http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=60925

NLPC: Anheuser-Busch Belittled for 'American Owned' Marketing Claims

2/13/2006 1:54:00 PM


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To: National Desk

Contact: Peter Flaherty of the National Legal and Policy Center, 703-237-1970

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center, blasted Anheuser-Busch in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference that took place on Friday (Feb. 10) in Washington, D.C.

For a text of the entire address, go to http://www.nlpc.org. The following are excerpts:

"In its marketing, Anheuser-Busch wraps itself in the red, white and blue, but it has been a particularly intimate supporter of activists who seek to divide this nation along racial, ethnic and religious lines. I am not just going to complain about all the financial support to groups like Rainbow/PUSH and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund -- MALDEF.

No, I'd like to alert you to something more. In the case of both Rainbow/PUSH and MALDEF, Anheuser-Busch has literally made these activists part of their family. The company arranged for two of Jesse Jackson's sons to buy an Anheuser-Busch distributorship in Chicago. And a Los Angeles lawyer named Vilma Martinez, the former MALDEF president and general counsel, actually serves on the Anheuser-Busch board of directors.

MALDEF may be our nation's most effective proponent of illegal immigration. Its agenda is bilingualism, multiculturalism, Hispanic separatism, open borders and, especially, an expansion of public benefits to illegal aliens.

According to MALDEF annual reports, Anheuser-Busch is its largest corporate supporter.

Vilma Martinez has served as an Anheuser-Busch director since 1983. From 1973 to 1983, she was MALDEF president and general counsel. During her MALDEF tenure, she enjoyed a major victory in the form of the landmark Plyler v. Doe Supreme Court case in 1982, which guaranteed a right of illegal aliens to attend public schools at taxpayer expense.

In 1994, while an Anheuser-Busch director, Martinez was hired by the Los Angeles Unified School District to challenge, in state courts, Proposition 187, which would have denied certain public benefits to illegal aliens. That suit was superseded by a successful challenge to Prop 187 in federal court by -- you guessed it -- MALDEF and others.

When President Bush nominated John Roberts to serve on the Supreme Court, MALDEF immediately announced its opposition. On September 20, I wrote Anheuser-Busch CEO Patrick Stokes and pointed out that Judge Roberts may have been the most pro- business nominee in history...I pointed out further that he, Pat Stokes, had repeatedly complained about the tort liability crisis in this country, and noted that Anheuser-Busch was a member of the American Tort Reform Association.

Soon after, the President nominated Judge Sam Alito. If MALDEF didn't like Roberts, it really didn't like Alito. MALDEF President and General Counsel Ann Marie Tallman accused Alito of opposing "civil rights protections for immigrants and minorities."

Justice Alito's late father was born in Italy. I am sure it would come as a surprise to his 91 year-old mother that her son is anti-immigrant.

I believe that it is simply not appropriate for a large, publicly held institution like Anheuser-Busch to be associated with a group running such an ugly campaign.

If you go to Anheuser-Busch's website you will see that the company proclaims itself as "the only major brewer still American owned, with over 95 percent of our stock held by American investors." It details how SABMiller is 68 percent South African owned, and Molson Coors is 51 percent Canadian owned.

You will also see a special logo with the Anheuser-Busch trademark ringed with the words, "AMERICAN OWNED. BORN HERE. BREWED HERE."

So when trying to sell us beer, Anheuser-Busch makes a very direct appeal to our concepts of birthright and nationalism. But at the same time, the company is joined at the hip with MALDEF, which more than any other single entity is responsible for undermining our sovereignty and flooding the country with illegal aliens.

By the way, Anheuser-Busch owns 50 percent of Modelo, a Mexican company and the brewer of Corona, but you have to look a little harder on the same website to find that out."

END EXCERPTS

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