With the scent of scandal surrounding the White House and the federal bureaucracy, you would think that the “watchdogs” at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) would be on the prowl for politicized bureaucrats and alleged cover-ups. They aren’t.

In response to admissions by IRS official Lois Lerner that conservative and right-leaning groups faced disproportionate scrutiny in their applications for tax-exempt status, CREW elected to blame the victims. CREW sued the IRS, arguing that it didn’t scrutinize enough politically involved groups that don’t disclose their donors.

Interestingly, a former IRS official suggested in 2006 about people who thought CREW itself was too partisan to retain its tax-exempt status — as evidenced by its disproportionate attacks on conservatives and Republicans — that “at least preliminarily, I think they have a good case.” That’s not CREW’s only hypocrisy, though: Given CREW’s adamancy that other groups need to disclose their donors, surely CREW discloses its own? But it doesn’t. In fact, CREW director Melanie Sloan has said, “I wouldn’t have any donors if I revealed all my donors.” (We’ve pieced together some of CREW’s donors from other federal government documents, though.)

We’ll see how committed CREW really is to disclosure based on whether the group goes after the liberal Center for American Progress, whose donor list and journalistically disreputable practice of clearing “news” stories written by its ThinkProgress advocacy arm with its fundraising department leaked to the lefty newsmagazine The Nation this week. Given CREW’s habit of disproportionately attacking right-leaning entities we’re not holding our breath. But stranger things have happened, like CREW’s Sloan agreeing to work for (but later backing out from) a “legal crisis-management firm” that provided image burnishing services to African dictators.

According to British author Damian Thompson, whose book was recently picked up by an American publisher, just about anything that is remotely modern is essentially heroin for our brains. And, of course, food makers are supposedly nefariously turning the public into junkies. To him, cupcakes are a particular evil and supposedly the cause of bulimia. Huh?

And food scolds seem to like to scold any food. He writes:

Anyone with a rolled banknote up their nose knows that — so long as their dealer hasn’t ripped them off — they’re about to experience the effects of a mind-altering substance. […] In contrast, the tubby young man who demolishes a packet of chocolate digestives while watching the football doesn’t suspect that his eating habits have left his brain unusually sensitive to stimulation by sugar; he just knows that, once the packet’s opened, the biscuits disappear.

Actual scientists disagree with this characterization. Cambridge University researchers found that “criteria for substance dependence translate poorly to food-related behaviours” in a recent investigation. Meanwhile, the author also claims that the iPhone game “Angry Birds” should also fall into the tobacco/alcohol realm. When the idea of “food addiction” was first proposed, a psychologist warned that “The word ‘addiction’ is perilously close to losing any meaning.” Her warning hasn’t been heeded, and while the only winner so far has been the publishing industry, the trial lawyer industry is certainly looking to get in on the fun.

Now, the judge has ruled that “this case was groundless and unreasonable from its inception” and the animal rights plaintiffs must pay Feld’s legal fees. And while the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) — which was deeply tied to the animal liberationist side of the case — wasn’t held liable, the judge left open the question of whether the nation’s richest animal liberation group might find itself on the hook at a later date should Feld choose to re-argue that portion of its case. (One of the original plaintiffs that may have to pay up as a result of this finding, the Fund for Animals, was absorbed into the HSUS corporate empire during the case.)

And lest you forget, there’s still a second lawsuit before Sullivan. In this one the tables are turned: Feld is suing HSUS and others alleging they engaged in a racketeering conspiracy in violation of federal RICO law. A different animal rights group, the ASPCA, perhaps saw which way the legal winds were blowing in that case and paid Feld almost $10 million in December to settle both cases.

The editors of The Wall Street Journal praised Judge Sullivan’s decision to award legal fees to Feld, and they took HSUS boss Wayne Pacelle to task for his petulant hectoring of Feld’s defense of its business. The editors write:

The animal-rights crowd responded with letters to the editor suggesting that the lawsuit had been a splendid, public-spirited affair. Humane Society of the United States President and CEO Wayne Pacelle wrote that Feld was a “disgruntled corporation” trying to “silence its critics” because it has filed a “grudge suit” of its own. Mr. Pacelle is upset that plaintiffs have been nailed for abusing the courts to harass a law-abiding company.

