Transparency

Revealed: Meetings Blitz Between Big Ag And Anti-Green Lawmakers

October 5, 2023 Clare Carlile, DeSmog. Educate! Big Ag, Corporate lobbying, Europe, Food and Agriculture, Green Economy, Transparency

Agriculture lobby groups have been in constant contact with a small group of influential European politicians, holding an average of over two meetings a week while the bloc negotiated flagship reforms to protect nature and climate, DeSmog can reveal. Between January 2020 and July 2023, over 400 meetings took place between industry and key members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who have been at the forefront of efforts to stall reforms since the Farm to Fork strategy launched in 2020. DeSmog documented meetings held by six MEPs from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the largest group in parliament.

Police Seek A Radio Silence That Would Mute Critics In The Press

September 26, 2023 Ari Paul, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! Journalists, Media, Police, Police scanner, Transparency

As a freelance journalist many years ago, I was walking the streets of Brooklyn, looking for a juicy story, anything that I could get into print. I was coming up empty. So I did what anyone would do in that situation. I had lunch. Halfway through my Jamaican jerk chicken, I heard several gunshots, and in a flash, a man ran by the restaurant. I threw my money on the table and headed to the scene. When I got there a bystander pointed me toward the spent shells. I looked around and talked to witnesses. As one young man pontificated to me about poverty and unemployment leading to crime, I noticed that the cops weren’t there yet. But a photographer from the Daily News was.

No One Knows How Often Health Insurers Say No To Patients

July 4, 2023 Robin Fields, ProPublica. Educate! Denials, Health Care, Insurance Companies, Transparency

It’s one of the most crucial questions people have when deciding which health plan to choose: If my doctor orders a test or treatment, will my insurer refuse to pay for it? After all, an insurance company that routinely rejects recommended care could damage both your health and your finances. The question becomes ever more pressing as many working Americans see their premiums rise as their benefits shrink. Yet, how often insurance companies say no is a closely held secret. There’s nowhere that a consumer or an employer can go to look up all insurers’ denial rates — let alone whether a particular company is likely to decline to pay for procedures or drugs that its plans appear to cover.

Can You Tell If A ‘Bomb Train’ Is Coming To Your Town?

March 21, 2023 John McCracken, WhoWhatWhy. Educate! Ohio, pollution, Railroads, Transparency

In the wake of the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment, Governor Mike DeWine called on Congress to look into why the rural village didn’t know ahead of time they had volatile chemicals coming through town. “We should know when we have trains carrying hazardous materials through the state of Ohio,” DeWine said at a press conference. This information is out there, but it’s probably not what the governor had in mind. With the derailment of the Norfolk Southern train receiving international attention, more railroad communities are now asking what is traveling through their backyard.

Wall Street Readies An Avalanche Of Lies

November 18, 2022 Matthew Cunningham-Cook, The Lever. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Pensions, Transparency, Wall Street

Public pension funds benefiting nearly 26 million Americans have invested $1.3 trillion in high-risk, high-fee “alternative” investments like private equity, hedge funds, and private real estate that have been wracked with corruption scandals and financial misconduct. Those pension funds could soon face a reckoning, as the downturn in the stock market spreads to these alternative investments, resulting in costly reductions of their estimated value and in turn, increased contributions from state and local governments to meet those losses. But most public pension members and beneficiaries have no way of knowing the extent of distress facing their investments. That’s because public pension funds rely on valuations provided by the managers themselves.

100 Groups Call For Transparent Negotiations On Trade Deal

July 26, 2022 Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams. Resist! Biden administration, Indo-Pacific, TPP, Trade, Transparency

Ahead of next week's key meeting between the United States and 13 Asian and Australiasian nations, more than 100 civil society groups told the Biden administration on Friday that transparent negotiations and increased public input are necessary to prevent an embryonic trade deal from being perceived as the latest iteration of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. "We share your goal of creating a new model for U.S. trade policy that prioritizes the interests of working people, communities of color, the environment, consumers, and family farmers instead of just big corporations," the coalition wrote in a letter to President Joe Biden. "The launch of your administration's Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) may be a test case for what this model looks like and what it can achieve."

Challenging The AFL-CIO’s Labor Imperialism

July 11, 2022 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast AFL-CIO, National Endowment for Democracy, NED, Transparency, US Foreign Policy, US Imperialism, Worker Rights

A little known fact, even to those who work there, is that the AFL-CIO organizes in support of US imperialist policies that drive a global race to the bottom in wages and working conditions, negatively impacting US workers too. The AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center is one of the four core components of the National Endowment for Democracy. Clearing the FOG speaks with Kim Scipes, a co-founder of the new Labor Education Project on the AFL-CIO's International Operations (LEPAIO). Scipes describes the long history of labor imperialism and how unions are challenging it. Adrienne Pine provides a brief report on workers protesting the brutal labor practices of the State Department's main contractor, BL Harbert, building the US Embassy in Honduras.

General Dynamics Board Shuts Down Demand For Transparency

May 6, 2022 Shea Leibow, Popular Resistance. Resist! General Dynamics, Human Rights, Shareholder activism, Transparency

During this section there was a very notable proposal introduced by the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, NY requesting that the General Dynamics Board of Directors prepare a human rights report. The proposal points out that General Dynamics’ products and services are used by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, and U.S. government agencies at the U.S.-Mexico border. As General Dynamics’ weapons are used in war crimes and human rights violations against Yemenis, Palestinians, asylum-seekers and beyond, this proposal rightfully calls for General Dynamics to develop and provide transparency on their process to address and remedy the “actual and potential human rights impacts associated with high-risk products and services.”

