Quick Picks: Obama’s Elastic Ethics and Stimulus Package Pork
Quick Picks focuses on a select few of the day’s stories from “Breaking on the Web.”
- Obama is already navigating some treacherous ethics territory. Having welcomed lobbyists into his White House after pledging not to, he’s now hired a new legal adviser on economic affairs who comes straight from a firm seeking up to $3.4 billion in bailout funds, reports McClatchy. A White House spokesman told McClatchy: “It is unlikely he will have any need to address the Hartford [his old firm] specifically in his work in the White House, and if he does he will recuse.” For more on lobbyists going the White House, see our Morning Read.
- Obama successfully pushed his stimulus bill through the House last night, but it came out the other end laden down with a whole lotta pork, reports the Wall Street Journal. Its price tag is now pushing $900 billion after additions that would benefit special interests ranging from the South Florida yacht-repair industry to California winemakers. (Hey, Wall Streeters need somewhere to spend those bonuses.)
Check out more of our roundup of the best investigative stories around the Web.
Was there a story we missed? Please keep sending us stories from your local paper, favorite blog or magazine, etc. via e-mail or Delicious.
Get Updates
Our Hottest Stories
- Donations to Scott Walker Flagged as Potential Fraud
- In Race For Better Cell Service, Men Who Climb Towers Pay With Their Lives
- Billion Dollar Bait & Switch: States Divert Foreclosure Deal Funds
- Pardon Attorney Torpedoes Plea for Presidential Mercy
- Patient Died at New York VA Hospital After Alarm Was Ignored
- Introducing the ProPublica Patient Harm Community on Facebook
- Built for a Simpler Era, OSHA Struggles When Tower Climbers Die
- Finding Oscar: Massacre, Memory and Justice in Guatemala
- Got Student Loans? Share Your Documents With Us
- Remember Stuxnet? Why the U.S. is Still Vulnerable
- Donations to Scott Walker Flagged as Potential Fraud
- Pardon Attorney Torpedoes Plea for Presidential Mercy
- In Race For Better Cell Service, Men Who Climb Towers Pay With Their Lives
- Air Force Pilots Balk at Flying the World’s Most Expensive Fighter Jet
- Watchdog Group Calls for Probe of Lobbyists Behind Congressional Trip to Taiwan
- Patient Died at New York VA Hospital After Alarm Was Ignored
- Billion Dollar Bait & Switch: States Divert Foreclosure Deal Funds
- Broadcasters Sue to...Block Transparency
- Happy Graduation! Here's The Best, Most Depressing Journalism on Student Debt
- Remember Stuxnet? Why the U.S. is Still Vulnerable
1 comments
Elaine Connelly
Jan. 29, 2009, 2:30 p.m.
For anyone out there who is/was on the “Obama” train. I’m afraid that it is not going to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
When he said lobbyists would be turned away from the Whitehouse, he was blantantly lying.
I did not vote for him, because I wasn’t stupid enough to believe him. He is nothing but a snake-oil salesman in a really, really, really expensive suit.
Commenting on this story is closed.