Tom Korologos, a Republican so admired by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle that he's been called "the 101st senator," is going to lobby for Al Jazeera.
Continue readingCould sequester hit Israel?
When John Kerry takes the stage at the University of Virginia today to deliver his first major address as secretary of state, he'll be making a plea for one of the spending areas likely to draw the least amount of sympathy when the sequester axe hits. In a letter to the Senate, Kerry warned that foreign aid may have to absorb a $2.6 billion hit if a deal to avert the automatic budget cuts isn't reached.
While money U.S. taxpayers sent overseas might be considered a rare appealing target for the budget axe since there is ...
Continue readingSupreme Court to review limits on campaign contributions
A case that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear next fall challenges campaign spending limits that have been in place since the Watergate scandal that toppled President Richard Nixon.
Continue readingGun debate boomerang: Focus on video games targets Democratic givers
News that the alleged perpetrator of December's schoolhouse massacre in Connecticut may have been recreating a horrific virtual fantasy could put Democratic politicians in an awkward position with some of their political allies — the video game lobby.
Continue readingAmazon, AT&T donated services to Obama’s inaugural
While some information on the staggering sums given by the more than 20 corporations and unions that contributed to President Barack Obama's inauguration has been reported, like AT&T's staggeringly large $3 million donation, less attention has been paid to the goods and services that companies provided to the 57th inaugural.
Continue readingAs sequester nears, Northrop Grumman looks and lobbies for new markets
Image released by the United States Air Force
The looming sequester--across-board-cuts in defense and domestic discretionary spending that Congress and President Barack Obama agreed to in 2011--was the subject in opening remarks at an unusual press briefing offered by officals of Northrop Grumman, a major defense contractor that could see its business shrink along with the Pentagon budget.
In 2012, Northrop Grumman ranked tenth among U.S. contractors with $4.2 billion in awards mostly from the Pentagon, data in USASpending.gov shows. And according to the Center for Responsive Politics, Northrop Grumman ranked as the tenth largest spender on ...
Continue readingMerger of American Airlines, US Airways creates lobbying titan
American Airlines, which announced today that it has finalized terms of a merger with US Airways, was already the biggest spender on influence among air carriers. Adding US Airways will likely extend its reach.
While the two carriers' agreement to create the world's largest airline must win approval of federal regulators, they will have plenty of chits to draw on and an amazing array of former insiders to make to their case to Congress and the Obama administration of the wisdom of their plan.
American, which declared bankruptcy in Nov. 2011 and announced thousands of layoffs three months later ...
Continue readingAbout last night: State of the Union includes nods to special interests
Yesterday, we posted an item asking if influence data--campaign contributions and lobbying reports--could offer a useful prediction to the content of President Barack Obama's fourth State of the Union address. Did Obama include items on their lobbying agendas? How well did we do?
Reasonably well, we think. Of the ten areas we made predictions, we were right or partially right on eight of them. And in our two misses, we knew we were pretty far out on a limb when we suggested that Obama would suggest bolstering the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to tweak Sheldon Adelson, who along with ...
Continue readingKey players in immigration debate have support of special interests
President Obama’s State of the Union speech last night set the stage for today’s Senate hearing, where the Judiciary Committee is poised to take on comprehensive immigration reform, in an attempt to balance a path for legalization for the 11 million undocumented people presently in the country with the need to secure the U.S. border.
The post election number crunching made it imperative for Democrats and Republicans alike to work together bringing the immigration discussion back into the daylight after it’s been on the back burner since the last failed push in 2007. Late in January ...
Continue reading2014 attack ads start already
It's never too early for an attack ad, apparently. The 113th Congress is barely a month old and the National Republican Congressional Committee already is beginning to lay the groundwork for Election 2014, pouncing on a recent report that newly-elected Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., failed to pay nearly $11,000 in property taxes.
The ad, so far airing just on the Internet, is not the NRCC's only hit against a Democrat likely facing tough competition two years from now. Less than two weeks ago, the GOP campaign committee also pumped out an ad against freshman Rep. Patrick ...
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