Pearce spin machine getting up to speed

By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings

Most of the R blogs/press release outlets in Arizona have posted a press release from Russell Pearce.  It touts his new "charity," formed to bring clean water to Haiti.

Sounds like an "awww, geee – isn't that nice" sort of moment except for a few things.  Minor things, really, more nagging sort of details.  But still… –

– The website for the "effort" was registered on April 19, 2011, a few weeks after the Fiesta Bowl scandal blew up in Pearce's face and just about the time that people realized that the Recall Pearce initiative has legs and may just well succeed in forcing a recall election.

– Pearce, and the other Republican senators that chose him to be their leader and face to the rest of the country, earned an "F" from the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club for his "work" on environmental issues during this past session.  This work included SCR1015, which would have referred to the voters an amendment to the Arizona Constitution to remove federal Clean Waters Act protections from waters in Arizona. 

Soooooo…we are expected to believe that Pearce, a man renowned for his antipathy toward people whose skin color is other than lily-white, supports clean water for Haitians while being opposed to clean water in Arizona?

– "Pearce Johnson Foundation" is nowhere to be found in the databases of CharityNavigator.com, Arizona Corporation Commission, or Arizona Secretary of State.  A corporate entity could have been created, either as a non-profit or an outright charity and the paperwork upload is lagging, or it could have been in another state (but why do that?), but so far, I cannot find any independently verifiable evidence that this charity actually exists legally.

– Sort of related to the above point, the website is soliciting contributions from the public, yet there is no contact info on the website.  The only contact method is a web contact form. 

No "bricks and mortar" address, no phone number.  Not even an email.

Most charity watchdog groups, including state attorneys general, encourage would-be givers to check out the so-called charities before they give.  Between the lack of public info and the opaqueness of the website, there's no way to do that here.

Somebody really should sit down with Pearce and the others involved and let them know that forming a charity that doesn't seem to actually be a charity, well, that isn't something that will help Pearce with what ails him in the public relations area.

Nope, not at all.