Corruption in Good Ol North Carolina?

[Guest guest]

Corruption in “Good Ol”

North Carolina?

 

 

 

PETA has been involved with trying to improve animal welfare conditions

in parts of North Carolina

for some time. A few years ago PETA launched a campaign against Yadkin

County officials who continuously

ignored “the dire living—and dying—conditions for the unwanted animals

whose care and custody they are charged with”. PETA went public with

their concerns causing Yadkin officials to received numerous letters of

concern. This angered Yadkin officials and they refused PETA’s

help to build a shelter. Instead they took $15,000 for a shelter from a sleazy

lobbyist and front group for the tobacco, restaurant, alcohol and meat

industries called The Center for Consumer Freedom

(CCF).  CCF has been attacking PETA for

years calling the organization “terrorists”. CCF is also the outfit

behind the “petakills” website. It is

very confusing why  Yadkin County, NC

refused PETA’s money for animal welfare

improvement but took  The Center for Consumer

Freedom’s (which hates PETA) money. Since when does a

lobbyist who represents industries such as tobacco, meat, alcohol and

restaurants care about animal welfare? Has there been an accurate accounting of

how Yadkin county officials used all the donations they received to build the

shelter? What is even stranger is the behavior of the media not only in the USA and Canada but abroad. They are

interviewing CCF for articles regarding  animal welfare. Makes you wonder, is there

some collaboration and corruption going on between the “good ol’ boys”; CCF and some North

Carolina officials?

 

For PETA’s

work regarding Yadkin County, North Carolina, please read below

http://www.peta.org/feat/yadkin

Despite the efforts of the local

humane society and animal advocates throughout the U.S., Yadkin County

officials continue to ignore the dire living—and dying—conditions

for the unwanted animals whose care and custody they are charged with.

Commissioners don’t seem to consider their county’s unwanted

animals as worthy of anything more than the county landfill adjacent to the

animal shelter.

Many of you remember lending your voices to the lost, stray, and abandoned

animals of Yadkin County, North

Carolina. Complaints about the county

“shelter”—a dilapidated collection of cramped wire-and-wood

cages with metal roofs offering little to no protection from the

elements—have been flooding PETA’s

headquarters for years. These animals still need your help.

 

PETA and many concerned citizens have

attempted—in vain—to help Yadkin County improve the

deplorable conditions at its shelter. In 1996, county officials rejected an

offer to pay the difference in cost between intravenous injections (the most

humane method of euthanasia) and the gas chamber. In May 2002, after receiving

increased pressure from PETA and local residents, Yadkin County

commissioners finally voted to put $75,000 toward the construction of a new

shelter if the community could raise an additional $75,000. PETA offered to

donate $15,000 toward the construction of the shelter if the county would

ensure that certain humane standards were met. The commissioners never bothered

to respond directly to PETA (but Commissioner Thomas Wooten had the audacity to

tell the media that the offer was “not as much as [he] would have

liked” and that each of PETA’s 750,000

members should be willing to donate $1! And in January 2003, commissioners

turned down an offer by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to visit

the shelter and make suggestions for improvements for free. Why? County Manager Cecil Wood

told the local paper, the Elkin Tribune,

“We’re already aware of the problems we have over there.

We’re focusing on a new shelter.”

 

It

is now nearly a year later, and nothing has changed for the needy animals in Yadkin County. Not only

has a new shelter not been built, little if any effort is being made to find

land to build it on, either! And the animals are paying the price, often with

their lives.

 

Animals at the shelter are killed in a crude, windowless metal box pumped full

of carbon monoxide. Even adequate carbon monoxide equipment can fail,

subjecting fully conscious animals to the horror of watching and hearing others

struggle and suffer as they succumb to the fumes. But makeshift chambers, like

the one used by Yadkin County, are

virtually guaranteed to subject animals to suffering and to a prolonged,

agonizing death. PETA is told—and video footage confirms—that

animals are crammed into the box one on top of another and that live animals

are thrown in, layer after layer, on top of dead and dying ones. A shelter

employee allegedly once bragged about being able to stuff more than 80 animals

into the tiny “kill box” at once.

