Corporate Integrity Project

NLPC seeks to promote integrity in corporate governance, including honesty and fair play in relationships with shareholders, employees, business partners and customers. In doing so, NLPC places special emphasis on:

* Asserting that the social responsibility of the corporation is to defend and advance the interests of the people who own the company, the shareholders. True responsibility is fidelity to one’s own mission, not someone else’s, or someone else’s political agenda.

* Exposing the seeking of influence on public officials by corporations, which is the inevitable result of high levels of government spending and intervention in the marketplace.

* Combating practices that undermine the free enterprise system, including philanthropic giving to groups hostile to a free economy.

Why Won’t Apple Give Up Password for Pensacola Navy Base Shooter?

Posted on by Paul Chesser
William Barr/IMAGE: YouTube

In announcing yesterday that Saudi shooter Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani – an aviation trainee who killed three U.S. service members and wounded eight at the Pensacola (Fla.) Naval Air Station in a mass shooting last month characterized as “jihad” – Attorney General William Barr said Apple Inc. has provided no “substantive” help in unlocking the late assailant’s two iPhones.

Apple disputes that claim.

The disagreement boils down to whether Apple is providing any useful information from Alshamrani’s data for the Justice Department investigation, or not.

“Within one day of the shooting, the FBI sought and received court authorization based on probable cause to search both phones in an effort to run down all leads and figure out with whom the shooter was communicating,” Barr explained, adding that the shooter damage both phones, one of them by shooting a round into it.

“Our experts at the FBI crime lab … Read More ➡

Is Facebook’s Zuckerberg a Free-Speech Convert or Just Staving Off Regulation?

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Mark Zuckerberg

So has Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg suddenly become a free speech devotee?

If you observe how the political Left is reacting and obsessing over his decision last month to not police political advertisements, you’d think he might have.

His announcement was juxtaposed against the polar opposite move of social media rival Twitter, and its CEO Jack Dorsey, who in early November said his platform would completely ban political ads. The contrast between the two near-simultaneous declarations likely heightened the blowback against Facebook.

The policy means that Facebook won’t subject political ads placed by candidates or advocacy groups to the site’s fact-checking review, as it does with news articles. Nor will ads accused of being false be removed.

Specifically, Zuckerberg said, “In a democracy, I don’t think it’s right for public companies to censor policies or the news.” He downplayed the speculation that he was allowing the ads … Read More ➡

American Corporations Push Paris Climate Accord as China Pushes Coal

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Apple CEO Tim Cook

As member nations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change take their 25thstab at an international agreement to limit so-called greenhouse gas emissions, some American corporations are trying to make up for the absence of the United States as part of the deal.

President Donald Trump famously announced in June 2017 the U.S. withdrawal from the nonbinding Paris Climate Agreement, which was previously negotiated in 2015 with the willful participation of then-President Barack Obama. Even though the U.S. Senate never ratified the treaty, as is required, the U.S. acted as though it was legal and pretended to adhere to the accord. But then last month Trump gave formal notification to the U.N. of America’s departure from the pact, effective the day after Election Day, in 2020.

There has been predictable outrage on the environmental left, from their allies in the media, … Read More ➡

Google Co-Founders Go Deeper in Hiding as 2020 Approaches

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Larry Page & Sergey Brin/IMAGE: YouTube

Expect nothing substantive to change at Google and parent company Alphabet, following Tuesday’s announced departures of co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin from their roles as CEO and president, respectively, of Alphabet.

The moves made big headlines, but the pair is mostly invisible anyway, leaving Google CEO Sundar Pichai – who will now hold that title for Alphabet also – to take the frequent slings and arrows that are now regularly thrown at the companies, as he mostly already has in recent years. But in reality Page and Brin will still call the shots, thanks to their ownership of special classes of “super-voting” stock that gives them majority control.

The announcement of their moves admitted as much.

“We are deeply committed to Google and Alphabet for the long term, and will remain actively involved as Board members, shareholders and co-founders,” Page and Brin wrote. … Read More ➡

Will Alphabet/Google Be Transparent in Its Sexual Harassment Investigation?

Posted on by Paul Chesser

Following the introduction and eventual rejection of a shareholder resolution sponsored by National Legal and Policy Center at the annual meeting of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, board members are now investigating sexual harassment claims against some of its executives.

The resolution, announced a year ago by NLPC president Peter Flaherty, followed the height of the #MeToo movement in which women who had been sexually harassed – or even assaulted – came forward to expose what happened to them in the workplace. The proposal sought accountability and transparency in how Alphabet/Google has handled various claims of such misconduct, and also called for more ideological balance on the heavily left-leaning board of directors. The annual meeting was held in June.

