BERMAN 2

see main and tag

5/16

CAPT 3 22

tim miller sara longwell gay --> nevertrump bulwark

no merri

see wiki edit war

HTML

hides all info

nat'l rest assoc involved in fights it has no interest in [eg frack?] , b/c it's berman network?

WE tag could be generic for anschutz, rival of Pope for 3rd koch bro?

helps berman w/ attacking unions? esp teachers ~ charter?

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son not pleased w/ dad work; David Berman, the songwriter and poet best known for co-founding the indie rock band Silver Jews, died at the age of 52, an anonymous law enforcement official told the New York Times that poet was found in an apartment in Brooklyn and pronounced dead at the scene.(suicide hanged, not 1st attempt, ]

https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/08/13/if-john-oliver-wants-be-funny-about-science-non-profits-i-can-help-write-better-material-13303

berman acsh claims total transparency; oil conf

https://www.prwatch.org/news/2017/05/13240/bradley-foundation-bankrolls-front-groups-richard-berman

Documents examined by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) pull back the curtain on the highly politicized funding of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and its relationship with Richard Berman, the public relations spin doctor dubbed a "hired gun" for corporate America by 60 Minutes.

Bradley is bankrolling multiple Berman front groups along with groups across the nation that are working to "defund Big Labor" and to destroy unions, the most significant advocate for higher wages and better working conditions in America. Berman was caught on tape telling prospective funders: "I get up every morning and I try and figure out how to screw with the labor unions" and "marginalize the people on the other side," as CMD helped reveal in 2014.

The highly political nature of Bradley's efforts is underscored by Bradley grantees who boast in major newspapers and in Bradley-funded publications like theDaily Signal that the evisceration of public and private sector unions in states like Wisconsin and Michigan was successful in turning blue states red in the last presidential election cycle.Bradley even has a promotional video "Blue Lakes Red States," boasting of the success of its numerous grantees.

Berman has mastered the dark art of dissemination disinformation though front groups, websites, TV and print ads and paid social media campaigns. While most of Berman's front groups are no more than a website, a few of them have been incorporated as non-profit "charitable" organizations. They may even have an employee attached to them and a specific focus, but as the New York Times detailed in 2016, employees are generally housed at the PR firm Berman and Co. and report to the boss, Rick Berman.

These "charities" serve the function of allowing groups like Bradley to send tax-exempt funds, which are then funneled into Berman's wholly-owned for-profit entity, Berman and Co., under the rubric of "management fees." This scheme has prompted Charity Navigator, an independent authority on charitable giving, to issue donor warnings on Berman front groups. It has also prompted serious complaints against Berman and Co. for abusing the tax code and engaging in activities for private benefit.

The Bradley Files suggest that the foundation is quite comfortable with the Berman shell game. Bradley board documents characterize Berman's confusing jumble of front groups and websites as a "collaborative cluster of nonprofit groups" and reveal for the first time that Bradley itself created a Berman project called the "Interstate Policy Alliance" within Berman's Employment Policies Institute.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), an ethics watchdog group, filed an IRS complaint against Berman some years ago and helps track the flack's activities.

"When a company or a foundation gives money to Richard Berman or one of the groups set up and run by his consulting firm, they're investing in his way of doing business, which includes exploiting 'fear and anger' to 'shoot the messenger,' usually in defense of issues his clients don't want to be publicly identified with," said Matt Corley, CREW Research Director.

One example is Berman's "BigGreenRadicals.com" website, an attack on four environmental organizations, the National Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Greenpeace and Food and Water Watch. The website says it is a project of the "Environmental Policy Alliance" and does not disclose Berman's involvement. The Bradley files reveal for the first time that the foundation gave $150,000 to a Berman front group to fund this website under the misnomer "public education" (Center for Consumer Freedom, Grant Proposal Record, 11/12/2013).

In recent years, the site has been trashing environmental activists in Colorado. There has been a multi-year throw down between anti-fracking community groups battling it out against the oil and gas industry, and the national environmental groups have been lending a hand.

"Richard Berman is a go-to hire for corporate bullies. If the Bradley Foundation is paying groups to focus more on political bullying, it makes sense they would support Berman's attacks on environmental advocates," said Connor Gibson of Greenpeace's investigations team.

More recently, Bradley has funded another Berman front group to "expose Big Labor's strategies and tactics, including in the policymaking arena." Materials included in the Bradley files as examples of Berman's work are a series of print ads accusing teachers of treating kids like garbage and ads that liken teachers' unions to roach traps (Center for Union Facts, Grant Proposal Record, 1/10/2015).

Bradley even has an enemies list.

In board meetings and committee meetings in 2014, Bradley Foundation staff distributed and discussed a chart of "Organizations that Attack Conservatives." The chart lists 17 groups with information about their size, funders, and leadership. The groups are a mixture of good government groups, media groups, public relations firms, and funding organizations including, in alphabetical order:

Alliance for Justice; American Bridge, BerlinRosen; Center for American Progress/Think Progress Blog; Center for Media and Democracy; Change.org; Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW); Color of Change; Common Cause;Democracy Alliance; Fenton Communications; FitzGibbon Media; Media Matters for America; Mother Jones, One Wisconsin Now; Open Society Institute; and Progress Now.

A note with the chart says Bradley wanted to "survey the landscape of such groups for a more informed perspective about that which could perhaps be done to mitigate the damage they could do." The note says the information about the groups came from two Berman websites "Activistfacts.com and CREWexposed.com, projects of the Bradley-supported Center for Consumer Freedom" (Meeting of the Implementation and Impact Committee, October 14, 2014).

Through Berman, the Bradley Foundation can engage in unseemly opposition research and disinformation campaigns, while still keeping the appearance of a staid, philanthropic institution.

According to the Bradley Files, Bradley has given Berman groups at least $6.5 million. Bradley gave Berman's "Employment Policies Institute," an organization that spreads misinformation about the effects of minimum wage increases and other workplace reforms, a total of $3,650,000 between 2009-2015; Berman's "Center for Consumer Freedom," a front group created to undermine public support for food-safety and animal welfare groups, $625,000 between 2009-2013; Berman's "Center for Union Facts," created to attack and undermine unions and collective bargaining, $2,240,000 between 2006-2015.

In addition, Bradley funds the "Capital Research Center" to work with Berman on projects. The Center is not part of the Berman operation, but is run by a former Berman employee, Scott Walter. It received $2.5 million from Bradley between 1998-2015.

But for all intents and purposes, the Bradley foundation is underwriting the activities of three people: Berman and Co. President Richard Berman, Vice President Sarah Longwell (who is often listed as the contact for Center for Consumer Freedom and many other Berman groups), and Vice President Michael Saltsman (who is also listed as the head of the Employment Policy Institute, which is located within Berman's offices).

Bradley bankrolls Berman for at least three sets of activities:

### Disseminating studies via the Interstate Policy Alliance
### Recommending state infrastructure investments
### Coaching on "crisis communication" and opposition research

Dissemination of Studies

Berman's Employment Policies Institute (EPI) was named to confuse the public with an actual think tank, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which employs a host of PhD-level economists and other support staff. Berman's EPI has no economists on staff, but does employ "Research Director" Michael Saltsman, who has no advanced degree. MSNBC's Chris Hayes pinned Saltsman down on that point in a remarkable interview.

In 2013, Bradley earmarked $300,000 for a new Berman project within EPI called the Interstate Policy Alliance (IPA). In 2014, the grant for the same work doubled to $600,000 and included "crisis communication" for Bradley-funded groups on the receiving end of bad publicity, and in 2015, Bradley provided $400,000. Click here for a full list of Berman IPA groups.

Bradley documents describe IPA as a "discrete channel" for "studies" that could be utilized by state-based groups "to achieve maximum credibility in local and social media outlets."

"Created at Bradley's behest in 2012 and with continuing Bradley support since then, IPA is a discreet channel for the better coordination and presentation of helpful, high-quality research on existing and proposed state-level, free-market policies around the country. It provides this research, too often out of reach for many small state think tanks, and customizes it for each state to achieve maximum credibility in local- and social-media outlets. The Searle Freedom Trust has joined Bradley in support of the project" (Barder Fund, August 18, 2015).

State think tanks participating in Berman's IPA, which include Wisconsin's Bradley-supported MacIver Institute, do not have to pay for the research or its packaging or dissemination. They are able to easily access data that has been uploaded to a password-protected website. As needed, Berman's IPA also helps with report writing, graphic design, news release preparation, op-ed placement and the scheduling of interviews, (EPI, Grant Proposal Record, 11/10/2015 ).

In 2015, the Center for Media and Democracy and the Energy and Policy Institute revealed how IPA operated, when it reported that the Beacon Hill Institute was releasing misleading studies attacking President Obama's Clean Power Plan, an ambitious multi-year effort to cut carbon pollution and mitigate the harmful effects of climate change.The funding for the study came through the previously unknown group called the Interstate Policy Alliance.

In many of its sponsored research "studies," IPA promotes fossil fuel development over renewables. This has been a long-term agenda item of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate funded bill mill and many State Policy Network "think tanks" and advocacy groups funded by Bradley. In addition, the Bradley documents examined by CMD show Bradley is funding numerous climate denial groups, including Myron Ebell's Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Heartland Institute.

One IPA report, touts the tens of billions of revenue North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia might gain from offshore oil and gas development in the Atlantic Ocean.
Another report argues that fossil fuel development of federal lands in seven Rocky Mountain states will grow the economies at a faster pace than renewables.
Another promotes the transfer of federal lands to states, claiming that revenues from taxes and fees will rapidly flow to states.
And yet another study criticizes the Renewable Portfolio Standards in 29 states and D.C. as costly to consumers, while ignoring any benefits to jobs or the environment.

Infrastructure Investments

The Bradley files reveal that the foundation has a previously undisclosed stream of funding to build right-wing infrastructure nationwide and is using a metric to assess the strength and depth of the infrastructure in individual states a phenomenon that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has dubbed the Bradley Blueprint.

In 2015, Bradley asked Berman's IPA and the allied Capital Research Center (CRC) in Washington, D.C. to conduct an assessment of "second tier" states for consideration as "potential targets of opportunity" to enhance their infrastructure investments.

The Bradley files also laud Berman & Co.'s Vice President Saltsman, who is described variously in Bradley documents as the "executive director" of EPI and "executive director" of IPA. "The talented and energetic Saltsman's IPA experience has exposed him to many of the strengths and weaknesses of the mid-sized state think tanks and conservative infrastructure around the country."

The CRC/IPA evaluation of the quality and potential of states' existing conservative infrastructure and recommended investments in eight states: Colorado, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and California in that order. The documents note "(Given IPA's Bradley supported role in trying to help all state think tanks, they were quite keen on the report's contents being kept confidential)" (Barder Fund, Nov. 10, 2015).

Bradley asked Saltsman "to discreetly consult with ALEC's Lisa Nelson, ATRF's Grover Norquist, and Ned Ryun of the also Bradley-supported American Majority" on what states should get funding (Barder Fund, 8/18/15).

The advisors named Colorado a top tier priority. Not only is Colorado an important swing state, but Coloradan Terry Considine is on the Bradley Board of Directors. Considine is a failed Colorado politician, but a dedicated right-winger who has long served on the Board of Directors of Club for Growth, the national dark money group.

The political nature of Bradley's investment in this swing state is made clear in a report "Colorado state-infrastructure recommendations" included in the Bradley documents. "Colorado is an important swing state with a broad base of center-right organizations and donors," writes Bradley. The report discusses "The Gang of Four" liberal funders in the state who were featured in an "attention-getting" book called "The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care)," which details how a small group of Democratic donors helped turn the state blue. The book made a big impression on Bradley staff; a picture of the cover is included in the Bradley documents multiple times.

Now Bradley wants to fund institutions in Colorado in an effort to swing the pendulum back again. Bradley recommends five specific grants, including two that illustrate the political nature of the endeavor.

Bradley recommends $125,000 to American Majority for 2016. The grant asks for support for a new field office in the I-25 corridor, an executive director, field staffer and intern. "They would coordinate with Centennial [Institute] and Independence [Institute] to identify, train and nurture mentoring relationships with conservative Coloradans." American Majority is an organization that trains candidates to run for office. It claims to be nonpartisan, but was founded by Republicans to train Republicans (Barder Fund, Nov. 10, 2015).

Bradley recommended $250,000 to the Independence Institute in 2016. The Independence Institute is a State Policy Network member heavily funded by Bradley for both its work on climate issues and its anti-union work. The Bradley documents say it is led by "the charmingly bombastic Jon Caldara" "who has lead the creation of one of the more-effective conservative state infrastructures." But that infrastructure has a problem. "Colorado has 3,600 local governments."

"Not only does the left exercise its power and coercion through these governments, he and [the Independence Institute] believe, but it uses them as farm teams to groom people for higher office." Caldera wants to counter this problem and "build a better bench" for the right-wing by compiling a database of every appointed and elected position in Jefferson County and conducting outreach to these officials. The Institute would coordinate its activities with American Majority, the Centennial Institute and the Leadership Program of the Rockies. Staff recommended $75,000 for this later institution (Barder Fund, Nov. 10, 2015).

These two investments appear to be exactly the type of political spending that might run afoul of IRS rules for permissible non-profit activity.

Other Colorado grantees included Colorado Christian University for its Centennial Institute ($75,000), Leadership Program of the Rockies ($75,000) and the Steamboat Institute ($50,000).

"Crisis Communications" and Opposition Research

Bradley has also bankrolled the Berman team for a communications program for many years.

"Also at Bradley's behest in 2012, CCF [Center for Consumer Freedom] created a related crisis-communications program for state infrastructures. It has been led by Berman vice president Sarah Longwell, formerly director of public affairs at the Bradly-supported Intercollegiate Studies Institute... CCF has consistently exposed the agenda of the activist groups that seek to attack personal freedom and its allies" (EPI, Grant Proposal Record, 11/10/2015).

This crisis communication work as described by Bradley relates directly to the successful, grassroots campaigning against ALEC that was sparked in 2011 after CMD published more than 800 ALEC "model bills" secretly voted on by corporate lobbyists and legislators on its website ALECexposed.org in 2011.

To quote from the Bradley files:

"In the wake of the media firestorm that engulfed the American Legislative Exchange Council last year, it was clear that a new group of influential, media-savvy activist outfits have emerged—along with a new group of targets that includes state think tanks and other entities including foundations. The Gates Foundation, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft, Walmart, Johnson and Johnson, McDonalds and Wendy's are just a few of the funders that cut ties to ALEC following the media onslaught generated by activists who successfully linked it to the shooting of Trayvon Martin."

"ALEC never saw it coming. Neither really did the Heartland Institute or Chick-fil-A see what was coming when they subsequently have been on the receiving end of similar onslaughts. Caught flat footed as the media charged ahead with the 'Stand Your Ground' story, ALEC had no rapid-response strategy in place to combat this runaway narrative. Berman and Co.'s advice to ALEC to be more aggressive in its response was not followed. The 'I stand with ALEC website' came much too late and brought far too little to its defense" (EPI, Grant Proposal Record, 11/11/2014).

