A group that is intent on destroying our bears, panthers, manatees and every piece of green we have in our state. It’s also quite obvious that RIck is ruled by the Koch brothers because his agenda is their agenda. Not ours.
Last year we saw an incredible dysfunctional Florida legislature and the will of the people even for little things was just totally ignored. Like we didn’t exist.
They really don’t care. Not Rick Scott nor the people who represent you.
“AFP is extremely disappointed in leaders in Florida suggesting that the Sunshine State should create a health insurance exchange” said Slade O’Brien, AFP’s Florida State Director. “An exchange will increase insurance premiums on consumers and taxes on hardworking families. Florida’s best intentions will be masked by the federal government’s onerous requirements.”
“Americans for Prosperity, the free-market advocacy group financed by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, is going on the attack.
The group sent mail ads Monday to the districts of Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, and 24 other senators over their support for a plan to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
“The Florida Senate continues to move forward on a plan to give good people bad coverage,” the mailer states.
AFP sent the mailers to the districts of senators who voted for the Medicaid expansion plan in committee. Gardiner, who is vice president of external affairs at Orlando Health, doesn’t sit on any committee as Senate President, but pushed expansion from the onset of the legislative session.”
“The heated race for governor in the Sunshine State is just around the corner, and after throwing his tantrum on national television, Rick Scott needs something of a miracle to win reelection. Luckily for Scott, he’s got the support of the billionaire Koch brothers and their extensive political network: Koch Industries has made large contributions to Scott’s campaign, and the Kochs’ primary political arm, Americans For Prosperity, has put more than 40 paid staffers on the ground in the Sunshine State.
Scott’s ties to the Koch brothers go back a ways. In 2013, Scott spoke at Americans For Prosperity’s “Defending the American Dream Summit” in Orlando the very same week that he skipped his own three-day education summit, a stark juxtaposition of priorities that drew this rebuke from Tampa Bay Times:
“Unless he’s worried about his base or the lingering threat of a primary challenge, it baffles us that Scott – who couldn’t find time to attend any of a three-day education summit he called himself – would find the time to speak at the AFP “Defending the American Dream Summit”… Maybe he hopes the Koch brothers, who founded AFP, will show some love to Scott’s Let’s Get to Work Committee.”
“This year, AFP’s annual summit was hosted in Texas, and Scott’s fellow Republican governor and friend Rick Perry joked about razzing him because the Texas summit was better attended than Scott’s Orlando event. Perry recalled, “Rick Scott always tries to one-up me, so you know, he was the first to call me and say ‘Hey, we got Americans for Prosperity, what’d you get?’”
Of course Scott called Perry to brag about his support from the Koch brothers. And of course the Koch brothers support Rick Scott, they share the same agenda – opposition to raising the minimum wage, denying the science of climate change, refusing to expand Medicaid. It’s a match made in heaven.
When Floridians go to the polls on Tuesday, they should bear this in mind. Rick Scott is the special interests governor. The Koch brothers are just one of his many interests.”
I’ve written a few blogs in the past about our Black Bear situation but it’s really has come to critical mass and we must do something to stop the madness that is going on in Florida right now. We have been taken over by a bunch of loonies with a plan of their own. Not just for us but for our treasures panthers, manatees and black bears.
At one time the Black Bear was endangered. Now we have a fabulous healthy population. What do they do? They kill them.
“(From a post by Fred Bohler) Cubs will stay with their mother for 18-24 months. When i was with FWC, the rule was , cubs of a deceased female that were under 35 pounds were euthanized. Cubs 35 -50 pounds were left on their own and had about a 10-20% chance of survival respectively. Obviously without proper foraging/ hunting skills , most cubs are doomed. Male bears will readily hunt them down and kill them. I was involved with one of the few rehabilitation efforts for a cub to be released back into the wild by FWC. Even that had its problems, once again, man could not be trusted not to imprint the cub. The release was marginally successful.”
This week we all saw this fabulous video on the news. “Der’s bears in da pool. They took my floaties.”
How can we as humans watch this video and then allow hunters to hunt mothers and then euthanize the cubs. Most of Floridians are against hunting the bears and I’m sure no life loving person could be ok with killing a mother and euthanizing their cubs. If they are then they are hypocrites. 61% percent of Floridians are against this.
