CRYPTO

This category concerns a peculiar spin on the mirroring strategy in which the organization is dedicated to destroying of its type of organization, or at least its progressive counterpart.  See also COINTELPRO, THIS IS A CATCHALL TERM FOR SPYING , INFILTRATION AND MAYBE JUST GOOD OLD FASHIONED OPPOSITION RESEARCH.

 also a tag (unwisely identical)

Example: CFACT is a fake pirg trying to kill the real ones!  confusion is almost as good as destruction or original/true?

question: are hack and hackademics  crypto? trying to neutralize or destroy real scientists and academics?

bak txt 320

 [[===

OUT OF STATE BILLIONAIRE DARK MONEY ~ ditto

https://www.alternet.org/gop-megadonor-citizen-ballot-initiatives/

https://yyy.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/23/foundation-government-accountability-democracy

an 6 23

no lnx

This GOP megadonor is funding efforts to 'derail citizen-led ballot initiatives': report

Alex HendersonJune 23, 2023

Over the years, Illinois-based shipping magnates Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein have been major donors to the Republican Party. And these days, they have a preference for far-right MAGA candidates, including 2022 Pennsylvania gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano (who lost by double digits to Democratic now-Gov. Josh Shapiro).

In 2023, The Guardian reports, Richard Uihlein has been a major funder of a Florida-based group known as theFoundation for Government Accountability (FGA) — who are trying to make it more difficult to get initiatives on ballots.

The Guardian's Brendan Fischer, in an article published June 23, reports, "These efforts are designed to derail citizen-led ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights, raise the minimum wage or expand Medicaid. In effect, FGA and its allies seek to give 41 percent of the voting population an effective veto over the wishes of the other 59 percent."

READ MORE: 'A stark illustration of our broken campaign finance system': Here's how rich mega-doners hacked US politics

Fischer notes that in "at least four states," FGA has "lobbied or testified in favor of changing ballot initiative rules to enshrine minority rule."

He then explains, "The latest fight is in Ohio, where Republican lawmakers last month passed a measure requiring future constitutional amendments to receive at least 60 percent support from voters — rather than a simple majority — and that would make it harder for proposed amendments to make it on to the ballot. Ohioans will now vote in August on whether to approve the higher thresholds…. FGA's tactics in Ohio echo those used previously — and unsuccessfully — in Arkansas and South Dakota."

In 2021, Fischer reports, FGA "issued a legal memo arguing for the constitutionality of a 60 percent requirement for enacting ballot initiatives, and a report decrying how voters in red states like Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska had approved Medicaid expansion through the ballot initiative process."

READ MORE: Appeals court dismisses GOP megadonor’s lawsuit against Beto O’Rourke: report

The Guardian's full report is available at this link.

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ref

no lnx

Florida group primarily funded by an Illinois billionaire is driving the recent attacks on direct democracy in states such as Ohio, Missouri, South Dakota and Arkansas.

The Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida-based group affiliated with the alliance of conservative thinktanks called the State Policy Network, has played a key role in recent efforts to raise the threshold for passing citizen ballot initiatives from a simple majority to a supermajority, and to make it harder to place measures on the ballot in the first place.

These efforts are designed to derail citizen-led ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights, raise the minimum wage or expand Medicaid. In effect, FGA and its allies seek to give 41% of the voting population an effective veto over the wishes of the other 59%.

In at least four states, FGA and its lobbying arm, the Opportunity Solutions Project, have lobbied or testified in favor of changing ballot initiative rules to enshrine minority rule, and in some cases have financed ballot committees advocating for those changes. FGA has also issued reports, legal memos, op-eds and polling that advocate for gutting direct democracy.

The latest fight is in Ohio, where Republican lawmakers last month passed a measure requiring future constitutional amendments to receive at least 60% support from voters – rather than a simple majority – and that would make it harder for proposed amendments to make it on to the ballot. Ohioans will now vote in August on whether to approve the higher thresholds.

The controversial plan is designed to derail an abortion rights initiative expected to be on the ballot in November.

Deuel Ross, center, plaintiff’s counsel in Allen v Milligan, speaks with members of the press after oral arguments outside the supreme court on 4 October 2022.]

‘Historic and significant’: key lawyer’s verdict on Alabama supreme court ruling

Read more

When Ohio Republicans first proposed the supermajority requirement last year, a representative of FGA’s lobbying arm was the only person who testified in favor. FGA’s lobbying arm again testified in support of the proposal earlier this year, in hearings before the House and Senate. FGA argued that the proposal was necessary to“make it more difficult for out of state billionaires and dark money groups” to change Ohio law.

As the measure moved through Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature, the Illinois billionaire Dick Uihlein gave $1.1m to the newly created “Save Our Constitution PAC”, which ran ads pressuring state lawmakers to support the measure; Uihlein is expected to contribute more as the August vote approaches.

A foundation controlled by Uihlein is also the largest known source of FGA’s funding, giving $17.6m since 2014. Uihlein has also been one of the key funders of election denial. Among other things, Uihlein has poured tens of millions into his “Restoration of America” network that promotes ludicrous election conspiracy theories and which created a controversial database that published voters’ personal information online in the name of uncovering election fraud. In the 2022 cycle, Dick Uihlein and his wife, Liz, were also top donors to election-denying candidates like the Pennsylvania gubernatorial hopeful Doug Mastriano and Nevada secretary of state candidate Jim Marchant.

FGA itself began to focus on “election integrity” in 2021, and boasted that it “achieved more than 70 election integrity policy wins across 19 states” last year.

FGA has also been promoting a supermajority requirement in Ohio and other states since at least 2021.

