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A CMD Special Report: Who Are the Headliners at Koch-Funded AFP Conventions?

by Lisa Graves — March 29, 2011 - 10:57am
  • Topics: Right Wing, Corporations, Democracy, Politics, Wisconsin Protests

    • MADISON -- In the midst of the controversy of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's ties to David Koch and Koch Industries, the Center for Media and Democracy has conducted an analysis of the headliners at Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP) conventions in the state in the past two years. The events featured select candidates who were running for office, including gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker, Attorney General candidate J.B. Van Hollen, judicial candidate David T. Prosser, Jr., and Congressman James Sensenbrenner. The AFP events also featured an array of national speakers who have supported AFP and its "Tea Party" related activities.

    Since our founding in 1994, the Center's mission has been to research and expose corporate- and CEO-funded PR activities and special interest groups, like AFP. The Center also profiles who's who at key meetings, such as David Koch's posh strategy sessions in Palm Springs and Aspen as well as at events funded by Koch and other petro-chemical industrialists trying to influence pollution policies, such as meetings of the Heartland Institute. This report on AFP Wisconsin is part of that continuing reporting on groups attempting to influence elections and public policies. Because many of the headliners were the same at both the 2009 and 2010 AFP events in the state, this article provides a guide to both of the most recent annual events.

    Movie Theaters Lobby to Keep Patrons in the Dark

    by Anne Landman — March 28, 2011 - 2:06pm

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is about to issue a new rule forcing movie theaters to disclose nutritional information for the prepared snacks they serve, including hot dogs, pretzels and popcorn, but the National Association of Theatre Owners is lobbying FDA and congressional staffers to exempt theaters from the requirement. Theaters argue the rule is an unwarranted intrusion into their business, since people come to movie theaters to see movies, not to eat food. "It's dinner and a movie, not dinner at a movie," says Gary Klein, general counsel for the theater owners' group. The stakes are high for theaters. Sales of popcorn, sodas and snacks generate up to one third of their revenue. David Ownby, the chief financial officer of Regal Entertainment Group, the country's largest theater chain, recently disclosed at an investor presentation that a bucket of popcorn costs theaters just 15 or 20 cents to make, and sells for about six dollars. The Center for Science in the Public Interest found a large dry popcorn purchased at Regal had 1,200 calories and 60 grams of saturated fat. Adding butter adds 260 more calories. The major theater chains already report nutritional information in California, where state law currently requires it, but theater owners are protesting being forced to disclose the information elsewhere, saying it should be voluntary, that people don't go to the movies that often and when they do go, they really don't care about the nutritional content of their snacks anyway.

    Main Source: 
    The Glen Falls, New York Post-Star, March 26, 2010
    News

    Making a Killing on "Mini-Med" Plans

    by Wendell Potter — March 28, 2011 - 12:36pm
  • Topics: Corporations, Health, Human Rights

    • One of the reasons I left my job as a PR executive for the health insurance industry was because I could not in good conscience be a pitchman for the sort of fabulously profitable benefit plan that often provides little more than the illusion of coverage.

    Known as "mini-meds," these plans have become popular among businesses like fast-food chains that have many low-wage employees. The common features of these plans: high deductibles, modest benefits and low annual caps on medical coverage. Some of these plans provide as little as $2,000 worth of care each year.

    Consumer advocates call these plans "junk insurance." That's because what workers get in these plans for their hard-earned money may actually put them at risk of going bankrupt or losing their homes if they get seriously sick or injured.

    Op-Ed

    "Have You No Decency?"

    by Mary Bottari — March 25, 2011 - 10:59am
  • Topics: Corporations, Democracy, Economy, Real Economy Project, Wisconsin Protests

    • William Cronon is a professor of history, geography and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the prize winning author of many books such as Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, which revolutionized the study of environmental history. He is known as a guy with such a deep and abiding love of Wisconsin and its traditions that he leads the "get to know us" bus tour of the state offered to new faculty each year. Glaciers, rocks and history are on his agenda; politics and cheese he leaves to fellow-Wisconsinite and Capital Times editor John Nichols.

    But this mild-mannered professor kicked a hornet's nest this week with an op-ed in the New York Times on Governor Scott Walker, and the push back was immediate. The Wisconsin GOP is now demanding his emails.

