By Michael Smallberg, crossposted with the Project On Government Oversight A few months ago, we questioned why many of the investigative reports issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) are nowhere to be found on the agency or the OIG’s website. Since then, we’ve obtained many of these unposted [...]

On message and with a streak of steel, Barack Obama’s senior advisor Valerie Jarrett made it clear that the president is fighting back challenges to his agenda. It “takes a certain temperament, perseverance and stubbornness” to make changes in Washington, Jarrett said. She addressed poll numbers, town hall disruptions and what it will take to [...]

By all accounts Bernard Madoff got investors to part with their money by not actually investing the proceeds and earning returns but simply by paying off victims with money from his other marks. If that sounds familiar, it should; it’s the way lotteries work. When all is said and done, the lottery is essentially a [...]

In my first post on this site, after many years covering politics, I warned that we should “run like hell” from the conventional wisdom. Well, Sen. Barack Obama has barely gotten used to being President-elect Obama and here came the conventional wise guys. Their message: don’t overreach…govern to the right..be bipartisan… Even before the election, [...]

By ignoring a bill once endorsed by now-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Congress has blown a golden opportunity to do something truly creative and fair about excessive executive compensation. Instead, it passed a bill putting limitations on “golden parachutes” that not only can be dodged by executives, but can short-change shareholders as well, according to Graef [...]