That year, FGA issued a legal memo arguing for the constitutionality of a 60% requirement for enacting ballot initiatives, and a report decrying how voters in red states like Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska had approved Medicaid expansion through the ballot initiative process. FGA and its lobbying arm also began testifying in support of state efforts to make it harder to enact ballot measures, andits in-house polling firm released Ohio polling showing voter support for a 60% threshold and for placing other restrictions on the initiative process.

FGA’s tactics in Ohio echo those used previously – and unsuccessfully – in Arkansas and South Dakota.

In Arkansas last year, FGA’s lobbying arm produced a fact sheet, an op-ed and social media posts advocating for Issue 2, which would have raised the ballot initiative threshold to 60%. As the billionaire-backed dark money group warned of “shady groups funded by billionaires you’ve never heard of” pushing ballot measures in Arkansas, it also gave $65,000 to the ballot committee advocating for the supermajority requirement. Arkansas voters defeated the measure by 19 percentage points.

In South Dakota, a representative of FGA’s lobbying arm testified in February 2021 in support of HJR 5003, which would require 60% approval for constitutional amendments. The legislation passed and was placed on the June 2022 ballot, with a goal of thwarting a Medicaid expansion initiative slated for the November 2022 ballot. FGA’s lobbying arm then gave $50,000 to the ballot committee advocating for the supermajority requirement – but voters rejected the measure by 35 points. Later that year, South Dakota voters approved Medicaid expansion.

FGA has also pressed Missouri lawmakers to create new hurdles for the initiative process.In 2021, FGA’s lobbying arm released polling claiming to show public support for “initiative integrity”, then sent a letter to Missouri legislative leadership arguing for a supermajority requirement and other changes to the initiative process. “Without reform,” the letter warned, “[o]ut-of-state billionaires will continue to pump millions of dollars to [promote] destructive, leftist policies like Medicaid expansion.” The group testified in support of Missouri HJR 22 that year, which would have created new requirements for putting measures on the ballot.

FGA’s lobbying arm would go on to testify in support offour different Missouri proposals to erect barriers to the ballot initiative process in 2022, and four more similar proposals this year. The Missouri house passed a measure to raise the initiative threshold, but it unexpectedly failed in the state senate.

This article was produced in partnership with Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism project. Brendan Fischer is deputy executive director with Documented

===]]

CRYPTO

https://www.mediamatters.org/local-news/local-news-outlets-subscribing-center-squares-wire-service-are-pushing-right-wing

Center Square is filling in a void left by vanishing local newsrooms with right-wing propaganda about school choice, guns, immigration, and elections

WRITTEN BY BEATRICE MOUNT & BEN VAN BLOEM

PUBLISHED 06/20/23

Three years after a dark money-funded conservative website known for posting misinformation rebranded as a local news wire, The Center Square has made its way into newspapers across the country.

In 2019, Watchdog.org, an organization that propagated misinformation and lies that benefitted Republican politicians, rebranded as The Center Square. Since rebranding, the company has operated as a dark money-fueled conservative news wire service writing and distributing right-wing slanted news stories. Their publisher, Franklin News Foundation, has apparently continued to receive funding from the ultra-conservative Donors Trust.

The Center Square provides struggling and underfunded local outlets their stories for free withattribution, unlike larger, more established wire services like the AP which charge licensing fees. This model preys on vulnerable news organizations with vanishing staff and shrinking budgets that need wire articles, like those offered by The Center Square, to fill space. Outlets that use The Center Square do not typically acknowledge the explicitly conservative lean of their work. 

According to the company, in 2021, their articles had been republished nearly 180,000 times. Center Square articles appearing in daily papers and online news feeds promote right-wing narratives and cite many right-wing think tanks, lobbyists, and policy groups – many of which belong to the conservative State Policy Network, a group of right-wing think-tanks and policy groups that have promoted a highly-partisan agenda in state-level politics for years. The Center Square’s publisher is a member of the State Policy Network. Franklin News Foundation board chair John Tillman and member Charles Mitchell also lead groups affiliated with the State Policy Network.

Center Square articles are saturating local newspahh' 30,000 papers across Illinois’ River Bend region, [published multiple Center Square articles featuring an NRA lobbyist’s response to Illinois gun restrictions — without mentioning that he’s an NRA lobbyist. According to the Factiva database, The Telegraph published at least two articles in April about the Illinois assault weapons and high-capacity magazine ban that quoted Todd Vandermyde. The NRA lobbyist questioned how Illinois would enforce the law or decide who was properly licensed. The articles did not quote gun control activists or inform readers about enforcement mechanisms for similar bans.

