writing and online research skills and some knowledge of (or at least a hidden, passionate interest in) the animal rights movement, fisheries, crop biotechnology, livestock agriculture, alcohol beverage policy, nutrition, or food politics.

We are a fast-paced, non-profit organization that specializes in strategic research, communications and advertising – all in the service of shaping public debates. For more information on our approach to policy debates, you can check out a recent profile on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110708191647/http://consumerfreedom.com/www.bermanco.com/60min.htm" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none;">60 Minutes</a>.

We provide an entrepreneurial atmosphere where responsibility and rewards are the result of talent and judgment, not seniority. Members of our elite team enjoy competitive compensation, a lucrative financial incentive plan, and non-stop adrenaline.

If this looks like the place for you, please send your resume, a cover letter, and a 700-800 word review of a book you've recently read to Martosko (at) ConsumerFreedom.com.

...

<h3 style=" line-height: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Web Designer</h3>

Libertarian-leaning Washington D.C. research and communications organization seeks a mid-level web designer.

About you: you are proficient in HTML, JavaScript and Flash (and can prove it by sending us some samples of your best work). You have at least a basic understanding of how server-side scripting languages like PHP work. Any experience in Photoshop and Fireworks wouldn’t hurt. You’re looking for a job in an organization that is fast-paced, provides many opportunities to take ownership over projects and would like to use your creativity to make complex, controversial ideas resonate with the public through online media. You believe in free markets and limited government, and you must have a sense of humor.

About us: we’re a non-profit organization committed to promoting personal responsibility and consumer freedom. If you want to know more about our approach to public policy, check out our recent appearance on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110708191647/http://consumerfreedom.com/www.bermanco.com/60min.htm" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none;">60 Minutes</a>. Downtown DC location, lucrative financial incentive plan, and non-stop adrenaline provided.

Send your resume and the best examples of your work to Webmaster (at) ConsumerFreedom.com.]

Thus ends the first sordid chapter in HumaneWatch’s history of lies, deceit, and scandal.

The previous weekend, Martosko updated his résumé, copying and pasting his badly written, typo-laden curriculum vitae to several websites. Martosko justifies his lack of education and experience by comparing himself to more successful individuals: “Like White House economist Jared Bernstein and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, David Martosko originally aimed for a career in the arts.” He downplays his role as Director of Research as a parenthetical aside, and conspicuously absent from his résumé is any mention of his role as the head of HumaneWatch.

[[<span myriad="Myriad" pro="Pro" trebuchet="Trebuchet" ms="MS" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="">A graduate of Dartmouth College (BA) and the Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory of Music (MA), <a title="" href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/martosko" myriad="Myriad" pro="Pro" trebuchet="Trebuchet" ms="MS" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" border="border" margin="margin" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb" outline="outline" none="none" background-image="background-image" initial="initial" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-size="background-size" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" style=" font-family: ;">David Martosko</a><span myriad="Myriad" pro="Pro" trebuchet="Trebuchet" ms="MS" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style=""> has embraced a completely different form of communications in his professional life. Since July 2011 he has led the editorial staff at The Daily Caller, Ameica’s fastest-growing online news portal.

David edited a war reporting package in 2011 that won The Daily Caller a prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for journalism and the Fourth Estate Award from the American Legion.

His early classical music career took gave way to time in graphic design and radio production during the 1990s, and he began 2001 as a public affairs and PR communicator. David was a broadcast producer for ABC Radio in Washington, DC, serving as a technical and content coordinator for some of WMAL-AM 630’s primary talk radio programs.

As Director of Research and a Senior Strategist at Berman and Company, <a title="" href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/martosko" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none; background: transparent;">David </a>became highly influential in the national debates over food politics, seafood safety, animal welfare and labor politics. He led teams whose work won a half-dozen national awards, including three in 2011.

David is an active supporter of charitable and philanthropic causes, including Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the American Red Cross, the Washington Master Chorale, the Capital Area Humane Society, and the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria. He is the husband of an opera singer and the father of two school-age daughters.]]

Can you blame him for wanting to distance himself from the train wreck that is HumaneWatch?

Judging from Berman & Company’s thundering silence, the feeling is mutual.

Exit, Stage Left

It appears that David Martosko’s troubled and chaotic reign at HumaneWatch may be coming to an end.

Following revelations of Martosko’s substance abuse problems, arrests, his connection with stalking of activists and apparent impersonation of a veterinarian, there are signs that the Center for Consumer Freedom’s failed opera singer is finally being yanked off center stage.

The Center for Consumer Freedom is now hiring a “Researcher/Analyst”. That’s Martosko’s current job.

Like Martosko’s position as the “Director of Research”, the job requires no research experience and no scientific background, only the ability to look up information on the internet, and preferably “some knowledge of… the animal rights movement” or at least a “hidden, passionate interest” in it. In other words, no training or experience is needed, just a willingness to smear animal protection charities for money. The supposedly nonprofit position promises a “lucrative financial incentive plan”.

The HumaneWatch Facebook group appears to be moderated by someone other than Martosko now, and he or she is clamping down on discussion with an iron fist. Even the merest mention of Martosko’s scandals from their core members is stifled. Some have left HumaneWatch in disgust over the draconian censorship.

Martosko’s name has been removed from internal HumaneWatch documents.

And Martosko himself is nowhere to be found.

On March 1st, David Martosko is scheduled to speak at the Alberta Chicken Producers‘ General Meeting. But according to their website: “[O]ur Guest Speaker David Martosko has cancelled his appearance. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.” So sad.

On March 19th, the Wisconsin Ag Women’s Summit will feature David Martosko speaking on “How to Survive in the Era of HSUS”. Oops. Not so fast. Dale M. Beaty tells us that “Unfortunately, David Martosko informed us this weekend that he is unable to present. We are in the process of finding a similar presenter to fill his spot.”

On April 7th, The NY Farm Bureau is hosting an event to coach farmers on how to defend themselves from activist cameras. David Martosko is the featured speaker. Or is he? NYFB’s Legal Affairs Department confirms that Martosko had to cancel his appearance due to a “personal conflict”.

Martosko’s criminal hearing for public drunkenness, swearing and trespassing on the grounds of a church/school doesn’t take place until May, so the possibility of jail time doesn’t explain the abrupt cancellation of his speaking engagemnets. Inpatient rehab is certainly a possibility. However, that doesn’t explain why his presence is being so vigorously scrubbed from the HumaneWatch website.

CCF may be hiring an apprentice for Martosko to coach in the finer aspects of the Dark Side, but given their frantic efforts to distance themselves from this latest disgrace, we find it more likely that Richard Berman has demanded a more stable backup for Martosko — and possibly, a future replacement.

Hope you guess my name

Following Wednesday’s report that Center for Consumer Freedom employees appear to be impersonating activists, we have evidence of more impersonations in the name of their industry-funded agenda.