These are "case studies," writes Bradley staff, and "cautionary tales" for any conservative organization. Now Bradley wants to fund CCF for an "off the shelf public relations strategy for use by any such conservative outfit caught in the media crosshairs."

Already-prepared "well sourced opposition research" is key, says the Bradley grant document:

"Just as CMD was able build an online dossier on ALEC that provided activists and sympathetic journalists with a base of research, so too is CCF using its data and information to build a 'bigger and better clearinghouse of research on groups within the wider left-wing network' as part of a rapid response strategy."

CCF boasts of training Bradley-supported "think tanks" across the nation that are members of the State Policy Network (SPN), such as North Carolina's Civitas Institute, Michigan's Mackinac Center, and Washington State's Freedom Foundation. CCF asks Bradley for support to expand this type of opposition research and training to the rest of the SPN network and the Interstate Policy Alliance.

According to a grant proposal record, "Full Service Menu" of Berman Center for Consumer Freedom services would include, 1) support for two or three studies a year, 2) op-ed drafting and placement, 3) drafting and sending of news releases on the groups behalf, 4) compiling a media list of reporter contacts, 5) ad buying for television, radio, print and online, 6) crisis communication assistance and in-state infrastructure seminars (EPI, Grant Proposal Record, 11/11/2014).

In addition, Bradley is recommending a $200,000 grant in renewed support for ALEC in 2016 as it continues to build a "comprehensive communications infrastructure" in response to citizen campaigns targeting its funders. The grant summary reads: "ALEC has been under sustained, organized attack from the Left for several years, as well-documented in Bradley Prize recipient Kimberly Strassel's new book The Intimidation Game: How the Left Silences Free Speech. Under Executive Director Lisa Nelson and at Bradley's urging, ALEC is aggressively, but thoughtfully responding." "The plan consciously mimics the Left's Citizen Engagement Laboratory (CEL)...the parent organization of Forecast the Facts and Color of Change."

ALEC also redesigned and beefed up its website, deployed more social media, and partnered with CrowdSkout a data analytics company to track, view and engage supporters (ALEC, Grant Proposal Record, 8/16/2016).

Bradley outlines the bigger game plan for ALEC: "The larger plan also has an important component for aggressive 'opposition research,' which has yielded many beneficial outcomes, including to Strassel for her helpful book, among others." This last comment in the Bradley documents suggests that ALEC provided Wall Street Journal editorial writer Kim Strassel with information for her book Intimidation Game. In it, Strassel portrayed the sustained citizen campaigning against ALEC as a well-funded, nefarious effort to crush the "free speech" rights of ALEC and its enormous funders, including Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, Pfizer, and ALTRIA/Phillip Morris (Strassel received a $250,000 Bradley Prize in 2014).

As part of its opposition research funding, Bradley recommended $115,000 in 2016 for the Capital Research Center run by Bradley-ally Scott Walter to develop "an online encyclopedia of the left" in conjunction with Berman that mimics the Center for Media and Democracy's Sourcewatch.org wiki. CRC wants to focus on the anti-ALEC groups and the Democracy Alliance, a group of liberal funders.

"This will be a comprehensive, wiki-style resource that provides in-depth profiles of left-of-center individuals and organizations based on the model of the Center for Media and Democracy's website Sourcewatch.org…CRC plans to take a page out of Sourcewatch's playbook by ensuring that its new, wiki-style encyclopedia of the left is thorough, regularly updated and written in a manner that is accurate and measured in order to attract and retain a larger audience. The website will be constructed and in partnership with Berman and Company [where Walter worked briefly as director of development], and CRC is collaborating with ALEC and the Heartland Institute to make use of their data as it builds the new website's profile list," (Capital Research Center, Grant Proposal Record, 8/16/2016).

"Sourcewatch is a widely used resource that significantly influences public opinion regarding the activities of center-right groups and individuals. While there are a number of conservative resources that profile organizations and individuals on the Left (such as David Horowitz's DiscoverTheNetworks.org, Heartland Institute's LeftExposed.org, Berman and Company's ActivistFacts.org and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise's UndueInfluence.com) CDC will build upon and complement their efforts adding value through its more comprehensive coverage, superior search engine optimization, and wiki-style format," (Capital Research Center, Grant Proposal Record, 8/16/2016).

Current members of the Bradley Foundation Board are Richard W. Graber (President), Art Pope (Chairman; Variety Wholesalers), Patrick J. English (Vice Chairman; Fiduciary Management, Inc.), Terry Considine (AIMCO), Curt S. Culver (MGIC), Robert P. George (Princeton University), Victor Davis Hanson (Hoover Institution), Diane Hendricks (ABC Supply Co. and Hendricks Holding Co.), Cleta Mitchell (Foley & Lardner), and James T. Barry III (The Barry Company). Former board members include Michael W. Grebe and George F. Will.

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*David Armiak, Evan James, Nick Surgey, and Lisa Graves contributed research to this series.

old/2x?

http://stophumanewatch.org/blog/berman-rebrands-center-for-consumer-freedom-moves-into-new-territory

web of lies

Richard Berman is a corporate lobbyist and PR marketer who makes a living defending the worst corporate abuses. Through his public relations firm, Berman & Company, Inc. — a for-profit company that apparently has no other purpose than to operate Berman’s various faux nonprofits — Berman wages war against legitimate charities, public interest groups, and the facts.

Richard Berman has created more than one hundred deceptive astroturf groups, websites, and “nonprofit” organizations that funnel millions of dollars in tax-exempt corporate donations into his for-profit PR firm — and from there, into his personal bank accounts.

Berman’s websites are frequently cited in the same breath, as if they were independent sources. That’s a flagrant attempt to deceive the public into thinking that unsupported claims are confirmed by independent sources. In fact, these websites are just sockpuppets for Richard Berman’s astroturfing enterprise.

The following is a list of astroturf ventures run by Richard Berman. Some have been retired, such as Trans-FatFacts.com, which failed to convince the public that trans-fats are full of cancer-fighting healthiness. Others, like the state-specific anti-union websites, are apparently parked and waiting for an appropriate venue to launch.

Organizations

Berman & Company, Inc.

Center for Organizational Research and Education

Center for Consumer Freedom

Center for Accountability in Science

Environmental Policy Alliance

HumaneWatch

ActivistCash

Humane Society for Shelter Pets

American Beverage Institute

Employment Policies Institute

Center for Union Facts

Employee Freedom Action Committee

First Jobs Institute

Center for Economic and Entrepreneurial Literacy

Miscellaneous

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Berman & Company, Inc. (BCI)

doing business as: “A/B/See Marketing Research”

...

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omg no idea he was (maybe) in on longmont ~ frack ord

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/07/12/bradley-foundation-funds-web-climate-change-deniers/

Armiak

Bradley Foundation internal documents reviewed by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reveal a concerted effort by the organization to delegitimize climate science, while promoting fossil fuel energy development in the United States.

An analysis of Bradley’s climate-related activities shows that the foundation has made significant grants to support energy policy think tanks, attack-dog groups that target environmentalists, and efforts to discredit climate science.

A 2013 internal foundation document details how Bradley “instructed staff to explore options…to make more energy-related grants.” The document also notes that the Board gave a “terminal grant” of $263,591 to the Sand County Foundation (SCF), which previously administered the Bradley Fund for the Environment.

[oh, they cut them off!] legit eg soil

[Sand County Foundation

131 W. Wilson Street

Suite 610

Madison, WI 53703

(608) 663-4605

(608) 299-3745 (fax)

info@sandcountyfoundation

]

The documents do not reveal Bradley’s motivation in splitting from SCF, but they do outline a serious effort to promote fossil fuel industry interests at the expense of the environment.

CENTERS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL AND FOSSIL FUEL DEVELOPMENT

As part of its push to support studies and public relations to cast doubt on mounting scientific evidence on climate change, Bradley has focused its resources on “Energy Policy Centers,” many of which are housed in “Bradley-supported” State Policy Network (SPN) “think tanks.” SPN is a web of 156 right-wing groups in 49 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Canada, and the UK that receives funding from the billionaire Koch brothers, the Bradley Foundation, and the Roe Foundation, as well as many multi-national corporations.

The examined documents show that the Center for Energy Policy and the Environment (CEPE) at the Manhattan Institute**for Policy Research (MIPR), a member of SPN, received a total of $500,000 for its Center, with another $200,000 distributed in 2016. (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research GPR, February 23, 2016) CEPE works to promote fossil fuel development despite the devastating effects of climate change. A background document on CEPE states its goal clearly: “The Center’s research and public education activity aims at demonstrating that the United States is poised to reap substantial economic benefits in the form of job creation, lower gasoline and electricity prices, and increased productivity provided public policies allow companies to access valuable energy resources and distribute them at home and abroad.”

A recommendation by Bradley staff on the Manhattan Institute’s 2016 grant proposal specifically states that CEPE is worth funding because, “They have succeeded in identifying and publicizing so many of the falsehoods that surround energy and the environment.” (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research GPR, February 23, 2016) An example of this “success” can be found in the work of CEPE senior fellow Mark Mills, who is recognized as originating the idea that North America can surpass the Middle East as the largest energy supplier in the world. (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research GPR, November 12, 2013)

The Energy Policy Center (EPC) at another SPN “think tank”, the Independence Institute, received $195,000 from the Bradley Foundation between 2012 and 2016.

Bradley documents examined show that EPC’s purpose is to “consciously counter-balance former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter’s environmental think tank” at Colorado State University, which promotes a “New Energy Economy.”

Bradley considers EPC to be highly successful in fighting local and federal environmental initiatives. The Bradley documents note that EPC was a “key coalition partner” in preempting local bans on fracking in Colorado, and that it “has developed a toolkit for policymakers, attorneys general, and other conservative state think tanks to help them push back against U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations.” (Independence Institute GPR, June 2, 2015)

In addition to these two centers, Bradley has funded the Center for Energy and Environment (CEE) at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), an “associate member” of SPN, and the Center for Energy Innovation and Independence at Consumers’ Research.

CEE is led by the prominent climate change denier Myron Ebell, who steered Trump’s EPA transition team. Ebell also chairs the Cooler Heads Coalition, which brings together right-wing activists and scholars for monthly meetings. The coalition was established on May 6, 1997, “to dispel the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific and risk analysis.”

CEI was long tied to tobacco disinformation campaigns, but is now a leading organization in the movement to discredit climate science.

Bradley does not mention how much of its funding to CEI was designated for CEE operations. Between 1986 and 2015, Bradley Foundation gave $2.2 million to CEI, the majority of which was “to support general operations.” (Competitive Enterprise Institute GPR, June 2, 2015).

The Center for Energy Innovation and Independence received $250,000 from Bradley in 2013 to get the new group off the ground. According to a background document, the group “will closely monitor federal environmental regulations and potentially lay the foundation for multi-state litigation against them, similar to those actions in the Obamacare and Dodd-Frank lawsuits, of which aggressive (Scott) Pruitt was and is a part.” Pruitt is the former AG of Oklahoma and recently resigned as the EPA Administrator under Trump.

SMEAR CAMPAIGNS AND FUNDING EFFORTS TO DISCREDIT CLIMATE SCIENCE

At the same time Bradley rolled out funding for “Energy Policy Centers,” it was doling out cash to discredit environmental organizations and climate change science.

A grant proposal record for the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), a front group created by the close Bradley ally RickBerman, details an organized effort to weaken the credibility of well-respected, national environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council, and Food and Water Watch. (The Center for Consumer Freedom GPR, November 12, 2013) Berman also founded Berman and Company, a notorious Washington, D.C.-based corporate lobbying and PR company known for creating numerous corporate “front groups” and astroturf propaganda campaigns.

Berman’s anti-environmental project at CCF was called Big Green Radicals and was seeded with a $150,000 “public education” grant from Bradley in 2013.

According to Bradley’s background document, the Big Green Radicals project would include the following components:

[N]ew, updated research profiles for NRDC, Food and Water Watch, and Sierra Club; standalone websites for all three organizations; a Facebook group seeded with several thousand fans [sock puppets?]to provide a base for the message; the production of two online videos to explain the real agenda of the environmental left; and Google keyword advertising for members of the media and the public searching for information about one of the targeted groups.

In addition to providing the start-up funding for Big Green Radicals, Bradley gave $85,000 to the Capital Research Center (CRC), a group led by former Berman and Company employee Scott Walter. The grant was designated for “general operations,” but it may have been used to support the publication Green Watch. A background document on CRC states that, “Green Watch tracks the money flow to environmental nonprofits and critiques their positions, and those of their allies, including their policymaking ones.” (Capital Research Center GPR, August 19, 2014)

Since 2014, the Bradley Foundation has distributed numerous grants to discredit the vast amount of scientific research demonstrating the harmful effects of climate change. In 2014, it gave $65,000 to the George C. Marshall Institute (GMI), a right-wing front group largely funded by oil and gas interests. Newsweek called GMI “a central cog in the denial machine” in 2007.

GMI folded in late 2015,so Bradley recommended $50,000 in “seed funding” the following year for its “successor organization,” the CO2 Coalition. The coalition is led by a Dr. William Happer, a well-known climate change denier. “We’re doing our best to try and counter this myth that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant. It’s not a pollutant at all,” Happer said at a Heritage Foundation event on energy and climate.

Another $10,000 Bradley grant in 2014 for the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (CSCDGC) went to support its Science & Public Policy Institute (SPPI). A staff recommendation notes that SPPI “has helped demonstrate that no real-world data confirms that floods, draughts [sic], or hurricanes are becoming more frequent or severe, as global-warming alarmists allege. Neither is there any real-world data that sea levels are about to rise precipitously, inundating the world’s coasted [sic] lowlands, as is also often alleged.” (Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change GPR, June 17, 2014)

ENERGY ROUNDTABLES

Documents show that, beginning in 2013, Bradley provided funding to the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, also an SPN member, to host and organize two “energy roundtables” a year — one before the Heritage Foundation’s annual Resource Bank meeting, and the other before SPN’s annual fall meeting. (Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy GPR, November 10, 2015)

The $50,000-per-year grant from Bradley for the meetings was matched “by staff arrangement” by the C:{onsumer Energy Alliance (CEA), a front group for the energy industry that promotes fossil fuel development and opposes efforts to regulate its activities.}:

“Planned and put on in close cooperation with the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), the roundtables allow state think tanks to better promote free-market energy and environmental policies,” one document states. (Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy GPR, November 12, 2013)

Attendance has been high at the roundtables, with as many as “67 SPN leaders” attending the event in Denver in September 2014. The agenda for that meeting details presentations from a number of fossil fuel lovers including: Artic Power, Consumer Energy Alliance, Vital for Colorado, Devon Energy, GOPAC (a political action committee that backs and trains Republican candidates), and Freedom Partners. Freedom Partners, a funding conduit for the billionaire Koch brothers, delivered a talk on “Messaging and State Action.” (Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy GPR, November 11, 2014)

BRADLEY GRANTEES WORKED TOGETHER TO DEFEAT LOCAL REGULATIONS ON FRACKING IN COLORADO

In 2014, the Independence Institute and Berman’s Big Green Radicals worked in lockstep in Colorado to defeat local fracking bans, such as the one that passed by ballot measure in Longmont in November of 2013. A 2015 Bradley backgrounder on the Independence Institute praises the anti-fracking work of Independence Institute’s Energy Policy Center, saying, “It has also been a key coalition partner in the movement to stop local and statewide bans on hydraulic fracturing. Last year, current Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper crafted a delicately balanced compromise on local control of oil and gas drilling that removed all initiatives on the issue from the state ballot.”

