Saturday, February 17, 2007
The "projects"
.
You just need to learn the jargon...
"Humboldt Moneykeeper," I mean - "Humboldt BAYkeeper," is a "project" of the Ecological Rights Foundation and a national Waterkeeper Alliance "Member"
The Center for Ethics and Toxics (CETOS), is a "project" of the Tides Center.
Just more euphemistic Orwellian titles designed to hide the truth. "PROJECT" means funded by.
You following this? Your donations to "Moneykeeper" go through another Tides Project... Groundspring.org - a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by the Tides Foundation in 1999, and a member of the Tides family of organizations.
"...Humboldt Baykeeper has partnered with Groundspring.org to facilitate your online credit card transaction...."
Why bother to give them your hard earned money?
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I think it is the Habor District hiding the truth.
ReplyDeleteGive it up Richard.
ReplyDeletewhat has Richard been up to lately?
ReplyDeleteFunny how Baykeeper has more public support than the Harbor District flunkies. It is amazing that the agency responsible for protecting the Bay as part of the public trust can't even recognize the dioxin problem. Classic good 'ol boy politicking. Give it up Rose...the times they are a changin'.
ReplyDeleteoysters anyone?
Yeah, I guess all 700 of those "Moneykeeper" members voted to kill off the oyster farmers. Maybe Fredric and Pete'll share some of the money they extract from the bay with all the people they see as collateral damage.
ReplyDeleteI see they figured out how you could "frame the debate." Denigrate the people with real jobs and real life responsibilities, paint them as the "good ole boys" one more time...
How are you going to spread the message this time? More phony names?
wow Rose! You are uptight! Crazy blog. You are a pretty angry woman...ever thought of trying to get laid as an outlet?
ReplyDeleteStruck another nerve did I?
ReplyDeleteyea, my idiot nerve!
ReplyDeleteTruth is the Harbor district is a bunch of flunkies. So many tax dollars absolutely wasted. And not an ounce of conservation to their credit.
ReplyDeleteSpin spin spin
ReplyDeleteAre they going to share with you this time?
ReplyDeleteYou could be their PR man. Their communications director. Wouldn't that be fun?
ReplyDeleteRose,
ReplyDeleteHas anyone else complained about the mucked up scrolling on this blog? Doesn't want to scroll more than one line at a time. Other blogs seem OK.
The Harbor Distric does a great job. They also have public policy guide lines and can't just take in information with out absolute proof and call them facts. They have a budget that's open to the public and oversights that NGO's don't. They are also elected by open public process. The Distric is charged with a balanced policy for the bay. Like it or not they must protect all intrests. Attacking the district seems to me to be the wrong way to approach a problem that if true will require a close working relationship with the Harbor District and others. Elections and working in a cooperative manner seems the right way to go,however it may not fit the big money,big PR models of today. Dennis
ReplyDeleteNo better way to set up an adversarial relationship than to go around suing everyone. SPI is only one of the deep pockets these predatory litigious groups are after. And as they set the stage for their next spate of lawsuits, many other businesses and hard working people will be caught in the wake. Unintended consequences, Mr. Sterling-Nichols? Or collateral damage.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how much work has gone into stopping damaging processes, cleaning things up and setting up new ways of doing things that mean cleaner and cleaner operations, it will never be enough.
The pattern is clear up and down both coasts. "Baykeeper" admits on their own website that the work on Humboldt Bay has been ongoing for decades. They have been here two years. Read their professionally written PR copy. Every statement drips with high ideals, but look behind the words, and see emptiness and greed.
Want a compromise? I'll support the listing if Pete Nichols and Fredric Evenson promise that they will not benefit from this monetarily, that they will not sue anyone else in Humboldt County - unfortunately, you'd have to bring in a team of lawyers as large as those of the so-called "Ecological Rights Foundation" to draft the agreement, because it would have to read - you and any and all spin-off groups you may form or be affiliated with in any way shape or form - because they'll just close up one boiler room, and open another under a new name across the street, with no one being able to do anything to stop them. You'd have to cut off all wiggle room.
And any business who gives them going-away money thinking it will protect them is crazy - even if these guys sign an agreement that they will not sue within a certain period of time, because, again, they just spawn off a new group and groom them to file the next round while they wait, pulling the strings from the shadows.
