amy ridenour bak

<h1 class="title">=</h1><h1 class="title">Promoted to primary 6/14  See NCPPR also NCPPR1</h1><div>cf ggl doc</div>see also Project 21, rent-a-negroeBonner Cohenwreck crew:  pal from Coll Rep, did work for abramoff  197bak 1219==wow WE<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;">
</div><div style="font-size: small;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">oN APRIL 7 THE CAMPAIGN for America's Future, a liberal group, bought a full-page ad in the conservative Washington Times. The ad displays photos of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, Dwight Eisenhower, and Tom DeLay. "Once upon a time," the ad begins, "conservatives stood for honest government. . . . Now, their chosen leader"--that would be DeLay, the House majority leader--"is the symbol of money and corruption in Washington."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The ad appeared the day after both the New York Times and the Washington Post recycled moldy charges against DeLay in front-page stories. It was all part of an ongoing effort to discredit the Texas Republican, who has been admonished by the House Ethics committee more times than any other member of Congress but whose main offense seems to have been success: boosting the power of his party, passing legislation Democrats don't like, and raising large amounts of money.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Some of that money goes to his family. The New York Times story--"Political Groups Paid Two Relatives of House Leader"--reported that DeLay's wife and daughter have been paid more than $500,000 as employees of his political action committees since 2001. But, as DeLay's staff was quick to observe, employing your husband, wife, son, or daughter and paying them with campaign funds violates no law or congressional ethics rule--and, according to the Los Angeles Times, at least 39 members of Congress do it, from both parties.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>Meanwhile the April 6 Washington Post story highlighted an August 1997 "fact-finding" mission DeLay, his wife, and top staff took to Moscow. According to forms DeLay's staff filed with the House travel office, the trip was paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative nonprofit on Capitol Hill. The trip lasted six days and cost about $60,000. The Post story distilled and strengthened reporting from the March 18 edition of National Journal's CongressDaily. CongressDaily's article cited "two sources familiar with travel planning," and began: "An August 1997 trip to Moscow by then-House Majority Whip DeLay and four congressional staffers was funded largely by a Russian energy firm or a key affiliate which was a client of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Abramoff, as all Washington insiders know, is under investigation by the Justice Department, the Interior Department, the IRS, the FBI, a special interagency task force, and the Senate Finance and Indian Affairs committees, among others, for allegedly defrauding Indian gaming interests of somewhere between $66 and $88 million (see Andrew Ferguson's "A Lobbyist's Progress," The Weekly Standard, Dec. 20, 2004). Until recently Abramoff sat on the board of the National Center for Public Policy Research. In 1997, when the Center bankrolled Delay's trip to Russia, he was employed as a lobbyist at the firm Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds LLP. House rules forbid members from having travel bills paid for by lobbyists.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sometime in early 1997 Abramoff registered as a lobbyist for Chelsea Commercial Enterprises Ltd. Chelsea was incorporated--here the documentary record is contradictory--either in the Bahamas or in Jersey, an island in the English Channel that is known for its lax financial disclosure laws. In his registration, Abramoff specified that Chelsea was paying him to build "support for policies of the Russian government for progressive market reforms and trade with the United States." To that end he was paid $260,000 in 1997 and, according to the Post, "less than $10,000 in 1998." Chelsea also paid a New York law firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, $180,000 in '97 and about $30,000 between '98 and 2001 to work on its behalf.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Another source" handed the Post reporters a memo taken from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, dated May 6, 1997. In the memo, Ellen S. Levinson, then a lobbyist for Chelsea at Cadwalader, outlines a year-long schedule of junkets to Russia. The six junkets mentioned in Levinson's memo, the Post reported, included a trip for an "advance team" in May 1997, a visit by journalists and foreign policy wonks in June, and a trip by DeLay in August. Abramoff was cc'd on the memo.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>DeLay's chief of staff at the time, Ed Buckham, may have been part of that "advance team." In a January 21, 1998, AP story (headline: "You Won't Find Congressional Travelers in Coach"), Buckham, who now runs his own lobbying firm, said he had taken the Concorde from Paris to Washington in July 1997 after visiting Russia in advance of his boss. Buckham said his Concorde ticket, like the August 1997 junket, was paid for by the National Center for Public Policy Research. "We told the travel agent to just find the best flight," Amy Ridenour, the president of the National Center, told AP at the time. "Ed took the Concorde. I didn't realize that's what the travel agent picked."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But where did the National Center get the money? The Wall Street Journal's David Rogers provided an answer on April 13. "The Russia trip was covered from an estimated $165,000 payment [to the center] from an international law firm seeking to promote exchanges with Russian businessmen," Rogers wrote--which would suggest the firm in question was the New York-based Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. But it could also have been another firm, of course--Abramoff's, perhaps, or one friendly to Abramoff, who was friendly with Ridenour. Both were friends of DeLay's.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wherever the money ultimately came from, the trip was a success. DeLay, his wife, and his top staff were joined in Moscow first by Ridenour, then Abramoff, then Julius Kaplan, a lawyer on the Chelsea account at Cadwalader. They golfed, met with Russian religious leaders, visited tourist attractions, and spoke with Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. One night the group attended a sumptuous dinner party hosted by the heads of NaftaSib, a Russian energy company. DeLay met NaftaSib's president, Alexander Koulakovsky, and its executive vice president, Marina Nevskaya. NaftaSib was another client of Abramoff's at Preston Gates.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Little is known about NaftaSib's executives. Alexander Koulakovsky "graduated from Odessa Technological Institute in 1975," according to his company's literature, and left the Russian oil giant SibNeft in 1993 to start NaftaSib. Other than that I could find only an October 26, 1994, dispatch from Tass, the Russian news agency, which reported that an Alexander Koulakovsky was "arrested by authorities of Hatichohe, Northern Honshu, Japan, . . . for illegal storage of a handgun and 150 rounds of ammunition."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Even less is known about Marina Nevskaya. The NaftaSib promotional material says she "taught at the Military Diplomatic Academy and lectured at Moscow State University" until 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. Apparently she is "the author of several publications on the economy of Southeast Asia, economic cooperation between the USSR and Asian countries and textbooks on oriental languages." She is fluent, we are told, "in English, Vietnamese and French." There is no record of her in the Nexis news database prior to 2005.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Except this. The August 23, 2004, issue of the Russian Oil and Gas Report had an article on NaftaSib's bid to buy the remnants of YUKOS, the giant Russian oil firm run by Mikhail Khodorkovsky until he became a prisoner of the Russian government. The article--published six months before the latest controversy over DeLay--contains this aside:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The names of Kulakovsky and Nevskaya, not very well known in Russia, are sufficiently well known in the U.S. Thus, in 1997 Naftasib paid for the Moscow part of the visit of leader of the house of representative of the US Congress Tom DeLay. Nevskaya accompanied DeLay on that visit to Moscow.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">If NaftaSib paid for DeLay's trip, however, it did so indirectly. And thus we--and DeLay's critics--reach an impasse. Looking back, lobbyists were involved in the planning and execution of DeLay's trip to Russia; Russian energy interests took credit for the trip; the only question is who paid for it.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And that question has already been answered, more or less: the National Center for Public Policy Research. And according to the House rules, as long as lobbyists don't pay a congressman's expenses directly, everything is peachy. Were all such congressional trips to receive the level of scrutiny applied to DeLay's Russia boondoggle, it's safe to say, few of his colleagues would escape censure.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As Amy Ridenour said in a statement last week: "The National Center for Public Policy Research was careful to pay all the expenses associated with Congressman DeLay's trip." If that's so, DeLay may still be a symbol of the unappealing intersection of money and politics in Washington. But symbolism has never been a firing offense.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Matthew Continetti is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Matthew Continetti Magazine</div></div>=<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour</a><div id="mw-content-text" lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="direction: ltr;"><div class="mw-parser-output" style="">Amy Moritz Ridenour (November 9, 1959 – March 31, 2017), was president of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Public_Policy_Research" title="National Center for Public Policy Research" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">National Center for Public Policy Research</a>, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,DC" class="mw-redirect" title="Washington, DC" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Washington, DC</a> conservative think tank. Ridenour held this post since the organization's founding in 1982 until her death. She wrote a syndicated op-ed column from 1997 and was a frequent radio and television guest.<div id="toc" class="toc" style="background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 7px; display: table;"><input type="checkbox" role="button" id="toctogglecheckbox" class="toctogglecheckbox" style="direction: ltr; position: absolute; opacity: 0; z-index: -1; display: none;" /><div class="toctitle" lang="en" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;">
</div><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#Background" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">1Background</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#National_Center_for_Public_Policy_Research" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2National Center for Public Policy Research</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#Pro-tobacco,anti-environmental_positions" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">3Pro-tobacco, anti-environmental positions</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#Abramoff_connections" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4Abramoff connections</a><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#Support_for_Abramoff_clients" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4.1Support for Abramoff clients</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#Funding_of_Abramoff-sponsored_trips" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4.2Funding of Abramoff-sponsored trips</a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">5References</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#Further_reading" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">6Further reading</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#External_links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">7External links</a></li></ul></div><h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Background[</h2>According to Nina Easton's Gang of Five, Amy Moritz was a veteran organizer of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Republican_National_Committee" class="mw-redirect" title="College Republican National Committee" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">College Republican National Committee</a>. She was a candidate in 1981 for election as national chairman of the organization, opposed by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff" title="Jack Abramoff" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Jack Abramoff</a>.Abramoff, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_E.Reed,Jr." class="mw-redirect" title="Ralph E. Reed, Jr." style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Ralph Reed</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist" title="Grover Norquist" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Grover Norquist</a> persuaded Moritz to drop out of the race by promising her the appointed position of executive director. With the only serious competitor out of the way, Abramoff won the election easily.Although Moritz was later rebuffed by the "Abramoff-Norquist-Reed triumvirate" and only given the titular position of "deputy director", she continued to work with the group and became a good friend of Norquist. Abramoff would also later become a director of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Public_Policy_Research" title="National Center for Public Policy Research" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">National Center for Public Policy Research</a> (NCPPR).Moritz later married fellow College Republican <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Ridenour&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="David Ridenour (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">David A. Ridenour</a>.<h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">National Center for Public Policy Research[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amy_Ridenour&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: National Center for Public Policy Research" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2>Ridenour was a founding chief executive officer of the NCPPR in 1982. The NCPPR claims to promote "the conservative and free market perspective on US domestic, foreign and defense policy issues." Ridenour's husband David A. Ridenour is vice president of the organization.NCPPR bulletins have been heavily cited by conservative members of Congress, sometimes apparently being copied entirely with little more than a change in letterhead.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a><h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Pro-tobacco, anti-environmental positions[</h2>During the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=National_tobacco_litigation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="National tobacco litigation (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">national tobacco litigation</a>, a memo from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altria_Group" class="mw-redirect" title="Altria Group" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Philip Morris</a> executive Frank Gomez revealed that Ridenour (under her maiden name of Amy Moritz) had offered "to use any information we can provide re the current anti-tobacco onslaught..."<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20030930182136/http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/ncppr.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">[1]</a> Ridenour wrote many op-eds attacking the filing of lawsuits by state attorneys general against tobacco firms and on tobacco policies, such as "Ironies of the Tobacco Wars,"<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20051025044853/http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA198.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">[2]</a> "Federal Tobacco Lawsuit Could Pave Way for Litigation Tax on Other Industries,"<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060615040202/http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA263.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">[3]</a> "Latin America Go Home: Tobacco Policies in Foreign Countries Should Be Made by Foreign Countries, Not in U.S. Courts"<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060619133217/http://nationalcenter.org/NPA244.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">[4]</a> and "Lawyers' Fees in Tobacco Case Should Be Capped."<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060615071043/http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA195.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">[5]</a> Ridenour said that such lawsuits were improper, that regulation of tobacco was the province of legislatures, not law enforcement, and that private attorneys were using the suits to enrich themselves by many millions of dollars.Environmentalists also claimed articles by Ridenour skeptical of the global warming theory were written only because NCPPR received support from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil" title="ExxonMobil" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ExxonMobil</a>. Ridenour, writing on her <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog" title="Blog" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">blog</a>, countered that her writing on the issue began in 1992, predating by many years her institution's receipt of any funding from fossil fuel industries. She also claimed that total fossil fuel funding of NCPPR in 2004 amounted to six-tenths of one percent of her organization's total funding. An examination of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil" title="ExxonMobil" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ExxonMobil</a> grant reports in 2011 on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil" title="ExxonMobil" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ExxonMobil</a> website showed NCPPR had not received any grants from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil" title="ExxonMobil" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ExxonMobil</a> for at least several years.<h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Abramoff connections[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amy_Ridenour&action=edit&section=4" title="Edit section: Abramoff connections" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2><h3 style="background: none; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;">Support for Abramoff clients[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amy_Ridenour&action=edit&section=5" title="Edit section: Support for Abramoff clients" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h3>In a series of editorials between 1999 and 2001, Ridenour attacked efforts to expand federal immigration laws to the Commonwealth of the Marianas Islands,<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060615063505/http://www.nationalcenter.org/PRCNMI401.html" style="background-image: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" background-position="background-position" right="right" center="center" background-size="background-size" initial="initial" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" repeat="repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">[6]</a> defended the islands' meager wages,<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060615064739/http://www.nationalcenter.org/PRCNMI499.html" style="background-image: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" background-position="background-position" right="right" center="center" background-size="background-size" initial="initial" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" repeat="repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">[7]</a> and attacked Clinton Administration attempts to tighten labor laws.<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060615065009/http://www.nationalcenter.org/PRCNMI899.html" style="background-image: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" background-position="background-position" right="right" center="center" background-size="background-size" initial="initial" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" repeat="repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">[8]</a> Ridenour also lent her support to the Western Pacific Economic Council, a trade group composed of Marianas garment manufacturers. Her group’s name appeared in a Saipan newspaper backing the Council in 1999.Both the Marianas and the Economic Council were clients of Jack Abramoff at the time. The Marianas paid Abramoff’s firm Preston Gates $1.9 million in 1999 and 2000 and his second firm, Greenberg Traurig, $1.1 million in 2001. The Western Pacific Economic Council paid Preston Gates $2.3 million in 1999 and 2000.In August 2001, Ridenour wrote an editorial in the Washington Times, "The U.S. Must Tread Carefully to Avoid Creating More Fundamentalist Islamic Governments,"<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20111010205856/http://nationalcenter.org/NPA344.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">[9]</a> warning of the dangerous possibility that Malaysia could become a third Iran or Afghanistan, with what she called "ferocious and fanatical hatred aimed against the West generally and the United States in particular" and in the case of Afghanistan sheltering "the world's most notorious - and dangerous - international terrorist, Osama bin Laden." She warned about Islamic fundamentalist support for Anwar Ibrahim, the main political rival of Abramoff’s then-client, Malaysian Prime Minister <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahathir_bin_Mohamed" class="mw-redirect" title="Mahathir bin Mohamed" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Mahathir bin Mohamed</a>. Of Malaysia, she wrote, "in recent years Malaysia has made extraordinary strides in its development as a prosperous, stable and democratic state" but "its levels of economic freedom, regulations on trade and limits on private property rights led the Heritage Foundation to conclude in 2001 that its economy is 'mostly unfree.'" Abramoff was paid $1.2 million to arrange a meeting between the Prime Minister and President Bush.<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Washington_nonprofit_where_Abramoff_was_director_0308.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">[10]</a><h3 style="background: none; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;">Funding of Abramoff-sponsored trips[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amy_Ridenour&action=edit&section=6" title="Edit section: Funding of Abramoff-sponsored trips" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h3>Ridenour has come under fire for allegedly using the NCPPR as a clearinghouse for clients of convicted lobbyist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff" title="Jack Abramoff" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Jack Abramoff</a> to pay for a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trips_funded_by_Jack_Abramoff" title="List of trips funded by Jack Abramoff" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">luxurious golf trip</a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Course_at_St_Andrews" title="Old Course at St Andrews" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">St. Andrew's</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland" title="Scotland" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Scotland</a>, attended by congressman <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeLay" title="Tom DeLay" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Tom DeLay</a> and others. Ridenour was called to testify on this matter before the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Indian_Affairs_Committee" class="mw-redirect" title="Senate Indian Affairs Committee" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Senate Indian Affairs Committee</a> on June 22, 2005.Records showed that Abramoff directed one of his clients to donate to the NCPPR; the NCPPR then paid an equivalent amount to provide most of the funding for the golf trip, which was described in required House filing paperwork as for "educational purposes". Two months after the trip, DeLay voted against legislation opposed by the client. DeLay and Ridenour have both defended the propriety of the arrangement, asserting that the donation was in no way connected to the trip, nor were the donation or the trip connected to the vote.DeLay was admonished three times last year by the House ethics committee for infringing rules governing lawmakers' activities and their contacts with registered lobbyists. House ethics rules bar the payment by lobbyists for any lawmaker's travel-connected entertainment and recreational activities costing more than $50; they also require that lawmakers accurately report the sponsor of their trips and the full cost.In an article last month about the same trip by DeLay, The Post reported that an Indian tribe and a gambling services company made donations to the National Center for Public Policy Research that covered most of the expenses declared by participants at that time. The article also said these payments were made two months before DeLay voted against legislation opposed by the tribe and the company. DeLay has said the vote was unrelated to the payments.The article also reported that Abramoff submitted an expense voucher to Preston Gates seeking a reimbursement of $12,789.73 to cover expenses for meals, hotels and transportation during the London and Scotland trip incurred by DeLay; his wife, Christine; and his two aides.The new receipts add more detail about these expenses, make clear that the total expenses for all of the participants were at least $50,000 more than was previously known, and connect Abramoff directly to the payment of some charges.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a>Ridenour also attended the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trips_funded_by_Jack_Abramoff" title="List of trips funded by Jack Abramoff" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">1997 DeLay-Abramoff</a> trip to Russia funded through NCPPR by the Russian energy giant <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Naftasib&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Naftasib (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Naftasib</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a><h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">References[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amy_Ridenour&action=edit&section=7" title="Edit section: References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2><div class="mw-references-wrap" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ol class="references" style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 3.2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-parent 0 list-item 0;"><li id="cite_note-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#cite_ref-1" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }An example from House member <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pombo" title="Richard Pombo" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Richard Pombo</a>:<ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" bullet-icon.svg="bullet-icon.svg" f1="f1"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/EarthDay02Myths.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Earth Day 2002 Fact Sheet Myths and Facts About the Environment" from NCPPA</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20051025031430/http://www.nationalcenter.org/EarthDay02Myths.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Archived</a> 2005-10-25 at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine" title="Wayback Machine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wayback Machine</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.house.gov/burton/RSC/word/Pombo.PDF" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Earth Day 2002 Myths & Facts" from Richard Pombo</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20051030093743/http://www.house.gov/burton/RSC/word/Pombo.PDF" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">Archived</a> October 30, 2005, at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine" title="Wayback Machine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wayback Machine</a>.</li></ul></li><li id="cite_note-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#cite_ref-2" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12416-2005Apr23.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"DeLay Airfare Was Charged To Lobbyist's Credit Card"</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post" title="The Washington Post" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Washington Post</a>, April 24, 2005.</li><li id="cite_note-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em; counter-increment: mw-ref-extends-parent 1; counter-reset: mw-ref-extends-child 0;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour#cite_ref-3" aria-label="Jump up" title="Jump up" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">^{</a> }<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28319-2005Apr5.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"A 3rd DeLay Trip Under Scrutiny"</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post" title="The Washington Post" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Washington Post</a>, April 6, 2005.</li></ol></div><h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Further reading[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amy_Ridenour&action=edit&section=8" title="Edit section: Further reading" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" bullet-icon.svg="bullet-icon.svg" f1="f1"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;">Easton, Nina J. (2000), Gang of Five. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%26_Schuster" title="Simon & Schuster" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Simon & Schuster</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number" title="International Standard Book Number" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ISBN</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-684-83899-0" title="Special:BookSources/0-684-83899-0" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">0-684-83899-0</a>.</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100106014338/http://www.indian.senate.gov/2005hrgs/062205hrg/ridenour.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">"Statement of Amy Moritz Ridenour"</a>, before <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Indian_Affairs_Committee" class="mw-redirect" title="Senate Indian Affairs Committee" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Senate Indian Affairs Committee</a> Hearing on Lobbying practices Involving Indian Tribes, June 22, 2005.</li></ul><h2 style="background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">External links[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amy_Ridenour&action=edit&section=9" title="Edit section: External links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2><ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" bullet-icon.svg="bullet-icon.svg" f1="f1"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20041215032432/http://www.nationalcenter.org/Staffbios.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" external-link-ltr-icon.svg="external-link-ltr-icon.svg" b4b84="b4b84" padding-right="padding-right" px="px">NCPPR staff bio</a></li></ul><div role="navigation" class="navbox" aria-labelledby="Jack_Abramoff_scandal" style="background-color: rgb(253, 253, 253); 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background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 5px; margin-top: 1em; clear: both;"><div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Category" title="Help:Category" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Categories</a>: <ul style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none none; display: inline;"><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left: 0px; padding: 0px 0.5em 0px 0.25em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_associated_with_the_Jack_Abramoff_scandals" title="Category:People associated with the Jack Abramoff scandals" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">People associated with the Jack Abramoff scandals</a></li><li style="margin: 0.125em 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.25em; border-left: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); padding: 0px 0.5em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1959_births" title="Category:1959 births" style="text-decoration-line: none; 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Republicans" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Washington, D.C. Republicans</a></li></ul></div></div> =voter suppression 2102blog 5th colalec disband public safety and elections task force (bc stand your ground<header class="entry-header" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://thefifthcolumn2.wordpress.com/category/voter-fraud-2/" rel="category tag" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0.375em; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">VOTER FRAUD</a><h1 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; clear: both; line-height: 1.2;">Conservative Group With Abramoff Scandal Ties Picks Up Voter ID Issue Where ALEC Left Off</h1><div class="entry-meta" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><a href="https://thefifthcolumn2.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/conservative-group-with-abramoff-scandal-ties-picks-up-voter-id-issue-where-alec-left-off/" rel="bookmark" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">April 20, 2012</a><a class="url fn n" href="https://thefifthcolumn2.wordpress.com/author/kstreet607/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">kstreet607</a></div></header><div class="entry-content" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><img class="alignright" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.thewingnuterer.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/voter-suppression-for-dummies2.jpg" alt="" width="172" height="253" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline; float: right; margin-top: 0.75em; margin-bottom: 0.75em; margin-left: 1.5em;" />One has to wonder, why the GOP think that they will truly suppress tens of thousands of voters without a valid ID from casting their ballots on election day.  If their strategy was to make sure those tens of thousands don’t vote, activists and civil rights advocates are making an effort to help voters with the process of obtaining an ID before election day.In the meantime, some of us sit and watch this attack on democracy try to take hold, but I am certain those leading the effort to retain our democratic principles will eventually rule the day.  I intend to do my partShortly after the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) <a href="http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/after-pounding-from-progressives-alec-backs-off-of" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">announced it was dropping</a> voter identification laws from its agenda, another conservative group is stepping in to fill the void.The National Center for Public Policy Research <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/PR-VoterID_041812.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">announced</a> this week it had formed a “Voter Identification Task Force” to continue ALEC’s “excellent work” in “promoting measures to enhance integrity in voting.” Describing itself as a “conservative, free-market, non-profit think-tank,” the group was established in 1982.“The fact that ALEC is no longer going to be offering the services it did got us interested in doing something,” National Center for Public Policy Research executive director David Almasi told TPM. “We obviously can’t do everything ALEC did, but we can do something to make sure the issue doesn’t go away.”“This is something that we picked up because someone else dropped it and not because anyone has come to us and said here’s a check, do it. It’s something that we feel strongly enough about that we’re willing to do it off our regular strategic plan,” Almasi said.“We’re putting the left on notice: you take out a conservative program operating in one area, we’ll kick it up a notch somewhere else,” Amy Ridenour, chairman of the National Center for Public Policy Research, said in a statement. “You will not win. We outnumber you and we outthink you, and when you kick up a fuss you inspire us to victory.”Corporate CEOs who “cower in the face of liberal boycott threats need to understand that the left never gives up,” Ridenour said. “If these corporations do not reverse course and immediately grow enough of a backbone to say no when the left tells them what to do, conservatives may as well consider them part of the organized left. It doesn’t matter if corporate executives have free-market sentiments hidden deep inside them if they continually surrender to the left’s Trotskyite strategy of making relentless demand after demand in public.”While several conservative organizations have taken up the <a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/the_voting_wars_could_get_bloody.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">issue of voter identification</a>, no national group that considered voter ID their central issue has existed since the American Center for Voting Rights <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2007/05/the_fraudulent_fraud_squad.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">disappeared</a> back in 2007. More recently, the Tea Party group True the Vote has <a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/tea_party-backed_anti-voter_fraud_effort_touts_non-partisanship_at_first_national_conference.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">held a national conference</a> to address the issue and James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas has produced a number of “<a href="http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/doj-official-calls-okeefe-voter-id-stunt-manufactured" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">undercover</a>” <a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/okeefe_voter_fraud_stunt_confused_23-year-old_for_dead_84-year-old.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">videos</a> in an attempt to show why they believe voter ID laws are necessary.The <a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/ref/ncppr.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">NCPPR</a> got a bit tangled up in the Jack Abramoff scandal a few years back. The Center for Media and Democracy <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/04/11466/right-wing-operatives-take-alecs-voter-suppression-agenda" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">points out</a> that a Senate investigation found that Ridenour <a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2006/06/committee_reed_norquist_used_a.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">directed money received by the NCPPR at Abramoff’s direction</a>. The group reportedly <a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/ref/ncppr.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">covered the cost</a> of several of former Rep. Tom Delay’s overseas junkets. Nobody from the group faced charges.<h6 class="zemanta-related-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.2;">Related articles</h6><ul class="zemanta-article-ul" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em 3em; padding-left: 0px; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;"><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/17/alec-eliminates-task-force-on-social-issues/" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">ALEC eliminates task force on social issues</a> (rawstory.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="http://jhaines6.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/alec-disbands-task-force-responsible-for-voter-id-stand-your-ground-laws/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">ALEC Disbands Task Force Responsible for Voter ID, ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws</a> (jhaines6.wordpress.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2012/apr/20/letter-to-the-editor-voter-id-would-help/?partner=RSS" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">LETTER TO THE EDITOR | Voter ID would help legitimize elections</a> (kitsapsun.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="https://thefifthcolumn2.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/voter-suppression-101/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">Voter Suppression 101</a> (thefifthcolumn2.wordpress.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="http://the2012scenario.com/2012/04/alec-disbands-task-force-responsible-for-voter-id-stand-your-ground-laws/" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;">ALEC Disbands Task Force Responsible for Voter ID, ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws</a> (the2012scenario.com)</li><li class="zemanta-article-ul-li" style="box-sizing: inherit;">=</li></ul></div>BAK plain txt, links below
=Promoted to primary 6/14  See NCPPR also NCPPR1cf ggl docsee also Project 21, rent-a-negroe
Bonner Cohen
wreck crew:  pal from Coll Rep, did work for abramoff  197
bak 1219
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ridenour
Amy Moritz Ridenour (November 9, 1959 – March 31, 2017), was president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, a Washington, DC conservative think tank. Ridenour held this post since the organization's founding in 1982 until her death. She wrote a syndicated op-ed column from 1997 and was a frequent radio and television guest.

