Controversies
Army Expert Recommends Dropping Bayonet Training
The U.S. Army’s top training expert is recommending changes to his service’s program for preparing soldiers for combat. Gone are the days of America fighting a large-scale enemy, like the Russians. Now the United States is more likely to be involv... read more
Tennessee Firm Exposed Black Workers to More Radioactive Waste than Whites
Perhaps it didn’t come as a surprise to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(EEOC) that a company whose name spelled the acronym RACE would have racially discriminated while handing out dangerous jobs involving radioactive materials. Radi... read more
Congressman’s Foundation Has Money for Golf Outings, but Not for Scholarships
Frontier Foundation, established seven years ago by Congressman Steve Buyer (R-Indiana) to award scholarships, has yet to help any students, but it has financed Buyer’s golf game. Buyer’s foundation has collected more than $800,000, while not givi... read more
FBI Violated Law in Obtaining Phone Records of Journalists and Others
FBI agents relied on everything from requests written on post-it notes to chummy relationships with phone company workers to illegally access phone records from 2003-2006, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s inspector general. An investi... read more
FBI Still Sorting Out 2,500 Cases That Used Flawed Bullet Evidence
The FBI’s use of the so-called “comparative bullet lead analysis” has been discredited by federal research, forcing the law enforcement agency to review nearly 2,500 convictions that may have been aided by the now debunked theory.
First develo... read more
Washington, D.C. Becomes First U.S. City to Impose Fees on Disposable Grocery Bags
Shopping in the District of Columbia became more expensive as of January 1 because of a new mandatory five-cent tax on grocery bags. Local officials imposed the first-in-the-nation tax as part of DC’s Skip the Bag, Save the River campaign to clean... read more
Justice Dept. Task Force Says 47 Guantánamo Prisoners Should be Held without Trial
Had President Barack Obama kept his promise following his inauguration, this week would have marked the closure of the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. Instead, media stories reported that a special task force created by Obama has recommended... read more
Majority of Americans under 65 Favor Legalizing Marijuana
The headline on the press release for the ABC News/Washington Post poll released on January 18 read “High Support for Medical Marijuana.” The results emphasized that 81% of Americans support legalizing the medical use of marijuana and 56% think do... read more
The Suspicious Death of the Last Wild Jaguar in the U.S.
Macho B, the last known surviving jaguar in the United States, was euthanized early last year after being caught in a trap intentionally set by Arizona wildlife officials. A federal investigation found that the jaguar was captured in a leg-hold sn... read more
Create a Non-Military Draft: William L. Hauser and Jerome Slater
Military veterans William Hauser and Jerome Slater want to bring back the draft—the likes of which America has never experienced. Hauser, a retired Army colonel and Vietnam veteran, and Slater, professor emeritus of political science at SUNY Buffa... read more
Anti-Gun Violence Group Gives Obama an “F”
If President Barack Obama is looking for evidence to show moderates and conservatives that he’s not the knee-jerk liberal they claim, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has just provided some. The pro-gun-control organization has reviewed ... read more
The Mysterious Deaths of 3 Guantánamo Prisoners—Update
Written off by the military as not only “suicides” but also deliberate attempts to make the U.S. look bad, the deaths of three detainees at Guantánamo Bay in 2006 may have been in fact the result of torture by interrogators at a secret location wh... read more
FBI Used Fake Emergencies to Illegally Collect Phone Records
In the post-Sept. 11 fear that gripped Washington early last decade, the FBI broke the law by collecting phone records without first obtaining warrants or even approval from senior officials. When superiors did learn of the illegal communications ... read more
Church Fights Phoenix Zoning to Feed Poor and Homeless
Beginning a year ago, CrossRoads United Methodist Church in Phoenix, Arizona, began feeding the homeless on Saturdays as part of a new outreach program. Local officials complained about CrossRoads’ efforts, saying the Prodigal’s Home program viola... read more
Why is the FBI Still Hiding Information about the Assassination of Martin Luther King?
The FBI continues to keep secret hundreds of thousands of pages of documents stemming from the Civil Rights Era, including information related to the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Records not released include details about a Ku ... read more
IRS Reorganization Weakens Refund Fraud Detection
In an attempt to make operations more efficient, the IRS has turned responsibility for detecting fraudulent tax refund claims over to an office filled with inexperienced employees. A report by the Treasury Department’s Inspector General of Tax Adm... read more