On December 19, 2010, Chicago Now blogger Steve Dale posted an article about Wayne Pacelle’s role in Michael Vick’s rehabilitation. It’s a controversial topic that’s ignites heated discussions, and CCF spokesperson David Martosko is always eager to fan the flames in order to discredit animal protection charities.

That day, Martosko published a press release announcing CCF’s purchase of a full-page ad in the NY Times. The ad attacks Pacelle’s work with Michael Vick. Not coincidentally, the following comment also appeared on Steve Dale’s blog:

The commenter, “SmallDogVet”, also criticizes the HSUS and ridicules the effectiveness of the successful End Dogfighting program:

This is a veterinarian criticizing HSUS… and because a small dog vet works with dogs every day, his opinion carries some weight, right?

Well, that’s a dangerous assumption. Maybe SmallDogVet isn’t a vet at all. Maybe SmallDogVet is secretly a bomb-sniffing Pomeranian recently back from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.

Or maybe he’s just David Martosko defrauding the public by pretending that veterinarians support animal cruelty.

In our previous exposé, we demonstrated how the gregoire525 account was traced to a subscriber residing in the area around David Martosko’s home, and working in the area around David Martosko’s office.

If you click “SmallDogVet’s” name, it takes you to his profile page. And right there in the URL is the account name that user signed up with: gregoire525.

Now, we can’t say conclusively that David Martosko and CCF were behind this. It’s entirely possible that there’s another person out there who stalks opponents of CCF, promotes CCF’s agenda, fawns over Martosko’s posts, writes with Martosko’s cadence and mannerisms, lives within walking distance of Martosko’s house, works down the block from Martosko’s office, subscribes to the same internet service providers as Martosko, and whose user name reflects Martosko’s training (opera) and Martosko’s birthdate (5/25).

But I wouldn’t bet on it.

CCF — the dubious “nonprofit” behind the HumaneWatch smear campaign — seeks to deceive the public. They are, in fact, an industry-paid public relations firm defending unpopular, unsafe, and unethical corporate practices, but their entire existence is predicated on their ability to masquerade as a credible, public interest nonprofit.

Every op-ed piece, every letter to the editor, every press release CCF writes hides behind this mask. That’s nothing new.

But impersonating an animal care professional in order to push an anti-animal agenda goes far beyond CCF’s usual spin and distortions. It crosses the line into outright fraud.

It also calls into question the “grassroots support” that CCF claims. How many of the 200,000+ Facebook members they claim are genuine accounts? How many of the comments on CCF’s editorials are just sockpuppets mouthing David Martosko’s words? What percentage of CCF’s donations come from the American public, and what percentage comes from the corporations that have hired CCF to slander charities on their behalf?

In order to defend corporate cruelty to animals, CCF has to persuade Americans that public opinion is against animal welfare — even when CCF’s own polls prove that’s untrue. The poll commissioned by CCF revealed that 77% of Americans have a positive view of HSUS and their campaigns to stop animal cruelty.

CCF’s industry-paid opinion does not reflect the beliefs of the American public. And that’s why they resort to underhanded tactics like lies, deception… and apparently, impersonation.

ALERT: Stalker Targets Facebook Activists

I just think it's wrong, wrong, wrong to pretend to be something you're not. -- 'Gregory Davis'

Throughout 2010, an impostor has been using Facebook to gain the confidence of activists, journalists, authors, members of Congress, and prominent members of public interest groups.

Operating under the fictitious names “Gregory Davis”, “Preston G. Davis”, and “Gregoire525”, this individual has friended more than 300 people, gaining access to the personal information and status updates they have posted. Many of those individuals were maligned on websites run by the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), an industry-funded astroturf group that specializes in vicious smear campaigns against public interest groups, vegans, environmentalists, animal welfare, and the charities associated with them.

HWI has obtained evidence that suggests CCF’s Director of Research, David Martosko, is using these false identities to spy on activists and public interest groups.

Given Martosko’s obsession with activists, erratic behavior, substance abuse, rumors of stalking, and the presence of his name on a 2007 concealed weapon report, his access to this sensitive information is extremely troubling.

Timeline of Events

Note: Many of the screenshots below were taken after “Gregory” had changed his Facebook identity to “Preston”. Facebook retains the content of the post, but displays the current name on the account. Therefore, you may see instances where people are talking to “Greg”, but the replies appear under “Preston’s” name. They are the same account, and the same person. Update Feb. 08, 2011: Almost immediately after this article was published, Gregory/Preston changed his name again. The account in question is here, and if it appears on your friends list, it should be blocked, and reported as a fake account.

Jan. 2001 The Yahoo! account gregoire525 is created. 5/25 is David Martosko’s birthdate. The corresponding email account is later used to register a Facebook account under the fictitious names “Gregory Davis” and “Preston G. Davis”.

Nov. 2001 CCF launches a website, ActivistCash.com, which publishes negative profiles of activists and activist groups. Foremost among its targets are SHAC, PETA, PCRM, and the HSUS.

Aug. 2002 Gregoire525 posts in the Pro-Animal-Rights forum on Yahoo. The subject line of the post reads “SHAC group moving in from England?”, and contains an article from the Financial Times titled “US is the export target for animal rights militants”.

Nov. 2004 Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) files an IRS complaint challenging CCF’s tax-exempt status for, among other violations, engaging in prohibited electioneering against presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.

Gregory/Preston later joins both CREW’s and Kucinich’s Facebook pages.

May 2005 CCF’s Director of Research, David Martosko, gives Senate testimony for a hearing on the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.

<a href="http://www.rexano.org/Documents/MARTOSKO_TESTIMONY.pdf"> http://www.rexano.org/Documents/MARTOSKO_TESTIMONY.pdf</a>66 pages ron coronoado, razor blade lter?<table class="ms-subtle1-0101-main" style="border-color: rgb(153, 102, 51); color: rgb(128, 0, 0); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px; width: 876px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><tbody><tr><td class="ms-subtle1-0101-even" style="border-color: rgb(153, 102, 51); color: black; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px; width: 870px;">Welcome to REXANO, a non profit US based organization, exempt from Federal income tax under section 501 (c) 3 of the Internal Revenue Code, EIN 26-3343844. Contributions to us are deductible under section 170 of the Code. resp ex animal pwnmers</td></tr></tbody></table>

He states: “The threat from domestic terrorism motivated by environmental and animal-rights ideologies is well documented, unambiguous, and growing… HSUS, PETA, and PETA’s quasi-medical affiliate, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), are troubling examples of animal-rights charities which have connections to their movement’s militant underbelly.”

Throughout his testimony, Martosko refers to SHAC, the subject of the 2005 post made by gregoire525.

Sep. 2006 The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act is passed by the U.S. Senate. A dissenting statement was issued by Representative Dennis Kucinich.

Feb. 15, 2007 A concealed weapon petition is heard in Fairfax County Civil Court. The docket is “#CL-2007-0000410, In Re: David Matthew Martosko”. The petition is granted.

