Week In Review: Sunlight Blogosphere (Week of Dec 12, 2008)
- The automotive bailout – or bridge loan – may have failed in Congress but that hasn’t stopped analysis of the bill’s supporters and opponents. Check out the analysis of foreign vs. domestic plants in some congressional districts and the money-votes comparison.
- Rod Blagojevich tried to sell an open Senate, and that’s not the worst of his alleged crimes. See our coverage (here, here, here, here, here, and here).
- Real Times Investigations launched a new database for tariff suspensions – kind of the unmentioned earmarks that lawmakers seek for specific interests. The full story is at the Real Times blog.
- Open Congress launched their new Digg-like feature Battle Royale. Check it out. (It’s nothing like the Japanese movie of the same name.)
- The EPA launched a mobile application.
- John Wonderlich has been paying close attention to the new transparency-related releases from the Obama-Biden transition web site Change.gov. In two posts he looks at “Your Seat at the Table” and “Open for Questions.”
- Greg Elin gets real about the various forms of hand wringing as they related to User Generated Content on government web sites.
- Texas and Pittsburgh are getting transparency makeovers.
- Bill Allison continues the Sunlight Policy Review effort by looking at proposals to require more transparency from contractors.
- The Center for Democracy and Technology and OMB Watch are calling on the Obama-Biden transition to reverse Bush Adminstration orders restricting FOIA releases.
- Financial companies helped bankroll the Republican and Democratic conventions and then turned around and asked for bailouts soon after.
- Apparently, Time Magazine only thinks an earmark is outrageous if it is silly. They couldn’t name a single Defense earmark in their top 10 outrageous earmarks list.