1 Background2 National Center for Public Policy Research3 Pro-tobacco, anti-environmental positions4 Abramoff connections4.1 Support for Abramoff clients4.2 Funding of Abramoff-sponsored trips5 References6 Further reading7 External linksBackground[According to Nina Easton's Gang of Five, Amy Moritz was a veteran organizer of the College Republican National Committee. She was a candidate in 1981 for election as national chairman of the organization, opposed by Jack Abramoff.
Abramoff, Ralph Reed, and Grover Norquist persuaded Moritz to drop out of the race by promising her the appointed position of executive director. With the only serious competitor out of the way, Abramoff won the election easily.
Although Moritz was later rebuffed by the "Abramoff-Norquist-Reed triumvirate" and only given the titular position of "deputy director", she continued to work with the group and became a good friend of Norquist. Abramoff would also later become a director of the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR).
Moritz later married fellow College Republican David A. Ridenour.
National Center for Public Policy Research[edit]Ridenour was a founding chief executive officer of the NCPPR in 1982. The NCPPR claims to promote "the conservative and free market perspective on US domestic, foreign and defense policy issues." Ridenour's husband David A. Ridenour is vice president of the organization.
NCPPR bulletins have been heavily cited by conservative members of Congress, sometimes apparently being copied entirely with little more than a change in letterhead.[1]
Pro-tobacco, anti-environmental positions[During the national tobacco litigation, a memo from Philip Morris executive Frank Gomez revealed that Ridenour (under her maiden name of Amy Moritz) had offered "to use any information we can provide re the current anti-tobacco onslaught..."[1] Ridenour wrote many op-eds attacking the filing of lawsuits by state attorneys general against tobacco firms and on tobacco policies, such as "Ironies of the Tobacco Wars,"[2] "Federal Tobacco Lawsuit Could Pave Way for Litigation Tax on Other Industries,"[3] "Latin America Go Home: Tobacco Policies in Foreign Countries Should Be Made by Foreign Countries, Not in U.S. Courts"[4] and "Lawyers' Fees in Tobacco Case Should Be Capped."[5] Ridenour said that such lawsuits were improper, that regulation of tobacco was the province of legislatures, not law enforcement, and that private attorneys were using the suits to enrich themselves by many millions of dollars.
Environmentalists also claimed articles by Ridenour skeptical of the global warming theory were written only because NCPPR received support from ExxonMobil. Ridenour, writing on her blog, countered that her writing on the issue began in 1992, predating by many years her institution's receipt of any funding from fossil fuel industries. She also claimed that total fossil fuel funding of NCPPR in 2004 amounted to six-tenths of one percent of her organization's total funding. An examination of ExxonMobil grant reports in 2011 on the ExxonMobil website showed NCPPR had not received any grants from ExxonMobil for at least several years.
Abramoff connections[edit]Support for Abramoff clients[edit]In a series of editorials between 1999 and 2001, Ridenour attacked efforts to expand federal immigration laws to the Commonwealth of the Marianas Islands,[6] defended the islands' meager wages,[7] and attacked Clinton Administration attempts to tighten labor laws.[8] Ridenour also lent her support to the Western Pacific Economic Council, a trade group composed of Marianas garment manufacturers. Her group’s name appeared in a Saipan newspaper backing the Council in 1999.
Both the Marianas and the Economic Council were clients of Jack Abramoff at the time. The Marianas paid Abramoff’s firm Preston Gates $1.9 million in 1999 and 2000 and his second firm, Greenberg Traurig, $1.1 million in 2001. The Western Pacific Economic Council paid Preston Gates $2.3 million in 1999 and 2000.
In August 2001, Ridenour wrote an editorial in the Washington Times, "The U.S. Must Tread Carefully to Avoid Creating More Fundamentalist Islamic Governments,"[9] warning of the dangerous possibility that Malaysia could become a third Iran or Afghanistan, with what she called "ferocious and fanatical hatred aimed against the West generally and the United States in particular" and in the case of Afghanistan sheltering "the world's most notorious - and dangerous - international terrorist, Osama bin Laden." She warned about Islamic fundamentalist support for Anwar Ibrahim, the main political rival of Abramoff’s then-client, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamed. Of Malaysia, she wrote, "in recent years Malaysia has made extraordinary strides in its development as a prosperous, stable and democratic state" but "its levels of economic freedom, regulations on trade and limits on private property rights led the Heritage Foundation to conclude in 2001 that its economy is 'mostly unfree.'" Abramoff was paid $1.2 million to arrange a meeting between the Prime Minister and President Bush.[10]
Funding of Abramoff-sponsored trips[edit]Ridenour has come under fire for allegedly using the NCPPR as a clearinghouse for clients of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff to pay for a luxurious golf trip to St. Andrew's in Scotland, attended by congressman Tom DeLay and others. Ridenour was called to testify on this matter before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on June 22, 2005.
Records showed that Abramoff directed one of his clients to donate to the NCPPR; the NCPPR then paid an equivalent amount to provide most of the funding for the golf trip, which was described in required House filing paperwork as for "educational purposes". Two months after the trip, DeLay voted against legislation opposed by the client. DeLay and Ridenour have both defended the propriety of the arrangement, asserting that the donation was in no way connected to the trip, nor were the donation or the trip connected to the vote.
DeLay was admonished three times last year by the House ethics committee for infringing rules governing lawmakers' activities and their contacts with registered lobbyists. House ethics rules bar the payment by lobbyists for any lawmaker's travel-connected entertainment and recreational activities costing more than $50; they also require that lawmakers accurately report the sponsor of their trips and the full cost.
In an article last month about the same trip by DeLay, The Post reported that an Indian tribe and a gambling services company made donations to the National Center for Public Policy Research that covered most of the expenses declared by participants at that time. The article also said these payments were made two months before DeLay voted against legislation opposed by the tribe and the company. DeLay has said the vote was unrelated to the payments.
The article also reported that Abramoff submitted an expense voucher to Preston Gates seeking a reimbursement of $12,789.73 to cover expenses for meals, hotels and transportation during the London and Scotland trip incurred by DeLay; his wife, Christine; and his two aides.
The new receipts add more detail about these expenses, make clear that the total expenses for all of the participants were at least $50,000 more than was previously known, and connect Abramoff directly to the payment of some charges.[2]
Ridenour also attended the 1997 DeLay-Abramoff trip to Russia funded through NCPPR by the Russian energy giant Naftasib.[3]
References[edit]^ An example from House member Richard Pombo:"Earth Day 2002 Fact Sheet Myths and Facts About the Environment" from NCPPA Archived 2005-10-25 at the Wayback Machine"Earth Day 2002 Myths & Facts" from Richard Pombo Archived October 30, 2005, at the Wayback Machine.^ "DeLay Airfare Was Charged To Lobbyist's Credit Card", The Washington Post, April 24, 2005.^ "A 3rd DeLay Trip Under Scrutiny", The Washington Post, April 6, 2005.Further reading[edit]Easton, Nina J. (2000), Gang of Five. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-83899-0."Statement of Amy Moritz Ridenour", before Senate Indian Affairs Committee Hearing on Lobbying practices Involving Indian Tribes, June 22, 2005.External links[edit]NCPPR staff bioshowvteJack Abramoff scandalCategories: People associated with the Jack Abramoff scandals1959 births2017 deathsCollege RepublicansAmerican activistsWashington, D.C. Republicans =
voter suppression 2102
blog 5th col
alec disband public safety and elections task force (bc stand your ground
VOTER FRAUDConservative Group With Abramoff Scandal Ties Picks Up Voter ID Issue Where ALEC Left OffApril 20, 2012kstreet607One has to wonder, why the GOP think that they will truly suppress tens of thousands of voters without a valid ID from casting their ballots on election day.  If their strategy was to make sure those tens of thousands don’t vote, activists and civil rights advocates are making an effort to help voters with the process of obtaining an ID before election day.
In the meantime, some of us sit and watch this attack on democracy try to take hold, but I am certain those leading the effort to retain our democratic principles will eventually rule the day.  I intend to do my part
Shortly after the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) announced it was dropping voter identification laws from its agenda, another conservative group is stepping in to fill the void.
The National Center for Public Policy Research announced this week it had formed a “Voter Identification Task Force” to continue ALEC’s “excellent work” in “promoting measures to enhance integrity in voting.” Describing itself as a “conservative, free-market, non-profit think-tank,” the group was established in 1982.
“The fact that ALEC is no longer going to be offering the services it did got us interested in doing something,” National Center for Public Policy Research executive director David Almasi told TPM. “We obviously can’t do everything ALEC did, but we can do something to make sure the issue doesn’t go away.”
“This is something that we picked up because someone else dropped it and not because anyone has come to us and said here’s a check, do it. It’s something that we feel strongly enough about that we’re willing to do it off our regular strategic plan,” Almasi said.
“We’re putting the left on notice: you take out a conservative program operating in one area, we’ll kick it up a notch somewhere else,” Amy Ridenour, chairman of the National Center for Public Policy Research, said in a statement. “You will not win. We outnumber you and we outthink you, and when you kick up a fuss you inspire us to victory.”
Corporate CEOs who “cower in the face of liberal boycott threats need to understand that the left never gives up,” Ridenour said. “If these corporations do not reverse course and immediately grow enough of a backbone to say no when the left tells them what to do, conservatives may as well consider them part of the organized left. It doesn’t matter if corporate executives have free-market sentiments hidden deep inside them if they continually surrender to the left’s Trotskyite strategy of making relentless demand after demand in public.”
While several conservative organizations have taken up the issue of voter identification, no national group that considered voter ID their central issue has existed since the American Center for Voting Rights disappeared back in 2007. More recently, the Tea Party group True the Vote has held a national conference to address the issue and James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas has produced a number of “undercover” videos in an attempt to show why they believe voter ID laws are necessary.
The NCPPR got a bit tangled up in the Jack Abramoff scandal a few years back. The Center for Media and Democracy points out that a Senate investigation found that Ridenour directed money received by the NCPPR at Abramoff’s direction. The group reportedly covered the cost of several of former Rep. Tom Delay’s overseas junkets. Nobody from the group faced charges.
Related articlesALEC eliminates task force on social issues (rawstory.com)ALEC Disbands Task Force Responsible for Voter ID, ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws (jhaines6.wordpress.com)LETTER TO THE EDITOR | Voter ID would help legitimize elections (kitsapsun.com)Voter Suppression 101 (thefifthcolumn2.wordpress.com)ALEC Disbands Task Force Responsible for Voter ID, ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws (the2012scenario.com)=
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/After_critical_article_conservative_nonprofit_accuses_0303.html
...Cease and desist came after article linking president, Abramoff client
The call for the letter’s removal comes quickly on the heels of an article raising questions about Ridenour’s role in writing an editorial that favored Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, a client of Abramoff’s who paid $2.2 million to arrange a visit with President Bush in 2002. At the time of the editorial, Abramoff was a board member of Ridenour's group.
In her editorial, published in the Washington Times, Ridenour declared that Mahathir’s opponent Anwar Ibrahim had “close links to radical Islamic fundamentalist groups” and sought to “destabilize” the Malaysian government.
Ridenour’s article came amidst political unrest in Malaysia. Anwar had recently been sentenced to nine years in prison on sodomy and corruption charges. Some charges were questioned after witnesses recanted confessions; the allegations were seen as a political response to rallies Anwar led that called for Matathir’s resignation and for reforms. Soon thereafter, Anwar was arrested.
Anwar was released from prison in 2004. His opposition party called the charges a “mockery of justice.”...
 =
Amy Moritz-->Ridenour 
 
