stosselbak

819

https://www.facebook.com/jeffreytucker.official  brownstone epoch times

regular readers of the _{denier roundup know this already}_, but former journalist John Stossels is now a leading disinformation producer, regularly featuring fake experts who just-so-happen to be, like Stossel, all Koch’d up.

**By Climate Denier Roundup**

But today’s _{COP, Look, Listen}_ provides some new information on Stossel’s conflicts of interest and his latest high-traction disinformation video, which “racked up, _{674k views / 23k interactions on FB}_, and_{909k view / 21k like on Twitter}_, where it was also the second most-shared post in the ‘anti-green tech’ narrative. In addition, it is being circulated as text via the Koch-funded disinfo media system, with _{Reason}_,_{the Daily Caller}_ and_{the Daily Signal}_ all publishing the piece as op-eds.”

The video was “the first _{in a series}_” attacking Electric Vehicles, and “featuresMark Mills of the_{Manhattan Institute}_, who Stossel fails to disclose has received over $1.3 million from Koch foundations since 2014 – see tax filings of _{Charles Koch Foundation}_ and _{Charles Koch Institute}_ for further detail. John Stossel’s brother Thomas is also _{a former senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute}_.”

Unsurprisingly, “the 5-minute segment is rife with _{already-debunked}_ disinformation. Mills claims that it takes mining ‘500,000 pounds’ of minerals to produce an EV battery, a point that has been comprehensively fact-checked_{by AFP}_ and_{USA Today}_. He also alleges that the adoption of 500 million EVs would only ‘reduce world oil consumption by about 10%.’ The r_{oughly 16 million EVs on the road}_ already have _{reduced oil demand by 3.5% in total}_, so 500 million would certainly lower emissions by more than an additional 6.5%.”

Stossel and Mills want viewers to think EVs are no cleaner than fossil fueled cars, but “Argonne National Laboratory_{produced a model and have a whole page}_ set up_{to do exactly this calculation}_. They found that EVs generally emit far less carbon over a 12-year lifespan.'[ani grx]

what’s more, “even in a coal-only grid, EVs come out better for the environment than diesel or petrol alternatives. In addition, a _{report from the Union of Concerned Scientists found}_ that over their lifetime, EVs produce 50 percent less Greenhouse Gasses than gas or diesel cars. No matter where in the US, an average EV is cleaner than an average gas car, and for 90% of Americans the average EV is better than even the most efficient gas alternative.”

Whoops!

Surely Stossel’s failure to do any sort of journalistic fact-checking of his guest was just an innocent mistake, right?

Perhaps! Maybe Stossel deserves the benefit of the doubt, those of you more kind and forgiving than us may suggest. But consider Stossel’s history, and see if you’re still feeling generous:

Failure to disclose financial conflicts of interest is the norm for Stossel’s content and guests. In 2017, when his company JFS Productions was revealed as _{a top contractor of the Charles Koch Institute}_, a syndicated op-ed _{defended}_ the Koch family from public criticism. In 2022, a _{two-part}_ video _{series}_ from Stosel featured Johan Norberg (_{senior fellow}_ at the Cato Institute) and Texas Tech University professor Ben Powell, who is among those involved in a _{controversial}_ department that has received _{over $6.5 million}_ from the Charles Koch Foundation. Powell is also an officer of the Koch-funded _{Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE)}_.

In 2019, a Stossel was _{critically fact checked}_, prompting him to _{unsuccessfully sue Facebook for defamation}_. The video featured a panel consisting entirely of professional climate disinformers affiliated with the _{Cato Institute}_, the _{CO2 Coalition}_, the _{Competitive Enterprise Institute}_ (CEI), _{The Heartland Institute}_ and the _{Manhattan Institute}_.

Stossle’s “Center for Independent Thought” is also totally dependent on the same funders of the groups whose representatives he promotes as “other recent donors to Stossel’s Center for Independent Thought include,” Cato and CEI funding _{Claws Foundation}_, Cato, CEI and Heartland funding  _{JP Humphreys Foundation}_, Cato and Manhattan funding  _{Jewish Communal Fund}_, Cato, CO2 Coalition, CEI, Heartland and Manhattan Institute funding _{DonorsTrust}_, and Cat, CO2 Coalition and Manhattan Institute funding _{Thomas W. Smith Foundation}_.

Those funders, according to the bulletin, “plus the Charles Koch Foundation, gave a combined total of $1,494,688 to Stossel’s Center from 2019-2020, worth 40% of its $3,783,057 revenue in that two-year period.”

So while “Stossel tries to maintain his image as a reporter, and judging by his large audience across platforms is largely succeeding in that goal. The content itself, however, is far from adhering to journalistic standards from both a factual, ethical and financial standpoint, and should be exposed at every possible opportunity.”

Normally “exposing yourself” is considered a bad thing, but in this context, it’s about the most ethical thing Stossel could do, and the only way to regain any sense of credibility if he actually wanted to be a journalist again.

(Originally appeared at DailyKos)

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/24/2130859/-Google-s-Selling-Climate-Disinfo-Ads-Despite-Policy-Against-It-YouTube-Too-Still

Google's Selling Climate Disinfo Ads, Despite Policy Against It. YouTube, Too. Still.

Daily Kos

Hate speech test case Mark Steyn interviewing pro-J6-insurrection Marc Morano and debunked-by-deniers Monckton about their recent invitation to be ...

...In October of 2021, Google announced that it was banning climate disinformation from its advertising system, including on YouTube. That (should have) meant videos denying the scientific reality that fossil fuels are causing climate change shouldn't have ads on them, and websites that publish such false claims would also be barred from using Google's ad services.

In October of 2022, it's still all too easy to find climate disinformation on YouTube that's selling ads. 

FoxNews clips that get fact checked? Still monetized. UK's version of Fox, GBNews, having a PR exec turned professional denier on to say the "'UK Government has been taken over by sleeper agents"? Making ad money.Hate speech test case Mark Steyn interviewing pro-J6-insurrection Marc Morano and debunked-by-deniers Monckton about their recent invitation to be a laughing stock? Monetized! Amateur that depends on professionals Tom Nelson's podcast videos, Alex Epstein on Glenn Beck, John Stossel tapping deceased denier Pat Michaelsto deny hurricane science, and our favorite, the canonically bad climate denial video, the Great Global Warming Swindle, that Avaaz called out in 2020, are all monetized.

And that's just on YouTube! There's also Google's sprawling advertising display business. Google gets paid to place ads on websites across the internet. Its policy against climate disinformation should mean that it doesn't place ads on websites that publish climate disinformation. And the company should care about that, because big name advertisers are very clear about not wanting their products to appear next to the casual bigotry, hatred and lies found on websites that carry climate disinformation.

But apparently a year is still not enough time for Google to actually enforce its demonetization policy, because a new report from Dewey Square Group found Google "is by far the most significant advertising supplier on websites that promote climate disinformation both in terms of the share of sites they enable and the ad traffic they monetize."

Using weekly visits as the metric, of the total 113 websites analyzed, Google ads accounted for 97.7% of the projected weekly visits. Assuming an average price, "Google would potentially have pulled in $7.6 million in display advertising revenue over the past year from such sites" the report states.

Of the top 50 climate disinfo websites by traffic, like Breitbart and The Dailies Wire and Caller, Dewey analysts found that Google was serving ads on 39 of them.

Not only is Google still monetizing climate disinfo, it's the biggest player in the game, and it's working with the biggest, most obvious publishers of harmful climate denial. 

Despite its own rule saying it explicitly would not do that. Apparently it’s less of a policy, and more of a request...

AUSTRIAN VID

Politicians want to fix the economy. So why do they keep making it worse?

REASON

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1686948485040525

prohib, term limit glen beck, pac llegal, bal buget beck, spend to get re-elected endlessly; cato; michel ricci stoss tv no nepotism; kill commerce clause naomi brockwell; hannah cox based politics nice rack; mercatus threat to lib and prospeirt, brownstone, ro ~ CU (does not ment corps] limits on pol sp entrench insiders power; right to earn living[~ union?], to stop govt from stealing from you pac legal; AA does not support hate sp; 2a babylon bee; state gov goldwater; em domain; ~ govt agencies; michael malice rt assemble ~ lockdowns; dave rubin; ack involves slavery

The G Word received positive reviews from critics.[9] Melissa Camacho wrote for Common Sense Media that "There's a lot to be learned here, and it's a lot more entertaining than your average civics class."[10] Nell Minow wrote in RogerEbert.com that "If we don’t believe in government, it dies. We cannot believe in it if we do not understand it, and The G Word's depictions of the best and worst of government are a welcome first step."[11] Libertarian political pundit John Stossel wrote in Reason that he felt the show was "big government propaganda."[12]

https://reason.com/2022/10/19/netflix-teams-up-with-the-obamas-to-produce-big-government-propaganda/

no lnx orig?

