This post originally appeared on The Huffington Post.
In the post-Citizens United era, wealthy individuals and corporations think democracy is a trophy they can buy, stuff and mount on their parlor walls.
But Americans scored a solid victory against big money in April when the Federal Communications Commission decided to require television broadcasters to post data online about political ad spending.
The FCC’s ruling was encouraging for anyone hoping to shed light on the shadowy groups and campaign operatives that are funneling billions of dollars to local TV stations this year. The decision will help everyone get a clearer picture of the misinformation machine …
Fox News has taken flak for airing a four-minute political attack ad against President Obama during its regular programming this week. The ad wasn’t purchased by any outside group; it was simply produced by the network and aired as part of regular Fox News content. Though the network has tried to deflect criticism for the ad by blaming an associate producer, we tried to get more direct answers.
Yesterday on Capitol Hill, Republic Report ran into Griff Jenkins, an on-air reporter for Fox News. Although he covers politics and campaigns for the network, Jenkins told us he had no …
Big Money corrupts our political system with its campaign contributions, public relations campaigns, insider access, and other means of drowning out the voices of ordinary people.The media is supposed to be our democracy’s guardian against this onslaught of money.
But last week Fox Business abdicated its responsibility to cut through the lies of Big Money. It featured Steve Gunderson, CEO of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU), the chief lobbying group of the for-profit college industry. I’ve embedded the segment below:
Watch the latest video at <a href=”http://video.foxbusiness.com”>video.foxbusiness.com</a>
The segment Gunderson appeared in focused on the “Rising Problem of Student Loan …
Rupert Murdoch is “not a fit person” to run an international company, according to a report by a British parliamentary committee looking into phone hacking and other alleged abuses at News Corp. Critics have targeted British politicians including Prime Minster David Cameron for their ties to News Corp and its executives.
But News Corp’s political and legal problems go beyond the Union Jack’s reach. Here, in the United States, Rupert Murdoch’s conglomerate owns Fox News and the Wall Street Journal and is a big player in the Washington influence business. The corporation’s political action committee and employees are big donors …
My colleague David Halperin reported last week that the for-profit college division of the Washington Post Company’s Kaplan subsidiary was a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for one year, ending in August 2011. He makes the case that we shouldn’t be surprised that for-profit colleges, which receive the large majority of their revenue from federal financial aid yet still rip students off, would be members of ALEC:
Are you surprised to learn that these subprime schools joined the now-discredited ALEC, the secretive group that connects corporate special interests with campaign contribution-hungry state legislators in order to dominate …
Over the past week, the mainstream press in the United States has obsessively covered an embarassing incident where U.S. Secret Service agents allegedly employed prostitutes in advance of President Obama’s visit to Colombia. While this incident reflects poorly on the Secret Service and creates issues regarding security, there is a wider scandal that the media largely failed to cover during Obama’s trip.
A major item on the President’s agenda during his trip to Latin America was to herald the enforcement of the Colombian Free Trade Agreement, which the United States will begin to enact next month.
President Obama said the trade …
On the heels of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal has a new editorial bemoaning the pressure brought by activist groups on the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate law-writing front better known simply as ALEC. Thanks to efforts by a coalition of watchdog and civil rights activists, plus blogs like Republic Report, the public now knows that ALEC helped implement reckless “Shoot First” laws as well as other special interest priorities. In response, some of the most brand-conscious corporate members of ALEC have fled the organization in recent days, and ALEC now is claiming that it …
As we’ve noted, one of the biggest problems in Washington is the level of secrecy in lobbying. Communications consultants, lawyers, fundraisers, and other political professionals produce public pressure campaigns and make back room deals without ever registering as lobbyists, so the public is constantly left in the dark about who is really shaping our government. President Obama’s call to ban registered lobbyists from his administration, while steeped in good intentions, made the problem worse because many lobbyists simply deregistered, further enshrouding the corporate influence industry in secrecy.
Major media outlets are beginning to probe the problem:
– Over the weekend, the New …
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