The highlights: It appears that (1) a particularly vocal Republican critic of earmarks (Texas Rep. Pete Sessions) directed a $1.6 million earmark of his own last year to fund a blimp project through a firm that has experience in neither government contracting nor blimps. (2) Nearly half of the $1.6 million will go to administrative costs. (3) A former Sessions aide is a top lobbyist for the firm, raking in more than $446,000 from the company since 2006. And (4) Sessions says the project could create thousands of jobs in his Dallas district, though the firm is based near Chicago.

[W]hile Sessions used a Dallas address for the company when he submitted his earmark request to the House Appropriations Committee last year, one of the two men who control the company says that address is merely the home of one of his close friends.

In its defense, Sessions’ office told Politico that the Texas Republican has come out in favor of an earmark moratorium only since the start of this year — in other words, after he pushed for the blimp funding. A convenient distinction from the lawmaker who now heads the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Clockwise from top left: Byron York, Michael Barone, David Freddoso and J.P. Freire (YouTube screenshots)

For the first few years of George W. Bush’s presidency, Mark Tapscott was a journalist without a newsroom, shouting from the sidelines about his industry’s swift decline. Tapscott ran the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Media and Public Policy, and trained reporters in the use of technology for research and crunching numbers. When he considered how few conservatives, libertarians, or real skeptics of federal power were working in newsrooms, he saw a problem that was making the growth of government possible.

“The [Freedom of Information Act],” Tapscott wrote in a 2004 commentary, “has been subverted from its original intent – shining light in all corners of the federal establishment – and used instead by the bureaucrats, special interests and politicians who live off the Nanny State, especially those hiding behind closed doors in places like Health and Human Services, the Education Department and Housing and Urban Development.”

Image by: Matt Mahurin

Sitting up straight in his office at the Washington Examiner, where Tapscott has been the editorial page editor for three years, he repeats the point. “There are 57 people in the Freedom of Information Hall of Fame,” he says. “Three of them are conservatives — two of them, if you don’t count me. Now, that’s a problem.”

Since its launch in 2005, the second daily metro newspaper owned by conservative billionaire Phillip Anschutz (the first was the San Francisco Examiner) has struggled for an identity in a city crawling with political journalists. But since the November 2008 election, the Examiner has beefed up its staff and pulled prominent right-leaning reporters and pundits away from publications like The American Spectator and National Review. Tapscott and a growing staff of political and opinion writers are carving out an identity as the conservative version of the left-leaning opinion and investigative journalism sites that — in the view of many conservatives — have used reporting to embarrass conservatives and the Republican Party.

It wasn’t always this way. In 2004, Tapscott and many other conservatives looked at the reporting and fallout of a badly flawed CBS News report on President George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard as a watershed moment, the arrival of a form of citizen journalism that could do distributed research and bring down media titans. Tapscott was awed by the “reporting power demonstrated by the blog leaders in Rathergate such as Littlegreenfootballs.com and [Powerlineblog.com],” he wrote at the time. And in 2006, Tapscott joined forces with conservative and liberal bloggers to uncover the identity of a senator who put a hold on anti-earmark legislation. But conservatives point to that period as the tipping point when liberal-leaning sites like Talking Points Memo, whose Muckraker blog chased the “secret hold” story, overtook conservative sites. By the time that voters went to the polls to elect Barack Obama, conservatives saw sites such as TPM, The Huffington Post, Media Matters, Pro Publica, and the Center for American Progress as part of a new left-wing conspiracy. The Examiner has beaten other outlets to the punch in putting together a right-leaning answer to that.

“I don’t think TPM has any special claim to the type of reporting we do,” said Josh Marshall, the editor of TPM. “If the Examiner wants to get reporters down into the weeds holding the administration and Congress to account with tough, by-the-books reporting, I think that’s not only possible but a great thing.”

