Front Groups

News

Revealed: Extensive Koch Links to New Right-Wing $250 Million Mega Fund

by Nick Surgey — September 16, 2013 - 7:26am
  • Topics: Right Wing, Front Groups, Election 2012, Democracy

    • Freedom Partners (FP) -- a funding group previously unheard of before it shared exclusive and highly selective details about itself with Politico last week -- has extensive hidden connections to Koch Industries and to charities connected to Charles Koch, according to new research by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD).

    News

    CMD Calls for Nebraska Ethics Investigation over ALEC Keystone “Academy” Junket

    by Nick Surgey — July 3, 2013 - 8:44am
  • Topics: ALEC Exposed, Front Groups, Energy, Environment

    • -- by Nick Surgey and Brendan Fischer

    The Center for Media and Democracy filed a complaint yesterday with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission alleging that Nebraska Senator Jim Smith, a major proponent of the Keystone XL pipeline, failed to disclose significant travel expenses paid for by the Government of Alberta, Canada during Smith's participation in an "Oil Sands Academy" organized by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The trip was sponsored by the operator of the Keystone XL pipeline, TransCanada, which may raise additional concerns under the ethics and lobbying code.

    News

    Keystone Academy: Where Legislators Learn the Etiquette of Serving Special Interests

    by Nick Surgey — July 1, 2013 - 9:18am
  • Topics: ALEC Exposed, Front Groups, Energy, Environment

    • In October 2012, nine U.S. state legislators went on an industry paid trip to explore the Alberta tar sands. Publicly described as an "ALEC Academy," documents obtained by CMD show the legislators were accompanied on a chartered flight by a gaggle of oil-industry lobbyists, were served lunch by Shell Oil, dinner by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, and that the expenses of the trip were paid for by TransCanada and other corporations and groups with a direct financial interest in the Alberta tar sands and the proposed Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline.

    News

    ALEC Tours Tar Sands, Works with Industry Groups to Block Low-Carbon Fuel Standards

    by Nick Surgey — June 17, 2013 - 7:20am
  • Topics: ALEC Exposed, Front Groups, Energy, Environment, Lobbying

    • The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) recently adopted a "model" bill from an oil-industry lobby group, that would limit the ability of states to negotiate regional "low-carbon fuel standards" (LCFS), a mechanism designed to reduce the carbon intensity of transportation fuels. If agreed by states, LCFS could have a significant impact on the sale of fuels derived from Canadian tar sands in the United States, regardless of any decision the Obama administration makes over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

    News

    Scaife-Funded Network Works Hard to Kill Immigration Reform

    by PRW Staff — May 31, 2013 - 8:25am
  • Topics: Right Wing, Front Groups, Democracy, Human Rights, International, Lobbying

    • -- By Katie Lorenze

    With immigration reform advancing through Congress, an anti-immigrant network funded by a small group of right-wing foundations is trying to kill reform by pressuring moderate Republicans and appealing to the party's xenophobic wing. The groups could stymie efforts by some Republicans to appeal to the country's growing Latino population by moving to the center on immigration.

    Op-Ed

    Conversation with "Fix the Debt," Help Count the Pinocchios

    by Lisa Graves — February 28, 2013 - 1:21pm
  • Topics: Astroturf, Corporate Campaigns, Crisis Management, Front Groups, Corporations, Democracy, Economy, Media, Public Relations, Real Economy Project, U.S. Government

    • Last week, the Center for Media and Democracy and The Nation magazine worked together to publish a package in The Nation and a new online wiki resource on Pete Peterson and the Campaign to Fix the Debt, an entity we consider an "astroturf supergroup" with a huge budget working hard to create the fantasy that Americans care more about national debt and deficits than jobs and the economy. Fix the Debt is currently exploiting the "sequester" debate in Congress to encourage steep cuts to incredibly popular social programs like Medicare and Social Security.

    News

    Web of Berman Front Groups Subject of IRS Complaint

    by Rebekah Wilce — November 30, 2012 - 8:13am
  • Topics: Front Groups, Labor, Lobbying

    • Five registered non-profits run by super-lobbyist Rick Berman's for-profit PR firm, Berman & Co., are the target of an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) complaint filed this month by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

    News

    Taxpayer-Enriched Companies Back Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education, its Buddy ALEC, and Their "Reforms"

    by Lisa Graves — November 28, 2012 - 5:04pm
  • Topics: ALEC Exposed, Right Wing, Front Groups, Third Party Technique, Children, Corporations, Democracy, Education, Lobbying, Think Tanks

    • This week in Washington, DC, Jeb Bush's "Foundation for Excellence in Education" (FEE) is meeting just five blocks away from the post-election conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the controversial corporate bill mill working on profitizing public education among other legislative changes, but the ties between the two groups are even closer.

    News

    Over Half a Million Dollars Couldn't Stop Colorado Community From Banning Fracking

    by Sara Jerving — November 8, 2012 - 9:30am
  • Topics: Fracking, Front Groups, Environment

    • Despite over half a million dollars spent by the fossil fuel industry in Longmont, Colorado, residents voted Tuesday to make the city the first to ban hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" in the state. The city of 87,000, nestled at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, voted 59 to 41 to ban the controversial method of extracting shale oil and gas, as well as to ban the storage of the toxin-laden wastewater in the city limits.

    News

    NFIB's "I Built My Business" Astroturf Bus Tour Gets Rolling in Wisconsin

    by Harriet Rowan — October 23, 2012 - 10:15am
  • Topics: Astroturf, Right Wing, Front Groups

    • The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) "I Built My Business" astroturf bus tour started rolling through Wisconsin this week in support of Republican candidates for office. NFIB advertises itself as the nonpartisan "Voice of Small Business," but CMD's new web resource NFIBexposed.org presents a wealth of facts that challenge that assertion.

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