Porter Novelli, a public relations and lobbying firm, was awarded a $20 million contract from the Obama administration to promote health reform. “The campaign will inform the American people about the many preventive benefits now available to those with Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act,” a representative
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Yesterday morning, Newark mayor Cory Booker made headlines when he defended private equity firms and Bain Capital’s behavior against criticisms by the Obama campaign: BOOKER: I have to just say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. To me, we’re getting to a ridiculous point in America.
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As we’ve covered before at Republic Report, one of the reasons why marijuana remains illegal and the drug war continues to rage is because special interest groups like police unions and the alcohol industry spend a lot of money to lobby for the drug war. In Oregon, advocates of medical marijuana and other anti-drug war
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Today, an alliance of superheroes known as The Avengers will entertain American moviegoers from coast to coast with their cosmic powers and witty banter as they unite seeking to save the earth from the film’s villain, Loki. As these superheroes band together thanks to their shared belief in saving humanity, the real-life actors who play them donate
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Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is the world’s busiest airport, with more than 78 million people using the facility in 2008 alone. That’s why as the airport expands, major businesses and vendors are scrambling to grab spaces to open restaurants, shops, and other retail outlets. The city moved late last year to award contracts to these
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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
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The New York Times’ Mike McIntire published a bombshell story about the American Legislative Exchange Council this weekend. Using internal ALEC documents provided to the Times by Common Cause, a good government reform watchdog organization, McIntire revealed how the group’s policy task forces are designed so that corporate lobbyists — not state lawmakers — have
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The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is in trouble and it knows it. Corporate sponsors have dropped the group in droves and it has responded with a panicked public relations operation. After a series of extremely exaggerated (if not outrightly facetious) press releases, a plea for donations on the organization’s homepage, a botched social media operation,
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