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Financial Meltdown: FBI on the case?
By Bill Allison Sep 24, 2008 2:11 p.m.Yes, according to this:
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A compendium of mortgage bank failures
By Bill Allison Sep 22, 2008 4:14 p.m.The Mortgage Lender Implode-o-Meter has a useful list of companies that have gone belly up in the subprime mortgage crisis that appears to be more the trigger than the overall cause of the current financial meltdown. I was looking at it Friday, browsing the stories, and some of it is pretty incredible (the list of 285 failures is pretty incredible). Reading about the first failure, Merit Financial, gives a flavor of just how freewheeling these firms could be:
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CRP tracks beneficiaries of belly-up banks
By Bill Allison Sep 15, 2008 2:41 p.m.Our friends at the Center for Responsive Politics have been doing yeoman's work compiling lists of the politicians who've received the most money over the years from political action committees and employees and their family members of the big financial colossi that are seeking (or having imposed on them) federal help to stave off collapse. Their Lehman Brothers list is here while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are ">here.
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Tracking earmarks from Obama and Biden
By Bill Allison Sep 13, 2008 1:29 p.m.Taxpayers for Commons Sense rolled out a pair of new databases on earmarks of presidential candidates, this time covering Sen. Barack Obama's requests from 2006 to 2008, and his funded earmarks for 2008. The databases are online here.
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TCS, Post examine Palin's pursuit of earmarks
By Bill Allison Sep 2, 2008 9:17 p.m.The most interesting story on Alaska Gov. and Republican nominee for Vice President Sarah Palin is the Washington Post's report that, as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin "employed a lobbying firm to secure almost $27 million in federal earmarks for a town of 6,700 residents." Our friends at Taxpayers for Common Sense provided the earmark analysis. Note who Palin hired:
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Due diligence in the Biden family lawsuit
By Bill Allison Sep 2, 2008 2:37 a.m.In a comment to this post pointing to some resources for getting acquainted with the Republican vice presidential pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, I noted this Washington Post story on a lawsuit involving Robert Hunter Biden, the son of the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, James Biden, the Senator's brother, and plaintiff Anthony Lotito, who is the former business partner of the two non-elected Bidens in a deal that didn't work out. Both sides charge one another with cheating; hence the lawsuit. It turns out the New York State Supreme Court (where the case is filed) puts most of its documents online (here's the home page for searching).
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Are the parties over?
By Bill Allison Sep 1, 2008 2:33 a.m.Republican presidential nominee John McCain has apparently cancelled all but the most essential official convention activities due Hurricane Gustav's menacing approach toward the Gulf Coast. That means Monday will have none of the normal convention hullabaloo -- the customary succession of speeches (President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had already cancelled their appearances) will be foregone.
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Tracking Gov. Palin
By Bill Allison Aug 30, 2008 3:07 p.m.Apparently, Republican presidential nominee John McCain has selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. For those looking for more information, her 2007 state personal financial disclosure form is online here (via the Center for Public Integrity). Via the excellent National Institute on Money in State Politics, here's campaign finance information from her unsuccessful 2002 race for Lieutenant Governor, her 2006 primary campaign for governor, and her 2006 general election campaign for governor. I'll update with more links as I come across them. I'm not going to dig into these myself today, but others should feel free to have at them.
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Washington Post: Biden's Son Lobbied Obama's Staff for Earmarks
By Bill Allison Aug 27, 2008 2:05 p.m.The Washington Post reports that Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for President, requested $3.4 million in congressional earmarks for clients of the lobbying firm that employs the son of running mate Joe Biden. Hunter Biden, who's a registered lobbyist (see here and here for his clients), apparently lobbied Obama's Senate office directly:
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TCS centralizes earmark data
By Bill Allison Aug 25, 2008 6:56 p.m.Our friends at Taxpayers for Common Sense have collected, in one handy spot, all of their Fiscal 2009 earmark data and trenchant analyses of same. So far, the Senate (which has much laxer earmark disclosure rules) has passed more bills than the House -- we saw the same pattern last year as well, though traditionally the House had run ahead of the Senate. All the files are available as downloadable spread sheets.
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Will Dodd and Conrad Attend Financial Literacy Brunch?
By Bill Allison Aug 7, 2008 6:21 p.m.Earlier today, we posted schedules for some 370 events at the Democratic and Republican nominating conventions, many of which are sponsored by private interests. The RNC list is here, the DNC list is here. On page 7 of the latter document, there's an event called the "FSR Financial Literacy Brunch," sponsored by 21 companies, including Bank of America, which authored much of the recent bank bailout bill, according to media reports. Bank of America also took over distressed subprime lender Countrywide Financial, which gave preferential mortgage deals to, among others, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.
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TCS releases Senate Transportaion & HUD earmark database
By Bill Allison Aug 6, 2008 8:08 p.m.Our friends at Taxpayers for Common Sense have analyzed, and compiled in a downloadable database available at the link, the earmarks from S. 3261, the Senate Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. They note,
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Saddle Road funding update
By Bill Allison Aug 5, 2008 5:54 p.m.In this post and this post, we looked at an earmark Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, secured for the Saddle Road project on Big Island. I sent a query along to Dave Gedeon, the project manager for the Central Federal Lands Highway Division of the Federal Highway Administration, asking how the project was funded--whether these were military, Dept. of Transportation, or state funds, and which agency was managing the project. He was kind enough to respond and clarify:
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A long winding partially underwater earmarked road?
By Bill Allison Aug 1, 2008 7:26 p.m.Commenter Archie Mead points out something I didn't know about the discrepancy between Rep. Neil Abercrombie's description of an earmark and the description of what I believe is the same earmark in the House Appropriations Committee report:
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