The cost of political warfare

Want to know how much money is being spent on that annoying candidate ad? Wesleyan University has a database for that:

Transparency and government responsiveness depend critically on real-time publicly available information disclosing efforts to influence elections. The Wesleyan Media Project tracks and analyzes all broadcast advertisements aired by or on behalf of federal and state election candidates in every media market in the country. Throughout the course of the 2010 election cycle, we will provide real-time information on the extent of corporate and union spending in federal election campaigns across the country, who specifically is doing that spending and which candidates are benefiting.

Pulling back the shroud on the Fed

A federal appeals court has ordered the Federal Reserve to disclose the names of financial firms that benefited from a $2 trillion loan program designed to prop up ailing companies after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

From Bloomberg:

The Fed had argued that it could withhold the information under an exemption that allows federal agencies to refuse disclosure of “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential.”

The U.S. Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, “sets forth no basis for the exemption the Board asks us to read into it,” U.S. Circuit Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote in the opinion. “If the Board believes such an exemption would better serve the national interest, it should ask Congress to amend the statute.”

An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court seems likely.

Our opaque justice system

The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned an order in the Prop. 8 trial that would have allowed the proceedings to be streamed to other federal court houses in the state and posted on YouTube.

The case, which got underway today, aims to overturn California's ban against gay marriage on constitutional grounds. After the federal judge in the case agreed to a limited broadcast of the proceedings, opponents of gay marriage filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing that they could be subject to harassment from gay-marriage proponents. The Supreme Court's temporary restriction will remain in effect until Wednesday.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Justice David Souter offered the only dissent, saying there was insufficient evidence that broadcasting the trial would cause "irreparable harm" to supporters of Prop. 8.

Can one argue a law is constitutional and then claim the public is too unruly to hear that argument?

A little more sunshine

The White House will make public most of the names of people who visit the White House on political business. This is a change from the confidentiality policy of the Bush administration and comes in response to several lawsuits filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. USA Today