Netflix is paying President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama millions of dollars to produce shows for them.

:{

}:

The latest Obama documentary series is The G Word. "G" for government.

:{

}:

As Netflix documentaries go, this one is remarkably stupid. It's big government propaganda.

:{

}:

Obama begins by claiming that he does his own income taxes, saying, "It's actually easy."

:{

}:

I think he's joking, but it's not clear.

"I'm amazing at them," Obama continues hours later. "You can be, too, if you use the helpful tools found at IRS.gov."

But that's just silly. It's so complex that millions of us pay to get help.[intuit fuckery not here]

Obama's series is hosted by silly comedian Adam Conover. Conover, correctly, calls himself "an idiot."

He uses his time with the former president of the United States to make lame jokes and, at one point, to make sandwiches. He compliments Obama on how well he cuts the bread. It's not funny.

The series occasionally covers some serious issues—meat inspection, for example. But instead of honest reporting, actors do a skit suggesting that, without government, meat companies would sell us dead poisoned rats.[it did?]

"Food regulation was unbelievably successful," concludes Conover.

But food is largely safe today mostly because slaughterhouses cleaned themselves up way beyond what government requires. Companies don't want bad reputations.

One company executive showed me how they voluntarily do extra things like treat beef carcasses "with rinses and a 185-degree steam vacuum." Also, "equipment is routinely taken completely apart to be swab-tested."

By contrast, for 90 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture inspected meat with a crude process called "poke and sniff." Inspectors stuck spikes into carcasses and smelled them. They kept using the same spikes, so they sometimes spread disease. The government only stopped poke and sniff in the 1990s.

A few times, Obama's series admits that government agencies mess things up. Conover mocks the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), "not a name you normally hear after the words 'did a great job.'"

:{

}:

No, but he then claims FEMA fails because it's underfunded, saying, "How many lives could have been saved if FEMA had had the resources they needed?"

:{

}:

That's ridiculous. FEMA doesn't fail because it lacks resources. U.S. disaster relief funds have increased by billions. FEMA fails because it's a government bureaucracy, and bureaucracies do wasteful things, like bring bottles of water to hurricane victims but then leave them at an airport.

:{

}:

The private sector is more efficient.

The G Word sneers at what it calls "this philosophy that the free market should be trusted over the government." But Walmart donates supplies much more efficiently than FEMA. They employ sophisticated weather tracking that helps them determine what assets are needed where. They get things to people because they lose money if they don't.

Obama's series smears those of us who are skeptical of government handouts.

"In the wake of the civil rights movement," claims Conover, "some Americans began to resent the fact that the government was now providing assistance to black and brown citizens."

What? We didn't resent welfare because we're racists. We objected because it created a new permanent underclass.

[https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/housing-crisis/  accidently left the citation?

...Perhaps that’s why Ronald Reagan, friend to unregulated markets of any kinds, sought to humble the agency. HUD never really recovered from the 1980s, when its budget was slashed from $26 billion to $8 billion. Starting with his administration, the agency budget and its corresponding possibilities for action shrank dramatically.

Going into the Reagan years, HUD was politically vulnerable. After a cavalcade of negative press about public housing, and several high profile fights over its expansion into majority white communities, this program—and other affordable housing efforts—were attacked as ineffectual relics of the mid-20th-century liberal consensus. (...]

Handouts, President Ronald Reagan explained correctly, "discourage work."

So Obama's documentary depicts Reagan as a vicious surgeon cutting valuable government agencies, throwing them into a bucket labeled "free market."

:{

}:

But government wasn't cut under Reagan. Federal spending went up during his terms [military vs welfare? . It always goes up. At one point, the excesses were so grotesque that President Bill Clinton said, "The era of big government is over."

But it wasn't. It only grows. Today it's bigger than ever.

That's fine, says Conover, because Washington rescued us during the COVID shutdowns with "stimulus checks, small business loans, and corporate tax breaks!"

They don't mention how much of that money was stolen [by gop free mkt grover] or that their spending orgy brought 8 percent inflation.

For three hours, Obama and his sidekick say government should do more. Whatever the problem, their answer is always more government and more money.

:{

}:

Maybe someday a president will point out that government has no money of its own and that spending more than you have is a road to ruin.

https://www.todayville.com/category/opinion/john-stossel/page/2/

don’t miss a single video from Stossel TV. Sign up here: https://www.johnstossel.com/#subscribe

Libertarian journalist John Stossel created Stossel TV to explain liberty and free markets to young people. Prior to Stossel TV he hosted a show on Fox Business and co-anchored ABC’s primetime newsmagazine show, 20/20. Stossel’s economic programs have been adapted into teaching kits by a non-profit organization, “Stossel in the Classroom.” High school teachers in American public schools now use the videos to help educate their students on economics and economic freedom. They are seen by more than 12 million students every year.

Stossel has received 19 Emmy Awards and has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. Other honors include the George Polk Award for Outstanding Local Reporting and the George Foster Peabody Award

JOHN STOSSEL2 weeks ago Green governments are cracking down on chemical fertilizer. The result? Hunger.  From StosselTV The Greens’ New Target In Sri Lanka people rioted when the country slipped into extreme poverty. Why did...JOHN STOSSELJOHN STOSSEL2 weeks agoThe Full Babylon Bee Interview on Censorship, Cancel Culture & Anti-Woke ComedyJOHN STOSSEL2 months agoWhat do Trump and Trudeau share in common? Dictator Envy

JOHN STOSSEL3 months agoJohn Stossel on US Independence Day – Does The Constitution Need To Be Amended?

JOHN STOSSEL3 months agoDon’t cancel comedy

JOHN STOSSEL4 months agoHow US government policy caused our baby formula shortage

ENERGY4 months agoThe Real Reason for Record Gas Prices

HEALTH4 months agoThe Truth about GMO’s

JOHN STOSSEL5 months agoIs Wikipedia biased?

JOHN STOSSEL5 months ago John Stossel – A solution to children’s book propaganda

CONFLICT6 months agoRefugee crisis or opportunity?

FREEDOM CONVOY7 months agoOur leaders are turning our country into one of the places we used to defend people against

JOHN STOSSEL8 months agoHow US schools boards are funding Critical Race Theory and affecting young students

mike rowe, opera star:

JOHN STOSSEL9 months ago Unemployed college students beg for loan forgiveness while great careers thirst for new people

ISD report 2022

...jOHN STOSSEL

On the other side of the spectrum is John Stossel. Starting his career as a primetime TV host on ABC’s 20/20 segment, he sparked controversy for using child interviewees to push an anti-environmental stance. Stossel transitioned to Fox Business News from 2009-2016, after which his own production company became one of the top contractors for the Charles Koch Institute. The company secured over $1.5 million in Koch contracts from 2017-2019, in addition to nearly $500,000 of Koch donations to Stossel’s non-profit. He is currently suing Facebook for defamation after a fact checker debunked one of his posts, stating it contained a video with active climate disinformation. This has resulted in a reduction of ad revenue and traffic to his page. However, on Twitter Stossel received the highest average interaction per post among the 16 key accounts monitored. His 9 posts about COP26 drew an average of 905 interactions each - three times greater than the average (though this is likely due to his sparse posting relative to others, rather than any inherent quality of his content.) [twt pix]

On 1 November, as COP26 officially began in Glasgow, Stossel posted a “Paris Climate Fraud” video that amassed over 300,000 views on Twitter. Three days later, he tweeted a video of a panel presentation he hosted in 2019, organised by the polluter-funded and frequently fact checked Heartland Institute. It featured Patrick Michaels, who once guessed that around 40% of his research funding came from fossil fuels;David Legates,whose climate denial led him to be reassigned under the Trump administration; and Willie Soon, who in 2015 was outed by the New York Times for receiving over a million dollars from the fossil fuel industry to produce climate disinformation. 

This lineup of climate deniers was not new, and the video itself had already been fact checked by ClimateFeedback where it was rated to have “very low” credibility and said to use “imprecise language that misleads viewers about the scientific understanding of climate change”. However, since Twitter lacks a climate disinformation policy that would recognise and action fact checks, the clip could once again gain traction online. On 1 November, Stossel also posted a video to Facebook which has garnered over 900,000 views and frames nuclear energy as “the ONLY technology” which could help mitigate climate change. The clip once again repurposed old content which had already been fact-checked, featuring individuals who create and/or propagate climate disinformation regularly...

stossel has not slowed down with his climate disinformation efforts since COP26. On 30 November 2021, he posted a YouTube video attacking Poynter, the highly esteemed journalism institution that oversees the fact checking organisations used by Facebook (including ClimateFeedback). The transcript of the video was quickly picked up by right-wing and/or polluter-funded outlets like the Daily Signal, Heartland, TownHall and PatriotPost. In it, Stossel interviews other figures known for spreading anti-science misinformation: a contributing editor at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, as well as Michael Shellenberger and Bjorn Lomborg who are covered in further detail below.

https://grassrootbeer.substack.com/

i've been corresponding with lawyers from Koch Industries and the Stand Together Chamber of Commerce in recent weeks, as they answer my requests for IRS tax filings from organizations controlled by Charles Koch.