And this from someone who hasn't bothered to even meet and speak with the BayKeeper.
ReplyDeleteWhy bother?
ReplyDeleteI have seen his (and his wife's) willingness to twist the truth.
For example, using Kay Rackauckas's slant to cover for Gallegos' decimation of the Child Abuse Services Team (CAST).
Let the reporters ask him the questions. They get paid to listen to the spin.
Why bother? Perhaps just to add a bit of credibility to your rants.
ReplyDeleteA little reporting would do your blog good. Rather than cut and paste from fanatical sites that are supported by big corporations. Or is that asking too much?
ActivistCash.com parent org
ReplyDeleteThe supporters list as of December 1996 included Alliance Gaming (slot machines), Anheuser-Busch (beer), Bruss Company (steaks and chops), Cargill Processed Meat Products, Davidoff (cigars), Harrah's (casinos), Overhill Farms (frozen foods), Philip Morris, and Standard Meat Company (steaks). The group's Advisory Panel comprised representatives from most of these companies, plus further representatives from the restaurant industry, Senator George McGovern, and Carl Vogt of law firm Fulbright and Jaworski.
The latest available IRS Form 990, for the 2004 calendar year, lists directors as Richard Berman, Jacob Dweck, David Browne, Lane Cardwell, and John Doyle as Secretary and Treasurer. All received nominal $250 salaries, except Berman, who received $18,000. The board of directors is the same as the American Beverage Institute.
ReplyDeleteJohn Doyle is also communications director for Berman & Co; he has acted as spokesman for the CCF, the Employment Policies Institute and the American Beverage Institute.
More on the Center for Consumer Freedom... the parent of ActivistCash:
ReplyDeleteCCF is registered as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization. The IRS Form 990 filed for the the six-month period from July to December 1999 by CCF (then calling itself the Guest Choice Network), listed the following officers:
Richard Berman, executive director.
Ray Kraftson, director
Dixie L. Berman, secretary/treasurer
Dan Popeo, director (Popeo is also chairman of the Washington Legal Foundation, a corporate-funded right-wing think tank which paid him $301,593 in salary and benefits in 2000.)
Allison Whitesides, director (Whitesides has also worked as a public relations representative for Coca-Cola North America and Outback Steakhouse. In November 2001, she went to work as a legislative representative for the National Restaurant Association.)
The CCF also has an advisory panel. In 1998 it included the following individuals:
Dave Albright, National Steak & Poultry
Jane Innes, Perkins Family Restaurants, L.P.
Steve Bartlett, Meridian Products Corporation
Robert Basham, Outback Steakhouse, Inc.
John F. Berglund, Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association
Lou Chatey, Sebastiani Vineyards
H.A. "Andy" Divine, University of Denver
Timothy J. Doke, Brinker International, Inc.
Richard Fisher, Tetley USA, Inc.
William L. Hyde, Jr., Ruth's Chris Steakhouse
James Spector, Philip Morris, USA
Michael Middleton, Cargill Processed Meat Products
Daniel J. Popeo, Washington Legal Foundation
Richard G. Scalise, Armour Swift-Eckrich
Daniel Timm, the Bruss Company
Carl Vogt, Fulbright & Jaworski
Richard Walsh, Darden Restaurants, Inc.
Terry Wheatley, Sutter Home Winery
In addition to these officers, several Berman & Co. employees and associates have appeared in news stories as CCF representatives:
Mike Burita has worked for a variety of conservative causes, including Republican election campaigns, Phyllis Schlafly, Frontiers of Freedom, and Brent Bozell's Media Research Center.
John Doyle, communications director for Berman & Co., also doubles as a spokesman for the CCF, the Employment Policies Institute and the American Beverage Institute.
On February 24, 2000, the Washington Post reported that Tom Lauria, "who helped peddle the tobacco industry's message at the Tobacco Institute before the lobby group was dismantled last year as part of an agreement with the states," had been hired as director of communications for CCF (then named the Guest Choice Network). Lauria left Berman's employ sometime in 2001.
David Martosko has been described in news stories as CCF's director of research.