If a number of other conservative publishers have their way, the Examiner will get more competition. PajamasMedia, the blog conglomerate that grew out of the “Rathergate” story, is talking to potential reporters for an investigative journalism site. Jennifer Rubin, the site’s Washington editor, declined to discuss the plans but pointed to the site’s coverage of anti-tax “Tea Parties” as proof that “the old model of elite journalists peddling liberal opinion as ‘objective reporting’ is dying.” NewMajority.com, an opinion-heavy site launched by conservative writer David Frum on Inauguration Day, employed former Republican National Committee staffer Moira Bagley as an investigative reporter, but published only 11 of her stories before letting her move on in mid-February. Journalist and commentator Tucker Carlson is currently interviewing conservative journalists for a new site tentatively called The Daily Caller, although he declined to discuss it with TWI, explaining that he had “launched too many ventures that were heavily publicized before they were prepared for scrutiny.”

But Tapscott’s paper has gotten there first. After Anschutz’s Baltimore Examiner newspaper was closed in February, more resources were allocated to the Washington paper. They’ve been used to scoop up talent from other conservative media. Tim Carney wrote a column about the lobbying industry while still editing the Evans-Novak Political Report; when founder Robert Novak decided to shutter it in January, Carney moved to the Examiner full-time. One week later, the paper hired Byron York away from a nine-year stint National Review, where he’d been the magazine’s lead political reporter. At the start of June it poached David Freddoso also of National Review, the reporter who’d written the bestselling “The Case Against Barack Obama” for Regnery, and it hired J.P. Freire, who had recently left The American Spectator, to be the managing editor of the editorial pages.

In his modest office, a short walk away from the Examiner’s newsroom, Tapscott can’t pour enough praise on the new hires or on the columnists that have been added to the paper’s lineup, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, and political encyclopedia Michael Barone, hired away from U.S. News and World Report. Scott Ott, a political satirist who won fame in the conservative blogosphere for his site “Scrappleface,” now puts his satire in a weekly column. In a 2004 blog post, Tapscott had mulled over what could happen if a newspaper grabbed fresh political commentary and put it in one place. “If The Washington Post were to sign on Powerline not merely for weekly op-eds and/or the reprint rights but as members of the reporting team,” he speculated, “the Posties would have the collective talents, experience and insight of Hindrocket, The Big Trunk and Deacon to help shape the paper’s reporting agenda, assist in developing major stories and generate new sources for the reporting staff.” Five years later, he’s doing just that.

According to Chris Stirewalt, the paper’s bow-tie-wearing political editor, that lineup has brought attention to the paper that’s also boosted the political coverage. “Two years ago,” says Stirewalt, “people were saying ‘Gosh, if only if there was a vertically integrated place where I could get all this stuff.’ I promise you that two years ago, nobody said ‘You know, if you have Barone and York and Carney and this kid in a bow tie writing columns in a newspaper it would be really cool. That was serendipity. Sometimes if the people are available and the money is there, things come together.”

The results so far: increased Web traffic (up 300 percent since January, according to Web editor Matthew Sheffield) and more attempts to shame federal agencies, members of Congress, and the White House. Some of it has gone largely unnoticed so far. The editorial page’s Kevin Mooney reports a feature called “Dirty Money,” in which he digs through databases to find out which officers or members of unions have been convicted of crimes and how much those unions have given to members of Congress, then calls up the members’ office to ask whether they’ll give the money back. To date, none of them have even given Mooney an on-the-record response; Tapscott hopes to tie that up into a scolding editorial.

York’s political reporting has had a greater calculable impact. In his columns and in his blog, York is given space to hound the White House about embarrassing stories that interest conservatives more than other newsroom’s editors. York wrote multiple pieces on a somewhat obscure complication that preceded Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) turning down an appointment as Commerce Secretary — whether or not the Census would be run from the Commerce Department or from the White House. Since last week, York has filed piece after piece on the firing of Gerald Walpin, an Americorps inspector general who has asked whether his investigation of the Democratic mayor of Sacramento was ended because the target is an ally of the president. Since the paper ran those first stories last week, the controversy has gone up the food chain to Fox News and The Wall Street Journal.

