The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c Supreme Corp www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political... View Article
Continue readingReal Time Disclosure, Technically Speaking
Last week's Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision was a game-changer in terms of corporate money in politics. In short, corporations will be allowed to freely spend unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose a candidate, just as long as there is no direct coordination with that candidate's campaign. Unprecedented amounts of corporate money will now flow into our political process. But here at Sunlight, we're focusing on the disclosure aspects of the decision. The majority opinion stated:
With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters.
While the decision doesn't mandate "prompt disclosure", it does strongly recommend it. So what does disclosure at Internet speed look like?
Continue readingAM Links
1) The Justice Department dropped their four year investigation into Rep. Alan Mollohan. Little details were offered. 2) The first... View Article
Continue readingSurveying the first fruits of the open government directive
We're still surveying those high value data sets released as part of the open government directive--there are hundreds of files to sift through, which is obviously a good thing. But while we don't have a final analysis done, a few trends are becoming apparent.
The high value data sets consist, overwhelmingly, of information that's already been released elsewhere. In many cases, at least in the raw data catalog, the information is provided as, well, raw data. For example, the Dept. of Transportation released its Uniform Tire Quality Grading System, which provides various ratings on the durability ...
A Little Fun With Capitol Words: “Who Dat?”
Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints??? With the New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl I was curoius... View Article
Continue readingRuling may free corporate influencers from contortions
The Supreme Court's Citizens United vs. FEC ruling undoes years of restrictions on the ability of corporations and labor unions to use their treasuries to attempt to sway elections.
But a more accurate interpretation might be that it allows them to be more up-front about it.
From the first days after President George W. Bush signed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as McCain-Feingold, huge sums of unregulated money have flowed from multi-billion dollar businesses, powerful labor unions and wealthy individuals with the intent of advancing their agendas and swaying political opinion, often in hidden or ...
President Obama on Influence Peddling
President Obama’s weekly address explained on his administration’s efforts to combat influence peddling, and the steps it is considering taking... View Article
Continue readingBringing Local Government Into the 21st Century
These people looking at cities at CityCamp are the ones making transparency, participation, and collaboration something that you can experience in your town and not just read in a memo from the White Ho
Continue readingMaking Friends With a Senator
Senators are now allowed to have official Facebook pages, Roll Call ($) reported. I don’t yet have a copy of... View Article
Continue readingOpen Gov’t Directive: large data set release today
This evening, the White House issued a press release (included below) touting the release of nearly 300 data sets from... View Article
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