And when you dig deeper and look at Executive Director Richard Berman it gets more interesting:
ReplyDeleteBerman & 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. lobbies 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. It also operates a network of several front groups, web sites, and think tanks that work to keep wages low for restaurants and to block legislation on food safety, secondhand cigarette smoke, and drunk driving.
According to a July 31, 2006, profile of Rick Berman in USA Today, Berman and Co. has 28 employees and takes in $10 million dollars a year, but "only Berman and his bookkeeper wife" know how much of the $10 million ends up in their own pockets. [1]
In a 1999 interview with the Chain Leader, a trade publication for restaurant chains, Berman explained the focus of his lobbying efforts, which mirror his non-profit groups' activities. "In effect, our work is restricted to and focused on issues that affect shareholder value," he said. "These big issues include labor costs as they relate to health insurance and the minimum wage." He also stated that he attacks activists more aggressively than other lobbyists. "We always have a knife in our teeth," he said. Since activists "drive consumer behavior on meat, alcohol, fat, sugar, tobacco and caffeine," his strategy is "to shoot the messenger.... We've got to attack their credibility as spokespersons." [2]
Yep. And if they were to be here locally, they would be helping the oyster farmers and the cattlefarmers, the very people who will suffer at the hands of the "moneykeepers."
ReplyDeleteIt is only logical that at some point, someone would organize to fight back against the predatory lawsuit making machines.
Tracking the money trails of these incestuous 'orgs' is a first step.
You following this? All the donations that support your favorite orginization "ActivistCash" goes through the Center for Consumer Freedom.
ReplyDeleteAnd those donations come from the tobacco, fat and alcohol companies with the motto "to shoot the messenger" so we can keep killing people.
Tracking the money trails of these incestuous 'orgs' is a first step. You bet.
ReplyDeleteHere's a little more on your guy Berman:
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON — A longtime labor union official calls him Dr. Evil. The director of a consumer group says he's "sleazy" and "sophomoric." And a liberal newspaper columnist wrote that the tobacco, booze and gun lobbyists portrayed in the movie Thank You for Smoking were a "pale imitation of the reality of the Beltway's most outrageous advocate."
USA Today: Got a nasty fight? Here's your man
Richard Berman is an influence peddler. He has worked out a scheme to funnel charitable donations from wealthy corporations into his own pocket. In exchange, he provides a flurry of disinformation, flawed studies, op-ed pieces, letters to the editor, and trade-industry articles, as well as access to his high-level government contacts, who are servants of the industries he represents.
ReplyDeleteBerman’s name might sound familiar. In 1995, Berman and Norm Brinker, his former boss at Steak and Ale Restaurants, were identified as the special-interest lobbyists who donated the $25,000 that disgraced then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was hauled before the House Ethics Committee for influence-peddling over the money. Berman and Brinker were lobbying against raising the minimum wage.
Richard Berman is a spin doctor. For example, he has argued against a Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) initiative to lower the blood alcohol content (BAC) limit for drivers by claiming that the stricter limits would punish responsible social drinkers. He has claimed that U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warnings about salmonella-related food poisoning are just “whipping up fear over food.”
Here’s how an internal Philip Morris memo described Berman’s spin: “His proposed solution would broaden the focus of the ‘smoking issue,’ and expand into the bigger picture of over-regulation.” Smoking won’t kill you; over-regulation will.
Berman is “a one-man wrecking crew on important issues.” His approach has been described as “misleading” and “despicable.” Berman has been called “a tobacco company whore,” but he’s branched out since then.
Great guy. Sounds like you Rose. I see why you admire his organization.
ReplyDeleteIt's tracking the process that's the issue not your hatred of Rose. She is honest to a fault and that scares the slippery.
ReplyDeleteShe is a hypocrite.
ReplyDeleteBy quoting her "slippery" web site sources she discredits everything she says.
Learn the jargon as she says and you see it is but a mirror. You following this?
Follow the money. Another one of Rose's preferred sources is the CDFE
ReplyDeleteHere is that groups list of funder:
FUNDING (partial historical listing)
• Coors Foundation
• Georgia Pacific
• Louisiana-Pacific
• MacMillan Bloedel
• Pacific Lumber
• Exxon
• DuPont, Agricultural Products Division
• Boise Cascade
• Seneca Sawmills
• Sun Studs
• Burkland Lumber
• F.M. Kirby Foundation
In 2003 ExxonMobil donated $40,000 to CDFE for "global climate change issues".