 

Yadkin County’s Annual Animal

Control Report for January 1, 2003, through October 11, 2003,

shows that out of 1,933 animals killed, only four puppies and four kittens were

euthanized by a veterinarian. This means that the

rest of the animals—including the old, young, and sick ones, who are

particularly susceptible to gas-related trauma because they breathe and

circulate oxygen and other gases differently than healthy adult

animals—were crammed into and died inside the chamber that has been used

to kill animals at the shelter for years. (News reports indicate that Yadkin County

commissioners have spent nearly $7,000 on a new gas chamber, which they refuse

to hook up until a new shelter is built. So the new chamber sits unused.)

 

Yadkin County budget

reports for 2001 through 2003 show that not one cent was slated to be spent on

training for the animal control staff or on veterinary fees. One complainant

wrote to PETA to say that on one occasion, an adult dog had " a large flap

of skin and muscle [lying] down over his left hip, exposing bone. He lay from

Wednesday until Friday on kill day. He had numerous other wounds, and the hip

injury was teeming with maggots. " PETA's file on

Yadkin County is full of

similar heartbreaking accounts.

 

The General Statutes of North Carolina, specifically § 130A-192, state that

impounded animals who are not reclaimed can only be destroyed by “a

procedure approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Humane

Society of the United States [HSUS], or … the American Humane Association

[AHA].”

 

The AVMA panel states that “inhalant agents [should] not be used alone in

animals less than 16 weeks old except to induce loss of consciousness, followed

by the use of some other method to kill the animal.”

 

The HSUS states, “It is unacceptable to use [carbon monoxide] for the

euthanasia of dogs and cats who are … [o]ld …; nder the age of four months; ick

or injured; or ([o]bviously) pregnant.”

The AHA considers euthanasia by injection of sodium pentobarbital to be

“the only acceptable method for euthanasia of dogs and cats in animal

shelters” and states, “American Humane considers the use of any

other lethal method for dogs and cats in animal shelters unacceptable,

including use of carbon monoxide ...”

The AVMA also specifies in its panel that when carbon monoxide is used, the

“chamber must be of the highest quality construction and should allow for

separation of individual animals … [and] the chamber must be well lit and

have view ports that allow personnel direct observation of animals

…,” neither of which is followed by Yadkin County.

Moreover, Yadkin County has a

mandatory kill policy, prohibiting adoptions, supposedly because of a fear of

rabies. However, the county dedicates no resources

to enforcing North Carolina law

requiring that animals be vaccinated against rabies. The excuse? Money, which,

of course, would be collected if violators of the state rabies law were fined as

warranted!

Conditions for animals before they are destroyed are equally cruel. The rundown

structure that animals are housed in offers little to no protection from harsh

wind, freezing or scorching temperatures, rain, and snow and more often than

not is covered in urine and feces. Small, weak animals are housed in cages with

aggressive large animals, who bully the smaller animals and prevent them from

eating or drinking. Food bowls are not used at the facility, so food is simply

thrown on the ground, contaminated by feces, urine, dirt, and water, creating a

disgusting health hazard for the animals. The water buckets provided for the

animals appear to be too tall for small dogs to reach, and the water is often

foul and black with mold and filth.

Cats are forced to sit on wire in small cages.

On November 4, 2003, Yadkin County Humane Society President Alice Singh spoke

to the House Interim Committee on the Prevention and Disposition of Unwanted

and Abandoned Companion Animals in Raleigh—formed last August by the

Honorable Speakers of the North Carolina House of Representatives to address

the overpopulation crisis and related issues in the state—about dire

conditions at the Yadkin County shelter. Singh shared with committee members

heart-wrenching photos of the facility, and graphic video footage of gas killings

shot in 1997 (the same gas box is still in use) by a North Carolina School of

the Arts student. The following day, County Manager Cecil

Wood advised humane society members that they were no longer welcome to use the

county planning building for their monthly

meetings as they had been doing for nine months. The humane

society is the only hope that these animals have.

Please help. Commissioners

must get their heads out of the sand and immediately improve the deplorable

conditions that the animals have and continue to be subjected to right now.

Construction of a shelter hasn’t even begun and won’t be completed

overnight once it does. There’s a long list of simple things that the county can and must do

to make the shelter comply with minimum national standards.

