Last night, Lee Fang joined a panel on Thom Hartmann’s television program to discuss the failure of the DISCLOSE Act, legislation designed to bring transparency to the election system. Under current law, much of the electioneering in our political system is undisclosed. The legislation, which was filibustered twice last week, would have forced secretive 501(c) campaign committees to disclose their donors in the same manny in which PACs and Super PACs reveal financial information.
Take a look at Republic Report’s coverage of the DISCLOSE Act debate last week:
– Ron Paul organization Campaign for Liberty advances falsehoods to smear the …
This guest post was written by United Republic’s Jasper McChesney. He also designed the infographic below:
Few would argue against spending tax-dollars wisely: eliminating ineffective and wasteful programs in favor of better ones. But when federal dollars flow to private industries with powerful lobbies, politicians can have a hard time closing the spigot.
The for-profit college industry is a case in point. Unlike Harvard or a state college, private, for-profit schools exist to generate shareholder returns. Yet that money doesn’t come from rich kids or their parents: up to 90% of it comes from tax-payers, in the form of sky-high federal …
The election this year is shaping up to be the biggest spending spree since the Gilded Age. In an era of Citizens United, a small number of billionaires on both the right and left are stepping up to funnel tens, potentially hundreds, of millions of dollars to elect either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama. A new documentary by Bob Abeshouse explores this dynamic while focusing on the efforts of petrochemical oligarchs, David and Charles Koch.
Republic Report’s own Lee Fang is featured in the video, which can be found online:
Meanwhile, the Kochs are rounding up hundreds of millions of …
Republic Report’s Lee Fang Discusses Backdoor Bribery on MSNBC Campaign asks retiring members of Congress to share future plans United Republic’s senior investigator, Lee Fang, went on The Dylan Ratigan show to talk about the Backdoor Bribery campaign. Republic Report has sent a letter to every retiring member of Congress asking them to disclose any job negotiations with lobbyists. There’s good reason to do so — when members leave Congress to become lobbyists, they can get a 1,452% raise. Are current lawmakers setting industry-friendly policy so they can be rewarded as soon as they step down from office?
Watch …
When Republic Report launched Sell Out Of The Week feature, our initial winner was President Obama, who earned the prize for embracing his super PAC, essentially endorsing unlimited corporate cash invading the democratic process, after having failed over three years in the White House to take some critical steps to clean up the system. We’ve chosen him again this week, but for a different money in politics offense.
Obama campaigned on a promise of reform and transparency, pledging as a candidate that lobbyists “will not run my White House…and will not drown out the voices of the American …
Two weeks ago, Republic Report announced Sell Out Of The Week, a regular feature for the blog. President Obama gained the distinction for breaking his promise, and embracing unlimited corporate money for his super PAC, while refusing to take simple steps to clean up the system. Last week, we highlighted Democratic consultant Joe Trippi, who went from promoting the Internet as a tool to expand democracy to working for a dictatorship that censors the Internet and tortures its own people. Today, our Sell Out Of The Week is Rick Santorum.
As the anyone-but-Mitt Republican primary rolls on, …
Last week, Republic Report inaugurated our weekly feature, Sell Out Of The Week, a series on political leaders who have sold out the public interest in favor of greedy corporate interests.
A year ago this week, at the height of the Arab Spring democratic revolt across the Middle East, protesters calling for better economic conditions and a more representative government in Bahrain demonstrated at the Pearl Roundabout in the capital city of Manama. Their demands were met with state violence as the ruling Al Khalifa family responded with mass paramilitary violence, killing children, imprisoning activists, suspending …
Today, Republic Report inaugurates a regular feature: Sell Out Of The Week.
Our weekly feature will highlight lobbyists, politicians, and political operatives who have betrayed their values, and betrayed the public interest in pursuit of special interest money.
Although we had a lobbyist in mind for our first week of this series, President Obama’s decision on Monday to embrace super PACs forced us to change course and select him. The decision to support unlimited, and what has the potential to be secret, corporate and special interest money not only violates the promises made by Obama for a clean campaign, but it …
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