This week I have highlights from Virginia, New Jersey, Alabama, Hawaii, and Maryland.

In Virginia, Vivian J. Page, highlights the city of Norfolk, VA’s new YouTube channel. The channel has videos about what is going on in the community. This is a great use of available technology to get messages out to the community.

In New Jersey, Blog the Fifth, discusses Rep. Scott Garrett’s new chief of staff, Amy D. Smith. Smith is a Capitol Hill veteran and also a former lobbyist. She lobbied for the firm Bartlett, Bendall, & Kadesh LLC. Makes you wonder about the revolving door and the perception of conflict of interest.

Mooncat at Left in Alabama highlights Follow the Money’s new Legislative Committee Analysis tool. This new tool shows you the top contributors to committee members and who has contributed to the committee as a whole and what industries are giving money.

In Hawaii, Poinography, talks about providing bloggers with legal protection if they grant a source anonymity. Hawaii state house is considering a bill that includes bloggers under shield protections.  However, this bill is not scheduled for a hearing.

Also in Hawaii, iLind.net, got a response from his Sunshine Blogger Request request to Gov. Linda Lingle’s office for emails. Half of the emails requested were provided the other half were withheld under executive privilege. This is a pretty interesting read to see what was learned from this FOI request and to see what the governor considers executive privilege.

Maryland Politics blog has a great post on what Montgomery County’s senators are working on by providing a list of sponsored bills for each state senator. This is a great reminder that people should be checking out their state government sites, as well as, OpenCongress.org to see if the bills their elected officials are championing are being passed and if you agree with them or not.

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Last evening, the Firedoglake hosted another installment of their Sunday Book Salons, where John Anderson took questions online about his new book Follow the Money: How George W. Bush and the Texas Republicans Hog-Tied America, released earlier this fall. In the book Anderson gives an overview of the connections between elite Houston law firms, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Tom DeLay and his K Street Project to Jack Abramoff. I haven’t read the book yet, but last night’s discussions makes me want to.

As an Austin American-Statesman review states, Anderson used previously reported or exposed facts to retell this story. By following Deep Throat’s advice, Anderson shows the overarching network that put George W. Bush in the White House, DeLay out of a job, Abramoff in prison, and the GOP in the minority.

In last evening’s salon, Anderson said that he originally set out to write a book on high-end Texas law firms, but got interested in their connections to DeLay and Abramoff. He started keeping month-to-month computer files on the two lions of K Street. "But then it dawned on me: They were joined at the hips," he wrote. "There was surely no Jack without Tom, and Jack was a vital cog in DeLay Inc." Their "endless gaming of the system" with zero oversight allowed the Republican Congressional leadership to "always deliver the goods" despite tiny Congressional majorities.

Anderson says that his first thought was to compare the Abramoff scandals to the Teapot Dome scandal. "I’m quite sure now that the scandals of this administration are Teapot Dome, Crédit Mobilier, the Whiskey Ring, the Indian Ring, Watergate, all rolled into one," he wrote. "And far, far worse than any of them or all of them combined."

Check out the book and the fascinating discussion at Firedoglake.

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