The CDFE's founder Ron Arnold:
ReplyDeleteIn 2004 Arnold recounted the key policies it espoused. "Number one was educate the public about the use of natural resources. Immediately develop petroleum resources in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Cut down remaining old-growth forests on public lands and replace with new trees. Cut down 30,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest each year to promote economic forestry practices. Open all public lands, including national parks, to mining and oil drilling. Construct roads into all wilderness areas for motorized wheel chair use. Stop protecting endangered species, such as the California condor, that were in decline before man arrived. Force anyone who loses litigation against a development to pay for the increase in costs for completing the project, plus damages.
Richard, do you honestly think I didn't look at all that ahead of time?
ReplyDeleteI notice you are not disputing the accuracy of the information they have compiled, Information that comes from IRS documents.
Information by the way, that only confirms what I had already been putting together over the last four years, the monetary and other ties and trails between these organizations. I'll be going into more of that as we go along here.
I do not have the means to uncover the money trails, but they did. Following the money trails between you, Gallegos and Shellenberger would be particularly interesting I suspect.
Hope you come up for air. Three hours is a long time to sit on a blog.
Hey, you forgot the "Patrick Moore is a big fat liar" attack site.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you don't like what he has to say either. A founder of Greenpeace.
ReplyDeleteDid I touch a nerve?
ReplyDeleteoh, make that 3 hours 33 mins 43 secs
ReplyDeleteJust following the money trail. All those fat corporations you are so fond of that use their money to support your fanatical position. They really make your quality of life so much better.
ReplyDeleteYeah, all those fat corporations! Oh my God!
ReplyDelete...the tobacco industry as well as hotels, beer distributors, taverns, and restaurant chains. Berman & Co. lobbies 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...
I'm waiting for you to say the whole thing is a canard.
Hope you're getting paid by the hour.
ReplyDelete4 hours 39 mins 13 secs
Just following the money trail.
ReplyDeleteStruck another nerve did I?
ReplyDeleteWho was gonna pay for the full page ads in the LA Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, Richard?
ReplyDeleteJust curious.
OH. Richard has left the building.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing, though, Richard, activist cash doesn't yet have any postings about your groundspring.org activist cash collectors, nor do they yet have any info posted on the so-called "Ecological Rights Foundation," and their litigious spawn, nor the so-called "Alliance for Ethical Business" and its siblings - but you know, these are issues that can be addressed.
ReplyDeleteWill they put the CDFE up there too?
ReplyDeleteCertainly they as well as ActivistCash sorta fit... taking in all those donations from big biz and all.
ReplyDeleteGuess the Hypocrite has left the room.
ReplyDeleteHow many lawsuits are the Moneygrubbers planning to file?
ReplyDeleteGeomatrix Principal Geologist Edward Conti told the board that removing Humboldt Bay from the list would allow a more “technically and procedurally acceptable” process, which he said would instill confidence in the public that it was inclusive and transparent.
ReplyDeleteState Water Board member Arthur Baggett said he could reconsider the listing if there were any major errors of law or fact.
“I don’t see that,” Baggett said.
An EPA representative confirmed for the State Water Board that the state had complied with the legal requirements for the listing and that the federal agency had already approved the state’s recommendation for the listing in November.
As well as not budging on reconsidering the listing, State Water Board staff told the board that delisting Humboldt Bay as impaired for dioxin would require “a higher level of proof.”
FOLLOW the MONEY! The fix was in. Like a huge ponzie scheme just FOLLOW the MONEY!
ReplyDeleteThe designer beer's flowing and the home grown's burning at the we got'ya gala tonight.
ReplyDeleteFollow the money:
ReplyDeleteHumboldt Sunshine has filed suit against Humboldt County over a housing element that the group has long claimed is out of compliance with state law.
FOLLOW the MONEY! Suites and grants for years on Humboldt Bay. FOLLOW the MONEY!
ReplyDeleteI think ActivistCash needs to follow this Sunshine group.
ReplyDeleteAFTER they are done with the so-called "Alliance for Ethical Business" and its affiliates.
ReplyDeleteWell here you have another law suit happy, incestous fear mongering actvist group and you don't care.