The current investigation by a select committee of Alphabet’s board, along with the hiring of a law firm to aid the probe, was revealed this month in a report… Read More ➡

ABC, CBS, NBC & CNN Have Corporate Parents; What Will They Do About Bias?

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Amy Robach/IMAGE: Project Veritas

The revelation by Project Veritas that ABC News killed a story three years ago by their reporter, Amy Robach, that would have exposed the sexually predatory conduct of late financier Jeffrey Epstein, raises the question: What is parent company Disney going to do about it?

And CBS Corporation – it’s obvious you fired the wrong person (Ashley Bianco) you had hired away from ABC, whom you believed leaked footage of Robach mourning the killing of her Epstein story, leaving the company vulnerable to a potential lawsuit for unfair termination. What is (pending) parent ViacomCBS going to do about it?

And with NBC News, which ran off investigative reporter Ronan Farrow, who was hot on the trail with plenty of evidence of sexual misconduct against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein: What are you going to do about it, parent corporation Comcast?

Then there’s CNN, which … Read More ➡

Facebook Embraces Free Speech for 2020, While Twitter Wants Censorship

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Mark Zuckerberg

Last week’s polar opposite decisions on the handling of political advertisements by Facebook and Twitter have predictably exposed the anti-free speech tendencies of the Left.

The former announced it would allow candidate and issue ads and exempt them from the platform’s fact-checking operation that it employs for news reports.

The latter said it would ban political advertisements altogether.

Advertisers crave access to Facebook’s users far more than Twitter’s, mostly because it is easy to specify target audiences (for example, those who “Like” Donald Trump). But both social media operations are desirable for politicians and activists to get their messages out, even for Republicans who complain about Facebook’s admitted anti-conservative bias, because they are an effective tool to reach desired voters.

The rationale given by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for his decision shows a mindset that helps explain why his business was not profitable until recently.

“We … Read More ➡

Google & YouTube Censor Tulsi Gabbard, Too

Posted on by Paul Chesser

It turns out that not just conservatives can expect censorship of their content and advertisements by dominant search and web advertisement service Google, and by the equally powerful video site it owns, YouTube.

It turns out also that if you are a Democrat who fails to fully adhere to the orthodox progressive agenda, then you too will find your Internet voice muted.

Such is the case with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who also is a 2020 presidential candidate.

The congresswoman from Hawaii, an Iraq War veteran who still serves as a Major in the Army National Guard, has sued Google for $50 million over the suspension of her campaign account during the first presidential debate, while she became a hot topic for Internet searches. That her account went missing is not disputed; however, Google claims it was not due to bias against Gabbard, but instead was caused by its … Read More ➡

Climate Action 100+: A Global Warming Activism Shakedown

Posted on by Carl Horowitz

What’s green, worth tens of trillions of dollars, and makes corporations an offer they can’t refuse? The answer: Climate Action 100+, an institutional investor-led initiative that in its brief existence has emerged as a force for radical social transformation. The group already has secured commitments from more than 160 corporations worldwide to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to target levels set by the Paris Climate Change Agreement of 2015, a pact from which President Trump announced withdrawal plans in June 2017. Suppose a company doesn’t want to commit. Well…that could create problems.

Like any scientific controversy, climate change invites skepticism. Human activity may be responsible for increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations which raise temperatures and threaten ecosystems. Yet there is compelling evidence that global warming is due to non-human factors and that it alternates with global cooling in a recurring cycle. The issue, in other words, is far from … Read More ➡

Apple CEO Tim Cook Caves to Communist China, Again

Posted on by Paul Chesser

Apple Inc. and CEO Tim Cook have gone big in efforts to capture consumers and profits in the People’s Republic of China, so the current outrage from the rest of the world over its obedience to the communist government – as it cracks down on dissent – appears to be a minor irritant not worth addressing.

Following the NBA’s cowardice last week – as the normally media-savvy league known for outspokenness against injustice by its executives, coaches and players suddenly turned mute after a pro-Hong Kong tweet outraged the ChiComs – Apple acceded to China’s censorship wishes as well.

This time Cook removed a crowd-sourcing app called HKmap.live from its App Store, following complaints by the government (through its state-run media) that Hong Kong protesters used it to target individual police officers for attacks.

“The app in question allowed for the crowdsourced reporting and mapping of police … Read More ➡