Berman’s Big Green Radicals rolled out an attack campaign to discredit anti-fracking efforts in the state in May of 2014. Big Green Radicals assertedthat “extreme groups, mostly based far from Colorado in San Francisco, New York, or Washington D.C., are spending millions and spreading their anti-science message to scare voters into approving ballot measures in November to send the oil and gas industry (and the jobs and affordable energy it provides) packing from the Centennial State.”

The efforts by these two groups were successful in overturning local fracking bans. Bradley agreed and decreased its funding recommendation for EPC to $25,000 in 2016, saying, “it is unlikely that there will be any significant developments for EPC in the upcoming months, and therefore staff believes this reduced award is important.”

It is uncertain where the next battleground for energy development will be for Bradley, but the documents demonstrate that they have the funds to bankroll infrastructure in place to discredit climate science and smear the opposition.

OTHER NOTABLE BRADLEY GRANTS

Other significant Bradley grants to support fossil fuel development or dispute climate science in recent years include:

$150,000 to Opportunity Ohio for “program activities.” (2016)
$100,000 to Energy and Environment Legal Institute for “transparency practice general.” (2016) HORNER SCHNARE
$20,000 to Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment for “general operations.” (2016)
$200,000 to Competitive Enterprise Institute for “general operations” and “litigation.” (2013, 2015)
$100,000 toThe Sand County Foundation for “energy resource development.” (2014)
$100,000 to National Center for Policy Analysis for “general operations.” (2014)
$20,000 to Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment for “general operations.” (2014)

slate

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2011/08/mad_at_madd.html

saletan

Mothers Against Drunk Driving Receives Another 'D' from Charity Rating Guide," shouts the Aug. 24 press release. It notes that the guide's publisher, the American Institute of Philanthropy, "says most highly efficient charities are able to spend 75 percent or more of total expenses on charitable programs. Yet, MADD has spent as little as 61 percent on programs."

Sixty-one percent versus 75 percent? That doesn't sound great, but it doesn't sound awful, either. So why the press release?

Look at who's issuing the release: the American Beverage Institute.

ABI calls itself "a restaurant trade association, representing America's favorite restaurant chains as well as hundreds of individual restaurants and on-premise retailers." It stands for "the protection of responsible on-premise consumption of adult beverages." In other words, ABI doesn't represent the alcohol industry. It represents places where you might go to drink alcohol before getting in your car to drive home.

Hence its war on MADD. ABI wants to weaken drunken-driving regulation by persuading MADD's donors to stop giving money to the organization. To discourage them, ABI argues that MADD has wasted donations and "diverted money" from programs to get "drunk drivers off the roads."

It's a touching plea. But if MADD were truly ineffective, ABI would be happy to let MADD's donors go on wasting their money. ABI is trying to defund MADD not because MADD diverts money from drunken-driving crackdowns, but because MADD spends money on drunken-driving crackdowns.

Over the years, ABI has fought MADD on nearly every alcohol-related issue, from liquor taxes to sobriety checkpoints. Often, the merits are debatable. But ABI doesn't argue for moderation. Like the National Rifle Association, it opposes any restriction, no matter how reasonable. Consider interlocks, which can prevent a car from starting if its driver's breath, as measured by a sensor, exceeds a proscribed blood-alcohol limit. ABIopposes the use of these devices not just for the general public but even for "first-time DUI offenders" with blood-alcohol concentrations below 0.15 percent. (The legal threshold for DUI is 0.08 percent.) * ABI complains that "legislatures are steadily approving legislation aimed at first-time offenders, often drivers who are only one sip above the limit. … This legislation is the first step of anti-alcohol groups toward theirlong-term goal of universal interlocks."

This extremism is part of a broader pattern. In addition to MADD, ABI is waging PR wars against the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, and other organizations with "very radical agendas." ABI's executive director, Rick Berman, runs a network of lobbying groups that oppose regulation of animal welfare, soda, corn syrup, indoor tanning, and mercury in fish. Berman's Web sites condemn the Humane Society of the United Statesand claim that the "anti-cancer benefits" of tanning "far outweigh the risks associated with over-exposure." In defense of public smoking, Berman asserts a "lack of evidence that second-hand smoke causes cancer."

Unlike MADD, Berman doesn't reveal his donors. But over the years, investigative journalists have identified some of them, including Coca-Cola, Wendy's, White Castle, and Outback Steakhouse. And thanks to documents exposed by the 1998 tobacco settlement, you can read Berman's 1995 letters to Philip Morris, in which he obtained $600,000 in seed money for his PR empire by pledging "to unite the restaurant and hospitality industries in a campaign to defend their consumers and marketing programs against attacks from anti-smoking, anti-drinking, anti-meat, etc. activists." In total, Philip Morris gave Berman nearly $3 million during the three years covered by the documents.

I don't know enough about MADD's finances to tell you whether MADD is the best investment of your charitable dollars. I recommend reading MADD's annual reports and tax forms before making that decision.But after researching Berman and his various front groups, I can say this: Any organization Berman has vilified is probably worth giving money to.

MADD admits it could be more efficient—we "continue to streamline our efforts to be fiscally responsible"—but it cites the poor economy as a big reason for its troubles. Even ABI acknowledges that MADD's top salaries became a bigger share of its spending in part because, during the tenure of MADD's former chief executive, Chuck Hurley—possibly the greatest CEO name ever—"MADD's revenue declined nearly one-quarter," forcing layoffs and program cuts. The logical solution would be to give MADD more money, not less, so that MADD can increase the percentage of revenue it spends on fighting drunken driving. Or, if you're one of Berman's funders, you could cut him off, thereby reducing the money MADD has to waste on overcoming his smears.

But if you decide not to give money to MADD, I'd suggest reallocating your dollars to any of the other nonprofits Berman and ABI have denounced as radical do-gooders, such as the Humane Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, or the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. I don't always agree with these organizations, or with MADD. But if they're pissing off Rick Berman, they must be doing something right.

Correction, Aug. 29, 2011: I originally ended the quote about ABI's interlock position after "offenders." ABI managing director Sarah Longwell argues that I should have included the whole line: ABI is " against ignition interlocks for first-time DUI offenders with low BAC." In retrospect, I think she's right. My point was, and is, that ABI's position against interlocks is extreme because it extends to people who have already been caught driving with blood-alcohol levels above the legal limit. But, to be fair, it does not extend to all such people.

Although ABI's page of position statements does not define "low BAC" or state its preferred threshold, Longwell, in an email, clarifies ABI's position as follows:

ABI supports mandating in-car breathalyzers for drivers caught with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) over 0.15 percent (even if it's their first time) or those with a previous drunk-driving offense. However, for someone whose impairment level is below .15 on their first offense, a judge should be trusted to decide whether an ignition interlock is an appropriate punishment. It's wrong to say that ABI opposes interlocks for first-time offenders; rather, ABI supports judicial discretion in the case of low-BAC, first-time offenders.

(Return to the corrected sentence.)

---

2010 last time? ref 2012

Shown Here:

Introduced in Senate (02/25/2010)

Research of Alcohol Detection Systems for Stopping Alcohol-related Fatalities Everywhere Act of 2010 or the ROADS SAFE Act of 2010 - Directs the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to carry out a collaborative research effort to continue to explore, and report to specified congressional committees on, the feasibility and the potential benefits of, and the public policy challenges associated with, more widespread deployment of in-vehicle technology to prevent alcohol-impaired driving.

co 13-3 gop

Sen. Corker, Bob [R-TN]*	02/25/2010
Sen. Begich, Mark [D-AK]	04/12/2010
Sen. Klobuchar, Amy [D-MN]	04/13/2010
Sen. Dorgan, Byron L. [D-ND]	04/20/2010
Sen. Vitter, David [R-LA]	04/28/2010
Sen. Lautenberg, Frank R. [D-NJ]	04/29/2010
Sen. Cardin, Benjamin L. [D-MD]	05/06/2010
Sen. Inouye, Daniel K. [D-HI]	05/14/2010
Sen. Rockefeller, John D., IV [D-WV]	05/20/2010
Sen. Boxer, Barbara [D-CA]	05/27/2010
Sen. Schumer, Charles E. [D-NY]	05/27/2010
Sen. Menendez, Robert [D-NJ]	06/07/2010
Sen. Whitehouse, Sheldon [D-RI]	09/20/2010
Sen. Dodd, Christopher J. [D-CT]	09/27/2010
Sen. Franken, Al [D-MN]	09/27/2010
Sen. Crapo, Mike [R-ID]	12/07/2010

https://www.congress.gov/bill/111th-congress/senate-bill/3039?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22alcohol%22%2C%22alcohol%22%5D%7D

ref CREW 7/18

good lord why?

BERMAN GROUP QUIETLY RAN ANTI TRUMP ADS UNDER OBSCURE TRADE NAME

https://www.citizensforethics.org/berman-group-quietly-ran-anti-trump-ads-obscure-trade-name/

By Matt Corley

July 25, 2016

In mid-May, Richard Berman, the infamous president of corporate public relations firm Berman and Company, published an op-ed in TheWashington Times decrying an investigation into the lack of female directors in Hollywood because, in his view, “China’s growing direct and indirect control of soft communications like movies and radio” is a greater concern. Calling the probe of gender bias in the film industry a “domestic comedy,” Berman concluded, “instead, let’s focus on the tragedy that is China’s ongoing control of women’s bodies, USA assets and the movie industry.”

The column was the first in a series of op-eds by Berman about China’s financial interest in American communications industries that culminated this month with the soft announcement of a new Berman project. Of course, Berman being Berman, he didn’t exactly make it clear that he was promoting his own campaign and gave no indication of who was funding it. Instead, in a post on Independent Journal Review, he simply encouraged readers to watch a }: [VID] { that would “scare” them about Chinese ownership of American radio stations.

:{The }:{ was hosted on the YouTube }:page:{ of the }::{Center for American Security, a heretofore unknown entity. T}::{he group’s }:Facebook page:{, however, gave away the game by initially referring to Berman’s July 1 }:USA Today:{ }:op-ed:{ on China as “[o]ur piece” before }:editing out:{ the reference. The Facebook page also includes a link to a website called }:China Owns Us:{, described as “a project of the Center for American Security,” that features a }:white paper:{ on “China’s Stealth Power Play in the United States.”}:

The website doesn’t have an “About” page or any actual information about what the Center for American Security is. Is it a new non-profit or just a “project” of one of the pre-existing non-profits Berman uses to do work for his clients? Corporate records reveal that it is technically a separate trade name for the Enterprise Freedom Action Committee, a section 501(c)(4) organization that Berman has used to campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act and President Obama’s health care reform efforts:

It’s unclear what exactly led to Berman’s newfound interest in Chinese ownership of movie theaters and radio stations. He is well-known in Washington, DC for using non-profit groups established and run by his for-profit firm for “shoot the messenger” campaigns on behalf of corporate interests. Berman’s non-profits, which include the Employment Policies Institute and the Center for Organizational Research and Education, have not previously focused on media ownership.

Corporate records also show that the Center for American Security is not the only new project operating out of the Enterprise Freedom Action Committee. Last March, the group also started using the Coalition to Unite America as a trade name. But what is that?

It’s the name Berman placed on digital ads the Enterprise Freedom Action Committee ran attacking Donald Trump this spring. One ad asked whether Trump represented while the other featured about Trump, including asking why he is “such a bully.” Berman once told a room full of energy executives, “If you want a video to go viral, have kids or animals.”

Though the Enterprise Freedom Action Committee reported spending$355,000 on independent expenditures opposing Trump to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), viewers of the actual ads would have had no way of knowing Berman’s group was behind the attacks. Neither the videos nor the website that hosts them, Trump-Truth.org, mention the Enterprise Freedom Action Committee, just the Coalition to Unite America. On the flip side, the Enterprise Freedom Action Committee’s filings with the FEC, which were previously reported on by OpenSecrets, make no mention of the Coalition to Unite America.

In effect, by creating and using multiple trade names, Berman is able to distance his own organization from any backlash over the ads. The viewer wouldn’t know the Enterprise Freedom Action Committee was involved while anyone looking at FEC records wouldn’t be able to go find the actual ads for which the group reported paying because they were put out under the Coalition to Unite America’s name. Only someone checking obscure DC corporate records could make the connection between the two names.

Related Tags: Donald Trump, Elections, Richard Berman

april 2015

CREW Staff

April 13, 2015

Last week, Claire Moser of the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress highlighted the role that Richard Berman’s public relations firm, Berman and Co., is playing in a campaign tosell off America’s national forests and public lands. Berman and Co. is notorious for using nonprofit front groups to wage deceptive campaigns on behalf of corporate clients. One of Berman’s employees, Will Coggin, has been spamming newspapers with op-eds arguing that public land management should be moved from the federal government to the states, who are more likely to sell the land for energy development.

Each of Coggin’s nearly identical columns — published under the guise of Berman’s Environmental Policy Alliance project — accuses several sportsmen’s groups who oppose shifting control of public lands of being “green decoys” because they have received some funding from environmentally engaged foundations. “A quick look at their ‘dark money’ financial backers makes their true motive clear: To lock away land from being utilized for economic growth and jobs,” writes Coggin.

It takes a lot of gall for a Berman operative to attack other organizations over “dark money,” especially as part of an attack campaign that appears to have gotten its seed money from a foundation described as “the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement” by Mother Jones. In 2013, Donors Trust, a donor-advised fund “dedicated to promoting a free society,” gave $57,250 to Berman’s Center for Consumer Freedom “for hunting organization opposition research.” That same year, the Center for Consumer Freedom reported spending $71,132 on research into “various environmental activist groups and their activities.” The “Green Decoys” project debuted in January 2014.

Since launching, Coggin has published at least 29 op-eds and letters-to-the editor attacking groups such as Trout Unlimited, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, including three more since Moser’s story. None of them mention that Coggin works for Berman and Co., instead listing him as an analyst at either the Center for Consumer Freedom or the Environmental Policy Alliance. Only three mention that the Environmental Policy Alliance’s parent organization, the Center for Organizational Research and Education, “is supported by a variety of businesses and foundations, including those in the hospitality, agriculture and energy industries.”