“A state-wide poll commissioned by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) earlier this year showed that 61% of Floridians were against bear hunting, with overwhelming majorities favoring educational outreach programs and the widespread use of bear-proof garbage cans. When the HSUS delivered a petition to Governor Rick Scott with 90,000 names calling upon him to block the hunt, Scott deferred to the Republican-packed FWC, whose chairman, Richard Corbett, dismissed the concerns of these Florida citizens in the following way:
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expects to announce a decision later this year on a petition from the Pacific Legal Foundation to reclassify the manatee from endangered to threatened. The petition was submitted on behalf of Save Crystal River, a group of property owners concerned about boating restrictions in King’s Bay in Citrus County.
“Those people don’t know what they’re talking about. Most of those people have never been in the woods. They think we’re talking about teddy bears. “Oh Lord, don’t hurt my little teddy bear!’ Well these bears are dangerous…. Do you want blood on your hands? We don’t. We have taken a step.”
A step towards murdering a mother and leaving her babies to die.
Don’t be a hypocrite.
This is what we can do to help.
There are two paid and four volunteer attorneys working on the lawsuit against the FWC to stop the hunt. You can help pay the legal expenses by donating to the legal fund. All donations, large or small, are greatly appreciated.
Here is the link to the gofundme account to pay for this.
If we can all give ten bucks that’s a lot of bucks that will help for this lawsuit.
2) If you are unable to donate monetarily, you can donate some time by helping to spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, email and letters to the editor. You can also help the cause receive a $10,000 award from Cox Conserves by voting for Chuck O’Neal here. One click one vote 10,000 bucks towards the cause.
O’Neal, an environmental activist and a real-estate investor in Longwood, filed a lawsuit against the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to stop the state agency from allowing people to hunt bears. He was joined in his suit by Speak Up Wekiva, a nonprofit group based in Lake Mary.
“Filing this lawsuit is something that fulfills this commitment,” O’Neal said.
3) As a contingency plan, if all other means to stop the hunt fail, there are going to be a series of statewide protests and an immeasurable amount of negative publicity for FWC and the state officials who are responsible. You can find one in your area here:
4) And possibly the most important. PLEASE REGISTER TO VOTE and help insure that all your friends vote in EVERY election. You can join a great organization with a long history of education, voter registration and advocacy here:
On October 10th, 2015, the small Central Florida town of Umatilla, on the southern edge of the Ocala National Forest, is scheduled to hold its annual Black Bear Festival. The event, organized by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), has traditionally been aimed at educating young and old alike about the area’s wildlife, featuring presentations and guided eco-tours of the nearby forest. For a town that used to label itself “The Gateway to the Forest,” the event was a wholesome family activity and entirely fitting. This year’s event promises to be extra-special, for it will mark the two-week countdown to the resumption of bear hunting after a twenty-one-year hiatus, affording Florida’s families a wonderful new way to interact with their natural environment. It remains to be seen whether the organizers will set up bear-shaped targets for youngsters to aim at in Cadwell Park, or will hide the reality of the coming bloodbath behind their fraudulent and authoritarian claim of managerial responsibility Ok so to wrap this up grew our black bear population out of endangered to a large population. We now after many years have bear hunting. Hunters can kill the mothers and that means a dismal outcome for the cubs. This whole thing is orchestrated from the darkness who have found Florida a great place to destroy for their own greedy reasons.
Here is an article about Ted Nugent buying his permit to kill bears in Florida.
When it looks like a duck, and walks like duck, quacks like a duck it’s a duck.
Or in this case a big polluting rubber ducky.
I’ve written about the Pacific Legal Foundation and explained who they are. When I first moved here I read about Lakepointe and even wrote to some friends about them. Something was not kosher there. Something was rotten in Denmark. Unfortunately, at the time I didn’t have the knowledge to really understand.
They are a Koch Brothers, Scaife Foundation lackeys hiding out in bosom of an unending cash cow and really sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong but where their masters want them to go.
and they want to go to Martin County. They want to destroy us.
Then I wrote about their relationship to Martin County and our Economic Foundation
The PLF obituary notes, “(Hopping’s) notable achievements included coordinating the Florida business community’s efforts to enact laws relating to manatee protection, an expedited environmental permitting process, and the Bert J. Harris Jr. Property Rights Protection Act.” The Bert Harris Act is the best example how the unintelligent design of laws provides energy to a precept of radical conservatism: that self-interest of corporations can protect the public interest better than rules and regulations.”
