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The Weekly Spin, November 5, 2008
Blog Postings
Election Protection Wiki: The One-Stop Website for Guarding the Vote
by John Stauber
Election Protection Wiki badgeWhat went wrong with voting in last night's U.S. elections, and what went right? The election itself is over except for a few recounts, but the election process is still being scrutinized.
The Election Protection Wiki, online at http://www.EPWiki.org, is the Center for Media and Democracy's non-partisan collaboration of citizens, journalists and researchers, a one-stop-shop for exposing voter suppression and other threats to election integrity. We collect just the straight facts that are fully referenced to external, verifiable sources. You can get directly involved; we need your help!
On Election Protection Wiki you'll find links to sites such as Voter Suppression Wiki and TwitterVoteReport, a non-partisan coalition using real-time text-messaging to reveal what's working, what's not, and what needs to be done at polling places to ensure that everyone's vote is counted. See the full list of Election protection and reform organizations and go to our Election Protection map and click on the state of your choice to find its election protection and reform groups.
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Spin Of The Day Postings
CIA Contractor Offers to Keep the Peace on Election Day
Source: PolitickerOR.com, October 31, 2008
Evergreen Defense & Security Services (EDSS), an Oregon-based aviation company and military contractor with a history of working for the CIA, recently offered their services on Election Day. EDSS "has recognized the potential conflict that could occur on November 4," firm president Tom Wiggins wrote in an email to Oregon county clerks. "EDSS proposes to post sentries at each voting center ... to assure that disputes among citizens do not get out of control. All guards will be unarmed but capable of stopping any violence that may occur, and detaining troublemakers until law enforcement help arrives." EDSS's offer "baffled county clerks and the Elections Division, who did not solicit the security help" and didn't anticipate security problems, according to PolitickerOR.com. The offer's especially strange, as the state has "no actual polling places, since Oregon went to vote by mail several years ago," noted the News-Review of Roseburg, Oregon. Counties do set up areas where voters can drop off their ballots. EDSS "didn't get any bites from the counties," reported The Oregonian.
Bush Pushing Anti-Consumer, Anti-Environment "Midnight Regulations"
Source: Denver Post, October 31, 2008
In the final months of his administration, George W. Bush is working to enact a flurry of new federal regulations that will weaken rules protecting consumers and the environment. The so-called "midnight regulations" aim to relax standards that protect drinking water, loosen controls on global warming pollutants, remove obstacles to ocean fishing and ease restrictions on mountaintop coal mining activities. The new regulations would be difficult to undo, since the law mandates lengthy periods for re-drafting, re-analysis and public comment. Such activity by an outgoing president is not unusual, nor is the number of regulations being considered. But Matthew Madia of OMB Watch, a group formed to "lift the veil of secrecy surrounding the White House's Office of Management and Budget," called Bush's deluge of rules "a last-minute assault on the public ... happening on multiple fronts."
Secretary of State Project Gives Dems a Bigger Say in Key Battleground States
Source: Politico.com, November 2, 2008
Politico.com notes that Democrats have gained "control of secretary of state offices in five key states -- Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio -- where the difference between victory and defeat in the 2004 presidential election was no more than 120,000 votes. ... With a Democrat now in charge of the offices, which oversee and administer their state's elections, the party is better positioned than in the previous elections to advance traditional Democratic interests -- such as increasing voter registration and boosting turnout -- rather than Republican priorities such as stamping out voter fraud. Perhaps more important, in those five states Democrats are now in a more advantageous position when it comes to the interpretation and administration of election law -- a development that could benefit Barack Obama if any of those states are closely contested on Election Day." The Secretary of State Project is "affiliated with Democracy Alliance. ... 'We were tired of Republican manipulation of elections,' said Michael Kieschnick, a founder of the group who is also the president of Working Assets, a company that provides credit cards and mobile phone services to progressive organizations."
Weekly Radio Spin: Boo! It's Rick Berman Behind the Mask
Source: Center for Media and Democracy, October 31, 2008
Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at PhRMA's ad buys, spinning Iran and Iraq, and attacking ACORN. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," the tobacco, fat, and alcohol laden career of Rick Berman. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!
Market Crash Hits Political Attack Groups
Source: National Public Radio, October 30, 2008
NPR reports, "In a presidential race that seems to include every possible political strategy ... [t]here have been no high-impact independent groups along the lines of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group that played a prominent role in attacking John Kerry four years ago. ... After the Dow Jones industrial average's record 777-point plunge last month, wealthy donors didn't have so much wealth. In contrast, one donor to the American Issues Project gave nearly $3 million for an ad in August linking Barack Obama with former militant Bill Ayers. Chris LaCivita from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth produced the ad. He says they had more ideas for going after Obama, but they were stymied. ... Even if the money is there, this sort of attack ad may not work as well as it used to. A veteran of liberal groups, Tom Matzzie, says these ads can't get a good media ride anymore, thanks to Internet-based fact-checking. 'The swift-boaters of the future are not going to be broad spectrum. They're going to be narrowcast, is my view,' he says. That is, aimed at demographic niche groups, where they might not draw so much scrutiny."