One publication, the Sierra Sun, posted an editor’s note after running a letter last August, writing that Coggin had “misidentified himself as a senior research analyst for the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Environmental Policy Alliance” and is “is actually employed by Berman and Co.” The note closed with an apology to readers: “the Sierra Sun regrets publishing this misinformation.”

Coggin’s refusal to admit his own agenda while casting aspersions on others is not the only deceptive aspect of his and Berman’s public lands campaign. In a Washington Examiner op-ed last October about Trout Unlimited’s opposition to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management issuing oil and gas leases in Nevada, Coggin cited research by University of Wyoming professor Timothy Considine claiming that up to 208,000 jobs would be created if all of the oil and gas projects on federal lands in seven Western states were approved.

Unmentioned by Coggin? Professor Considine’s report was funded by another one of Berman’s front groups, the Employment Policies Institute,and “prepared under a consulting agreement with the Interstate Policy Alliance.” On his curriculum vitae, Professor Considine also lists himself as a consultant for the Interstate Policy Alliance on “energy development on federal lands.” The Interstate Policy Alliance is a project of the Employment Policies Institute that works with the think tanks in the conservative State Policy Network to “support and promote state-based research” from a free market perspective. The Guardian recently documented how the Interstate Policy Alliance is funding research critical of the Environmental Protection Agency’s power plant rules.

Coggin isn’t the only Berman employee to cite Professor Considine’s research while arguing for opening up public lands to development without acknowledging their ties. In June 2014, Anastasia **Swearingen**, a Berman employee, published op-eds in the *Las Vegas Review-Journal* and the *Salt Lake Tribune* that cited Professor Considine’s research as proof that “radical environmentalists have prevented Western states from reaping enormous economic benefits.”Like theSierra Sun, the Salt Lake Tribune came to regret describing the op-ed as having been written by a representative of the Environmental Policy Alliance.

The column now carries an editor’s note as well: “This commentary originally described the author as a senior research analyst for the Environmental Policy Alliance. In fact, Anastasia Swearingen works for the public relations firm Berman and Co., which manages the Environmental Policy Alliance and represents clients in the energy industry.”

CATEGORIES:

Industry Influence (15)

Campaign Finance (7)

Press Releases (6)

Ethics & Corruption (5)

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August 4, 2008 WHO IS RICHARD BERMAN? In light of Center for Science in the Public Interest newest investigation "Kids' Meals: Obesity on the Menu," Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has released...

May 22, 2013 CORPORATE BULLY RICHARD BERMAN On Sunday, the Boston Globe published a front page exposé on Richard Berman’s network of business front groups, describing his work as “a case study of what critics say is an...

December 2, 2014 DR. EVIL MEETS THE KOCHTOPUS: AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY NOW SUPPORTING BERMAN GROUP

Like something out of a horror movie, two of the most notorious dark money networks in America have joined forces. Recently released tax filings for 2013 confirm that corporate front...

July 17, 2013 RICHARD BERMAN: WORKING HARD AND PLAYING BY THE RULES SHOULDN’T KEEP YOU OUT OF POVERTY Last week, the Washington, D.C. City Council passed living wage legislation requiring very large retailers to pay employees in the District $12.50 an hour. The bill has yet to be...

April 3, 2014 ANTI-UNION BERMAN GROUP HIRES LOBBYIST TO PUSH BILL AIMED AT UNDERMINING UNIONS

Richard Berman, who once bragged about his consulting firm's lobbying, now runs away from the lobbyist label as fast as he can.

February 12, 2014 HIRE RICK BERMAN’S FOR-PROFIT AND HIS NONPROFIT WILL GO TO WAR FOR YOU

For much of the last decade, the sugar industry and the manufacturers of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) have been at war, fighting over health claims regarding their respective...

April 13, 2015 BERMAN LANDS CAMPAIGN SEEDED WITH $57,000 FROM “DARK MONEY ATM”

Richard Berman's dark money group to attack on national parks and forest.

August 22, 2014 BERMAN ENLISTS INDUSTRY SCIENTIST FOR LATEST PROJECT, FLIP-FLOPS ON CANCER RISK OF TANNING

The Center for Accountability in Science is the latest project hatched by corporate PR man Richard Berman.

January 14, 2009 CREW LAUNCHES BERMANEXPOSED.ORG– RIPPING THE CLOAK OF SECRECY AWAY FROM FRONT MAN RICHARD BERMAN

CREW launches BermanExposed.org to expose the activities of lobbyist Richard Berman, his front groups, projects and the tactics of his firm.

April 25, 2006 CREW SUES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR OVER ANTI-UNION LOBBYIST RICHARD BERMAN’S COMMUNICATIONS Washington, DC – Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sued the Department of Labor (DOL) over its refusal to respond to a Freedom of Information Act...

July 25, 2016 BERMAN GROUP QUIETLY RAN ANTI TRUMP ADS UNDER OBSCURE TRADE NAME In mid-May, Richard Berman, the infamous president of corporate public relations firm Berman and Company, published an op-ed in The Washington Times decrying an investigation into the...

wt bs

Rick Berman - - Thursday, June 18, 2015

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Just in time for Father’s Day, the federal government and automakers have unveiled the perfect gift for Dad — a device to stop him from drinking a beer or two at a ballgame before driving home. In fact, the system is even called DADSS. It’s short for the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety — passive, alcohol sensing technology under development for installation in all cars.

This paternalistic intrusion into our vehicles is an overreaching solution in search of a problem.[back to classic nanny state big bro paranoia]

Drunk driving used to be punished with little more than a traffic ticket — which was a problem. Then in 1980, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) started a national campaign to strengthen punishments for drunk drivers and educate the public about the dangers of driving drunk. The campaign morphed into ubiquitous public service messages, including “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” and “Don’t drink and drive.”

The resulting shift in behavior represents one of the most successful examples of developing a new societal norm. Alcohol-related traffic fatalities have been cut in half since the campaign began — in 1980 more than 21,000 Americans died in drunk-driving crashes. In 2013, that number was just over 10,000.

For sober drivers and their companions today, the chances of dying at the hands of a drunk driver are smaller than most people imagine. Consider that in 2013, nearly 80 percent of those killed in drunk-driving crashes were either the drunk drivers themselves or the adults who (presumably) willingly got into the car with an already-impaired driver. Conversely, your exposure to being killed by a drunk driver is one chance in every 1.4 billion miles traveled. That’s nearly 250,000 round trips from New York City to Los Angeles.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that drunk driving isn’t a problem — it is. But much like every crime in society, there will always be that irreducible minimum of violent behavior. And that can’t be affected without an enormous financial cost and surrender to a suffocating police-state mentality.

I’ve worked in the hospitality industry for decades. During that time, I’ve watched MADD turn from targeting the chronic, heavily intoxicated repeat-offender drunk drivers to policies aimed at reducing moderate, responsible drinking. Even MADD’s founder, Candy Lightner, who once worked with me on the problem, acknowledged mission creep when she said MADD has “become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned.”

DADSS is yet another step toward that neo-prohibition. Both the federal government and MADD admit the goal is to put detection devices in every car. And because an individual’s blood alcohol concentration level rises over time after consumption, the devices to be effective will have to be set with a margin as low as .03 or .04 percent to ensure drivers can’t operate a vehicle while above the current .08 percent legal limit. It means for most adults, driving home after one or two drinks with dinner could be a thing of the past.

Then there is the issue of electronic-mechanical integrity. Even if these devices are manufactured to the government’s targeted Six Sigma standard of reliability, they’re going to malfunction up to 4,000 times per day nationwide. Sober drivers will be stranded. Drunk drivers will be able to start their cars. And if the technology is slightly less reliable, there could be up to 3 million malfunctions every day.

Considering the trade-offs — possible malfunctions when you can least afford being stuck, a likely end to moderate drinking before driving, and a host of lawsuits surrounding these malfunctions after a crash — installing these devices in every car simply isn’t a proportional response to a diminishing problem. And that says nothing about the added cost to each car that will be paid by every owner. In 2013 there were 2,115 driving-while-intoxicated innocent-victim fatalities. For context, in that same year, 28,851 people died from unintentional poisoning and 6,601 died from unintentional suffocation. More than 25,000 died from falling down at home.

Risk is everywhere, but we don’t ban bleach or plastic bags because if accidentally ingested or used improperly, they can be deadly.

MADD has made great strides toward protecting innocent people from drunk drivers. Instead of focusing on the remaining problem — chronic drunk drivers who continue to drive while highly intoxicated despite the social stigma, risk to themselves and others, and threat of punishment — the organization wants to punish and or inconvenience all of us.

As difficult an idea as it will seem to some, it’s one more government restraint the evidence doesn’t justify. This Father’s Day, we don’t need DADSS to replace the ones we already have.

• Rick Berman is president of Berman and Co., a Washington public affairs firm.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/18/rick-berman-dadss-drink-and-drive-alcohol-detector/

Rick Berman - - Thursday, June 18, 2015

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Just in time for Father’s Day, the federal government and automakers have unveiled the perfect gift for Dad — a device to stop him from drinking a beer or two at a ballgame before driving home. In fact, the system is even called DADSS. It’s short for the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety — passive, alcohol sensing technology under development for installation in all cars.

This paternalistic intrusion into our vehicles is an overreaching solution in search of a problem.

Risk is everywhere, but we don’t ban bleach or plastic bags because if accidentally ingested or used improperly, they can be deadly.

As difficult an idea as it will seem to some, it’s one more government restraint the evidence doesn’t justify. This Father’s Day, we don’t need DADSS to replace the ones we already have.

• Rick Berman is president of Berman and Co., a Washington public affairs firm.

quote shows up here and in beck bk:

march 2012:

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/civil-rights/217573-sarah-longwell-managing-director-american-beverage-institute

"It has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned," said Lightner in a 2002 Washington Times interview. "I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving."

Now, MADD has lobbied Congress to enforce its neo-prohibitionist philosophy on all Americans. The Senate Transportation Reauthorization Bill (S. 1813), passed Wednesday, was amended to include funding for the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) — a federal program working to create alcohol detection systems for installation in all cars. The bill appropriates $24 million in additional funding over 2 years for the research program. This is a massive increase from the $10 million the program received over the last 5 years.

As a National Highway Transportation Safety Administration presentation revealed, the program’s big-picture objective mirrors MADD’s extreme interlock agenda: “DADSS in every vehicle.”

MADD once claimed that the use of this technology would be strictly voluntary. Now, as the devices grow close to completion, the story has changed: MADD hopes they’ll be used in all cars.

Even if these alcohol detection devices were manufactured to six sigma standards and 99.99966 percent were default free, it would still mean over 4,000 misreadings per day. That means every day, thousands of sober drivers could find their cars locked down by a faulty interlock– bringing chaos to personal and professional lives as a matter of course.

DADSS supporters claim the alcohol detectors would be voluntary and set at 0.08, but there is a mountain of evidence showing that their true goal is to put alcohol sensing technology in all cars as original equipment, set well below the 0.08 level.

The anti-alcohol movement knows full well that it’s impossible, for physiological and liability reasons, to set interlocks at the 0.08 legal BAC limit. Instead, they’d likely be preset as low as 0.02 – the BAC of an average male after one beer. Under MADD’s rule, you’d better not get any big ideas about that glass of wine at dinner or a champagne toast at your daughter’s wedding.

These new policies would not only decimate America’s hospitality industry, but would have a chilling effect on personal freedom. An America where cars cannot start if an individual has had one serving of alcohol would be far less free, far less prosperous and, in all likelihood, far less friendly. Life would be a cross between the Prohibition era and George Orwell’s 1984. American’s should let their voices be heard on this issue now -- before we let the neo-prohibitionists treat all of us like criminals.

Longwell is the managing director of the American Beverage Institute.

ABL newSlter no name:

Transportation Reauthorization in Limbo; Senate Version Contains DADSS Funding On March 29, Congress passed the 9th extension of current transportation legislation that will keep funding in place through June 30. The current law was set to expire on March 31 should Congress have failed to act. This gives Congress 90 days to work out their differences and, in the case of the House, simply get a longer-term transportation bill passed.

The Senate passed a surface transportation reauthorization bill (S. 1813) on March 14 by a vote of 74-22. Transportation reauthorization legislation historically contains alcohol traffic safety provisions; the Senate’s bill this year continues that tradition. S. 1813 allows states to qualify for impaired driving countermeasure funding by implementing effective programs or ignition interlocks (broadly defined).

It also includes incentive grant language similar to what has been in past transportation bills. S. 1813 also includes funding for the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) program of $12 million/year for 2 years. This provision of the Senate legislation was originally introduced as a stand-alone bill (Research of Alcohol Detection Systems for Stopping Alcohol-related Fatalities Everywhere Act of 2011 (S. 510)) by Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) on March 8, 2011.

The original House transportation bill did not include DADSS funding. With passage of the Senate bill, the onus is now on the House to pass its own legislation before the expiration of the current law on June 30. Initially, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-FL) introduced a H.R. 7, a five-year reauthorization bill with a price tag of approximately $260 billion. Not expansive enough for House Democrats, the bill also ran into surprisingly strong headwinds from Chairman Mica’s own caucus, with many Republicans lamenting it as too costly. Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has signaled that the House could be forced to consider a two-year bill similar to the Senate’s, though just how similar remains to be seen. Senate Democrats are using the relatively broad bipartisan support for their chamber’s bill (Three-fourths of the chamber vote...

abi links to

Washington Times (Washington, DC)

August 6, 2002

byline: Sam Bresnahan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

MIDDLETOWN, Va. - The new president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving will earn every dime of her annual $75,000 salary this year fighting off critics who say the once all-powerful group has become an organization of prohibitionists.

MADD's new eight-point attack plan is named "Let's Get MADD All Over Again," indicating a worry that the nonprofit group has lost some of its punch, said one MADD vice president.

Wendy Hamilton, who has quietly transformed herself from a stay-at-home mother of three into the new president of MADD, must now transform the lobbying efforts of the aging organization - which still commands an impressive $50 million in annual revenues.

"We really need to kick-start this whole program," said Jan Blaser-Upchurch, MADD's vice president of victim issues. "We need to make people outraged and concerned that this drunk-driving problem has not gone away."

Mrs. Hamilton cites the AIDS epidemic as one of the issues that has shifted the limelight away from MADD, as has the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and the Washington area. …

By - The Washington Times - Tuesday, August 6, 2002

MIDDLETOWN, Va. The new president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving will earn every dime of her annual $75,000 salary this year fighting off critics who say the once all-powerful group has become an organization of prohibitionists.

MADD's new eight-point attack plan is named "Let's Get MADD All Over Again," indicating a worry that the nonprofit group has lost some of its punch, said one MADD vice president.

Wendy Hamilton, who has quietly transformed herself from a stay-at-home mother of three into the new president of MADD, must now transform the lobbying efforts of the aging organization which still commands an impressive $50 million in annual revenues.

Mrs. Hamilton cites the AIDS epidemic as one of the issues that has shifted the limelight away from MADD, as has the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and the Washington area.

