SourceWatch

Featured Work

The Kochs Make News in Wisconsin as Voters Threaten to Turn Races Upside Down WI Speaker Paul Ryan Image: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0 It's primary day in Wisconsin and voters are predicted to turn the political establishment upside down. According to last week's Marquette University poll, Wisconsin voters are backing candidates who are not frontrunners in both parties—highly unusual behavior in a state that has tended to vote for the frontrunner (at least since 1988 when Wisconsin Democrats swung with Gary Hart). But it is not just the candidates who are making news in Wisconsin this week. Once again the Koch brothers are in the headlines in a state that they have heavily influenced since helping to elect Scott Walker in 2010. Read the rest of this item here. Flint Is a Casualty in the Right Wing's War on Local Democracy Chris Horner, a DC-based lawyer, climate change denier and Fox News regular, is also being paid as a "Regulatory Counsel" for the coal company, Alpha Natural Resources, according to bankruptcy filings reviewed by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). Horner’s repeated filing of lawsuits against leading U.S. climate scientists has been described as "harassment." Alpha funding for Horner was first reported by Lee Fang, writing for the Intercept in August 2015 from earlier bankruptcy filings, although his role as Counsel was unknown until now. Horner's role as Regulatory Counsel for Alpha is described in a declaration that he signed, and which was filed with the bankruptcy court on January 11, 2016. Read the rest of this item here. Easter Rebellion: Three States Give Bernie Sanders Landslide Victories Senator Bernie Sanders in Madison, WI The Sanders campaign came to Madison, Wisconsin on Saturday with a wind at its back. Sanders swept Alaska, Washington State and Hawaii with huge margins, even though the political establishment in those states overwhelmingly supported his primary opponent Hillary Clinton. Call it an Easter Rebellion of sorts. "We knew things were going to improve as we headed West," Sanders told a crowd topping 8,000 at the Madison Expo Center. "We are making significant inroads in Secretary Clinton's lead and we have, with your support here in Wisconsin, a path toward victory." Sanders was backed by 82 percent of voters in Alaska where his wife Jane stumped for days, 73 percent in Washington State and 71 percent in Hawaii. He now has 1000 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1200 pledged delegates, though Clinton currently has a lead among Super Delegates. Read the rest of this item here. Trump Campaigns Against Conservative Establishment in Wisconsin Donald Trump landed in Wisconsin Tuesday, turning out a huge crowd in Janesville, Paul Ryan's home town, just because he could. According to Politico, Trump chose the location hours after Speaker Ryan chastised him for the tenor of his campaign. "Our political discourse did not used to be this bad and it does not have to be this way now. Politics can be a battle of ideas not a battle of insults," said Ryan. Trump responded by issuing 5,000 tickets for a 1,000 seat venue at the Janesville Holiday Inn, generating a huge crowd. There were as many Trump supporters outside the hall as inside. Read the rest of this item here. Hillary Clinton in Madison "Courts Matter" Hillary Clinton Image by Brett Weinstein Hillary Clinton came to campaign for votes in Madison, Wisconsin today, a city that most here put in the Bernie Sanders column. But, Clinton made it clear she loves Madison and the University of Wisconsin and wants to compete for every vote. In a small venue on the UW campus, Clinton brought the message that the courts are important to democracy and that Wisconsin voters should study up on the growing fight over the vacancy left by Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. "The court shapes every aspect of life in the United States," said Clinton. "If we are serious about fighting for progressive causes, we need to focus on the courts." Read the rest of this item here. Ted Cruz Surges Ahead in Wisconsin Primary, Reveals Secret Weapon Senator Ted Cruz Image by Gage Skidmore In the last Wisconsin poll before the election, reliable Marquette University pollster Charles Franklin found that Ted Cruz had surged ahead of Donald Trump 40-30 in the contest for the GOP primary. John Kasich, trailed at 21 percent. In February, Trump was ahead by double digits, but a lot has changed since then. There are fewer candidates in the race, and the Wisconsin GOP has resisted Trump in a significant way. This week Governor Scott Walker finally endorsed Cruz and the heavy-hitter dark money group, Club for Growth, is spending a million dollars on advertising in the final week before the April 5th primary in support of Cruz. "Do the math. Only Ted Cruz can beat Donald Trump," intones the narrator in the television ad. Read the rest of this item here.