ReplyDeleteHypocrite.
Are you a member of Humboldt Sunshine or is it HELP?
Humbolt MoneyShine. What other projects do they have?
ReplyDeleteFollow the money trail.
Who pays for that high dollar contractor from Sacramento? I'm sure we will by the time this law suit is over.
ReplyDeleteRichard, you are really funny. All shook up. Jumpin' up and down in fury, whassa matta?
ReplyDeleteWho was going to pony up the money for the full page ads, Richard? For that matter, who paid for the first round of AEB ads, BEFORE the donations started rolling in?
Who ponied up for those full page HELP / Sunshine ads?
ReplyDeleteHypocrite.
You are just spinning and not answering questions.
ReplyDeleteAre you a member of HELP?
Nope, Not a member. Not even curious about who paid for the ads. It's very obvious who paid.
ReplyDeleteUnlike YOU and YOUR group.
Hypocrite.
ReplyDeleteRose you sly fox,you've gotten 12:42 to admit that (he),(she),(they) fronts for a suit happy incestious fear mongering activist group just like you reported. Great work. One never knows from whench the truth commeth.
ReplyDeleteGood job & well put. The two subjects aren't an apples or oranges debate. One is a pimple on the ass,the other a stake in the heart.
ReplyDeleteRose is a cunt
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ReplyDeleteRose you sly fox you've really got them telling all there secrets.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Rose got somebody madder 'n hell! I bet the little Rose doll has multiple stab wounds in it too..
ReplyDeleteR. Trent has lost it big this time. Rose sent him over the falls long ago, but now all of us get to see it.
ReplyDeleteWay to go Rose.
Rose you need to use an IP tracker program to see if that is Gallegos calling you that foul name.
ReplyDeleteprobably R. Trent. no elections, no big issue about Home Depot, the cop hate has died down for a while. what does R. Trent have to do with his time.
ReplyDeleteR. Trent or Sara or ??????? shameful conduct. A real twisted coward.
Back to the discussion about the counterspin, Richard...
ReplyDeleteFrom a (secretly recorded) discussion group on how to combat Ron Arnold and Wise Use (and I know you got the talking points, Richard):
What we're finding is that wise use is really a local movement driven by primarily local concerns and not national issues. We tend -- you know, when you think of Ron Arnold and you think of Wise Use, you know, you think of command and control, top heavy, corporate funded, front groups that are organizing local people to get involved, get out there and attack environmentalists.
And that was the assumption I walked into this whole thing with. And in fact the more we dig into it, having put together a fifty -- really constructed over a number of months a fifty state fairly comprehensive survey of what's going on with respect to wise use organizing activity--we have come to the conclusion that this is pretty much generally a grass roots movement, which is a problem, because it means there's no silver bullets, it means this is, is, you know, something that is going to have to be confronted in states and communities across the country in different ways depending on what the various local issues are that those wise use groups are dealing with and campaigning on.
Ron Arnold and these other figureheads like Grant Gerber and Chuck Cushman and some of these other leaders -- Don Gerdts -- are not creating the movement. They're trying to get out in front of something that is going on, in fact. They're attempting to assert some control over this grass roots movement that's going on. And they're having a certain amount of success.
They're not having success in coordinating the national wise use grass roots community and coalescing it into one movement that has a common agenda, and works together to fight legislation or to pass bills or to defeat certain members of Congress...
They go on to discuss how they can discredit this REAL grassroots movement.
You know this is good enough to make a post in its own right.
Restored comments from above:
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
Rose you sly fox you've really got them telling all there secrets.
2/22/2007 8:59 PM
Anonymous said...
Gosh Rose. I think he's got the hotz for you!
2/23/2007 8:48 AM
Anonymous said...
we all do dear-e
2/23/2007 9:17 AM
Anonymous said...
Wasn't me.
2/23/2007 11:16 AM
And that last one is Richard.
For the record, we're talking about 419 identical "Rose is a c---" commentspams posted between 2/22/2007 7:25 PM and 2/22/2007 7:29 PM, on three or four posts - "The Projects," "Speaking of Child Endangerment," and "Bowman to Undergo Evaluation."
ReplyDeleteWhy not an even 500?
OHHHH - Maybe he meant 420. Pot man.