We have a comp plan in Martin County. Developers don’t like it. They don’t like some of our commissioners. They certainly don’t like that we pay attention and we don’t want to be an extension of the cement jungle of South Florida. and they don’t like Maggy Hurchella who is one of our greatest gifts. Maggy fights for us day and night and all she got for her efforts was a silly SLAPP suit which is costing her thousands of dollars.
“The evidence from Heard’s hearing, according to court records, is important to Lake Point’s case against former County Commissioner Maggy Hurchalla for allegedly making false statements to county commissioners with the intention of interfering with Lake Point’s ability to conduct business. Lake Point filed suit at the same time against Martin County and the South Florida Water Management District for breach of contract.
Lake Point filed a motion in January seeking permission from the court to amend its lawsuit to charge Martin County with tortuous interference. A public records request filed by Lake Point with County Attorney Michael Durham asked for copies of all correspondence, public and private, between three county commissioners and Hurchalla regarding Lake Point. Apparently the request was ignored for a year.”
“The Pacific Legal Foundation—a 40-year-old public interest firm known for winning its cases to protect US landowners against excessive government regulation and the loss of private property rights—questioned this week not only the county commission’s closed-door sessions, but also the apparent disregard of Florida’s Public Records Laws by two commissioners, Ed Fielding and Sarah Heard, for failing to report and protect their private electronic communications used to conduct public business.
If the allegations by Lake Point Water Restoration Project attorneys prove accurate regarding the “manipulation” or deliberate destruction of Fielding’s and Heard’s secret emails with environmentalist Maggy Hurchalla, both commissioners also are likely to face criminal charges, as well as ethics violations.”
Maggy is a citizen. She is not an elected official. This is just a circus pointed to our commissioners to destroy Martin County.
“George Lindemann Jr., a key partner in the Lake Point Restoration project, and companies associated with him have been very generous to Martin County commissioners and commission candidates who support business causes.
Lindemann Jr. and the companies based at 4500 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, Suite 105, contributed a total of $32,000 in the past five years to the political campaigns of three county commissioners and two commission candidates, campaign finance records show.
He is the son of George Lindemann Sr., an investor whose family is reported by Fortune magazine to have a net worth of $2.2 billion.
Lindemann Jr. gained national prominence in the early 1990s as an equestrian with Olympic aspirations. He made headlines when he received a 33-month prison sentence in January 1996 after his conviction in federal court in Chicago for fraudulent insurance claims on a show horse he ordered killed, according to published media reports.
In Martin County, Lindemann Jr. is known for the controversial Lake Point project in southwestern Martin County and his campaign contributions to five pro-business candidates for countywide office since 2008.
Commissioner Doug Smith and former Commissioner Ed Ciampi received a total of $9,000 each from Lindemann and his companies in the past five years, records show. Former Commissioner Patrick Hayes received a total of $7,000.
They said they believe the Lake Point stormwater facility is good for the environment and Martin County because it reduces the amount of polluted water going into the St. Lucie Estuary.
The rock mine also provides building materials and jobs that are helping Martin County’s economy, Smith said.
“It is to clean up the nutrients out of the water,” Smith said. “Every project that we add into the mix that diverts dirty water … is a good thing.”
How’s that going Doug?
“But new Commission Chairwoman Sarah Heard and some of her political allies questioned Lindemann’s campaign contributions to their political adversaries and the Lake Point rock mining agreement that calls for the donation of about 1,800 acres to the South Florida Water Management District in 20 years..
“I don’t think it’s a good deal for Martin County taxpayers,” Heard said about the “It looks to me like all they’re doing is digging holes and selling off the rock or sand, whatever they’re mining out there. How is that a benefit for Martin County?”
Critics of the Lake Point project like Maggy Hurchalla, an environmentalist and former county commissioner, say a proposal to siphon water from the St. Lucie Canal into the Lake Point property and send it south to utilities in Palm Beach County could harm the St. Lucie Estuary instead of helping it.
The St. Lucie Canal receives water from Lake Okeechobee, Hurchalla said. So increasing the number of customers relying on the lake for water could lead to more water storage, higher lake levels, larger discharges of polluted water into the St. Lucie Estuary, and less water for the Everglades.”
How’s that working for our Estuary? Maggy ,as usual, was right. Who’s threatening her? Let me repeat.
This is who she is fighting against.
“Lindemann Jr. gained national prominence in the early 1990s as an equestrian with Olympic aspirations. He made headlines when he received a 33-month prison sentence in January 1996 after his conviction in federal court in Chicago for fraudulent insurance claims on a show horse he ordered killed, according to published media reports.”