crypto center for env justice, screws over black ppl and native americans, (rolls to EEI http://www.nationalcenter.org/eptf.html) Pjt 21 gets busted when pillbury doughboy Almasi has to stand in when front tom Mychal Massie gets flat tire; renta-negro for racist conf of O'Keefe pal marcus karate chop; 
Amy R heavily involved in Abramoff network/scams; funded the famous Scotland golf trip to meet Thatcher (or similar one).  amy ran against jack and GN, got her to drop out in return for exec dir title, he spent $10K on election?[college republicans?]
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must say industrious: all news covered in blog eg
Climate Change Activists Meet Food Police: Obama Admin. Plans for New Dietary Guidelines to Include Global WarmingCalculating your 'carbon footprint' to replace counting calories?!
'For the first time in the history of the guidelines, 'sustainability' is part of the agenda. Actual items on their Dietary Guidelines working group agenda include 'immigration,' 'global climate change' and 'agriculture/aquaculture sustainability.' -'By favoring foods which activists think have a smaller carbon footprint, the new guidelines will increase the prices you pay for your food.'

 
By: Marc Morano - Climate DepotMarch 13, 2014 4:07 PM Special to Climate Depot
By National Center for Public Policy Research
Obama Administration to Insert Global Warming Activism into Dietary Guidelines Mandated by Congress
Climate Change Activists to Meet Food Police at Closed-Door Meeting March 14
 
New York, NY / Washington DC - At a closed-door meeting to take place March 14, the Obama Administration’s Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services plan to update the nation’s “dietary guidelines” — a document with significant repercussions for food stamps, military and school meals programs — to include anti-global warming activism.
In an article, “Obama administration pollutes guidelines for healthy eating with unhealthy ideologies,” published Sunday by the Washington Examiner, National CenterSenior Fellow and Risk Analysis Division Director Jeff Stier says environmental activists within the U.S. government plan to change the nation’s dietary guidelines to promote foods that they believe have “a smaller carbon footprint.”
In the past, says Stier, the federal government’s dietary guidelines were intended exclusively to “promote health and reduce risk for major chronic diseases.”
No more, says Stier: “For the first time in the history of the guidelines, ‘sustainability’ is part of the agenda. Actual items on their Dietary Guidelines working group agenda include ‘immigration,’ ‘global climate change’ and ‘agriculture/aquaculture sustainability.’”
What’s more, says Stier, these new guidelines will cost the public money: “By favoring foods which activists think have a smaller carbon footprint, the new guidelines will increase the prices you pay for your food. It will also increase the cost to all taxpayers, since the Dietary Guidelines are used to set policy for food stamps (SNAP) and military diets,” he says.
“The food guidelines, by law, are supposed to be based on a ‘preponderance of scientific and medical knowledge,’” said Amy Ridenour, chairman of the National Center for Public Policy Research, who has studied climate change polices for over a quarter century. “Science can say with authority that eating green vegetables is good for you. It can’t say that humans are causing catastrophic global warming with any more certainty than it can explain why the planet hasn’t warmed since the Clinton Administration. Moms and Dads across America deserve — and, as taxpayers, have paid for — dietary guidelines they can use to help them feed their families wisely. No one benefits from causing people to wonder if the nutritional advice they are getting from their government isn’t focused on nutrition at all, but has been polluted by environmental activists.”
The full Washington Examiner article can be read here.
 
New York City-based Jeff Stier is a Senior Fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and heads its Risk Analysis Division. Stier is a frequent guest on CNBC, and has addressed health policy on CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, as well as network newscasts. Stier’s National Center op-eds have been published in top outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, Newsday, Forbes, the Washington Examiner and National Review Online. He also frequently discusses risk issues on Twitter at @JeffaStier.
 
Washington-based Amy Ridenour, founding CEO of the National Center and currently co-CEO with her husband, David Ridenour, has been interviewed on television or radio thousands of times, and had her op-ed published in newspapers thousands of times, on nearly every major public policy issue since the National Center’s 1982 founding. Newspapers running her op-eds within the year include the Denver Post, Providence Journal, Las Vegas Sun, Arizona Daily Star, Boston Herald, Deseret News, Duluth News Tribune, Orange County Register, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Omaha World-Herald and many others. She discusses issues on Twitter at @AmyRidenour.
Contact: Judy Kent at (703) 759-7476 or jkent@nationalcenter.org or David Almasi at(202) 543-4110 x11 or (703) 568-4727 (text-enabled cell) or dalmasi@nationalcenter.org

Amy Moritz Ridenour is President and Chairman of The National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR). This lobbying operation is essentially a two-person think-tank run by herself and her partner David. Before her marriage to David A Ridenour (now Vice President of the NCPPR), she was a prominent conservative activist under her maiden name Amy Moritz. For most of her adult life she has been closely involved with the neo-con group of the Republican party, and more recently with organising and enlisting black movements to support these interests.
 
Most of her lobbying activities have been directed at Congress and the mainstream media. She has been a syndicated newspaper columnist working through the Tribune News Service [1], and in 1993-1994 she was co-host of Scoop, a public affairs show seen weekly on the public affairs television network National Empowerment Television.
The NCPPR also produces and distributes "National Policy Analysis" documents. It also has a Californian subsidiary known as "Project 21" [2] which is "an African American Leadership network." This organization has its own chairman (Edmund Peterson), but it appears to act independently under the control of a member, Kevin Martin/ Martin provided writing services for the corporate tort-reform movement. ( CALA and ATRA) [3], and the organization also expanded later into general political lobbying. [4][5]
Contents[hide]1 Sources of Funding and Support2 Affiliations and Associations2.1 Tobacco Industry links3 Climate denial4 Associates5 Formal Affiliations5.1 Subsidiaries and Operations5.2 Publications and On-line6 Related articles7 Sources8 External links 
Sources of Funding and SupportAmy Ridenour is obviously a superb fund-raiser who has managed to turn what was essentially a two-person, privately controlled, think-tank into a major organization of social and political influence. The NCPPR appears to act as both as a money-laundry and as a funding channel for payments being funnelled to subsidiaries, and to some loosely affiliated individuals and groups who do most of the actual work. The NCPPR's income vastly outweighs the possible expenses (it has very few permanent staff other than the two principles) and conservatives like Richard Mellon Scaife appears to use the organisation as a funding channel for their neo-con projects. [6]
Scaife's Carthage and Sarah Scaife Foundations have given the National Center for Public Policy Research between $30,000 and $100,000 every year since 1985, as have the Olin Foundation, Bradley Foundation and other ultra-conservative support foundations. [7]. These foundation-grants to the NCPPR were later matched by commercial organisations such as Philip Morris [8], Exxon, and other corporations and industry groups, many of which contribute generously for specific projects. See Sourcewatch National Center for Public Policy Research
 
Affiliations and AssociationsAccording to her biographical notes, Amy Moritz Ridenour has served as:
Vice-Chairman of the International Youth Year Commission of the U.S. (1985);[on naacp hit page group snoop ex commie?]Deputy Director of the College Republican National Committee; (1981 on)Regional Coordinator for the Reagan/Bush 1980 campaign;Chairman of the Maryland Federation of College RepublicansMaryland Republican State Central Committee member.Amy Ridenour is also runs or is associated with the: [9]
Board of Directors of Black America's PAC, a political action committee that works to help elect more African-Americans to Congress and other elected offices.Chairman of several of the conservative movement's strategy meetings,including the Stanton meeting (foreign affairs and defense issues), and theFamily Forum meeting (social policy issues)". 
Tobacco Industry linksFor the tobacco industry, her speciality has been in countering the regulatory activities of agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). She has excellent agency and Congressional contacts through the Republican party, and has provided information on the regulatory agencies on a regular basis to Philip Morris. [10] The "Buffy" in this memo is PM Corporate Affairs executive Kathleen Linehan.
Ridenour is described in a 1995 Philip Morris memo as "a willing ally". At this time they were developing coalitions and recruiting allies to fight against an Congressional inquiry into the possible FDA regulation of tobacco which was proposed as a way to reduce teenage smoking: [11]. The PM executive says:
"I just got a call from Amy Moritz, President, National Center for Public Policy Research, offering to use any information we can provide re the current anti-tobacco onslaught, particularly the actions and antics of [Rep. Henry] Waxman. Tom Borelli and I have both been in touch with Amy on various issues and are awaiting proposals for use of an Internet Website as an accessible repository of PM-related information."It points out that her think-tank, the NCPPR:
... publishes a weekly "Scoop" on regulatory issues that goes to think-tankers, Hill staff and like-minded persons around the country. It also sends out bulleted talking points on current issues to some 700 radio and TV talk show hosts around the country, presenting them, of course, from a free enterprise point of view.
Josh Slavitt and David Laufer and I [all PM executives] have been trying to connect, to discuss the devetopment of such talking points to enable the Center to put them out to users. In any case, Amy is a willing ally and can be reached at 202/543-1286, or fax 543-4779, Let me know if we can help further.
Shortly after this exchange she began to play an active role in the political campaign against the Clinton proposals to combat teenage smoking. [12] She also published a pamplet questioning the administration's health-care priorities -- that of running an anti-smoking campaign when hard-drugs were still a major problem. [13]This focus on questioning priorities (as if they were mutually exclusive) was a common tactic used by tobacco industry, and was proving effectively against the World Health Organisation at this time. Her newspaper columns also attempted to bolster the cigarette companies case. [14] [15]
By 1996 she was working actively as a Congressional lobbyist for Philip Morris and the Tobacco Institute [16], helping them develop both at the strategy and tactical levels on Capitol Hill. She was also assisting them in the formation of coalitions (with other industries) which would act seemingly independently of the tobacco companies while actually working on their behalf. [17]
 
This work on behalf of the tobacco industry continued into the turn of the century, well past the signing of the Master Settlement Agreement. In 1999 she was on the industry list as a potential spokesperson during an (anti-) Department of Justice mobilisation campaign to block the Clinton White House from taking legal action against the industry. [18] She clearly became deeply involved in this campaign [19] which was known in the tobacco industry as "Project Firestorm." [20] Iin January 1999 she was writing: [21]
""President Clinton says the purpose of the lawsuit is to raise money, but the Constitution plainly states that "all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives. By suing tobacco companies, President Clinton is clearly trying to raise revenue while bypassing the legislative branch, which is reluctant to raise taxes to the higher level President Clinton prefers."
"If President Clinton's lawsuit is successful, tobacco companies will be forced to raise prices. This is essentially a tax by another name. President Clinton claims to be motivated by health concerns, but if he truly was, he wouldn't want the federal government to keep money taken from tobacco companies. Instead, he'd use any money he gets from tobacco to fund tax cuts for low and lower-middle income Americans. This policy would achieve the President's goal of raising cigarette prices without hurting lower income Americans. But the President isn't interested in this option. He'd rather keep the money."
She also wrote many letters to the editor of newspapers like the New York Times, and others to potentially-compliant Congressmen who might be persuaded to act on behalf of the industry. [22]
 
Climate denialWith the progressive collapse of any credibility attached to support of the tobacco industry, Amy Ridenour has increasingly turned towards supporting the corporate climate deniers. Her organization ran a major "command" and "information center" at the Kyoto Earth Summit which broadcast environmental backlash message about the global negotiations to limit global warming.
This center was billed as a technological hub for information on climate change and provided many contect, information and communications services to jouralists covering the conference. During the Kyoto negotiations, NCPPR began broadcasting a series of reports, including a daily e-mail description of conference events. These were run in association with Bonner Cohen of EPA Watch -- a former project of Philip Morris, which had been funded and conducted through the far-right American Policy Center under the ultimate control of [APCO & Associates]. This was all in association with Steve Milloy, who was working against Kyoto through The Advancement of Sound ScienceCoalition (TASSC).[Cohen was later TASSC's nominal 'President']
Ridenour also established Envirotruth which was "dedicated to injecting badly needed truth into the debate about our environment. For too long, some environmental groups have seized the world stage and the public's attention by distorting facts, bending the truth and even committing acts of terrorism against innocent citizens" it said.[23]

 
AssociatesJack Abramoff, Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist - in the formation and control of the College Republican National Committee in 1981. There was a brief falling out in the early 1980s, but Norquist is still a close friend, and Abramoff later become a director of the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR). Moritz married her fellow College Republican David A. Ridenour, who helped in the establishment of the NCPPR.Doug Bandow - a journalist with the Washington Times, who was also a syndicated newspaper columnist, and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Bandow had been a Special Assistant to President Reagan and acted as a Senior Policy Analyst for the Reagan campaign, and then for the Office of the President-Elect during the transition period.According to Business Week (in 2005), Bandow worked for Jack Abramoff, and was "typically paid $2,000 per column to address specific topics of interest to Abramoff’s clients. [He] wrote favorably about Abramoff’s Indian tribal clients — as well as another Abramoff client, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands — as far back as 1997." Bandow never disclosed the Abramoff payments in his op-eds or to the Cato Institute. .[24]Faye Anderson, the President of the Douglass Policy Institute who was also listed by Philip Morris as a potential spokesperson for tobacco in the 1999 DOJ suit.Steve Milloy and Bonner Cohen of APCO & Associates, and The Advancement for Sound Science Coalition )TASSC)Philip Morris International, Corporate Affairs staff (the dirty-tricks division).[

QuinnJack A democrat lawyer with Arnold & Porter who was involved in setting up many of Philip Morris's dirty-tricks campaigns (ATRA and TASSC). He became Al Gore's chief-of-staff, then counsel to President Clinton. Later he joined Ed Gillespie in a 'bipartisan' lobbyshop which had direct connections into the top administrators of both political parties. 
Formal AffiliationsNational Center for Public Policy Research - Website at [25]Black America's PACThe NCPPR is also one of the 1988 founders of the Wise-Use coalition. [26] 
Subsidiaries and OperationsJohn P. McGovern M.D. Center for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs [27]This is also known simply as the Environmental and Regulatory Affairs which was originally named the Environmental Policy Task Force "to counter misinformation being spread to the public and policymakers by the environmental left".Global Warming Information Center is a project of the John P. McGovern M.D. Center [28]Earth Day Information Center. [29]
Project 21 - which is effectively a subsidiary of the NCPPR "...working with the African-American leadership group [Project 21] looks for and publicizes examples in which environmental and regulatory policies have a disproportionate negative impact upon minorities and lower-income Americans.Center for Environmental Justice - [30]Envirotruth [31] 
Publications and On-lineSCOOP® Newsletter [32]The Relief Report [33]Budget Watch - Providing a truth dectector in the ongoing battle over federal spending. [34]Legal Briefs - The newsletter that monitors the legal system that rules our lives. [35] 
Related articlesTobacco support [36] National Policy Analysis (NPA) papers by Ridenour include:
NPA #201, "80% of the Public Isn't Wrong: Big Law is Overpaid,"NPA #198. "Ironies of the Tobacco Wars,"NPA #195, "Lawyers' Fees in Tobacco Case Should be Capped."NPA #186, "Maryland's Stack the Deck; Legal Approach is Not in Taxpayers' Best Interest,"NPA #175 "Government Use of Contingency Fee Lawyers Works Against Public Interest,"NPA #171, "Without Reform, Trial Lawyers, Not States or Individuals. Will be Biggest Winners from TobaccoSettlement."
Other National Center papers on the tobacco issue include:
NPA #220 "A Taxing Proposition: Should the Working Poor Finance New Government Spending" bv Faye Anderson.NPA #149 "Demon Tobacco" by Doug Bandow,NPA #147, "Food and Drug Administration Takes on the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments." bv Nate Stewart.SourcesConservatives Without Conscience, by John Dean, Viking Press (See p141) 
External linksBlack America's PAC - Official websiteAmy Moritz Ridenour, undated, accessed June 2004.Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber,The Usual Suspects:Industry Hacks Turn Fear on its Head, PR Watch, Volume 7, No. 3, 3rd quarter 2000.Ridenour Statement before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on Lobbying practices Involving Indian Tribes, June 22, 2005 (pdf file)Timothy Noah, "Amy Ridenour, Abramoff Fellow, Slate, March 28, 2006-----http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hot_document/features/2006/thinktanks_for_sale/5.htmlDid I mention Dennis previously worked for Dick Armey?A joke. The op-ed praises Pitney-Bowes' exhibit yet dumps on Black History Month.












