Money & Politics

Ethanol made from corn has been touted as the "green fuel" of the future. Archer Daniels Midland, the largest U.S. producer of ethanol, stands to make a fortune from environmentally conscious car drivers. But is ethanol really as environmentally clean as it is hyped to be? Listen to an interview with Sasha Lilley on CorpWatch Radio.  Read More

At the center of a federal inquiry into Representative Alan B. Mollohan, Democrat of West Virginia, is his real estate investment with a bankrupt distant cousin who touted his connections to one of Mr. Mollohan's nonprofit organizations to win work, including a federal contract in his district. Read More

More emails to and from former FEMA heavy Michael "Brownie" brown have emerged from the week of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, illustrating just how much non-Katrina business was going down as Brown fluffed his hair and the devil bore down on New Orleans. We checked out The Center for Public Integrity's analysis ... Among the missives was one -- hours after the hurricane made landfall -- from former Arkansas Senator Tim Hutchinson, brother of GOP Congressional power-broker Asa Hutchinson. It said: Read More

Entergy, one of the largest utilities in the U.S., has enjoyed healthy profits since Hurricane Katrina. Yet its New Orleans subsidiary has filed for bankruptcy, and frightened ratepayers with visions of bills bloated to 140% of their pre-storm size. Now the Fortune 500 company is threatening to pull the plug on New Orleans if it doesn't get a $700 million-plus federal bailout it doesn't actually need. Read More

I reported last Thursday that Shirlington Limousine and Transportation, Inc., a firm allegedly used by defense contractor Brent Wilkes to provide prostitutes to ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham, is headed by a man who has a long criminal rap sheet and is also a contractor for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It was Mitchell Wade, another defense contractor who has acknowledged bribing Cunningham, and who is cooperating with investigators, who reportedly told prosecutors about Shirlington's relationship with Wilkes and the latter's alleged pimping scheme. (Wilkes's attorney denies the charge.) Read More

How can you tell when corporations are running scared? When they wind up their coin-operated front men to unleash a tide of untruths upon the public. Read More

A prosecutor tried to poke holes in the testimony of Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former Enron chief executive, today by boring in on stock sales he made in the months after he left the company and before the energy company declared bankruptcy. Read More

In a Houston courtroom this week, former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling took the witness stand to plead his innocence, telling jurors that “My life is on the line.” Read More

Last December, Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., created its own grassroots group, Working Families for Wal-Mart. It hired Edelman, a global public relations firm, to organize the group out of its Washington office and launch a nationwide campaign. Read More

United Nations sanctions against Saddam Hussein may have failed to end his regime but they succeeded in enriching both the Iraqi dictator and corporations able to manipulate the scandal-ridden world body's Oil-for-Food program. Among the profiteers was the Australian Wheat Board, a former state-owned monopoly, which funneled over $200 million into Saddam's coffers even as the "Coalition of the Willing" was preparing for invasion. Read More