Beyond the dizzying complexity of how these 50+ organizations and companies are structured, there’s one tidbit in particular that caught my eye:

John Stossel is one of Charles Koch’s top contractors.

Each year since 2017, John Stossel’s company, JFS Productions, received a half million dollars to do media contract work for the Charles Koch Institute.

From 2017-2019, Koch payments to JFS Productions total $1,541,715.

These screenshots link to the source documents:

2019:

2018:

2017:

New York’s business registry lists the address of “John Stossel, Inc.” as affiliated with JFS Productions.

John Stossel’s written opinion columns often list “JFS Productions” at the bottom.

(JFS = John Frank Stossel.)

These consulting payments are in addition to $397,688 from Charles Koch’s foundations to John Stossel’s nonprofit, the Center for Independent Thought (CIT), from 2007-2019, including a $72,688 payment disclosed in the 2019 Charles Koch Foundation 990.

The 2019 IRS 990s for the Charles Koch Institute and Charles Koch Foundation were first published by David Armiak at the Center for Media and Democracy in late November.

John Stossel shifts into Koch career

John Stossel used to be a primetime TV host, on ABC’s 20/20. He sometimes made his colleagues uncomfortable when he blurred the lines between journalism and opinionated punditry. He liked to interview children for his segments, landing him in hot water when parents accused him of manipulating their kids in order to dismiss environmental concerns.

Stossel moved from ABC to the FOX Business Network in 2009.At FOX, Stossel continued to attack the validity of environmental problems.

He hosted anti-environmental “experts,” like The Heartland Institute’s Jay Lehr, who accused the US. Environmental Protection Agency of its “fraudulent” efforts to assert that air pollution still kills people. Nobody disclosed that Lehr spent three months in prison for defrauding the EPA.

In 2016, Stossel left FOX for new ventures, including with the Charles Koch Institute’s journalism fellowship program. Stossel continued to produce reassuring, paternalistic political videos on YouTube, called Stossel TV, via the Center for Independent Thought (CIT).

Stossel also took on a role atReasonTV through the Reason Foundation. Reason counted the late David Koch as a trustee for many years, until shortly before Koch’s death in August, 2019.

The Reason Foundation has received $3,927,322 from Koch foundations since 1997,including $9,813 from the Charles Koch Foundation (see p. 55 and p. 59) and $31,750 from the Charles Koch Institute in 2019.

But it’s the Koch Institute’s direct contracts with JFS Productions that indicate how Charles Koch’s wealth is a major factor in John Stossel’s post-TV career.

JFS Productions Praise for Koch

JFS Productions is responsible for Stossel’s written opinion columns that are printed in outlets all over the country. He has used his platform to defend the Koch brand, including this article from January, 2017, the year that the Charles Koch Institute began reporting half-million-dollar payments to JFS Productions.

Stossel was at it before that, too. “I wish the Kochs spent more on politics,” he said in a JFS Productions syndicated commentary from 2015, which was published by FOX News.

These are big contracts. Nonprofits filing 990s with the IRS are only required to list the top five contractors, and only for payments exceeding $50,000.

If JFS Productions wasn’t among the top five contractors in previous years, then no disclosure was required. And if Koch Industries pays John Stossel directly, that information is not disclosed.

Koch Industries, Climate, and Stossel

John Stossel lists problems he claims were overblown, in introduction to a Stossel TV clip titled “Are We Doomed?” 2019.

Knowing that Stossel is directly contracting for the Charles Koch Institute puts some of his work into a new context.

Koch Industries is defending itself in a Minnesota district court after MN Attorney General Keith Ellison named Koch in a lawsuit against oil companies that he says misled the public on matters of climate change science.

John Stossel has been a consistent critic of climate scientists and advocates for policy solutions to climate change.

Any climate policy rooted in science means reducing fossil fuel consumption quickly and dramatically. Rather than accept the nuanced conclusions of 97% of peer-reviewed research from thousands of scientists from numerous countries and institutions have determined, Stossel features simplistic and contradictory opinions of a handful of people who tend to work at Koch-funded organizations.

In November, 2019, John Stossel wrote an article on “Climate Myths” featuring two scientists who have admitted to taking money from fossil fuel companies.

Patrick Michaels is one of those people. Michaels has been paid by fossil fuel companies and downplaying climate change for longer than I have been walking.

For most of his recent career, Michaels worked at the Cato Institute. Cato was founded by Charles Koch, and it remains governed in part by a prominent Koch Industries alumna.

Koch foundations have provided Cato with $16,510,861 in funding since 1997, including 11 payments totaling $2,391,093 from the Charles Koch Foundation in 2019, and $26,000 from the Charles Koch Institute in 2019.

Stossel’s “Climate Myths” article was published six months after Michaels was pushed out of Cato, but Michaels was a repeat guest on Stossel’s various television and video programs during his Cato years. Michaels now holds fellowships at the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Koch-funded CO2 Coalition.

Stossel’s 2019 column and video also featured Willie Soon, whose expertise apparently ranges from astrophysical solar variability, to polar bear biology, to mercury pollution and public health.

The common theme for Dr. Soon’s sprawling scientific expertise seems to be that his research always concludes that climate change and pollution are not concerning. That research tends to be funded by fossil fuel interests, including Charles Koch, ExxonMobil, Southern Company, and pass-through piggy banks used to keep donors anonymous.

The 2019 “Climate Myths” column accompanied a Stossel TV video on YouTube called “Are We Doomed?” The clip attempts to undermine climate change science and questions celebrity climate advocates, likeGreta Thunberg and Al Gore. Stossel’s counter-experts included the usual suspects, Patrick Michaels, Willie Soon, and David Legates.

[Soon, Michaels, and Legates, in Stossel TV’s 2019 video, “Are We Doomed?”]

Stossel continues to produce anti-climate columns and videos.

Just last month—November, 2020—Stossel did another column and video segment, promoting a climate denial “documentary” created by the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which occasionally receives Charles Koch’s money.

And back in August, 2020, Stossel did a video called“Thank You, Fossil Fuels,” packaged with a written column that attacked the concept of “environmental racism,” following widespread racial justice protests over George Floyd’s disturbing murder by Minneapolis police.

Koch Industries owns dozens of polluting facilities located near communities that are disproportionately inhabited by people of color.

The 2020 video featured yet another spokesperson at yet another Koch-funded organization, Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute, which has received $3,352,537 from Koch foundations since 1997, including a $100,000 grant in 2019.

Now, the key question is:

What exactly is being produced by JFS Productions for the Charles Koch Institute?

This is my first research post for Grassrootbeer Investigations. Thanks for reading!

https://www.alternet.org/media/stossel-classroom-fox-news-libertarian-propaganda-pushed-americas-schools

Libertarian Pundit John Stossel Defends Price Gouging Victims of Hurricane Florence Tragedy — Here's Why He's Wrong

==

2x?

https://www.alternet.org/media/stossel-classroom-fox-news-libertarian-propaganda-pushed-americas-schools?akid=10105.17805.Zmifip&rd=1&src=newsletter800175&t=4

Two foundations that have been described as "the dark money ATM of the right" have spent more than $1 million combined funding a non-profit organization whose primary function is distributing libertarian education materials featuring Fox Business host John Stossel.

Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, the affiliated funding groups, were until recently obscure entities. But over the past month a series of reports have detailed how those organizations have paid out more than $400 million to over 1,000 conservative groups since their 1999 founding. Those reports have described how the two organizations have allowed wealthy individuals to discreetly underwrite trending conservative causes like climate change denial.

The groups have also been the primary funders behind an effort to flood American classrooms with packaged libertarian lessons branded with John Stossel's mustachioed face. In 2011, Donors Trust gave $540,000 to the Philadelphia-based Center for Independent Thought (CIT), with the funds earmarked for the distribution of "Stossel in the Classroom" teaching materials, according to IRS filings obtained by Mother Jones

...

ccording to CIT's website, its mission is to "bring the ideas of liberty to freedom-loving people around the globe." They do so primarily through the distribution of free "Stossel in the Classroom" videos, DVDs and discussion guides, which the program claims are currently used by more than 150,000 teachers in middle school, high school, and college classrooms around the country.

The 2011 Donors Trust donation made up more than two-thirds of CIT's $750,581 revenue, according to IRS filings. The Center spent $360,872 on the "Stossel" program that year, making it by far the largest of the three active programs listed on its website.

"Stossel in the Classroom" began in 1999 when Stossel was still with ABC News. It was seeded with financial support from the libertarian Palmer R. Chitester Fund and grew slowly until CIT took over the program in the mid-2000s.

