"Was it wrong to try to get the city back on its feet as quickly as possible?" an exasperated Christine Todd Whitman asked members of Congress. The occasion was Whitman's first appearance before the House subcommittee investigating her handling of New York air quality issues post-9/11, when she headed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"Two lobbyists with lengthy resumes in New Jersey government set up a conference call with the media last week to announce the formation of the New Jersey Affordable, Clean, Reliable Energy Coalition (NJ ACRE), notes an Asbury Park Press editorial. The coalition will "advocate for nuclear energy and, more specifically, a 20-year license extension for the aging Oyster Creek plant" in Lacey, N.J.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"Republican lobbyists with close ties to the Bush administration are aiding and supporting the efforts of an Iraqi opposition leader who is calling for the ouster of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki," reports IraqSlogger.
The business of pro-war propaganda is booming as "Freedom's Watch" joins Vets for Freedom, Move America Forward and other pro-war advocates for a stepped up war in Iraq in line with the Bush/Cheney Global War on Terror.
Ari Fleischer, former White House PR flack who jumped ship into the private sector shortly after the 2003 US invasion, is the public face and a founding board member of Freedom's Watch, which is being rolled out this week with emotional advertisements featuring wounded veterans imploring Americans to keep the money flowing for the occupation.
One such advertisement is up on YouTube. Once again the war in Iraq is being falsely linked to and justified by the terror attacks of 9/11, one of the Bush Administration's Big Lies that was was used to mislead America into war. In the Freedom's Watch advertisment on YouTube a war vet with prosthetic legs beseeches:
Submitted by Bob Burton on
The lead U.S. drug industry lobby group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), spent $10.7 million in the first six months of 2007 lobbying the U.S. government.
It may seem incongruous to the average person why Philip Morris (PM) would back legislation to restrict its business, yet that is what PM seems to be is doing by supporting S. 625, the "Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act," the bill that would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority over tobacco products. After all, PM has a corporate mandate to increase profits for its shareholders, so PM would not support this legislation if it wasn't going to benefit its bottom line, and it is practically an axiom in public health that whatever benefits PM's bottom line is going to be bad for public health. That's what makes this bill especially troubling to people who study tobacco industry documents; it is clear that PM had a hand in crafting it. That alone sounds like a lot, but PM's efforts to enact it are clearly delivering the company a hefty side-benefit of causing dissent within the tobacco control community over its passage.
Submitted by John Stauber on
The Boston Globe reports "the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the nation's oldest and most influential veterans' organizations, have broken their relative silence on the merits of the Iraq war, joining some of the staunchest war supporters to lobby Congress and the public...
SourceWatch citizen journalist Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a dogged and prolific investigator of the pro-war lobby. AI began digging into the pro-war front group Vets for Freedom in June 2006. AI's research exposing the neoconservative agenda and Republican operatives behind VFF has been used by scores of journalists. Just do a Google search for "Vets for Freedom" and you'll find AI's work in our SourceWatch article right at the top of your returns, next to the VFF's own website.
Pro-war funding appears plentiful for VFF as it gears up to lobby Congress in September. Here's some of the latest from AI and the VFF article on SourceWatch:
Submitted by John Stauber on
The Associated Press examines two dueling partisan lobby groups composed of military veterans, "valuable public relations tools" for politicians in the debate over the war in Iraq. VoteVets "has spent about $850,000 this year on political ads. ... Its board of advisers includes ...
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
With increasing criticism that "bottled water has misleading labels and is of inferior quality to municipal water systems," and the governments of San Francisco and Salt Lake City prohibiting city agencies from buying bottled water, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and the American Beverage Association (ABA) have ramped up their PR.
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