A recent Council on Foreign Relations backgrounder titled U.S-Pakistan Military Cooperation cited the Center's Collateral Damage project, which found among its major findings that Pakistan was the largest recipient of U.S. military aid, receiving almost $5 billion since 9/11, with little in the form of federal oversight and accountability.
The House of Representatives recently amended the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). Among the newly expanded public provisions, White House task forces will be prohibited from operating in secrecy, transcripts or recordings of committee meetings will be electronically available, and advisory committee appointments must be made without regard to political affiliation or activity. The Center's Shadow Government project investigated FACA loopholes and several conflict of interest cases more than a year ago.
The Wall Street Journal featured the Center's latest analysis of the lobby spending by the pharmaceutical industry, health product manufacturers, and their trade groups. The Center found that the pharmaceutical manufacturers and their trade groups spent a record $168 million on federal lobbying last year, a 32 percent increase from 2006.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), requested by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, tasked the Defense Department with providing greater oversight in the way it handles Pakistan reimbursement claims for coalition support funds (CSF), a program created after 9/11 to reimburse key U.S. allies in the global war on terror. In May 2007, the Center's Collateral Damage project found that post-9/11 U.S. military aid to Pakistan, totaling more than $5 billion, was subject to virtually no congressional oversight.
Washington Post national politics reporter Shailagh Murray in the paper's daily campaign 2008 blog, 'The Trail,' cited a Center interview with James A. Johnson, who recently resigned from Senator Obama's vice presidential search committee. In the interview, Johnson had "kind words" to say about veteran senator, and potential VP contender, Christopher Dodd.
On Thursday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released its Phase II report on prewar Iraq intelligence. Committee Chairman John D. (Jay) Rockefeller said: "It is my belief that the Bush administration was fixated on Iraq, and used the 9/11 attacks by Al Qaeda as justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. To accomplish this, top administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and Al Qaeda as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11. Sadly, the Bush administration led the nation into war under false pretenses." To read more about the Bush administration's false statements about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, check out the Center's War Card project.
A Morning Call.com editorial cited a 2003 Center survey that ranked all 50 states' lobby disclosure laws. Until 2006, Pennsylvania had no lobbying law at all and was ranked 50th in the nation by the Center's survey. Currently, the legislature will consider a measure that would forbid gifts and entertainment from lobbyists to public officials.
Harry Shearer, actor, entertainer, musician, artist, and creator of the song 935 Lies - featured in his upcoming CD, Songs of the Bushmen - said in The Huffington Post, "Just in case Scott McClellan wasn't keeping count, the Center was: at least 935 falsehoods told by the president and his aides in the run-up to the [Iraq] war."
The Sunlight Foundation's SunSpots blog featured the "eye-popping reports" from the Center's Shadow Government project. The Center's Shadow Government project investigated a few federal advisory committees, part of a vast maze of committees, tasked with influencing federal government agencies on a variety of safety and policy issues, often done under secretive conditions with little public accountability.
Douglas Feith, President Bush's undersecretary of defense for policy from July 2001 to August 2005, was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart May 12 and talked about the Iraq War. He said, "I think a lot of what the administration said was correct." The Center's Iraq War Card project, which documented 935 false statements made by Bush and six top administration officials in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, would prove otherwise.
Watch the world premier video of Harry Shearer's video "935 Lies." Shearer, best known for his work on The Simpsons, This is Spinal Tap, Le Show, Saturday Night Live, For Your Consideration and A Mighty Wind, unveiled a video satire based on the Center's Iraq War Card project, which documented the 935 false statements orchestrated by top Bush Administration officials in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune's Kirsten Mitchell reported that Sen. Pete Domenici and 16 other Republican senators, who support the easing of offshore drilling restrictions on the Outer Continental Shelf for oil and gas, have received more than $3 million in campaign contributions from individuals and PACS affiliated with the oil and gas industry since Jan. 1, 2007.
The Washington Post's Matthew Mosk reported that Steven A. Betts, a top presidential campaign fundraiser for Sen. John McCain, was one of several Arizona developers who benefited from McCain-engineered land swaps.
TheStreet.com's John Stout cited the Center's Buying of the President 2008 chapter on Stealth Campaigns in "How Much Does It Cost to Buy a Presidency?" Political non-profit groups, such as MoveOn.org and the American Leadership Project, "will probably play an important role in this presidential election," he said.