So Much For Transparency: Navy Unwilling To Release Report On Red Hill

January 29, 2022 Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. Educate! Red Hill, Transparency, US military, Water Pollution

The slow roll has begun. With transparency thrown out the window, the Navy’s announced on January 26 that it would release only the summary of the report on how jet fuel got into the water supply. “When the review is complete, we expect the Navy to provide a summary of the conclusions in a public release,” the chief of information for the Navy declared. The Navy has released full reports of previous leaks from the Red Hill tanks. The full report was given to the Commander of the US Navy’s Pacific Command, 12 days ago on January 14 and the completed report was only acknowledged on January 24. The Sierra Club’s attorney David Kimo Frankel said, “The Navy continues to stonewall the public.”

New Federal Initiative To Investigate The Legacy Of Indian Boarding Schools

June 27, 2021 Last Real Indians. Create! Haaland, Interior Department, Residential Schools, Transparency

Washington — In remarks to the National Congress of American Indians 2021 Mid Year Conference today, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced a Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, a comprehensive review of the troubled legacy of federal boarding school policies. Today’s announcement is accompanied by a secreterial memo in which Secretary Haaland directs the Department to prepare a report detailing available historical records, with an emphasis on cemeteries or potential burial sites, relating to the federal boarding school program in preparation for a future site work. This work will occur under the supervision of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. “The Interior Department will address the inter-generational impact of Indian boarding schools to shed light on the unspoken traumas of the past, no matter how hard it will be,” said Secretary Haaland.

The Buried Documents That Linked The Infamous Cult To The CIA

June 25, 2021 Elizabeth Vos, Mintpress News. Educate! Agriculture, CIA, Florida, Transparency

Washington - Concerning the Finders cult — the elusive Washington, D.C.-based outfit whose antics and ties we began examining in Part 1 of this series — one set of documents in particular held the most explosive allegations made against the group and against the CIA for allegedly covering the story up. Despite their contents, almost no corporate press ever quoted from these documents or addressed the concerns they raise. This article will attempt to remedy that deficit of coverage by fully exploring what the documents have to say. I previously described the 1987 arrest of two well-dressed men in Tallahassee, Florida, on charges of child abuse relating to six children found neglected, dirty, and hungry in their care.

Unanswered Questions Fuel Protests Against Police In Minnesota

June 18, 2021 Sam Richards, Unicorn Riot. Resist! Minnesota, Police abuse, Surveillance, Transparency

Minneapolis, MN – Since Winston Smith was killed nearly two weeks ago in a secretive federal raid, no video evidence or any names of officers involved have been released. Minneapolis has seen another wave of protests not only because Smith was denied due process and executed while he sat in his car, but also due to the complete lack of accountability surrounding his death. Smith’s death, coupled with the murky narratives offered by authorities, has further eroded residents’ confidence in state and local police and their federal partners. This report covers new developments in Twin Cities surveillance, recent task forces like Operation Safety Net, FOIA stonewalling and the latest turns in law enforcement drone policy making.

Shareholders Push To End Secret Political Spending

May 12, 2021 Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria, Popular.info. Resist! Corporatism, Money in Politics, Shareholder activism, Transparency

Popular Information focuses a lot of attention on the activities of corporate PACs, even though the dollar figures involved are relatively small. Corporate PACs can contribute a maximum of $5,000 per election to a federal candidate. For a typical candidate that has a primary and general election, that's $10,000 per cycle. So why do we spend so much time tracking this spending? Because corporate PACs are one of the few aspects of corporate political spending that is fully transparent. All of the money donated by corporate PACs to federal candidates is reported to the FEC. Things are a bit more complex on the state level, but it's a similar dynamic. Most states also have fairly regular disclosure of corporate PAC donations. Some states allow corporations to donate directly to candidates but those donations still must be disclosed.

New Deal Electric Cooperatives Struggle To Democratize

March 2, 2021 James Bruggers, Inside Climate News. Create! Clean Energy, Cooperatives, Electricity, Transparency

What began three years ago as a campaign to stop the spraying of weedkiller under power lines near homes in the Appalachian mountains of northeast Tennessee, has become an example of a more democratic process at electric cooperatives across the country. Member-owners of the Powell Valley Rural Electric Cooperative earned the right to opt-out of spraying, and persuaded their co-op board to let them attend board meetings in ways that were previously prohibited. Some members of Powell Valley have also begun to ask for a program to help members finance energy efficiency measures to save money. These were small steps toward a more transparent and responsive electricity provider, but small steps can lead to bigger ones, said Bill Kornrich, a retired arts administrator who, with friends and neighbors, is part of Powell Valley Electric Co-op Member Voices, a group that’s been behind the reforms.

Government Secrecy Causes Conspiracy Theories

February 14, 2021 Caitlin Johnstone. Educate! CIA, Legal System, Syria, Transparency

The DC Circuit has ruled that the CIA is under no obligation to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests pertaining to its involvement with insurgent militias in Syria, overturning a lower court’s previous ruling in favor of a Buzzfeed News reporter seeking such documents. As Sputnik‘s Morgan Artyukhina clearly outlines, this ruling comes despite the fact that mainstream news outlets have been reporting on the Central Intelligence Agency’s activities in Syria for years, and despite a US president having openly tweeted about those activities. “In other words, the CIA will not be required to admit to actions it is widely reported as having done, much less divulge documents about them to the press for...

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