• At least seven newspapers owned by The Times-Journal Inc, circulating over 100,000 papers across Georgia, simultaneously republish articles by The Center Square in each of those papers. According to the Factiva database, a recent article promotingschool choice, “Georgia Democrat calls for lawmakers to pass school choice bill,” ran in The Gwinnett Daily Post, The Henry Daily Herald, Newton Citizen, Rockdale Citizen, Jackson Progress-Argus, Cherokee Tribune, and Clayton News Daily on June 2. The Center Square article promoted public school voucher legislation without any pushback from opposed lawmakers, public education groups, teachers, or public school workers. In 2022, The Times Journal Inc. bought six of the papers from Southern Community Newspapers Inc. Center Square articles began appearing on the sites after the purchase.
• According to the Factiva database, The Courier-Times, a North Carolina community newspaper, cited The Center Square at least 1,000 times in the last six months. The Courier-Times circulates about 7,800 papers across Roxboro and Person counties. Residents have received Center Square articles promoting conservative perspectives on the U.S.-Mexico border, including some alleging El Paso is “overrun with foreign nationals,” promoting a claim thatthe Biden administration’s border policies are the “greatest national security threat since 9/11,” and elevating the Texas GOP's accusation that immigrants are invading the U.S. Other Center Square articles run in the Courier-Times portrayed gender identity as a “controversial issue” and legitimized a bogus political investigation into COVID-19 vaccines.
• Sample News Group, which owns dozens of papers in Pennsylvania, published Center Square articles promotingschool choice. The News-Item published a Center Square article alleging that Pennsylvania school districts are “excessively funded” and raising taxes unnecessarily despite having a stockpile of savings. The article quoted from the Senior Vice President of the Commonwealth Foundation, a think-tank affiliated with the State Policy Network. The News-Item distributes 9,556 papers across Northumberland County.
• Louisiana’s L’Observateur, which circulates approximately 2,400 daily papers in the River Parishes area, published a Center Square article promoting a crime report by the free-market think tank Pelican Institute, according to Factiva. The Pelican Institute is a member of The State Policy Network and has ties to ALEC, which played a central role in the expansion of the U.S. prison system. 
• The Waukesha Freeman, a Greater Milwaukee Today publication circulating 12,267 papers across Wisconsin, published a Center Square article on a lawsuit alleging the state is “making school choice more difficult.” The December article cited The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) and**School Choice** Wisconsin Action. WILL is a conservative public interest law firm that argued against school closures during the pandemic. School Choice Wisconsin Action is a lobbying organization tied to the right-wing State Policy Network which anti-LGBTQ schools under the guise of parental choice. The Center Square article contained no pushback from opposing education groups. Studies show school choice initiatives divert funding from public schools and increase inequality.
• Washington County Daily News, another Greater Milwaukee Today publication circulating roughly 5,399 papers, republished a Center Square article platforming an election denialist’s bogus investigation into military ballot fraud. According to Factiva, a Center Square article legitimizing GOP state Rep. Janel Brandtjen’s claim ran in the January 10 edition of Washington County Daily News. Brandtjen’s embrace of election conspiracies alienated her from Republican colleagues; last November, they barred her from attending caucus meetings. The Center Square articles promoting right-wing election misinformation have appeared on GM Today’s website. 
• Arizona's Herald Review, which circulates approximately 5,848 papers in the Sierra Vista area, reposted a Center Square article fear-mongering about undocumented immigrants evading apprehension. One article uncritically quoted a National Border Patrol Council tweet accusing the Biden administration of “complete erasure of our border.” 
• Logan Daily News, which circulates approximately 4,500 papers across Logan, Ohio, republished a Center Square story one-sidedly criticizing Democratic economic policies last December. According to Factiva, Logan Daily News published a Center Square story on Ohio’s unemployment rate quoting from the Buckeye Institute– a State Policy Network affiliate.
• The online edition of Texas’ Longview News-Journal has republished multiple Center Square pieces, including a piece full of conservative attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The Longview News-Journal circulates to over 25,000 subscribers daily across 11 east Texas counties. The June article promoting attacks on DEI programs contained no pushback from DEI coordinators – only quotes from Republican legislators.
• The online edition of The Independent, which circulates around 38,000 newspapers across California’s Tri-Valley region, has published many Center Square articles containing unchallenged conservative talking points about theborder, Biden’s green energy policies, and COVID-19. The paper republished an article claiming China “unwittingly verified Wuhan Lab leak.” The report cited by The Center Square actually did not verify that COVID-19 came from a Wuhan lab.

BP api exxon funded astro front crpyto wetlands orgs to punks congress into paying for gulf spill cleanup but also derg ~ wetlands

// awf

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The National Wetlands Coalition, founded in 1989,^[1] has opposed U.S. wetlands policy, saying "the federal government, while seeking to protect wetlands, casts a wide net and imposes burdensome and ineffective regulations on private property that does not function as or provide the ecosystem benefits of high-value wetlands".^[2] Time Magazine called it "a big-biz coalition against wetlands".^[3]

In 1995, the organization consisted of about 60 municipal associations, utilities and major industrial companies, such as Exxon, Texaco and Kerr-McGee.^[4]

The National Wetlands Coalition has been characterized as the quintessential astroturf organization, which is an organization that presents itself as a grassroots organization, but was actually founded by (and is largely funded by) a separate commercial or political organization in order to promote its own agenda, while keeping its relationship to the new organization hidden.

A study by the University of Oklahoma used the National Wetlands Coalition as a specific example to examine the influence of corporate front-group stealth campaigns, in which corporations form associations that, in turn, adopt names that are designed to misrepresent their true intentions.^[5] The results of the study indicated that front-group stealth campaigns were effective in enhancing public perceptions of the front group itself. The National Wetlands Coalition campaigns successfully undermined perceptions of the targeted attitude object, eroding support for any federal efforts to restrict wetlands’ development or regulate developers.

The organization has been relatively inactive since around the late 1990s.^[6] The website was being "reworked" from February 2001 through November 2005;^[7] it went offline in December 2005.^[8]

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/merrick-garland-investigation/

no lnx

former Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller's legal group is demanding the U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General launch an investigation into Attorney General Merrick Garland's memo that directs the FBI to discuss threats against school board officials.

The Garland memo is exceptionally weak, stating: "I am directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with each United States Attorney, to to convene meetings with federal state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders" to "facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats."

Nothing more.

After months of coaching and training of "grassroots" activists by right wing groups, including parents across the country, the nation has witnessed countless threats against school board officials and education professionals by parents whose anger is falsely ginned up by Fox news and other right wing media claims over critical race theory, masks, and vaccines.

Miller sees it differently, claiming his group is "demanding an investigation into AG Garland's memo unleashing federal law enforcement against parents fighting racism/CRT.Letter includes shocking info on origins of the memo."