    News

    Wendell Potter Wins the Ridenhour Book Prize

    by Anne Landman — March 24, 2011 - 1:55pm
  • Topics: Activism, Corporations, Ethics

    • The Center for Media and Democracy's Senior Fellow Wendell Potter has been awarded the 2011 Ridenhour Book Prize for his work, Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR is Killing Healthcare and Deceiving Americans.

    In 2007, Wendell was the head of Public Relations and Corporate Communications for CIGNA when the insurer denied a life-saving liver transplant to Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17 year old California girl who suffered from leukemia. Desperate to save their daughter's life, Nataline's parents organized protests and demonstrations against CIGNA. The company eventually yielded to public pressure and reversed its decision -- but too late. Nataline died just two hours after CIGNA approved the operation.

    Nataline's case profoundly effected Wendell. He gradually felt that he had "sold his soul" by being "part of a industry that would do whatever it took to perpetuate its extraordinarily profitable existence." Wendell quit the insurance industry and started working tirelessly to make the public aware of the industry's widepsread unethical practices and PR techniques, and the harm these practices cause Americans.

    Op-Ed

    Reform Already Saving Lives of Many Americans

    by Wendell Potter — March 24, 2011 - 10:04am
  • Topics: Corporations, Health, Politics

    • Is the health care reform law a good deal for Americans, or is it so badly flawed that Congress should repeal it? Now that the measure is one year old -- President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to law on March 23, 2010 -- I humbly suggest we attempt an unbiased assessment of what the law really means to us, and where we need to go from here.

    To do that in a meaningful way, we must remind ourselves why reform was necessary in the first place. I believe the heated rhetoric we've been exposed to since the reform debate began has obscured the harsh realities of a health care system that failed to meet the needs of an ever-growing number of Americans.

    Op-Ed

    Will “Bitches” and “Turds” Decide the Fate of Wisconsin?

    by Mary Bottari — March 23, 2011 - 8:06am
  • Topics: Corporations, Democracy, Economy, Real Economy Project, Wisconsin Protests

    • The reign of lawlessness continues in Wisconsin.

    Last week, a local court issued a stay temporarily blocking the implementation of Governor Scott Walker's radical proposal to do away with most collective bargaining rights for public workers and cripple labor's ability to collect union dues. The court put a halt to the publication of the bill (an act performed by the Secretary of State), so there could be a hearing on whether or not the Wisconsin Senate violated the state's strong open meetings law in its rush to ram the bill through.

    Op-Ed

    Death Panels: Fact and Fiction

    by Wendell Potter — March 21, 2011 - 1:28pm
  • Topics: Corporations, Ethics, Health

    • "Death panels" are back in the news and Congress is turning its attention to them once again. The problem is, lawmakers are looking in all the wrong places.

    The proposed provision would have allowed Medicare to pay doctors to counsel patients about their end-of-life medical wishes. That idea originally had bipartisan support, but when the provision was brought to Sarah Palin's attention, she accused Democrats of wanting to create "death panels" that would decide when to pull the plug on granny and grandpa. The House Energy and Commerce Committee, now headed by Republicans, sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius last week demanding to know how a controversial provision that was excised from last year's health reform bill wound up -- briefly -- in a government "rule" on physician reimbursement.

    News

    Wisconsin Judge Halts Union-Busting Bill

    by Brendan Fischer — March 18, 2011 - 1:54pm
  • Topics: Corporations, Democracy, Labor, Wisconsin Protests

    • A second judge has castigated Wisconsin Republicans for excluding the public from the legislative process. Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi has issued a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of Governor Walker's union-busting bill on grounds that the conference committee's rushed passage of the bill on March 9 likely violated state Open Meeting laws.

    News

    You Can Run But You Can't Hide: Protests Follow WI Senators to DC

    by Erica Pelzek — March 16, 2011 - 9:20pm
  • Topics: Activism, Corporations, Real Economy Project, Wisconsin Protests

    • Protesters flooded The Homer Building in Washington, D.C., where BGR Group, an enormous and infamously right-wing lobbyist group has its offices.

    BGR hosted a $1,000-a-head fundraiser Wednesday for the Republican Party of Wisconsin. Special guests included Wisconsin Republican senators, notably Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald -- the "Fitz" of "FitzWalkerstan," as legislators and protesters in Madison have dubbed Fitzgerald and Governor Scott Walker's now-Republican "state."

    Other guests slated to attend: Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, and two senators eligible for recall, Alberta Darling and Glenn Grothmann.

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