Who approved this in the first place? Who does that ? Who allows a horse killing felon to operate in our county?
Translated he was convicted of killing a horse to collect the insurance money. Because why? He didn’t have enough money?
Now Sarah Heard and Ed Fielding who have supported the river and supported the comp plan of Martin County are being attacked by Lakepointe
In the same lawsuit, Lakepointe claims the commissioners smashed their own computers and hid their emails in a secret plot against the rockpit company.”
A secret plot? Funny. It’s always a secret plot.
There will be a hearing on those charges before Judge McManus at 9:30am Thursday Aug 27 at the Martin County Courthouse. Ed and Sarah will be testifying.
Please understand that this is beyound issue even between a local business and our commissioners. We have been targeted here in Martin County by the Pacific Legal Foundation and unless we do something about this it will never end.
We will loose everything. Our environment. Our wetlands. I may as well have stayed Palm Beach County because we’re gonna look just like them. A cement jungle ruled by a bunch of big businesses.
Burt was of course. He was the only one that talked the talk and walked the walk. He said ““A good day is when no one comes over and I don’t have to go anywhere.” He wanted to be left alone BUT he also left everyone else alone.
To me the rest are a bunch of hypocrites because you can’t say you want to be left alone and have freedom but then intrude on other people.
The Pacific Legal Foundation is actually exploiting libertarianism if you think about it.
Why can’t they stay home and leave us alone?
Because they are not true libertarians. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
So what happens is they start something and we have to send our Big Guns out like David Guest from Earthjustice. What it becomes is a battle between the lawyers. (Thank goodness for David. If not for him and all the other dedicated people we would be screwed)
The Democratic advantage among registered voters in Florida continues to narrow slowly, according to the latest figures from the state Division of Elections.
But the closing of the party gap comes as the overall numbers of registered Democrats and Republicans are down from 2012 election levels. Meanwhile, there has been an uptick in voters who declare themselves free agents from the major parties and sign up as “no party affiliation.”
Age and negative perceptions that many new voters have of both major parties are credited for the shifts in registration.
We have talk and we have to find things we agree on. If not, i doubt we have any panthers, black bears or manatees and we certainly will not have clean water.
Remember when Michael Grunwald was here and he said “Big Sugar has a right to be in business” and everyone groaned. Well, that’s true. They do. What I don’t think they have the right to get subsidies to stay alive when the rest of the businesses have to put themselves out there and if they succeed they succeed and if they don’t they don’t.
The same thing goes for Pacific Legal Foundation. Conservatives you can’t have it both ways. You either believe in state and local rights or your being a hypocrite. I’m beginning to think more and more every day its the latter. These people tell you one thing and they do another. In other words your being duped. If you want to believe something believe it but don’t be duplicitous.
Yesterday, I wrote this blogpost about how Pacific Legal Foundation is the common denominator with issues with our Florida Panthers, Florida Black Bears and Manatees. They were also on Lawsuit for the Chesapeake Bay.
“We support a clean and healthy environment and sensible use of our natural resources. Private landowners and conservation groups have a vested interest in maintaining natural resources. Pollution and misuse of resources cause damage to our ecosystem. Governments, unlike private businesses, are unaccountable for such damage done to our environment and have a terrible track record when it comes to environmental protection. Protecting the environment requires a clear definition and enforcement of individual rights in resources like land, water, air, and wildlife. Free markets and property rights stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect our environment and ecosystems. We realize that our planet’s climate is constantly changing, but environmental advocates and social pressure are the most effective means of changing public behavior.”
Let me repeat “environmental advocates and social pressure are the most effective means of changing public behavior.”
(P.S. It looks like they believe in climate change)
So it’s hypercritical for the Pacific Legal Foundation to mess with the free will of our Florida Black Bears.
That’s my logical conclusion.
Duplicitous
So is the Pacific Legal Foundation a libertarian foundation. I don’t think so.
I think they are a Koch Brothers, Scaife Foundation lackeys hiding out in bosom of an unending cash cow and really sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong but where their masters want them to go.
Not free thinking at all. Not what I would expect from Libertarians.
It’s this behavoir, this intrusion into our Legislature this past year that I think made our head’s spin.
Who is the Pacific Legal Foundation and why are our Panthers, Manatees and Bears their Business?
