As gas and food prices rise, so does scrutiny of industry profits. But "food and energy companies have learned a lot since the 1970s about how to deal with public indignation," writes George Anders. In 1980, "Congress hit the energy industry with a windfall profits tax" that lasted until 1988. While Congress is holding hearings now, oil executives "are better at deflecting attention from their own companies, arguing that state-owned, foreign oil companies control most of the world's reserves, and that financial speculators" drive price fluctuations. As they prepare to announce their first-quarter 2008 earnings, Exxon Mobil executives are "hammering out possible responses to questions ... about the sheer size of the company's profit." The largest U.S. ethanol producer, Archer Daniels Midland, is holding conference calls decrying the "misguided attacks on biofuels," to "avoid being portrayed as the villain in rising farm-product prices." Oil companies "have hired plenty of lobbyists and supported trade groups, such as the American Petroleum Institute. ... Food companies may soon find themselves redoubling similar efforts of their own."

The post-Abramoff lobbying disclosure reforms have started -- and so far, they're underwhelming. "Confusing shortcuts are already being mapped and loopholes mined," reports Jeanne Cummings. "Among the information that is supposed to be available to the public now is a listing of the financial backers of the shadowy coalitions with apple-pie-sounding names," like Americans for American Energy, the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition and Americans for Prosperity. But most weren't listed in either the House or Senate disclosure database, and the few that were didn't "list the paying members of their coalition." Part of the problem is that Congress "exempted the financing of grass-roots lobbying from the law. That created a giant loophole for all advocacy organizations to exploit." In fact, Cummings found more on these groups, "culled from media reports, websites, press releases and Internal Revenue Service documents," on CMD's very own SourceWatch site.

The Center for Public Integrity has begun a five part report on the stunning impact of big money advocacy groups in electoral politics, from MoveOn to Freedom's Watch. "Their names roll off the tongue with a patriotic cadence: Freedom’s Watch, Democracy Alliance, Citizens United, Progress for America, Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America. These are the new giants of American politics, the well-funded groups organized behind a veil of secrecy to influence the voters’ choice for president of the United States in 2008. Financed by many of the nation’s wealthiest investors and business leaders, as well as millions of small donors, these organizations are responsible for a flood of political attack advertising. ... With their identities hidden under stunningly misleading names and legal technicalities, many offered questionable facts and unproven charges intended to confuse voters or appeal to their worst prejudices."

The Pentagon program's Ken Allard on MSNBCAuthor Glenn Greenwald notes, "It has now been more than ten days since the New York Times exposed the Pentagon's domestic propaganda program involving retired generals and, still, not a single major news network has even mentioned the story to their viewers, let alone responded to the numerous questions surrounding their own behavior." Greenwald helped prod NBC's Brian Williams into at least blogging about this issue, but "the essence of Williams' response [is] he did absolutely nothing wrong. Nor did any of the military analysts used by NBC News. Nor did his network. ... Just consider what is going on here. The core credibility of war reporting by Brian Williams and NBC News has been severely undermined by a major NYT expose. That story involves likely illegal behavior by the Pentagon, in which NBC News appears to have been complicit, resulting in the deceitful presentation of highly biased and conflicted individuals as 'independent' news analysts. Yet they refuse to tell their viewers about any of this, and refuse to address any of the questions that have been raised."

An April 7, 2008 citizen journalism task asked people to investigate tobacco industry brainstorming documents at the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library. That request led to a marvelous blog titled "The Sick and Crazy Science Tobacco Companies Pursue to Get You Hooked," posted on Alternet by Scott Thill, in which he describes some of his finds, including a bizarre research project to investigate the effect of a chemical in cigarette smoke called nitric oxide on cat penises. From nacho cheese-flavored cigarettes to on-pack contests to win everything from Clearasil to used celebrity underwear, tobacco industry brainstorming documents contain an untold number of bizarre marketing, advertising and product design ideas. Thill's blog praises TobaccoWiki's Brainstorming documents page, as well as citizen journalism and the new ways that research wikis are allowing people to compile and share information.