CIT was a natural home for "Stossel in the Classroom." Founded with Koch money as the Libertarian Review Foundation in the 1970s, real estate developer Howard Rich took control of the organization in 1990 and gave it its current name. Rich is part of the libertarian donor elite,  founded Americans for Limited Government, and sits on the board at Cato, the Club for Growth, and the Friedman Center for Educational Choice. (Rich's wife, Andrea, runs CIT, but does not draw a salary.)

At the same time the group took over "Stossel," new right-wing funding began flowing into its coffers. While Donors Trust was its main sponsor in 2011, it has also received money from Donors Capital Fund ($500,000 from 2007 to 2010) and foundations linked to the Koch brothers.

The purpose of groups like Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund is to allow wealthy benefactors to support conservative causes anonymously. The Tides Foundation is a liberal analogue, donating millions of dollars to left-leaning groups (including Media Matters).  According to Mother Jones, whose non-profit arm has also received Tides funding, "Donors Trust's strategic intent is far narrower and more coherent than Tides'. The groups funded by Donors Trust more or less pursue the same agenda--eliminate regulations, kneecap unions, shrink government, and transfer more power to the private sector."

The Center for Public Integrity produced this graphic detailing the flow of money in recent years from Koch-backed and other right-wing foundations through Donors Trust to a variety of conservative groups:

Graphic

CIT's funders -- whoever they are -- will find nothing in their program's activities to make them question their investment in helping produce the next generation of libertarians.

The new caretakers built a slick new website, archived more videos spanning Stossel's career, instituted a professional organization of requests and distribution, and began producing specially designed economics DVDs and teaching guides.

Stossel himself provides a brief welcome message from his Fox Business studio in the first segment of 2013's DVD "Good Intentions Gone Wrong," available free on the "Stossel In The Classroom" website.

The program now offers hundreds of free clips from Stossel's shows and specials that claim to seriously address a range of academic subjects, including Art ("Why does Hollywood Hate Capitalism?"), Biology ("Debunking Food Myths"), and History ("The Real Story of Thanksgiving," which explains "how the Pilgrims were hurt by sharing").

"Stossel in the Classroom" also produces libertarian economics courses. The small team of economists that writes materials such as "Making Economics Come Alive with John Stossel" has multiple close ties to the Stavros Center for the Advancement of Free Enterprise and Economic Education at Florida State University.

The videos on the site are stacked with pundits echoing Stossel's radical laissez-faire views. A typical lesson pairs videos of Fox Business pundits tearing into a regulatory effort -- a video on the 2011 health care law features serial liar Betsy McCaughey and industrial-fan entrepreneur Bob Luddy -- with teacher's guides that ask if government regulation is necessary.

Students who answer "Yes" are unlikely to win many of the 225 cash prizes totaling $23,000 distributed annually in the "Stossel in the Classroom" essay contest. Last year's competition, entitled, "Politicians' Promises Gone Wrong," asked students to write an essay of between 500 and 1,000 words about the government's ability to deliver on its promises. Students could take either side, but the rules stipulated that the essays must reference or cite an example in Stossel's latest anti-government tract, No They Can't: Why Government Fails -- But Individuals Succeed, or his associated TV special.

Last year's winners, who received all-expenses-paid trips to New York and appeared on Stossel's show, were both home school students. The winning entry, by a 13-year-old student, used the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 as an example of harmful government overreach, and in support of her case cited a Heritage Foundation analyst who suggested that as a result of the law employers would simply hire fewer women and minorities -- thus hurting both groups. Second place honors went to an essay that built its critique of government social spending around the metaphor of a class president candidate promising free candy to the student body. "While the students may enjoy the sugar and the candidate may have won the election," wrote the 15-year-old author, "the candy may give them cavities at the expense of the taxpayer."

It is unclear whether John Stossel is being paid for his role as the face of "Stossel in the Classroom." CIT did not return calls regarding $230,000 in expenses for the program categorized on its tax returns as "Other." Fox Business and Stossel himself likewise did not respond to requests for comment.

==

smoking gun overview ebell

http://www.alternet.org/environment/how-trump-ally-myron-ebell-spread-misinformation-big-tobacco-and-big-oil

