Tag Archives: Center for Public Integrity

Who Is Paying For Our News?

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The Associated Press posted an article in the Las Vegas Sun (and other newspapers) today about the selling of the Iran nuclear deal to the American public. There has been a bit of a dust-up about the Iranian nuclear deal because of a rather lengthy interview Ben Rhodes, one of President Obama’s top foreign policy aides, gave to The New York Times.

As I reported on May 10, Mr. Rhodes felt that the White House reporters he was briefing were so inexperienced he could tell them anything and they would believe it. He also managed to set up a media echo chamber to convince the American people that the Iranian deal was a good idea. Well, it gets worse.

The Las Vegas Sun reports:

A group identified by the White House as a key ally in selling the public on the Iran nuclear deal gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year to help it report on the pact and related issues, according to the group’s annual report. It also financed reporters and partnerships with other news outlets.

The Ploughshares Fund’s mission is to develop and finance initiatives “to reduce and ultimately eliminate the world’s nuclear stockpiles,” one that dovetails with President Barack Obama’s arms control efforts. But its behind-the-scenes advocacy of the Iran agreement got more attention this month after a candid profile of Ben Rhodes, one of the president’s top foreign policy aides.

In The New York Times Magazine article, Rhodes explained how the administration worked with nongovernmental organizations, proliferation experts and even friendly reporters to build support for the seven-nation accord that curtailed Iran’s nuclear activity and softened international financial penalties on Tehran.

“We created an echo chamber,” said Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, adding that “outside groups like Ploughshares” helped carry out the administration’s message effectively.

There are a lot of reasons this infuriates me. First of all, in this discussion I don’t hear any reference to America’s national security and how it will be impacted by the Iran deal. I also don’t see any admission that Iran will use much of the money the agreement frees up to manufacture weapons to be used against American soldiers in Afghanistan and the Middle East. It also hits home because bloggers are not necessarily seen as a valid source of news for the American people. In this case, conservative talk radio, conservative news outlets, conservative publications, and conservative bloggers were the only ones telling the truth about the Iran deal, and the White House worked very hard to portray them as misinformed.

The article further reports:

Ploughshares boasts of helping to secure the deal. While success was “driven by the fearless leadership of the Obama administration and supporters in Congress,” board chairwoman Mary Lloyd Estrin wrote in the annual report, “less known is the absolutely critical role that civil society played in tipping the scales towards this extraordinary policy victory.”

Ploughshares has set its sights on other media organizations, too.

In a “Cultural Strategy Report” on its website, the group outlined a broader objective of “ensuring regular and accurate coverage of nuclear issues in reputable and strategic media outlets” such as The Guardian, Salon, the Huffington Post or ProPublica.

Previous efforts failed to generate enough coverage, it noted. These included “funding of reporters at The Nation and Mother Jones and a partnership with The Center for Public Integrity to create a national security desk.” It suggested using “web videos, podcasts, photo-based stories” and other “attention-grabbing formats” for “creatively reframing the issue.”

The Center for Public Integrity’s CEO, Peter Bale, confirmed the group received a grant.

“None of the funding received by Ploughshares was for coverage of the Iran deal,” said Bale, whose organization received $70,000. “In general, we avoided that subject because the topic did not lend itself to the type of investigative reporting the center does.”

At some point the American people will realize that the Iranian nuclear deal is a bad deal. By then it may be too late, but at some point the truth will come out. Meanwhile, this looks a lot like the Obama Administration working against the welfare of the American people. Unfortunately, the American people played right along.

Out Of The Woodwork They Come

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WRAL.com reported yesterday that North Carolina NAACP President Rev. William Barber has stated that Republican state House Speaker Thom Tillis was elected to the U.S. Senate on Tuesday not because North Carolinians support his policies but because of changes to state voting laws that affected who cast ballots.

Well, not so fast.  WAVY.com reported on November 5:

Unofficial results from the State Board of Elections on Wednesday show more than 2.9 million people cast ballots through early and absentee voting and on Election Day. The number exceeds the 2.7 million who voted in the last midterm in 2010.

This year’s total represents 44 percent turnout when compared with the registered population of 6.6 million people. That’s the same percentage as 2010. It falls short of the recent record of 62 percent in 1990.

This year’s ballot tally should increase slightly as absentee and provisional ballots are inspected.

Reverend Barber, just because you say it does not make it true.

The article at WRAL also reports:

Barber said there were widespread reports of voting problems – the State Board of Elections said the election ran rather smoothly – and the shortened early-voting period and the elimination of same-day registration affected thousands of North Carolina voters.

 Again, Reverend Barber, please get your facts right. Just for the record, the early-voting period was shortened, but the number of hours for early voting did not change.

According to Poor Richard’s News:

Comparing May 4, 2010 North Carolina primary election data with the May 14, 2014 primary data, the study found that voter turnout increased across the board, but particularly among black voters, where it increased by 29.5 percent, compared to an increase of white voter turnout of 13.7 percent. The findings were based on Census Bureau data and public names who signed the voter rolls.

The problem with same-day registration is that it gives the city or town involved no opportunity to confirm the address and information of the voter and thus opens the door for voter fraud. If the Reverend Barber is in favor of voter fraud, then he should support same-day registration. If he is in favor of honest elections, he should not.

The Money Behind The War On Coal

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Frankly, the war on coal makes no sense to America. The medical evidence about coal-fired electric plants is questionable at best, and it is understood that the proposed EPA regulations will cost jobs and make electricity more expensive for Americans. So what in the world is going on?

On Friday, Newsbusters posted a story that may shed some light on the subject.

The war on coal will have a devastating impact on the American economy and the stability of that economy. There is a person on the world stage that has become rich through destabilization of a country’s currency. That person is behind the funding of the war on coal. I know that is an incredible coincidence, but here are the facts.

The article reports:

Building on a long week of anti-coal attacks by the media and the Environmental Protection Agency, ABC’s June 5 “World News” revived another attack on the coal industry. ABC hyped a 2013 investigation that it conducted in partnership with the Soros-funded Center for Public Integrity (CPI). It alleged that the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions had essentially been bought off by coal companies to ignore cases of black lung disease in miners.

…But even ABC’s investigation admitted that Wheeler (Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Paul Wheeler) was a highly respected doctor, writing that “few doctors reading black lung X-rays have better credentials than Wheeler.” ABC quoted Administrative Judge Miller saying “[Wheeler’s] paper credentials are excellent…I think [he] is credited with a very distinguished career.”

Notably, NPR reported that Wheeler has consistently “retrained, retested and recertified” with the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health,” according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Muir’s claim that Wheeler was “working for the coal company” was never supported on June 5, but it likely relates back to the ABC/CPI investigation’s assertion that “coal companies pay Hopkins $750 for each X-ray [Wheeler] reads for black lung.” This is far from “working for the coal company,” however, especially since CPI admitted that “according to the university, none of the money goes directly to the doctors.”

Ironically, ABC never disclosed the fact that CPI was heavily funded by liberal mega-donor George Soros. Soros’ Open Society Foundations gave $3,216,328 to CPI since 2000, donating $700,000 in 2013 alone.

If the EPA continues the war on coal, they will cripple America’s economy and cause a major decline in the lifestyle of all Americans. The only recourse we have as Americans to end this sort of runaway government is to elect people to office who will put a stop to it. When you go into the voting booth in November, elect people who will opposed the Obama Administration’s war on coal. If people who oppose the EPA overreach are not elected, we can expect the strength of the American economy and the America way of life to be a distant memory.

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