Recent Articles from PRWatch.org

How DFER Leaders Channel Out-of-State Dark Money in California, Colorado, and Beyond At first glance, "Democrats for Education Reform" (DFER) may sound like a generic advocacy group, but a closer review of its financial filings and activities shows how it uses local branding to help throw the voice of huge Wall Street players and other corporate interests from out-of-state. DFER is a PAC, a Political Action Committee, which means it can (and does) play a direct role in state and local elections. Public school advocates like Diane Ravitch have been spotlighting concerns about DFER since its beginning. Read the rest of this item here. ALEC Exposed: Corporate Polluters Undermining Clean Power in Virginia The Sierra Club Virginia Chapter and the Center for Media and Democracy released ALEC EXPOSED: Corporate Polluters Undermining Clean Power in Virginia, a report that reveals the influence that ALEC and its political allies have exerted to stymie state climate and clean energy policies. The report focuses on ALEC's efforts to stop the Clean Power Plan, which sets the nation's first-ever protections against harmful carbon pollution by giving each state a carbon reduction goal to help cut national carbon pollution from power plants by 32% from 2005 levels by the year 2030. Read the rest of this item here. Lawyer Tormenting Scientists Revealed Working For Coal Company Chris Horner, a DC-based lawyer, climate change denier and Fox News regular, is also being paid as a "Regulatory Counsel" for the coal company, Alpha Natural Resources, according to bankruptcy filings reviewed by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). Horner’s repeated filing of lawsuits against leading U.S. climate scientists has been described as "harassment." Read the rest of this item here. Barring Plastic Bag Bans, another ALEC Law Takes Aim at Local Democracy The pay-to-play model of government advanced by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) scored another victory this week. On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Senate voted along party lines to approve a bill that would prohibit local communities from issuing their own rules on plastic bags and other containers. Read the rest of this item here. The Safety Violations Billion-Dollar Contractor BAE Systems Should Have to Disclose If you oversaw the Department of Defense, wouldn't you want to know that one of your biggest contractors had a history of serious safety violations? Read the rest of this item here.

Koch Exposed

Follow the Money! The Center for Media and Democracy, publisher of ALEC Exposed, brings you this unique wiki resource on the billionaire industrialists and the power and influence of the Koch cadre and Koch cash. Read about Koch Funding Vehicles: Koch Family Foundations Koch Network Freedom Partners Knowledge and Progress Fund American Encore DonorsTrust Donors Capital TC4 Trust Visit Koch Exposed for more.

Exposed by CMD

Unmasking the Chamber of Commerce Networks This week, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) unveiled new documents showing the role that lobbyists for state chambers of commerce play in thwarting measures that American workers and, as it turns out, the overwhelming majority of CEOs support. Who are these state chamber lobbyists and what are the trade groups they lead? In 1971, when tobacco lawyer Lewis Powell penned his infamous memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he not only called upon the national Chamber to unify and strengthen corporate power in U.S. politics, he also identified other untapped potential for his corporate coup. Read the rest of this item here. Chambers of Commerce Exposed by CMD New materials provided to the Center for Media and Democracy/PRWatch reveal that a top GOP polling firm instructed state Chamber of Commerce lobbyists how to try to defeat popular measures like increasing the minimum wage, despite polling data from business leaders that shows overwhelming support for such progressive workplace policies. Read the rest of this item here. Most CEOs Support Paid Sick Leave, Increased Minimum Wage, and More But Chamber Lobbyists Told How to "Combat" These Measures Video footage of a closed-door webinar provided to CMD reveals top GOP pollsters instructing Chamber of Commerce lobbyists to ignore internal survey data showing that Chamber members across the country overwhelmingly support progressive workplace policies including raising the minimum wage, providing paid sick days, and increasing paid family leave. Read the rest of this item here. Highlights of Luntz Poll of American CEOs Shows Broad Support for Progressive Policies When considering American CEOs as a category, "empathetic" is not the first word that comes to mind. Yet, the fact that these top executives have empathy for their workers is a major take away from a closed-door webinar about a new poll taken by LuntzGlobal, the polling firm of prominent GOP pollster Frank Luntz. The polled executives want to raise the wage, expand paid sick and maternity leave, and support predictive scheduling. Read the rest of this item here.

