July, 29 2011, 09:42am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Cody Oliphant
Phone: (608) 772-9202
Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity Begins Six-Figure Ad Buy for GOP Recall Candidates
Wisconsinites See Why ‘David Koch’ Was Told ‘Thanks a Million!’ By Walker During Prank Call As Pro-Republican AFP Spending Tops $500,000 in Wisconsin This Year
MADISON, WI
Americans for Prosperity, the organization funded by big oil billionaires David and Charles Koch, has just purchased over $150,000 in television ad time for Green Bay, Madison and Milwaukee in what could be a new wave of spending to try and save the six Republican state Senators who are being recalled for their support of Gov. Scott Walker's reckless attacks on public education, health care, workers' rights and the middle class. This is in addition to $380,000 Americans for Prosperity previously spent this year to support Walker's agenda.
"The granddaddy of corporate, big oil special interest money has turned on the money pipeline in a new six-figure bid to save Scott Walker's Senate majority," said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. "The Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity has now dumped over $500,000 to pollute Wisconsin airwaves about the failed agenda of Scott Walker and the Senate Republicans and they may just be getting started."
Gov. Scott Walker was roundly-criticized when just days after unveiling his scheme to end the rights of 175,000 Wisconsin workers, he was pranked in a recorded phone call from someone he thought was David Koch. Walker not only admitted during the call his team considered sending agitators to cause trouble during the protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol, but also told "Koch" he needed the group to come and spend money in the state, saying:
...they 're going to need a message out reinforcing why this was a good thing to do for the economy a good thing to do for the state so the extent that message is out over and over again, that's obviously, that's obviously a good thing.
Americans for Prosperity emerged as the most powerful of all of the groups fueling the so-called Tea Party movement and has spent in excess of $65 million since 2008, including $40 million in 2010 when Republicans seized power of numerous state legislatures and Gubernatorial seats, including Wisconsin which went from having a Democratic governor and Democratic-controlled Senate and Assembly to complete Republican control.
Governor Walker and the Republican legislature have put protections for clean air and water in the crosshairs of their pro-corporate agenda. This is particularly helpful for Koch Industries, which owns Georgia Pacific, a company that has contributed nearly 10 percent of all phosphorus pollution in the Lower Fox River basin, according to a government report released in June 2010. Koch pipelines in Wisconsin over the past two decades have leaked 160,000 gallons of oil and gasoline, which is particularly problematic in a state like Wisconsin, where 70 percent of residents rely on groundwater as their drinking source.
In the final weeks of the campaign, a new shadowy group with strong ties to Americans for Prosperity spent approximately $1 million to re-elect pro-Walker Supreme Court Justice David Prosser in April 2011. After the election, the head of the state Americans for Prosperity chapter bragged about the group's effort in the campaign's waning days to help Prosser win by the slimmest margin in any recent Supreme Court race. Prosser not only cast the deciding vote to uphold Walker's attack on collective bargaining, but also joined the Court's majority in overturning a "lower court decision allowing a public challenge to the permit giving Koch's Georgia Pacific plants more leeway in dumping phosphorus into waterways." [ThinkProgress, 4/13/11; Slate, 6/17/11]
"The Koch pipeline has opened up once again for Scott Walker and his Republican Senate," said Ross. "But it's the attacks by Scott Walker and his Republican Senate lapdogs on the middle class, education, health care and workers rights that are fueling the historic recalls and rejection of the Walker-GOP pro-corporate agenda."
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Senators Urge FTC Crackdown on Gas Industry 'Greenwashing Scheme'
"It's important our lawmakers are advocating for the government to step in, stop this scam, and regulate gas companies to clean up their mess," said one campaigner.
Feb 12, 2024
Seven U.S. senators on Monday demanded a federal regulatory crackdown on what they described as a "dangerous greenwashing scheme" in the fossil fuel industry: producers hiring so-called gas certification companies to measure operations' methane pollution so they can claim their gas is "preferable from a climate perspective."
"Gas producers sometimes publicly describe their product as 'certified,' 'responsible,' or 'differentiated' and market it as a climate-friendly fossil fuel. But too often these green claims are false or misleading due to opaque methodology, unreliable technology, and unacknowledged downstream climate effects of gas combustion," the senators explained. "Still, many utilities are using so-called 'certified' gas to falsely burnish their climate bona fides, and some charge premiums for gas bearing these often meaningless designations."
"We therefore urge the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate and crack down on unfair and deceptive environmental claims made by fossil fuel producers and gas certification programs, including by updating FTC Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, informally known as the 'Green Guides,' to expressly provide guidance on the claims those programs can legitimately make," the lawmakers, led by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), wrote to the agency's chair, Lina Khan.