Mar. 12, 2007 David Martosko is allegedly seen stalking and photographing activists at a meeting of the National Conference on Organized Resistance.

Sep. 29, 2008 David Martosko is arrested for DUI and related offenses.

Dec. 5, 2008 David Martosko receives a suspended sentence of one year, suspension of his drivers’ license for one year, a fine, and mandatory substance abuse counseling.

Dec. 18, 2009 A Facebook account under the false name “Gregory Davis” is created, with the email address gregoire525@yahoo.com. The profile is a two-dimensional caricature of a vegan activist, with a few superficially liberal interests and a political affiliation listed as “dope-smoking commie”. Gregory explains his sudden appearance with a tale of his supposed adventures building dog fostering networks in India and Bangladesh.

He joins a number of activist groups on Facebook.

Dec. 22, 2009 Although nobody publicly questioned him, Gregory posts a preemptive defense of his identity.

The gregoire525 Yahoo! identity was created in 2002.

Dec. 25, 2009 The Center for Consumer Freedom posts an article about the HSUS suit against Ringling Bros. on their website. That same day, Gregory/Preston posts a link to the article on his wall.

Dec. 2009 – Present Gregory joins dozens of groups associated with CCF’s enemies: PETA, HSUS, Mercy for Animals, Dennis Kucinich, CREW, Sea Shepherd, SHAC, etc.. He friends prominent individuals in the fields of animal rights, veganism, and environmental protection. In all, more than 300 activists, authors, journalists, and politicians are victimized by the impostor. At least 50 of these individuals have been personally attacked on CCF websites.

Jan. 12, 2010 Gregory/Preston posts a message to his Facebook wall about exercising his Second Amendment rights over a satellite radio broadcast.

Mar. 2, 2010 David Martosko posts a press release announcing the results of a CCF-commissioned poll. Later that day, Gregory/Preston refers to it on the HSUS Facebook page.

Mar. 21, 2010 The “Stop HumaneWatch” Facebook group (SHW) is formed to combat misinformation from the Center for Consumer Freedom. Soon after, Gregory joins the group:

Martosko has made idle threats of libel suits against SHW members on several occasions.

May 2010 David Martosko’s 2008 DUI arrest is exposed on a blog critical of CCF. Martosko grudgingly admits his alcoholism on the HumaneWatch Facebook group the following day. Subsequent posts by Gregory/Preston take on a distinctly hostile tone, and he begins making inflammatory posts on the “Stop HumaneWatch” Facebook group urging members to commit acts of violence against Conklin Dairy. The comments are immediately deleted by a moderator, but not before arousing members’ suspicions that Gregory might be an agent provocateur trying to incite comments that could be used against the group.

May 28, 2010 HumaneWatch posts a blog message inciting readers to harass Jordan Winery, an HSUS donor. That same day, Gregory/Preston harasses the Jordan Winery Facebook page.

Jul. 8, 2010 Following a string of high-profile HumaneWatch failures — a scathing exposé of CCF in the NY Times, a premature celebration over the Ohio Compromise that outraged CCF’s agricultural supporters, and failures to convince Jordan Winery, Chipotlé, and other donors to abandon their support of the HSUS — Martosko is arrested again on alcohol-related charges. The charges are public intoxication, swearing, and trespassing on the grounds of a church/school.

Jul. 16, 2010 David Martosko posts the following message on the HumaneWatch website: “Instead of seeing my name plastered on everything, you’ll soon be reading articles contributed by various members of the HumaneWatch team. There will even be some outsiders sharing their own analysis.”

Jul. 2010 – Dec. 2010 Gregory’s behavior continues to become more erratic and hostile. He frequently breaks character, making disparaging remarks about animal protection groups, contradicting previous stories, defending CCF/HumaneWatch, and angrily confronting those who criticize David Martosko.

===

some link imgs:

Operating under the fictitious names “Gregory Davis”, “Preston G. Davis”, and “Gregoire525”, this individual has friended more than 300 people, gaining access to the personal information and status updates they have posted. <a href="http://stophumanewatch.org/blog/stalker-victims" target="victims" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">Many of those individuals</a> were maligned on websites run by the<a href="http://stophumanewatch.org/blog/hw-facts/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">Center for Consumer Freedom</a> (CCF), an industry-funded astroturf group that specializes in vicious smear campaigns against public interest groups, vegans, environmentalists, animal welfare, and the charities associated with them.

Given Martosko’s <a href="http://epw.senate.gov/109th/MARTOSKO_TESTIMONY.pdf" target="senate" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">obsession with activists</a>, <a href="http://stophumanewatch.org/blog/2010/12/30/downward-spiral/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">erratic behavior</a>, <a href="http://stophumanewatch.org/blog/david-martosko-rap-sheet/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">substance abuse</a>, rumors of <a href="http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/138234/index.php" target="NCOR" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">stalking</a>, and the presence of his name on a 2007 <a href="http://193.198.207.6/wiki/file/fairfax-concealed-weapon-report-2007.pdf" target="CWReport" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">concealed weapon report</a>, his access to this sensitive information is extremely troubling.

Timeline of Events

Note: Many of the screenshots below were taken after “Gregory” had changed his Facebook identity to “Preston”. Facebook retains the content of the post, but displays the current name on the account. Therefore, you may see instances where people are talking to “Greg”, but the replies appear under “Preston’s” name. They are the same account, and the same person. Update Feb. 08, 2011: Almost immediately after this article was published, Gregory/Preston changed his name again. The account in question is <a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=506393261" target="FB" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">here</a>, and if it appears on your friends list, it should be blocked, and reported as a fake account.

<table open="Open" sans="Sans" line-height="line-height" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; width: 719px; vertical-align: top;"><tbody style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td width="100px;" style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Jan. 2001</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">The Yahoo! account gregoire525 is created. 5/25 is David Martosko’s birthdate. The corresponding email account is later used to register a Facebook account under the fictitious names “Gregory Davis” and “Preston G. Davis”.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Nov. 2001</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">CCF launches a website, ActivistCash.com, which publishes negative profiles of activists and activist groups. Foremost among its targets are SHAC, PETA, PCRM, and the HSUS.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Aug. 2002</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Gregoire525 posts in the <a href="http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Pro-Animal-Rights/message/2890" target="PARYahoo" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">Pro-Animal-Rights forum</a> on Yahoo. The subject line of the post reads “SHAC group moving in from England?”, and contains an article from the Financial Times titled “US is the export target for animal rights militants”.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Nov. 2004</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) files an <a href="http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/25601" target="CREW" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">IRS complaint</a> challenging CCF’s tax-exempt status for, among other violations, engaging in prohibited electioneering against presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.