==

==

omg primary on educationevil pendingJohn Stossel pseudo- investigative reporter?  parallels to penn & teller?ABC any connection to entine? Prime Time catch a predator BS?  =ironic given robt downey?--- ==Stossel: Lung cancer and meJohn Stossel By John Stossel  Published April 27, 2016  FoxNews.com (FBN)Last week’s column on my lung surgery struck a nerve. Many of you wished me well. Others said I deserve to die.  “He likes free markets?” sneered one Internet commenter. “In a truly free market, society wouldn’t subsidize the cost of his smoking. In a truly free market, he’d be dead.” No, I wouldn’t be dead. In a real free market, I would pay for my own care and that Also, I’ve never smoked cigarettes. Some people who don’t smoke get lung cancer too. The angriest comments were in the Washington Post: “Stossel should ask for his money back and the doctors should put cancer back into his lungs. That's what happens in a consumer-driven market, right?” I am grateful for my hospital's lifesaving technology and the skills of some of my caregivers. But it would be better if hospitals were as efficient as FedEx and most of what's offered by the private sector. People can get very unhinged when libertarians argue that markets work better. “HOW would that work? WHO would pay the nurses and the staff that keep a hospital running?” Who do they think pays now? Government and insurance companies paying doesn’t make care “free.” Government has no money of its own; it takes it from us. Such third-party payments just hide the cost.  “Is John Stossel’s life worth more than the guy who collects my trash? … (T)urn healthcare over to his jackboot crew, only the rich will live to old age.”But it’s the shopping around -- including shopping by the rich -- that fuels the innovation and discounting that extends everyone’s lives, not just the rich. Charity will help the very poor.[Lung Cancer Overview | HealthGrove] “Let’s see him negotiate the price of chemo vs surgery when he’s in the ambulance on way to hospital … Medical care is not amenable to usual market forces.”But it is. Patients wouldn’t need to negotiate from the ambulance because such decisions would have already been made for them by thousands of previous patients, especially the 2 percent who pay closest attention. Word would get around that hospital X is a rip-off but hospital Y gives better treatment for less. Doctors would advertise prices. Rating agencies would evaluate them for quality. Everyone will know more. A hospital worker complained about this “customer mentality. A hospital is NOT a restaurant. It is not Burger King. You don’t get to have it your way.” Why not? Must we just passively take what we’re handed when it comes to medicine, even though we’d never accept that with hamburgers? Medical patients tolerate indifferent service the way people tolerate waiting at the post office. The Postal Service, we were told, can’t possibly make a profit, get it there overnight, etc. Then came UPS and FedEx. Competition showed what is possible. “Stossel may think he’s getting ‘excellent medical care’,” writes Cato Institute health care analyst Michael Cannon.“But he doesn’t know it, and neither do his doctors, because there is no market system to show how much better it could be … In a market system, competition would push providers to strive to keep patients from falling through these cracks … In our system, there is no such pressure on providers … because the real customer is government. As a result, few patients know how unsafe American medicine is.”Cannon warns, “Without that information, patients -- even when they are smart, skeptical and wealthy like Stossel -- are constantly consenting to inferior care.”A few extra-savvy consumers might be aware that my hospital got a “B” rating on Leapfrog Group’s Hospital Safety Score, and, says Cannon, it rates New York-Presbyterian “below average” in nine categories, including collapsed lungs and surgical site infections. “Did Stossel know about these safety measures before he chose New York-Presbyterian?”  No, I didn’t.I am grateful for my hospital’s lifesaving technology and the skills of some of my caregivers. But it would be better if hospitals were as efficient as FedEx and most of what’s offered by the private sector.My local supermarket is open 24/7. They rarely make me wait, prices are low, there’s plenty of choice and they rarely poison me.That’s what competition brings -- if people pay with their own money.John Stossel is the host of "Stossel" (Fridays at 9 PM/ET), a weekly program highlighting current consumer issues with a libertarian viewpoint. Stossel also appears regularly on Fox News Channel (FNC) providing signature analysis. Click here for more information on John Stossel.http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelcannon/2016/04/22/john-stossel-is-battling-cancer-look-whos-making-it-harder/#1cd3a9185854grnpeacehttp://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-deniers/front-groups/center-for-independent-thought-stossel-in-the-classroom/$155,000 received from Koch foundations 2005-2013 [Total Koch foundation grants 1997-2013: $155,000]The Center for Independent Thought (CIT) owns and operates Stossel in the Classroom, the teaching series for middle and high school teachers based on the punditry of John Stossel, a FOX Business host who consistently denies the scientific evidence of global warming. CIT also serves as a pass-through organization for grants to Koch-affiliated organizations, according to CIT’s tax filings. The 2009 edition of ABC News’ Stossel in the Classroom featured a segment explicitly telling students there is still debate “about whether or not human activity is the cause” of climate change (14 years prior to the Stossel lesson, even ‘conservative’ scientific authorities like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change considered climate change proven beyond reasonable doubt by 1995).The Stossel in the Classroom segment included numerous debunked arguments, such as atmospheric CO2 changes lag behind temperature changes or that global warming is caused by the Sun. Stossel featured several scientists with direct or indirect ties to fossil fuel companies and front groups, including John Christy, Tim Ball and Roy Spencer, who famously labeled those who recognize climate science to be “Global Warming Nazi’s.” Stossel mocks the notion of a “denial machine,” or a network of groups and people paid by fossil fuel interests to create doubt over climate science.Teachers using the Stossel lesson plan were encouraged to ask questions such as, “If there is overwhelming evidence that global warming is a trend that will worsen and that we are causing it, why are people such as John Stossel questioning it?” The Stossel lesson plan encourages students to discuss quotes from people like Fred L Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and instructs students to use the Internet to find the “Oregon Petition,” a misleading petition co-published by the Exxon-funded George C. Marshall Institute.Complimenting its misleading portrayal of climate science, Stossel in the Classroom has promoted fossil fuel use. The program hosted  energy industry consultant Alex Epstein, who is paid by energy companies to claim that “fossil fuels improve the planet,” gave a platform for author Jason Mattera that hollywood celebrities promote the “scam” of climate science, and hosted a discussion on “energy independence” with pundits from fossil-fuel funded think tanks (Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute and Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute).Through its funding and management, CIT and John Stossel are woven into Charles Koch’s political influence network. CIT past and present board members include longtime friends and fellow donors within the Koch network, such as Wisconsin Club for Growth director  Eric O’Keefe, and Cato Institute executive David Boaz, and New Year real estate mogel Howie Rich, married to CIT president Andrea Rich.Even the content of Stossel in the Classroom is a direct product of Koch political institutions. According to Counterpunch, professors in the Koch-funded economics department at George Mason University, as well as the Koch-controlled organizations hosted by GMU–the Mercatus Center and the Institute for Humane Studies–are involved in creating material for Stossel and staffing his program.Organizations founded and controlled by Charles Koch work closely with John Stossel, including the Cato Institute and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. These organizations provide material and pundits that promote anti-regulatory, pro-corporate policies that mirror Koch’s preferences. CIT acts as a pass-through for grants to the Cato Institute, the Reason Foundation and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. CIT itself increasingly hides its own funding through dark money funnels like DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, according to Media Matters.John Stossel himself has participated in conferences put on by top climate denial organizations, such asThe Heartland Institute and Americans for Prosperity.OMG challenger crypto hedge find?Stossel in the Classroom 1420 Walnut Street, Suite 1011 Philadelphia , PA 19102 Check to: Center for Independent Thought, Inc. To support the Center for Independent Thought's media project "Stossel in the Classroom." Using educational and engaging segments from John Stossel of Fox News, the project provides teachers with thought-provoking programs that stimulate lively classroom discussions on such subjects as free market economics, foreign aid, price gouging, andschool choice. Students are motivated to question conventional wisdom, gather and analyze information, and distinguish between fact and opinion. Total $25,0002007 stosselABC's Stossel Takes on Gore Movie, Talks to Dissenting ScientistsBy Brad Wilmouth | October 20, 2007 | 1:26 PM EDT On Friday's "20/20," ABC's John Stossel presented the views of scientists who dissent from the Al Gore view of global warming, including two former members of the IPCC – the committee which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Gore. These scientists disagreed with the selection process of the committee's members and some of its conclusions. The ABC host disputed some of the claims in "An Inconvenient Truth," and even presented the view that increased carbon dioxide levels are the result of global warming, rather than the cause, as he took on Gore's famous graph from the movie. Stossel: "But the real inconvenient truth is that carbon increases came after temperature rose -- usually hundreds of years later. Temperature went up first. I wanted to ask Mr. Gore about that and other things, but he wouldn't agree to talk about this." Video of the segment can be seen here. (Transcript follows) The ABC host introduced his regular "Give Me a Break" segment: "You've heard the reports. The globe is warming. And it's our fault. And the consequences will be terrible. But you should know there is another side to this story. And scientists who've tried to tell it are often threatened. Which makes me say, 'Give Me a Break.'" Then came a number of clips of journalists relaying the purported danger of global warming, and clips of children expressing their fears of the future. After arguing that "An Inconvenient Truth" was incorrect or misleading in the way it presented the dangers of rising sea levels and the plight of polar bears in the Arctic, the ABC host then got to the movie's famous graph that the former Vice President used to argue that higher carbon dioxide levels cause temperatures to increase. Stossel: "I knew that carbon dioxide's thought to amplify temperature increases, but this shows a clear cause an effect. For 600,000 years, when carbon rose, so did temperature. It suggests that carbon levels control temperature. But the real inconvenient truth is that carbon increases came after temperature rose -- usually hundreds of years later. Temperature went up first. I wanted to ask Mr. Gore about that and other things, but he wouldn't agree to talk about this."Stossel presented several scientists who dispute contentions by Gore and others that "the debate is over" on global warming. These