The Competitive Enterprise Insitute, a DC-based โthinkโ tank is in full crisis mode today after being fingered heavily in a Union of Concerned Scientists report linking ExxonMobil’s underhanded PR tactics to deny the realities of climate change to the tobacco industry campaign to claim that smoking (and more recently, second-hand smoke) isn’t bad forย us.
But even as they deny being a hired shill for big tobacco and big oil, CEI proudly features a package of cigarettes on its home page, along with a criticism of smoking bans in public places. The CEI headline screams: โDistrict smoking ban threatens economic liberty.โ
Well, it could put a crimp in CEI‘s โeconomics,โ especially if the big funders finally realize that CEI is no longer functioning as an effective astroturfย group.
While we wait, it will be fun to watch how long it takes before CEI slips the cigarette image off to the same now-distant page where it’s hiding the TV commercials that claim CO2 is good forย you.
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