Late in the evening on Halloween about 100 people gather around the campfire in "Bainport," Illinois, marking the 50th day of the encampment.
The big five health insurance companies have begun reporting their third quarter 2012 earnings and so far, they are pleasing their shareholders with profits that are better than Wall Street expected, in large part because they are doing especially well in one key area: Medicare.
Lawmakers Acknowledge That They Cannot Evade the Open Records Law by Shifting Official Correspondence to a Personal E-Mail Account
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 30, 2012
CONTACT: Brendan Fischer, Brendan@prwatch.org; Nick Surgey, nsurgey@commoncause.org
Five Wisconsin state legislators have agreed to turn over any correspondence and documents with or related to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and held on their personal email accounts; the action settles a lawsuit brought by the Center for Media and Democracy and Common Cause.
- Connor Gibson, Greenpeace
Earlier this year internal documents from the Heartland Institute, a major hub of climate change denial and right-wing extremism, were publicly leaked. The documents exposed the Heartland Institute's funders and strategies for attacking climate science, and led to a mass exodus of Heartland's corporate funders.
Internal records show ALEC corporations have spent an estimated $4 million to send legislators to posh resorts since 2006
For Immediate Release: October 26, 2012
Contact: Sara Jerving, Center for Media and Democracy, (608) 260-9713; Mary Boyle, Common Cause, (202) 736-5770
Corporate backers of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have funneled more than an estimated $4 million in gifts to state legislators for travel, hotel rooms, and meals at posh resorts since 2006, according to estimates based on internal ALEC records. The corporate lobby front group is already facing an Internal Revenue Service review of claims that it violated federal law by posing as a charity.
by Sara Jerving and Mary Bottari
In a new lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), big energy extractors are pushing for carte blanche in their interactions with foreign governments, making it harder to track whether their deals are padding the coffers of dictators, warlords, or crony capitalists. The United States Chamber of Commerce, American Petroleum Institute, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, and the National Foreign Trade Council filed a lawsuit on October 10, 2012 against a new SEC rule, which requires U.S. oil, mining and gas companies to formally disclose payments made to foreign governments as part of their annual SEC reporting.
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney suggested to business owners they tell their employees how to vote on a June conference call organized by the National Federation for Independent Business (NFIB), an organization the Center for Media and Democracy has recently exposed as a partisan lobbying group advancing big business interests.
The Koch Industries policy limiting employee speech on social media may be unlawful in light of recent decisions by the National Labor Relations Board, but employers still have broad leeway to impose their political views on workers and punish those who disagree.
Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, a "mutual" insurance and financial services company, published a press release last week distancing itself from the controversial American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
The Center for Media and Democracy publishes news stories about the American Legislative Exchange Council, its corporate funders and policymakers, and its allied special interest groups, like the American City County Exchange and the State Policy Network with affiliates in states across the country here on PRWatch.org. A list of CMD's reporting on ALEC is provided below.
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