Tag Archives: Center for Consumer Freedom

Martosko’s downward spiral

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In July of 2010, David Martosko made the following statement on the HumaneWatch blog:
Instead of seeing my name plastered on everything, you’ll soon be reading articles contributed by various members of the HumaneWatch team. There will even be some outsiders sharing their own analysis.

Some time thereafter, Martosko’s personal biography disappeared from the HumaneWatch site.

Martosko has a substantial ego, and has always enjoyed the limelight, so his sudden withdrawal aroused our suspicions. We now know the reason for his announced departure.

On July 8th, 2010, David Martosko was arrested for yet another alcohol-related incident. He was taken into custody and charged with Class 3 and Class 4 Misdemeanor offenses: trespassing on school/church grounds at night, public swearing, and intoxication. This is Martosko’s 18th run-in with the law that we are aware of.

Martosko was previously arrested in 2008 for a number of violations, including driving while intoxicated, refusing a breathalyzer test, and drinking *while* operating a vehicle. That’s especially shocking conduct when you consider that the Center for Consumer Freedom — HumaneWatch’s parent organization — aggressively attacks Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and protests blood alcohol limits and sobriety checkpoints.

Following his newest arrest in July, Martosko has denied his erratic behavior at the Nebraska town hall meeting. He remains evasive about the events of that night, accusing eyewitnesses of “spinning tall tales”, but declining to refute any of the specific allegations made against him.

Martosko was barred from the town hall meeting in Nebraska due to his belligerence and odd behavior, which culminated in his confronting the meeting’s host, Kevin Fulton, with a recording device at a men’s room urinal. Martosko’s report on the incident only mentioned that Kevin was “reached for comment”, but unsurprisingly did not provide much detail on the location or circumstances of the attempted interview.

At the time, Martosko’s behavior seemed inexplicably bizarre. In light of his arrest on an earlier night for loitering at a church/school while drunk, belligerent, and obscene, his behavior in Nebraska makes a lot more sense.

David Martosko was granted a continuance until May 10th, 2011. We’ll let you know the outcome of that hearing and sentencing as soon as the information is available, and its impact on the HumaneWatch smear campaign.

Despite our differences with Mr. Martosko, we sincerely hope that he will find the strength to confront his addictions in the coming New Year.

Update: January 3, 2011
General VA Court Case information is now available for the trespassing charge and public intoxication/swearing.

Update: January 10, 2011
A FOIA request for the details of the incident was denied due to the criminal investigation underway against Martosko.

This correspondence is in response to your email received by the Internal Affairs Bureau of the Fairfax County Police Department in which you requested a copy of the police report and warrant associated with Mr. David Martosko’s arrest. I have determined that it is not releasable under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. The complete police report is considered to be criminal investigation information or material. As such, it is exempted from disclosure under Section 2.2-3706 (F) (1) ofthe Code of Virginia. If I can be of further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerely Timothy W. Field Second Lieutenant Internal Affairs Bureau 4100 Chain Bridge Road Fairfax, VA 22030 703-246-2980 FCPDFOIA@fairfaxcounty.gov

We’ll try again later this year, after Martosko’s hearing and sentencing.