Featured SourceWatch Article

SourceWatch.org is an interactive wiki website that depends on readers like you to improve content. If you want to help us grow SourceWatch with well documented research and become a volunteer editor, click here for more information. Excerpts from longer SourceWatch article: Concerned Veterans for America Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) is a 501(c)(4) non-profit whose major funders through the years have been the Koch brothers and their donor network; as such Sourcewatch.org considers CVA to be a Koch Brothers front group. The Koch donors network appears to use CVA to advocate for reductions in federal spending, to attack the 2010 Affordable Care Act and to advance other "free market" policies. An investigation by ProPublica found that Concerned Veterans for America submits its IRS filings under the name Vets for Economic Freedom Trust. Those documents list former Koch Industries managing director Wayne Gable as a trustee. Many Koch funding vehicles are set up as nonprofit trusts rather than not-for-profit corporations, "an unusual step that reduces their public reporting requirements," says ProPublica. Funding from Secretive Trusts As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, CVA is not required to disclose its donors. However, CVA appears to have received the vast majority of its revenues from Koch network funding vehicles, structured to keep donors secret and the public in the dark. From mid-2011 to mid-2012, the Koch-linked TC4 Trust gave $1,968,000 to CVA, according to research by ProPublica. This would appear to be almost all of the revenue CVA reported to the IRS for its 2011-2012 fiscal year. Read the entire SourceWatch page on the Concerned Veterans for America here. References

Editors' Pick

WAR on Voters: Big Money Streams into WI Supreme Court Race with No Disclosure Once again, the biggest spender in Wisconsin's Supreme Court race isn't one of the candidates. It's a little-know dark money group, which is keeping its funders secret from Wisconsinites. Plus, thanks to a recent law change, the supposedly "independent" group is now allowed to coordinate directly with its favored candidate without disclosing that coordination to the public. The secret money group, Wisconsin Alliance for Reform (WAR), was registered by Lorri Pickens, a Koch network operative with ties to the largest-ever campaign finance violation in Wisconsin history. As of March 29, WAR has spent an estimated $1.4 million on television and radio ads attacking Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg, who challenges Justice Rebecca Bradley in the April 5 election. Read the rest of this item here. Shaky Safety Record for Billion-Dollar Contractor AECOM Overseeing Nuclear Facilities Image: Nuclear Regulatory Commission CC BY 2.0 Jeffrey Shannon, a 49-year-old father of two, was struck and killed on March 30, 2015 when a 1,200 foot pylon fell on him while he was working for AECOM Technical Services in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania. The fatal incident prompted an OSHA investigation, which cited the company for a "Serious" violation of safety training regulations and a second "Serious" violation of safety procedures during pile driving operations. OSHA issued $14,000 in penalties, though the company is contesting the case. AECOM and its subsidiaries provide professional technical and management support services for public and private clients around the world. But the American taxpayers are by far their largest client. In 2015, $4.23 billion, or 24 percent of AECOM’s total revenue, came from the federal government. Read the rest of this item here.

Featured Video
Arizona's NBC 12 and CMD Expose ALEC's Corporate Influence on State Laws
Sunday Square Off, December 9, 2015 Phoenix Arizona's NBC affiliate KPNX hosted the Center for Media and Democracy's Executive Director Lisa Graves on the December 6 episode of "Sunday Square Off" to expose the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) effort to push corporate backed model legislation in state legislatures.

Popular SourceWatch Articles

One of our most popular articles this week is about the American Council on Science and Health, which actively solicits funding from corporations and advocates positions that back those corporate interests. Two related articles about the backgrounds of two of the doctors that are part of the ACSH PR operations, Henry I. Miller and Gilbert Ross, are also popular this week. SourceWatch's home page is the top landing page in this website. Here are some of the other hot pages: our portal on Outsourcing America Exposed, our article on the Existing U.S. Coal Plants, our article on ALEC Corporations, our article on Koch Industries, our article on Monsanto, and our article on Fracking. Get breaking news on these and other issues here, "Like" us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at @PRwatch and @ALECexposed."

