Despite the fall-out from the Cornhusker Kickback in the health care reform debate, Sen. Ben Nelson is, at best, creating... View Article
Continue readingUS House Adds Live Web Video
In a big step forward for public access online, the US House launched live streaming video today, on the new... View Article
Continue readingNew Lobbyist Bundler Database Not Yet Searchable
When Democrats took over both chambers of Congress following the 2006 elections, one of their top priorities was a bill with tougher lobbying disclosure requirements. It was signed into law in September 2007 , but a provision requiring disclosure of money “bundling” by registered lobbyists took longer than expected to take effect. The Federal Election Commission (FEC), hobbled by the lack of a quorum for most of 2008, did not put the new disclosure rules into effect until February of 2009. The regulations created a system in which a political committee must identify and report bundlers of more than $16,000 ...
Continue readingMore Design for America Judges
I'm happy to announce three new judges for Design for America. Some great people have come out in support of the contest, and we're happy to have them join the program.
The first one is Kevin Hale From Wufoo. Wufoo is a great company that helps make it easy and cheap to build forms for the web. They are real pioneers in the space of form design, and we're really happy to have Kevin help judge the "Best Design of a Government Form" category.
One of our favorite tools for visualization is ManyEyes from IBM's Visual Communications Lab. Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg led this project at IBM and are now in the midst of starting their own firm: Flowing Media. We're happy to have them on board judging the visualization of House/Senate rule proceedings.
We still have many more judges to announce. Stay tuned!
Continue readingFedEx Express v. UPS Lobbying Battle
NPR has a good piece on the on-going lobbying battle between shipping rivals FedEx and UPS. Here’s the gist of... View Article
Continue readingWhy You Should Take PPIS With Prescription and Caution
The fact that about 15 million Americans take Nexium or similar medications is a big indication that the drug is... View Article
Continue readingLobbyists On Twitter
Saturday’s Washington Post features a story about lobbyists on twitter. The story points out the growth of telecom lobbyists on... View Article
Continue readingSEC and CFTC exclude derivatives from joint regulatory review
As part of the broader push to strengthen regulation of the financial industry, two agencies with sometimes conflicting responsibilities and rules joined forces to see how harmonizing their efforts might be effective in, among other things, protecting against fraud and forcing foreign trade organizations to register with them before doing business within the United States. However, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, released yesterday, highlights that the two agencies, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), did not assess how they could cover gaps in the agencies’ authorities to oversee derivatives—a central part ...
Continue readingLobbying Black Ops: Op-Ed Edition
There is an op-ed in The Hill today by lobbyist Thomas Spulak arguing that the interests that hire lobbyists are... View Article
Continue readingOGD: A state-by-state look at Medicare payments
Over the last few years, hospitals in a few states have consistently received more money than others from Medicare in so-called "outlier payments" for inpatient services. These additional payments are handed out when a hospital takes on an unusually expensive case.
This takeaway comes from a quick review of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)' "Dashboard," a new online repository of spending data.
While the Dashboard is still in its beta version, and currently only has inpatient data (no home health or nursing home information, for example), a few points ... Continue reading
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