This is Abramoff's response to Ridenour. "CNMI" stands for "the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands," a United States holding in the Pacific. Abramoff represented CNMI and moneyed interests there who were trying to deflect stateside complaints about labor conditions.
Did I mention Dennis previously worked for Dick Armey?
A joke. The op-ed praises Pitney-Bowes' exhibit yet dumps on Black History Month.
"Fee" would be more apt.
This is Abramoff's response to Ridenour. "CNMI" stands for "the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands," a United States holding in the Pacific. Abramoff represented CNMI and moneyed interests there who were trying to deflect stateside complaints about labor conditions.
--Right-Wing Operatives Take Up ALEC's Voter Suppression Agendaby Lisa Graves — April 19, 2012 - 3:22pmTopics: CorporationsProjects: ALEC Exposed
Just as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) tried to distance itself from its role pushing parts of the NRA's gun agenda and making it more difficult for American citizens to vote, a controversial right-wing operation has announced that it will step in to help carry forward the "voter ID" agenda. The "National Center for Public Policy Research" (NCPPR) announced Wednesday that it will form a "Voter Identification Task Force."
This comes in response to ALEC's announcement Tuesday that it will dismantle its "Public Safety and Elections Task Force" through which corporate lobbyists and elected officials voted behind closed doors to approve "model" legislation that creates obstacles to American citizens voting through restrictive voter ID bills, as well as other damaging legislation, such as reckless gun laws that have been cited to protect violent vigilantes from being held accountable.
 
NCPPR's press release scolds the 11 corporations, as of yesterday, that have recently announced they had dropped out of ALEC, which has come under intense scrutiny as a result of the Center for Media and Democracy's ALEC Exposed investigation and the efforts CMD, Color of Change, Common Cause, People of the American Way, Progress Now!, and other groups as well as Daily Kos bloggers. A growing number of concerned citizens are speaking up about ALEC across the country.
NCPPR even set up an email for corporations to reach out to if they "regret" their decision to cut ties with ALEC under the theme "we are not yellow." NCPPR asserts that corporations have succumbed to the "left-wing" which is supposedly using a "trotskyite strategy of making relentless demand-after-demand."
NCPPR is not well known but has hosted other attacks on good government and watchdog groups through a site called "GroupSnoop," which posts highly inaccurate "profiles" of organizations like the Center for Media and Democracy.
With NCPPR taking the mantle of fighting voter fraud, NCPPR's historical role in troubling operations is worth a closer look.
Distributing Millions in Charitable Donations as Directed by Jack AbramoffAs documented by CMD's SourceWatch, NCPPR was involved in part of the scandal that brought down RNC buddy and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. According to a U.S. Senate investigation of the financial dealings and influence peddling of Abramoff, NCPPR's founder and president, Amy Moritz Ridenour, directed money received by NCPPR at Abramoff's direction, to other "charities," again at his direction. Specifically, Ridenour admitted that in 2002 she received a one million dollar gift to NCPPR from the Mississippi Band of Choctaws. That tribe had been paying Abramoff to help secure its casino business. NCPPR also received $1.5 million from Abramoff's then-law firm, Greenberg Traurig.
 
She told the Senate that, at Abramoff's direction, she gave $700,000 of the money NCPPR received to one of his "charities," called the "Capitol Athletic Foundation" (CAF). CAF, which was publicly touting that it was established to help inner city kids get more involved in athetics, reportedly used donations to fund luxury golf trips for (then) Members of Congress, like Ohio Representative Bob Ney. Ney served 17 months in prison for his role in the scandal. CAF also bought sniper scopes and camouflage for West Bank settlers in Israel, among other things.
She also testified that she directed $1.275 million received by NCPPR to another Abramoff entity called "Kaygold, LLC," whose address was listed as that of her then-board member, Abramoff. Ridenour testified that she thought Kaygold was controlled by Michael "Sean" Scanlon, Congressman Tom DeLay's former communications director, who later pleaded guilty to the criminal charge of conspiracy to bribe public officials. Scanlon was publicly known to be working closely with Abramoff.
In addition, NCPPR's Ridenour told congressional investigators that she also gave $500,000 to Scanlon's "Capital Campaign Strategies."
Abramoff was convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy for his dealings with legislators, and he resigned from the board of NCPPR. Ridenour was not charged with any federal crimes for distributing tax-deductible donations NCPPR's received to entities controlled by Abramoff and his associates.
NCPPR Has a History of Sending "Fright Mail" to Senior CitizensAlso, as noted in CMD's SourceWatch, about a decade ago, NCPPR came under intense scrutiny for its fundraising tactics. NCPPR had been accused of bombarding senior citizens with "fright mail." According to an article by Diane Walsh of the San Francisco Examiner, NCPPR had contracted out its mailing of repetitive and frightening letters to the direct mail mill, Response Dynamics, which helps right-wing politicians and groups raise money.
NCPPR's leader Ridenour told the press that "her organization sent donors up to a dozen major pitches a month. The appeals are sent on four different letterheads. She said anyone receiving more than a dozen solicitations in a month probably was on mailing lists the National Center has 'rented' from other organizations, which she said were outside her control."
 
According to comments on Guidestar, adult children of senior citizens targeted by NCPPR are not happy with the group's tactics. One commentor asserted "Amy R. is the Queen of Scare Mail. My father receives 5-15 letters from them per day under four different names (maybe more I hadn't realized the association). He started giving to them in 2009 and gave them thousands of dollars little by little. When I found out he was spending all his money, I started tracking his junk mail and putting him on a charity budget." That commentor added that: "In my opinion, the biggest challenges facing this organization are... Children of the elderly who find out what they are doing" and "They are Parasites feeding off the elderly."
 
Another commentor in 2010 urged fellow citizens to "Be VERY careful before giving money to this organization. You will be swamped by mail and they do not honor requests to be removed from mailing lists." Yet another commentor stated "the National Center for Public Policy Research has several 'projects' such as The National Retirement Security Task Force, etc. These projects simply acquire the names of older people and mail them requests for donations. These requests are sent with letters intended to scare the recipient into donating. Often these requests are sent via Certified Mail in the hope that the recipient will think the contents more important." NCPPR was cited by three other anonymous commentors for praise who said the group shed light on government corruption.
Who Else Has Funded NCPPR, Aside from Friends of Jack Abramoff?Over the years, NCPPR has received funding from numerous charitable foundations created by billionaires and millionaires who are funding an array of right-wing ventures to dramatically change American public policy. These include the foundation of the Coors family, Castle Rock Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the Sarah Scaife Foundation. Other NCPPR funders have included the Armstrong Foundation, Brady Education Foundation, Carthage Foundation, Earhart Foundation, Gordon and Mary Cain Foundation, Leadership Institute, Randolph Foundation, Roe Foundation, Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation, and the William H. Donner Foundation.
According to Greenpeace's research, NCPPR has also received several hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Exxon Mobil Corporation. Exxon is also a member of ALEC's corporate board and funder of ALEC. So, perhaps it should surprise no one that NCPPR is part of the so-called "Cooler Heads Coalition," an effort of the "Competitive Enterprise Institute," which is focused on part of the oil industry's climate change denial machinery. ALEC has also helped advance this agenda, as noted by PRWatch, opposing regional agreements to address climate change and even hosting a workshop for ALEC politicians last year about "Warming Up to Climate Change," about how increased carbon dioxide is supposedly good for you and leads to longer lifespans.
Now NCPPR Takes on Voter Fraud, along with a Threat?In the wake of ALEC's termination of its task force that had advanced "Voter ID" legislation that may thwart and chill citizen voting in this year's elections, NCPPR has jumped into the fray, claiming to take up ALEC's mantle on voter fraud, despite the fact that numerous studies have documented that voter fraud in the U.S. is exceedingly rare.
In NCPPR's press release on its new role as a watchdog against fraud in voting ends with the following threat, an unusual choice in the wake of the controversy over the shooting of unarmed high school student Trayvon Martin, which helped shine the spotlight on ALEC's pushing the NRA's extreme gun agenda: "Unlike the Center for American Progress, the National Center for Public Policy Research eschews the use of violent references such as 'War Room.' We are, however, inspired by a particular passage in the 1987 movie The Untouchables: 'They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way.' Indeed."
(Sara Jerving contributed to this report.)
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FREE CONGRESS FOUNDATION and LASZLOPASZTOR (NAZI COLLABORATOR)The Free Congress Foundation has had a convicted Nazi collaborator on its staff; a man who was forced to resign from the 1988 Bush campaign when his past became public knowledge.Laszlo Pasztor actually served a prison term for being, during WWII, part of a Hungarian pro-Nazi group, the Arrow Cross (like the German Nazi Party, only in Hungary). His prison term also related to Pasztor's, during WWII, being a member of a Hungarian diplomatic delegation to Berlin after the Nazis installed the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross as the government of Hungary.In an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 09/16/88, Pasztor was reported as being a "volunteer" at the Free Congress Research & Education Foundation. However, Pasztor had an internal telephone number at FCF (listed as extension 48 as of 01/21/90) and calls to the FCF main number were routinely connected through to Pasztor. Pasztor himself stated that for several years he generally worked in the FCF office complex Tuesday afternoon through Friday.According to Pasztor, the FCF gave him office space for his work with the Paul Weyrich sponsored Coalitions for America, and that he routinely provided to Weyrich written reports of his activities. Weyrich at the time was president of FCF and national chair of of Coalitions for America. It is noteworthy that a Coalition for America brochure used a photo of Pasztor to illustrate the work of the Liberation Support Alliance.
Martin Lee in The Beast Reawakens refers to Pasztor as Weyrich's right hand man:
"In addition to homegrown agitators who dredged up anti-Semitic motifs that harkened back to the 1930s, some countries had to contend with groups that were led or supported by profascist exiles who repatriated from the West where they had carried on as vocal anti-Communists during the Cold War, often with CIA support. The Free Congress Foundation, founded by American far right strategist Paul Weyrich, became active in eastern European politics after the Cold War. Figuring prominently in this effort was Weyrich's right-hand man, Laszlo Pasztor, a former leader of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross organization in Hungary, which had collaborated with Hitler's Reich. After serving two years in prison for his Arrow Cross activities, Pasztor found his way to the United States, where he was instrumental in establishing the ethnic-outreach arm of the Republican national Committee.". 
Pasztor's history with the GOP goes back before the FCF, however. When Pasztor came to the U.S. in the 1950s, he joined the GOP's ethnic unit, and later became the leader of the Nixon-Agnew campaign's ethnic unit. The ethnic unit was only active during election campaigns and, according to Pasztor, Nixon told him that if he won the election, he would form a permanent ethnic unit within the GOP. True to his word, after Nixon won, Pasztor was made the organizer of the the Republican Heritage Groups Council, and is considered to be one of its founders.
According to Russ Bellant, noted New Right researcher, it is difficult to get the names of the these ethnic federations' directors and "it required attendance at the Republican Heritage Group Council convention in May of 1985 to learn the names of the federation leaders. It was the convention that Reagan was addressing at the Shoreham Hotel.
"Some Republican Heritage Groups Council delegates were reluctant to talk; others were unstoppable. A pattern began to emerge from the conversations--that in setting up the Council, Pasztor went to various collaborationist and fascist-minded émigré groups and asked them to form GOP federations. It eventually became clear that it wasn't an accident or a fluke that people with Nazi associations were in the Republican Heritage Groups Council. In some cases more mainstream ethnic organizations were passed over in favor of smaller but more extremist groups. And it seems clear that the Republican National Committee knows with whom they are dealing. Reviewing the federations illustrates this point." (Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right and the Republican Party)
 
 
UPDATE: Mr. Pasztor continues both his association with Paul Weyrich, and to be active in the Republican Party.
Mr. Pasztor was so kind as to sponsor ponsoring the attendance of Texas 14th District House Representative Ron Paul (R) at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation's Truman-Reagan Awards Dinner in November 2002 (refer to Mr. Paul's thank-you letter to Mr. Pasztor, dated 12/19/2002). It is noteworthy that Mr. Paul publishes a weekly column, "Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk," on Mr. Paul's webpages (entitled "Project Freedom"), located on the house.gov webserver. I believe Mr. Paul owes his constituents some "Texas straight talk" about why he is accepting ANYTHING from a convicted Nazi who spent 2 years in prison after WWII for the crimes he committed in Hungary's "ethnic cleansing" programs.
 
Mr. Pasztor was also kind enough to give Laura Bush a gift, for which she wrote him a thank-you letter, as well. I believe the First Lady also owes an explanation regarding why she would accept a gift from a convicted Nazi who was such a loyal servant to Hitler and his Holocaust.
Mr. Pasztor continues to work with Paul Weyrich (for an example, see "Scoop®: Your Inside View to the Strategies and Activities of the Conservative Movement in Washington" (Issue 198 * September 11, 1998), published by The National Center for Public Policy Research. This "Scoop" documents the activities at the 09/09/1998 "Strategy Lunch chaired by Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation and sponsored by Coalitions for America." One of the listings for this meeting is regarding a "foreign defense and policy meeting chaired by Laszlo Pasztor of Coalitions for America and Amy Ridenour of The National Center for Public Policy Research, and sponsored by Coalitions for America."
 
