Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) head Grover Norquist is one of the most powerful men in Washington. His anti-tax pledge has won over hundreds of elected officials, and he regularly gets meetings with powerbrokers in D.C. But there’s one thing even he’s afraid of. And that’s answering questions about how his organization gets cash from
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Two weeks ago, we were the first news site to report that Mercury Public Affairs, acting on behalf of its client Wal-Mart, sent a senior associate to spy on organizing workers in Los Angeles. The same day, we confronted Mercury at its Washington, D.C. headquarters and were met with tight lips and few details from
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The annual convention of the biggest association of for-profit colleges, APSCU, concluded last Friday in Las Vegas. Republic Report wanted to cover the event, because we all helped pay for it: Taxpayers provide $32 billion a year to this industry — for some schools, over 90 percent of their revenue. These corporations could strive to
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SCOTUSblog reports that in a 5-4 decision, the court decided to reverse the Montana Supreme Court’s ruling that the state’s ban on corporate money in political campaigns is constitutional. In essence, the Supreme Court just struck down Montana’s ban on corporate political spending, in a move that is sure to have dire consequences for the
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Late last month, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed banning soda sales larger than sixteen ounces in the city’s restaurants, movie theaters, and street carts. This proposed ban has been highly controversial, and deserves a healthy debate (no pun intended). But as with any other issue in modern American politics, big corporations and their
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The everyday corruption of our government by Big Money has real consequences for Americans, many of whom are struggling to feed their families. Take the farm bill that Congress spent time working on this week. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced an amendment to restore $4.5 billion in funding for the food stamp program, which assists
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On Wednesday, the Bipartisan Policy Center held a forum on the “Vanishing Moderate Democrat.” To demonstrate this supposed phenomenon, it hosted various self-styled “moderate” Democrats as panelists. But besides this supposed centrist ideology, these panelists all shared one other attribute — they all became corporate lobbyists after leaving Congress. Here’s a list of the panelists
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We were the first news site to  report last week that Wal-Mart had hired Mercury Public Affairs, an elite public relations and lobbying firm, to fight against warehouse workers in Los Angeles. A Mercury staffer was caught spying on the workers, and was apparently let go after a media firestorm. Now, the Warehouse Workers United, which
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