David Plouffe is coming to New York City tonight, first to hobnob with high rollers at the home of a major bundler, then to party with the under 40 set at a downtown Manhattan lounge. Plouffe has a $1,000-per-guest “reception and discussion” at the the Upper West Side home of Mark...
Real Time Investigations
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Plouffe in NYC with top bundlers, under 40 set By Keenan Steiner Jul 29, 2010 3:16 p.m.
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Ethics Committee posts Rangel documents as unsearchable PDFs (image files). Depressing.
bill_allison Jul 29, 2010 2:37 p.m. -
Statement of alleged violations in Rangel ethics investigation: http://bit.ly/b1MMR8
bill_allison Jul 29, 2010 2:30 p.m. -
Documents accompanying Rangel violations: http://bit.ly/9w5N4J
bill_allison Jul 29, 2010 2:29 p.m. -
Documents in Rangel matter will be available at ethics.house.gov ... the meeting has just adjourned.
bill_allison Jul 29, 2010 2:28 p.m. -
Charles Rangel’s Last Two Fundraisers By Keenan Steiner Jul 28, 2010 4:46 p.m.
His campaign might be tweeting about his upcoming 80th birthday bash and fundraiser, but the two most recent fundraisers held by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., were much less publicized affairs held at C2 Group, a well-connected D.C. firm that lobbies on tax issues and represents organizations like...
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McConnell hosts Rand Paul’s DC fundraiser tonight By Keenan Steiner Jul 27, 2010 5:45 p.m.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is hosting a fundraising reception and dinner tonight for GOP Senate candidate and tea party favorite Rand Paul, who is in a close race with Bluegrass State Attorney General Jack Conway. McConnell and Paul have had a prickly public relationship, with...
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LeMieux not running, but raising cash anyway By Nancy Watzman Jul 26, 2010 1:31 p.m.
Senator George LeMieux, R-Fla., will be fundraising for his leadership PAC, Protect America’s Future, on Tuesday at the “Sunset Festival” at FedEx’s Capitol Hill townhouse. LeMieux, who is not running in 2010, was appointed to the Senate by Gov. Charlie Crist, now an ...
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Strasburg, Hank Aaron, Big Draws at Nationals Park Fundraisers By Keenan Steiner Jul 23, 2010 12:01 p.m.
Taking advantage of last best chance to raise money off D.C. baseball before the August recess, at least five Congressmen have scheduled fundraisers at Nationals Park next week for the teams’ series against the Braves. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., though he planned the July 27 fundraiser...
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A paper inspired rant that the government could have prevented By Ryan Sibley Jul 23, 2010 10:54 a.m.
My desk is a cluttered mess. Not cluttered with the usual water glasses, mini hand sanitzer bottles and pain reliever galore. No. It's cluttered with thousands of almost entirely useless pieces of paper sent to me from the federal government.
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Tonight They’ll Be Lovers…Tomorrow, Say Goodbye By Keenan Steiner Jul 22, 2010 3:20 p.m.
Musician Dave Matthews, Obama supporter and environment activist, might find it odd if he knew that tomorrow’s D.C. concert is being used to raise money for Obama critic John Shimkus, R-Ill. Shimkus, who walked out early during President Obama’s joint address to Congress on healthcare...
Drug databases missing from data.gov
By Nancy Watzman Jul 28, 2010 12:34 p.m.The Food and Drug Administration maintains 11 crucial drug databases available to the public on the agency website. However, if you tried to look them up on Data.gov, the administration's flagship site for organizing government data, you wouldn't have any luck finding them.
The databases listed include this one, drugs@FDA, the go-to place to search for background information on prescription drugs approved for sale in this country. For newer drugs, it contains links to scientific documents used by the agency in determining whether the drug is safe and effective. (The database contains many gaps though, as we reported here; you won't find background information on nine of the 25 most prescribed drugs in the nation, most of them older drugs approved before 1998.)
There is also this database on "adverse events," which contains information reported voluntarily on deaths, injuries, or other problems with drugs and medical devices already on the market. There is this one, the "orange book," on generics that can be substituted for name brand drugs (the agency actually lists this particular database twice), and another giving information about inactive ingredients contained in drugs. Some of these databases are offered in downloadable formats, others exist solely as searches on the FDA website.
Read all about itCitizens United: Massachusetts' response
By Ryan Sibley Jul 26, 2010 4:52 p.m.The Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case has rendered 24 states' election laws unconstitutional. The 5-4 ruling in favor of Citizens United reversed a provision of the McCain-Feingold act that prohibited any electioneering communication—defined as advertising via broadcast, cable or satellite that is paid for by corporations or labor unions. Many states have acted fast to counter corporations’ ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections by passing laws that force disclosure of all independent expenditures in near real time. The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group has decided to report what each of these states is doing to respond to the highly-contested ruling. Today we're looking at Massachusetts:
State: Massachusetts
Legislation: 2011 Budget
Read all about itHouse to charge Charlie Rangel with ethics violations
By Bill Allison Jul 22, 2010 6:06 p.m.Despite his oft repeated assertions to the contrary, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., will be charged by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct for as yet unspecified violations of congressional ethics rules.
In 2009, Sunlight documented 28 instances in which Rangel omitted assets worth between $239,026 and $831,000 that were either purchased, sold, or held from his financial disclosures. He was also under fire for his actions as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee; this story in the New York Times explained how Rangel solicited contributions for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service from insurance giant A.I.G., which in turn asked for a favor of its own:
...in a letter dated May 13, Edward T. Cloonan, the highest-ranking A.I.G. official who attended the fund-raising meeting with Mr. Rangel, wrote to the congressman asking him to support the extension of a tax provision designed to help American-based multinational companies lower their obligation to the I.R.S., which was set to expire. Mr. Rangel, who had announced plans to add an array of “tax extenders” to an energy bill he was preparing to introduce that month, opposed extending the specific measure Mr. Cloonan and A.I.G. were lobbying for.Read all about it
Disappearmarks: Billions set aside for earmarks remain unspent
By Sarah Dorsey Jul 19, 2010 4:20 p.m.Last week Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Colo., introduced a bill that would redirect some $700 million in funds that have been languishing in Transportation Department accounts, designated to fund projects earmarked by members of Congress more than a decade ago and long since forgotten.
Sunlight's Reporting Group has been tracking these "disappearmarks"--projects requested by members of Congress that are never completed--or, at times, even begun. In some cases, that's due to changes in federal programs, in others, due to local opposition, to projects being ineligible for the earmarked funds, or because state and local authorities simply couldn't get the projects under way.
While Markey has taken aim at $700 million worth of old earmarks, the total number of disappearmarks could be far higher. Data the Reporting Group acquired from the Federal Highways Administration shows that there are $6.5 billion worth of unspent earmarks from the most recent transportation funding bill, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, or SAFETEA-LU, passed in 2005.
Read all about itDates we're watching
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Jul 30Lobbyist bundling quarterly and semi-annual report filed
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Aug 03Kansas, Michigan and Missouri primaries
