- Washington Examiner - Oink! Oink! Murtha’s porkfest
Rep. John Murtha is hosting a gala dinner tonight at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Pentagon City for defense industry lobbyists who have received and who hope to receive millions of tax dollars via earmarks sponsored by the Pennsylvania Democrat.
- Roll Call - Ortiz Bet on China Deal
Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-Texas) and his chief of staff each invested thousands of dollars in a Chinese telecommunications project in 2005 with a Texas businessman whose company paid nearly $20,000 to fly them to China the year before and later became a donor to Ortiz's campaigns.
- Roll Call - Staffer Financial Disclosures to Go Online
The Web site that puts the salaries of Congressional aides online is set to launch a feature today that exposes even more information about staffers' money matters: PDF downloads of their financial disclosure forms.
- Daily Herald - Hastert returns to his humble beginnings after historic career
There's a common theme running through his many political campaigns, tribute dinners, and even Dennis Hastert's own 2004 memoir: Common man, fed by homespun American values and a strong work ethic, makes it big but doesn't forget where he came from.
- Bill Moyers Journal - Mr. Heath Goes to Washington
BILL MOYERS: Welcome again and this time to our first collaboration with Exposé, the public television team that's gained national acclaim for bringing important investigative stories to television. Tonight our subject is the growing scandal surrounding earmarks. Once upon a time an earmark was just that -- a mark farmers made on the ears of livestock for identification. No longer. An earmark is how politicians fund their pet projects -- including some that reward their pet donors. In this year's spending bills alone Congress has inserted 12,881 earmarks worth over 18 billion dollars. That brought some tough talk from President Bush in his recent state of the union message
- New York Times - Keeping Tabs on the Superdelegates
The last time the superdelegates really mattered in a Democratic primary was in 1984. One of the big differences between then and now is the Internet. This has allowed the emergence of a whole new political force that did not exist two decades ago. And it means everyone can watch the political alliances shift and, in a sense, everyone can play.
- Wired - Crowdsourcing Puts Crucial Superdelegates Under a Microscope
In a tight race, the Democratic Party's pick for presidential candidate could be decided by superdelegates -- 795 party insiders who are free to vote for anybody they want at the party's national convention. Candidates lobby for those votes fiercely, in a process that's always unfolded behind the scenes.
- Marketplace - Earmark database is not digital
New rules allow citizens to track congressional spending easier with a database of this year's earmarks. But Nancy Marshall Genzer reports the data isn't easy to get to -- if you want it, you have to go directly to Capitol Hill.
- Newsday.com - The case of the earmark in Huntington
When President George Bush called for a future crack down on pork barrel practices of Congress last week, Erik H. Neil of the Heckscher Museum of Art had mixed feelings.
- Indianapolis Star - Swimming upstream in Congress
Indiana Congressman Mike Pence made national news last week when his name was floated as a suitable vice presidential running mate for Republican John McCain. One obvious credential is the lead role he's played in the attack on congressional earmarks.
- Roll Call - Former Sen. Nickles Deigns to Dine
The new ethics rules may have barred lawmakers turned lobbyists from the Senate floor, but as former Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) proved last week, they still enjoy bankable access to Republicans' backroom strategy sessions just steps from the chamber.