Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus is one of only five United States senators posting a daily schedule on their... View Article
Continue readingHealth Care Visitors Not Big Obama Donors
In case anyone was wondering, the health care lobbyists and executives listed as having visited the White House to discuss... View Article
Continue readingLess than three percent Palin’s itemized PAC contributions from Alaskans
Less than three percent of the itemized money raised by resigning Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's leadership PAC came from Alaskans, newly filed campaign finance reports show. SarahPAC reported raising more than $730,000 in the last six months--less than half of the $1.6 million raised by Mitt Romney's PAC.
Both names have been mentioned as potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates, and the non-campaign, federal-level political action committee accounts are sometimes used to lay the infrastructure for a later bid, financing travel and winning over fellow politicians with donations to their campaigns.
The reports do not provide information ...
Continue readingStimulus Funds Premium Pork?
I'm assuming that either there's an error somewhere, or this is really, really good ham. From Recovery.gov's new recipient data comes this contract, which if I'm reading it right, spends $1,191,200 for "2 POUND FROZEN HAM SLICED."
That seems like an awful lot for ham--even sliced ham. Just a hunch, but they're probably buying tens and tens of thousands of 2 pound frozen hams sliced, but of course that's not apparent from the linked entry.
I just got done writing up some cautionary tales about why one can never take federal ...
Continue readingCongressional Lawmakers “Invested” in Health Reform Debate
Yesterday afternoon, the Center for Responsive Politics came out with a report showing how many congressional lawmakers have invested hundreds... View Article
Continue readingSenate Finance Committee Health Care Influence Cluster: The Republicans
Over the past few weeks, our designer Kerry and I have visualized the health care lobbyist connections of Senate Finance... View Article
Continue readingWhat’s the Matter With New York?
Yesterday, two Democratic New York State Senators jumped ship to caucus with the Republicans, potentially shifting the majority from the... View Article
Continue readingVis-a-Visclosky: Or How I Learned to Take Campaign Contributions and Turn Them Into Earmarks
It comes as no surprise that Indiana Democrat Pete Visclosky’s favorite word to say in Congress is “Indiana.” While staying... View Article
Continue readingHouse Ethics Committee: Investigating PMA Group or not?
Tory Newmyer reports in Roll Call:
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) plans to offer as early as Wednesday afternoon a privileged resolution to force the ethics committee to disclose whether it is investigating senior Democratic appropriators' ties to the PMA Group, Democratic sources say.Hoyer's move follows eight attempts by Republican anti-earmark crusader Rep. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) to jump-start a probe and aims to pre-empt Flake's ninth stab at the issue, which was due for a vote on Thursday. It marks a sharp break from Democratic leaders' previous approach to the burgeoning controversy involving the now-defunct lobbying ...
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Murtha’s earmark recipients: How hands off (or on) is he?
Paul Singer reports in Roll Call on a tangled story that apparently involves the undisclosed hand of Rep. John Murtha but certainly involves his brother Kit (a retired lobbyist) and his former lobbying firm, five different companies doing business, directly or indirectly, with Defense (including one under federal indictment and one that allegedly wanted to outsource earmarked defense work to "China or someplace"), an earmark from the pre-disclosure era, some technical corrections added to the Tsunami relief bill that moved the funds for that earmark from one recipient to another (because the original recipient allegedly wanted to do the work ...
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