CQ Politics is thrilled to announce that acclaimed blogger/journalist Ana Marie Cox will be joining our team as a special correspondent this week at the Democratic National Convention. Her first dispatch can be found here.

Yesterday I attended a Libertarian Party presidential debate featuring Bob Barr, Mike Gravel and Wayne Allyn Root. Here is a video highlight segment from the debate, produced with CQ Politics' Andrew Satter:

Check out CQ’s wonderful new House Appropriations earmark finder:

“CQ examined 5,670 earmarks, totaling $4.2 billion, attributed to a single sponsor in the eight House-passed fiscal 2008 spending bills that contained earmark lists under new disclosure rules. The data were culled from spreadsheets created by the advocacy group Taxpayers for Common Sense, which aggregated sponsor names, project descriptions and dollar figures from committee reports for each of the spending bills.”

As a former congressional reporter with a particular interest in earmarks, I can attest to the exceptional value of this project, which was put developed by top CQ Politics staffers like Jonathan Allen, so you know it’s good.

You can find the individual earmark requests for members like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or “bridge to nowhere” requestor Don Young

The only thing missing from the project, unfortunately, is the full-cooperation of the House:

“Excluded from this analysis were roughly 1,000 projects, totaling $1.5 billion, that were attributed to multiple sponsors.The House Appropriations Committee did not disclose what share of each multiple-member earmark should be credited to each lawmaker who wrote a letter on its behalf.”

Nonetheless, if you’re a reporter, professional government watcher, or just interested in where your tax dollars are being re-directed, it’s very much worth checking out.