Here is a copy of the letter America First Legal sent the DOJ Inspector General demanding an investigation into AG… https://t.co/T1aqGPokAW

— Stephen Miller (@Stephen Miller) 1634069778.0

Look at that language: "unleashing," "parents fighting racism," "shocking info" – all designed to create outrage.

:{

}:

(Also, parents who oppose CRT are not "fighting racism.")

As NCRM has previously reported, school board members and educators in at least nine states this year have been targeted with threats, death threats, and often racist death threats, including in Virginia, Arizona, Connecticut, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Vermont, according to local news reports.

According to Miller, who was one of the architects of Donald Trump's child separation policy, parents engaging in these threats should not be subjected to legal investigation, but protection.

Miller's Senior Counselor Reed Rubinsteinclaims that "the nationwide protests by parents against public school policies and practices—regardingCritical Race Theory indoctrination; anti-religious and anti-family gender ideology; and/or forced online education and mask mandates—are entitled to the most robust federal constitutional protection."

Rubinstein claims that "the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and others, have combined to oppress, threaten, and intimidate parents to chill and prevent them from exercising the rights or privileges secured by the Constitution," offering no reason why they would do this, especially given they have not done it before.

He also claims, again, offering no proof, that in "early September, Biden Administration stakeholders held discussions regarding avenues for potential federal action against parents with a key Biden Domestic Policy Council official (Jane Doe #1) and White House staff (John Doe #1). Stakeholders also held discussions with senior department officials, including at least one political appointee in the department's Civil Rights Division (Jane Doe #2). Jane Doe #1, John Doe #1, and others in the White House separately expressed concern regarding the potential partisan political impact of parent mobilization and organization around school issues in the upcoming midterm elections."

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hard to know what to call this:

https://www.corporateaccountability.org/2020-corporate-hall-of-shame/

British American Tobacco

Big Tobacco wrote the playbook on modern corporate abuse. Literally. From spreading junk science to dividing and undermining opponents, to getting politicians to do their bidding, the tobacco industry was at the leading edge of it all.

And they’re still up to these dirty tricks. This year, British American Tobacco (BAT) has exploited the global COVID-19 pandemic to market its harmful and addictive new products by co-opting hashtags meant to spread public health information and using influencers to push its brand.BAT also helped fund a junk science study that claims tobacco consumption (which leads among other things to respiratory disease) might reduce the danger of the novel coronavirus (a respiratory disease). And cynically using a global pandemic as a marketing ploy, BATannounced it had begun researching a COVID-19 vaccine.

We nominate British American Tobacco for exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to peddle its harmful and addictive products on social media and make unproven, dangerous health claims that further undermine public health policies.

==

aha: censorship seems like a bad thing, anti-transparency which has all kinds of neg downstream effects such as corruption, but with soc med we have lost quality assurance filters, so we need some form of it but eternal question is who will/can do it well fairly? (who decides who decides?)

[aha: kind of scary that a superpac (which is spozed to be indep?) is throwing around its wt as if it's a legit org, not a effing slush fund of dark $ whose main purpose is to give cover to funder and cand on neg attack ads (often right before election when cannot be countered/debunked?)

one wonders if this is local tv stations stading up for democracy and free speech, or their refusal to play ref, or more darkly, they just want the massive ad revenue flowing from dark money superpacs]

OMG

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/read-the-letter-trumps-campaign-sent-to-tv-stations-threatening-the-fcc-could-pull-their-licenses-over-coronavirus-ad/

no lnx

Read the letter Trump’s campaign sent to TV stations threatening the FCC could pull their licenses over coronavirus

Written by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement March 26, 2020

Lawyers for President Donald Trump’s official Super PAC, America First Action, tried to get TV stations in key battleground states to stop airing an anti-Trump ad that focuses on his horrific mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis. The TV stations refused to pull the ad, placed by the pro-Biden Super PAC Priorities USA (PUSA), which rightly noted that the pro-Trump Super PAC did not even have standing to make the demand.

So President Trump’s official campaign stepped in to do what his Super PAC could not.

Attorneys for the Donald J. Trump for President campaign sent a Cease and Desist letter to those TV stations demanding they stop airing the anti-Trump ad.

Not only did they make that demand, but they threatened that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which the President controls in that he appoints its commissioners, could pull their broadcast licenses if they did not comply.

The letter reads in part: “your station has an obligation to cease and desist from airing [the ad] immediately to comply with FCC licensing requirements, to serve the public interest, and to avoid costly and time-consuming litigation.”

It also says “we formally demand that your station refuse to continue airing it to meet your responsibilities not to broadcast false information,” which is ironic given the number of falsehoods and lies Trump tells on a daily basis which are often broadcast by news networks.

It adds, “your station has a responsibility to ‘protect the public from false, misleading or deceptive advertising,’” and threatens that  “your failure to remove this deceptive ad … could put your station’s license in jeopardy.”

This is the ad the Trump campaign claims is “patently false, misleading, and deceptive,” says he did not call the coronavirus a “hoax,” and essentially claims the ad says he did.

1119 crypto?

DHS created a fake university near Detroit as part of a sting operation targeting foreign students — and around 250 have been arrested so far

Alex Henderson

Complaints from immigrant groups about the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) didn’t start with President Donald Trump: there were plenty of deportations under form

==

aha: prop/ citizen initiative is essence of DEMOCRACY?

evil if co-opted, in CA rarely pass w/o hired co?/signature collection?

amazing how many sunshine states have citizen initiatives to get green solar power quashed by corps, that run crypto initiative to confuse/defeat them

==

OMG

==

https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/15/propaganda-pipeline-front-group-gain-grow-america-infrastructure-now

Although pipelines have been facing a number of setbacks recently, pro-pipeline groups aren’t giving up. One of those is Grow America’s Infrastructure Now (GAIN), which came to our attention because it’s recently begun sponsoring the Washington Examiner’s daily energy newsletter.

