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Sunlight Live Team Prepares for Oct 11 Debate
By Katy Schultz Oct 7, 2011 midnightTuesday, Oct. 11, will mark the 9th Republican presidential debate, two weeks after a string of debates in Florida, California and South Carolina. Sponsored by Bloomberg News and the Washington Post, this next matchup of Republican rivals will take place at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire. The Sunlight Live team will once again provide a live video feed, as well as real-time analysis, fact checking and context to help keep viewers informed.
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Big PACs contribute $83,000 to super committee members
By Bill Allison Oct 6, 2011 9:30 a.m.The political action committees of Lockheed Martin, the National Association of Realtors, Pfizer and Chevron all reported making contributions to members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction--better known as the super committee--in the roughly 20 days of August after House and Senate leadership appointed them to the panel.
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Solyndra investor had three White House meetings on energy policy
By Bill Allison Oct 3, 2011 noonGeorge B. Kaiser, the Obama campaign bundler and Tulsa oilman whose foundation's investment in Solyndra has raised questions of whether political influence played a role in the now-bankrupt solar panel company's winning $535 million in federal loans, had three White House meetings to discuss energy policy from Dec. 2009 to April 2011.
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Bank fees are up, but disclosure is sorely lacking
By Nancy Watzman Sep 28, 2011 9:29 a.m.As banks continue to raise their fees for consumer accounts, and free checking appears to be going the way of the dodo, banks have a decidedly spotty record on clearly disclosing these fees to their customers--even though they are required to do so by law.
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Israel, Palestine spend millions on lobbying, PR campaigns
By Lindsay Young Sep 22, 2011 3:28 p.m.As the United Nations considers the Palestinian referendum for statehood, possibly as early as Friday, both parties are vying for an approval from the UN Security Council and for a U.S. vote. Both Israel and Palestine have a long history of lobbying the U.S. and in the past year alone, the Palestinian Liberation Organization spent over one million on public relations. During the same time, Israel spent over $13 million on lobbying, public relations and related costs. Both interests contacted important policy makers and set up a vast PR campaign.
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Googling the audience
By Joshua Hatch Sep 22, 2011 3:17 p.m.Yesterday, senators quizzed Google's former CEO and current board of directors president Eric Schmidt about the company's size, practices, and potential for anti-competitive behavior. Concerned that the government might try to flex its muscle against the search and mobile giant, Schmidt assured the senators that Google was no Microsoft, and that 2011 was no 1995.
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Law professors push for corporations to disclose political spending
By Nancy Watzman Sep 21, 2011 1:54 p.m.With corporate political spending--some of it secret--expected to explode in the 2012 election cycle, a group of law professors is petitioning the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to make a formal policy requiring corporations to disclose such expenditures to shareholders and the public.
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Fourth "Supercommittee" Meeting to Review Tax Code
By Katy Schultz Sep 21, 2011 10:48 a.m.Thursday morning the Super Committee will convene for the fourth time since its creation in response to the debt crisis over the summer. The committee, officially named the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, conducted a breakfast meeting behind closed doors Sept. 15, despite the insistence of transparency by government watchdog groups and fellow legislators. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., released a statement expressing his disappointment regarding the private breakfast.
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Consumer groups protest disappearance of doctor discipline data
By Sarah Dorsey Sep 20, 2011 10:09 a.m.Robert Tenny, a doctor identified by the Kansas City star who was sued multiple times for malpractice.
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Sunlight Live to cover antitrust panel probe into Google
By Tessa Muggeridge Sep 19, 2011 10:38 a.m.A Senate subcommittee on Wednesday will become the latest group to question search engine powerhouse Google amidst rising concerns that the company is putting its own profits ahead of the best search results, and Sunlight Live will be there to follow the action starting 2 p.m E.T.
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Super Committee, Boehner speech protests linked to major labor group
By Chris Zubak-Skees Sep 16, 2011 12:03 p.m.Our DC, a SEIU-linked protest group that stopped the first Super Committee meeting, has been regularly delivering a pro-jobs message to congressional Republicans: with some 100 protesters outside House Speaker John Boehner's speech at the Economic Club of Washington yesterday, according to organizers, who said the protest was in support of the American Jobs Act.
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How do lobbyists snag front-row seats at hearings?
By Tessa Muggeridge Sep 15, 2011 10:39 a.m.As the 12 members of the “super committee” scour the nation’s budget searching for at least $1.2 trillion in federal cuts, Washington lobbyists are watching their every move, hoping to protect the interests of their clients.
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Who's watching the Super Committee?
By Tessa Muggeridge Sep 14, 2011 5:08 p.m.A big audience turned out yesterday for the second meeting of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, or the "super committee," as its 12 members asked questions of the first witness, CBO director Doug Elmendorf. The meeting was open to the public and there was live video on the committee's new website.
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Comments on Dodd-Frank's position limits rule came from petroleum marketing, airline industries
By Stevie Mathieu Sep 14, 2011 10:40 a.m.A handful of groups--including some backed by petroleum marketing firms, airlines and unions--were responsible for the great majority of some 13,000 comment letters sent to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission about a single proposed regulation mandated by Dodd-Frank, according to an analysis by the Sunlight Foundation.
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