Our friends at Taxpayers inform us that they’ve just posted…
The complete database of earmarks in the 2009 defense authorization report and bill. The Senate version of the bill currently under debate contains 435 earmarks worth $5.2 billion, a big jump in number from last year’s Senate authorization but a decrease in total value.
They posted an [...]

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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. [...]

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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.
A list of the earmarks Sen. Joe Biden requested for fiscal year 2009 is available here. Robert [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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:
Campaign spokesman David Wade [...]

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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 [...]

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Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., steered earmarks to some organizations with a board member who is also serving as a top bundler to his presidential campaign, according to the Next Right. This raises what for me is one of the primary questions about earmarks in general. Members of Congress say they know the needs of their [...]

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