Gregory/Preston later joins both CREW’s and Kucinich’s Facebook pages.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">May 2005</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">CCF’s Director of Research, David Martosko, gives <a href="http://epw.senate.gov/109th/MARTOSKO_TESTIMONY.pdf" target="senate" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">Senate testimony</a> for a hearing on the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.

He states: “The threat from domestic terrorism motivated by environmental and animal-rights ideologies is well documented, unambiguous, and growing… HSUS, PETA, and PETA’s quasi-medical affiliate, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), are troubling examples of animal-rights charities which have connections to their movement’s militant underbelly.”

Throughout his testimony, Martosko refers to SHAC, the subject of the 2005 post made by gregoire525.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Sep. 2006</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act is passed by the U.S. Senate. A dissenting statement was issued by Representative Dennis Kucinich.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Feb. 15, 2007</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">A <a href="http://193.198.207.6/wiki/file/fairfax-concealed-weapon-report-2007.pdf" target="CWReport" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">concealed weapon</a> petition is heard in Fairfax County Civil Court. The docket is “#CL-2007-0000410, In Re: David Matthew Martosko”. The petition is granted.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Mar. 12, 2007</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">David Martosko is allegedly seen <a href="http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/138234/index.php" target="ncor" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">stalking and photographing activists</a> at a meeting of the National Conference on Organized Resistance.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Sep. 29, 2008</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">David Martosko is arrested for <a href="http://stophumanewatch.org/images/MartoskoDUI_1.jpg" target="MartoskoDUI1" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">DUI and related offenses</a>.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Dec. 5, 2008</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">David Martosko receives a suspended sentence of one year, suspension of his drivers’ license for one year, a fine, and mandatory substance abuse counseling.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Dec. 18, 2009</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">A Facebook account under the false name “Gregory Davis” is created, with the email address gregoire525@yahoo.com. The profile is a two-dimensional caricature of a vegan activist, with a few superficially liberal interests and a political affiliation listed as “dope-smoking commie”. Gregory explains his sudden appearance with a tale of his supposed adventures building dog fostering networks in India and Bangladesh.

He joins a number of activist groups on Facebook.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Dec. 22, 2009</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Although nobody publicly questioned him, Gregory posts a preemptive defense of his identity.

The gregoire525 Yahoo! identity was created in 2002.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Dec. 25, 2009</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">The Center for Consumer Freedom posts an article about the HSUS suit against Ringling Bros. on their website. That same day, Gregory/Preston posts a link to the article on his wall.

<img src="/e1639637-3f34-54b1-86bd-7bf551de3180.jpeg"/></td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Dec. 2009 – Present</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Gregory joins dozens of groups associated with CCF’s enemies: PETA, HSUS, Mercy for Animals, Dennis Kucinich, CREW, Sea Shepherd, SHAC, etc.. He friends prominent individuals in the fields of animal rights, veganism, and environmental protection. In all, more than 300 activists, authors, journalists, and politicians are victimized by the impostor. <a href="http://stophumanewatch.org/blog/stalker-victims" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">At least 50 of these individuals</a> have been personally attacked on CCF websites.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Jan. 12, 2010</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Gregory/Preston posts a message to his Facebook wall about exercising his Second Amendment rights over a satellite radio broadcast.

</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Mar. 2, 2010</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">David Martosko posts a press release announcing the results of a CCF-commissioned poll. Later that day, Gregory/Preston refers to it on the HSUS Facebook page.

<img src="/05f12baf-7a77-5d64-9285-08886e528cb6.jpeg"/></td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Mar. 21, 2010</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">The “<a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-Humanewatch/105239186171882" target="SHW" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">Stop HumaneWatch</a>” Facebook group (SHW) is formed to combat misinformation from the Center for Consumer Freedom. Soon after, Gregory joins the group:

Martosko has made idle threats of libel suits against SHW members on several occasions.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">May 2010</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">David Martosko’s 2008 DUI arrest is exposed on a blog critical of CCF. Martosko grudgingly admits his alcoholism on the HumaneWatch Facebook group the following day. Subsequent posts by Gregory/Preston take on a distinctly hostile tone, and he begins making inflammatory posts on the “<a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-Humanewatch/105239186171882" target="SHW" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">Stop HumaneWatch</a>” Facebook group urging members to commit acts of violence against <a href="http://www.mfablog.org/2010/05/cnn-covers-mfas-ohio-dairy-farm-cruelty-investigation.html" target="mfaConklin" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">Conklin Dairy</a>. The comments are immediately deleted by a moderator, but not before arousing members’ suspicions that Gregory might be an agent provocateur trying to incite comments that could be used against the group.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">May 28, 2010</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">HumaneWatch posts a blog message inciting readers to harass Jordan Winery, an HSUS donor. That same day, Gregory/Preston harasses the Jordan Winery Facebook page.

<a href="http://stophumanewatch.org/images/Stalker/Prestosko_JordanWinery.jpeg" target="jordan" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;"><img src="/fa12af5a-5670-59ff-8cd6-ed7851641e75.jpg"/></a></td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Jul. 8, 2010</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Following a string of high-profile HumaneWatch failures — a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/us/politics/18berman.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">scathing exposé of CCF in the NY Times</a>, a <a href="http://humanewatch.org/index.php/site/post/sale_of_the_century/" target="HWOhio" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">premature celebration</a> over the Ohio Compromise that outraged CCF’s agricultural supporters, and failures to convince Jordan Winery, Chipotlé, and other donors to abandon their support of the HSUS — Martosko is <a href="http://stophumanewatch.org/blog/2010/12/30/downward-spiral/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">arrested again</a> on alcohol-related charges. The charges are public intoxication, swearing, and trespassing on the grounds of a church/school.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Jul. 16, 2010</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">David Martosko posts the following message on the HumaneWatch website: “Instead of seeing my name plastered on everything, you’ll soon be reading articles contributed by various members of the HumaneWatch team. There will even be some outsiders sharing their own analysis.”</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Jul. 2010 – Dec. 2010</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Gregory’s behavior continues to become more erratic and hostile. He frequently breaks character, making disparaging remarks about animal protection groups, contradicting previous stories, defending CCF/HumaneWatch, and angrily confronting those who criticize David Martosko.

Inconsistent stories:

Confrontations with HumaneWatch opponents:

<img src="/09958e2a-473c-5614-80af-9ab48717d93a.jpg"/></td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Nov. 2010</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Organic farmer Kevin Fulton hosts a town hall meeting with HSUS. David Martosko, reportedly acting in an erratic manner, is refused entrance. The evening culminates with Martosko accosting Mr. Fulton at a men’s room urinal with a recording device. When the incident is related on SHW, Gregory responds:

<img src="/d36a5b02-af4a-54d3-8f45-2d5b6931a195.jpg"/></td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Dec. 3, 2010</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Concerned members of SHW email dozens of Gregory’s victims, warning them of their suspicions. Many of those individuals immediately cut off Gregory’s access to their personal information.

