Tag: lobbyists

Queer Lobby Reports 65% Drop In Fortune 500s Celebrating Corporate DEI

The number of Fortune 500 companies willing to publicly disclose their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices has dropped 65 percent in the last year, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

The HRC, likely the most powerful gay and “transgender” lobby in the country, typically keeps track of which companies are doing its political bidding. According to a 2026 report, only 131 Fortune 500 companies in 2026 are participating in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index — the primary measure of corporate ideological compliance for HRC.

That is down from 377 Fortune 500 companies in 2025. Part of the decrease, HRC says, is so companies can maintain federal contracts as the Trump administration has cracked down on DEI and awarding taxpayer dollars to companies that advance the ideology.

The mere fact that these corporations drew back from their public display of DEI initiatives should not elicit conservatives’ praise. After all, the index is not measuring whether these companies are still participating in DEI, but rather whether they are willing to publicly brag about their efforts.

“Year‑over‑year analysis of 2025 and 2026 submissions show that implementation of policies and practices measured by the CEI was sustained or increased, with no declines across any criterion,” the report states. At best, the organizations that are no longer participating publicly are ones that blow with the political wind, and can be expected to return to their left-wing propagandizing the moment Democrats return to power.

This reality points to the potential reason for HRC choosing to publish this data. At first glance, it may seem that the radical gender ideology movement is losing steam, but in reality, HRC’s data is a shot across the bow reminding companies that their disloyalty will not be forgotten.

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Industry lobbies Congress to weaken protections against toxic chemicals

Months after a federal judge ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate fluoride over risks to children’s brains, industry-backed lawmakers are pushing legislation that would weaken the nation’s primary law governing toxic chemicals.

The proposed changes would overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a law first passed in 1976. Legal experts say the effort would block future citizen petitions, shield the EPA from court scrutiny, and dismantle the legal tools that made the fluoride case possible.

Citizen petitions allow the public to ask the EPA to regulate chemicals it has failed to address and to sue the agency if those petitions are denied. It was a citizen petition filed in 2016 that led to a landmark federal court ruling in September 2025, when a judge found that current levels of fluoride in drinking water pose an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health.

The judge ordered the EPA to take regulatory action. The agency is appealing the ruling.

Former EPA deputy administrator Robert Sussman said the proposed TSCA changes appear designed to prevent courts from intervening as they did in the fluoride case.

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Greenland mining firm hires Trump-tied lobbyists amid US invasion threats

The company suing Greenland for the right to mine rare earth minerals has hired a lobbying firm deeply connected to the Trump administration, increasing the threat of US action against the territory.

This article was originally published by ¡Do Not Panic!

Energy Transition Minerals announced yesterday that it hired Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm run by Brian Ballard, a major donor and fundraiser for Trump, to assert what it says are its claims on the territory. Attorney General Pam Bondi, along with Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, were both hired by Trump straight out of Ballard Partners.

The news comes as the White House steps up its rhetoric over Greenland, saying this week that it was exploring all options to take control of the territory, including a military invasion.

Energy Transition Minerals, an Australian mining company, was given a license nearly twenty years ago to explore the Kvanefjeld deposit, which contains over 11 million metric tons of rare earth minerals, including large quantities of uranium. The size of Kvanefjeld makes it the largest thorium deposit, the second-largest uranium deposit and overall the third-largest rare earths deposit in the world.

In a world hungry for new energy sources, Kvanefjeld’s significance can’t be overstated.

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Starmer national security adviser accused of blocking spy case is senior member of shadowy lobby club China ‘uses to groom UK elite’

The senior Government adviser at the heart of the Chinese spying row was a member of a secretive network used by Beijing to cultivate Britain’s elites.

Jonathan Powell, Keir Starmer’s national security adviser, was a fellow of the 48 Group, a lobby club founded by British communists which allegedly ‘grooms’ British politicians and business leaders to fall under the sway of China’s Communist Party.

Sources have pointed the finger at Mr Powell for the Government’s failure to state that China represented a threat to national security – an omission which the Director of Public Prosecutions has said led to last month’s collapse of the trial of Chris Cash and Christopher Berry on charges of passing secrets to China between 2021 and 2023. Both men were formally declared not guilty and deny any wrongdoing.

