The 14 chemical companies that put the most residents in the US at risk from poisonous gas leaks or terrorist attack include JCI Jones’s Charlotte facility that manufactures and distributes chlorine, sulfur dioxide and other hazardous products. A new report by US PIRG says over 800,000 people live within the immediate danger zone around the [...]
Which candidates for the NC General Assembly have the most money to spend before the election? The NC Free Enterprise Foundation posted convenient lists of the cash-on-hand for candidates in the state House and state Senate elections, based on disclosure reports through June 30, 2010. For example, Senate Democratic candidates Margaret Dickson, David Redwine, Jim [...]
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 [...]
A 120-page report by a trio of nonprofit groups analyzes the $207 million spent on the nation’s state judicial elections over the past decade, more than double the amount spent in the previous decade. Self interested “super-spenders” are especially fueling the arms race that aims to turn “blind justice” into “justice for sale.” A forward [...]
We need action in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate during the Congressional recess! House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently told a group of fair elections supporters that it's "we-the-people" who have to MAKE Congress do the right thing. So that's our charge and it will not happen without YOU taking action. And now's a great [...]
Nick Nyhart of Public Campaign has a short column about the underbelly of Washington politics. He begins with the charges against Rep. Charlie Rangel, but explains that “to say that Rangel is the only one mixed up in the unsavory combination of cash, influence and policy-making would be disingenuous.” He then gives links to several [...]
I experienced what I like to think of as a "Howard Dean moment" yesterday at the North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections lobby day. As some of you might remember, then-governor Dean famously destroyed his presidential ambitions with one frenzied exclamation (we should all have such passion for government), and I confess I felt a [...]