Lobbyists

Budget - Government - Illinois - Sunshine Review - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Sunshine Review Announces Illinois Winners of the Annual Sunny Awards

March 13, 2011 by

From SunshineReview.org…

Award recognizes state, local governments with perfect transparency scores

ALEXANDRIA- The nation’s leading government transparency advocate, Sunshine Review, announced on Thursday the 112 winners of its 2nd annual “Sunny Awards.” The 2011 awards, which more than double last year’s number, recognize the best state and local government websites in America that exceeded transparency standards. The Sunny Awards announcement preludes the launch of “Sunshine Week,” a period nationally recognized by hundreds of media and civic organizations, that celebrates the efforts of activists and the strides taken towards open government.

“Sunny Award winners deserve recognition for making information available to citizens and for setting a transparency standard that all governments can, and should, meet,” said Mike Barnhart, President of Sunshine Review. “Access to information empowers every citizen to hold government officials accountable. Official accountability is the cornerstone of self government and liberty.”
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Sunshine Review Announces Illinois Winners of the Annual Sunny Awards”

Budget - Chicago - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Government - Illinois - Illinois State Government - Liberals - Taxes - Transparency - Warner Todd Huston

Sunshine Review Launches Premier Online Government Transparency Wiki

January 25, 2011 by

From sunshinereview.org…

Website gives the State of Illinois an “B” transparency grade, counties get “D”

ALEXANDRIA, VA – State and local government transparency champion Sunshine Review has announced a relaunch of its award winning transparency website, sunshinereview.org. The bold, innovative design provides users easy access to a database just under 60,000 articles while simultaneously building a social media platform for citizen researchers, activists, journalists, and anyone interested in government transparency and accountability. Attracting over fourteen million total page views and boasting nearly 1,200 members, Sunshine Review allows thousands of online users to build data and grade their local and state governments on transparency. According to the President of Sunshine Review, Michael Barnhart, “Sunshine Review is a community of citizens who have worked tirelessly to open up their governments. From exposing state checkbooks to ensuring that school board and county board minutes are posted publicly online, our community is advocating for transparency – the simplest function of government.”
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Sunshine Review Launches Premier Online Government Transparency Wiki”

Budget - Democrats/Leftists - Government - Grassroot Hawaii - Hawaii - Liberals - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

New Hawaii Government Transparency Website Debuts

November 30, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii is starting a new effort to spotlight wasteful government spending in the Aloha State and one of the central parts of this program is a new website that the group promises will, “revolutionize government accountability in Hawaii by revealing waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars at the state and local level.”

The new site can be seen at hawaiisunshine.org.

The site, that was unveiled to the public Nov. 30th, exposes line item details for more than $12 billion in state spending and transfers since 2008. GRIH filed hundreds of open records requests to procure spending data from nearly every state agency, and has placed it online in an easily searchable database, for free use by interested citizens.
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New Hawaii Government Transparency Website Debuts”

Barack Obama - Budget - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - GOP - House of Representatives - Liberals - Republicans - Senate - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Sunshine Review Launches Online Transparency Platform for Legislators and Activists

November 15, 2010 by

From Sunshine Review…

Platform and model legislation endorsed by leading state legislators

Sunshine Review, the nation’s leading state and local government transparency advocate, launched SunshineStandard.org, an online platform for legislators and activists that will act as the national guide for launching reforms to expand the information available on state and local government web sites so that Americans may better hold elected officials accountable.

“Most state and local governments do not embrace transparency,” said Mike Barnhart, President of Sunshine Review. “Even fewer proactively share information.” Transparency exists largely at the munificence of officials, with the burden of negotiating complex and costly FOIA petitions resting squarely on the shoulders of citizens and journalists.
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Sunshine Review Launches Online Transparency Platform for Legislators and Activists”

Anti-Americanism - Barack Obama - Budget - Business - Campaign Finance - Congress - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - Government - House of Representatives - Liberals - Lobbyists - Regulation - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Lobbyists Give Millions to Dems As Obama Smears ‘Special Interests’

August 5, 2010 by 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Let’s go back to those hopey-changie days of the Obama campaign for president when he railed constantly against all those “special interests” and eeeevil lobbyists that he claimed were ruining the political process. Let us recall that once elected he claimed he’d have the “strictest ethics rules” of any president ever.