"Our lawmakers are wise to call for a stop to this scam, and get ahead of what's likely to be a mad scramble to greenwash gas."
Markey, a well-established climate champion, was joined by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). As they noted, "natural" gas is mostly made of methane, which has over 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere and has caused about 30% of the rise in global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution.
"The reality is that gas certification schemes allow the oil and gas industry to justify the continued expansion of methane gas use and undermine efforts towards a just transition to renewables," the senators said. They argued that "there is no incentive to ensure the accuracy of emissions measurements" because the gas producers and certifiers rely on each other for profit.
"Moreover, certified gas schemes directly harm consumers, who end up paying a higher price for gas that might not be as clean as its producers claim," they added, pointing to estimates that "prices for certified gas could be set at 5% higher than market price."
The senators stressed that the "current Green Guides—last updated in 2012—do not specifically address claims about certified gas. In fact, they don't include any guidance for oil and gas marketing whatsoever, in contrast to explicit guidance on misleading claims from gas suppliers and utilities in other countries, such as the United Kingdom."
In addition to pushing for updates to the guidelines and a probe of the industry, the senators asked the FTC leader to respond to a series of related questions by the end of March.
The letter references various research, including an April report from Earthworks and Oil Change International (OCI), which welcomed the senators' attention to the issue amid a worsening climate emergency as a result of fossil fuels.
"We investigated one of the primary companies gas producers pay to 'certify' their fossil fuel as 'clean' or 'responsible'—and found nothing to support their claims," said OCI research director Lorne Stockman. "We put independent pollution monitors at sites the company claimed to track and found over 20 pollution events. The company's monitors missed all of them."
"Private gas 'certification' is flawed because companies have every incentive to claim they're clean, and no repercussions when they instead pollute, poison our air, harm our health, and cause the climate crisis," Stockman added. "It's important our lawmakers are advocating for the government to step in, stop this scam, and regulate gas companies to clean up their mess."
OCI U.S. program manager Allie Rosenbluth highlighted that the letter comes on the heels of the Biden administration's January decision to halt approvals for all liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to non-Fair Trade Agreement countries.
"In response, companies may try to make the desperate case that gas is in the public interest by 'certifying' their gas as 'cleaner,' 'responsibly sourced,' 'climate safe,' or other false advertising," she warned. "Our lawmakers are wise to call for a stop to this scam, and get ahead of what's likely to be a mad scramble to greenwash gas. Only phasing out fossil fuels will solve the climate crisis and protect the health and safety of our communities."
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New Analysis Blows Hole in 'Good Guy With a Gun' Myth
"In untangling the myth of defensive gun use, one thing is abundantly clear: If safety is the goal, guns are not the answer."
Feb 12, 2024
Fueled by right-wing politicians and the powerful gun lobby, nearly three-quarters of firearm owners in the United States believe the enduring myth that a gun at the ready will keep them safer—but a new analysis offers the latest hard evidence that guns simply make life more dangerous and deadly for everyone.
The Center for American Progress (CAP) joined gun violence research group GVPedia to release an issue brief debunking the falsehoods pushed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other pro-gun groups, which, looking to "counter the horrors of everyday gun violence in America... masterfully constructed a narrative based on the myth of a 'good guy with a gun' using their weapon defensively to stop an armed assailant before harm can be done."
Listening to former NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre and the right-wing lawmakers who count on the gun lobby's endorsements, one could hardly be blamed for conjuring an image of a "good guy with a gun" who frequently stops a violent attack from happening—but the analysis shows how faulty research in the 1990s underpinned such claims.
Surveys at the time, including a widely-cited study by Gary Kleck and Matt Gertz, estimated that between 760,000 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses (DGU) occurred annually.
But the Harvard Injury Control Research Center found two years later that fewer than 550,000 burglaries occurred in gun owners' homes annually, while Kleck and Gertz had estimated that "guns were used for self-defense during burglaries approximately 845,000 times."
"Burglary victims would have needed to use their gun defensively in more than 100% of cases, which is, of course, impossible," the issue brief reads.
Until the myth of the "good guy with the gun" is defeated, said Devin Hughes, founder and president of GVPedia, "Americans will continue buying firearms in the mistaken belief that those guns will make them safer, and gun violence will continue unabated."
"Accurate information is critically important in fighting America’s epidemic of gun violence. Just as important, however, is countering inaccurate information," Hughes added.
CAP also analyzed data on DGU from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which estimated just 70,000 such instances per year.
