Controversies
One County in Texas Tries to Deal with Crime by Veterans
Travis County, Texas, (population about 100,000) is struggling to find ways to keep Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans out of trouble. A local report found that 25-30% of veterans suffer from mental illness, and more than 450 ex-soldiers were in ja... read more
Colorado Supreme Court Bans Smoking in Plays
Public health trumped free speech and artistic expression in Colorado on Monday when the state Supreme Court upheld a ban on all smoking in theaters…actors included. Colorado approved its Clean Indoor Air Act in 2006, setting off a legal challenge... read more
Three Big Bankers Miss Meeting with Obama
In a move described as “pretty nervy” by one White House official, the leaders of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup did not show up in person on Monday for a meeting with President Barack Obama. The three bank executives said their fligh... read more
Found: 22 Million Missing Bush White House E-Mails
Six years after the problem was first discovered, computer experts have located 22 million emails that became lost during the Bush administration. The discovery followed lawsuits filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)... read more
Judge Rules Dept. of Defense in Contempt for Not Taping Guantánamo Testimony
When detainee Mohammed Al-Adahi testified via secure video link in June from Guantánamo Bay, the Department of Defense was supposed to record his testimony, on orders from U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler. Al-Adahi was testifying remotely for hi... read more
Health Insurance Group Pays Facebook Gamers to Send Anti-Health Care Reform Emails
First there was “astroturfing”—the creation of phony grass roots movements that give politicians the impression of popular feelings on an issue. Now, there’s “virtual-turfing,” in which the health insurance industry is using online games to get Fa... read more
NBC Continues to Highlight DynCorp Gen. Barry McCaffrey
Since NBC doesn’t bother to point out the conflicts of interest held by oft-used military analyst Barry McCaffrey, Huffington Post and others have. McCaffrey has appeared on the network’s cable subsidiary, MSNBC, no less than 10 times in the past ... read more
Interned Japanese-Americans Receive University Degrees 67 Years Later
Acknowledging a wrong committed at the outbreak of World War II that cost hundreds of Americans their college education, the University of California system has awarded honorary degrees this month to Japanese-Americans who were forcefully relocate... read more
Critics Try to Remove North Carolina City Councilman for Being Atheist
States have not been allowed to ban politicians from public office on religious grounds for almost 50 years, but that’s not stopping residents in Asheville, North Carolina, a town of 75,000, from trying to unseat a newly-elected atheist from the c... read more
KBR Accused in Cancer Death of Indiana National Guardsman
If a group of Indiana National Guardsmen win their legal battle against defense contractor KBR Inc., Jim Gentry will not be one to enjoy the victory. Gentry, a former commanding officer and plaintiff in the case, died last week from a rare form of... read more
49 Million Americans Drink Unsafe Tap Water
One out of every six Americans in recent years has been exposed to contaminated drinking water, according to an investigation by The New York Times. A review of government records found numerous water districts throughout the United States have fa... read more
Credit Rating Agencies, Guilty in Meltdown, Avoid Reform
Between uncertainty over what to change and an unwillingness to impose serious reforms, Congress is expected to leave the credit ratings industry largely untouched, even though its role in the economic collapse was paramount. At the heart of the p... read more
The Mysterious Deaths of 3 Guantánamo Prisoners
On June 10, 2006, three Saudi prisoners at Guantánamo Bay were found hanging in their separate cells—hands and feet tied, gags in their mouths—but the U.S. military ruled the deaths a well-coordinated group suicide intended to make the United Stat... read more
U.S. Power Plant Pollution Equals 450 Million Cars
Estimates of the number of cars in the United States today vary from 140 million to 250 million. But in order for the U.S. to spew as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as it does from coal-burning power plants, the nation would have to run n... read more
Obama Administration Hosts Workshop on Openness…Closed to the Public
Proving to cynics that “government openness” is an oxymoron, the Department of Justice decided to prevent the public from attending a workshop on Monday dedicated to the subject of accessing federal information. Employees from various government a... read more
Fired By Congressional Research Service after Criticizing Guantánamo Policy
Reflecting what critics have called a paranoid attitude, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has fired its top expert on Afghanistan after he published an Op-Ed critical of the Obama administration’s plans for trying Guantánamo detainees in c... read more