Who are Amy & David Ridenour and what's the tie to Abramoff?

[KoKo]

If any of you watched the Indian Gaming Hearings on C-Span this morning you saw Amy Ridenour (National Center for Public Policy Research) giving testimony that she "didn't know nothing about nothing having to do with what Abramoff did with his money" (my interpretation of what she said). Abramoff is on their Board of Directors! She said she's known him for 20 years and took his word about any of his requests for funding from her organization, NCPPR. She was thanked heartily for her testimony by both Dorgan and McCain.

All Democrats need to know about these people. David puts out bogus anti-Science articles in all the MSM while Amy manages her end of operations scamming Senior Citizens and attending meetings with all those groups we here on DU know as connected to Norquist/Gaffney and the RW Christian Fundies. They run all these operations out of an office in Virginia. They have bogus front names for all their organizations just like Abramoff and the Christian RW does. They use C-3 and C-4's to get around funding disclosures. (according to McCain, that's what Abramoff used, too.)

Here's a start and I have more info than this, but it's a taste:
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=704

Some Photo's of the "Ridenour's and other's at work.... At the National Center for Public Policy Research.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:jgL6SSPcJJ0J:www.project21.org/StaffPhotos.html+David+Ridenour&hl=en

[KoKo]

1. And....a little more about Amy:

Edited on Thu Jun-23-05 09:43 AM by KoKo01

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: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
http://www.nationalcenter.org /

[KoKo]

2. kick........