Over the next few months, Sheffield wants to update the Examiner’s site to “integrate social media” and build on what’s already bringing links to the site from RealClearPolitics, Fox Nation, and conservative blogs. And this week’s purchase of The Weekly Standard by Anschutz’s Clarity Media Group was welcomed by Tapscott, who might have an even larger pool of conservative talent to draw on for his long-term project. “I am ecstatic about the move,” he said, “and the prospect of working with Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes.”

To accomplish this, I support many budget reform measures, including:

• Passing a strong balanced budget constitutional amendment.
• Passing a constitutional amendment to give the President the line-item veto.
• Bucking the Appropriations Committee Leadership and voting against appropriations bills which are bloated and fiscally irresponsible.
• Attacking government waste by consolidating duplicative programs.
• Voting for a federal budget that cuts the deficit in half in five years.

But Vitter has never equated fiscal discipline with earmark restraint.

This spring, The Hill covered Vitter’s earmark addiction after the Senator railed against the size of the 2009 spending bill.

“I have strongly supported fundamental spending reform, including complete openness and transparency and significantly lower budget number,” Vitter told The Hill in a statement. “As I do that, though, I am proud to stand by my specific funding requests for critical transportation, law enforcement and hurricane recovery needs.”

In next year’s bill, Vitter and Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu (who sought $3.8 million in earmarks herself) both requested multiple projects related to the Army Corps of Engineers and transportation infrastructure.

The Times-Picayune reminds us that nonpartisan watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense ranked Landrieu third and Vitter fifth among senators inserting earmarks in last year’s omnibus spending measure. In the 2009 bill, Louisiana received $233 million for 192 projects –  eighth among all states in the amount of earmarked funds received.

This year, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees moved to increase earmark transparency by requiring members of Congress to post their earmark requests somewhere on their Websites and justify why taxpayer money should be spent on the projects, in theory to force members of Congress to think about how these requests appear to the public.

But it’s tough to shame somebody with Vitter’s background into caring about about how things appear to the public.

[Robert Murtha] has maintained that his uncle played no role in his defense-related work, much of it secured without competition. Newly obtained documents, however, show Robert Murtha mentioning his influential family connection as leverage in his business dealings and holding unusual power with the military. The documents add to mounting questions about Rep. Murtha, whose use of federal earmarks to help favored defense companies and whose relationship with a former lobbying firm are under scrutiny by federal investigators.

As if that weren’t enough, The Post also found former employees of nephew Robert’s firms who claim they were paid for services with little value at all.

Some former business associates and employees told The Washington Post that they thought the role played by Robert Murtha’s companies was unnecessary.

Jeff Curtis, an engineer who worked for Robert Murtha’s company in 2001, contacted The Post to say that he and some co-workers did virtually no work on a project to make kits to test for biological agents. Curtis said he remains “furious” that taxpayer dollars were wasted.

“I was always thinking, ‘Why is the government paying this company?’ ” said Curtis, 29, who is now doing engineering work in North Carolina. “If it’s fair to have this kind of no-bid work, I’ll start a company and do it for half as much. Because this company didn’t do anything.”

Ignoring the kinship component of this story for a minute, the Murtha saga is something to keep in mind as the debate over President Obama’s budget proposal — which includes roughly $17 billion in cuts to current programs — begins in full. That’s because federal money delivered to states, even if it goes to fund the most inanely worthless program of them all, translates into something vital to politicians careers: JOBS.

Indeed, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are screaming from the rafters about specific cuts in the Obama proposal that would cut jobs among their constituents. The message from Capitol Hill is clear: Deficit reduction is a commendable, even necessary, goal. Just don’t find the savings in my district.

It’s gonna be a long debate …

$1 million for Shipment and storage of oil shale core samples

Oil shale research is wasteful? I don’t know many Republicans who agree with this. Does McCain think the word “shale” is funny or is he a skeptic?

