ProPublica: Check Out the Obama Team’s Financial Filings

Great very interesting news today from the fine folks at

ProPublica.com, Journalism in the Public Interest:

financial disclosure information on the Best and Brightest

of 44.

H-m-m-m...

I wonder how City of Miami mayor Manny Diaz would've

explained that whole curious restaurant deal of his on

these forms if he'd been named to the Obama Administration,

as the Herald kept suggesting for months?

Guess we'll never know now.

And good thing, too!

The idea of a mayor who governs a sleepwalking downtown

and a city without even one general interest bookstore,

being someone in charge of Urban Affairs, was laughable on

its face, and would've likely have been the most laugh-filled

congressional confirmation hearing in years.

At least since Sally Adams was confirmed as U.S.

Ambassador to Lichtenburg.

And we all recall how that ended, don't we?

The Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce really dodged

a PR bullet with Diaz being over-looked!

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http://www.propublica.org/article/check-out-the-obama-teams-financial-filings-408

GOVERNMENT & POLITICS

Check Out the Obama Team’s Financial Filings

by Christopher Weaver, ProPublica - April 8, 2009 1:30 pm EDT

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Administration officials and high-ranking executive branch employees are required to disclose the intimate details of their financial lives. The disclosures made include stock holdings, previous salaries and even book deals, such as Assistant Treasury Secretary Alan Krueger's advance of at least $180,000 (plus royalties) from MacMillan, the publisher of his textbook, "Explorations in Economics." ProPublica is collecting these disclosures, and today, we're sharing what we've got.

We've flipped through the disclosures of 179 officials, ranging from the White House social secretary to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the documents are rich with interesting details. Help us parse the disclosures and post your discoveries in the comments section below.

Here's an example of what we've found so far: On paper, Susan Rice looks like she belongs at the Treasury, rather than the State Department. The new United Nations ambassador's disclosure lists 10 individual stock holdings, largely in Canadian companies, that total at least $4.25 million.

The disclosures are a matter of public record. But the government insists on giving them out by request only. We’re cutting out the middleman: Dig into the documents yourself.

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Last link above is at: http://www.propublica.org/special/the-obama-teams-disclosure-documents-407