The Tories have accused ministers of causing the collapse of a major spying trial because they feared that calling China a national security threat might jeopardise trade relations. 

The Government has denied interfering with the case.

The 48 Group, which is one of the most prominent pro-China lobbying organisations in Britain, says its aim is to improve trade relations between the two nations – but has been accused of furthering the Beijing regime’s wider causes in Britain, as this newspaper first reported in 2020.

Its patrons have included Labour grandee Peter Mandelson, who was recently sacked as Britain’s Ambassador to the US over his links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

Both Tony Blair and former Tory Chancellor George Osborne have attended events hosted by the 48 Group in London.

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Reps. Bryan Steil, Jim Jordan, James Comer Issue Subpoenas to ActBlue Lawyers as Foreign Donation Probe Picks Up

Representatives  Bryan Steil, Jim Jordan, and James Comer have issued subpoenas to a current ActBlue attorney, as well as two former attorneys for the Democrat fundraising powerhouse, according to the New York Post.

Former ActBlue  general counsel Darrin Hurwitz, ex-director and associate general counsel Aaron Ting, and an unnamed counsel for ActBlue will be required to sit before House investigators for formal depositions.

According to the New York Post:

Records uncovered by the committees showed that Hurwitz, Ting and the unidentified counsel worked with the platform’s fraud prevention team as it implemented “more lenient” standards during the 2024 campaign.

ActBlue let debit or credit transactions occur without requiring a card verification value (CVV) until January 2024 — around halfway through the election cycle — and newer standards published last year still instructed employees to “look for reasons to accept contributions.”

In April 2024 and again in September of that year, ActBlue further relaxed guidelines, permitting between 14 and 28 more fraudulent contributions per month — meaning up to 6.4% of total donations that should have been rejected for fraud were accepted.

In June, the congressional trio issued subpoenas to former Vice President of  Customer Service Alyssa Twomey and a Senior WorkFlow Specialist “regarding allegations that online fundraising platforms, including ActBlue, have accepted fraudulent donations from domestic and foreign sources.”

Initially, the duo had agreed to give their depositions to Congress, however, President Trump’s executive order on straw donor donations targeting ActBlue led their counsel to withdraw their offers, forcing the congressmen to issue subpoenas.

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California Democrat Lobbyist Gets Six Months in Jail for Wire Fraud

The downfall of Melahat Rafiei, once an influential figure in Orange County Democrat politics, is now official. 

On Friday, a federal judge sentenced Rafiei to six months in prison for attempted wire fraud, closing a case that has lingered since her 2019 arrest. 

The ruling not only punished her crimes but also highlighted how deeply corruption has penetrated Democrat politics in California.

Rafiei, who previously led the Orange County Democrat Party and worked as a prominent lobbyist, admitted guilt in 2023 under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.

In addition to acknowledging the wire fraud charge, she admitted that she attempted to bribe two Irvine City Council members to secure favorable cannabis legislation. 

Although she was not charged with the bribery allegations, her plea agreement made it clear that she had actively used political influence for personal and financial gain.

The judge imposed a sentence of six months in federal custody, a $10,000 fine, and three years of supervised release. 

He also emphasized that Rafiei had been able to build her career because of democrat institutions and that she had abandoned those principles in pursuit of power and money. 

Rafiei has been ordered to surrender to authorities by late September.

In court, Rafiei offered little defense beyond expressing that she would accept whatever penalty the court determined. 

Her legal team argued that she had made a positive contribution to the community in the past and highlighted the number of friends and relatives who supported her at sentencing. 

They portrayed her as someone who had already lost her career and reputation, even before serving time in prison.

The case had been stalled for years, mainly because Rafiei agreed to cooperate with federal investigators after her arrest. 

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The USAID Of Broadcasting: PBS Parent Company Funnels Tax Dollars To Cushy Lobbying Firm

When DOGE dug into the financial tentacles of USAID, it found troubling examples of overspending and funding of unchecked, woke programs outside the agency’s mission. At the now defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) a similar Gordian knot of spending patterns has diverted millions of dollars from broadcasting content to the public, enriched elite nonprofit leaders, and wedged public television (PBS) and public radio (NPR) into producing left-leaning content.

With the passing of the Big Beautiful Bill, Congress gave CPB no funding at all — a shock for CPB, which was expecting $1.07 billion for 2026 and 2027.