GAIN’s website simply describes the group as supporting strengthening infrastructure development and only mentions pipelines as one aspect of its focus, which also includes bridges, roads, etc. But the group’s blog, Twitter, and coverage in the mediaare pretty exclusively dedicated to pro-pipeline messaging. Hmmm, almost like it isn’t an all-around infrastructure group, and perhaps may have some ulterior motive …

Which, of course, it does. GAIN was formerly known as the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now (MAIN), which Steve Horn at DeSmog reported was acting as a front group for DCI. You may remember DCI as the PR firm tied to the GOP: It’s got experiencein creating front groups on behalf of Big Tobacco, it’s known for its role spearheading the modern Tea Party movement, and it’s also worked to discredit Dakota Access pipeline protesters.

And although it seems to have changed names, GAIN is still up to the same tricks.

Back in July of 2017, Eric Hananoki at Media Matters wrote a piece exposing howCNN Commentator James “Spider” Marks was writing op-eds attacking pipeline protestors without disclosing he was on the advisory board of TigerSwan, a company that was hired to provide security for the Dakota Access pipeline. This led to numerous papers updating Marks’ pieces to reflect this. PennLive actually stated “his work will not appear on the website again” due to this failure to disclose.

What’s Marks been up to lately? Well as it turns out, in the past year, he’s been writing more pro-pipeline op-eds, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington Times, and RealClearPolitics. All, of course, without mentioning his position as a Strategic Advisor at GAIN.

GAIN’s latest project is a “fact-checker” tool,designed, as the website says, to push back against the so-called “coordinated disinformation campaigns” that have been leveraged against pipelines like Dakota Access and Keystone XL.

However, GAIN seems unaware of how fact-checkers generally work: The website often just repeats a claim without offering any further evidence and then deems it true.

A recent fact-check from earlier this week has the appearance of offering more evidence, but that disappears once you dig in. The check gives a “False” rating to a claim that a pipeline would negatively impact property values, using evidence in a 2016 study by the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA), a trade organization that advocates for the natural gas pipeline industry, which concluded that proximity to a natural gas pipeline has no impact on property value.

Beyond the inherent bias of having a natural gas pipeline advocacy group do this study,some have also pointed outthat the study compared houses next to the pipeline with houses in the same development, a few hundred feet from the pipeline, rather than with the broader market. This means the research may not be accurately portraying the influence of pipelines on property value. After all, if the pipeline depresses value for the whole neighborhood, this methodology wouldn’t notice.

Personal and local accounts suggest that’s exactly what’s happening. One property owner in the path of that Kinder Morgan pipeline — a self-described conservative who supports pipelines — says he’s been trying to sell his property and interest has dropped since the project was announced.

Meaning that unless you own the pipeline or get paid by the people who do, buying into the industry‘s propaganda will be all pain, no GAIN.

==

behind the mask of chivalry nancy mclean yale stanley fascism is set of strategies, not an ideology

kkk said union jewish plot (to integrate?)

unions connect us across race; fascism sep via race or gender.

https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-december-11-2018/

1st came for soc, then trade unionists...

alone econ anxiety, can't trust fellow citizens look for fake ID hannah arendt

at last loyalty to fuhrer is ult ID

must be demonized out group (diseased, lazy etc [cf newt lang memo] corruption = impurity

bizzaroworld anti-corrupt campaign used to steal from jews; putin runs, may be richest in world

takes 5-6 years for talk to become violence /genocide klemperer

https://theconversation.com/shithole-countries-trump-uses-the-rhetoric-of-dictators-89850

...Orwell warns us in his dystopian novel 1984 that authoritarianism begins with language. In the novel, “newspeak” is language twisted to deceive, seduce and undermine the ability of people to think critically and freely.

Donald Trump’s unapologetic bigoted language made headlines again Thursday when it was reported he told lawmakers working on a new immigration policy that the United States shouldn’t accept people from “shithole countries” like Haiti. Given his support for white nationalism and his coded call to “Make America Great (White) Again,” Trump’s overt racist remarks reinforce echoes of white supremacy reminiscent of fascist dictators in the 1930s.

His remarks about accepting people from Norway smack of an appeal to the sordid discourse of racial purity. There is much more at work here than a politics of incivility. Behind Trump’s use of vulgarity and his disparagement of countries that are poor and non-white lies the terrifying discourse of white supremacy, ethnic cleansing and the politics of disposability. This is a vocabulary that considers some individuals and groups not only faceless and voiceless, but excess, redundant and subject to expulsion. The endpoint of the language of disposability is a form of social death, or even worse.

As authoritarianism gains strength, the formative cultures that give rise to dissent become more embattled, along with the public spaces and institutions that make conscious critical thought possible.

Words that speak to the truth to reveal injustices and provide informed critical analysis begin to disappear, making it all the more difficult, if not dangerous, to judge, think critically and hold dominant power accountable. Notions of virtue, honour, respect and compassion are policed, and those who advocate them are punished.

I think it’s fair to argue that Orwell’s nightmare vision of the future is no longer fiction in the United States. Under Trump, language is undergoing a shift: It now treats dissent, critical media coverage and scientific evidence as a species of “fake news.”

The Trump administration, in fact, views the critical media as the “enemy of the American people.” Trump has repeated this view of the media so often that almost a third of Americans now believe it and support government-imposed restrictions on the media, according to a Poynter survey.

Thought crimes and fake news

Trump’s cries of “fake news” work incessantly to set limits on what is thinkable. Reason, standards of evidence, consistency and logic no longer serve the truth, according to Trump, because the latter are crooked ideological devices used by enemies of the state. Orwell’s “thought crimes” are Trump’s “fake news.” Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” is Trump’s “Ministry of Fake News.”