That evening, a user posts <a href="http://stophumanewatch.org/blog/2010/12/03/whitewash-weekend/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">a comment on this blog</a> under the name “Greg”, with an email of “SuckItSchiff@EatMe.com”, an attack on the blog’s webmaster with whom Martosko has clashed previously. Greg posts: “Where’s the DISLIKE button? Hope the money from Pacelle feels good. Your heart is a black rock.”

Access logs showed that the comment originated from an Verizon FIOS subscriber in Burke, VA — a <a href="http://stophumanewatch.org/images/IPTrace_BurkeVA_full.jpg" target="IPtrace1" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">short distance from David Martosko’s house</a>.

Two hours later, when a member of SHW refers to Martosko’s behavior in Nebraska and history of alcohol abuse, Gregory explodes:

<img src="/a8dc20dd-9643-560a-8cdb-0353fc7a0956.jpg"/></td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Dec. 16, 2010</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Martosko posts a blog entry calling attention to Wayne Pacelle’s role in Michael Vick’s rehabilitation. That evening, Gregory/Preston posts a link to that blog on the HSUS Facebook thread.

<img src="/cbd4feee-9461-5f3a-a529-f6ca8747c238.jpeg"/></td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Dec. 29, 2010</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">“Gregory” posts a comment on the HSUS Facebook page calling attention to the fact that Second Chance, a horse rescued by HSUS, has died. The following morning, David Martosko posts <a href="http://humanewatch.org/index.php/site/post/second_chance/" target="HWSecondChance" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; background-color: transparent;">a blog entry</a> calling attention to the fact that Second Chance has died.

<img src="/c7ae1d1d-7498-5e0a-935d-aebc42c78f8a.jpeg"/></td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Jan. 21, 2011</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">“Gregory Davis” changes the name on his account to “Preston G. Davis”, and begins friending activists again. On January 21st, he replies to a reader on the HumaneWatch Facebook group in the cadence, voice, and mannerisms that David Martosko uses in his administrative capacity. Nine minutes later, he notices his error and hastily tries to cover his tracks.

The post is later deleted from Gregory/Preston’s Facebook wall, but not from the HumaneWatch page.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Feb. 7, 2011</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Gregory/Preston responds to a friend request from the webmaster of this site, John Doppler Schiff.

Mr. Schiff replies to that Facebook email by asking if Gregory/Preston is familiar with the people behind HumaneWatch, and provides a link to a hidden page on the humanewatch.info site. The IP address of any visitor to that page is logged. Only Gregory/Preston and Schiff know of the page’s existence.</td></tr><tr style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">Feb. 8, 2011</td><td style=" box-sizing: border-box; padding: 6px 24px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); vertical-align: top;">At 8:57 AM and 8:59 AM, Pacific, the link is accessed twice from IP address 68.32.166.173. This IP address traces back to the Washington, D.C. neighborhood of Martosko’s employer, Berman & Company, Inc.</td></tr></tbody></table>

===

Inconsistent stories:

Confrontations with HumaneWatch opponents:

Nov. 2010 Organic farmer Kevin Fulton hosts a town hall meeting with HSUS. David Martosko, reportedly acting in an erratic manner, is refused entrance. The evening culminates with Martosko accosting Mr. Fulton at a men’s room urinal with a recording device. When the incident is related on SHW, Gregory responds:

Dec. 3, 2010 Concerned members of SHW email dozens of Gregory’s victims, warning them of their suspicions. Many of those individuals immediately cut off Gregory’s access to their personal information.

That evening, a user posts a comment on this blog under the name “Greg”, with an email of “SuckItSchiff@EatMe.com”, an attack on the blog’s webmaster with whom Martosko has clashed previously. Greg posts: “Where’s the DISLIKE button? Hope the money from Pacelle feels good. Your heart is a black rock.”

Access logs showed that the comment originated from an Verizon FIOS subscriber in Burke, VA — a short distance from David Martosko’s house.

Two hours later, when a member of SHW refers to Martosko’s behavior in Nebraska and history of alcohol abuse, Gregory explodes:

Dec. 16, 2010 Martosko posts a blog entry calling attention to Wayne Pacelle’s role in Michael Vick’s rehabilitation. That evening, Gregory/Preston posts a link to that blog on the HSUS Facebook thread.

Dec. 29, 2010 “Gregory” posts a comment on the HSUS Facebook page calling attention to the fact that Second Chance, a horse rescued by HSUS, has died. The following morning, David Martosko posts a blog entry calling attention to the fact that Second Chance has died.

Jan. 21, 2011 “Gregory Davis” changes the name on his account to “Preston G. Davis”, and begins friending activists again. On January 21st, he replies to a reader on the HumaneWatch Facebook group in the cadence, voice, and mannerisms that David Martosko uses in his administrative capacity. Nine minutes later, he notices his error and hastily tries to cover his tracks.

The post is later deleted from Gregory/Preston’s Facebook wall, but not from the HumaneWatch page.

Feb. 7, 2011 Gregory/Preston responds to a friend request from the webmaster of this site, John Doppler Schiff.

Mr. Schiff replies to that Facebook email by asking if Gregory/Preston is familiar with the people behind HumaneWatch, and provides a link to a hidden page on the humanewatch.info site. The IP address of any visitor to that page is logged. Only Gregory/Preston and Schiff know of the page’s existence.

Feb. 8, 2011 At 8:57 AM and 8:59 AM, Pacific, the link is accessed twice from IP address 68.32.166.173. This IP address traces back to the Washington, D.C. neighborhood of Martosko’s employer, Berman & Company, Inc.

6:26 PM. John Doppler Schiff sends another Facebook email to Gregory/Preston, inviting him to click on a link that would “change the minds of a LOT of HumaneWatchers”.

7:01 PM. Web logs show that the link is accessed from a Verizon FIOS subscriber in Burke, VA, in the same area and network as “Greg”, less than a mile from David Martosko’s residence. Only Schiff and Gregory/Preston know of the link’s existence.

7:22 PM. Gregory/Preston opens a chat window with Schiff to ask why the links aren’t working. Schiff says he will look into the problem.

7:26 PM. Gregory/Preston clearly knows he’s caught, and tries to cover his tracks. He changes his profile information in Facebook; he now pretends to be from Fairfax, VA. He changes his employer; he now pretends to work for World Bank Publishing, a company close to Berman & Company’s offices. He adds a work history, claiming to be employed by Trader Joes from 2008 to 2010.

This conflicts with his original cover story, when he previously claimed to be in India and Bangladesh. It also conflicts with the facts, as Trader Joe’s does not have locations in Colorado.

Summary

Someone operating under the assumed name “Gregory Davis” and “Preston G. Davis”, using the account gregoire525@yahoo.com is friending activists, authors, legislators, bloggers, and other prominent individuals on Facebook.

Gregory/Preston makes contradictory statements about his history and his ideology.

At least 50 of the individuals friended by Gregory/Preston have been targeted by Richard Berman and the Center for Consumer Freedom on their websites.