According to People for the American Way : "Much of FCF?s clout among the religious right centers around Weyrich?s ability to organize. Weyrich holds weekly a ? Weyrich Strategy Lunch,? sponsored by Coalitions for America. The lunch is held when Congress is in session and has 75 conservative leaders representing their organizations. These weekly lunches include regular briefings by leading Bush administration officials and key conservative congressional leaders." 
Links / References:
Chronology of 1988 Bush Campaign Controversy: Coalition of American Nationalities (Republican and Bush Campaign responses to charges)    Will Bush Purge Nazi Collaborators in the G.O.P.?   (NYTimes Editorial by Russ Bellant)Nazis and the Republican Party (Online Journal: Carl Binion)
Martin, Lee. The Beast Reawakens, Little, Brown & Co., p. 303
Bellant, Russ Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party.
(for more information about the Free Congress Foundation, visit PROSOCS: Free Congress Foundation
[Back to top]

 

The same day, Mr. Abramoff wrote to Mr. Norquist to say a need for ‘‘a hard-hitting op-ed has arisen’’ regarding Channel One. Mr. Abramoff asked whether Mr. Norquist would be willing to do it himself:Ariana Huffington has now joined Ralph Nader and George Miller in attacking Channel One. . . . We want to do an oped which smacks her big time, and also swipes at Nader’s guy and the other loonieon this. We have $1,500 to do this piece and get it placed. Are you interested (we can write it for you)? If not, let me know if I can approach Peter [Ferrara].
Mr. Norquist wrote back to Mr. Abramoff the next day:
Jack, yes, go ahead and draft a copy for me. I have just spoken with the head of the Washington Times op-ed about a piece for Bruce Heinman. They said they are full for a while due to Elian article. I will talk to Helle Wed morning and make a case for this piece. yes, ATR will do this piece and push to have it in the Washington Times and the Investors Business Daily. Also I will share it with all our state groups. Grover
NATIONAL CENTER FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH
The National Center for Public Policy Research (‘‘NCPPR’’), which represents itself as a ‘‘conservative think tank,’’ is organized under IRC section 501(c)(3).29 The organization, founded in 1981, describes its primary exempt purpose as educating Americans about the free market solutions to today’s public policy problems.
On its website, NCPPR is described as a research organization dedicated to a strong national defense and to providing free-market solutions to today’s public policy problems. The website states: ‘‘We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.’’
Amy Ridenour, NCPPR’s president and a founder of the organization, first met Mr. Abramoff when they were members of the College Republicans. In testimony before the Committee on Indian Affairs and in an interview with Finance Committee staff, Ms. Ridenour said that her organization accepted donations from Mr. Abramoff’s clients and routed money as Mr. Abramoff directed. Mr. Abramoff served on NCPPR’s board of directors.
E-mail exchanges among Ms. Ridenour, Mr. Abramoff, and Mr. Abramoff’s colleagues and clients indicate that CREA/Ms. Ridenour:• accepted payments from Mr. Abramoff’s clients and then acted as the front organization to pay for trips by members of Congress, their staff members and others,• accepted payments from Mr. Abramoff’s clients and then wrote checks as Mr. Abramoff directed, and• accepted contributions from Mr. Abramoff’s clients and then performed services such as writing favorable newspaper columns and speaking in favor of clients’ causes.
 LOBBYING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS WORK FOR ABRAMOFF CLIENTSChannel One Network
E-mails indicate that Ms. Ridenour wrote newspaper columns at the direction of Mr. Abramoff’s client Primedia Inc. She maintains that she did such work ‘‘independent of’’ and ‘‘without regard to’’ Primedia’s contributions.
In 1999, Mr. Abramoff and his associates discussed with Jeff Ballabon, who at the time was executive vice president of public affairs for Primedia’s Channel One Network, the best way to fend off a coalition seeking the network’s ouster from public school classrooms.
Mr. Abramoff’s colleague, Amy Berger, wrote on April 12, 1999:In preparation for hearings on Channel One, it would be extremely useful to have a white paper issued by a conservative think tank group like Heritage or CATO. I know that you have excellent contacts with these think tanks. Would you be able to work with a think tank to produce this type of a paper?
Patrick Pizzella, another colleague, wrote back:my guess is it would cost about $5000 and we would want them to promote it. . . . and we ought to use a smaller out- fit . . . maybe Amy R., maybe CEI. . . .
Mr. Abramoff replied to Mr. Pizzella:I think Amy is the way to go. I am meeting with her this week. I’ll raise it with her.
Mr. Abramoff wrote to Mr. Ballabon on May 19, 1999:When we are through the hearing, we have to discuss getting Amy a contribution as we discussed. She was going to do 5 pieces for $10K. We can chat on this next week.
Mr. Ballabon responded:yup—I have not forgotten (was it $10?—I wrote it down—whatever it was, she’ll get it.)
Mr. Abramoff wrote to Ms. Ridenour the same day:I just want to thank you again for all you to do help us. Jeff is so grateful and, as soon as the dust clears, is going to make his gratitude tangible. Thanks for all you do!
On May 23, 1999, Mr. Ballabon wrote to Mr. Abramoff saying that Ms. Ridenour ‘‘really does deliver.’’ Mr. Abramoff wrote back:We should get her a check as soon as we can. She can really help us with the Approps battle (we have used her before for this kind of battle before).
The next day, Mr. Abramoff wrote to Ms. Ridenour:Amy, can you get me an invoice for a contribution for $10,000 which I can push through Channel One? Jeff has asked for this so we can get something to you asap. Thanks.
On March 13, 2000, Dennis Stephens forwarded a commentary from R.D. Davis, a member of NCPPR’s Project 21, a national leadership network of black conservatives:I note for the files, that Amy Ridenour has a member of Project 21 who is a writer and radio talk show host in Huntsville, Alabama. With the proper education, etc, he might be recruitable for Channel One support and Metrock bashing. Thoughts?
Mr. Abramoff forwarded the message to Ms. Berger, who responded:worth keeping in mind—esp. if we get a contract with [Channel One]!
In an interview with Committee staff, Ms. Ridenour denied that NCPPR was engaged in any ‘‘Metrock bashing.’’
On October 29, 2001, Mr. Ballabon at Primedia wrote to Mr. Abramoff regarding Ms. Ridenour:Any way to get some paperwork from her on the 50k asap so I can get a check cut?
Mr. Abramoff wrote back with an attached NCPPR invoice requesting a contribution of $49,000 from Primedia ‘‘to support public programs.’’I used one of their other invoices for another project and made it work. Let me know the next step. Please get the check directly to me. Thanks.
Mr. Ballabon wrote back on November 8, 2001, to say that a check had been cut and that he was sending it to Ms. Ridenour. Mr. Abramoff objected:No! Send it to me. I have to work this through with her carefully.
CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE.... =
President at National Center for Public Policy ResearchPast



Vice President at National Center for Public Policy ResearchExecutive Director at United States Youth CouncilProgram Officer at United States Youth CouncilEducationUniversity of OregonConnections





500+ connections
WebsitesCompany WebsiteBlogCompany LinkedInDavid Ridenour's SummaryA veteran manager, having managed staff for more than two decades.
Experienced and successful in almost every aspect of fundraising, including but not limited to: contract negotiation; proposal writing; direct mail and one-on-one donor meetings. Familiar with and conversant on a wide variety of giving methods, including charitable gift annuities, bequests, charitable remainder trusts, gifts of stock and gifts of IRAs, among others. Under my fundraising leadership, annual revenues have more than doubled.
A prolific writer, having co-authored a book and written hundreds of op-eds, public policy papers, press releases and newsletter articles. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Investor’s Business Daily, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun, Detroit News, Washington Post, Washington Times, Des Moines Register, Philadelphia Inquirer, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Christian Science Monitor, Oregonian, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Orange County Register, and Seattle Times are among the newspapers that have published my articles. Currently, my columns are regularly syndicated by McClatchy.
Adept with all forms of media, having given thousands of radio, television and print interviews, including with ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Nightly News, CNN and FOX News, major print media, syndicated radio and others. 
Experienced in developing and leading diverse coalitions on a wide variety of public policy issues. Led a successful coalition effort on the Endangered Species Act in 2005.
SpecialtiesManagement, fundraising, strategic planning, writing, policy analysis and coalition-building.
David Ridenour's ExperiencePresidentNational Center for Public Policy ResearchNonprofit; 11-50 employees; Think Tanks industry
October 2011 – Present (2 years 9 months) Washington D.C. Metro Area
Vice PresidentNational Center for Public Policy ResearchNonprofit; 11-50 employees; Think Tanks industry
1986 – October 2011 (25 years)
The National Center for Public Policy Research is a free market think tank described by Nation magazine as a "crucial gear in the right's propaganda factory." As Vice President, I'm responsible for managing policy staff; helping set strategic objectives; overseeing programs on the environment, regulation, and international affairs; editing; research and writing; conducting media interviews; public speaking; overseeing investments and, since 1999, directing the institution’s fundraising and development department.
Executive DirectorUnited States Youth Council 
September 1985 – April 1986 (8 months)
The United States Youth Council was a United States Information Agency-funded organization established in 1945 to conduct international exchanges of young political leaders.
Responsibilities included managing a staff of 10; writing and submitting grant proposals to the U.S. Information Agency; working with a large, diverse board to set institutional priorities; serving as liaison with the U.S. Information Agency; and monitoring all programs to ensure compliance with grant terms, including a requirement of political balance.
Program OfficerUnited States Youth Council 
June 1984 – September 1985 (1 year 4 months)
Responsible for identifying young political leaders who might one day lead their countries; inviting these leaders to participate in study tours to build relationships; developing and implementing itineraries for the study tours and projecting a positive image of the United States.
David Ridenour's EducationUniversity of OregonBachelor of Science, Political Science; Economics1980 – 1984
 