Or anything else for that matter.
Just as a reminder we live in a democracy and we vote these people in to represent us.
About a month ago there was an issue up in Brevard, incited by some behind the scene bs getting all down on Thad Altman for being ok with the purchase of the land to send the water south and not dealing with his section of the Indian River Lagoon.
You can’t have it both ways. Pick a way and do that.
But what we ALL can’t have is people from other places making rules for us. If you want to be an elected official you talk to us your constituents not to the Pacific Legal Foundation or Citizens United. You work for us. If you work for them then give up your office and work for them. Can’t have it.
Other bloggers, writers in other states – we all need to compare notes. I guarantee the same thing is happening everywhere and one day we’re going to wake up and say “What happened?” (as we float down to Miami in our Kayaks.)
We all got upset when Pam Bondi signed on to a lawsuit for the polluters in the case of Chesapeake Bay. Most of us felt that Florida had no business being involved and using our tax money on a case not in our state when her job is to work for Florida. Pam Bondi! You work for us!
What we witnessed this past year was Rick Scott and the Florida Legislature making Florida their own personal slush fund at the expense of all of us. The Tea Party was given verbiage to incite them like “Land Grabs” and they went out like the sheeples they deplore and worked tirelessly for the 1%. Tea Party you have been duped. Brainwashed. You are not free. You are slaves for the Koch Brothers.
The Pacific Legal Foundation is a Sacramento, California-based legal organization that was established March 5, 1973 [1] to support pro-business causes. In recent years, it has taken a lead in pursuing anti-affirmative action policies.
It is the key right-wing public interest litigation firm in a network of similar organizations funded initially by Scaife Foundations money across the USA to support capitalism and oppose environmental and health activism and government regulation.
The organization has been partially funded by a range of corporations and conservative foundations, including by the Koch family Claude R. Lambe Foundation in 1998.
These people don’t believe in freedom they believe in pushing their own agenda that call conservative and they have their own Tea Party out their representing them.
Florida is not the Koch Brothers private playground.
And they may be treading into waters other people would not want you to go. After all, one of the reasons given not to buy the land was because of endangered birds that were there. You effectively would take that away from SFWMD and Big sugar and I don’t think they would be too happy about that.
“Tobacco Industry associations
PLF is listed as a “key third party ally” in a September 14, 1999 Philip Morris document.[6]
In 1989, Philip Morris began funding the organization through its Mission Viejo (gated-community land-development company) subsidiary, mainly because the organisation was active in the property rights area and had won cases limiting the States’ ability to expropriate or regulate private property. The Mission Viejo subsidiary was interested in fighting a no-growth initiative which had been blocking some of their development projects. At this stage Philip Morris only gave an annual grant of $5,000 each year, just to keep the organisation on side and available, but it may have also funded specific legal projects.
By 1991 the PLF had a major budget crisis. It was in deficit to the tune of about $1 million, which was about a quarter of its $4 million annual requirements. Not long after, Roy Marden, the Philip Morris executive in charge of maintaining relations with the right-wing think tanks and advocacy institutes, joined the PLF board. Overnight the funding increased substantially to $10,000, and then $22,000 by 1993. Philip Morris also began to utilize the PLF to undertake hidden media and political activities on its behalf.
The PLF also intervened successful in Keller v. California State Bar, where it established a legal precedent that California lawyers could challenge the use of their dues to the state bar for political purposes. This was an successful attempt to block collective actions by the more liberal Californian lawyers who were involving themselves in such policy areas as class-actions and product liability.
By the mid 1990s the PLF had offices in Sacramento, Anchorage and Seattle and ran several key issues and programs:
Judicial Responsibility Project
College of Public Interest Law
Limited Government Project
It also sloughed off the Center for Applied Jurisprudence which focused on commercial “free speech issues” (i.e., the right to advertise harmful products) and “regulatory reform.” Philip Morris was giving them a $25,000 retainer by this time (and presumably paying also for work done on their behalf).
In 1997-1998 the PLF joined forces with the $10 million funded (by Philip Morris) National Smokers Alliance, in a fierce and vindictive legal attack on Professor Stanton Arnold Glantz, a leader of California’s main anti-smoking organization, Americans for Nonsmokers Rights[9] and attempted to brand him in the public mind as having something to hide … a destroyer of legal document (a ruse the tobacco industry used itself on a massive scale). Glantz had received documents from the early tobacco industry whistleblowers, and he had established the first public-access Internet web site revealing how the industry operated.