David Brooks with the chair:

To come up at this moment in history with a stale “government is the problem,” “we can’t trust the federal government” – it’s just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic right now. They may not like the way the Democrats have passed the stimulus bill, but that idea that we’re just gonna – that government is going to have no role, the federal government has no role in this, that – In a moment when only the federal government is actually big enough to do stuff, to just ignore all that and just say “government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending,” it’s just a form of nihilism.

Jim Geraghty:

I thought the text of Jindal’s argument was fine, but the governor’s delivery just wasn’t working for me. He seemed to have somehow figured out a way to speak too quickly and too slow at the same time. (A couple readers, who wanted to rave about him, agreed, using terms like “robotic” and “Mr. Rogers.”) His remarks sounded like they were being read aloud, not spoken naturally.

I think Brooks gets closer to the problem than anyone else. Sure, Jindal has an awkward delivery. He got elected governor in landslide despite that. The problem was his strange distance from the Obama speech (finishing up by complaining that the president is not optimistic?) and carping about earmarks, which voters simply don’t care about right now.

CQ is reporting today that 104 House members — nearly a quarter of the lower chamber — secured earmarks in a 2008 defense spending bill for clients of a single lobbying firm with strong ties to powerhouse appropriator Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.).

All told, the House lawmakers (”plus a handful of senators”) funneled nearly $300 million in federal contracts to companies represented by The PMA Group, CQ found.

Murtha, who used to boast that his middle initial stands for “power,” carved out $38.1 million for PMA clients in the fiscal 2008 defense spending law, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Indiana Rep. Peter J. Visclosky , who serves on Murtha’s subcommittee and additionally is chairman of the subcommittee that allocates money for the Pentagon’s nuclear programs, earmarked $23.8 million for PMA clients in the fiscal 2008 defense spending bill.

His former chief of staff, Richard Kaelin, lobbies for PMA, as does Melissa Koloszar, a former top aide to defense appropriator James P. Moran , D-Va.

Moran sponsored $10.8 million for PMA clients, and Rep. Norm Dicks , D-Wash., another member of the subcommittee, sponsored $12.1 million.

And, this being Washington, that type of earmarking doesn’t come without reciprocity. Indeed, CQ calculated that, since 2001, those 104 House members have taken in “a cumulative $1,815,138 in campaign contributions from PMA’s political action committee and employees of the firm.” Of that sum, CQ found, Visclosky took in $219,000, Murtha represents $143,600, Moran pulled in $125,250 and Dicks tallied $91,600.

But wait, it gets better. Because The PMA Group’s founder is Paul Magliocchetti, “a former House Appropriations Committee aide who has a long-running relationship with Murtha, D-Pa., the chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee,” CQ writes.

There’s more. The FBI raided PMA earlier this month on suspicion that the group has donated illegally to the campaigns of Murtha and other lawmakers. As CQ pointedly notes:

No matter what the outcome of the federal investigation, PMA’s earmark success illustrates how a well-connected lobbying firm operates on Capitol Hill. And earmark accountability rules imposed by the Democrats in 2007 make it possible to see how extensively PMA worked the Hill for its clients.

Damn you, transparency!

Update: CQ has published a handy chart identifying the House members and showing how much money they received in campaign contributions from PMA, and how much money they secured in earmarks for PMA’s clients. Is your representative on the list?

In the wake of Sen. Ted Stevens’ conviction yesterday on charges of failing to report corporate gifts, Sen. John McCain, the GOP presidential hopeful, has a terse message for his colleague of 22 years: See ya!

From a McCain statement issued Tuesday:

It is clear that Sen. Stevens has broken his trust with the people and that he should now step down. I hope that my colleagues in the Senate will be spurred by these events to redouble their efforts to end this kind of corruption once and for all.

There’s never been much love between Stevens, the unapologetic king of earmarks, and McCain, who’s made a career of condemning federally funded pet projects like those Stevens has been so prolific in securing.

