NEWS
By Andrew Zajac and Andrew Zajac,Tribune Washington Bureau | January 18, 2009
WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama says he does not want to use special-interest money to pay for inaugural events, but the lobbyists are coming anyway. The calendar is chock full of parties, receptions, brunches, breakfasts, lunches, dinners and prayer services, many and perhaps most designed to bring those who need influence into contact with those who wield it. A running and incomplete tally of official and unofficial inaugural events kept by a Washington lobbyist runs to 41 pages and at least 206 events crammed into the week that began Jan. 14. Obama's ban on money directly from lobbyists, corporations, political action committees and labor unions affects only official inaugural events overseen by the Presidential Inaugural Committee, a small subset of all the back-slapping and rug-cutting occurring in the capital.
BUSINESS
By DAN THANH DANG and DAN THANH DANG,dan.thanh.dang@baltsun.com | September 27, 2008
A decision this week in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice means that consumers will be able to find out whether an automobile they want to purchase has been stolen or rebuilt after a wreck. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled Monday in California that Justice has until Jan. 30 to make this information available to consumers in a national database. Congress passed a law in 1992 to create such a database. It took a lawsuit filed in February by Public Citizen, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety and Consumer Action to make it happen.
NEWS
May 8, 2006
If you mistakenly believe that the federal estate tax forces lots of families to sell off their farms and small businesses, you can pretty much thank 18 of America's wealthiest families for that common but false myth. We're talking about super-rich families whose wealth stems from not farms or small businesses but from having founded Wal-Mart, Campbell Soup, Cox newspapers, the Mars candy company, the Gallo winery and so on. Altogether, these families are worth an estimated $186 billion, according to a new report.
BUSINESS
By EILEEN AMBROSE and EILEEN AMBROSE,SUN REPORTER | May 3, 2006
For years, local prosecutors have been turning to private companies to help collect on bad checks. But now consumer advocates worry that these companies will be exempt from federal consumer protection laws if legislation is approved by Congress. Public Citizen and National Consumer Law Center warned at a news conference in Washington yesterday that consumers who accidentally bounce a check for even small amounts could be subject to excessive fees and deceptive practices from for-profit debt collectors.
NEWS
By LAURA SMITHERMAN and LAURA SMITHERMAN,SUN REPORTER | November 2, 2005
A Maryland appeals court will hear arguments today in a case that could help determine whether someone who makes an anonymous -- and disparaging -- Internet posting in chat rooms or on message boards could be unmasked. A decision could add to an emerging body of law shaping free-speech boundaries in the Internet age, when people using screen names as aliases regularly gripe online about politicians, employers and investments. The area is of great concern on Wall Street, where online postings have affected stock prices and tarnished corporate reputations.
TOPIC
By Stephen Kiehl and Stephen Kiehl,SUN STAFF | March 13, 2005
LARRY SASICH WANTS to know why the Food and Drug Administration rejected parecoxib, a pain medication proposed for use after surgery. David Arkush wants to know about automobile safety defects reported by carmakers to the federal government, so that he can make sure the government is properly monitoring the auto industry. Both work for Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer-advocacy organization in Washington, and neither is getting what he wants. More and more public records aren't so public anymore.