Anti-Environment Policies
According to ExxonSecrets.org, the Pacific Legal Foundation has received $110,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. The website goes on to state that:
Anti-environmental from the start, PLF’s early actions supported the use of DDT, the use of herbicides in national forests, and the use of public range land without requiring an environmental impact review. They also supported at least six pro-nuclear power cases before the early eighties while accepting funding from Pacific General Electric (PGE), a utility which has gained a great deal through the development of nuclear power in the Pacific Northwest. In the 1980s, PLF won several cases that are considered landmarks by those working on property rights issues today: Nollan v the California Coastal Commission and First Church, both Supreme Court victories which provide precedence for the takings litigation pursued today (Oliver Houck, “With Charity For All,” Yale Law Journal, 1993). In October 2003, PLF Vice President M. David Stirling had an Op-Ed published in which he defended President Bush’s environmental record and condemned former President Clinton for endorsing the Kyoto Protocol.”
Yikes!
Their the merchants of death! DDT for everyone. You get DDT and you get DDT!
SO Pacific Legal Foundation if you want to help people and their freedom please do so but please stop trampling on us. Florida is not up for grabs. We don’t care what Rick tells you. It’s just not true.
Rick Scott and his love affair with Pacific Legal Foundation!
For years, Florida law prohibited craft beer brewers and sellers from offering their beverage in the standard-size container used throughout the country.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott plans to sue the CMS, accusing the agency of unconstitutionally trying to force the state to expand Medicaid by ending funding that now helps Florida hospitals pay for uncompensated care for low-income and uninsured patients.
But Todd Gaziano, a senior fellow in constitutional law with the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, said the Florida situation presents the same legal issue as the one in NFIB. Still, he said, the argument of unconstitutional coercion in the Florida case, is “far from a slam dunk.” The Pacific Legal Foundation filed a separate lawsuit challenging the ACA.
“It’s the kind of claim that should not be dismissed at the outset,” Gaziano said. “It’s a claim that presents a reasonable legal argument.” But he conceded that the claim is not as clear, even if the government’s object is the same: to apply pressure on the state to expand Medicaid eligibility.
I’ve been thinking about the hunts that have opened up on our Florida Bear, and all the craziness that going on with hunting in our state parks and people wanting to take the Florida Panther off the endangered species list.
“ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – Florida’s wildlife agency may cut back on its efforts to save the endangered Florida panther two decades after helping return the big cats from the brink of extinction, according to an agency memo.
Carole Baskin, founder of Big Cat Rescue, told the commission the memo implies that the state is moving toward removing federal protections from the panthers and eventually allowing hunts.”
The downlisting came after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was petitioned by Pacific Legal Foundation, a private property attorney lobbying firm in Sacramento, Calif. Oddly, both the Endangered Species List and Pacific Legal Foundation were created in 1973.
“The potential change in the manatee’s status is being considered under pressure from the Pacific Legal Foundation, a libertarian group that generally opposes all environmental regulations.”
“The Pacific Legal Foundation is a Sacramento, California-based legal organization that was established March 5, 1973 [1] to support pro-business causes. In recent years, it has taken a lead in pursuing anti-affirmative action policies.”
It is the key right-wing public interest litigation firm in a network of similar organizations funded initially by Scaife Foundations money across the USA to support capitalism and oppose environmental and health activism and government regulation.
The organization has been [2] partially funded by a range of corporations and conservative foundations, including by the Koch family Claude R. Lambe Foundation in 1998.[1]
So the people behind taking the Manatee off the endangered list is the Koch Brothers and the Scaife Foundations.
But still, with 6,000 or so manatees swimming around, there’s a chance that the feds will indeed pronounce them merely threatened. That’s the same status that was conferred on the Florida black bear — with only 3,000 left in the state.
That seemed plenty enough for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which last month (not long after legalizing silencers for hunting weapons) voted to reinstate bear hunting.
If the FWC figures that it’s okay to hunt a beloved species with a population of 3,000, imagine what kind of sportin’ activities those good ol’ boys in Tallahassee can rationalize now that we’ve got twice that many manatees terrorizing Florida’s waterways. Imagine the fun.
Three of our beloved on endangered species list. One libertarian organization from California making the rules.
Who owns the Florida Legislature so they are complicit with the whims of the very libertarian whims of the Pacific Legal Foundation?
cyndi lenz 