Whitewash weekend

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When an industry front group pretending to be a charity bashes legitimate animal welfare charities, I get annoyed. When they try to use shelters as pawns in their smear campaign, I get furious. Supporting shelters is admirable, and absolutely necessary to facilities strained to the breaking point. I donate to my local shelters year-round. But HumaneWatch has managed to pervert that selfless act into a wholly selfish publicity stunt, which they’ve named “Shelter Supply Saturday”. We call it “Whitewash Weekend”. For the better part of a year, HumaneWatchers have been spitting on shelters and shelter personnel, while they fight spay/neuter laws, deny overpopulation, accuse shelters of profiting from their work, defend substandard breeders and animal brokers like Hunte Corp., and rail against any legislation that would ease the flood of abandoned and neglected animals into our nation’s shelters. Now HumaneWatch is attempting to whitewash that abuse by encouraging their members to send supplies to shelters — wrapped in HumaneWatch propaganda, of course. It will take a lot more than a dishonest greeting card to cover up HumaneWatch’s anti-animal agenda. Shall we take a look at the scoreboard?
Humane Society of the USHumaneWatch
  • A scheme to boost traffic for their website by offering a $100 donation for a winning comment. ($1700 total)
  • A scheme to convince supporters to donate shelter supplies, and give the credit to HumaneWatch.
Like HumaneWatch’s short-lived attempt to buy comments on its largely ignored website, this stunt will be forgotten in a month… but shelters will continue to struggle year-round. Meanwhile HumaneWatchers will resume their attacks on shelters and staff with comments like these:
You do realize that there is no real pet overpopulation, right? We have a mismanaged shelter system that imports animals from overseas to fill some shelters, rather than ship animals from one part of the country to another–among other problems. — Kim Egan, HumaneWatch Facebook group, July 17, 2010
There are scandals every day about how shelters HAVE room and kill animals because they are just too plain lazy to clean up after them. Or they kill them because they hired a sadist who enjoys it, or they kill them because it’s ‘easier’ than making good faith efforts to adopt them out. — Katie Dokken, convicted animal abuser, “Shelter Supply Saturday” Facebook event, Dec. 3, 2010
I have seen more deplorable conditions in shelters than I have EVER seen at a breeders! — Erica Eblin, HumaneWatch Facebook group, Nov. 10, 2010
Oh, but the shelter workers won’t blame the BS law; they’ll blame the big, bad breeders for having so many dogs and having to unload them or be shut down. They’ll make up stories of “rescuing” these poor dogs from near death in horrible conditions and slap excessive “adoption” fees on them, all the while looking for reasons NOT to “adopt” to the vast majority of wonderful potential owners. Then they’ll claim there aren’t enough homes out there for dogs. — Cathy Merchant, HumaneWatch Facebook group, Nov. 3, 2010
There is a large national rescue… here in CO looking for space…. They already go to the auctions down there and bring back dogs… Every dog that comes in will have some bad luck story about how they rescued it from a fate worse than death. People will be screened and rejected–it’s a Dog!!! — Cindy DeBerge, HumaneWatch Facebook group, Nov. 3, 2010
HumaneWatch, don’t lie to us and say that the HSUS does nothing for shelters. Don’t lie to us and say you support shelters when you encourage abuse like this. And don’t you dare claim to support shelters when you’ve never done a thing for shelters that didn’t benefit you directly.

Understanding HumaneWatch

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Have you ever wanted to warn a friend about HumaneWatch, but didn’t have the time to explain? We’ve got the answer. The Understanding HumaneWatch handout provides the basic facts about the Center for Consumer Freedom, HumaneWatch, and their multi-million dollar smear campaign against animal protection charities. Print it, post it, pass it around! http://www.stophumanewatch.org/Documents/UnderstandingHumaneWatch.pdf

HumaneWatch blames the whistleblowers

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Crush videos are so abhorrent that even members of Congress agree they need to be stopped. Nancy Perry, HSUS VP of Governmental Affairs was called before a Senate Judiciary hearing this morning to testify about the problem. The recent HSUS undercover investigation helped spotlight a resurgence of crush video activity following the SCOTUS decision invalidating the Depictions of Animal Cruelty Act. HumaneWatch celebrated the SCOTUS ruling. In a veritable massacre of common sense, David Martosko complained that if HSUS is permitted to expose animal abusers through undercover video investigations, then crush video producers should be allowed to torture and kill pets for the sexual gratification of the viewers:
If a movie of a furry animal being crushed under some pervert’s high-heeled shoe is detrimental to society, then so is the sort of purposely lurid and scandalous footage that continues to make HSUS the richest animal rights group in history.
HumaneWatch has built a multi-million dollar enterprise around “shooting the messenger”, so it shouldn’t be surprising that in the echoing caverns of Martosko’s brain, exposing animal cruelty is somehow equivalent to committing it. And perhaps that’s why HumaneWatch continually finds fault with HSUS for exposing cruel and unhealthy practices in slaughterhouses: to a HumaneWatcher, it’s the whistleblower that’s guilty, not the criminal. You can read a transcript of the HSUS Senate testimony on Wayne Pacelle’s blog.

Who’s really overcompensating?

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The Humane Society of the US takes a lot of heat from critics about how it manages its money. But do those complaints have any validity?

Let’s examine some of the claims.

On April Fools’ Day, 2010, David Martosko of HumaneWatch published a blog post critical of HSUS pensions, claiming it’s a “scandal lurking beneath the surface”. (Martosko carefully weeds out comments critical of HumaneWatch on the grounds that they are “being rude”; apparently, this rule doesn’t apply to HumaneWatch supporters who insinuate that female directors of HSUS are prostitutes. But that’s a topic for another day.)

HumaneWatch is correct that in 2008, HSUS contributed over $2-million to its employees’ retirement accounts. HSUS had 555 paid employees in 2008. If we divide $2,532,167.00 by 555, we get an average pension contribution of $4,562.46 that year.

We compared six other non-profit organizations to see if HSUS contributions are excessive.

