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Bonner earmark #9
By Bill Allison Feb 26, 2008 5:39 a.m.In the Transportation and Housing & Urban Development appropriations bill, Rep. Jo Bonner joined Sen. Jeff Sessions in securing a $735,000 earmark for the Mobile Downtown Airport for ramp rehabilitation and drain repair.
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Bonner earmark #8
By Bill Allison Feb 26, 2008 4:45 a.m.Rep. Jo Bonner joined Sen. Richard Shelby in securing $470,000 in the Commerce, Justice & Science appropriations bill for the Mobile County Commission to acquire interoperable communications systems.
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Bonner Earmark #7
By Bill Allison Feb 25, 2008 11:18 p.m.In the Labor, Department of Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill, Rep. Jo Bonner secured a $199,000 earmark for the Fairhope Center for the Arts in Bay Minette, Ala., for arts education programs, including purchase of equipment. The Fairhope Center for the Arts doesn't seem to have hired a federal lobbyist. The organization forms 990 aren't available on Guidestar.org, so I wasn't able to double check the numbers.
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Bonner Earmark #6
By Bill Allison Feb 25, 2008 2:57 a.m.Rep. Jo Bonner attached his name to an earmark originally requested by Sen. Richard Shelby for $1,372,000 for the City of Mobile's Transit System, known as the Wave Transit System.
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Bonner Earmark #5
By Bill Allison Feb 25, 2008 2:36 a.m.Rep. Jo Bonner earmarked $245,000 in the Transportation, Housing & Urban Development appropriations bill to the "City of Jackson for construction of a building in conjunction with a 240-acre industrial development park."
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Bonner earmark #4
By Bill Allison Feb 24, 2008 2:17 p.m.Rep. Jo Bonner earmarked $245,000 for the Bay Area Food Bank for construction of a commercial-size kitchen. Bay Area Food Bank, which distributes food donated by grocery stores, restaurants and the like to soup kitchens and homeless shelters, doesn't have a federal lobbyist, according to the Senate Office of Public Records. To double check, I looked the organization up in Guidestar, a great resource for finding out about nonprofits--their forms 990 show no payments for lobbying. I also ran the names of the organization's executives and board members through OpenSecrets.org looking for campaign contributions, and found nothing.
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Another Bonner Earmark, another lobbying link
By Bill Allison Feb 23, 2008 4:27 p.m.Going for the low hanging fruit first (earmarks in EarmarkWatch.org). So let's look at the $141,000 that the Alabama School of Math and Science in Mobile, Ala., got in the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Act.
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Aderholt's bio: record levels, responsibility
By Bill Allison Feb 23, 2008 3:13 a.m.I'm still looking mostly at the earmarks that Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Ala., has sponsored, but while I was looking at them, I came across the official biography that Rep. Robert B. Aderholt, another Alabama Republican, has on his Web site. The language is instructive:
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Following Bonner's earmarks
By Bill Allison Feb 22, 2008 10:23 p.m.Let's start with this earmark, because it's already in EarmarkWatch.org, and hence easy to research. A few interesting notes...
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Inspector General launches probe of Traffic.com contracts
By Bill Allison Feb 5, 2008 4:55 a.m.Transportation's Inspector General has launched an investigation of the Transportation Technology Innovation and Demonstration program--at the request of a pair of members of Congress, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.--to determine whether the program, as administered by the Federal Highway Administration, fulfilled the goals set for it by Congress and whether FHWA met competitive procurement requirements that "intended to expand the number of firms providing surveillance services."
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Investing in "US Inc."
By Bill Allison Jan 12, 2008 3:41 a.m.Citigroup reportedly is looking to raise additional foreign capital:
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Congress to meet new patrons?
By Bill Allison Jan 11, 2008 9:45 p.m.The New York Times reports that Merrill Lynch and several other big financial firms are seeking foreign investment to offset their losses brought on by their heavy betting on the subprime mortgage market, a development that may be troubling some in Congress:
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New, improved Senate lobbying disclosure site is up and running
By Bill Allison Jan 2, 2008 10:19 p.m.As I noted here, the Senate Office of Public Records lobbying disclosure site is officially up and running (and had been since New Year's Eve--apparently my browsers kept showing the cached version of the old site--which, for diehard fans of it, is still available here). Pam Gavin, the superintendent of public records, told me that about 90 percent of the 2007 midyear reports in the lobbying database were filed electronically, so much of the year's records will be searchable. And, going forward in 2008, all forms will have to be filed that way, greatly enhancing the value of the database.
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Oversight Committee Seeks for More Blackwater Documents
By Anupama Narayanswamy Oct 19, 2007 9:09 p.m.Rep. Henry Waxman's oversight committee sent out letters today to the Department of Defense, the Department of State and to Blackwater CEO Erik Prince asking for various sets of documents regarding contracts going back to 2003.
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