There’a another comment on the SEC’s proxy advisory proposal from a Chamber of Commerce funded dark money front group. This one was previously focused only on getting corporate-friendly lawyers appointed to the court (they actually argued that it was okay to have all white male nominees because the selections were based on qualifications, ignoring the…
Category: dark money
Citizens United 10 Years Later: Ciara Torres-Spelliscy
Professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy testified about what we have learned about the impact of the Citizens United Decision after ten years. The full testimony, including disturbing information about the vicious cycle caused by more dark money raising the cost of campaigns, thus needing more dark money is below. An excerpt: Nearly a decade ago, I told…
Bart Naylor of Public Citizen: Testimony on Comment Abuse by Astroturf Fake Front Groups
Bart Naylor testified this morning in a hearing on the avuse of the notice and comment process by dark money-tuned fake front groups masquerading as public interest organizations. The full testimony is at the link below. The title of the hearing is “Fake It Till They Make It: How Bad Actors Use Astroturfing to Manipulate…
Sock Puppet Ike Brannon is Still Lying About Proxy Advisors
Ike Brannon is whining about proxy advisors again on the unedited commentary section of Forbes. We last wrote about Ike Brannon’s anti-proxy advisor propaganda more than a year ago, pointing out that he does not disclose the funders and connections behind his fabricated claims about proxy advisors. Since he does not, we will remind him…
Comment from Ciara Torres-Spelliscy on SEC Proposal
Stetson law professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an expert on dark money and its pernicious impact on both public and private governance, has submitted an excellent and very persuasive comment to the SEC on the proposed rules for limiting shareholder proposals. The full text is in the link below. An excerpt: [T]he rule proposed by File No….
A Coal Baron Funded Climate Denial as His Company Spiraled Into Bankruptcy – The New York Times
As a company begs for corporate welfare, it spends outrageous amounts on CEO pay and climate change denial, revealed at last via bankruptcy filings. As his coal mining company hurtled into bankruptcy, Robert E. Murray, the former chief executive, paid himself $14 million, handed his successor a $4 million bonus and earmarked nearly $1 million…
How Corporate Lawbreakers Get a Leg Up at the Justice Department
The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) revealed in August that top political appointees at the Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington, DC, overruled career federal prosecutors who sought to bring a felony charge against biotech giant Monsanto for illegally spraying a highly toxic pesticide in Hawaii. This happened after attorneys for Monsanto, including a former head…
Commissioner Jackson on Disclosure of Political Contributions
November 18, 2019 The Honorable Carolyn B. Maloney Chair, Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets United States House of Representatives 2308 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515-3212 VIA ELECTRONIC DELIVERY Dear Chair Maloney: Thank you for your July 15 letter regarding my research on the need for transparency in corporate political spending—and…
Inside TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans From Filing Their Taxes for Free — ProPublica
[T]he success of TurboTax rests on a shaky foundation, one that could collapse overnight if the U.S. government did what most wealthy countries did long ago and made tax filing simple and free for most citizens. For more than 20 years, Intuit has waged a sophisticated, sometimes covert war to prevent the government from doing…
A ‘Grass Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded by Amazon’s Biggest Rivals – WSJ
You’ll have to forgive us for laughing when we first saw this article in the WSJ. After spending a year and a half trying to expose the Main Street Investors Coalition for being a CEO-funded fake dark money front group pretending/purporting to be advocating for the interests of investors while really working to suppress shareholder…
