Research Cited

It’s a Fact: ‘Peel Back the Label’ Is Bound to Fail

Source: EcoWatch | Published: 11/1/2017

AFACT and PBTL are classic examples of the types of front groups and campaigns described in the excellent book, Trust Us We’re the Experts, by John Stauber, founder of the Center for Media and Democracy and PR Watch. To get their message across more effectively, corporations or organizations will create “independent” organizations to further their agenda. The aim being to convince the public that an “expert” third-party organization says, for example, that rBST is good for dairy farmers and consumers. The tobacco industry is notorious for funding such front groups as the “Center for Consumer Freedom” to defend the rights of consumers to smoke as they pleased. In this case, PBTL’s aim is to convince people that non-GMO labels are misleading and capitalizing on consumer fears.

Hysterical Right-Wing Falsely Attacks Public Schools for Indoctrination

Bradley Files, Koch, Wisconsin

Source: AlterNet | Published: 11/1/2017

The online watchdog group Sourcewatch has pegged the Center of the American Experiment as a “right-wing pressure group” with ties to Wisconsin’s Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. This foundation, which has given the Center thousands of dollars in recent years, has its roots in a kind of ideological extremism once relegated to the fringes of American society.

Founder Harry Bradley, along with Fred Koch, patriarch of the Koch clan, was “one of the original charter members of the John Birch society,” according to Sourcewatch. The John Birch society is a far-right group that loomed large in the Cold War era, when routing out communists was all the rage. Jane Mayer covers this in her 2016 book Dark Money, in which she notes that Harry Bradley was also a “keen supporter of the Manion Forum.”

Matthew Rothschild: Scott Walker’s Latest Campaign Is Scandal Reunion

Bradley Files

Source: Cap Times | Published: 10/31/2017

Michael Grebe, the former head of the Bradley Foundation who ran Walker’s 2014 campaign, will serve as “campaign chairman.” While Grebe headed up the Bradley Foundation, it spent millions of dollars funding groups in Wisconsin that tried to discredit the John Doe II investigation, as the Center for Media and Democracy has documented.

Trump Expands Oil Drilling but Obama Paved the Way

ALEC

Source: The Real News Network | Published: 10/29/2017

The last thing I’ll say, I said 2011 and 2013 are really important years for ALEC. That’s because at that time, that’s when actually all of these model bills were leaked through an organization I used to work for, Center for Media and Democracy, where 800 model bills were published the first time. Actually, before that ALEC never published their model bills, so citizens would have no idea ALEC was behind hundreds of bills that were passed in state houses, in the decades that came before that.

Thereafter, after that project went public called, “ALEC Exposed,” ALEC actually started publishing its model bills online, and became a little more transparent about the fact that they’re behind all these bills, but before that there was really no way to track or trace ALEC unless you got lucky through an open records request or something like that.

When Lansing Steps in for City Hall

Democracy

Source: Herald Palladium | Published: 10/29/2017

The study said that in each year since 2011, state legislative pre-emption efforts across the country have increased. The Center for Media and Democracy reported that 2015 saw “more efforts to undermine local control on more issues than any other year in history.”

Jeff Sessions’ Incredible Shrinking Russia Denial

Democracy, Trump

Source: HuffPost | Published: 10/27/2017

The most heated exchanges during Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week concerned his ever-shifting explanation of what he discussed—or didn’t discuss—with Russian officials while serving as Donald Trump’s “go-to person” on foreign policy during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Did the Koch Brothers Demand ‘Corporate Welfare’ from a Poor Alabama City?

Koch

Source: AL.com | Published: 10/26/2017

A progressive watchdog group is accusing Georgia-Pacific’s owners, the Koch Brothers, of squeezing corporate welfare from the city of Talladega.

The Center for Media and Democracy in a recent web posting accused the Kochs – known for their support of libertarian and conservative causes – of receiving “a generous handout from taxpayers” in connection with an Alabama project.

Trump Team’s Wonky CO2 Calculation Is a Big Deal

Environment, Trump

Source: E&E News | Published: 10/25/2017

Last November, a memo penned by Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research and then the leader of Trump’s Department of Energy transition team, suggested that the new administration’s energy plan would include a focus on “ending the use of the social cost of carbon in federal rulemakings.” The memo was obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy.

“During the Trump Administration the SCC will likely be reviewed and the latest science brought to bear,” the document continued. “If the SCC were subjected to the latest science, it would certainly be much lower than what the Obama administration has been using.”

Our Opinion: Email Ruling Exposes ‘Think Tank’ Motivations

Climate, Environment, SPN

Source: Brattleboro Reformer | Published: 10/24/2017

According to The Guardian, EELI’s core mission is actually “discrediting climate science and dismantling environmental regulations” and is “a free-market think tank that wants the public to believe human-caused global warming is a scientific fraud” that uses tactics including “filing nuisance suits to disrupt important academic research.”

“When E&E Legal doesn’t get everything it asks for, it will typically file a lawsuit and take the scientist and university to court,” the Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch writes.

White Lawmakers Are Using Alabama’s Racist State Constitution to Keep Black Wages Down

Democracy

Source: In These Times | Published: 10/23/2017

And preemption laws are becoming both more expansive and more punitive. “What we’ve seen is preemption on overdrive,” says Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy. It’s not just about the minimum wage anymore; states have blocked cities from taking action on issues such as paid sick leave, anti-discrimination rules, fracking, and even the regulation of plastic bags and e-cigarettes.