"I'm not trying to minimize in any way what happened to our country on that day, because if anybody knows terror, I think the victims of drunk driving certainly do," said Mrs. Hamilton, noting that about 14,000 Americans have been killed in drunk-driving crashes since September.

The organization's plan, which calls for widespread sobriety checkpoints and increased excise taxes on beer, among other measures, has drawn sharp criticism from civil-liberties and consumer-rights advocates.

"They started off in the 1980s with a legitimate goal. However, like many nonprofits, you have the question: Once you have achieved your goal, what do you do with your organization?" said Martin Wooster, who has written extensively on various philanthropic issues and is a visiting fellow at the Capital Research Center.

In response to MADD's proposed excise-tax increase on beer, Mr. Wooster points out that such taxes are higher now than they have ever been. "You're punishing every beer drinker in America, and for what reason?" he asked.

MADD's directors hope their plan will reduce the annual number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities from its current level of about 16,000 down to 10,000. From 1980, the year of MADD's founding, to 1994, the annual drunk-driving death rate decreased 43 percent.

But the statistic has leveled off since 1994, promptingsome observers to say MADD is now merely flogging a cause that has already been largely accomplished.

Candy Lightner, MADD's founder, says she disassociated herself from the movement in 1985 because she believed the organization was headed in the wrong direction.

"It has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned," said Mrs. Lightner, who founded MADD after her daughter was killed by a drunk driver. "I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving."

Several years after she left MADD, Mrs. Lightner briefly represented the American Beverage Institute in its fight against the 0.08 percent BAC law. She also lobbied Congress to enforce tougher penalties for drunk drivers.

Mrs. Hamilton, whose tenure as MADD president began in June, denied her organization is against any and all alcohol consumption. "It's not about people drinking," she said. "It's about people drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car and putting themselves, and everybody else on the highway, at risk."

MADD in the past few years has targeted elementary- and middle-school students in their education campaigns against drinking and against alcohol advertising.

Also included in MADD's eight-point plan are stricter seat-belt laws in all 50 states, and increased federal funding of alcohol-abuse prevention and education.

With only two years to accomplish all of this, Mrs. Hamilton hit the ground running.

In July, she met with congressmen and other advocacy groups in Washington. Then she was off to a book signing in New York City, the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver and another conference in Montreal.

If Mrs. Hamilton had been told 30 years ago that she would one day serve in a position of such influence, she probably would have laughed.

"I went to college to get my 'Mrs.' degree," said Mrs. Hamilton, who happily married at the age of 20 and contentedly remained at home to care for her children. Little did she know a single act of irresponsibility would alter her life's course, indelibly marking her character and catapulting her into a career of activism.

That day in 1984 is etched deeply into Mrs. Hamilton's memory. "My mother called me on a beautiful day just like this," she said. "I could tell that something horrible had happened. And she finally said, 'It's Becky and Timmy. They're both dead.'"

Becky was Mrs. Hamilton's 32-year-old sister, and Timmy her 22-month-old nephew. Both were killed after a drunk driver crossed into their lane, causing a head-on collision.

"On a sunny Wednesday afternoon, you don't expect to hear that," Mrs. Hamilton said, as she recalled the memory. Since that day, her life has never been the same. Over the next few weeks, as she grieved over her loved ones, Mrs. Hamilton came to learn of an upstart organization known as MADD.

She feels that small events, like pieces of a puzzle, came together and led her into a life of activism. The week after the funeral, she stumbled upon a MADD bumper sticker while going through Becky's belongings. She saw an article about MADD while reading a magazine. And there was even a MADD chapter in Crown Point, Ind., where she lived at the time a striking coincidence, considering how few chapters existed in 1984, only four years after MADD's founding.

"A lot of what's happened to me in my life since then has been just pieces of the puzzle that have been building a picture," Mrs. Hamilton said.

"I believe there's a reason why I'm sitting here today," she said, recalling the tragedy that took her sister's life. "That's what I'm doing now, keeping her legacy alive."

sw in main. this is update/reminder:

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rick_Berman

Richard B. (Rick) Berman is a former labor management attorney and restaurant industry executive who, with his firm Berman & Co., currently works as a Washington, D.C. lobbyist for the food, alcoholic beverage, tobacco industries and, more recently, other industries. Berman & Co. has lobbied for companies such as Cracker Barrel, Hooters, International House of Pancakes, Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse, Red Lobster, Steak & Ale, TGI Friday's, Uno's Restaurants, and Wendy's.

Berman has earned the nicknames "Dr. Evil," the "Conservatives' Weapon of Mass Destruction" and the "Astroturf Kingpin" for his repeated use of the strategy of forming dozens of non-profit front groups, attack-dog web sites, and alleged think tanks that defend his corporate clients' interests by attacking their critics, allowing his paying clients to remain out of public view.^[1][2]

Berman & Co.'s many front groups work to counteract minimum wage campaigns, keep wages low for restaurant workers, and to block legislation on food safety, secondhand cigarette smoke, and drunk driving and more.^[3] Since 2013, Berman and his Employment Policy Institute "think tank" have led a national fight against campaigns to raise the minimum wage and to provide paid sick leave for workers with renewed attacks on proponents (including the Center for Media and Democracy, publisher of SourceWatch), misleading reports, op-eds, TV and radio ads, and more, as reported by the New York Times.^[4] The New York Times has also reported that he "receives millions of dollars from business" in order to wage these campaigns.^[5]

Berman has also actively campaigned against any attempts to limit smoking in restaurants and bars. In testimony before the New York City Health Oversight Committee, Berman said, "The level of exposure to secondhand smoke for bartenders, waiters and waitresses is considerably lower than the federal air quality limits established by the federal government."^[6]

Berman is the president, executive director, and board member of the Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE, called the Center for Consumer Freedom/CCF until early 2014).^[7] In spite of its former name, CORE is more concerned about industry than the consumer.

Berman is also the executive director and president of the Employment Policies Institute,^[8] the Employment Policies Institute Foundation, the American Beverage Institute, and the Center for Union Facts.^[9]

Berman's company had 28 employees and took in $10 million dollars a year as of 2006, but "only Berman and his bookkeeper wife" know how much of the $10 million ends up in their own pockets, according to USA Today.^[10]

More recently CMD revealed^[11] that the Bradley Foundation is funding a number of Berman's front groups to attack labor, environmental and other groups, as well as to assist and train other Bradley-funded organizations in crisis communications (more below.)

Bradley Foundation Ties, "Go-To Hire For Corporate Bullies"

CMD's 2017 exposé on the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation revealed that the foundation has given Berman front groups at least $6.5 million.^[11]From the exposé,

"According to the Bradley Files, Bradley has given Berman groups at least $6.5 million. Bradley gave Berman's "Employment Policies Institute," an organization that spreads misinformation about the effects of minimum wage increases and other workplace reforms, a total of $3,650,000 between 2009-2015; Berman's "Center for Consumer Freedom," a front group created to undermine public support for food-safety and animal welfare groups, $625,000 between 2009-2013; Berman's "Center for Union Facts," created to attack and undermine unions and collective bargaining, $2,240,000 between 2006-2015.""In addition, Bradley funds the "Capital Research Center" to work with Berman on projects. The Center is not part of the Berman operation, but is run by a former Berman employee, Scott Walter. It received $2.5 million from Bradley between 1998-2015."

"Management Fees" Syphoning Charity Funds To Berman

From the CMD exposé,

"While most of Berman's front groups are no more than a website, a few of them have been incorporated as non-profit "charitable" organizations. They may even have an employee attached to them and a specific focus, but as the New York Times detailed in 2016, employees are generally housed at the PR firm Berman and Co. and report to the boss, Rick Berman.""These "charities" serve the function of allowing groups like Bradley to send tax-exempt funds, which are then funneled into Berman's wholly-owned for-profit entity, Berman and Co., under the rubric of "management fees." This scheme has prompted Charity Navigator, an independent authority on charitable giving, to issue donor warnings on Berman front groups. It has also prompted serious complaints against Berman and Co. for abusing the tax code and engaging in activities for private benefit."^[11]

Attacking Labor Groups

From the CMD exposé,

"Bradley is bankrolling multiple Berman front groups along with groups across the nation that are working to "defund Big Labor" and to destroy unions, the most significant advocate for higher wages and better working conditions in America. Berman was caught on tape telling prospective funders: "I get up every morning and I try and figure out how to screw with the labor unions" and "marginalize the people on the other side," as CMD helped reveal in 2014.""The highly political nature of Bradley's efforts is underscored by Bradley grantees who boast in major newspapers and in Bradley-funded publications like the Daily Signal that the evisceration of public and private sector unions in states like Wisconsin and Michigan was successful in turning blue states red in the last presidential election cycle. Bradley even has a promotional video "Blue Lakes Red States," boasting of the success of its numerous grantees."[. . .]"More recently, Bradley has funded another Berman front group to "expose Big Labor's strategies and tactics, including in the policymaking arena." Materials included in the Bradley files as examples of Berman's work are a series of print ads accusing teachers of treating kids like garbage and ads that liken teachers' unions to roach traps (Center for Union Facts, Grant Proposal Record, 1/10/2015)."^[11]

Attacking Environmental Groups

From the CMD exposé,

"One of the projects funded by Bradley was the "Big Green Radicals.com" website, which attacks four effective environmental organizations, the National Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Greenpeace and Food and Water Watch. The website says it is a project of the "Environmental Policy Alliance" and does not disclose Berman's involvement. The Bradley files reveal for the first time that the foundation gave $150,000 to a Berman front group [CCF] to fund this website under the misnomer "public education" (Center for Consumer Freedom, Grant Proposal Record, 11/12/2013).""In recent years, the site has been trashing environmental activists in Colorado. There has been a multi-year throw down between anti-fracking community groups battling it out against the oil and gas industry, and the national environmental groups have been lending a hand."""Richard Berman is a go-to hire for corporate bullies. If the Bradley Foundation is paying groups to focus more on political bullying, it makes sense they would support Berman's attacks on environmental advocates," said Connor Gibson of Greenpeace's investigations team....

Berman & Co.

*Main article: Berman & Co.

Berman & Co., a Washington, DC public affairs firm owned by lobbyist Rick Berman, represents the tobacco industry as well as hotels, beer distributors, taverns, and restaurant chains. Berman & Co. has lobbied for companies such as Cracker Barrel, Hooters, International House of Pancakes, Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse, Red Lobster, Steak & Ale, TGI Friday's, Uno's Restaurants, and Wendy's.

Berman & Co. operates a network of dozens of front groups, attack-dog web sites, and alleged think tanks that work to counteract minimum wage campaigns, keep wages low for restaurant workers, and to block legislation on food safety, secondhand cigarette smoke, and drunk driving and more.^[12] In 2013-14, Berman and his Employment Policy Institute "think tank," have led a national fight against campaigns to raise the minimum wage and to provide paid sick leave for workers with renewed attacks on proponents (including the Center for Media and Democracy, publisher of Sourcewatch), misleading reports, op-eds, TV and radio ads and more.^[13]

Berman Admits to Working for Monsanto

On May 12, 2016 Berman admitted to advising the controversial corporate giant Monsanto in an interview with the Cato Institute.

"I’ve moved people to different points of view over time just by changing the language. You know, I often told Monsanto, I’ll just use one company’s position here, I often told Monsanto they made a very big mistake when they called genetically modified, GMOs, when they call them genetically modified organisms exactly that. Why would you call, why would you tell people it’s safe to eat genetically modified organisms? That’s not the first thing that you think of when you get out of bed in the morning, that I want some genetically modified organisms with my Cheerios. On the other, on the other hand, if they had just called these new foods that they were creating with science, if you call them genetically modified foods, or more importantly, genetically improved foods, so if you called them GIFs, genetically improved foods, rather than GMOs, you immediately would have had a different reaction on the part of the public. And so, I think you could have moved the needle enormously. It wouldn’t have gone so far south if you had just used different language."^[14]

Listen to the full interview here.

Berman behind Movement to Sell off Public Lands

The U.S. Senate passed Amendment 838, "a non-binding amendment that called for the transfer of public lands, including National Forests, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas, to state control," on March 26, 2015.^[15]

The 51-to-49 vote was mainly along party lines, withSenators Corey Gardner (R-CO), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) joining the Democrats in opposition.^[16]

During the week of the vote, Will Coggins, a senior research analyst at Berman and Company, took out four nearly identical opinion pieces in Montana, Nevada, and Utah arguing strongly in favor of the transfer of public lands to the states while also attacking hunting and fishing groups as "green decoys."^{[17][18][19][20]}

This coordinated public relations campaign suggests that Berman and Company is behind the movement to sell off public lands, AllGov reports.^[15]

In response to the amendment's passage and the opinion pieces written by Berman and Company, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Executive Director Land Tawney wrote, "Nationally, an organized, concerted movement is underway to sell off and limit access to America's public lands and waters. These are not merely the actions of a lunatic fringe. Now is the time to double down and fight back against this ill-conceived idea."^[21]

Think Progress reports that "[l]egal scholars have noted that these so-called 'land transfer' schemes are unconstitutional, economic analyses have found them to be fiscally reckless, and sportsmen's groups argue that they would result in diminished public access for hunting and fishing."^[22]

Berman Pushes Congress to Pass Employee Rights Act

Toward the end of 2014 and into 2015, Berman, Newt Gingrich, and various Berman front groups began pushing Congress to pass the so-called "Employee Rights Act," a bill whose seven provisions are designed to further weaken unions and make it even harder for workers to organize. For example, on March 9, 2015, LaborPains.org, the joint blog of Berman front groups the Center for Union Facts and the Enterprise Freedom Action Committee, published a post encouraging Congress to pass the "Employee Rights Act," claiming a connection with Scott Walker's signing of a bill to make Wisconsin a so-called "Right to Work" state.^[23]

The post followed months of opinion pieces taken out in major newspapers across the United States by Berman, Gingrich, Michael Saltsman, or various combinations of the three in support of the legislation.^{[24][25][26][27][28][29]}

Although the "Employee Rights Act" claims to protect workers' rights, it does the opposite. San Francisco State University Professor John A. Logan noted:

"In a recent Washington Post op-ed, right-wing lobbyists Rick Berman and Newt Gingrich urged the new Republican Congress to enact the ludicrously mistitled "Employee Rights Act" (ERA), a bill so reactionary it could have been penned by the Koch brothers themselves. In the name of 'protecting' employee rights, the ERA would make it extraordinarily difficult for workers to choose unions and would give a virtual pass to unscrupulous corporations that coerce and intimidate employees. While it won't become law while the Democrats control the White House, the ERA provides an illustration of the draconian legislation that Republicans will unleash on workers if they win control of both the presidency and the Congress in 2016."^[30]

Berman Using Front Groups to Attack Barack Obama's New Power Plant Rules

The Guardian uncovered in February 2015 that "Berman has secretly routed funding for at least 16 studies and launched at least five front groups attacking Environmental Protection Agency rules cutting carbon dioxide from power plants."^[31] The Berman front Employment Policies Institute funded the reports, which were carried out by the Beacon Hill Institute, an ALEC-allied member of the right-wing State Policy Network (SPN) headquartered on the campus of Suffolk University.^[31] The Beacon Hill Institute received $41,500 from the Employment Policies Institute to research the effects of the EPA rules.^[31] According to The Guardian, "The reports, claiming the power plant rules would lead to rolling blackouts, send electricity prices skyrocketing, and devastate local economies, are being published in 16 states by a network of pro-corporate and ultra-conservative thinktanks."^[31]

The Guardian quoted Jay Duffy of Clean Air Task Force when it reported that the Beacon Hill Institute's research and analysis are not academically rigorous: "BHI's interpretation of EPA's analysis just doesn’t hold up... BHI has skewed timelines, underestimated the social cost of carbon, and overestimated the effect on electricity prices. As a result, their study badly inflates the costs and minimises the benefits of EPA’s draft rules."^[31]

Berman Exposed in Unguarded Advice to Fossil Fuel Execs

CMD posted new audio exposing Rick Berman's corporate PR spin machine in October 2014. Listen to the audio here:

File:Berman presentation.mp3

Read more about this story on CMD's PRWatch here.