Please contact Yadkin County

commissioners and urge them to stop shirking their legal, moral, and financial

responsibilities to their county’s lost, abandoned, and unwanted animals.

Ask that they provide these animals with the least they deserve: a painless,

peaceful death administered by a licensed veterinarian at least until caring individuals

can be trained. Please push for immediate improvements to be made at the

current facility. Animals shouldn’t have to wait for fundraising and

construction efforts before having their basic needs met.

Yadkin County

Commissioners

Cecil Wood, County Manager

Yadkin County Commission

P.O. Box 146

Yadkinville, NC 27055

336-679-4200

336-679-6005 (fax)

cwood

Roger Evans, Commissioner

6052 Aquilla

Creek Rd.

East Bend, NC 27018

336-699-3261

Kim Clark Phillips, Commissioner

1139 Knoll Dr.

Yadkinville, NC 27055

336-463-4590

Allen Sneed, Commissioner

2511 Rockford Rd.

Yadkinville, NC 27055

336-961-2600

D.C. Swaim, Commissioner

2553 Swan Creek Rd.

Jonesville, NC 28642

336-835-5736

Brady Wooten, Commissioner

3540 Arnold Rd.

Hamptonville, NC 27020

336-468-8626

James Graham, County Attorney

P.O. Box 625

Yadkinville, NC 27055

336-679-8082

Please keep all correspondence and calls polite. Thank you.

For information about The Center for Consumer Freedom,

please read below.

http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2002Q1/ddam.html

 ConsumerFreedom.org: Tobacco Money Takes on Activist

Cash

by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber

Full page advertisements in Newsweek magazine are

expensive, so who footed the bill for an attack ad aimed at Greenpeace that ran

in the January 28 issue? The Center for Consumer Freedom, which produced the

ad, isn't saying.

At first glance, with its

photo of a diving whale in the ocean, the ad looked like it might have been

placed by Greenpeace itself--until, that is, you read the nasty quote from

Patrick Moore, identified as a " Greenpeace Co-Founder, " calling his

former colleagues " a band of scientific illiterates who use Gestapo

tactics. "

The advertisement

featured a web address, www.ConsumerFreedom.com,

which belongs to the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF). Like the advertisement

itself, the name is misleading. CCF doesn't represent consumers. It's just the

new name for lobbyist Rick Berman's latest front group.

Until January, the CCF

called itself the " Guest Choice Network. " Its name change coincided

with the launch of a second website, called ActivistCash.com, which purports to

reveal a vast, left-wing financial conspiracy among major foundations and

nonprofit public interest organizations.

Berman's specialty as a

lobbyist is what he calls " shooting the messenger " : attacking

activists who criticize his clients. PR Watch first

exposed Berman & Co. in our First Quarter 2001 issue, detailing his work

for the restaurant, tavern and alcoholic beverage industries. Since then, we

have uncovered new information documenting his ties to Philip Morris.

Although

ConsumerFreedom.org isn't saying who funded its attack advertisement against

Greenpeace, Philip Morris is a distinct possibility. The tobacco giant is also

now the largest food company in the United

States. Greenpeace is one

of the international leaders in the fight for safety and environmental testing

of genetically engineered foods, and recently Greenpeace targeted Philip Morris

Kraft for its sales of such products.

Ploys

'r' Us

ActivistCash.com and

ConsumerFreedom.org are merely the latest in a string of organizations that

Berman has created to advance his clients' interests. Another Berman front

group, the Employment

Policies Institute (EPI), calls itself a " non-profit research

organization dedicated to studying public policy issues surrounding employment

growth. " In reality, EPI's mission is to oppose

increases in the minimum wage so restaurants can continue to pay their workers

as little as possible. EPI also owns the domain names to MinimumWage.com and LivingWage.com, a website

that attempts to portray the idea of a living wage for workers as some kind of

insidious conspiracy. " Living wage activists want nothing less than a

national living wage, " it warns (as though there is something wrong with

paying employees enough that they can afford to eat and pay rent).

