In Congress today, a House committee passed the Fair Elections Now Act, an historic achievement for the public campaign movement; however, it is unclear if the bill will be taken up on the floor before the House recesses in a few weeks for election campaigning. Meanwhile, by a vote of 59-39, Senate Democrats failed to [...]
Some updates: The company trying to build a giant cement factory near Wilmington (LINK, Feb. 13, 2010) has changed its legal and lobbying team, abandoning the McGuireWoods firm that once boasted having former Gov. Mike Easley and several of his associates on its payroll. Easley and Ruffin Poole have left McGuireWoods, and some key legislative [...]
NC Congressmen Larry Kissell and Bobby Etheridge, both Democrats, will be blasted with $1.4 million worth of attack ads in the next month by the anti-government Americans for Job Security. Like many front groups designed to help a narrow segment of the super-rich, AJS uses emotional themes tied to fear, greed and insecurity to sway [...]
The bull's-eye on Target is getting bigger. As we described in our August 2 entry, the retailer donated $100,000 to a business group for ads supporting a rightwing gubernatorial candidate in its home state of Minnesota. It gave another $50,000 to help the group’s operations. Now Target is paying the price and teaching other corporations [...]
J. Art Pope, the rightwing sugar daddy for the John Locke Foundation and big donor to Americans for Prosperity, is using a 527 committee to funnel his corporation’s money into political ads aimed at discrediting Democratic candidates for the NC General Assembly in this fall’s election. Pope has done this before with six-figure donations from [...]