Obama has made sure that his message has been anti-special interests, anti-lobbyists, anti-business-as-usual… heck just plain anti-business, for that matter. It’s all been quite a show. Unfortunately for all the talk his actions speak to the opposite of his spin — more on that in a moment. But even if President Obama was serious about his anti-lobbyist rhetoric his party has utterly ignored him on the issue.

A recent Bloomberg report reveals that lobbyists have raised $1.5 million for Democrat campaign funds during the first six months of the Obama regime quite despite Obama’s constant anti-lobbyist refrain. That is far more than the GOP has been able to raise.
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Lobbyists Give Millions to Dems As Obama Smears ‘Special Interests’”

Democrats/Leftists - Ethics - Government - President - SEIU - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Most Ethical White House EVAH, Forgets to Mention $40K Payout

June 30, 2010 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Back in the hoary days of the Obama transition Obamaniacs and other sycophants were rushing to the microphones to tell us all that we voters had just hired the most ethical White House ever. Why, White House transition team co-chair John Podesta even claimed that Obama was instituting the “strictest ethics rules ever applied” as Obama prepared to take office. But since Obama’s whirlwind campaign we’ve seen all those sternly announced ethics rules constantly waived for Obama’s friends and favorite hires. And just this week we see yet another example of those “strict” ethics rules ignored as the president’s own political director somehow forgot to mention that he got a $40,000 payout from a union while he worked for the White House.

Patrick Gaspard was hired away from the Service Employees International Union by team Obama and as he prepared to leave the SEIU for Washington he brokered a $37,071 severance package that Gaspard just somehow forgot to disclose to the White House as he prepared to join Team Obama.

In fact, Gaspard didn’t merely forget to disclose the nearly $40,000 package. He went out of his way to check a box on his disclosure form that said he had nothing to declare. Yes, he lied.

So, what’s to be done? White House spokesman Bill Burton assured us that it’s all taken care of.
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Most Ethical White House EVAH, Forgets to Mention $40K Payout”

Barack Obama - Democrats/Leftists - Government - Liberals - Lobbyists - President - Regulation - Warner Todd Huston

Most Ethical Administration Evah Waives Ethics Rules… AGAIN!

May 10, 2010 by 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

I am fondly recalling those hoary days on the campaign trail when Mr. Obama was all about “transparency,” and when he promised to have the “strictest ethics rules” of any president evah! Seemingly hours later the president’s office began to waive hose “strictest” rules to allow his favorite lobbyists and lawyers to take up residence in his administration.
By Feb. 2, for instance, a dozen high profile lobbyists had already had those “strict” rules waived for them to join the administration. And by May of 2009, Obama had already lifted his so-called ban on lobbyists joining his administration. And this month, over a year into his term, he’s still waiving those “rules” for his pals.

By April of 2010 Obama had waived those rules so many times that dozens and dozens of lobbyists, those same lobbyists he attacked endlessly during the campaign, left their lobbying firms to come and work for the big money in Obama’s administration. And this is not to mention that lobbyists have been found to be making a killing in Obama’s Washington especially the army of lobbyists that streamed to D.C. to make cash off the healthcare issue. Even in August Obama was still waiving his “strictest ethics rules” to allow his favorite folks into his administration.
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Most Ethical Administration Evah Waives Ethics Rules… AGAIN!”

Anti-Americanism - Banks - Barack Obama - Democrats/Leftists - Energy - Entertainment - Government - Health - Hollywood - Liberals - Lobbyists - Media - Military - Movies - Oil - President - Public Employees Unions - Teachers Unions - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Obama’s Biggest Lobbyist Winners from Left-Wing Advocacy Organizations

April 1, 2010 by 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston


On the campaign trail, now President Obama regularly excoriated lobbyists. He said he’d make the government “open and transparent” and said he’d make it hard for lobbyists to “curry favor” with his administration “based on how much they can spend on a fancy dinner.” Once elected, John Podesta, a member of his transition team, said that Obama would be implementing the “strictest ethics rules ever applied” to those scoundrel lobbyists. In his 2009 State of the Union address Obama puffed up his chest, proud of himself that he “excluded lobbyists” from important jobs in his administration.

With all that bombast and populist wind from Obama and his cohorts, then, one would expect to see a dearth of lobbyists in important positions in Obama’s Washington. One’s expectation, however, would easily be dashed by the truth.

Remember the rarefied air of Obama’s campaign for president? Wanna see some, shall we say, “broken promises”?
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Obama’s Biggest Lobbyist Winners from Left-Wing Advocacy Organizations”