public citizen

October 9, 2013 - Under fire for using his personal fortune to buy elections, North Carolina's leading conservative financier denies giving money to super PACs -- but campaign finance watchdogs say his denial amounts to playing word games while he's building a "government of the obscenely rich, by the obscenely rich, and for the obscenely rich."

July 1, 2013 - A Florida-based nonprofit called A Better America Now spent money on mailers linking a Texas congressional candidate to "left-wing extremists" and a controversy involving an endangered spider.

March 25, 2013 - MIT physicist Ernest Moniz is an academic who has also served on boards or advisory councils of large energy companies, including BP.

November 16, 2012 - The oil giant has agreed to pay the largest criminal fine in U.S. history, and three of its managers were indicted on charges including felony manslaughter. But the company says it plans to "vigorously defend" itself against pending civil claims, even while its spilled oil still washes ashore and people and sea life continue to suffer.

February 10, 2012 - House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) would not allow his colleagues to vote on a stronger version of a law banning insider trading by members of Congress, instead offering a substitute that stripped out disclosure provisions objectionable to some of his biggest campaign donors.