scientists included Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute, Tim Ball of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, and John Christy and Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama. Stossel relayed their contentions that global warming and cooling trends have happened in the past, and related that the media had "fretted about that then, too." Stossel: "Climate changes, they point out. It always has -- with or without man. Early last century, even without today's big output of carbon dioxide, the Arctic went through a warm period. The media fretted about that then, too. And Greenland's temperatures rose 50 percent faster in the 1920s than they're rising now. Some scientists say the warming may be caused by changes in the sun or ocean currents or changes in cloud cover. Or other things we don't understand. The debate is not over." More on the media's history of reporting on warming and cooling trends over the last century can be found in a May 2005 report by the MRC's Business and Media Institute. Reiter and Christy had notably been members of the IPCC, and they were critical of the way governments chose the members of the committee, some of whom were merely activists instead of scientists, suggesting that politics had played too great a role. STOSSEL: Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute and John Christy say they were members of the IPCC. That so-called group of scientists, they say, is not what people think it is. REITER: The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is governments who nominate people. You'll find in many chapters that there are people who are not scientists at all. STOSSEL: Who are they? REITER: They were essentially activists. STOSSEL: Members of groups like Greenpeace were involved. And when the IPCC report came out, not all its members agreed with what was said. Reiter further said that he had resigned from the committee in protest because he disagreed with some of the report's findings, and had to threaten a lawsuit against the IPCC to have his name removed from the report, although, according to Stossel, the IPCC disputes this account.Stossel then dealt with the issue of these types of global warming dissenters being "smeared as deniers," as those who support the more liberal view of global warming seek to compare their way of thinking to that of Holocaust deniers. STOSSEL: Today, scientists like these are often smeared as "deniers." UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We have Holocaust deniers, we have climate change deniers. And to be honest, I don't think there's a great deal of difference. LINDA DOUGLAS, ABC News: Deniers are confusing the issue and delaying solutions. Last August, "Newsweek" ran a cover story attacking the global warming "denial machine," and the "NBC Nightly News" soon ran its own story with the same theme. After recounting that many global warming activists, like Al Gore and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., try to discredit skeptics by accusing them of "being purchased by a 'well-funded denial machine,'"  these scientists were shown denying that they receive any money because of their views, as they contended that, rather than being rewarded for their views, they have faced harassment and threats. Stossel summed up his report: "Is this what the global warming debate has come to? One side saying, 'Shut up, dissent must not be heard'? The truth is that, while everyone agrees the earth has warmed, lots of good scientists don't agree that it's mostly our fault, and don't agree that it's going to be a catastrophe." Below is a complete transcript of Stossel's "Give Me a Break" segment from the Friday October 19 "20/20": JOHN STOSSEL: You've heard the reports. The globe is warming. And it's our fault. And the consequences will be terrible. But you should know there is another side to this story. And scientists who've tried to tell it are often threatened. Which makes me say, "Give Me a Break." MATT LAUER, Today Show: -the world is heating up fast, and we have ourselves to blame. DAWNA FRIESEN, Today Show: -global warming is real, and we humans are almost certainly the cause. STOSSEL: Books warn that the earth is under fire, a suicidal planet's approaching a boiling point and a toxic burn. Children are frightened. UNIDENTIFIED GIRL #1: I worry. My mom worries. UNIDENTIFIED GIRL #2: The water might rise, and it might flood the whole town. UNIDENTIFIED BOY #1: We won't be able to survive for long. STOSSEL: And people say since global warming is because of man, it must be fixed by man now. UNIDENTIFIED MAN in ad, standing in front of a moving train: Some say irreversible consequences are 30 years away. STOSSEL: This Ad Council PSA says ignoring the coming crisis is like putting our kids in front of a train. MAN: That won't affect me. [The man steps off the track and leaves his daughter in front of the moving train.] STOSSEL: What do you most worry will happen? UNIDENTIFIED BOY #2: We'll all die. STOSSEL: Are there some people who say this isn't true? [Several children who are gathered say, "Yes."] STOSSEL: Might they be right? [Nearly all the children gathered say, "No."] STOSSEL: How do you know they're not right? UNIDENTIFIED GIRL #3: Well, because the Earth is getting hotter. STOSSEL: Where do you learn this? UNIDENTIFIED BOY #1: I saw the Al Gore video. JERRY SEINFELD, at the Academy Awards: And the Oscar goes to An Inconvenient Truth. STOSSEL: The global warming documentary featuring Vice President Al Gore has been seen by millions. People have proclaimed him a prophet, a cultural icon, a conquering hero. LEONARDO DICAPRIO: You are a true champion for the cause, Mr. Gore. STOSSEL: And last week, he won a Nobel Peace Prize. The Oscars were followed by other worldwide media events. GORE: You are Live Earth. STOSSEL: With all this hoopla, it's no surprise that 86 percent of Americans say global warming is a serious problem. JOHN EDWARDS: Global warming is now, by anybody's measure, a crisis. STOSSEL: But is it a crisis? Yes, the globe is warming, but is it really all our fault? And is it true that the debate is over? No. What you think you know, may not be so. For example, in An Inconvenient Truth, Gore says if we allow the globe to warm, terrible things will happen. And: AL GORE: Sea level worldwide would go up 20 feet. UNIDENTIFIED BOY #3: Yeah, maybe like the height of this building. UNIDENTIFIED GIRL #4: We'll probably just, like, drown, and we'll die. GORE: This is what would happen to the sea level in Florida. This is what would happen to San Francisco Bay. STOSSEL: Maybe. Maybe in thousands of years, says the IPCC, the group that shared last week's Nobel Prize with the Vice President. But in 100 years, the oceans might rise 7 to 24 inches, not 20 feet. GORE: A faster buildup of heat here. STOSSEL: Mr. Gore also talks about melting ice caps. GORE: That's not good for creatures like polar bears- STOSSEL: They show this heart-rending cartoon. [Cartoon of a polar bear swimming to floating ice and trying to get on, but it breaks leaving the bear in the water.] GORE: A new scientific study shows that for the first time, they're finding polar bears that have actually drowned. STOSSEL: But I bet you didn't know that polar bears appear to be doing all right. Future warming may hurt them, but right now, the World Conservation Union and the U.S. Geological Survey say most populations of polar bears are stable or increasing. GORE: There is one relationship that is far more powerful than all the others- STOSSEL: The most impressive demonstration in Mr. Gore's movie is the big graph of carbon dioxide levels. GORE: Here's what the temperature has been on our Earth. Now, one thing that kind of jumps out at you is: Did they ever fit together? STOSSEL: My goodness! I knew that carbon dioxide's thought to amplify temperature increases, but this shows a clear cause and effect. For 600,000 years, when carbon rose, so did temperature. It suggests that carbon levels control temperature. But the real inconvenient truth is that carbon increases came after temperature rose -- usually hundreds of years later. Temperature went up first. I wanted to ask Mr. Gore about that and other things, but he wouldn't agree to talk about this. Why should he when he and others say- GORE: The debate's over. UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The science is agreed upon. Governor ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R-CA): The debate is over, and the science is in. PAUL REITER, Pasteur Institute: It's absurd for people to say that sort of thing. It's really wrong. STOSSEL: These scientists are among those who say the debate is by no means over. John Christie and Roy Spencer won NASA's Medal for Exceptional Achievement for figuring out how to get temperature data from satellites. They agree that the Earth has warmed. JOHN CHRISTY, University of Alabama: We all agree that it's warmed, I think. The big question is, and the thing that we dispute, is: Is it because of mankind? STOSSEL: Climate changes, they point out. It always has -- with or without man. Early last century, even without today's big output of carbon dioxide, the Arctic went through a warm period. The media fretted about that then, too. And Greenland's temperatures rose 50 percent faster in the 1920s than they're rising now. Some scientists say the warming may be caused by changes in the sun or ocean currents or changes in cloud cover. Or other things we don't understand. The debate is not over. And, anyway, who's to say that yesterday's temperature was the perfect one. If temperatures keep rising now, these scientists say we don't know that that will be all bad. TIM BALL, Natural Resources Stewardship Project: The fact is, when the climate changes, there are gains and there are losses. STOSSEL: But Tim Ball, who studies the history of climate change, points out that all we hear about is the bad news from the IPCC, that massive group of global warming scientists. RICHARD BRANSON: 2,000 scientists. LESTER HOLT, NBC News: 2,000 scientists. FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN: 2,500 scientists say the globe is getting warmer and we are to blame. REITER: There's the most unmitigated rubbish talked about- STOSSEL: Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute and John Christy say they were members of the IPCC. That so-called group of scientists, they say, is not what people think it is. REITER: The IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is governments who nominate people. You'll find in many chapters that there are people who are not scientists at all. STOSSEL: Who are they? REITER: They were essentially activists. STOSSEL: Members of groups like Greenpeace were involved. And when the IPCC report came out, not all its members agreed with what was said. ROY SPENCER, University of Alabama: We were not asked to look at a particular statement and sign our names to it at all. REITER: I got very frustrated, and I resigned. STOSSEL: But the IPCC still listed Reiter as part of the so-called consensus. REITER: I contacted the IPCC and said, "Look, I've resigned. I don't want to have anything more to do with this." And they said, "Well, you've been involved, so you're still on the list." STOSSEL: Only when he threatened to sue, he says, did they take his name off the report. The IPCC denies that that happened. Today, scientists like these are often smeared as deniers. UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We have Holocaust deniers, we have climate change deniers. And to be honest, I don't think there's a great deal of difference. LINDA DOUGLAS, ABC News: Deniers are confusing the issue and delaying solutions. STOSSEL: Often they're accused of being purchased by a "well-funded denial machine." ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: These corporate toadies lying to you and telling you that global warming doesn't exist. GORE: The illusion of a debate has been purchased with millions of dollars a year- STOSSEL: Aren't you guys all on the take? BALL: I wish I was. I wouldn't be driving a 1992 car and living in a leaky apartment. STOSSEL: These scientists all say they don't get any money from business, yet some have been threatened. One email said, "You will not live long enough to see global warming." BALL: And even more direct than that. REITER: We stick our necks out. We do get hurt. STOSSEL: Is this what the global warming debate has come to? One side saying, "Shut up, dissent must not be heard." The truth is that, while everyone agrees the earth has warmed, lots of good scientists don't agree that it's mostly our fault, and don't agree that it's going to be a catastrophe. So when the Nobel Prize winner says- GORE: The debate's over. The debate's over. STOSSEL: I say, "Give Me a Break."tags:EnvironmentGlobal WarmingWeatherABC20/20An Inconvenient Truthhttp://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/brad-wilmouth/2007/10/20/abcs-stossel-takes-gore-movie-talks-dissenting-scientistsFox News: John Stossel supporting e-cigarettes | E-Cigarette Forumwww.e-cigarette-forum.com › ... › Media and General News                                            Fox News e-cig study goes up in smokeJan 24, 2015E-cigarettes: Some say vaping e-cigarettes is worse than smoking ...May 30, 2013Great Article by John StosselNov 17, 2011E cigs on Stossel showJan 28, 2011More results from www.e-cigarette-forum.comThe FDA Kills Smokers - Reason.comreason.com/archives/2011/11/17/the-fda-kills-smokers ReasonNov 17, 2011 - Banning e-cigarettes won't save lives. ... like cigarettes, but instead of burning tobacco, they vaporize liquid nicotine when users puff on, or "vape," them. ... To find out more about John Stossel, visit his site at johnstossel.com.Fox News: John Stossel Supporting E-Cigarettes - Vaping In The ...www.vaportalk.com › ... › Vaping In The News == BRO: Thomas S. Allems, M.D., M.P.H.San Francisco, Calif. MMM>Features>Headliner: Harvard Medical School's Tom StosselMATTHEW ARNOLDAUGUST 14, 2009FEATURESHeadliner: Harvard Medical School's Tom StosselShare this article:facebooktwitterlinkedingoogleDownload: Headlinerv2_sept09.pdf Tom Stossel, MD, the Harvard Medical School professor who took a brave and lonely stand for the value of industry-sponsored CME before a hostile Senate committee in July, seems an unlikely activist. Heck, Stossel laughs, an unlikely doctor. “I scored with the control gerbils on my math MCATS,” says Stossel, “but I figured out how to do the clinical part well, and I probably would have gone into practice if it hadn't been for the Vietnam War. Somehow, instead of an Army hospital, he ended up at the NIH, where he launched pioneering research into cell crawling before moving to Harvard, where he practices and teaches hematology. He also moonlighted as a diplomatic diagnostician. In 1976, the State Department shipped him to Moscow to study blood anomalies in embassy staff (he found that the cause was microbial, not radiation, as was feared, and that Soviet life was indeed miserable and oppressive). He was also tapped to treat Algerian leader Houari Boumedienne for a mysterious blood disorder. In 1987, he joined the scientific advisory board of Biogen, which allowed him to apply some of his research insights. It also gave him a window onto industry ethics. “These business people were really honest compared to some of my academic colleagues, who'd run their grandmothers over,” he says. “About this time, this outpouring of anti-industry activism began to impose barriers between researcher-industry collaboration, and I got obsessed with it.” Stossel's clinical practice has deepened his appreciation of industry contributions to care. “Medicine is so incomparably better than when I started, ” says Stossel, “not because it's better regulated but because of the incredible tools they've gotten from industry.” He began writing op-ed pieces, but says for a few years, “I thought that I was mostly talking to myself.” He was recently recruited by the free markets-boosting Manhattan Institute as a senior fellow, and in July, he helped found the Association of Clinical Researchers and Educators (ACRE), which bills itself as “an organization of medical professionals dedicated to the advancement of patient care through productive collaboration with industry and its counterparts.” “Finally, people are beginning to have skin in the game, and they realize where all this regulation is going,” says Stossel. ACRE's debut conference, held in Boston on July 23, was standing room only, says Stossel. It focused on product-based speaking bans and the new Massachusetts law on industry-physician contact. A week later, Stossel gamely defended industry-physician collaboration before a Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing titled “Medical Research and Education: Higher Learning or Higher Earning.” “Sen. Kohl, who's been very critical of the industry, seemed to get that we shouldn't be throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” he says hopefully. Some of the blame for the industry's bad rap belongs to pharma companies, says Stossel. “They've been wimpy with the pharmascolds,” a term he co-coined for industry critics. “If you don't vigorously rebut them, people think you must have something to hide.” Stossel's the centrist of his accomplished clan—not a “card-carrying libertarian” like his brother John, host of ABC's 20/20. Stossel's wife, Kerry, just left Tom's of Maine after a long stint leading professional advocacy. Their two kids, Sage and Scott, work for The Atlantic Monthly. He and Kerry travel to Zambia several times a year to deliver medical and dental care to residents of a remote chiefdom. “I've done 10,000 fluoride treatments on kids,” says Stossel, who has also worked on addressing sickle cell anemia there. “It takes my mind off of conflict of interest.” ----food fight tv show Caroline Clausen...Herself - Second Place Essay Winner Pierre Desrochers...Himself Jon Entine...Himself - Center for Health and Risk Communication Michael Hanson...Himself - Consumer Reports Senior Scientist legithttp://consumersunion.org/experts/michael-hansen/ Whitney Lauritsen...Herself Baylen Linnekin...Himself - Founder, Keep Food Legal Madeline Peltzer...Herself - First Place Essay Winner Nina Teichelz...Herself Robb Wolf...Himself ---The Pro-Industry ProfessorProfessor Thomas P. Stossel defends pharmaceutical companiesBy LAURA G. MIRVISS, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER April 24, 20091For the first third of his medical career, Thomas P. Stossel says he was your “typical academic socialist”—buried in research and clinical work. He won recognition for discovering the sixth most common protein in the blood in 1979 and has spent 30 years trying to unravel its function. But outside his speciality of hematology, Stossel—who heads the Translational Medicine Division at Harvard affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital—is known for something far more controversial than the protein “filamin A.” Amid a wave of new regulations regarding physician-industry ties, Stossel has stood largely alone as a vocal and vehement opponent of new oversight at the Medical School, where he says administrators have blindly accepted new rules to quiet recent controversies over such relationships. Concerns about industry ties—which have gathered steam nationwide in recent years—erupted at the Medical School last fall after students protested what they alleged were undisclosed and unethical conflicts of interest in their classes, drawing national media attention. But Stossel says the media coverage, which helped prompt new policies at some of Harvard’s largest affiliated hospitals, was off base and ignored the positive contributions of industry—and he hasn’t kept those opinions to himself. He argues that the current activism is not supported by the data—citing a small survey reporting that 80 percent of patients do not care if their physicians have pharmaceutical companies ties—and that maligning industry investment will only inhibit scientific progress. But those stances have drawn fire from many of Stossel’s colleagues, who say academic medicine has long suffered from ethical breeches because ties to industry have gone unregulated, and that Stossel’s statements ignore the potential for bias introduced by industry involvement. “Rather than take on our central premise, he says how indispensable industry is to churning out new products,” says David J. Rothman, who directs the center for the Study of Science and Medicine at Columbia University. “What we are saying is that you need to make sure there are firewalls between industry and medicine.” But Stossel says that in the rush to quell protest at Harvard Medical School, the interests of physicians and industry have been brushed aside—preventing open debate and key stakeholders from having any say in the policies. Now, with new regulations at some Harvard hospitals and a Massachusetts state law going into effect this July that ban gifts and requires public disclosure of all industry funding over $50, Stossel says he hopes there will be a backlash from affected physicians. “Now there’s some skin in the game,” he says. “It’s an opportunity to politely suggest some things that might be changed.” ‘PHARMASCOLDS’ Stossel says he first learned about industry’s impact on the medical profession after joining the advisory board of Biogen Idec Inc., a Cambridge biotechnology company. Despite their contribution to science, Stossel says his colleagues’ practices at Biogen would have violated current conflict of interest codes today. About the time he joined Biogen’s board, there was an incident at the Harvard affiliated Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary that he says precipitated the movement to combat conflict of interest in medicine. Stossel says he was disturbed by the portrayal of the event, and that reality was being hijacked—so he decided to start educating himself about the issues. “For 20 years, I just read all the books, and fumed and fussed,” he says. He says that after the Los Angeles Times blasted some of his colleagues, and the National Institutes of Health imposed a blanket ban on consulting, he decided to come out and write his first op-ed defending industry’s role in medicine. And as his own hospital has put in place more stringent regulations, he has continued his advocacy, fascinated, he says, by the “quasi-religious” coterie of advocates who catapulted conflict of interest issues into the spotlight. But he adds that those in favor of regulation retain the upper-hand because the path of least resistance for academic leadership is to try to curb dissent—which he says explains the changes at Harvard’s affiliates. “If there is a big ruckus going on, and the students are running amuck, and the media is hyping it up, and Senator Grassley is nosing around, all you care about is quieting this down,“ he says And he said that he never hears from the “pharmascolds,” despite frequently criticizing them in public, who he says prefer to present the issue as if there is no dissent. “I’m not a total nutcase,” he says. “I’m not saying that the world is flat or that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS—I think I have data and logic—it’s contrarian logic, but it’s logic.” ‘DEMONIZING INDUSTRY’ While his opponents certainly agree Stossel’s arguments are contrarian, not all consider them grounded in logic.Rothman, the Columbia professor, says that Stossel is the master of the “straw man” argument, constructing the rationale for conflict of interest regulations to aid his position.