:{:{Donald J. Trump:(style="font-weight:700;overflow:hidden;text-overflow:ellipsis;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:4px"):}::{ > :{✔:(style="position:absolute !important;overflow:hidden !important;width:1px !important;height:1px !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px) !important"):}::(style="position:static;-webkit-box-flex:0;flex:0 0 auto;padding-right:4px"):}::(style="display:flex;-webkit-box-align:center;align-items:center;min-width:0px"):}::{@realDonaldTrump:(style="overflow:hidden;text-overflow:ellipsis;white-space:nowrap;flex-shrink:1"):}:

I’ve had to put up with the Fake News from the first day I announced that I would be running for President. Now I have to put up with a Fake Book, written by a totally discredited author. Ronald Reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will I!

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6:40 AM - Jan 7, 2018

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The notion of truth is viewed by this president as a corrupt tool used by the critical media to question his dismissal of legal checks on his power, particularly his attacks on judges, courts and any other governing institutions that will not promise him complete and unchecked loyalty.

For Trump, intimidation takes the place of unquestioned loyalty when he does not get his way, revealing a view of the presidency that is more about winning than about governing.

One consequence is the myriad practices by which Trump gleefully humiliates and punishes his critics, wilfully engages in shameful acts of self-promotion and unapologetically enriches his financial coffers.

Under Trump, the language of civic literacy and democracy has become unmoored from critical reason, informed debate and the weight of scientific evidence, and is now being reconfigured and tied to pageantry, political theatre and a deep-seated anti-intellectualism.

One consequence, as language begins to function as a tool of state repression, is that matters of moral and political responsibility disappear and injustices proliferate.

Fascism starts with words

What is crucial to remember here, as authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat notes, is that fascism starts with words. Trump’s use of language and his manipulative use of the media as political spectacle are disturbingly similar to earlier periods of propaganda, censorship and repression.

Under fascist regimes, the language of brutality and culture of cruelty was normalized through the proliferation of strident metaphors of war, battle, expulsion, racial purity and demonization.

As German historians such as Richard J. Evans and Victor Klemperer have made clear, dictators like Adolf Hitler did more than simply corrupt the language of a civilized society, they also banned words.

Soon afterwards, the Nazis banned books and the critical intellectuals who wrote them. They then imprisoned those individuals who challenged Nazi ideology and the state’s systemic violations of civil rights.

The end point was an all-embracing discourse of disposability — the emergence of concentration camps and genocide fuelled by a politics of racial purity and social cleansing.

Echoes of the formative stages of such actions are upon us now. An American-style neo-fascism appears to be engulfing the United States after simmering in the dark for years.

... h giroux

d'souza tries to make hitler leftist b/c he hated jewsish banks etc?

==

==

good news is that he's scared enough of tactic to steal it?

guessing just provided stats?

berman in cmd hit claim tobacco $;  30K in over $2 mil 1994? aclu AND wash legal

explicit strategy to support liberal farm groups, presumably as a front (small family farms hurt vs giant agribiz)

http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tka13a00/pdf?search=%22economic%20policy%20institute%20dollar%22

==

aha/doh: fox is crypto that attacks the lamestream press, enabled TP and Trump.  maybe not true/not seen before b/c affects only a bubble/echochamber?

==

RESEARCH TOOLS(see also funder)

http://powerbase.info/index.php/Main_Page 9/15

Powerbase is a guide to networks of power, lobbying, public relations and the communications activities of governments and other interests. It is a project of Public Interest Investigations and Spinwatch. Read more...

Alcohol | Climate | Counter-Terrorism | Counterjihad | Finance Lobbying | Foodspin | Fracking | GMWatch |Health | Israel Lobby | Lobbying | MEPedia | Mining and Metals | Neoconservatives | Northern Ireland |Nuclear Spin | Pharma | Propaganda | The Revolving Door | Schools | Scotland | Spooks | State Violence and Collusion Project | Terror Expertise | Think Tanks | Water | and hosting since 2015...the Undercover Research Group |

undercover operations exposed involve two Special Branch units that focused on protest groups and what would in the 2000s be given the name Domestic Extremism. These were the Special Demonstration Squad, operating since 1968, and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit. The lack of supervision and oversight of their undercover police operations has led to more than a dozen official inquiries, most of which are internal and confidential. Convictions of campaigners have been overturned, and declared unsafe because it had not been disclosed that undercover police officers were at the heart of activities, and it is highly likely that further convictions will be challenged. A number of court cases have been initiated bywomen tricked into intimate relationships with undercover agents (and in a few cases having children by them. Hearings in Parliament have questioned the more extreme methods employed, such as the use of death certificates of children to provide a false identity for the spies involved; while using Parliamentary Privilege, Green MP Caroline Lucas has accused one spy of being an agent provocateur, committing arson while an activist with the Animal Liberation Front.