Still, the conviction is hardly welcome news for McCain as he enters the final week of the campaign. Most Americans aren’t familiar with the personal clashes between McCain and Stevens, and might instead just associate the two Senate veterans based on their shared GOP affiliation — a brand already suffering from image problems after eight years of the Bush administration.

Steven Haycox, a cultural historian at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, said the conviction, aside from helping Stevens’ challenger Mark Begich, the Democratic mayor of Anchorage, will also help Ethan Berkowitz, the Democratic opponent of long-time Alaska Rep. Don Young (R), who faces a series of corruption charges of his own.

But, Haycox added, the guilty verdict is “not very likely” to help the Obama ticket in Alaska, where Gov. Sarah Palin remains a popular figure.

Stevens yesterday proclaimed his innocence and vowed to stay in the election fight. But McCain isn’t the only GOP voice questioning the Alaskan senator’s fitness to serve. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, issued a statement of his own yesterday, saying he was “disappointed to see [Stevens’] career end in disgrace.”

Sen. Stevens had his day in court and the jury found he violated the public’s trust — as a result he is properly being held accountable. This is a reminder that no one is above the law.

That seems to indicate that Stevens, even if he were to cling to his seat next week, would face a less than collegial reception on his return to Washington.

The story began when a plan to purchase a 2,154-acre property just north of Phoenix, Ariz. and convert it into a golf course surrounded by several hundred luxury homes was scuttled due to opposition from local environmentalists. According to McClatchy, John Lang, the developer who sought to buy the property, known as Spur Cross Ranch, enlisted McCain’s help to arrange a land swap to trade the plot for 1,700 acres of land in the Tonto National Forest, just outside the wealthy community of Scottsdale’s city limits. The property’s owners included Carl Lindner — who, with Keating, had been accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of fraud in 1979.

Correspondence obtained by McClatchy and interviews with former Forest Service officials show that McCain not only explored a three-way swap involving state and federal land, but also sought support for the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to buy Spur Cross.

Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck and his underlings objected both to surrendering lands in the Tonto forest, which bordered the ranch, and to managing a large Spur Cross park in Maricopa County. They said the ranch would rate as a low priority for the Conservation Fund.

[Forest Service Southwest Regional Chief Eleanor] Towns said that, while she was still head of the Forest Service’s national real-estate office in early 1998, Lang and Scottsdale Mayor Samantha Campana stopped by her office and raised the idea of a swap. Assuming her new job a short time later, she said, she mentioned Lang’s visit in an introductory chat with McCain, who told her to use her “best professional judgment” in considering trading forestlands for Spur Cross.

But Towns said that after she took over the regional post in the spring of 1998, McCain aide Deb Gullett phoned her several times to press for an exchange.

“She was aggressive, she was at times rude and she was hell bent on getting that land exchange done,” said Towns, who’s now retired. “She said, ‘The senator wants this land exchange done.’”

Hearing those words, Towns said, she told Gullett of McCain’s instruction to use her best judgment, said that if he intended otherwise he should phone himself and slammed down the phone…

In the summer of 1998, McCain sent letters asking the Arizona Land Trust and the U.S. General Services Administration to identify properties that could be swapped.

His office also circulated draft legislation that would’ve forced the Forest Service to yield unspecified lands in a complicated exchange that would bypass the usual environmental impact study.

Jack Fraser, a leading conservationist who since has died, later said in a letter to McCain that his draft bill “was a sweetheart deal for the developer but . . . would have been a nightmare for the public interest.”

According to the article, McCain dropped his interest in the deal when the Scottsdale city council voted against the deal.

Federal Election Commission records show that in the three years beginning in mid-1997, McCain’s Senate campaign and his 2000 presidential campaign received more than $9,000 from Lindner, developer Lang and other backers of the deal. Several donations were made in close proximity to his Forest Service letters. His committees also got more than $25,000 from members of lobbying firms representing [Lindner's] Great American [Insurance Company's] parent, the American Financial Group, on various issues.

