The same ad that “mysteriously” appeared in The New York Times earlier this month also ran in The Washington Post this week.
Clearly these folks have big money and they’re not afraid to toss it around. I wasn’t shocked to see another ad in one of the top five newspapers in the country, and won’t be surprised if more follow. I was surprised, though, to see the feigned confusion by industry hawks like Jacquie Calnan, president of Americans for Medical Progress. She told The Washington Times:
“I can only say every instinct, after 10 years of being in this field, is that it’s not any pharmaceutical company behind this.”
Are you kidding me? I don’t know about Calnan’s “instincts,” but I do know common sense. The NYSEhostage.com site is primarily devoted to the SHAC campaign. Also note that it links to the Americans for Medical Progress website. That group has been at the forefront of the campaign to label animal rights activists as “terrorists,” and is lobbying hard for the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. Their website also has “opposition profiles” of groups like SHAC and PETA.
Mainstream reporters are dropping the ball here, and running canned quotes from industry hacks like, “Gee golly, who could ever do such a thing? I mean, we’ve been calling activists terrorists for years, and are pushing for terrorism legislation, and are smearing the same groups on our personal websites, but we would never, ever, run an ad.”
To the legal eagles out here: Perhaps it will take a lawsuit to get the records on who is running this front group…