Lobbyist's Front Group Joins the Anti-ACORN Bandwagon
Source: ProPublica, October 29, 2008
A full-page ad in the New York Times "accuses ACORN of a list of abuses that suggest hypocrisy on some of the group's signature issues: intimidating and firing its own employees if they try to unionize, misappropriating millions of dollars from taxpayer-funded government grants and advocating minimum wage hides while paying its own employees less than minimum wage." While the ad "does not indicate who or what organization paid for it," it comes from one of lobbyist Rick Berman's many front groups, the Employment Policies Institute (EPI). For years, Berman "has been fighting ACORN's efforts to increase the minimum wage at the state and federal levels." Tim Miller, the spokesman for EPI and Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom, said they placed the ad because after the election, "a lot of the coverage of ACORN is going to go away, but they are going to continue the same corrupt and fraudulent practices." ACORN says the charges in EPI's ad are untrue. For example, ACORN "pledged complete neutrality" when one of its offices "wanted to form a union," said ACORN's Steve Kest. The employees eventually "decided not to pursue [the union], so nothing came of it."
Iraqi Party Comes to the United States
Source: O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), October 27, 2008
The Council's logoThe Council's logoThe Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq is launching a public campaign in the United States, "to educate and raise awareness of the goals of the leading Shiite political party that opposes Muqtada al-Sadr's group." The Council will spend an estimated $20,000 per month, to educate U.S. policymakers and the general public on "Iraqi Islamic culture." The U.S. representative of the group, Karim Almusawi, "has appeared at various forums such as the U.S. Institute of Peace event earlier this month that dealt with Iraqi recommendations for the incoming Administration," reports O'Dwyer's. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq maintains "a somewhat incongruous dual alliance with the U.S. and Iran," according to the International Crisis Group.
Who's Behind the Council for a Democratic Iran?
Source: WIMN's Voices, October 24, 2008
CMD's Diane Farsetta digs further into the Virginia-based Council for a Democratic Iran (CDI) and its major new contract with the Livingston Group lobbying and PR firm, which Lauri Fitz-Pegado is working on. CDI's founder, Dr. Behrooz Behbudi, "seems to be aligned with military hawks." In 2007, he "bought $250,000 worth of ads in major North American newspapers denouncing Iran's Muslims leaders and 'terrorists' and 'fascists' and warning they are a direct threat to the U.S. and Canada." Also last year, Behbudi said he opposed a military invasion of Iran, but warned that if President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders don't change their stance, "What happened to Saddam Hussein ... will happen in Iran, too." In 2004, Behbudi founded the "Iranian Democratization Foundation" with disgraced defense contractor Mitchell Wade, one of the people who paid bribes to former Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham.
Industry Tries to Sell Congress on Drugs
Source: Wall Street Journal (sub req'd), October 24, 2008
A $13.2 million ad campaign thanks 28 members of Congress, 25 of whom are Democrats, "for supporting a children's health-care bill vetoed twice by President George W. Bush in 2007." The ads are by America's Agenda: Health Care for Kids, a new non-profit group whose sole funder is the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). The ads are one example of the drug industry group's attempts to adjust to a Democratic-controlled Congress. PhRMA's also "working with unions through another America's Agenda group to push universal-health-care bills in states and cities across the country," and "is now splitting campaign contributions between the political parties." In addition, PhRMA's trying "to restore the drug industry's tattered image," through its own ads "touting programs to help needy patients pay for their medicines; hurricane hotlines for drug supplies; and the syndicated TV show 'Sharing Miracles,'" which features PhRMA president Billy Tauzin.
Upcoming Events
Brown Bag Lunch with the SourceWatchers
Time: Friday, November 7, 2008, 12:30-13:30
Timezone: US/Pacific
John Stauber, Bob Burton and Dave Johnson of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) www.PRWatch.org will demonstrate how CMD's high-traffic wiki-based website SourceWatch has become one of the most successful online tools for powerful progressive collaboration and information.
Event Type: talk by CMD staff member
Location: Pacific Room at: Thoreau Center for Sustainability, San Francisco Presidio Building 1014 (Lincoln Blvd. & Torney Ave.)
Organizer: Bruce Demartini, Thoreau Center, (415) 561-6300. Email: Bruce (AT) Thoreau.org
URL: http://www.thoreau.org/san-francisco/exhibits-programs/index.html
Zip Code: 94129
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This Week's News
Blog Postings
Election Protection Wiki: The One-Stop Website for Guarding the Vote
Spin Of The Day Postings
CIA Contractor Offers to Keep the Peace on Election Day
Bush Pushing Anti-Consumer, Anti-Environment "Midnight Regulations"
Secretary of State Project Gives Dems a Bigger Say in Key Battleground States
Weekly Radio Spin: Boo! It's Rick Berman Behind the Mask
Market Crash Hits Political Attack Groups
Lobbyist's Front Group Joins the Anti-ACORN Bandwagon
Iraqi Party Comes to the United States
Who's Behind the Council for a Democratic Iran?
Industry Tries to Sell Congress on Drugs
Upcoming Events
Brown Bag Lunch with the SourceWatchers
The Weekly Spin features selected news summaries with links to further information about media, political spin and propaganda. It is emailed free each Wednesday to subscribers.
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