Activities and Societies: State Chairman, College Republican Federation of Oregon (1982-1984); Chairman, University of Oregon College Republicans (1982-1983); Contributing Editor, Oregon Commentator; Member, Phi Eta Sigma Honorary; Member, Alpha Lambda Delta Honorary; and ROTC.
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 Steven J. Duffield Steven J. Duffield 
President at Endgame Strategies, LLC
 Nick Reid Nick Reid 
Executive Vice President at...
 Patricia Barnett Patricia Barnett 
Vice President at Mises Institute
 Tim Fairbank Tim Fairbank 
=END BAK PLAIN TXT<a href="http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/After_critical_article_conservative_nonprofit_accuses_0303.html">http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/After_critical_article_conservative_nonprofit_accuses_0303.html</a>...Cease and desist came after article linking president, Abramoff clientThe call for the letter’s removal comes quickly on the heels of an article raising questions about Ridenour’s role in writing an editorial that favored Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, a client of Abramoff’s who paid $2.2 million to arrange a visit with President Bush in 2002. At the time of the editorial, Abramoff was a board member of Ridenour's group.In her editorial, published in the Washington Times, Ridenour declared that Mahathir’s opponent Anwar Ibrahim had “close links to radical Islamic fundamentalist groups” and sought to “destabilize” the Malaysian government.Ridenour’s article came amidst political unrest in Malaysia. Anwar had recently been sentenced to nine years in prison on sodomy and corruption charges. Some charges were questioned after witnesses recanted confessions; the allegations were seen as a political response to rallies Anwar led that called for Matathir’s resignation and for reforms. Soon thereafter, Anwar was arrested.Anwar was released from prison in 2004. His opposition party called the charges a “mockery of justice.”... =Amy Moritz-->Ridenour  crypto center for env justice, screws over black ppl and native americans, (rolls to EEI http://www.nationalcenter.org/eptf.html) Pjt 21 gets busted when pillbury doughboy Almasi has to stand in when front tom Mychal Massie gets flat tire; renta-negro for racist conf of O'Keefe pal marcus karate chop; Amy R heavily involved in Abramoff network/scams; funded the famous Scotland golf trip to meet Thatcher (or similar one).  amy ran against jack and GN, got her to drop out in return for exec dir title, he spent $10K on election?[college republicans?]=must say industrious: all news covered in blog eg<h1 class="the-title" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3em; vertical-align: baseline;">Climate Change Activists Meet Food Police: Obama Admin. Plans for New Dietary Guidelines to Include Global Warming</h1><div class="the-content cf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; zoom: 1;"><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-align: center;"><div class="the-content link-content" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Calculating your 'carbon footprint' to replace counting calories?!'For the first time in the history of the guidelines, 'sustainability' is part of the agenda. Actual items on their Dietary Guidelines working group agenda include 'immigration,' 'global climate change' and 'agriculture/aquaculture sustainability.' -'By favoring foods which activists think have a smaller carbon footprint, the new guidelines will increase the prices you pay for your food.'</div><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><p class="the-meta" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0.4em 0px; border-width: 1px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(229, 229, 229); border-bottom-color: rgb(229, 229, 229); outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div style="text-align: left;">By: <a href="http://www.climatedepot.com/author/marcmorano/" title="Posts by Marc Morano" rel="author" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Marc Morano</a> - <a href="http://www.climatedepot.com/" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Climate Depot</a></div><span class="date-meta" style="text-align: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; float: right;">March 13, 2014 4:07 PM<div style="text-align: left;"> </div>Special to Climate DepotBy National Center for Public Policy Research<div style="font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">Obama Administration to Insert Global Warming Activism into Dietary Guidelines Mandated by CongressClimate Change Activists to Meet Food Police at Closed-Door Meeting March 14 </div>New York, NY / Washington DC - At a closed-door meeting to take place March 14, the Obama Administration’s Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services plan to update the nation’s “dietary guidelines” — a document with significant repercussions for food stamps, military and school meals programs — to include anti-global warming activism.</div>In an article, “<a id="144ac91db9e39138_144ac2cef4f87c9a_Obama administration pollutes guidelines for" href="http://trk.cp20.com/Tracking/t.c?6epyh-c9idc-53p87d7&v=2" target="blank" name="144ac91db9e39138_144ac2cef4f87c9a_Obama administration pollutes guidelines for" style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Obama administration pollutes guidelines for healthy eating with unhealthy ideologies</a>,” published Sunday by the Washington Examiner, National CenterSenior Fellow and Risk Analysis Division Director Jeff Stier says environmental activists within the U.S. government plan to change the nation’s dietary guidelines to promote foods that they believe have “a smaller carbon footprint.”In the past, says Stier, the federal government’s dietary guidelines were intended exclusively to “promote health and reduce risk for major chronic diseases.”No more, says Stier: “For the first time in the history of the guidelines, ‘sustainability’ is part of the agenda. Actual items on their Dietary Guidelines working group agenda include ‘immigration,’ ‘global climate change’ and ‘agriculture/aquaculture sustainability.’”What’s more, says Stier, these new guidelines will cost the public money: “By favoring foods which activists think have a smaller carbon footprint, the new guidelines will increase the prices you pay for your food. It will also increase the cost to all taxpayers, since the Dietary Guidelines are used to set policy for food stamps (SNAP) and military diets,” he says.“The food guidelines, by law, are supposed to be based on a ‘preponderance of scientific and medical knowledge,’” said Amy Ridenour, chairman of the National Center for Public Policy Research, who has studied climate change polices for over a quarter century. “Science can say with authority that eating green vegetables is good for you. It can’t say that humans are causing catastrophic global warming with any more certainty than it can explain why the planet hasn’t warmed since the Clinton Administration. Moms and Dads across America deserve — and, as taxpayers, have paid for — dietary guidelines they can use to help them feed their families wisely. No one benefits from causing people to wonder if the nutritional advice they are getting from their government isn’t focused on nutrition at all, but has been polluted by environmental activists.”The full Washington Examiner article can be read <a id="144ac91db9e39138_144ac2cef4f87c9a_here" href="http://trk.cp20.com/Tracking/t.c?6epyh-c9idd-53p87d8&v=2" target="blank" name="144ac91db9e39138_144ac2cef4f87c9a_here" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">here</a>. New York City-based Jeff Stier is a Senior Fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and heads its Risk Analysis Division. Stier is a frequent guest on CNBC, and has addressed health policy on CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, as well as network newscasts. Stier’s National Center op-eds have been published in top outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, Newsday, Forbes, the Washington Examiner and National Review Online. He also frequently discusses risk issues on Twitter at @JeffaStier. Washington-based Amy Ridenour, founding CEO of the National Center and currently co-CEO with her husband, David Ridenour, has been interviewed on television or radio thousands of times, and had her op-ed published in newspapers thousands of times, on nearly every major public policy issue since the National Center’s 1982 founding. Newspapers running her op-eds within the year include the Denver Post, Providence Journal, Las Vegas Sun, Arizona Daily Star, Boston Herald, Deseret News, Duluth News Tribune, Orange County Register, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Omaha World-Herald and many others. She discusses issues on Twitter at @AmyRidenour.</div>Contact: Judy Kent at <a href="tel:%28703%29%20759-7476" target="blank" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(703) 759-7476</a> or <a href="mailto:jkent@nationalcenter.org" target="blank" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">jkent@nationalcenter.org</a> or David Almasi at<a href="tel:%28202%29%20543-4110%20x11" target="blank" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(202) 543-4110 x11</a> or <a href="tel:%28703%29%20568-4727" target="blank" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(703) 568-4727</a> (text-enabled cell) or <a href="mailto:dalmasi@nationalcenter.org" target="blank" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">dalmasi@nationalcenter.org</a>Amy Moritz Ridenour is President and Chairman of The <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Center_for_Public_Policy_Research" title="National Center for Public Policy Research">National Center for Public Policy Research</a> (NCPPR). This lobbying operation is essentially a two-person think-tank run by herself and her partner David. Before her marriage to David A Ridenour (now Vice President of the NCPPR), she was a prominent conservative activist under her maiden name Amy Moritz. For most of her adult life she has been closely involved with the neo-con group of the Republican party, and more recently with organising and enlisting black movements to support these interests. Most of her lobbying activities have been directed at Congress and the mainstream media. She has been a syndicated newspaper columnist working through the Tribune News Service <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/bkb08d00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/bkb08d00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[1]</a>, and in 1993-1994 she was co-host of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Scoop&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Scoop (page does not exist)">Scoop</a>, a public affairs show seen weekly on the public affairs television network <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Empowerment_Television" title="National Empowerment Television">National Empowerment Television</a>.The NCPPR also produces and distributes "National Policy Analysis" documents. It also has a Californian subsidiary known as "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Project_21&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Project 21 (page does not exist)">Project 21</a>" <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/lul53a00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/lul53a00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[2]</a> which is "an African American Leadership network." This organization has its own chairman (Edmund Peterson), but it appears to act independently under the control of a member, Kevin Martin/ Martin provided writing services for the corporate tort-reform movement. ( <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=CALA" title="CALA" class="mw-redirect">CALA</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ATRA" title="ATRA" class="mw-redirect">ATRA</a>) <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qca74d00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qca74d00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[3]</a>, and the organization also expanded later into general political lobbying. <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/orq77d00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/orq77d00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[4]</a><a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/hbl95c00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/hbl95c00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[5]</a><table id="toc" class="toc" summary="Contents" style="line-height: 14px;"><tbody><tr><td><div id="toctitle"><h2>Contents</h2>[<a class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>]</div><ul><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amy_Moritz_Ridenour#Sources_of_Funding_and_Support">1 Sources of Funding and Support</a></li><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amy_Moritz_Ridenour#Affiliations_and_Associations">2 Affiliations and Associations</a><ul><li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amy_Moritz_Ridenour#Tobacco_Industry_links">2.1 Tobacco Industry links</a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amy_Moritz_Ridenour#Climate_denial">3 Climate denial</a></li><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amy_Moritz_Ridenour#Associates">4 Associates</a></li><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amy_Moritz_Ridenour#Formal_Affiliations">5 Formal Affiliations</a><ul><li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amy_Moritz_Ridenour#Subsidiaries_and_Operations">5.1 Subsidiaries and Operations</a></li><li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amy_Moritz_Ridenour#Publications_and_On-line">5.2 Publications and On-line</a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amy_Moritz_Ridenour#Related_articles">6 Related articles</a></li><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amy_Moritz_Ridenour#Sources">7 Sources</a></li><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amy_Moritz_Ridenour#External_links">8 External links</a></li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table><a name="Sources_of_Funding_and_Support" id="Sources_of_Funding_and_Support"> </a><h3 style="line-height: 14px;">Sources of Funding and Support</h3>Amy Ridenour is obviously a superb fund-raiser who has managed to turn what was essentially a two-person, privately controlled, think-tank into a major organization of social and political influence. The NCPPR appears to act as both as a money-laundry and as a funding channel for payments being funnelled to subsidiaries, and to some loosely affiliated individuals and groups who do most of the actual work. The NCPPR's income vastly outweighs the possible expenses (it has very few permanent staff other than the two principles) and conservatives like Richard Mellon Scaife appears to use the organisation as a funding channel for their neo-con projects. <a href="http://www.urlfan.com/local/deconstructing_the_scaife_foundation_part_2_of_4/31884897.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.urlfan.com/local/deconstructing_the_scaife_foundation_part_2_of_4/31884897.html" rel="nofollow">[6]</a>Scaife's Carthage and Sarah Scaife Foundations have given the National Center for Public Policy Research between $30,000 and $100,000 every year since 1985, as have the Olin Foundation, Bradley Foundation and other ultra-conservative support foundations. <a href="http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=682" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=682" rel="nofollow">[7]</a>. These foundation-grants to the NCPPR were later matched by commercial organisations such as Philip Morris <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qqw87d00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qqw87d00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[8]</a>, Exxon, and other corporations and industry groups, many of which contribute generously for specific projects. See Sourcewatch <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Center_for_Public_Policy_Research" title="National Center for Public Policy Research">National Center for Public Policy Research</a><a name="Affiliations_and_Associations" id="Affiliations_and_Associations"> </a><h3 style="line-height: 14px;">Affiliations and Associations</h3>According to her biographical notes, Amy Moritz Ridenour has served as:<ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li>Vice-Chairman of the International Youth Year Commission of the U.S. (1985);[on naacp hit page group snoop ex commie?]</li><li>Deputy Director of the College Republican National Committee; (1981 on)</li><li>Regional Coordinator for the Reagan/Bush 1980 campaign;</li><li>Chairman of the Maryland Federation of College Republicans</li><li>Maryland Republican State Central Committee member.</li></ul>Amy Ridenour is also runs or is associated with the: <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/Staffbios.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.nationalcenter.org/Staffbios.html" rel="nofollow">[9]</a><ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li>Board of Directors of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Black_America%27s_PAC" title="Black America's PAC" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Black America's PAC</a>, a political action committee that works to help elect more African-Americans to Congress and other elected offices.</li><li>Chairman of several of the conservative movement's strategy meetings,<ul><li>including the Stanton meeting (foreign affairs and defense issues), and the</li><li>Family Forum meeting (social policy issues)".</li></ul></li></ul><a name="Tobacco_Industry_links" id="Tobacco_Industry_links"> </a><h4 style="line-height: 14px;">Tobacco Industry links</h4>For the tobacco industry, her speciality has been in countering the regulatory activities of agencies like the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Environmental_Protection_Agency" title="Environmental Protection Agency" class="mw-redirect">Environmental Protection Agency</a> (EPA) and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Occupational_Safety_and_Health_Administration" title="Occupational Safety and Health Administration">Occupational Safety and Health Administration</a> (OSHA). She has excellent agency and Congressional contacts through the Republican party, and has provided information on the regulatory agencies on a regular basis to Philip Morris. <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/foe95c00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/foe95c00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[10]</a> The "Buffy" in this memo is PM Corporate Affairs executive Kathleen Linehan.Ridenour is described in a 1995 Philip Morris memo as "a willing ally". At this time they were developing coalitions and recruiting allies to fight against an Congressional inquiry into the possible FDA regulation of tobacco which was proposed as a way to reduce teenage smoking: <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gai65e00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gai65e00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[11]</a>. The PM executive says:<blockquote style="line-height: 14px;">"I just got a call from Amy Moritz, President, National Center for Public Policy Research, offering to use any information we can provide re the current anti-tobacco onslaught, particularly the actions and antics of [Rep. Henry] Waxman. Tom Borelli and I have both been in touch with Amy on various issues and are awaiting proposals for use of an Internet Website as an accessible repository of PM-related information."</blockquote>It points out that her think-tank, the NCPPR:<blockquote style="line-height: 14px;">... publishes a weekly "Scoop" on regulatory issues that goes to think-tankers, Hill staff and like-minded persons around the country. It also sends out bulleted talking points on current issues to some 700 radio and TV talk show hosts around the country, presenting them, of course, from a free enterprise point of view.Josh Slavitt and David Laufer and I [all PM executives] have been trying to connect, to discuss the devetopment of such talking points to enable the Center to put them out to users. In any case, Amy is a willing ally and can be reached at 202/543-1286, or fax 543-4779, Let me know if we can help further.</blockquote>Shortly after this exchange she began to play an active role in the political campaign against the Clinton proposals to combat teenage smoking. <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gai65e00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gai65e00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[12]</a> She also published a pamplet questioning the administration's health-care priorities -- that of running an anti-smoking campaign when hard-drugs were still a major problem. <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tgn97d00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tgn97d00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[13]</a>This focus on questioning priorities (as if they were mutually exclusive) was a common tactic used by tobacco industry, and was proving effectively against the World Health Organisation at this time. Her newspaper columns also attempted to bolster the cigarette companies case. <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/kjn36c00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/kjn36c00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[14]</a> <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/vjb08d00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/vjb08d00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[15]</a>By 1996 she was working actively as a Congressional lobbyist for Philip Morris and the Tobacco Institute <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/zjf94a00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/zjf94a00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[16]</a>, helping them develop both at the strategy and tactical levels on Capitol Hill. She was also assisting them in the formation of coalitions (with other industries) which would act seemingly independently of the tobacco companies while actually working on their behalf. <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/xjf94a00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/xjf94a00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[17]</a> This work on behalf of the tobacco industry continued into the turn of the century, well past the signing of the Master Settlement Agreement. In 1999 she was on the industry list as a potential spokesperson during an (anti-) Department of Justice mobilisation campaign to block the Clinton White House from taking legal action against the industry. <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/lug62c00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/lug62c00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[18]</a> She clearly became deeply involved in this campaign <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/lib08d00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/lib08d00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[19]</a> which was known in the tobacco industry as "Project Firestorm." <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/vta80b00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/vta80b00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[20]</a> Iin January 1999 she was writing: <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/knd62c00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/knd62c00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[21]</a><blockquote style="line-height: 14px;">""President Clinton says the purpose of the lawsuit is to raise money, but the Constitution plainly states that "all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives. By suing tobacco companies, President Clinton is clearly trying to raise revenue while bypassing the legislative branch, which is reluctant to raise taxes to the higher level President Clinton prefers.""If President Clinton's lawsuit is successful, tobacco companies will be forced to raise prices. This is essentially a tax by another name. President Clinton claims to be motivated by health concerns, but if he truly was, he wouldn't want the federal government to keep money taken from tobacco companies. Instead, he'd use any money he gets from tobacco to fund tax cuts for low and lower-middle income Americans. This policy would achieve the President's goal of raising cigarette prices without hurting lower income Americans. But the President isn't interested in this option. He'd rather keep the money."</blockquote>She also wrote many letters to the editor of newspapers like the New York Times, and others to potentially-compliant Congressmen who might be persuaded to act on behalf of the industry. <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gkq65c00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gkq65c00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[22]</a><a name="Climate_denial" id="Climate_denial"> </a><h3 style="line-height: 14px;">Climate denial</h3>With the progressive collapse of any credibility attached to support of the tobacco industry, Amy Ridenour has increasingly turned towards supporting the corporate climate deniers. Her organization ran a major "command" and "information center" at the Kyoto Earth Summit which broadcast environmental backlash message about the global negotiations to limit global warming.This center was billed as a technological hub for information on climate change and provided many contect, information and communications services to jouralists covering the conference. During the Kyoto negotiations, NCPPR began broadcasting a series of reports, including a daily e-mail description of conference events. These were run in association with <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bonner_Cohen" title="Bonner Cohen">Bonner Cohen</a> of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=EPA_Watch" title="EPA Watch">EPA Watch</a> -- a former project of Philip Morris, which had been funded and conducted through the far-right American Policy Center under the ultimate control of [APCO & Associates]. This was all in association with <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steve_Milloy" title="Steve Milloy" class="mw-redirect">Steve Milloy</a>, who was working against Kyoto through The Advancement of Sound ScienceCoalition (<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=TASSC" title="TASSC" class="mw-redirect">TASSC</a>).[Cohen was later TASSC's nominal 'President']Ridenour also established Envirotruth which was "dedicated to injecting badly needed truth into the debate about our environment. For too long, some environmental groups have seized the world stage and the public's attention by distorting facts, bending the truth and even committing acts of terrorism against innocent citizens" it said.<a href="http://www.envirotruth.org/" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.envirotruth.org/" rel="nofollow">[23]</a>
 <h2 style="line-height: 14px;">Associates</h2><ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jack_Abramoff" title="Jack Abramoff">Jack Abramoff</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ralph_Reed" title="Ralph Reed" class="mw-redirect">Ralph Reed</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Grover_Norquist" title="Grover Norquist">Grover Norquist</a> - in the formation and control of the College Republican National Committee in 1981. There was a brief falling out in the early 1980s, but Norquist is still a close friend, and Abramoff later become a director of the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR). Moritz married her fellow College Republican David A. Ridenour, who helped in the establishment of the NCPPR.</li></ul><ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Doug_Bandow" title="Doug Bandow">Doug Bandow</a> - a journalist with the Washington Times, who was also a syndicated newspaper columnist, and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Bandow had been a Special Assistant to President Reagan and acted as a Senior Policy Analyst for the Reagan campaign, and then for the Office of the President-Elect during the transition period.</li></ul><dl style="line-height: 14px;"><dd>According to Business Week (in 2005), Bandow worked for Jack Abramoff, and was "typically paid $2,000 per column to address specific topics of interest to Abramoff’s clients. [He] wrote favorably about Abramoff’s Indian tribal clients — as well as another Abramoff client, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands — as far back as 1997." Bandow never disclosed the Abramoff payments in his op-eds or to the Cato Institute. .<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/abramoff#abramoff" class="external autonumber" title="http://thinkprogress.org/abramoff#abramoff" rel="nofollow">[24]</a></dd></dl><ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Faye_Anderson&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Faye Anderson (page does not exist)">Faye Anderson</a>, the President of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Douglass_Policy_Institute&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Douglass Policy Institute (page does not exist)">Douglass Policy Institute</a> who was also listed by Philip Morris as a potential spokesperson for tobacco in the 1999 DOJ suit.</li></ul><ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steve_Milloy" title="Steve Milloy" class="mw-redirect">Steve Milloy</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bonner_Cohen" title="Bonner Cohen">Bonner Cohen</a> of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=APCO%26_Associates" title="APCO & Associates" class="mw-redirect">APCO & Associates</a>, and The Advancement for Sound Science Coalition )<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=TASSC" title="TASSC" class="mw-redirect">TASSC</a>)</li></ul><ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li>Philip Morris International, Corporate Affairs staff (the dirty-tricks division).[</li><li>
</li><li>
<table width="630" border="1" rules="rows" bgcolor="#F6FFB6" bordercolor="black" cellpadding="5" style=""><tbody><tr><td valign="top">Quinn
Jack</td><td>A democrat lawyer with Arnold & Porter who was involved in setting up many of Philip Morris's dirty-tricks campaigns (ATRA and TASSC). He became Al Gore's chief-of-staff, then counsel to President Clinton. Later he joined Ed Gillespie in a 'bipartisan' lobbyshop which had direct connections into the top administrators of both political parties.</td></tr></tbody></table></li></ul><a name="Formal_Affiliations" id="Formal_Affiliations"> </a><h2 style="line-height: 14px;">Formal Affiliations</h2><ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Center_for_Public_Policy_Research" title="National Center for Public Policy Research">National Center for Public Policy Research</a> - Website at <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.nationalcenter.org/" rel="nofollow">[25]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Black_America%27s_PAC" title="Black America's PAC">Black America's PAC</a></li><li>The NCPPR is also one of the 1988 founders of the Wise-Use coalition. <a href="http://radicalreference.info/filestore2/download/669/anti_enviros.doc" class="external autonumber" title="http://radicalreference.info/filestore2/download/669/anti_enviros.doc" rel="nofollow">[26]</a></li></ul><a name="Subsidiaries_and_Operations" id="Subsidiaries_and_Operations"> </a><h4 style="line-height: 14px;">Subsidiaries and Operations</h4><ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li>John P. McGovern M.D. Center for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/eptf.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.nationalcenter.org/eptf.html" rel="nofollow">[27]</a></li></ul><dl style="line-height: 14px;"><dd>This is also known simply as the Environmental and Regulatory Affairs which was originally named the Environmental Policy Task Force "to counter misinformation being spread to the public and policymakers by the environmental left".</dd></dl><ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li><ul><li>Global Warming Information Center is a project of the John P. McGovern M.D. Center <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/Kyoto.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.nationalcenter.org/Kyoto.html" rel="nofollow">[28]</a></li><li>Earth Day Information Center. <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/EarthDay98.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.nationalcenter.org/EarthDay98.html" rel="nofollow">[29]</a></li><li>
</li></ul></li><li>Project 21 - which is effectively a subsidiary of the NCPPR "...working with the African-American leadership group [Project 21] looks for and publicizes examples in which environmental and regulatory policies have a disproportionate negative impact upon minorities and lower-income Americans.</li><li>Center for Environmental Justice - <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/CEJ.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.nationalcenter.org/CEJ.html" rel="nofollow">[30]</a></li><li>Envirotruth <a href="http://www.envirotruth.org/" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.envirotruth.org/" rel="nofollow">[31]</a></li></ul><a name="Publications_and_On-line" id="Publications_and_On-line"> </a><h4 style="line-height: 14px;">Publications and On-line</h4><ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li>SCOOP® Newsletter <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/ScoopLtr.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.nationalcenter.org/ScoopLtr.html" rel="nofollow">[32]</a></li><li>The Relief Report <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/ReliefRprt.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.nationalcenter.org/ReliefRprt.html" rel="nofollow">[33]</a></li><li>Budget Watch - Providing a truth dectector in the ongoing battle over federal spending. <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/Watch.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.nationalcenter.org/Watch.html" rel="nofollow">[34]</a></li><li>Legal Briefs - The newsletter that monitors the legal system that rules our lives. <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/LegalBriefs.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.nationalcenter.org/LegalBriefs.html" rel="nofollow">[35]</a></li></ul><a name="Related_articles" id="Related_articles"> </a><h1 style="line-height: 14px;">Related articles</h1>Tobacco support <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/knd62c00/pdf" class="external autonumber" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/knd62c00/pdf" rel="nofollow">[36]</a> National Policy Analysis (NPA) papers by Ridenour include:<ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li>NPA #201, "80% of the Public Isn't Wrong: Big Law is Overpaid,"</li><li>NPA #198. "Ironies of the Tobacco Wars,"</li><li>NPA #195, "Lawyers' Fees in Tobacco Case Should be Capped."</li><li>NPA #186, "Maryland's Stack the Deck; Legal Approach is Not in Taxpayers' Best Interest,"</li><li>NPA #175 "Government Use of Contingency Fee Lawyers Works Against Public Interest,"</li><li>NPA #171, "Without Reform, Trial Lawyers, Not States or Individuals. Will be Biggest Winners from Tobacco</li></ul>Settlement."Other National Center papers on the tobacco issue include:<ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li>NPA #220 "A Taxing Proposition: Should the Working Poor Finance New Government Spending" bv Faye Anderson.</li><li>NPA #149 "Demon Tobacco" by Doug Bandow,</li><li>NPA #147, "Food and Drug Administration Takes on the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments." bv Nate Stewart.</li></ul><h1 style="line-height: 14px;">Sources</h1><ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li>Conservatives Without Conscience, by John Dean, Viking Press (See p141)</li></ul><a name="External_links" id="External_links"> </a><h1 style="line-height: 14px;">External links</h1><ul style="line-height: 14px;"><li><a href="http://www.bampac.org/" class="external text" title="http://www.bampac.org/" rel="nofollow">Black America's PAC</a> - Official website</li><li><a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/Staffbios.html" class="external text" title="http://www.nationalcenter.org/Staffbios.html" rel="nofollow">Amy Moritz Ridenour</a>, undated, accessed June 2004.</li><li>Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber,<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/usual.html" class="external text" title="http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/usual.html" rel="nofollow">The Usual Suspects:Industry Hacks Turn Fear on its Head</a>, PR Watch, Volume 7, No. 3, 3rd quarter 2000.</li><li><a href="http://www.indian.senate.gov/2005hrgs/062205hrg/ridenour.pdf" class="external text" title="http://www.indian.senate.gov/2005hrgs/062205hrg/ridenour.pdf" rel="nofollow">Ridenour Statement before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on Lobbying practices Involving Indian Tribes</a>, June 22, 2005 (pdf file)</li><li>Timothy Noah, "<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2138082/entry/2137077/" class="external text" title="http://www.slate.com/id/2138082/entry/2137077/" rel="nofollow">Amy Ridenour, Abramoff Fellow</a>, Slate, March 28, 2006</li></ul><h1 class="title" style="line-height: 14px;">-----
</h1><div><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hot_document/features/2006/thinktanks_for_sale/5.html">http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hot_document/features/2006/thinktanks_for_sale/5.html</a></div><div><div class="parbase image slate_image section" style="line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class=""><figure class="image inline left" style="margin: 0px 18px 0px 0px; float: left; width: 564px;"><img src_tag_name="src" title="1_123125_2137821_2137075_2137799_2137834_060314_abrmffdoc3_g_01" alt="Did I mention Dennis previously worked for Dick Armey?" src="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/archive/2006/03/1_123125_2137821_2137075_2137799_2137834_060314_abrmffdoc3_g_01.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%;" /><figcaption class="caption" style="padding: 5px 18px; background-color: rgb(40, 27, 33);" /></figure></div></div><div class="parbase image slate_image section" style="line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class=""><figure class="image inline left" style="margin: 0px 18px 0px 0px; float: left; width: 564px;"><img src_tag_name="src" title="1_123125_2137821_2137075_2137799_2137834_060314_abrmffdoc3_g_02" alt="A joke. The op-ed praises Pitney-Bowes' exhibit yet dumps on Black History Month." src="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/archive/2006/03/1_123125_2137821_2137075_2137799_2137834_060314_abrmffdoc3_g_02.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%;" /><figcaption class="caption" style="padding: 5px 18px; background-color: rgb(40, 27, 33);" /></figure></div></div><div class="parbase image slate_image section" style="line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class=""><figure class="image inline left" style="margin: 0px 18px 0px 0px; float: left; width: 564px;"><img src_tag_name="src" title="1_123125_2137821_2137075_2137799_2137834_060314_abrmffdoc3_g_03" alt="" fee="Fee" would="would" be="be" more="more" apt="apt" src="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/archive/2006/03/1_123125_2137821_2137075_2137799_2137834_060314_abrmffdoc3_g_03.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%;" /><figcaption class="caption" style="padding: 5px 18px; background-color: rgb(40, 27, 33);" /></figure></div></div><div class="text text-1 parbase section" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">





