[Crossposted from Daily Kos]

"Facts don't really matter. In politics, perception is reality."

   -- Ron Arnold, Vice President of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise

"We're out to kill the f**kers. We're simply trying to eliminate them. Our goal is to eliminate environmentalism once and for all."

   -- Arnold in a 1992 interview. Arnold's "Wise Use" movement has been linked to right-wing militia groups.

The website Daily Kos highlighted this story from BusinessWeek's Earnon Javers on Saturday:

Asked about the payments, Fumento says, "I'm just extremely pro-biotech." He says he solicited several agribusiness companies to finance his book, which was published by Encounter Books. "I went after everybody, I've got to be honest," Fumento says of his fund-raising effort. "I told them that if I tell the truth in this book, the biotech industry is going to look really good, and you should contribute." [...]

Fumento insists that disclosure of financial transactions between op-ed columnists and the companies they cover wouldn't be practical.

So here's a stunner. A senior fellow at the Hudson Institute -- one of those right-wing think tanks founded in order to provide haven for truthiness-based, business-friendly "science" that no actual scientific or knowledgeable policy institution would touch with a sterile, non-conductive ten foot science pole -- solicited money from a biotech company in the process of writing a book that would make them "look really good". And sure enough, Monsanto "contributed" $60,000 to get the book written.

from rep. john murtha writing in the huffington post this afternoon...

   This afternoon, CNSNEWS.com published an article entitled "Murtha's War Hero Status Called Into Question" on its website. The article questions the validity of my purple hearts. This is my response: