WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?
A heated face-off between the Humane Society of the United States and a foe funded by the food and restaurant industries has turned into a fur-flying dogfight, prompting the nation’s top animal welfare group to mount a stout defense, something rare for major charities.
The Center for Consumer Freedom’s HumaneWatch.org kicked off the public fight when it recently expanded its attack on the Humane Society in a new wave of ads accusing the charity of raking in millions but spending very little on animal shelters. An underlying message is that the Humane Society is pushing a vegan, anti-meat agenda.
“They are similar to PETA,” said the center’s Will Coggin. “We are here to defend consumers’ choice.”
Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle sees it differently. He charges that the center and its leader, Richard Berman, are profiteering “mercenaries” for the industries the Humane Society is trying to shut down, such as industrial pig farms, puppy mills and fur producers.
The center’s advertising assault on the Humane Society and personal attacks against Pacelle, president since 2004, play on the misperception that the top job of the charity is running shelters. The society spends much of its $180 million annual budget instead on animal welfare campaigns that have, for example, succeeded in getting major companies such as Costco and McDonald’s to stop using pork from farms that cage pigs.
While other charities typically accept attacks as the price of doing business, Pacelle is striking back. “Somebody has to stand up to a bully like that,” he said.
DEMOCRATS: RAND PAUL, JEB BUSH IN 2016 FACEOFF
Stanley Greenberg, a leading Democratic pollster who once worked for Bill Clinton, has just unveiled an in-depth survey of Republican voters that shows the 2016 GOP primary coming down to a duel between former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
Greenberg’s poll, spread over 41 PowerPoint pages, finds that Paul dominates the Tea Party wing of the GOP with 52 percent support. Greenberg added that evangelical Christians, who control 30 percent of the Republican Party, are very supportive of the Tea Party, suggesting Paul would own them too as he shores up conservatives.
That leaves the moderates to Bush, who is the most popular potential 2016 candidate in their eyes. The pollster suggested that Bush could win by taking control of the moderate wing of the party, which makes up a quarter of GOP voters, and let the long list of expected conservatives, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, to chop up the right wing.
THE NATION’S TOUGHEST IG: JOHN SOPKO
John F. Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, is fast winning a reputation for being the nation’s toughest IG, a reputation built on a wave of blunt demands that the Pentagon and other agencies spend taxpayer dollars better and protect U.S. troops more.
“He could be the best of the best,” said a congressional official who often tangles with IGs he considers weak.
One example of Sopko’s work was released this week when he slapped Afghan contractors and the Pentagon for spending $32 million since 2009 on roadside barriers to prevent IED blasts. He said it was hard to find evidence that many barriers were even built, raising new threats to troops.
“This case shows so clearly that fraud can kill in Afghanistan,” he said.
OBAMCARE DATA HUG A ‘HONEY POT’ FOR ID THIEVES
The data hub President Obama’s health care team is creating to exchange personal health and financial information on Obamacare users will be a ripe target for computer hackers and identity thieves, charge critics who claim the system hasn’t been tested for security flaws.
“It’s the greatest collection of private identification information ever assembled on Americans that will be put into one place,” Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-Pa., chairman of a House cybersecurity subcommittee, told Secrets. “It is every bit of sensitive information one would need to know to completely take over the identification of a person.”
The Obamacare data hub, he added, “creates a honey pot, and the day that it goes online it is going to be a target for hackers and others and they are unprepared to protect the system.”
Aware of security concerns, Obamacare officials are asking the public to “trust” that the information will be protected from hackers.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