Two of the organizations are prominent, nationwide, animal-related charities: the ASPCA, and the American Kennel Club. Three are prominent, nationwide, agricultural advocates: the American Meat Institute, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the National Milk Producers Federation. And we rounded out the collection with the American Red Cross.

Here are the results.

EmployeesTotal PensionAverage
American Kennel Club532$522,077.00$981.35
American Red Cross36,287$71,732,611.00$1,976.81
ASPCA596$1,854,331.00$3,111.29
American Farm Bureau Federation90$282,420.00$3,138.00
HSUS555$2,532,167.00$4,562.46
American Meat Institute41$260,071.00$6,343.20
National Milk Producers Federation17$512,990.00$30,175.88

As you can see, HSUS ranked slightly above the middle. The lowest was the American Kennel Club with a paltry $981, and the worst was the National Milk Producers Federation at a staggering $30,175.88 per employee.

However, this isn’t a precise measure. For example, the American Farm Bureau ranked better than HSUS, but on closer inspection we found that over $96,000 of their total pension contributions went into the accounts of their CEO. Because charities and for-profit corporations are reluctant to reveal the intimate details of their retirement benefits, we can’t know for certain how many employees actually receive those benefits, so this is a rough guideline only.

Let’s look at another claim. On May 14, 2009, WSB-TV aired a badly flawed investigation into HSUS finances, a report which relied heavily on misinformation provided by David Martosko and CCF. (We covered that deception, and WSB-TV’s retraction of the story in a previous article on HWI, if you’re interested in how HumaneWatch takes advantage of those who don’t double-check their sources.) The broadcast contained typical misstatements by David Martosko, such as the claim that HSUS funds “go to pay huge staff salaries and benefits”.

So, let’s look at salaries.

Average Salary
American Red Cross$47,856.33
ASPCA$58,235.77
American Kennel Club$60,762.89
HSUS$68,095.11
American Meat Institute$108,988.37
American Farm Bureau Federation$131,277.91
National Milk Producers Federation$183,627.35

With an average employee compensation of $68k, HSUS falls in the middle of the scale. It weighs in slightly higher than the American Kennel Club, and far below the exceptionally generous dairy farmer’s lobbyist group. Despite the high number of veterinary, legal, and other professionals HSUS employs, its average pay is less than all three agricultural advocates on the list.

But what about Wayne Pacelle, the CEO of HSUS whose salary has been described as “lavish”, “excessive”, and “egregious”?

CEO Compensation
HSUS$252,540.00
American Farm Bureau Federation$420,415.00
American Red Cross$455,690.00
ASPCA$516,710.00
National Milk Producers Federation$647,632.00
American Kennel Club$737,067.00
American Meat Institute$738,987.00

That’s right, critics: Wayne Pacelle’s “egregious”, “lavish”, “excessive” compensation is the lowest of any of the non-profits in the list, and less than 35% of the bloated salaries of the American Kennel Club and American Meat Institute CEOs.

What constitutes excessive compensation for a non-profit? That’s a matter of opinion. However, it’s clear from these comparisons that if HSUS compensation is too high, it’s a problem shared by many national charities, and to a far greater degree than the Humane Society of the US.

We close this article with some thoughts from the outstanding CEO Compensation Study at CharityNavigator, and an illustration from our webmaster, John Doppler Schiff:

…[A]s the size, and thus the complexities of running a nonprofit increase, so does the salary of the institution’s top executive so much so that if we probe deeper into the top tier of charities (by size), we see even larger salaries. A look at organizations with total expenses between $50 and $100 million pay their CEOs on average $378,026 and organizations with total expenses of $100 million or more pay their CEOs on average $462,037. In illuminating this information, it is not our intention to give donors, who often bemoan this level of pay, an excuse to not support a great charity.

Rather, we want donors to understand and appreciate that the top nonprofit leaders, those who are sought after for their ability to manage multi-million dollar institutions and who are tasked with the mammoth goal of making the world a better place, command significant salaries.

…[W]e recognize that many donors will be hesitant to agree that the CEO of their favorite charity deserves a six figure salary. To the skeptics, we ask that you keep in mind that the charities included in this study are multi-million dollar operations. Leading one of them requires an individual that possesses both an understanding of the issues that are unique to the charity’s mission as well as business and management expertise similar to that required of for-profit CEOs… For comparative purposes, the average salary of CEOs at S&P 250 companies is $1 million, excluding bonus packages and stock options that drive the average compensation up to $7.6 million.

Update: August 6th, 2010
The term “charity” was replaced with “non-profit organization”: the two terms are not always interchangeable. Thanks to reader Tracy H. for catching the error!

Update: January 15th, 2011
An updated look at compensation among national nonprofits and for-profits is available here.