“He makes it out like we are demonizing industry,” Rothman says.Rothman says that Stossel bases his attacks on the movement on a misinterpretation that its supporters seek the abolishment of pharmaceutical and drug device relationships in medicine—a charge he called absurd. “What we want is careful regulation of marking activities in industry,” he says. “We don’t want to put industry out of business, but we want to make sure their marketing activities are not conflated with their educational activities.” In particular, he says that professional medical societies giving out bags and pens with drug companies names is a particularly egregious practice that merits heavy regulation. “We don’t think that doctors should be walking advertisements for industry,” he says. Though Stossel says biased medicine is in no one’s best interest, he disagrees with using regulation to prevent it, arguing that physicians should be free to determine on their own if the gift is a bribe. But on physicians ghostwriting pharmaceutical studies—another contentious ethical issue—Stossel is not nearly so far from the medical mainstream, saying that honorary authorship, in which doctors simply sign their name to a document written by industry employees, is wrong. But Stossel says such incidents are rare. And in keeping with his contrarian positions, Stossel says he has few qualms about less extreme forms of ghostwriting, in which big pharmaceutical companies hire professionals to write a draft of the findings from multi-million dollar clinical studies. Harlan M. Krumholz, a professor of cardiology and public health at Yale, who has written extensively on ghostwriting, says that the degree to which he has seen ghostwriting and other distortion tactics used constitutes a major problem for medicine. He adds that arguments like Stossel’s miss the purpose of conflict of interest regulation by perpetuating a false perception that physicians are either for or against pharmaceutical companies. Krumholz says the debate is not about whether industry should be involved in medicine at all, but rather what interactions are ethical, a question the profession must answer if it is to retain patients’ confidence. “We have case after case of problems,” he says. “We need to restore trust and be transparent about these relationships.” As Medical School Dean Jeffrey S. Flier revisits Harvard policy, Stossel says, it is important to not overdo regulation to appease protesters. He says he would like the rules to be like the constitution: simple. “Let’s get data, lets be flexible,” he says. “If people do bad things, shoot them. The rules we have now are as if you couldn’t have a car that ever exceeds the speed limit.” Stossel adds he is not holding his breath for policy he finds acceptable, but he feels that the Dean is trying to be reasonable. “I hope the message will get across that has to be done in a different way,” he says. “You will never please the critics.... You cannot please everybody and cure cancer.” —Staff writer Laura G. Mirviss can be reached at lmirviss@fas.harvard.edu. For recent research, faculty profiles, and a look at the issues facing Harvard scientists, check out The Crimson's science page. =3. Fire DepartmentsLibertarian John Stossel (a host on the Fox Business Channel and writer for FoxNews.com) has long been a proponent of privatizing fire departments, which he believes would lower Americans’ tax burden and make them safer. As Stossel sees it, privatization would make firefighting more efficient. But the subscription-based privatized firefighting model can have disastrous results.In 1996, the village of Rye Brook, NY (which is about 30 miles from Manhattan) made the mistake of hiring the Rural/Metro Fire Department (a private company) to fight fires—prior to that, firefighter protection in Rye Brook was handled by the fire department of nearby Port Chester, NY. But Rye Brook returned to public-sector firefighting only two years later after a $1 million home was destroyed by fire—perhaps avoidably. Salvatore M. Cresenzi, Rye Brook’s mayor at the time, acknowledged that Rye Brook’s deal with Rural/Metro “was not a success [7]”—and public-sector firefighters’ unions asserted that the home could have been saved had Rural/Metro operated more efficiently in Rye Brook.Seventeen years later in August 2013, there was another horror story involving Rural/Metro—this time in Surprise, Arizona (a Phoenix suburb), where Justin and Kasia Purcell lived in a mobile home. Two weeks after their home burned to the ground, the Purcells received a bill for $19,825 from Rural/Metro because they had not paid the annual subscription Rural/Metro charges for firefighter service in Surprise. But the Purcells told the Huffington Post they had no idea such a service existed [8] and that they would have gladly paid the annual fee had they known.The Purcells’ nightmare is a classic example of why the public is much better served by an “all for one/one for all” approach to firefighting: people pay taxes, and firefighting is among the things those taxes cover. Period. And there are no outrageous bills for $19,825 when your home burns to the ground.  altner 5/14=http://www.desmogblog.com/tags/john-stosselFox News host John Stossel says that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has passed its prime, and is no longer useful. After the Obama Administration last week overruled the EPA’s smog regulations, Stossel took to the airwaves on the Fox Business Channel to tell us that the EPA is no longer a worthwhile organization. Stossel told us: “Thank goodness for the EPA…The air and water are cleaner than they use to be. But they passed those rules. It’s diminishing returns. They have done a wonderful job, stop already. Stick a fork in it, it’s done.”  2007:No, Stossel shouldn't be embarrassed, he's well past that point. ABC News should be though, over Stossel's climate change denial piece set to air tonight. Stossel writes:But is it a crisis? The globe is warming, but is it really all our fault? And is it true the debate is over? No. What you think you know may not be so."Seriously, I honestly thought we were moving on, but I guess there's still a few media left with their heads planted firmly in the sand. Even the "experts" Stossel uses for his piece are the same handful of deniers that anyone looking to shock and provoke are prone to air. Here's background information in Stossel's tired line-up:Roy "Interfaith Science Advisor" Spencer John "just use air conditioning" Christy"Infectious" Paul ReiterTim "energy lobby" Ball Here's a challenge, Stossel, ask any of your "experts" to produce their peer-reviewed research disproving in any way the theory of human-induced climate change.   ===http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_StosselJohn Stossel - formerly co-anchor of ABC's 20/20 and host of ABC's John Stossel Specials reports for ABC radio and ABCNews.com [1] - is moving to the Fox Business Network to host a weekly prime-time program and will appear on the Fox News Channel[2]. Contents  [hide] 1 Personal life2 Moving with the Times3 Worried in America 3.1 Book4 Articles and resources 4.1 Related SourceWatch articles4.2 References4.3 External resources4.4 External articles Personal lifeStossel's older brother is Dr. Thomas P. Stossel[3] of the Manhattan Institute[4] and American Council on Science and Health.[5]Moving with the TimesIn September 1996 Stossel gave a speech to the Federalist Society in Washington, D.C. Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman reported that when it came to the question and answer session Stossel was asked: "If you believe that consumer reporting works, and is a better regulator than regulation or lawsuits, why did you stop doing it?""I got sick of it," Stossel responded. "I also now make so much money I just lost interest in saving a buck on a can of peas. Twenty years was enough. But mainly, I came to realize that the government was doing far more harm to people than business and I ought to be reporting on that. Nobody else was."In January 2004 Stossel's book - Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media - was published. "In Give Me a Break, Stossel explains how ambitious bureaucrats, intellectually lazy reporters, and greedy lawyers make your life worse even as they claim to protect your interests. Taking on such sacred cows as the FDA, the War on Drugs, and scaremongering environmental activists -- and backing up his trademark irreverence with careful reasoning and research -- he shows how the problems that government tries and fails to fix can be solved better by the extraordinary power of the free market," the promotional material proclaims. [6]Writing in LA Weekly, Greg Goldin, cited Stossel's 1996 comments in a story on a launch party for the book, noting in passing that "Stossel, sipping a vodka tonic, seemed a lot more hedonistic than his admirers". [7]Subsequently Stossel penned a letter to the editor of LA Weekly challenging that he had been drinking a vodka tonic and that he had made the comments: "The alleged source of that quote was a 1996 speech I gave to the Federalist Society in which I supposedly said that I stopped consumer reporting because 'I got sick of it. … I also now make so much money, I just lost interest in saving a buck on a can of peas.' That doesn't sound like anything I've said and certainly doesn't reflect the reasons I shifted my focus from consumer reporting to government programs and lawyers (I shifted because I concluded they do more harm to consumers than business). The transcript of this speech that the Federalist Society supplied does not include the quote." <[8]In an April 2004 column, Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman reported that they had both a transcript and tape of his comments in the question and answer session. [9]Goldin also reported that at his Los Angeles book launch a man in the audience challenged Stossel's exhortations on the benefits of free market capitalism. "During the electrical crisis L.A. was the only place that wasn't affected because we had public power. Meanwhile, Enron stole billions of dollars," he said.In response Stossel claimed the collapse of Enron proved that the system worked. "There are no big national scams except for Enron. Because markets figure it out. Not the government. Enron is an example of how well the market worked for people. Enron's stock came tumbling down. When the government fails, we give them more money. So, yes, there are Enrons, but the exception proves the rule," he said. < ref name="choirboys" />In response to Stossel's letter, Golden expressed his amazement at the claim that the Enron collapse was an example of the market working. "Enron collapsed not due to a stock tumble but because government investigations disclosed accounting fraud, and Ken Lay's Ponzi scheme was exposed. Most investors lost their shirts, and thousands of Enron employees lost their jobs. That's "how well the market works for people"? Perhaps we should ask, if John Stossel wasn't drinking a vodka tonic, what was he drinking?," he wrote. [8]Appearing on the Al Franken show 07/22/2004, Stossel was challenged about his book's claim that the government spends nearly $10,000 per poor person. Flipping through the galleys for the book, Franken noticed this figure and expressed skepticism. He found the figure was calculated by dividing the amount spent on means-tested programs divided by the number of poor people. This, Franken pointed out, was absurd because lots of means-tested money goes to people above the poverty line. Stossel promised he would fix this but in the published book he makes the same mistake, but cites a think tank. Franken called the think tank about the issue, and after two days of searching for where they had published the number, they concluded Stossel got it using the same division method. Franken challenged Stossel about this live in studio; Stossel denied that this was how it was calculated.In a December 2003 commentary in the New York Post, Stossel explained his research methods. Recounting the concern expressed about the presence of acrylamides, which are formed by frying high-carbohydrate foods, Stossel wrote that "when scares like that cross my desk, I often turn to the American Council on Science and Health"."The scientists at ACSH were quickly able to put the hyperbole in perspective - noting that acrylamides could be detected in a wide range of foods, not just snacks like French fries (which are easier to make people feel guilty about). They noted that the fact that high dose exposure to acrylamides caused rodent tumors had no relevance in predicting human cancer risk," he wrote. [10]Worried in AmericaIn February 2007, a two hour feature, "Worried in America"", was presented by Stossel. "There's a lot to be scared about. The media hit us with endless warnings: terrorism, bird flu, vicious crime, cancer, global warming and much more. But are all worries created equal? It turns out that what we worry about is often different from what's most likely to hurt us," he wrote on the ABC website. [11]Book