The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is the most powerful corporate front group you’ve never heard of. The organization, funded mostly by large corporations, writes model legislation and then sends these bills to state legislators across the country. It has successfully passed scores of laws on various issues. It was even behind pushing the law that
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Corporate money is already financing the constant stream of political advertising in the campaign this year, but a great deal of it is undisclosed. The Citizens United Supreme Court decision opened the gates for corporations to spend directly on American elections. Now, Republic Report can offer the first look at which major corporations are fueling perhaps
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One of Big Money’s last targets for privatization is America’s public schools. Using a variety of policy schemes ranging from school vouchers to for-profit charter schools, the education privatization movement seeks to take over America’s largely public K-12 education system and put it in the hands of some of the very same people who caused
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The tragic case of Trayvon Martin — a black teen who was gunned down by a man acting as a “neighborhood watch” volunteer who has yet to be prosecuted — is now a national outrage. Slate’s Emily Bazelon explains that part of the reason why Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, was not arrested by police is
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Yesterday I listened over the web to two CEOs of for-profit education companies make presentations at an investor conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. Neither man had anything to say about the overwhelming evidence that for-profit schools have engaged in waste, fraud, and abuse with federal tax dollars.  Instead, both touted their companies, and one announced a startling
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Today, United Republic and Republic Report were joined by a passionate group of activists outside Koch Industries’ downtown Washington lobbying headquarters to criticize the petrochemical billionaire Koch brothers’ attempt to take over the Cato Institute. Cato has a long history of fierce libertarian beliefs, widening the debate in Washington on everything from civil liberties to
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In recent years, the for-profit college industry — which runs veritable “subprime schools” which get billions of dollars from Uncle Sam and then deliver low-quality education while loading students up with debt  — has come under increasing scrutiny. As a result, it has ramped up its lobbying operations in Washington, D.C. Earlier this week, I
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To many in the South, Waffle House is a family-friendly restaurant that serves up some of the best grits and hashbrowns around. But behind that iconic sunny yellow sign is a corporate agenda aimed at stripping Americans of their rights. State Senator Don Balfour of Snellville, Georgia — a Waffle House vice president who serves on
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