Controversies
Justice Department Drops Case against Iraq War Resister
U.S. Army Lieutenant Ehren Watada has faced the possibility of court-martial and jail time ever since he publicly refused to deploy to Iraq in 2006. He was the first officer to buck the Bush administration’s war policy, which turned him into a her... read more
No to Single-Payer Health Care: Ed Feulner
The United States would be making a huge mistake if it adopted a universal health care system like that in Canada, argues Ed Feulner, president of The Heritage Foundation. There are numerous examples of why the Canadian model doesn’t work, demonst... read more
Single-Payer Health Care Debated at Senate Hearing
Amid threats of doctors walking out on patients and protesters being hauled off by security, the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday was the setting for heated arguments both for and against the creation of a government-run health care system for ... read more
Taming Wild Horses
Wild horses and burros have roamed the West for centuries, but the herds are quickly outgrowing their ranges. The amount of land available for wild horses to run and graze has fallen by about 20 million acres since the 1970s. The public ranges can... read more
Transparency: Ranking Federal Agencies
Each year for the past 10 years the Mercatus Center at George Mason University releases a report ranking how well federal agencies come clean in revealing their performances. For 2008 the worst score went to the Small Business Administration, whic... read more
SEC Chair Wants to Regulate Trillion-Dollar Hedge Fund Industry
The Obama administration wants to get tough with hedge funds, but there appears to be a turf battle about who should be in charge and how far to go. The new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission is positioning herself to be the sheriff of... read more
VA Injecting Veterans with Cocaine, Morphine for Addiction Research
For at the least the past 25 years, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has used taxpayer money to inject drug-addicted veterans with cocaine and morphine for research purposes. One study recruited nearly 40 cocaine addicts and injected them w... read more
Convicts Travel Between Prisons Alone by Bus
Government cost-cutting has taken a startling form in the Federal Bureau of Prison’s “unescorted transfer” program. Through this program, which began in 1996, inmates moving between minimum security detention facilities, halfway houses, and prison... read more
Pentagon Pulls Aspirin from War Zones
Aspirin is great for people with heart problems, doctors will attest, but not so good for soldiers heading into combat zones. That’s why the Defense Department’s Army and Air Force Exchange Service is pulling all products containing aspirin from s... read more
National Service is Bad for the Economy: Carl Horowitz
The idea of national service, whereby young Americans give back to their community and country through voluntary work, is so noble that it seems difficult to believe that anyone could be apprehensive about it, according to Carl Horowitz, director ... read more
Obama Makes Endangered Species Less Endangered
The Obama Administration has revoked a Bush-era rule that allowed government agencies to decide on their own whether a project would harm an endangered plant or animal without consulting the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Oceanic and At... read more
For $1,000 a Day, Two Doctors Told CIA Waterboarding Was Safe and Effective
Doctors Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were paid $1,000 a day by the CIA to serve as the architects of the agency’s secret interrogation program, during which they assured their bosses that waterboarding was not only safe, but also effective in ext... read more
U.S. Soldiers Sue Halliburton/KBR over Garbage Burning Illness and Death
Multiple class-action lawsuits have been filed by American soldiers against Halliburton and its subsidiary, KBR Inc., over its open-pit burning of garbage in Iraq and Afghanistan. KBR is accused of releasing harmful toxins into the air from fires ... read more
U.S.-Born Citizen Mistakenly Deported
Mark Lyttle is a U.S. citizen born in North Carolina. He does not speak a lick of Spanish. His biological father was part Puerto Rican, giving Lyttle a dark complexion. That, some mental illness, and a miscommunication was all it took for U.S. Imm... read more
F.D.A. Raises Botox Warning to Highest Level
This week was not a good one for drug manufacturer Allergan. On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first real competition to the California-based company’s big money maker, Botox, and the very next day, FDA officials de... read more
Fight Swine Flu by Calling it “H1N1 Flu”
Perhaps the most worried Americans during the current swine flu epidemic are pig farmers, who have dreaded the widespread association of the illness with their livelihood. Since the outbreak began, the pork industry has lobbied hard to change the ... read more