Video and Maps
 | WASHINGTON, March 7, 2007 — The Center's Bill Hogan talks money and campaigning on HDNet's Dan Rather Reports, "Race to the White House — Talking Politics at Princeton University," which aired on February 27. To purchase the entire program on DVD once it is available, visit the HDNet store. (Requires Windows Media Player.) |
 | WASHINGTON, June 5, 2006 — Over a 5½-year period ending in 2005, members of Congress and their aides took at least 23,000 trips — valued at almost $50 million — financed by private sponsors, many of them corporations, trade associations and nonprofit groups with business on Capitol Hill. (Requires Flash Player.) |
 | WASHINGTON, March 17, 2006 —
When Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, was elected House majority leader on Feb. 2, he presented himself as a new kind of leader — someone who would rise above doing business as usual, a departure from the aggressive tactics and ethical tight-rope walking of his predecessor, Tom DeLay. (Interactive Google Map) |
 | WASHINGTON, June 22, 2005 — At least 123 of Washington's top lobbyists occupy the same ethical gray area now threatening to bring down high-profile influence peddler Jack Abramoff, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity, American Public Media and Medill News Service. (Requires Flash Player.Map) |
 | WASHINGTON, April 8, 2005 — We are here today to announce the launching of LobbyWatch, our online lobby database. It's an important new tool that will forever open the shadowy underworld of the Washington lobbyist. (Requires Windows Media Player.) |
| March 3, 2005 — Rami Khouri, a veteran editor and reporter who currently serves as editor-at-large for the Lebanese English language newspaper, The Daily Star, spoke to the staff of the Center for Public Integrity on March 2, 2005. He discussed recent events in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East and their implications for American foreign policy. (Requires Windows Media Player.) |
 | WASHINGTON, February 24, 2005 — In 1982, the Federal Communications Commission created a new broadcast television service designed to provide local and niche programming to rural Americans and urbanites whose special-interest needs were not being met by existing broadcasters. (Requires Flash Player.Map) |
 | WASHINGTON, July 15, 2004 — U.S. oil and gas companies have at least 882 subsidiaries located in oil-free tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and even the tiny European principality of Liechtenstein, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found. Further, the investigation revealed that at least a half dozen U.S. oil and gas companies have actually re-incorporated in tax haven countries. (Requires Flash Player.Map) |
 | July 15, 2004 — Politics of Oil press conference (Requires Real Player.) |
| March 25, 2004 — Party Lines video clips (Requires Real Player.) |
| January 8, 2004 — The Buying of the President 2004 video webcast (Requires Real Player., Requires Windows Media Player.) |
| WASHINGTON, February 12, 2003 — Foreign private companies are gearing up to control a multibillion-dollar market to upgrade the nation's aging water system, after spending millions of dollars over the last six years to sway Congressional votes on privatization laws. Americans have the safest and cheapest public water systems in the world. But, as foreign companies flex their financial muscle, America's drinking water may not be so cheap or public for long. (Requires Real Player.) |
| JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, February 5, 2003 — The biggest problem in this country ravaged by AIDS, tuberculosis and malnourishment, is water. Few can afford it. But with World Bank blessing, the government is trying to end water subsidies, forcing millions of South Africans to seek their water from polluted rivers and lakes. The result: one of the largest outbreaks of cholera. (Requires Real Player.) |
| February 3, 2003 — The explosive growth of three private water utility companies in the last 10 years raises fears that mankind may be losing control of its most vital resource to a handful of monopolistic corporations. In Europe and North America, analysts predict that within the next 15 years these companies will control 65 percent to 75 percent of what are now public waterworks. The companies have worked closely with the World Bank and other international financial institutions to gain a foothold on every continent. They aggressively lobby for legislation and trade laws to force cities to privatize their water and set the agenda for debate on solutions to the world's increasing water scarcity. The companies argue they are more efficient and cheaper than public utilities. Critics say they are predatory capitalists that ultimately plan to control the world's water resources and drive up prices even as the gap between rich and poor widens. The fear is that accountability will vanish, and the world will lose control of its source of life. (Requires Real Player.) |
| WASHINGTON, October 28, 2002 — Sen. Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash last Friday that also claimed the lives of his wife, daughters, aides and the plane's pilots. The Center offers its deepest sympathies and condolences to the families of the victims. Wellstone shared his thoughts with Executive Director Charles Lewis on representative government and the influence of money on the political system for the Center's 1998 book, The Buying of the Congress. The text of the interview, and a RealPlayer version, is available on the Center's Internet site. (Requires Real Player.) |
| June 12, 2002 — The war on terrorism in Europe is being undermined by a military communications system that makes it easier for terrorists to tune in to live video of U.S. intelligence operations than to watch Disney cartoons or new-release movies. (Requires Windows Media Player.) |
 | WASHINGTON, April 15, 2002 — Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma approved of the sale, and the smuggling, to Iraq of a high-tech radar system capable of detecting aircraft — even those using stealth technology — and targeting them with anti-aircraft missiles. Kuchma's authorization of the sale, which violates U.N. sanctions, was recorded on tape. (Requires Real Audio Player.) |
| OTTAWA, February 2, 2002 — As the public keeps on hearing, science and medicine continue to advance to such a degree that in the coming years people will be able to make decisions regarding cloning and gene manipulation. The possibilities seem endless but so are the controversies and accompanying ethical questions. In a six-part radio series for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, ICIJ member Bob Carty examines the growing issues stemming from the advancement of medical technology.
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