Yesterday, Republic Report’s Zaid Jilani was the first to report that Wal-Mart’s public relations and lobbying firm in Los Angeles, Mercury Public Affairs, was caught sending an employee to an event posing as a student reporter. The Mercury staffer, Stephanie Harnett, told warehouse workers protesting Wal-Mart’s labor practices that she was “Zoe Mitchell,” a USC student. She
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Yesterday, Chris Frates of National Journal broke the story that health insurance companies secretly funneled over $100 million into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for advertising. The Chamber, during the period in which the money was accepted, orchestrated one of the largest electioneering outside money efforts in American history to help weaken health reform and
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Ryan Lizza’s much buzzed about recent piece in The New Yorker investigates what Barack Obama might focus on in a second term. Obama could focus on immigration reform, on clean energy and the environment, on shoring up healthcare reform to future attacks from Republicans, on foreign policy. These are all issues that candidate Obama promised
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Wal-Mart is America’s biggest corporation. It’s also one of the country’s worst union busters, so it’s hardly a surprise that it engages in under-handed tactics to get its way with its workers and with America’s politicians. But a story out of Southern California is particularly shocking. Warehouse Workers United (WWU), a new organization for warehouse workers in the area, caught
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Before June 18, the Senate is expected to vote on a proposal to repeal recently-issued safeguards on mercury and other toxic chemicals released by U.S. power plants. Senator James Inhofe (R-Ok.) claims to have the support of 29 of his colleagues in undoing these Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandates — 30 being the magic number
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The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate front group responsible for pushing voter ID and Stand Your Ground laws in states across the country, is on the run. Nearly two dozen major corporations (including Johnson & Johnson, yesterday) have been persuaded to cut ties with ALEC. ALEC is fighting back — and the group
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Earlier this week, Republic Report exclusively reported on a $500,000 bonus awarded to a Northrop Grumman lobbyist, named Thomas MacKenzie, who was hired to become a top staffer overseeing the military budget in the House Armed Services Committee. The unusual size of the bonus, and MacKenzie’s role in deciding how billions of dollars in taxpayer
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Imagine if, when suspects were taken before a court to testify, they were able to pay off the judge and jury to make sure there was no serious grilling. Unfortunately, this isn’t a hypothetical. This is the U.S. Senate. This morning, the Senate Finance Committee — which is managed by a former JP Morgan lobbyist
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