Nearly all of Gregory/Preston’s Facebook “likes” are directly related to issues CCF pursues.

David Martosko is the spokesperson and Director of Research for CCF. He lives in Burke, VA, and works at CCF’s offices in Washington, D.C.

Gregory/Preston frequently makes comments and posts which mirror Martosko’s writings within hours of their publication.

Links sent privately to Gregory/Preston were subsequently visited by a person residing in Burke, VA within a mile of Martosko’s house, and working in Washington, D.C. within a mile of Martosko’s workplace.

Martosko has an aggressive anti-activist agenda.

Martosko is alleged to have stalked and photographed activists in 2007.

Martosko has a recent history of substance abuse and erratic behavior.

Martosko may have a concealed weapon permit.

If you have accepted a friend request from this questionable account, please block the account. Many of the individuals who were previously warned about “Gregory Davis” later accepted friend requests from the same account under “Preston G. Davis”. Blocking the account prevents you from seeing future requests, even if the name on the account changes.

Be wary of friend requests from people you don’t know. Don’t be shy about asking mutual friends if they can vouch for the person.

Please contact the webmaster for further information

Update March 15, 2013

A Mother Jones report has independently confirmed Martosko’s impersonation of activists through court documents in the case of Human League of Philadelphia v. Berman & Co.

<a href="http://stophumanewatch.org/blog/tag/david-martosko">http://stophumanewatch.org/blog/tag/david-martosko</a>

---

Ur TP The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) is another example of a Tea Party-related organisation with strong roots in the tobacco industry. In 2002, Guest Choice Network became the CCF to oppose efforts by ‘the anti-consumer forces [to] expand their reach beyond the restaurants and taverns, going into your communities and even your homes.’<a id="xref-ref-153-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-153">153</a> Lobbyist Richard Berman created Guest Choice Network in 1995, with US$600 000 in startup funds,<a id="xref-ref-154-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-154">154</a> as well as continued funding from Philip Morris.<a id="xref-ref-155-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-155">155–157</a> It was meant to appear as ‘a restaurant-driven programme’ to oppose smoke-free restaurants that was not ‘owned’ by Philip Morris.<a id="xref-ref-158-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-158">158</a>

...Another example of broader corporate support for a Tea Party-related organisation is through the CCF (<a id="xref-fig-1-14" class="xref-fig" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#F1">figure 1</a>), which has received funding from the food, restaurant and agribusiness industries, including Coca-Cola, Monsanto and Wendy's International.<a id="xref-ref-173-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-173">173</a> This organisation has opposed the Institute of Medicine's strategies to prevent obesity, including taxing sweetened beverages, incentivising opening grocery stores in ‘food deserts’ and implementing restaurant zoning laws.<a id="xref-ref-174-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-174">174</a> In June 2012, the CCF ran a full-page advertisement in the New York Times opposing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to end the sale of super-sized sugary drinks in New York City as a policy to fight childhood obesity. Echoing rhetoric used years earlier to oppose smoke-free restaurants, the headline proclaimed, ‘The nanny: you only thought you lived in the land of the free.’<a id="xref-ref-175-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-175">175</a>

---

</div>

David Martosko is Executive Editor of The Daily Caller, a news organization in Washington, D.C.

He was previously director of research for <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Berman_%26_Company" title="Berman & Company" class="mw-redirect">Berman & Company</a>. He has testified before the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee and the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy & Poultry. He has also spoken before FDA and USDA panels on seafood, obesity and animal agriculture, and addressed foreign police agencies on the topic of criminality in the animal rights movement.

CCF is an <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Industry-funded_organization" title="Industry-funded organization" class="mw-redirect">industry-funded organization</a> and front group for the restaurant, and other industries. It is registered as a tax-exempt, non-profit organization under the IRS code <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/501%28c%29%283%29" title="501(c)(3)">501(c)(3)</a>. Over 40% of the group's 2005 expenditure was paid to <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rick_Berman" title="Rick Berman">Rick Berman</a>'s <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Public_relations" title="Public relations">public relations</a> company, Berman & Co. for "management services". <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Martosko#cite_note-0">[1]</a>

<h2>Contents</h2>

[<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Martosko#" class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>] </div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Martosko#Articles_.26_sources">1 Articles & sources</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Martosko#Sourcewatch_articles">1.1 Sourcewatch articles</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Martosko#References">1.2 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Martosko#External_articles">1.3 External articles</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-5"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Martosko#Articles_.26_testimony_by_David_Martosko">1.3.1 Articles & testimony by David Martosko</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-6"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Martosko#External_resources">1.4 External resources</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

</ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2>Articles & sources</h2>

<h3>Sourcewatch articles</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Animal_Enterprise_Terrorism_Act" title="Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act">Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Animal_testing" title="Animal testing">Animal testing</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/CCF_funding" title="CCF funding">CCF funding</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/CCF_selected_campaigns" title="CCF selected campaigns">CCF selected campaigns</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Hospitality_industry" title="Hospitality industry">Hospitality industry</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Humane_Movement" title="Humane Movement">Humane Movement</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Meat_%26_Dairy_industry" title="Meat & Dairy industry">Meat & Dairy industry</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Pharmaceutical_industry" title="Pharmaceutical industry">Pharmaceutical industry</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Puppy_Mills" title="Puppy Mills">Puppy Mills</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/War_on_Animals" title="War on Animals">War on Animals</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Government%27s_War_on_Animals" title="U.S. Government's War on Animals">U.S. Government's War on Animals</a></li>

</ul>

<h3>References</h3>

<li id="cite_note-0"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Martosko#cite_ref-0">↑</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2005/260/006/2005-260006579-02ba11cf-9.pdf">The Center for Consumer Freedom</a>, Form 990, 2005, p.3.</li>

</ol>

</div>

<h3>External articles</h3>

<ul>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=247801">Testimony of Jerry Vlasik, M.D.: Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (“SHAC”) Eco-terrorism</a>, U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, October 26, 2005. (Includes comments on Martosko's May 2005 testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works).</li>

<li>"...

V. About the Animal Liberation Movement

By their accusations against SHAC and the ALF, some are trying to disguise where the real violence exists, and not the violence of extensional self-defense, but the real violence, of Huntingdon laboratories. Other activists watch all this, and become embittered and frustrated until they begin utilizing more radical

IV. CCF

When it met in May of this year to discuss “animal enterprise terrorism”, this committee heard from David Martosko, director of research for a lobbyist group called Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF).

The Center for Consumer Freedom, formerly known as the Guest Choice Network, was set up by one Richard Berman with a $600,000 “donation” from tobacco company Philip Morris. Berman arranges for large sums of corporate money to find its way into non-profit societies of which he is the executive director. He then hires his own company as a consultant to these nonprofit groups. Of the millions of dollars “donated” by Philip Morris between the years 1995 and 1998, 49 percent to 79 percent went directly to Berman or Berman & Co.

