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Hedge fund players pump millions into party committees
By Bill Allison May 24, 2010 1:52 p.m.In the 2010 election cycle so far, Hedge Fund executives, managers and investors contributed more than $12.8 million to national and state party committees--the Democratic National Committee, the Republican National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and so on--in chunks ranging from $10,000 to $30,400, a search of TransparencyData.com reveals.
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Senate approves financial reform in a late night vote
By Ryan Sibley May 21, 2010 1:10 p.m.The Senate passed sweeping financial reform legislation last night, aimed at keeping the financial sector from collapsing as it did in 2008. The final vote was 59-39, with four Republicans joining the majority party to get the bill through. Two Democrats remained opposed to the bill, saying the Senate measure didn't include tough enough regulations.
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Financial reform moves to Senate vote
By Ryan Sibley May 20, 2010 4:49 p.m.After a second procedural vote this afternoon, the Senate was able to shut down debate on S. 3217, Restoring American Financial Stability. Exactly three-fifths of the senate, including 3 Republicans, voted in favor of the motion, which passed 60-40. Two Democrats voted no.
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Data on assaults on federal officers, found in the National Data Catalog
By Bill Allison May 20, 2010 1:51 p.m.The Drug Enforcement Agency, which has an international network of agents that's been involved in high profile arrests of arms smugglers and domestically carries out a number of drug raids, including shutting down meth houses, had just one officer assaulted or killed in the line of duty in all of 2006 and 2007, according to statistics maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and accessed through Sunlight's new National Data Catalog.
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"Heart of the Matter" wins honorable mention
By Nancy Watzman May 20, 2010 10:51 a.m.We are honored to announce that our investigation, "Heart of the Matter: How Congress and Special Interests Kept Crucial Clinical Trial Data Secret," has won an honorable mention in the sixteenth annual health care journalism awards sponsored by the National Institute for Health Care Management (NICHM) Foundation.
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Financial reform regulation held up by its own creators
By Ryan Sibley May 20, 2010 10:42 a.m.Last night’s vote by the Senate to end the debate on S. 3217, Restoring American Financial Stability, failed 57-42 with two majority party senators voting no; we'll be following the proceedings as events warrant on Sunlight Live.
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Medicare data reveals nursing home abuse and neglect
By Sarah Dorsey May 18, 2010 10:04 a.m.Resident #208 was found by inspectors at Capital Healthcare Center in Tallahassee, Fla., in a pool of urine. On July 16, 2009, inspectors found that the the resident -- who was incontinent -- hadn't been changed for five hours.
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Most Drug Trial Results Analyzed by FDA Hidden From View
By Naseem Miller May 17, 2010 9:52 a.m.Before a new drug finds its place on pharmacy shelves or a new device lands in the hands of a surgeon, it goes through a long and complex approval process by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
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Senate expenditures go online at OpenSecrets.org
By Anupama Narayanswamy May 14, 2010 3:42 p.m.The Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets site just added expenditures by Senate campaigns to their site. The data was released by the Federal Election Commission for the first time last week. CRP has a detailed listing of all the expenses incurred by the committees, the recipients and the dates of the expenditures. For instance, we know that in the 2010 cycle Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., spent more than $31,000 for catering at the Charlie Palmer Steakhouse.
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The Fed's growing again, overseas
By Ryan Sibley May 14, 2010 12:51 p.m.Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve reopened one of the special lending windows it created in January 2009 to ease the failing global economy. The move comes amid a weakening euro and after Greece, Spain and Portugal have all created austerity packages to help fix their struggling economies.
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Lobbying data is public but not reliably searchable
By Josh Israel May 14, 2010 11:45 a.m.The 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act, requires all lobbyists to file reports with the Clerk of the House of Representatives and Secretary of the Senate and that those two offices “maximize public access” to the documents through “computerized systems.” But the searchable database of every filing by registered federal lobbyists, made available through the Senate’s Office of Public Records, has a major problem: its search engine doesn’t work correctly.
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Moran requests funds for alternative medicine center
By Ryan Sibley May 13, 2010 10 a.m.Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., a member of the House Appropriations Committee, has requested a $1.5 million earmark to fund an alternative medicine center in Washington D.C. run by a doctor with an alternative past. The request is for the FY 2011 Department of Defense budget and will go to the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, run by Dr. James Gordon.
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Financial reform fundraising: Are lobbyists for Wall St. firms hosting hundreds of events for lawmakers?
By Anupama Narayanswamy May 11, 2010 1:31 p.m.Sam Geduldig, a lobbyist for high profile financial firms, banks and credit card companies who has the ability to "kill legislative threats to his clients," is listed as a host on 18 invitations to fundraisers for Republican members of Congress and their leadership committees, a Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group review of Party Time data from January 2009 to the present has found.
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Earmark Transparency Act will finally bring transparency to earmarks
By Bill Allison May 11, 2010 9:14 a.m.The Earmark Transparency Act of 2010, a bipartisan bill introduced today by Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., John McCain, R-Ariz., Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., vastly improves the way in which information about earmarks is disclosed. The bill requires a centralized, detailed, downloadable database that would track every earmark requested.
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