This is Abramoff's response to Ridenour. "CNMI" stands for "the <a data-linktype="External" href="http://www.cnmi.net/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands</a>," a United States holding in the Pacific. Abramoff <a data-linktype="External" href="http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/opr_gifviewer.exe?/1999/01/000/336/000336023|4" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">represented CNMI</a> and <a data-linktype="External" href="http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/opr_gifviewer.exe?/1999/01/000/261/000261521|9" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">moneyed interests there</a> who were trying to deflect stateside complaints about labor conditions.Did I mention Dennis previously worked for Dick Armey?A joke. The op-ed praises Pitney-Bowes' exhibit yet dumps on Black History Month."Fee" would be more apt.This is Abramoff's response to Ridenour. "CNMI" stands for "the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands," a United States holding in the Pacific. Abramoff represented CNMI and moneyed interests there who were trying to deflect stateside complaints about labor conditions.</div></div><div>--</div><h1 class="title" style="line-height: 14px;">Right-Wing Operatives Take Up ALEC's Voter Suppression Agenda</h1><div class="meta" style="line-height: 14px;">by <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/users/35268/lisa-graves" title="View user profile.">Lisa Graves</a> — April 19, 2012 - 3:22pm</div><div class="terms" style="line-height: 14px;"><div class="tags-2"><ul><li class="vocabulary-2">Topics: <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/topics/corporations">Corporations</a></li></ul></div><div class="tags-9"><ul><li class="vocabulary-9">Projects: <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/projects/alec-exposed">ALEC Exposed</a></li></ul></div></div><div class="content clearfix" style="line-height: 14px;">
Just as the <a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/" title="reference on American Legislative Exchange Council" target="blank">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> (ALEC) <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/04/11456/grassroots-campaign-makes-alec-try-stanch-bleeding-corporate-donors-alec-companie" title="reference on tried to distance" target="blank">tried to distance</a> itself from its role pushing parts of the NRA's gun agenda and making it more difficult for American citizens to vote, a controversial right-wing operation has announced that it will step in to help carry forward the "voter ID" agenda. The "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Center_for_Public_Policy_Research" title="reference on National Center for Public Policy Research" target="self">National Center for Public Policy Research</a>" (NCPPR) <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/PR-VoterID_041812.html" title="reference on announced Wednesday" target="blank">announced Wednesday</a> that it will form a "Voter Identification Task Force."This comes in response to ALEC's announcement Tuesday that it will dismantle its "<a href="http://alecexposed.org/wiki/Guns,Prisons,Crime,and_Immigration" title="reference on Public Safety and Elections Task Force" target="blank">Public Safety and Elections Task Force</a>" through which corporate lobbyists and elected officials voted behind closed doors to approve "model" legislation that creates obstacles to American citizens voting through restrictive voter ID bills, as well as other damaging legislation, such as reckless gun laws that have been cited to protect violent vigilantes from being held accountable. NCPPR's press release scolds the 11 corporations, as of yesterday, that have recently announced they had dropped out of ALEC, which has come under intense scrutiny as a result of the Center for Media and Democracy's <a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/" title="reference on ALEC Exposed" target="blank">ALEC Exposed</a> investigation and the efforts CMD, Color of Change, Common Cause, People of the American Way, Progress Now!, and other groups as well as Daily Kos bloggers. A growing number of concerned citizens are speaking up about ALEC across the country.NCPPR even set up an email for corporations to reach out to if they "regret" their decision to cut ties with ALEC under the theme "we are not yellow." NCPPR asserts that corporations have succumbed to the "left-wing" which is supposedly using a "trotskyite strategy of making relentless demand-after-demand."NCPPR is not well known but has hosted other attacks on good government and watchdog groups through a site called "GroupSnoop," which posts highly inaccurate "profiles" of organizations like the Center for Media and Democracy.With NCPPR taking the mantle of fighting voter fraud, NCPPR's historical role in troubling operations is worth a closer look.<h2>Distributing Millions in Charitable Donations as Directed by Jack Abramoff</h2>As documented by CMD's SourceWatch, NCPPR was involved in part of the scandal that brought down RNC buddy and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. According to a U.S. Senate investigation of the financial dealings and influence peddling of Abramoff, NCPPR's founder and president, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Amy_Moritz_Ridenour" title="reference on Amy Moritz Ridenour" target="self">Amy Moritz Ridenour</a>, directed money received by NCPPR at Abramoff's direction, to other "charities," again at his direction. Specifically, Ridenour admitted that in 2002 she received a one million dollar gift to NCPPR from the Mississippi Band of Choctaws. That tribe had been paying Abramoff to help secure its casino business. NCPPR also received $1.5 million from Abramoff's then-law firm, Greenberg Traurig. She told the Senate that, at Abramoff's direction, she gave $700,000 of the money NCPPR received to one of his "charities," called the "Capitol Athletic Foundation" (CAF). CAF, which was publicly touting that it was established to help inner city kids get more involved in athetics, reportedly used donations to fund luxury golf trips for (then) Members of Congress, like Ohio Representative Bob Ney. Ney served 17 months in prison for his role in the scandal. CAF also bought sniper scopes and camouflage for West Bank settlers in Israel, among other things.She also testified that she directed $1.275 million received by NCPPR to another Abramoff entity called "Kaygold, LLC," whose address was listed as that of her then-board member, Abramoff. Ridenour testified that she thought Kaygold was controlled by Michael "Sean" Scanlon, Congressman <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tom_DeLay" title="reference on Tom DeLay" target="self">Tom DeLay</a>'s former communications director, who later pleaded guilty to the criminal charge of conspiracy to bribe public officials. Scanlon was publicly known to be working closely with Abramoff.In addition, NCPPR's Ridenour told congressional investigators that she also gave $500,000 to Scanlon's "Capital Campaign Strategies."Abramoff was convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy for his dealings with legislators, and he resigned from the board of NCPPR. Ridenour was not charged with any federal crimes for distributing tax-deductible donations NCPPR's received to entities controlled by Abramoff and his associates.<h2>NCPPR Has a History of Sending "Fright Mail" to Senior Citizens</h2>Also, as noted in CMD's SourceWatch, about a decade ago, NCPPR came under intense scrutiny for its fundraising tactics. NCPPR had been accused of bombarding senior citizens with "fright mail." According to an article by Diane Walsh of the San Francisco Examiner, NCPPR had contracted out its mailing of <a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002075044_repubs28m.html" title="reference on repetitive and frightening letters" target="blank">repetitive and frightening letters</a> to the direct mail mill, Response Dynamics, which helps right-wing politicians and groups raise money.NCPPR's leader Ridenour told the press that "her organization sent donors up to a dozen major pitches a month. The appeals are sent on four different letterheads. She said anyone receiving more than a dozen solicitations in a month probably was on mailing lists the National Center has 'rented' from other organizations, which she said were outside her control." According to comments on Guidestar, adult children of senior citizens targeted by NCPPR are not happy with the group's tactics. One commentor asserted "Amy R. is the Queen of Scare Mail. My father receives 5-15 letters from them per day under four different names (maybe more I hadn't realized the association). He started giving to them in 2009 and gave them thousands of dollars little by little. When I found out he was spending all his money, I started tracking his junk mail and putting him on a charity budget." That commentor added that: "In my opinion, the biggest challenges facing this organization are... Children of the elderly who find out what they are doing" and "They are Parasites feeding off the elderly." Another commentor in 2010 urged fellow citizens to "Be VERY careful before giving money to this organization. You will be swamped by mail and they do not honor requests to be removed from mailing lists." Yet another commentor stated "the National Center for Public Policy Research has several 'projects' such as The National Retirement Security Task Force, etc. These projects simply acquire the names of older people and mail them requests for donations. These requests are sent with letters intended to scare the recipient into donating. Often these requests are sent via Certified Mail in the hope that the recipient will think the contents more important." NCPPR was cited by three other anonymous commentors for praise who said the group shed light on government corruption.<h2>Who Else Has Funded NCPPR, Aside from Friends of Jack Abramoff?</h2>Over the years, NCPPR <a href="http://mediamattersaction.org/transparency/organization/National_Center_for_Public_Policy_Research/funders" title="reference on has received funding" target="blank">has received funding</a> from numerous charitable foundations created by billionaires and millionaires who are funding an array of right-wing ventures to dramatically change American public policy. These include the foundation of the Coors family, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Castle_Rock_Foundation" title="reference on Castle Rock Foundation" target="self">Castle Rock Foundation</a>, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_M.Olin_Foundation" title="reference on John M. Olin Foundation" target="self">John M. Olin Foundation</a>, the Milwaukee-based <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation" title="reference on Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation" target="self">Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation</a>, and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sarah_Scaife_Foundation" title="reference on Sarah Scaife Foundation" target="self">Sarah Scaife Foundation</a>. Other NCPPR funders have included the Armstrong Foundation, Brady Education Foundation, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Carthage_Foundation" title="reference on Carthage Foundation" target="self">Carthage Foundation</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Earhart_Foundation" title="reference on Earhart Foundation" target="self">Earhart Foundation</a>, Gordon and Mary Cain Foundation, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Leadership_Institute" title="reference on Leadership Institute" target="self">Leadership Institute</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Randolph_Foundation" title="reference on Randolph Foundation" target="self">Randolph Foundation</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roe_Foundation" title="reference on Roe Foundation" target="self">Roe Foundation</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Shelby_Cullom_Davis_Foundation" title="reference on Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation" target="self">Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation</a>, and the William H. Donner Foundation.According to Greenpeace's research, NCPPR has also <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=59" title="reference on received" target="blank">received</a> several hundreds of thousands of dollars from the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Exxon_Mobil_Corporation" title="reference on Exxon Mobil Corporation" target="self">Exxon Mobil Corporation</a>. Exxon is also a member of ALEC's corporate board and funder of ALEC. So, perhaps it should surprise no one that NCPPR is part of the so-called "Cooler Heads Coalition," an effort of the "Competitive Enterprise Institute," which is focused on part of the oil industry's climate change denial machinery. ALEC has also helped advance this agenda, as noted by PRWatch, opposing regional agreements to address climate change and even hosting a workshop for ALEC politicians last year about "Warming Up to Climate Change," about how increased carbon dioxide is supposedly good for you and leads to longer lifespans.<h2>Now NCPPR Takes on Voter Fraud, along with a Threat?</h2>In the wake of ALEC's termination of its task force that had advanced "Voter ID" legislation that may thwart and chill citizen voting in this year's elections, NCPPR has jumped into the fray, claiming to take up ALEC's mantle on voter fraud, despite the fact that numerous studies have documented that <a href="http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/policy_brief_on_the_truth_about_voter_fraud/" title="reference on voter fraud in the U.S. is exceedingly rare" target="blank">voter fraud in the U.S. is exceedingly rare</a>.In NCPPR's press release on its new role as a watchdog against fraud in voting ends with the following threat, an unusual choice in the wake of the controversy over the shooting of unarmed high school student Trayvon Martin, which helped shine the spotlight on ALEC's pushing the NRA's extreme gun agenda: "Unlike the Center for American Progress, the National Center for Public Policy Research eschews the use of violent references such as 'War Room.' We are, however, inspired by a particular passage in the 1987 movie The Untouchables: 'They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way.' Indeed."<hr />(Sara Jerving contributed to this report.)===<center><div style="text-align: left;">FREE CONGRESS FOUNDATION and LASZLO</div><div style="text-align: left;">PASZTOR (NAZI COLLABORATOR)</div></center><div align="left">The Free Congress Foundation has had a convicted Nazi collaborator on its staff; a man who was forced to resign from the 1988 Bush campaign when his past became public knowledge.</div><div align="left">Laszlo Pasztor actually served a prison term for being, during WWII, part of a Hungarian pro-Nazi group, the Arrow Cross (like the German Nazi Party, only in Hungary). His prison term also related to Pasztor's, during WWII, being a member of a Hungarian diplomatic delegation to Berlin after the Nazis installed the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross as the government of Hungary.</div><div align="left">In an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 09/16/88, Pasztor was reported as being a "volunteer" at the Free Congress Research & Education Foundation. However, Pasztor had an internal telephone number at FCF (listed as extension 48 as of 01/21/90) and calls to the FCF main number were routinely connected through to Pasztor. Pasztor himself stated that for several years he generally worked in the FCF office complex Tuesday afternoon through Friday.</div><div align="left">According to Pasztor, the FCF gave him office space for his work with the Paul Weyrich sponsored Coalitions for America, and that he routinely provided to Weyrich written reports of his activities. Weyrich at the time was president of FCF and national chair of of Coalitions for America. It is noteworthy that a Coalition for America brochure used a photo of Pasztor to illustrate the work of the Liberation Support Alliance.Martin Lee in The Beast Reawakens refers to Pasztor as Weyrich's right hand man:

"In addition to homegrown agitators who dredged up anti-Semitic motifs that harkened back to the 1930s, some countries had to contend with groups that were led or supported by profascist exiles who repatriated from the West where they had carried on as vocal anti-Communists during the Cold War, often with CIA support. The Free Congress Foundation, founded by American far right strategist Paul Weyrich, became active in eastern European politics after the Cold War. Figuring prominently in this effort was Weyrich's right-hand man, Laszlo Pasztor, a former leader of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross organization in Hungary, which had collaborated with Hitler's Reich. After serving two years in prison for his Arrow Cross activities, Pasztor found his way to the United States, where he was instrumental in establishing the ethnic-outreach arm of the Republican national Committee.".
 Pasztor's history with the GOP goes back before the FCF, however. When Pasztor came to the U.S. in the 1950s, he joined the GOP's ethnic unit, and later became the leader of the Nixon-Agnew campaign's ethnic unit. The ethnic unit was only active during election campaigns and, according to Pasztor, Nixon told him that if he won the election, he would form a permanent ethnic unit within the GOP. True to his word, after Nixon won, Pasztor was made the organizer of the the Republican Heritage Groups Council, and is considered to be one of its founders.According to Russ Bellant, noted New Right researcher, it is difficult to get the names of the these ethnic federations' directors and "it required attendance at the Republican Heritage Group Council convention in May of 1985 to learn the names of the federation leaders. It was the convention that Reagan was addressing at the Shoreham Hotel."Some Republican Heritage Groups Council delegates were reluctant to talk; others were unstoppable. A pattern began to emerge from the conversations--that in setting up the Council, Pasztor went to various collaborationist and fascist-minded émigré groups and asked them to form GOP federations. It eventually became clear that it wasn't an accident or a fluke that people with Nazi associations were in the Republican Heritage Groups Council. In some cases more mainstream ethnic organizations were passed over in favor of smaller but more extremist groups. And it seems clear that the Republican National Committee knows with whom they are dealing. Reviewing the federations illustrates this point." (Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right and the Republican Party)  </div>UPDATE: Mr. Pasztor continues both his association with Paul Weyrich, and to be active in the Republican Party.Mr. Pasztor was so kind as to sponsor ponsoring the attendance of Texas 14th District House Representative Ron Paul (R) at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation's Truman-Reagan Awards Dinner in November 2002 (refer to Mr. Paul's<a href="http://www.politicalamazon.com/l-pasztor.html#letters"> thank-you letter to Mr. Pasztor</a>, dated 12/19/2002). It is noteworthy that Mr. Paul publishes a weekly column, "Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk," on Mr. Paul's webpages (entitled "Project Freedom"), located on the house.gov webserver. I believe Mr. Paul owes his constituents some "Texas straight talk" about why he is accepting ANYTHING from a convicted Nazi who spent 2 years in prison after WWII for the crimes he committed in Hungary's "ethnic cleansing" programs. Mr. Pasztor was also kind enough to give Laura Bush a gift, for which she wrote him a<a href="http://www.politicalamazon.com/l-pasztor.html#letters"> thank-you letter</a>, as well. I believe the First Lady also owes an explanation regarding why she would accept a gift from a convicted Nazi who was such a loyal servant to Hitler and his Holocaust.Mr. Pasztor continues to work with Paul Weyrich (for an example, see <a href="http://www.nationalcenter.org/Scoop198.html">"Scoop®: Your Inside View to the Strategies and Activities of the Conservative Movement in Washington" (Issue 198 * September 11, 1998</a>), published by The National Center for Public Policy Research. This "Scoop" documents the activities at the 09/09/1998 "Strategy Lunch chaired by Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation and sponsored by Coalitions for America." One of the listings for this meeting is regarding a "foreign defense and policy meeting chaired by Laszlo Pasztor of Coalitions for America and Amy Ridenour of The National Center for Public Policy Research, and sponsored by Coalitions for America." According to <a href="http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=4314&print=yes">People for the American Way</a> : "Much of FCF?s clout among the religious right centers around Weyrich?s ability to organize. Weyrich holds weekly a ? Weyrich Strategy Lunch,? sponsored by Coalitions for America. The lunch is held when Congress is in session and has 75 conservative leaders representing their organizations. These weekly lunches include regular briefings by leading Bush administration officials and key conservative congressional leaders."
 Links / References:<pre><a href="http://www.politicalamazon.com/l-pasztor.html#berlet">Chronology of 1988 Bush Campaign Controversy: Coalition of American Nationalities (Republican and Bush Campaign responses to charges)</a>

