The Sunlight Foundation's technology team is growing. Help us manage the Sunlight Labs community by becoming a developer here at Sunlight. Right now we're hiring for a few positions:
- A developer with strong data and analytics skills for our Data Commons team
- Two creative, well versed developers for our Tools and Engagement team
- One more developer for our SubsidyScope team
If you've been thinking about a career-change, or if you're interested in getting into the realm of using your skills to change government, working on our tech team is a great opportunity.
I lead our team. What I'm committed to is, and what I believe my full time job is, is creating a compelling, fun work environment that keeps our team members and community engaged. What we're trying to do on our team is three-fold:
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Build a community of volunteer sophisticated open source developers who want to change their government. We do this through things like our hackathons and our Apps for America contest.
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Build a tech team at the Sunlight Foundation that builds great tools for citizens and journalists to better see what their government is doing, who is influencing it, and how their money is being spent.
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Support the overall mission of the Sunlight Foundation
If you're a great developer who wants to start using their skills to make a real difference in America, this is an opportunity for you. Send in your resume and let's talk.
Continue readingLeader Boehner Directs Ranking Members to Use Web
Republican Leader Boehner has recently issued recommendations to the ranking members of House committees, suggesting standards for what should be... View Article
Continue readingTransparency Visualized
Our now London-residing designer, Kerry Mitchell, was playing around in the wee hours last night and came up with this... View Article
Continue readingHouse kills PMA probe
The House on Thursday night turned back another call to investigate the PMA Group, a once-powerful lobbying firm whose offices were recently raided by the FBI and which has close ties to Pennsylvania Rep. John P. Murtha (D).Twenty-one Democrats, including nine freshmen, voted to proceed with debate on the measure offered by Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake (R) calling for an investigation of the lobbying firm. Most of the Democrats represent fiscally conservative districts.
Republican Rep. Don Young of Alaska--the focus of an unrelated federal corruption probe--voted with the Democrats to table Flake's motion. He was joined by ...
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Dodd: Brother Geithner, can you spare a dime?
Last week Lisa Chiu, one of our colleagues at SubsidyScope.com, mentioned to us that the FDIC's deposit insurance fund had dwindled to a mere $19 billion at the end of 2009, down from about $56 billion the year before (see this table for all the numbers). She thought this was pretty significant. Always listen to Lisa: The Wall Street Journal reports that Sen. Chris Dodd has proposed a bill that would let FDIC borrow $500 billion from the Treasury Department.
Nice to know Treasury has the spare billions lying around. If the FDIC's insurance fund runs out ...
Continue readingVisclosky endorses some form of action on PMA Group
A friend passes on this story:
U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-1st, was expecting the House to take some sort of action later today with respect to an inquiry into The PMA Group, the Washington, D.C., lobbying firm reportedly under investigation by the FBI.PMA has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Visclosky's campaign committee, as have many of its clients, for some of whom Visclosky has secured millions of dollars in federal contracts.
I have been urging the House leadership to open an inquiry into PMA, Visclosky told the Chesterton Tribune today. I am encouraged that ...
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Credit in the Gilded Age
I've been reading The Gilded Age, by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. It's amazing how little the Washington they depict--the lobbyists, the appropriators, the schemes--has changed. This passage, however, put me in mind of our current credit and banking crisis:
Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished ...Continue reading
Making the bailout more transparent
It's old news -- several trillion dollars ago -- but back in 2008 the Federal Reserve, Treasury and the FDIC started working in tandem on a series of measures to stabilize the financial system. The Federal Reserve's aid is doled our or loaned out in secrecy, despite the dogged attempts of Bloomberg News to pry loose the data; the FDIC has released some, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by our colleagues at SubsidyScope.com.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480" caption="Banks participating in FDIC's Transaction Guarantee Account Option"]
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You can download data in ...
Continue readingThe Transparency Principle in Our Crisis World
As the bailouts mount serious questions remain about the future formation of the economy and the government. These questions revolve... View Article
Continue readingBulk Data From Congress?
Another of the Open House Project report recommendations is slowly becoming reality. The omnibus appropriations report (HR 1105) contains language... View Article
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