On November 16, 2004, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service alleging that CCF has violated its tax exempt status. The complaint alleges that CCF engaged in prohibited electioneering, made substantial payments to the founder of the organization, Richard Berman, and to Berman's wholly owned for profit entity Berman & Co., and engaged in activities with no charitable purpose. CREW executive director Melanie Sloan told Forbes magazine, "It doesn't seem to me that someone should get a tax deduction while they're writing public relations memos about how people should be able to smoke in restaurants."

VII. Summation

Each of the witnesses that have testified before me have their own financial interests at stake in the continued oppression, torture and murder of non-human animals by HLS.

HLS is only one representative of the Global Vivisection Complex, an outdated, inefficient and wasteful entity whose time has come and gone. What are the major medical breakthroughs in the areas of cancer research, HIV/AIDS treatments, Parkinson's or other debilitating diseases has LSR's work been at the forefront of?..."

</li>

</ul>

<h4>Articles & testimony by David Martosko</h4>

<ul>

<li>David Martosko, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-oped0206foodfeb06,0,817354.story">Gourmet activists: Food for thought</a>, Chicago Tribune, February 6, 2009</li>

<li>David Martosko, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.consumerfreedom.com/oped_detail.cfm/oped/388">Mercury Risk? Scares mislead American consumers</a>", Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, August 14, 2006.</li>

<li>David Martosko <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2008/02/20/Martosko_ART_02-20-08_A8_CQ9DD3R.html?sid=101">Label ruling for milk doesn't make sense</a>, (Letter to the editor arguing against labeling hormone free milk), Columbus Dispatch, February 20, 2008</li>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://epw.senate.gov/109th/MARTOSKO_TESTIMONY.pdf">Testimony of David Martosko: Environmental and Animal-Rights Terrorism and Its Above-Ground Support System</a>, U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, May 18, 2005</li>

</ul>

<h3>External resources</h3>

<ul>

<li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/2413">Memo To PETA: Set Your TiVo</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_for_Consumer_Freedom" title="Center for Consumer Freedom">Center for Consumer Freedom</a> March 16, 2004</li>

</ul>

</div>

<div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Categories</a>:

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Front_groups_portal" title="Category:Front groups portal">Front groups portal</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Tobaccowiki" title="Category:Tobaccowiki">Tobaccowiki</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Media" title="Category:Media">Media</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Front_groups" title="Category:Front groups">Front groups</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Industry_lobby_groups" title="Category:Industry lobby groups">Industry lobby groups</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:United_States" title="Category:United States">United States</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Activism" title="Category:Activism">Activism</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Food_industry" title="Category:Food industry">Food industry</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Huntingdon_Life_Sciences" title="Category:Huntingdon Life Sciences">Huntingdon Life Sciences</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Category:Animal_rights" title="Category:Animal rights">Animal rights</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

===

<h1 class="title">Lobbyists-Loot Dot Con: Berman Flees, Martosko Plays Dumb</h1>

<div class="meta">by <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/users/4/john-stauber" title="View user profile.">John Stauber</a> — May 4, 2006 - 8:23a</div>

Mark Matthews, reporter for KGO, the ABC TV affiliate in San Francisco, traveled to Washington, DC, to investigate <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rick_Berman" title="reference on Rick Berman" target="self">Rick Berman</a>, the booze, food and tobacco lobbyist behind <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ActivistCash" title="reference on ActivistCash" target="self">ActivistCash</a>.com and many other <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=front_groups" title="reference on front groups" target="self">front groups</a>. Reports Matthews, "Berman set up the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom" title="reference on Center for Consumer Freedom" target="self">Center for Consumer Freedom</a> and a number of other tax exempt educational organizations. And those educational non-profits all seem to support messages that dove tail nicely with the food beverage and tobacco industries that have hired <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Berman" title="reference on Richard Berman" target="self">Richard Berman</a>. ... When we tried to ask Rick Berman himself about that, he ducked out of our interview. ... Berman wouldn't talk with us about how his non-profits are connected financially to his lobbying business, and his research director (<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Martosko" title="reference on David Martosko" target="self">David Martosko</a>) didn't tell us. 'I don't know the firms that send the Center for Consumer Freedom money. I don't want to know. It's not my business to know.' ... The most recent available tax records for the Center for Consumer Freedom show in 2004 <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Berman_and_Co." title="reference on Berman and Co." target="self">Berman and Co.</a> took in a million-and-a-half dollars from the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom" title="reference on Center for Consumer Freedom" target="self">Center for Consumer Freedom</a>. ... Representative <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pete_Stark" title="reference on Pete Stark" target="_self">Pete Stark</a> of Fremont, calls Berman's operation an abuse."

<div class="field-label-inline-first">Main Source: </div>

<a href="http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=politics&id=4140447" target="_blank">KGO TV, San Francisco, May 3, 2006</a></div>

</div>

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<h1 class="print-title">Rick Berman Attacks the Humane Society</h1>

<div class="meta">by <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/users/5684/anne-landman" title="View user profile.">Anne Landman</a> [1] — February 17, 2010 - 11:39am</div>

<ul>

<li class="vocabulary-2">Topics: <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/animal-rights">Animal Rights</a> [2], <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/corporations">Corporations</a> [3], <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/propaganda">Propaganda</a> [4]</li>

</ul>

</div>

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Front_groups" title="reference on Front group" target="self">Front group</a> [6] man extraordinaire <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rick_Berman" title="reference on Rick Berman" target="self">Rick Berman</a> [7] and his attack group, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom" title="reference on Center for Consumer Freedom" target="self">Center for Consumer Freedom</a> [8] (CCF), have <a href="http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/h/4106-humanewatch-proudly-launching-tomorrow" title="reference on launched" target="blank">launched</a> [9] a new Web site, HumaneWatch.org, to harass the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Humane_Society_of_the_United_States" title="reference on Humane Society of the United States" target="_self">Humane Society of the United States</a> [10] (HSUS), the country's largest animal welfare organization. In pursuing its mission of stopping animal cruelty, HSUS has apparently run afoul of some large, wealthy business interests, and now it is getting some major pushback.

The <a href="http://www.humanesociety.org/" title="reference on Humane Society" target="blank">Humane Society</a> [11] works to stop egregious, ongoing animal abuse, particularly in money-making enterprises like <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=puppy_mills" title="reference on puppy mills" target="self">puppy mills</a> [12], <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/factory_farming" title="reference on factory farming" target="blank">factory farming</a> [13], <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_fighting" title="reference on dogfighting" target="blank">dogfighting</a> [14], <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockfight" title="reference on cockfighting" target="blank">cockfighting</a> [15], and unsporting hunting practices like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canned_hunt" title="reference on " target="blank">"canned hunts,"</a> [16] where hunters pay to shoot at captive, domestically-raised, exotic animals. While this is a laudable goal, it pits HSUS against a significant number of wealthy, powerful businesses that engage in animal cruelty practices, like meat and egg producers, factory farmers, canned hunting businesses, contract research labs that do <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=animal_testing" title="reference on animal testing" target="self">animal testing</a> [17] for big corporations and pharmaceutical companies that exploit animals to manufacture drugs like Premarin, which is used to treat the symptoms of menopause. Premarin is made from pregnant mares' urine and is marketed by <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Wyeth" title="reference on Wyeth" target="self">Wyeth</a> [18] Pharmacueticals, one of the world's largest drug companies.