The group found that nine times as many people report being victimized by a person with a gun than being protected by a firearm. Respondents to two Harvard surveys taken in 1996 and 1999 were three times as likely to report being threatened or victimized with a gun than having used one to protect themselves.
In addition to putting a household at higher risk of an accidental gun injury or death, gun ownership also is not "the safest means of self-protection," CAP found.
NCVS data from 2007-11 showed that of the 14,145 crime incidents in which a victim was present, less than 1% involved DGU.
Eleven percent of victims who did not use a gun defensively reported being injured during the altercation; almost the same amount, 10.9%, reported injuries in cases of the victim using a gun.
More than 38% of victims who used a gun defensively reported property loss, while less than 35% who defended themselves with a different weapon reported that property was stolen during the incident.
"The idea that one is not safe unless they are carrying a gun is perhaps the most personal and insidious myth constructed by the gun lobby," said CAP. "What does improve safety is stronger gun laws, improved clearance rates, and investments in community violence intervention programming."
The brief noted that people who intend to use their guns defensively are more likely to keep them "unlocked, readily accessible, and loaded, substantially increasing the risk of unauthorized access by a minor"—suggesting that a parent with a gun for self-protective purposes is unlikely to successfully use it for self-defense, and is actively endangering family members by having the gun.
"Similar to adult cohabitants, children living in a home with a firearm are at a greater risk for unintentional injury and death, homicide, and suicide," said CAP. "Moreover, their unauthorized access to household firearms can put those outside the home at risk, with more than 74% of firearms used in school shooting incidents obtained from the student's home or from the home of a relative or family friend."
Citing a number of examples of people in states with so-called "Stand Your Ground" laws, which say that gun owners have a right to use their firearms if they believe they are being threatened, CAP and GVPedia showed how, contrary to the narrative about the "good guy with a gun," most DGU cases "are harmful to society" and involve innocent people being killed due to the presence of a firearm.
"Emboldened by a 'shoot first, ask questions later' culture, too many armed individuals have used deadly force as a first response, rather than a last resort," said CAP. "More concerning, gun homicides in which white shooters invoked SYG after killing Black victims were determined justifiable by the legal system five times more often than when the situation was reversed, indicating serious racial disparities in the defensive use of firearm."
The group's research showed how the gun industry and its backers have used "the manipulation of fear, perversion of self-defense, and falsified statistics" to weaken "the public's ability to properly inform themselves of the risks associated with gun ownership," said Allison Jordan, research associate for gun violence prevention at CAP.
"In untangling the myth of defensive gun use, one thing is abundantly clear," said Jordan. "If safety is the goal, guns are not the answer."
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Trump Appeals Presidential Immunity Claim to US Supreme Court
One watchdog responded by stressing that "Trump is NOT above the law."
Feb 12, 2024
Former Republican President Donald Trump on Monday asked the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court to block a federal appellate court panel's ruling from last week that he cannot claim immunity in a criminal case related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
The three-member panel from the District of Columbia Circuit—featuring one judge appointed by former GOP President George H.W. Bush and two appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection—unanimously ruled against Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner.
In response to the Monday filing, the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington reiterated that "Trump is NOT above the law."
Trump's new filing complies with the deadline set by the panel, which "temporarily paused the case from going back to the trial court, giving him through Monday to ask the justices to keep it paused while he appeals," explainedMSNBC legal blogger Jordan Rubin, who called on the high court to "reject this and any other efforts to delay the trial further."
Rubin argued that the justices should also reject Trump's appeal on the merits, writing that "a court concerned with consequences should consider the effect of condoning broad presidential immunity."
"But even if the Supreme Court agrees with the D.C. Circuit's bottom line yet feels the need to add its own two cents or stamp on the historic matter, then taking the case up—as opposed to just rejecting it outright and sending it back for trial—could needlessly give Trump a win, effectively immunizing him in the process," he added.
While Trump was president, he appointed three justices to the nation's highest court, which previously punted on the case.
After Judge Tayna Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected Trump's immunity claim in December, Special Counsel Jack Smith—who is overseeing Trump's two federal cases because of the presidential contest—asked the Supreme Court to skip over the appeals level. However, the justices declined to do so.
Chutkan had initially scheduled the trial for March but recently postponed it while waiting for the appeals court's decision.
In addition to the two federal cases led by Smith, Trump has been indicted in two state-level criminal cases. He is also wrapped up in legal battles related to his eligibility to appear on the ballot or hold office after engaging in insurrection on January 6, 2021. The Supreme Court heard arguments for one of those disqualification cases last week.
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