Elsewhere another officer, Peter Francis, came forward with details of how the undercover police were used to smear theStephen Lawrence family. It has become apparent that a culture of abuse grew up around the units involved in covert policing and how that intelligence was used. So much so, that a public inquiry was announced in 2014.

http://powerbase.info/index.php/Category:Revolving_Door eur

==

pattern:  fake minority groups eg

Personnel

From the CLWC website: ^[1]

• Paul Rodriguez, Chair
• Mayor Victor Lopez, Co-Chair, Central Valley, City of Orange Cove
• Ruben Guerra, Co-Chair, Southern California, Latin Business Association
• Tony Estremera, Co-Chair, Director, Santa Clara Valley Water District

Contact information and Burson-Marsteller connections

Website: gotwater.org

Patrick George, cell phone number 310-487-3001, is listed as the CLWC contact on the group's press releases. ^[2] George is a director of Burson-Marsteller's media practice, working out of the public relations firm's Sacramento, California office. ^[3] The same phone number, along with Patrick George's name and sometimes his Burson-Marsteller email address (patrick.george AT bm.com), is listed on press releases for Accenture ^[4], the newsletter of the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Associations ^[5], and announcements for the Friant Water Users Authority. ^[6]

crypto:There is a long and storied tradition of corporate, right-wing interests seeking to shape the economic policies of the Democratic Party. The DLC, another Third Way–style group that folded in 2011, was funded by none other than Koch Industries. Richard Fink, a strategist to the Koch brothers who helped found what is now known as Americans for Prosperity, was on the DLC’s board. fang

crypto: The Heritage Foundation, through its Center for Media and Public Policy, is hiring an Investigative Journalist to conduct original reporting on policy issues.

http://www.potomacflacks.com/pf/think-tank/

 ==

ipn:

Origins

In 2001 the name was changed to the IPN and it expanded its operations with significant corporate funding. Its international Directors then were Roger Bate and Julian Morris, two people who have spear-headed thepro-corporate, anti-environmental debate for over a decade in the UK, whilst supporting controversial industries. Bate co-founded the European Science and Environment Forum in 1994, which arose from the concept for a pro-biotech / tobacco, chemical industry front group in Europe funded by Philip Morris. He also solicited money of the tobacco industry for a book on risk and smoking, and Julian Morris was a witness for the GM industry Life Sciences Network at the GM Commission in New Zealand. Some unknown industry / industries are now funding ESEF / IPN to counter the environmental movement on a global scale.

Crypto:

It also funds and has set up the websites of certain "partner "organisations which have all the appearances of being African or Asian NGOs, but seem little more than satellite front organisations whose true identity is also hidden. In 2004 it received funding from Exxon to work on climate and a book was published by the IPN edited by Kendra Okonski. Okonski and Julian Morris still deny climate change and the need for any action. Writing last month Morris wrote "There are no solid grounds for assuming, as Messrs Blair and Howard do, that global warming demands immediate and far-reaching action".

Okonski is a long-time libertarian activist and daughter of a US lumber industrialist. Okonski has a history of counter-protests against progressive and environmental organisations. She organised the pro-farmers counter-protests at the WSSD. She also co-founded and managed the website counterprotest.net and organised the Washington-area 'Walk for Capitalism' in 2001. Okonski still remains the contact for the "Sustainable Development Network", another guise of the IPN. Okonski also has set up a number of websites of IPN's affiliates organisations that raises questions about their true independence. What you have here is a first world corporate front organisation setting up websites for so-called third world organisations, who then attack western environmentalists for being Imperialists. These include

• Institute of Public Policy Analysis - Nigeria
• Inter Region Economic Network (IREN) Kenya
• Liberty Institute - India
• The Alternate Solutions Institute, Pakistan.

Issues

The IPN lists its areas of interest as:

• Sustainable Development & the Environment
• Health
• Free Trade and Globalisation
• Technology
• Economics

The IPN is currently running a technology campaign, apparently to promote the use of software patents in Europe. [8]

It has also become involved in international pharmaceutical issues, seeking to defend the pharmaceutical industry from claims that it ignores the diseases of the developing world in favour of the more profitable lifestyle diseases of wealthy countries. Most of this work is conducted by its front group the Campaign for Fighting Diseases.

see berman on fake animal rights orgs

milloy and pal borelli try to stop shareholder influence/infiltration [// dechristopher]

2/15/12 i note that 1st "sourcewatch" google result (paid) is watchdog, atrazine

http://www.judicialhellholes.org/2012/01/31/sourcewatch-exposedwebsite-backed-by-organic-food-industry-scrambles-to-take-down-court-documents-after-being-caught-in-the-act/?gclid=CN38sPXQoK4CFQF3hwodjWSy5Q

claims sw is pullling docs, tho talk pages?

TheAmerican Tort Reform Foundation (ATRF) is a District of Columbia nonprofit corporation, founded in 1997.  The primary purpose of the Foundation is to educate the general public about how the American civil justice system operates; the role of tort law in the civil justice system; and the impact of tort law on the private, public and business sectors of society.

http://www.atra.org/

1101 Connecticut Avenue, NW

Suite 400

Washington, DC 20036

Phone: 202 682-1163

Fax 202 682-1022

ATRA staff includes:

Over the last couple of decades plenty of women have thought they were going into a medical clinic to get a free pregnancy test only to enter what's know as a crisis pregnancy center. Few of them offer actual health care, instead proselytizing against abortion, birth control and pre-marital sex to women at their most vulnerable. But these establishments often look like and are adjacent to Planned Parenthood or other women's clinics. They mimic these institutions to press their political agenda in the most confrontational way they can.

The right-wing Americans for Prosperity Foundation is using a similar tactic for -- wait for it -- blogger conferences.RightOnline describes itself on its website: atlantic mo  

Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States 

Jules Boykoff

http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Bullets-Suppression-Dissent-United/dp/1904859593#reader_1904859593

dep asst dir of FBI ctr terror test to senate envr and public works 2005  eco terrorist biggest threat; used animal enterprise protection act amended 2002 to go after SHAC (black sheets to clog fax)

http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Bullets-Suppression-Dissent-United/dp/1904859593#reader_1904859593

dep asst dir of FBI ctr terror test to senate envr and public works 2005  eco terrorist biggest threat; used animal enterprise protection act amended 2002 to go after SHAC (black sheets to clog fax)

cf stepanian on democ now

http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/aepa/

In 1992 Congress passed the Animal Enterprise Protection Act. It received little attention except from groups like the National Association for Biomedical Research that pushed it through.

