DECEMBER 2004
Notes on selected opposition groups
Center for Consumer Freedom
49 - Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington (D.C.) executive director Melanie Sloan on November
16, 2004 alleged to the IRS that the Center for Consumer Freedom
has violated the requirements for holding nonprofit status “by
engaging in prohibited electioneering against presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich;
by making substantial payments to founder Richard Berman and to Berman’s
wholly owned for-profit entity Berman & Co.; and by engaging in activities
with no charitable purpose.”
Explained Sloan, “According to the IRS, participation by a 501(c)(3) organization
in a political campaign on behalf of or against any specific candidate is strictly
prohibited, yet CCF openly opposed Kucinich. IRS law also prohibits private individuals
from benefitting from non-profit organizations. Richard Berman, the founder and
president of the for-profit lobbying and public relations firm Berman & Co.,
started the nonprofit Guest Choice Network in 1999. All GCN activities were conducted
by Berman and BCI. Berman dissolved GCN in 2001, changing the name to the Center
for Consumer Freedom. Berman and BCI have received nearly $2 million from GCN
and CCF since 1999.
“Tax-exempt organizations must have a charitable purpose,” Sloan
continued. “GCN and CCF really just lobby on behalf of food producers,
restaurants, and the tobacco industry. Documents that became public as a result
of the global tobacco litigation settlement show that Philip Morris was once
of the largest contributors to GCN and CCF. Berman pitched GCN to Philip Morris
to ‘unite the restaurant and hospitality industries in a campaign to defend
their consumers and marketing programs against attacks from anti-smoking, anti-drinking,
anti-meat activists...’ Another document indicated that Philip Morris would
support Berman’s group because it would broaden the focus of the ‘smoking
issue’ and expand into the bigger picture of over-regulation.”
“Any one of these violations would be significant enough for the IRS to
revoke an organization’s tax exempt status,” Sloan said, speaking
from perspective including stints as an assistant U.S. prosecutor in the District
of Columbia, 1998-2003, and minority counsel for the U.S. House of Represen-tatives
Judiciary Committee, 1995 -1998.
The CREW complaint against the Center for Consumer Freedam is posted at <www.citizensforethics.org>.
Other opposition notes
50 - Data from Ducks Unlimited balance sheets.
51 - Safari Club International has more than
160 independently funded U.S. affiliates.
White Buffalo
52 - White Buffalo claims “To conserve native species and ecosystems
by sponsoring, supporting, and conducting scientific research and education...To
aid and assist in the management of wildlife populations through reduction
or enhancement.” What White Buffalo mostly does is enable founder Anthony
DeNicola to hunt deer at taxpayer expense.
Hired by municipal governments to cull deer, DeNicola
and assistants have within the past four years reportedly killed
590 deer in Iowa City, Iowa; 582 in Fairmount Park, Pennsylvania;
875 in Princeton Township, New Jersey; and 119 at sites managed
by Cleveland MetroParks. The city council in Solon, Ohio, on
October 21, 2004 authorized paying White Buffalo $500,000 to
kill deer there in 2005-2006.
DiNicola has outspokenly denouncd contraceptive
means of controlling deer. Yet DeNicola has also been hired
to test deer contraceptives in Princeton Township and Cleveland.
Unknown to DeNicola until March 1, 2004, SHARK
founder Steve Hindi monitored his shooting in Cleveland with
hidden video cameras. After three TV stations aired video of
prolonged struggling by wounded deer, MetroParks rangers found
and seized eight of the SHARK cameras.
Purportedly held as evidence while the possibility
of filing charges against Hindi was under investigation, five
of the cameras were returned on March 30, Hindi said, with the
footage on all of them erased, and with other physical damage.
Metro Parks personnel denied having ever had the other three.
According to an investigation report by Cleveland
MetroParks police officer Ray Dickson, NeNicola on March 8 stated
that he “would take full responsibility
for erasing the video cameras,” and that “the decision was made
to erase the cameras” in discussion with MetroParks rangers Dave Rankin
and Justin Simon.
SHARK, after unsuccessfully seeking a criminal
prosecution, anticipates filing a lawsuit for alleged violations
of civil rights, and on November 24 applied for a federal
injunction that would halt the deer shooting if SHARK is not
allowed to videotape it.
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