Sign up for news and updates from the Center for Media and Democracy!

Optional Member Code

Sign up

We Track Corporations and PR Spin

The Center for Media and Democracy publishes SourceWatch to track corporations. We provide well-documented information about corporate public relations (PR) campaigns, including corporate front groups, people who "front" corporate campaigns, and PR operations. Dating back to when tobacco companies deployed doctors to try to prevent labeling of cancer-causing cigarettes, many corporations use the "tobacco playbook" to hide behind neutral-looking "experts" as well as think tanks or non-profits in their efforts to influence or distort public policy to protect their bottom line or agenda--often a narrow agenda at odds with the broader public interest. This specialized encyclopedia watches those sources and provides detailed information about corporations and special interests, using the collaborative "wiki" platform, like Wikipedia. CMD relies on concerned citizens like you to keep this research online. You can contribute here. Please visit SourceWatch's sister websites PRWatch, to read our original reporting, and ALECexposed, to see our award-winning investigation of a corporate front group where corporate lobbyists actually vote as equals with elected legislators on "model" legislation to change our rights. Also, please check out the in-depth research from around the world by our partner projects within SourceWatch: CoalSwarm and FrackSwarm. You can also use the sign up box below to get breaking news about our breakthrough investigations. — Lisa Graves, Executive Director

Praise for SourceWatch!

"As a journalist frequently on the receiving end of various PR campaigns, some of them based on disinformation, others front groups for undisclosed interests, [CMD's SourceWatch] is an invaluable resource." —Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire "Thanks for all your help. There's no way I could have done my piece on big PR and global warming without CMD [the Center for Media and Democracy] and your fabulous websites." —Zoe Cormier, journalist, Canada "The troublemakers at the Center for Media and Democracy, for example, point to dozens of examples of "greenwashing," which they defined as the "unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue by a company, an industry, a government or even a non-government organization to sell a product, a policy" or rehabilitate an image. In the center's view, many enterprises labeled green don't deserve the name. —Jack Shafer, "Green Is the New Yellow: On the excesses of 'green' journalism," Slate. "The dearth of information on the [U.S.] government [lobbying] disclosure forms about the other business-backed coalitions comes in stark contrast to the data about them culled from media reports, websites, press releases and Internal Revenue Service documents and posted by SourceWatch, a website that tracks advocacy groups." —Jeanne Cummings, 'New disclosure reports lack clarity," Politico. "The folks at the Center for Media and Democracy have done incredible work documenting fake grassroots ("astroturf") groups. Here, they're helping protect the rights of all Americans to exercise their right to vote. They are completely non-partisan. These guys are the real deal." —Craig Newmark, Craig's List

Getting Started on SourceWatch

Looking for somewhere to start? You can read any SourceWatch article without registering, but if you would like to improve our articles or add new ones, you need to register here. You will be asked to provide an email address to verify that you are a real person and not a computer spamming links to other sites, but your email address will not be shown publicly on your user page. You will also be asked to create a user name, which can be your own name or a pen name. And, if you'd like, you can edit your user page to let readers know more about yourself, your work on SourceWatch, and your research interests -- but that is not required. Once you are registered, you will also be able to contact other editors through their user pages. If you do not wish to register but do want to contact us, you can use the addresses at the bottom of this page. You can search for existing articles to improve using the search box, but please note that the search feature differentiates words and phrases with capital letters from those that are lower case. Please also visit the pages on our purpose, our tips on editing and citing authoritative sources, and our FAQs for help. Thank you, in advance, for helping to make SourceWatch even stronger!

Disclaimer: SourceWatch is part of the Center for Media and Democracy—email the editor of SourceWatch, via editor AT sourcewatch.org. Antispam note: To avoid attracting spam email robots, email addresses on SourceWatch are written with AT in place of the usual symbol, and we have removed "mail to" links. Replace AT with the correct symbol to get a valid address. Read the full disclaimer.

Portals: Koch Exposed  · FrackSwarm · CoalSwarm · OutsourcingAmericaExposed · ALECexposed  · NFIBexposed  · Fix the Debt · State Policy Network · All Portals