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The Koch Connection in the Scott Walker John Doe Documents Charles and David Koch A cache of documents recently released by The Guardian shed new light on how Governor Scott Walker, his top advisors, and allies evaded the state's campaign finance system in an unprecedented effort to win 15 elections and maintain control of the Wisconsin Senate and Supreme Court as well as the Executive Mansion in the tumultuous recall period of 2011 and 2012. The Guardian documents also illuminate the activities of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the shadowy "grassroots" arm of the Koch political machine. Read the rest of this item here. New Grants Announced: ED Continues to Pour Millions into Charter School Blackhole On October 3, the U.S Department of Education announced that it had approved $245 million in grants to eight states under the federal Charter School Program. The states, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas and Washington, will receive $177 million in grant money. In addition, 15 charter management organizations, including IDEA Public Schools in Texas and KIPP's public charter school network in California, will receive $68 million in taxpayer dollars. This means the federal government has spent nearly $4 billion on charters in the past nearly 25 years, according to Center for Media and Democracy analysis. Read the rest of this item here. Leaked Documents Show Court’s Dismissal of the John Doe Was Based on a False Premise Remember 2015? It was just last year that the conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court embraced dark money and turned its back on the state's longstanding bedrock support for transparency in campaigns and elections. In a controversial ruling that July, the Court voted 4-2 to shut down the John Doe investigation into Scott Walker's secret political fundraising scheme, arguing that coordination between Walker, his campaign consultants, and corporate lobby groups didn’t matter because it was all just "issue advocacy." When the special prosecutor moved for reconsideration later that year, presenting evidence of express political advocacy, the court's conservative majority, led by Justice Gableman, promptly fired him. Read the rest of this item here. Supreme Cover-Up: How the Wisconsin Justice System Failed in the Walker John Doe Recent elections have turned the Wisconsin Supreme Court from "one of the nation's most respected state tribunals into a disgraceful mess," wrote noted author on the courts Lincoln Caplan in 2015. The dysfunction is on full display in the documents revealed by the Guardian this week in its expose on the "John Doe" investigation into potentially illegal coordination between Scott Walker and dark money groups that were supposed to operate independently of his campaign. Read the rest of this item here. Scott Walker John Doe Document Leak: 10 Illuminating Emails On September 14, the Guardian newspaper which published the Snowden revelation, published a massive set of documents from the Scott Walker dark money probe know as the "John Doe" investigation. We highly recommend the lengthy expose on secret money and backroom deals, which you can access here. If you don't have time to read all 1,500 emails and documents in the cache, our staff has picked out some of the most illuminating. At the heart of the matter are three men. Scott Walker, RJ Johnson (who simultaneously worked for Walker and the dark money machine Wisconsin Club for Growth, say prosecutors) and Keith Gilkes who was Walker's chief of staff in 2011 and his campaign manager in 2012. Read the rest of this item here.

Recent Articles from PRWatch.org

Scott Walker John Doe: Corporate Checks Fueled Coordinated Campaign Documents released by the Guardian indicate that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker may have solicited and received corporate checks for the 2011 Senate recall fight and his own 2012 recall election. The checks–cut from corporate treasuries, not granted by individuals–were deposited into the account of the dark money group Wisconsin Club for Growth, which prosecutors viewed as a "subcommittee" of Walker's campaign in violation of the statutes (11.10 (04)) as they were written at the time. Read the rest of this item here. Koch Star State: the Kochs Flood Texas with Campaign Cash Texas is a Red State. A really Red State. The Republican Party dominates every facet of government by a wide margin. Despite this, recent Federal Election Committee (FEC) filings from the Koch Industries, Inc. Political Action Committee (KochPAC), show that the Kochs are flooding Texas elections with cash. Read the rest of this item here. Secret Donors, Secret Agendas: Guardian Pulls Back the Curtain on Walker Corruption Probe A cache of documents released by the Guardian shed new light on how Governor Scott Walker, his top advisors and allies evaded Wisconsin's campaign finance system to win his recall election, and to maintain Republican control of the Wisconsin State Senate during the tumultuous recall period of 2011 and 2012. The expose revealed that Walker fundraiser Kate Doner conducted detailed opposition research on donors whose contributions might prove embarrassing. Read the rest of this item here.