On October 30, 2014, the New York Times broke the news that a speech Rick Berman had given to oil and gas executives at an event sponsored by the Western Energy Alliance in Colorado Springs in June 2014 had been secretly taped, and that Berman told those gathered that "if the oil and gas industry wants to prevent its opponents from slowing its efforts to drill in more places, it must be prepared to employ tactics like digging up embarrassing tidbits about environmentalists and liberal celebrities."^[8]

Attendees included representatives from Anadarko Petroleum,^[8] Halliburton Company, ExxonMobil, Devon Energy, and Noble Energy.^[32]

Berman told the executives they "must be willing to exploit emotions like fear, greed and anger and turn them against the environmental groups. And major corporations secretly financing such a campaign should not worry about offending the general public because 'you can either win ugly or lose pretty,' he said. 'Think of this as an endless war,' Mr. Berman told the crowd... 'And you have to budget for it,'" according to the Times.^[8]

Bloomberg also reported on the leaked audio, noting that "Berman offered companies a way to anonymously target their environmental foes -- at a cost of as much as $3 million."^[32]

Bloomberg spoke to Pennsylvania’s former top natural-gas regulator Michael Krancer, who said that industry supporters have no choice but to take Berman's advice and play dirty: "There is an anti-fossil fuel movement, and a very well-funded lobbying campaign is behind it," he told Bloomberg. "These are people who want to live in a dream world."^[32]

Berman Explains his Playbook

Berman's remarks to his audience revealed a kind of Ten Commandments from his playbook:^[33]

"Screw" your enemy. Berman boasted about his obsession with unions and his attack on their efforts to raise the minimum wage for American workers: "I get up every morning and I try and figure out how to screw with the labor unions." Listen to this clip here.
"Marginalize" your opponents. Berman described his tactics against public interest groups: "wherever possible I like to use humor to minimize or marginalize the people on the other side." Listen to this clip here.
"Demolish the moral authority" of powerful public interest voices: "I got George McGovern to come out and say that unions were wrong. I represent some alcohol companies, I got Candy Lightner, who started Mothers Against Drunk Driving, to come out and say that MADD was overreaching and that she endorsed our position, our client position, rather than the MADD position. That is a demolishing of moral authority." Listen to this clip here.
"Make it personal." Berman's associate Hubbard described how they go after concerned citizens who dare to challenge their clients: "we do have a section on every single activist. Their rap sheets, their criminal records they have. We’re really making this personal. We’re trying to make it so they don't have any credibility with the public, with the media, or with the legislators." Listen to this clip here.
"Brand" whole movements as "not credible." Berman & Co. detailed their game plan to try to marginalize people concerned about fracking, as noted by Bloomberg media:^[32] "what we wanted to do is that we wanted to brand the entire movement behind this as not being credible, and anti-science." Listen to this clip here.
Being "nasty" wins. Berman shakes off concerns that his activities are too nasty or aggressive, saying "you can either win ugly or lose pretty." Listen to this clip here.
Push "fear and anger." Berman talked about pushing people's emotional buttons on fear, love, anger, greed, and sympathy, stating: "you could not get into people's heads and convince them to do something as easily as you could get into their hearts or into their gut to convince to do something. Because, emotions drive people much better than intellectual epiphanies." Listen to this clip here.
Treat public policy as "endless war." Berman recognized that the public interest groups are appealing to the American people: "If you think about it these groups, the Sierra Club, who is the natural enemy of the Sierra Club? Who is the enemy of Greenpeace? You know at the surface, you would love to be a group like that because everyone should be in favor of you, who could be against you? That’s very difficult to over come and they play on that, and they trade on that, and that's our opportunity and also our challenge. So it is an endless war." Listen to this clip here.
Give corporate cash "total anonymity." Berman reassured his audience that he can keep their role in these tactics secret: "We run all of this stuff through nonprofit organizations that are insulated from having to disclose donors. There is total anonymity. People don't know who supports us. We've been doing this for 20 something years in this regard. And to the degree to anybody is concerned about that I will tell you there are all sorts of ways, all sorts of firewalls that have been established to get this done on an anonymous" basis. He added: "I am religious about not allowing company names to ever get used. At least I'm not going to allow them to get used. And I don't want companies to ever admit that because it does give the other side a way to diminish our message." Listen to this clip here.
Tear down celebrities who speak out. Berman's associate Hubbard noted that taking down celebrities who speak up is a key part of their strategy because: "the problem is that the public really does have a celebrity worship culture. But the good news is that there is nothing the public likes more than tearing down celebrities and playing up the hypocrisy angle." Listen to this clip here.

Other Quotes

According to a transcript of his talk, Berman also said:^[34]

"I get up every morning and I try to figure out how to screw with the labor unions -- that's my offense."
"If you want a video to go viral, have kids or animals... Use humor to minimize or marginalize the people on the other side."
"There is nothing the public likes more than tearing down celebrities and playing up the hypocrisy angle."
"People always ask me one question all the time: 'How do I know that I won’t be found out as a supporter of what you’re doing?'We run all of this stuff through nonprofit organizations that are insulated from having to disclose donors.There is total anonymity. People don’t know who supports us."
"They characterize us in a campaign as being the guys with the black helicopters. And to some degree, that's true. We’re doing stuff to diminish the other sides' ability to operate."

Rick Berman, Dubbed "Dr. Evil" by 60 Minutes

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2017/05/13240/bradley-foundation-bankrolls-front-groups-richard-berman

Bradley is bankrolling multiple Berman front groups along with groups across the nation that are working to "defund Big Labor" and to destroy unions, the most significant advocate for higher wages and better working conditions in America. Berman was caught on tape telling prospective funders: "I get up every morning and I try and figure out how to screw with the labor unions" and "marginalize the people on the other side," as CMD helped reveal in 2014.

The highly political nature of Bradley's efforts is underscored by Bradley grantees who boast in major newspapers and in Bradley-funded publications like the *Daily Signal* that the evisceration of public and private sector unions in states like Wisconsin and Michigan was successful in turning blue states red in the last presidential election cycle. Bradley even has a promotional video "Blue Lakes Red States," boasting of the success of its numerous grantees.

Berman has mastered the dark art of dissemination disinformation though front groups, websites, TV and print ads and paid social media campaigns. While most of Berman's front groups are no more than a website, a few of them have been incorporated as non-profit "charitable" organizations. They may even have an employee attached to them and a specific focus, but as the New York Times detailed in 2016, employees are generally housed at the PR firm Berman and Co. and report to the boss, Rick Berman.

These "charities" serve the function of allowing groups like Bradley to send tax-exempt funds, which are then funneled into Berman's wholly-owned for-profit entity, Berman and Co., under the rubric of "management fees." This scheme has prompted Charity Navigator,an independent authority on charitable giving, to issue donor warnings on Berman front groups. It has also prompted serious complaints against Berman and Co. for abusing the tax code and engaging in activities for private benefit.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), an ethics watchdog group, filed an IRS complaint against Berman some years ago and helps track the flack's activities.

One example is Berman's "BigGreenRadicals.com" website, anattack on four environmental organizations, the National Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Greenpeace and Food and Water Watch. The website says it is a project of the "Environmental Policy Alliance" and does not disclose Berman's involvement. The Bradley files reveal for the first time that the foundation gave $150,000 to a Berman front group to fund this website under the misnomer "public education" (Center for Consumer Freedom, Grant Proposal Record, 11/12/2013).

More recently, Bradley has funded another Berman front group to "expose Big Labor's strategies and tactics, including in the policymaking arena." Materials included in the Bradley files as examples of Berman's work are a series of print ads accusing teachers of treating kids like garbage and ads that liken teachers' unions to roach traps (Center for Union Facts, Grant Proposal Record, 1/10/2015).

Bradley even has an enemies list.

In board meetings and committee meetings in 2014, Bradley Foundation staff distributed and discussed a chart of "Organizations that Attack Conservatives." The chart lists 17 groups with information about their size, funders, and leadership. The groups are a mixture of good government groups, media groups, public relations firms, and funding organizations including, in alphabetical order:

Alliance for Justice; American Bridge, BerlinRosen; Center for American Progress/Think Progress Blog; Center for Media and Democracy; Change.org; Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW); Color of Change; Common Cause; Democracy Alliance; Fenton Communications; FitzGibbon Media; Media Matters for America; Mother Jones, One Wisconsin Now; Open Society Institute; and Progress Now.

Through Berman, the Bradley Foundation can engage in unseemly opposition research and disinformation campaigns, while still keeping the appearance of a staid, philanthropic institution.

In addition, Bradley funds the "Capital Research Center" to work with Berman on projects. The Center is not part of the Berman operation, but is run by a former Berman employee, Scott Walter. It received $2.5 million from Bradley between 1998-2015.

Bradley bankrolls Berman for at least three sets of activities:

### Disseminating studies via the Interstate Policy Alliance
### Recommending state infrastructure investments
### Coaching on "crisis communication" and opposition research

Dissemination of Studies

Bradley documents describe IPA as a "discrete channel" for "studies"that could be utilized by state-based groups "to achieve maximum credibility in local and social media outlets."

State think tanks participating in Berman's IPA, which include Wisconsin's Bradley-supported MacIver Institute,do not have to pay for the research or its packaging or dissemination. They are able to easily access data that has been uploaded to a password-protected website. As needed, Berman's IPA also helps with report writing, graphic design, news release preparation, op-ed placement and the scheduling of interviews, (EPI, Grant Proposal Record, 11/10/2015 ).

In 2015, the Center for Media and Democracy and the Energy and Policy Institute revealed how IPA operated, when it reported that the Beacon Hill Institute was releasing misleading studies attacking President Obama's Clean Power Plan, an ambitious multi-year effort to cut carbon pollution and mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. The funding for the study came through thepreviously unknown group called the Interstate Policy Alliance.

In many of its sponsored research "studies," IPA promotes fossil fuel development over renewables. This has been a long-term agenda item of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate funded bill mill and many State Policy Network "think tanks" and advocacy groups funded by Bradley. In addition, the Bradley documents examined by CMD show Bradley is funding numerous climate denial groups, including Myron Ebell's Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Heartland Institute.

One IPA report, touts the tens of billions of revenue North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia might gain from offshore oil and gas development in the Atlantic Ocean.
Another report argues that fossil fuel development of federal lands in seven Rocky Mountain states will grow the economies at a faster pace than renewables.
Another promotes the transfer of federal lands to states, claiming that revenues from taxes and fees will rapidly flow to states.
And yet another study criticizes the Renewable Portfolio Standards in 29 states and D.C. as costly to consumers, while ignoring any benefits to jobs or the environment.

Infrastructure Investments

The CRC/IPA evaluation of the quality and potential of states' existing conservative infrastructure and recommended investments in eight states: Colorado, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and Californiain that order. The documents note "(Given IPA's Bradley supported role in trying to help all state think tanks, they were quite keen on the report's contents being kept confidential)" (Barder Fund, Nov. 10, 2015).

The advisors namedColorado a top tier priority.Not only is Colorado an important swing state, but Coloradan Terry Considineis on the Bradley Board of Directors. Considine is a failed Colorado politician, but a dedicated right-winger who has long served on the Board of Directors of Club for Growth, the national dark money group. AIMCP

The political nature of Bradley's investment in this swing state is made clear in a report "Colorado state-infrastructure recommendations" included in the Bradley documents. "Colorado is an important swing state with a broad base of center-right organizations and donors," writes Bradley. The report discusses "The Gang of Four" liberal funders in the state who were featured in an "attention-getting" book called "The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care)," which details how a small group of Democratic donors helped turn the state blue. The book made a big impression on Bradley staff; a picture of the cover is included in the Bradley documents multiple times.

These two investments appear to be exactly the type of political spending that might run afoul of IRS rules for permissible non-profit activity.

Other Colorado grantees included Colorado Christian University for its Centennial Institute ($75,000), Leadership Program of the Rockies ($75,000) and the Steamboat Institute ($50,000).

"Crisis Communications" and Opposition Research

Bradley has also bankrolled the Berman team for a communications program for many years.

To quote from the Bradley files:

Already-prepared "well sourced opposition research" is key, says the Bradley grant document:

CCF boasts of training Bradley-supported "think tanks" across the nation that are members of the State Policy Network (SPN),such as North Carolina's Civitas Institute, Michigan's Mackinac Center, and Washington State's Freedom Foundation. CCF asks Bradley for support to expand this type of opposition research and training to the rest of the SPN network and the Interstate Policy Alliance.

ALEC also redesigned and beefed up its website, deployed more social media, and partnered with CrowdSkout a data analytics company to track, view and engage supporters (ALEC, Grant Proposal Record, 8/16/2016).

Bradley outlines the bigger game plan for ALEC: "The larger plan also has an important component for aggressive 'opposition research,' which has yielded many beneficial outcomes, including to Strassel for her helpful book, among others." This last comment in the Bradley documents suggests that ALEC provided Wall Street Journal editorial writer Kim Strassel with information for her book Intimidation Game. In it, Strassel portrayed the sustained citizen campaigning against ALEC as a well-funded, nefarious effort tocrush the "free speech" rights of ALEC and its enormous funders, including Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, Pfizer, and ALTRIA/Phillip Morris (Strassel received a $250,000 Bradley Prize in 2014).

Current members of the Bradley Foundation Boardare Richard W. Graber (President), Art Pope (Chairman; Variety Wholesalers), Patrick J. English (Vice Chairman; Fiduciary Management, Inc.), Terry Considine (AIMCO), Curt S. Culver (MGIC), Robert P. George (Princeton University), Victor Davis Hanson (Hoover Institution), Diane Hendricks (ABC Supply Co. and Hendricks Holding Co.), Cleta Mitchell (Foley & Lardner), and James T. Barry III (The Barry Company). Former board members include Michael W. Grebe and George F. Will.

http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/05/09/bradley-foundation-bankrolls-front-groups-richard-berman/

Bradley is bankrolling multiple Berman front groups along with groups across the nation that are working to “defund Big Labor” and to destroy unions, the most significant advocate for higher wages and better working conditions in America. Berman was caught on tape telling prospective funders: “I get up every morning and I try and figure out how to screw with the labor unions” and “marginalize the people on the other side,” as CMD helped reveal in 2014.

