Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

Muckety maps PMA Group giving

There have been lots of different ways of slicing PMA Group contributions from Congressional Quarterly and the Center for Responsive Politics (see here too). Now Muckety looks at the web of connections of top PMA Group lobbyist Paul Magliocchetti. From CQ's analysis, Muckety begins by noting:

Dodd's tbd fundraising reception

Facing what looks like a tougher-than-expected reelection effort, Sen. Christopher Dodd has a fundraiser scheduled for tomorrow evening, March 18, at a location "TBD." (click the link to see the invite) Dodd is asking "hosts" to pony up $10,000 (PACs will be the hosts, and they'll be asked to give $5,000 for the primary and $5,000 for the general election, maxing out in March for an election twenty months away. To be a co-host, a PAC can contribute $5,000, while individuals can get in the door (which door?) for a mere $1,000.

Grassley seeks lobbyist disclosure for tariff bills

A few questions for Sen. Dodd

This weekend, the august Sunday Times reported on Sen. Christopher Dodd's Irish "cottage":

Another guilty plea in Abramoff case

Roll Call's Jennifer Yachnin reports:

Dodd's Dealings Illustrate Holes in Financial Disclosure

Via InstaPundit comes this commentary from the Hartford Courant by Kevin Rennie, an attorney who writes a weekly column for the paper, on Sen. Chris Dodd's real estate deals. The Senate Ethics Committee is already looking at his mortgage with Countrywide Financial (more details here); Rennie writes that other Dodd properties might be worth looking into:

Visclosky endorses some form of action on PMA Group

A friend passes on this story:

Cities seeking a Piece of the Action?

From the A Piece of the Action? database, here's a list of cities that have hired lobbyists who have reported that the bailout or the stimulus is a specific lobbying issue, complete with links (if any) to project requests on the excellent StimulusWatch.org page for those cities:

Hidden earmarks?

This passage is from page 85 of the Labor, HHS, Education portion of the committee report for the big appropriations bill:

Who's seeking A Piece of the Action?

The bailout (the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP, etc.) and the stimulus (the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act) are massive pieces of legislation with lots of moving parts. Thus, the more eyeballs on them and what's around them, the better.

Treasury Taking a Bath on TARP

Via twitter, via Right Org, comes this very cool way of tracking the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program investments from Ethisphere -- almost like an S&P index of stocks of publicly traded firms that have received money from TARP:

Genealogy of the Stimulus Bill

The current economic crisis does seem to present a combination of circumstances (the housing crisis, a credit crisis, declining international trade, rising unemployment), some of which are causes, some of which are symptoms, none of which--of course--are particularly pleasant for those going through them. So how does Congress, legislatively, address new circumstances? Do members and their staffs (and the lobbyists whispering in their ears) craft bills to solve the problems at hand? Or do they go through their archives and relabel old bills as solutions to new problems?

Greasing the stimulus with pork?

Glenn Reynolds flags the latest twist on earmarks -- we'll have them, but call them something else:

Ethics Panel to Clear Rangel?

House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel predicted, on C-SPAN's Newsmakers program that aired Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009, that his multitude of ethics woes would soon disappear. "I think that next Tuesday you will see a break in this and as soon as the Ethics Committee organizes they ought to be able to dismiss this," National Journal's CongressDaily quoted the Rangel as saying.