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

But the trial bar and Mr. Banzhaf never go away forever. Cato Institute legal watchdog Walter Olson notes the meddling Banzhaf’s latest tactic:

[Some] 200 undergrads will be asked to contact legislators in their home cities, counties, or states asking them to adopt legislation similar to that already adopted in New York City – and apparently to be considered in D.C., Cambridge, Mass, New York State, and perhaps elsewhere  – banning restaurants, delis, movie theaters and many other businesses from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers larger than 16 ounces.

From Olson’s reporting, it appears that Banzhaf’s trial-lawyers-in-training will be compelled to actively lobby for Banzhaf’s anti-choice agenda wherever they live. At least Banzhaf provides policy options for his charges to consider — outright sugared drink prohibition, soda taxes, minimum pricing, and age restrictions among them. Some choices.

Wayne Wheeler — the man responsible for lobbying the 18^th Amendment (Prohibition) into law — would be proud. We all know how that worked out. And like Prohibition, the policy Banzhaf advocates simply “combines the draconian government overreach people love with the probable lack of results they expect,” to borrow Jon Stewart’s phrasing.

But there’s a bigger threat looming than college kids calling their city councilmen: Banzhaf and the entire lawsuit industry is hoping that the latest anti-obesity hobby-horse of so-called “food addiction” will allow them to pry open food companies’ and restaurants’ purses.

The case was supposed to be all about pachyderm training, but a key animal-rights witness soon became the elephant in the courtroom. A group later absorbed into the HSUS corporate empire, along with other animal rights groups, sued Feld for breaking environmental and animal treatment laws. But a district court found that that the lead witness for the animal rights groups was essentially paid for his testimony and was therefore not credible. The district judge and tossed the complaint against Feld and a court of appeals upheld the decision.

Based on the district court’s findings, Feld counter-sued. In July, a judge allowed the complaint to go forward and largely rejected defendants’ attempts to dismiss. So last week, one animal rights group settled to make the allegations go away. HSUS is still on the hook, and Feld has vowed to go forward to recover damages from the group and two of its attorneys who are named as defendants.

The editors of The Wall Street Journal are rightly pleased by the development, calling the original animal-rights lawsuit “abusive.” Since animal rights groups want elephants out of the circus (and bacon off your plate, and leather shoes off your feet, and dairy creamer out of your coffee), it’s reasonable to think these groups would abuse the legal system in pursuit of their fringe ideology. Remember PETA’s absurd contention that whales were slaves?

As our Executive Director told the media, this story shows just how far from the sad puppies and mewling kittens image HSUS and the animal rights movement actually are. HSUS doesn’t run any local pet shelters, but its legal team is embroiled in what looks like “something out of a mob drama.” Don’t want to support wannabe bacon-banners and alleged racketeers? Give to your local pet shelters, not HSUS.

The Waterkeeper Alliance has a knack for filing questionable lawsuits, but one now-dismissed suit in Maryland might be its worst yet. The Waterkeeper Alliance alleged that the Hudson family, fourth-generation poultry farmers, violated environmental law by allowing improper waste runoff into the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The problem was that the facts were not on their side, since the suspected pile of manure wasn’t, in fact, manure.

Already chided by a judge for having a weak case, the Waterkeeper Alliance pressed on to trial. Not surprisingly, it failed miserably. According to the Baltimore Sun:

Meanwhile, the Alliance took a hit in West Virginia as well. It tried to butt into an EPA suit there to go after another family farmer for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act. The theory, again, was that chicken litter was running off into a stream when it rained. But thanks to a favorable Supreme Court ruling for property owners this past spring, the farmers filed suit against the EPA, causing it to back down. It’s not what the Alliance hoped for. Just two weeks ago, Waterkeeper Alliance Executive Director Marc Yaggi said that if the EPA did not win this suit, it would “roll back core Clean Water Act protections that safeguard human health and the environment.”

What’s in RFK Jr.’s stocking this year? Hyperbole and disappointment—which itself is a gift to family farmers across the country.

