This is a level of corruption that we don’t often see: The new government in Nigeria wants to charge Dick Cheney, the former vice president and chairman of Halliburton, in connection with $180 million in bribes paid to Nigerian lawmakers. The lawmakers awarded a $6 billion construction contract for a natural gas pipeline to Halliburton [...]
Fred Hobbs of Pinehurst, a former state senator and co-owner of a civil engineering firm that boasts of its connections to high-level state officials, today paid the largest civil fine ever levied by the State Board of Elections - $150,000. After being exposed, Hobbs readily admitted he used a money laundering scheme to funnel $148,000 [...]
Another Duke Energy executive has resigned in connection with a too-cozy arrangement with a top utility regulator in Indiana, where the company has a huge operation. The regulator was overseeing approval of Duke’s $2.9 billion coal gasification plant while also negotiating a job offer with the company. Hmmm. Do you think that’s a problem? Indiana’s [...]
Following up yesterday’s post about the NC Republican’s quest to ban certain citizens from voting, here’s a marvelous account from the Institute for Southern Studies that unpacks the disturbing parallels between the Democrats’ anti-black, anti-poor Jim Crow laws of the early 20th Century and the Republicans’ voter suppression campaign of the early 21st Century. Highly [...]
During their first 100 days in control of the NC General Assembly, Republican leaders say they will push through a bill to require anyone who votes to first show a NC driver’s license or other photo ID. They think it’s a “common sense” way to “stop voter fraud” - but consider who is most affected [...]
Who voted in the 2010 election in North Carolina? A county-by-county profile of who voted - by race, sex, age and party – shows that turnout among registered Republicans in North Carolina increased by 11 percentage points over 2006, the last mid-term election, but by only 5 points for Democrats. But the Democrats can’t blame [...]
If you received an envelope in the mail with pig hoof prints on it and the words, “Wee, wee, weeee the people,” would you open it up to see what the letter said? Now’s your chance. Please click on this link; it’s a letter from Democracy North Carolina. Important!
Katrina vanden Heuvel, writing in the Washington Post, says a group called Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength is urging President Obama not to cave into the demand of Congressional Republicans to give the super-rich a super big tax break. Meanwhile, the Committee for Economic Development has released a poll indicating that a majority of business [...]
The NC Free Enterprise Foundation has analyzed the outside spending reported so far in the 2010 state legislative campaigns – over $2.3 million, with more than 90% spent to help Republican candidates for the NC General Assembly. A handy chart itemizes which of the front-group committees (e.g., Real Jobs NC) spent how much to benefit [...]
The Nation Magazine has an important article that connects the rise of massive front-group spending in elections with the decline of the media’s coverage of political campaigns and policy issues. A front group’s distorting message becomes so much more effective when repeated frequently and when the media abandons its job, which is not gotcha journalism but [...]