This year, the 89-year-old Lindner and his son, Carl H. Lindner III, have raised more than $300,000 for McCain’s presidential campaign.

It is no secret in the Mountain West, where the federal government owns vast amounts of land, that land swaps often provide a vehicle for legislators to do favors for friends and contributors. A land deal that benefited a close business associate was at the heart of the controversy that led to the indictment of Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) on 35 felony counts.

This isn’t the first land swap in which McCain’s involvement has drawn attention. The New York Times reported in April that McCain’s actions have repeatedly benefited Donald R. Diamond, a longtime donor, including McCain’s assistance in a land deal in California that ultimately netted Diamond a $20 million profit.

Moreover, as the McClatchy article notes, these incidents call into question McCain’s assertion in his 2002 book, “Worth the Fighting For,” that he has never intervened with federal regulators since Keating Five, and he only involves himself when there is a clear public interest.

Stevens issued a statement after the verdict vowing to continue his reelection bid. “I am innocent,” Stevens said. “This verdict is the result of the unconscionable manner in which the Justice Dept. lawyers conducted this trial. I ask that Alaskans and my Senate colleagues stand with me as I pursue my rights. I remain a candidate for the United States Senate.”

Federal jurors found Stevens guilty on all seven counts related to his failure to disclose roughly $250,000 in gifts, including furniture, a high-end gas grill and extensive renovations on his home in Girdwood, Alaska.

Most of those gifts came courtesy of Veco Corp., an oil services firm formerly headed by one-time Stevens’ friend Bill Allen. During the trial, Allen gave damning testimony for the prosecution in exchange for assurances that his children wouldn’t be charged in the scandal — part of a four-year-long federal investigation into wide-ranging political corruption in Alaska.

Stevens’ lawyers have vowed to appeal, but that won’t help him in his reelection contest next week. The seven-term senator has been in a tough race against Mark Begich, the popular Democratic mayor of Anchorage. Begich’s office issued a bland, one-sentence statement today, alluding to the resilience of Alaskans during “a difficult time.” The statement itself did not include any mention of Stevens.

The federal court decision might also be unwelcome for the GOP presidential ticket, for it allows Democrats to highlight Stevens’ ties to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who famously supported the controversial “bridge to nowhere” project pushed hard by Stevens.

The verdict came despite a series of missteps made by federal prosecutors, including a revelation earlier Monday that there was an error in the indictment — something prosecutors called a typo. Jurors also seemed to dismiss several high-powered character witnesses — including Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and former Sec. of State Colin L. Powell — who have testified on Stevens’ behalf.

The decision threatens the career of an 84-year-old lawmaker who is regarded by many as an Alaska institution. Stevens was active in state politics before Alaska become a state, and was widely successful in bringing home federal dollars in the form of pet projects, called earmarks.

His prolific earmarking earned him popularity within the state, but also made him a common target of government reform groups. Stephen Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group, shot out statement following Monday’s verdict indicating that Stevens has secured $3.5 billion in earmarks for Alaska in the past five years alone.

“Sen. Stevens is in the pantheon of earmarkers,” Ellis wrote, not supportively.

The conviction is almost unprecedented in annals of congressional history. Julian E. Zelizer, a congressional historian at Princeton University, pointed to several other cases in which sitting senators have been convicted of crimes and kept their seats. Following the infamous Chappaquiddick episode, for example, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident that left his passenger dead. The district attorney declined to file manslaughter charges, and Kennedy survived the political backlash.

More recently, Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested for lewd conduct for allegedly soliciting sex in the men’s bathroom at a Minneapolis airport. In August 2007, Craig pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct. Craig said initially that he would resign as a result of the episode, but later retracted that. He is retiring at the end of this year.

Zelizer said the seriousness of the charges will likely be the end of Stevens’ long run in the Senate. “It’s hard to imagine that, A, he wins, or B, the Senate would want him back if he does,” Zelizer said. “It seems to be the end of his career, at least in the Senate.”