Wednesday, July 05, 2006

What amazes me is that Nelsen hasn't put up any billboards--he's proposed the idea and put a lot of junk on his website. THIS gets him a story on page B1 of the Globe?? I know that it's the first week of July, but isn't there any standard for newsworthiness?

Not only does Nelsen keep his own info on the downlow while providing a GoogleMap image of Tim Toomey's house, he also gives no indication that his "organization" is anything but himself, a website, and a mailing list. No other staff are listed on the site. That's not to say that small organizations aren't legitimate, but again--it's newsworthy?? One crank with a website--and a website filled with inaccurate information at that, including a claim that lettuce-pickers make $50/hour and a graph claiming that the US has a population of 390 million?

Nice standards, Globe.

Adam

I would like to correct one notion in your comments - ProjectUSA and Craig Nelsen is not just a crank with a website.

ProjectUSA is a very small part of a large movement whose ideoligical godfather is John Tanton and whose financial godfather is Richard Mellon Scaife. As Woodward & Bernstein said "follow the money".

Googling "John Tanton" will provide a wealth of "on point information, but a good overview is provided by in article in the Southern Poverty Law Center's summer 2002 edition of "Intelligence Report" titled "The Puppeteer". It outlines Tanton's bigotry and ties to far right groups. It also shows his close ties to Richard Mellon Scaife. The article can be found at http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=93

A list of Tanton supported organizations (including ProjectUSA) can be found at http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=72.

Another overview of ProjectUSA can be found at http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1538.

As for Richard Mellon Scaife's funding of Tanton's group, go to http://www.mediatransparency.org/ to see the more than $3.7- million dollars gaiven by Scaife controlled foundations (The Carthage Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, Scaife Family Foundation) to Tanton controlled organizations as Federation for American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA, ProEnglish, and Center for Immigration Studies.


Finally, these are the same people who were actively involved in the attempt in 2002 and 2004 to stage a hostile take over of the Sierra Club. Thier attempt ultimately failed when long time Sierra Club members realized the true bigoted nature of the people attemting the hostile takeover.

Thanks for the opportunity to present this information.

Bob Perry

(in the interest of full disclosure, I have worked with Mr. Toomey on these issues.)

Excellent info, Bob, and thanks for providing it.

I second that--thanks for the information, Bob. Very good to know. I still stand by my argument that Nelsen's effort isn't newsworthy and that his website contains false info. But it's very good to know the networks to which it's linked.

This number was provided on the Project USA page concerning the NJ-Mass Transit campaign. It was a little tough to find, and I haven't called it, but for what it's worth, there it is.


202 543 2323

Bob Perry writes:

"Thier [sic] attempt ultimately failed when long time Sierra Club members realized the true bigoted nature of the people attemting [sic] the hostile takeover."

...and so on.

Audacter calumnaire semper aliquid haeret, huh, Bob?