It created the crime of “animal enterprise terrorism” for anyone who travels in “interstate or foreign commerce” (like crossing state lines or using the mail) and “intentionally damages or causes the loss of any property (including animals or records) used by the animal enterprise, or conspires to do so.”

It also spelled out sentencing guidelines:

• Causing less than $10,000 in damages means fines and/or six months in prison.
• Causing more than $10,000 in damages means fines and/or three years in prison.
• Causing “serious bodily injury” means fines and/or 20 years in prison.
• Causing human death means fines and/or a sentence of “life or for any term of years.”

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

Here’s a sample:

• 1996: Congress amended the restitution provisions of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act.
• 1999: The U.S. Senate approved an amendment to the Juvenile Justice Act that would have increased penalties under the Animal Enterprise Protection Act and created a database of “eco-terrorism” crimes. It was introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), but did not become law.
• 2001: Congressman George Nethercutt (R-WA) introduced the Agroterrorism Prevention Act. It would have increased penalties, allowed for the death penalty, and established a National Agroterrorism Incident Clearinghouse, and provided grants to colleges and universities to protect against attacks by animal rights activists. The bill didn’t make it out of subcommittee.
• 2002: Congress increased maximum penalties under the Animal Enterprise Protection Act.
• 2004: On May 18 the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing, “Animal Rights: Activism vs. Criminality,” where FBI Deputy Assistant Director John E. Lewis joined CEOs and researchers to call for stronger legislation. He said law enforcement needed more tools to go after activists, like SHAC member, who focus on “tertiary” targets in order to influence the primary company. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) objected to the hearing and said:

“When most Americans think of threats that currently face this country, we do not mean ‘animal and eco-terrorism.’ Indeed, most Americans would not consider the harassment of animal testing facilities to be ‘terrorism,’ any more than they would consider anti-globalization protestors or anti-war protestors or women’s health activists to be terrorists.”

• 2005: Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) introduced the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act to stiffen penalties and expand the original law. It would include “tertiary targets,” with the goal of “prohibiting intentional damage of property belonging to a person or organization with ties to an animal enterprise.” Representative Thomas Petri (R-WI) introduced a similar bill (my testimony before Congress on this legislation can be read here).

http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/aepa/

Undercover police had children with activists

Disclosure likely to intensify controversy over long-running police operation to infiltrate and sabotage protest groups

• Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 January 2012

Two undercover police officers secretly fathered children with political campaigners they had been sent to spy on and later disappeared completely from the lives of their offspring, the Guardian can reveal.

In both cases, the children have grown up not knowing that their biological fathers – whom they have not seen in decades – were police officers who had adopted fake identities to infiltrate activist groups. Both men have concealed their true identities from the children's mothers for many years.

One of the spies was Bob Lambert, who has already admitted that he tricked a second woman into having a long-term relationship with him, as part of an intricate attempt to bolster his credibility as a committed campaigner.

The second police spy followed the progress of his child and the child's mother by reading confidential police reports which tracked the mother's political activities and life.

The disclosures are likely to intensify the controversy over the long-running police operation to infiltrate and sabotage protest groups.

Police chiefs claim that undercover officers are strictly forbidden from having sexual relationships with the activists they are spying on, describing the situations as "grossly unprofessional" and "morally wrong".

But that claim has been undermined as many of the officers who have been unmasked have admitted to, or have been accused of, having sex with the targets of their surveillance.

Last month eight women who say they were duped into forming long-term intimate relationships of up to nine years with five undercover policemen started unprecedented legal action. They say they have suffered immense emotional trauma and pain over the relationships, which spanned the period from 1987 to 2010.

Until now it was not known that police had secretly fathered children while living undercover. One of them is Lambert, who adopted a fake persona to infiltrate animal rights and environmental groups in the 1980s.

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/20/met-crisis-activist-spying-operation

...

All seven spies shared similar modi operandi: they appeared out of nowhere, often had access to vehicles and showed an unflinching willingness to help run the logistics of protest organisation. Unlike undercover officers who penetrate serious criminal gangs, typically for no more than a few weeks or months, agents deployed in protest organisations are authorised to spend years living double lives as campaigners. Only rarely have they been asked to gather evidence for prosecutions; usually, their mandate is to gather intelligence on activists while quietly disrupting their campaigns....

Marshall’s newest documentary, made with cinematographer and co-director Sam Cullman, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (2011) tells the complex story of environmental Earth Liberation Front activist Daniel McGowan, who faced life in prison for his participation in the burning of two timber facilities

...

Later we hear another officer relate that, with the institution of Post-9/11 Homeland Security policies, the easiest way for law enforcement officers to rise up through the ranks and increase their pay scale is through terrorism enhancement cases. (Jules Boykoff, in Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States (AK Press, 2007), details how this intimidation of activists extended to police infiltration of groups that never committed a crime, and the unleashing of paid informants who acted as agent provocateurs–facilitating and encouraging the acceleration of activist actions while reporting back to their home agencies.)

FBI Top Ten List

The top ten list of most wanted domestic “terrorists” by the FBI remains focused on targeting contemporary environmental and animal rights activists, in addition to leftist activists from the 1960s/1970s. Currently three people on the list are environmental and animal right activists possibly involved in a series of ELF arsons in the Pacific Northwest. In a 2009 FBI listing of a new “domestic terrorist,” the FBI stated that “animal rights and environmental extremism pose a significant domestic terror threat. To date, extremists have been responsible for more than 1,800 criminal acts and more than $110 million in damages. Currently, we are investigating approximately 170 such extremist incidents across the country” (emphasis in original).

http://noclexington.com/?p=5186

Capital Research Group has watchdogs on greens etc