Investigating Power
As the great journalist, A.J. Liebling, warned nearly 40 years ago, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” To help battle the monopolists, go to The Center for Media and Democracy www.prwatch.org/cmd.
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) sued Vukmir in 2013 for violating an open records request.
When the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) convenes its 45th annual meeting of legislators and corporate lobbyists at the swank Hilton New Orleans Riverside hotel on August 8, it will serve up a veritable banquet of union-busting, gerrymandering, pro-fossil fuel, and school privatization proposals for lawmakers to take back home.
As organizations committed to open government and accountability, we are concerned by reports of incomplete requests for access to government records related to the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. We are concerned that the curtailed document requests will hinder the Senate’s ability to fully assess Judge Kavanaugh’s background and qualifications and makes an assumption of privilege without requiring the White House to assert a claim. We believe it is the role of the White House to assert privilege claims over documents, not the role of the Senate Judiciary Committee to save them the trouble. The Senate’s decision on whether to confirm a Supreme Court nominee has vast and long-lasting ramifications for the nation, and it is vital that senators from all parties are able to request and access the documents they need to make that decision.
The liberal Center for Media and Democracy asked for records from Vukmir in 2013 regarding her work for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group that works with corporations to draft bills that can be introduced in legislatures around the country.
Buying power is the money an investor has available to buy securities and equals the total cash held in the brokerage account plus all available margin. National Right to Work cited the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR), which is a research institute funded by National Right to Work, according to the progressive Center for Media and Democracy, a nonprofit watchdog group.
The Center for Media and Democracy has studied the NRTWC [National Right To Work Committee] and its funding. CMD reported that in 2012, NRTWC and its affiliated National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation and National Institute for Labor Relations Research had combined budgets of more than $25 million, making them a “powerful instrument of the corporate and ideological interests that want to keep wages low and silence the voice of organized labor in the political arena.” Mix said today that after the Supreme Court decided to hear Janus, his group was given access to an internal document from a Democratic political group indicating that 25 to 30 percent of its income came from organized labor.
CMD’s Mary Bottari reported last year on the huge sums that have been poured into anti-union projects by the massive right-wing Bradley Foundation, whose recipients include NRTWC [National Right To Work Committee] allies like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and State Policy Network (of which NRTWC is an associate member), as well as efforts to gain “unified control” in states — Republican control of governorships, legislatures, and supreme courts — in order to pass anti-union “reform” and other conservative policies. The Center for Responsive Politics noted in 2014 that NRTWC’s PAC had given 100 percent of its contributions to Republicans, and had been accused of campaign finance law violations.
A dozen public interest organizations are calling on the IRS to investigate the Trump Foundation for criminal violations of the US tax code.
The groups American Family Voices, Americans for Tax Fairness, Campaign for Accountability, Center for American Progress, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Media and Democracy, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Common Cause, Demand Progress Action, End Citizens United, Free Speech For People, Public Citizen all signed a letter calling on the IRS to investigate the Trump Foundation.
Although ALEC says it wants government to put “the people in control,” the Center for Media and Democracy uncovered that almost 98 percent of ALEC’s funding comes from corporations and trade associations. We’re talking places like ExxonMobil, a Koch charitable foundation, PhRMA.