Declaring Food Addictive like Illicit Drugs: Yes, in the eyes of activists your desire to eat a chocolate or drink a milkshake is no different than an addict’s Jonesing for a hit of heroin. If it sounds like academic piffle, it isn’t: It’s an insidious plan to kill consumer choices. Many of the other items on this list are justified by this one, even though a Cambridge University team wrote that “criteria for substance dependence translate poorly to food-related behaviours.”

Suing Food Companies for Selling Foods People Like: Since the early 2000s, anti-food activists have hoped to use tobacco litigation as a model for how to bring food makers to their knees, and the trial bar is rising once again to advance the dream of “unavoidable” healthy eating. A recent BBC story featured Don Barrett, a Mississippi trial lawyer who made considerable sums in tobacco suits who is already suing food companies. The story noted that “If [food addiction] science strengthens, then the parallels with the tobacco cases could strengthen too.”

Lowering the BMI Threshold for Obesity in Women to 24: The Body Mass Index doesn’t measure obesity and overweight particularly well, as we’ve noted before. (NFL stars Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, among others, fall afoul of it.) However, that didn’t stop two activists from arguing that the overweight and obesity thresholds should be lowered again to a level currently considered healthy in women. An official of the Pan American Health Organization warned, “We’d also be calling an increasing number of people obese who aren’t, which could lead to issues with stigma, insurance policies, and other problems.” Given that a wide-ranging systematic review in The Lancet found that among heart patients, the category with the lowest mortality under the present classification scheme was the “overweight” one, those “other problems” could be very serious indeed.

New York City’s Hop on Pop: In a worrying sign that yesterday’s terrible idea is tomorrow’s terrible policy, New York City adopted a ban on 16-ounces-and-greater containers of soda in restaurants. While some compared the ban’s driving force, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to the Prohibitionists of the early 20^th century, our graphics department thought him more like an in-home herder of children. While experts from Cornell University argued that the plan would backfire, the city went ahead with its harebrained scheme, and now other cities are considering copycat measures.

The Nutella Tax: Unable to take a hint from the failure of Denmark’s fat tax, the French Senate proposed a tax on palm oil, a key ingredient in the chocolaty hazelnut spread Nutella. Nutella has vowed to maintain its formula, and the tax will likely not affect obesity. Expect this one to go the way of the Danish tax.

If you’re leaving out cookies this Christmas eve, you need protection from the only gift worse than coal. Rather than having a not-so-jolly process server come down the chimney, we are offering the chance for at-home bakers to protect themselves from lawsuit hounds like John “Sue the Bastards” Banzhaf. Our “Christmas Cookie Liability and Indemnification Agreement” means that Santa can’t sue because bakers didn’t leave out “healthier cookie alternatives,” didn’t provide a full ingredient list (the “Grandma’s Secret Recipe” clause), or failed to warn St. Nick that eating too many cookies might lead to greater obesity.

So get our waiver, and protect your spread for Santa from the diet nags. Our waiver covers you against New York Times columnists who might object to not putting skull and crossbones on the milk, against failure to provide Center for Science in the Public Interest-approved Broccolini Bonanza “cookies,” and angry activists who think that Christmas lights constitute manipulative marketing.

Our Senior Research Analyst J. Justin Wilson writes, “Food, just like music, exercise and comedy, isn’t some cocaine-like substance just because it makes us feel good. Even one pro-food addiction researcher revealingly conceded that ‘nobody claims that food has [as] strong of an effect’ as real drugs on the brain.” Those who partook of a Thanksgiving feast didn’t get the shakes after the food comas, after all.

This would all be pointless academic piffle if the activists pushing this idea didn’t have a hidden political agenda. Between opening the door for greedy trial lawyers seeking to punish food companies for offering people what they want and regulating away buffets and drive-thrus, the food police hope “food addiction” will lead directly to the carrot-juice house.

Instead of backing an ever-increasing quantity of government meddling in our food choices, perhaps we should follow a different approach. Wilson goes on: “If we gorge on Thursday, perhaps we should go for a walk on Friday. Instead of playing sedentary video games, perhaps kids should run around outside.”

So we can make up for our feasting by passing up the golf cart the next time we hit the links or by giving Fido a longer walk. And unlike a government-ordered diet — which polling shows we are likely to hate — we might actually enjoy it.

© 2005 Center for Consumer Freedom

Happy Thanksgiving from CCF.