Popular SourceWatch Articles

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 and water pollution. Get breaking news on these and other issues here, "Like" us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at @PRwatch and @ALECexposed."

Exposed by CMD

Bayer Makes Deal With GMO Giant Monsanto Bayer announced this month that it plans to purchase Monsanto, the controversial chemical corporation that has been sued around the world over its products. Nowadays, Bayer has a more consumer-friendly corporate reputation, but has a checkered past too. (Bayer's history as a German company during the Nazi era is well documented.) According to Vox, if regulators approve the $66 billion deal, the merger would create the largest agribusiness giant in the world, "selling 29 percent of the world's seeds and 24 percent of its pesticides." Read the rest of this item here. GOP Attorneys General Held Private Meetings with Fossil Fuel Lobbyists on Exxon Investigation Image: Mike Mozart CC BY 2.0 Notes from closed-door meeting reveal collusion between GOP AGs, industry lobbyists to defend ExxonMobil and obstruct climate change legislation. Republican attorneys general held private, undisclosed meetings with fossil fuel industry lobbyists in July to coordinate on shielding ExxonMobil from scrutiny as the company faces an ongoing investigation over allegations that it intentionally misled the public and its own shareholders about evidence of climate change, according to an audio recording of the session obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy. Transcript available here. 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: DonorsTrust DonorsTrust (DT) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit started in 1999 "to ensure the intent of donors who are dedicated to the ideals of limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise." Along with its supporting 509(a)(3) organization Donors Capital Fund (DCF), it is a spin-off of the Philanthropy Roundtable, a coordinating body for conservative foundations founded by Whitney L. Ball, who passed away in 2015. Both funding organizations are "donor-advised funds," which means that the fund creates separate accounts for individual donors, and the donors then recommend disbursements from the accounts to different non-profits. They cloak the identity of the original mystery donors because the funds are then distributed in the name of DT or DCF, contributing another step to what has been called a "murky money maze." Funding Climate Change Denial DonorsTrust promises to only funnel money to groups with an extreme anti-environmental bent, so industrial billionaires need not worry about their money winding up at Greenpeace... Read the entire SourceWatch page on the DonorsTrust here. References

Editors' Pick

Exxon and ALEC Running Illegal Lobbying Scheme, Watchdog Groups Charge in IRS Complaint Center for Media and Democracy and Common Cause File Extensive New Evidence in Whistleblower Tax Fraud Case Against ALEC ExxonMobil and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are running an illegal scheme to promote the oil giant’s climate denial policies and legislative agenda in violation of U.S. tax law governing charitable organizations, the Center for Media Democracy (CMD) and Common Cause charged Thursday. In a new filing to the IRS – adding to an active investigation prompted by a 2012 complaint that ALEC is operating as a corporate lobbying group while registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity – the watchdog organizations detail for the first time how Exxon has used ALEC as a key asset in its explicit campaign to sow uncertainty about climate science, undermine international climate treaties and block legislation to reduce emissions. While ALEC purports to spend zero dollars on lobbying, Exxon has deliberately used ALEC for the past two decades to advance its legislative goals concerning cap-and-trade policies, fracking, the Keystone Pipeline and the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan. Read the rest of this item here.

Featured Video
ALEC and Criminal Justice Reform; RAGA and Oil Companies
October 3, 2016 - Democracy Now! Amy Goodman talks with Lisa Graves, the executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, about the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in the expansion of the U.S. prison system. ALEC has worked with states to write legislation promoting the privatization of prisons in addition to pushing for harsher, longer sentences. Amy also asks Graves about the connection between oil and gas companies and the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA).

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.

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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

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