One big problem is the Justice Department office that is supposed to keep updated records is actually “a record-keeping mess.” That has allowed nearly half of required disclosures to be filed late. The law also doesn’t require lobbyists to disclose when they disseminated the materials. Even when lobbyists are found to be in noncompliance with the law, they’re not likely to get into trouble. The Justice Department rarely seeks an injunction against the offender.   read more

Last year, 3.93 million births were recorded in the country. That total represented a slight drop from 2012 but a much more significant one compared to 2007. The fertility rate has fallen 9% since then--an “all-time low,” according to the CDC. The agency also reported that birth rates reached record lows in 2013 among women under age 30. A demographic breakdown revealed that the number of births has dropped for whites, Hispanics and blacks since 2007.   read more

A state law gives TransCanada the option until January 22, 2015 of using the power of eminent domain to gain right-of-way access to the lands of Nebraskans who oppose the pipeline that would run from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico carrying toxic tar sands oil for export. The law, the Nebraska Major Oil Pipeline Siting Act, is currently under legal challenge. A lower state court nullified the act, and now the Nebraska Supreme Court is reviewing the decision by a Lancaster County district judge.   read more

The new defense authorization bill requires the military to add a mental health professional to boards that determine discharge status. The legislation was inspired by Army veteran Kristofer Goldsmith, who served in Iraq and was discharged for “Misconduct: Serious Offense” after he attempted to commit suicide. Two months later, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The discharge status made Goldsmith ineligible for GI Bill benefits and veterans medical care.   read more

Police mounted a camera on top of a utility pole near Vargas’ home and pointed it at his front door. They collected six weeks of footage, all without a warrant. Vargas was recorded shooting beer bottles in his backyard. Because he is an undocumented immigrant and thus prohibited from possessing firearms, police used the video to obtain a warrant to search the inside of Vargas’ house. He was then arrested for possessing guns and drugs.   read more

According to Victoria Bekiempis of Newsweek, “In New York City, some 90 percent of tenants in housing court don’t have attorneys. Approximately 90 percent of landlords do.” The New York Legal Assistance Group found that 96% of those people they’re able to represent either get to stay in their homes or at least are able to stave off eviction long enough to make other arrangements.   read more

The report also showed that opioids are most often used in more rural areas. The states with the highest average prevalence of opioid use are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Kentucky. more people in those regions suffer from diseases such as obesity and diabetes, two conditions that can result in needing pain medication.   read more

On page 213 of the spending plan, there is language barring the U.S. Department of Justice from taking actions against states that have approved marijuana for medicinal use. This prohibition would apply to operations by the DEA. But the news is not all good from the halls of Congress. One House member, Republican Andy Harris of Maryland, wants to prohibit the District of Columbia from implementing its new law legalizing recreational medical marijuana.   read more

The key to the debate is a man named Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, who served as bin Laden’s personal courier. The CIA, with the help of the “Zero Dark Thirty” filmmakers, have pushed the story that the torture program resulted in information about Kuwaiti, who ultimately led them to bin Laden. However, the Senate report says the “vast majority of the intelligence acquired on Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti was originally acquired from sources unrelated to the [torture] program."   read more

Jessen was a specialist in the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance Escape training program designed to help soldiers endure torture by foreign captors. The firm he and Mitchell founded only came about after they started talking to the CIA about leaving the Pentagon and going into business for themselves. Nonetheless, they helped the CIA develop 20 methods of torture to use on suspected terrorists. That list was cut to 10 after some of the procedures were deemed too severe.   read more

First Lady Michelle Obama’s signature policy achievement—improving the menus of school lunches—is coming under attack from Republicans who want to use complaints from school officials to derail the program.Some school districts have said the changes have proven costly to their budgets, leading GOP lawmakers to push for suspending the new rules for up to a year. Republicans slipped the legislation into a $1-trillion spending bill, making it more difficult to kill.   read more

“There’s no accountability here. There’s no justice. There’s no respect,” resident Mike Gomez told AlterNet. “There’s no humanity here. There’s nothing. It’s so disgusting that they get away with it.” Gomez has reason to be angry at the police department. An off-duty officer shot and killed his son, Alan, who was holding nothing more than a spoon at the time. Alan Gomez is one of 27 people killed by Albuquerque police in just four years. Forty more have been wounded in that period.   read more

“If it was on the books that Jews couldn’t hold public office, or that African-Americans or women couldn’t vote, that would be a no-brainer,” Todd Stiefel, chairman of Openly Secular, told The New York Times. “You’d have politicians falling all over themselves to try to get it repealed. Even if it was still unenforceable, it would still be disgraceful and be removed. So why are we different?”   read more

“Many Americans—even policymakers—seem unaware of the shocking prevalence of child poverty in many of our nation’s most important and iconic cities,” Curtis Skinner, director of Family Economic Security at the NCCP, a research center based at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, said in a press release. “Reducing child poverty is critical to the social and economic health of cities, now and in the future.”   read more

A study conducted by Japan’s National Institute of Public Health showed that at least one unnamed e-cigarette brand contains 10 times the level of carcinogens found in a regular cigarette. The substances found in e-cigarette vapor include formaldehyde and acetaldehyde. Two studies conducted in the United States came up with similar results. They focused on “tank” cigarettes, which contain batteries and are refillable.   read more

The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife is now the proud owner of 16 M-14 automatic rifles, supplied by the Department of Defense’s 1033 program. Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Larry Ragonese told the Newark Star-Ledger, "we will not engage in a public dialogue in the media to detail our operational procedures.”   read more