Some of Berman &

Co.'s most visible lobbying has been waged against efforts to lower the legal

blood-alcohol limit for drivers. It runs the American

Beverage Institute, which was organized in 1991 with the

stated mission of promoting " responsible alcohol consumption, " but

actually represents restaurants and retailers that sell alcohol. The ABI's arch-enemy is Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

Following

the Money

ActivistCash.com claims

to expose the funding behind groups like MADD, Action on Smoking and Health,

and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. In reality, none of the

information that it " exposes " has ever been hidden. It is available

in public foundation reports and IRS tax statements that non-profit

organizations provide to anyone who asks. Most of the information in the ActivistCash database can already be found in public

libraries or the Internet. Non-profit organizations are not obligated to

disclose the names of specific individual or institutional donors, but most of

the groups attacked by ActivistCash have gone beyond

the requirements of the law in providing the information that ActivistCash is now using to attack them.

It is hypocritical in the

extreme, of course, for ActivistCash.com to " expose " the funding of

others, while keeping the details of its own finances hidden to conceal the

fact that its funding comes from the very industries that share a vested

interest in attacking activists. Fortunately, some information about the

funding of Berman's operations can be found as a result of lawsuits against the

tobacco industry, which have forced the disclosure of internal industry

documents. Correspondence between Berman and Philip Morris reveals that the

Center for Consumer Freedom (then called the Guest Choice Network) was founded

in 1995, with initial funding coming entirely from the tobacco industry.

" I'd like to propose

to Philip Morris the establishment of the Guest Choice Network, " Berman

stated in a December 11,

1995 letter to Barbara Trach, PM's

senior program manager for public affairs. " The concept is 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,

etc. activists. . . . I would like to solicit Philip Morris for an initial

contribution of $600,000. "

The purpose of the Guest

Choice Network, as Berman explained in a separate planning document,

was to enlist operators of " restaurants, hotels, casinos, bowling alleys,

taverns, stadiums, and university hospitality educators " to " support

mentality of 'smokers rights' by encouraging responsibility to protect 'guest

choice.' "

According to a yearend 1995 budget,

Guest Choice planned to spend $1.5 million during its first 13 months of

operation, including $390,000 for " membership marketing/materials

development, " $430,000 to establish a communication center and newsletter

(which Berman promised would have a " 60% to 70% smoking focus " ),

$110,000 to create a " multi-industry advisory council, " and $345,000

for " grassroots network development/ operation. "

The tobacco company complied with Berman's initial

funding request for $600,000 and pitched in another $300,000

early the following year. " As of this writing, PM USA is still the only

contributor, though Berman continues to promise others any day now, " wrote

Philip Morris attorney Marty Barrington in an internal company memorandum

dated March 28, 1996. No further

information is publicly available about Guest Choice's finances or activities

until its public launch two years later, in April 1998, sporting an advisory

board comprised mostly of representatives from the restaurant, meat and

alcoholic beverage industries.

In 1999, Berman continued

to combine tobacco flackery with his role as a

restaurant lobbyist, as his American Beverage Institute published a study

titled " Effects of 1998 California Smoking Ban

on Bars, Taverns and Night Clubs. " The study surveyed bar owners and

managers, asking whether business increased or decreased after January 1, 1998, the date the California bar ban

went into effect. It claimed to find that business declined an average of 26.2%,

but no hard numbers were used to arrive at this percentage. Rather than look at

actual sales receipts, the ABI survey merely surveyed the opinions of bar

owners. Numerous other studies have examined the effect of smoking bans on the

hospitality industry, and studies that actually look at taxable sales receipts

show no significant impact.

As a private company,

Berman & Co. is not required to disclose its finances. However, two of its

front groups--the Guest Choice Network and the Employment Policies Institute

Foundation--are registered as tax-exempt non-profit organizations, and they are

required to disclose some financial information to the Internal Revenue Service

which is publicly available by inspecting their IRS Form 990s.

The IRS Form 990 for

the Employment Policies Institute Foundation shows that it received revenues of

$1,237,566 during the 1999 calendar year. Of that amount, $508,173 went to

Berman & Co. for " consulting services. " Another $163,026 in

salary and benefits went directly to Rick Berman as EPIF's

executive director, a job on which he reportedly spent 28 hours per week. EPIF

secretary Thomas Dilworth (sometimes described in news stories as the

organization's " research director " ) worked an average of 8.5 hours

per week and received $32,863 in salary and benefits for the year.

