On Monday, Northrop Grumman Corporation announced that it would drop out of the competition with Boeing to build midair refueling tankers for the Air Force. Boeing had the original contract until NLPC exposed a scandal that sent two Boeing executives to prison.

The tankers are flying gas stations that refuel fighters and bombers on long-range missions. By exposing the scandal, NLPC saved taxpayers billions of dollars. The original plan was for the Air Force to lease, rather than buy, a hundred 767s to be used as tankers from Boeing. The new contract will be for the outright purchase of the planes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ruled that PepsiCo may not exclude a shareholder proposal filed by NLPC that asks the company for a report on its lobbying priorities. PepsiCo is a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of corporations and environmental groups that lobbies for the disastrous cap and trade legislation.

Our resolution will appear in PepsiCo’s proxy materials, and I will speak in its support at the company’s annual meeting this spring.

By trying to preclude a shareholder discussion of this and other issues, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi seems unwilling to publicly defend the company's controversial public policy positions, which is exactly the point of our resolution. Maybe the company should change its positions on cap and trade, and other issues where it sides with anti-business activists.

Blacks account for about 1.5 percent of all farm operators in this country - and apparently a lot higher share of the civil rights lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). On February 18, lawyers for the USDA and thousands of black farmers reached a $1.25 billion class-action agreement resolving, for now, claims that the department had engaged in willful racial discrimination in managing its loan and other aid programs.  Think you've seen this headline before? You have. Back in 1999, black farmers, armed with similar claims of racial bias, snagged a federal guarantee of $50,000 per plaintiff plus loan forgiveness and tax liability offsets.

CNN's Anderson Cooper looks at resignation of Rep. Chairman Charles Rangel as House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, with Joe Johns reporting. NLPC President Peter Flaherty calls Rangel's claim "implausible" that he did not know of corporate sponsorship of Caribbean junket. Click here to download a 2-page pdf transcript.

NLPC President Peter Flaherty and Democratic strategist Richard Socarides, along with CNBC hosts Larry Kudlow and Melissa Francis, debate Obama's "final push" on health care, including the use of reconciliation in the Senate. Click here to download 5-page pdf transcript.

The admonishment last week of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) was based in part on photos, audio recordings and other materials that I provided the Ethics Committee from the 2008 St. Maarten junket. Rangel still claims, however, that he did not know of the corporate involvement. I went back today and found this photo. I did not provide it to the Ethics Committee because I never imagined that Rangel would make such a claim. This photo is more proof that Rangel’s protestation of ignorance is simply not plausible.

Here’s another photo that shows the gentleman above in the blue jacket is Rangel. In both photos, to his right is former New York mayor David Dinkins. To his left is Carl McCall, the former Comptroller New York state.

Fox News Channel reports on the House Ethics Committee's admonition of Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel for accepting travel from Citigroup and other corporations. NLPC President Peter Flaherty, who exposed the violation, says Rangel had to be aware of corporate sponsorship. Click here to download one-page pdf transcript.

Just when you think that the House Ethics Committee might actually be doing its job in the form of the Rangel admonition, it reverts to form on the investigation of the now-defunct lobbying firm PMA that was headed by Paul Magliocchetti.

Indeed, PMA may be the biggest cover-up in the history of the Ethics Committee, which today issued a report clearing the late Rep. John Murtha and Reps. Jim Moran (D-VA), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Norm Dicks (D-WA) and Bill Young (R-FL).

This action was certainly calculated by Nancy Pelosi to protect the late Murtha. It is the strongest evidence to date that earmarking and corruption are still bipartisan enterprises. Republicans cannot attack Pelosi’s toleration of corruption as long as Republican members of the Ethics Committee sign off on a report like this. The Republican members of the Ethics Committee are:

The House Ethics Committee has ruled that Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel violated the House gift rule by accepting travel to events in the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008.

NLPC was the source of the information on which the Committee acted. I attended the 2008 event in St. Maarten where I took photographs and made audio recordings of the event, demonstrating that it was paid for by Citigroup and other large corporations. These items were provided to the Ethics Committee in May 2009. Click here to download a 4-page pdf of our Complaint.

The Committee characterized its action as a “public admonishment” of Rangel, and is requiring that Rangel repay the cost of the trips. Click here to download a 3-page pdf of the Committee’s statement dated tomorrow.

President Barack Obama is a man who remembers his allies, especially in preparation for a showdown. This Monday, three days before today's all-day televised bipartisan health care summit, the president unveiled his latest plan for a health care policy overhaul. The measure, 11 pages long, resembles the Senate bill passed on Christmas Eve by a 60-39 margin. Obama knows the prospects for passage are uphill. The plan is costly and its burden will fall on a great many Americans, not just "the rich." Among its more controversial features, the White House proposal retains, in scaled-down form, a key Senate provision: a 40 percent excise tax on high-cost ("Cadillac" or "gold-plated") health insurance plans originally scheduled to go into effect in 2013. This January, the White House and top labor officials negotiated a special five-year delay for enrollees in union-sponsored plans. Backroom deals on many other features can't be counted out this time either.