Stories by Paul Singer:
Jan. 28, 2012
With Florida at the center of the Republican presidential campaign this week, its Cuban-American Senator took to the airwaves to accuse President Barack Obama of trying to make America “like the countries people come here to get away from.”
Jan. 28, 2012
Former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain endorsed former Speaker Newt Gingrich for the Republican presidential nomination at a surprise appearance in Florida tonight, multiple news outlets reported.
Jan. 23, 2012
Republicans appear to have owned the morning news cycle in 2011. If you were watching the major Sunday morning talk shows last year, your odds of seeing a Republican Member of Congress in the guest chair were far greater than seeing a Democratic Member of Congress.
Dec. 16, 2011
In May 2010, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi took to a podium in the Capitol to introduce a half-dozen economic experts she had convened for a meeting on how to jump-start the economy. What Pelosi did not mention is that one of them was her son's boss and a partner with her husband in more than a half-dozen investments.
Dec. 9, 2011
When Republicans took control of the Natural Resources Committee at the beginning of the year, they established an unusual policy: All witnesses are not created equal.
Dec. 2, 2011
In 1979, an impoverished Georgia college professor named Newt Gingrich became a Member of Congress and proceeded to make himself a very rich man.
Nov. 8, 2011
It is an interesting but misleading statistic: The total net worth of Congress rose by about 25 percent during the past two years, but the net worth of female Members of Congress declined by more than 20 percent over the same period. Blame Jane Harman.
Oct. 31, 2011
Members of Congress had a collective net worth of more than $2 billion in 2010, a nearly 25 percent increase over the 2008 total, according to a Roll Call analysis of Members' financial disclosure forms.
Oct. 24, 2011
Last week’s release of FBI documents finally put in writing what nobody had ever said on the record: The FBI suspected that former Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and lobbyists close to him were running a scheme to funnel earmarks to sham companies and nonprofits to benefit the lawmaker’s friends and former staffers.
Oct. 11, 2011
GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and his wife have put their money behind a horse, and the guy who rides it.
Sept. 21, 2011
Last week, the U.S. Coast Guard took the unusual step of withdrawing a final rule on life jackets that it had published in March, citing as the sole reason for its reversal a critical letter from a Florida woman who was not lobbying on behalf of anybody.
Sept. 12, 2011
This spring, four House Republicans used money from their Congressional office accounts to send five staff members to a training seminar run by a conservative Christian group in Indiana that is leading the charge in the state for an amendment to ban gay marriage.
June 28, 2011
The House Ethics Committee announced a major overhaul of its staff Tuesday, hiring six new counsel positions and promoting four staff members on a committee that has fewer than 30 staff positions.
June 17, 2011
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who announced last week that she is running for president, has gone from a little-known freshman Member in 2007 to a major conservative figure in part because she has strategically used her campaign, political action committee and Congressional office to build a national following.
June 15, 2011
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) saw the reported value of his personal assets nearly double last year, and the only thing that may prevent him from claiming the title as the richest Member of Congress is $75 million in loans he secured in 2010.
June 7, 2011
As Minority Leader, John Boehner had received a direct payment of $833 each month from taxpayers to cover “official expenses for leaders,” the same monthly total then-Majority Leader Steny Hoyer received. But Boehner now receives a monthly $2,083.33 direct payment for expenses, according to the most recent expenditure reports from the Clerk of the House.
June 3, 2011
The website of the Enrichment Center asks, "Are you a Tranquil Turtle who is becoming exceedingly frustrated with a Much Loved Monkey?" Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) was apparently curious — last fall, his office paid the Enrichment Center $20,000 for "training."
May 7, 2011
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi made her first trip to Iraq in two years this weekend, following closely on the heels of a visit by Speaker John Boehner.
May 3, 2011
Gary Bass is getting the band back together. In the midst of the last Republican revolution in the mid-1990s, the founder of the advocacy group OMB Watch convened a group of safety, health and environmental advocates to join forces and oppose efforts by the GOP Congress to cut federal regulations. This spring, Bass is at it again.
April 14, 2011
The New York newspaper publisher who organized an annual Caribbean conference attended by some members of the Congressional Black Caucus pleaded guilty Thursday to lying to Congress about how the 2007 trip was financed.
March 14, 2011
Congress is on a cost-cutting spree, looking for any place to trim the federal budget, but one line item appears safe: the $235,000 allocated each year for expense accounts for top leaders of each chamber.
March 8, 2011
John Boehner famously grew up mopping the floors of his father’s bar, so presumably he knows little about hobnobbing with foreign royalty, one of his duties as Speaker. So in December, the Ohio Republican’s office spent $5,800 to register a staff member for a May protocol class.
March 3, 2011
Attendees at the January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas may have been confused when they ran into Darrell Issa: Were they meeting the California Republican Congressman and new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee? Or were they meeting the board member of a private company Issa founded called DEI Holdings Inc.?
March 1, 2011
In mid-February, videos posted by Rep. Darrell Issa’s staff on the YouTube page of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee contained a production credit for “DEI Productions” instead of the “Oversight Productions” moniker his office had used on other videos. It may be a simple case of cross-posting videos, but the personal branding extends deeply into Issa’s personal history and wealth.
Feb. 17, 2011
Members of Congress love to promote domestic companies by adding Buy American provisions to legislation. But as Rep. Bruce Braley discovered this week, it is not as easy as it would seem to require the government to buy U.S. products.
