With 91 percent of campaign ads in Mississippi and Alabama in the past month funded by super PACs, Americans have one thing to say to these political spending monsters: Get off my TV. A new poll finds that the majority of all Americans and registered voters alike say super PACs, the non-campaign organizations that can
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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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Poor Senator Orrin Hatch. FreedomWorks, a group run by Dick Armey, a congressman who left office to become a corporate lobbyist, is running a series of ads to defeat Hatch in the Utah Republican primary. As iWatch News reports, FreedomWorks has used an accounting trick to move 100% secret money from its 501(c)(4) to its
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Charter school lobbyists in Georgia are trying to woo politicians with thousands of dollars worth of meals, documentary screenings, and framed photos of former longtime Braves pitcher John Smoltz. This barrage of money being spent – $7,800 since January – comes as the Georgia legislature considers a bill that would allow the state to cover the costs of
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One way corporations and special interests rule Washington is by promising lucrative salaries to lawmakers and their staff members. Once a public official makes a deal to go to work for a lobbying firm or corporation after leaving office, often with the promise of a million dollars or more in salary, he or she becomes
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  Shakespeare’s Juliet told her Romeo, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”  The star-crossed lovers could not have known that centuries later those words would be invoked by one of America’s most controversial industries in a manner more worthy of Orwell’s 1984. A
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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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Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has developed a reputation for being cozy with lobbyists, naming them to all sorts of different positions. In January, he even named a former lobbyist to Florida’s Secretary of State. Yesterday, Scott named Peter Antonacci as the State Attorney for Palm Beach County, and he will serve until January 7th, 2013.
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