As The Federalist previously reported, CPB is a nonprofit created by Congress in 1967 to administer funding for public radio and television stations. It has many highly paid employees in Washington, D.C., and an elderly CEO, Patricia Harrison, 86, who received $524,000 in compensation in 2022, according to the CPB’s most recently available 990 tax exempt form.

CPB announced on Aug. 1 that it will both “wind-down” operations and advocate for Congress to restore funding. The defunding will be felt by the many nonprofits that received money from CPB or that exist because of public broadcasting. One of them is the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS).

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MTG says AIPAC should register as a foreign lobbyist after pushback for Gaza genocide comments

Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) needs to register as a foreign lobbyist, after the group criticized her comments about there being a genocide in Gaza.

“The truth is AIPAC needs to register as a foreign lobbyist by U.S. law because they are representing the secular government of nuclear armed Israel 100%!!!” Greene wrote on the social media platform X Thursday evening. 

Greene said AIPAC started sending out fundraising attack emails about her after she said that the genocide, starvation and humanitarian crisis in Gaza was horrific, like the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the war between the sides.

“I’m one of the only members of Congress that doesn’t take money from AIPAC, who donates way more money to Republicans than Democrats,” her lengthy social media post continued. 

Greene has become critical of Israel in the past few weeks, saying that there were people starving in Gaza, where the war is being fought, despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims otherwise.

Last month, Greene introduced amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act to remove foreign aid to other countries, including $500 million to Israel. 

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AIPAC Attacks Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for Calling Israel’s Actions in Gaza Genocide

The pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC is attacking Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) after she became the first Republican member of Congress to label Israel’s actions against the Palestinians in Gaza a genocide.

According to Al Jazeera, in a fundraising email to supporters on Thursday, AIPAC called Greene’s remarks “disgusting” and accused her of betraying “American values” for calling Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza a genocide, which aligns Greene with many human rights organizations and genocide scholars, including Israeli ones.

“You expect anti-Israel smears from Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar,” AIPAC said in the email, referring to two House Democrats known for their critical view of Israel. “But now, Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined their ranks – spouting the same vile rhetoric and voting against the US-Israel alliance.”

AIPAC said Greene was now the “newest member of the anti-Israel Squad” and claimed her view was a “betrayal of American values and a dangerous distortion of the truth.”

Greene has referred to Israel’s actions as genocide at least twice in posts on X. In her first post, Greene said that it’s “the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza.”

In another post, the Georgia congresswoman said many Americans are “against radical Islamic terrorism, but we are also against genocide.” She has also repeatedly referred to Israel as “nuclear-armed Israel,” making her one of the first members of Congress to directly acknowledge Israel’s secret nuclear arsenal.

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The Fall Of The Israel Lobby—And Christian Zionism—Has Begun

My homily last Sunday was entitled The False Doctrine Of Christian Zionism Is Starting To Fall Apart.In this message, I said:

It is the Epstein case that is creating the cracks in the lie of Christian Zionism. Make no mistake about it: The Epstein pedophile network and the Israeli genocidal wars in the Middle East are indissolubly linked.

The reason the ruling class in Washington, D.C., and New York City are so determined to support Israel no matter how demonic its actions might be is directly due to Epstein’s (the Mossad’s) blackmail campaigns. And the members of Congress that are not blackmailed into submission by the Mossad are bribed into submission by AIPAC.

Americans put Trump in office because they saw the filth and corruption of Washington, and they thought Trump was truly different. Now, they are awakening to the truth that Trump has been neck-deep in Israel’s corrupting clutches all along. And they are also now seeing Israel for the vile, demonic state that it always has been.

The truth about Epstein, the truth about Israel, the truth about the Mossad, the truth about Netanyahu, the truth about Congress, the truth about Trump and the truth about Scofieldism-Dispensationalism is now beginning to shine through the cracks of Christian Zionism.

From Candace Owens to Clayton Morris to Tucker Carlson to Piers Morgan to Joe Rogan to Larry Johnson to Max Blumenthal to Phil Giraldi to Judge Andrew Napolitano to Pepe Escobar to Scott Ritter, and on and on, they are all courageously shining the light of truth on the deception of Christian Zionism.

Short videos from my podium at Liberty Fellowship are circulating

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