The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is making less information available to the public about how it is dealing with the rising number of bank failures in 2010. Over the last year, the agency has failed to post a complete list of bids on 41 percent of the deals it makes with other banks to take over failing institutions--and what information it does provide is more limited than before.
Before May 2009, the FDIC would provide, upon request, the names of all entities placing bids on failed banks and how much each of them bid for the bank in question ...
Continue readingKey GOP lawmaker wants to stop financial regulations
Reuters reports that Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, the incoming chairman of the Financial Services Oversight and Investigations subcommittee, wants to delay implementation of the new financial reform law for a year "so regulators have more time to understand the impact of rules they are writing."
What's missing from the story, however, is how much money Neugebauer has collected from the financial sector for his election campaigns--the very folks who might be interested in such a delay. In his most recent race he got more than $418,000, dwarfing contributions he received from other sectors, according to the Center for ...
Continue readingEthics Transparency: an Ongoing Challenge
While we wait for the new House Rules draft to be posted online, it’s a good time to reflect on... View Article
Continue readingOCE Renewed: Republican Leadership Adopts Ethics Watchdog
The Office of Congressional Ethics has a new lease on life now that the House Republican leadership has reportedly included... View Article
Continue readingHouse Rules Transparency Victory
While we’re still waiting to see the draft copy of the House Rules from the incoming majority today, we’re now... View Article
Continue readingOCE to Stay; Rules Draft Comes Tomorrow
Via Boehner’s twitter feed, it looks like OCE will survive the transition to the 112th Congress. Here’s the CNN story.... View Article
Continue readingKeeping Congress Competent: Staff Pay, Turnover, And What It Means for Democracy
Incoming Speaker Boehner recently vowed to tighten the House of Representative’s collective belt through a 5 percent budget reduction. Congressional... View Article
Continue readingLetter to Boehner: Expand Video Access
Inspired in part by a recent C-SPAN letter to incoming Speaker Boehner, Sunlight sent today the following letter to Leader... View Article
Continue readingThe Pentagon/North Pole Connection
There's recently been a lot of discussion about government secrecy: how much of it is desirable, and how and when that secrecy must be violated in service of the greater good. Unfortunately, we now found ourselves in the position of having to make such a disclosure.
Many of you may be familiar with NORAD's Santa Tracker. As the story goes, back in the late fifties a typo on an ad for a hotline to Santa misrouted calls to the predecessor of the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The colonel on duty instructed the men answering the phones to report Santa's position to the children who called, and a new tradition was born. It's grown from there: there's a Twitter feed, an iGoogle gadget, Google Earth functionality, a mobile site and even an SMS interface. It's all a charming way for a defense agency with a very serious mission to get in the holiday spirit. Or is it?
Continue readingParty Rules
It’s been widely reported that the House Republicans have recently posted their conference rules online for the first time. While... View Article
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