<a href="http://www.politicalamazon.com/l-pasztor.html#bellant">Will Bush Purge Nazi Collaborators in the G.O.P.?</a> (NYTimes Editorial by Russ Bellant)

</pre><a href="http://www.politicalamazon.com/(Empty%20Reference!)">Nazis and the Republican Party (Online Journal: Carl Binion)</a><div align="left">Martin, Lee. The Beast Reawakens, Little, Brown & Co., p. 303Bellant, Russ Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party.(for more information about the Free Congress Foundation, visit <a href="http://prosocs.tripod.com/fcf.html">PROSOCS: Free Congress Foundation</a>

<a href="http://www.politicalamazon.com/fcf.html#top">[Back to top]</a>
 <div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The same day, Mr. Abramoff wrote to Mr. Norquist to say a need for ‘‘a hard-hitting op-ed has arisen’’ regarding Channel One. Mr. Abramoff asked whether Mr. Norquist would be willing to do it himself:</div><div>Ariana Huffington has now joined Ralph Nader and George Miller in attacking Channel One. . . . We want to do an oped which smacks her big time, and also swipes at Nader’s guy and the other loonieon this. We have $1,500 to do this piece and get it placed. Are you interested (we can write it for you)? If not, let me know if I can approach Peter [Ferrara].</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Norquist wrote back to Mr. Abramoff the next day:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Jack, yes, go ahead and draft a copy for me. I have just spoken with the head of the Washington Times op-ed about a piece for Bruce Heinman. They said they are full for a while due to Elian article. I will talk to Helle Wed morning and make a case for this piece. yes, ATR will do this piece and push to have it in the Washington Times and the Investors Business Daily. Also I will share it with all our state groups. Grover</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>NATIONAL CENTER FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The National Center for Public Policy Research (‘‘NCPPR’’), which represents itself as a ‘‘conservative think tank,’’ is organized under IRC section 501(c)(3).29 The organization, founded in 1981, describes its primary exempt purpose as educating Americans about the free market solutions to today’s public policy problems.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On its website, NCPPR is described as a research organization dedicated to a strong national defense and to providing free-market solutions to today’s public policy problems. The website states: ‘‘We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.’’</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>Amy Ridenour, NCPPR’s president and a founder of the organization, first met Mr. Abramoff when they were members of the College Republicans. In testimony before the Committee on Indian Affairs and in an interview with Finance Committee staff, Ms. Ridenour said that her organization accepted donations from Mr. Abramoff’s clients and routed money as Mr. Abramoff directed. Mr. Abramoff served on NCPPR’s board of directors.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">E-mail exchanges among Ms. Ridenour, Mr. Abramoff, and Mr. Abramoff’s colleagues and clients indicate that CREA/Ms. Ridenour:</div><div>• accepted payments from Mr. Abramoff’s clients and then acted as the front organization to pay for trips by members of Congress, their staff members and others,</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">• accepted payments from Mr. Abramoff’s clients and then wrote checks as Mr. Abramoff directed, and</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">• accepted contributions from Mr. Abramoff’s clients and then performed services such as writing favorable newspaper columns and speaking in favor of clients’ causes.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> LOBBYING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS WORK FOR ABRAMOFF CLIENTS</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Channel One Network</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>E-mails indicate that Ms. Ridenour wrote newspaper columns at the direction of Mr. Abramoff’s client Primedia Inc. She maintains that she did such work ‘‘independent of’’ and ‘‘without regard to’’ Primedia’s contributions.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 1999, Mr. Abramoff and his associates discussed with Jeff Ballabon, who at the time was executive vice president of public affairs for Primedia’s Channel One Network, the best way to fend off a coalition seeking the network’s ouster from public school classrooms.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Abramoff’s colleague, Amy Berger, wrote on April 12, 1999:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In preparation for hearings on Channel One, it would be extremely useful to have a white paper issued by a conservative think tank group like Heritage or CATO. I know that you have excellent contacts with these think tanks. Would you be able to work with a think tank to produce this type of a paper?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Patrick Pizzella, another colleague, wrote back:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">my guess is it would cost about $5000 and we would want them to promote it. . . . and we ought to use a smaller out- fit . . . maybe Amy R., maybe CEI. . . .</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Abramoff replied to Mr. Pizzella:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I think Amy is the way to go. I am meeting with her this week. I’ll raise it with her.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Abramoff wrote to Mr. Ballabon on May 19, 1999:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">When we are through the hearing, we have to discuss getting Amy a contribution as we discussed. She was going to do 5 pieces for $10K. We can chat on this next week.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Ballabon responded:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">yup—I have not forgotten (was it $10?—I wrote it down—whatever it was, she’ll get it.)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Abramoff wrote to Ms. Ridenour the same day:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I just want to thank you again for all you to do help us. Jeff is so grateful and, as soon as the dust clears, is going to make his gratitude tangible. Thanks for all you do!</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On May 23, 1999, Mr. Ballabon wrote to Mr. Abramoff saying that Ms. Ridenour ‘‘really does deliver.’’ Mr. Abramoff wrote back:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We should get her a check as soon as we can. She can really help us with the Approps battle (we have used her before for this kind of battle before).</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The next day, Mr. Abramoff wrote to Ms. Ridenour:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Amy, can you get me an invoice for a contribution for $10,000 which I can push through Channel One? Jeff has asked for this so we can get something to you asap. Thanks.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On March 13, 2000, Dennis Stephens forwarded a commentary from R.D. Davis, a member of NCPPR’s Project 21, a national leadership network of black conservatives:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I note for the files, that Amy Ridenour has a member of Project 21 who is a writer and radio talk show host in Huntsville, Alabama. With the proper education, etc, he might be recruitable for Channel One support and Metrock bashing. Thoughts?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Abramoff forwarded the message to Ms. Berger, who responded:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">worth keeping in mind—esp. if we get a contract with [Channel One]!</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In an interview with Committee staff, Ms. Ridenour denied that NCPPR was engaged in any ‘‘Metrock bashing.’’</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On October 29, 2001, Mr. Ballabon at Primedia wrote to Mr. Abramoff regarding Ms. Ridenour:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Any way to get some paperwork from her on the 50k asap so I can get a check cut?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Abramoff wrote back with an attached NCPPR invoice requesting a contribution of $49,000 from Primedia ‘‘to support public programs.’’</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I used one of their other invoices for another project and made it work. Let me know the next step. Please get the check directly to me. Thanks.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mr. Ballabon wrote back on November 8, 2001, to say that a check had been cut and that he was sending it to Ms. Ridenour. Mr. Abramoff objected:</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">No! Send it to me. I have to work this through with her carefully.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE....</div></div></div> =<dl id="overview" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 12px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><dd class="summary-current" style="margin: -2.55em 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 3px 122px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow: hidden; background: transparent;"><ul class="current" style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: bold; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none;"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-type: none;">President at <a class="company-profile-public" href="http://www.linkedin.com/company/national-center-for-public-policy-research?trk=ppro_cprof" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">National Center for Public Policy Research</a></li></ul></dd><dt id="overview-summary-past-title" class="summary-past" style="margin: 1px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; z-index: 1; width: 116px; text-align: right; left: -10px;">Past</dt><dd class="summary-past" style="margin: -2.55em 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 3px 122px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow: hidden; background: transparent;"><ul class="past" style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none;"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-type: none;">
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</li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-type: none;">Vice President at National Center for Public Policy Research</li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-type: none;">Executive Director at United States Youth Council</li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-type: none;">Program Officer at United States Youth Council</li></ul></dd><dt id="overview-summary-education-title" class="summary-education" style="margin: 1px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; z-index: 1; width: 116px; text-align: right; left: -10px;">Education</dt><dd class="summary-education" style="margin: -2.55em 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 3px 122px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow: hidden; background: transparent;"><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none;"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-type: none;"><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/edu/university-of-oregon-19207" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">University of Oregon</a></li></ul></dd><dt style="margin: 1px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; z-index: 1; width: 116px; text-align: right; left: -10px;">Connections</dt><dd class="overview-connections" style="margin: -2.55em 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 3px 122px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow: hidden; background: transparent;">
</dd><dd class="overview-connections" style="margin: -2.55em 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 3px 122px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow: hidden; background: transparent;">
</dd><dd class="overview-connections" style="margin: -2.55em 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 3px 122px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow: hidden; background: transparent;">
</dd><dd class="overview-connections" style="margin: -2.55em 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 3px 122px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow: hidden; background: transparent;">500+ connections</dd><dt class="websites" style="margin: 1px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; z-index: 1; width: 116px; text-align: right; left: -10px;">Websites</dt><dd class="websites" style="margin: -2.55em 0px -6px; padding: 0px 0px 3px 122px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; overflow: hidden; background: none;"><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none;"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-type: none;"><a id="overviewsite" href="http://www.linkedin.com/redir/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Enationalcenter%2Eorg&urlhash=iD3F" target="blank" title="New window will open" name="overviewsite" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Company Website</a></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-type: none;"><a id="overviewsite" href="http://www.linkedin.com/redir/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Econservativeblog%2Eorg&urlhash=dVi6" target="blank" title="New window will open" name="overviewsite" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Blog</a></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-type: none;"><a id="overviewsite" href="http://www.linkedin.com/redir/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Elinkedin%2Ecom%2Fcompany%2Fnational-center-for-public-policy-research&urlhash=jXUl" target="_blank" title="New window will open" name="overviewsite" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Company LinkedIn</a></li></ul></dd></dl><div class="section" id="profile-summary" style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 12px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="header" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 4px 4px 3px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(224, 224, 224); outline: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">David Ridenour's Summary</h2></div><div class="content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">A veteran manager, having managed staff for more than two decades.

Experienced and successful in almost every aspect of fundraising, including but not limited to: contract negotiation; proposal writing; direct mail and one-on-one donor meetings. Familiar with and conversant on a wide variety of giving methods, including charitable gift annuities, bequests, charitable remainder trusts, gifts of stock and gifts of IRAs, among others. Under my fundraising leadership, annual revenues have more than doubled.

A prolific writer, having co-authored a book and written hundreds of op-eds, public policy papers, press releases and newsletter articles. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Investor’s Business Daily, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun, Detroit News, Washington Post, Washington Times, Des Moines Register, Philadelphia Inquirer, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Christian Science Monitor, Oregonian, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Orange County Register, and Seattle Times are among the newspapers that have published my articles. Currently, my columns are regularly syndicated by McClatchy.

Adept with all forms of media, having given thousands of radio, television and print interviews, including with ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Nightly News, CNN and FOX News, major print media, syndicated radio and others. 

Experienced in developing and leading diverse coalitions on a wide variety of public policy issues. Led a successful coalition effort on the Endangered Species Act in 2005.<div id="profile-specialties" style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><h4 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; line-height: 1.4;">Specialties</h4>Management, fundraising, strategic planning, writing, policy analysis and coalition-building.</div></div></div><div class="section subsection-reorder" id="profile-experience" style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 12px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="header" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 4px 4px 3px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(224, 224, 224); outline: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">David Ridenour's Experience</h2></div><div class="content vcalendar" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="position first experience vevent vcard summary-current" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: none;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;" /><div class="postitle" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><h3 class="false" style="margin: 10px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; overflow: hidden;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">President</a></h3><h4 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; line-height: 1.4;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a class="company-profile-public" href="http://www.linkedin.com/company/national-center-for-public-policy-research?trk=ppro_cprof" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">National Center for Public Policy Research</a></h4></div><p class="orgstats organization-details current-position" style="margin: 0px 0px 1px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.2; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Nonprofit; 11-50 employees; Think Tanks industry<abbr class="dtstart" title="2011-10-01" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">October 2011</abbr> – <abbr class="dtstamp" title="2014-06-24" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Present</abbr> (2 years 9 months) <span class="location" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.3em; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.5em; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Washington D.C. Metro Area</div></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="position experience vevent vcard summary-past" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: none;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;" /><div class="postitle" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><h3 class="false" style="margin: 10px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; overflow: hidden;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Vice President</a></h3><h4 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; line-height: 1.4;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a class="company-profile-public" href="http://www.linkedin.com/company/national-center-for-public-policy-research?trk=ppro_cprof" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">National Center for Public Policy Research</a></h4></div><p class="orgstats organization-details past-position" style="margin: 0px 0px 1px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.2; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Nonprofit; 11-50 employees; Think Tanks industry<abbr class="dtstart" title="1986" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">1986</abbr> – <abbr class="dtend" title="2011-10-01" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">October 2011</abbr> (25 years)<p class=" description past-position" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.2; overflow-wrap: break-word;">The National Center for Public Policy Research is a free market think tank described by Nation magazine as a "crucial gear in the right's propaganda factory." As Vice President, I'm responsible for managing policy staff; helping set strategic objectives; overseeing programs on the environment, regulation, and international affairs; editing; research and writing; conducting media interviews; public speaking; overseeing investments and, since 1999, directing the institution’s fundraising and development department.</div></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="position experience vevent vcard summary-past" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: none;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;" /><div class="postitle" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><h3 class="false" style="margin: 10px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; overflow: hidden;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Executive Director</a></h3><h4 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; line-height: 1.4;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">United States Youth Council</a></h4></div><p class="orgstats organization-details past-position" style="margin: 0px 0px 1px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.2; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"> </a><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"><abbr class="dtstart" title="1985-09-01" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">September 1985</abbr> – <abbr class="dtend" title="1986-04-01" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">April 1986</abbr> (8 months)</a><p class=" description past-position" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.2; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">The United States Youth Council was a United States Information Agency-funded organization established in 1945 to conduct international exchanges of young political leaders.

Responsibilities included managing a staff of 10; writing and submitting grant proposals to the U.S. Information Agency; working with a large, diverse board to set institutional priorities; serving as liaison with the U.S. Information Agency; and monitoring all programs to ensure compliance with grant terms, including a requirement of political balance.</a></div></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="position experience vevent vcard summary-past" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background: none;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;" /><div class="postitle" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><h3 class="false" style="margin: 10px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; overflow: hidden;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Program Officer</a></h3><h4 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; line-height: 1.4;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">United States Youth Council</a></h4></div><p class="orgstats organization-details past-position" style="margin: 0px 0px 1px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.2; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"> </a><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"><abbr class="dtstart" title="1984-06-01" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">June 1984</abbr> – <abbr class="dtend" title="1985-09-01" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">September 1985</abbr> (1 year 4 months)</a><p class=" description past-position" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.2; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Responsible for identifying young political leaders who might one day lead their countries; inviting these leaders to participate in study tours to build relationships; developing and implementing itineraries for the study tours and projecting a positive image of the United States.</a></div></div></div></div></div><div class="section subsection-reorder summary-education" id="profile-education" style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="header" style="line-height: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 4px 4px 3px; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(224, 224, 224); outline: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="include" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-ridenour/7/613/2a7#name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">David Ridenour's Education</a></h2></div><div class="content vcalendar" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="position first education vevent vcard" id="18922747" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><h3 class="summary fn org" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 12px; margin: 10px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; overflow: hidden;"><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/edu/university-of-oregon-19207" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">University of Oregon</a></h3><h4 class="details-education" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both;">Bachelor of Science, Political Science; Economics</h4><abbr class="dtstart" title="1980-01-01" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">1980</abbr> – <abbr class="dtend" title="1984-12-31" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: none; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">1984</abbr><p class=" desc details-education" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;"> <p class="desc details-education" name="activities" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Activities and Societies: State Chairman, College Republican Federation of Oregon (1982-1984); Chairman, University of Oregon College Republicans (1982-1983); Contributing Editor, Oregon Commentator; Member, Phi Eta Sigma Honorary; Member, Alpha Lambda Delta Honorary; and ROTC.<p class="desc details-education" name="activities" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;">LI fish:<p class="desc details-education" name="activities" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;">
Thomas Pyle President, Institute for Energy... John Cox John Cox President - The Communications Institute Rob Atkinson Rob Atkinson  Sean Parnell Sean Parnell  Mike Thompson Mike Thompson  Becky Norton Dunlop Becky Norton Dunlop Vice President at The Heritage... Steven J. Duffield Steven J. Duffield President at Endgame Strategies, LLC Nick Reid Nick Reid Executive Vice President at... Patricia Barnett Patricia Barnett Vice President at Mises Institute Tim Fairbank Tim Fairbank </div></div></div></div>=</div>