The highly political nature of Bradley’s efforts is underscored by Bradley grantees who boast in major newspapers and in Bradley-funded publications like the *Daily Signal* that the evisceration of public and private sector unions in states like Wisconsin and Michigan was successful in turning blue states red in the last presidential election cycle. Bradley even has a promotional video “Blue Lakes Red States,” boasting of the success of its numerous grantees.

Berman has mastered the dark art of dissemination disinformation though front groups, websites, TV and print ads and paid social media campaigns. While most of Berman’s front groups are no more than a website, a few of them have been incorporated as non-profit “charitable” organizations. They may even have an employee attached to them and a specific focus, but as the New York Times detailed in 2016, employees are generally housed at the PR firm Berman and Co. and report to the boss, Rick Berman.

These “charities” serve the function of allowing groups like Bradley to send tax-exempt funds, which are then funneled into Berman’s wholly-owned for-profit entity, Berman and Co., under the rubric of “management fees.” This scheme has promptedCharityNavigator, an independent authority on charitable giving, to issue donor warnings on Berman front groups. It has also prompted serious complaints against Berman and Co. for abusing the tax code and engaging in activities for private benefit.

The Bradley Files suggest that the foundation is quite comfortable with the Berman shell game. Bradley board documents characterize Berman’s confusing jumble of front groups and websites as a “collaborative cluster of nonprofit groups” and reveal for the first time that Bradley itself created a Berman project called the “Interstate Policy Alliance” within Berman’s Employment Policies Institute.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), an ethics watchdog group, filed an IRS complaint against Berman some years ago and helps track the flack’s activities.

“When a company or a foundation gives money to Richard Berman or one of the groups set up and run by his consulting firm, they’re investing in his way of doing business, which includes exploiting ‘fear and anger’ to ‘shoot the messenger,’ usually in defense of issues his clients don’t want to be publicly identified with,” said Matt Corley, CREW Research Director.

One example is Berman’s “BigGreenRadicals.com” website, an attack on four environmental organizations, the National Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Greenpeace and Food and Water Watch. The website says it is a project of the “Environmental Policy Alliance” and does not disclose Berman’s involvement. The Bradley files reveal for the first time that the foundation gave $150,000 to a Berman front group to fund this website under the misnomer “public education” (Center for Consumer Freedom, Grant Proposal Record, 11/12/2013).

“Richard Berman is a go-to hire for corporate bullies. If the Bradley Foundation is paying groups to focus more on political bullying, it makes sense they would support Berman’s attacks on environmental advocates,” said Connor Gibson of Greenpeace’s investigations team.

More recently, Bradley has funded another Berman front group to “expose Big Labor’s strategies and tactics, including in the policymaking arena.” Materials included in the Bradley files as examples of Berman’s work are a series of print ads accusing teachers of treating kids like garbage and ads that liken teachers’ unions to roach traps (Center for Union Facts, Grant Proposal Record, 1/10/2015).

Bradley even has an enemies list.

In board meetings and committee meetings in 2014, Bradley Foundation staff distributed and discussed a chart of “Organizations that Attack Conservatives.” The chart lists 17 groups with information about their size, funders, and leadership. The groups are a mixture of good government groups, media groups, public relations firms, and funding organizations including, in alphabetical order:

A note with the chart says Bradley wanted to “survey the landscape of such groups for a more informed perspective about that which could perhaps be done to mitigate the damage they could do.” The note says the information about the groups came from two Berman websites “Activistfacts.com and CREWexposed.com, projects of the Bradley-supported Center for Consumer Freedom” (Meeting of the Implementation and Impact Committee, October 14, 2014).

Through Berman, the Bradley Foundation can engage in unseemly opposition research and disinformation campaigns, while still keeping the appearance of a staid, philanthropic institution.

According to the Bradley Files, Bradley has given Berman groups at least $6.5 million. Bradley gave Berman’s “Employment Policies Institute,” an organization that spreads misinformation about the effects of minimum wage increases and other workplace reforms, a total of $3,650,000 between 2009-2015; Berman’s “Center for Consumer Freedom,” a front group created to undermine public support for food-safety and animal welfare groups, $625,000 between 2009-2013; Berman’s “Center for Union Facts,” created to attack and undermine unions and collective bargaining, $2,240,000 between 2006-2015.

In addition, Bradley funds the “Capital Research Center” to work with Berman on projects. The Center is not part of the Berman operation, but is run by a former Berman employee, Scott Walter. It received $2.5 million from Bradley between 1998-2015.

Bradley bankrolls Berman for at least three sets of activities:

Disseminating studies via the Interstate Policy Alliance
Recommending state infrastructure investments
Coaching on “crisis communication” and opposition research

DISSEMINATION OF STUDIES

Berman’s Employment Policies Institute (EPI) was named to confuse the public with an actual think tank, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which employs a host of PhD-level economists and other support staff. Berman’s EPI has no economists on staff, but does employ “Research Director” Michael Saltsman, who has no advanced degree. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes pinned Saltsman down on that point in a remarkable interview.

In 2013, Bradley earmarked $300,000 for a new Berman project within EPI called the Interstate Policy Alliance (IPA). In 2014, the grant for the same work doubled to $600,000 and included “crisis communication” for Bradley-funded groups on the receiving end of bad publicity, and in 2015, Bradley provided $400,000. Click here for a full list of Berman IPA groups.

Bradley documents describe IPA as a “discrete channel” for “studies” that could be utilized by state-based groups “to achieve maximum credibility in local and social media outlets.”

“Created at Bradley’s behest in 2012 and with continuing Bradley support since then, IPA is a discreet channel for the better coordination and presentation of helpful, high-quality research on existing and proposed state-level, free-market policies around the country. It provides this research, too often out of reach for many small state think tanks, and customizes it for each state to achieve maximum credibility in local- and social-media outlets. The Searle Freedom Trust has joined Bradley in support of the project” (Barder Fund, August 18, 2015).

State think tanksparticipating in Berman’s IPA, which include Wisconsin’s Bradley-supported MacIver Institute, do not have to pay for the research or its packaging or dissemination. They are able to easily access data that has been uploaded to a password-protected website. As needed, Berman’s IPA also helps with report writing, graphic design, news release preparation, op-ed placement and the scheduling of interviews, (EPI, Grant Proposal Record, 11/10/2015 ).

In 2015, the Center for Media and Democracy and the Energy and Policy Institute revealed how IPA operated, when it reported that the Beacon Hill Institute was releasing misleading studies attacking President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, an ambitious multi-year effort to cut carbon pollution and mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. The funding for the study came through the previously unknown group called the Interstate Policy Alliance.

In many of its sponsored research “studies,” IPA promotes fossil fuel development over renewables. This has been a long-term agenda item of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate funded bill mill and many State Policy Network “think tanks” and advocacy groups funded by Bradley. In addition, the Bradley documents examined by CMD show Bradley is funding numerous climate denial groups, includingMyron Ebell’s Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Heartland Institute.

One IPA report, touts the tens of billions of revenue North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia might gain from offshore oil and gas development in the Atlantic Ocean.
Another report argues that fossil fuel development of federal lands in seven Rocky Mountain states will grow the economies at a faster pace than renewables.
Another promotes the transfer of federal lands to states,claiming that revenues from taxes and fees will rapidly flow to states.
And yet another study criticizes the Renewable Portfolio Standardsin 29 states and D.C. as costly to consumers, while ignoring any benefits to jobs or the environment.

INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENTS

In 2015, Bradley asked Berman’s IPA and the allied Capital Research Center (CRC) in Washington, D.C. to conduct an assessment of “second tier” states for consideration as “potential targets of opportunity” to enhance their infrastructure investments.

The Bradley files also laud Berman & Co.’s Vice President Saltsman, who is described variously in Bradley documents as the “executive director” of EPI and “executive director” of IPA. “The talented and energetic Saltsman’s IPA experience has exposed him to many of the strengths and weaknesses of the mid-sized state think tanks and conservative infrastructure around the country.”

The CRC/IPA evaluation of the quality and potential of states’ existing conservative infrastructure and recommended investments in eight states: Colorado, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and California in that order. The documents note “(Given IPA’s Bradley supported role in trying to help all state think tanks, they were quite keen on the report’s contents being kept confidential)” (Barder Fund, Nov. 10, 2015).

Bradley asked Saltsman “to discreetly consult with ALEC’s Lisa Nelson,ATRF’s Grover Norquist, and Ned Ryunof the also Bradley-supported American Majority” on what states should get funding (Barder Fund, 8/18/15).

The political nature of Bradley’s investment in this swing state is made clear in a report “Colorado state-infrastructure recommendations” included in the Bradley documents. “Colorado is an important swing state with a broad base of center-right organizations and donors,” writes Bradley. The report discusses “The Gang of Four” liberal funders in the state who were featured in an “attention-getting” book called “The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care),” which details how a small group of Democratic donors helped turn the state blue. The book made a big impression on Bradley staff; a picture of the cover is included in the Bradley documents multiple times.

Bradley recommends $125,000 to American Majority for 2016. The grant asks for support for a new field office in the I-25 corridor, an executive director, field staffer and intern. “They would coordinate with Centennial [Institute] and Independence [Institute] to identify, train and nurture mentoring relationships with conservative Coloradans.” American Majority is an organization that trains candidates to run for office. It claims to be nonpartisan, but was founded by Republicans to train Republicans (Barder Fund, Nov. 10, 2015).

Bradley recommended $250,000 to the Independence Institute in 2016. The Independence Institute is a State Policy Network member heavily funded by Bradley for both its work on climate issues and its anti-union work. The Bradley documents say it is led by “the charmingly bombastic Jon Caldara” “who has lead the creation of one of the more-effective conservative state infrastructures.” But that infrastructure has a problem. “Colorado has 3,600 local governments.”

“Not only does the left exercise its power and coercion through these governments, he and [the Independence Institute] believe, but it uses them as farm teams to groom people for higher office.” Caldera wants to counter this problem and “build a better bench” for the right-wing by compiling a database of every appointed and elected position in Jefferson County and conducting outreach to these officials. The Institute would coordinate its activities with American Majority, the Centennial Institute and the Leadership Program of the Rockies. Staff recommended $75,000 for this later institution (Barder Fund, Nov. 10, 2015).

These two investments appear to be exactly the type of political spending that might run afoul of IRS rules for permissible non-profit activity.

Other Colorado grantees included Colorado Christian University for its Centennial Institute ($75,000), Leadership Program of the Rockies ($75,000) and the Steamboat Institute ($50,000).

“CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS” AND OPPOSITION RESEARCH

Bradley has also bankrolled the Berman team for a communications program for many years.

“Also at Bradley’s behest in 2012, CCF [Center for Consumer Freedom] created a related crisis-communications program for state infrastructures. It has been led by Berman vice presidentSarah Longwell, formerly director of public affairs at the Bradly-supported Intercollegiate Studies Institute… CCF has consistently exposed the agenda of the activist groups that seek to attack personal freedom and its allies” (EPI, Grant Proposal Record, 11/10/2015).

This crisis communication work as described by Bradley relates directly to the successful, grassroots campaigning against ALEC that was sparked in 2011 after CMD published more than 800 ALEC “model bills” secretly voted on by corporate lobbyists and legislators on its website ALECexposed.org in 2011.

To quote from the Bradley files:

“In the wake of the media firestorm that engulfed the American Legislative Exchange Council last year, it was clear that a new group of influential, media-savvy activist outfits have emerged—along with a new group of targets that includes state think tanks and other entities including foundations. The Gates Foundation, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft, Walmart, Johnson and Johnson, McDonalds and Wendy’s are just a few of the funders that cut ties to ALEC following the media onslaught generated by activists who successfully linked it to the shooting of Trayvon Martin.”

“ALEC never saw it coming. Neither really did the Heartland Institute or Chick-fil-A see what was coming when they subsequently have been on the receiving end of similar onslaughts. Caught flat footed as the media charged ahead with the ‘Stand Your Ground’ story, ALEC had no rapid-response strategy in place to combat this runaway narrative. Berman and Co.’s advice to ALEC to be more aggressive in its response was not followed. The ‘I stand with ALEC website’ came much too late and brought far too little to its defense” (EPI, Grant Proposal Record, 11/11/2014).

These are “case studies,” writes Bradley staff, and “cautionary tales” for any conservative organization. Now Bradley wants to fund CCF for an “off the shelf public relations strategy for use by any such conservative outfit caught in the media crosshairs.”

Already-prepared “well sourced opposition research” is key, says the Bradley grant document:

“Just as CMD was able build an online dossier on ALEC that provided activists and sympathetic journalists with a base of research, so too is CCF using its data and information to build a ‘bigger and better clearinghouse of research on groups within the wider left-wing network’ as part of a rapid response strategy.”

CCF boasts of training Bradley-supported “think tanks” across the nation that are members of the State Policy Network (SPN), such as North Carolina’s Civitas Institute, Michigan’s Mackinac Center, and Washington State’s Freedom Foundation. CCF asks Bradley for support to expand this type of opposition research and training to the rest of the SPN network and the Interstate Policy Alliance.

According to a grant proposal record, “Full Service Menu” of Berman Center for Consumer Freedom services would include, 1) support for two or three studies a year, 2) op-ed drafting and placement, 3) drafting and sending of news releases on the groups behalf, 4) compiling a media list of reporter contacts, 5) ad buying for television, radio, print and online, 6) crisis communication assistance and in-state infrastructure seminars (EPI, Grant Proposal Record, 11/11/2014).

In addition, Bradley is recommending a $200,000 grant in renewed support for ALEC in 2016 as it continues to build a “comprehensive communications infrastructure” in response to citizen campaigns targeting its funders. The grant summary reads: “ALEC has been under sustained, organized attack from the Left for several years, as well-documented in Bradley Prize recipient Kimberly Strassel’s new book The Intimidation Game: How the Left Silences Free Speech. Under Executive Director Lisa Nelson and at Bradley’s urging, ALEC is aggressively, but thoughtfully responding.” “The plan consciously mimics the Left’s Citizen Engagement Laboratory (CEL)…the parent organization of Forecast the Facts and Color of Change.”

Bradley outlines the bigger game plan for ALEC:“The larger plan also has an important component for aggressive ‘opposition research,’ which has yielded many beneficial outcomes, including to Strassel for her helpful book, among others.” This last comment in the Bradley documents suggests that ALEC provided Wall Street Journal editorial writer Kim Strasselwith information for her book Intimidation Game. In it, Strassel portrayed the sustained citizen campaigning against ALEC as a well-funded, nefarious effort to crush the “free speech” rights of ALEC and its enormous funders, including Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, Pfizer, and ALTRIA/Phillip Morris (Strassel received a $250,000 Bradley Prize in 2014).