The Guest Choice Network

claims to represent " more than 30,000 U.S. restaurants

and tavern operators. " However, the IRS Form 990 which

it filed for the the six-month period from July to

December 1999 (prior to changing its name to the Center for Consumer Freedom)

shows that almost all of its financial support came from a handful of anonymous

sources. Its total income for that period was $111,642, of which $105,000 came

from six unnamed donors. It received no income from membership dues. Some of

its funding apparently comes from one of Berman's other organizations, the

American Beverage Institute, which " contributes monthly amounts to the

Guest Choice Network to assist with media expenses. " The Guest Choice

Network did not report paying salaries to any of its employees, who were

presumably paid by other sources.

For The Center for Consumer Freedom

suspicious contribution please read below.

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/pressrelease_detail.cfm?release=6

Center for Consumer Freedom Trumps

PETA on Animal Shelter Contribution

PETA's Links To

Domestic Terrorism Sink Their Standing In Yadkin

County, North

Carolina

Washington, DC - The Center for Consumer

Freedom is contributing $15,000 toward construction of a new animal shelter in Yadkin County, North Carolina, after commissioners rejected a

similar offer from People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) at a county

commission meeting last month. The $15,000 offer from PETA was rebuffed by

County Commissioner Brent Hunter, who led dissenters in rejecting the offer, in

light of recent revelations that PETA has links to active domestic terror

groups.

" While

construction of the county animal shelter is a priority, I cannot, in good

faith, accept an offer from a group like PETA when they support and finance

groups that engage in arson, harassment and vandalism in the name of their

political agenda, " Hunter said. " The Center for Consumer Freedom's

offer is very generous and timely in meeting the needs of our county while

sticking to our principles. "

PETA

has a long history of financially and philosophically supporting the Earth

Liberation Front (ELF) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF), organizations that

the FBI has labeled " the largest and most active U.S.-based terror

group. " Since 1996, ELF and ALF have caused more than $43 million in

property damage resulting from over 600 attacks including arson, assault and

massive vandalism.

The

Center for Consumer Freedom's research into PETA's

1995-2000 IRS tax filings found:

·  In April 2001, PETA gave a direct

contribution of $1500 to the North American Earth Liberation Front (ELF) to

" support their program activities. " Among its long list of crimes,

ELF claimed credit for the 1998 firebombing of a Vail ski resort, resulting in

$12 million in damages.

·  In January 1995, PETA gave a $45,200

contribution to the " support committee " of Rodney Coronado, a

convicted arsonist who firebombed a research facility at Michigan State University. PETA also gave an unreturned

$25,000 " loan " to Rodney Coronado's father in 1994.

·  In January 2001, PETA gave $5000 to the

" Josh Harper Support Committee. " Josh Harper is an ALF-affiliated

criminal arrested numerous times and convicted for assaulting a police officer.

In 1998, Harper told an Oregon newspaper " we're going to

continue to be confrontational, we're going to continue to be militant. If

people see that as extreme, then so be it. "

·  In August 1999, PETA gave $2,000 to David

Wilson, a Utah-based animal-rights extremist who was then a national

" spokesperson " for ALF. Wilson has bragged, " We started

with animal rights, but we've expanded to wildlife actions like the [1998

arson] in Vail. " PETA's financial contributions

to these criminals are matched by their extreme rhetoric. At the Animal Rights

2001 Conference, PETA spokesperson Bruce Friedrich delivered the following

chilling message to his captive audience: " It would be a great thing if

all of these fast-food outlets, these slaughterhouses, these laboratories, and

the banks that fund them exploded tomorrow. "

Richard

Berman, Executive Director for Center for Consumer Freedom, said that his

organization's donation to Yadkin County is a symbol of its efforts to bring information about the

backgrounds and motivations of many activist groups (like PETA) to their

unsuspecting supporters.

" PETA

collects millions of dollars in contributions every year from people who intend

to support the humane treatment of animals, " Berman said. " However,

many of these well-intentioned individuals are likely unaware that since 1988

PETA has spent four times as much money defending criminals and domestic terror

groups as it has in support of animal shelters. We will continue to educate and

urge those who support just causes to ensure that they know whether their money

is going to the right place -- a dollar given for animals should be spent on

animals, not on terrorism. "