Tales of deception and betrayal (Delay and Nat'l Cent. for Pub.Policy Res)

Tales of deception and betrayal
Think-tank head said DeLay didn't know Indian funds helped pay for trip
By BENNETT ROTH
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - The head of a conservative nonprofit group that sponsored several foreign trips by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay testified Wednesday that she was deceived by lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who funneled funds from his Indian tribe clients through her organization and used it to arrange travel.

Amy Ridenour, the director of the National Center for Public Policy Research, told the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs that Abramoff added a golf outing to Scotland when DeLay made what was supposed to be a fact-finding trip to Britain in 2000.

But Ridenour said DeLay was unaware that the Choctaw Indians, a Mississippi tribe represented by Abramoff, contributed $25,000 to the center on the same day that the two men, along with DeLay's wife and two congressional aides, left for Britain.

~snip~

McCain said Abramoff and an associate, Michael Scanlon, a former press secretary to DeLay, received as much as $15 million from the Choctaws, who enlisted Abramoff to head their Washington lobbying effort in 1995.

more: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3237358

.

I hope he's paying them well. :sarcasm:

to not be aware of much. tom, what exactly are you aware of?

National Center for Public Policy Research

The National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) began operations in 1982. It was created to present the conservative perspective on issues of significant public concern. As its first project, it exposed human rights abuses by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It then fought against a proposed "nuclear freeze" and began supporting the Reagan Administration's policies regarding Central America. It now calls itself a "communications and research foundation dedicated to providing free market solutions to today's public policy problems."

Table of contents
1 History
2 Personnel
3 Funders
4 Affiliated organizations
5 Contact information
6 External links

History

In 1997, NCPPR opposed action on global warming at an international summit in Kyoto, Japan. It established the Kyoto Earth Summit Information Center, issued an "Earth Summit Fact Sheet" and fed anti-treaty quotes to the media through a "free interview locator service" that offered "assistance to journalists seeking interviews with leading scientists, economists and public policy experts on global warming."

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, NCPPR began using the rhetoric of anti-terrorism to attack environmentalists. In May 2002, it created the Envirotruth web site, to attack what it called the "jihad" that environmental activists are waging against corporations. <1>

Personnel
Office bearers:

* Amy Moritz Ridenour Chairman/President was paid $155,00 in 2002.
* Jack Abramoff Director
* Jay W. Timmons Director
* David A. Ridenour Vice-President/Secretary was paid $130,000 in 2002.

Staff:

* David Almasi, director of Project 21
* Christopher Burger, program coordinator
* John Carlisle
* Candace C. Crandall, Adjunct Fellow <2> (wife of S. Fred Singer)
* Gerald Marsh, Science Advisor
* Tom Randall
* Amy Moritz Ridenour, president,

Funders

* Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc.
* Carthage Foundation
* Castle Rock Foundation
* Earhart Foundation
* John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
* Sarah Scaife Foundation

In 2002 ExxonMobil donated $30,000 for "educational activities" and a further $15,000 for general support. <3> In 2003 the company boosted its general operating support to $25,000 with another $30,000 for 'global climate change/EnviroTruth website".<4>

According to the organizations 2002 IRS return total revenue was $6.6 million, with $399,080 spent on fundraising consultancy fees to a Virginia direct mail company, Response Dynamics.<5>

While NCPPR is keen to scrutinise the fundraising and advocacy of organisations it disagrees with it has come in for criticism itself. In 1998, the San Francisco Examiner reporter Diana Walsh reviewed the rise of direct mail campaigns using scare tactics to raise funds from senior citizens. Walsh reported that in one four month period, 86 year old senior citizen, Faye Shelby, received 685 letters from 78 organizations. 160 of the fundraising pitches were from NCPPR.

Amy Moritz Ridenour told the Examiner that donors received up to a dozen letters a month and that an emotional pitch was vital to raising funds. "People seem to respond better to emotion than they do with letters that have lots and lots of facts,” she said.

Affiliated organizations

* NCPPR's projects include Project 21, a conservative African American organization that opposes affirmative action and the minimum wage and has issued news releases in support of genetically modified foods. Project 21 has been funded by R.J. Reynolds, and it has lobbied in support of tobacco industry interests, opposing FDA regulation of the industry, excise taxes and other government policies to reduce tobacco use.
* NCPPR's Ridenour sits on the board of directors of Black America's PAC

Contact information

National Center for Public Policy Research
777 N. Capitol St. NE #803
Washington, D.C. 20002
Phone: (202) 371-1400
Fax: (202) 408-7773
Email: info@nationalcenter.org
http://www.nationalcenter.org/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1108892#1111031

This is a long thread from last October that includes a great deal on Amy Ridenour and NCPPR (most of it posted by KoKo01), along with a lot of other related information.

It's still fascinating reading for anyone who wants to go more deeply into these topics.

she testified this a.m. and she's probably up to her eyeballs in this so I hope that McCain and Dorgan were just playing cat and mouse with her.

She said that she knew Abramoff for 20 years and so she didn't question his "funding proposals for grants" which he made to her "NCPPR." Dorgan seemed surprised by this but she wasn't the focus of the hearings so he didn't probe much more about her own activities with the Center.

I hope something comes out of this. And, if you or anyone else who worked on NCPPR are posters on Kos or other web sites you can get hopefully get the info out. You and others did alot of work on this and probably have much more than I do at this point.

This is the time to expose the NCPPR and it's influence! It's not just Indian Gaming, as you know. It goes far beyond that.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1878861

DeLay and Abramoff could have talked 50 times about expecting cash without her knowing!