As part of its opposition research funding, Bradley recommended $115,000 in 2016 for the Capital Research Center run by Bradley-ally Scott Walter to develop “an online encyclopedia of the left” in conjunction with Berman that mimics the Center for Media and Democracy’s Sourcewatch.org wiki. CRC wants to focus on the anti-ALEC groups and the Democracy Alliance, a group of liberal funders.

“This will be a comprehensive, wiki-style resource that provides in-depth profiles of left-of-center individuals and organizations based on the model of the Center for Media and Democracy’s website Sourcewatch.org…CRC plans to take a page out of Sourcewatch’s playbook by ensuring that its new, wiki-style encyclopedia of the left is thorough, regularly updated and written in a manner that is accurate and measured in order to attract and retain a larger audience. The website will be constructed and in partnership with Berman and Company [where Walter worked briefly as director of development], and CRC is collaborating with ALEC and the Heartland Institute to make use of their data as it builds the new website’s profile list,” (Capital Research Center, Grant Proposal Record, 8/16/2016).

“Sourcewatch is a widely used resource that significantly influences public opinion regarding the activities of center-right groups and individuals. While there are a number of conservative resources that profile organizations and individuals on the Left (such as David Horowitz’s DiscoverTheNetworks.org, Heartland Institute’s LeftExposed.org, Berman and Company’s ActivistFacts.org and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise’s UndueInfluence.com) CDC will build upon and complement their efforts adding value through its more comprehensive coverage, superior search engine optimization, and wiki-style format,” (Capital Research Center, Grant Proposal Record, 8/16/2016).

Current members of the Bradley Foundation Board are Richard W. Graber (President), Art Pope (Chairman; Variety Wholesalers), Patrick J. English (Vice Chairman; Fiduciary Management, Inc.), Terry Considine (AIMCO), Curt S. Culver (MGIC), Robert P. George (Princeton University), Victor Davis Hanson (Hoover Institution), Diane Hendricks (ABC Supply Co. and Hendricks Holding Co.), Cleta Mitchell (Foley & Lardner), and James T. Barry III (The Barry Company).Former board members includeMichael W. Grebe and George F. Will.

David Armiak, Evan James, Nick Surgey, and Lisa Graves contributed research to this series.

see ~ CPP

suffolk, beacon hill he paid for BS study, used by Alford? team red AG?

off bs

http://www.bermanco.com/rick-berman

vid incl PSA's http://www.bermanco.com/television-video/

tag line from 60 min wmd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PApCMdZQnuQ

colbert trms 60 mon

trms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlZAeYMPEbE upload 0ct 09 Rachel Maddow-Confronting Rick Berman

HE links, in fact features 3 vids

The Bulldog Public Relations Awards are a distinguished honor in the public relations industry, judged annually by a blue-ribbon panel of journalists and PR professionals. Berman and Company has won 16 Bulldog awards since 2002, including the competition's Overall Grand Prize in 2005.

The Pollie Awards recognize outstanding creativity in advertising and public affairs. They are awarded annually by the American Association of Political Consultants, a bipartisan organization of political professionals from the local level to the White House. Berman and Company has claimed 52 Pollies, including Gold awards for Internet websites, and for print, broadcast, and outdoor advertising. In the past decade, Berman and Company has won more Pollie Awards for humor than any other firm.

The American Inhouse Design Awards from Graphic Design USA magazine honor in-house graphic design excellence, and recognize designers working within corporations, media companies, nonprofits, government, and educational institutions. InHouse Design Awards have been presented to Berman and Company 32 times.

The Aegis Awards are the video industry's premier peer-recognition competition for outstanding video productions and non-network TV commercials. Berman and Company's video work has won 16 Aegis Awards.

The Telly Awards are the most prestigious awards honoring outstanding local, regional, and cable TV commercials and programs, and video and film production at the highest levels. Berman and Company has received 7 Telly Award

https://www.consumerfreedom.com/about/

https://www.consumerfreedom.com/press/

~CREW, chipotle

will coggin research

Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kicks Crop Science and Supports Green Effort to Limit Consumer Food Choice

(August 4th, 2014)

By: Will Coggin Newspaper: The Blaze There is an ongoing battle over genetically engineered foods and Chuck Norris has entered the fray – and knocked himself out. In a recent column at WorldNetDaily, Norris saddled up with left-wing environmentalist groups … Continue reading ?

The Role of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the Anti-Union Network

Lobbying

In 2004, the Chamber spent $24.5 million lobbying the federal government.8

The Chamberworks closely with the Bush administration9 and prominent anti-labor conservatives on Capitol Hill such as Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA), head of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections. An anti-workplace safety zealot, Norwood was given the Chamber’s Spirit of Enterprise Award for his pro-Chamber voting record. Norwood caused controversy this year for his insensitivity during Congressional hearings on the Sago mineworkers tragedy, and for lobbying loudly against renewal of the Voting Rights Act.
The Chamber lobbies to oppose pro-worker legislation, including the Family Time and Workplace Flexibility Act, Fair Minimum Wage Act, and an expansion of the Family and Medical Leave Act.10

Among the Chamber’s legislative priorities is opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act , which would strengthen labor law and provide workers with the right to union representation via the card check process when a majority present signed union authorization cards to their employers.11 On May 4, 2006, the Chamber sent a letter to all Republican members of Congress urging them to support the Secret Ballot Protection Act,12 which would outlaw union recognition through card check. The Chamber also operates a website urging its members to pressure Congress on the issue.13

Litigation

Its recent litigation efforts include an attempt to strike down a California law prohibiting the use of tax dollars for anti-union activity, and litigation to overturn county “Peace Agreement” ordinances.14

The Chamber recently filed amicus briefs in two significant cases before the National Labor Relations Board to argue for rulings that limit the ability of workers to form unions. One case could define millions of workers as supervisors, revoking their right to organize, and the other could effectively quash the card check method of organizing.15

The Chamber has also lobbied the Bush administration on nominations to the National Labor Relations Board,16 and succeeded in placing one of their staffers on the Board. In 2002, President Bush appointed Michael Bartlett, then Director of Labor Law Policy for the Chamber, to sit on the five-member Board in a recess appointment that lasted nearly one year.

Sponsoring propaganda

For decades, labor-community coalitions have joined together to hold corporations accountable for their treatment of employees. Recently, the Chamber published a briefing book aimed at attacking the motives and methods of these so-called ‘corporate campaigns.’17 The author, Jarol B. Manheim, a George Washington University political scientist, not only villifies corporate campaigns, but finds danger in any critique of the corporate world. Manheim previously testified about the subject before Rep. Norwood’s House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections in 2002,18 and also serves as a consultant on anti-union matters, having written a confidential “Positioning Memo” to help Verizon in its intense efforts to fight its employees’ union activity.19

The Chamber is reportedly behind the launch of a new, aggressive propaganda campaign against unions by “notorious DC lobbyist”**Richard Berman**. In February 2006, with the assistance of Chamber labor lobbyist Randel Johnson,20 Berman created the Center for Union Facts, a new front group responsible for a steady stream of anti-union TV commercials and full-page ads in major daily newspapers.

The Center for Union Facts’ legislative agenda is strikingly similar to the Chamber’s. Berman has admitted to launching the Center for the purpose of halting workers’ ability to form unions through card check and to support the Chamber-backed Secret Ballot Protection Act sponsored by Charlie Norwood, which would outlaw the currently voluntary card check process.21 Berman also recently divulged to The Wall Street Journal that the Center was formed to “wage a campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act,” bipartisan legislation that would require employers to recognize unions formed by the card check process, which the Chamber also adamantly opposes.22

Berman has utilized Chamber connections for fundraising. Berman told The New York Times that he asked Chamber of Commerce officials at a state conference to recommend that businesses in their states donate to his anti-union campaign.23 Berman has declined to say who has pumped $3 millioninto his group, beyond claiming that funding comes from corporations, foundations, trade associations, and individuals.24 Randel Johnson has repeatedly denied any Chamber funding of the Center, yet admitted “he had served as an adviser to the Center.”25

Berman does have longstanding ties with the Chamber, having served as its labor law director, planning union avoidance strategies for the organization from 1972-74.26

Connections to players in the anti-union movement

A number of key players in the conservative movement have worked for the Chamber, including Grover Norquist, who served as the Chamber’s chief speechwriter in the 1980s.
The Chamber does not pursue its anti-union agenda alone, it coordinates with a number of players in the anti-union movement. For instance, it participates in Grover Norquist’s Alliance for Worker Freedom “Labor Reform Working Group” meetings. The agenda of the December 2005 meeting of this group focused on a range of union-related issues, including card check, project labor agreements, and the Department of Labor’s new database on union information.27 Attendees included Richard Berman, along with representatives from the Chamber, the DOL, the anti-union Associated Builders and Contractors, Senator Bill Frist’s office, and Rep. Charlie Norwood’s office.

You'd think a group called the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW) would be dedicated to promoting the needs and desires of America's workers. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, CDW spreads half-truths and lies about the Employee Free Choice Act to wage an ill-conceived assault on the rights and opportunities of millions of men and women across the country.

Here's the real scoop on the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace...

CDW is a front group for business associations, industry lobbying groups, and right-wing policy centers who are against workers getting a fair shake in this economy. Its financial backers include some of the most virulent anti-worker and anti-union organizations in the country, including:

the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s most powerful business lobbying organization,
the Retail Industry Leaders Association, a group whose biggest member is Wal-Mart, the poster child for low wages,
and the Associated Builders and Contractors, an association of anti-union contractors who fight against workers having unions to improve their wages and safety on the job.

CDW is doing the dirty work for CEOs and corporate special interests. Too ashamed to be fighting publicly against policies that would provide workers with real economic opportunities, these companies instead use their deep pockets and powerful influence to fund CDW’s dishonest PR and lobbying campaign.

The CEOs and multimillion dollar business industry groups backing CDW don’t care about democracy or privacy. They’re distorting the truth because they want to stop workers from having a better standard of living, access to health care, job security, and the rest of the benefits that accompany union membership. These same groups oppose everything from paid sick days to fair pay and even the hugely popular Family and Medical Leave Act. It's unbelievable that business interests would suddenly care about privacy now, when corporations increasingly monitor employees’ every move – including e-mail, phone calls, personal belongings, and even interactions outside of the workplace.

CDW spreads misinformation. Contrary to the lies and distortions displayed in CDW’s new TV ad and on its website, the Employee Free Choice Act does not take secret ballots away from workers. The legislation instead offers employees an alternative to the current, broken system that is slanted heavily in favor of management against workers. In fact, the bill would ensure that workers can choose their own union formation process, either through majority sign-up or a National Labor Relations Board election.

CDW’s own data and research is flawed. Instead of using well-respected academic research and public opinion surveys to test the merits and support for the Employee Free Choice Act, CDW released a poll in April 2008 claiming widespread opposition to the bill. However, even the most conservative political scientists and pundits could easily review the poll’s loaded questions and determine that it in no way accurately tested the public’s perceptions on the issue.

My colleagues Aliya Haq and Laurie Johnson recently exposed the new hack-job attacks on the Clean Power Plan by Berman and Associates, an aggressive, polluter-funded public relations firm based in Washington, DC. Berman's 'study' (really a gross attempt at stacking up worse-than-worst-case costs and ignoring the benefits) includes attacks on clean energy in Nevada and New Mexico. The reports don't say much about methodology, but as my colleague Laurie points out, there isn't much to it. It's so filled with inaccuracies and blatant falsehoods hard to know where to begin.

My question: Who asked Berman to bring his junk science out west?

New Mexico and Nevada are both in great positions to meet and beat EPA's Clean Power plan: utilities in both states have plans to retire part (in NM) or all (in NV) of their dirty coal assets over the coming years and few states have better clean energy opportunities (check out the NREL solar, wind and geothermal potential maps). Costs for wind and solar in the West are at all-time lows and both states could see huge benefits from increasing clean energy.

New Mexico and Colorado utility regulators recently approved a wind power purchase by utilities because it was cheaper than any fossil alternative.

Nevada is already exporting solar power to California and with the rise of the new joint energy market with California; it is poised to sell even more. Nevada's Republican Governor Brian Sandoval signed legislation supported by the state's largest utility to end dependence on coal and bring in more renewable energy. That legislation will make compliance with EPA's proposed standard remarkably easy.

In New Mexico the 'report' is being released by the Rio Grande Foundation, a right-wing group funded by the Koch brothers. But it's not Berman's first hit-piece in New Mexico. Last year, one of his employees published an attack on clean energy in the Albuquerque Journal. Which begs the question: who is paying Berman to attack clean energy in the west?

Berman brags about his his ability to hide his funders. The Guardian reports:

"People always ask me one question all the time: 'How do I know that I won't be found out as a supporter of what you're doing?'" Berman told a conference of energy executives last year. The talk was secretly recorded and leaked to the New York Times.

"We run all of this stuff through non-profit organisations that are insulated from having to disclose donors. There is total anonymity. People don't know who supports us," Berman told the energy executives.

Perhaps the funders of this latest attack will remain in the dark. Fine, but let's leave their 'reports' out with the trash.

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Enterprise Freedom Action Cmte

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BERMAN 2

Dissemination of Studies

Infrastructure Investments

"Crisis Communications" and Opposition Research

Organizations

Berman & Company, Inc. (BCI)

CENTERS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL AND FOSSIL FUEL DEVELOPMENT

SMEAR CAMPAIGNS AND FUNDING EFFORTS TO DISCREDIT CLIMATE SCIENCE

ENERGY ROUNDTABLES

BRADLEY GRANTEES WORKED TOGETHER TO DEFEAT LOCAL REGULATIONS ON FRACKING IN COLORADO

OTHER NOTABLE BRADLEY GRANTS

Shown Here:

Contents

Bradley Foundation Ties, "Go-To Hire For Corporate Bullies"

"Management Fees" Syphoning Charity Funds To Berman

Attacking Labor Groups

Attacking Environmental Groups

Berman & Co.

Berman Admits to Working for Monsanto

Berman behind Movement to Sell off Public Lands

Berman Pushes Congress to Pass Employee Rights Act

Berman Using Front Groups to Attack Barack Obama's New Power Plant Rules

Berman Exposed in Unguarded Advice to Fossil Fuel Execs

Berman Explains his Playbook

Other Quotes

Rick Berman, Dubbed "Dr. Evil" by 60 Minutes

Dissemination of Studies

Infrastructure Investments

"Crisis Communications" and Opposition Research

DISSEMINATION OF STUDIES

INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENTS

“CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS” AND OPPOSITION RESEARCH

The Role of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the Anti-Union Network

Lobbying

Litigation

Sponsoring propaganda

Connections to players in the anti-union movement

Enterprise Freedom Action Cmte