politics

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 why we should pity the oil industry, how invasion of privacy is sold as a good thing, and kids fighting back. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we look at Philip Morris's ability to see into the future. 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!

As CMD has reported previously, the infant formula industry in the U.S. is committed to making sure that women aren't, as they put it, made to feel guilty about not breast feeding. But it seems that formula producers are also looking to make inroads in Europe, where rates of breast feeding are far higher than in the U.S. The Independent "has uncovered strong ties between Nestle, the world's largest baby milk manufacturer, and the Department of Health. Rosie Cooper, a parliamentary private secretary to the Health minister Ben Bradshaw, is undergoing a year-long Industry and Parliament Trust fellowship with Nestle, and in February went for a week to South Africa as a guest of the group to oversee its corporate social responsibility activities." Three other Labor Party members of Parliament accompanied her at Nestle's expense. Critics are alarmed that the corporation has made such inroads into the government. A spokesperson for Baby Milk Action, which together with UNICEF, Save the Children and the National Childhood Trust, has organized a boycott of Nestle, said "Time and again we see Nestle trying to ingratiate itself with health workers and policymakers through gifts, free trips, sponsorship and so-called partnerships. Surely the Government should not look to companies to fund and organise trips such as this."

Mt. McKinley: one big mistake.Colorado Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Bob Schaffer proclaims his devotion to the state in his latest television ad, saying "Colorado is my life ... I proposed to Maureen on top of Pike's Peak ... " Problem was, the mountain featured in the ad was Mount McKinley in Alaska, not the famous Pikes Peak in Colorado. The spot ran in the two most conservative areas of the state, but the error was caught quickly by people, including Schaeffer's Democratic challenger Mark Udall, who recognized the incorrect peak. Schaffer's campaign manager said the spot would be re-edited to replace Mt. McKinley with Colorado mountains, and would start running again almost immediately.

Some U.S. Congresspeople want to limit direct to consumer marketing of drugs. Rep. Bart Stupak is head of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce investigative panel. At a hearing to discuss specific ads by Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Schering-Plough, Stupak said that "It appears that we need to enforce significant restrictions on DTC (direct–to–consumer) ads to protect American consumers from manipulative commercials designed to mislead and deceive for the profit of pharmaceutical companies." Referring to the fact that other than New Zealand, the U.S. is the only country to allow direct to consumer advertising of drugs he added, "Pharmaceutical companies should consider it a privilege to be allowed to air DTC ads in this country. We should make sure that pharmaceuticals companies conduct themselves responsibly." The ranking Republican on the committee, John Shimkus of Illinois, said that since the Food and Drug Administration was just recently given oversight of drug ads, it is too soon for congressional intervention. But as CMD has reported previously, there is significant concern as to whether the FDA and other government agencies are able and willing to stand up to industry and government pressure.

Columnist Dimitri Vassilaros received a news release about a grassroots "petition to stop climate alarmism" and attacking Al Gore's work. He checked it out and found that "for an organization that claims 'we are grassroots to the core,' Grassfire.org acts as if it is hiding a lot of Astroturf. The politically conservative nonprofit is happy to talk about its worthy online petition campaigns," but is "very tight-lipped about talking about itself. ... The Maxwell, Iowa, address for donations to the grassroots organization is clearly displayed on its Web site. But its 2006 IRS 990 form states its address is Bethesda, Md., near Washington, D.C." The SourceWatch article on Grassfire revealed its relationship to Craig Shirley and his "slick Washington-area PR firm, Shirley & Banister Public Affairs. ... When asked a few times about the organization's finances, [Grassfire's] Mr. De Jong first said he didn't know the size of the organization that he speaks for. He also said he 'could ask around' about that 990 form. When I offered to ask the bookkeeper for him, De Jong said, 'She will call, dude. Relax. I'll take care of it for you. I am a man of my word.' As of Thursday noon, no one had called this dude."

The Ohio state legislature has seized $230 million from to the state's Tobacco Prevention Foundation and diverted it other uses. In the late 1990s, Ohio and other states sued the major tobacco companies to recover billions of dollars spent treating sick smokers. Tobacco companies settled the suit by signing the historical 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), and agreeing to pay billions out to the states. The tobacco companies and the National Association of Attorneys General originally claimed that the purpose of the MSA and its payments was to reduce smoking, but on May 7, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland signed a bill to abolish the state's Tobacco Prevention Foundation and confiscate most of its money. Legislators claimed the money was going to an economic stimulus package, but shutting down the Foundation caused the layoff of 27 advertising employees who handled the Foundation's anti-smoking ad campaigns.

While the presidential race is getting all the attention, voters in Indiana and North Carolina also selected their parties' nominees for their 22 House of Representatives seats and one Senate slot on Tuesday. Each seat's incumbent is running for reelection, but this is a turbulent election year, and the three high-school teachers, three attorneys, several small business owners and elected officials, and one TV weatherman challenging them could give them a run for their money. The Democrats are defending twelve House seats to the Republicans ten, plus Elizabeth Dole's seat in the Senate.

Each candidate and incumbent has a profile within Congresspedia's Wiki the Vote project, which you can find at the Indiana and North Carolina portals, or through the full listing of the primary victors below. We need your help to find out more about these candidates, so remember that these profiles are editable by anyone and jump right in. You can always contact one of the staff editors for help.

AdAge reports that Fenton Communications and its client MoveOn.org have announced a politically liberal advertising consortium using corporate advertising executives and firms to "help change the playing field this year. ... At the moment it will go after presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain. ... [David Fenton] said the team would work for a variety of causes, not just MoveOn.org. Fenton also handles public relations for Global Green; Friends of the Earth; Bono's One Campaign; Refugees International; and Human Rights Watch, among others. 'Right now, the idea is to help win the election and talk about issues on [sic] global warming and women's rights,' he said." MoveOn's political strategist Tom Matzzie and its founder Wes Boyd also founded Campaign to Defend America, currently running advocacy TV ads against John McCain.

Eight thousand pages of documents related to the Pentagon's illegal propaganda campaign, known as the Pentagon military analyst program, are now online for the world to see, although in a format that makes it impossible to easily search them and therefore difficult to read and dissect. This trove includes the documents pried out of the Pentagon by David Barstow and used as the basis for his stunning investigation that appeared in the New York Times on April 20, 2008.

The Pentagon program, which clearly violated US law against covert government propaganda, embedded more than 75 retired military officers -- most of them with financial ties to war contractors -- into the TV networks as "message surrogates" for the Bush Administration. To date, every major commercial TV network has failed to report this story, covering up their complicity and keeping the existence of this scandal from their audiences.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been criticized for not totally banning "downer" cows -- animals "too sick or hurt to stand for slaughter" -- from the food supply. So "when a coalition of major industry groups reversed their position and joined animal advocates and several lawmakers in calling for an absolute ban," why wouldn't the USDA agree? Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer hasn't responded to the new stance of the American Meat Institute and other industry groups. So, industry leaders are encouraging meat producers to institute their own voluntary ban. But the Humane Society of the United States says a total ban is needed and "the USDA should take immediate action." The limited regulation of downer cows was instituted after mad cow disease was found in the U.S. and Canada. CMD staffers John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton wrote about the issue in their 1997 book "Mad Cow USA."