Investigating Power
ALEC, Climate, Economy, Environment
“Kill the story.” That’s what Alan Jeffers, a media relations manager at ExxonMobil, told the Houston bureau chief of Reuters in October 2016, about a year after InsideClimate News, the Los Angeles Times, and Columbia Journalism School began publishing reports revealing ExxonMobil’s decades-long campaign to deny climate science. The Reuters bureau chief had forwarded Jeffers […]
The Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive watchdog organization, calls SPN “the tip of the spear of a far-right, nationally funded policy agenda in the states that undergirds extremists in the Republican Party.” Indeed, the SPN is financed by Donors Trust—a private foundation bankrolling libertarian organizations that has been described as the “dark money ATM of the conservative […]
Climate, Economy, Environment, RAGA, SFOF
Research from The Center for Media and Democracy is cited numerous times throughout this report.
Campaign Finance, Democracy, Extremism, Wisconsin
Restoration PAC is funded almost exclusively by Richard Uihlein, president of the Uline shipping and packaging company. The Center for Media and Democracy reported last month that Uihlein and his wife Elizabeth have already given more than $35 million to right-wing PACs and candidates.
Coalition funders have included the conservative Mercer Family Foundation, a major Trump donor, according to Grantmakers.io, a public IRS data site; the Charles Koch Foundation, connected to Koch Industries, which has owned oil refineries and pipelines, and has conducted a “climate change disinformation campaign,” according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit that studies […]
Campaign Finance, Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Wisconsin
Restoration PAC is funded almost exclusively by Richard Uihlein, president of the Uline shipping and packaging company. The Center for Media and Democracy reported last month that Uihlein and his wife Elizabeth have already given more than $35 million to right-wing PACs and candidates.
ALEC, Climate, Democracy, Environment
“Anti-riot” laws: Six months after the Black Lives Matter movement reached its peak, 25 states introduced 53 bills conflating protests with riots. By the summer of 2021, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee all had anti-riot laws on the books. No actual violence or property damage is required to be a “rioter” in […]
As Arn Pearson of the Center for Media and Democracy noted, “Contrary to his campaign promises, Trump has flouted the most basic anti-corruption principles embedded in our Constitution and woven into the fabric of our democracy. He has thrown open the floodgates to personal financial gain and corporate special interests alike, and invited the alligators […]
The Center for Media and Democracy describes ALEC as “a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wish lists to benefit their bottom line.”
Bradley Files, Democracy, Extremism, Trump
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) consulted on and provided research that was cited in this report by Isabela Dias for Mother Jones. For a more detailed analysis of Bradley’s 2022 funding see CMD’s December 2023 piece titled, “Bradley Funneled $86 Million to Right-Wing Litigation, Policy, Media, Youth Groups, and Higher Education in 2022.”