<h2>People Love Animals</h2>

HumaneWatch.org may have a hard time trying to build public animosity towards the Humane Society, since most of civil society cannot countenance the extreme cruelty against animals that occurs in these facilities. (There are now a number of videos showing such treatment posted at <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org" title="reference on SourceWatch.org" target="blank">SourceWatch.org</a> [19]). At present, Berman's site, HumaneWatch.org, is trying to generate outrage against HSUS by ridiculing the group's recent activities, like raising funds for animal relief in Haiti and marketing its own brand of cruelty-free, all-natural dry dog food that does not support the factory farming industry. HumaneWatch is also trying to hurt and embarrass businesses that donate to HSUS, like the <a href="http://www.yellowtailwine.com/" title="reference on Yellow Tail Wine" target="blank">Yellow Tail Wine</a> [20] company, which recently <a href="http://www.humanesociety.org/about/corporate_sponsors/yellow_tail.html" title="reference on donated $100,000 to HSUS's Animal Rescue Team" target="blank">donated $100,000 to HSUS's Animal Rescue Team</a> [21]. To target Yellow Tail, HumaneWatch.org posted a video of a cowboy standing in a manure-filled pen surrounded by cows, and pouring a bottle of Yellow Tail wine on the ground, while explaining that he is doing it to retaliate against the company for supporting the Humane Society. The video makes you want to donate to HSUS and go out and buy Yellow Tail wine to thank them for caring about animals.

<h2>Who is Funding HumaneWatch.org?</h2>

Berman typically sets up his front groups as 501(c)4 organizations and then carries out his attacks through these groups to avoid disclosing his donors, so we have no way of knowing which industries or companies are funding Berman's attack on the Humane Society. We can probably get a good idea, though. Just determine which businesses profit most from animal cruelty, and you'll likely find the funders among them.

One thing we can be certain about: the Humane Society must be doing a decent job of lobbying on behalf of animal welfare, or it wouldn't have found itself in Berman's crosshairs.

</div>

<div class="print-footer">Center for Media and Democracy • 520 University Avenue, Suite 260 • Madison, Wisconsin 53703

Phone: 608-260-9713 • Fax: 608-260-9714</div>

<div class="print-source_url">Source URL: <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2010/02/8894/rick-berman-attacks-humane-society">http://www.prwatch.org/news/2010/02/8894/rick-berman-attacks-humane-society</a></div>

Links:

[1] http://www.prwatch.org/users/5684/anne-landman

[2] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/animal-rights

[3] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/corporations

[4] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/propaganda

[5] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.prwatch.org%2Fnews%2F2010%2F02%2F8894%2Frick-berman-attacks-humane-society&linkname=Rick%20Berman%20Attacks%20the%20Humane%20Society

[6] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Front_groups

[7] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rick_Berman

[8] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom

[9] http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/h/4106-humanewatch-proudly-launching-tomorrow

[10] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Humane_Society_of_the_United_States

[11] http://www.humanesociety.org/

[12] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=puppy_mills

[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/factory_farming

[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_fighting

[15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockfight

[16] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canned_hunt

[17] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=animal_testing

[18] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Wyeth

[19] http://www.sourcewatch.org

[20] http://www.yellowtailwine.com/

[21] http://www.humanesociety.org/about/corporate_sponsors/yellow_tail_.html

<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2010/02/8894/rick-berman-attacks-humane-society">http://www.prwatch.org/news/2010/02/8894/rick-berman-attacks-humane-society</a>

===

AETA:

Even before the SHAC7 conviction, industry groups pushed for expansions of “animal enterprise terrorism” legislation both federally and at the state level. The convictions of Justin Samuel, Peter Young, and now the SHAC defendants, have only whetted their appetites. As David Martosko of the Center for Consumer Freedom, an industry lobby group, said after the conviction: “This is just the starting gun.” (Toronto Star, 3/13/06, “U.S. terror hunt targets animal activists,” Walkom).

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charlotte's web eco-terror

===

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom">http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom</a>

The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) (formerly called the "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Guest_Choice_Network" title="Guest Choice Network" class="mw-redirect">Guest Choice Network</a> (GCN)") is a <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Front_groups" title="Front groups">front group</a> for the restaurant, alcohol, tobacco and other industries. It runs media campaigns which oppose the efforts of scientists, doctors, health advocates, animal advocates, environmentalists and groups like <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mothers_Against_Drunk_Driving" title="Mothers Against Drunk Driving">Mothers Against Drunk Driving</a>, calling them "the Nanny Culture -- the growing fraternity of food cops, health care enforcers, anti-meat activists, and meddling bureaucrats who 'know what's best for you.'"

CCF is registered as a tax-exempt, non-profit organization under the IRS code <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=501%28c%29%283%29" title="501(c)(3)">501(c)(3)</a>. Its advisory board is comprised mainly of representatives from the restaurant, meat and alcoholic beverage industries.

<h2>Contents</h2>

[<a href="javascript:toggleToc()" class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>]</div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Overview_.26_history">1 Overview & history</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Starting_out_smoking">1.1 Starting out smoking</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Tactics">2 Tactics</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Personal_responsibility">2.1 Personal responsibility</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#.22Free_to_choose.22">2.2 "Free to choose"</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Marginalizing_advocates">2.3 Marginalizing advocates</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Selected_campaigns_.28subsection.29">3 Selected campaigns (subsection)</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#CCF_.26_anti-animal_rights.2Fwelfare">3.1 CCF & anti-animal rights/welfare</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#CCF_.26_puppy_mills">3.2 CCF & puppy mills</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#List_of_targeted_organizations">4 List of targeted organizations</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Affiliated_organizations_.26_websites">5 Affiliated organizations & websites</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Quotable_.26_notable">6 Quotable & notable</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Funding_.28subsection.29">7 Funding (subsection)</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Personnel">8 Personnel</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Officers">8.1 Officers</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Advisory_panel">8.2 Advisory panel</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Media">8.3 Media</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Former_personnel">8.4 Former personnel</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Contact">9 Contact</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Articles_.26_sources">10 Articles & sources</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#SourceWatch_articles">10.1 SourceWatch articles</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#References">10.2 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#External_articles">10.3 External articles</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#External_resources">10.4 External resources</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Consumer_Freedom#Books">10.4.1 Books</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

</ul>

</li>

</ul>

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